Here are a few good little things that happened in the hottest month of summer: I took this pretty portrait of Carmen. I had so much fun doing the photo shoot, brushing her beforehand with her special Squishmallows brush so her fur was nice and …
The last few months have been tough, but there were lots of good times too. I’ll focus on the good times—because when I write about them, I get to relish them, and it’s like I get to live them twice. So, anyway, here’s some cool …
Little Carmen is adjusting well to her new life as an indoor cat.
“She loves to play,” Rob says. “She just wants to play and play and play.”
It’s so true. The other night, we were playing with Carmen with her wand toys, making a little octopus dance and hide inside her cat tunnel. Carmen would wait under the easy chair, then dash madly across the room, diving into the tunnel and grabbing the octopus. She did this over and over again until she had to flop down on the floor and rest for a minute, panting.
“She’s panting!” I said to Rob.
“Oh, that’s so cute,” Rob said. “That just shows how much she was going for it. She wasn’t holding back!”
Carmen is as great at cuddling as she is at playing. On weekend nights, Rob and I sit in the Little House and watch TV with our calico friend. We turn the lights off so it’s like we’re in a movie theater. Carmen likes to lie next to Rob on the chaise lounge with a little white paw on his stomach and purr through episodes of The Night Agent.
If any cat was ever meant to be a pet, it was Carmen.
On November 18, I finally found a foster for Famke’s kittens. This was a great blessing for them, I know, but it was hard for me to say goodbye. The yard is so quiet and still now, without them here. Famke’s gone too. My mom, …
I’ve been eating a lot of baked oatmeal lately. It’s so satisfying and easy to make that I decided I’d share the recipe with you. Of course, this meant that I needed to get a blog-worthy picture of oatmeal, a tall order. I did the …
Last Sunday, I had the best day ever, not because anything exciting happened but because of how peaceful I felt in my heart. I played with the cats, polished the furniture, carefully cleaned and rearranged my collection of Fiestaware, and hung a little garland of pine cones on the mantelpiece in the dining room. It was a delightful day of puttering.
In the late morning, a great sunbeam spread itself across the dining-room floor, so all the cats gathered to bask in the warm, golden light. They dozed and stretched and got into lazy wrestling matches. Meanwhile, I took pictures of them and complimented them on their cuteness.
I was calling them dumb nicknames. I was calling Buntin “Miss Beauty Lady,” for example, and Carl “My Little Cutie Boy.” At about eleven, Rob joined us in the dining room, and his nicknames for the cats were even dumber than mine were. He was calling June “Jan,” for some reason.
We groomed the cats with an array of different combs and brushes. Then we gave them some Cat Sushi (bonito flakes). As we watched them eat, Rob was jabbering on about FSU football. During college football season, it is all he talks about. (He’s a Booster and has season tickets.)
“The cats are big FSU fans,” he said.
“No, they’re not,” I said.
“June is,” he said. “I mean, Jan is.”
We like to pretend that smart, busy June is a local Quincy business tycoon with questionable ethics, and that Elroy and Leroy, our chubbiest, shyest, most babyish cats, are her two hapless employees; she’s always taking advantage of them.
“Ticket scalping is where June’s interest in FSU football begins and ends,” I said. “I guess you saw Elroy and Leroy at the Duke game, standing on the corner by the stadium.”
Rob nodded, playing along. “June wanted them to wear FSU jerseys while they were working, but she wasn’t about to pay good money for them. So Elroy and Leroy had to make their own shirts.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They wrote ‘FSU’ on some old undershirts in Magic Marker. Some of the letters were backwards.”
Rob spent the rest of the day watching pro football while I continued to play with the cats and make tiny home improvements. After I hung the pine-cone garland on the dining-room mantelpiece, I repositioned the painting on the wall above it. The painting used to hang too low, so it was touching the clock beneath it. I moved the painting up just a couple of inches, and the result was “amazing” (as I bragged to Rob). I was pretty proud. I took more pictures and savored my small but sweet success.
For the last six years, I’ve been using the dining room as a makeshift crafting room, sitting at the big table to paint and sew. Well, the other day Rob and I started talking about how I needed better spot to work in, and we …
I wanted to share a few little improvements I’ve made around the house and yard recently. I’ve lived in my house for 19 years now, but I’ve still got so many dreams for it. About a month ago I found the neatest little rocking chair …
One of my favorite Saturday activities is whipping up a smoothie for myself in the early morning hours. It’s so fun and easy. I use almond butter, almond milk, ripe bananas, and organic frozen strawberries. In the lamplight before dawn, I like to sit with my smoothie and dream about everything I want to accomplish that day. The cats will be dozing all around me, and I’ll be gazing out through the big sunroom windows, watching as the day awakens and the quiet, gray yard becomes shot with gold. My smoothie is always delicious and satisfying; it keeps me nice and full until lunchtime and gives me the energy to garden, clean house, and provide quality cat care all morning long.
2 cups almond milk
2 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons almond butter
1 1/2 cups sliced frozen strawberries
Put everything in the blender and blend until smooth.