Miss Kitty

September 1994 - October 2011

Safe journey Baby Girl, we miss you!

Weekend

Nice and quiet weekend with some gardening, some reading, some knitting, some cooking and baking and lots of rest. The forecast said we would reach 98, luckily it was wrong, it stayed around 80. Lucky us.

Blackberries hiding in lemon cupcakes.

Black cat hiding among the stuffed penguins.

Fresh veggies from the garden.

Herbed Cats

Springcleaning - Week 1 - Thursday

I herewith pronounce the kitchen FINISHED!

I admit that it was a bit of a struggle to begin cleaning today. Let's face it, I am tired. I have been going to bed around or before 9 pm every day this week and I am not as young as I used to be. ;-)

Anyway, I finally got started on cleaning the last part of the kitchen. I washed the cabinets, cleaned the woodwork around the windows, cleaned the windows - inside only, they are too complicated for me to try anything else and one of them no longer opens because the rope is broken and we would have to dismantle half the kitchen to repair it, so not worth it. I cleaned the microwave (again, much cleaner than I expected), ran vinegar through Mr. Coffee and cleaned him as well. Then I washed down the counter and the backsplash, cleaned the the spice rack and that was it.

I will be taking tomorrow off from cleaning. I need to bake bread and make plans for our weekend which will be pretty full if all goes as planned. And I want to work on some decorations for Easter, research some recipes online, etc. I also want to spend some time in the porch with my lovely ladies, reading or stitching.

Spring cleaning will resume on Monday with the dining(train) room.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie

I love how my girls choose their sleeping spots.

Girls, Girls, Girls

We are now officially a three cat family. :-)

My Little Helper(s)

Helping me get the bed linens changed.
Something new to discover for MamaCat.

 Whereas Kitty has done it so many times, it is just not interesting anymore. ;-)

Weekend

A new pair of socks finished.

A little bit of stitching. This is the first block of the "Things We Love BOM".

Cuteness. MamaCat is settling in nicely. She is just so cute and funny and Miss Kitty does not seem to mind her being around. MamaCat treats her with the respect she deserves as the older cat.

Marble cake for our afternoon tea.

Happy Groundhog Day!

I think he must have heard that I was looking for a recipe for groundhog stew (just in case). ;-)

What did the Groundhog say?

It probably sounds unlikely to all the people currently buried under ice and snow but we are supposed to get an early Spring. Down here where I am it feels like it already today. We have 53 degrees currently, sunny with a nice breeze. My laundry is happily fluttering in the wind and I just opened a few windows to let some of that old Winter air out.
Guess who else is very happy about the sunshine?

Rainy Day

The weather was dismal today, not cold, but grey, wet and windy. A perfect day for being 'domestic'.
I started with cleaning the bath room and the cat box, a weekly chore, usually done Monday or Tuesday. Then I had a date with Lily (my sewing machine).
I made flannel blankets for the cat girls. I recently found a bunch of flannel fat quarters in one of my fabric boxes and decided that they were just the right size for cat blankets. So, two fat quarters and a piece of batting makes one happy cat.

Isn't it great when your gifts are being so appreciated? The picture is a bit blurry because I took it through the window of the back door so I would not disturb them.

Then I made a pillow cover out of a large piece of Christmas fabric with cats. It was too cute to be cut up for something else and it was big enough for one pillow and I even have some left over.

I prepared a template and the fabric for tomorrow's project and then I baked a batch of scones (vanilla and chocolate chip) and washed the dishes.

The weather got worse in the meantime and it is getting rather dark. I hope we don't get a storm. When the cats come in by themselves before I call them there is usually something brewing.

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving meal.
On the menu:

• Cold Turkey
• Cole Slaw
• Potato Salad
• Cranberry Sauce
• Cranberry Pear Pie with Oatmeal Streusel

After hearing how everybody likes turkey better cold the next day for several years now we decided to give it a try and had a cold Thanksgiving dinner. Worked well for us. An Miss K. liked it too.

Not well

Del was out of town last week to take a class for his job. I had planned on having my own private little quilting retreat, but alas, the best laid plans ...

I had stocked up on all the essentials for a week alone at home.

And then I ended up fighting a cold all week and instead of sewing I just did some knitting in between drinking hot tea and keeping warm.
I knitted a blanket for Miss Kitty, I guess she likes it because she sleeps on it every night.

I finished knitting two scarves for Special Olympics, still have to weave in the ends and find a way to talk the one on the right out of rolling itself up into a tight little sausage. Since it is made with acrylic yarn I am not sure it will allow me to block it.

And I finished one mitten (second one is almost finished) for the homeless shelter and one pair of baby slippers for the Pink Slipper Project.

I also watched some TV series online which is better than I thought, much less commercials to get through and the playback quality is pretty good.
And I baked two loaves of Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Bread. 

Del came back home on Friday with a nasty cold of his own and the two colds decided to merge. Now I have a chest cold, coughing like crazy and hurting all over. Why is it, that I always get to feel poorly with holidays coming up?
I will be cooking and baking tomorrow for Thanksgiving, stay tuned for our not so traditional dinner. ;-)

Knitting

Hats and scarves for the homeless shelter. Not as many as I was hoping for but with everything else we had going on this year I am glad I got as many done as I did. The mittens are a late addition after I found a pattern for mittens on two needles. They are really easy and I will make more during this Winter.

New dishcloths for myself, as usual approved by Miss Kitty. If only I could teach her to do the dishes. ;-)

Visitors

Look what I found in my garden this afternoon. My first reaction was to get the outside cats in, just in case, the turkeys might get some ideas. ;) Then I got my camera and then I got Miss K. to the window to show her the birds. She had this look like "what now, first all these cats and now BIRDS!?". That was something she had not seen in all of her 16 years. I guess I better go and tell the neighbor his birds got away (once again).

At the Farmer's Market

We went to the craft fair at the farmer's market this morning and after looking at all the crafty things that were offered, we wandered through the rest of the market. As always at this time of the year there were pumpkins, pumpkins and even more pumpkins.

 And colorful vegetables.

This little guy came home with us from the craft fair, he will look great on our Christmas tree this year. And he has already been inspected and approved by Miss Kitty.