Pumpkin Cat

Fall brings us Halloween and Halloween brings us pumpkins. We like having pumpkins around, but I'm not always a fan of carving them. Mostly because the weather up here (Colorado) is cold and snowy at this time of year. Hell it almost always snows ON Halloween.

This year I decided to just draw a design on it. I went online and found a angry cat design and printed it out. I cut it out and traced the design onto my pumpkin.

Looks good outside too. I drew over it a few times to make sure you could see it pretty well.

Nice way to have your Halloween feel with out the mess. Works for me!

Helping Paws...

My cats are overly curious and this can lead to them being very annoying. Like when I make the bed Stue will slip in under the sheets and create a giant lump in my bed. Better yet is when Grace takes the time to bite my ankles while I'm trying to get dressed, especially when I'm trying to get my pants on.

The time I love best of all if when I'm trying to put away my clean clothes. I had them sorted out on my bed and was in the proses of putting away my socks when Stue leaps onto the bed and does this....

Sleeps right on my clean clothes. He also happens to start cleaning himself... which is just awesome. The joy of having cats is some times lost.

However, there are times that having cats can seriously warm your heart....

Boxes are so much more than cardboard!

In the spirit of helping my mother get the house more organized and getting used to keeping it that way, I took an entire afternoon (and then some) and went through EVERY piece of clothing I own. I ordered a book from my book club/program called What is a disorganized person to do? by Stacey Platt and it suggested in the bedroom section that you take a look at your clothes and think 3 things:
1.) Have you worn this in a year?
2.) Are you keeping this for a specific purpose? (like say I would wear this if I ever went on a cruise to Alaska) and
3.) Are you keeping this because you feel guilty? (like your aunt knitted it and she is 80 years old with bad arthritis. Wear it once for her and get rid of it)

I applied these things to everything I owned. I ended up with two very large boxes full of clothes I did not wear, fit into, or really like.

 A few of the items ended up with my Mom, but thats fine because she will wear it/it fits her. The boxes have since been getting fuller and fuller. Once I went through everything I made a list of everything in there for when we give it away. At the same time my Mom, randomly mind you, went through her own closet and got rid of about 20 items she never wears or doesn't fit into. I had to really push her to get rid of some things, but it was for the best! =) Since then we have regularly been adding to the boxes. Really anything that we suddenly think we don't want or care for anymore.

The cats got a joy out of the boxes the first night. They just can't help themselves.

The part that always gets me is the differences in both cats. Stue (the black one) will explore, but only to find a place to sleep. Grace explores to explore and destroy. She loves to chew on boxes. During Christmas its hilarious to hand out gifts and notice the teeth marks. Ah got to love cats!

Snow is a falling!

Not sure if any of you are, or do, follow the weather in other places. If you do then you most likely know that Colorado is getting more than its fair share  of snow right now. As of right now I have close to 15 inches. (and its still falling!) Now this is not out of the question for Colorado. Granted we don't normally get record breaking snow fall in February.... it normally comes in March and April. (Yes we get snow for a long time... sometimes even into June.) I thought I would share with you my moments of snow.

This was about 10am and measured about 7 inches at the time.

This was around 3pm and measured a foot.

Tree got a bit buried.

We have a stone path that leads from the deck to the gate and also to the bottom deck. We shovel it because Lucy won't go down off the deck to pee unless she can do so without freezing. Other wise we get pee spots on the deck.

That's Lucy, our British Cocker Spaniel.

Ironically that is pointing in the direction of the wind, but the directions are wrong. The wind is so strong that moved the directional points. Its actually blowing east, as west is towards the Mountains.

The snow is about 2 inches above my calfs at this point... and yes I am in "Naugthy/Nice" pj pants.

The truck is my brothers' and its parked at the bottom of our rather steep drive way. My car is parked at the top of the street because it was snowing already when I got home from work last night at 8pm. I didn't want to park behind my brother, like I normally do, because my car is very bad in snow and likes to slide around. I wanted to avoid sliding into his truck.

Lucy licking snow, which she loves to do. This is the top of the drive way. Its at an incline already, but it can be hard to tell from pictures. I shoveled this drive way twice before I took this picture.

That is the snow pile that was made from around 10am. It gets piled up at the end of our street.

Tree got a little buried by the snow pile.

Those are the trees in our front yard, which is about a quarter acre. 

That's the decal wood design over the garage doors.

View from under the three cluster trees in the middle of the front yard.

Lucy running around like she is a puppy. Ears a flying.

She has this thing about shoving her head in the snow... not sure why, but she loves it. 

The bench sits close to the cluster of pine trees in the front yard. Its a lovely spot to sit and relax, just not right at this moment.

Time to go inside and sit by the fireplace with the cats and cozy up with my knitting.

Keep warm!

Fair weathered friends

The weather has turned pretty cold here and the cats have been looking all day for warm places or bodies. They love my fleece blanket and it humbles me to see them together so peaceful.

Granted this weather also makes me sleepy and so I decided to lay down with them and Grace took it upon herself to find a new spot for warmth.

Little helper

My family loves pets. We have just about always had a dog, which is no different now since we have Lucy. However, we have ALWAYS had cats and not just one. Normally we have several at once. Mom, myself, and my brother Scott are more attached to cats. The cats seem to be just as attached to us as we are to them. (as I type this Stue, our black and white cat, is walking behind my head and now sitting between my legs purring like crazy.)

Stue has a love of people's heads. He likes to sleep ontop of your head and clean you when you try to move. its nice in the winter because it keeps you both warm. Now because there is yarn in the house the cats go nuts when they see it. (Mom is currently stuggling with Grace because she is trying to attach the yarn as she is crocheting.)
Mom is in the process of trying to sort and caterogies her yarn in the sewing room. She emptied her knitting basket and as son as she did Stue took over....

 He is happiest when surrounded by things... so he got buried by yarn shortly thereafter. He also loves to fetch/chase rolls of socks. He goes NUTS if you throw one down the stairs. Its hilarious. ...ah now he is curled up against my neck and snoring, while Grace is trying to kill my toes.... oh how I love our cats.

Moment of Zen

Grace wanted the sunlight and to be near me while I was making jewerly.... so she feel asleep in my tool box. The box is no more than 12 x 10 and she is sleeping on pliers, needlenose, bent pliers, crimpers, and a few other random tools.

The power of the sun.



Stretch out

Stella has taken to sleeping stretched out. Its rather hilarious because alot of the time she buries her head under something... or one of the other cats. Its way too cute not to share!

This is the end with her head.... which ironically is where Gracie's butt is.

How she can breath with her head cramped in like that I have no idea.

LONG little kitty with her white go go boots.



One of the greatest things Mom and I have ever bought are these pillows that the cats like to sleep on. First Mom got the two we have laying on the floor by the sliding glass door. The cats, at that time were only Grace and Stu, LOVED them. They still use them all the time, except at night when they sleep with us. When I found out I got Stella I got a pillow for her to have when she would come to live with me... which ended up just being another pillow to have at my parents place. ALL the animals, including Lucy love to sleep on it.

Grace and Stella enjoying the pillows my Mom first got. They love to attack the button in the middle.

Stella just about covers the whole thing when she stretches out.

This is the pillow I bought for Stella, but as I said all the animals love it. Currently Stu is enjoying it.



sleepiness is spreading

Stella, the kitten my parents got me for Christmas had a pretty intense cold. She has since gotten over it for a few months now, but we are starting to think she might have given it to Stu and Grace. Stu was sleeping for days on end, he ate and cleaned, but he was sleep pretty much the rest of the time. He wouldn't play with the others and didn't even want to be around them. Normally they are all sleeping together.

Grace and Stella playing on my rocking chair seat

Hell, Stu was even getting to the point of hissing at the other cats to get them away. He just wanted to be alone, but he would let us pet him and he would sleep with us. However, he is starting to be more playful and a little more energetic.
Grace, on the other hand,... is now sleeping all the time. She doesn't meow, which is VERY odd for her, because she is our vocal cat. She meows to find the other cats, she meows to find us, she meows when she wants to be petted, she meows just cause... I call her squeaker, because she has a tiny meow most of the time. She is sleeping all the time now like Stue was. She just looks so sad. She has been sleeping close to us most of the time.

I think we give off heat and she is cold, so when I see her sleeping some where else I wrap her up to keep her warm. Poor little ones. Stella likes it when I wrap her up too... actually they all like being covered by blankets.

 I believe we will be dragging them (that's how they will see it) to the vet to get a check up. They REALLY hate being in their carriers. Well everyone but Stella, she has no issue with the carrier.

Sometimes it strikes us how alike Stella and Stu look. The only big difference is Stella has white boots on both back feet and they go up to her "knees". Also she has a white 'hook' that is on her chin. Other wise size is the only real difference, but when they are together its sometimes really hard to tell.

Stella is on the left and Stu is on the right. In this picture you can't really tell which is which, cause of the angles they are sitting. Stu and Stella love sleeping on that rug by the front door.

Little hard to see the two of them, but Stu is on the right and you can clearly see his head, but Stella is stretched out, as you can see by her white boots. Her head is next to Stu's head, but they are so close together its hard to see without really staring. They are so cute together.

I really hope that they all start to feel better and stay that way. Its so strange to not hear them or see them playing together. Stella is really the only energetic of the three right now and I think she is getting bored of playing alone. She tried to play with them in bed, but they tend to just walk off, or just ignore her.

Poor little ones.