Elf Yourself!

I've been elfed...along with the 3 divine felines!!! Entirely too funny...
Check it out at Elf Yourself.

Also, notice that my elf is the one that can't dance. How did they know??? LOL

Coca-Cola: Symbol of Free West!

Realizing that recently there has been a distinct lack of gratuitous "fur baby" photos of the Divine Felines, I present you with Hercules during his latest modeling gig for Coca-Cola! (as if....LOL)

My handsome Snowshoe baby is 11 months old now and a completely delightful companion... he is such a silly boy! Whenever I open a new Coke 12-pack, he paces around & meows until I cut out both ends. Then he dives right in and stays there...he'll even let me pick the box up in that center finger slot and carry him around. He never budges. I don't know what the big attraction is. His other favorite game is batting ping pong or whiffle balls around in the bathtub. Of course, the other 2 cats show up to watch and eventually we wind up with 3 cats whizzing around the bathtub! Quite a sight, let me tell ya!

Well, I'm off to work on my knitting skills...I finally got around to learning how to purl. Next up is making ribbing and let me tell ya, it ain't gonna be pretty! At least not for a few more days :) This is an awful lot of craft agony to endure just to make a pretty pillow I found in a book... Is this what they meant by "no pain, no gain??" Sheesh!

Too Much Time on my Hands

Uh, oh....

I think I've created a monster LOL! Found myself sitting around with nothing to do (just waiting for my cousin to arrive for Christmas) and here's what happened! Didn't you know my kitties were world travelers???? And for the scientific types, I am aware that the blue-footed booby is only found in the Galapagos, but I thought they would look great in this collage!

Kitties...In...Space!!

Be careful what you ask for!

For Christmas, Mom asked for a customized mousepad featuring the Divine Felines...well, after much fiddling in Print Shop & Photoshop Elements, Kitties In Space!!! was born :)

I found a really neat customizable micro-thin mousepad at Staples that accomodates a 4x6 photo. The best part is that you simply slip the photo into it and you can change it whenever you want! I suspect that more random mousepad silliness lurks on the horizon... Perhaps the photo will change with the season?

Christmas is Coming!

Whipped up these Sculpey Christmas ornaments this afternoon... well, it took ALL afternoon because Sculpey is not my friend! They came in kits with most of the clay colors and instructions to make all the ornaments. While they turned out better than I thought they would, they don't look anything like the packaging showed. I had to take some liberties with the directions. Oh, wait! That's right, I have artistic license! COOL. In that case, they're perfect, oui? LOL

Anyway, they're finished & about to get gift bagged for the gals at work. (Lucy, if you see this tonight, act surprised tomorrow, okay? LOL) Other than wrapping gifts, this was my last project to complete for the holidays. Boy, am I relieved :)


More importantly, my cousin, Christopher, will be arriving on Christmas Eve and will be here for Christmas Day. He's a Staff Sergeant (Army) and has been a drill instructor for the last 2 years. He's also the little brother I never had. We're 4 years apart in age and got to know each other during vacations that we spent at our grandparents' house in Florida each summer when we were kids. Usually he only stops in for a few hours, so an overnight stay is a "real" visit and a chance to trade "war stories!" And we've got plenty of stories, that's for sure! It's been years since he's been here for Christmas...I can hardly stand the wait!

Hercules, in his Christmas finery, wants to take you on a tour to see some of the Christmas decorations! (I still can't believe he actually wears this collar and doesn't object. The other 2 kitties freak out.)

This wreath is one of my designs from about 6 years ago. It was based off of a floral centerpiece that Mom bought and which is displayed inside our living room fireplace (non-working) each year. I also made up some garland for the mantle which matches both the wreath & the floral centerpiece. For some reasons, all the pictures I took of the garland & centerpiece came out blurry & unusable. Sorry!

Our Christmas tree is a big mixture of handmade ornaments & Hallmark collectible ornaments. We favor anything that depicts animals! (Go figure!) The only problem we have with the tree is decorating the bottom set of branches...a definite no-no with the Divine Felines. We've learned to put some soft "sacrificial" ornaments on the bottom branches for them to pull off & play with. I think you can see a heart-shaped one in the picture. It really does save the tree from certain disaster!


Our stocking are hung (patriotically!) by the chimney with care... I saw these a few years back at a local old-timey hardware store and couldn't pass them up.


And our carved carolers have been with us for years. We found them in a "country primitives" shop in Hudson, Ohio at least 20 years ago. They are my favorite pieces to put out each year. Even the dog and cat are caroling! How cute is that?? :)

Well, it's off to fight with the Divine Felines over the wrapping paper...I'll let you know who wins!

Kitty Alarm Clocks

"The best laid plans of mice & men, often go awry."
(Adapted from a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men , Gang aft a-gley.”)

So much for sleeping in this weekend. The Kitty Alarm Clocks went off at 6:45 on Saturday, and 7:00 today. Yesterday, I would have ignored them but I did need to drop Katie (my dog) off at the groomer by 8:00. For making sure I didn't oversleep, they were warmly praised! What good kitties they were!

This morning........I could have killed them. At 7:00 precisely, I was awakened by the sound of Hercules & Isis knocking over my bedroom lamp and breaking the light bulb inside of it. Ugh. Glass everywhere. Of course, they looked at me with big, round, innocent eyes when I loudly announced, "I am NOT amused." What bad kitties they are!

At least I made use of the extra time so lovingly granted to me by the Divine Felines. After I dropped off Katie yesterday, I indulged myself with a bit of photography. The morning light was too perfect to ignore! Here's a sampling of what I saw:

The Southern Pines train station.....renovated by the town about a year ago. Lovely to look at, hard to photograph! The train track runs right through the middle of town. Broad Street, the main thoroughfare and home to many eclectic boutiques, runs parallel to the tracks (on both sides - one way in each direction).




The Christmas display in the window of A Wild Hare, one of my favorite gift shops in the downtown area.






Our new Christmas wreaths that decorate the lamp posts up & down Broad Street. The lamp posts, also new this year, have an old-timey gaslight look to them and really complement the atmosphere of downtown Southern Pines. And the new wreaths are a HUGE improvement over the old ones which were too ugly to describe!





I liked the way the light played on the branches of this towering old sycamore tree. I'm always fascinated by how quickly the light changes when taking photographs. I took 9 or 10 pictures of this tree, mostly from this very same angle, over a period of 2 to 3 minutes and no two of them are exactly alike. This was the very last one I shot and it turned out to be the best. Also, this scaled down image does not do this picture justice....it really looks much better as an 8x10!






Two more shots of Broad Street....it is so peaceful downtown when no one else is around!





This morning, after the great broken light bulb caper, I decided to put together 2 floral creations. I had a special dispensation from Lucy to purchase silk poinsettias and other sundries to make Christmas arrangements for work. I even came in under budget, although not by much! ;)

I hope everyone at work likes our 2 new reindeer friends....

It's hard to see but the baskets are grapevines twisted into the shape of reindeer, spray painted gold and then given a dusting of snowy glitter. The antlers are really the best part...all those twigs jutting up. Very cute effect!

Ghoulies & Ghosties & Long-Leggedy Beasties

Today I completed my annual pumpkin carving ritual....2 days before Halloween...that must be a record of some sort for me. Usually, I'm cussing at myself because it's the night before Halloween and my Jack-o-Lantern is still faceless. But, no matter what, pumpkin carving is a required event at my house!

The big question is usually what to carve. This year I opted for my old standby, the cat! I've tried using the Pumpkins Masters kit and patterns but find that good old-fashioned free-style carving almost always turns out better. The Pumpkin Masters designs are cool but are a bit too intricate for my taste and take waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to complete.


Here is picture of my pumpkin helper----->
This is my sweet little baby, Hercules (aka Herkie or the Herk-Monster). He is a 7 month old Snowshoe kitten that loves to "help" me with whatever I'm doing. He was a little disgruntled when I took this picture because I wouldn't let him outside to help light the pumpkin.

I have 2 other kitties in residence....Zeus (the Abyssinian) is my Mom's cat and Isis (the Lynx Point Siamese rescue kitty) is half mine, half Mom's. She says that whichever part of Isis is being bad then that's my half! She swears that all 3 of the cats are perfectly behaved until I arrive home and turn on the "you can be bad now" sign when I walk in the door. Actually, they spend a good part of the day sleeping and my arrival is the signal that it's time to get up and play!