Visiting kittens

A while ago I went to visit a friend's foster kitten. I swear this kitten was trying to come home with me!! What do you think?

Yes, the kitten fever burns..

Working in the kitten room

I was working in the kitten room this weekend going through several rolls of fabric I was given when I was still in Maine. I like having large pieces of fabric to make backgrounds to take photos of kittens and my office was right next to a business that made custom upolstry fabrics. They would often order samples and no longer need them and instead of throwing them out they would come to our office and offer them to us. I grabbed everything that was left over from what the other women wanted and I ended up with a few decent sized pieces that would work as a backdrop.

Skippy thought he would help me test the out.. but I am not sure he thought they were really appropriate..

Mom, are you sure this isn't too busy? and where is my bowtie?

I have a new bow tie? COOL!

IDK, stripes just aren't my thing.. 

What do you think Fleurp? 

I agree, we look much better without the backdrop

They totally refused to sit still, even with the promise of treats, until I removed the backdrops. Just something you have to deal with when photographing cats I guess. I was quickly running out of daylight and there is no light fixture in this room yet (we are going to hire an electrician to put one in) so I didn't really have time to wait for them to cooperate.

I now have a total of nine different backdrops and a nice pile of fabric that was just too small to work that I am going to try to turn into something.. either catnip toys or cat beds. We'll see. Since right now I don't have anywhere to set up my sewing machine, it will be a while before I get to it.

Crafting with Connie - fixing a broken Santa

Why buy it for $7 when you can make it yourself with $92 of craft supplies?

At one point in the past - I don't remember when - I had a conversation with Debbie (of Glogirly/Katie/Waffles fame) and I mentioned a Santa I owned that was damaged.  I'm sure I mentioned how much I loved him because he had three kittens in his hat that he was holding and that at some point his forehead was bashed in and created a hole.

But I had forgotten all about that conversation and one day Debbie sent me a Santa head. No note, no real explanation. I was quite flummoxed as to why, but of course, I immediately thought of my kitty Santa. It took me a while to work up the courage to ask Debbie why she sent me a Santa head - I mean just how do you go about phrasing such a question, but when I finally did I was rolling around laughing when she said I had told her about it.

I will admit, I was afraid to pop Santa's head off, which is why this is a post-holiday post. I figured one last Christmas with 'my Santa' if it went horribly wrong.. and so over the weekend I found myself a screwdriver and went to work.

The manufacturer of my Santa did not want his head to come off.. not one little bit. I was hesitant to rip the head off or smash it with a hammer in case I did not like the way the new head looked. I must admit, I felt quite creepy taking a screwdriver to the back of Santa's head.. (oh for the love of Pete, I hope Google spiders don't index my website with that last sentence) They used some serious glue to attach it..

Once I finally popped off the head, I put the new one on and I was actually surprised at how well it looked.

From the front, he almost looks like he was designed to look like that.  In profile, you can see that the head is just a bit too big for his body and it hangs off a bit, but nothing a 'scarf' wouldn't fix.

I ended up throwing the old Santa head away.  It was hard because I am a saver, but I knew I would never use the head for anything and I would just look at it and lament that we had damaged the original; I would never come to terms with Santa's new do.  Husband was a little freaked when he went to throw something out a little later to find Santa was looking up at him from the trash.

Thank you, Debbie!  You have given Santa a new lease on life.

twee update

She's back to normal although smelling a bit like oil still.
I'm headed to the shelter this morning to beg for kittens.

kitten fever

Okay. I'm going to admit it.. I WANT KITTENS!!! I was complaining to my hubby that I hadn't had any in a long time, and I bemoaned that with all the rain that cats weren't going to be in an amourous mood. He stopped me and reminded me that I was the type of person who didn't really want them to (you know.. the whole spay neuter thing) which is true.. but
I WANT KITTENS!!

neeeeed kittens

I have been with out kittens for WAY TOO LONG!! why aren't they calling me?!?! They also started to promote Project Kitten with out letting me know. I'm going to have to march my butt down there and get involved. :) They had a bit on the local news and in the local paper. I hope this year's fundraising is even better than last years.

My kitten room is still not quite finished. I think I'm going to move into it anyway. Hopefully the cement wont be too cold, and if it is I'll just move the heater down there. Once the warm weather starts, it will be awesome. There is sunlight down there.. the kittens will love it!

Electrostatic kitty

Sadly it is that time of year where most of my cats don't like to be patted for extended periods of time due to the dryness of the air and the shocks they receive from the patting. However Eli LOVES to be shocked. He will let you pat him and pat him, all the while making mountains of electricity. He almost sounds like a bowl of rice crispies. Most cats will get into a petting and end up further away from you when they started. I have always thought they do this to see how much it means to the human to pet them, to see if they will follow. Although when Eli is getting his "shock treatments", if he gets too far away and you stop, he'll turn around and come closer to you.

Tonight I got up and went to the bathroom. It was the middle of the night so I didn't want to turn the lights on. Eli wanted to be petted and I could see the static. It was very pretty. I wish I had a way to take a picture of it. It really looked like a field of fireflies.

Tweedle has decided to come supervise this post. Good thing since I'm not wearing my glasses and could be making major typos. She is fascinated with the cursor, and will often attack the screen. I've read books that say that cats don't have the best eyesight, but if that is the case how can she see the little flashing dot? I'm getting concerned about Twee again. She's been sneezing a lot lately, which I've often attributed to the fact that she gets covered with dust. If there is a dust bunny in this house, she will find it. I've seen her crawling out from under my dresser, which hasn't moved since I brought it in the house (well except when I painted the walls) but now one of her eyes is starting to wate4.575111111111 Twee, get off the keyboard.. as I was saying, one of her eyes is starting to water. She seems in good health otherwise - well except the wheezing which she still does. She is continuing to grow up. The other day I noticed her head looked much more like a cat than a kitten. It was amusing since she still had a kitten body. Although just now I noticed her body is starting to look more adult too. She is still rather petite just much more grown up.

On a side note - or should I say actually back on topic of this blog - there has been a major reduction in the number of cats at the shelter lately. They have four cat rooms, which are usually full, and recently they have only had to use two of them. There have been no kittens at all. Part of me wants to throw a party at that, but then part of me really misses having kittens around the house. I was watching the animal planet the other day and they had kittens on. They mewed, and my heart went out to them. I love that sound. I so need to work on my kitten room so it is finished when they start showing up. At this point, I need to start looking into radiant floor heating. I want to see how much it would be since the room is in the basement and little kitten feet can't stand too much cold.