Skippin' Town

Hither and Thither (and Now Older!)

2012-02-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Much has happened since the last post, although there is one constant - Noel is still not home from Florida, but at least he's on his way back now! He should be back sometime tomorrow! So yes, the Elvis Christmas Tree is still up. But not for long!

Since Noel was going to be in Florida for such a long time, we decided it was time for a visit. And seeing as I am doing really well with getting over my flying fear, we got tickets for me to go out to West Palm Beach for a weekend trip!

It was slightly chilly for a dip in the ocean, but we got to take a nice leisurely walk.

Also. manatees!!

We even saw two of them! But this was the only picture I could get. National Geographic should be calling any day now.

Ok, so you know Vanilla Ice, right? Doofy white rapper guy with parachute pants? Popular in the 90s?

Take a look at this:

Everybody now: A1A, Beachfront Avenue! (That'll be stuck in your head for days. You're welcome.)

Noel did some research and found us an Irish Pub to go to - Shindig, in Port St. Lucie. They had fantastic reubens! And great ambiance - these neat whisky casks in the walls were only part of the cool decor.

(Isn't he handsome?)

Can't wait to see you soon, honey! Drive safely!!

So one unfortunate thing about Noel being gone for so long is that he missed my birthday last week. Yes, I am a year older and am almost in my (gasp!) late 30s. But if 40 is the new 30, that puts me solidly in my mid-twenties, right? Anyway, I took matters into my own hands and made myself a cake. It was pink! Yum.

I also got a pretty bouquet of flowers from some of my coworkers in Tennessee. Wasn't that sweet?

I had them on my desk for several days, but then my allergies started acting up so I had to move them.

Then last week, I got on another plane in the other direction, and went for a work trip to the West Texas Town of El Paso! (No worries - I didn't meet Fellina nor get shot by a wandering angry cowboy).

The airport had these neat copper yucca plants on the roof. Pretty! Also, Thing In Sky!

El Paso is the boot capital of the world! The airport had displays of some really gorgeous ones - these are truly works of art. I LOVED these black & turquoise ones:

I'd be afraid to wear them anywhere!

So when I got off the plane it was nighttime, and I thought "Wow! El Paso is really big!" Look at all these lights!

Then it dawned on me - those lights aren't El Paso, they're Juarez, Mexico! El Paso is a border town, after all. Now, before everyone panics, let me say that El Paso is very safe. I never felt nervous or worried while there. And my coworkers who are stationed in that office also said that while Juarez itself is going through some really horrible times, the violence hasn't come over to El Paso. They said that they get frustrated when they hear about the media making it sound like El Paso is the OK Corral. It seems like a really neat city, and very pretty! Another misconception I had was that it would be flat desert. It is desert, but it's high desert. The mountains around it are very pretty and sparse looking!

So my coworkers there also took me out to eat, and of course we went for Mexican food! We went to a place called Barriga's, which is apparently actually a restaurant from Juarez that came to El Paso years ago. I decided to be adventurous and try mole (not the little gray underground critters - gross). This is pronounced MOH-lay. It's a spicy sauce that you put over enchiladas and such, but it's different from anything I've ever eaten. The nice spices are mixed in with chocolate. Yes, chocolate! I hadn't tried it before because...well, chicken enchiladas in chocolate sauce sounds more like a dare than dinner.

BUT. This stuff has changed my life. I now want spiced chocolate sauce on everything. Seriously. If you ever get the chance to try this stuff, DO IT.

Just looking at that picture is making me drool again. One of my new coworkers taught me how to make it as well, and I might have to try it at some point. It didn't sound hard. Of course, it's also not as easy as just going out to eat somewhere and getting it. I know for sure, next time I'm in El Paso, I'm going there again!

So in non-travel related news, I came home from work one evening and found 5 cows in the back yard. Sometimes they rub up against the fence and accidentally (?) open the gate so they can come in and chow down on the virgin delicious grass by the house. (I smell a conspiracy). I took my flashlight and went out (still wearing my work dress & shoes) to try to herd them out again. In the dark. Sigh. Alas, it was not going to work. They split ranks and went separate directions, and I just couldn't get them to go the way I wanted. Cows are not known for their directional abilities.

Know what they are known for?

Their pooping abilities. Which they proceeded to demonstrate repeatedly in the front yard. Yes, I took a picture of cow poop. Please note that they aim for areas where we are most likely to walk, ie. directly by the gate or next to the sidewalk. Tell me this is not coincidental. By the time I went to work the next day, the yard looked like a cow patty minefield, and there were no cows in sight. Guess they knew when to get out of Dodge. Thanks, cows!

Look! Synchronized napping!

Do You Know What This Means?

2012-01-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

And by this, I mean this picture:

This means that Noel is STILL not back from his job in Florida! I've left the Christmas tree up and all his presents wrapped and waiting for him. It looks like might be February before he gets back - we're still waiting to find out! It's a good problem to have though, right? Too much work instead of too little?

I've been busy too! I just finished up my DDI certification last week (DDI is a world-wide training and development program). It was an intense workshop with lots of rounds of feedback and practice, but it was great. I learned a LOT.

This weekend, after getting back from DDI (it was in Dallas) I got to work on January chores. This includes:

Yes, planting the spring garden! Can you believe it? The sugar snap peas were already there - they had managed to survive through the depth of "winter" here. They look a little sparse, but they're still kicking! Awesome.

A few weeks ago, I went ahead and planted the seeds for the spring garden, and was shocked when they popped up WAY ahead of schedule and got really leggy. So I had to go ahead and plant them, and just hope that there isn't going to be another frost! What's in the garden now:

1. Sugar snap peas (duh)

2. Summer squash

3. Okra

4. Cucumbers

5. Lavender

There will be some tomatoes at some point too. I'm excited about the lavender. It smells so nice!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, Kitty Cuteness!

Happy 2012!! (and also belated Happy Holidays)

2012-01-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

So no, we didn't fall off the face of the planet. Noel's been busy working in Florida since the beginning of December, and I've been busy working all over Texas!

I've been dividing my time this past month between these spots:

And it doesn't end there - I get to go back to Dallas twice this month too! Cool thing - I'm learning to get over my fear of flying, what with all the work travel! Work is busy but very good.

Speaking of good, doesn't Noel look great in this picture?

This is from my company's annual holiday shindig. (I made my dress and wrap, by the way). We had a great time and danced the night away. I think it would be really fun to take a ballroom dancing class, don't you? Noel and I can salsa well, but I'd love to learn tango, waltz, etc. Fun fun! Maybe for next year's party. :)

So Noel had to spend Christmas and New Year's in Florida - sucks, but he's making a lot of money and we can celebrate when he gets back. Also, we have the miracle of Skype, so we were able to talk face to face (kinda) through the miracles of the innernets!

I went to North Carolina for Christmas with the family. Mom took us to see the Biltmore House all decorated for the holidays, and it was just beautiful! It still amazes me that a small family actually lived in that house. How did they not lose each other all the time in that gargantuan house?

http://www.biltmore.com/

We also did a wine tasting there. Woo hoo! And it snowed! Not much at all, but some tiny little flakes that didn't stick to anything. Anyway, it was exciting. :)

Also, for the first time in memory, I actually finished all my Christmas presents ON TIME. Will miracles never cease?

Our landlord kindly looked after the kitties, who have been extremely cuddly since I got back. And also spoiled.

So some of my New Year's Resolutions for 2011 included these:

1. Get a permanent job.
2. Move to the midwest.
3. Learn 1 new skill per month.
4. Do 1 charity action per month.
5. Smile every day!

I'm proud to say that I accomplished all of these! Go team!!!

There was one in particular that I didn't finish in 2011, so I've moved it to my 2012 list. Some of the ones I did accomplish I moved over too - the last 3 work well for any time, right?

So this year's list includes:

1. Finish my first book (this was the 2011 one that I didn't complete YET).
2. Slim down into my cowgirl boots (the fab turquoise ones Noel bought me a few years ago? I can't fit in them right now. I'm already working on this one - thank you Wii Zumba!).
3. Finish another quilt.
4. Save up a nest egg for home downpayment. Woo hoo!

So that's about it for now - I have to get to bed because tomorrow is the first day back to work since December 22nd. I might need to set several alarms for the morning!

Happy January!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2011-11-24T16:10:00.001-08:00

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving day. May everyone find lots of things to be thankful for.

What are we thankful for, you ask? Here's a top 5 list!

1. My job, which I'm really enjoying (and which has kept me extremely busy lately).
2. Noel's work, which he also enjoys.
3. Our sweet little farmhouse.
4. That we rescued little Samson and he's fitting in with the family just great.
5. Our garden, which is still producing!
6. My new toy!

As some of you may know, I tend to drive my cars for a while. I've only owned 2 cars in my life, and both of them ended up with a LOT of miles on them. The one I have now currently has over 262,000 miles on it. That's quite a bit of road!

So last weekend, Noel and I went out to test drive a few vehicles, to see if I liked any of the new cars out on the market. And well, we all know what happens when you "just go out to test drive a car"...

I'd like to introduce you to my new ride!

It's a 2012 Chevy Sonic! How cute is this car!? It looks tough in the front, right? Like a little rally car!

But in the back it's just cuteness!!

I've never owned a new car. It's scary but exciting - I'm terrified I'll get a scratch on it, but I love to drive it. it drives like a dream! I'm so excited!

It's especially awesome since (as I mentioned) my job is keeping me very busy. I was in Dallas 2 weeks ago, Harlingen last week, and will be going to Austin next week (for a training certification) and Dallas during the following 2 weeks. Very busy times! So it's fantastic to have a reliable, fun-to-drive little car for my trips. Although I grimace when I look at the odometer. But cars are meant to be driven, right?

We're going to keep the little black car though - it's got so many miles on it, but still drives fine, so Noel said he could use it for local jobs to commute in. It gets better gas mileage than his truck (but not as good as the ~40 mpg that the new car gets!).

Other than that, things are very good. Noel was in Corpus Christi for work for about a month, but he's back now. We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner today and will be working on leftovers for a while!

Oh, and Loki decided this year that he LOVES turkey. We gave him a little pinch and next thing we know, he's sniffing all over the kitchen for more. Poe also tried a bite, but Samson just licked at a little piece. We cleaned the kitchen up, and Loki was prowling around looking for more turkey. This is particularly ironic since last Thanksgiving we tried giving them some turkey and they didn't want any!!

We had roasted turkey breast, dressing (with apple, onion, and cranberries), lots of gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, fried okra, and pumpkin pie. Noel wanted blackberry cobbler too, but decided to hold off on making that til the pumpkin pie is all gone.

It's strange having such a small Thanksgiving this year after the big event we had last year.

Well, that's about it for us right now. I need to go cut out a dress for our company holiday party next week!

Knitting Pictures!!

2011-11-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

I've been very busy crafting stuff lately, especially knitting. After all, it's about to be that time of year. Speaking of, it's supposed to get down to 36 tonight!! I had to cover the garden plants in case it frosts. Wow! Of course, it'll probably be back up to 80 by Saturday, but for now I'll pretend to be curled up in front of a fireplace in a cabin in the snowy mountains of New Hampshire.

So...knitting. Apparently something is in the water here in Texas, because I've been knitting for multiple expectant mothers and corresponding babies-yet-to-be-born.

There have been baby bibs, baby bibs, and more baby bibs.....

The official Weirdest Shaped (And Biggest) Baby Blanket Of All Time:

With little pink flowers and a green vine!

So I didn't finish these socks very lately, but I had never worn them before a few days ago. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I'd ever wear them because the colors seemed...a bit much. But frankly, every time I looked down at my feet that day, I smiled.

How could you not? These socks are pure wooly sunshine!

Speaking of knitting, time to finish Bib #385. Enjoy the cold weather!!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays, for several reasons.

#1 - Costumes!! I love making costumes and dressing up and being goofy. I am going to post pictures of costumes that I made for this year (both for my nieces and myself). It's fun to wear something totally random and pretend to be someone else. My nieces this year were a princess and a mermaid. And I was the flu. Yes, there are pictures.

#2 - Scooby Doo cartoons on TV. Yay! Scooby Doo = proof that all evil in the world is just a bunch of bored robot-building guys in masks.

#3 - Halloween is a great holiday for allowing us to poke fun at the things that scare us. I think this is the real reason that Halloween is such a wonderful and useful holiday. In folklore, Halloween traditionally is a time when the spirit world is closest to our own. It's a time to remember fondly those who have gone before us. And it's a good time to think about our own mortality - the talk of ghosts and scary things that go bump in the night is a way for us to cope with the parts of life that scare us most. It helps us to not be so scared of the things we don't understand, when we can dress up as scary things and pretend that those things can be understood. We've lost several people this year, and tonight is a wonderful time to remember them.

So from Noel, me, and the orange and black kitties living in our house, Happy Halloween!

2011-10-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

My mom came to visit last week! She hadn't really ever spent any time in Texas (just passing through Amarillo once years ago), so there was a lot to experience.

We had a really nice time - we saw a LOT. We went to the riverwalk in San Antonio, we drove through some beautiful farm country, and (needless to say) we went fabric shopping.

One really cool thing we saw was the Austin County Fair. It was the first Texas fair either of us had ever been to. They had livestock shows and auctions. We were blown away by the auctioneers. How can these guys possibly talk this fast? (I remembered that my camera takes videos - yay!)

They also had a rodeo! Mom really wanted to go, and I hadn't been before, so why not? I have to say though, I was worried about the animals getting hurt, and kept my eyes closed during the portions when they roped calves and such.

The barrel racing was really impressive.

My favorite part of it was definitely the bronco and bull riding. These people are INSANE.

How can they even WALK after that? That's....impressive. And crazy.

Yet Another Post About Food. Yes, Again.

2011-10-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

On the first day of Autumn, we had our annual Autumn Feast. The plan was to finish off the meal with a homemade apple cobbler, but in an almost superhuman display of self-restraint, we decided to hold off on the cobbler til another day, when we might be able to actually eat it without rupturing part of our digestive system or rendering ourselves unconscious for 3 or more days straight.

So! Yesterday, I made a cobber! This is a variation of Rachel's super-easy cobbler recipe:

Ingredients

1 stick of butter

1 cup of self-rising flour

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of milk

1 can of apple pie filling (or another fruit of your choice)

Preheat oven to 350. While oven is heating, put the stick of butter in your dish and put in the oven to melt. While that's melting, in a separate bowl mix flour, sugar, and milk. Pour this evenly over top of the melted butter. Then spread the can of apple pie filling on top of this mixture making sure the fruit is distributed all over the dish. Bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown. Eat until you pass out.

My Autumnal variations:

I used half white sugar, half brown sugar (molasses makes it tasty!)

I added in a couple of dashes of cinnamon and vanilla extract into the batter as well, to make it more fall-tasting.

It was GOOD.

Now, the cobbler deliciousness was the second fantastic food we had eaten this past weekend. On Friday, we went to our favorite local hang-out & restaurant, Othie's. They were having live music and the crowd was hoppin'!

Othie's has excellent food. But they've recently raised the bar - they bought a smoker! Noel and I originally planned to get sandwiches, but when we walked in the door, we smelled heaven on a platter. Oh yes, they wooed us in to having this:

The biggest platter of BBQ ribs I've ever seen in my life. Now, for those of you NOT from Texas, you may be surprised to know that these are beef and not pork. Noel and I both have an affinity for BBQ pork and consider it superior to beef BBQ in general.

However.

These were, without any question, the best ribs of any kind either of us has EVER had. No really. They were beyond phenomenal. I ate until I couldn't eat anymore.

Noel did too.

So! If you ever get the chance, head to Othie's for their ribs. We certainly will be there. Oh yes. YUM.

Puss In Boot!

2011-09-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

So Samson is just fine - you'd never know he had surgery last week. Except for the fact that he's got a shaved spot on his front leg, which makes him look like he's wearing an Ugg boot on his left foot. See?

He looks like he belongs on the Swedish bikini team.

The other day, we saw a mouse in the cat's food! Can you believe it? We got a picture!

Ok, so it's the cats' stuffed mouse (from IKEA, of course). For some reason over the past few weeks, they've been putting the mouse inside their food dish. Does this make them feel more like little wild predators?

Happy Autumn!

2011-09-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Autumn, everyone!

Friday was the first official day of fall, the autumnal equinox. What does that mean? From now on (until March of next year) the nights will get longer than the days.

Personally, I am thrilled. This is my favorite time of year. It's hopefully going to get cooler here soon, and we're on the fast track to the holiday season. And knitting season!

On Friday, we had our traditional Autumn Feast: seared pork chops with an onion balsamic sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, fried okra (from the garden), and homemade beer bread with honey butter. Yum! We were going to have apple cobbler too, but we were too full to actually eat anymore, so we didn't bother. Maybe this week sometime. :)

So now we're into serious holiday crafting time. Better get to it!

Catsectomy?

2011-09-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

Little Samson had surgery today! He's...not truly a little boy anymore, if you catch my drift.

He's doing just fine - he's feeling very energetic and running around like nothing happened. He does look a little pitiful though, since they had to do some pre-surgery bloodwork and his little front leg is shaved.

He looked so sleepy on the way home, and all he wanted to do was eat. As soon as he had chowed down on his chicken & tuna though, he was ready for action.

Welcome home, little guy!

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away!

2011-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it actually rained this weekend!?!? SO EXCITING!! Except it didn't actually rain at our house. No, it managed to deluge the area just a few exits down the interstate. Oh, and on the OTHER side of our little neck of the woods, but not actually on our house.

Sigh.

We keep hoping! Someone out there know any rain dances?

Idyllic Images of Farm Life (minus cow poo smell)

2011-09-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

So today I thought I'd post some pictures of life on the farm. Just because. Shannon, don't tell Chris. :)

The kitties that live outside on the porch are growing like weeds! They love to nap inside this cauldron that we planted with some elephant ears. I guess it's cool inside it? Anyway, you can barely see, but the gray cat is hiding there behind the plants.

We also figure that this is exactly what Samson is going to look like when he gets a little older. It may not take much longer though - he's already up to 6 pounds! He's a beast.

So the 2nd garden of the season is planted and ready to grow!

We have corn, squash, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and sugar snap peas (they're just coming up). I had difficulty last time with the tomatoes - we got here so late in the spring that I just planted the seeds straight into the ground, instead of growing them into seedlings first. Well, this time we planned ahead, so I managed to start all of these plants by seed. We have 12 tomato plants! Too bad I don't eat tomatoes. But Noel does. And my coworkers have already asked for some too. :)

Here's a view from the front porch.

And then sometimes, the cows decide to pay us a close-up visit. This is why we have to keep the gates closed all the time. The grass is greener on the other side, perhaps?

So that's life on the farm for this weekend. If only you had smell-o-vision, you could get the full Smell of Nature effect. Aren't you disappointed? :)

Don't Forget!

2011-09-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

To start off, thanks to everyone on the condolences about my sweet Grandmother. Secondly, we aren't at risk by the wildfires right now, so that's good.

Also, can I just say that you know it's been HOT when you go outside and say "Oh, it's so nice and cool out today! I'm going to take a walk while it's so balmy!" And it's 90 outside. Really. We were excited that it was only a 2 digit temperature today. Craziness.

Two weeks ago, Noel and I took a mini-vacation to San Antonio. Neither of us had ever been before, but we will definitely go back. It's fab!

The view from our hotel was gorgeous:

San Antonio is known for its riverwalk, a pedestrian area surrounding a river that runs right through town. It has restaurants, shops, and hotels all the way down it, and it's just fantastic!

There are bridges across the river, and each are different. Some are quite old too:

San Antonio has interesting sculptures too - this is a really big piece that stands out against the sky nicely:

And...what's this? I forget.....just kidding. It's the Alamo!

And who's this? Why, it's an official Texan! (Holding her new temporary Texas driver's license!) And shooting a finger gun! Because it's the Alamo!

The Alamo was quite interesting. We had heard from several people that it was anticlimatic - it's much smaller than expected, and it's in the middle of a built-up touristy part of town. However, it had a lot of history plaques, a lot of description of life at the time and the battles that took place building up to the battle at the Alamo, and a nice museum.

It was especially interesting since Noel grew up in the town where David Crockett was born, and we then visited where ol' Davy died. We took the opportunity to buy some souvenirs there as well, particularly the ones with David Crockett's most famous quote on it. When he was running for re-election in Tennessee, he said that if they didn't vote him back into office:

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."

Indeed.

We also went to the Texas Rangers museum (not the baseball team, the soldiers). Not pictured, Chuck Norris. It had a whole section that was built like an old west town, which was fun.

Note: That horse? Was actually a real horse that was one of the ranger's favorite horses, and was stuffed after he (the horse) died. I have no response to that...

In another part of the museum, they had a variety of Texicana. Here's Noel under an impressive ceiling full of deer horns:

In case you're creating your Christmas wish list, here's a little item you may want to consider - a chair made of horns:

Looks comfy!

The museum even had its own cowboy!

One of the cool things about San Antonio is the Tower of the Americas, an observation tower with a restaurant at the top:

We went to dinner there one night (yes I'm afraid of heights but other than the GLASS ELEVATOR, it wasn't scary), and got to see some spectacular views:

The restaurant itself was really swanky and super nice. The food was phenomenal. YUM!

On our last day there, we went to lunch at a place called Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian style steakhouse that is a carnivore's dream. Skewers of different types of meat cooking over an open flame:

How does the meat get from the skewer to your plate? Waiters bring the skewers around to you and you choose if you want some or not, and they carve it off the skewer! The food was DELICIOUS!! And the waiters are wearing little gaucho pants tucked into their boots! Hee hee.

We essentially walked and ate, then sat down and ate, then sat in the pool and later ate. And then ate some more. Did I mention that we ate everything we could get our hands on? San Antonio is fantastic - we loved it there. And we will be going back!

Sad News

2011-08-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today's post is a sad one. On Friday, my dear Grandmother passed away. She was one of the most special people I have ever known. She was kind and loving, and very supportive of me throughout the changes in my life.

She was a talented quilter, a square dancer, and an avid gardener. She used to email me pictures of the flowers out of her garden, which is just too cute - a woman of 92 emailing pictures. Very sweet. She had a fantastic sense of humor, and was always quick to laugh. She made delicious fudge, and sewed me my very own square dancing dress once. She and my Granddaddy would drive down every year from northern West Virginia to North Carolina to sit through an interminable dance recital just to watch me dance for a few minutes. Her house was always full of love.

I had taken some pictures of flowers in our yard last week to email to her, but didn't get the chance to send them to her in time. She donated her body for medical research, so there won't be a service. So instead, I thought I'd post the photos in her honor.

We love and miss you, Grandmother.

The Sky Is Falling!!!

2011-08-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

Know what this is?

Me either. But I looked it up on the internet, and apparently it's water that falls from the sky. It's called "Rain."

Yes friends, it FINALLY rained last night! We got a big storm! Noel and I sat on the porch and watched the storms.

The lightning was really impressive - it lit up the night like it was midday:

(That was taken at 9:45 pm).

Guess what doesn't photograph well with a regular camera?

Lightning bolts. It turned out weird, but I kinda like it. :)

We're so excited to have gotten some rain! The plants are just soaking it up - hopefully we'll have more coming in the near future!

Space...the Final Frontier....

2011-08-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

And here we go, as promised! Pictures from our trip to NASA!

Now, we weren't so sure about what we would find on the tour, because we went there the week that the shuttle landed for the last time. We weren't sure if there would be scads of space engineers weeping into their pocket protectors or what. Fortunately we saw no sad astronauts.

But there was plenty of other stuff to see! Including the astronaut training area. They have pods that look like portions of the space station that the astronauts practice maneuvering around:

I thought it was neat that each piece of equipment has the sponsoring countries' flags above the module's name. There are a lot of surprising countries participating in the space station - not only Russia, Germany, Italy, and France (which you'd expect) but also Brazil!

We saw landing modules and space suits:

And this creepy looking robot thing. Sorry - this was the clearest picture I could get of it. It's a huge gold spider that's used for doing work on the outside of the space station. The multitude of feet make it easy to maneuver. And also make it extremely creepy.

So one of the things I was most excited to see was this android. Boba Fett!

This last picture is just for you, Rachel. Heh heh heh.

You're welcome.

2011-08-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Life has been busy! So I've got lots and lots of pictures to upload. You've probably heard a lot about the drought here in Texas. It's really bad here - we've had about 17 days of 100+ degree days in a row (which even for here is hot!). We also haven't had rain in ages.

It's really sad to see fields of ruined corn.

Our garden's been doing well, although we've been watering it like we're trying to drown it. This picture was from about a month ago - we still have okra and bell peppers left, but everything else has died down already:

We got a LOT of squash and okra! And the nice thing is, it's about time to start a new garden for the fall! We have squash, sugar snap peas, and tomato seedlings that are about ready to plant. We'll probably put them in the garden box on Saturday. It's a good thing to be able to grow your own veggies, especially with the costs of food supposedly going up a lot in the near future!

Life on the farm is still really good. We do have our daily challenges though:

Noel had just finished washing his truck when one of the cows came by and left a present right behind the wheel. HA HA HA! Nice.

So last week, my job sent me to Nashville for work. We stayed at a hotel near the huge Opryland Hotel, and for dinner we went to one of the hotel's restaurants. The inside of this hotel is AMAZING. There's a little river with boat rides, a massive garden/conservatory inside the center of the hotel, and gorgeous water fountains:

They even have fountains that squirt water, with colored lights! It was just incredible.

Noel's son Logan came for a visit too. We did lots of fun stuff, like going to NASA (photos coming soon) and the zoo (photos in just a minute). There was also some MMA style wrestling on the floor.

I feared for the furniture.

Anyway, we went to the Houston Zoo, which is a really impressive, very large zoo in the middle of downtown. We saw the aviary enclosure with faux ruins:

(I want faux ruins in my house).

In other news, I learned my new superpower: I can talk to giraffes. There were several giraffes, and I talked to one of them - "Come over here, handsome! Let me get your picture!" Well, guess what? He came over! And licked my fingers! And Noel got to pet him!

Confession: This following picture is from the aquarium. They have a white tiger. For some reason. It's gorgeous!

We also got to see the tigers at the zoo. One of them was feeling a little warm, so he went for a swim!

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion....

looks tired.

Speaking of kitties, check out this retrospective picture of Samson as a baby:

So sweet, so innocent.

And now, he's a much bigger boy! He and Loki sometimes try to kill each other, but then will settle in and take a nap together.

He looks so cute and precious. And then he looks like a turkey:

2011-07-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Thanks for the offer to take Samson in, Shanna! We're a little worried to even try - he likes to scratch & bite, and we're working on breaking him of it. He's doing better, but he's stilla smidge vicious!

Although you can't tell it by this picture:

So cute. And also apparently very tough. :) Poe & Loki are getting used to him, which is good.

But we do plan to visit Austin!

My work colleagues and I went out to lunch recently at a neat Vietnamese sandwich & noodle house in Houston. So tasty! Also, the interior was awesome!

It's a wall sculpture built out of 2 x 4 boards. Very cool!

Anyway, life here is good - full of kittens and Vietnamese sandwiches. And very limited rain. We have had a little bit of precipitation, but the drought here is still very bad. Our little garden is doing ok though - it's starting to get so hot that the garden is fading fast. That's ok though - we'll be planting a fall garden too!

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July! Noel & I like to take a few minutes on each major holiday to think of what we're thankful for. Here are some things on our list this year:

1. A deep well - we're in such a terrible drought, but thanks to our well, we can still water our garden!

2. A great job - I'm also thankful to live in a country where, as a woman, I have the freedom to work outside the home and make my own money.

3. Our home - we live in a country where we have the freedom to move around, to decide where we want to go, and when we want to go there.

4. Texas Secessionists - even though I think the idea of the Republic of Texas doesn't make a lot of sense in this day and age, I'm thankful our country allows people to have their own opinions - one of the most important founding principles of the U.S.

Also, in case you didn't know, there is in fact still a contingent of people who think Texas should secede. We saw one of their billboards today. Craziness.

In cat-related news, Samson is growing like a weed! We actually introduced him to Poe & Loki today for a few minutes. It was....not a total disaster. Loki just sniffed a lot at Samson and tried to smack him , but Poe hissed and hissed. Then hid under the bed. So that's...not exactly great, but better than total carnage. We'll be doing the same type of introduction session nightly until everyone can get along just fine. It's a hard adjustment for them, but what else could we do?

Anyway, here are some updated pics of Samson. He's about 6 weeks now, and loves to play!

So cute! :)

Happy 4th!

2011-06-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for your kind thoughts as we dealt with the loss of Noel's dad.

I'm glad to report that Noel is back! He actually has been for 2 weeks almost. I have been a very negligent blogger.

Anyway, on the drive back from Tennessee I stopped to celebrate the return to my new home state:

This is at the Texas state line welcome center. I like it. :)

Also spotted this awesome retro RV:

Fabulous! I mean, this thing is straight off of Charlie's Angels.

My daily commute is about 55 miles into Houston, and sometimes there are interesting things to see. For example, a few weeks ago, I saw this at the underpass by my office:

Please note that the truck trailer is jammed up diagonally against the underpass. OOPS. This truck had stopped traffic going under that part of the underpass, so we all had to divert around.

Now you think they'd warn truckers about this kind of danger, right? They wouldn't just allow hapless truck drivers to think that they could go into this really tight U-turn without causing major damage, would they?

Because frankly, it's irresponsible to let this kind of thing just happen.

Oh wait.

(Um, in case you can't see it, that sign to the right? Says 'NO TRUCKS IN U-TURN.' But this moron did it anyway. Well, tried to.)

Our garden is coming along really nicely!

We've had to water it a lot, since we're in a severe drought. But it's been paying off!

SQUASH!!

You know what else we found in the back yard?

A poor little orphaned kitten! Apparently the mom of the other kittens that are now mostly grown (and still living under the house) had more kittens. But this one she didn't want, and had put him in the shed out back (she had 3 more under the house - we just saw them for the first time yesterday). When I came back from Tennessee, I went out into the backyard to check the garden, and this little guy came crying and running up to me. I ran to the store, bought some kitten formula, and we've been taking care of him ever since! He was tiny and so hungry. Right now he's living in the garage until we can get his shots done, and then we'll start introducing him to Poe & Loki.

His name is Samson! He's so sweet and purrs all the time. He's yellow and has blue eyes. :) And he's growing like a weed!

Say hello Samson!

Kindness

2011-06-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and emails. We really appreciate your kindness.

Noel is still back east, taking care of all the paperwork that comes up. I'm back in Texas after spending a week in Tennessee with Noel and his family.

Noel and the rest of his family are doing well and coping with the loss.

Thanks again, and we'll start posting again soon.

Passing

2011-05-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

We're very sad to report that Noel's dad, George, died this past weekend after a long battle with cancer. George had a wonderful sense of humor - dry and sarcastic, combined with a fantastic sense of timing. He was always cracking everyone up.

And he was a cute kid!

It seems appropriate today, on Memorial Day, to point out that George was also a proud veteran, serving in the Navy for 20 years. He always told fun stories about being stationed on the island of Diego Garcia (and all the trouble he and his buddies would get into). He worked on aircraft carriers during the Vietnam War, stationed on the USS Ranger in southeast Asia.

This picture was taken in Japan:

(I think he looked like Johnny Cash, with the dark hair!)

George also had a love of pretty much anything with 4 wheels. Including some really fab cars he owned in his lifetime:

We've been doing a lot of traveling back and forth to Tennessee to help George out from time to time, while he got treatments for his cancer. Noel made the drive from Tennessee to Texas several times. We were glad to help though.

We'll miss you, George.

My Very Own Slice of Town!

2011-05-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

We went sight-seeing to a nearby city called Brenham last weekend, and lucked out! They were having a German heritage festival, complete with local cloggers:

And lederhosen!

It was a gorgeous day, so we took a walk downtown, around their historic square and courthouse, and saw some fantastic vintage cars:

This Bel Air had an awesome interior:

And this truck had a stylin' grill.

Love the complicated mechanics that went into their restoration too.

There was a gorgeous house in Brenham too. I think it's a bed & breakfast.

Know what else is cute? Little panda cookies from China!

On the way back, Noel took me by a place had found that he thought I'd enjoy (that he said kinda creeped him out a little, to be honest). Welcome to....Kelliwood!

And literally the next neighborhood over? Nottingham Country!

Wild, huh? Noel thinks they should award me an honorary home there (which would be nice - it's a high dollar neighborhood!) :)

Time for a Farm Animal Update!!

Noel decided to try befriending some of the natives:

Meet Agnes and Blanche, the farm's guard donkeys!

Now, some people might assume that it would be the bull's responsibility to protect the herd. That's not necessarily the case. Although you wouldn't know it when you see 2 bulls staring each other down on either side of the road. It's the donkeys who do a lot of the alarm-sounding and kicking.

(Speaking of, we saw some coyotes the other day! )

Anyway, we do have a big HUGE bull on the farm. I named him Brad, but we found out from the landlord that he already had a name. So now I'd like to introduce you to....

Brad. Wilson. (Hey Brad! I cracked up when we found out his real name!) :)

He's a hefty piece of cow. Seriously, this guy is ALL MUSCLE. We don't mess with him. Obviously.

And in indoor animal news, I did some sewing the other day, and got a tremendous amount of help from Poe when cutting out the pattern:

How did I ever sew without him?

Lions & Tigers &.....Tapirs?

2011-05-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Noel and I went sightseeing in downtown Houston. It might surprise people to know that downtown Houston actually has some very pretty areas - lots of trees, parks, fun architecture, and neat little neighborhoods.

We didn't go there to see the architecture though. Where did we go?

The Houston Zoo! Isn't it pretty? This is the reflection pool in the middle of the zoo.

It's a nice zoo - not too huge, but impressive exhibits. They had lots of fun stuff there, like poison dart frogs!

And seriously scary birds. This is a SCARY BIRD, y'all. It was huge, red eyes, and a massive beak. I think it might have been a pterodactyl.

There were white rhinos!

(Note: this is only one of the many pictures of rear ends that I managed to take. I don't know why every animal in that zoo wanted to show me their backsides. I started to take it personally.)

So cute - these are red pandas!

There were playful otters:

And just for you Rachel - a tapir! (And its rear end).

Here's the meerkat sentry - looking for danger!

Ok - snake phobic people, close your eyes. Here are some pretty green snakes:

And a not so pretty and extremely scary poisonous puff adder:

Eek.

Oh! Flamingos!! I love them. They're fabulous!

Here are some cows. Now, before you say "Um, Kelli, you guys have cows in your front yard," let me point out that these guys have HUMONGOUS HORNS. We think they might have mixed these with the cows we got pictures of a few years ago (the ones who could hardly lift their heads up!)

How do they carry those things around? Do they have headaches?

Here is an African Wild Dog:

And here are two sleepy cheetahs:

You might notice a theme here - it was HOT that day. Hot and sleepy.

Ok, here are my favorite pictures though. Elephant babies!!! (And elephant baby 'tocks).

A white gator! (He's fabulous too).

A sleepy cougar. Gorgeous!

Jellyfish! I love jellyfish. They're just amazing to me. This picture isn't upside down - they're swimming that way:

These are moon jellyfish. This picture turned out really cool - psychedelic!

So that was our trip to the zoo! We have lots more pictures to show from the past week or two, but I didn't want to put them all in one post!

Updates & Squash!

2011-04-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

So many pictures! And it's bedtime, so I'd better just upload them:

Guess where I went the other day!?

IKEA!! I love it there. I bought some things, but they're secret. :)

Our garden was looking yellow and sad. We were told by several locals to water like we were trying to drown everything, and also fertilize like crazy. And it worked!

We even have several baby squash, and a tiny little tomato! Slow start to the garden, but hopefully we'll get some good stuff out of it. By the way, those tomato plants are purchased - mine didn't quite make it from seeds. Oh well. The pepper plants are coming up slowly but nicely, the okra too (although the bugs are eating the leaves badly!), and the corn makes me very proud. Yay!

In our back yard, we have a persimmon tree. I've never eaten a persimmon, but I'd love to try one. Here's a baby one:

Now, as we've discussed, Texas is a proud place. That's why you see things like this:

And on the back of this HEB truck? A Texas shaped T-bone steak:

Wonder if it tastes like mesquite?

Now, this western style thing is great and all, but um...I kinda have to draw the line when I go the bathroom and see this:

And your moment of black cat cuteness, Cats In Tub:

And yet they hate baths.

Finally!! An Update.

2011-04-17T16:43:00.001-07:00

I am finally taking some time to update this here blog. With pictures!

So my job is going very, very well. Cima commented that I haven't actually told what my job is. Well, I am a trainer for a Medicare Advantage insurance company. We partner with physicians & hospitals to help medicare patients get better healthcare. I am the trainer for the company, and my job is to design & deliver training and professional development classes for our employees - things like new hire orientation, communication skills, and leadership competencies. I'm their only trainer in Texas, so I'll be doing some traveling to places like San Antonio & El Paso. I was in Ft. Worth last week, actually! They don't have a training program, so I'm designing it from the ground up. Very cool! Here's my building - Thing In Sky! (my office is on the 13th floor)

The farm is doing well too, although the garden isn't growing as fast as we'd like. We think we weren't watering it enough. We're now soaking & fertilizing it on a daily basis. in other farm news, we have 2 new neighbors! 2 calves who are being weaned. I've tried very hard not to get attached to the cows in the field. They are beef cows, after all. But with these two, I couldn't resist.

Meet Cletus:

(We fear that Cletus is actually a girl.)

And Winston:

How cute!

Our little town, Sealy, is very cute. A few weeks ago they had a little festival and quilt show. Locals brought out their old quilts for display. There were some really pretty ones, like this red work quilt (white quilt with red embroidery):

This embroidered quilt was just beautiful, and very old:

I loved this Hawaiian style quilt. Very vibrant colors and lots of applique:

This past weekend we drove into downtown Houston for a trip to the Museum of Natural Sciences. It had some really....sciency parts. A Hall of Chemistry. Yawn. Also? Noel and I cracked up at the painfully obvious sponsorship of the energy display, "Oil Makes The World Go Round." What do you think? Exxon or ConocoPhillips?

Despite the few funny/boring parts, they had some really cool stuff there. We liked the Hall of the Americas, which had displays of native peoples from the Inuit in Alaska all the way to the ancient Maya! Very cool. I couldn't take any pictures in there though. Sorry!

They had some neat murals:

And dinosaurs! In Sky!

GRRRRRRRR!

They had a neat gallery of minerals, including this gorgeous opal:

Then the next room over was a gallery of jewelry. REAL jewelry. Emerald tiara, anyone?

WOW.

How about a sapphire necklace?

Rachel, here's a peridot necklace. Gorgeous!!

My favorite though, was this stunner of an amethyst necklace:

FABULOUS.

So Busy! ACK!

2011-04-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

Hey! Sorry I've been so neglectful of the blog lately! I've actually been taking lots of pictures, but haven't had a chance to put the pictures up.

Life is very busy but very good! My job is great - I'm still enjoying every day of it.

Noel is also doing well, enjoying his work and meeting new coworkers.

The boys are doing fine too - Poe loves the new house because there's so much room for running!

Anyway, it's time to get ready for bed (already!) so I'd better go.

More later, I promise!!

Of Lint and Linguine!

2011-03-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this won't be terribly long because it's already kinda late. Several interesting things from the last few days though:

(1) Noel can make a MEAN chicken alfredo. From scratch. I had no idea he could make this stuff. I t was SOOOOOO good! Very impressive! If anyone wants the recipe, I can get it from him.

p.s. It's really healthy - 1/2 stick of butter per serving. And also heavy cream! And cheese!

(2) The lady at the local appliance store is probably too honest for her own good, but YAY for customer service!! See, as previously mentioned, our dryer had decided to crap out - it wasn't getting our clothes dry, but was heating up so much on the outside that it would almost burn you. We had cleaned the lint trap and the vent hose when we moved it, and so we knew that wasn't the problem. Maybe it was the thermostat, we had no idea.

So! We went to the local appliance store here in Sealy and looked at dryers. We were discussing the merits of lint traps in the door of the dryer or on the top of the unit, when the saleslady came up and asked us what was wrong with our dryer. When we explained, she suggested that we take the entire back of the dryer off and check for lint buildup, because sometimes lint can get into the rest of the dryer and essentially block up the motor, etc.

We explored the insides of the dryer, determined that wasn't the issue, but decided to clean out the entire venting system. Turns out that it wasn't our dryer or our vent hose that was clogged. The vent pipe going from where we hook up the dryer to outside the house was full of super-thick lint. No wonder the thing was so hot! We cleaned it out thoroughly, and the dryer works like a charm now! So the lady talked herself out of a sale, but I guarantee we'll go back to that store when we need any other type of appliance/mower/etc.

SO! Everyone please make sure you clean out your dryer vents thoroughly! We realized once we started cleaning it out, that we couldn't feel any air coming out of the outside vent. This is the sign of a problem! Be safe and prevent house fires!

(3) My job is awesome.

Ok, I'm going to go get some knitting done before going to bed!

2011-03-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

So! Exciting times here.

The first week of my job was great! I'm excited to get back to work tomorrow. :)

The weather here has been beautiful, and Noel and I have been busy doing things around town and the house/farm. Including taking pictures of random stuff!

Here are some cool motorcycles with bright lights underneath them:

This is a piece of old farm equipment that has a tree growing through it:

Our landlord likes to collect and fix old vehicles. He has about 4 on the farm here, and he showed us a 1927 Ford truck that he started up with the hand crank. He then took us for rides in it!

This morning we went for a little picnic at the main park in downtown Sealy. The flowers are beautiful!

This gorgeous Victorian house across the street from the park is surrounded by azaleas in bloom:

How is the garden, you asked? It's growing like crazy!! And watching over the garden is our resident garden gnome, Gottfried:

He's going a great job! Just check out the corn and squash!

We watched the sunset (sunsets are gorgeous here):

And then I made a peach cobbler!

This is my sister's super-easy peach cobbler recipe:

Ingredients

1 stick of butter

1 cup of milk

1 cup of self-rising flour

1 cup of sugar

1 large can of sliced peaches (or 2 of the regular sized cans)

- Preheat oven to 350. While oven is preheating, put the stick of butter (cut into smaller pieces) into a casserole dish & place in oven.

- Mix milk, flour, and sugar together in a bowl.

- When butter is completely melted, pour flour mixture on top of butter (it will mix in with the butter - that's fine)

- Drain the liquid off of the peaches, and place them on top of the mixture in the casserole dish.

- Bake in oven for about 25-30 minutes, until golden brown on top. Eat & enjoy!

This recipe is a small miracle to me, because the fruit bakes down while the cake part bakes up. So it ends up looking like a normal cobbler. Fancy! You can use any kind of fruit. If using fresh fruit, you may want to add some additional sugar to compensate for tartness.

Ok, so that's it for today. Hope everyone's doing well. I'd better get ready for work tomorrow!

Garden Updates and Such!

2011-03-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

Noel is still on his job, and it's going well. Mine is also going great! I'm really happy with this job so far - it's so nice to feel the potential in a new career!

We've also been finishing up with (hopefully) the last of the unpacking. One thing that I'm thrilled to say arrived safely through the move was a stained glass window my Uncle Earl made years ago. He was one of my very favorite uncles, and this window captures, to me, how he lived his life and the things he enjoyed. It reminds me of him a lot. Noel found the perfect spot for it, in the kitchen, so the sun shines through it every morning:

And it's so Texas-y! Love it.

Things here on the farm are going really well too! It's been gorgeous weather:

Thing In Sky!! (My friend Lisa tells me I need to self-publish a book of Things In Sky pictures - maybe should look into that, since I have about 9,352 of them.)

The garden has really been soaking up the weather too. Here's how the squash are coming along:

And the corn is already starting to look like corn! How exciting!!

(Note: these pictures were taken on Sunday - the corn is now over 4 inches tall!)

A closer view of the cows!

There is a bull. I named him Brad. Brad the Brangus.

And even the trees are barbed in Texas!

Work Work Work!

2011-03-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Today was the first day of my new job, and it was great! My boss and co-workers are extremely nice, the work environment is friendly and relaxed, and I have a tremendous amount of lattitude in the training programs I've been hired to create. I'm very excited about it! (The commute, on the other hand, is not so exciting).

Noel got a call during dinner that he's wanted on a job 3 hours from here, starting tomorrow morning. Surprise!! So we're trying to get him ready to go out the door. He would be on his way already, except his clothes aren't dry yet, and our dryer has decided to crap out. At least i have a clothesline out back, until we buy a replacement dryer.

We'll miss him here at Chez LotsaCats, but that's the nature of his work. He'll only be gone for the rest of the week, looks like.

And by the time he gets back, we may have a full garden! The little sproutlings are growing like crazy. CRAZY. I've been taking pictures every day of their progress, but won't be posting any tonight because it's too late already. But there will be pictures!

Ok, time to hit the hay here soon (after getting Noel on his way to this job!). Hope the clothes are dry!

Images From the Farm

2011-03-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I went out for a walk at dusk and tried to get some pictures. (This was in place of unpacking, since I am so done with owning stuff. I never want to have to unpack again. Ever.)

First, a picture of the kitties, all curled up outside on the grass:

So cute. Now some of you may be asking about Poe and Loki - they're fine, lazy as ever. They're interested in the outdoor cats, but only to look at them through the window. They aren't threatened by them and don't hiss or anything. I'm not even sure they recognize that these little fuzzy things outside are cats in the first place.

So yesterday I went to check on the gardens, both flower and veggie, and I'm extremely pleased to report that thing are already coming up!!

Ok, so that's hard to see in the picture. Trust me, it's there.

I'll take updated pictures today, since things are even more up than this now. Yay!

Noel had already left for work, so I just milled around the farm taking pictures of things:

Sometimes dusky pictures don't turn out so well, but I liked these.

I thought up a little poem yesterday too:

This land is a deep breath

Inhale huge blue sky

Smiling sigh of freedom.

That sums it up pretty well.

Things Get Seedy

2011-03-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hi! Things are going well here in Texas! We're getting unpacked, slowly but surely. The living room, kitchen & hallway were all looking good. Until I started working on the guest room/sewing room yesterday. Had to take out about a million boxes, just so I could find the floor in there. I'm now working on getting that room in order, and once it is, I'll take more pictures of the house, without boxes this time. Yay!

I've been busy feeding our outdoor kitties - they live under the house and take care of various rodentia that might be roaming the prairies around here. (I actually saw the mom herd a field mouse over so the kittens could kill it - serious Wild Kingdom over here, and I had to look away. She's just teaching them to survive, but I still don't want to see it.) Anyway, we do give them some food to help out, but not enough that they stop hunting. Well, that's the plan. I tend to spoil cats, in case you didn't notice. Ahem.

Anyway, they're skittish, but getting more used to us. I tried to get some pictures:

Here they are eating. Mom is the tortoise shell calico on the right (the dark-type calico with yellow & gray mixed into blackish fur). The babies are solid colors: black, yellow, and gray.

Wait, someone's missing. Oh, here he is:

Hee hee!! SOOOO cute. Kitten close-up!

I haven't named them yet. Aren't you proud? I'm trying really hard to keep some distance, in case something happens to them. They're wild, after all. But not having mice & snakes under the house is worth a little cat food every day. :)

We've been busy in other ways too, namely in planting stuff. We do live on a farm, after all!

So the other day I tilled up some ground in front of the porch for a flower garden. We'll see how it does. Nothing's come up yet, but it's early.

We also built some boxes for raised bed gardens in the backyard. We're going to have 2 4x4 square foot gardens. It's an interesting method that my sister told me about. This is my first try at it. Basically, instead of planting in rows you plant in squares. It's supposed to be a much more efficient use of space. We'll see! Anyway, we built the boxes and filled them with a combo of topsoil, peat moss, and compost. Then I marked them off in a 1 ft x 1 ft grid, then planted the seeds. (By the way, the Square Foot Gardening website is: www.squarefootgardening.org)

And by the way, yes, I do see the irony of living on a farm and yet having raised bed gardens instead of regular in-ground gardens. However, with the new job I start on Monday, I won't have as much time for weeding. The soil here is also very sandy. Major crops in this part of Texas? Hay, rice, and cotton. Not cucumbers. So. Raised beds it is.

Oh, I can hear you now! "But what are you planting, Kelli?"

Okra (a dwarf variety, so hopefully they won't get so tall)
Corn (my first attempt at corn - this should be fun!)
Tomatoes (2 varieties - cherry ones and little yellow grape tomatoes)
Cucumbers (found the same type of seeds I used last year, so we'll see if they go insane like last year's did)
Squash (nothing better than battered & fried squash - yum!)
Bell Peppers (planted red ones, as well as a variety mix of white (!), purple (!), and dark brown (!) ones - why not?)

That's all in the garden for this spring. The great thing is, we can use this garden as an experiment. If something doesn't work, we can try again in the fall, when Texans have their 2nd gardens of the year (this never ceases to amaze me).

So! Very exciting. I love having a garden. There's something very meditative about it. It forces you to be patient - after all, there's no rushing a seed. It's so basic: a seed, soil, water, and sun. But yet it's a miracle. Each little seed, when it sprouts, is life, green and fresh, coming out of something cold and dormant. I find it absolutely amazing. Which is why I probably prefer to grow from seeds than planting seedlings someone else has grown.

This garden will also be even more meditative for me, since my job is in Houston - a high-rise building, right in downtown. High tech and loud, traffic and busyness. Then a drive from city to country, and I put on my gardening boots and get my watering can and go tend the veggies. (The watering hose won't reach far enough, and I'm ok with it). It's such a wonderfully charming, simple thing to do. But there's nothing more wonderful in summer than a fresh salad you pick off of your own land, wash it and eat it. I just love it.

Noel has already asked how long before we have cucumbers. :) I kinda thought after last summer he'd never want to see a cucumber again!

Greeeeen Acres Is The Place to Be!!

2011-03-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

We have arrived!!! And Texas has welcomed us with open arms!

So now I guess I can show you our new house.

Now for an inside tour. First the living room:

It's a HUGE room. We have the living room in the front part, and our library/sitting area in the back part. In this picture (of the library part of the room), Noel is standing in front of my writing nook, a little area with my writing desk and a nice window view.

One of the many cool things about older homes (this one was built in 1915) are the built-ins. Here's a gorgeous cedar bench built by the owner's father years ago:

He also built this gorgeous cedar built-in, also in the living room. I love the colors of the wood (Note lounging lazy cat in foreground).

Our bedroom is lovely, with a built-in vanity in the corner. Love it!!

We have a bathroom, but I didn't take a picture of that. I also skipped the other bedroom, which is currently Box of Stuff Central. It will take a while to get through. :P

The hallway has a cool built-in too:

(Ok, seriously, I promise to take new pictures Post Boxalypse).

We have a laundry room (currently full of empty boxes):

And of course, no home is complete without its heart, the kitchen. The kitchen in this house is GORGEOUS.

And the kitchen has a built-in too! Love this!

Also, it sits on a 165-acre working farm! The landlords of the home still work the farm. How neat is that?

See? COWS!! (In the background, I didn't go through the Cow Patty Landmine field to get a closer pic). (Although I did actually shovel cow poo today, but that story's for another day.)

And because this is Texas, there are also cow skulls!! As decorations!!

Because nothing says "Welcome To Our Home!" like animal carcasses.

Here's the hay barn:

And the requisite red barn with watering trough (or as my cousin John said, a Redneck Swimming Pool):

Here's the view from the front of the house:

And from the side:

And to the back:

We've also even found a cool restaurant/bar place to go for dinner (our landlords recommended it). It's a fun place called Othie's. They have pool tables, air hockey, live music on weekends, and food. BIG food. (This is Texas, after all!) I ordered a country fried pork tenderoin, and this is what I got (beer glass included for scale):

Needless to say, we made 3 meals out of this. YUM.

So here we are, happily in Texas. Even the kitties seem to like it. OH! That reminds me! We have barn kitties too (well, technically they live under the house, but still). I'll get a picture of them as soon as I can. They're skittish, but SOOOO cute (a mama & 3 kittens!!).

On The Move!

2011-03-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

We're on the way! Tonight we're in Meridian, Mississippi. Tomorrow we plan to arrive in Texas, if everything goes as we hope it will!

I saw the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile today. Exciting stuff!!

Wish us luck on the rest of trip!

Boxes, Boxes, Boxes!

2011-03-02T19:29:00.001-08:00

Guess what I've been doing?

Fun stuff.

You know what would be awesome? Having movers to pack up all this crap and drive it where we want it. It would keep me from (1) cutting my thumbs on the tape dispenser, and (2) having to drive the big humongous truck I've had to rent to get everything to Texas. I'm a bit nervous about driving the truck, but it'll be yet another big adventure, right? I'll take pictures.

Noel put the deposit on the house yesterday. We're both very excited about it - so excited that I don't actually want to say anything about it yet. I'd rather show you when I get there! I haven't seen it yet, but Noel described it and it sounds fantastic.

And I'll be getting to Texas in time to plant a garden for the early summer! Yay!

Big News!!

2011-02-28T19:17:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! We have big news today!

I was offered the job in Houston and have accepted it! I start on March 21st.

So this week is Frantic Packing Week. Noel is still in Houston working, so the cats and I are packing up the house. Noel feels horrible that he can't be here to help, but I told him that he can unpack everything. LOL

Seriously though, it's interesting to see how much crap you can collect in a house within a year. It's even MORE interesting to see how much crap you actually move from one house to another. I've got a ton of magazines that for some reason I have been hanging onto for at least a year, some for several years. Now, granted, they may have pretty stuff in them, they may have neato recipes, but how often do you look through older magazines that have been sitting on your shelf for ages? Um...never. So I got rid of them.

Why pack it, if you don't use it?

Anyway!

We'll have more news very soon about the house we're looking to rent. The one I had listed in a previous blog was already taken. Dang. BUT! Noel found a real keeper today, and he's planning on putting the deposit on it tomorrow. It's going to be really fun. More details later! I don't want to jinx anything. :)

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

2011-02-22T18:46:00.000-08:00

Well, my trip to Texas is quickly drawing to an end. I leave on Wednesday morning (tomorrow) to head back to the mountains of NC.

Noel is not coming with me.

This sucks.

Well, it doesn't suck that he has another job starting soon, and the one he's on now is still going. Employment is a good thing.

But being apart is really, really hard.

Sigh.

Ok. So in other news, no word yet on the job that I interviewed for. Hopefully we'll hear something soon.

We've been busy driving around, looking at places we might want to rent, and I've been daydreaming a LOT about my garden this year. :) We just have to get moved in time to have a garden! Other than that, our time has been weirdly divided - with Noel working on night shift, we didn't get to see each other as much on this trip (or go out and do as much) as we would've liked.

We did manage to see not 1, but 2 cowboy parades! Very exciting. :)

So that was the extent of the trip, really. Now comes the hard part - leaving.

I'll miss you, honey! We'll see each other again soon. :)

Where's Kelli?

2011-02-18T21:18:00.001-08:00

Where am I? Need a hint?

Ok, how about another hint?

Not sure yet? Does this help?

Donkeys!

Ok, last hint. This should do it:

Flat? Donkeys? Oil? YES! I am in Texas!! Outside of Houston, to be exact!

I came to visit Noel as a belated birthday present (my birthday was 2 weeks ago), and also because I had a job interview here the other day. No word yet on the job - we'll see.

The kitties are being well tended by my dear Aunt Betty. Thank you for taking such good care of the boys!!

Anyway, it's great to be in the same time zone with Noel - he's been here for a month, and that's a long time to go without seeing each other. He's still working night shift though, so our together time is limited to a few hours a day. Difficult, but certainly better than nothing!!

He is a sweetheart - look at the gift he bought me for Valentine's Day:

Purple tulips!! Love them. And it's so nice that they're a living plant - they've already got 3 more buds on them and are just gorgeous.

So while I was prepping for the interview, I didn't go out much. Since the interview though, we've taken the opportunity to do some exploring. Noel found a cute house that might be a potential if I get the job and we move to this area soon:

Isn't it ADORABLE? An absolute dollhouse. Huge back yard too. Perfect for gardening!

(Speaking of, I'm obsessing about my garden for this year. Am toying with the idea of planting a purple garden - there are so many purple plants. Wouldn't that be fun? Purple broccoli, purple carrots, purple lettuce, purple basil, lavender, purple tomatillos!)

Noel found a gorgeous church that he pointed out to me the other day. I went by there today while he was sleeping at the hotel, so I could get some pictures of it. Gorgeous, no? The steeple is stunning.

Of course, knowing me and my sometimes stupid life, I didn't realize until too late what else was going on:

Oops.

For those of you who don't know, I have an uncanny ability to walk up to churches in the middle of funerals. Once I was admiring a car in front of a church, not realizing that it was the family car for a funeral until I looked up and a gaggle of people dressed in black were staring at me from the church steps. And another time, I walked into a church while they were preparing the body for the funeral. I have a gift, really, for dead people. Yeah.

ANYWAY. The church was so lovely! And being that it's a Catholic church, it had the stations of the cross. But instead of being plaques inside the church, they had a park set up across the street with individual crosses, with a plaque for each station on its own cross. This park featured a huge live oak in the middle of it. Gorgeous tree.

So of course, this was the perfect opportunity to do a few Things in Sky pics:

Now, speaking of gardening, I went to the local home improvement store and checked out their plants and such. It seems that this far south in Texas, they actually have TWO planting seasons, early spring and early fall. How cool is that?

Know what else is cool?

You can grow avocados here! (Or as the locals say, Avacodos. Apparently.) Catlyn - I took this picture for you. :)

Noel, who is not a guacamole fan, can't understand my excitement over the avocado plants. But! You can also grow key limes! And gardenias! Sigh....if only there were purple gardenias.

Also found a fun piece of graffiti:

Heh.

Pictures! Yay!

2011-01-31T18:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's time for some pictures! I haven't put any up in a little while, so here we go:

First off, a picture from a few weeks ago, showing the results of cabin fever and constant Butt-on-couch-itis. This is our driveway after a foot of snow fell, and I decided that I WAS going to get out of the house. It took me 2 1/2 hours to dig my car out and salt the driveway so I could gain precious freedom.

Also? It's not easy shoveling snow with a dirt shovel. Although the broom helped some too. But needless to say, I could hardly move for 2 days afterwards. But oh, sweet freedom.

It's been warmer the last few days, so today while out running errands, I took a few minutes to walk around a bird sanctuary at Beaver Lake, in Asheville. (It was cloudy today, so these pictures don't have a lot of color to them - sorry!)

There were some gorgeous trees.

With really cool roots.

And amazing bark.

Last weekend I broke my own fabric probation (yes, I know, I know). However. I found some fabulous medium-weight polyester from...oh....probably about the time I was born. 1 1/2 yards, and it was only $1! How could I possibly pass this up! See? It's so Sonny & Cher, I couldn't stand it.

It's awesome. You know what else is awesome? Sewing help of the feline variety.

I had to make some alterations, basically morphing 2 patterns into a dress. Here's the sleeve in progress:

And the final dress! This is a terribly unflattering picture, and doesn't show the dress well. Maybe when Noel gets back from TX (or when I go to visit) he can get a picture that shows it better. It's a simple dress with a V-neck, and the sleeves are slit on the outsides from the shoulder to the wrist. Very retro!

And all for $1! (Say it with me: "Can't beat it with a stick!") Pass the cosmos.

What else have we been doing here lately? Well, frankly, with Noel in TX working, life is pretty dull. I've been looking for jobs too, and doing a lot of sewing and knitting and writing and such. Oh, and handling The Adventure of the Dried Basil Leaf That Poe Tried to Eat. Speaking of, here's a pic of Poe when he came home from the vet!

(p.s. He normally doesn't look so surly, but getting a good picture of this cat is like getting a good eyes-open picture of the Loch Ness monster.)

He had to have a catheter, so they had a little bandage on his leg. This came off soon after we got home, because he kept chewing at it. He now has a little bald spot on his leg, but it's growing fur back quickly.

Also, he and Loki are chasing each other around the house, so he's obviously feeling back to his old self again. We are thankful. :)

What else have these guys been doing? Jostling for territory on my legs, while I listen to audio books and knit. Actually, in this pic I think we're watching tv.

Oh, and Loki's been doing a lot of this:

And this (This one cracks me up - he looks like Garfield collapsing from a Nap Attack. Can he breathe? Does he care?):

And this:

Awwwwww.....

Poe's Home!

2011-01-27T21:08:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update to let everyone know:

Poe is home! He's doing fine, feeling much better, and is currently napping on my lap.

Glad to have you back, Poe! We missed you! Thanks for all the well-wishes everyone!

Poe Update

2011-01-26T15:30:00.000-08:00

Well, Poe is spending the night at the animal hospital. He was dehydrated when I took him in, and wasn't eating. The vet is giving him IV fluids, and said he's already eaten a little and is keeping it down. She's going to keep an eye on him, give him more food to build his strength up, and hopefully he'll be back home tomorrow afternoon.

We aren't sure what the cause of all this, but I have my suspicions: dried basil. I found...let's call it evidence...that Poe had decided to spice up his life and eat some dried basil, stem and all. We think the stem might have been agitating his stomach until he was able to get it back out, but by then he was already getting dehydrated and didn't want to eat because he kept getting sick.

So! Lesson learned. The basil is going in the trash. We hope that's all it was.

Thanks, Cima, for pointing out the dangers of possums, and so sorry to hear about the run-in your kitty had with one. We'll definitely keep an eye out for this big one.

And thanks to everyone for your well-wishes for Poe. I'm sure he's feeling better already. :)

Get the SWAT Team!

2011-01-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, as I was pulling into my driveway, some questions were answered. Namely, what was the nature of the beast whose footprints we had seen in the yard (and questionably on the porch)? We thought it might have been a raccoon or dog. But no. Because yesterday, as I pulled into the driveway, someone was strolling OUT of the driveway.

The biggest possum on the planet.

Seriously, this thing is the size of a large raccoon. I've never seen one get this big in my LIFE. It froze in the headlights, and I'm not embarrassed to say I froze too. Was this thing going to eat my tires? Was it going to attack the windshield with its pointy face?

It stared for a second and then walked off, onto the other side of the road. I just sat there. Seriously this thing was HUGE.

Anyway.

In other animal news, I had to take the kitties in to the vet on Friday for their semi-annual checkups. Everything went well, although there was a lot of drama. It went well, that is, until yesterday, when I noticed that Poe was having some stomach issues. He wasn't able to keep his food down. He seemed better this morning, able to eat a little, but then got sick again this afternoon.

So tomorrow, we get to go BACK to the vet. (Don't tell Poe). Hopefully it's nothing. I think he either has a bad hairball in his tummy or he ate something that disagreed with him. We'll keep you posted. Poor little guy. It's so sad when your pets are sick and they can't tell you what's wrong, except by barfing on the carpet.

Chirp

2011-01-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

Pie safes are beautiful, elegant, and practical pieces of furniture, designed to protect pies and other baked goods from insects and varmints. (They do not, however, protect against varmints that can actually open the doors and retrieve said pies, namely men and teenagers. But I digress.)

These lovely items are crafted from wood, with doors that contain small ventilation holes. Homemade versions often feature thin wire mesh over the door panels, while more high-end models, such as the one below, showcase handworked copper or tin door panels, with designs punched into the metal.

It's been said that many of these unique hand punched door panels were crafted up in the high north, during the bleakest days of winter, as a way to pass the time and avoid the ravages of cabin fever.

Which is why I may soon be starting my own pie safe making business.

It has been snowing for DAYS, people. DAYS. We have about a foot of snow on the ground right now, and it's STILL SNOWING. I haven't been out of the house since Sunday, and that was only because my kind and loving cousin came by with his tractor to plow out the driveway.

(Side note: Noel is in Texas. He got out of here on Saturday morning, hence he missed the brunt of this Apocalyptic Misery weather. Again. I am perhaps starting to take this personally. Just kidding, honey! Enjoy your tacos!)

So! What have I been doing with myself this week, seeing as I have no way of getting out of the house and no cable? And crappy internet so I can't download tv shows? And I can't take a walk because the windchill is SIX DEGREES and my Wellies are under the RV, which is buried in an avalanche right now?

I've been pacing.

And...um...eating. Oh, and reading, and knitting. And knitting. And....pacing.

And I fear going outside because of things like this:

The Icicle Of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!! Hanging by the kitchen window, this thing is about 5 feet long now. Scary!

However, despite my Oscar-worthy overdramatics, there are those who have it worse off than I do right now, namely the little birdies who need food and are cleaning out the bird feeder daily (thank you Camille, for the lovely feeder - the birds love it too!).

The porch has been popular among the Avian set.

We've been getting so many birds at the feeder when it snows, and when this weather started getting bad (Saturday late morning), the number of birds visiting our porch skyrocketed. I went out on Sunday to stock up on supplies (propane, food, cat treats (no mutiny forthcoming, hopefully!), and wine), I got a big bag of birdseed too. And it's a good thing! Noel filled the feeder up before he left on Saturday, and by Sunday it was empty again.

Well, the bird feeder seats about 3-4 smaller, community-minded birds. Or one fat territorial cardinal who is mean to the little chickadees. So I decided to make sure that everyone got a shot at the birdseed. I rifled through the drawer under the stove and found a muffin tin that was in the house when we moved in. I ain't usin' it for us, so might as well feed wildlife out of it. ;)

I put the new "feeder" on the wicker table on the porch, rethought it, and put some paper around it first.

The birds are happy. But the funniest aftermath?

The cats are going INSANE.

I call this one:

Portrait of Frustration

(Note how the cardinal is staring them down. Cue theme from The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly.)

And this one:

Don't Fear The Reaper (He's Stuck Inside)

This is their newest favorite spot in the house. Loki loves to paw at the window, I throw yarn balls at him, he glares at me, then turns back and chirps at the birds. I wish I could get a video of this. It's hilarious. He stares at the birds, then his whole head starts vibrating, then this bizarre whimper/chirp/whistle sound comes out of his throat, and I crack up.

He thinks he's the Bird Whisperer. So far it hasn't worked.

Part of me wonders if this is cruel, to taunt them with birds that they can't get to. Then again, it's interesting for them, and hey - these are the cats who didn't want to chew pieces of roasted turkey at Thanksgiving. I seriously doubt they want to deal with actual BONES. Besides, apparently a lot of native songbirds are less common because of cats eating them. And Loki would probably try. Poe would chase, Loki would just wait for one to get tired and fall asleep near his paws.

Anyway, I've been so busy with my hectic Pacing/Eating/Knitting schedule, but graciously took some time to take pictures of some of the birds we've had around:

Cardinals:

This has a pair of cardinals (male & female), and a chickadee:

We've had LOTS of cardinals, at one point 5 males & 4 females. Other birds we've seen:

Chickadees

Tufted Titmice

Purple Finch (too fast to get a pic though!)

White-Breasted Nuthatch

Bluebird

And several mystery birds, which after an hour online trying identify, remain a mystery.

(Another side note: ornithological website people? How about an idea? For a website designed to help people identify birds (who obviously don't know much about them, hence the need to ID them), try NOT organizing your photo galleries by Latin genus and species names. We don't know their names. Thus the need to try to ID them. With pictures. How about: Black Birds. Blue Birds. Red Birds. Brown Birds. Then a picture, then the name! See how easy that is?)

I took pictures of a few of them. The only one I didn't manage to photograph was a little bird about the shape & size of a sparrow, but black on his upper half and white on the lower half, like a black sparrow who sat in Wite-out. So scientific!

Here's one of them. Anyone have any ideas? It's about the size of a robin, maybe slightly smaller. Brown wings, black upper feathers, white tummy:

This is a woodpecker, a little guy, about the size of a titmouse. He's black & white striped, but has a red dot on the back of his neck. I didn't see any red anywhere else on him:

(Also, they may be females. Birds are one of those things I always assume are male).

We've had another visitor to the feeder, a very acrobatic squirrel.

I call him Elmer.

Even though I think Elmer may be a girl. Elmera?

Anyway, Elmer/Elmera has the amazing ability to eat upside down. The cats don't seem as interested in Elmer/Elmera maybe because he/she doesn't flutter around and make a scene. Just up the post, down to the feeder, crunch crunch crunch, back to the tree. All business. I was chasing Elmer/Elmera away from the feeder for a while, since squirrels ostensibly save up food for winter. But then it occurred to me:

Perhaps Elmer/Elmera just didn't plan for this harsh of a winter. Perhaps he/she is *gasp* a procrastinator! Perhaps he/she went through some kind of squirrely hardship this summer and fall, and was unable to gather what was necessary! Perhaps it was Squirrel Flu! Tree-ridden for weeks, Elmer/Elmera pinned his/her hopes on the generosity of the hairless mega-squirrels living in the big gray cave, to keep seeds out there for everyone to enjoy!

Thus Elmer/Elmera now has uninterrupted time on the feeder every day.

Well, the sun has gone down, the snow is still falling, and I have a fat kitty sitting on my lap (quite a feat, considering there's also a lap desk & computer on my lap - he's determined).

Time to get back to knitting! And pacing. If the snow doesn't stop soon, send the National Guard. Or the whisky St. Bernard. Actually send the St. Bernard first. Thanks!

2011-01-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a great New Year's celebration!

We had a great holiday season, and actually had a white Christmas! And while we enjoyed the snow while it was here - we ended up with a foot! Lovely, but not so easy to get around in.

Thing in Sky!:

Two of Noel's kids came down for Christmas & New Year's, and we had a really nice time. We went sledding:

Please note, this was only about 1/4 of the total length of this hill. It was possible to hit Mach 5 on the sled. Noel & the kids went down at one time.

It didn't end well:

As you can see from the sky, it was a gorgeous day. Perfect for lounging in the sun! Katie demonstrates:

We also went target shooting (Fun family time activities! Speed sledding & shooting stuff!):

Noel demonstrates Proper Shooting Form, and also Proper Serious Face:

Logan does an excellent job, hitting the target really well despite it being his first time. He also has Serious Face down pat:

Katie shows a more elegant clothing option for target practice:

And I, in true form, manage to strike fear into the hearts of many with my blue tassel hat. Call me The Intimidator:

Or maybe The Scary Doofus With a Gun.

What else did we do? Of course, we ate a lot. Including one of my favorite new recipes (not written by me, so I can't take credit): Homemade chicken pot pie! YUM.

All in all, we had a wonderful time.

Now, since this is ostensibily a knitting blog and therefore should feature pictures of my knitting...

Oh wait. I didn't take any pictures of my holiday knitting. Oops. I have been busy with it though. For Christmas, I made 2 sets of accessories for my nieces' American Girl dolls (a poncho, a cape, a hat, and a purse - all my own design, and with no pictures. Great.) I also made some socks for my sister, and am most of the way through another pair of socks, these for my mom. I also did 3 hats.

Now as many of you may already know, each year I like to do some charity knitting/crocheting. It's a nice way to give something handmade to someone who may be having a hard time, and the fact that it's handcrafted means all that much more.

This year, the plan is to make some Snuggles (blankets) for Hugs for Homeless Animals (http://www.snugglesproject.org/). Basically they're simple little blankets that are put into the adoption cages of animal shelters. They provide comfort for the animals while in the cages, and are given with the animal when adopted, so the animal has something familiar in their new home. So sweet. :) They're easy to do, so if any of you are looking for a fun project to work on while the weather's crappy, consider making some Snuggles.

Speaking of animals, 2 certain someones had a good Christmas too. Santa brought them Fancy Feast! (He's got their number, that's for sure!)

Anyway, time to head into the kitchen. Tonight we're having venison stew, courtesy of ol' Davy Crockpot.

Also? It's supposed to snow again tonight! Brrrrr!!!!!

The Weather Outside Is Frightful!

2010-12-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Well! We've had some Adventures in Winter here in western NC!

Last week we had snow! And I mean SNOW!

I actually got snowed in and couldn't make it to work for several days. Noel, meanwhile, was busily tending to out of state matters and conveniently missed the mountains of snow piling up everywhere.

Anyway, it was exciting! And very pretty!! Here's our house with snow:

And here's the driveway:

They're calling for snow again this week, on Christmas day no less. And the 2 days after. And 4 days the next week. It's a good thing we have plenty of warm socks!

Not that it matters quite as much, because I don't have to get out to go to work anymore. My job at the college ended last week. I actually really enjoyed it. It was an inventorying job, which to some might seem tedious, but there were lots of interesting things to discover and neat people to meet. And being a community college with a wide range of academic offerings, I saw lots of bizarre stuff too:

Catheter mannequins (best not to ask on this one)
Suitcase of baby CPR mannequins
Dog skeletons
Bag of interchangeable....gender parts...for mannequins (that was an eye opener)
SWAT team training rooms, complete with scary plastic dude hiding in closet (yes, I jumped)
Huge wok oven in culinary building
Medical mannequins that look just like George Bush, Sr.
Chocolate fountain

Tons of stuff there. It was fascinating, really. I enjoyed it a lot, but the project finished successfully, so I'm out of a job!! Back to writing!

We here at Chez Cat Box are working hard to get in the Christmas spirit. We have 2 trees up, one is a regular tree with red & green ornaments, and the other is our black Elvis tree. This year we have a new tree topper, a red guitar with Elvis on it, brought to us from Graceland itself by my mom. Very cool. :)

The kitties have been enjoying the holiday spirit as well, as evidenced by the lack of ornanents on the bottom 2 ft of both trees. I actually caught Loki in the act last week, walking around with an ornament hanging from his mouth. He dropped it as soon as he saw me, or I would've gotten a picture.

Note to all cat owners (and probably small child owners as well): get unbreakable ornaments. They're worth it. We had glass ornaments in our decorations box, but didn't put them up. Which is obviously a good thing!

I've been working on presents quite a bit lately, mostly of the knitted variety. I can't show any of them because....well....no one's opened them yet. This year I made a concerted effort NOT to try to make a million things, because I just didn't have time and there's no sense in stressing yourself out for a holiday that's supposed to bring joy. I do not consider tendonitis a good gift.

One other way we've been getting into the Christmas spirit (spirit? ha!) is with Noel's newest favorite drink, Hot Buttered Rum. I don't think he'd ever had one before. They're GOOD.

So to get everyone else into the same holiday spirit (see? did it again!) here is my recipe:

Hot Buttered Rum (makes 1 - about 10 oz drink)

8 oz apple cider, heated up (I nuke it in the microwave while mixing everything else)

In a mug, mix:

1 1/2 oz of clear rum (Bacardi is good)
Spritz of lime juice
3 dashes to 1/8 tsp cinnamon (yes, this is a weird measurement, but hopefully it makes sense - add to taste)
3 dashes to 1/8 tsp cloves

Add 1/2 tbsp butter once spices are stirred in.

Pour hot cider over top, mix well til butter is melted. Top with a sprinkle of nutmeg, if desired. Drink while warm.

SOOO good.

My friend Lisa informed me a few weeks ago about peppermint mocha Kahlua, which we just bought yesterday and will be trying very soon (probably in coffee). Yum!

Anyway, guess it's time to get back to knitting again. So much left to do!

Thanksgiving Leftovers - Finally!

2010-12-07T15:14:00.001-08:00

So ok, I'm just now posting about Thanksgiving. We all know why, so I won't mention anything repetitive about crappy internet service, blah blah.

On to the food photos!!

We hosted Thanksgiving this year at our little house (the actual house, not the RV!). I decided that since we had such a small Thanksgiving last year (namely just us & the kitties), and this year we were having a pretty good crowd (8 in all) that we'd have a serious feast!!

Preparations started the night before, when I made the dressing & pies. It definitely made for an easier Thanksgiving day, having all that made in advance.

Our menu consisted of:

- Turkey (a whopper! 22 lbs!)
- Spiral ham (prepared by my mom)
- Dressing
- Gravy
- Creamed corn (out of the garden!)
- Fried okra (also out of the garden!)
- Vegetable casserole (thanks mom - very yummy!)
- Mashed potatoes
- Mashed sweet potatoes (yes, both. We *heart* carbs.)
- Cranberry salad (courtesy of mom too)
- Cranberry sauce out of a can (I slaved over that one)
- Biscuits and croissants (out of a can, I must admit, but that was by request of Noel, who loves canned biscuits)

Photographic evidence of the feast!

I forgot to take a picture of the ham & turkey before everyone dug in.

Did I mention this turkey was big? 22 lbs! Bigger than the cats combined!! (Also, we offered them a little piece of turkey and the snobs didn't want it. Guess they like their food a little more processed than that.)

For dessert:

- Pumpkin pie
- Sweet potatoe pie (mom brought this)
- Apple pie

(Not pictured, mom's pretty meringue covered sweet potatoe pie).

Ok, especially for Cima, let me put down a few quick recipes and such here.

First off, a great tip for cooking turkey - turn the oven to about 425 or so, then put the turkey in for about 5-10 minutes, then turn the temp down to 325 or 350, whatever you're roasting it on. The blast of heat at the very beginning kind of sears the skin so that it's extra juicy. If you have a turkey breast, you can even turn it breast side down for the first little bit, then turn it right side up so the juices are seared into the meatiest part of the breast. Works wonders, and this was the juiciest turkey ever! It was a honeysuckle white brand, and it was excellent.

My dressing recipe...isn't really a recipe. It's based loosely on my sister's dressing, which is really really good. I took some Pepperidge Farms stuffing mix (both regular & cornbread), poured a can of chicken broth over it in a big bowl, sauteed some onions & threw them in there (I don't like celery so I leave it out). I also put in a diced apple, roasted some sliced almonds and added those, and threw in some dried cranberries too. Why not? Add more water/broth if necessary to get it to the right stickiness so it'll hold together. Mash it into a greased casserole dish, cover with aluminum foil (keeps it moist) & cook for oh, 30 or so minutes until fragrant and golden brown on top. Very easy. You can use pecans or walnuts, and pears would probably be a good substitute for the apple too. Use firm fruit - otherwise they dissolve while baking.

Mashed sweet potatoes are super easy. Personally, sweet potato casserole (the kind with the marshmallows on top) is just too sweet for me. I like the potato part, but not the marshmallow frou-frou. So I peel & boil the potatoes just like for regular mashed potatoes, drain when soft, mash them up, and add some milk, some butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar and mix well. Obviously this is one of those Taste As You Go recipes, because everyone likes theirs sweeter or cinnamonier than other people.

Fried okra is a special delicacy of the south, and honestly I wasn't sure how many people at Thanksgiving would like it (we had several people who hadn't really eaten okra before!) I thought it added something really special that the okra came out of the garden. Made the whole Labor And Then Eat thing more real! I had frozen it straight off the plant, didn't even wash it, just stuffed it in freezer bags whole.

If any of you have ever tried cooking okra, you know how slimy this stuff can be. (Slimy on the inside, hairy on the outside - it's straight out of some kid's veggie nightmare). Here's a trick from my Aunt Betty: if using frozen whole okra, don't thaw it out. Wash it off so it's clean, but cut it right away. It's still slightly frozen on the inside so it isn't really slimy, and it's much easier to bread & cook that way!

For the okra breading, I take about equal parts cornmeal (the kind that's in a bag lke flour, not a cornbread mix!) and all-purpose flour. Add a dash of salt & pepper and mix it all together. Cut up your okra into slices about 1/3 to 1/2 of an inch thick, and dump into flour/cornmeal. No, you don't have to put it in milk or egg first. I said this stuff was sticky, and I wasn't joking! The breading will stick, no problem. Deep fry on medium heat until lightly brown. Okra is really good by itself, but also with ranch or ketchup (supposedly, for the non-purists out there). Drain it well to keep it from getting soggy.

I would give you my secret pumpkin pie recipe, but I don't have one. I used the one off the back of the Laura Lynn Canned Pumpkin can. It worked though! I wish I had written it down! Might have to go back and get another can, just so I have the recipe.

The apple pie? Um...well...get a pie crust, dump a can of apple pie filling in it, put another crust on top, crimp the edges, and draw a pretty picture with the end of a knife. Bake. Eat.

Oh, I can offer a helpful hint to those of you new to pie making though! If in the process of baking your pie, the edges of the crust start to look too dark, make a halo of aluminum foil to go over just the crust and it'll keep it from getting any darker.

So hopefully that's some helpful stuff there. We really enjoyed the day, it was gorgeous weather, and we stuffed ourselves silly. And managed to eat (and enjoy) leftovers for multiple days afterward!

That same weekend, we went to my mom's for pulled pork bbq. We know how to eat in this family. :) Then we went to the Grove Park Inn, an historic hotel in Asheville where all the hoity toits stay while in town. Most recent hoity toit? President Obama! Cool!

Anyway, every year they have a ginormous gingerbread house competition. It's amazing. We enjoyed it, even though it was a lot more crowded there than in previous years.

They had some spectacular entries:

These are GINGERBREAD HOUSES, y'all! Completely edible, except for the wood board they're sitting on. Go ahead. Gape. They don't mind.

I liked the old fashioned look of this one, with 4 different representations of St. Nick/Santa on it:

This one was the grand prize winner. Impressive (it was built as a set of nesting dolls), but honestly I liked some of the others better. Just my opinion.

Lisa, this one is for you (sorry it's blurry - took this picture through glass).

The whole hotel is decorated too, with lots of pretty trees all over, each with a different theme. They had some stunning ones, but this one was my favorite:

Gorgeous!

Too bad we couldn't have anything like that. I have a feeling two certain black cats we all know and love would mangle a fake bird into oblivion.

And they look so innocent...

Don't let them fool you.

Ready...Set...EAT

2010-11-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

May you enjoy the fruits of your labors from this past year.

We will be enjoying the turkeys of our labors. With gravy!

Why, Hello There!

2010-11-20T13:40:00.000-08:00

Long time no typing!

So there have been a lot of things going on here, and I haven't updated because we've been busy AND well, no internet. You know. No complaining.

First of all, Noel is back! He went to Corpus Christi for a week to work, and the job finished earlier than anticipated. So he's back! And we're very happy about it! 2 months is too long to be apart.

The irony being that he came home the weekend I had taken a trip to visit my dear friend Lisa in Pittsburgh!

(Yes, we did have wine & chips & queso dip for dinner. So what?)

Anyway, I do have pictures of Pittsburgh, and because I have a good internet signal (since I'm not at home right now), I'm going to do some major photo uploading. Yay!

This was my first visit ever to Pittsburgh, and I was really surprised! It's really different than I expected - I thought it would be a dirty industrial town, but it's full of parks, trees, and statues. Very pretty!

Beautiful foliage too!

Lisa took me to see some of the lovely classrooms at the University of Pittsburgh - they're all painted and decorated in the styles of different countries and cultures. As is my habit, I took pictures of the ceilings. Of course I did. Things in Sky.

Here's the Swedish room:

The Hungarian room:

The Greek room:

And the Irish room, which had gorgeous stonework:

Lisa's neighborhood is also very pretty:

I like her kitchen. Very Star Wars!

Here's Maddy (she and I took a nice long walk one day):

And Anna, sticking her tongue out at me:

We went to see the chapel on the campus too. Gorgeous!

And it had such impressive windows. I've never seen such tall windows!

Lisa, who knows me better than just about anyone on the planet, took me to the Carnegie museum. Because she loves me. First stop? She took me to the room that had this stuff in it:

Did I mention she loves me?

There was some awesome stuff there, like this smiling Virgin Mary & Jesus. So cheerful!

This guy was a little creepy.

Maybe a LOT creepy.

Look! Voldemort!

And how about this woman? Um...what is she doing?

So that's a quick review of my trip, and now Noel and I are going to go enjoy having dinner together! Thanks so much Lisa, Dennis, Maddy & Anna for a fantastic trip!

Just a Dustin'

2010-11-09T12:50:00.001-08:00

Well, the snow materialized, but barely. The kitties and I waited with baited breath for the imminent blizzard, but morning came and my car looked like it had dandruff. That was it. Actually, it did try to snow a bit more all day Sunday, which was exciting, but alas, no accumulation.

So, in good news, Noel is now in Corpus Christi, happy with the warmer temps. He wore a t-shirt yesterday! Without a coat over top! He'll be coming home in about 2 weeks. Can't wait to see him. Even the kitties miss him terribly. :-)

I'm going to visit my dear friend Lisa in Pittsburgh this weekend, leaving on Thursday. There will be wine. And an IKEA visit. YAY!

Pictures will be coming!!

Super fast update

2010-11-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

Gotta make this quick, while I have a signal!

1. Halloween costumes were a success. Pictures forthcoming!

2. Noel is leaving Utah this weekend, heading to Corpus Christi, TX for a short job, then home for Thanksgiving. Yay!

3. We may have a crowd for Turkey Day. Panic has been postponed until sometime around Nov. 18th.

4. IT'S SUPPOSED TO SNOW FRIDAY. I am overjoyed.

Ok, gotta go. Have a lovely day, y'all!

Bedknobs & Broomsticks (and Halloween costumes!)

2010-10-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

Everyone, think warm thoughts for Noel, who reports that Utah is currently getting snow. SNOW!

I'm kinda jealous. Even though Noel's NOT very happy about snow, seeing as (1) he's working at night, which is chilly, and (2) snow makes it chillier, usually. Poor guy. And no potato soup or chili or chicken & dumplings to warm him up. Sniff sniff.

(Also, as a side note, he's already requesting food for his Welcome Home meal, which isn't going to occur for another 4 weeks or so. The menu so far? Chicken & dumplings, homemade bread, biscuits, chicken cordon bleu, apple pie, and mashed sweet potatoes. Oh, and also fried okra. If he keeps thinking of new things for me to make, I'll need to start cooking next week.)

Coming up this weekend is one of my very favorite holidays: Halloween!

As usual, I was tasked with the honor of making my nieces' costumes. Today I mailed them off, and I don't have any pictures. But! My mom took some, and I'm sure my sister will take some as well. I'll post them asap! What were they? Oh dear reader, that's a surprise! Neither involved blue tentacles though. :)

Since the house we currently rent is a bit in the country, we probably won't have any trick or treaters. Which is kind of a shame, since that gives me the justification to buy (and frequently sample) bags of candy. I might have to taste test some anyway.

In order to get myself in the mood for costume making last week, I put up some decorations, which the cats immediately pulled down. I put them up in a different place, and they pulled them down again. At this point I decided that, being black cats, they themselves qualify as decorations, and left it at that. Instant Festivity! Just add Fancy Feast.

Decorations (or whining cats, as the case may be) can help with the whole Almost Halloween feeling, but you really need something extra. Personally, I love watching spooky/Halloween themed movies too, and so now the library thinks I have a toddler at home. My most recent rentals? It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown; Nanny McPhee; and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. That last one is so cute - Angela Lansbury is adorable.

I also rented Charlie's Angels too - not the movie. Oh no. The tv show - complete with high-waisted bellbottoms and mega-hair. HILARIOUS. Does it make me old to admit that I still want Jacquelyn Smith's hair?

Anyway, the Halloween costumes are done, the decorations are happily snoozing in front of the heater, and Angela Lansbury's about to singlehandedly defeat the Nazis.

So in the spirit of a little scare being good for you, I present a gratuitous Creepy Cow Photo:

Cuz this is THRIIIIILLERRRRRRR! THRILLER NIGHT! (cue dancing zombies)

Leaves A'Turning....

2010-10-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

Autumn has definitely arrived here in western NC! (If spring has sprung, has fall fallen?)

The leaves have started turning...

and the fall festivals have begun!

Mom and I went to the Lunsford Festival, a small but fun event in Mars Hill, NC, held a few weeks ago. There were lots of people selling handicrafts and such, and of course, there was food! And when I say food, I mean FOOD. The local baptist church was making bbq:

How's THAT for a cooker?

Also loved their t-shirts. Heh.

We saw some other friends working on stirring a big cauldron:

What's in it? Only one of the best things ever invented:

Homemade apple butter!! YUM.

If you've never had real apple butter, especially with homemade biscuits...well...I just kinda feel sorry for you. ;)

In other food news, my aunt and I went to a quilt show last weekend. There were some real beauties there.

There was even a seasonally appropriate quilt!

But wait...what do quilts have to do with food? Well, I'll show you!

This was an entry in their junior category. Fun!

I liked this one too - good 3D illusion.

This one is an embroidered quilt with manatees, which has nothing to do with food. Hopefully. It's just pretty.

Also this little square seemed appropriate. :)

Anyway, all this deliciousness over the past few weeks inspired me to dig out the ol' baking sheet. I decided to do chocolate chip cookies to send to Noel and my friend Lisa, as well as try out a new recipe for old-fashioned molasses cookies. These didn't look promising.

Eeew.

Thankfully, 10 minutes in the oven made all the difference in the world, and Lisa reported that she loved them for their yummy spiciness. Yay!

On another tack, Animal News! We have a new neighbor!!

Isn't he cute? I couldn't get a better picture because he runs into his burrow (which is right beside the driveway.) I was dorkily thrilled over having a neighborhood groundhog. :)

The boys are doing fine, enjoying the cooler weather, because that means space heater time! And they love their space heater. :) We've also been prepping for Halloween, which involves digging out the Halloween DVDs.

Poe loves Garfield.

Wild & Wonderful!

2010-10-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

HAPPY OCTOBER!!!

I'm tired of complaining about slow internet as an excuse for lack of blogging, so I'll skip it. You're welcome. :)

Update: Change that. This is my FOURTH attempt at posting this in as many days. Sigh. Just imagine, if it weren't for our miserable excuse for internet service, you'd be reading about what actually happened YESTERDAY, not 2 weeks ago. Oy.

So things are going well here in Chez Hairball, except we all miss Noel. He's still working his butt off in Utah, learning the importance of warm clothing in climates with huge temperature fluctuations, and the value of lotion in a low-humidity environment.

Here in NC, meanwhile, the kitties and I are enjoying the first crisp days of autumn. The leaves haven't turned yet, but I promise to take (and post!) pictures when they do!

2 weekends ago, my mom and I drove up to West Virginia to visit my dear grandmother and 2 of my aunts and their husbands. Now, some people give West Virginia a hard time, whipping out the duelling banjos song from Deliverance (although that movie was in Georgia, heh), and thinking generally it's full of...well...not much.

I heartily disagree. I have traveled much of this country (at this point 39 of the 50 states), and can say that West Virginia is unequivocally one of the most beautiful. Granted, I haven't seen North or South Dakota, Iowa, or Wisconsin. But barring the evil influences of cheese, I can't imagine they look anywhere near as stunning as WV.

I say this because (1) I encourage those of you who've never been there to drive through there one day, and (2) to make up for my photos, which are...dark and, well, really a bit colorless. It was a gray day for photos, very overcast, and these just don't do the state justice.

The motto for West Virginia is Wild, Wonderful. And they're right! You can drive through areas where there are no people. NO PEOPLE. No walmarts! No strip malls! No traffic jams! Just gorgeous indigenous forests festooning the rolling mountains as far as they eye can see.

We had a fantastic visit with family up there. So much so that I forgot to take out my camera. Oops! Thankfully my Uncle Jim loves to take pictures, and he promised to send me a CD with the ones he took. Then I'll pirate his pictures to put up here. (You can take 50% of royalties, Jim. That'll be about....$0. Sorry).

One fun thing about going to WV is that you have to go through 2 big tunnels to get there (at least the way we went). When my sister and I were kids, we would hold our breath through any tunnel we went through, because if you can hold your breath to the other side, you get a wish.

These tunnels make breath-holding a serious Olympian-sized challenge. These tunnels go through an entire mountain.

One is just under, and the other just over, 1 mile long. Impressive!

Also there's a buckwheat festival in the town where my grandmother lives. No, not the Little Rascal, the grain. They have rides, parades, and yummy buckwheat pancakes at the fire house to raise money. We missed the buckwheat festival by 1 weekend. Sigh. Mom was happy because there would be no traffic. I was devastated, because honestly? How often do you have firemen cook breakfast for you?

In addition to the impressively huge tunnels, West Virginians also boast the Western Hemisphere's longest single arch bridge! Bet you didn't know that! (Now you're ready go to on Jeopardy). It's called the New River Gorge Bridge, and it's impressive. Mom and I went to the scenic overlook to try to get a good view of it.

We walked toward the pedestrian walkway to the overlook:

Oooooooohhhh!!! Autumny!!! This will be a lovely little relaxing stroll through the woods.

Oh wait.

We sucked it up and went anyway, and the view was lovely! Here's the bridge:

And way down there is the little old bridge that the new one made obsolete.

Apparently it used to take people a long time to drive down into the gorge and back out again, and the new bridge has cut that time to just about 40 seconds. Here's a graph to show how tall the new bridge is:

You know it's big when your currency is National Monuments. :)

The scenery was really pretty from up there though. The leaves weren't really changing much there either, so at least my pictures weren't a total disaster.

We finished with our photo taking and saw something really scary:

The walk back up.

But we made it, throbbing thigh muscles intact. At least there was pretty scenery to look at!

We went to the visitors center too, and they had some quilts hanging up from the ceiling. Yay Team Quilting! So I took a few photos of them.

Then we saw this on the wall, and I thought y'all might appreciate. Enlarge if necessary, but I'll type what it says:

"Quilts made by slaves, free blacks, and Abolitionists were used as a means of secret communication on the Underground Railroad. Messages were hidden in plain view hanging from fences, clotheslines, and windows. Quilt patterns - including the use of specific colors, stitches, and pattern sequences - signaled escape, help, and safety.

The Monkey Wrench [top left corner] was displayed when an escape was being planned.

The Tumbling Blocks [top center] appeared when it was time to escape.

The Bear Paw [top right] signaled a proposed safe trail through the Appalachian Mountains.

The Shoo Fly [left middle row] signified a place to find clean clothing and take a bath. [Kelli: who says even abolitionist quilters didn't have a sense of humor?]

The Bow Tie [center middle row] meant there was a safe church in the area.

The Flying Geese [right middle row] pointed the direction to travel with a solid color band.

The Log Cabin pattern [lower left corner] with a black center block signified a safe house.

Drunkard's Path [lower center - my favorite quilt pattern] told runaways to zigzag and double back.

It is believed that in order to memorize the whole code, a sampler quilt was used. The sampler would include all the patterns arranged in the order the codes would appear.

Stitches and knots also played a role in the code. Stitches were placed to represent maps, and knots indicated a scale in miles.

The messages remained hidden in plain view until everyone planning to escape had completed the signaled task."

From: Hidden in Plain View - A Secret Story of Quilts & the Underground Railroad by J. L. Tobin & R. G. Dobard, PhD.

How incredible is that? I adore the idea of something so humble, so easily overlooked, as a handmade quilt thrown over a fence, being the beacon of hope that some poor soul was desperate to see to guide his or her way to freedom.

Baby Goats and Demon Cows

2010-09-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

The internet has not been my friend the past week. It's wavered between being interminably slow and entirely nonexistent.

However, the Web gods have smiled on me today because lo and behold, I actually seem to be able to access not only the blog, but even upload some photos!! Miracle of miracles, amen.

So this post is a bit of a rewind. Noel is still in Utah, working hard at his new job. The pics on this post are from the weekend before he left (which was 2 weekends ago) when we went to the Mountain State Fair!

We had thought we'd see a lot of animals at the county fair (where I, as a Blue Ribbon Knitter, took a victory lap around the cow pen). Well, we didn't. Not even a rooster in the Rooster Bingo cage. Sigh.

However, the state fair had TONS of animals, and sometimes tons of a single animal!

First off, the cuteness of a family of pigs. :)

(Note: we had bacon for breakfast that morning, but still I fawned over the piglets. I am perhaps a hypocrite.)

This was an interesting display. These oblong metal things? Are pig oilers. Yes, apparently even bacon needs slathering with grease. Just kidding. But not really, because these seriously are pig oilers. They're filled with burnt motor oil and pigs rub up against them, and apparently the oil keeps biting insects away from the pigs. Huh.

The cats are now working on designing their own version, which spits out kitty treats when they rub up against it. Patent pending.

This was one seriously happy Texas longhorn bull. Probably because it's not 197 degrees, like it is in Houston right now. "Hmm...hm...la la la....napping in the sun..."

Now, speaking of large mammals and Texas, remember our run-in with the Devil Cow, which despite Noel's protestations, I am convinced was considering eating us, heart and soul, with his Evil Teeth of Doom? And remember how I was so freaked out when we pulled up next to the fence containing said Devil Cow that I didn't want to stop to take a picture, for fear that looking into its Deep Black Eyes of Oblivion would forever seal a demon's pact for my innocent soul? Remember that?

Well, we saw his brother at the fair:

(Noel is convinced this cow is not evil. He's just not suspicious enough.)

*shudder*

Moving on!

How about some cuteness to combat the Forces of Bovine Evil? How about some baby goats?

They're so fluffy!

Side note (isn't this blog all sides notes?): they had baby bunnies at the fair. I petted one, and it licked my finger with its teensy little pink tongue, and I was in love and wanted to take this 4-inch long bunny with us, but was afraid that (1) the kittens would try to eat him, and (2) I would pet him so much his fur would fall out. So. The sad thing? I was so wrapped up in a gossamer blanket of adulation for this baby bunny that I totally forgot to take a picture. Whoops!

I did get a picture of a MONSTER bunny though! Any of you seen the Wallace & Gromit Wererabbit movie? This was the wererabbit. Has to be. You can't really tell from this picture, but this rabbit had to weigh 15 pounds if he weighed an ounce. HUGE. He was bigger than Loki. For reals.

Speaking of big stuff, some people must really lay on the Miracle Gro, because WOW:

Blue ribbon pumpkin, 736 pounds.

Blue ribbon watermelon, 195 pounds:

And I thought Cukezilla was big:

CREEPY!

There were stylin' old tractors:

And huge tractor things I really want to drive someday:

There's a huge arts & crafts competition for this fair, and sadly I didn't get to enter any items because I missed the cutoff dates. Of course, maybe it's better I didn't, seeing as this was the quilting competition:

Isn't this gorgeous? Done by a guy! It looks like a fancy Tetris quilt to me. Noel liked it too.

This one was also stunning.

And this was a Blue Ribbon winner. Most was probably done by hand, what with all those curvy seams. Impressive!

There was also some lovely knitting. Look at this:

Incredible.

We enjoyed some State Fair Health Food:

Oh yes, it was SOOOOO good.

We also saw a redneck zamboni:

HA HA HA HA! I have to admit, I said that same thing to Noel as I walked up to take this picture, and laughed so hard I snorted. hee hee.

Lastly, this is my favorite picture from the fair. There were lots of llamas in the competitions. Llots of llamas? Anyway, this is a prize llama, and she knows it.

Condescending attitude close-up:

Heee heee!. Don't hate her because she's beautiful.

Go West (again!) Young Man!

2010-09-14T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, you may have notice we haven't posted anything in about 2 weeks. We have a very valid excuse, trust me. We've been busily preparing for today.

Today is bittersweet. And frankly a little painful.

Today Noel left for a job in Utah. He'll be gone for about 2 months, and it's a wonderful opportunity for him. He's never been further west than we went in Texas, so he's definitely in for some gorgeous scenery on the way (yes, he's driving because he has to take all of his tools with him).

Why bittersweet then? Simple: he's going by himself. My job/home/cat obligations are keeping me here while he's going on this adventure, and let me tell you: it sucks. It's not only hard to have your best friend and significant other, with whom you spend pretty much every non-working moment, to suddenly be 3/4 of the way across the country. It adds to it that this is our favorite time of year - and autumn is so gorgeous in the mountains. I was looking forward to sharing it with him. He'll be seeing a different autumn this year - one full of golden aspen trees and probably a sprinkling of snow. The kitties and I will be experiencing the red and orange vibrancy of maples turning colors here.

We had the Autumn Feast this past weekend, since he'll be gone during the first day of fall. We stuffed ourselves, as usual. Hopefully we'll be together for Thanksgiving!

I'll post updates as he shares some of his adventures.

Bon voyage, Noel! I miss you already.

As the Cock Crows (or Poops)

2010-09-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

There were questions about Rooster Bingo, submitted by my dear Siswad, Rachel. Her questions basically can be categorized into one brief query:

"HUH?"

To which I say, "I dunno." I have never played Rooster Bingo, being of the camp that opposes animal-related gambling, unless the prizes are some kind of pastry. However. Based on the cage design, which looked like a bingo card painted on the floor with chicken wire around the sides, we surmise that Rooster Bingo involves either the rooster sitting on a particular spot, or leaving little Rooster Reminders on a number in the same vein as cow chip bingo (aka the national sport of Texas).

I am concerned for our monster porch tomatoes. It's getting chilly at night here, down to the mid-50s, and I fear that the Arctic temperatures are going to be the end of our tomato plants. The leaves don't seem to be perking up much, and the tomatoes don't seem to be getting any bigger. We may end up having fried green tomatoes by the time it's all over (well, Noel will, since I don't eat tomatoes except in sauce form).

My new job is going very well so far! It's an inventory project throughout the campus, so there's lots of interesting stuff to see (from cosmetology to computers to medical assisting). It's also nice to meet new people, and get some exercise. Writing can be fun (and lucrative) but also not so good for my waist size. I'm getting plenty of exercise at this job, and in fact may have Blue Ribbon thighs by the time this is all over.

All's Fair in Love and Knitting!

2010-08-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

So as some of you may know, I entered some things into the Madison County Fair, which took place last weekend. I put in my quilt, which (as I related in the last post) had no chance of winning anything. I also entered 6 knitted things, just to see what would happen.

Saturday, we went to the fair to see the action. Sadly, there were no pigs. Noel was very sad. BUT!

There was Rooster Bingo:

We walked around a bit, trying to see what there was to see. Not a ton was on display at the time, except for some cows, sheep, chickens, and horses.

However, excitement was forthcoming in the Arts & Crafts display area!

When we walked in the front door, what greeted us? My quilt!! Hanging on the wall!

I got a few steps into the building before I realized there was something hanging from the quilt, and then squealed when I saw it was a ribbon!!

I had won 3rd place in the hand quilting category!! Can you believe it?

We then went to check out the table with all the knitting on it, and my jaw dropped:

I had won ALL THREE KNITTING RIBBONS. I swept the category! Whoa.

1st place was for a turquoise shrug I made for myself, design by Stefanie Japel.

2nd place was for a baby sweater I made years ago, no idea on the pattern.

3rd place was for a wrap I knit for my mom, pattern by Lionbrand.

SO HAPPY. Poor Noel has had to endure hearing me call myself "blue ribbon knitter" for the past 3 days. Sometimes I call myself BRK for short. ;)

That afternoon was very rainy, so as a Blue Ribbon Knitter I decided to sit for a few moments of quality Blue Ribbon Knitting time on the porch. With a glass of Blue Ribbon Knitter's wine. (see how annoying this gets?)

Nice sittin' spot, huh?

By the way, our porch tomatoes are out of control:

(Held up by Blue Ribbon Knitting yarn, no less).

On Monday, I was able to go pick up my award winning stuff, and went by the fairgrounds. Imagine my surprise when I picked up my quilt, and the yellow ribbon was gone.

GONE.

And in its place? A bright RED ribbon - they had moved me up from 3rd to 2nd!!!

The quilt originally in 2nd was moved down to 3rd. Not sure why - illegal steroid use?

So, my total tally:

I entered 7 items, and 4 of them won. One 1st, two 2nds, and one 3rd.

Yay!!!

In other news, I started my job on Monday and am very much enjoying it. My coworkers are personable and nice, and the work is interesting. Can't ask for anything more!

Whence Cometh the Silence (and Lack of Posts Lately!)

2010-08-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

Things have been so hectic, but good, and thus I haven't blogged lately. For that I profusely apologize. Please forgive. In repentence, I hereby post some pictures and updates:

1. The garden is doing SOOOO well, we've been spending all our free time harvesting stuff. Well, ok, not ALL our free time, but we do spend a few hours a week in the garden, particularly in the rows of okra, which continue to produce quite a bit.

For those of you who've never grown okra nor seen it in The Wild (aka a cultivated garden), here's a picture I took the other day of some that I hadn't harvested yet:

See the okra pods there? In the middle of the picture is a flower pod that's getting ready to open up.

I've been harvesting the okra in long sleeves, pants, and gloves, and can happily report that after a week of obsessive scratching, the rash is finally going away. WHEW.

I've been freezing most of the okra, but last week I made a big batch of deep-fried okra. And we ate the okra. And it was good.

(Note: no picture of the fried okra, because...well, we were busy eating it. I'll do a tutorial on it next time, because yes, there will be a next time.)

While I've been busy with okra, Noel has been the Cantaloupe King. He's had to start rotating them gently every week, so they don't get bad spots on the bottom. His hard work has definitely paid off! We got 7 out of the garden yesterday alone! This was definitely the prize cantaloupe so far though:

Isn't it nice? And BIG!!

The cucumbers are finally dying down, but we still get a handful each time we head out to pick stuff. Our tomatoes are also steadily producing. We're very proud of our little garden. It's done very well!!

In other food-related news, Thank You Cima, for giving the Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe a try! So glad you enjoyed it!! It makes me feel good to know someone tries my little recipes. :)

By the way, I used the same technique the other day to make chicken parmesan, and it worked well too. YUM. Might have to make that for dinner tonight. Just bread the whole tenderloin, layer a spoonful of marinara sauce and some mozzarella cheese and bake for 20 minutes, then put over cooked spaghetti with sauce on top. Sigh. It's no wonder I'm not losing any weight.

2. In crafty news, I've been very busy there too - making lots of presents! 1 wedding, 1 housewarming, and 2 different expectant mothers. Lots to knit!

The project I posted a picture of a few weeks ago is still in progress, and I will post pictures when done (you're welcome, Rachel!). I saw something related to that project though, and took a picture of it:

This is part of the quilt squares project going on in this part of the world, where they paint photos of traditional quilt patterns and mount them onto the sides of barns. This is one of my very favorites, Drunkard's Path. (Although the design isn't quite scaled right, but we'll let it go).

Also, you guys may laugh, but I've already started making my Christmas gift list! It takes some planning when I want to make a lot of the stuff.

Note: it may not be so far-fetched to be making gift lists already anyway, because it's been getting down into the FIFTIES at night here!! Fall is coming!! YAY!

3. In other craft related news, I entered the Madison County Fair. It's this weekend. I entered my quilt and 6 knitted items, including 2 sweaters, a hat, a pair of hand warmers, a shawl, and a baby bib. I don't have a chance of winning any awards for the quilt, simply because this is the Land Of Quilts, and there will be people submitting quilts who've been quilting for twice as long as I've been alive. I hold out no illusions there. But the knitting....well, we'll just have to see. I'm excited to just have my things on display, if nothing else.

The fair is also having an Ugly Truck Contest. I will take pictures.

4. In other news, I got a job! A part-time job at a local community college, doing an inventory project. It's nice because it is part-time, and I can work on writing/sewing/knitting/designing/gardening in the afternoons. I'm very excited, because frankly being at home all day, writing and such, can make a gal feel lonely after a while.

Especially when this is who I have for company:

Heh. I loved this picture of Loki. He all Loungy McGrumpypants old man.

"Go get me a sammich, woman!"

I Itch, Therefore I Calamine.

2010-08-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

Things are in full harvest-mode around here!

In fact, they're so much so, that we went to a harvest festival last weekend - a Blackberry Festival!

It was tiny, but cute. Very good music!

We didn't buy any blackberry anything, even though we both like them. Oh well. Maybe next year, I'll make my own blackberry jam!

The okra has started ripening enough that I've gone out twice to harvest. I'll take pictures next time I go, so you can see how okra grows (if you've never seen it, which to be honest, I never had). Our okra plants are...fertile. I cut okra for about an hour a few days ago, and ended up with a basket full (this pic shows only a third of what I cut).

Also, I ended up with a bad itchy rash. Apparently okra and I disagree on a molecular level, and it has shown its genetic superiority to my pale, blotchy skin. I am now covered in calamine lotion from fingertips to elbows, and from now on will be harvesting said okra in long sleeves and gloves. And pants.

The cantaloupes are coming up like crazy! We have another in the fridge as I type, and probably a few more ready to pick tomorrow. Hooray!

I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to....

Cukezilla, the Cucumber Who Thinks He's a Watermelon:

I honestly stood there in the garden thinking it was a zucchini for a minute, til I remembered I didn't plant any zucchini.

In other food related news (which seems to be all I'm posting about lately!), I have a new recipe to share with everyone!

Kelli's Super Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu!!

(Chicken cordon bleu is one of my very favorites, and this has become a household fave too).

(My dear vegetarian friends may want to avert their eyes from the following pictures. Carnivores, stare away.)

Ingredients

Frozen chicken tenderloins (or boneless breasts), thawed
Sliced ham for sandwiches
Sliced Swiss cheese
Shake & Bake, parmesan herb flavor

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a casserole dish (I use the spray stuff).

2. Dip one side of tenderloins in Shake & Bake, and place crumb side down in dish.

3. Layer a piece of ham over each tenderloin.

4. Place a layer of Swiss cheese over the ham.

5. Spray the cheese with the Pam greasing spray, and cover with the rest of the Shake & Bake.

6. Cook for 20 minutes or until chicken is done.

7. Stuff yourself.

I'm wondering now, if this type of meal wouldn't work for vegetarian dishes too - eggplant comes to mind. Hmmmm.....

In other randomness, we're acting as foster parents to Noel's sister's dog, who needs a good home with lots of room to run and other animals for her to play with. Her name is Sable, and she's an 8-month old husky/Australian shepherd mix.

She has a lot of personality! And energy!

Anyone need a friendly dog? Just let me know!!

Of Pickles and Melons

2010-08-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

Happy August, everyone, and a very Happy Birthday to my dear sister!

(This is the post I wrote yesterday, by the way, that wouldn't upload - so if you see "today" think "yesterday" and also "Kelli is too lazy to change the post.")

Here in the Land of The Garden That Keeps on Giving, we've been busy putting away veggies, both by preserving (either canning or freezing) or by eating. We've been doing a LOT of eating.

Oh, and a lot of shucking.

I've put away over 80 ears worth of corn (mostly on cobs, but some as creamed corn). My mom came over and we also made some corn relish. Also, I got diligent one day and made more pickles, with Noel's help.

Important Safety Note: When you have a hot pot boiling on the stove, don't squirt rubbing alcohol on the stove top to clean it.

Why? Because THE STOVE WILL CATCH ON FIRE.

Ask me how I know this.

We've gotten over 200 cucumbers out of the garden, and the vines are still producing.

Our tomatoes are now finally turning red too, although some are holding back (these are roma tomatoes):

Aren't they a gorgeous color?

The okra is finally starting to pod as well, and it has lovely huge blooms on it.

Who knew that okra is pretty enough to be put in a floral bouquet?

The cantaloupes are also growing! We've got quite a few of them coming up in the cantaloupe patch.

(Just calling it a cantaloupe patch tickles me - makes me feel like Linus, except I'm waiting for the Great Melon. Not to be confused with Dolly Parton).

Today, surprisingly, we had a ripe one already! We went ahead and got it out of the cantaloupe patch (sorry, I just like saying that).

Yeah, it was huge. Don't be afraid. It won't hurt you.

I was worried it wouldn't actually be ripe on the inside, but if anything it was over ripe! Still, it tasted good.

Also, incidentally, I think we accidentally invented the Single Serving Cantaloupe. Now taking orders!

And not specifically garden-related, but still Growing Things related, we have been graced with that loveliest of wildflowers, Queen Anne's Lace:

This one was particularly striking, like a lacy snowflake!

Interspersed with the lace, there was a nice juxtaposition of something prickly - Scottish thistles! (Ok, they might not actually be SCOTTISH, but they look like Scottish thistles, and Noel and I both have Scottish blood, so therefore we're going to go with it.)

In other news, I've been working on some new crafting/art projects. I don't want to show too much yet (I'm hoping to get these into some area shops, and don't want to give away my ideas!), but this should give you a taste of what's in store (or hopefully soon to BE in store!):

Anybody own a gift boutique out there? :)

Slow Internets Always Bring Me Doooooownnnnnn

2010-08-10T22:38:00.001-07:00

So I wrote this massively long post with lots of pictures, and I can't get the pics to upload because my internet connection is so painfully slow.

Tomorrow I will be in town and can get a signal there. Yay pictures!

In a Pickle

2010-07-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

As promised, a brief photo tutorial on how to make pickles, from me, the World's Most Renowned Pickle Making Novice (who has not yet actually EATEN one of her own pickles, so they might taste like burnt dog hair. But at least it will be well-seasoned burnt dog hair with mustard seed and such).

First off, you have to have cucumbers. Which, it has been established, we are officially swamped by. And a recipe. I used a bread & butter pickle recipe from the Joy of Cooking, the greatest cookbook ever.

Cut the cukes into slices, add some sliced onion & green pepper. Cover with some pickling salt, and use highly technical equipment to press down on the veggies while they sit in the fridge overnight.

This is a technique particular to those of Italian descent. It's kinda like a coffee press, except you use beef ravioli. Fancy!

The next morning, your cucumbers are shrunken down a bit and look like pickles!

Note: you are not done at this point. Oh not by a long shot.

After rinsing the salt off of your pickles, gather your canning equipment. This includes jars with lids and bands, which must be washed before using.

You have to keep the jars warm so that they won't crack when you put the hot pickles into them, so I kept mine in the sink in hot water.

Mix the recipe for the sauce/pickle liquid. This recipe calls for cider vinegar, LOTS of sugar (both brown & white), turmeric (which turns everything yellow so wear black clothes), mustard seed, celery seed, and a little cloves or cinammon. I used cloves. You bring this mixture just to a boil, then start adding in your cucumbers. Heat just until it's boiling, then take it off the heat. It looks pretty good at this point, and actually smells like bread & butter pickles. That's a good sign!

Do not yet eat the pickles.

Next you start filling the jars, leaving a bit of room at the top for the vacuum sealing. You have to wipe the tops of the jars really well so that the lids can get a good seal. This is important because otherwise the pickles could develop botulism, and everyone who eats your pickles would die. This generally is not seen in a favorable light, and likely you won't be invited to your next family reunion. Nor asked to cook again. Ever.

Put the lids on, and then put the jars into the canner. This was the one piece of equipment I didn't have, so I did the best I could. Essentially you boil the jars so that the contents get hot enough to (1) seal really well, and (2) kill any remaining bacteria. Because we're at a higher elevation here, I boiled them for 25 minutes.

Pull out the jars and let them rest on a towel. Don't mess with the lids for at least 12 hours, or better for 24. If the lids at that point flex when you push on the top of them, they haven't sealed right, so you have to do the sealing part again.

Fortunately, mine did seal properly. I got 10 jars out of this batch, and will most likely be making more again sometime soon. Very soon. The cucumbers are already growing back!! Where's the Wererabbit when I need him?

A Tale of Two (hundred) Veggies

2010-07-27T08:45:00.001-07:00

What have we been up to lately, you may ask? Gardening!

Our garden looks lovely, if I do say so myself. It's very lush and full, and it's producing like CRAZY.

Isn't it pretty?

My Aunt Betty gave us some of her corn, fresh off the stalk. Yum. We had some for dinner last night.

We also got our first tomato off of the vines on our porch! Yay!

It's pretty, even if I don't eat tomatoes myself. (Note: I love them in sauces and such, just not by themselves and not raw. Noel will eat them like apples.)

AND. One of the most exciting things is this!

A baby cantaloupe!! Isn't it adorable? We have at least 7 or 8 of them, but this was one of the bigger ones. I did find another that was bigger, but it wasn't easily photographable. I have to pick my way really carefully in order not to squish anything. I'm hoping these will do well and be ready to eat in about 2 weeks or so.

But our biggest crop? Remember last Friday's massive 43 cucumber harvest? Yesterday I went and picked FORTY-SEVEN more. We are DROWNING in cucumbers right now!

Even the kitties are feeling concerned about the sudden influx of cucumbers. Poe investigates a wayward cuke:

Loki goes in for a sniff:

Then attacks the encroaching cucumber hordes! GRRRR!!!!

(No cucumber was harmed in the filming of this post.)

I've started a batch of homemade bread and butter pickles, and will take pictures of that process as it progresses. I've never done it before, so they might end up tasting like burnt dog hair, but we won't know until we try, right?

Sayonara & Send Off

2010-07-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Today's the last day of Katie's visit. We've had busy and fun time - we went to the Biltmore Estate last weekend. We toured the house (I posted pics of the house a while back when we went with Mom) and this time decided to explore the grounds a bit more. They have a new area built out of the original horse barn that hosts a living history museum. We saw a blacksmith at work, some bluegrass singers, and a farm where you could go check out animals. I petted the sheep. Of course. They also had some really fab roosters:

Stylin'!

We also did some sight-seeing around the area in Tennessee where Noel grew up, and where I snapped this pretty church steeple.

Thing In Sky!

Katie has had an eventful trip. She's learned to sew, crochet, drive a car, and make banana pudding. Oh yeah, and garden!

We've had some success with the cucumbers.

A LOT of success. This was what we picked today alone - a total of FORTY-THREE cucumbers.

We're considering hosting a Cucumber Eating Contest. Otherwise I don't know how we'll get through all of these!

Ach! We be flingin' heavy things!

2010-07-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we paid a visit to the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games.

There were a few people there.

In fact, there were so many people there, you have to park in a nearby town and they bus you up to the top of the mountain. You could only park on the mountain if you were camping there, and THOUSANDS of people had decided to do so, because there were thousands of tents. And even a few RVs!

Riding a schoolbus up a windy gravel road full of switchbacks? Slightly harrowing.

It was in a gorgeous location though, and the mountains in the background made it feel authentic.

We saw lots of stuff! Katie found out some about her family clan, and they even gave her a free pin.

Also, just so you know, she finished her dress in time to be able to wear it that day. Didn't it turn out nice?

We saw sheep herding, and yes, there was also yarn for sale but I am An Oak and didn't buy any. (Thank you, applause not necessary.)

There were highland dancing competitions:

We particularly enjoyed the heavy athletics, including the hammer throw:

Did I mention the hammer weighs about 50 lbs?

The guy who won this threw it so far that it was coming close to the highland dancing tents. Which would've made for an interesting new sport: Highland Hammer Dodge And McScream-a-thon.

Our favorite though (and probably the hands down favorite of the entire crowd) was the caber toss. This is where a humongous dude, about the size of an industrial refrigerator, picks up and throws a telephone pole end over end.

No really.

These guys were HUGE.

I liked this picture, even though it was a complete accident - I was so focused on the guy to the right, picking up the caber, that I didn't notice the bagpiper had walked into frame. Hey - I'll take it!

This dapper gentleman is the chief of his clan (don't ask me which one - I didn't notice). You can tell because he has 3 feathers in his cap. I met my clan's chief (at the national level) as well. Go Clan McIntosh!

Of course, we had to partake of the oh-so-healthy Scottish food (this is how those refrigerator guys get so big): meat pasties (pronounced paast-ees, not paste-ees like a burlesque dancer, and not pastries, like in France). Pasties are essentially dough, either of the shortbread or puff pastry varieties, stuffed with seasoned meat, potatoes, peas, and gravy. They are GOOD. Noel & Katie had chicken ones, I had beef. Then for dessert, we had a scone with strawberries & cream on top.

Note that no photographs of food were taken. This is because I was busy stuffing my face. Some things will not be sacrificed for journalistic integrity. :)

We even had a celebrity sighting. Heh. Love the tartan vest.

Ach! That twere a fun day!

Kids in Review

2010-07-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

So obviously, as you may well imagine, we've been busy here at Chez Cat Box, what with Noel's kids in town, work, visiting family, national holidays, etc. Thus I hope it is with tender heart that you look upon my lack of recent blogs as a testament to my dedication to a satisfying visit for said kids.

But! I decided to take time out of our busy hot dog/movie watching/yarn related adventures to write this morning, so you wouldn't send out the National Guard because you assumed we had fallen into a sinkhole or something.

First of all, we had a nice 4th of July. The town we live in currently, Mars Hill, is tiny and had a darling little celebration at the recreation park, complete with live bluegrass music, the VFW raffling off exciting prizes (gas cans! hair cuts!) and even sack races.

(That's one of Noel's daughters in the turquoise scarf).

They ended the night with an impressive fireworks display, and all-in-all we felt like this was the little slice of Americana that Martha Stewart would love to organize, except the prizes would evolve into organic mushroom farming equipment and antique handmade tobacco baskets. Much less useful than a gas can, I must admit.

We also paid a visit to Marshall, a very small town near Mars Hill (got them straight?) for Friday night bluegrass and dancin'. The kids weren't quite sure what to think at first, so Noel and I got up and cut a rug (and even were applauded!). After that, there was no holding them back (except for Noel's son, who isn't the dancing type, I suppose). The girls had a great time, and even got my mom up there dancing. Here's Noel and Katie:

They had a blast. We were told we simply must come back another time, and we agreed. There was an 82 year old woman sitting beside me who told me we had good dance moves, and I looked down to see that she was wearing tap shoes (used for clogging here, since they make noise). We thought it was fantastic when she got up and danced too. At 82! I hope I have that kind of energy at 72!!

The other 2 kids went back to Virginia last weekend, but Katie opted to stay for another few weeks. She's busy, you see, learning all kinds of handy skills here, like sewing:

(She's making a dress and it's almost finished!). She's also learning to crochet, and she's been a great help in the garden, which is growing very nicely:

We have blooms on our cucumbers and a ton of them on our cantaloupes! And we have baby tomatoes, and impressive basil, and the okra is coming along slowly but surely. It would help if we could get some rain. As it stands, we've been having to water every week, and Katie's been jumping up to help with that. She's embraced the garden with gusto. Literally:

Katie *hearts* dirt. :)

She couldn't go into the house this way though, so Noel rinsed her off. Did I mention we have well water that comes out of the tap cold enough to drink? Heh.

We have a barn (yes, we really do). It's small and dilapidated, but we do have a barn next to our house. And just to add an extra touch of authenticity to it all, a family of stray cats moved into the barn. But they weren't content to live IN the barn. Oh no, they decided that they'd also annex the porch of the house. It was a mom and 4 kittens, although we think one of the kittens didn't make it because it disappeared one day. Very sad. The mom appears to be a manx, because she has no tail. 2 of the kittens also were black & white with no tails, and the other 2 were fuzzy with tails.

Anyway, I just couldn't interrupt them while they were nursing, but afterwards, we started spritzing them with water to keep them off the porch.

I know what you're thinking: But Kelli, you are a cat LOVER. You have 2 cats that are spoiled beyond belief! To wit:

However, it is in part because of these spoiled black kitties that rule the household that we needed to encourage the strays to move on. See, strays have potentially lots of disease problems, fleas, etc. and we don't want those things passed on to our kitties. So as mean at it might sound, we tried to get them to move on. Which they did, after only 2 days of spritzing with the water bottle when they came on the porch. This is much better than the alternatives that are sometimes employed, which I won't get into because they're cruel. At least they can live out their kitty lives in the wild, hunting bugs and mice and sunning themselves. :)

Also, the mom would try to come in the house when we opened the front door. Also, Noel was afraid if I had to stare at those darling little kittens much longer, I would be naming them and taking them to the vet for shots, and then it would be all over.

In other Country Living news, we have squash that was given to us by various sources. Apparently everyone we know is having a bumper crop of squash this year, and we have thus far reaped the benefits. However, I had no idea really what to DO with squash that didn't require breading and frying each individual slice of one. Our landlord came to the rescue with a recipe for Squash Fritters!

They are so healthy.

Can you feel your arteries clogging just LOOKING at this picture? Yeah. They were good.

So that's a not-so-brief update of what's been going on here. I've been doing a lot of writing, as well as working on stuff for my Etsy shop (which I will announce when it's all ready).

Here's your artistic photo for the day: