Someone searched on “Caramel Apple Jam” last night. If you’re looking for the recipe, it’s here (I used to link to it on Suzanne McMinn’s forum, but that link no longer works and I can’t seem to find the forum post). If you’re looking for where to buy the Caramel Apple Jam I’m selling, that page is here.
I finally got around to making a batch of Caramel Apple Jam yesterday, and I used my new Dutch Oven instead of the cheap and crappy pot I’ve been using, and I have to say that the dutch oven heated so much better and more evenly, that it took me about half the time to make the jam. It was nice to have a batch cranked out by breakfast!
In my comments yesterday, Catsy said: What brand and shade of hair color do you have Fred put in your hair? Nance looks great in her new color, doesn’t she? I was hoping for a photo of you. Hydrox is a keeper; his little size was a surprise to me, too.
I use L’Oreal 5CB “Medium Chestnut Brown”. Then underneath, it says “warmer”; I’m not sure what that means. For some reason it came out a lot redder than last time, I’m not sure why.
Please note that the past week of 6 hours of sleep a night because I get up at 4:30 to feed baby kittens is catching up with me and making me look OLD. Also making me look OLD: the fact that I am OLD.
Yeah, Nance looks awesome, damnit. That looks like a salon job, doesn’t it? Rick will probably demand we start calling him “Monsieur Ree-chard” from here on out.
(I took French 1 & 2 when I was in high school (I can still count to 10 in French!), and there was a girl in my French 2 class who pronounced “Monsieur” like “Mon-sewer” and it used to drive my French teacher NUTS but I think of that girl every time I see the word and it makes me smile.)
The other day we switched the Cookies from the ferret cage they were in, to the other cage we have. The bars on the cage they’re in now are vertical so they can’t climb them. The ferret cage has horizontal bars, so the little monsters were climbing the bars and then diving off them, only there was no mosh pit to land in. I was worried they’d crack their little noggins open, and no one wants to have to clean up Cookie noggin from the bottom of the cage.
(I suspect that if one of the Cookies cracked their noggin open, marshmallow fluff would come puffing out. Except for Hydrox, who’s a genius, and I’ll get to that in a moment.)
So I took the ferret cage into the kitchen and wiped down the bars of the top of the cage. Then I put the base of the cage across the sinks, and ran hot water into it, and dumped ammonia into it. When there were several inches of water, I began scrubbing the bottom of the cage.
I wasn’t wearing gloves.
Have I ever mentioned that when you bottle feed baby kittens, your hands get absolutely shredded? I’ve tried wearing gardening gloves when bottle feeding, but they just don’t give me enough dexterity. So plunging my half-shredded hands into a mixture of ammonia and hot water REALLY stung.
Not one of the smarter moves I’ve made. I’d like to say that I won’t make that mistake again, but please – I think we all know I will, and I’ll be super surprised at how much it stings next time, too.
So, this is how Hydrox is a genius:
1. As I went in to feed the kittens this afternoon, all the others were trying to fit their faces through the bars or climb the bars. Hydrox sat back and looked consideringly up at the latches because HE KNOWS how the door opens. I give it three days ’til he’s figured out how to balance on the other kittens and push the latch back so he can open the door.
2. There was a lot of pee in the litter box, so I didn’t worry about pottying them before feeding them. Then after everyone had eaten, I was pottying Blue, and Hydrox came over and sniffed at the pile of paper towels, squatted down, and peed next to them. (True genius would have been going into the cage to use the litter box, but he’s got those short, stubby legs and that huge belly hindering him).
3. He PLAYED WITH A TOY last night. None of his siblings have any idea what toys are, but Hydrox totally looked at the toy I put down in front of him, smacked it with one paw and then waddled off to look for food. GENIUS.
Speaking of Hydrox, I keep meaning to mention this: Fred wanted to name him E.L. Fudge. When I said “Yeah, except that everyone will misread his name and call him “El Fudge”, Fred laughed and said “Even more perfect!”
Paws up, y’all!
Waiting patiently for the petting.
“Kind lady, I will clean MY OWN FOOT, there’s no need to use obscenities. “Bath” indeed!”
“I SAID I WILL CLEAN IT MYSELF THERE IS NO NEED FOR A BATH IN THE SINK. UNHAND ME!”
“What?”
“PLEASE HELP ME THEY ARE SQUOOSHING ME!”
Snoozin’ Hydrox. That boy can sleep like nobody’s business, and then he comes awake all of a sudden and wants to know where the food is.
Lap full o’ kittens.
“I YAM A FEARSOME BEAST!”
Off I go to drop Sookie and Terry at the adoption center. I hope they remember Lafayette and Bill and are happy to see them. I hope they (all of them!) get adopted quickly. I hope they aren’t scared.
Jake and Elwood are going to miss those two something fierce. We’ve had the True Bloods longer than we’ve had Jake and Elwood! They practically grew up together, and now Jake and Elwood will be wondering where their brother and sister went.
I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight. I’ve gotten used to Sookie sleeping on one side of me and Terry sleeping on the other, making it absolutely impossible to turn over without dislodging one or the other and causing a litany of complaints from the injured party requiring much petting and kissing.
Ugh. I HATE THIS PART SO SO SO MUCH!
Fingers crossed that they get adopted super fast!
(I’ll see if I can’t snap a picture or two of Lafayette and Bill while I’m there!)
Jake the Smug.
Previously
2008: Sulking and doing nothing is greatly helped by a sweet little litter of fluffy kittens, if you were curious.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: I’m sorry, but “Sell yourself to me” is Interviewer-speak for “I’m too lazy to come up with a real question, so try to answer this stupid-ass question I read on a bad interview webpage somewhere or perhaps even pulled directly from my ass.”
2004: I cannot stand this song. I cannot stand this video. I am filled with extreme hatred every time I happen across either the song or the video.
2003: We went to see Miss Saigon on Sunday.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: The man drove two hours to spend one hour with his grandchild and then drove two hours back. How cool is that?
1999: May I say that the child gets an UNGODLY amount of presents.
Good luck to Sookie and Terry! I hope they (and Lafayette and Bill) get adopted soon.
Hydrox is quite the character. I love it when kittens start showing their personalities.
Hi Robyn! I’m thinking the reason your hair came out more red this time is because of the ‘warm tone’ indicated on the box. Warm tones are more red-based, and cool tones are more ash-based.
I am totally infatuated with Hydrox. He is absolutely the SMARTEST KITTEN EVER.
And that lap-o-kittehs looks like a bundle of heaven.
I didn’t know that – ya learn something every day! 🙂 Thanks, Leanne!
I like that first kitteh raisin’ the roof!
Her paws in the air ’cause she just don’t care! 🙂
I went to a kickball game on Sunday and it was Halloween themed. There were two guys dressed up as Jake and Elwood. I of course, thought of the kitties! Those guys weren’t nearly as cute as the kitties.
Also, my husband told me a story of when he was younger having also said back to his mother..”I’m bein have!” LOL cracks me up every time i hear it.
Hugs to you Robyn…. I don’t know how you are able to give them up. But think of the all the other little ones who need your lovin’ and as soon as space is available they will be moving right in to be fostered.
El Fudge is perfect!
I love Jake’s smile in that picture.
Please get adopted fast, kitties!
Here’s hoping they all get adopted soon, and that you get pix of the other two today.
Hydrox is adorable; he reminds me of my last tuxedo kitty, the only survivor of a litter of 7. I was so afraid she wouldn’t make it, I just called her “Kitten.” And that became her name.
As for the ‘bein have’ comment, I have a funny story about my nephew. When he was little, he had some money from his piggy bank and my sister took him to the store to spend it. When they got to the counter, the checker rang it up and told him the total. He said that wasn’t right. And she said, “That includes tax.” He said, “I didn’t want any tax.” LOL
We still kid him (he’s 22 now!) about that today!
I think I was about 12 before I realized that “behave” was one word and that “hayve” (pronounced with the long A) was not a way to be.
We were a military family, as well, so we always lived in the housing areas on the various posts/bases – I figured out “behave” at about the same time I realized that “housing area” was two words, and not “housinary” as I’d always heard of it. Two words (be hayve) turned out to be one, but one word (housinary) turned out to be two, so it all evened out.
And to put that all in perspective, I argued with my mother over “housing area” – “yes, housinary, where all the houses are – like an aviary is where all the birds are, or bestiary is where all the beasts are!” I knew words like “aviary” and “bestiary” but was still unclear on the housinary and whether or not a given activity would count as hayving.
I say you should keep Hydrox. What’s one more? He will be the brain trust of the whole group.
El Fudge
I’m just sayin’, another name for a candy theme.
And something I’ve been drifting back to over and over in the last few weeks, so what the hell… I just hope this comes off in the spirit in which it is intended and not as an assy question. (Remember: I was traumatized by kitten-in-pain dreams last night! Go easy on me!)
I didn’t read you for very long prior to your move to Crooked Acres, so I don’t know what your eating/cooking/food/activity habits were like then. But I am constantly amazed now to read about all the cooking and various types of food prep you do – canning, freezing, etc. (My hand to God, I thought about making toast for breakfast the other morning but it was just too much work. You made homemade jam before breakfast. That broke my brain.) And then of course there’s all the activity and exertion that comes with managing the various animals and grounds – sloppin’ the hogs, feeding the chickens, fighting off the turkeys, herding the cats, all that.
Meanwhile, one of the doctors I work for has just talked a patient out of having weight reduction surgery because – in addition to her having several existing medical conditions which make her a bad candidate for any kind of surgery – he said that there are some indicators that it’s not the permanent fix that people think it will be, that five or more years after surgery a lot of people have regained a significant percentage of the weight they lost.
Now, I don’t know whether or not that’s true, but its accuracy is irrelevant to what I’m thinking about. Which is this: Do you think, if you had moved to Crooked Acres without having had the WLS, that your new lifestyle would have resulted in significant weight loss over time, and the maintenance of that weight loss? Or do you think that you wouldn’t be able to do the things you do now without having lost the weight in the first place? (Or something completely different..?)
I often think that if I could change one or two habits, that would make me healthier enough to then change one or two more, and then… – but I wonder, in your particular case, which you think is more of a cause and which is more an effect – or if you think there’s a cause/effect thing at all.
Sorry if this makes no sense, feel free to delete. I never can get the hang of brevity.
That’s an interesting question, Elayne – and one I’ll save for Friday! 🙂
Jake hets me and I love it!
Hey! I have a great hair coloring tip. At least it works well for me. Use 2 colors — one and then one that is a little lighter. Use one color first, work it through your hair; then put the 2nd one on, working it through your hair. The result is some hightlights through your hair instead of one solid color. It looks more natural. If you try it, let me know how it comes out for you. I also use hair coloring from Sally Hansen, the type that washes out. I did my hair this weekend, and it came out so purty!
Love the kitty pics!
Every time I do anything to my hair it turns red.
Those kittens are without a doubt the most precious ever.
E L Fudge is a cookie 🙂 A good one.
So being the creature of habit that I am I settled in front of my computer, coffee in hand and pressed the link to Bitchy Poo. NO POST.. NO POST!! Worried about what (cat)astrophe might have happened. Tried you later in the day. NO POST! Just clicked you again now (6 at night) and remembered. Robyn is not posting here on Wed’s.
Bet I am not the only reader who did the same!!
See you over at Love and Hisses 😉
Wondering what happened to the vote thingie for the Sam-E gig? Do you want us to keep voting or are you not interested in it anymore? I just clicked to vote and the leader has twice as many votes as you now and quite a few have jumped ahead. I want you to be a famous swear-by-vitamins blogger! heh
I basically lost interest – the voting is just dragging on and on and on. And I feel like I’m spread thin blog-wise as it is. I say throw your votes in for Suzanne McMinn, I’d love to see her get the gig! 🙂