11/28/11 – Monday

Here’s a teaser for those of you who have read (and liked) Fred’s writing. He put his latest novel on hold to write this longer-than-a-short-story-shorter-than-a-novella piece of fiction about the holes (longtime readers will remember the holes.). He’s classified it as a horror story, and from what I’ve read, I agree.

He’s going to release it later this week, hopefully, and it will be available for the Kindle, the Nook, and just about every other reader out there at a cost of 99 cents.

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Time to let me know if you want a holiday postcard! (And yes, of course I’m happy to send cards to other countries!) Send your name and mailing address to hollydays@gmail.com .

I’ll take names and addresses until December 20th.

If you’d like to send me a card as well (never ever required, but always appreciated – I don’t keep track of who does and doesn’t send a card, I promise!), send it to: Robyn Anderson, PO Box 461, Athens, AL 35612 USA.

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I know we’re running full-tilt into the holiday season and a lot of people are tight for cash, but there are a couple of sweet kitties who could sure use your help if you have a little to donate.

The first kitty is one who was found half-dead in a gutter and rescued by a good samaritan. When the vet examined this sweet guy, he found that the cat was microchipped. When the owners were called, they reported that the cat was “acting sick,” so they put him outside. What is WRONG with people?! He’s currently being cared for by City Kitties in West Philadelphia. You can see pictures of him here.

The second kitty is Lily. She was found Thanksgiving weekend, dumped off in the country. There was an injury to one of her legs, and a trip to the vet showed that the injury was caused by Lily being SHOT. Again, I say to y’all: What is WRONG with people?! Her leg is full of shrapnel and very well might need to be amputated. She’s not being cared for by a rescue, but by some people who have fallen in love with her and are planning to keep her. Her care will cost in the area of $2,000, so if you can help out (I always say it, you know it’s true – every little bit helps!), you can read more about Lily here, and about how to donate, here.

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In case you missed it, I posted a couple of short videos on Saturday, declaring it “Kitteh Video Saturday”, though probably I could have shortened it to “Video Caturday” and gotten the meaning across. I don’t know yet if it’s going to be a regular thing or not. I do have some video that I thought was gone forever in the Computer Crash of (Fall) 2011, but as it turns out, I had backed it up to Carbonite. So now I have to stitch the videos together and edit them (they’re of Snackin’ Time when all the Peppers were still here, and I was attempting to show how it was a complete madhouse, but also how well-trained the Peppers were, so it’s kind of long), so maybe I’ll post that next Saturday. Or maybe not. We shall see!

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I spent a good part of the weekend decluttering and organizing around here. It started Saturday, when I thought I’d clean out and straighten up the pantry. I figured that would take about 10 minutes, then I’d go take a nap on the couch. Two hours later, I was finally done, and I have to say that I did a kick-ass job. I also found out where the pantry flies were congregating (a couple of packages of tortillas) and got a bunch of stuff set aside for the chickens. I decided that it’s time to stop buying rice in bulk, because (1) we hardly ever eat rice and (2) there are TWO of us, and thus we don’t need that much pantry space devoted to rice.

I swear, it feels like I clean out the pantry at least every three months, and yet somehow I still find packages of food that are at least two years old and need to be tossed out.

Also on Saturday, Fred and I moved the dresser (which he doesn’t use) from his room to mine so that we could set up his desk in the cubby in his room (I’ll try to remember to take pictures at some point). This works out well because he doesn’t actually use that dresser; his clothes are in the closet and the dresser in the guest bedroom (he prefers the downstairs bathroom to shower in, and so it makes sense to keep his clothes down there), and so I get a second dresser to store some of my clothes – and my summer clothes – in. I had to move the little bookcase that was in my room into the hallway, though that kind of makes the hallway look crowded, so I may find another place for it.

The main reason we moved his desk into his room was so that in the evenings when he’s writing, I can watch TV if I want to. We only have one TV in the house (I KNOW, what kind of craziness is this?!), and his laptop was set up in the front room, which meant that if he was writing, I couldn’t watch TV. This way, he’s got privacy and won’t be disturbed (though the cats like to go up and visit with him while he’s writing) and I can watch TV to my heart’s content.

It started raining Saturday night and rained almost all day Sunday. The pond is starting to hold water (tune in Thursday for pictures from last week when we herded the ducks out to the pond so they could splash around, and being herded kind of terrified them), and I have hopes that by the end of the Winter, we’ll have a pond full of water. A girl can hope, right?

I decluttered the secretaire Fred’s mother passed on to us several years ago. I love it, but I tend to stick things in the drawers when I can’t think of where else to put it, so it gets cluttered and impossible to deal with. I expected it to take about ten minutes – and it did! I also cleared off the dresser in my room, and dusted the rest of the furniture upstairs. If I were really motivated, I would have dusted the entire house, but let us NOT get crazy, y’all.

Okay. That was my exciting weekend. I actually did NOT take naps on Saturday or Sunday, but I may have to make up for that later today. I sense some dozing in front of the TV in my future.

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Have I mentioned that Charlie Peppers enjoys a good snuggle with a big cat?

Sugarbutt put up a leg to block the snuggle…

But Charlie snuggled in there anyway. (Love the resigned look on Sugarbutt’s face.)

Getting some grooming from Ellie-bellz (Elwood).

And some snugglin’.

Tommy loves to throw his leg over whoever tries to snuggle with him. If they truly want to snuggle, they’ll put up with it.

“Halp. Cannot. Breathe.”

After I made mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, Charlie tried to lick the bowl clean, while Alice fumed.

And yes, sourpuss, you were correct in your comment. Teeny tiny Alice, who the vet told us would probably never get bigger than 7 pounds somehow morphed into a full-figured gal. We were scammed in this deal, y’all. TOTALLY. She does, however, still love Fred with a passion, and when we watch TV she climbs up on him and lays there like a big ol’ self-satisfied tick.

Patty Peppers is more of a loner than her brother. She’ll play with the big cats – loves to chase their tails – but when it comes to sleeping, she prefers to go it alone.

As a reminder, this is what sweet Miss Patty looked like two and a half months ago:

She’s come a long way, baby.

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Sugarbutt, watching squirrels run around in the side yard.

I love it when he sits up like this to get a better look (picture would be better without all the background clutter, but eh. Whatcha gonna do?)

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: That campaign’s not going to run itself, Jane!
2007: So I’ve signed up for Holidailies, and I’ll be updating every day in December.
2006: Go! Shop! Buy!
2005: “Well, GODDAMN,” I said. “NOT NOW, I won’t! I was GOING to, but now that I know you’d be sitting there all horrified about me reclining my seat in front of your parents, all worried that they’d be thinking ‘Good christ, look at her over there, so fucking LAZY she can’t expend the ENERGY to sit upright!’, I won’t! I wouldn’t DREAM of reclining on my OWN couch in my OWN home, I would HATE to embarrass you!”
2004: No entry.
2003: Fred’s sister nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
2002: I forgot that teenagers are, on the whole (though yours may be different, or at least pulling the wool over your eyes) bone idle.
2001: McAfee rocks.
2000: Recent purchases.
1999: I informed him that there was no way he was getting out of taking me to the emergency room for this.