Bitchypoo

It has been so very gorgeous this week – sunny every day and in the 60s and 70s – that the fact it’s supposed to cloud up and might rain this afternoon isn’t bringing me down at all. I’ve done laundry every day this week (bedsheets and clothes on Monday, towels Tuesday, more clothes yesterday) just so I could hang it all out to dry, so that if we have another rainy spell, I can put on my line-dried clothes and smell like sunshine.

(I’m hoping like hell that rainy season has come to an end. I saw a cartoon somewhere that said “April showers bring May showers”, and I showed it to Fred and he laughed bitterly.)

Yesterday I left the house mid-morning to run errands. I had a list of stuff to get at Sam’s Club, and I wanted to swing by Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond. I tried to stop at Bed, Bath and Beyond on my way to Sam’s, but it was 9:00 when I got there, and BB&B doesn’t open ’til 9:30, so off to Sam’s I went. The one thing I really like about having a membership at Sam’s through Fred’s company is that it’s considered a business membership, so instead of having to wait ’til 10 for the store to open the way the unwashed masses do, I can go into the store anytime after 7. It’s a LOT less busy before 10, believe you me.

I wandered around the store, got almost everything on my list (I guess Sam’s doesn’t carry plain old ammonia – or if it does, I’m not looking in the right place. I assumed it would be with the cleaning stuff.), picked up a few things that weren’t, and was out of there a little before 10.

I tried to fill up my gas tank at Sam’s, but for some reason the pump wasn’t reading my membership card, so I quietly told it to go fuck itself and left. I did get gas at the station across from Target, then stopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond. The last time I was there, a few weeks ago, I impulse-purchased a spray bottle of Yankee Candles Good Air, and I have to say – that stuff can take care of a large stank in a hurry. I wanted to get another bottle for upstairs (because when a stank needs taking care of, there’s no time to go wandering downstairs for the bottle!), so I went in, grabbed the bottle, and stood in line.

There were three people in line in front of me, but the person at the very front of the line was doing something complicated, apparently, and after five minutes with no forward motion, I put the spray bottle back and left.

At Target I got everything on my list and then some, then got in line. There was only one person in front of me (or rather, one couple), but I’m not sure how they could have possibly moved any slower. They did the MOST annoying thing, the thing that drives me batshit every time – they waited to write out the check until after they knew what the total was. GOD I HATE THAT. I wanted to snatch away their checkbook and beat them with it.

But I refrained.

I left Target, and by the time I got home, it was after noon. I unloaded the car, put stuff away, went out to check for eggs, hang out with the dogs, ate lunch, and then it was time to snooze on the couch in front of Oprah.

Those couches, the ones we got a year ago from Fred’s parents, are THE most comfortable couches to sleep on. They’re so much more comfortable than the old couches, the cheap ones we had, with the recliners in each end. I mean, we miss having recliners sometimes and have talked about (one day) getting recliners to put where one of the couches is, but for now, you can’t beat a snooze on the blue couches. When there’s a kitten or two piled up on top of you, so much the better.

A few years ago, I bought these small cages that you put seed cakes in and hang outside for the birds. They’re similar to suet cages, only much larger. I bought the seed cakes to put in the cages at Target or the pet store or Wal-Mart. When I first started buying the seed cakes, they were less than $5 for a 2.5-pound seed cake. Since then, due to the economyyyyyyy, I suppose, they’ve gone up. I can’t find them for less than $6 a seed cake, and usually they’re more than that.

So I figured, why not make my own? I did some extensive searching online and had a hard time finding something, because most of the recipes I was finding were for suet cakes, and while I do have a suet feeder and will likely be making my own suet at some point in the future, that’s not what I was looking for.

Finally, I came up with two recipes to try – one involves just gelatin and water, the other involves flour, water, corn syrup and maybe a packet of gelatin. I tried the first one, the gelatin and water, stirred in some bird seed, let it set, and put the seed cake out in the basket to see what would happen. Wild birds are like cats sometimes, it seems – they don’t like new things. For a few days the birds ignored the seed cake, and then slowly they started picking at it. I made another seed cake the same way, but used a different blend of seeds (this one had raisins and peanuts in it) and put that one in the seed cage on the tree I think of as the squirrel tree. If I keep the seed cage and the suet ball feeder filled on the squirrel tree, they’ll pretty much leave the bird feeders alone, which means they don’t knock ten tons of bird seed onto the ground.

The squirrels are not like the cats and birds – it took them no time at all to decimate that seed cake.

Monday, I made seed cakes using the flour, water, and corn syrup recipe. I put one seed cake in the feeder that the birds use, and one in the feeder that the squirrels use. So far, the squirrels have picked at the seed cake in their feeder (though they seem to prefer the peanut butter suet balls, and who can blame ’em?), and the birds have ignored their seed cake, which is pretty much par for the course.

Cost-wise, I think the flour recipe is less expensive – the recipe makes more seed cakes than the gelatin recipe, not that gelatin is all that expensive, about $1.40 around here for a box of plain gelatin (you use the whole box). I guess I’ll wait and see what the end result is regarding the seed cakes – if the birds completely ignore the flour recipe seed cake, I’ll stick with the gelatin version.

Both recipes are here.

And while I’m mentioning recipes, I found a recipe for filling for George and Gracie’s Kongs while I was surfing around. Usually I just put plain yogurt, a dollop of peanut butter, and some chopped-up carrots in their Kongs, and they’re perfectly happy. (BOY they love their Kongs! On the one or two evenings a week when they see me coming, carrying their Kongs, they get extra excited!) But since I don’t want them to get bored, I thought I’d try something new.

They liked the new filling well enough – but honestly, I think I could fill the Kongs with dirt and ice, and they’d be just as thrilled. It’s less the filling than the challenge, I think.

The Kong filling recipe is here.

The girls are gearing up to go to PetSmart tomorrow, even though they don’t know it. I’m spending as much time as possible picking them up and kissing them (they are SO kissable!), and yesterday Bessie gave me this look like “Seriously, lady. What is your issue? You’re messing up my fur!”

Yeah, poor babies. It’s a rough life!

Snoozin’ girlies.

It just stuns me that Miz Poo puts up with the kittens snuggling with her (or at least sharing the same cat bed). After all these years of fostering, I think they’re starting to wear her down.

I’m not sure why it is, but I think that kittens with their ears back are the cutest things on earth. Closely followed by hissing kittens. Is there anything less scary than a hissing kitten? I think not!

Bessie, sun-drunk.

Mister Boogers wants to know why that kitten keeps following him around.

I don’t know what they were looking at, but check out the crazy eyes on Bessie!

Previously
2008: These pigs, I’ve gotta say, are coming in handy as garbage disposals on legs.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: We’re off to Memphis.
2003: Possum #2.
2002: Mean mommy.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

Hey, look who made Cute Overload yesterday! I actually submitted that picture right after I took it almost two months ago, so I never expected it actually to be posted.

I feel so famous!

Yesterday, after I puttered around in the yard for a while, visited with all the chickens and dogs and gave a cookie to each of the pigs, I couldn’t decide what to do. I threw in a few loads of laundry, considered and rejected the idea of mowing the lawn (I don’t think it’s been a full week since Fred did it last. Which is a bullshit excuse and my way of saying “I didn’t want to mow the lawn because I am a lazyass.), and then decided I’d get out the sewing machine and sew a few pads for the cat beds, maybe make a few couch pillows.

I bought some material last year when Fred and I talked about making our own ottomans to go with the couches we got from his parents (an idea we discarded not because we didn’t think we could do it, but because neither of us was all that motivated to get it done, so we ended up buying ottomans (ottomen?) from a site online), and I think couch pillows covered in that material would look nice on the couches. But when I got out the material and started cutting, the kittens got all crazy-eyed and started climbing my legs so I gave up on that idea.

I puttered around the yard some more, filled up the bird feeders, cleaned and refilled the bird waterers, took some recycling out to the garage (I need to get my ass to the recycling center one of these days), put the littlest chickens out in their play yard, ate lunch, snoozed on the couch in front of a couple of episodes of Oprah, and then started dinner. It was a very relaxing day, all in all.

We had a ham roast for dinner last night, and it was really, really good. This was one of our last roasts from the very first pig we had processed last year (Big Pig), and the butcher doesn’t cure or smoke any of the meat. So I just rubbed the roast all over with seasoning, popped it in a roasting pan, and cooked it for half an hour per pound at 350 F. Probably because there was a fairly thick layer of fat on the outside of the roast (which I cut off and discarded when the meat was cooked), it was perfectly moist and flavorful. Fred gave me his permission to cook all our ham roasts like that – but we’ll see if he still says that after we’ve eaten it all week long!

After dinner, a couple showed up to buy hatching eggs from Fred (before you ask, the difference between hatching eggs and eating eggs is that the hatching eggs don’t go into the refrigerator; the eating eggs do. Also, I never wash hatching eggs because that removes the “bloom” from the egg and makes it less likely to successfully hatch. The eggs that have to be washed, I wash and then add to the “eating eggs” pile. It’s all very complicated and fascinating, I assure you.) Fred ended up giving them the tour of Crooked Acres while I sat inside at my computer and idly surfed the web. I looked out once or twice while they were out at the big chicken coop to see George and Gracie do their patented “I love you! I LOVE YOU! Will you take us home with you? It’s terrible here, they only give us snacks 15 times a day and they kiss us and hug us and tell us how gorgeous we are. No one should have to live like this! Do you love me? Do you? I LOVE YOU! Do you have a snack?” routine, the one they go through every single time they meet someone new.

Way to look ferocious and defend those chickens, puppies.

They were out at the back forty with Fred for a long, long time and then I glanced up to see all three of them walking toward the house, and Fred was holding an upside-down rooster in one hand. He’d mentioned offering to sell them one of our roosters (they had to buy hatching eggs from us because something – an owl, they think – got their rooster), so I figured they’d taken him up on the offer. I got a box to put him in (and a baby blanket to put on the bottom of the box because I didn’t want the poor guy to slide around), and then I think we stood around and talked for another 45 minutes. They were very nice – like I said to Fred, “They seem like our kinda people. Well, except for the beer-brewing and the deer-eating.”

The rooster they bought was actually one we were talking about processing this weekend (we still have too many roosters, damnit), so the lucky guy is going to a new home where he’ll be the head cock in charge, have his pick of the wimmins and won’t be attending freezer camp anytime soon.

He has no idea how lucky he is!

Question, master bread bakers: I made a batch of Amish bread dough this past weekend and then – because the recipe makes enough dough for two loaves of bread, or ten thousand rolls – after letting the dough rise, I deflated it and put half of it in the freezer, then made rolls from the other half.

So my question to you is this: when I’m ready to use the other half of the dough, the dough that I put in the freezer, what’s the correct procedure? Do I thaw it out, form it into a loaf (or rolls), let it rise a second time, then bake it? It seems like that would be the right way to go about it, but I just need confirmation from those of you who know what the hell you’re doing, since I very much do not when it comes to baking bread!

On Monday, when I called the vet’s office to make an appointment to have Beulah spayed, id chipped and rabies shot’d, they told me I could bring her in right then, if I wanted to. I debated for a minute, then decided to just do it and get it over with.

Unlike Bessie, Beulah is a little more quiet in the carrier. She’s not silent by any means, but she didn’t howl all the way there and all the way back the way Bessie did last week (more on that in a minute), and when we got to the vet’s office, she wasn’t scared at all, just sat there and looked around.

When I picked her up from the vet’s office, the lady at the front desk told me she’d been the last procedure they’d done, so she wasn’t all that long out of surgery and still wobbly on her feet. She slept all the way home, and when we got home I let her out of the carrier to find that she was SERIOUSLY wobbly on her feet. Since Bessie had followed me upstairs and seemed happy enough to stay in the room with her sister, I shut the door to the foster room so Beulah could recover without the older cats coming around to sniff and hiss at her (they always hiss when another cat smells like the vet). She was sleeping every time I checked on her through the evening, and yesterday morning she was moving a little slower than usual. By late morning, though, she was bouncing around as though nothing had happened.

Regarding Bessie in the carrier, I haven’t mentioned before now that last Thursday I noticed that she was getting in the litter box, getting into position to pee, and then when she was done, she’d only passed a few drops. She did that twice in the span of about fifteen minutes, and though I’ve never seen the behavior in a female cat or one so little, I can recognize the signs of a possible Urinary Tract Infection. I took her up to the vet and that girl has got some LUNGS on her. She howled and howled and howled, all the way there. I left her at the vet’s so they could get a urine sample from her. She was there for only about three hours before they were able to get the sample and test it, and I got a call from the vet letting me know that there’d been a small trace of blood in the urine. She’s been on antibiotics since then, and after the first few days, she cleared right up and now she’s right as rain.

Both kittens are going to the pet store on Friday, hopefully to be adopted very quickly. Even Fred admitted that he doesn’t think Beulah will be at the pet store for more than a few hours before someone snaps her up!

Here are a couple of movies of the babies, one of Bessie howling, and one of Beulah playing (on May 5th) and then sleeping (yesterday).

I sure am going to miss the little monkeys.

“Wha-?”

A few years ago, my sister gave me a package of mink tails someone had given her for her cats. Her cats weren’t interested in them. My cats are slightly interested in them, but the foster kittens? Oh, they LOVE them. There’s always at least one in every litter that will pick up the mink tail and carry it around, growling at any cats who come too close to their “kill.”

Not the best picture, but it cracks me up that Beulah is licking that toy.

What I’ve recently learned – if you have a single cat bed that your cats refuse to sleep in? Put a second cat bed on top of it, and they will FLOCK to it.

Previously
2008: And I’m sure there’ll be plenty o’ bitching.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: It is, in fact, a happy-go-lucky-shpadoinkle-dy daaaaaaaaaaaaay.
2004: First day with the new brain, you know.
2003: So, Fred got it into his head a few weeks ago that he wanted a kayak.
2002: And further, you don’t get to be indignant and hurt when they act pissed off and boo you off the stage.
2001: No entry.
2000: Yesterday, I sneezed twenty-three times in a row. Fucking allergies.

So, the old design is back. I messed with that damn banner for ages and ages, and could NOT get it to do what I wanted to do, and I DREAMED about it Saturday night, so then I said “Self, it’s either the banner looking good OR the threaded comments, decide now and shut up!” and so I decided the banner’s going to look good (please tell me y’all can see all of it now!) and the threaded comments have gone away.

I thought those threaded comments were pretty freakin’ cool. Ah well. I guess we’ll just have to muddle through – TOGETHER WE CAN PERSEVERE!

We had a pretty quiet and boring weekend. It rained quite a bit on Saturday, and there wasn’t much Fred could do outside anyway because it was still wet and soggy from the night before, so we hung around the house, moaned about how bored we were, and ended up taking a couple of naps, one around 11 and the other around 3.

Fred told me that he’d spotted something interesting in the ditch that, basically, divides the front part of our property from the back forty. So I grabbed the camera, and we went out to see if we could spot what he’d seen. We did, briefly…

The ditch. To the right is the front part of our property, to the left the back forty.

Crawdads! Unfortunately there were only one or two of them and they weren’t anywhere near eatin’ size, or I would have happily made some jambalaya for dinner. Crawdads, for those of you who haven’t seen them before (and can’t tell from my pictures) look like little bitty lobsters.

Pollywog!

“Whatcha doin’ out there, and where’s my snack?”

We decided we were in the mood for BBQ at lunchtime, so we went out and got some.

The sign at the BBQ place cracked us both up, and Fred threatened to ask if they could give us some BBQ that was cooked NOT to USDA specs.

We hung around the house all afternoon moaning about how bored we were, took a nap, and then I made meatballs so that we could have meatball subs for dinner. We’d been planning to use the rolls I made last weekend, but when Fred opened the bag to get a roll, he announced that they had started to mold. I need to remember to store my homemade bread in the refrigerator, damnit, ’cause homemade bread doesn’t last nearly as long as the stuff you buy in the stores due to the lack of preservatives.

Luckily, we had hamburger buns left over from our package of BBQ, so we used those. We talked about making meatball subs with spaghetti sauce, but in the end I just cut a couple of meatballs in half, put them on the hamburger bun bottom, put a thin slice of horseradish cheddar on top of that, and it was perfection.

Usually when we’re coming up on a weekend, I look through the always-growing pile of recipes I’ve printed out and pick something or a couple of somethings to bake. I rarely let Fred have any input on what I’m making, but last Thursday I was feeling uninspired and not like I wanted to look through my recipes, so I asked if he had any requests. He’s been having a real hankering for lemon lately, so he asked for maybe a lemon cake or perhaps some kind of lemon pie.

I googled around and came up with a recipe for lemon cake and one for lemon squares (with a graham cracker crust), and in the end I made the lemon squares and am saving the lemon cake recipe for the future.

The lemon squares were FABULOUS. They were a huge hit with Fred, and I liked them quite a bit. My only mistake was in over-baking them by a few minutes, so they were a little chewy. Next time I make them, I’ll start checking them earlier so they won’t get overbaked.

Recipe is here.

Sunday morning, I slept in ’til 7 (SLACKER), then accompanied Fred on his errands to Lowe’s and Tractor Supply. When we got home, Fred pulled into the driveway, and I looked over to my right and said “Oh my holy Jesus god in heaven!”

“What?” Fred said, wide-eyed.

“There’s an ARMADILLO!” I said.

“Where??” he said.

“Right there! It’s dead!”

There it was, large as life, laying there ON IT’S BACK, dead as a doornail.

We got out of the truck and approached it. Fred poked it to make sure it was dead, but since it had organs visible we were pretty confident that it was.

“Joe Bob!” I yelled at Joe Bob, who was sitting on the side stoop smiling the way he always does. “Did you kill the armadillo?!”

Joe Bob just kept smiling.

Fred came to the conclusion that the armadillo had been dead for a few days and we decided that perhaps a dog had dragged it onto the property (while we were gone) before George and Gracie’s barking scared it off.

“You think I should put it in a freezer bag and stick it in the freezer ’til trash day?” Fred asked. Last summer something killed an armadillo just over the church property line, and the guy who mows the church property was kind enough to mow around it, so for half the summer we were treated to the particularly nasty stank of rotting armadillo. In the hottest heat of an Alabama summer, the smell of that rotting armadillo was so thick you could taste it. (In retrospect, I think I should have insisted that Fred sneak over there and bury the goddamn thing.)

Gah.

Fred ended up dragging it to the very back of the back forty and tossing it into the undergrowth back there. Hopefully something will come along and eat it – but at least if it starts rotting, it’ll be far enough away from the house that I won’t have to smell it every time I leave the house.

And, yeah. I took a picture, but I’m not sharing it ’cause it’s gross. It’s a DEAD ARMADILLO, and it’s got internal organs showing, and it’s gross. Trust me, you don’t need to see that and I’m not sure why I took the picture anyway.

The last thing Fred said before he dragged the damn thing off to the back forty, despite the fact that we’ve probably seen 10 dead armadillos by the side of the road in the last month or so, was “I didn’t think armadillos came this far north!”

Sunday afternoon Miss Beulah jumped up on my desk. She brought a bit of a stank with her, so I lifted up her tail to check her nether regions (she gets no respect) and said “Whew! Did you just poop?”

And Fred said, sounding utterly offended, “Me?!”

HA.

Beulah has finally, FINALLY hit two pounds. I’ll be calling in a little while to make her an appointment to be spayed later this week. And then, assuming there’s space at the pet store, she and Bessie will be going off to be adopted!

Those of you who mentioned that Beulah’s got big ears and maybe she’ll end up being a big cat after all – who knows? Sugarbutt was the runt of his litter, and you can’t by any stretch of the imagination call him a little cat.

And those of you who wanted to know what Fred thinks of Beulah now that she’s grown up a bit? He still says she’s ugly. But I’m pretty sure he’s only saying it because he knows it’s RUDE and OFFENSIVE. She’s clearly grown into a gorgeous little thing, and I’ll be surprised if I even get her into the cage at the pet store before there’s a riot of people wanting to adopt her.

Doesn’t she look evil?

“I shall take over the worrrrrrrrrrrrld!”

Tellin’ secrets.

Bath time!

Kinda looks like she’s pouting and he’s asking her what’s wrong, doesn’t it?

Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Ten.
2006: I walked over to them and threw Cheerios at them, and they looked at me as if I were mentally disturbed.
2005: Which he proved by dancing lightly about the room once I’d said we should just stay home.
2004: He asked questions, he really listened to the answers, and he was just really a nice guy.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: She’s obviously picked up her mother’s bad attitude.
2000: My day in pictures.

So yesterday we had our individual-serving pot pies and they were very good, though I didn’t bake them quite long enough, so the dough in the middle of each pot was a wee bit raw.

After we were done eating, Fred said “I can’t believe you made these in souffle dishes. I’m horrified.” HA.

But before that, because I am SUCH the idiot and I do not ever learn, I preheated the oven, and I kept thinking “What the hell is that SMELL?” Well, that smell was egg shells that I’d put in to dry three days ago, turned off the oven, forgot about them (and in fact forgot until just now that I could have microwaved them for 90 seconds to dry them out instead, like FarmWife told me. DUH.).

I swear to god that if I had a brain, I’d be dangerous.

Okay, so, who’s still watching Oprah? I have the DVR set up to tape all her new shows and most of the time I glance at the description of the show, decide whether I want to watch it, and 9 times out of 10 I delete it.

She had Dr. Oz on earlier this week, and I don’t always watch the Dr. Oz shows (though sometimes I do; it depends on my mood), but this one was the best moments of Dr. Oz, so I gave it a try. Turns out it’s the Oprah/ Dr. Oz finale and can you guess why? I bet you can: Dr. Oz is getting his own show starting this Fall.

Now, I generally like Dr. Oz – the Oprah episodes he’s on that I don’t watch aren’t because I don’t like him, but rather because I decide whatever specific topic they’re discussing doesn’t interest me. The episode (was it his first? I honestly don’t know.) wherein poop was discussed in full was probably my favorite Oprah episode of all time.

But I don’t know that Dr. Oz needs his own show. What’s interesting once or twice a month on Oprah is going to be overkill when it’s on five days a week, is my prediction.

You know I’ll be checking it out, though.

I also happened to watch the episode with the Elizabeth Edwards interview. That was one that I would have deleted if I’d known what the subject was, because I am not so interested in Elizabeth Edwards (nothing personal, you understand, just a lack of interest). But the summary on the DVR just said something like “Oprah discusses topics with her audience”, so I had to start watching it to see what it was about. And I got pulled in, and I watched the whole thing.

I thought it was a really good interview, actually, and Elizabeth Edwards came across as very sincere and open. There’s clearly a lot of anger toward “the other woman” and I think she made a couple of really good points – about the other woman wanting to “stand in the light” (of John Edwards’ fame) and that after all she and John Edwards had been through, she had to decide, does this horrible thing he did negate all the good things he did throughout their marriage?

I will say that I honestly never thought about it in that light. After 30 years of marriage, do you end it because of one horrible thing?

(Although the part where he first told her it was a one-night thing, they spent a year and a half working through it, and then? “Oh, did I mean it only happened once? Oh, I meant it happened once THAT NIGHT. It actually went on for some time…” Well, that’s pretty fucking horrible.)

So I don’t know much about John Edwards aside from the knee-jerk cheated on his cancer-ridden wife what a douchebag reaction I had when the news first came out, and if I’ve ever seen him speak before I certainly don’t remember it, but there was a point where Oprah got to talk to him after a tour of their house (hello, BASKETBALL COURT) and boy. He certainly came off as completely insincere in every word he said.

Yeah, I thought the interview was very interesting, but I don’t think I’m interested in reading the book.

OH MY GOD, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this! Speaking of books!

There’s this site where you can trade books – basically, you list books that you’re willing to give to someone else; you get 1/10th of a point for listing them, a point if you send a book to someone in your country, three points if you send a book to someone in another country (you can specify whether you’re willing to send a book outside your country). Then you can “mooch” a book that someone else is willing to send out, and it costs you 1 point if they’re in your country or 2 points if they’re in another country.

The person sending out the book is responsible for the cost of shipping, but since you can (at least in the United States) mail out a book via Media Mail for less than $2.50 (unless it’s one of those really heavy books, I imagine it’d cost more to ship those), it’s still a pretty damn good deal.

Here’s the site: BookMooch.com.

And here’s a widget showing the books I currently have available:

BookMooch.com is a book trade site

It’s not perfect – newer books are harder to come by (though you can set up a wish list, and when someone lists that book, you’ll get an email), but for someone like me who’s got books on her Amazon wish list that were added back in 2005, it’s certainly a bargain!

These kittens love their sleep. I mean, they LOVE their sleep. They throw themselves wholeheartedly into sleep for 20 hours of every day (the other four hours are taken up by eating, scratching around in the litterbox, and racing around like their tails are on fire.)

Brudderly love in the back yard.

Previously
2008: The hetred will never steer you wrong.
2007: Ugly, but somehow oddly appealing to me.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Memeriffic.
2003: “One of the cats brought in a baby possum and it appears to be dying.”
2002: A mother can dream, can’t she?
2001: I almost shot a red bean out of my nose, I was laughing so hard.
2000: No entry.

While I completely understand your desire for us to keep Beulah and while I was leaning in that direction for a little while, I’ve decided that we’re not going to keep her. Really, Theresa said it best in my comments yesterday when she said

There is a point where one has just has too many cats. If you foster, there is always going to be another cute kitten who will win your heart. I know this viewpoint is not a popular one with your readership, but I vote to adopt out Beulah. She is adorable and someone will want her for sure.

Hopefully, no one thinks I am a troll or contrary. I simply think ten cats is plenty for one household and a cutie pie like Beulah has a high chance of being adopted by a good home

I honestly think we hit the “too many” cats limit about two cats ago – not only are 10 cats a lot of cats to stuff into one household (though it’s a little less crowded during the summer when Maxi and Newt spend most nights outside), it also gives me less time to give our cats one-on-one attention. I try to check in with each cat at some point during the day

(I’m imagining Sugarbutt in a suit and tie, passing me in the hallway. “How ya doin’, Suggie?” “Great, Lady, thanks. I’ll get the TPS Report to you by noon.” “Let me know if you have any problems.” “Will do.”)

and give each of them one-on-one attention. But there are some days when Stinkerbelle doesn’t get her morning ear-scritches or Joe Bob doesn’t get to whine his creepy high-pitched whine at me, and I don’t realize it ’til I’m getting into bed, and it makes me feel guilty. I just honestly don’t want to add another permanent resident to Crooked Acres.

That said, I do love the hell out of Miss Beulah, and I’m glad that she’ll be here for at least a little while longer (would you believe she STILL hasn’t hit two pounds yet?). It will be hard to let her go, but I always know that my babies will go to good homes. The adoption counselors for the shelter are really good at their job, god bless ’em. I don’t doubt she’ll be adopted out quickly to a loving family.

It’s okay to be disappointed that y’all won’t get to see her grow up – that’s the hardest part of this fostering thing – and it’s okay to not believe me when I say we’re not keeping her. Just don’t be all shocked and surprised when I announce that she’s about to go to the pet store, okay?

(And Theresa, there was nothing remotely troll-like in your comment, worry not!)

Of course, if any of y’all are seriously interested in adopting her, let me know and I’ll give you the shelter manager’s name and number.

Probably I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a bad habit of eating lunch (well, and breakfast and dinner too, for that matter) in front of the computer. Generally I sit and read blogs while I’m eating (I know, you’re not supposed to read while you eat. WHATEV.), and it’s been fine. I’ve actually never had a problem with any of the cats trying to eat off my plate (though if I’m eating something Spanky thinks he might like a bite of, he sits and gives me the pathetic “I am starving, Lady, why you hate me?” look.)

But since last week when I brought Ezra and Elijah home for the weekend, the two of them and their sisters have all been all up in my face every time I sit down in front of the computer. They are FASCINATED watching me mouse around and click on things (both the girls have been known to “chatter” at my monitor when they see anything moving around on the screen) and trying to eat in front of the computer? Forget it. They are SUPER interested in anything I might think about eating.

In self-defense, I had to do the unthinkable.

I had to start eating at the dining room table.

I KNOW! The horror!

So far, it’s working really well. I sit at the table with my plate of food and a can of compressed air by my hand, and when one of their little heads pops up, as if they’re thinking of climbing up onto the table to see what I’m doing, I send a blast of air in their direction, and they run off.

I had hoped that once Ezra and Elijah went off to the pet store and I was down to just the girls again I could eat in peace in front of the computer, but when I sat down with my lunch yesterday, Beulah was all “Howyadoin’? Whatchagot? Might I dip my paw in that plate of food and see if I’d like some of it too, please? “No,” you say? Well howzabout I just do it anyway!”

I fled to the table to eat my lunch, and I guess that’ll be my default place to eat for now.

Brats.

The last time I made Chicken Pot Pie, I had leftover pot pie “filling” that wouldn’t fit in the pie dish. I put it in a plastic container and froze it. The other day I took it out and looked to see just how much filling there was, and decided that it wouldn’t make an entire pot pie, but that I could make a couple of small individual-size pot pies with what I had. The only problem was that I didn’t really have anything to make individual-size pot pies in.

Yesterday, after I dropped Ezra and Elijah off at the pet store, I swung by Old Time Pottery in Madison. That store has got just about every kind of kitchen dish you could want, so I figured they’d have something I could use. I picked up a couple of different kinds of baking dishes, but then put them back after I found small white casserole-like dishes – much like these – for $1.49 each. I grabbed four.

I picked up a few more things, and then went to check out.

As the cashier rang up my purchases, she picked up the dishes, and said “Going to make some souffles?”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to make some individual-serving casseroles.”

And she gave me the oddest look, like that was the weirdest thing she’d heard all day. As soon as I left the store, I wished like hell I’d asked her what the look was for, because now it’s bugging me. Is using souffle-type dishes for individual casseroles THAT strange an idea?

Stinkerbelle has picked up the nickname “Dinky Doo” lately. Don’t look at me like that, I don’t know. It just kind of rolls off the tongue, y’know?

Previously
2008: Here’s a hint: Mister Boogers? Not the man.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Oh, it’s FUN to be a girl, ain’t it?
2004: Am I not stylin’?
2003: Like I repeatedly said to him yesterday, “I’m GLAD you’re ENJOYING my pain!”
2002: Momma don’t do food-related or cleaning-related stuff on Mother’s Day!
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to set the banner image so that it’ll resize itself on your monitor no matter what size you’re viewing my site, so for now I’m leaving the banner as text-only.

I don’t know, I don’t think I completely hate this particular design. I’m tired of trying to mess with it though, I’ll tell you that. This is how it’ll be for the time being – do you totally hate it? Is it horribly ugly?

Edited to add: Fine, y’all want your cute banner, so it’s back. Those of you who can’t see the whole thing, I’ll fiddle with it… at some point in the future!

On Mother’s Day morning, I started off the day by sleeping in ’til 6:30 (I know!) and then when I went downstairs to see what Fred was doing that sounded all messing-up-my-kitchen-y, I found that he was trying to stuff a dead (cleaned) chicken into a too-small bag and was in a bad mood about the fact that it wouldn’t fit.

“You’re not using the right bag,” I said reasonably.

“I couldn’t find anything bigger!” he said, struggling with the dead rooster and the freezer bag.

Last month, I bought a bunch of freezer storage bags to put processed chickens into, because the big ziploc freezer bags aren’t big enough for most chickens. When I got the box of bags, I put them on a shelf on the bookcase in the kitchen, where they’ve been sitting ever since. Except, to be fair, usually when Fred processes chickens, I’m there with the bags for him to drop them into, so he didn’t necessarily know where I keep them.

So we got the two processed chickens (roosters) bagged up, and I put them in the garage.

“The knives weren’t sharp enough at all,” he said, continuing with his bad mood. “So I had to take a gun out there to get the Buff rooster. I couldn’t find the knife sharpener ANYWHERE. I looked in all the cabinets!”

I looked over near the knife block where I last remembered seeing the knife sharpener. It wasn’t there, so I looked in the drawer where I keep the extra spatulas and serving spoons and assorted crap, and it was on top. When he came back inside, I opened the drawer and showed it to him.

“It’s right here,” I said.

“Oh, okay,” he said.

I am 93.7% sure he won’t remember where it is.

He went back outside to clean up his killing station, and I spent the next ten minutes scrubbing down the sink and the surrounding counters. I washed the knives and set them on the counter next to the sink to dry. Then I went upstairs to get my dirty laundry, and when I came back downstairs, he’d brought a cutting board and bucket inside. The cutting board was sitting in the sink, conveniently leaning over the clean knives, dripping blood and goo on them.

I cleaned the cutting board, scrubbed out the bucket, and re-washed the knives. Then I scrubbed down the counters around the sink.

I put the dishes away, and got out my Kitchenaid mixer to start a batch of bread. When I looked down into the mixing bowl, I saw the familiar yellow sprinkles down the side of the bowl.

“Whatcha doing?” Fred asked, coming back in from outside.

“I was going to start a batch of bread, but I have to wash the bowl and beater first, because SOMEONE SPRAYED ON THEM.” I fumed as I washed.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” he said with a big, cheesy grin.

I finished washing the bowl and put it to the side of the sink to dry, then went and got his dirty laundry, and began separating all the dirty laundry into piles*. I started a load of laundry and then dried off the mixing bowl and began mixing the dough for bread. Fred came in from the computer room and said “I think I’m going to make an omelet!”

He puttered around the kitchen, finding an onion to chop, mushrooms to open, and a bag of shredded cheese in the refrigerator.

I was mentally beginning today’s entry along the lines of “Fred celebrated Mother’s Day by making an omelet. For himself. I had a bowl of Cheerios. I bet an omelet would have been good.” when he said “I’m going to make a scramble (ie, an omelet with all the insides just mixed into the scrambled eggs), want me to make some extra for you?”, which ruined the beginning of my mental entry.

Bastard. He ruins everything!

(The scramble was mighty tasty, for the record. Hard to beat onion, mushrooms and cheese mixed up with scrambled eggs.)

While I ate breakfast, I texted back and forth with the spud and emailed my mother.

When the bread dough was ready to be formed into loaves, I called Fred into the kitchen to make rolls out of the dough (last time I tried to form rolls out of the dough, they ended up all different sizes, most of them too small to use as sandwich rolls). I left the rolls to rise, and then he and I broke into the wedge of Horseradish Cheddar that Readerfriend Jean had given us.

That was some GOOD stuff; we ate it on crackers. You could taste the horseradish, which I like a lot (horseradish reminds me of Florida and raw oysters and now I’m craving a trip to Destin.) We brainstormed about the many ways we could eat the cheese (on meatball subs being the idea most popular with us both), then he went outside to do something, and I went upstairs to take my shower.

I announced, when I first got up, that in honor of Mother’s Day I was NOT going to get dressed. Then I amended that to “Well, maybe I’ll get dressed around noon”, but in the end I wore my nightgown all day long and I’ve gotta say, that was one comfy way to spend the day.

Maybe I need to make a trip to the muumuu store. They make muumuus with 3/4 sleeves?

The rolls were done rising, so I put them in the oven and then proceeded to make a yellow cake. It was a recipe I’d run across recently on a site where I run across a lot of recipes, and of all the recipes I’ve tried from this site, two have turned out really good, and the rest have been total snoozers. (And no, it’s NOT Pioneer Woman’s recipe site.) So I made the yellow cake and I made chocolate frosting to go on top, and Fred tried the cake when it was done and he said “Eh.” I got all mad at him and he said “What? Just because I don’t LOVE the cake doesn’t mean it’s a failure on your part! It just means the recipe wasn’t that great!”

But still.

So after lunch I tried a piece of the cake, and it was the most “Eh” cake I’ve ever had. Snoozersville. Fred took it out and gave it to the chickens, who enjoyed it.

They’re not picky.

I spent the afternoon finishing up the laundry, watched an episode of CSI with Fred (since we switched to the cheap plan at Dish Network, there are certain channels we don’t get, so we tend to NOT have as much TV to watch, which means it’s time to start watching TV shows on DVD from Netflix again.), and making dinner.

We had Light ‘n Luscious Lasagna (though I used sausage from our own pig instead of the kind of sausage the recipe calls for), romaine salad from the garden (the romaine is slowly getting choked out by weeds, but Fred still managed to pick enough for a couple of salads), and garlic bread made with the rolls I’d made earlier.

It was a tasty meal, and a good way to start off the week – especially considering that we’ll probably be eating lasagna for the rest of the week, which means I won’t have to cook again anytime soon.

*Please note that I still am not one of you anal motherfuckers who separates out your laundry into “darks” and “less darks” and “lights” and “whites.” The only time I separate laundry is when I’m doing my laundry and Fred’s at the same time (and the only reason that’s been happening lately is because I can’t hang clothes on the line to dry because of the GODDAMN RAIN. When it stops raining all the goddamn time, I’ll go back to my slovenly non-separating ways.)

Saturday, neither of us accomplished much. I actually made brownies and a lemon icebox pie, was impressed with neither of them, and the pigs benefited. I guess this really wasn’t a good baking weekend for me – but on the good side, those are recipes I can cull from my constantly-growing “recipes to try” pile.

We were lounging on the couch, half snoozing and half watching TV when the phone rang. Fred’s sister had mentioned earlier in the day that she and her husband might stop by to get some eggs, and she was calling to let us know they were on their way.

We sprang into action, Fred running around the house and picking up, and I grabbing the vacuum cleaner and vacuuming the downstairs. We finished just in time; as I was putting the vacuum away, they showed up. They stayed for about an hour, and they wanted to see the pigs (they’re buying half of one of them), so Fred took them outside to see the chickens, the pigs, the garden, and the fruit trees. Then they came back inside and played with the kittens. I think Fred’s sister would have happily taken both Ezra and Elijah, but her husband was completely uninterested. He wasn’t even uninterested in a needing-to-be-convinced way, he was dead-set against it. To be fair, they’re having a lot of work done on their house, so it’s probably not the best place for a couple of troublesome, nosy kittens to be right now.

They left, and then we went right back to our lounging and slacking. I’d make excuses for our slacker ways, but it was a rainy day and there was nothing that could be done outside, the inside of the house was clean(ish), so slack we did.

Oh, actually I forgot – we did go out when it got dark and moved the 33 two month-old chicks from the blue coop they’ve been sharing with the broody, murderous Mommas, to the big coop in the back forty. It was kind of a pain, slogging through the mud with a box full of chickens several times, but once Fred set each of them on roosts in the big coop, they were pretty quickly at home. Their adjustment to their new living quarters was pretty much painless.

(Fred said “I’m looking forward to late July, early August when all the chickens are in the back forty and there are no baby chickens in the brooder in the garage. I second that!)

The kittens are doing fine. I mentioned on Friday that Phinneas and Caleb were going back to the pet store, since they weren’t the ones having litterbox issues. When I got to the pet store, I saw a note on the cage they’d been in, one I’d managed to miss the night before, saying that Phinneas had been having litterbox issues and vomiting. Since he was perfectly okay after I picked him up, I’m going to guess that he ate something that didn’t agree with him. I emailed the shelter manager and told her that I hadn’t seen the note the night before, but as far as I could tell, Phinneas and Caleb were perfectly fine, but if they started having issues again, to let me know and I’d go back and pick them up.

Not only did they not have issues – they both got adopted over the weekend! Yay!

Yesterday I was shown without a shadow of a doubt that one of the buff tabbies (I think it’s Elijah, but honest to god I can’t really tell the two of them apart anymore) is A-OK in the litterbox, so I grabbed him up and marked his ear so I’d know that he was the one who was okay. The other buff tabby is NOT A-OK in the litterbox, and for that matter, Beulah and Bessie managed to develop litterbox issues, too, so the bunch of them are on something that will hopefully solidify things.

Since the one buff tabby’s okay, he’ll be going back to the pet store tomorrow morning.

Actually, Beulah wasn’t feeling well at all Saturday morning. I found a puddle of vomit upstairs and reported it to Fred. We assumed that it was Spanky‘s work (the boy has issues), but a little while later Fred told me that Beulah was vomiting. She vomited again, drank some water, and vomited that up. We kept an eye on her, but she didn’t seem to be in distress, just didn’t feel well, slept the day away, and by early evening was back to eating and playing like normal.

Oh, kittehs. How you make us worry!

Blessed are the pure in het, for they shall see Dog.

Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Mister Boogers doesn’t have opposable thumbs and finds it too difficult to text anyone – he gives up and stomps off in a huff after texting a few LOLs.
2006: Which to ME means “I’m not interested,” but to the operator apparently was code for “I might be interested. Try harder!”
2005: Now, I don’t know. I think that if your life is SO BUSY that taking the time to put a little pill in your mouth throws your entire schedule off, then perhaps it’s time to reorganize your life.
2004: You can’t have genius every day, y’know.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: SHE WAS FIXIN’ TO GO DOWN THE HILL.
2000: Poor overworked, abused child…