Miss Kitty

This is our kitty. Her name is "Kitty." She was actually a birthday gift to our youngest son, and he had all kinds of creative ideas for her name, like Checkers or Chess or Sylvester. But, as he earnestly explained in his little 7-year-old way, none of them worked right when he tried to call her. After much practice to make sure, "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty" was obviously superior, so that's what he named her. Of course, she's always made me think of Miss Kitty on Gun Smoke!

Kitty is beautiful, aloof, dignified, and quirky. She is loving, but hates to be petted with anyone's hand, or picked up. She doesn't scratch or fuss, she just sort of shrinks and freezes. However, she has a major thing about feet! She loves to be petted with feet. She greets people by coming close and flopping over on their shoes. She used to wake our son up by nibbling on his toes.

Kitty has never been much of a hunter, although several of her children were. But she's too obvious and impatient. One day a whole lot of birds were having a wild party in the Brazilian Pepper trees, eating the berries and getting quite tipsy and careless. Kitty got very excited and rushed over, jumping up, trying to knock them out of the tree! We knew they had nothing to fear from her. Besides, she's the pickiest eater imaginable, so I don't suppose she'd of known what to do with them if she had caught one.

Kitty has her uses for all of us. She likes to share tuna for lunch with me, or sleep spread across my feet in the evenings. She and my hubby have a funny relationship. He's sort of the disciplinarian, but whenever he tells her to do or not do something, she sasses him something awful! He acts indifferent to her, but I caught him warming her milk up every morning in the microwave, which gave him away as the softie he is. But she loves our son devotedly. She follows him around like a puppy. Or she did, before he got all grown up and moved out. For awhile she would look everywhere for him, calling; she'd come beseech me earnestly, then ask to be let out, and prowl around outside looking some more.

Kitty is old now, and she's beginning to look like the skin horse in The Velveteen Rabbit, with all her fur loved off. She spends a lot of time sleeping, and I imagine, dreaming of her boy when he was little, in the good old days.

Summer Garden

Cielo at House in the Roses had a wonderful garden party this weekend! For a variety of reasons, I didn't get in on it in time, but I am certainly in the spirit of summer gardening, and I was inspired to share a little beauty from my part of the world.

On these flawless summer days with pink, cotton candy clouds
Even the frogs are dancing!
These hang out near the new hibiscus plants. We have a red one, a pink-and-white double, and this beautiful yellow with crimson and white heart.
The crepe myrtle is finally getting in on the action
And these purply-pink stripy things are shooting stalks of flowers in to the air like fireworks!

House of Many Colors

My love of red has become well known, so I thought I should mention that only our kitchen is red! It is actually red, black and white. The living room is two-tone blue, with touches of pink.

The office is a bright cheery yellow.

When we get my new, uber feminine bathroom with the soaking tub finished, it will be pink and white, with splashes of mint green and hot pink.


At the moment our bedroom is sage green, with this great waterfall mural that we "inherited" from our son,
but our bedroom has traditionally been lavender.

So basically, we really like color and variety!

NEO Writing!

My husband bought me a NEO and for a writer, there's nothing better! It's my version of a laptop, only it is lighter, sturdier, less expensive and doesn't need any attachments. It is actually made for school children to do their writing assignments on, and it is basically a word processor program. It has a full keyboard and a small screen, along with very basic word processing capabilities. There are 8 separate files accessible by F keys, so you can work on lots of different projects, and when you are done typing, it automatically saves. You just hook it to your computer with a USB cable and it prints everything off where your curser is. Then you can edit, print or save to the computer. It runs on 8 AA batteries, and that gets you 720 hours, without the heat you get from a large battery. It rests easily on the lap and only weighs about 2 lbs. I have dropped it and had all the batteries come flying out, but I just popped them back in and everything was fine. I can take it anywhere, and since I can't get distracted by email, websites and the like, I can actually get some writing done! It costs about $220, and as you can tell, I can't recommend it highly enough. You can only get it through the Alpha Smart website, as far as I know. Then you'll have no more excuses not to get writing!

Red, White and Blue, and Green All Over

Guess who's Red, White and Blue and green all over! My husband and I! We got our Economic Stimulus check and like good little patriots, we promptly spent it. What's more, we got a cordless electric lawn mower. It is green in every sense of the word, but that's not really why we got it. We got it because now that our sons have moved out, WE have to mow the lawn again, and since I always throw my back out trying to start a lawn mower, we decided to try something different. We got a Neuton 6.2 and it is fantastic! It came with a bagger, mulch tool, and another thing to just shoot everything out the side. That's the only thing we didn't like about it, actually, because it is hard to turn with it on, but the mulching tool works great. It also comes with a battery, of course, and the tools to remove the blades are "on-board" also. To mow, we just have to put the battery and the key in their respective slots, slide the switch over and up, and off we go. It's very comfortable to hold on to, the handle is taller than the gas mower, and you don't have all the heat and fumes either. There is still noise, but not as much. I found it easier to handle, and with a 19" cutting path, it cuts like a dream. Also, there isn't any gas or oil to worry with. Our yard isn't very big, but the battery is pretty powerful. For a big yard, you might want to buy an additional battery to have charged up in case one wasn't enough. I actually enjoy using this mower, so my yard's going to be looking a whole lot better this summer!

My First Blog Award!!!

Thanks so much to Daffy, a fellow Trac(ey, y, ie), at Approaching 40 for my very first blog award, "Sharing the Love." Be sure to visit her wonderful site (which you can also do by clicking on the award itself in the sidebar).

In the spirit of Sharing I would like to pass this award on to Louise @ Home is where the Heart is for introducing me to some wonderful new friends through her blogroll, and to Kathy at Destination Sanctification for being my very first friend in BlogWorld.

Red Thursday

More "I Saw Red" fun! My childhood doll - she used to have a little red bonnet, but I kept putting it on the cat and ended up losing it. Second, my favorite slippers. And lastly, my very favorite purse that my darling got me for Christmas. He has such good taste!

Explanation

It occurred to me that I should explain my pictures better. By the way, unless noted otherwise, all pictures were taken either by me, or sometimes by a relative. The poems are mine as well. As for the pictures below, the large strawberry is a cookie jar. The small ones are from wrapping paper that was around the Mother's Day crock. And the drum! That little beauty was a Christmas gift from my middle son. I played drums and percussion all through middle school and high school in the band, and now I get to play again! I used to wonder what the neighbors thought, when my teenage son played hymns on the piano and I played riffs on the snare drum! Bet they thought it was the other way around.

Red Stuff I Love

Here are some of my favorite things...strawberries, and my snare drum! All for the Red game.

I Saw Red Game

Sara, at Sadie Olive, has suggested a photography game for the week of June 2 - 8, called I Saw Red. Basically, you just post pictures of red things on any of those days that you want to, and also visit some of the other sites doing the same. If you want to play, there is a button you can post, too, if you know how to do that sort of thing (unlike some of us), and there is a list of others playing also. I thought it would be fun, so here's my first official red thing, Me at 1 year old. I love all things red and I think this early dress might be part of the reason.

I guess my little strawberry candle crock below would count too! Let me know if you play so I can come see your red things.

Funny Movie Reviews

Our middle son gave me this little strawberry candle in its adorable little red crock, for Mother's Day.
He's the son we call "Blockbuster" because he knows all the good movies. He gave me "Madagascar" for Mother's Day, which is a hilarious movie. Here are some mini-reviews of some of the movies he's given me, plus a couple more that I found absolutely hilarious, just in case you missed them. The first 3 are animated.

"Madagascar" is about zoo animals that escape to the wild. If you pay attention, you'll catch sly nods to a lot of different movies sprinkled throughout. The penguins and the lemur king are highlights.

"The Emporer's New Groove" is about a bratty emporer who is turned in to a llama. It kind of made me think of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" in the way it appeals to kids and adults and is clever. The character of Kronk is a definite highlight.

"Flushed Away" is about a rich, up-town mouse who gets flushed down his toilet ("Poor little Roddy, flushed down his own potty"). It is hysterical! Lots of sight gags. The scene where the mouse has fun with the little girl's toys is a highlight, but the french frogs and the mime with the cell phone steal the show.

"Johnny English" is about a James Bond Wanna-Be played by Rowan Atkinson (of Mr. Bean fame). If you don't mind lots of jokes about bottoms, you'll probably laugh yourself silly. A little like the old Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers.

"The Importance of Being Ernest" is based on Oscar Wilde's play. This version was made in 2002 and stars Reese Witherspoon, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth (Mr. Darcy!!!), Judi Dench, and others. It isn't as funny as the other movies, but it is fun. There is one picture of a naked lady in an old book, and there is a young lady who gets a tattoo on her bottom. It's just a light romantic comedy/farce.