A Shiny New Month

Happy November I can’t even believe I am saying that. Not only is it hard to believe that November is here but that the end of the year is near. I love November it is my husband’s Birthday month, Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas time and enjoying the early nights and cooler days. I just love it all.

I meant to post this last night but I came home from work ate dinner and sat down for just a few minutes, well that was the plan. Scruffy snuggled onto my lap and it was just so deliciously warm and cozy that I fell asleep. I got up about an hour later and went to bed. The cool nights make great sleeping weather.

It was a quiet weekend this past one. I did a lot of cleaning at home. I actually hadn’t meant to spend the weekend cleaning. The weather was cold and cloudy and I had every intention of staying at home and binge watching Gilmore Girls and knitting. But when you have lots of animals lots of cleaning is required even when your knitting is calling you. I did get a few stitches in here and there and read a few pages of my book.

I have been going to the assisted living village to eat lunch with my mother in law a couple of times a week. She doesn’t do very well getting out anymore. I go down a couple of times a week and bring lunch from SONIC. She loves their hamburgers. This gives us some time to chat and breaks up the day to day she has at the village. She always insists on paying me $2.00 for the hamburger. This is usually her winnings from playing bingo. LOL.

***The kittens love this basket. I stepped into the garage yesterday and all four were crammed into this basket. It is just the cutest thing.***

This absolutely scares me to death. This is Buster but he is not the only one who likes to get under the cars. You should see the roundup we have to do before we leave every morning. We try to corral all the kittens and Mama cat to make sure they are nowhere near the cars.

***We had lots of rainy walks over the weekend. As soon as the rain would stop we would dash outside for a quick walk and some fresh air.***

***See the crane? I am sure she has eggs close by.***

The weather right now is just my absolute favorite. I drive to work every morning with my head whipping from side to side like the girl in that movie the exorcist. I just can’t get enough of all the fall beauty. I’m usually brought back to reality when a horn honks and drivers are yelling for me to speed up. I just can’t help myself.

This is a busy week for the fur babies. Molly had to go to the vet today to get an allergy shot. Scruffy is scheduled for tomorrow because he is scratching like crazy and actually pulling some of his hair out. I’m not really sure what is going on there. And all of the kittens, all four of them, are scheduled to go to the vet on Friday morning for a follow up check up and to determine when we can have them all spayed and neutered. You can see why I am never going to be able to retire. Heck I may have to take a second job just to pay for the upkeep on these babies.

***Our Kitty Kitty. She is still the Queen of all the kitties. And she knows it!!!!***

How is your week going?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Painting Pumpkins And An Estate Sale

Cool mornings, leaves falling, wood smoke in the air. Fall is my favorite time of year. I may have mentioned that a few hundred times. I want to grab every day and cling to it and savor it. The colors here are changing but not as quickly as they have in past years. We have had really warm weather so we still have a lot of green on the trees. This week the temps are supposed to be cooler so maybe some color changes are coming.

***That’s actually Scruffy going through the woods looking like a wombat or something.***

Saturday I went to an estate sale in Madisonville. I love these sales. The location of the sale is in the same place each time. The items from the estate are brought in and the sale starts on Thursday with everything being full price. On Friday everything is 25% off, Saturday 50% off and on Sunday some items are 75% off. I usually go on Saturday because I am off from work. Although I have gone a few times on Thursday just to scope it out and see what treasures might be available.

I saw lots of things that I was interested in. I always walk through the entire building several times. There are several rooms within the building. There is also a bid box. If you see something you want but don’t want to pay the asking price you place a bid in the box along with your phone number. If the item is not sold the highest bidder will get the item. Of course when you do this you are taking a chance on losing out altogether.

***I just loved this painting of the girl with her cat. I really love the red color of her dress. I think it will stand out anywhere I hang it. And it was half off of the price listed!!!! Score!!!***

I loved this little teapot. I just had to get it. I am thinking I may give it to a friend. It’s adorable.

Look at these wooden stockings. They spell Merry Christmas. They are hand painted By the man this estate belonged to. They were priced at $65.00, well half of that, and that was a little high for me. I was talking to the man who conducts the sale and I told him I was going to place a bid in the bid box. He asked how much I was going to bid and I said $25.00. He told me I could have them for that. Yay!!! He said that he had put them out and taken them back a few times for himself but he just didn’t know if he would actually get around to hanging them. I promised him that I would and I would bring him a picture. I love them. They are really old.

***I added this wooden Santa for my Santa collection. His arms move. I don’t have one like him.***

I try to reason with myself that bringing items in only creates more clutter. But I also promise myself to continue with my decluttering that I have been working on. Yes I know not bringing it in to start with would technically kill two birds with one stone but what is the fun of that. I also got a couple of old books. One of them has a stamp on the inside with a date of 1916.

Sunday was the usual laundry, cleaning and taking care of all the fur babies. Molly and Scruffy both needed a bath. I made banana bread and cooked dinner both Saturday and Sunday. Spaghetti on Saturday night and then a rice and grilled chicken bowl on Sunday night. It was delish. I also got a little knitting in and finished painting my pumpkins.

I gathered these rocks out of the flower bed last week. As I saw one that I thought would make a good pumpkin I would add it to the collection I had on the entry table near the front door. Mark kept asking what I was going to use all the rocks for. I said they’re not rocks they’re pumpkins. I had to put numerous coats of the orange paint on them and let them dry in between. I think they turned out pretty well, just time consuming.

So I gathered the rocks:

I put the first coat of paint on them and I was pretty discouraged.

So I added SEVERAL more coats of paint. Letting each coat dry in between applications. Luckily they dried fast.
They were starting to look a little better.

And this is the way they turned out.

So back to work today and a busy week ahead. How are you? How was your weekend?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Weekly Catch-Up

Happy Monday!! It was a chilly 45 degrees F here this morning and I am loving it. The leaves are turning colors more and more every day.

How was your week and weekend? It was pretty busy here at the zoo, which is what I am now calling our house, because of all the animals.

Last Monday it was back to work for me after the Sister Trip so I had a bit of catching up to do. It was also Fall Break for several of the schools around our area so we were slammed at work. It reminded me of our summer attendance.

I started to notice that when Molly walked across the floor she was starting to make quite a clackety clack sound. I checked her nails and they were getting really long. I don’t think Molly has ever had her nails trimmed. She has always been an outside dog, until a few months ago, and her nails were always short. Not anymore, they were starting to get really long. Scruffy has to have his cut regularly. My nephew’s wife Amy, is a vet tech and she has cut Scruffy’s nails before. I asked if she could come over and do Scruffy and Molly. I also offered to make dinner for them when they came over. she said they were getting ready to go on vacation but could come the next night.

I had to work late the next night and knew I couldn’t do dinner for them so I ran by the grocery store at lunch and bought a cheesecake and some dip and hummus so we could at least have some snacks. The babies did great when Amy cut their nails I was so proud of them. Scruffy acted better than usual and Molly didn’t even flinch. Amy is very good and the babies love her.

Of course Wednesday morning I had to leave out early and take Allie cat to the vet to be spayed. She was very sore and not herself for a couple of days. I had to run by the vet clinic and pick up some extra pain meds for her on Thursday but she is doing fine now.

Thursday was Sister Lunch. We pushed it back a day so my nephew Tyler could join us. We also had Birthday cake for his brother, Caleb, who turned 18 on Sunday. I gave Caleb a Birthday Card with money. Which is what I usually do. I noticed he had a bit of a sad look on his face. He thanked me for the money and then we started discussing presents. It was still a few days away from his Birthday and his mom and grandmother was asking him what he wanted for his Birthday. He said he would like presents to open. He said money was great but it was always nice having presents to open. He does have a job now and makes his own money so I guess money in a Birthday card doesn’t hold quite the same appeal. But it really got me to thinking. I myself love presents. Giving money is easy but there is not a lot of thought that goes into it. So I think from now on I will do presents. I picked out a few things for him so he would have presents on his Birthday. And you know what? I had the most fun picking out those gifts. I think maybe in the past I have always been busy and just didn’t take the time and thought into getting gifts for him and his brother. Special occasions deserve gifts!! I also made him chocolate cupcakes and am now committed to making cupcakes for several of his friends’ Birthdays. LOL.

On Saturday I picked up my mother in law at the Assisted Living Village and took her to get a hamburger and go for a drive. It has become increasingly hard to do this. She has a really hard time getting into the car. I always use her car which is a small Toyota Corolla. She can’t get into mine at all. She no longer seems comfortable in the car and she constantly complains about everything. She almost seems relieved when we get back to the village. It’s sad, I certainly don’t want her going out if she doesn’t want to. I think she just feels more secure now being at the village. It’s funny how time can really sneak up on you and change things so quickly.

I picked up groceries on the way home and did a little laundry so I could savor most of my Sunday. I had big plans for Sunday big plans I tell you. Mark had to work so I had the day alone with just the babies. My plan was binge watching Gilmore Girls, knitting and making some cute pumpkins and bats for Halloween, more on those later, and just chilling with all the babies. And that is just what I did. I loved every second of it.

It was back to work this morning. Why do weekends go by so fast? I ran across some very strong words of wisdom this morning when I was scrolling the Gram or TikTok. So it”s not always a waste of time. This is what I read: You need three things to be happy in life.
1. Find someone to love, this could be a person or animal. (Hopefully it’s a whole lot of people or animals.)
2. Have something do do.
3. Have something to look forward to.

I will leave you with that for your week ahead and challenge you to have all of those and everything else you may want.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!

The Crazy Cat Lady

Several years ago for Halloween I dressed up as The Crazy Cat Lady, you know from the Simpsons. I searched for weeks for kitty cats to complete my outfit. Who would have thought a few years later I would actually be living the true Crazy Cat Lady Life. But here I am.

***I may just have to make this my Halloween outfit again this year.***

It has been a stressful week. We were finally able to get our mama kitty, Allie, spayed. I was so happy. I was afraid she had already gotten preggers again. But luckily she was not. It is amazing to me how many kittens a cat can mother every year.

We were worried about how we were going to coax Allie cat into the carrier to get her to the vet Wednesday morning. I wasn’t too concerned because me and Allie have gotten a bond started between us. Mark on the other hand was ready to suit up in head to toe padded gear and go after her. I told him to just let me handle it and I did. I simply picked her up and plopped her into the crate. She looked a little startled but she was actually a very good girl. Some half hearted yowling could be heard from the backseat but all in all she did great.

After she got home that evening she was so spacey and sore. Even though I knew we had to have her spayed I felt so bad that she was in pain. I was worried she would never trust me again. She stayed away from the kittens as much as possible. I had bought her a new soft bed but the four kittens had already claimed it. She got into a basket in the garage and I put towels in it to make it softer.

The next day she disappeared for several hours and we found her on the back deck curled up in a chair. The kittens don’t know about this area yet so she had a lot of privacy.

I got up at 4:00 this morning to check in her and make sure she was ok. She was.

I do remember Kitty Kitty going through the same thing a few years ago. And we will have to go through this again with all the kittens very soon.

This morning I asked hubs if we should continue looking for a home for two of the kittens. He immediately said no!!! Why? I asked innocently. Because you could give up one of your arms easier than you could one of those kitties. He knows me so well. And if that makes me the crazy cat lady then so be it. I will wear that title proudly. I have given up half of the garage for them. Those five stay outside and live in the garage where we will be investing in cat houses for them very soon. They already have a collection of cozy beds and play toys.

***Buster*** ***(Mama cat’s favorite)***

***Milo*** ( ***The goofiest and lovable of all the kittens.)***

***Sadie (Shady Sadie I call her now*** ***because she is the one that went missing for a day and a half.*** )

Molly, Scruffy and Kitty Kitty, know they have new brothers and sisters. Molly is afraid of all the cats, Scruffy is curious and still wants to chase them a bit. Kitty Kitty is not sure how she feels. She knows that she is still Queen of the house and that is all that matters. And the good thing is we have love to spare for all of them. Six cats and two dogs. Too many? Time will tell.