nearly wordless (and nearly out of time) friday

Item: One patient canine.



Totally blurry as child is not nearly as neurotic as mother about getting the picture.

__________________

NaBlo: We're still on.

cat tales

Once, a few years ago, I walked into a professor's office and he asked me, "What happened to your face?"

"Oh, my cat attacked me."

"That's funny," he said, "I wouldn't keep a pet who attacks me."

Well, Kitsy, as we so often call him, is still here. While I get what Dr Chair was saying, I also love my cat. He's a member of the family, and we accept him despite his occasional testiness.



He (the cat, not the professor) came into our lives in 2004. Cardo decided he wanted to get me a cat (a decision I think he still regrets sometimes) for Valentine's Day. In true us fashion, we didn't get a cat until March. We adopted Snuggles from the SPCA. He was already named and I had this weird notion that it wouldn't be right to change his name. He was absolutely tiny, and he was rather snuggly then.

Shortly after we adopted Snuggles, I got pregnant with Pic. I was sick almost all of the time during months two through four (into my second trimester, which I didn't think was the way it was supposed to go), so I wasn't up and around a lot. Snuggles would sit on my chest and tuck his head under my chin when I was sitting down. Eventually, I also napped a lot during my pregnancy. Snuggles was only too happy to join me for a nap. He still looks at me when the day has gone on long enough expecting me to go take a nap so he can settle in too.

For a while, he had a brother. This was 2007 to 2009. We had Lucky (also adopted and also already named) for a little less than two years. Snuggles, being a spry four years old, loved playing with his brother. Lucky, who had been found in a field with crates full of kittens, was probably older than the ten years the Human Society employees guessed him to be, and he wasn't always as enthusiastic about Snuggles's playfulness. However, Lucky tolerated it well.



Snuggles himself has shown great patience with the young 'uns. When Pic was but a wee bairn, she would grab his fur, delighting in how soft he was. Snuggles waited until she had been up and running for several months before he started defending himself from Pic's often overzealous advances. He's the same way with our dearly beloved friends' little one now.

With the rest of us, though? Well, he gets in his moods. He'll lure you in as he sprawls out, tempting us to pet him or rub his tummy. And, I still fall for it, even though I know he seems to detest having his tummy rubbed. It's a trick. He only wants to grab your hand and latch on with his claws and teeth.

My dad still laughs when I mention Snuggles by name because he, too, knows the dangers of trusting the cat too easily.

Although I'm wary of being too attached to animals because I know they'll inevitably die (as will we all), Snuggles is firmly tucked away in my heart.* I love that he still awaits a daily nap, as if those still happen on a regular basis (we both wish). I love that he plays fetch. I love that he purrs loudly to himself as he's getting ready to go to bed, even though no one is petting him. I love that he looks black in most light, but when the sun shines on him, he's the color of some fabulous deep dark chocolate. I love that he snores.



When we were deciding on a new pet recently, I was so hoping to adopt another cat. I was overruled, two to one, though, and we got a dog. More on her next week.

----------------------

* Aren't you glad I didn't say "literally"? Because that would be gross.

nearly ww

I think I actually like the curls-in-progress look better (at least it's kind of weird). Next time, I'll not put my hair up when it's very wet (I did wait a day-and-a-half to take the headband out).

Thanks to Poke for the idea, via Pinterest.

nearly ww: school's in session!

ww

tea obsession: mint and honey green tea

As part of my do-it-myself movement, I have been trying to replicate a beloved thing or two at home. This tea is one of those things:



I went scouting around this here interweb looking for recipes for this, but I was not happy with what I found. The best recipe I found called for both sugar and honey. My response to that was, "Sugar! and honey! What?" I thought about how crazy that was for a bit before I actually got around to looking at the label on the bottle. As printed: filtered water, organic cane sugar, organic green tea, organic honey, organic spearmint extract, ascorbic acid (vitamin c), citric acid, and natural flavors*. Oh, oops, there are both sugar and honey in the tea.

Anyhow, I never got around to using the recipe because I figured out something on my own.

A technique, with not-all-that-helpful pictures:



I put a small bunch of mint leaves into six cups of water and bring that to a boil. (I've been buying organic mint from the store. I am also growing mint, but my plant is tiny with leaves about a twentieth the size of these. She's still alive, though, which is fabulous to see each morning when I water her and talk to her.)



As soon as the water boils, I throw in six bags of green tea and remove the pan from the heat. I add four tablespoons of honey and stir it all up. After a bit, I place a tea strainer over my pitcher and empty the contents of the pan into the strainer. (My pitcher is thick glass, I should probably mention. I doubt pouring the incredibly hot tea into a plastic pitcher would be a great idea.) If there's any space at the top of the pitcher, I just pour in a bit of water. I let the tea cool and then place it in the refrigerator.

(And, yes, those are the only pictures I took. Oy. Well, it has taken me somewhere around six months to finally post this, so this is about right for how I'm currently operating.)

When I'm ready for some tea, I do half tea and half water with ice. I guess I'm just so used to watering my tea down (why did I start that?), it's normal for me. I suppose you could just drink the tea as is, if you felt so inclined.

I recently bought some of the Sweet Leaf tea (which, until this very moment, I was convinced had "Grandma's" in it's name) and found it way incredibly exceedingly too sweet for me. I've been watering that down, too.**

I have to say that I'm feeling pretty good about being able to make this at home. There was a time I figured you couldn't do most things at home (because I was incredibly delusional, I guess?). I'll be working on tea lattes at home in the coming cold months. I tried this last year and even before that, I think, but I wasn't loving the results. Part of it was that I was using premade vanilla syrup (for Earl Grey tea lattes) and it was just kind of gross. I have better tea now and I'll be attempting to make my own syrup.

-----------------------

* Every time I see "natural flavors" on an ingredients label, I automatically think, "I wonder if it's bugs." Every freaking time.

** How is it that a bottle of this tea is too sweet for me, but an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream isn't? Hmm? Really, I'd like to know.

nearly wordless wednesday

Because, really, if I'm going to let my hair grow out, I'm going to do something with it...every once in a while.

ww

{this moment}

{inspiration: SouleMama}

picture pages

I am having a somewhat difficult time around the pond these days. I don't know why, but I just can't seem to get around to posting in a fashion that doesn't seem to jerk along -- start and stop, start and stop.

It's not as if I've been up to so much lately that I can't manage to take a few moments out and post. It's actually that I have so much stuff to post, so many things saved up (nothing earth-moving, but things I wrote months ago) that I feel like I shouldn't post until I get all that up.

Anyhow, I'm working on it. (Some version of that should be, like, my motto or something: I'm working on it, or, I'll work on it.)

For today: pictures. I missed Wordless Wednesday yesterday, so I'll post my pictures today and (obviously) forego that whole wordless thing.

Some moments from the past couple of weeks:

{this moment}

{inspiration: SouleMama}

{this moment}

{inspiration: SouleMama}

music monday: 'hanging out the passenger side of his best friend's ride'

A few weeks ago, just after a bit of rain, we went out for one of our walks and spotted the following on the back of a park sign:



It was so unexpected and lead to such a quick trip back in time*.



"No Scrubs -TLC"

Please, though, why is it that I don't remember the rap finish to this song?

All right, I'm off to listen to more TLC. (Go, go Jason Waterfalls, anyone?)

---------------

* I was going to say "Memory Lane," but that was too trite. I was trying to come up with a better "street" name. Ah, well. No doubt I'll obsess about it for a while and come up with something or other.

---------------

P.S. The bit of a line I have in the title still, still runs through my head at times for seemingly no reason at all. Brains are weird. They so definitely belong in the Department of Mysteries.

wordless wednesday

nearly wordless wednesday (a day late)

Please note the outfit (fancy dress, work gloves, snow boots). And, the size of the weeds. And, that what she's holding is a very small axe. Just another evening at La Casa B.

nearly wordless wednesday

"I just thought I wanted to cut my ribbons."

{this moment}

Inspiration via: SouleMama

wordless wednesday

{this moment}

Inspiration via: SouleMama

nearly wordless wednesday*

I break an egg, clean it up, turn around...


Pic breaks an egg.

Seriously, we're very professional bakers.

-----------------

* I've said this before, and I'm saying it again: "Nearly Headless Nick" is what's stuck in my head right now.