27 September 2013

Feline Friday: Late Night with Lily

 It's like clockwork: I sit down to watch Late Night with Craig Ferguson and Lily makes a beeline for my lap! She enjoys Craig while he checks the tweets and e-mails...

...and she tolerates Geoff...

 But who wants to see a pretend horse? What a bore! Time for a nap!
 
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20 September 2013

Feline Friday: Corn Cat Returns!

For today's Feline Friday, I thought we'd re-visit one of my all-time favorite Lily videos, CORN CAT! Turns out there are tons of corn-eating cats on the internet (Google it) but Lily is my favorite. She'll eat corn anytime she can get her hands -- I mean paws -- on it! Enjoy this 13-second treat! :)

13 September 2013

Feline Friday: Chair Wars

Blogging friends: Please continue to bear with me in the next few weeks as I make final preparations for my parents' estate sale. I hope to be back to my regular blogging routine in October. 

Thank goodness for our kitties! They are such a help and comfort during this rough time. Never a dull moment with them! This week, I brought home an antique chair from my parents' house. Tinsel hadn't seen it in years but remembered it immediately, hopping up on it the minute I carried it inside. I had to lift her up to put a protective towel on the embroidered seat.

All was well until Lily discovered the chair and claimed it for her own. Now we have intense competition for seat time, complete with growling and hissing.

Seriously, girls. It's not THAT comfortable!
 

06 September 2013

Feline Friday: JAMMED!

 Naughty Lily! I recently bought her a very basic automatic feeder to use when we have to be gone overnight. Lily is not one of those kitties who will pace herself and nibble at her food over an extended period of time. Nope, not Lily. Her weekend allotment of food would be gone before we're out of the driveway! (I'm not exaggerating -- this has actually happened!)

So I put the feeder out for a trial run just to be sure it worked as planned. But would Lily leave it alone? NO! She was determined to figure out how to open it!
 

 She smelled the food inside...
 

...and she tried to fit her paw between the containers.
 

Then she decided to work from the front side.
 

She worked and worked, pushing the container around the floor with her nose. I'll admit it was pretty cute at first!
 

 Then she got out those naughty claws! I was worried she was going to destroy the feeder before its maiden voyage!
 

She picked and scraped...and scraped and picked...


...but ultimately the feeder stood up to her shenanigans!
 

So on a recent trip, I thought I'd give the feeder a trial run. I had arranged for a cat-sitter to stop by and take care of the girls, but I put a little "extra" food in the feeder for Lily.

Well, Naughty Lily JAMMED the feeder while we were gone! Do you see how the tray is pulled out in the photo below? She pulled both trays forward, while the lids were closed, which JAMMED the mechanism and prevented the lids from opening! Good thing I had arranged for the cat-sitter to feed her, or she would have had a hungry couple of days!
 
Next time, I'll have to put duct-tape along the front side of the feeder. You'd think we have a puppy in the house! Gotta love  our Lily! :)
jp

01 September 2013

Paring Down the Holiday Stuff

Now that it is September, I have less than a month until the estate sale. I could not be more anxious to put all of this behind me. Although the sale preparation has allowed me to mentally process everything, it is a very emotionally draining process. For that reason, I'm looking forward to October!
 Since starting on this task back in May, I've learned a lot about how to approach the process of clearing out a house. One thing I've tried to do is to figure out which task would give me the most relief if it were checked off my list, and focus on that task next. For me, one of the tasks plaguing me was dealing with my mom's holiday items.
Being a sentimental person, holidays have always been hard for me but when my mom passed away, they became exponentially more difficult. As a result, it has been very painful for me to look through her holiday decorations and I was dreading seeing them out on display at the sale. I saved a few of my favorite items, like her huge set of holly dishes...


and boxed up the rest for the auction. 
 Then one day the auction guy told me that holiday stuff doesn't sell well, and I couldn't imagine seeing my mom's beloved decorations languishing at the sale. The thought of no one wanting them made me sick.
So I contacted a small local thrift shop which supports the hospice system and found out they gladly accept holiday decorations. I've donated a lot of household items to this store in the past and feel really good about taking Mom's leftover stuff there.

I took the opportunity to sort through all of my own holiday items (how did I get so much stuff?) and, after keeping many of my mom's decorations, I pared back my own decorations by 50%. My SUV is full of very nice holiday things which will soon find a new home.

 On the day of the sale, I won't have to look at those holiday decorations. They'll already be on their way to new homes. This makes me feel better already!
jp