Feline Friday: My Apologies in Advance

I need to offer an apology in advance to anyone attending my upcoming Christmas mini-album class (which is going to be great fun, BTW).

I had to leave the house unexpectedly in the middle of making my kits and when I returned home...

Lily had somehow made her way out of the basement and was fast asleep in the pile of ribbon.

Naughty Lily! You might make our friends sneeze while they're making our project! :(

But doesn't she look glamorous in tulle?

Tabby Thursday

Awww, Tinsel. In spite of your little quirks, you are an amazingly beautiful kitty. I'm awfully glad that we gave you a forever home.

Wordless Wednesday: Fall in the Neighorhood

Cooking on the Go

With our daughter in school 8+ hours away, we've had occasion lately to make a few road trips. It seems that we always fill up our gas tank at one particular truck stop. The first time I walked into the store, I was quite surprised to hear the woman behind the counter announce over the loud speaker: "Shower #23 is available. Shower #23." So I ventured to the back of the store to check it out and found a bank of showers at the ready. Who knew you could shower at a truck stop?

While I was scoping out the showers, I discovered something else at the back of the store, obviously designed for the over-the-road trucker:

An entire line of appliances you can plug into your lighter!

Need a pot of coffee for your run? No problemo...Java to go! Hungry for pizza? Just plug the oven into your lighter and your pizza will be ready in no time. How about a cozy crockpot of stew? By the time you hit Newark, dinner will be served.

And clean up is easy! Just plug in an over-the-road Dirt Devil and tidy up your rig.

I'm not a trucker (a fact which should be obvious to most), but I may very well invest in one of these handy appliances for our lengthy drives to Indiana. With a portable stove on board, there would be no need to stop for lunch! Why, we could shave 30 minutes or more from our travel time!

If only we didn't have to make an occasional pit stop.

Now that I think of it, I'll bet the truck stop carries something for THAT, too. Next time we stop there, I'll look. :)

Junk Mail Alert!

I opened the Target ad this past week and was very surprised to see someone I know...

LILY! I had no idea she had arranged for a modeling gig. But, as you can clearly see, she's a natural!

Feline Friday: Manicure, please?

Things are really exciting at our house these days. The girls have a new manicure station, otherwise known as a scratching device!

This reversible scratching device is from PetSmart. The top side (not shown) has a sisal scratching area. Tinsel prefers the top but (of course) Lily likes the other side which is covered with carpet. Lily's the one with the claws, so she generally gets her way. You can see that there is an attached toy which hangs down when the device is turned right side up.

Lily loves the new manicure station. Her nails look great! It has taken a few days to redirect her inappropriate scratching to this new device, but she's learning quickly.

Can't say the same of Spouse, who has tripped over it more times than he'd care to admit!

Tabby Thursday

For today's post, Lily will demonstrate proper toilet drinking technique.



Position your back feet firmly on the seat and balance with your tail. Balance is very important! You do not want to fall in the toilet.

Place your front feet inside the toilet, just above the water line. Grip the porcelain with your toesies and take a nice long drink!

Don't get caught drinking from the toilet! If you do, avoid eye contact with the photographer and just try to look natural. :)

Top 12 Weekend Highlights

We spent the weekend at Indiana University visiting our daughter and taking in lots of activities. What a fun time! Kind of makes me wish I could go back to college. (Don't worry, Bailey...I won't enroll at IU!)

I thought I'd put together a quick collage of some of the highlights of the weekend. Click on the collage to get a bigger view!

Beginning on the top row:

1) Opening night of the John Mellencamp world concert tour, held at the beautiful IU auditorium. A Bloomington resident, Mellencamp has been a big supporter of the university over the years and is a local legend. It was very neat seeing him perform on campus!

2) The Indiana-Northwestern game. IU has a gorgeous stadium and works very hard to make game day fun. Too bad the team has such a hard time winning games. Hopefully the players are at least having fun! :) But I'm not too sure about that at this point in the season...

3) One of the many pre-game band performances, featuring the band's new reversible stocking caps -- this time with white side out.

4) Drumline warm-up, featuring the striped side of the reversible stocking caps!

5) Todd Rundgren visiting the band in the stands! He has been at IU teaching a special class for the past couple of weeks (can you imagine having him as your visiting professor?) and stopped by the game to conduct "Bang on the Drum All Day" with the IU Marching Hundred. Another legend! (As a side note, I am pretty sure he dyes his hair.)

6) A fantastic post-game show, featuring "Sing-Sing-Sing" by the IU Drumline.

7) A drum-off between the Northwestern and IU drumlines, followed by socializing.

8) The Happy College Student!

9) A wonderful private marimba performance. Such a treat for us!

10) Beautiful blue sky at the IU stadium, with sunshine eventually making for quite a pleasant game day.

11) The Happy College Student and The Happy College Student's Mom! Look! Neither of us is crying!

12) The last little bit of what must have been a gorgeous fall in Bloomington.


And a few other highlights that aren't pictured:

• Seeing Todd Rundgren have his picture taken with Hooter, the ever-present owl drumline mascot

• Enjoying some fantastic Pizza at Nick's with Daughter and a friend

• Checking out the many creative Halloween costumes sported by IU students
  

• A late-night Starbucks run, something we do quite often at home
  

• Receiving our very own IU Drumline t-shirts, featuring Hooter on the sleeve! We will wear them with pride.

• Feeling so grateful that The Happy College Student is right where she should be, with fantastic professors, interesting classes, a great assortment of friends, a cozy room, a bag full of chocolate chip cookies, and a very bright future ahead.
  

It just doesn't get any better than this!

Feline Friday: Mysterious Nighttime Visitor - the Movie

Since it's Halloween weekend, it's an appropriate time for a scary movie, right? At the end of this movie, you won't know what to fear most: The Mysterious Nighttime Visitor, Tinsel, or the oddly placed towels on the floor of our dining room.

Be sure to have your sound on to hear Tinsel exhale and growl. And watch carefully as the Mysterious Nighttime Visitor saunters across the front porch, belly swinging.

And be aware that the movie has an abrupt -- but very exciting -- ending. I'd like you to believe that this was for dramatic effect but truthfully, in the excitement of the moment, the camera operator pushed the stop button.

Always leave your audience wanting more, right? ;)

Happy Halloween!

Got bad photos? Use 'em!

I've recently been reminded that the name of my blog is "Of Cats AND Cardstock". A certain reader (who shall remain unnamed) suggested that perhaps I'm giving a bit too much attention to the CATS side of the blog. (I happen to believe that it's impossible to give too much attention to cats, but that's a topic for another day.)

So to balance things out a bit, I thought I'd best share a few layouts. They are, of course, mainly CARDSTOCK, with a bit of striped paper thrown in so as not to disappoint.

The common thread running through these layouts is that each one uses less than optimal photos. Sure, I'd love to have fabulous photos to work with, but that just isn't realistic for me. I firmly believe that scrapbooking is mainly about preserving the memory, so I'll use whatever I have. Even a less than perfect photo can trigger a vivid memory.

This is a page about the drivers' ed class Daughter took two years ago. I had no pictures of anything related to the class until Spouse recently drove past the place and grabbed a cell phone picture of the back of the Prius for me. I have trained him well. :) Enlarged and tweaked in Picasa, this photo doesn't look half bad.

This photo is actually a still shot grabbed from a quick cell phone video. Once again, I wanted to capture the memory and this photo allowed me to do that. Notice I used a bit of (old) flowered paper...along with the stripes. One bonus point for me today! :)



These photos were taken from a distance in a dimly lit restaurant. The quality was poor and the colors were a bit garish. Switching them to black and white masked the color issue and gave them a timeless feel. And at the time of this particular event (one of our daughter's last high school performances), I certainly WANTED time to stand still.

This last layout is made completely of cell phone pictures -- from two or three different phones. The photos aren't great on their own but in collage format, they manage to tell the story quite nicely. I used the journaling from my blog post to finish this quick spread. You can read it more easily here.

So my message to you is that you can create a perfectly fine layout using less than stellar photos. Forget your camera? Grab a cell phone picture instead. And USE it to write that story. Fifty years from now, you'll be glad you did.

{Almost} Wordless Wednesday

meatloafed

Tabby Tummy Tuesday

Could this tabby tummy be any cuter?

I am powerless to resist. Yes, I will rub your tummy, Lily!