4/30/10 – Friday

Paula’s walking in honor of Jane‘s Jugs on Mother’s Day to raise money for breast cancer services. Get your butt over yonder and sponsor her!   * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= *   My friend Sue and her daughter Holly volunteered at a Soft Power Education … Continue reading “4/30/10 – Friday”

Paula’s walking in honor of Jane‘s Jugs on Mother’s Day to raise money for breast cancer services. Get your butt over yonder and sponsor her!

 

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My friend Sue and her daughter Holly volunteered at a Soft Power Education school in Uganda last summer. They were overwhelmed by the need, and Holly has made a real effort to supply books for their newly formed library.

Holly has now entered a contest on “What am I doing to change the world” through Red Rose tea. The winner will be given a seven-day, all expenses-paid trip for two to live and work in Africa on a ONEXONE partner project.

There is a limit of one (1) entry per person/email address permitted during the Contest Period, so she’ll need support from as many people as possible. A confirmation message will be sent to your email, and you have to click on the link to make your vote count (check your junk mail folder).

Read her entry at this site, and if you are willing, vote for her. Should she win, she and and her fiance Alan would do this volunteer work this summer as part of their honeymoon. Thanks, friends, And cross your fingers.

 

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Do you know what happened to Shelley of Shelleyness?

Shelley of Shelleyness is alive and well and insisting on breaking our hearts by refusing to journal. Hmph.

Could you and Fred do a photo re-enactment of the famous Chaps Man entry?

We reenact the Chaps Man entry on a regular basis, but SOME things are meant to be private, you know.

 

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(From Aimee): I don’t get coupons either. I subbed to a few coupon blogs a while back and I almost never see anything we’d actually use. Lots of processed foods and cleaning/hygiene products. I save money by not using paper towels for anything except cat barf- I use maybe a roll every 4-6 weeks and probably only that much because I have an elderly cat who pukes a lot. I also don’t use commercial cleaners at all anymore. I have two spray bottles, one that is 50/50 vinegar/water and one 20/80 Dr. Bronner’s/water (or something like that, I just squirt some soap in the bottle until I think “that’s enough now!” and then add the rest water). I clean everything with those. Sometimes I sprinkle a little baking soda for scouring. Besides things to clean US, the only commercial cleaning products I still buy are dish soap and laundry soap. The laundry soap is the pain for me. I tried making my own for a while, but I don’t have a good place to keep it in my stupid apartment and I didn’t actually like it very much. My kid and her dad have super sensitive skin, so I always have to buy the “free” or “natural” kinds.

I have my own favorite cleaning spray (that I make myself), but what I find is that in moments of weakness I buy other cleaning stuff, and then it just sits on the shelf and mocks me until I use it. Ugh. My goal for the rest of this year: to not buy any more cleaning products!

We use way too many paper towels – I’m trying to cut down on the amount of paper towels we go through, and I’ve been slightly successful. On the other hand, with 11 cats plus a varying number of fosters, there’s ALWAYS something nasty to clean up, so we’ll probably never get rid of paper towels altogether. (Used paper towels do go out to the compost heap, at least.)

I’ve actually stopped making my own laundry soap. I liked it well enough at first, but after a while, there was build-up on the towels and cleaning cloths so that they weren’t absorbing, and it got annoying, so I’ve gone back to the commercial products. Which I get on sale, and preferably use a coupon for!

 

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Ok, this may be a dumb question, and it may have been previously addressed, but is it a rule that the piggies have to be purchased in pairs? You can’t just get one? Just curious!

I don’t think anyone else has ever asked this one before, actually (and if they did, I don’t recall). The conventional wisdom is that when you have one pig, they tend not to grow as quickly, because there isn’t that concern that the other pig is going to get all the food. When there are two (or more), they get into the “MUST EAT THIS FOOD BEFORE THE OTHER PIG GETS IT ALL”, and thus grow more quickly.

Also, we don’t want them to be lonely. 🙂

 

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Also, those kittens are getting some serious teenage cat looks on their faces, aren’t they?

They are FULL OF ATTITUDE, these bratty little brats.

 

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just found this and HAD to share, lol.

This Barking Dog Totally Looks Like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

Love it!

 

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Talking of anal glands – lovely. Our male cat Fred is 12 and weighs 7.5kg (16.5lbs) – he’s just getting over having an abcess in one gland. It burst. It wasn’t pleasant. 2 weeks of antibiotics and pain relief and the ignominy of having his butt washed daily did not make a happy kitty. Not to mention the hole the size of a dime in his rear. I was wondering, are these prominent in ‘chunkier’ cats?

Good question! I know that our only cat who had an anal gland issue in the past was Tubby, who was a great big chunky chunk of a cat. Miz Poo also had an issue a few years ago with an anal gland adenoma (a cyst near the base of her tail burst, and it turned out to be an anal gland adenoma. The vet said that it could turn into a chronic condition, but we haven’t had any more issues yet), and she’s a bit of a chunk herself. On the other hand, as far as I know, Tommy’s anal glands are just fine, and he’s a big ol’ meaty chunk of a mancat, so who knows?

 

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Do George & Gracie go nuts when they see the cats outside? What are the cats reaction to G&G? Also, have you ever had hate mail from someone who thought you were breeding kittens?

George and Gracie usually don’t notice the cats, but every once in a while Tommy or Maxi will run across the back yard and catch their eye, and they’ll bark and whine at them. They don’t lose their minds, though, thank god (how much would it suck if they went off every time they caught sight of a cat!).

The cats seem pretty unimpressed by the dogs, and for the most part don’t notice them, even when they’re barking at something. They must have realized pretty quickly that the dogs are behind a fence and can’t do anything to them.

I’ve never had hate mail from someone who thought I was breeding kittens, thank god, but of course now that I’ve said that, the timer’s ticking and I’ll probably get one before the weekend is out!

 

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I had a dream last night that was a Bitchypoo/Pioneer Woman cross. In it you were taking pictures of the herd of cats as they milled around waiting for the feed truck to drop off fixings for Snackin’ Time. My head is SUCH a strange place to live.

I’m somehow enthralled by the idea of having to take a truck of cat food out at Snackin’ Time and drop it off for herds of cats. I’m sure it would get old pretty quickly, but still. It sounds like it’d be fun!

 

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How is Miz Poo doing these days? She looks real tired in pictures. How old is she now? ‘Enquiring’ minds want to know.

I did my best to get a good interview with Miz Poo. I had it all planned out in my head, where I’d ask her a question, and she’d do her patented Poo chirrup, and it would be adorable. It didn’t quite work out, but here it is anyway!

She’s doing well – her only health issue at the moment is the constant grooming of her stomach, which is resulting in a bare tummy. For a while, we were keeping her doped up on elavil, because it was stopping her from the grooming. But we felt bad about that – when she’s on the elavil, she’s a bit of a zombie (even on a quarter dose) – so took her off it. If the grooming gets to be too bad, we’ll put her back on it.

She’s ten years old now – she’ll be eleven in September!

 

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I wonder how many {pervy} hits you’re gonna get with your bloody cock story. LOL!

Can you imagine someone searching on that and ending up on this page? “WHERE THE HELL IS THE PORN?! ALL I SEE IS KITTENS!”

 

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When you said “Maura’s mom”, I thought you meant her biological mom and that perhaps you were adopting her. Then I was thinking, “But how would they have been able to track down Maura’s mom and how would they know it was really her mom?”. And I’m not even blonde…

You’re not alone – apparently a large number of you guys thought I meant Maura’s biological mom. I guess I should have said her NEW Mom!

Secondly, I must insist that you quit throwing perfectly good kittens in the trash!

They throw themselves in the trash! I’ve got nothing to do with it, I’m just documenting it! I wish my TRASH would throw itself in the trash as well as the kittens do!

 

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This is a good story.

Stray cat nurses orphaned bobcat kittens.

Man, I wish I had a litter of baby bobcats. How cool would that be!

 

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If you have a Kroger near you, they have had Petpride scoopable cat litter in the 40lb. box on sale for something like $7.09 for weeks now. I love it and I have tried the rest and I really think this clumps the best. I have 4 cats and I am TERRIBLE about scooping and cleaning the box and the smell is fine for days… yes days, shut up I said I was bad!

I picked up a box of the Pet Pride litter on your say-so, Christine. I hope like hell it’s as good as you say – even at the regular price (just under $10), that’s a better price than the buckets of Fresh Step I’ve been getting at Sam’s.

Speaking of litter, I have to say that for the past few years, I’ve been buying Fresh Step litter at Sam’s because it was cheaper than Arm & Hammer. I thought that Arm & Hammer was the better litter, though. I remembered it as being litter that clumped harder than the Fresh Step and kept the smell down better. Well, a few weeks ago I got several boxes of Arm & Hammer on sale and had coupons, and I’m here to tell you that the Fresh Step is far better than the Arm & Hammer. The Arm & Hammer clumps okay, but not any better than the Fresh Step did. But as far as being better about keeping down the smell? No. When I walk into my bathroom, it SMELLS like litter boxes in there, whereas with the Fresh Step, it never did. UGH.

 

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Ok, this is really bad and I am ashamed to admit it but I seriously still don’t get the bagel pricing thing. I have a fairly recently MBA too (shameful part) but they didn’t cover grocery pricing in my MBA! I can do derivatives though!

Several of y’all had a problem with this, which makes me think I wasn’t terribly clear in the storytelling. Tell me if this makes more sense:

I went into the store with the intention of buying Bagel Brand A because they were buy one, get one free (with a usual price of $2.59 per pack). This means that one pack of Bagel A would have cost half of $2.59. In other words, they would have cost $2.59/2 = $1.30 (rounding up).

Bagel Brand B was $2.50 per pack.

So instead of paying $1.30 for one pack of bagels (Brand A), I paid $2.50 for one pack of bagels (Brand B), because I confused myself. Had Bagel Brand A been the usual price, THEN I would have saved 9 cents. Instead, I paid $1.20 more by buying one pack of Bagel Brand B rather than one pack of (on sale) Bagel Brand A.

 

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Please note that that’s Maura on the right, Jake on the left, and Miz Poo sniffing Jake’s tail. And NO ONE is hissing or smacking or even growling. It’s a miracle!


Maura, staring out the window at a bird.

We’ve given Maura the run of the house 24/7, and it’s going pretty well. Until last night, we were putting her in the foster room overnight, just to prevent any middle of the night hissing and smacking matches. But she’s been getting along so well with the other cats that we left her out last night, and all was perfectly fine. Have I mentioned what a sweet girl she is? (Only a thousand times!)

 

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Corbett and Jake.


Bolitar, Reacher and Rhyme. Look at the ATTITUDE I’m getting from Reacher and Rhyme.


Corbett’s all “Yeah, that’s right. I’m laying here smacking the cord to the blinds around.”


“You got a problem with that?”


It’s a rough life.

 

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Grumpy Spanky, trying to get some shut-eye and not appreciating the interruption.

 

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Previously
2009: “THTOP calling her a bad mother! She is a good mother! I luff her!”
2008: It smelled like evil.
2007: I think you can imagine our happiness.
2006: No entry.
2005: Always/ Sometimes/ Never
2004: Erin should be more concerned with the fact that he’s been killing people and burying them in the back yard and less with his lying.
2003: I believe there’s a seat in the ass-singe section with my name on it.
2002: Sucks to be her.
2001: “Fuuuuuuuuck,” he said.
2000: Don’t come back here looking for no entry, my friends.