Author: Robyn

So, the low-rise size 8 jeans I got at Target last week? Not so much working out for me. I put them on and they were okay, even comfortable. But the instant I did anything at all (in this case, bending over to scoop out the litter box), they rode halfway down my ass.

The jeans are going back, and one day this week I’ll go on another shopping mission to find jeans that work for me. The mid-rise Lee jeans I bought at Kohl’s were mostly comfortable, but I spent too much time pulling them up, so they’re going back, too.

Maybe I’m just not meant to wear jeans. But the Land’s End cotton pants I’ve been wearing forever are too big for me (I must yank up my pants 400 times a day), and of course when I went to order them in a smaller size, they no longer carry them.

Ain’t it always the way?

Fred snorted “You should just start wearing overalls!”

Don’t think I’m not tempted!

Saturday morning dawned cold and rainy and just all-around crappy. While Fred went out to do a few things that couldn’t wait (run chicken wire along the outside of the pig yard fence, because the littlest chickens were going from the chicken yard to the pig yard, and from the pig yard into the woods alongside the pig yard, and we were concerned that they’d get lost or eaten by something, so we needed to put a stop to that), I vacuumed the entire house, starting with the upstairs.

The foster kittens have no great love for the vacuum cleaner, so while three of them went and hid under the recliner in my room, Delmar sat atop the cat tree and glared at me while I was vacuuming their room. It always amazes me just how much cat hair accumulates in there in the course of a week – they throw off so much cat hair, I’m surprised there’s any left on their little bodies.

When I was done vacuuming my room, I stood and looked and considered, and decided to move my bed. I had it sitting at an angle, and that worked out okay except that the bedside table was too far away from the bed, so I couldn’t see what time it was in the middle of the night without getting out of bed and squinting at the clock.

This is what my room looked like before I started moving stuff.

This is what it looks like now:

I think the room looks smaller, and I’m not sure how much I like having it off-center, but I wanted the cats to be able to sit on that table and look out the window if they wanted, and the closet door to the left opens all the way with no problem, AND I’ve slept quite well the past two nights, so it’ll be staying that way for the time being.

When Fred was done outside, he went and took a shower, and then we headed out to find the slaughter house. The pigs will be going to be processed the Sunday after Thanksgiving (they were originally scheduled for mid-December, but they’ve gotten a lot bigger a lot faster than we expected), and the place that will be processing them is not the place where we took the last two (the place where we took the last two don’t process anything but deer until February), so Fred wanted to make sure he knew where it was located.

We found it with no problems at all, and we headed for home, then stopped at a furniture store we happened to pass.

By the side door we’ve had this table:

And while it’s a nice-looking table, it’s kind of rickety (the cats like to jump up on it, of course), and there’s only the one door, and most of the time it’s piled high with shit and I can’t stand looking at it. So it’s been my mission lately to find something to replace that table, something with more storage space and that won’t wobble when the cats jump up on top of it.

So since we spotted this big furniture place, we stopped and looked around, and I wasn’t finding anything I liked that would work, and I was getting grouchy, and Fred spotted something on the second floor and pointed to it and said “Would you consider something like that?”

At first I scoffed, because what he was pointing out was a jewelry armoire, but then we went and looked at it, and pulled out the drawers and discussed it, and the more we looked at it, the more it seemed to me that it’d work out for us. It had plenty of drawer space, wasn’t at all rickety, and the price was right, so we decided to get it.

Fred picked it up and we went downstairs to pay.

The women who were working were just delighted that we’d come inside and found something in less than twenty minutes (possibly less than ten, I wasn’t timing us) and wanted to just pay and take it with us.

The saleswoman who wrote up the sales slip introduced herself to Fred and shook his hand, and I amused myself by thinking of saying “Don’t get too attached” because I doubt we’ll ever be back (nothing against the store – it’s just not in an area we generally visit). They rang up the sale and then gave us a couple of insulated coffee mugs with the store name and web site on the side of them, and then we were out of there.

I didn’t realize it until we were loading it into the car, but the absolute best thing about it is that both sides open up and have hooks where, I assume, you’d hang necklaces if you were using it for its intended purpose. We’re using both sides to organize our keys and all the extra house, shed, and coop keys we have. VERY handy.

It’s nothing fancy, and we’re probably going to hell for buying a cheap piece of furniture to replace an antique table, but it works really well for us and it’s nice and solid and I like the way it looks, so there you go.

We spent the rest of the day inside, mostly. It was ugly and cold outside all day and neither of us had any desire to be outside. We talked about going to the movie store, but ultimately decided we could find something we already had recorded or a movie we owned to watch, so we stopped and picked up sandwiches for lunch and went home.

What Happens in Vegas was on pay per view, so we recorded that and watched it, and as we’d both been told, it was no great award-winning movie, but it was a romantic comedy and we are always entertained by Kelso (he’ll always be Kelso from That 70s Show to us), so it was a pretty good choice. If you’ve got nothing better to watch, it’s not bad.

We finally got some sun on Sunday, and Fred spent most of the day working outside. I spent most of the day pulling everything out of the hall and guest bedroom closets, wiping the dust off the floors, and rearranging everything that went back in. We’ve had a lot of empty boxes sitting in a corner of the computer room and it was bugging me, so I got all the packing and shipping stuff (boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap) arranged in the guest bedroom closet, and it looks a lot better. I’ve got a lot more decluttering to do, but it already looks a LOT better in the computer room and dining room, so it’s definitely a start. Hopefully by the time Thanksgiving gets here, the house will look halfway decent.

I also cleared out several of my desk drawers – my GOD, how much tape do I think I need?! – and the checkbook balanced and spent lots of time with the kittens, and ended the day by having ribs (in the crockpot with BBQ sauce), sweet potato crack, and green beans for dinner. Everything was grown here at Crooked Acres, and I think it’s going to be my goal to have a Crooked Acres-grown meal for dinner every Sunday night. It’s a good way to kick off the work week!

I went upstairs yesterday afternoon and all four of the kittens came into my room and snoozed with me. And let me say this – I know now why cats sleep like 23 hours a day. It’s because when they’re sleeping, they are NEVER still. They’re always twitching or stretching or switching positions. Three of the four were curled up against me and the fourth (Marion) was curled up behind my knees, and I felt like I was on a ship in the middle of the ocean, the bed was practically rocking with all the moving around they were doing.

I’m not complaining, though – when all four of them start purring, it’s a very sweet sound.

Delmar’s the biggest snuggler of the bunch. He always, always lays down so that his face is as close to mine as possible, and sometimes he’s just so overwhelmed with love that he rubs his face against my nose, and often times I feel his lips on my nose and y’know, you don’t really think about cats having lips, but I assure you, Delmar certainly does.

All the kittens are snugglers – though Claudette has her limits and prefers to be petted a little, then back off and be in the general vicinity without actually touching me. She has got an amazingly loud purr for a little girl.

I took down the baby gates at the bottom of the stairs, but except for a few times when I caught sight of Lem checking out the guest bedroom (across from the bottom of the stairs), no one else has been down. They seem pretty happy having the upstairs to themselves (though Kara will occasionally venture upstairs and put the smack down on anyone who gets to close. She makes me despair, our Kara.) and usually when I go up there, at least a couple of them are hanging out in my room. They always react by rushing out of the room and into the foster room, then if I lay down on the bed and call to them, they’ll come back in. I don’t know why they think they need to run out of the room when they see me – they either feel the need to go to their “safe place” or they think they’re not supposed to be in that room, I’m not sure which. I hope they get over it, though!

More pics over at L&H.

“I’m ready for church. That preacher better not go on and on about patience this week, though. I’m not in the mood for that shit.”

Previously
2007: Hey! I was decluttering last year at this time, too!
2006: Here’s Doctor Robyn’s list of diagnoses.
2005: Cat hair on the seat of your pants! It’s the Next Big Thing!
2004: Do you suppose that cats realize that when we kiss them, it’s a sign of affection?
2003: NAS-TAY.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Thanks, y’all, for your emails regarding hamster sex.
1999: So, I didn’t get the kitten.

Happy Veteran’s Day! Go hug yourself a veteran.

Yesterday morning I was trying to decide what I needed to get done during the day, when an email came in from the Monday morning pet store volunteer. She was sick and needed someone to cover for her, and was throwing herself on the mercy of the volunteer mailing list. Since I had nothing big planned, I told her I’d do it, and ten minutes after I’d read the email, I was headed for Huntsville.

On Thursdays mornings, I usually leave the house at 6:30ish in an attempt to avoid the traffic going into Huntsville. Yesterday, there was hardly any traffic at 8:00. Either the traffic doesn’t happen ’til later, it happens between 7 and 8, or a LOT of people took yesterday off to extend their three-day weekend into four days.

At the pet store, I had a moment where I glanced into a cage to see a new cat, and my heart just sank. I was pretty sure it was Zoe, and Zoe always was my favorite kitten (sometimes), and I couldn’t see that there was any way I could leave her in a cage without sobbing hysterically.

And then I took a closer look, and the cat in the cage looked nothing at all like Zoe (I’d offer photographic proof, but I left the house without a camera in my purse), but I gave her lots of extra love, just because.

I stopped by Micha3l’s to look around and pick up a few things, stopped and got groceries, and was home shortly after 10:00.

Fred spent the day putting up the fence around the back forty, so I puttered around the house, went out to check his work, spent time with the kittens, made cookies for the pigs, and canned the last three half-pint jars of mushrooms.

I ended up getting 17 half-pint jars of mushrooms, by the way. I’ll report back, after my next trip to Sam’s, on how much money I saved by buying the big can and recanning into smaller jars. Watch it end up being like 75 cents, right?

Speaking of mushrooms, Paula asked in my comments yesterday if you can grow your own mushrooms. You can, actually. The easiest way (I assume it’s the easiest way, anyway) is to order your own kit. You can Google and find places to buy your own kits – here’s an interesting site. The more I checked out that site, the more I realized how little I know about the different kinds of mushrooms.

And speaking of making cookies for the pigs (somewhere up there I mentioned it, I think), Sunday night Fred waved at me from the back yard and pointed out toward the pigs, asking if I was ready to go give them their evening snack. Which is when I realized we’d given them the last of the cookies the night before and I’d forgotten to make more. We ended up giving them rolls instead of cookies, and do you think they even noticed? Not a bit. Food’s food as far as they’re concerned.

Last week, I stopped on the way home from my doctor appointment at Old Time Pottery. I’ve been needing new cookie sheets and cooling racks for a while, and that store has got just about any kind of kitchen tool you could think of, so I knew they’d have what I needed. They did, and while I was there I moseyed through the pet section, eyeballed the pet beds, and ultimately bought a big cozy bed.

I put the big cozy bed on the couch where Tommy sleeps in the evening. He’d been sleeping on a couch pillow, but it was annoying me because he was getting cat hair all over the pillow.

Tommy liked the cat bed a LOT. In fact, all the cats like the cat bed a lot. Tommy uses it in the evening while we’re watching TV, but Spanky has dibs on it during the day, and I’ve seen Stinkerbelle and Miz Poo taking turns in it, too.

Not bad for a $7.99 bed.

Last night Fred and I were discussing it, and I said “Well, I have a lot of errands to run later this week, I’ll stop by Old Time Pottery and see if they have any more beds.”

Because what this house needs more of is cat beds, you know. The goddamn cats can’t go three feet without falling over a bed but, you know. I’m a little addicted to buying cat beds, is what I’m saying.

Fred said “Old Time Pottery?”

I said “Yeah, that’s where I got it.”

Fred said “Do they actually have pottery there?”

I said “No, they have just about anything else you could imagine, though. It’s in the old K-Mart building.”

Fred got irate. “I feel like that’s false advertising! What if people are suckered in by the name and they go in to look for pottery and there’s NO POTTERY? That’s like naming a place “Joe’s Restaurant” and then you go in, and it’s a SHOE STORE.”

I laughed.

Fred went on. “What about Pottery Barn? Do THEY sell pottery?”

I said “Well, I – uh – no, I don’t think they do. I think they have kitchen stuff and maybe furniture too, but I might be mixing them up with Ikea*.”

“That’s -”

“Well, they MIGHT sell some pottery too, I don’t know,” I added hastily.

“That’s just ridiculous. That’s fucked up. You’re forbidden to ever visit a store that calls itself “Old Time Pottery” and then doesn’t SELL pottery.”

I rolled my eyes and said “Yes, master.”

Please. I’m so going back there again. I just realized that I’ve never been to the entire left half of the store, which is apparently where they keep their sheets and quilts and stuff.

But seriously – if you’re needing any kind of kitchen utensil, plates, glasses, canisters, any kind of that stuff and there’s an Old Time Pottery near you, check it out. There’s plenty of cheap and crappy stuff, but some decent stuff, too. It’s worth a try, right?

*Sue me. I’ve been in Pottery Barn once, and never in Ikea. How would I know what the hell they sell?

I don’t know if I’ve actually mentioned it here in the past, but I’ve certainly thought it to myself enough. I’ve been thinking that Delmar looks a lot like a little fox. Fred’s even been calling him “Foxy Brown”. When I was surfing the web the other day, I realized that it’s not a fox he looks like.

It’s a little coyote.

Here’s Delmar:

Here’s a coyote.

It’s mostly the eyes and the coloring, I think. Anyone else see the resemblance?

He’s got the red hat, now he just needs a purple dress, and he’ll be all set to join the Red Hat Society.

This is Exhibit #1 of why I should not be allowed into the craft store, your honor. I saw the hat and I imagined putting it on a cat and I laughed and laughed and laughed. More proof forthcoming.

Previously
2007: Why should I answer the door if I’m not expecting anyone, I ask you?
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: That girl has some serious lung power.
2003: Not holding my breath – but a girl can dream!
2002: Let me tell you about the saga of the box.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: No entry.

Things I baked on Friday:

Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Cake. It was certainly good, but not something I loved (Fred liked it more than I did), and I probably won’t make it again. The pigs gave it two (four?) hooves up.

Twice-Baked Shortbread (it was a Smitten Kitchen Friday for me!). I guess I should say I started it on Friday and finished it Saturday morning. It was simple to make, and oh my god it was good. Fred had never had shortbread before, I guess he’s lived a deprived life. When he got home, he said “What’s the doughy looking stuff on the counter?” (this was while it was “resting” in the pan overnight). I said “It’s shortbread.” He said “It smells like cookies, not bread.” Which is when I learned that he’d never had shortbread before. He declared “It tastes like pie crust”, which I guess I can kind of see. I like the shortbread a lot more than he does and the pigs don’t get ANY, is how much I like it.

I had a pretty relaxing and low-key weekend. I spent the better part of Saturday cleaning ladybug goo from around the windows in the bathrooms, the window in the stairwell and the windows in the kitten room. That took me ’til lunchtime to finish, and then I spent the afternoon hanging out with the kittens and recanning mushrooms.

I bought a huge-ass can of mushrooms at Sam’s a few weeks ago because we use mushrooms in the two dishes we eat most – an egg scramble* and spaghetti – and it seems like I’m always buying small cans of mushrooms. I figured with the big can of mushrooms, I could recan them into half-pint jars and be set for at least a little while. I canned seven half-pint jars of mushrooms on Saturday and another seven on Sunday, and I think I still have enough mushrooms to fill at least two half-pint jars. I’d tell you how much I saved doing that, but I don’t recall how much the big can of mushrooms cost OR how much an 8-ounce can of mushrooms cost, so I’ll have to do some research and get back to you on that later this week.

We had pork chops for dinner Saturday night along with green beans and sweet potato crack, everything grown here at Crooked Acres, and I have to say, it was a pretty good meal. I’m still experimenting to figure out the best way to cook these pork chops, but with spices rubbed on them and baked in the oven, they were pretty damn good.

For dinner Sunday, we had ribs cooked all day in the crockpot, baked squash, and corn on the cob – again, everything grown here at Crooked Acres and very, very tasty.

Sunday I did a lot of puttering around – recanned more mushrooms, did laundry, checked out the new chicken coop, which Fred finished early in the day, paid bills, balanced the checking account, all that fun stuff. I had thought it was going to be sunny all day, but around eleven it clouded over and even though it never rained, the laundry was still just the tiniest bit damp when I brought it inside, so I tossed it in the dryer.

It’s definitely Fall in Alabama now – Fred had to wear a hat when he was putting up the fence around the back forty yesterday. You know, I never appreciate the warm days of September and October until we hit November and I’ve got the space heater pointed directly at me, going full-blast all day long.

*Usually once a week we have a “scramble” and oven-fried homefries for dinner. How I make a scramble: saute chopped onion ’til soft, add sausage to the pan, cook ’til the sausage is browned. Drain in a colander, rinse with warm water, wipe down the pan. Put sausage and onion back in the pan, add mushrooms to the pan, add eggs (beaten) to the pan, scramble ’til the eggs are done, voila! A scramble! We don’t always have sausage in our scramble, it depends on whether I feel like dealing with it. The good thing about a scramble is that you can put whatever strikes your fancy in it – bacon, green pepper. You could even add cooked homefries to the scramble if you want, but I personally prefer to keep my potatoes separate from the scramble. Call me picky.

Saturday night Fred and I were watching Silkwood. I’ve seen the movie at least a couple of times before, but Fred had never seen it, and it seems to me that it’s one of those movies you should see at least once in your life.

So we were sitting and watching it, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Tommy, who was snoozing in the cat bed on the other couch, lift his head as if he were watching something. I looked to see what he was watching, and saw a wasp fly up from the floor, then land on my leg.

I reached out to flick the wasp off my leg (with the intention that I’d then get up and kill it), but as I reached out to flick the wasp, Fred glanced over and made a face of horror, and as he made the face of horror, I don’t know, I thought the wasp was in the process of trying to sting me or something, so I reacted like a big dorky freak, screamed and flailed around.

While Fred doubled over laughing, I moved the laptop off my lap and saw that the wasp was still sitting there, despite the aborted flicking and the subsequent flailing.

“It’s still there!” I yelled in panic, then flicked at it. It flew across the room and landed on the floor. Fred stayed doubled over, laughing (truth be told, I was laughing too at that point) ’til I yelled at him to kill the damn thing. He stomped on it several times before the damn thing gave up the ghost and died (probably didn’t help that Fred was wearing slippers, which have a soft sole). I got the fly swatter, nudged the dead wasp onto the business end of the swatter, carried it to the front porch and tossed it out.

While Fred continued laughing at me.

Bastard.

Since I hadn’t vacuumed the kitten room in a long time – I think it’s actually been a couple of weeks, except for the time I took the hand vac in there and sucked up the dead ladybugs – I decided to vacuum in there while I was cleaning on Saturday. I thought about shooing the kittens into the closet (where the litter boxes are kept) and shutting them in there while I vacuumed, but in the end I just brought the vacuum cleaner upstairs and started running it, figuring they’d all find places to hide.

They found a place to hide, all right. With the entire upstairs providing many hiding places, they apparently all felt the safest atop the cat tree. All four of them crammed themselves up there and glared at me, ears pointed out to the side, while I vacuumed their room.

They forgave me quickly, though – they always do. All I have to do to get them to come snuggle with me these days, is come into their room and sit on the floor. At this point, even Claudette comes over and asks to be petted. I have proof!

Kitten pics over at L&H.

I happened to glance out into the side yard Saturday afternoon and saw Newt looking like he was after something. A closer look showed me that he had a field mouse. He likes to catch them wherever the hell he finds them (I don’t ask) and then bring them to the side yard to kill them, whether it’s to show off for his brothers who are confined to the back yard or because he wants me to know what an awesome hunter he is. Maybe both.

So I went out and shooed him away from the mouse. I didn’t touch the mouse or get too close to it, lest it get the bright idea to run up my leg, in which case I’d be typing this from the Great Beyond, but I could tell that it was pretty lively and not fatally wounded or on the edge of death, so I yelled for Fred and then kept Newt from getting too close to the mouse.

Right after this picture is when I screamed “No, no, NO! Don’t touch it, Newt!”, and he’s such a good boy that he obeyed.

Fred picked the mouse up and asked where Newt had gotten it, which is when I told him about my don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy re: field mice and the finding of such, and he took it off to let it go in the woods and Newt shrugged a “Win some, lose some” shrug and went off to snooze near the chicken yard.

Previously
2007: Write about your day!
2006: I guess you can teach an old Fred new tricks.
2005: Can’t a girl be a dumbass without the whole world going into an uproar about it?
2004: For once, he had no good comeback.
2003: “Oh yeah. I hate this feeling. I should have just had a Diet Coke.”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: Can you tell this irks me?