Come on Miss Sleepyhead, wake up.
NO! Go ‘WAY! I need more SLEEP!
Tschja, kids eh!
Calico Cat
November 17, 2011 By 10 Comments
Remember this fine lady? She’s all grown up now, though she does still have her mad kitten moments.
I caught her in a patch of sunlight in my craft room today – she is still fascinated by anything that dangles and that’s the tapes of one of my aprons you can see hanging on the back of the door.
Of course little Miss Innocent pretends she’s just paused to catch a sunbeam and have a little wash.
I love that almost symmetrical diamond of black and ginger on the back of her head. Did you know that calico colouring only occurs in female cats. Our friend Nick has a PhD in something genetic (brilliant mind, working on cancer research) and he explained it all to me when he met the kittens last year. A fascinating genetic mutation I think he described it as. Something to do with females having both X and Y chromosomes and males only having X. I do wish I could retain scientific facts and trot them out like I know what I’m talking about, but that’s not how my brain works. Show me a black white and ginger cat and I can match those shades of ginger with an inkpad or copic marker though! I think I’m wired for colour.
Meanwhile Trillian finally responds to the clicking noises I’m making to try and make her look up at the camera. Yes! Got you amber eyes…
Forgotten Friday – Filigree Fusion
September 16, 2011 By 13 Comments
One of the Chocolate Baroque Design Team members, Judith, came up with the idea of Forgotten Friday a while ago and I have always thought it was a really good idea – to dig out something from your stash you have forgotten about and make a card with it.
Filigree Fusion stamps
Well tonight I was tidying up and I came across a box from my days on TV when I would go to the studio armed with dozens of prep packs to demonstrate with. This particular box was obviously from the show where we launched the Filigree Fusion and Fantasy Floral stamp sets to go with the matching CDs we already had.
It’s been a long time since I actually looked at those CDs or stamps before I knew it, I found myself stroking scraps of paper and arranging colours together. Then I remembered about Judith’s Forgotten Friday and the next thing I knew, I’d finished a card!
The background paper is from the Filigree Fusion CD and the cream and blue panel is done by stamping one of the ornate leaf designs with Adirondack Denim Dye ink, then brushing over with water to bleed the ink into the image.
The flower is Crealies Flower 20 with leaves from Shapes 11 and the sentiment is from Butterfly Flourish, cut out with a new McGill punch I treated myself to recently.
Life is pretty full at the moment with family, work and teaching and I don’t seem to be getting much time for blogging. The good news is that the hospital want to get Derrick back home and are waiting for a bed to become available at the local hospital so he can get some more rehab as he can’t stand on his own two feet unaided yet. He has yet another infection, but so far is coping ok with a mild dose of antibiotics and we’re hoping it won’t get any worse.
We spent a lovely day with my Dad and some of the family last weekend. Three of my nephews were there as my sister is in the very final stages of completing a PhD and her Mum has her kids every weekend at the moment. Isn’t it great being able to hand other people’s kids back at the end of the day! Three boys aged 3 and a half, 16 months and almost 4 – it’s exhausting just watching them. My brother’s partner is expecting again in January, so family get togethers are going to get even more chaotic.
And our own little girl appears to have reached adolescence – she has had her first fight and is sporting a Zorro like scar across her sweet little face. In cat terms, that means she stood her ground, as our vet once told us. If they have battle scars on the face and neck, then they probably won the fight. If they are on the rump or tail, then they were fleeing and are definitely the losers. Which fits totally with the fact Sesame was the hard boiled one and had face, eyes and ears shredded on occasion, while Basil was always the one with bites on his tail.
I’m actually not too worried and I rather suspect that her opponent was not in fact another cat, but more likely a thorn bush of some kind. The scratch is not very deep, but shows up quite dramatically against her white fur. There’s no heat or smell and no swelling that I can see, so I’m not going to subject her to the stress of a vet trip unless it gets worse.
Right, I’m heading over to the DT blog now to announce a long overdue blog candy winner!
Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack
August 12, 2011 By 10 Comments
Trillian, showing off her ginger spot.
A suitcase full of outrageous blessings
May 16, 2011 By 13 Comments
I came across this on someone else’s blog and I think I’ve tracked it down to a blogger called Nali. Well thank you Nali for expressing this feeling so eloquently – it just sums me up at the moment.
I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone for your kind words on the last post. The sad stories are part of who I am and I know the sadness will fade and the quest always goes on. I am very much aware of the blessings I travel with, not least of which is an amazingly supportive online community, and I thank you all for being there.
I finish my current online class this week which will free up a bit of time and I have plans … I have random goodness coming up, I have more ex-demo craft stuff for sale, I have new releases …
In the meantime, Adrian wrote a piece of music called “Rainbow for Zaphod” if you’d like to hear it, you can listen to it on his MySpace page here. (Still working on him to record “Add a Brad”)
Zaphod BeebleKitten
May 12, 2011 By 41 Comments
There really is no easy way to say this – our sweet little boy is no longer with us.
I have been so distraught, I haven’t been able to talk about it. It’s been all I could do to carry on with any semblance of normality. He was killed by a car on May 4th and we are both still reeling from the shock. If you could see where we live, you would understand our disbelief that it could happen on the quiet country lane outside our house. And so quickly – I saw him minutes before Adrian went to get him in.
Making the decision to let an old or sick cat go to their rest is hard, but you know you are making a choice to end their suffering. The senseless death of a young, healthy animal carries a much different kind of pain. It is harder to accept, more shocking to experience, there is more anger and rage and an endless mindstream of self recrimination and ‘if only’s’.
The rational mind knows that this grief was inevitable, but the heart is screaming that it is too soon. The mind knows that this was not our fault, but the grief whispers back “are you sure?” There is a chasm of self pity that I long to throw myself into, but an insistent little chirrupping meep reminds me that I have another kitten to attend to and she needs us more than ever.
Farewell snuggly one – when you get over the rainbow bridge, the wise one called Sesame will be watching for you. He’ll lead the way through the scratching post forest, through the valley of cardboard boxes, over the snowy mountains of clean laundry to the glorious garden of catnip delight where you can bounce and pounce your way through eternity.
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