The Cat's Meow

My Refinishing of the Secretary Desk

2012-02-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

I got this desk from my friend Steve when he used to have his antique shop downtown. It was my sixth refinishing project that took me the whole summer of 2007 to complete.
It was kind of bittersweet to strip it, because it had a really cool gold stencil on the drawers and the lower frame. But the paint was really in bad shape in a lot of spots and somewhere along the way someone had spilled some white paint on the side. So I decided to tackle it.
It turned out to be made of beautiful Tiger Maple, and I used a simple finish to let the grain of the wood stand out. It was worth all the work.
I put new casters on it, and it rolls around much easier (and quieter) than before. The cool thing about refinishing a piece like this, is that it is not going to be perfect when you're done, because it has it's own unique character.

I had never noticed when it was painted black that the drawer pulls were not evenly placed on the drawers. And not only that, but not all of the pulls matched; one was clearly homemade. It originally had those half-dome style pulls, but I had to go with the round so that it didn't look totally weird when I was done.
The other desk I got from Steve, is an old Army desk (possibly from Fort Ebey on Whidbey Island) and is something I hope to finish this summer. I started on it in the summer of 2009 I think, and got the drawers and the top all stripped and refinished. But circumstances have prevented me from finishing all of the base, and I really want to get that back together.
I don't have any pictures of that project yet, so that will be for another post, at another time...

Bits & Pieces

2012-02-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

It makes me smile that Munchkin has not changed since he was a kitten - he loves to eat with Woody. And he is the only one that the others will tolerate sitting and eating right next to them, but Woody is his favorite.

Tomcat looks so peaceful when he is sleeping. I took this photo of him the other day in his bed, and he didn't move a muscle when I stood over him and snapped his picture.
It finally seems to be making that subtle turn where the temperature feels milder, and he wants to go out again during the day while I am at work. But the funny thing is he has chosen the wettest days to want to go out!
I finally feel caught up on my sleep this weekend. I like that there is more daylight, it helps me get more done. I am still not getting on the computer during the week and posting as often as I intended. I was working on a little movie related to work, and put in a lot of time on it, but it was so much fun.

Tonight is the finale of Downton Abbey Series II and I'll miss it. Time to bake some cookies and get ready for the show!

Bits & Pieces

2012-02-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

Thursday night after I finished watching Doc Martin, I went in to the bedroom and laughed at what I saw - poor Pauline had her donut bed taken over by Munchkin.
I didn't hear any hissing or fuss, she just decided to make the best of it. But it really surprised me when she curled up even closer to him.
I think she puts up with him because he is so young. They all went out today, I think it got to around 50 degrees again. Munchkin had a good time sniffing around and investigating everywhere that I prefer he not be, but I can't blame him, it had been weeks since they all went out like that.

I was in a spring cleaning mode today, catching up on a lot that I didn't get done in the last week and a half. And getting caught up on the internet. The sunshine can be so energizing. I've got a lot to do tomorrow too! I can't believe it's February already.....

2012-02-04T16:16:00.000-08:00

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I'm catching up on two weeks worth of The Daily Show today, and this one I had to share....

Northern Lights in Norway - January 2012

2012-01-29T20:16:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Just Thinkin'

2012-01-29T13:19:00.000-08:00

I was on CNN.com on the web on my phone this morning when I saw the headline to an article "What People Talk About Before They Die" and was intrigued. It was written by Kerry Egan a Hospice Chaplain in Massachusetts. It was meaningful to me, and wanted to share it. Her observations were that most people facing death were not talking as much about the afterlife and a higher being, as they were about their families, and that the love of family is the real face of God.
I don't know what happens when we die, and I'm okay with not having all the answers. I think I'm more of a religious philosopher than anything. I am spiritual, just not in a way that is easy to define. My connection is more to the natural world. I constantly think about the impact of my actions on the world around me.
I was raised in the Unitarian Church, and when I was a teenager I remember having a few conversations with Mom and Dad about religion. Dad defined himself as Christian with a small "c" - that it was more about how we live and what we do, than what we say we believe. Mom said once that she felt that God was the highest level of ourselves, and that positive energy within all of us collectively was God.
I always say I'm the product of my parents, and how both of them approached faith shaped who I am today.

Bits & Pieces

2012-01-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

I added a few new links today; a video of the Michigan Central Station, and in my Favorite Websites section I added the link to the homepage of 'Talk To The Station'. The owner is getting feedback directly from the public on how to try and plot the future of the former train station. I truly hope that it is saved and brought to it's former glory, it is a beautiful building, take a look at the archival photographs. The new photos are pretty cool too. The first time I saw it was in the television show 'Detroit 1-8-7'.

Below are my favorite comics from yesterday. The timing of this Non Sequitur could not be more appropriate. What has really cracked me up about the current GOP race, is that everyone is saying the nastiest things about each other in their ads or during the debates. Then when they drop out, they turned around and endorse an opponent they were previously trashing. Is it that politics makes strange bedfellows, or hypocrites of them all?

The cartoonist Darby Conley does the funniest play on words, I love his comic strip. I was introduced to it by a coworker at T-Mobile about 9 years ago.

January 2012 Snowstorm

2012-01-18T18:34:00.000-08:00

The view to the south out the living room window.

Thankfully today was my last furlough day and I could stay inside. I think there is an accumulation since Sunday evening of about 8 inches of snow at the house. I was watching the news at 3pm and our temperature was 19 degrees, and with the windchill factored in, 3 degrees! I was stunned by the 80-100 mph winds they had on the Oregon coast.
I am not looking forward to going out in it tomorrow morning. I can't wait for it to warm up and start raining on Friday.
I did not let any of the cats go out in this. TomCat is sitting at the door right now, but it's just too cold. Last night I had let him out and he was fine on the porch, and then a neighborhood dog chased him into the back yard and under the deck. I had to really work at coaxing him out and back in to the house.

Woody is checking out the snow from the living room.

I baked some peanut butter cookies this afternoon to take to work. I experimented and added butterscotch chips to half the batch and chocolate chips to the other half. The butterscotch flavor works great with peanut butter. I am frustrated that they seemed to over-bake again; I've got to fine tune my timing, they are sensitive to that.
Last night's episode of The Mercer Report on CBC, had Rick going to St. John's Newfoundland to the set of 'Republic of Doyle' with Allan Hawco. He had a blast driving the GTO. As usual it was a kick in the pants. The second episode of the new season of 'Doyle' is on tonight, can't wait!

Random Stuff

2012-01-14T20:37:00.000-08:00

I took this video of Munchkin the day I adopted him in August 2010.

Woody always reminds me of a shark moving through.

When Munchkin was a kitten I thought he was long haired, but that didn't turn out to be the case as he grew. He had the most perfect little face when he was a kitten, I was so in love! The 'honeymoon' phase ended when he got big enough to get in to things! Now that he is older, he gets in to stuff mostly because he gets bored. I'll get up in the morning and find little things on the floor that he has knocked off my desk, he's such a pill but I love him to pieces. I know he doesn't like it, but I am still very protective of him outside. He is very independent and likes to wander, but there is too much trouble that he could get in to around here.

Thursday afternoon at work, completely out of the blue, I was offered the admin position for my region, and am going to be training this coming week and transitioning in to that as Julie leaves. I am still wrapping my head around it. But the sad thing is I'm going to miss Julie who I am replacing, she is such a sweetheart. I've got a lot to learn, I imagine this year is going to wiz by like last year did.

Pauline had her annual vet visit this morning, and she is gaining some weight back, I was relieved. She got her rabies shot and seems to be doing very well for her age. She sure was happy to walk out of the carrier when we got home. That's all for now......

Steve Patterson Halifax Comedy Festival

2012-01-08T20:11:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite comedy bit from Steve, this is hilarious, and he is so on with this audience!

John Pinette - Just for Laughs

2012-01-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

In one of my visits to Dad & Susan in Detroit he turned me on to the comedy shows on CBC, and now I love the Winnepeg & Halifax Comedy Fest, as well as Just for Laughs.
I originally saw this on CBC, and it is hilarious and no foul language!

Louis C.K.

2012-01-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

Louis C.K. on Conan, he is not politically correct, but he is ALWAYS funny-

Conan O'Brien

2012-01-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

I was digging around for some of my favorite Conan comedy bits. When you watch it you'll see it's a little dated but still funny, enjoy!

Munchkin and the paper ball

2012-01-04T17:30:00.000-08:00

This is a video of Munchkin from May 2011 playing with a crumpled up piece of paper, his favorite toy.
His ears perk up and he'll come from out of nowhere at the first sound of paper being handled.

I wish I had turned on the overhead bedroom light before starting to film him, because the best part can be a little hard to see, when he makes the most amazing catch of that paper ball.....

New Year's Day 2012

2012-01-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

This is today's Non Sequitur; I really enjoy this cartoon, and some times he really hits the nail on the head. Sometimes I really think that humans are so arrogant to think that we are the top of the food chain.

It's been a very quiet holiday for me. I've slept in every day for the last two weeks, so it's going to be hard getting up at 6:30 tomorrow. I didn't get nearly as much accomplished with the time off as I had originally planned. But I have discovered a few new things on my computer, which I was hoping, so it's not a total loss. I played around with the Windows Live Movie Maker, and that is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to creating a project with that once I have scanned more of the family slides.
I also felt good creating this blog and learning how to embed a video. The Life of Flowers video I added to my home page is something my step mom Susan forwarded to me a few months ago. I absolutely love it and have lost count of how many times I've viewed it.
I know some of the computer related things I have learned may seem ho-hum, but I've come a long way from where I started.
I have very little formal training, pretty much all hands on in regards to computers. But I recognize the biggest thing I have going for me is curiosity, and that I like to play around and experiment.
I am hoping the weather is better this spring, I was so sick of the rain last year. By the time the weather finally got nice for me to be able to work outside, I ended up working so much with the new job I couldn't get anything done personally.
I am still working on refinishing the old Army desk that I started two summers ago. When I finish that, then the next problem will be figuring out where to put the black table that is in it's spot in the living room!
I also want to start working on my needlepoint project again, I've had to keep it on the top shelf to keep Munchkin out of it. I haven't worked on it in over a year now because he kept chewing on the wool yarn.
I'll upload some pictures of that and the furniture that I have completed refinishing on since 2006 in a future post.

I'm looking forward to the second season of 'Downton Abbey' on PBS next Sunday, and "Republic of Doyle' on CBC, Wednesday the 11th. And new 'Doc Martin' is coming in March, woo hoo!

Munchkin

2011-12-31T19:17:00.000-08:00

And last, but not least, my little Munchkin. The picture at top is when he was about two months old and the bottom picture is from the last month. I love him to pieces!

I went in to Laurel Farm supply August 5, 2010 looking for a container to feed the deer, and got a kitten instead! He was in a cage all by himself, his siblings had all been adopted by the time I arrived. He was just bouncing off the walls with energy, and I hemmed and hawed for 5 minutes, and caved in and got him. I of course have not regretted it for a second.

He was so tiny when I brought him home, he slept on the pillow next to my head that night.

Woody accepted him right away, but it took Boo and TomCat a week to stop hissing at him. Now he and Boo are two peas in a pod. They tear around chasing each other, and groom each other constantly. He occasionally tries to get Pauline's goat by swiping at her back leg if she walks by and he loves to play with crumpled up paper, more on that later.......

TomCat

2011-12-30T12:48:00.000-08:00

This is my TomCat, he is a Siamese mix with very pretty blue eyes. He got his name because he was quite the horny little devil when he first arrived on the scene. If I had waited until after he was fixed to name him it would have been Tigger from Winnie The Pooh.

When I first saw him, it was after waking up on a Saturday morning, and he was curled up in the grass in the back yard a few feet off the deck and rose bush. It was the beginning of November right after 'W' got re-elected. It's out of the norm for a cat to sleep in such a vulnerable position like that, and especially when it was so cool and damp to boot.

I was short on money at the time, so did not adopt him until the following May. I made a bed for him on the front porch to stay out of the weather that winter. The strangest thing happened after he got fixed, all of the tiger stripes started to come out in his fur. With that, and his boundless energy (he runs like a rocket) he reminded me so much of Tigger, but it was too late to rename him.

I don't know where he came from. He's a big boy with a little meow, and he loves to lay on my lap, is very affectionate, but a bit of a pill too. He likes to ambush Woody and it's funny to watch him get chased by Munchkin who is half his size.

Woody

2011-12-29T15:43:00.000-08:00

This is Woody, he has been a very loyal companion, like his predecessor Elwood. Woody came around the summer of 1999. I found out several years later that he had been abandoned by a couple from Alaska that was evicted from the apartments next door.
He was hungry and a bit skittish when I took him in. He wasn't fixed yet, and I had to slowly build his trust in me to be able to get him in to a cat carrier to get him to the vet. When the big day finally arrived, he did not go easily. I did manage to get him in the carrier, but in the process I got all scratched up, and ended up in the doctor's office for a tetanus shot and to clean my wounds!
I had a hard time naming him at first, and then one day I came home from work and he was out in the yard and I said "hello Woody". It just came out; he stopped walking and sat and looked right at me. That was it.
I probably estimated his age as a year younger than he was when I took him in, but he is at least 13 years old now. He's pretty mellow and was the first one to make little Munchkin feel accepted when I adopted him in August 2010.

Pauline

2011-12-28T16:59:00.000-08:00

Pauline was my brother Mark's cat, he adopted her from the Whatcom Humane Society when she was 6 months old. I remember the day he brought her home, and she curled up on the chair next to his friend Dave White. The funny thing was, Dave was not really a cat person.

She lived with Mark's dog Edna until Edna passed away right after Christmas 1997. Then she moved with Mark down to Lynwood in 1998 and then south Seattle several years later. I brought her back to Bellingham after Mark passed away right before Christmas 2010; she has come full circle.

I have no idea whether she recognized her old home, but she had to get used to living with my four cats, and that was the biggest adjustment. She enjoyed getting to go out again when spring came, and is doing fairly well for being 17 years old. She has a beautiful purr and lulled me to sleep many nights when she slept on the pillow next to me. I love her to pieces and hope that she lives well for as long as possible.

First Post

2011-12-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

I had been on the fence for a long time about whether or not to join Facebook, and finally decided that it was not for me. I tried Google+ and that wasn't a good fit either. I was inspired to try a blog after following my friend Tina's blog 'A Blip On The Radar'.
I wanted an outlet for thinking out loud and sharing the things that I find important, funny, etc. without necessarily filling up the inbox of friends and family. It will be a work in progress - with me learning as I go along.
I will also be sharing pictures and video's of my cats doing things that no-one else sees, since they always hide when I have company. And photo's on projects from past and present. Throw in a little politics, current events and food, and that about sums it up!

To get started, here is my beautiful Boo, a Tortoiseshell Calico that was my Christmas present from the universe a few years back. Like my previous torti' Aretha, Boo has very silky fur and a beautiful purr. She is quite talkative, and trills a lot and loves to play. She brought out the playfulness in Woody and now has a playmate in Munchkin.

Boo