Work is over, Vacation has begun!

Wednesday was my last official day at Notre Dame. I keep waiting for it to feel real that I've moved on and don't work there anymore. The facts that yesterday was a holiday, my part of the office is closed today and that I'm going back in on the 16th for the official goodbye party probably aren't making this any easier. I hope it kicks in soon, because for right now...

I'm on VACATION!  (or, as Daddo put it "now you're unemployed!" Thanks, Daddo).

CatCat, Friday and I spent nine hours cozied together in Fluffy the Scion xB yesterday driving to the parent's house in Omaha. We'll hang out here for the next week before I head off to the next adventure and they remain here for a vacation from stress of moving across the country and selling a house. I somehow feel like the cats have gotten the better end of the deal here...

I'm actually going to be pretty busy here working on things with the Momcat (more on this VERY exciting news next week!) and learning how to parallel park from Daddo. The N-boy is alarmed that we didn't have to learn this in driver's ed, especially since it does seem to be a required skill for living in San Francisco. What can I say? Nebraska seems to have PLENTY of space so parallel parking is rarely a necessary talent. Given that Daddo recalls his New York City days saying that "parallel parking is an art form," I'm really quite surprised he didn't teach me when he taught me to drive. I'm sure it will be fine. I learned how to drive on a manual, and today demonstrated my driving prowess by successfully negotiating back onto the interstate, in a manual while eating an ice cream cone and ignoring two very grumpy cats. (A feat that did not seem to impress the N-boy when I told him about it.) Surely parallel parking is easier that that.

Basically this next week promises to be...

Happy December.

Oh December. I'm pretty happy you're here. For the most part. Not that part that realized I turned 30 in exactly 70 days. But since I am a huge fan of Christmas cookies and eggnog, we'll give that a pass for the moment.

Today was a busy day with my one and only craft fair for the season. It wasn't great. Luckly the N-boy came along with me and we talked a lot about what kind of venue (if any) is right for the kind of thing that the Momcat and I are focusing on. Don't worry, Momcat, lots of notes and ideas to discuss with you!

Of course, I did put him to work. You don't just get to sit at my pretty table without hauling boxes and praising my wares to strangers. (Somehow that sounds indecent...I swear it wasn't).

I did let him out for a short break where he ventured out to find the super secret Russian market that appears in Elkhart one Saturday a month. In the bay of a car repair shop. By people who drive a van full of Russian food from New Jersey to Indiana. The sketchiness of this adventure was possibly the highlight of his week.

The N-boy returned with some of his favorite Russian foods including these yummy desserts which are similar to cheesecake bites. And are amazing. I LOVED these when I lived in Russia and was super pumped to eat one.

On the way back from a rather long day we hit the grocery store before returning to the house where we promptly crashed on fluffy furniture. Chinese comfort food take out for dinner, and then the N-boy fell asleep on the couch with CatCat.

I thought this picture was hilarious, but apparently the whole time he was sleeping (or trying to sleep) it was an epic battle with the cat about who got to occupy more space on the couch. CatCat has a tendency to win these battles with her pointy claws.

Tomorrow we're planning on decorating the house for Christmas. I haven't been feeling very festive, so I'm hoping that a day full of festivity-however forced-will help get me into the holiday spirit.

Festive for Friday-N'stagram #2

It's been a busy week. I've had work events three nights this week and although we're no longer working at a break neck speed in the office, we've still been much busier than I expected. So blogging fail. Oh well. Next week is a new week.

But thank goodness today is Friday. 

Here are three pictures the N-boy took this week for happy N'stagram day!

The N-boy and CatCat.

Friday the cat.

Train.

National Sewing Month

So apparently it's National Sewing Month. 

I'll be honest, I didn't actually know that there WAS a national sewing month until I read about it on Bonnie Hunter's blog. Bonnie is using this month to get to work on some of her languishing hand sewing projects. Oddly enough, I haven't had any problems working on hand sewing hexagons lately, but I HAVE had the continuing problem of flimsies withering away in my studio, stitched together but in want of quilting (and binding, although binding is one of my favorite parts so I never seem to have trouble with that final step). 

A big part of my problem is that I get overly anxious about the quilting being perfect, and since my free motion machine quilting skills are somewhat lacking, I am terrified of messing up a top that I've worked so hard on. I've taken the quilting classes, I get the theory, I just need the practice and the self acceptance that these aren't show quilts. No one but me (and maybe the Momcat) is going to look closely at the stitching and know if something isn't perfect. It's silly to have projects (and presents for people!) pining away upstairs when they could be out bring quilty joy to the world.

So while the N-boy hunkered down with Minecraft, I headed upstairs to my studio and dusted off my sewing machine. First step-warm up and practice. I already have pre-assembled quilting practice kits ready to go thanks to the Momcat. I know I need lots more practice, but I was pretty goal oriented today so I just did one practice piece.

Then, I put in the first project I want to finish; it's a secret project for someone so I don't want to show much of it. Not too shabby. Not perfect (or even close!), but I'm happy with it. 

Up close and personal with the quilting.

And of course no sewing session is complete without assistance from the helper cats. These pictures make them look cute and innocent. Not shown are the MULTIPLE times that I had to forcibly remove each cat from the quilt, in the machine, while I was sewing. Fail, cats, fail. 

Catcat.

Friday.

I can only machine quilt for about an hour at a time before my wrist and arm start bugging me (tendonitis), but since Bonnie's challenge is for one hour a day that works for me! Now if I can just keep this up I might actually get this quilt finished! And then move onto the next one! 

What can I do to keep my momentum going??

No Escape.

CatCat says "there is no escape, human"

Awesome. At some point I will manage to extract myself from under the cat and go shower. But obviously not right now. 

Why I never get anything done.

Friday the cat says "look mama, I'm here to help you!"

The best part about this post is that he jumped on my lap (again) literally as I opened up the new post. Touche, cat, touche.

My little helper

This last week I've been busy working on quilting the Clothesline baby quilt. I'm really rather pleased with how the quilt has turned out, and can't wait to get it to the baby! 

My little buddy-boo has been trying very hard to be helpful. 

Not very successfully, but I do appreciate his efforts. And he's just so cute when he's tired himself out. 

Hopefully I'll get the quilting finished up within a week or so!

Laying by the pool and The 4-H County Fair

It was another busy Saturday here in Indiana-land. The day started off bright and early with a very playful kitten and on of his favorite toys:

the paper bag.

Before we adopted cats, I had no idea that they could be entertained by such simple things. I mean, this paper bag is one of his favorite toys (in line only behind the cardboard box and the hedgehog puppet). Which is great, because it means he has cheap toys, and not so great because it means that I do not have an excuse to buy the cats those cute little sparkly mice and balls and other fun things at the pet store.

However, I digress. Once the kitten had been properly entertained, we rode our bikes down to the Farmer's Market.
This week's bounty included rhubarb, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, a red onion, peppers and bacon.

Then, while the N-boy went to do his own thing (which I'm pretty sure involved proof reading a colleagues dissertation-ugh), I slathered on the sunscreen, grabbed Harry Potter (books 4 and 5) and my knitting and headed down to the pool. Where I spent three and a half glorious hours splashing in the pool and then lying in the sun, reading HP and eating cherries from my binge last week at Meijer.

A lot of cherries.


Then, we were off to the 4-H County Fair.

The N-boy recalls many county and state fairs from his childhood as he grew up in rural areas. I, however, do not recall any such adventures. When I confronted my parents about this childhood deprivation, they both insisted that I had attended both county and state fairs in Nebraska as a child. A very small child, but still, they counted that as a win for them.
At the fair there were many rides. We didn't go on any, but enjoyed watching them.
I thought this one (which I believe was called the Ring of Fire) looked nice with the flags.

We did, however, at the N-boy's insistence, play several games of Skee Ball. It was super fun, and we both had a good time. I do remember playing skee ball as a child, so I clearly was not deprived of all things fun and festive.
Look at how intense the N-boy is!

We both managed to score a 150 on our second games, winning a small package of gummi candies. Yum!

And then there were the animals. Since we were at the fair on it's final day we missed seeing the barns full of animals. I think I was ok with that for this first Indiana fair experience.
We did however get to see the...

I will not bore all of you with the dozens of pictures of animals I took. I mean, do you really want to see ten (bad) pictures of the cute little cows? No cow is that cute, even if it is a champion. However, I couldn't resist sharing this cute little goat.

And this champion turkey. What makes a champion turkey anyway?

At 7:00 they had a motocross show. Again, something that I had been deprived of as a child.
The men on their motorcycles looked very focused.

I was pleasantly surprised, albeit alarmed, at the daring displays of jumps and wheelies.
I mean, isn't this dangerous?

The N-boy wore an expression of "Well, I could do that, couldn't you?"

We wrapped up the night by walking around the midway.
They'd turned all of the lights on when it started getting dark, and it really was quite beautiful.

We ended the evening with one last dessert-tropical snow (also known as Italian ice). We used to eat these occasionally when we lived in Lawrence, KS, so it was a nice treat to have them again. They were a nice refreshing way to end the night out.

Once we got home it was pretty much straight into bed, as it was quite late. There, we found the other cat waiting for us. Or more accurately, we found Catcat stretched out to her full length on the bed, wondering why these silly humans were interupting her nap time.

We had a great and very full Saturday. Today has been a much quieter day, with sleeping in, some chores and cleaning, and several episodes of The Wire on DVD. It was a wonderful weekend, althought I would have liked to get some more crafting done. It's just so hard to want to stay inside and work at my sewing machine when it's gorgeous outside.

Friday, the Hungry Cat-erpillar

Friday the kitten has been getting himself in trouble. His mischief first came to light last Friday, when the N-boy realized that we didn't have internet. We'd had quite a few thunderstorms that day, and so we hoped that may be the problem. The N-boy put in a call to the internet company, who talked him through re-booting the router and all of the normal computer things. No go. So they said they'd send someone out to the apartment on Monday morning. We were fine over the weekend, piggybacking onto someone's wireless network.

Monday morning, the N-boy stays home and waits for the internet rescuer to arrive. He arrives and checks all of the things in the apartment. He is confused. We still have full power (or whatever full internet-ness is called) and our modem/router thingy is working just fine. Then he looks at the cord connecting the modem/router thingy to the phone jack.......

Apparently Friday-the hungry kitten- has been chewing on the cord and finally cut through the wires! We knew that he liked to gnaw on things-this is why we provide him with a large collection of cardboard boxes and a ginormous cat stand with lots of dangling ropes and mousies to chew on. Apparently that was not enough. The Internet Rescuer gives the N-boy a new cord and says he wishes all of his jobs were that easy. Following his departure, the N-boy starts to look around the apartment at the rest of the cords.

This was not restricted to the internet cord, but had spread to almost every single power cord in the apartment! Some were more damaged than others, but almost every single one had evidence of little teeth marks. The N-boy calls me at work: "Houston, we have a problem." Friday could have been seriously hurt or electrocuted, he could have started on fire, he could have started the apartment on fire, and he ruined several perfectly good cords. The N-boy calls the vets office, I start doing research online for possible solutions. After work we go out and get cable ties to corral some of the cords (like behind the TV) and bitter apple spray, which is recommended for spraying on the cords to deter pets from chewing. It's safe for them, but very unpleasant tasting (and unpleasant smelling!) We replaced the cords that were dangerously damaged and set up the cat grass chia pet to provide something else for him (and CatCat) to nibble on. CatCat has never chewed on cords (as far as we can tell), but we don't want her to start!

So far, we think it's working. We have our suspicions that Friday tried to nibble on something, as there was a small puddle of kitten vomit, which can be a result of attempted chewing on the bitter apple coated cord. We hate that it made him throw up, but this was such a serious health and safety issue that we felt we had to take such actions. We'll keep on eye on both the cat and the cords, but hope we have solved the problem. At least until Friday finds some other mischief to cause.The Culprit