A Couple of Goofy Cats and a Close Encounter

Guarding the Pet String

About a year and a half ago, Gus dug around in some of my husband's things stored in our basement, and found a parachute string (I have no idea why my husband has parachute string).  This string became his constant companion and favorite toy, and I posted about it here.  We dubbed it his pet string, because he was obsessed with it, and was either dragging it along with him everywhere he went or he was sitting by it, patiently waiting for someone to make it move so he could chase it.  As time went on, he still carried it around a lot,  but he didn't seem as into it as he used to be.  We thought he was growing up.  :)  But nope, that wasn't it.  Turns out the old string wasn't as much fun because it was getting a bit ragged and had also gotten much shorter because he likes to chew on the ends.  A few weeks ago, my husband gave him a brand new, identical string and he's like a kitten again.  And he's driving us crazy all over again, constantly wanting us to play with that darn string with him.  If we are sitting in a chair, he'll stand up on his back legs and reach up and tap us on the leg and meow.  If that doesn't work, then he'll jump up on our lap and then jump down real quick and run over to his string hoping we'll take the hint.  And heaven forbid if you even glance his way when you walk by.  We play with him a lot, but he just never tires of it. I think we may need to sign him up for a support group.  :)

"Pul-leeze won't you play string with me?"

Even Eli gets roped into playing the string game!

And as if one goofy cat wasn't enough, there's Olivia.  And she has her own obsession.  I have a large size Vera Bradley bag that I use to haul my laptop around.  Every single time she sees that bag, she is compelled to get inside of it.  The other day I had it hanging over the back of a chair, and I noticed when I walked by that the bag was moving.  Sure enough, even hanging from a chair, she had managed to get inside of it. 

"Hello?  Do you mind?  I'm  trying to take a nap here!

"You interrupt my nap......then I chews on your bag!"

We have a little fox family in our neighborhood and the mama fox has been visiting our yard occasionally.  I haven't seen any little ones, but some neighbors say she has a litter.  She's a pretty little thing, and very skittish.  One of the neighborhood cats was taking a nap in our our yard one day when she stopped by.    As I watched out the window, she just walked up to him  and sat down.  He was not a happy camper and was very tense.  She, on the other hand seemed quite relaxed....a little too relaxed.  So just in case she was sizing him up for dinner, I walked outside and she ran away.  :)
She still shows up every now and again, and I hope one of these days she'll have those babies along with her.  :)

A close encounter of the furry kind.

Olivia Update

I mentioned a while back that we adopted a new kitty, who was a stray in our neighborhood.  We named her Olivia and it was a bit rough going at first with our other two cats Gus and Grace.  They weren't very thrilled to have a newcomer in their midst, especially a kitten kind of newcomer who would not leave them alone.  But things have gotten calmer now, and they are all getting along. Mostly.  :) 

Olivia went in for her spay surgery last week and when I picked her up, I was given the instructions that she should take it easy for a few days.  Ok.  But exactly HOW you make a kitten take it easy wasn't specified.  I think because it is virtually impossible.  We did our best, but from the second she got out of the carrier when I got her home she went full speed ahead.  She has a little cushioned cube-y thing to sleep and recuperate in, but she just treated it like it was a huge catnip toy and as you can see from the pictures below, she jumped on it, sat on it, squished it, chewed on it and attacked it.  She did everything BUT sleep in it.  Goofy Cat!  :)

My nephew, Baby Eli just loves her and tries to follow her all over the house.  I caught a picture of them last week looking out the window together.  :)  I imagine they will be good friends as they grow up together.  :)

A New Member of the Family and Some Christmas Ornaments

First of all, let me introduce Olivia, the newest member of our family! Olivia is about 6 months old, and was a stray kitten in our neighborhood. She actually adopted us, instead of the other way around. She decided she wanted to live here, and since the first time she walked in the front door, she has made herself completely at home and she acts like she owns the place. That hasn't exactly endeared her to Gus and Grace, however, and it's been a big adjustment for them. Things are finally starting to smooth out and although I wouldn't exactly call them BFF's yet, the growls and hisses are minimal now, and just yesterday I saw them all sleeping on our bed. So hopefully one day soon, they will all be best buds. :)


                                  
 
Besides being a kitty referee, I have also been busy making a few Christmas ornaments.  My nephew Eli was born in March, and since this is his first Christmas, I wanted to make him a special ornament.  I found the idea for this onsie ornament on Pinterest, but put my own spin on it.


Eli's First Christmas Ornament

I also tried my hand at modpodge for the first time and made some ornaments for our niece's new baby, Alex, and also for my godchildren, Sarah and RJ.  I used this tutorial that I found on Brown Paper Packages, and put their names on the front and the year on the back.  I loved doing modpodge and can't wait to do another project!  :)

My ring ornament series came to an end last week, but Barbara from Made in K-town designed a really adorable ring ornament called Bobble Wheel Ornament, and I just had to give it a try.  It was easy and fun to make, and I love how it turned out.

This next ornament isn't one I made, but one that was made for me!  I got a wonderful suprise in the mail yesterday from my Dutch blogging friend Annette.  She hand-stitched this adorable little heart ornament.
Thank you Annette, I love it!  :)

I have lots of Christmas projects to share (some I'm still working on!), and I'll show those after Christmas.

Gus and Grace Update

I realized that Gus and Grace haven't made an appearance on this blog in quite some time.  And I thought I better give them a little face time so they don't get jealous of baby Eli showing up so often.  :)

It's a pretty easy update though, Grace is still sweet as can be, and Gus is still ornery as can be and still keeping us entertained on a daily basis.  And yes, he is still carrying around his pet string.  :)



Sweet, sweet Gracie!



Ornery Gus! :)

A Cat Fishing Tale...

Gus and Grace have a little play tunnel with a big opening right in the middle of it.

He thinks I can't see him.  :)

I've found that if I use a certain someone's pet string as the bait, and dangle it into that hole,

I can catch me a big ole Cat Fish!

Works everytime! 

The cat fishin' hole where the Cat Fishies are always biting.  :)

Yet another Pet String game to add to our growing repertoire.   :)



Gus Wins!

Gus is a notorious little (ok, not so little) yarn thief, and he's sneaky and he's quick.  I'm trying to work on a new crochet pattern design today, and I have my little tub of yarn close by.
Bored Gus + Tub Of Yarn = TROUBLE.

*I'm working and not paying attention to him, so he decides he wants the yarn, and jumps up, grabs a ball of yarn and takes off running with it.  And of course, I have to chase him to get it back, because he can't be allowed to play with yarn for his own safety.  And of course he runs to the basement, his favorite place to be chased.  And since he loves to be chased, I humor him and chase him around the basement for a bit, finally retrieve the ball of yarn, put it back in the tub and get back to work*.

And just like in a crochet pattern: repeat from * to * (at least) 6 times! 
FINALLY, after about the 6th time chasing him to the basement, I clue in that this has turned into a game for him, and I've been playing right into his little paws.

Score today: Gus = 1, Doni = 0



"Yeah, she's nice, but she's sure not the brightest bulb in the box".

Gus and His Pet String

A few months ago, I wrote about Gus and his "pet string" that he found somewhere in our basement.  You can read about it here.  It's still his favorite toy.  He seriously loves that thing, and he never gets tired of playing with it.  He started out wanting to catch it and play "tug of war", then he would let go of it so we humans could make it move again for him.  Somewhere along the line, he has changed the rules of the game.  He still wants us to make it move for him, and he loves to chase it.  But once he catches it, he only wants to play tug of war for a few seconds, and the new rules of the game involve me letting go of my end of the string and then to chase after him while he runs down to the basement with it.  This game is just between Gus and me, because for some reason, my husband is unwilling to chase after him saying "I'm gonna get you Gussie!  I'm gonna get your string", while Gus races away with it down to the basement (although he does enjoy watching me do this and make a fool out of myself) :)

These pictures reflect Gus's side of the game.  Thank goodness, there are no pics of my side.  :)


After catching the string, he waits for me to start chasing him, then he races off towards the basement stairs with it.

He pauses at the top of the stairs and checks to make sure I'm still following him.....

Then it's off down the stairs.  It's fun watching him run down the steps trying to not trip on the string while he goes.


At this point in the game, I usually just chase him to the top of the stairs and watch him run down to the basement.  He'll wait down there for a few minutes to see if I follow him, and if not, he will drag the string back up the stairs again to start the game all over again. 

Heading back up to do it all over again!

Grace likes to chase him too.  :)

Gus and Grace, 1 Year Later...

Today is the one year anniversary of the day we adopted Gus and Grace. I call them our little heart-healers because we were broken-hearted after losing our precious cat Bear (pictured below), who was almost 18 years old. When we brought them home, we were still broken-hearted and missing Bear (and actually still are), but those two little kittens were like a bandage of healing love being applied to our hearts, and have brought us much joy, laughter and love in this past year. They seem pretty happy with us too. :)


I wanted to take a current picture of Grace and Gus together for today's post, but I couldn't pull that off, so I had to take them separately. I now know where the saying "like trying to herd cats" came from. :)


Grace
She's looking a bit wild-eyed because I am holding the bag of cat treats up trying to get her to look at the camera. :)

Gus
I tried holding the bag of treats up to get Gus's attention too, but he soon tired of waiting for those treats and just fell over.  He's such a little drama king.  :)

Bear 1992-2010

We knew we would get another cat, and we wanted to adopt from our local shelter.  The problem was, neither of us wanted to go to the shelter to look, because we would have wanted to bring them all home.  I went to the shelter's website to see if they listed photos of the pets online that we could look at, which fortunately they did.  I was stopped in my tracks when I saw the photo of little Gus.  He looked just like Bear did as a baby kitten and as soon as I showed it to my husband, he had the same reaction and we both knew we HAD to get this little guy; he was meant to be ours.  And because I wanted  Gus to have a playmate, we also choose Grace from the photos on the website.  She turned out to be as sweet in life as she looked in the picture.  Gus loved Grace right from the start, but she took a little while to warm up to him.  Now they are the best of friends.  :)

I didn't actually name either one of them.  Grace was about 5 months old, and her name at the shelter had been "Sugar".  That was a sweet name, but it just didn't feel right.  My family had come over to meet them that first night, and my sister was throwing out some name suggestions, and one of those was Grace.  As soon as I heard it, I knew that was the perfect name for her.

Gus was about 2 months old, and had been named "Buford" at the shelter.  My husband thought it was hilarious and wanted to keep it. To say I didn't agree would be an understatement!  I didn't like that name at all, and told my husband he could name him anything but that.  So after some thought, hubby decided to call him Augustus.  I like to call him Gussie, and my husband always says to me "His name IS Augustus!".  lol 

Here's a few photos from those first few days:

Lazy Gus

Now THIS is lazy! Gus can't even be bothered to stand up to play with his toy. :) 

And that ratty cardboard thing beside the toy is their scratching pad, which Grace always uses like she's supposed to. Gus never scratches on it, he lays on it, he chews on it, and bites little pieces off of it (which is why it looks like it does), but he never, ever scratches on it.   He is such a stinker!  :)

Grand Central Station...

I'm doing a happy dance that we've had lots of sunshine and warmer temps this week.  All that snow is almost gone!  But when we were getting all of that snow, our bird feeders turned into Grand Central Station.  We had all sorts of visitors show up to grab some nibbles.  Unfortunately, our feeders didn't fare too well thru all of this. The turkeys especially tend to be hard on them and knock them to the ground.  And one of the feeders is actually now missing.  Apparently, one of the critters dragged it off to enjoy his snack in peace.  :)

Sometimes even the birds get a chance to eat from the BIRD feeders. 

Notice the  black squirrel hanging upside down and eating from the feeder on the right

Grace and Gus have loved watching all the action at the bird feeders. Those tails were swinging like crazy!



Computer Malfunction..

I was having a hard time using my computer the other day.  Turns out it just had a little cat hair in it.  :)

Grace, Gus and a Finished Pair of Socks

I spent some time organizing things in  my craft room yesterday and emptied out a basket that had some misc. projects in it.  Grace soon discovered it and settled in for a nice nap.  Which kept her out of mischief for a bit.  :)

"Please don't take pictures of me while I'm beauty-napping"

And the always helpful Gus was giving my husband some assistance on the computer.  He loves to sit on my husband's lap and he wasn't going to let a little computer get in his way.  He jumped up on the couch, walked across the keyboard and made himself comfortable.  :)  He always has to go through a little routine of rolling around and getting himself situated just right.  He's been known to get so carried away with that, he rolls right off onto the floor. 

"I am Googling catnip!"

And I finished my first pair of socks for the year. The pattern is the Jaywalker Sock pattern, which is free on Ravelry. Very nice pattern and easy to follow. Now I just need to get February's sock lined up and get to work on those. :)