I Won! Totes Adorbs!

So, I don't win anything. Ever. I think the last thing I ever won was a cake on a Cake Walk at an elementary school fair (when I was in elementary school).

So, over the years I don't usually enter many things, because, well, I don't win. (I know, perhaps my logic is flawed. Perhaps if I enter more, I will win more. But I digress.)

A few weeks ago I entered a contest on Catster.com and won this cute tote!!

The contest was pretty easy. All they asked one to do is comment on the post on their site with the answer to what our cat's dream vacation would be.

And this is what I said:

My cats would both like vacations . . . from each other! Yanni would like an abundance of cat trees, and cat treats, with someone ever ready to pet him. (He LOVES attention.) Ideally, that person would be me. But he'll take my husband, too. ^_- And, no Yuki (his sister) around. He's bothered by her.

Yuki would also like lots of pets and cuddles, and a place with lots of cubbies to hide in for naps, and as a special treat, a trip to the shaky mice factory, where ideally, someone would play fetch with her constantly, and she could take home some swag. (But, really, who am I kidding--she's terrified of leaving the house. Oh, well, maybe just the swag, then.) =^_^=

 So excited that I won!

And in other Project 52 goings on ...

I teach the 8-year-old class at church with the hubs, and here I am prepping a lesson:

And Brian and I splurged the other day and stopped off near our home after work, and got a bunch of food -- sandwiches, kimchee fries, and gourmet ice cream! Yum!

My Cats Have Heating Pads

Yep, that's right. My cats each have their own heating pad.

And, yes, that mean's they're spoiled. ^_^

But, truthfully, during the winter we keep our home a little on the cool side (artificial heat is icky) and so, if we're cold, we can just put on more clothes. Sadly, the cats can only do so much. And, after many times taking over one of our heating pads (whether for our feet, or our backs, or sore muscles), we decided to get them their own. But, we had to get a heating pad specifically made for pets.

Sound silly? It's not, actually. Heating pads made for humans run too hot for animals, and can actually cause them to become overheated and dehydrated. So, there are heating pads out there for animals that run a lower voltage, safe, continuous heat that keeps them just warm enough.

And, as soon as we break those out, the cats don't leave those heated little ovals of warmth.

And so, that's where the cats are right now. On each wingback chair, we have their blankets and a heating pad. And each cat is curled up on one right now. They're so cute!

And hey, if our pets aren't meant to be spoiled, then who/what CAN we spoil? ^_^

Wordle

Wordle was kind of all the rage a few years back. It's a service that let you do word clouds. You can change the fonts, colors, orientation of anything you want. I did one some time ago with the complete text of my favorite novel Pride and Prejudice. It's pretty cool.

I wanted a cool quote or something to add as a little accent to a display of two pictures of my cats, and then I remembered Wordle. So, I pulled up how you say the word "cat" in several other languages, and put my decor colors (well, as close as I could get to them) as my custom palette, copied it, printed it on some cool paper, and framed it. So easy!

I'll take a pic of that and the other one maybe one day soon, but, this is what it looks like:

Cool, eh? Like me, you could do the text of a novel, or maybe your blog?

Maybe your kids' names? Important dates? Places? The world (or WORDLE) is your oyster!

Now go have fun with Wordle!

Day 27 - Pets

As you know, I currently have two cats. They are both Siamese, and they are brother and sister. Yuki is the female, and Yanni is the male.

I found them on Petfinder.com, and they were exactly what I was looking for -- they were rescues, kittens, Siamese and siblings. Sadly, I missed most of their kittenhood, because they were still quite feral when we got them and so we had to work with them a lot. But, I was told that they might never be lap kitties, or that affectionate.

But thankfully, even though it took awhile, both cats are VERY affectionate in their own way. Yuki isn't a lap kitty, but she likes to sleep with me in bed. She's also incredibly sweet.

Yanni is a lap kitty, and he's extremely vocal, and he has the biggest personality.

They bring so much joy to our lives, and I hope I have them for many years to come.

Here is a favorite picture of each of them (you may have seen these already):

Yuki

Yanni

Day 6 - A Picture of Something That Makes Me Happy

My "kids" make me happy!

I actually took these Saturday morning. It is VERY rare for them to be even this close together anymore (Yanni -- on the right -- is a bully and Yuki steers clear of him for the most part). But they were all snuggled on our bed, trying to keep warm, and I couldn't resist getting these. I had to, you would almost have to say. ^_^

They bring so much joy to our lives. Last week, we had a scare with Yanni. He got really sick. What really scared me is that this funny cat with so much personality had seemed to lose it all. He wasn't the cat I knew. However, he is on the mend and is back to his crazy ways. It warms my heart. ^_^ And Yuki, on the left, is such a sweet, sweet kitty. I wish Yanni wouldn't bully her!

The Girl Behind NonchalantGirl

Ooo... it's a video blog post!

Phew, that was almost more trouble than it was worth! ^_^ (Fun, though!)

Recent Pics of the Cats

One of the digiscrap sites in which I post in the forum has a weekly photo contest. Last week's theme was pets/animals. So, it being awhile since I've taken some good cat photos, I let the cats onto the patio to let them roam in the small enclosed space, while I attempted some photos (since the lighting in our apartment is quite horrible). Here are the results.

First, Yanni:

And then, Yuki (Yanni's usually my more photogenic one, but Yuki took some lovely photos this time -- when I could get her to stand/sit still for a moment!):

I was only able to enter two of these photos (the first one of the Yanni, and the last one of Yuki). I didn't win the contest, but I got an honorable mention for this last photo of Yuki, mostly because of the post processing I did with it. All photos were edited in Photoshop and enhanced in Lightroom.

Random Cat Photos

So it's been awhile since I've posted some cat photos. Mostly it's because the lighting in our apartment isn't great, and you know what happens when cat eyes meet the flash of a camera!

So, here are a few funny pictures of the cats. I put them in black and white because it's more forgiving of slight blurriness and dark photos. Thank you, Photoshop!


Yanni will take you out with the katanas! MROWR!

*

The bed for the cats is usually covered in a fleece blanket, but I thought they might be a little cooler if I put a cotton blanket on it. My mom made this for me, from kitty fabric. Aww, so cute. Unfortunately, I think Yanni prefers the fleece, as he dug himself (I saw him do it!) a little hole to get under the cotton blanket. REALLY adorable!

*

Recently we got some wingback chairs off of Craigslist (as we were desperate for more seating). They're this beautiful burgundy-cranberry red color, with a rosey, swirly pattern. Unfortunately, the cats think we got the chairs for them. I keep extra pillows from the sofa on them, but, one day, a pillow had fallen down, and Yuki promptly decided to lay on it, and Yanni got up next to her (which in and of itself is quite a miracle, since he doesn't like to be too near her).

Who rules the roost?

(I know, there are more pictures of Yanni than Yuki, but he tends to do the more silly things. ^_^)

My "kids" may not be human, but...

they do funny things just like regular kids.

For example:

I have one of those oil plugins with a little fan next to a sliding glass door. My cats like to sit between the curtain and said door, and almost every time that Yanni leaves the curtain he walks by the air freshener and sniffs it! Now, I can understand him having sniffed it the first time, or maybe each time I put in a new one (because the fragrance is probably pretty strong), but he does it almost constantly. "Yanni," I say, "stop sniffing the air freshener!" It's like he's a junkie. But instead of paint or markers it's air freshener. Yes, he's weird.

BUT, even weirder, is Yuki. I saw her do this some time ago, but it only happened once, so I didn't think twice about it, until it happened in a similar circumstance several times over the last few days. Yuki likes to jump on my desk and sit in front of me while I'm on the computer. No, that's normal cat behavior. What ISN'T normal is when she walks away to the other part of my desk, comes across an opened legal-size envelope, sniffs it, and proceeds to lick the glue on the underside of the flap. NO LIE! And she's done this several times! She's a glue-licker! "Stop lickin' the glue!"

Both of my cats are junkies. Who knew? (Yet they don't seem very fazed by cat nip. *shrug*)

DigiScrap: Sweet Yuki

JOURNALING:

YUKI/January 2, 2009

CREDITS:
Template: Armina

Green Paper: Breen Boone
All other papers: "Sweet Serenity" Kit by Shabby Princess
Bracket Shape: Peppermint Creative
Jewels: Miriam Lima
"See Clearly" Alpha: Misty Cato
Yellow Glitter Style: Thaty Borges

Font: Pea Rebecca

Layout done for KWerner's Color Inspiration Challenge #40.


Can you tell I love swirls and glitter??? And these are recent pictures of Yuki -- isn't she beautiful?! (I added the sepia tone using a Photoshop action, since her collar is red and would have clashed with the colors in the LO.) I love using templates as it makes quick digiscrapping and use of different colors a snap. I'm quite lucky I found these colors almost all in one digikit. I thought I might have issues with the green, but it turned out quite nicely. And can I just tell you, I love Fonts for Peas!