Tag: kitties

Snownami 2010!

I must admit, I’ve been a bit jealous of everyone else getting snow this season. But today we’re getting all of our winter snow at once! I liked how gregmce described it – a snownami. (I wanted to post to the school website today that school had an early dismissal due to the snowpocalypse, but decided to use “inclement weather” instead.)

They’re forecasting 8-12 inches here. I understand some folks in this storm will be getting at least twice this much. I’m glad that I don’t have to drive anywhere (and the walk home was rather pleasant) and as long as the electricity stays on, I’ll likely have a very nice weekend. My heart goes out to people for whom this winter has not been so merciful.

Anyhoo, if you’re not completely sick of snow photos yet, feel free to peek under my LJ cut for the images. As a reward, you will also get to see Lucy, who was NOT amused.



Scene from back door
Scene from back door

A view of the snow from my kitchen.
Scene from front door.
Scene from front door.

A view from my porch.
The trees are made of SNOW!
The trees are made of SNOW!

The snow is doing a great job coating the trees.
Another front view, facing north.
Another front view, facing north.

I stretched myself out a bit to get this shot (but still staying out of the stray snow on the porch).
Lucy doesn't approve
Lucy doesn’t approve

Lucy either wasn’t fond of the snow or of me taking photos of something other than her.



Dallas, Texas, er… Dollars, Taxes

Whee! Wooster finally got their W2 to me (they always wait ’til the last minute) so I finished my federal taxes today. Thanks to the Hope Lifetime Learning college credit, I’m getting a substantial amount back from the feds. Yay! Best of all, using H&R Block’s online basic filing and a 20% discount from one of my credit card companies, it only cost $11.12 to file my taxes. (I looked at doing their completely free filing, but I think you have to be using the old 1040EZ form – I itemize deductions and thus went basic.)

Once I finished the federal, I filed Ohio and my school district taxes. Those are completely free through Ohio’s tax.ohio.gov website. iFile is your friend! Getting a little back from them (heh, $7 from the school district).

Most of the refunds will go into savings, but I have been eying a few things I think I’ll buy as soon as the refund arrives. I’ll probably talk more about those later. One thing I’m 99% sure I’ll be getting is an Acer Aspire One netbook w/ Linux and a 6-cell battery. I’ve toyed with the keyboard and know I like it a lot better than the Asus EeePC’s keyboard. And I think it’s about time I got a Linux box, even if it is a nonstandard version of Linux.

Oh, in case you were curious, the Lobster party was a success. A good time was had by all, I think. I know a good time was had by me. 🙂 I did the smart thing and got my lobster, ate it while it was still warm, and then went back and got the other foodstuff that people had brought (all of which was yummy, too). Mom baked her “Better than Sex” bars (well, we didn’t name ’em that – I can’t imagine anything that doesn’t have chocolate in it can be better than sex…) We also brought some Wholly Guacamole (sold at Kroger in the salad section) which proved to be a hit with the guacamole fans.

In kitty news, on Sunday, Linus managed to zip out the front door when I was getting my shovel from the front porch in order to dig my way out the back. So I put my boots on and got him out of the mud (why did he run right to the mud?) and dragged his muddy little butt to the bathroom sink. I rinsed all 4 of his paws off and his tail, much to his dismay. Then I chased him around the house with a towel, trying to dry him off. Poor baby – but it was his own fault.

So now I’m sitting in my library with the kitties on my lap (my favorite part about college). Time to see what folks are saying in the discussion boards.

Kitty Picspam

It’s been awhile since I posted (wow, it’s the 5th and this will be my first post of the month) and a further while since I posted some kitty pix. Turns out I’ve got some very talented kitties. Linus can now leap tall buildings in a single bound. Well, he can get onto the fridge – still not seen how. I figure from one counter or the other. And he jumps down to the floor from it. Knocking magnets off. And Lucy’s my little laundry helper. She always loves laundry day and has taken to helping me fold clothes and stuff. Oh, and GIP! Ain’t they cute? 🙂

(Sorry the first two are a little out of focus. Was in a hurry to snap the pictures before he jumped off and my phone camera doesn’t like me to hurry.)


Linus checks out the fridge & knocks off magnets.


But how did he get up there?


Lucy folding some cloths for me. Ain’t she a sweetie?


Lucy takes a break and becomes one with the laundry.

Linus and Lucy also decided to be a couple of cat macro models. Ladies & Gentlemen, I present my first lolcats!


Linus loves people food – can you tell?


Lucy is not laundry!

It can take photos too!

In addition to being a phone, the AT&T Tilt is a GPS, a PDA, a Wi-Fi device, and a camera. Heh. I really just wanted a new PDA, but you can’t get one that’s not attached to a phone and uses Winders Mobile 6 (which I need for my DVD program).

Now these photos aren’t the best, but partly because it wasn’t all that bright in the room when I was talking them. And partly cuz it was very mobile cats I was photographing.


Linus was the hardest to keep still for his photo.


Lucy decided to go sepia.

Sleet Day!

I went to bed last night knowing we were on a 2-hour delay already, which made me happy (I like to sleep in an hour on 2-hour delay days).  I turned on the news at 11pm and it looked to me like the whole thing was going to miss us, so I was feeling sorry for our superintendent (and the dozens of others) who had already set the delay in place.  But when I awoke, we had gotten plenty of freezing rain overnight and the roads weren’t all that good, nor were they looking to improve.  So we had our 6th Snow Day today. 

I spent the day fiddling about, mostly on a series of web pages for a friend of mine.  But I also got some coursework done that was due today.  And I called mom & dad during the sleeting time.  It was so loud mom could hear it when I held the phone up to the window.  Heh.  The streets, which had been getting better, were back to worse again.  After taking some photos of the sleet covered roads, I turned back and saw the kitties on the sofa.

Awwww, ain’t they cute?

The fun with Kitties

So, like, I’m watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and Linus is sitting beside me on the sofa. Earlier, Lucy was as well. But where is she now? Standing in front of the TV and making squeaky noises with her Soft Paws on the glass. She seems quite fascinated by the set up screen (the movie just ended).

I’m debating whether to put on 3 or head to bed. I expect whatever I do, there will be kitties involved. Heh.

Snow & Shrek & Decorations

To my major surprise, school was closed again today. Although we didn’t get as much snow as Wednesday, the roads were awfully bad and weren’t going to clear up soon enough to have school. Once again, I’m not complaining!

So I called the parental units and wondered if they wanted me to bring some ravioli for lunch and Shrek 3 for watching. They agreed. They provided the sauce and salad, I provided very yummy frozen ravioli from Market Day. It was an excellent lunch (and easy to prepare). Then we watched Shrek 3, the first time for all of us. (I somehow managed to miss it in the theaters, but I know I’d enjoy it since I loved the first two films.) For my second surprise of the day, I discovered that Eric Idle is in it. I used to be a much better fan and knew when, where, how, to what extent, etc for any of Eric’s film & TV roles. And as I suspected, I enjoyed the movie. We all got a good chuckle out of it.

The rest of my day has been finishing up the decorating and getting my pool table down in the basement until after the holidays (it was either it or the piano, and the pool table is a mini one with easily removable legs). BTW, does anyone want a piano? It’s free – all you have to do is come and get it! (It might smell of cat pee – that would be from Leo.)

The place isn’t overly decorated (heck, there’s only one thing I’ve added in the library – well, two if you include the balsam candle I’m burning) but I think it looks nice. I think I need a nice holiday rug for the spot where my pool table was. Even the blasted piano is decorated.

The kitties think it’s great that I put this huge Tree O’ Toys up for them. Once again, I’ve decided to go with home-made ornaments (from my purchase last year from Oriental Trading Co.) and that was a good idea. The bottom of the tree looks like a war zone. But I don’t mind – it’s fun to see ’em play.

Yay! Lucy’s decided to join us. Linus and I are sitting here & cramming for the Critical Thinking final exam. We have until next Thursday to get it done, but I’m going to cram tonight and maybe do it tomorrow morning. And then I can be done with college until mid-January. Yay!

Lucy believes in good oral hygiene, and so should you!

The fun one can have with a freebie toothbrush and a kitty cat.

If you notice Lucy’s green and orange claws, those are courtesy of Soft Paws. She’s going from Halloween (the orange and black ones) to Christmas (green/red combo ones) slowly but surely. Linus has ’em too. He’s halfway converted to Christmas.

In less happy kitty news, we found out today that Lucy has Feline Cystitis. She was peeing blood over the holiday and I got her in to see the vet today. Turns out she has crystals in her urine. The vet has prescribed an antibiotic for her and she’ll return in 2 weeks. I’ve also decided to give the kitties a gooshy food meal once a day to help keep them hydrated better. (I mix it with water – they both seem to like it.) The nice thing is that some of Lucy’s worst symptoms had abated by today, so maybe she’s on her way to getting over it on her own. Hopefully the meds and diet change will help get her back to normal.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving today, I wish you & yours a Happy Thanksgiving! Hope that everyone has a Happy Thursday!

My duties for Thanksgiving are over – I have made a cheeseball for tonight’s dinner. (I’ve made two, actually, so one for me, one for the family.) Aunt Becky’s doing the dinner and we’ll be gathering around 5 or so.

I had yesterday off, and spent most of it reorganizing closets and stuff. What started out as a simple project – put my Physics Teacher journals into binders, became rather complicated when I realized I had no place to put the binders. My front closet is now cleaned out and I intend to start work on the den closet in a short while. I’ve also been sorting VHS tapes and floppies and CD-ROMs and stuff. Have had lots of trash thus far!

Linus is currently resting on my arms, which makes typing a bit difficult, but I am thankful to have such lovely kitties to sleep on me and get in my way and help with cleaning (they’ve been having a blast – especially when I found the remote control car last night). I’m thankful for much more than my kitties, but Linus is making himself known, so the kitties get the mention. To paraphrase someone on my friends list – I am thankful for having so much to be thankful for!