davejenbarnes

Well, the tree is up.
The cats may die, but it is officially up. I have chicken-wired the bottom level of branches (underneath, to prevent their upward progress) but I do not know if that is enough to keep them off of it. The 7.5 foot tree is in a location where, if it falls, it really won’t hurt anything… no windows, just a couch. Mambo has already been chewing. I know Samba will try it later on tonight. Too bad our bedroom isn’t big enough for the tree. That would be one room I could put it in.

We considered (for a short time) getting the Scat Mat to keep the kitties away from the tree, but the prices on one of those babies is pretty steep. I will try chicken wire this year. Mambo climbed up in it last year, but he didn’t weigh nearly as much as he does now.

Samba, on the other hand, has never seen the likes of an indoor artificial Christmas tree. I am curious about her reaction.

So, last night we headed out to Justin and Ashley’s house and met up with them and Nathan and Shannon and we all ended up going to Red Robin for dinner. You should take a peek at their website with the link back there. It’s made by Xylem, the same makers of the Chipotle website. So, we had visited the Red Robin website before we even ate there. It’s a great place to eat, by the way. Lotsa free refills.

Guys, if you’re reading this, we had a great time! Thanks for the yummy food and all the smiles and laughs! Let Rimsky, Oliver, Poochey, and Harley know they’re so cute!!

I will be taking a break from posting for a little while to enjoy the holiday. Don’t worry, I’ll take notes and have a story or two for when I feel like getting back online.

For everyone reading this, please be safe this holiday and eats lots of food!

Yes, this past Saturday we drove eight hours in one day! We left Austin at 5:30 AM!! with me in the drivers seat and I drove us all the way down to Ray’s wedding. We arrived at 9:30, so we made good timing and Dave slept almost the entire way. With his mouth hanging agap. It’s okay, he looked cute like that. ;-)

The boys played a beautiful quartet, Achieved is the Glorious Work by Joseph Haydn, which sounded better than that Texas Tech recording, by the way. After a stopping by the reception, which was at the same hotel my high school band stayed at every year for the Bucaneer Festival, we headed back with Dave in the drivers seat. Right after leaving Loop 410 in San Antonio and getting back onto IH-35, all our friends passed us, which was neat to see. We drove straight through San Marcos, even though Dave wanted to price the Bose USF 20 floorstands for our little bose speakers. We ended up eating at Chipotle, a place we discovered while we lived in Chicago. There’s one right off of the street we had to drive home on, conveniently located!

Today has been full of … good food. Mr. San Luis, the head director at CPMS, decided to have his annual banquet/luncheon today and there was lots of yummies for everyone (everyone grown up, that is). It’s also picture day at the middle school, so my lessons schedules have been all thrown up in the air and mixed up.

If you skipped the links, I highly recommend the Chipotle link. Then after you’ve LEARNed, go EAT. Yummers.

My friend, Shannon mentioned in her blog a new craft project that she started which I had never heard of! So I did a little online hunting and came up with a brilliant site which teaches in a very step-by-step manner how to make one! Of course, with TONS of extra fabric laying around from all my sewing projects (many curtains, unfinished re-upholstering fabric, and a skirt) I decided to give it a try. Since I ditched the upholstering after only one chair (I fell in love with a new dinette set at Pier One and ended up replacing the entire set I was reupholstering in the first place) and have the most of that, and it’s white, I’m using it in place of the muslin. And to use up a lot of this extra fabric, I’m cutting 12-inch squares instead of the popular 8-9 inch starter-squares. The nice thing about this particular fabric is, since it’s upholstering fabric, it’s thicker (like white denim, actually) and will make for a heavier “quilt” but the bad thing is that it takes more uumph to push the needle through the many folds and my index finger is a tad tender. Tomorrow I will stop by Wal*Mart and pick up a thimble.

For the centers, I am alternating two fabrics: the curtain fabric with the skirt fabric. So far, it’s working fabulously but I did have to resort to the machine stitching to start it since the thick upholstering fabric tended to fray in the corners of the folded over part. I think I will like the more consistent pattern of using only two center colors instead of random scraps, as the link above shows.

Shannon, thank you immensely for introducing me to a new project, and one that’s easy to take with you and doesn’t require a crochet hook for me to lose! Plus, I’ve always wanted to make a “quilt” but never understood how to get started. The cathedral window quilt is very simple for me to understand. Thanks again!

Now, I must eat dinner and get back to cutting squares.

The dinner get-together was great fun with many a laugh! We had quite a crowd over here in this little apartment. There were 9 of us total, and Dave’s ribs were a hit. We are very very sleepy and need to get up very early to drive to Corpus Christi, so I will end tonight and hopefully be able to sleep!

Ah, my favorite snack in all the world, Nori Maki for lunch! Mmmm…..

Life here in my tiny apartment has been a whirlwind of cleaning and re-decorating (which usually means re-arranging the furniture, but not this time! I only re-arranged the curtains!) and getting the kitties ready for a long day alone. They will do fine, as long as Samba, a.k.a. Bidi because she’s got beady little eyes, doesn’t chew any more wires!! Why the long day alone, you ask? David and I are spending Saturday at a wedding in Corpus Christi and won’t be able to return until after the Region Orchestra Concert in Round Rock later that same day. I trust the kitties. They’re good cats, overall. They better be.

Dave has big plans for dinner tonight. I don’t know how well it will work, but I get the lucky job of rubbing the ribs. Eww. I know, how gross is that?! I hope the chicken turns out better than the ribs. (I will be eating chicken) He’s using this recipe.

omygosh, I just noticed the time. I need to be leaving for my last lesson of the day! Sorry to leave in such a rush! Bye now!

I got up this morning no problem. Usually I’m dragging my feet and complaining about it being another day (I am not a morning person) but not this morning. That is, until I got to the nook where the dining table is. Here’s what I found…

Awhile back, we got a cat fountain for the cats from my mom and dad. We were so excited about this that we found a similar fountain, but one that The Professor would use, as he likes the falling water. Well, Samba likes pushing our fountain around … all over the place, similar to how a toddler would play with a small plastic truck. Here’s the thing: SAMBA CHEWED THROUGH THE WIRE on our fountain last night. Bare wires. I’m relieved that she didn’t start a fire!! She chews wires!! ANY ideas on how I could get her to stop?? There’s got to be a solution to this. I don’t trust her anymore and if you know us, you know that getting rid of the electronics that are attached to these wires is out of the question. I hope that the solution to this problem is not to get rid of Samba, though.

Please leave your suggestions on how to get a cat to stop chewing on wires (and books, even) in the comments. Thanks in advance for any help.