Here Kitty Kitty

Honey and Ziggy. 
My feline babies. We adopted them in June of 2004 when they were this big

Honey, my female with the little orange spot on her head.  And Ziggy is my male.  They were feral kittens, that were born near Hubby's grandpa's house.  It is hard to believe that they were mean little things when I look back at these pictures.  But it didn't take long for them to understand that we loved them and they loved us!

Proud big sister!



How little they were next to Daisy



The teenage years August 2004

All grown up!



Photo credit to Leigh Nestor



They are the best mousers, well OK, they've gotten a bird or two, a bunny and maybe even a mole.  They've earn their rent, that's for sure!  Ziggy, might think he is a dog though, I've never had a cat, when asked "whatta go outside" come to the door.  Honey, she is all cat, at cat like speed, come to the door on her own terms.  Funny, Hubby says Honey is his... Because she keeps herself clean and stays out of trouble.  Ziggy might be "mine" but he is smart and all boy!  (Plus he is our only boy baby, so I need ER visits for someone!)  Even if we have to shave him in the spring.  (Never again will I get a long hair cat!)  I don't care how cute they are with fuzzy hair when they are kittens, it's pretty hairy when they grow up!

P.S. Ziggy and I had a long talk about beating up Buddy, the new neighbor cat.  He meow and promised he won't do it again...

Soft Scrub S.O.S

A miracle worker???  I think so! 

Or maybe this guy? 

They both are!  They both do the bulk of the work when it comes to deep clean scrubbing.  As you remember a couple weeks ago, I got the bug to start cleaning.  Well that really has turned into a couple small jobs a month.  It actually started after I cooked a pork tenderloin in my corning ware and the pan was in my sink for week because I couldn't get it clean.  That is when Soft Scrub came out of his deep dark hiding place in my cleaning cabinet.  And also the time I remember the wonders of this cleaning tool!  That bottle didn't last long.  After the pan, I cleaned my kitchen stainless steel sink, I think I can see my reflection in it now.  Then I moved on to the bathrooms.  Living with well water can sometimes leave hard water stains.  So I had 2 tests for this new found friend. One quite challenging the other not so much.  Well he passed one, but not the other... 

Test one

                                               before                                              after

The sink!  Isn't she pretty!  I put a dab right on the rust color spot and let it sit.  When I got done cleaning the rest of the bathroom, I scrub a bit and there you have it! A pretty little shiny sink.  It did take some elbow grease to get in between the drain, but she looks brand new!

Test 2

Well no pictures of this one.  Well, because it failed and I'm to embarrassed to show you my shower...  We had a rust problem some seven or eight years ago that did quite the number on my fiberglass shower.  And it looks awful, and I mean awful!  I have tried everything on it to get the rust off.  Sno-bol worked (the toilet cleaner), but I think after using it (to many times) took any protective finish off and now is stain worse then ever!  Unfortunately Soft Scrub didn't help me there, I haven't found anything that has, but it was worth the test. 

Now S.O.S pads are a great invention when it comes to the hard scrubbing jobs.  Like the oven...  Which reminds me, I really need to clean that bad boy!  But I just used one of these guys on my dog bowls.  Not sure if I'm crazy or what, but Daisy has weird saliva.  It's slimy, which in turns make things she licks really hard to clean...  It's like she leave a film on her dish.  Any who, the S.O.S pad made it a breeze to clean, it was like rising off a dish, that easy. 

So there you have it, some lazy man tools for deep cleaning needs.



Whimsical

To the Mitten Kittens, Whimsical is the town we will all live in one day.  Where none of us have to work, expect for the work that needs to run our lives and keep our friends and family healthy and well.  A place where we all live on our own particular street, not states away.  A place where the teachers in our group teach our young, the nurses in our group nurse us, the fun loving serve the beer, the laborers fix our homes, and the green thumbs grow our food.

Well, in my small corner of the world, Whimsical is becoming more of a reality than a dream.  I'm the only Mitten Kitten that never lived outside of our small, sweet town.  Of course I did go off to college and live in the world of dorm life and renting a college apartment, but that was short lived.  Now that we are in our hmm, thirties, (OK, maybe we are in our twenties with five to seven years of experience, yea, that's it) starting our own families, this place, I call home, is a great place to raise those families.

Not sure when it happen actually, but I just looked out my window and notice how us nine girls were slowly moving HOME.  Our group has moved to Florida to follow a career, to Nashville to find love, to Northern Michigan to find love and a career, to Texas to follow a husband's family business, or just stayed put in that west college town.

As of now two of us are actually currently residing in "Whimsical", but that will soon double to FOUR!  Leigh moved last spring, renovated an older home right downtown to look like the pages of a Pottery Barn catalog. Tracey is currently renovating an old farm house with loads of land, with a joke from all of us that it will one day be a "funny farm".  And our newest neighbor, Lisa, (and I mean that in more then one since), will be moving home this weekend!  And she will literally be my neighbor. 

Now I've never really had a neighbor.  I live in the country, so my idea of neighbors was someone I had to use binoculars to spy on.  Well, OK, I will still have to use them, (just joking, Lisa, sorta).  But this neighbor is a bestie!  With a grass path right to her front door! How much better of a neighbor is that. 

So this saying I found on Pinterest, couldn't be more true.  Shit, in the dead of winter I will be wishing that we had a tunnel system, instead of our grass snow path.  And if only Leigh and Tracey were on the other sides of us.  Then, only the other five need to move closer home.  Whimmy would be here!  Because everyone knows, Home is where the heart is!

To Give

What is one thing that you can give to someone that is material in a since, but could save a life?  That doesn't cost more than an hour of your time?

That's right, a pint of blood.  Did you know that 1 pint of blood can save up to 3 lives!  Or that every two second someone in the U.S. needs blood.  Or that less than 38% of the U.S. population is eligible to give blood.  The most requested blood type by hospitals is Type O, this blood type is used for emergencies cases before the blood type is known and for newborns.  O-Negative is the universal blood type, meaning that it can be given to people of all blood types.  Only 3% of people in the U.S. are type AB-positive, the most rare blood type, however they are the universal donor of plasma, which is used in emergencies, newborns and patients that are required massive transfusions.  AB blood type can receive from all other types of blood.

What is plasma, whole blood, platelets? 

Whole Blood is just like it sounds, all of it.  It is the red cells, white cells, plasma and platelets.

Plasma? That is the fluid that surrounds the red cells, white cells and platelets.

Platelets? This is the cell fragment in the blood whose main function is to interact with clotting proteins and stop or prevent bleeding.

How did I start giving blood.  Well, I guess I would have to say that my parents did, so that influence me to as well.  My mom has O-negative, so she is quite popular with the Red Cross.  Me on the other hand, I have B-positive, so they like me, but I'm not as popular.  I started giving in high school at the age of 17.  To date I have donated over 35 pints of blood.  How many pints are in a gallon you ask?  8 pints equal a gallon. So if you do the math, I have given almost 5 gallons of blood.  WOW!  That sure sounds like a lot!

This month is Red Cross Month.  So if you are eligible to donate, go to the American Red Cross website and find a blood drive near you and give someone the selfless gift of blood.

"The need is constant. The gratification is instant. Give blood"