Spoiled rotten kitties

In our home we have 5 spoiled rotten kitties. But the spoiling is different for each cat. Well...each cat DEMANDS a different type of attention.

Our "Alpha" cat is Macy Gray. She is an Oriental Shorthair in Tortie coloring. Macy rules the house. Macy rules the other cats. Macy rules the humans. Case in point: belly rubs (see below photo).

When she first arrived her belly was not a place she wanted touched at all. Then on my BD one year she ate a piece of ribbon. She ended up having surgery to remove the ribbon. She actually gave up on living. She has no tolerance for pain. She was not drinking water so every other day she had subcutaneous fluid pumped under her skin. That seemed very cruel to me but the vet said it was necessary. The vet sent her home to die with us but.....Hubby and I force fed her (water and canned cat food in a syringe) for days on end until she finally rallied around and decided to live.

The scar on her belly is very bumpy. And she now needs it rubbed nightly. Not a gentle tickle rub but a hands on heavy, deep down tissue rub. She will assume the position and complain until the human hand and arm appear to render aid.

 And below is my Baby Sugar. Bottlefed....spoiled rotten...but does not demand a thing. All she wants is to "see" her human and maybe simply touch us with her paw. This Baby weighs 22#'s. Baby and Macy grew up together and used to be great pals. I had them Spayed at the same time, same cage. They came home enemies and still are. Baby is the one who changed.

Cuisinart Pans are NOT warranteed as advertized! They lie!

A few years ago my great Hubby bought me some pans I had wanted for a long while. I love them so much that I then purchased ALL the extra pans to complete my set. This was not cheap. I bought  6 and 8 quart stock pots too. My speciality is homemade chicken and noodles and I used those pans at least once a week during the cooler months.

Fast forward...I noticed that they are all suddenly letting go of their Teflon surfaces. Every single pan!

Hubby stepped in and did the following: (read his blog)

http://jimmohr.blogspot.com/2011/07/cuisinart-denies-lifetime-warranty.html

I bought a few CHEAP new pans since mine were ALL gone for over a month!

I did not ever use metal utensils in my pans. I do not use a high heat when I cook. I am a simmerer...love slow cooked foods. They never went in the oven.

The RA people at Cuisinart said I had ABUSED the pans and that voided the Warranty! Geezzzz....the Teflon all started peeling all at once. I bought the pans all at once...go figure. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I assumed it was a bad batch and that all my pans were going to be replaced. NOT!

So world, there you have it.

And I also took my old stainless pans from storage. I bought them in 1967 for my hope chest. They are great HEAVY pans but they are not non-stick. They come clean with SOS pads. But I hate the feeling of those pads on my hands. I know...wear gloves...not for me. The gloves feel gross too! I am glad I still have those heavy weight pans. BUT...they do not have a hole in the handle to hang on my wall. That is a great way to not use up cupboard space. They are Aristocraft pans. I bought them from a door to door salesman when I was 17 years young.

A gift of strings!

Last Monday night was our regular sew and gab get together for the guild. Our regular meetings are suspended for the Summer yet we all still come every Monday night.
We had a special table/room set aside for the book planning committee. I am the new editor for the club book. As I was walking in there was a whole table of scraps for FREE. But I had to go to the other meeting. Sigh...I forgot about them.
After our meeting there were only 5 bags of strip scraps left. No one wanted them! I got them all.

I am still suffering a bit of depression. I have never been depressed before. It knocks you down and it is so hard to get back to normal. Within a month's time I lost my Pain Management Doctor, my GC's Grandfather, my ex-son-in law, my ex's wife (younger than me) and my daughter's friend who was her neighbor ( Melanoma he was only 38). Too many deaths...too much pain...I am full. No more...

 String piecing was all I was able to wrap my head around. No thinking...just endless sewing.
Two of the baggies had neutrals. Did I tell you these scraps were all sorted by color too? I guess they did not sell at a garage sale so they were donated to us. And $5 a bag seemed way too expensive to me.

 I made forty-two 4 1/2" neutral squares from two gallon baggies of neutral strings.

 OCD me was in heaven. Press a strip...lay it in a pile of like lengths. Too perfect!

I needed this therapy!

The end result of a week's worth of sewing these strings:
23 dark 4 1/2" string blocks
42 light 4 1/2" string blocks
24 dark 8 1/2" string blocks
All saved from the garbage...free to me...except for my time and thread!

I am betting that Our Bonnie Hunter will soon give us a pattern for dark 4 1/2" string squares.
I think I have her system figured out. I already save my scraps with her Scrap Users System.
She has got to just make a bagillion units of whatever she feels like making.
Then moves on to another units.
Then designs a quilt with all those labor intensive steps.
I am going to follow my hunch and just start making tons of units...all kinds of units!!!!