Saturday, November 24, 2007

Long weekend

One of the joys of life is living it. Taking the time to just settle in, pick up a good book and enjoy. This is what I've done today. Keeping it simple.

This week has also been a time of rest, relaxation and healing. Recharging mental batteries so to speak.

Mary and I had a quiet Thanksgiving day. She spent the day curled up reading, and I made several delicious vegan dishes. I made dressing balls, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked sweet potatoes with pineapple and cloves and just a hint of brown sugar, green bean casserole, butternut squash, acorn squash, and vegan brownies for dessert. Ok, so some of those things weren't around for the original Thanksgiving meal, but it was plenty to fill our plates (and our bellies.) And no, I didn't miss the fake turkey this year. It simply wasn't needed. We ate well, and were satisfied. And we are still eating the leftovers!

I got my stitches out yesterday, and the doctor said I was a very fast healer. Yeah! That really comes in handy for someone who has fast and powerful reflexes like mine!

I built Kit T Kat a cat tree on Friday. It has 4 levels, and is carpeted in a dark green to go with our current furniture color scheme. It also has sisal rope wound around 2 of the legs for Kit to scratch her nails on. There was some wood that wasn't covered by the carpeting, so Mary and I glued (and tacked) some of the rope down in those spots to cover the wood. Very nice effect. You can just see the top of the cat tree in the lower left-hand side of the picture.

Today I built 4 Cat-shelves, and covered them in carpet also. I hung 3 of them on the wall using banister mounting hardware. The fourth will get mounted later. I found the idea on the internet. The trouble is, our cat hasn't figured out how cool these things are yet. Give her time. I may make enough of these shelves for the cat to get all around the living room. They are pretty easy to make. Our house is on it's way to being extremely cat accessible! (Mary has been having good fun watching me work to build things for the cat... Laughs and says that I amuse her. Whatever could she mean? Me!?! Amusing? Bah!)

Mary said I may get another kitten to play on the cat toys and be a playmate for Kit. I'm not sure about that one... I may get another kitty for Kit to play with in the spring. If so, it will be a cat, not a kitten. Preferably a cat that is at the shelter and needs adopting. I'm not sure I want to deal with the kitten stage of training.

The best thing about these projects is that I built them out of scrap wood, and only had to find the carpet, rope, and banister hangers to make them. I also used screws and staples I had on hand. So I really saved money. Frugality rocks. I checked the prices of the cat trees online, and found ones comparable to the one I built selling for over $150 US. Wow. And the cat shelves? $34 US a piece online. I love being handy with tools.

Here is a picture of the house sign that I built several weeks ago, and finally uploaded so that I could post the picture. Ok, so this picture was in the camera with these others... but anyway, here it is.

You can click on the images for a larger closeup of these photos.

4 comments:

Chile said...

That's a lucky cat! Looks like you really her.

Chile said...

"Spoil". That would be the missing word. *sigh*

Melissa said...

Kit T Kat, huh? I love the name!

Great handy work.

James said...

Thanks All.

The name "Kit T Kat" wasn't my idea. She was named before I became part of this household. So I think the credit goes elsewhere... I just don't know where exactly.