Anipal Photo Hunt #3: MY FAVORITE TOY

Look what I found at the bottom of the toy basket! I had no idea I had this neat little ball. I found it on Saturday and haven't stopped playing with it since. It fits just right in my mouth for carrying around. It rolls really good on the wood floors. I've made mom spend hours and hours throwing the ball for me to chase. Sometimes she throws it down the stairs and then I have to run down and bring it back upstairs. She usually does that when I'm trying to get her to play when she's trying to get ready for work.

Thank You Oskar!

My friend Oskar over at The Daily Oskar gave me an award! Check this out:

The rules that came with the award say, I need to Thank the person that presented this award to us, tell you 7 things about me that you don't know, pass it on to 15 bloggers whom I have recently discovered and think are fantastic and notify them that they received an award.

Oskar's blog is really cool and I hope you all go and visit him. Thank you Oskar for thinking of me and giving me this award.

OK. 7 things you don't know about me:

1. I like to hide under the blankie when Mom's trying to make the bed. Then she has a lump in the bed when she's done. MOL
2. I follow Mom around the house wherever she goes. Sometimes she'll change direction a few times just to make me run back and forth.
3. I'm not all that good at small talk. That's why I get silly at parties and dance a lot, but don't talk all that much.
4. I just discovered Petsitter videos. I never watched tv before, but as soon as Mom put the video in, I was glued to the tv. Too bad it's way up high where I can't get at the critters.
5. My favorite treat used to be Greenies until Mom got me shrimps. Now shrimps are my favorite.
6. I hate riding in the car. I wish I liked it so I could get to go on some of the long car trips Treasure gets to go on.
7. I'm going to BlogPaws West 2010 and I get to take Treasure and Fred with me. I'm really excited. I've never stayed in a hotel before.

Now I have to list 15 pals I'd like to give this award. This is really difficult because most of my pals have already gotten this award cause you're all so pawsome! So I'm gonna try to come up with 15 pals that may not have gotten this award already. But I think you all deserve it.

Curlz and Swirlz, Life with Cornish Rex Cats
Enlightened Ferret
Friends Furever
Fuzzy Tales
Eldritch The Dragon
Just meowin'
Kitty Quartet
Kruse Kats
Us Three Coons
Marg's Pets
Meezer Tails
The Paw Relations
Pirulo's Furry Thoughts
The Shenanigans of Shawnee the Shepherd
The Strawberry Mallard

So there's my 15. I hope you'll go visit the ones you don't already know. It may take me a few days to let them all now I've named them for an award. I'm still catching up on reading all the blogs that accumulated while Mom was away.

Speaking of away, the pictures still aren't organized so Treasure will probably do his blog next weekend. It's a holiday weekend so Mom will have plenty time to help him.

As you all know, I was a feral that was found in a trailer park. Mom doesn't know exactly when I was born, but she knows it was sometime in the first two weeks of September. So I've decided that I'm going to celebrate my first birthday at BlogPaws West 2010. How's that for a first birthday celebration! I hope that some of my pals that are going to BlogPaws West 2010 will be able to celebrate with me. DM me thru Twitter (@pumpkinpuddy) or email me (pumpkinpuddy@gmail.com) if you want to meet up at BlogPaws West 2010 and celebrate with me.

Just before BlogPaws West 2010, our new roof is going on. It's going to be a really busy and noisy week.

And the last news for this week. Our run of bad luck-good luck is still going strong. Mom's desktop computer died. (Thank goodness for the laptop.) Well, her boss got a new computer at work, and Mom's getting his old computer to use at work, which is much nicer than her current work computer. And her current work computer is actually a really good one. And since no one at work needs her old work computer, she gets to take it home to replace the one that croaked. So the bad luck is her computer croaked right before she left for vacation. The good luck - she's going to wind up with a better computer than she had in the first place and she doesn't have to pay for it. Mom sure does have amazing luck sometimes.

Thank you to Rumbles and Inigo and Mario (smoochies guys) and everyone else who was worried about us and purring for us. All those purrs really helped. I think all that good energy coming our way helped things turn out the way we wanted them to. It was a little scary for a while, but it all worked out ok in the end. Smooches to you all!

Thankful Thursday (a day early)

Mom's back from vacation. Yay! I tried to ignore her for leaving me alone, but I just missed her too much. We had all kinds of cuddles and snuggles and nosetaps. And lots and lots of noms.

And she came back with good news. The bank that has our second mortgage lowered the interest rate on the loan for us and now we can stay in the house for a couple more years until the loan comes due. The lady mom spoke to thinks they'll refinance it then even though the house isn't worth enough to cover the loan anymore. But we'll worry about that then. At least we're good for another 2 years before we have to worry about it again. I'm so glad we get to keep our pretty house for a while longer. We still have lots of stuff to get rid of before we could be ready to move somewhere else, and now we have more time to do that.

Mom and Treasure had a wonderful time on vacation and there are hundreds of pictures, so it's gonna be a while before Treasure gets organized to blog about the trip.

Oh, and more good news. I think I'm going to blogpaws west with mom. I don't think she wants to leave me home alone again so soon. It's not quite 100% sure, but it's looking good. Purr for me that mom takes me with her. I've never been to a hotel. This could be fun.

Deserted!

Oh my pals, I been deserted! Mom went away for a whole week and left me with a pettsitter. I don't even know this lady. She's never been to the house before. Mom says she lives just down the block, but that doesn't mean anything to me.

So that's why I haven't been on twitter or commenting on your blogs. I'm lucky I got this much computer time. Oh! And to add insult to injury, guess who got to go with her. Treasure! He got to fly on an airplane and he's having a great adventure and I'm stuck at home all lonely with a strange lady. At least she gives me noms. And I got Fred and Super Duck for company. But sheesh Mom, why didn't you take me along? Hurry up and come back!

I guess next weekend's blog will be by Treasure telling all about his adventures. I'll be tweeting at you soon!

Sunday Musings

Mom had lots of friends over yesterday and guess what! I didn't hide! Well I did at first, but I eventually came out and visited with her friends. Mom gave me shrimps and we played with the laser mousie. And I even got a present. Mom was going through a bag of stuff she brought back from a conference to see what she could donate someplace. and in that bag was the bestest toy. It was a duck. And not just any duck, but a super duck! With a mask and cape and everything. Now how's that for a pawsome present.

I wonder who he is behind that mask? After all, all superheros have a secret identity. Who could Super Duck be? He's not a little nip duck like Fred. he's much much bigger than Fred and he doesn't open up for putting nip in. I guess I'll never know, cause I tried to look behind the mask, but no luck. It couldn't get it off. I guess Super Duck's alter ego will always be a mystery.

Anipals Read!

I've been quite busy this week helping out with a very exciting project! Those of you who attended the last #readpawty know that we decided that we should put together a way for us anipals to share books. @MaggieTKat, @MizzBassie, @Mariodacat, and I had lots of discussions about how it should be put together. Once we decided on the format, I put together a spreadsheet in Googledocs where we can list the books we have for sharing and keep track of who has what books.

The first step was setting up a gmail account for #readpawty where everyone could send their emails and so we had a google account to host the spreadsheet. Then I set up the spreadsheet. Then we got to talking some more, and one thing led to another. Well, the 'another' was a new blog just for #readpawty - Anipals Read. I had lots of fun putting that together. Blogger has lots of cool stuff built in. I even found a background that's a picture of shelves full of books - perfect for a book club blog. @MaggieTKat is working on moving #readpawty stuff from Kruse Kats to the new blog.

Then I decided to make a badge for Anipals Read that pals could put on their own blogs that would link back to the Anipals Read. I knew how to make a picture with a link, but I didn't know how to add the code so pals could copy it. @Rumblepurr to the rescue! He sent me sample code I could use as a base to make the badge.







Copy and paste the code below to add this button to your blog

<center><a href="http://readpawty.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" title="Anipals Read"><br><br><img alt="Visit the#readpawty blog" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_BQZVBTBg_TQ/TGMqj6NIeVI/AAAAAAAAABI/Yf-CqByiZkE/s144/books%20public%20domain.jpg" /><br />Visit the #readpawty blog!</a></center>
This has truly been a team effort. It was fun collaborating with everyone and getting this put together. And now my part in this is mostly done. @Mariodacat has volunteered to keep up the book swap list. And of course, @MaggieTKat will continue to be mistress of #readpawty and keep up the blog, just at the new site. Maybe as we come up with new things we want to add I'll work on design. But everything is pretty much set until we figure out what works and what needs to change.

I hope you will all go visit Anipals Read and join us for the next #readpawty.

Sunday Musings

My furriends, I really did myself dirty this morning. I always play hard to catch when Mom's trying to catch me to put me in the stroller. Well, today it's very hot and mom wanted to go early before it got too hot. She didn't try very hard to catch me and went for a walk without me! I had to stay home and missed everything.

The city made a new walking path thru the meadow behind our house and that's where Mom went walking this morning. She said she saw lots of wildflowers and butterflies and tons of pretty birds. And I missed it cause I had to be a stinker this morning.

And to make things worse, there was this horrible, high pitched beeping going on! It kept beeping and beeping the whole time Mom was gone. It was truly awful and did hurt my ears. When she got back she went right upstairs and got a little square thing out of a box and then stuck in this round thing in the ceiling. And magic, the beeping stopped. (Mom here - the smoke alarm needed a new battery.)

Next time Mom wants to take me out I guess I won't play so hard to catch. I missed all the fun and got stuck with the terrible noise.

Now to close with something fun. Some of you have already seen this picture but I just have to show everyone my laser eyes.

Where's the air?

2010-7-25 Mt. Evans

Treasure here. Chris and Mom love to take car trips, and I got to go along again. We drove to the top of Mt. Evans. I had a surprise this time - Chris brought Stanley. He's a rather large cat, but Bearry and I  got along with him just fine.

Mt. Evans has the highest paved road in the United States. At the top it's over 14,000 feet. That's almost 3 times as high as where we live now! It's so high the air is very thin and is quite difficult to breathe up there. We were moving a little slow and had to catch our breath a lot, but we managed. The road is a little scary, so Chris had to drive cause Mom gets vertigo.

I can't even begin to describe what it's like up there, so you just have to look at the pictures (click on the picture and it will take you to the other pictures). You start driving, and you just keep going up and up and up. Close to the top there are a lot of switchbacks. If you don't know what that is, it's a place where the road makes a really sharp turn kind of like folding the road in half as it climbs the mountain.

We were surprised how many people were riding bicycles up the mountain road. It's steep, narrow, scary, and it really is hard to breath up there. You have to be in really good shape to bicycle up there. We could barely walk!

We saw mountain goats and a marmot, but I didn't get pictures. There was no place safe to pull off the road to take them. I did get lots of pictures of the drive, and the alpine flowers were amazing. I got lots of pictures of them, too.

We made all kinds of stops on the way back down. Of course we found a place to stop and stick our feet in the creek. It seems Mom and Chris can't go anywhere without finding a creek to stick their toes in. Not me - that water is cold! Also on the way home we saw a golden eagle flying overhead.

I had such a good time. I can't wait for my next adventure!

Sunday Musings

Well my furriends, it's Sunday and I get all day on the computer. I finally got caught up reading all my pals bloggies. It was so nice to catch up with everybody. It took hours and hours to read them all, but I did leave comments on a few of them. The funniest one was about Sammy Meezer. Sorry Sammy, but this really was funny, especially some of the comments. Since it took sooooo long to read the blogs, I don't think I'll get to twitter today.

Today is laundry day in our house. I love watching the washer go round and round, and curling up on nice warm pile clothes fresh out of the drier. Or even dirty clothes when they have a big sunpuddle on them.

 Poor mom had a bad day yesterday. She was working in the yard and startled a bunch of yellow jackets. She got stung on both arms before she got back inside the house! Mom's never been stung before, so she didn't know how she'd react, but she's ok. Just a little itchy where she got stung.

I haven't had any adventures lately but Treasure has so he'll be doing a blog later this afternoon. However, I did make a new friend. Instead of letting me hide, Mom's been sticking me in the stroller when she has company so her friends can see me and pet me. I actually liked one of the people that came to the house. The next time she came, Mom didn't stick me in the stroller to see what I would do. I hid behind one of the chairs, but didn't go upstairs. So my new friend (her name is Eliana) sat down very very quiet in front of the chair. I eventually came out and sniffed her hand. then she petted me and fed me treats. Best of all, we played with the laser mousie! I can't wait for her to come play with me again.

I'm gonna close with a few baby pictures of me. I'm gonna be a year old in a month, and I can't believe how big I am compared to just a few months ago. We kitties do grow fast!