Natural Disaster in Japan

My dear furriends. We've all heard about and seen the images from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I posted in Twitter asking where we could send money to help the animals that are victims of this disaster. It was easy to find links of where to send money and things to help people, but I couldn't find anyone focusing on saving animals. @kurousanohaha, who lives in Japan, saw my tweet and was kind enough to send me this link: Animal Refuge Kansai. Edit - just did my donation. It does the donation in yen, so you'll have to look up the exchange rate to figure out how many yen equal what you want to donate in your currency.

I know there have been a lot of appeals lately for money, but this has been a bizarre year for unusual natural disasters all over the world. My mom's old, and she can't remember ever seeing so many natural disasters happening in so many places so quickly, one after the other, like there's been the last year or so. I really hope we can all dig down a little deeper and find an extra dollar or two to send. There are a few thousand of us anipals here on Twitter, and if we each just send a dollar that would be a few thousand to help save animals suffering because of the earthquake.

You can also give money to the SPCA International. And I just found out from Life with Cats that the American Humane Association is also collecting to funds targeted for Japan.

More sites with links:
Curls and Swirlz, Life with Cornish Rex Cats
Japan Animal Aid
The Conscious Cat - This blog has a bunch of links to places giving help. Some the same as what's already here and some are different. Besides, who doesn't want to meet a new blog pal? Check it out!

It's Saturday and that means Blog Hop! Join the fun:

Sunday Musings

Happy Sunday everyone! Yesterday was Mom's birthday, so we've been giving her extra cuddles this weekend.

Good news! Okey's Promise passed it's funding goal and @BZTAT can go forward with her project. Congratulations @BZTAT and Okey's Promise!

Pals been asking about my Turbo Track cuz we got two of them arranged together. So here's what it looks like. We love it! We all gather around it with Mom and play with it. We roll the balls to Mom and she rolls them back to us. It's just so much fun.

Speaking of fun, here's a picture of my favorite ball. It's just about an inch or so big and it's my favorite ball for playing fetch. Problem is, because it's little it gets misplaced a lot and I'd like to have more of them. But Mom can't find any in the stores and doesn't remember where she bought this one. So if you see this ball anywhere, DM me on twitter (@pumpkinpuddy) and tell me where so Mom can buy it. EK likes it too, so we need lots of them for sharing.

We recently got a wonderful present from @Staffpurrson. It's one of the Harry & David boxes that @Mulder_cat and @Scully_cat are so fond of. It came with all kinds of surprises in it.

Just look at all the fun in there! We got Temptations treats, and some Luna Tuna, some great toys, a nice fleecy pad and something we've never had before - crinkley paper! We're just loving everything in this box. Or I should say EK & Candy are loving the box and everything in it. I can't get near any of it cuz they're toy hogs. At least I get treats & Luna Tuna. Nommy!

Look how funny EK is. There's not room for both of them in the box so he just climbed right on top of Candy. But she doesn't mind. They bonded at Duncan's Place and just love each other so much that they climb on each other like this all the time.

Here's more pictures of them cuddling. In fact, it's hard to get pictures of them not together.

And here I am in all my floofyliciousness!

Aren't I gorgeous?

Gotta go watch football with Mom now. She's rooting for Green Bay and the Steelers today, but especially the Steelers. Happy Sunday everyone!

Sunday Musings

We must be the luckiest kitties in the whole world! We got wonderful stuff for Yule. Take a look!



A couple of these are videos so you may need to go to Picasa to see them.

Our pal Sweet Praline is pawticipating in Paw it Forward. We told her we wanted to pawticipate, too. So for our Paw it Forward we're gonna give some of our toys to the local shelter. We were gonna take them today, but we were talking to @BabyPatches at the #catmasweve pawty and found out her mama put lots of stuff on sale for after Catmas. So Mom ordered some more stuff from Nip and Bones to add to it. When that stuff gets here, Mom's gonna take it to the local shelter. I think we'll send Evie to snoopervise and report back on the visit.

This has been an interesting year. It started out kind of iffy. As some of you remember, we almost didn't get to keep our pretty house. But the bank people finally saw sense and fixed things so we could afford to keep paying.

Then in the summer, Mom went to Massychewsits. She was gone a long time and I was very lonely without her even though I had a kittysitter. So when Mom came home, I got antsy every day when she went to work. I was always afraid she'd leave me alone again for many days. Mom decided I needed fursibs so I'd never be lonely again. At first I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but as usual, Mom's right. Now that the squirts have been here a while I really like them. And I love having playmates. Even though I like them I'm still gonna call them squirts. MOL

We made some wonderful new furriends this year, but lost some of them before we even really got to know them. I miss Inigo very much. I'm glad Ryker decided to tweet from OTRB because otherwise I'd miss him something terrible. And there were Sniffie, Mookie, Hollie, and so many others. It's been a very sad fall. I wish we didn't ever have to be sad, but just the fact that we're here, blogging, tweeting, and making and losing furriends just shows how lucky we are. Every time I lose a furriend, I think of all the poor animals that don't have homes or furriends at all. Or worse, homes where they're abused. The fact that we're all loved the way we are truly does make us the luckiest animals in the world.

'Summer at the Lake with Petie' did fairly well. 43 copies sold, allowing me to donate over $160 to Duncan's Place. My goal was 100 copies, but I guess that wasn't a realistic goal and I'm pretty happy with how the book did.

Mom's coming up on a very busy time at work, so I'm not gonna get much computer time the next couple of months. Please forgive me if I don't comment on your blogs. I am coming by to visit even when I don't let you know I've been there. I do want to keep up on what's going on with my pals.

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope the coming year brings peace and love to everyone, especially those that don't have it right now. I wish everyone in the world had as much love in their lives as we have in ours.

The Excitement Continues.

The excitement from last week continued right through this week. I got great holiday cards from @Ryker_Tyker & family and from @DuchessCrabtree. I also got greeting cards and TokiPoki cards from @Mariodacat, @Yoda_the_Dog, and @BorisKitty. The Pink Kritter Kondo Deluxe that I won from Kritters that Twitter came this week, too. I can't wait for nice weather to try it out.

Then yesterday the doorbell rang and rang. The first package had the Cafe Britt coffee in it that I won from @Petethecat at #pawpawty. Mom hasn't tried the coffee yet because she has a cold and can't taste anything. She wants to wait until she can taste properly before trying the coffee. The next package was a present from Amanda from Greenies - a huge bag of tuna flavored Greenies. I couldn't believe it!

Later in the afternoon Mom went to the mailbox to get the mail and came back with more packages! The beautiful bear I won from @I_am_fuzzy showed up. That was really a surprise because Evie (that's the bear's name) came all the way from England! Her compartment even got opened in customs and still only took a week to get here. On top of that, the necklace for Candy that I won from @MizzBassie came yesterday, too. What a day!

There are too many pictures for me to stick them in here, so I just put one picture. If you click on it, it links to the album with all the pictures and even a couple of videos.

I know there's more excitement coming because Mom's been hiding stuff from us for Catmus. If we aren't the most spoiled rotten kitties on the planet, I don't know who is! I sometimes feel guilty because I know there are so many animals that need lots of help and don't even have safe places to live or food to eat. I purr and purray for them every day and do what I can to help. I think after Catmus we need to go through all the toys and take some to the local shelter.

Happy Holidays my furriends. Lots of love to everyone.

Thankful Thursday

So far I've sold 34 copies of Summer at the Lake with Petie. Today I received my first payment in the amount of $119. I haven't been paid for all the copies yet so there's more money coming (but not until next month)! I took great joy in going to Duncan's Place and clicking on their donate button and donating that money. As both Blurb.com and Duncan's Place both use Paypal, it was very easy.

Ordering is very easy, too. Just click on the picture below and it will take you to the order page!

The deadline for ordering in time for Christmas in the U.S. is December 12. Blurb.com delivers all over the world, so don't think you can't order if you live outside the U.S.

Thank you to everyone who has or is going to order Summer at the Lake with Petie. And Happy Holidays to all!

Random Stuff on a Tuesday

Guess what I got today! A picture of GinaTheMinPin reading 'Summer at the Lake with Petie'. How cool is this?

Catching up on my reading

And another wonderful friend, @BunnyJeanCook, has written about the book on her blog, Bunny's Blog. Now, if you've never visited Bunny's Blog, you should. Unlike yours truly, Bunny tackles important stuff on her blog. Here's just a couple of the things she's written about:

Help Pawcurious Help Homeless Pets
Adopt a Less-Adoptable Pet Week

I hope you'll all add Bunny's Blog to your reading list!

If anyone else wants to send me a picture of themselves reading Summer at the Lake with Petie, please do! Maybe I'll make a whole page of the pictures.

In other news, @BorisKitty is still collecting green papers to help Peanut and Kiki's families with the v-e-t bills. These poor kitties were shot with a pellet gun and need lots of v-e-t help. And that means lots and lots of green papers. So help out anyway you can, even if it's just one or two little papers.

I'm sorry to say that I'm going to end on a sad note here. Yet another beautiful angel, Whiska Pusskat, has crossed the Rainbow Bridge to get his wings. You can read about him here: Whiska Pusskat: In Memorium. I hope you'll all stop by and say a word or two to his family.

There have been so many furriends crossing the bridge lately that I'm thinking I should add an 'In Memorium' page to my blog. Except I'm wondering if that's just a little morbid. What do you think?

In case we don't get to talk to each other again before Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving!

Edit: Here's @smokey8's sisfer, Princess.

She's been doing a lot of reading. Looks like she just finished not just  'Summer at the Lake with Petie', but also 'welcom to my werld' by my pal Henry Steiff (@henryandfriends). Looks like Princess is quite the reader. Now all she needs are copies of @maxthequiltcat's book, 'The Zen of Max' and @CheshireK's book,'Please Send Money' (which I read and thoroughly enjoyed).

Speaking of  'The Zen of Max', I won a copy from the drawing on Max's blog! I'll be doing a review of it after I read it. Can't wait!

A Book About Love

We've spent a lot of time in #pawcircles and porchsitting lately. We've seen too many furriends cross the Rainbow Bridge in a very short time. When our furriends cross the bridge, the circles are for love and comfort. But sometimes, the #pawcircles and porchsitting result in a furriend getting better. This book is about a success story. This book is about the miracles that love can work.

As we all know, our pal Petie (@Petethecat) had a difficult summer. When we heard our furriend was sick, we all did what anipals do in times of trouble - we banded together to help Petie get better. And Petie did get better! In fact, he's getting married very soon to the wonderful Pandora (@Pandafur).

@toughteddybear with his copy of
'Summer at the Lake with Petie'

It was just an amazing summer, and I wanted something to remember it by. I thought others might like to have something, too. So I put together a book: 'Summer at the Lake with Petie'. I gathered together stories, poems, pictures, memories, and whatever else pals wanted to submit to the book. There is a link in the sidebar to order the book and you can see sample pages there. The book is getting rave reviews from everyone who has already gotten a copy.

This book is special not just because it's about our love for Petie and the miracles that love can work. The proceeds of this book benefit the cat sanctuary that Candy and EK came from  - Duncan's Place. It's a wonderful group of people who foster cats in their homes, help them find furever homes, and help families down on their luck keep their pets with them. I wrote about them in an earlier blog - Blog the Change - Duncan's Place.

One thing we've all said over and over the last several weeks is how lucky our now lost pals were to have had loving homes. I want all the kitties at Duncan's Place to have that, too. Selling 'Summer at the Lake with Petie' is one of the projects I have going on trying to raise money to help them take care of and find homes for the cats in their care. My goal is to sell 100 copies of the book. So far, 30 copies have been sold, so there's still a long way to go.

I want to thank some pals who have been helping to spread the word about Summer at the Lake with Petie:

Rumblepurr put a link up on his blog: Rumblebum.

Whskr And Dash wrote a blog article about it on their blog and plan on writing another: Dash Kitten's Musings.

Blind Maximus wrote a blog entry and put up a widget for ordering Summer at the Lake with Petie on his blog, Adventures of a Blind Dog in a Big World.

I do have the best furriends! If anyone else is interested in putting a link or a widget on your blog, let me know. I'll send you the code.

I also have a chip-in on my blog for pals who want to donate. Or you can go to Duncan's Place web site and donate there. Whether you order Summer at the Lake with Petie or donate through my chip in or directly on their site, I hope you'll choose to do something, no matter how small, to help Duncan's Place. I want every cat to be as lucky as I've been.

Much love to my furriends,
Pumpkin (@Pumpkinpuddy)

News!

All kinds of news this week. The first item is that the book about #lakewithpetie is finished and ready to order. It's called Summer at the Lake with Petie and is available here: Summer at the Lake with Petie. You can see a preview at the right. I was thrilled at how many pals sent stuff for me to put in the book! There are poems, stories, pictures, memories, and even original artwork. We have some very talented anipals in our community. Not only is this a wonderful way to remember the amazing summer we had, but the proceeds are going to Duncan's Place cat sanctuary. It will make a great Crispmouse present for your humans, so buy lots of copies!

Duncan's Place cat sanctuary is also where my brofurs are coming from. Cathy at Duncan's Place cat sanctuary sent me more pictures of them.

I finally have names for them. The cream colored one is gonna be Evel Kneivel and just EK for short. We've been told he's a bit of a daredevil. The grey and white one is gonna be Bandit because he looks like he's wearing a mask. Mom's picking them up Friday night!


Edit: Just found out from Cathy at Duncan's Place - turns out the grey & white one is a girl. So instead of 2 brofurs I'm gonna have a sisfur and a brofur. Cathy called her Babette and I think I'm just gonna call her that and not change her name again. Bad enough everyone thought she was a boy and called her Bob all these weeks. I'm not gonna change her name yet again.

So that's the good news. Now the sad news. We lost our good friend, Gunner, this week. He crossed the bridge on Thursday. PepiSmartDog escorted him across the bridge and arranged a wonderful welcome banquet for him. The banquet was held at Nipclub so that all the anipals could see Gunner off and wish him a good crossing. It was a wonderful banquet for a wonderful pal.

That's if for this week. Next week I'll have lots of news after the brofurs get here. Wish me luck! Smoochies!

Sunday musings

Here it is Sunday night, and I haven't written my Sunday Musings yet. I was going to write about Blogpaws, but so many other pals have written about it that I don't know what to add, especially since they all write better than I do. I will say that I had a fabulous time, met some amazing and wonderful people, and learned a lot. My pictures are all in Facebook if you want to see them.

Packing for BlogPaws
BlogPaws Day 1
BlogPaws Day 2
BlogPaws Day3

This weekend I spent a lot of time at the #lakewithpetie. I had the idea that we could collect all the pictures from the weekends at the lake and make a picture book of them to sell for charity. @Petiethecat would pick the charity. I even talked to @thepetbooklady about it and she's offered to help. As usual, I got ahead of myself. I was saving the pictures people used from Twitpic and asking them if I could use them. Well I didn't think it through properly. I'd have no way of knowing what pictures were original and which were gotten from another source, or who to credit for the pictures. Also, a lot of the pictures are just too small to use. I get hold of an idea and I get a little overexcited and start running away with it. I'm nothing if not enthusiastic. MOL.

Spoke to Petie and he and his folks are ok with this project, so I'd still like to do it. I need to collect pictures from pals who have ones they want to contribute. I'd need a good size version of the pictures and assurance from the pals sending them that they own the pictures and can publish them. This way I'll know we're legal and I can give proper credit to the pals that contributed pictures.

If you have pictures to contribute to The Lake With Petie Memory Book, please send them to pumpkinpuddy@gmail.com. And remember, they have to be pictures you have the legal right to contribute. Sorry, the book won't have a picture of the alien ship cleaning up the campsite. Mulder already told me that was a borrowed picture. I'll let you all know what charity this is going to as soon as I hear from Petie. I'll know more about price and everything once I get it all figured out with the Pet Book Lady.

That's all for this week. I can't wait to get started on this project! Get your pictures in. I'd like to have the book ready in a month or so.

Update: We now have a charity. With Petie's approval, the money raised by selling the book will go to Duncan's Place Cat Sanctuary.