She was a sweet girl.

 Our beautiful little Erica passed away last evening.  She was around 18 years old and had lead a full and well loved life.  She was Dale's cat and always made sure everyone knew that.  :)
When she was young we had a scratch box for her.  Dale referred to it as her throne and every-night when it was time for bed he would say, "Get on your throne, Erica." and she would do it and then he would carry her upstairs to bed.  It was such a silly thing to do and to see but I loved it. 
She had 5 kittens in her life and outlived all of them.  Her last kitten to  go was Velcro and we lost him last fall.
Erica looks chubby in that picture but she ever only weighed about 6 or 7  pounds.  She was such a petite little thing.  The plate she is sitting on is an 8 inch plate. 

This was her brass bed up in our bedroom.  She didn't sleep on it all the time but when another of our fur babies would get on it she would stare them off.  SHE was queen in the house and all the others knew it. 
She was fine until Tuesday and then she just sort of started shutting down.  We took her to the vet and Val said she would be surprised if she made it through the night.  She made it.  She was never in distress or pain.  It was as if she was just patiently waiting for her time to go and be with her best buddy Katie again. 
We will all miss you, AirBear.   Love you, Mom.

MunchMan

My sweet little Munchkins went to be with his twin brother yesterday evening.
Munch got hit by a car last Saturday sometime between breakfast and 4 pm. He made his way back home but was pretty beat up.
His jaw was broken way back by the hinge and he had a fractured skull. The skull fracture caused swelling and trauma to his eye so that it was blind. His whole nature changed. When I went to see him he did not even seem to know me. He did not respond to my voice. Our vet was worried that the head trauma would change his personality and he would no longer be my loving little lap kittie. She was also concerned that he might not even make it through the surgery. Also, where the jaw was broken it would have to be pinned and would more than likely develop arthritis which would cause him pain later on.
Because of the blindness in the eye he would have to be an inside cat the rest of his life (he was 7 years old so not too old of a cat) and he dearly loved being outside.
All things considered we opted to let him slip away. It was a hard decision but one that I am sure was correct. I will miss him.

Socks, socks, and more socks......

Actually I think there are only 3 pair of socks, but that is ok. Yep, I just looked and there are 3 pair.

The first pair was made back in December. I wasn't thrilled with the yarn color so my DIL was the lucky recipient. When I was knitting on them here at the store she kept telling me that she really liked the colors, so I made them bigger and gifted them to her. The second picture of the brown socks shows Zeus. He used to be the store mascot until he started peeing in the floor because he was mad at us for not being here 24/7. He now has a nice home when he has people around him more often.



This next pair is a real joy to wear. I forget what the yarn is, I'll look and try to post it this weekend. They are really soft and warm. The pattern was from Wendy Johnson's first toe up book. Can't remember the name of that either. The brain has left the body. (edited-- I just remembered it was Cherry Tree Hill yarn, don't remember the colorway, just that it was a limited edition one)





This last pair is made from KnitPicks, and I think it is Pallette. The pattern is a mix of January and February Sockamania socks. I knew that there was no way I would finish them in Jan so I did the heel in Jan pattern and the leg in Feb pattern. Smart of me, wasn't it?





This is me and 2 of my knitting helpers. The black one really is not happy. He does not want Munch on Mom's lap. I "belong" to Cole. I am surprised that he allowed Munch to stay there as long as he did. That is why I had Dale take the pic. Cole usually does not allow any of the other cats to sit on my lap long enough for a picture.







I also have my lace stole to take a pic of . I will have to have some help with that one. It is all blocked, ends woven in and ready to wear. Maybe I will get someone to take a pic of it on me. We will see.

No electricity, oh my...

We live out in the country and along with the joys of living out here goes the risk that the electric company comes out here last to fix it.

Wednesday morning around 3:20 a.m. our power went out. D was watching tv at the time and he said that when the power went it was like hundreds of blue flashes around the countryside. We just snuggled down under the covers and waited for morning to come and with it probably power. Well, morning came but the power did not.

Since it was exceedingly cold (down in the teens) we called our kids and D's mom to tell them to come up here. We have a fireplace that we had just put gas logs into so we had heat. By 10 a.m. they were all up here along with their dogs.

We had 2 miniature dachshunds, an English Bulldog, hubby's shepherd/Saint Bernard mix, my St. Bernard, and my 4 cats. Amazingly they all got along really well. For the most part my cats all stayed upstairs away from the strange dogs.

Friday G remembered Crit. I went out to the office to bring him in. He was fine but he had evidently been so cold he had not run on his wheel. He made up for lost time as soon as he got a little warmed up. I finally had to put him in the living room to give us all a break from his wheel. Poor fella.

The outdoors was really beautiful but a lot of damage was done to our trees. I have a Maple in my front yard that I planted when my son was a baby. I have babied that tree, splintted it back together, argued with D that he could not cut it down. Well, I think he has now won the argument. The top and a large limb off of the side came down from the ice.

The voice in the video is me, the background one is my SIL. The video was taken from my front porch. It was really snowing hard and trees were falling in the woods like crazy. It was really kind or surreal.

Luckily with all the extras here it is a good thing that we have a large house. But now that they are all gone the house seems so empty. I am feeling kind of let down. I will get over it but for the evening I am going to be down and dumpy.

Wednesday evening

Let me look through my pictures and see if I have anything else to post. I should be able to find something.

This is a good one. We refer to it in the family as "Mom's Redneck Mailbox."

Sometime New Years Eve night someone took out my mother-in-laws mail box. In the time while she was waiting for a new post to be built she cam up with the solution. It may have looked really strange but it worked. The mailman never missed a day of leaving her mail.

The above beauty is my personal nursemaid. He has let up now, but for the first 4 or 5 days he very seldom left me. He still stays very close to Mom but he will leave me to go outside for a while. He was just a stray that showed up here about 3 years ago andjust claimed me as his own.

We occassionally get a bird in our fireplace. When one gets in there it drives my cats nuts. They try their best to get to it.