The Marysville Zoo and Aquarium

So I think I'm going to start charging admission to everyone who walks through my front door because I am running a zoo. At this moment we have three cats (Quickie, Linus, and Foxy; for you long time readers, Henry ran away and Stanley went to a kitty retirement home), a hedgehog, four fish, two new dogs, and a Texas-sized cricket. Yes, a cricket. He's decided that our foyer is a nice home, and he doesn't bother anyone, so he can stay.

The two dogs. Ahem. I am a cat person but I love all animals. It's just that dogs are lots and lots of work. Ellie, a dachshund/cocker spaniel mix, came to us from a church friend, eldest child begged and pleaded and she would do all of the work, etc, etc. Then brother Collin put forth the fact that he has never had a pet of his own, his grades went up, he's been more responsible, could he please have a dog? And of course he'll take care of it. He got a sweet beagle from the pound named Carly.

Why do we believe our kids when they say these things? It's all well and good for the first few days until the novelty wears off and then guess who's taking care of the dogs? Mama, that's who. Ellie is the most resistant-to-housetraining dog I have ever known; I'm going to have to crate her all day and night if she doesn't get her act together. But she's cute and loves me like I am her god. Carly's a sweet girl who needs alot of attention as she came from a neglectful and abusive home. She's got 2 years of no love to catch up on and she laps up each second of it.

So there's my zoo, complete with insect exhibition. Haven't figured out admission, will let you all know when we officially open to the public. Jack Hanna, eat your heart out!

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Gratitude: What Are You Grateful For?

At this moment, I am grateful for:

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* Air conditioning - I can't imagine this heat wave without it and feel for those who are without

* Chocolate - when I am recovering from a migraine, I always crave chocolate. Maybe it's that love feeling that it give you.

* A toddler who tells me he loves me about 100 times a day

* Imitrex

* Cicada song - I love that sound

* God's grace - My thought life has been sucky of late; His grace sustains me

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* Tiger lilies

* red winged blackbirds

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* a refrigerator covered with toddler artwork

* a husband who not only loves me, but thinks I'm hot!

* Quickie, who snuggled with me all afternoon

My Quickie

An Animal's Soul

Do you believe that animals are capable of compassion? Do they have a soul? One of the many pastors in my life told me that there will be no animals in heaven because they were soulless and this distressed me to no end. My idea of heaven includes every cat I every loved curled up around me. Yesterday I read an interesting article in the Shambhala Sun called Creature Comforts in which the the author talked about animals in her life that had comforted her and others, and I started thinking about two of my favorite cats.

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Matthew was a lover. He had a purr as big as a lion, and all 18 pounds of him was muscle - he was a BIG cat. He used to eat yogurt with me in the morning and greet me at the door when I came home - some of my friends said he was a puppy-kitty because he acted so much like a dog. I am a frequent migraine sufferer as many of you know, and the first time I had a migraine after adopting Matthew he did something that no cat had done before or since. He carefully positioned all 18 pounds of himself around the top of my head and started purring. It was a softer purring than he usually did. Occasionally, seemingly right after a surge of pain, he'd lick my cheek. Every time I had a migraine he was there, even if he had been missing all day. And you know, I think he helped me; my headaches always seemed to go away faster with less medication. I miss that sweet cat.

If any animal ever had a soul, it was Ollie. He was a scruffy mix of every sort of cat imaginable and not the prettiest cat you'd ever see, but the first time I opened his cage at the Humane Society he jumped right into my arms, looked in my eyes, and became one of the great loves of my life. He would frequently sit with me and respond to me with chirps and meows when I was talking to myself, joined in the conversations that I had with my friends, and liked to put his paw on your hand and just sit, quiet and contemplative. He slept on my chest every night and unlike Matthew, he weighed nothing, so I barely even noticed he was there. However, the day that I had the auto accident that bruised all of my ribs and left me limping from a severely sprained hip joint he found the one spot on my body that didn't hurt to snuggle up against, my right shoulder. When the pain meds made me have nightmares and I woke disoriented, he put his paw on my forehead and chirped and talked until I was aware again. He made it his job to watch over me, even walking beside me as I carefully hobbled about, meowing if it seemed I would lose my footing. And the day that my chest felt better, he resumed his normal position, head by mine, softly purring through the night.

What are your animal compassion stories? I know that there are hundreds, if not millions, out there; please share them!

Old Man

This is Stanley. I got him 17 years ago, when he fit in my hand and had the worst case of pinkeye and fleas that I have ever seen in a cat. Since that time, he's been healthy as a horse, although he spends most of his time sleeping in the warmest spot he can find these days.

According to multiple websites, a 17 year old cat is approximately 85 in human years. I think he looks pretty good for an 85 year old, male pattern baldness notwithstanding.

Frankie, who is called Quickie

Say hello to Frankie, who joined our household 3 months ago. Kendall found him in the park across from our house (a well known stray cat haunt), brought him home, and Swore she would find him a new home. Well, that was three months ago. So I guess he's here to stay.

William can't say "Frankie" and calls him Quickie. I think his name is slowly morphing to Quickie because William talks about him all of the time. And devils him by picking him up and walking around with him in that sack-of-potatoes sort of way.

I love him. He lays on my chest and purrs like a motorboat. He is gorgeous. What you can't see in the photo is that his stripes aren't dark and light grey, but dark grey and a sort of light peachy-tan. He has a perfect M on his forehead, dots on his belly, and his eyes are lined in that pretty tan. He follows me around constantly, gives me the look of love, and talks to me when he has something important to say. All of the other cats are Huge, but he's a nice little compact size. And he's a lap cat sweetheart.

He is also completely smitten with Tim. Now Tim, being a manly dog person has never encountered this and is alternately tickled and annoyed with Frankie. One of his favorite spots in nestled in Tim's legs.

So that's Quickie, or Frankie, our newest addition to the zoo.

I'm Grateful: A few things

Enter my giveaway for a $50 CSN gift certificate! Get some extra cash for the holidays!!

Today I am grateful for: microwave popcorn, Will spinning in circles singing songs, having money to buy Christmas gifts, and soft, silly kittens.

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I'm grateful for a time of year that lets us reflect upon why we are grateful.

Halloween bits

This is my first attempt at something different than a standard jack-o-lanturn. I looked at a vintage picture of the man in the moon, but really, it looks like a jack-o-lanturn. But a cool one.

Will picked out his own costume, he said he wanted to be a car driver. He's quite a sharp boy in his racing gear and all the neighbors thought that he was the man.

I'm not quite sure what Collin was going for here, but it's interesting. He swears he's not Michael Jackson.

I love this picture. Look at Will's face. I think it's at this house that he finally realized that people were giving him candy just for wearing a costume. And this woman is the sweetest. She and her husband walk a mile every day, and often they are holding hands. They've been married forever, and just look so happy and strong together. Gives us young married couples something to aspire to.

And this photo has nothing to do with Halloween, but I had to share. Foxy (named after Foxy Cleopatra from Austin Powers: Goldmember) is our calico that we rescued from the park. She was skeletal, dehydrated, and dying for some love. 4 years later, she's a spoiled house cat that loves to find unusual places to sleep. And when she finds these places, she stays there for up to two weeks. For the last few days, she's been perched on the top of a pile of towels in our bathroom 15 high. We are waiting for the pile to fall over, but so far, she's been crafty enough to stay in her chosen position. I just love her.

August Break: Linus

Someone asked me what I did to my picture yesterday to edit it. I went to Rollip.com, used the second "Vintage" texture and then uploaded it to photobucket, used "Old Picture" on it, reduced that to about 3%, saved it, and there you go! Today's photo used the "Vintage" texture and then the "bronze" effect on photobucket reduced to around 7%.

A ramble with some knitting and kitty pictures (and a profoundly amazing title)

I started this blog as an act of desperation. We had no money, and I was caught hook, line, and sinker by those internet ads promising gobs of cash if you just blogged about something you knew. I knew knitting. So one day, I sat down, signed up for a Blogger account, and wrote about a knit along. Easy peasy! And I incorporated Adwords and waited for the cash to come pouring in.

You know what happened next, don't you? Where was the money??? I quickly learned that blogging was about something completely different than money. I also learned that although I loved to knit, and Dropped Stitches was supposed to be a dedicated knitting blog, I just didn't want to write about knitting all of the time.

So I started putting in tidbits about my life. Then a recipe here and there. I wasn't really dedicated to posting, and for a time quit writing. I hadn't figured out the cardinal rule of blogging: if you really don't want to write about the stuff you are writing about, you aren't going to write a good blog. Easy as that.

Somehow, one day I decided that I was going to start writing again, but this time, I'd use my blog as a creative outlet. It would be my place to let off some steam, explore who I was, and share a bit about knitting. It slowly morphed into a completely different monster. One that will rock you to sleep and sing you a lullaby (because there are no mean monsters in my Dropped Stitches world), but an very interesting monster with a VERY interesting hairdo nonetheless.

The first time I wrote about faith I was scared to death. Who wanted to read about a girl and her faith struggles? As it turned out, a lot of people did. I received more comments than I ever had. I learned to be authentic. And transparent. Every time I revealed more of myself, flawed, scared, depressed, all of the yucky stuff, I felt lighter, more free. And I decided that if people didn't want to read about the yucky, well they just didn't have to, did they?

I don't even know how to categorize what I write now. I just try to share, be true, and you all know that I like pretty pictures, so I share them. I don't share a lot about my family because they need their anonymity, but I share some stuff. By the way, eldest daughter broke her wrist attempting an axel. Figure skating is a dangerous sport!

So that's my ramble. This is what you get when I'm sleepy and a bit migrainous. And in a totally unrelated bit, kitties and knitting just sort of go together, do they not?

Enjoy your day and be good to yourself.

Photos We Heart It

Shutter Love

Today is my first time participating in The Trendy Treehouse's Shutter Love Tuesdays. The theme this week is pets.

Foxy showed up in our garage emaciated and severely dehydrated. After three days of drinking water she finally used the litter box and started eating. I remember telling the kids not to be surprised if we had to put her down. Well, she pulled through with flying colors and is now the crankiest and funniest cat I have ever owned. And she is everyone's favorite. And she is definitely a "Mama Cat" with the ability to fight off every "predator" that enters our yard, be they dogs or chipmunks (we have no more neighborhood chipmunks because of her). We love her, and are happy that she showed up in our garage that day.

The Persistant Stragler

We have a new house member. He showed up on our doorstep looking disheveled, hungry, and tired. He was persistent and didn't stop announcing his presence until we fed him, gave him something to drink and a place to lay his head. His name is Henry.

Our town has a huge feral cat population. Quite a few of them show up on our doorstep but leave after a day or two, not wanting anything to do with people. But Henry was different. He yowled outside the house for 4 days but wouldn't let us anywhere near him. He didn't trust people. Yet it was obvious he needed some help.

Henry won't let me near him with the camera. But he looks a lot like this cat.

The day that I fed him, he came right to me. He ate like he'd never seen food. He sniffed my hand, looked me over, then ran and hid.

The second day I found him in our garage. There had been torrential rains all night and he needed a dry place to stay. I set up a box with some towels for him and gave him more food. This time he rubbed against my legs and sniffed the box. And ate and ate and ate.

The third day, I found him in his box asleep. He woke up as I was filling his food dish and meowed at me. He let me pet him. He dissolved into a pool of mush and purrs. He didn't want me to leave him.

He followed me into the house. The other cats were waiting for him in the kitchen, lined up and in various stages of growling, hissing, or staring him down. He sat down and hunkered in close to me. I could feel him shaking. He was afraid. This clearly was not a cat that was meant to live in a feral community with many cats jockeying to be the alpha. We went back outside.

I should tell you that I tried for several days to find him another home, either at a no-kill shelter (they were all full) or with a friend (they passed). So I guess he's my cat, as I'm the only person he wants to be around.

Yesterday, I went out on the back patio where he was sitting. He came over to me and climbed onto my lap and fell asleep for an hour. Totally relaxed, limp as a noodle. He had found what he was looking for.

While he was sitting in my lap, I realized that this is the type of relationship God wants us to have with him. We may come to him distrustful but broken and needy at the same time. He supplies our needs, often times quite modestly, but in doing so he gives us comfort. When we aren't sure if we can trust the world around us and we're frightened of what surrounds us, He freely lets us lean on Him and removes us from fear and uncertainty. When we realize finally that there is no one greater than Him, no one more worthy of our trust and fall into His arms, He holds us like a baby. And He doesn't let go. He can take away anxiety, pain, distrust, and fear. All we need to do is come to Him.

I'm not comparing myself to God - there is only One. But to Henry, I believe I am one of the first people to ever show him love, kindness, and protection. I think I might have a new friend for life.

All photos from We Heart It.