Category Archives: family

Happy Mother’s Day!

This is the first time in 17 months that these 3 (four with my niece) generations of women have been able to gather for anything beyond grocery drop offs. We have been diligent about keeping our bubble small, and my grandmother could not go out for visits until after vaccination.

I am grateful that everyone in this picture is still around today for us to be able to celebrate Mother’s Day together. I promised everyone burgers and dogs, rain or shine, and the weather cooperated with me enough that I was not grilling in the rain. The sun was out enough that we even spent some time in the backyard.

We had some helpers interested in pond vacuuming give us a hand.

We kept it small. Just family chatting about nothing and everything as we do. Unfortunately, the ducks that had been enjoying our little pond for a few days departed Thursday. My niece and nephew were not able to sneak a peak at them as a result. I’m including a picture at the end of this post to prove that they did, in fact, exist. We are still doing spring cleaning on the pond, but even that part is interesting enough to children for them to provide a bit of help.

We were also able to watch the Seattle Sounders get a win while everyone was over. All around, a good day for this family. As this weekend was packed with cleaning the house for the first visitors in over a year and hanging out with family, I will keep this post short and sweet and end here.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of my friends and family I could not see today and to all of you reading this. I hope you each had the chance to celebrate in a meaningful way.

Temporary visitors to our pond this spring.

Baseball Season

This Saturday was my first baseball game for my nephew. He is at the age where they are doing coach-pitch and only have three innings. I like that they are focusing more on exposure at this point. Each team member gets a turn at bat and then they rotate to the other team. The coach also did a good job of switching up the field positions they each played.

Reaching first on his first at bat of the game.

I’m fairly certain every kid in the game reached first at least two of their three at bats. One of them got ahold of a pitch and sent it to the outfield. That is effectively a home run at this age… Unfortunately he then forgot to touch home plate. Whoops!

Playing second base. Not paying attention to the batter.

My sister naturally thinks her son is the best player on the team. I think all have a great deal of enthusiasm. They can all throw. Not far or accurately, but they can throw. Catching? Well, the ball eventually finds its way into someone’s hands. Overall, a great effort. I know most of them were paying attention to more of the game than I did playing softball as a kid. I can’t wait until my niece’s soccer team also starts up again in the fall so they both have their sports again.

Go bats!

Spring Planting

On this sunny weekend in the Puget Sound, I decided it was time to plant my starts outside.

I’m pretty proud of starting all of these from seeds in my garage. A few years ago I started working with a grow light so I could plant seeds rather than buying starts. It is too cold in the January / February time frame to put seeds outside around here. I could have done them in the house instead, but a) I have found they get less temperature shock going from garage to outside and b) cats. Little cat would eat them and big cat would have no problem knocking them over.

If I could only grow one thing, it would be tomatoes. They are a must have in my vegetable garden. This year I planted four tomato starts, and I’m hoping we have a big enough harvest to make and can tomato sauce. However, with the way I eat tomatoes I’m not counting on it.

In the big planter we also have brussels sprouts and three tomatillo plants. We usually make a big batch of Verde sauce with the tomatillos and can all except one meal’s worth. It is my favorite enchilada recipe – not claiming authentic in any way – and growing my own tomatillos is just another excuse to make it.

Asparagus on the left (year 4) and basil on the right.

We always try to have at least one basil plant. Either we use it fresh as needed or dry it to use over the fall months. You can also see the asparagus coming in nicely. Those were also grown from seed, and we patiently waited the recommended two years before harvesting any of them.

Cucumber plants!

Finally, we have my pickling cucumber plants. I tried to grow these last year, but they did not take for me. I’m hoping I can harvest enough with these two little starts to get a few jars worth of pickles. I mentioned in the pasta sauce post that I like canning, so now you see I was not joking. I’m sure as summer comes and goes this year I will have more canning posts for you.

Enjoy the weather!

Welcome Little Cat

More than a year after Fluffy Cat passed, and working from home during the pandemic, we decided it was a good time to bring home a friend for Big Cat. It turned out everyone thought it was a good time to adopt kittens during the pandemic, so there were none available for a few months.

While I fully support adopting older cats, Big Cat is not in agreement with that thought. I tried to save a stray years ago. He demonstrated how territorial he is by refusing to allow that cat anywhere near the litter box. We ended up adopting the stray cat out to my parents and learned adult cat adoption was off the table with Big Cat ruling the house.

Eventually I found this energetic ball of fluff to adopt, and she paid zero attention to Big Cat’s unhappy rumbling as she flew and stumbled around the house. I said I would not get a long-hair cat again, but she is mostly only medium hair length. The spunk and those adorable ear tufts were also too cute to pass up.

After a few days Big Cat warmed up to her enough to allow her to curl up beside him.

She would play with Big Cat by attacking and pouncing on him. He, of course, did his unhappy growling and just sat and stared at her. After enough pounces he would rise up and smack her down with one paw in a WWE move. Little Cat thought this was fantastic and after a moment would get up to start the play fighting all over again.

Big Cat had enough of her taking over his lap space.

I’m just glad Big Cat is an energetic 16 years. They play cat chase in the middle of the night and sometimes during the day. He tolerates her sleeping curled up next to him because she is warm and that makes it acceptable. He will not share the cardboard boxes or the Cat Cave though, so clearly we need at least two of each scattered around the house. It is absolutely worth the clutter. Welcome Little Cat.

Pickiest Cat in the World

At least the pickiest cat in my world, anyway.

Meet Big Cat. He has been my constant companion for the majority of my adult life. I adopted him when I was in college, and that is the reason he was also our first indoor cat. I knew he would be moving out with me within a few years, and I would have been devastated if he ended up lost after a move. He is now 16, and still romping around like a kitten.

So, why do I call him the pickiest cat in the world? A handful of years ago, after Fluffy Cat became a tripod due to bone cancer, she started to put on weight, but Big Cat still only ate a little at a time, more grazing throughout the day. I started to feed them less more often, but I needed the little that Big Cat ate to have more protein in every bite, so I switched out the kibble (gradually, yes) to achieve this careful cat feeding balance.

For a while, it worked really well. Fluffy Cat started to get healthy, and Big Cat maintained a healthy weight…until he did not. He started to drop weight, and got sick more often, but it was just on water. Vet found no infections and blood work was fine, but Big Cat was on a hunger strike.

That bald spot over his eye is the result of him not eating for a week. Don’t worry, it grew back.

We had no idea what was wrong, but my husband asked if it might be him not liking the food one day when he sniffed and then stuck his nose up at the freshly poured kibble. I quickly went out and bought the old food, willing to try anything. He started gobbling it up the moment we poured him some when I got back, and we had to make sure to pace him so he would not simply get sick again.

His pickiness took on another level after an infection last year, about a year after Fluffy Cat passed. He was getting sick multiple times a day, and we ended up having to give him medicine. Even on an appetite stimulant he would only sniff and nibble. Still getting sick in the mornings, so we tried shifting to more aromatic can food. Mostly he would lick around the bits for the gravy.

I’m pretty sure Big Cat is now incapable of eating like a normal cat. He can still eat kibble, but only in the afternoon. Morning has to be softer, and I diligently water down some pâté for him so he can smush it around the dish with his tongue, managing to eat about a quarter of it at a time, then meow at me thirty minutes later because he is hungry again and wants to smush it around some more.

He does better with the bisque…yes, bisque for cats. And we buy him the bisque because we are suckers for his constant mrrts and hilarious sprints around the house about once a day. He promised me at least five years after Fluffy Cat left us, and I’m going to bribe him with bisque if that is what it takes to get all those years.