Pictures on Tuesday

Today I wasn't scheduled with clients, so we did some errands. October is pretty booked up, so this is perfect. We went to Costco shortly after it opened for business accounts, which means before the huge masses of regulars. It was a pleasure compared to weekends. We found an iron (we never did find our iron after we moved, and when we found one a few weeks ago, it wasn't the right one and it wasn't working - why did we have it, you ask....) and a tarp for all that wood, and some other things we needed. I actually went to return a pair of pants I decided I wasn't going to bother hemming, but we shopped after we returned.


Before going to Costco, we helped a Niles local take our old rolltop desk! Hooray. Michael likes it, it fits in his place, and it is no longer taking up space in our garage where it's been since we moved 11 days shy of a year ago!

He drove home with it exactly as you see it with the back of the truck open, but it's a short trip and it was fine.

This is where some of the remaining wood that is still in our garage will go. I set up some bricks, but there is not even close to enough room for it all.

Remember the pile of wood still in the garage?

We went to Big Lots to return an iron and a tarp that I had bought there yesterday. I couldn't find the receipt, and that nearly drove me nuts, but as we were getting into the car to attempt the return without, I realized I had posted the receipt on the refrigerator for safekeeping. Duh.

Our pineapple guava tree is producing again this year. They are unusual, and I don't think I particularly like them, but someone I know makes a good guava jelly out of them. I don't see myself making jelly, but maybe I should see if she needs some more.

We picked up about 40 yesterday from the ground. Here are 3 with leaves. We have lots of pickup to do in our yard, but we love it!

Cinders has decided she likes me. She comes over to my desk to greet me each morning. Today she decided to plop down on my arms as I was typing. Better than sitting near my mouse, because she isn't all that trustworthy, I'm afraid when I reach for my mouse she might attack me. Poor little ratty mess of a cat. She won't let us brush her.

What was he thinking?

Maybe he always wanted to live in a forest. I know he was a forest ranger major at one time. We had wood delivered. A cord. A whole cord. Not a half cord or a quarter cord, but a whole cord. Yes, it costs less, and I know that is what he was thinking, and he was probably thinking we won't have to worry about wood for awhile, but by awhile, he must have meant SEVERAL years. People split partial cords, but we now have a whole cord. The truck dumped it on the driveway.How much of that is ours?
















How much is a cord? This much.






Did I mention that it was raining today? Probably a record for rain on September 22nd.





Here's where the wood will go. It says it can hold one full face cord. What is a full face cord? I can tell you it's not a cord.




Our friend next door was watching from his roof as we prepared for the wood delivery by moving cars, etc., but I suspect he was far away when the truck came.









We have the dollies to move it, but this is going to take a LONG time.

Remember the "full face cord holder"? It's full, as is a whole section next to it where we placed wood on bricks to keep them above the ground.

And we still have a pile in the garage that we have to deal with tomorrow.

Isn't the internet great? I just found out a "full face cord" is 1/3 of a cord. Am I happy today? Yes, just not about this little episode. Did I mention I have one of the best husbands around? I can't imagine what one of the "not best husbands" would have brought home.

This beautiful sunrise was our view this morning.

BAD BAD Cats, Green Leather Chair and other things on a Wednesday

Let's start with bad cats. It's a long story, so tighten your seatbelts. We had originally wanted to use an idea our real estate agents suggested - to make a box that would go in the garage and enclose the litter box. We went to the hardware store, but after filling the cart with supplies, I asked Will how much this was going to cost. Since we could buy one for much cheaper, we opted for that. We both decided the cats probably wouldn't use a cat door to get to the garage, not to mention that the cat door was smaller than the opening, so we'd need to frame it, which we haven't done, so it ended up in our green bathroom. It took up a lot of room, but it hid the litter box. Here is our realtor's box (which we later found out cost a lot more than our store-bought box, and they had someone else build it, so we made the right decision, although their's is very impressive):

Here is our box:
Since we had the problem with the bathtub (that we don't even use) backing up, we moved the cat box out of the bathroom and in to the extra bedroom. It gives us much more room in the bathroom, and since the extra bedroom isn't used often, this might work.

So this takes us to the subject of BAD cats. The box is in the guest room, which you'd think would be preferable to the cats since they have more room, and we don't go in there very often, but apparently one cat didn't think so because he or she (that's the problem with 3 cats, we don't know which one is the culprit) decided to poop just outside the box. Sometimes Alex misses, but this looked like it was intentional. So I put on the plastic gloves and cleaned up.

We have a rule in our house about kitty barf and other cat messes - the one who spots it cleans it. You'd think we could just be quiet and let the other one find it, but aside from both of us being extremely honest, a screech of "oh no" or "you've got to be kidding" is usually a tip-off that one has found something that needs cleaning. If it is something we just can't bear to do, as in "it's your turn, I've done this the last five times" the other is always very good about taking over.

So with my glove still on, I walked out to the trash with plastic bag in hand. I looked over at our yard and saw Kandyman, the gray kitty from next door who has been featured on prior blogs, sitting on our grass in a position that belied further investigation. Sure enough, this BAD cat (who took off his belled cat collar shortly after his owners put it on him), had killed a bird. That's beyond my kitty duties, so I had to call Will to help. I know, I know, it's nature and all that, but not in my backyard.

But enough about BAD cats.

The Clampetts are at it again. I saw a listing on Craigslist "Free" for a green leather chair in Fremont. It doesn't get any better than that! Will loves leather, the cats don't seem to (except the late great Dave who didn't retract his claws so when he jumped on our leather chairs, he'd make little holes or scratches, but that isn't quite as bad as using it as a scratching post), and it was in Fremont. I read the free ads when I need a "garage sale fix". The listing said: "I have a dark green real leather overstuffed chair that I don't have room for. There is nothing wrong with it, it actually looks good. If you want it, please e-mail me and let's arrange a time you can come and get it". I saw it Tuesday, but it had been listed Monday night, so I thought it would be gone, but I responded anyway. We got this chair on December 31st of last year, and shortly thereafter, the cats ruined it. I can't blame them - the nubby fabric resembles a scratching post, but then again, how would they know? They don't use the scratching posts we have!

I guess you can see from the picture above, that I wasn't quite done with BAD cats!


I got a response at 7:50 am this morning, so we ran out of the house to check out the chair that the lister had left on her driveway. It looks like it may rain today, so we had to hurry before the chair was ruined. I had my doubts, but we got there and it was perfect! Because it's lower than the chair we had in that spot before, we can see out our beautiful picture windows even better!

Plumbers are expensive

Uh oh, take a look at this picture of the bathtub we don't use, and see if you can figure out the problem.

I happened to walk by the bathroom and look in and this is what I saw. I was using the washing machine (all the way in the garage) at the time. We had a plumber out about a month ago and Will didn't like him. He said we should have something to catch hair in our shower (we do) and he thought it was something that was blocking the pipes. We'll see what this one says. We may have to renew the home warranty since it expires on October 5th.

This is how Mowry plays with his toys. He used to fetch but now he just watches as we throw them.

I moved my basket of papers to be "gone thru and filed or discarded" from my desk to the floor so Cinders could sit on my desk without blocking me from working and accessing my keyboard. That's important since Cinders (at 16 years old, we think) still goes on attack if I try to get around her to get to my keyboard. I guess Mowry thought I needed help filing. Thank goodness that's a mirror and only one cat. Imagine the mess if two got into my filing?

And here are some more pictures of our town from the main street.

Garage Sales, Freezer Pick Up, Huge Tomato Plants and more

How much is that kitty in the window?

Today is Saturday. Apparently we woke up to a huge crash this morning, but I didn't hear it. That, in and of itself, is amazing since I am the princess and the pea, if you know that story. The fireplace screen had fallen over, and I'm almost certain a cat was involved, although none was around when Will went to check on the crash. They probably scared themselves off.

We found these chair cushions at an estate sale for $3 (total, not each).

We also found this cat post toy thing for $2. Even with catnip sprinkled on it, only Mowry got mildly curious.

My hat is coming along well. I had to buy more of the blue yarn (not the mohair). It's hard to believe that these two yarns together produce the colors in the hat.

The tomato book is from the library. It's a really nice book with great pictures, some recipes, and even descriptions of just about every kind of tomato. And speaking of tomatoes, we ate at the Essanay Cafe last night - one of our favorite guitarist/singers was performing. Dinner was delicious, we went with good friends, and we ate on their newly opened patio. Check out their tomato plants training up the wall.

We had the old freezer, left by the former owner and used by us for a short time, picked up. We even get a $35 check for this. The check's in the mail.

It's scary to think of where all these old appliances on that truck will go!

It was expensive to keep (as my friend, Sandy, had warned me) and took up too much space.

We made better use of the space when the freezer was removed. You can barely see a cat door by the laundry basket that is on top of the window air conditioner left by the former owner. We were going to put the cat box that is in a cabinet on top of the cinder blocks so the cats could use the cat door to get to the litter box in the garage, but so far we've nixed that idea. We're just glad the cats use the litter box in the cabinet in the bathroom, except it's in the main bathroom, but what can you do? Most of our friends have or have had cats, so they know the drill.

I know that my cousin Barbara, my niece Lauren, and my friends Diann and Sandy (sometimes - as in sometimes Sandy reads it, not as in sometimes she's my friend) all read this blog. If I suggest to Will that there is something of interest on it, he also reads it, which I hope is most of the time. I'm told by one of the above, that after my rant about grammar I had a typo in a post. Well, that's funny, isn't it? I thought so! And as I stated in the rant, my blog is for fun, and the website I was talking about is supposed to be a selling tool, so who cares about my typo, but I stand by my rant that they should care about their typos and grammar usage. I really do try to re-read it each time before posting to catch typos or other errors, but you know how hard it is to find your OWN typos!

Friday Pictures

I like my blog postings better when I have pictures to post, so here are pictures. This is the Quarry that is a block and a half away from us. It's really quite beautiful. You can't see it in the picture, but in the middle beyond the quarry is Mission Peak.

Most of our homes are modest 3/2 built in 1955. Our was updated in the 1970s (and in 2007 if you count our pulling up of carpet to expose beautiful original hardwood floors, painting, and new window treatments, but many have remodeled their kitchens and bathrooms. While they are lovely, we like the retro look. Unfortunately, there are a few McMansions, aka "Trophy Houses" that just don't fit in the neighborhood. The way I've heard it, you don't want the most expensive home in a neighborhood. I also don't understand how it works that if you keep one wall, you don't have to pay higher taxes. If you can afford the remodel, shouldn't you pay higher taxes? Why are we paying more taxes than this guy is probably paying?
When I first saw our house, I didn't like the statue, but since she weighs a ton or two, and is partially in the ground, she isn't going anywhere. Here is how it looks today with my planting...
And here is how it looked when we saw the house for the first time.
Here is Will working hard.

Mowry is sound asleep. Just like a baby, when you wake him, his eyes are half closed and he doesn't move fast. I thought cats wake up fast so if prey comes by, they are ready, but not this one.
Life is full of Irony. Here are two IRONIC PICTURES captured today, and one from a few months ago:

1. The dot to the left of the bug zapper and to the right of the white post is a spider (that is ignoring the bug zapper).

2. This picture was taken on my cell phone while at Lowe's today. Will caught this.
3. A dog in the driver's seat.

Mowry is hoping I don't try to put this scarf on him. I was almost done with a triangle scarf using this yarn, but I decided I didn't like it, and yes, much to Will's horror, I ripped it out, and now I'm knitting a regular scarf with a hole in it to pull thru the other side.

Religious Holidays and Cats and Things

Today is Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in 2007 are on September 12* - September 22, 2007 Tishri 1 - 10 Tishri 5768* (Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown September 12, Yom Kippur begins at sundown September 21). The Jewish High Holy Days are observed during the 10 day period between the first day (Rosh Hashanah) and the 10th day (Yom Kippur) of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most important of all Jewish Holidays and the only holidays that are purely religious, as they are not related to any historical or natural event. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated the first and second days of Tishri.

While I am not relgious, I do not work on the first day of Rosh Hashanah or on Yom Kippur, although I just got a business call that I will have to take.

This morning Mowry was found on the top of the refrigerator, but Will chased him off before I was able to get a pitcure. Blog fodder - pictures good for the blog. It's a low refrigerator, but c'mon Mowry. Bad kitty.

Alex still refuses to get onto my lap when we are sitting in our recliners. I guess Will's lap training paid off. When we first got Alex, Will used to put him on his lap and it was often before he had his evening snack, so now Alex goes on Will's lap when he's in the recliner only, and most often when he is about to eat something. Here is Alex hiding in the closet (thaose are his paws - he THINKS he's hiding, but I can see him, and now so can you). Notice the black cat fur all over my peach dress, courtesy of Al.
Cinders is looking old - it almost seems like she sometimes loses her balance when she gets off the desk via the cat stairs, but she is still climbing up there.

I need to buy more yarn from our local yarn store in Niles for the hat I am knitting: http://colormequiltsandmore.com/Default.htm. The yarn I bought at Tuesday Morning won't be enough for another hat, so I will probably have to go back there, too.

Time to gripe - doesn't anyone know the English language? How about simple grammar? The only time you use the apostrope is for possessive or conjunction. PLURAL (as in "closed Mondays") means it's (it is) closed on more than one Monday so plural Mondays, but apparently people think their shop or restaurant should be closed on Monday's. I've seen it so many times. If you don't know what is right, ASK SOMEONE. My favorite sign was "Milpitas Next 3 Exit" on a Freeway in Fremont. If you make signs and you don't know it's "Milpitas Next 3 Exits" then you shouldn't be making signs, now should you? If you making signs, you should know this. If you are making a web site you should also know basic grammar.

I often wonder who writes web sites? Is it a professional, or a family member? Connolly's furniture (a local furniture store in Fremont with their annoying children on all their commercials) has some real website problems. http://www.connollysfurniture.com/ "Sofa's and loveseats" - can someone explain to me why "Sofa's" would incorrectly have the apostrophe yet the very next word after 'and' - "Loveseats" does not. Aren't they really the same (both a piece of furniture) so they'd have the same usage? Sadly, I wrote Connolly's a nice letter several years ago telling them about the errors on their website. I don't know what happened, but they never changed anything. I guess they think people want to buy dinning room furniture (the two n's make the pronunciation "dinn ing" rather than "dine ing" - it's simple spelling here; not even grammar. I don't claim to know it all, and I rarely remember the rules as to why we do things (prepositional phrase - who cares what that is), but if someone sent me a very pleasant letter telling me I had errors on my web site, I'd want to correct them, rather than continue sounding really stupid to all who read it and recognize the mistakes, but maybe that's the point - most people wouldn't know that "dinning" is spelled wrong. On one of their web site pages, they even spelled their name wrong. Is it "Connolly's" or "Connoly's"? I'd STILL have made the change because I prefer NOT looking stupid, particularly after someone points out my mistakes to me.

If you find any errors in here - it's ONLY a blog, not my company's web site where I try to sell you things so I need to sound intelligent. I DO try to re-read and edit my blog before it is posted, but if I didn't know proper usage, my editing wouldn't matter.

It's - It's (it is) a nice day out today.
Its - Its collar fell off when the cat ran under the bush. (VERY COMMON mistake - but while it is the cat's collar, it still is not it's collar - I told you I don't always know the rule, but trust me on this one)
The Smiths - We are the Smiths (as in - there is more than one Smith)

If you are writing something and you have questions, find someone and ask them (since most people wouldn't dream of looking it up in a reliable source, including me).

Tuesday

Alex went to the vet today. She was a delightful vet but he was still scared. He got a pillwhich we had the vet to administer it. After we got home, he hid in the closet (his now favorite place after his all-time favorite under-the-bed hiding spot where he was this morning when we had to get him out to go to the vet) so I gave him some wet food because I felt bad for him. He loved it, but the scent of it (or should I say smell - as in smelly) brought two other cats out of their sleeping mode, so I gave them some, too. Cinders is usually afraid of Mowry since he chases her, but when wet food is involved, we can be friends!We went to Tuesday Morning (http://www.tuesdaymorning.com/) and I found some mohair yarn with pink to match my pink boots, so I will have to make another hat when I finish the one I'm working on, but I don't know if I bought enough yarn. The double pointed size 11 needles I ordered from Amazon were at my mailbox.

Then we walked into town to return books at the library and mail a package to my niece and her new hubby. I took some pictures in town. The next two pictures are of Niles Elementary Shool. It's old and beautiful.

This is the old courthouse and jail. Our tax preparer works out of the former courthouse.

The post office isn't one of the nicer looking buildings outside, but it's old and interesting inside.

The old firehouse that is still in use, but another is being built nearby.The old original bungalows where the actors who performed at Essanay Studios lived around 1916.

Back past the shool...

where the geese were hanging out.

We love this town!