The kitten is becoming far more interested in exploring her world vertically. Just this morning, she has vertically explored my floor-length cotton dress, the BF's white dress shirt, and his bath robe--not to mention leaping onto the side of the bed to grab onto the bedclothes and pull herself up there to frolic in the throw pillows.

She's ridiculously cute, but I think she's outgrown her playpen and baby toys and it's time we built a climbing pole with a platform at the top. If I carpet it in a neutral color, I can get away with one in the bedroom near where the final CatGenie will be installed.

The latest bit of cat-related construction will be on the stairs, and will involve running a ramp up the right-hand side of the steps, under the handrail. (My grandmother was disabled for most of her life, so my grandfather put in a second handrail that there would be one on each side.) The ramp will extend to the landing, and then a shorter ramp will go up to the top of the last few steps. It will just be a board, stained to match the stairs and held in place with a couple brackets that will be hidden under the steps so as not to ruin the woodwork. I'm going to finish it off by buying a few of those rubberized stair treads and using them longwise, running them up the boards so that the cats get some additional traction. I'm planning to use the heavy-duty outdoor kind so they last longer and hold up to any potential clawing. I considered carpet, but: A.) they would sharpen their claws on it and it wold look awful in a matter of weeks, and B.) I have done away with almost every last rug and carpet in the house, and I want to keep it that way.

Also drawing up plans to build a new mudroom, but that is for another post, as I plan to solicit some opinions from you lot.

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My washing machine has been repaired. Two loads of laundry to go, and I'm completely caught up. Of course, I do have a bit of ironing to catch up on now, but that's not as... pressing. :P

First tax refund hit the bank account today. (Direct deposit.) Woot.

Have hauled myself to Home Despot to get some gardening and home-improvementy things, as well as a plant for my mother. (I don't do Easter, but she usually expects a plant of some kind.) Ended up getting her a large pot of attractively-arranged outdoor annuals that she can plant outdoors once Mother Nature's mood-stabilizers kick in and we start enjoying some freeze-free weather. Picked up a couple more self-watering pots for my African violets (like these, but plainer in appearance), and a box of two blown-glass watering-globes for my trailing potted ivy. (It only needs one globe now, but it will soon be large enough to require two.)

I am now in the kitchen eating seafood pasta salad and a stuffed pepper, drinking creole coffee and trying to avoid working on this epically tedious paper.

Feh. Feh! A thousand times, FEH!

*/end grumping*

Made another spinach soufflé tonight. I definitely prefer using fresh spinach to frozen, and the addition of chopped bacon (or bacon salt) is a plus. This keeps really well in the entree-sized plastic Gladware containers. I pop them in the microwave for a quick breakfast. Haven't tried freezing it, but I might do that this time as an experiment.

Spinach and Cheese Soufflé

4 eggs
1/2 cup shredded extra-sharp white cheddar cheese
splash of non-fat milk
1 tsp minced garlic
Hungarian paprkia to taste
black pepper to taste
chopped bacon (or Bacon Salt) to taste
20 oz fresh spinach (chopped, boiled or steamed until softened and well drained)
(If using frozen spinach, let it thaw and drain well.)

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a square baking dish. (Metal is not desirable.)
Beat the eggs, milk and spices (including garlic) until fluffy.
Carefully fold in the cheese, then fold in the spinach.
Pour into the baking dish and top with some grated Parmesan or additional cheddar, if desired.
Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes, or until set. (I start checking it at about 20 minutes and go from there.)

I made this rum cake that theldara linked to the other day, and oh, my god. Fabulous.



The only change I made was to omit the nuts and substitute a slightly lesser amount of chopped dehydrated apricots. You can see them on the top. I still sprinkled the brown sugar on them, too. Also--used dark rum rather than light.

Home Despot is selling very inexpensive 18 gallon plastic storage containers for $3.44 each, which is quite a good price. They're made by Best Plastics for Home Depot's Eco Options line. They are black with black lids, and made from 99% recycled plastic. The lids snap on at the handle. They're light but sturdy, and seem to stack well without compressing the lids on the lower containers. There is not a lot of weight in mine, so I can't say how they'll hold up if they're filled with, say, bricks. (Or something equally weighty.)

I bought 5, and will probably buy a few more to use in the attic and basement.

(The product code appears to be BP200778, bar code 9111800227. I did not see them online, but then, they were just putting them out.)

The Christmas tree remains mostly unmolested by the resident felines, although Moo *did* take the opportunity to explore it vertically after his Squooshy Mouse became lodged in it. (Due to a rather enthusiastic toss in the air on Moo's part.) Of course, Moo was obligated to mount a rescue operation to extract Squooshy from the tree. This involved wedging himself between the lower branches in an attempt to scale it ladder-fashion. The resulting treequake shook Squooshy free, but did not do much to get Moo out. (I had to extract him myself.) Now that he's spent the better part of two days trying to lick the sap out of his fur, I doubt he's going to try it again.

Sadly, I imagine I won't be able to prevent them from playing Godzilla with the train set. Every cat my family has ever owned has treated the trainboard and its little plastic houses like fucking Tokyo.

The mantle has been decorated with a garland of holly and one of those dead-common light-up ceramic Christmas trees. My aunt made this one, if I'm not mistaken.

I have a god bow for the top of the tree, and matching ribbon to use in lieu of tinsel (since tinsel is death to cats). I still need to get some of those lovely little zero-heat LED tree lights....

I was awakened at the ungodly hour of 4:30am by the sound of mousie death. Pooky had captured a mouse, and then--bless his little heart--he took it into the bathtub to kill it, making it much easier to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a gourmet, and mouse ass is not on his menu. To that end, he chews their tasty little heads off and leaves the ass behind. This means I had a mouse ass to clean out of the tub, along with all the other bits of whatsit one would typically associate with a small-scale evisceration.

(Note to self: When at the grocery, buy more Clorox Clean-Up w/Bleach. Blood really stains porous, old porcelain enamel.)

By the time I'd praised the Mighty Hunter and cleaned up the carcass, I was wide awake with no hope of returning to sleep any time soon. Making the best of it, I stripped the bed, hauled it all downstairs, and have now washed and dried all the bedding. While the washing was going on, I folded some laundry, fooled around with PackRat, and peeled and chopped a couple of butternut squash and made a pot of soup.

The soup will be ready to puree in a bit. Once it's cooling, I'll head upstairs to vacuum the mattress and make up the bed. Then, more packing up of downstairs stuff in preparation for the Floorening, which begins tomorrow.

I fear it. As much as I am looking forward to the result, I fear it.

Eh. We'll see how it goes.

The three Torchwood novels I pre-ordered *months* ago (from Amazon) have finally arrived! A Christmas gift for my mother was in the same shipment, which means I am only waiting on three more items and all my mail-ordered gifts are safe and sound.

All I want to do for the rest of the day is read, but I have to box up some more stuff in preparation for The Floorening next week. I think I'll fill a couple boxes, then read a book, rinse, and repeat. (It might sound like I won't accomplish much, but believe me when I say that I read very, very quickly. And Torchwood tie-ins aren't exactly challenging.)

So--coffee, then boxes, then books.

Since I'm giving the BF's boots a do-over, I got out all my black shoes and purses for touch-ups. His boots were in such bad shape that I had to re-dye them. I let them dry yesterday and overnight so I could polish them today. I decided use a pair of my black leather shoes to test the weatherproofing spray treatment I bought, just to see what it would do to the finish. (I don't want the boots to end up too dull, wrinkly, or crunchy.) They're drying as I type. If they're satisfactory, I'll give the boots a go, as well.

Well, they look fine, so far--I just had to buff the stuff off the edges of the rubber soles. I think I'll have a go at the boots, now. And my black leather bag. :)

to go with the leftover soup. Will make colcannon on Thursday, to use the rest of the potatoes and cream. It's chilly, the days are short and the dark comes early--time for comfort food!

When I think of a clean kitchen (particularly this kitchen), I immediately think of the smell of the original, yellow Mr. Clean. My grandmother used it religiously and with the mindset that if 1/2 cup per bucket was good, then an entire cup was even better. My great-grandmother was more of a Pine-Sol woman, but she never lost her affection for ammonia, baking soda, Borax, and bleach, so her place usually had a faint chemical smell underlying the odors of coffee and baked goods.

When not cleaning the kitchen, my grandmother preferred Endust in the original red can, although she occasionally went mad and used lemon Pledge. My great-grandmother usually didn't bother with furniture polish, but instead walked around the house fwipping a soft, tattered old dustrag at everything in sight, blissfully unaware of the clouds of dust she was stirring up that patiently resettled everywhere she'd already been.

My mother was anal retentive, and would buy whatever the newest cleaning product was in an effort to make our house at least *smell* less like a tenement, but the old parts of it always had the faint odor of death and sour milk from where it had soaked into the plaster and the floor. The previous occupants had been a family of farm laborers, and when their children threw their bottles or spilled food, or whatnot, they pretty much left it there. The smell never really went away, but it was far less obvious in the fall and winter when it was overpowered by coal or woodsmoke. It was finally banished when my father had a really good year, farm-wise, and they remodeled the kitchen and dining areas.

My personal favorite, though, is orange. (The smell of that ridiculous Orange Clean stuff will last for ages.)

Went for a late-ish lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with cearbhaill today. Afterward, we popped over to Bed, Bath & Beyond so I could replace my $#@%! kitchen knives. Picked up a mid-price set that actually fits in the very limited space where the old block was. I was lucky to get a decent quality set that both fit in the available space *and* included kitchen shears. I used the shears all the time, and most of the sets with shears were either in very wide blocks or out of the price range I consider reasonable.

I also picked up a couple of plastic bins for storing bags of flour and sugar, and I grabbed a set of flexible, plastic cutting boards/sheets so I don't trash the new knives by using them on my Pyrex cutting board.

When I got home, I cleaned the knives and put them away before deciding to cook my last buttercup squash for dinner. You have to cut them in half and remove the seeds before baking them (for about 40 minutes at 350), so I picked up one of the new knives and prepared to slice the thing in two.

And oh, my god. You have to understand that I've been using knives that wouldn't cut hot butter on a summer day, let alone a squash, so I'm used to exerting a LOT of force in these instances.

And the bleeding has stopped.

So. Knife set=very good. Very, very good. Nigh unto amazing.

Before I take my squash out of the oven, I'm going to take a moment to mention the fucking huge-ass blizzard that's been pounding the crap out of South Dakota for the past couple of days. Folks have been trapped in their cars for over 24 hours, in some cases. Scary stuff. Lots of power outages, etc.--very hard on the sick and the elderly. If I was the praying kind, I imagine I'd be hard at it.

And now, to scoop out the squashy bits of squash, and mash them up with some butter, pepper, and sea salt. (And *maybe* some paprika. We'll see.)

Well, the stock market has just taken its second-largest point drop evar. Much like hughcasey, I am starting to take a serious look at my low-tech skill sets. So, so glad I heat this place with wood. Now, I just need to refresh my canning skills, and dig out my Hearth Cooking books....

[There are probably some scary, hardcore SCA-types who think we're heading for some kind of Postman-esque apocalyptic future in which they'll somehow manage to come out on top. (Because god knows, we'll really need guys who can brew shitty mead and panel-beat their own codpieces out of purloined road signs.)]

Quamut's printable, portable .pdf guide to How to Fold Everything.

(Except space. They'd need a Guild Navigator and a sandworm colony for that.)

The CatGenie is up and running. It was a PITA to hook up, but *only* because my antiquated faucets decided that since they were comprised almost entirely of rust, they should really be replaced. So--temporary cold water faucet is hooked up and permanent faucets are on order from the company that made the taps and whatnot that the BF installed when he put the shower conversion kit on the clawfoot tub.

I ran a test cycle first thing. It definitely takes a while--over 20 minutes, in fact. One would hope that the cat wouldn't have a sudden, urgent need to go during that time, but I plan to buy a second unit and set it to clean on an entirely different cycle than the unit upstairs, thereby ensuring that the cats will always have one usable litter box.

I tried the two-litterboxes method for acclimation, whereby one sets up a standard litter box right next to the CatGenie. Most cats will use the new box instinctively (which has been the case with my guys) and some will even use the CatGenie right off. (In this case, I am reasonably sure that Mr. Moo was the one to.... Well, let's just say that he christened it.) The idea is to leave the standard pan there, but to stop cleaning it at some point. It will get grosser and grosser, but the CatGenie will stay nice and clean, and will therefore become more appealing than the standard pan.

We did have a "moment" wherein I accidentally started the cleaning cycle with the cats in the room. I stopped it immediately, but they were all on high alert for the next 15 minutes, or so, and it took a while before Blair got up the nerve to approach the unit and examine it. I'm definitely going to have to run it on manual for a while after chasing them all out of the room--just until they're comfortable with it. The last thing I need is for them to end up terrified if they should catch it during a cleaning cycle.

That said, I come bearing coupons! If any of you guys decide to buy a CatGenie, use this code: F10138 and you'll save $30 off the already-discounted Tabby package. (Not good for the Tux package, though.) If you like your CatGenie, I'll get a coupon for $30 off my next order of CatGenie supplies. If you refer someone who buys a unit, they will also save $30, and you'll be eligible to save $30 on supplies. So, yay!

(I'll certainly make some CatGenie updates, as events warrant.)

In retrospect, I think the worst part was actually the pre-vacuum cat-wrangling.

Also--I hate sweating unless sex is involved. There was no sex involved. I must, must shower again.

cold drops.

I *so* do not want to vacuum the attic right now.