Bella the cat stood on the scale earlier this week. 13.5 pounds, down from a career high of 14.5 at her last vet visit.  At the suggestion of my sister Blondie, she's been on a mostly wet-food diet with a maximum of two treats per day for about three weeks. It does seem to be working.  I'm not sur...

Could someone from some other area of the country remind me what the sun looks like?  I think I've forgotten.  The weatherman keeps promising it will clear and we'll see the sun.  It may be my imagination, but I think his nose is growing. The damp weather did not dampen our...

So last weekend we took the little angel to one of those places with two stories of tunnels.  I've always believed if you've got an only child, then you're going to have to play with him or her.  So I agreed to enter the tunnels with her, again, as I always do. Even though it sort of hurts. I watc...

Hello, everyone.  Bella the Cat here.  Large Female is still busy.  She claimed she needed just one more minute, just one more minute, for so long last night that I finally took a shit on the kitchen floor by my food dish to get her to feed me.  I was fed within six minutes. I don't really recom...

Well, the economy’s bad, so not only are people turning to Spam, they’re also turning to pot pies.  Thirty-dollar pot pies, that is.  We’re not talking about the cheap 3-for-a-$1 Banquet stuff, but these: Twin Hens(TM) has experienced a record 300% growth since 2005. Their delici...

This past weekend we drove up to Iowa City to watch the Hawkeyes play Purdue.  They won, but it was a little close there at the end.  I haven't been inside my alma mater's stadium, Kinnick, in probably three years. It was snowing.  And cold. Beloved, Kristin, Steph and I crammed our multi-layered...

I set several goals for myself this weekend - to finish the Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl, to finish two little Christmas sweaters and to finish quilting a quilt for our Community Quilt Project.  I'm happy to say I completed all of them!  It took some discipline - I really wanted to ...

I know it's still 2008, but to me, once they start sticking up Christmas trees in Wal-Mart, you're not going to accomplish anything more in the year. Not anything serious, really.  Wal-Mart determines my goal-setting -- oh, stop looking at me like that. Don't pretend those Christmas trees don't aff...

At knitting group this week I saw my first copy of Knitted Lace of Estonia  by Nancy Bush.  I had to apologize to the owner for all of the drool marks I left all over it.  I immediately wanted to cast on for every single project!  However, even better - my friend informed me ...

Talk about your page-turners.  Adam Shepherd stepped off a bus in South Carolina with literally $25 and a sleeping bag. His plan was to end the year with $2,500 in savings, a furnished apartment and a working car. He pulled it off in six months, then went on to self-publish this book, sell 10,0...