My Kitty Stories

I was reading Willa's journal about her kitties this morning and it reminded me that I have not written about mine in awhile. Heckle is a sweet cat, but he's definitely a morning person. I mean kitty. Well, he thinks he a little person anyway. He will start out in the bed with me because I go to bed before Eddie does. When Eddie goes to bed, it usually wakes Heckle up and then he either goes to Eddie's pillow or jumps off the bed altogether and goes to the dresser to sleep. Then about 3 or 4 in the morning Heckle decides it's time for me to get up, so he will lie on my side of the bed on the edge and reach his paw out and tap my hair. He keeps doing that until I get up. Sometimes when I turn over to face him, he's just sitting there looking at me. Once I stagger to the kitchen and feed him he's fine. Does he have me trained or what?

We also have a stray who has been hanging around our house. We felt sorry for him and started feeding him. I would have done that anyway because I can't stand the thought of any pet going hungry. Now he knows when breakfast and supper time is because he's at our back door at those times. At first he would just observe us from a distance. In the first few weeks, when I would come home from work I could see him at the far end of the back yard sitting, patiently, watching us. When we first started feeding him, he would run as soon as we came out the door with the food, but after we went back inside he would cautiously creep back up on the back patio and eat the food we had put out for him. Now, he must have decided he can trust us because he'll let us pet him and Eddie said that one day he even jumped into his lap briefly. He's still skittish, but he'll let us pet him now. So, I guess that means that we have an outside cat now. I don't know what we are going to do this winter. A friend suggested maybe getting one of those small dog houses for him. I'll have to look at some and see what I can get at a reasonable price. We don't have a garage or basement or anything like that for him to go into. All we have is a carport, so we'll have to figure out something.

As soon as I can, I'll try to take a picture of him and post it. He's a pretty cat. He's a black and white long hair and Eddie has already named him Spanky after the Spanky the dog that was on the show The Little Rascals. He said his coloring reminded him of the dog. Spanky the cat has a black mark around one eye just like Spanky the dog had as best as I can remember what the dog looked like. It's been a long time since I saw one of those shows.

Sewing Room Finished!

I mentioned awhile back that I had finished cleaning the sewing room. I finally took some pictures and I love the room. It's still cluttered, but it's much better than it was and I can finally breathe and work in the room. It's a real pleasure to go in there and I could stay in there for hours if I didn't feel guilty about neglecting Eddie. But, after all, the sewing room was his idea in the first place.

Last night I finished a quilt top that I'm getting ready to put into the frame to quilt. I'm making it for a friend who has been begging me to make her a quilt. She has offered to pay me to make it, but I'm not going to take money from her. She's out of work and to top everything off, she's been diagnosed with cancerous tumors. I'm giving her the quilt. It's the least I can do.

I have decided, though, that after I finish this quilt and give it to her, that I'm going to start quilting quilt tops to earn extra money to help pay off some major debts that we have. If I have to take a second job to earn some extra money, it may as well be doing something that I enjoy. I can sit in the sunroom with Eddie and watch TV while I'm quilting. I can't think of a better way to get paid for doing something I love.

When I finish a quilt I guess I sort of feel like authors do when they finish a book. Sort of like Joan Wilder did in the movie Romancing the Stone. I want to celebrate. It sounds vain, I know, but there is a joy in finishing something that you are proud of. I just want to look at the finished quilt and admire it and feel thankful that I am able to create something so beautiful. Not because I'm good, but because God gave me the gift and ability to be able to do it.