Time to Vote!

It's time to vote for my post in the Pets On Quilts Show!  So, pop on over to SewCalGal's Pets on Quilts Show by clicking the button below and vote for my quilt and my kitties!  To vote, you have to look through all the entries, pick the ones you want, scroll down to the bottom of the page and leave a comment on the blog with your vote.  You don't have to sign up or follow or anything!  So!  Go VOTE!  :)

My entry is number 

> 61 <

Come on...You know you want to!  Do you want to disappoint these adorable little faces?!

The BEST Server EVER! *sarcasm*

I decided today after having to actually CLIMB onto a plastic rack at WalMart to get the kind of cat litter that doesn't actually choke me when cleaning the boxes, that I would treat myself to a nice dinner at Denny's.  Okay, so Denny's isn't exactly a *NICE* dinner, but it was one I didn't have to make or work for - so it was nice for me!

Yahoo Sketch created by my friend Vicki and
I about a different Denny's story.  :P

At the end of the meal, my server, Daniel asked me if I was the best server I'd ever had.  God I hate it when people do that to me because I get SO tongue tied with what's nice to say and what I really want to say!  What I really wanted to say was this:

The Best Server I've ever had?  No, Daniel, you don't even come close.  The Best Server Ever would have noticed I brought in a laptop with me (the Denny's here has WiFi) and actually sat me at a booth or table close to an outlet.  If you had done that, I probably would have ordered dessert and a soda after dinner instead of having to run home to plug my computer in to finish the assignment I am working on.  The Best Server Ever would have brought me a LARGE *clean* glass of water WITH a straw when that was the only drink I ordered - and not made me wait 20 minutes for said straw.  The Best Server Ever has straws in their pockets at all times anyway!  The Best Server Ever would have asked me upfront if I wanted lemons with my water - which really isn't something exotic or anything - but if I had to ask, The Best Server Ever would have brought me new lemons, not already squeezed ones..and on an actual dish.  And when I ordered my food, The Best Server Ever would have asked me how I wanted my burger cooked so I wouldn't have to send it back and not wait an additional 20 minutes for the burger to be done right.  The Best Server Ever would have realized that the customers can actually hear you say, "I know man, it looked fine to me too!" to the cook about the seriously uncooked burger I sent back.  The Best Server Ever would have curbed his use of the word "Ma'am" to half a million times instead of one million times when speaking to a woman who gets asked if she's a new student when she walks onto a High School Campus.  The Best Server Ever would have realized that maybe some people do not enjoy you sitting down at their table to take their orders unless they knew you or were regulars to the restaurant.

So no, sorry, Daniel, you are not The Best Server I've ever had.  I am friends with the best servers I have ever had - and you can actually learn a thing or two from them!

To sum things up in a way you can understand Daniel, The Best Server Ever! would have gotten a better tip.

Pets on Quilts Show!

I was surfing around the blogs I follow here on Blogger and saw this post on That Girl...That Quilt where she entered her doggy and her quilts into an awesome show, hosted by SewCalGal called Pets on Quilts!




I thought to myself, "Hmmmm....I have pets, I have quilts, I have pictures of my pets on quilts, I should enter!  Yey!"  So, here is my entry!

I am so lucky to have this cat quilt that my mom and I (but mostly my mom) made when I was 16:  

Sorry for the poor quality, the weather outside is gloomy
and rainy right now so we had to take this picture inside.

I'm now 30 so this quilt is almost 15 years old!  My mom was just getting into quilting at the time so she used pretty much what she had in her stash and fabric from thrift store clothes that I liked.  We weren't well versed in the wearing of fabric at that time so we didn't know the thrift store fabric would wear away.  But, since the original pattern for the quilt called for patches on the kitties anyway, when the fabrics started wearing away, I just asked my mom to add more patches!

A thrift store fabric kitty with patches.

The kitties are appliqued on using fusible interfacing (I think - it was so long ago) and the stitching around each cat is the blanket stitch.  I have to say here that helping out with the blanket stitch is pretty much where my help ended.  The piecing of each block, sashing, borders and binding were all done by my mom.  She actually got the quilt quilted for free by a man who was going around and showing off his quilting machine!  :P

The official name for this quilt is "16 Memory Cats" because it represents 16 different people in my life who were important to me when I was 16 years old.  :)  The unofficial name for this quilt is "The Kitty Quilt."  It's not just named that because it had kitties on it, but because it is SO hard to keep kitties OFF it!  Even while trying to photograph this quilt, I couldn't keep my girl kitty Anu away:

Anu looking pretty on The Kitty Quilt!  :)

My other two cats, Zorro and Quixote are brothers from the same litter.   You can tell it's getting cold outside when my boys start cuddling.  Usually it's on The Kitty Quilt.  :)

Zorro is on the left, Quixote is on the right.
(Both of them are squinting from the flash.)

Now, Quixote isn't much of a lap kitty unless it's cold outside, but Zorro follows The Kitty Quilt quilt from lap to lap.  I have to mention here that The Kitty Quilt is also our healing quilt.  If you are sick, recovering from surgery or just down in the dumps, put this quilt over you and instantly the world is a better place!  And, where ever this quilt goes, so does Zorro!

Snuggling into The Kitty Quilt on my lap while I was sick once.

I gave The Kitty Quilt to my mom back in October so she could add more patches and fix a big hole on the back up by the top of the quilt.  I got it back just recently in July and you should have SEEN Zorro's face when it came out of the bag!  He was SO excited and almost jumped on my lap before my lap was even covered!  LOL  I think he loves this quilt almost as much as I do.  :)

STRETCH!

Thanks for visiting!

The Cookie Blog Entry

While my BFF was here, we baked.  

We baked like baking fiends!  

We baked like we was a National Emergency and the only thing that could solve it was baked goods!

Remember The Super Brownie?  

Well, we also baked my "Famous Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!"*

What I love about baking with other people is that it is just so much more fun than baking alone.  We always end up talking, laughing, eating, making messes and just having fun.

They also add their own spin on the recipe and I love the different ways the cookies turn out.

I have made these cookies so many times and with the same ice cream scoop, but this time I had the BBF mix and scoop them onto the cookie pan this time and they came out amazing,  huge and ever so tasty!

This is not a dinner plate but a salad plate - they weren't THAT huge.  :P

The only problem with making these cookies is that they don't ever last that long!

*I call these my "Famous Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies" because where ever I go, or if people come see me, they request that I make these cookies.  I use the recipe on the back of the Quaker Oatmeal Lid but substitute chocolate and white chocolate chips for the raisins.  Seriously!  It's that easy!  :)

Let the re-re-re-reintroducing begin!

Quixote (Tabby) and Zorro (Tuxedo).

So, when I moved in with my husband, I came with two cats and my husband came with one.  My two cats, Zorro and Quixote, are brothers and have lived with each other their entire cat lives.  They have been through a lot with me together and have moved around with me a lot.  They have even lived with other cats from when we lived with a friend and when we lived at my parents' house.  My husband's kitty, Anu, hadn't been with my husband very long, hadn't lived with any other cats and she is half the size of my boys.

Anu on Hubby

All was well with our little blended family for the good part of a year.

Then the aggression started between Zorro and Anu.  At first, we weren't sure which kitty was being the aggressor so we really couldn't fix the situation.  Because we didn't fix the situation, it got worse.  And then, it got really WORSE.  It got so bad that Anu stopped using the litter box because she was afraid of Zorro.  That is when we figured out that Zorro was the aggressor and Anu was reacting to the aggression by growling and hissing, therefore reinforcing Zorro's aggression.

We still aren't sure what caused Zorro's aggression in the first place.  He's normally a scared-of-all-things-including-the-vacuum-cleaner-other cats-and-new-people cat.  And he's NEVER been aggressive toward me or any other cat!  Sure his brother and him have had sibling tiffs, but they have never gotten mean.  I think the catalyst was misdirected aggression from seeing an animal through the window outside, getting territorial, Anu coming by to investigate and the aggression being directed to her instead of the animal outside.  So she hissed and growled and the cycle started...and continued...

Anyway, we tried to reintroduce them a couple of times before we moved to a larger house.  Then we moved to a larger house, reintroduced them again and thought things would be better since the house was bigger and there was more space for everyone.  It wasn't.  It kept getting worse.  There were more fights in the middle of the night.  More inappropriate bathroom behavior.  Less happiness all around.

So, off to the vet went Zorro and Anu!  I explained everything to the vet and she gave me some good pointers and some medication for both the cats.  Anu's helps with fear based aggression and the medication Zorro got helped with plain old aggression.  Well, Zorro's medication turned him into an anorexic, anxiety ridden cat in the matter of days so we stopped his and gave him Rescue Remedy instead.  The Rescue Remedy seems to be helping him calm down, be less aggressive and just calmer all around.  Anu's medication has helped her gain her spunky, playful and confident self back!

So..phase two started today.  Reintroducing the cats again, but this time in their carriers.

Zorro's on the left
Anu's on the right

I guess this helps both the cats get used to the sight of each other again but in a safe way.  They aren't too happy about this though.  Zorro hates being in the carrier, (but is being surprisingly quiet about it) and Anu hasn't stopped her low grade growl since we started this a couple of hours ago.  She won't even LOOK in Zorro's direction!

Anu ignoring Zorro

Zorro being pitiful..

LOL!!

 *AHEM*  I mean, poor kitties!

*snicker*

I am such a mean kitty mommy!!

Super Brownies

One glass for you, one glass for me!

When we last left the blog, I promised you a post about the food my BBF and I made while she visited.  Go grab a glass of mild and get ready because this post is full of rich and tasty Super Brownies!

Right before BBF came, I had made box brownies.  When I mentioned this in a chat, she stated that we NEEDED to bake together, we always bake together.  I had a bunch of stuff to bake so I said okay!  I'm always up for baking.  We knew we wanted to bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies - my signature cookies - and banana bread since I had a bunch of bananas in my freezer.  I thought it would be fun to also bake something we had never baked before so I went searching.  While searching, I found these.  Yes, those are Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie 'n Oreo Fudge Brownie Bars!  :P  While looking at the recipe, I figured we could make them "dorm room style."  What I mean by "dorm room style" is cheap and quick!  So, instead of making cookie dough or brownies, we bought cookie dough and brownie mix.  We also decided to not add any fudge since being so high in altitude, it probably would have affected the baking time.  So since we were changing up the recipe, we decided to change the name since "Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie 'n Oreo Fudge Brownie Bar" is way too long to say with one breath!  We thought on it for a few minutes and BBF decided on Super Brownies which worked perfectly.  Short, descriptive - because they ARE super - and perfect!

So we went out and bought all that I didn't already have and put these brownies together.  First we sprayed the pan and spread the cookie dough on the bottom of the pan.  We only bought a small roll of cookie dough and looking back, we should have gotten the bigger roll.  Or cut the roll up into rounds and put them down on the bottom instead of just spreading it out.  Doing it this way didn't really cover evenly, but it worked in the end.

The next step was to place the Oreo's on top of the cookie dough.  We got double stuffed Oreo's like the recipe calls for, but while we were there, we saw a bunch of different Oreo's out now.  These would have been awesome with vanilla Oreo's or even the mint Oreo's.  Or even the colored Oreo's that come out during the holidays!  

The next step is to mix up the brownie mix.  We spent like 20 minutes deciding which kind of brownie mix to by.  Eventually we settled on a dark chocolate mix with chips because it was on sale and we figured the dark chocolate wouldn't make the brownie too sweet with everything else in the brownie.  Lastly, pour the brownie over the Oreo's and pop the whole thing in a 350 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes.  Check for done-ness (yes it's a word!) buy poking a toothpick in the center trying to avoid the Oreo's.  When the toothpick is clean, the brownie is done!  Just let cool enough to handle and cut into that awesome creation!

Those white lines are the insides of the Oreo's...OMG so good!  Grab a glass of milk or some ice cream, pop in you latest Netfilx DVD and ENJOY!  :)

Look What I Made Monday! (On Tuesday)

My best friend was visiting this past week and we made a TON of yummy stuff including Super Brownies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and Banana Banana Bread.  (A yummy post about the food is coming later on this week.)  Before she left I also made her a pillowcase.  She went through my fabric and picked a fabric for the body of the pillow that has all kinds of baking and cooking terms since we always bake and cook when we are together.  

I even had the coordinating fabric and I used that for the sashing.  

In between the two, she picked a bright yellow color that I wasn't quite sure about - but it worked out lovely! 

I really do love making pillowcases.  They are quick, easy and fun.  They also reflect their owner and not just to go with their bedding.  Here is one I made for myself a few months ago:

I kind of like elephants...  :P

Here is one I made for my mom this past year for Christmas:

Click here to learn how to make a pillowcase!

Making the pillowcase for my BBF kind of made me want to get back into sewing and quilting.  Hopefully this will happen soon!  :)  Thanks for dropping by and have a good week everyone!