Ziggy Stardust

Can I just say how much I love my fur babies?  Barf is a good cat.  He growls and hisses at the other two a lot, but he is a grumpy old man now, so I begrudge him that.  He is also very sweet and loving and will cuddle with Nate all the time.  Sophie is my sweet baby girl snuggly cat.  She loves me and cuddles with me every chance she gets.  But she also has a feisty side which is too adorable to really be menacing.  Ziggy...what can I say about Ziggy?

Ziggy is one of the most obnoxious, annoying, energetic, sweetest (when he wants to be) and mostest adorablest cats I have ever had the pleasure and discomfort of knowing.  He is a contradiction.  At the same moment, I can think he is so cute and yet want to smack his little behind!  Some of the things he does are so funny, and sometimes so infuriating and I just know he is somehow preparing me to have children.  I took a picture of him the other day while he was sleeping and it was so funny.  I thought to myself, "Self" I said, "You should do a post on the blog about the funny sleep positions of Ziggy."  So tonight I pulled up iPhoto and went all the way back to July 2011 when we very first got Ziggy and started to create an album of his funny sleeping pictures that I could post on here.  About two hours later, I have an album of 451 pictures of sleeping Ziggy.  I am not going to post 451 pictures of Ziggy on this blog at this moment, don't worry.  As I was uploading them to imgur (my new photo hosting site that I also have a love/hate relationship with) I whittled them down to a mere 289.  I will try my best not to post all 289 of them.  I was really trying very hard to only choose the cutest, funniest pictures, but they are just all so cute and funny.  So I will again do some whittling, but prepare yourself for a long post of funny cat pictures in all their cheezeburgery goodness. 

Day 1.  Baby Ziggy.

Already had a penchant for odd sleeping positions.

And loved to be cuddled!

Also had a habit of disappearing in the Ziggy-colored blanket.

And almost falling off things.

LOVES cuddling with Sophie and they both have an odd obsession with sleeping on my luggage.

Likes sprawling out on his back.

But also curling up in a ball.

He will stretch in his sleep, but then stay in that position.

He also contorts in such odd ways...

Or plops down mid-search for a comfy spot.

A lot of times, I don't know HOW he can be comfortable.

And he often uses Sophie as a pillow.

He ADORES sleeping in (and chewing on) this box.

And in the clean laundry.

I call this, "The Full Oreo".  This is rare as Barf hardly EVER wants either of the two cats to touch him at all.

And this I am guessing is his Superman dream.  

He sometimes defies gravity.

I couldn't find him for a while, and here he was in the corner.

I think he likes the cool porcelain.

A lot of times he looks decapitated.

And this is the picture that started me thinking about this post.  It is just so funny to me because that is EXACTLY how  he sits.  Just tilted 45º

He is such a funny little bugger, and though he drives me CRAZY sometimes, he is just too cute to stay mad at for too long.  Love that little ZigZag Scallywag.

It's the small things...

For some reason, I have been bitten by the remodeling bug.  I am just doing some little things right now, but they make me feel like I have a bit of progress, so I guess that will have to do.  The first thing was to get new floor registers.  I have no idea why the ones we had in there were so ugly.  But they were.  Painted for some reason, and all the paint was coming off or maybe they got paint on them while they were painting something else?  I don't know.  Anyway, we bought a couple of the same ones that we bought for the bathroom that we did a while back.  And I love them.  And so do the cats.  

Before

After.

Nice and warm on my bum.

Other before.

Other after.

But it didn't stop there.  Oh no!  When we were looking at houses and we came thru this one, there were patches on the walls and we just thought they were in the process of painting.  Well, I guess they were, but they apparently never had any intentions of finishing because they were still there when we moved it.  So I have been wanting to paint since then.  So a couple weeks ago, I went to Lowe's and got a couple samples of paint so I could see what color I wanted to do.  I bought two different grey colors.  I was going to just paint the bay window in the kitchen because I don't know when I will get to the rest of the walls, and I wanted it to look at lease kinda like it was planned.  So anyway, I was going to paint the bay window half and half with the two colors of grey and see which I liked better.  But as soon as I started painting, I knew that the first color was too dark.  It was almost black.  So I started with the other grey, and it was much better.  And surprisingly, it covered the darker grey in one coat.  So that was awesome.  So here are the pics of the painting process.  

Before.  Sorry about the chair in the way.  It happens a lot.  Not a terrible color, but I am not the biggest fan.

This is the darker grey.  Just with that much, I knew I didn't like it.

Here is the other grey.  I LOVE IT!  And yes, I was too impatient to wait to sand the mudded spots down to paint.

I love how it looks next to the cabinets.  

Mostly done.

So after I did that, I also had another project that I have been wanting to do for over a year that I finally got done.  Those roller shades are in bad shape.  I have wanted to cover them for a long time.  But I didn't know what I wanted to cover them with.  Then I found some really pretty lace curtains on Amazon.  So here was the process for that!  

I should have ironed them or something.  I was too impatient though.  I should work on that.

"Measuring"

First one done and up.

Done!  Love it!  I will eventually get the white painted on the inside and the ceiling. 

The ceiling is the next project.  Going all WHITE and then I will be able to finish all the walls with this grey.  Then we will eventually do new molding and crown molding both in white.  It will be fantastic.  Eventually.  

New Year's Eve!

We had a great time over at Bobby and Amanda's house this year for New Year's. Justin and Ashley came and we had a bunch of food, and played some games and just generally had fun like we do whenever we are together.  Again missing Jason and Rachael this time, but we still had fun.  And I didn't take pictures again.  I am really kicking myself for that.  I need to be better at the pictures.  I am sure Nate doesn't agree since he thinks I take too many pictures.  But I am a very visual person, and I like to have pictures to go along with my memories!  But oh well, I will just have to remember the good times without the visual aides!  Good times with good friends ringing in the new year!  Here's to a great 2013!  

December

So it's been a while since I posted anything.  We did a ton of stuff in December and I suppose I just didn't have time to write it all down which is a bad thing because it seems that my brain isn't what it once was.  I don't remember things like I used to.  So if I don't write it down right after it happened, or pretty soon thereafter, it just seems to fade away like a dream upon waking.  So I will do my best to capture what happened in December and hopefully I won't forget too much.

I was really super duper excited to get Christmas decorations up this year for some reason.  I was even thinking about it BEFORE Halloween, which is not normal for me.  So I had started working on a few things even before December.  I made a couple wreaths, and had Nate get the tree out before we left for our Anniversary weekend.  And I had a fun little photo shoot with the kitties.

My inside wreath.

My outside wreath.

Here is our Christmas card from our little photo shoot.

I loved this little dress.  She is so cute. 

Look at that sweet face!

Ziggy is such a cute little bugger!

And so photogenic!

Barf will murder me in my sleep!

All of your trees are belonging to me.

Also in the beginning of December, I went to visit Lori.  I hadn't seen her since she left for her hike!  So I hopped on a flight and went down for a weekend.  It was nice to hang with her for a while, and we had a great time.  Except when Lori got attacked by a ninja.  But that's another story...

Love this puppy!!

Now THAT is a pancake!!

Got all curly and headed out to the beach.

Siesta at Sunset.  LOVE!

Angel on the beach.

Beach Babes!

Toes in the sand.

Shosies.

Later in the month, I made a bunch of emergency candles.  Long story short, I actually didn't end up with any of them!  Sold them all, so now I have to make more.  

8oz. soy wax candles.

Turned out pretty cute.  I like the jars.

Nate hates when I want pictures of kisses.  Too bad Nate.

Then there was Temple Square Lights weekend.  We went on Friday night with The Clan (sans Jason and Rachael) and then the next night with my family.  Friday night was packed and cold.  Saturday night made Friday night seem sparse!  But it was warmer!  Which is probably why it was so packed!!  I don't think I will ever again leave it to the last weekend in December to go see the lights.  But the lights make me happy, so I suppose it was worth it.  

So pretty!

Cute little Kitty Kate!  The red eye fixer didn't really work on this as well as I would have liked, but it is still a cute picture.  

Bobby and Amanda

Bobby and Nate

Bobby and Justin

Bobby and Ashley

Bobby and ME!  Apparently, we all had to get pics of us with Bobby.

The next night.  Cute mommy!  Then my phone died, so that is all I got of that night! Sad face.

Then there was Christmas.  We had a great time, and I didn't get very many pictures.  Mostly of Anthony.  I totally dropped the ball on this one.  I let other people take pictures thinking, "Oh I will just get the pics from them later."  Then I never do.  My bad.  So here is a pic of Anthony on his new cell phone talking to who knows.  But he is so cute, so who cares?

"Yeah?  Yeah."

We also had the Bird Family xmas party which was a pizza party and tons of fun.  No pictures there except for a few of the tiny kidlets being Joseph and Mary and the Wisemen and such.  

Cutie-pa-tooties!

Just precious.

And that is December!  

One more thing happened in December.  We went to our adoption orientation.  Which has just left me overwhelmed and discouraged, and I have basically been crying ever since.  But again, that's another story, and I digress... On to 2013!