Furball Christmas

I spent this Christmas with my two little fuzzy pals, Rigby and Raytinki. They are pretty funny companions, let me tell ya. They're always hamming it up for the camera.
The "tink" overflowing the sink.
Fluff tail excitement.
Licking his chops.This is my favorite shot. Rigby's coloring on his face makes it look like his mouth his hanging open and he is telling Raytinki something awesome. His head back, illusion of a mouth hanging open, and his paw demanding Ratinki's attention. Makes me laugh every time.

Burnt Toast

I burnt toast today. It's been 8 hours since I burnt toast and right now my hair and my house still smell of burnt toast. I know how it happened. I got carried away curling my eyelashes and completely forgot I was "cooking." I was in the bathroom, mid-eyelash curl, when Raytinki come in and looked up at me with eyes that seemed to say "hey moron, the kitchen is filling with smoke". At that exact moment I dropped the eyelash curler and ran to the toaster only to find two pieces of blackened and smoking toast. Fortunately I turned off the toaster and opened the kitchen window fast enough that the smoke alarm didn't go off. What I didn't anticipate, though, was the reaction the cats had to the window being open. Sure, I know these cats love staring out windows. But this, this was an open window. This was new. The cats ran to the window and through the 2 inches of open space shoved as much of their faces, bodies, and apendages as was possible. This clearly made their day.

Where's The Heat? Find The Cat.

Just the other day, I went to open the blinds in my room only to find they were frozen to the window pane. Obviously Calgary temperatures are dropping. And living in a drafty, old house makes it tough to stay warm. Fortunately, I have two-in-house-professional-heat-finders working 'round the clock. After days of searching, they have finally found the top 5 warm spots in the house.

Warm Spot #5. Upstairs under a sleeping bag.


Warm Spot #4. Under Teagan's blankets when she gets ready to go to sleep and turns on her electric blanket to warm up her bed. (You can see Rigby's little bum sticking out from this pocket of warmth he discovered.)

Warm Spot #3. In front of the bathroom heat vent.
Warm Spot #2. In Teagan's GIGANTO down mission coat.

And (drum roll please) the #1 warm spot in the house is. . .

Anywhere your cuddle buddy is.

Delicious Cookies: Want Some?

'Tis the season to make delicious cookies. If you are looking for a delicious-cookie recipe then have I got one for you. Feast your eyes on these delicious ginger cookies:
Check out the recipe here, at allrecipes.com. I followed two suggestions made by others who commented that these cookies were uber-delicious. First, instead of the 1 tablespoon of water the recipe calls for, I used orange juice. And second, I let the dough chill in the freezer for a half hour.

Trust me, if you like ginger you will love these soft ginger cookies. They taste so good they can leave you in a trance, gazing out the window for hours. (No cats were fed ginger cookies for this post.)

The Hand Jive...Take Two

The spectacular-spectacular hand jive video I posted a few days ago was set to private on youtube. I fixed it so now you (and the world) can finally enjoy our sweet-sweet moves.

Bless Me...

I wanted an action shot with me and the cats. They were fighting behind my head. I reached up, pushed the shutter button and...sneezed. Looks like I got my action shot after all.

It's Freezing and The Hand Jive

It is officially cold here. I left the house this morning and was quickly greeted by my nose hairs freezing (which is super cool because as soon I got onto the warm bus the ice melted and I had water streaming out of my nose). It was -15F this morning and walking home tonight from the bus stop wasn't much better. When I finally got home, I pulled off all my layers and ran hot water over my frozen fingers. In sum, freezing my bum off today was awesome.

You know what else is awesome? Doing the hand jive at the Geography Christmas party.

What Can You Get For $20?

A night out with the people from the University of Calgary Geography Department. Last night I attended our department Christmas party. A $20 ticket got me a chance to win door prizes, a fantastic dinner, a live band (who kept asking the crowd "you guys make maps, right?") and a lot of awkward dancing.

The weather was crazy yesterday (snow-crazy) so my plan to ride the bus tanked (my car is presently un-insurable--a sob story for another day). Fortunately another grad student in our department gave me and Elkye (Eleanor and Kye...I thought it was time they get an abbreviated couple name like all the stars get) a ride to the event. The only downfall to getting a ride (besides getting stuck in the snow at 2 am) was having to wait until the party ended to go home. I was ready for bed by 10:30 but stuck it out until 1 am to help clean up. I think the clean up was the best part...I felt productive.

In the end, I didn't win anything but at least the food was fantastic. I wish I brought tupperware with me so I could have eaten left overs today. It would have beat the pants of what I ended up eating instead (nasty coconut wafers and a two day old cheese sandwich--num num num). So my wish for you is that you don't have to stay too long at your seasonal parties and that you get to eat LOTS of tasty food.