and the players are...

UPDATE:  Thank goodness Blogger Dashboard is back to normal :-)  No more gigantic pictures and missing scroll bars...seems a lot if us were having the same problems.

Hi all,

Well I had exactly three people who said they wanted to participate in the Paw if Forward which is great because that's how many you need to play and this way I didn't have to choose!  So I will be contacting all of you below in the next little while to gather your addresses. Then I'll be off shopping 'til I'm dropping to find some neat kitty stuff and try to live up to the high standard that Amy set for me.  Once your parcels have been received, it's up to you guys to pick three new bloggers and keep it going  Paw it Forward :-)

and the players are:

The Island cats - Ernie, Wally and Zoey
Manx Mews - Abby, Boo, Jinx, Ping and Gracie
Adventures of Scarlett and Melly - Scarlett and Melly

I could not seem to find an email address on the Manx Mews blog, so if you wouldn't mind emailing me (my contact info is in the "meow to us" tab) I would really appreciate it!

It's Thanksgiving here in Canada (Monday off - yay) and among the many things that I have to be thankful for are wonderful friends from the Cat Blogosphere.  Enjoy the weekend everyone!

PS - did anyone else's reading window in Blogger Dashboard change overnight? Yikes!

Paw it Forward

What can this be?

Oh my goodness, such excitement in the house today!  A knock at the door and a box delivered for the cats.

With little regard for his personal safety, Archie jumps head first into the box to investigate

 Ben steps up to see what it's all about..."look you fools there's a card".

"It's from Amy and the House Of Cats...yippee it's our Paw it Forward package"!  I helped the boys open their package (it must be such a drag not having opposable thumbs) and the loot just kept on coming, it was like the Fantasia of cat toys.

There were two bags of cat treats, and a silky pouch of nip, one foamy ball, four poms, three balls with bells, one large crazy unbalanced ball that moved on it’s own, catnip bubbles (which I will get on video when we open them), two yarn tubes with rattling stuff inside.

There were two three turquoise mice, one mauve mouse and a shiny pink pillow which were all nip-filled and made the cats crazy.  There was also a cat dancer which was a gigantic hit and a refillable catnip cupcake.  All of this was packed in a funky canvas kitty shopping bag. 

Holy cow Amy, did I forget anything?  Every cat played with every toy and nothing was left untouched :-)

It was really the most fantastic selection of goodies.  My boys would like to thank Amy, Kirzon, Lola, Virgil, Barney, Gus & Stella for their overwhelming generosity!

Now, who else would like to play?  Just leave a comment on today’s post and I'll choose the first three kitties who say they want to Paw it Forward.  It doesn’t matter where you live, let’s just keep the fun going!

White Wednesday/100th Post

I was inspired by a post on Mishkat's blog this past Monday.  This is the quote that got me thinking "Actually, Dobby is almost always sleeping. We have about 100 photos of him on this quilt and they all look exactly the same." 

I have so many pictures of Casper sleeping that sometimes I have to make a concerted effort to find a shot of him awake for the blog.  I especially like the following series of pictures taken two years ago.  They are all of Casper sleeping on his favourite blanket of the moment and look identical, but were all taken on different days!

Slumber Boy

Sultan of Snooze

The Nap-O-Matic

In Repose

The Feline Pretzel

Dream Boat

Hey folks, guess what?  This is my 100th post!!!  I've had such fun blogging about my babies these last seven months and making so many new friends; feline and human alike.  I want to thank eveyone for welcoming me and my kitties into the wonderful CB community :-)

Boys in the Bedroom

The boy’s lives changed dramatically after Molly died. Because she was very old and frail and sometimes ornery, she lived in our master bedroom exclusively. She did not like the boys and did not want to fraternize with them one bit. On the other side of the door however the boys were dying to get into this secret chamber that was off limits to them, but for quite different reasons.

Casper had been in love with Molly for all of the years he has been with us. He would spend hours in the adjoining bedroom under the bed, spying through a large decorative heating grate in the wall. He would watch her moving around in the bedroom and pine for his ladycat who would not acknowledge his existence. Ben on the other hand just wanted to be with us and was very jealous of the mysterious room where we disappeared. When I would go into the bedroom to spend time with Molly or in the evening when we went to sleep he would jump up and down at the door trying to peer through the frosted glass and scratch on the panes at all hours of the night. Archie, who has only been with us for seven months, found the behaviour of his brothers somewhat comical and wondered what all the fuss was about. He did however agree that there must be something interesting behind the door and as always was in the thick of things.

The day after Molly went to the bridge, we opened the door to the bedroom and let the boys come in. Casper entered the room sniffing every inch for a trace of his Molly, Ben moved slowly head-bobbing the entire time because he knew he had never been allowed in before, and Archie galloped down the hall, blew past both of them and hurdled onto the bed in his normal “ta-da here I am” fashion.

Three Amigos

The three of them explored every inch of the room and jumped on every surface...dressers, bedside tables and closets were all investigated. Then they settled on the bed and did not leave. For days it seemed that all they did was change sleeping positions, were it not for the fact that food was eaten and boxes were used I never would have guessed that they left the room at all while we were at work! The first night there was very little sleeping done by either Robert or myself; thank goodness it was Friday and we didn’t have to get up early the next morning. Our excited boys ran, jumped, played, tussled, and knocked things over all night! Every book I had on my nightstand ended up on the floor along with my coaster and a bottle of water. The boys were thrilled with this new arrangement and spent extended periods of time leaping on an off the bed; just because they could. We also now had to get used to several heavy cats on the bed at once sleeping, leaning, curled and stretched over various parts of our bodies (Molly slept either on my pillow or in her basket which was on a bench at the foot of our bed). Does all this activity and late-night kitty shenanigans sound awful? Actually I loved every minute of their enthusiasm and seeing them so happy was the one bright spot during a very sad time!

Blissed Out Boy

Easy Like Sunday

Well things are pretty quiet around here after all the excitement of Livestrong Day yesterday.  As you can see Casper, Ben and Archie are all taking a well deserved rest. 

It was amazing to see that practically the entire Cat Blogosphere went yellow and we were thrilled to be a part of it!  You may have noticed in the comments that I left I said we should "Lovestrong" too.  I just sort of made that up but felt it was appropriate because it seemed to me that the mass CB participation was an illustration of love.  We all came together for family, friends, pets and each other to fight a common foe, to celebrate and remember, to reach out and give strength...that's textbook love folks :-)

Casper may never type another comment again - LOL!

Ben and Archie reflect on all the inspirational blogs they visited yesterday

LIVESTRONG

Casper, Benjamin, and Archie hope that everyone will LIVESTRONG and LOVESTRONG too!

So Livestrong Day has arrived and the entire Cat Blogosphere has joined in to support the global campaign by going yellow today; October 2, 2010.   Too many of our family and friends have been touched by cancer so we gather to celebrate survivorship and commit to working towards a world without cancer!

Please check out the beautiful Livestrong Slideshow created by the talented Chandra from Life from a Cat's Perspective and the special We Livestrong Today blog created by inspirational Jan from The Cat's Meow to see all our kitties in the Cat blogosphere who show support for Livestrong!

Special thank you to the generous Ann from Zoolatry for creating all our Livestrong badges and to Huffle Mawson's mum who helped me to "go yellow" ;-)