Sleepy time

I love to sleep. I hate to get up in the morning. Thank god for coffee or I'd never get out of bed. You know who else likes to sleep? Animals. Animals like to sleep. Pandas, puppies, kittens, my cats especially. I love to watch my kitty boys sleep too, they're so cute and furry. Check out all these adorable sleepyheads.





And the kitty boys de resistance...

Upside-down kitty head in all its glory.

Harry Potter...this shit just got real

I'm all for short blog posts these days (if blog posts happen, period). This one is about revelling in the upcoming release of the new HP movie. Nathan and I just bought our tickets last night, and we can't wait. Sadly, we missed out on the midnight show's tix, which we usually attend.

The last time a new HP movie came out, I, in true uber-dork form, knitted us some Griffindor hats. Thankfully a shred of everyday-garden-variety nerdiness still lived in us and we successfully suppressed the urge to actually wear these hats at the movie. We were still nerdy, don't get me wrong, we went to the midnight release. This being said, I do have a fake HP wand that came with candy lightning bolts in it, which I might have to sneak into the new movie. We'll see what Nathan has to say about that. He'll probably try to steal it from me to use himself. Oh, I just remember that my mom got me a time turner necklace...so many possibilities. I wonder how far Nathan would let me go in my pursuit of dorkdom...I'm guessing far.

And our orange-haired tabby cats are named Fred and George. And they're twin brothers. And, no, it's not a coincidence.

Cute kitties yeah yeah!

Fred and George boggle my mind with the extent of their cute. I can't even take it sometimes. And, boy, do they love sleeping on their dad!

George loves his dad

George loves sleeping on his dad

George REALLY loves sleeping on his dad

Fred loves being a sleepy rag-doll-like lump on his dad

Explanation time

I've been preoccupied for the past couple of weeks, hence, no blog posts. Let me explain (by the way, it's all Nathan's fault).

For my birthday, Nathan bought me a new book, "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. I was hesitant about the book because the author is mormon (yes, yes, I should be more open mided and/or accepting...) and because of it's crappy movie trailer. But Nathan said the book was right up my alley because it is "about a teenage vampire." So I gave it a try. As I began the book, my first impression was, "You can really tell this is a first-time author." It was not very gripping initially, and the chronology of the first person telling was muddled because of the author's stylistic choices. But that rapidly changed into an amazing book (and I don't know if it's my imagination, but the writing got a lot better too). The story is written from the perspective of a teenage girl, and the way it's written you really feel like you could be that girl. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that when the girl experiences an emotion, the reader experiences the emotion. For myself, I could really feel as if I was in the story and not just sitting on my bed reading a book. Oh, by the way, I finished the book in two days (498 pages).

So naturally I wanted to read the rest of the books in the series. Nathan and I walked up and down Shattuck and looked in two or three bookstores, but this being the sh*thole that is Berkeley, they didn't have the second book. Especially irritating is the fact that it took us about 15 minutes just to find a parking spot, but that's life in Berkeley. When we got home I hopped on Amazon, and much to my delight, I found the next three books all on sale. I ordered all three and spent the next few days anxiously awaiting my delivery, which got here last Thursday or Friday. Much to Nathan's chagrin (though it's all his fault, remember), I dove into the second book. And finished it. I dove into the third book. And finished it. I dove into the fourth book. And finished it just last night. So....um.....that's why I haven't posted anything for a long while. I've been reading reading reading, 2,442 pages of reading.

Here are the four beautiful books.

Apparently, I'm not the only on in the family who likes the books.

George does too! Although Fred feels they're "below him"...

...really they're below George (heh heh heh)

Anyway, I loved all of the books. Stephenie Meyer was able to write the characters as growing, but in a satisfying way, so that the reader is just as happy with each subsequent book even though the characters are not exactly the same, but changing. That probably sounds silly or "d'uh!" but I would imagine it's very hard to do. I loved the first book for one reason (and in the attempt to not ruin the reading experience for anyone else, I'm not going to say what that reason is), the second book for a similar reason but also many different reasons, etc. I see my generalities in attempting to hide the plot of the books is making my explanation a bunch of vague gobbledygook, so I'll stop here. Suffice it to say, I loved the books, and I want more!

Check out Stephenie Meyer's website here, did I mention she's from Tempe and does signings at Changing Hands? (I know I didn't, but I am now). Another reason to miss AZ, I'd love to get a signed copy of one of these books.

Also, I saw the movie "Twilight" and it's very "eh". When I first saw the preview (before I knew anything about the books), I thought to myself, "Wow, another crappy vampire movie. Great! Oh look, it's the guy that played Cedric Diggory in 'Harry Potter'." After I finished reading the book, I really wanted to see the movie. It was bad. I knew it would be bad. But it was bad. Neither of the two leads could act. Period. And the vampire special effects left a lot to be desired. I will say, however, that the guy that played Edward looked that part. So whenever he was quiet, he did a decent job, you know, just having a face and being seen. I'll still get it on Netflix when it comes out, but not for itself, for the book.

Grey weather makes me happy

Today is one of the first really grey, damp, chilly days of the semester. I love this weather! Because it was so cold when I left for school, I had the pleasure of wearing some of my knitted gear. I taught myself how to knit and crochet from books about a year and a half ago, and have enjoyed making way too many hats and scarves ever since. Here's a picture of one of my basket weave scarves and the most complex hat I've ever made (it's got fair isle color pattern, some lace which make the scalloped bottom, and some cabling at the top, very cool).

Nathan gave me this pretty sweater for my birthday : )

I also had the pleasure of leaving school early today ~1:30. When Nathan picked me up, we decided to get some bagels from Noah's. When we got home, I put on a pot of coffee, Nathan toasted up some bagels, and we enjoyed some happy bellies while watching "Friends." Oh, and of course I changed back into my pjs before snuggling into my chair for caffeinated delicious time.

Last night some super warm and crowded snuggling was happening in the living room. Nathan was in his orange chair, covered with a blanket, joined by George, and then buried under Fred.










Here's a cute-tastic pic of Fred (right) and George (left) encompassing all of their dad's lap/abdomen. Soooo sleepy!

And can you believe how adorable George is???? Because I can't. I love how Fred's and Nathan's heads look to be tumorous growths of George's back. Doesn't sound cute, but it is!

I got my stew on!

I decided I wanted to cook something the other day. So I went to the store and bought random and various ingredients thinking that I would throw them in our slow cooker to make a "stew." I threw together brisket, potatoes, an onion, mushrooms, carrots, a can of beef broth, a Negra Modello beer, some Worcestershire sauce, butter, salt, and pepper and set it a stewin'. Here's what it looked like cooking:

Eight hours later (10:30 at night), we had ourselves some delicious meat and veggies. Yum.

Here's what it looked like after it was done cooking:

On a fluffier note, when I got home from school the other day, George-the-bully was smothering his friend, Grumpy.

Meanwhile, Fred was pompously taking a nap (note the delicately crossed paw-paws).

My little study buddy

My kitties don't understand the concept of mom working. I'll be reading an article or textbook and they will walk on top of me and lay down for a nice long nap. George likes to lay on textbooks in particular. Here is George helping me study earlier tonight:

And here's my view of his fluffiness:


On a related subject, George was helping his dad both study and eat his lunch earlier.

What a good helper!

Pictures of my kitty boys

I've just uploaded a bunch of pics of my beautiful kitty boys to my facebook page. My mom should get facebook so she can view our pics (it's free and easy mom, I could walk you through it). Here's a taste of what you'll find.

Fred's inFredigating how to be especially cute with his bell-bell in the air.

Crescent-moon kitty stretch George.

Kitty dinner time!

My boys are not stupid when it comes to putting food in their bellies. They get fed breakfast every morning and kitty dinner at night, and they know what time of day it is and when to start begging. Kitty dinner time is 9pm (residual from when Nathan and I used to work at the Tempe Public Library, which closed at 9 and we'd feed the boys right when we got home), but the boys start their impatient cat chirps at 8:50. Every night. They've got some good internal kitty clocks. They also know when to beg in the morning. This is a little more sophisticated, because if they piss me off by waking me up, they know their breakfast will be delayed. So to avoid Mallison (the name given to my furious counterpart), they keep their begging in check until the alarm clock goes off. Smart little fluff balls, if you ask me. George is much more vocal about food time than his brother, so it's always a joy when little Fred squeezes out a mooching meow. Awwww...cute cute cute.


George is in the red collar in front, and Fred's sporting the highly fashionable blue in the back.

Attempt to post video clip

My crazy cat Fred was just being crazy on his kitty tower, but of course stopped when I went to video him. I did, however, catch a bit of the old Fred-George Fred-George, which I'm attempting to post (p.s. there's no sound, there's not a problem with your computer).


My favorite part is when Fred smacks at the toy in rapid succession.

Redefining cute

But on the bright side... when we got home, Fred-Fred was super cute and joined his dad in the chair to help him surf the internet (I'm not the only one addicted, Nathan). Thankfully, I captured the moment in pictorial history. No matter what's happened in my day, these kitties can always make me smile. It's no wonder having pets is correlated with longer lifespan.


I can't exclude George. We love them equally.

George just fanned the flames with his cuteness

Our crazy cats are basically little people to us (substitute children, really). We love them so freakin' much that we could seriously sit and stare at them all day and then talk about how cute they were all night.

Case in point, George just visited me while I was trying to study. What this means is that he walked on top of my textbook and stood there for a while. Then he slowly walk his front paws off, and stood there for a while. At which point I pushed his fluffy behind out of the way. Anyway, it was really cute, and because I'm full-blown addicted to blogging now, I had to post about it. Here's a little George for thought:


What can I say, the boy likes laundry.

My first post (boring, but appropriate)

It seems like everyone is blogging these days. I've avoided it for as long as possible, partially because I hate doing something that everyone else is doing, and partially because I think the word "blogging" is stupid. But I've decided... screw that; I want to talk about random things I like too. I want to post pictures I like, or songs, videos, basically whatever. Soooo, I'll start with a photo of my beautiful kitty boys, Fred and George (their names should make sense to you when you see their pic).