Kailani, at An Island Life, hosts Aloha Friday. It’s a chance to relax and get ready for the weekend. So on Aloha Friday, you ask a question and answer others’ questions.

My question today because I’m trying to remind myself to notice the small stuff:

What are the little things in life than you enjoy?  The everyday things that make you smile

Some of mine are when my kids give me hugs, when I’m cuddling on the couch with a purring cat and having hot cocoa with marshmallows!

Cats on Tuesdays is hosted by Gattina!

I found this picture this morning as I was digging through some old files.  My daughter is three years old here, but I just love the look on MacKayla’s face.

MacKayla the Empress (aka Charge Card) is one of the funniest cats I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing — she’s a furry ball of contradictions.  She has to know what is going on at all times, she’s nosy beyond belief.  That quote about curiosity and the cat — it was written about MacKayla!  She keeps close tabs on all activity going on around the house and inspects every visitor who walks through the door — she even goes through their purses if they leave them where she can get to them.  Many times I have found her buried in someone’s purse or bag up to her whiskers

Because the kids tend to be so busy with “stuff” MacKayla can usually be found keeping an eye on whatever they are doing.  She is especially fond of Alex, as you can see from the picture above.  She has always let Alex carry her around, hug and love on her, even dress her up.   She has been the most patience of cats.  Which I find interesting because she is most certainly not patient with anyone else.  Anyone who tries to hold her gets “yelled” at most ferociously (“put me down this instance you cretin!”) and really you can’t even pet her very long before she gets upset (“you’re messing up my fur, can’t you see that!”).  She is most definitely a cat that prefers to be admired from a distance.  Except for Alex who can get away with almost anything!  She’s not quite so patient with my son, probably because Mac has a harder time being “gentle”.  But even with him she tries to be more tolerant and I often find her sleeping with him at night, purring contentedly.

And every night at bedtime, when we read books together, MacKayla is right there with us.  She sits on the bed and purrs and headbutts the kids to make sure they are paying attention to both her and the book.

She’s a quirky little cat but we love her a lot and she is a favorite character in the “stories” that the kids make up about our pets — she often travels to Paris for the fashion shows, with her butler and chauffeur of course

This is hosted over on J. Kaye’s Book Blog.

Books completed this week:

Ruined by Paula Morris – this was a great ghost story, I really enjoyed it.  Especially appropriate right before Halloween!

Confessions of a Slacker Mom by Muffy Mead-Ferro — I started this last month, then got distracted by some other books but finally got back to finish it.  I enjoyed it since there were a lot of things the author discussed that I really agreed with — I think everyone could do with a bit of slacker mom in their reportroire.

How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World by Jordan Christy — this is geared mostly toward single young women but I still enjoyed it.   Like Slacker Mom it was a book where I found myself agreeing with a lot of what the author had to say about how to handle oneself as you go through life.  I am going to hold onto this one as there is a lot here that I want to be able to share with my daughter as she gets older.

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris — I have been a bit ambivalent about this series, the first three books were good but I didn’t really feel “hooked” into the characters the way I would have expected considering how much I enjoy Harris’s other series about Sookie Stackhouse.  This book really turned that corner for me though, I stayed up late last night so I could finish it, I was so anxious to know what was going to happen.  The ending was unexpected and I must say I really enjoyed this book alot.  I am looking forward to the next one!

Books I started but didn’t finish:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel — I love this particular era (Henry VIII) so I thought this would be a good choice for me, but I only managed a couple chapters and couldn’t sustain my interest.  It probably has more to do with being tired and stressed out then the book itself, so I’ll pick it up again later for another try.

Books I am currently reading:

Never Cry Werewolf by Heather Davis — I’m about half way through this YA novel and am really enjoying it.  It’s been a light read so far which seems to be what I need a lot of lately.  I haven’t read many werewolf books so this makes for a change of pace.

Up Next:

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow — Not sure if I’ll like this one or not but it certainly sounds interesting!

The Ninth Daughter by Barbara Hamilton — A “new mystery series set in revolutionary Boston” featuring Abigail Adams.  I’ve always been fascinated by Abigail Adams (her letters are wonderful) and I often enjoy mystery series that feature historical characters (such as the Jane Austen mysteries by Stephanie Barron) so this could be a really good series.  I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Wordful Wednesday’s are hosted by Seven Clown Circus.

One of our Halloween traditions is the “ghostie tree” as the kids look forward to hanging up the ghosts every year.

Here are some photos of Alex and Mac putting up the ghosties, they worked really hard to get every one hung up even though the wind was blowing quite hard and the ghosties kept trying to escape!

By the time we finished it was dark, next time we won’t wait until after dinner to get started.  But the tree looks nice and spooky according to Mac

Cats on Tuesdays is hosted by Gattina!

I have been really stressed out lately and not feeling well.  It’s times like these that I really appreciate our youngest cat, William the Orange even as I miss one of our previous cats, T. Tucker.

Several years ago I had the most wonderful cat — T. Tucker the Terrible Tabby.  He was very much my cat — he only tolerated others really, but he loved to be with me.  He would sit and purr when I was reading or on the computer, and he would snuggle in my arms at night to sleep.   He was a huge 20+ pound tabby cat who put up with nothing or no one unless he deemed it to be acceptable.  He was in charge and no other cat or human questioned that.  He was also a talker — he had a lot to say and he said it!  The fact that he was a cuddly marshmallow underneath was our little secret   I lost Tuckers to a brain tumor a couple years ago.  I still miss him so much and I think about him a lot.  We still tell Tucker stories in our house

This is a picture of T. Tucker as a baby (the vet said he had never seen such big ears on a kitten :

T. Tucker the Terrible Tabby as an adult, you can really see his strong personality in this picture:

Tuckers dressed up for the holidays:

The loss was made even worse by the fact that although we have other cats, who are very sweet and personable in their own ways, they are not cuddlers.  They do not want to sit with me or snuggle with me at night.  I felt really lonely without Tuckers beside me.

Then about a year ago we adopted a little orange tabby cat who was called William.  We changed his name a bit to William the Orange because the kids thought he was a lovely orange color.  I really think that William might have been sent to fill in for Tuckers because here is a cat who loves to purr and snuggle, who sleeps with me at night, who has a great deal to say and is certainly not afraid to say it, and is also a big kitty at almost 20 pounds.  He is very similar to Tuckers in personality and I really needed a kitty like that in my life again.  When everything else is falling apart it’s so nice to be able to snuggle with my orange furball who purrs loud enough to be heard throughout the house

Here are some recent pictures of William the Orange (he’s not fond of being photographed so it’s a challenge to get him to hold still long enough to actually take a photo!):

This is hosted over on J. Kaye’s Book Blog.

I’ve been really under the weather this week and this morning has been especially bad (got to love chronic flare ups — not!) but I wanted to get this up while I can.

Books completed this week:

Soulless by Gail Carriger – a novel of vampires, werewolves and parasols — I loved this book and I loved the character of Alexia Tarabotti — she’s wonderful!  I am so looking forward to the next book.  I wasn’t sure about this book originally but I’m glad that I gave it a chance, I kept slowing myself down so I could enjoy it for a bit longer

Fade by Lisa McMann – I really liked this follow up to Wake.  Excellent book and I the main characters are believable and interesting.

As You Wish by Jackson Pearce — “a magical tale about star-crossed lovers, what it means to belong . .. and how important it is to be careful what you wish for.”  This was a really sweet book, I enjoyed it.  An especially good read considering how miserable I’ve been feeling this week — a good pick me up!

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick — I’ve heard such wonderful things about this book and I must say it was very well done.   An intriquing story with strong character development and an ending that left me satisfied.  I don’t think I would say it was one of my favorite books but it was a worthy read.

Books I am currently reading:

Ruined by Paula Morris — I love a good ghost story and so far this one is proving to be excellent.

Up Next:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel — I love this particular era (Henry VIII) so I’m looking forward to this one.

 

Wordful Wednesday’s are hosted by Seven Clown Circus.

With Halloween around the corner we decided to make salt-dough ghosties and their haunted houses (tissue paper boxes).

Alex painting her haunted house:

Alex and Mac working on the houses.  They put various bats, ghosts and pumpkins on each one.  After the boxes have dried we’re going to go back and add some extras like orange and black pom-poms, etc.

The salt dough ghosties who will be living in the haunted houses for Halloween

Cats on Tuesdays is hosted by Gattina!

Since this is my first time I thought it would be good to introduce our three Furballs.

First up is MacKayla the Empress (aka Charge Card).  You can tell just by looking at her that she has an attitude   She is the oldest cat in our household right now (at 7) and the only female.  She’s very bossy and expects the world to worship her, she is after all an Empress!  We won’t mention the fact that we rescued her from underneath a car!

Next, is Joel Gray.  Joel is named after the singer/dancer because as a kitten he liked to “dance” about on his hind legs which was really cute.  Nowadays Joel prefers to sleep, eat and just hang out.  He has a reserved personality except when it comes to demanding yogurt — then all bets are off!

And then there is William the Orange.  He is the youngest (at 2 years old) and runs the house — he clearly is in charge and at large!  He is also my snuggler who has an opinion on everything (he talks non-stop at times) and loves to play with the kids.  He does not like anyone outside the family and if we have company he disappears, so most people don’t even know we have a third cat in the house unless they happen to look up in the rafters in the basement   This photo is actually from when he was younger, I realized today that I don’t have a good recent picture of William, so I need to take a couple soon!

So that’s the Furballs, as we tend to call them, and they look forward to being a part of Cats on Tuesdays in the future

This is hosted over on J. Kaye’s Book Blog.

Books completed this week:

The Chocolate Cupid Killings by JoAnna Carl – As always I enjoy this series — it’s fun, it’s about chocolate and I like the quirky characters!   An excellent cozy mystery series.

Wake by Lisa McMann — this looked intriquing, about a 17 year old who gets sucked into other peoples dreams.  I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did, I was fascinated and zipped through the book.  Very well done!

Rampant by Diana Peterfruend — also a YA novel (like Wake above) about a young girl who trains as a unicorn hunter.  I really liked the main character in this novel and the story was interesting.  I read this one a bit slower to enjoy the historical/scientific apsects that really round out the story.  I’m hoping there will be a second book.

Ghastly Glass by Joye and Jim Lavene –  this is the third book in the mystery series which is set at a Renaissance Faire.  It’s fun, it’s quirky and I really enjoy each book.  Sometimes the main character, Jessie Morton, annoys me by being very naive or dense (depending on how you look at it) but it’s still a fun read.

Books I Started but Didn’t Finish:

Silver Lies by Ann Parker — a historical mystery set in 1879 that I started and then didn’t finish.  It just didn’t hold my interest at all.

Books I am currently reading:

Soulless by Gail Carriger – a novel of vampires, werewolves and parasols — how fun does that sound!  I’ve only just started but I love Alexia Tarabotti, she’s a great character!

Up Next:

Fade by Lisa McMann – I am looking forward to seeing what happens next!

As You Wish by Jackson Pearce — “a magical tale about star-crossed lovers, what it means to belong . .. and how important it is to be careful what you wish for.”

We went to the Magic House with friends earlier in October but I never found time to put up the photos.  Well, better late then never I guess!

This was one of Mac and Alex’s favorite things — a multi-story climber.  Here is Mac at the very top:

He certainly doesn’t seem troubled being up so high (I would have been!):

Mac also liked the construction area, he really loves trucks and diggers and all that cool stuff:

Mac with Curious George:

Alex with a fuzzy friend:

Playing musical chairs:

Mac driving a construction truck of some sort:

Another musical instrument, this one featuring bubbles:

And, of course, the old favorite — the water room!   A trip to the Magic House is not complete without at least a half hour or more spent in the water room trying very hard to get really wet