A bit over two weeks ago, a member of the Labrador Retriever Rescue rescued a sick feral kitten. He had a terrible cold that had his eyes swollen shut and his ears and nose covered in the normal joy that comes with a horrendous head cold. She promptly took him to the vet where he was put on antibiotics for his cold as well as other medicines for ear mites and worms in his tummy. He responded within a matter of days to the antibiotics and proved to be quite social. Learning this, she put out notice to the other LRR members looking to see if they knew anyone who was interested in adopting this kitten. Kat sent the mail to me and for some reason, even having never seen the little boy, I said, “YES!” He was taken back to the vet for testing for FIV and feline leukemia and with those tests being negative, a meeting place, date and time was made for the exchange. Kat and I came up with the same name for him on the drive home… “Maestro” as he looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo and we’re a musical family. As she has pointed out to me, it was love at first site and he is NOT going anywhere. MY baby boy… MINE! He snuggled with me all the way home from the exchange and hasn’t stopped snuggling yet! He’s incredibly social and loves people. He is still in isolation in our guest room until his cold and the worms are clear. I dubbed him “Darth Maestro” this past Wednesday as he had been off of antibiotics for several days but his cold had decided to relapse. So, off we went back to Dr. Rice where Maestro refused to allow any writing on his chart until he recieved the attention from the doc he wanted! Now we’re back on antibiotics (which we love the taste of), some really yummy Purina re-Flora’ing powder to help our tummies and yup, still on the deworming meds. I have had cats all of my life but never one with worms. It is disconcertingly gross.  We also had our first ever distemper shot. We’re not going to like our four month visit… that’s when the snips come out. (Uhoh!)

Maestro adores everyone in our family… and everyone in our family adores him. Our daughters read in the evenings with him and he scampers all over them and their books. He loves their long hair and never stops purring. Weighing in at a manly two pounds, he packs a lot of purr for his weight! His favorite toy — FEATHERS! What’s even better than feathers? His people moving the feathers for him. He’s also a rub-my-belly baby. I hope he keeps that as he grows up. Scott wears cargo pants and Maestro loves ‘em! He climbs all over them and uses them as his personal jungle gym. As for me, I’m Mommy. I play, I feed, I clean the litter box, I shove yucky stuff in his face and I’m his favorite place to sleep. When I nap with him or even spend the night, he’s either curled up on my shoulder or stretched out across my neck. At this current weight, he’s not a problem across my neck. However, it may be an issue at ten pounds. But that’s ok. And, like my other baby boy, Ziggy, he likes to lick my face. None of my female cats do it, just my boys.

Maestro also loves any toys my daughters have. He loves all the little fiddly bit parts and things that make up eight year old toys. (Think Barbie shoe sizes and smaller.) His little head and feet fit right in there to “help” and they have quite the time with him. Today I took  him into their bedroom to have him “help” them excavate out the stuff under their beds. I don’t think any kitten could have been happier. He was scampering all over the place diving from under one bedskirt to another discovering all sorts of cool girlie things to play with.

When he’s not doing that, he looooooves his whale. It’s a great place to play chase with his human-driven feathers, too!

I know there’s only one picture… he’s hard to take pictures of! I mean, good pictures of. We have lots of blurry pictures… and pictures of his fuzzy butt… and the back of his head… and of him jumping at the strap on the camera. The picture up there is of Scott holding him above his head so he would hold still! What about while he’s sleeping? Urm, well, he’s a kitten. He wakes up the instant you walk into the room and starts zooming around all over the place!

He is SUCH a sweetie — thanks Alesha and Kat for our new baby boy!

Ciro Marchetti’s artwork, “Hubble Bubble” has been charted and released today! While I’m not a fan of all steampunk-like art, I really love this one. My question to myself is this… can I complete 376,425 Xs before a certain physicist-o-mine adds “PhD” to his name?

Some restrictions do apply. As in he has to decide to if he will be going ahead with PhD work AND in astrophysics. If it’s not in astrophysics, then a telescope, as cool as this one is, just won’t be as applicable. I also wouldn’t start stitching until he officially starts working on this particular degree.

So can I do 376,425 Xs in the time it takes a 40-something year old to earn his PhD in astrophysics? *nibbles on her fingernails and nervously eyes the pages of the chart* I just thought I would mention that “Marchetti” and “confetti” rhyme and it’s quite applicable for most of the pages.

Stay tuned to see how things turn out! (10 skeins of 310…that’s what happens when it’s something in SPACE, Sue. DUH!)

I’m lazy in posting, but I have been stitching! My sweetie got a new camera for his birthday, so we’ve been working on getting the right settings for taking stitchy pictures. I think it’s worth the wait because the new ones are so much better! That said, here’s page umm… oh, I forget. It’s the middle page of Jasmine Becket-Griffith’s “A Pale Comparison.” Since I took this picture hmmm… a week or two ago, I’ve started the page below and added 700 or so stitches to it which has rounded out the dragon’s cheek and added some more to that black space between the elf maiden’s face and shoulder. You can see a picture of Jasmine’s original work here. Aside from the color in the eyes of the elf and the dragon, the rest of the chart is all neutral colors. I’m not a fan of neutral color charts, but this one I adore and can’t seem to stop working on!

Next up is Tribute to the Old Masters by Nouveau Encore. This is stitched on my favorite fabric - 36 count Lakeside Linen. I’m using Belle Soie’s Elegant Eggplant silk which is absolutely divine to stitch with. I highly recommend it! It’s always nice to spend time working on a single color sampler as there’s only one floss color to worry about. To see what the whole piece looks like, you can see it here. It’s just a little big. *grins*

I’ve got about a quarter of part 2 of Oriental Harem Garden done. I’ll be taking it with me on vacation along with another piece… I think. I’ve still not decided. I’d better figure it out soon as we’re leaving on Sunday! We’re taking our girls on a Disney Land/Sea vacation and then spending a week visiting our friend of over 20 years in Tampa. The girls have no idea where we’re going aside from on a plane. They will, of course, figure it out, but we’re enjoying their not knowing and looking forward to their surprise as they realize that we’re staying at a Disney resort for four days (all of their previous visits have been day trips) and then three days on the Disney Wonder, one of their Cruise liners (they have no idea that Disney even HAS boats) and then we’ll be going to the airport and instead of getting on a plane, we’ll be picking up a rental car and heading to Tampa for another week. It’s going to be quite the adventure!

Believe it or not, I finished part 1 of a Chatelaine the month it came out! I did I did! Remember the over 2 piece I mentioned that I had been working intensively on in my last blog post? That was it! It took me less than a week to finish and here it is! I am sooooo in love with this piece that I had finish-itis when I got to the end. So-much-so that Kat had to prod me to actually finish it before July 1st when part 2 would come out. I know it sounds silly, but I really really love this one… more than any of the others. Oh yeah… details… it’s being stitched on 28 count “Romantic Interlude” linen from Silkweaver although I don’t think it’s 28 count anymore due to the dyeing process. I think it’s more like 30 count. I’m also using all the called for silks and beads. The empty spots are for the crystals and the central treasure which I won’t put on until the end.

Let’s see if I can keep up with this and have part 2 done before August 1st!

And finally… Happy Birthday, love! *SMOOCHIES!!*

… when you’ve just spent an intense week stitching 2 over 2 and move back to a 1 over 1 project make sure you’re using the right number of strands before you spend 90 minutes stitching.

Duh.

Pictures coming soon! (after I chase the frogs away)