Mama's Losin' It Writer's Workshop: October 29th is National Cat Day. Write a poem about your cat

If you are coming over here for the National Cat Day Blog Hop, click HERE! (or continue to read, then scroll back and click...)

And if you're here from Mama's Losin' It... You, too, can click on the above link (I did a little something crafty...) OR just continue on reading. Either way, you're good to go on. And either way, it's National Cat Day! So... I chose... of course! "October 29th is National Cat Day. Write a poem about your cat!" Duh.

Except... Duh. I don't have a cat.
But I used to, so... Imagine that?
What happened you ask?
What happened to your cat?

My cat. Was all Black.
But not all.
She had a spot.
A spot of white upon her chest.
Like a ball.

White, too.
At the tips of her paws.
But not her tail.
She was Boo Boo Kitty.
Didn't scare me.
Like the Stuffed Cat
on Laverne and Shirley.

Maybe imagined the spot.
My Cat. Has a Spot.
Boo Boo Loved.
I loved her.

She disappeared.
And came back HUGE          <===== I was in 5th grade, folks, chill...
Out came little Cats.

Lots of colors.
Some the same.
Others different.
Six Little Kitties.
I loved them all.

From School I came.
All gone.
Boo Boo and Kitties
Were gone... to a "Good Home?"
Mom said they did.

Never forget.
Boo Boo Kitty.
I love you, forever.
***************************

So now. If you're here, you could've come from a good many of places, seeing as it's National Cat Day and all. I've been trying to keep busy busy. If you're here from Haidee's National Cat Day Blog Hop, just scroll down and check out my crafty post. (But yeah! You can comment first, here, if you'd like!) And if you're here from Mama Kat's, feel free to continue on down, as well.

But if you came from somewhere else... Feel free to join in on the fun! Mama Kat hosts a great Writer's Workshop full of prompts and positivity to keep all of us going. Please stop by over there to read some more awesomeness. And don't forget to comments. Everyone needs a "pat, pat" now and then.

Thanks for stopping by! And pet your cat today. If you don't have one, there are several shelters with lots of cats to choose from. Have a great day and a healthy life.

National Cat Day Blog Hop

Welcome to the National Cat Day Blog Hop! If you came from Barbara's Blog you are in right spot. But you may want to start the fun at Haidee's Blog if you happened to come over to my blog!!!

I am excited to have you hop with us! Each blogger participating in this hop is featuring a crafty project having to do with "Cat". You'll find unique ideas that have to do with Cats. We hope you'll enjoy each and every project along the way.

Be sure to leave a comment at each hop to show some Bloggie Love and to qualify to win a Prize. (Check it out!!! I spy some Wobbles in there... In case you didn't get it... I love Wobbles!)

Now onto my project...

Guess what? If you know what or you know me I was originally going to go with a Black Cat. You know... of the Halloween sort. And then I thought... Nah... Haidee (pronounced like Heidi... don't go pronouncing her name all wrong... at least not on MY blog!) probably didn't think up her blog hop all like that. I mean... if she did, it would be a Halloween Hop, right? Right. And so... I went a totally 'nother direction. And here we are.

Enter my Cricut Explore Air. (Yes... I have one of those, too.) I did a search for Cat. Kitten. Lion. Tiger. And Bear! (Oops! We are NOT following the Yellow Brick Road, are we?). And so I went back to the Cat and Kitten. Nope didn't find anything I wanted... Nothing was calling my name. I kinda felt like coloring.

So, while digi stamps are all the rage (and yes, I do love those, too...!), I felt like getting a free coloring page. And I found one I loved. It's totally not in any of the "season" that is now. It's not Halloween, it's not "Fall" at all, and no... It's not even Christmas. It kind of reminds me of Easter. And so I went with that. Afterall... Easter cards or Spring cards can always come in handy, and why not get a jump on that! Huh?

I found a cute little kitty with an Easter Bonnet on it... I threw her into Photoshop and cropped out the lettering... ended like this:

I adjusted the size to 4x5", then saved it as a JPG. I then opened up a Word doc, and copied her in there 4 times.

 

Then printed on white cardstock and colored her in. But I didn't color her in with just ANYTHING... I colored her with the fabulous lacquer pens that I just bought at the Scrapbook Exp... Shhhh... don't tell my husband! *See my "Lessons Learned" at the bottom of my entry*

 

 

And then... I cut them into 4 equal parts, with a band of white to throw in my stash because I'm a hoarder I always use my good scraps. And my bad ones sometimes, too. You never know what your mess-ups can deliver!

 

 

I haven't done anything with my "her's" yet, but, they are waiting in my card bin, ready for when I am. Even though "Fall" hasn't really hit it here in Southern California (it's still in the 80's, people...), I know Spring or whatever the occasion is that called for these pretty little kitties will arrive very quickly. It always does.

 

I hope you enjoyed my National Cat Day post! and on to... Uh...

 

Whelp, I'm the Cat's Tail-End of the hop... But, if you missed someone, here's the lineup:

 

Haidee - http://created2bunique.blogspot.com
Kim - http://katydidcards.com
Connie - http://conniecancrop.blogspot.com
Sarah - http://www.sarahbiswabic.blogspot.com
Lori - http://savingmine.blogspot.com
Nan a- http://www.nanasscrapspot.com
Gina - http://www.californiascrappin.com
Jearise - http://www.lorbysworld.blogspot.com
Barbara - http://barbarab3.blogspot.com/
Lisa - http://lisaslittlerascals.blogspot.com <======= YOU ARE HERE!

Come back to Haidee's Blog Friday October 30th to see IF you are the WINNER.

HAVE A SUPER FANTASTIC HOP!!!

** LESSONS LEARNED**

 

• Always, always, fully look at the picture, stamp, photo, etc. before you ASSUME it is something. I thought this was a kitty in a basket with a "Easter" or other type of Bonnet on... It's not. It's a kitty in a hat box.
• Be sure to TOTALLY let the lacquer dry between colors.
• Cut your card tops apart FIRST. You might smudge color into your whitespace, just like I did.
• Only use small color portions for lacquer-type coloring. If you don't, then you'll totally get streaks in it, like I did.  Otherwise, if doing a larger area, color with pen, watercolors, etc. let dry, then apply CLEAR lacquer for even tones.
• Put the pens back in the boxes as you go. They could role all over into your coloring, like mine did.
• Keep a pin nearby to prick any air bubbles when coloring with lacquer. Air bubbles, especially those in yellow or light green tend to look like boogers and snot.

Fall Festival Blog Hop

Welcome to the

Today's hop will give you all kinds of awesome fall crafting ideas. So let's get started!

I've been rather busy lately. Who am I kidding? I'm always busy... I moved the older girls' stuff out of their room (as written on "It's Ma Birth-day..." in early October), and the hubster finished up the new craftroom, so I had to "move" everything on over. OMG! I have so much S-H-*-*!  It took several days (and nights) to complete this project (the craftroom/s), and since I was put on a deadline, it didn't all come over organized, not that it was really organized in the other space. But I did know where everything was. As for now, I'm not quite sure where everything is, so my first project for this hop is somewhere in the unorganized new space blitz that is my craftroom. It was a cute skinny little tri-fold card, in an accordion style, using a sunny marigold paper. Seriously. I looked for it to take quickie-pics, but nothing was to be found.

New Room pics...

All the stuff I had to move...

 

After an hour of searching really you have NO idea how much stuff I had to look through, I gave up. But.. Since I did just move a room, I found lots of "lost" treasures and decided to do another project. Yup. Really truly lost. But that skinny little card had acorns with really cute Peachy Keen stamp faces. And I will find it.  I will find it... but it'll take a bit of time. I'll re-post it then.

So... I found this:

And decided to add LOTS of color to it...

 It took two coats to cover the "craft" color...

Then I added the green stem.

Then topped it off with some green ivy...

And decided it looked pretty good, so I put it on my table amongst other little pumpkins... I love it!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Please visit all the blogs in today's hop and don't forget to leave comments to be entered into a drawing for a wonderful prize from Kathy Moran, Independent L'Bri Consultant!

Kathy is giving away this fabulous gift basket.

The gift basket includes: body wash, daily moisturizing hand and body lotion with a loofah, body butter, eye repair gel, facial masque, and hand soap. I'm also going to include a travel size facial cleanser, freshener and moisturizer and will be matched to the winner's skin type. The retail value on these items is over $120.00. The scent of the lotion, body wash, and lotion is cucumber, which is the faintest scent. I'm also including a set of brushes and a cosmetic bag with mirror.
Check out our sponsor at: www.morank.lbri.com

Here's the lineup!

Theresa - scrapsbygracie.blogspot.com
CADC Designers - http://cardadaychallenge.blogspot.com
Haidee - http://created2bunique.blogspot.com
Alicia - http://goldengoddessdesigns.blogspot.com
Kim - www.katydidcards.com
Angela - www.crazy3monkeys.blogspot.com
Lisa - http://lisaslittlerascals.blogspot.com <======= YOU ARE HERE!
Jearise - http://lorbysworld.blogspot.com (NEXT UP!)
Daphne - http://craftyscrapsofstuff.blogspot.com
Holli - http://Sunflowerholli.blogspot.com
Tristan - https://www.facebook.com/TinstarDesigns

Remember, HAPPY FALL Y'ALL! Just have a good time and hop!

50 Shades of... Mom? AKA: Mama's Losin' It Writer's Workshop; Prompt #4: Show us what your kids want to be for Halloween this year

Every day year my daughter dresses up. Usually, there is some sort of procrastination issue at least my husband thinks so. It's not necessarily by me, as two years ago... it was by Amazon.

Marissa had wanted to be a peacock for Halloween. Wow, that stuff at the Halloween stores is super slutty cheesy and cheap-looking, but with a super high price tag and nothing in my daughter's size. It was September, so I thought I was r-e-a-l good being able to order online. Everything I was ordering showed less than two weeks to deliver.

The first piece came within 3 days. So far, so good. And then... NOTHING. Nothing until almost the end of October. Mind you, it didn't all come in... That feathered crown I was going to make with the long peacock feathers? N-O-P-E. Those didn't come in until almost December... so... they're in the craftroom, waiting for something to be done with them... One day...

Last year, the hubs bought her the Anna (not Elsa) costume. I just made a fleece hooded cape. I made it the week before. And it was done the week before Halloween and to my husband that is still procrastinating. Whatevs... It was done and I was done with it.

This year... Marissa wants to be Catwoman. So... way back in August... I ordered off Amazon, double-checking to be sure all of the products would be shipped through Amazon, not another vendor because everything that came late two years ago had been shipped from Asia. I did not want history repeating itself.

I ordered this

See those super sharp nails?

 

And I bought this...

Oh yeah... Can you whip it?

 

My older girls were finally cleaning up their big pile of stuff and saw the padded envelope with the items in it. Being the nosey children adults they are, they looked through the envelope and asked me, "Is there something you want to tell us?" "What?" I asked (not knowing what they were even talking about). "A little '50 Shades,' huh...?" they asked. "What ARE you talking about?" was my response. And then they showed me... I laughed so hard I cried and almost peed my pants.

 

I'm sure it seriously looked that way to them. A black whip. A pair of motorcycle gloves with sharp metallic-looking nails on top. Oh yeah, baby. Mama is turning "50 Shades." 50 shades of laughter and skin color, maybe... I thought it was hilarious!

 

So I explained to them it was only their sister's costume, and they supposedly already knew what she was going to be. I was only waiting on the bodysuit/costume. And the next day it came.

 

Marissa promptly took it out of the box, took off her brace (she is going brace-free for Halloween... it is kind of special, so she'll get more than two hours out of the brace), and jumped into her suit. Much to my delight and amazement, it didn't need to be altered at all!

See how the fluffy puffy wanted to get a piece of Catwoman, too?

 

It fits so awesome, she even felt like Catwoman! "Mrrrr Owwww!" Those nails look totally sharp! Watch out!

 

 

This is a writing prompt from Mama Kat, to help me get my creative mojo back. Here's hoping the little pushes help... If you'd like to participate, please visit Mama Kat and visit some other wonderful bloggers and writers who have linked up. Please always leave a comment. Comments are so appreciated. Thank you! And come back tomorrow evening for a fun Fall Festival Blog Hop with lots of awesome crafters!





It's Ma Birth-day...! (And I like hearing voices in my head!)

Today, I sit here and quietly turn 45. Yep. 45.

To some of you, that may not be anything which means you're either my age or older...

To others including my own children it seems ancient.

I'm sitting here quietly, not by choice. The week before last, I was staying home from work to take care of a sick child. She breathes. Therefor, I caught it, too. And so... this past week, I stayed home from work for my own illness. Only as my children relish telling me I'm older than she is. And this shit is kicking my butt! I only say that because I've been sick since LAST Saturday. And I'm STILL sick. What a way to spend my day. On the plus side, my scale says I'm 10 whole pounds lighter from my week off.

I am sitting here with a low-grade fever (day seven, mind you!), a swollen throat (feels like I swallowed a ball), a hacking cough (with crap that comes up from the depths of my lungs), and a nose that is so stuffy, I can barely breathe (and the snot from hell erupting from it throughout the day). Not to mention a headache that has failed to leave me in over a week, and a total lack of energy.

I will say that I celebrated by putting on my bra, after one whole week of freedom, to run to Walmart to get some more Aleve-D.

Two of my children called this morning. One texted. Of the two that called, they both said, "I love you." The texter did not.

Other family and friends have reached out, too. I've received several texts and Facebook messages. Of those, only two have said those other three words, "I love you." In a world where words don't seem to have much meaning anymore, these three choice words mean SO much to me.

Please... If you someone you love has a birthday, or anyday. Don't forget to tell them, "I love you." It could mean making their whole day brighter. I do appreciate the texts and private messages... But a voice on the other line is always welcome more. I'd much rather hear these voices through my head, than read a text on a screen.