January- however

And here we are at the end of week 2!

We've kept a low profile, but that doesn't mean we haven't had fun.

For Christmas and New Year's Eve we brought out our new plates to dine in the living room at the old oak table and watch movies on the larger screen.

January is usually a slow month of trying to regroup, but this year I kept up the momentum and painted, and though the Christmas tree is still up and the general clutter holds reign over our household, I'm not fazed as we've been so productive in other areas.

the young maple out back amid the honeysuckle

Wally comes home to the usual assortment of snowblowing or fixing things. On Friday last week he came home to the dryer laying on its side in the middle of the kitchen floor. "What happened?" were his first words.  I left it there after failing to retrieve the bone folder that I'd dropped down the lint trap. Not only did he find it, but 3 decades worth of lint clinging to every part of it. No wonder he has a morbid fear of house fires caused by dryers.

Next the hose on the washing machine needs replacing and that gave us the opportunity to find the source of the doggy smell that was coming from the machine. I hold people who are capable of fixing things in high regard, and as I scurried about cleaning the floor while he fiddled with the hose, I felt grateful for Wally's capabilities (as well as saving the cost of a serviceman, or worse: a complete replacement.)

So that's a bit of how January is going. Two beautiful snows were completely obliterated by wind and rain last Sunday and within days another healthy dump of the beautiful white stuff as seen here late one morning.

The cats are doing well

Muji gets a bath

and then Babu does

 

Sometimes I find myself wandering around the house wondering where the cats are. They're usually in predictable places. Muji loves Wally's chair, for instance, where the heat from the heat pump blows on him, and he's very disoriented when Wally usurps what Muji thinks is his chair. After all he's in it the most.  One day I was stumped as to where Babu might be. And then I found him...

 

I had stuffed the baskets so he would stay out of them.

How do cats manage to turn around in such small spaces??

 

Babu has been particularly happy with his Christmas penguin

 

and does a good job batting around the room

 

playing hide and seek with it- as cats will do- until it goes AWOL under a piece of furniture

 

Late afternoon yesterday the sun already setting, casting a rosy glow

and this morning, the sun too brilliant to go without sunglasses

I swear I saw two white moths chasing each other like winter fairies- amazing

 

And didn't Wally walk in on his afternoon off this week with a package in his hand

 and a funny look on his face.

 

The mail had just arrived and he, bewitched, couldn't resist giving me a belated Christmas present- that had taken the last month and a half to come all the way from Japan-

 

as an early birthday present: a Platinum Carbon Ink fountain pen

I've been practising with it.

It's a very fine line pen, very reactive to the texture of my mixed media paper (which I show here enlarged)  needing a slow hand with a light touch, not my comfort zone, but worth learning.

 

a parting shot of Muji with his zillion year old eyes,

 the depth of the Universe in them.

 

 

peace, ever peace in our hearts,

that we may see clearly

 

 

our life, kitty style

Are you, like I, surprised to find yourself in the middle of the month already? Tomorrow will be the 2nd Friday the 13th in as many months.  Intrigued with the seeming coincidence, I realized that this 2nd Friday the 13th has come about because February ended on the 28th this year, which means it was exactly 4 weeks long, something no other month has, therefore the days of March would match the days of February until March the 28th. Are you still with me? I wish I had had an arithmetic teacher when I was a child who would have set me up with a love (and trust?) of numbers. Usually they swirl around me like a vortex of stars, one indistinguishable from the other.

It's been about a month now since I have done anything artistic, my creative energy going into the re-situating of the kitchen. I'm excited about my idea of a kitty litter/broom closet in which to contain this necessary but annoying aspect of our lives. We're quite inspired to get on with things so I was surprised to hear Wally suggest, in the wee hours this morning, that we go to Halifax this weekend.   It is understandable, after all, that he's needing a break from his grueling job and a long winter.

On the bright side, we've been saving our pennies to pay off our commitment to buy a Quebec made hutch and buffet that we found very reasonably priced but unaffordable after Christmas. We left a deposit but then  there was that business with the snow blower breaking down just when we were about to pay off on the buffet. Thankfully, we were given a reprieve by the store and finally paid it off on the weekend... and brought it home.

Suddenly I heard a noise and when I came in I still couldn't imagine how Muji, with his lame right shoulder, managed to get up in there.

"

"What are you doing in there?" I asked him

 From the looks of him, I wonder if he's expecting an argument.

Funny little guy, always looking for an escape hatch... through cupboards, down the basement door, out into the cold front porch. And I'm always asking him, "Don't you want to stay with us?"

Of course, he does; he just wants to get outside into the fresh air and the freedom of it as he obviously was once an outdoor cat. But we are on a busy road and there are some pretty nasty feral cats around here. My gentle Muji wouldn't last too long in the big bad world. He was definitely made for royalty.

 taking ownership, kitty style

Prince Muji listens. He is really quite smart.

Funnily, Muji hasn't been back in the cupboard since I took these shots on Saturday. The novelty has already worn off.  But not for me and Wally. We marvel at it, and ironically, I don't even feel a need to put anything in it. We just like looking at it. And it's in the bedroom after all; until we can get on with the reno, there's no use in adding more to what we'll have to move.

A few days later I find the boys in one of their creative sleeping poses.

As quiet as I can be, Babu wakens

A yawn from my sleepy boy, then back to sleep.

It's sunny and warming up here. The thaw is definitely on.  I hope you're having an easy shift into spring, or fall if you are viewing from that far away. It's such a small world after all and we are lucky to have this human experience of it if only we can keep it simple and sweet. 

peace