Mia is all curled up in a ball on a chair that sits next to my desk chair. It is covered in a sunflower patterned blanket and serves no purpose whatsoever, other than to allow Mia to nap next to me!

Dan and I have recently been renovating my office so that I now have a cozy space that is a beautiful concoction of gorgeous jewel tones in royal blues, hunter greens, blazing golden hues, and rich burgundies.True to my creative nature, I have taken a plethora of colors and themes that one might not traditionally think would compliment one another and created my own eclectic world that is purr-fectly suited to my unique tastes and personality. I have combined the warmth and beauty of sunflowers (I originally came from Upstate New York where these stunning flowers grew along side the road in a glorious infusion of color and I remain in love with their carefree, yet proud stature) with the wild and untamed pattern of leopard print accessories that is my calling card and trademark. The results – a room so rich, warm, inviting, and cozy, that you immediately feel a wonderful calm and happiness when you enter the room. I guess you would call it “Sunflower Safari” for a lack of a better style description! Read more

Sometimes one is invited into the rare and compelling world of an animal caught in their natural habitat, completely unaware they are being watched. I happened upon a chance like this one day and had to grab the camera to capture this stunning creature, much like a photographer for National Geographic would do, if the occasion so presented itself.

You will notice with the advancement of technology, how I was able to capture the visual surroundings and transcribe the exhilarating feeling of the moment with the high speed of the lens shutter. Each image is more amazing than the next and you can just feel the energy of this amazing creature burst off your computer screen. For your sense of time and to see just how incredible this camera is, I have documented the snapshots in real time. I truly think I deserve some sort of award for this rare and extraordinary post!

Sunday, June 26, 2011. 9:46 a.m. The creature is discovered, apparently sleeping atop some sort of domesticated wicker hamper with a padded towel for maximum napping comfort

Sunday, June 26, 2011. 10:14 a.m. The imagery and range of motion is stunning!

Sunday, June 26, 2011. 12:34 p.m. I don't know about you all, but I feel I could faint from the excitement!

Sunday, June 26, 2011. 2:14 p.m. The animal awakens, completely startled and a blur of motion as he rubs the sandman out of his eyes.

Sunday, June 26, 2011. 4:46 p.m. In what is a shocking and stunning turn of events, the creature has rotated itself to now nap in the opposite direction... this is just incredible people, simply incredible...

My special gratitude and acknowledgements to my beloved cat Zee. Turns out this was not some rare creature after all, but just my cat napping for 16 hours a day on the hamper like he does any other day….

In hindsight, maybe we should have put up a “wet paint” sign for the cats, but then again, cats typically can’t read. Personally, I think they can, they just choose to pretend they can’t so that we don’t burden them with activities such as reading a book or paying the bills.

Guilty As Charged – Intentional Vertical Space Jumping

Over the past weekend Dan and I had been doing some home renovation projects. We are redesigning a guest bedroom we have and are down to all the fun little details like decorating and accessorizing. Dan was in the process of painting a very tall, VERTICAL column that stores books and cds. Well, any of you that watches My Cat from Hell with Jackson Galaxy, knows that cats instinctively LOVE “vertical space.” So, when I heard Dan yelling, first at Mia, then a half hour later at Peanut, then minutes later at Zoey, and minutes after that, Rolz, I knew Jackson would be very proud of my cats. Dan, not so much. No matter how many times he yelled, they did not understand that he was yelling at them to NOT jump up to a tall, VERTICAL space while he was swishing a paint brush up and down like a playful invitation to a game of bat and swat. What is wrong with these cats? Don’t they know they are jumping up to wet paint???

Needless to say, each one of them branded the tile floors with the stencil of little white paint-dipped paw prints and I had to dunk each of their paws into some water to clean the paint off! The only ones who did not bother with the activity, were our resident elder cats in this order, Jazz, Harley, and Zee. They were doing another instinctive “cat thing” that Jackson would be proud of – they were very contentedly napping on the new bedspread we purchased for the guest room and christening it with their hair!

Could someone please get up and feed me?

Zee is very much a creature of habit, so he kind of had a rough weekend because his humans decided to sleep in on Sunday morning, which caused him all sorts of scheduling issues. First of all, who was going to get up and feed him and the others? It could be quite possible that they could all perish from starvation if he did not think quickly.

I said, GET UP!!

Taking his cue from his favorite cat, Simon, Zee watched this classic archive video for some inspiration and sure enough, a simple solution was at hand! While a baseball bat is quite effective to wake a human, we find in our household that a small dose of Zoey and her blood curdling meows is a far quicker and more effective solution! Good boy Zee! There is no way we can fall back to sleep now!!!