It’s Valentine’s Day and I love my cats dearly. But sometimes with love, comes pain. That’s what I discuss in the chapter entitled “Love Hurts” in my book Makin’ Biscuits – Weird Cat Habits and the Even Weirder Habits of the Humans Who Love Them. Like the time Zee used Dan’s head as a launch pad to fling himself across the room in pursuit of whatever dangerous predator fabricated itself in our living room. Or like when Peanut makes biscuits on my tummy with such gusto that my stomach starts to gurgle in protest because it feels like she’s rearranging my innards! Or when Zoey attacks my toes when I sit on the couch because she thinks they are monsters that are going to harm me! Read more

Cover image courtesy of Cats for the GENIUS.

While it was enjoyable and completely fulfilling, the process for writing my most recent book, Makin’ Biscuits – Weird Cat Habits and the Even Weirder Habits of the Humans Who Love Them, turned out to be far more work than I initially anticipated. I had originally thought the book would be a collection of funny and cute stories from assorted cat lovers, sharing the wild and crazy antics of their feline companions. When I determined the book should also be a resource to share tips and advice on understanding cat behavior, that’s when it got serious. If only I had known about Ramona Marek’s recently released book, Cats for the GENIUS, before I found myself knee-deep in kitty-facts research. Read more

From myself and Jazmine, the ultimate biscuit making kitty in our house, thank you so much for your support of Makin’ Biscuits – Weird Cat Habits and the Even Weirder Habits of the Humans Who Love Them! Illustration by Stephanie Piro exclusively for Makin’ Biscuits.

Writing and publishing a book is a bit like having a baby. It takes several long months before the book is completed and once it is, you share the news like a proud parent who has just delivered a newborn baby. That’s how I feel with Makin’ Biscuits – Weird Cat Habits and the Even Weirder habits of the Humans Who Love Them. Now that the book is done, it seems all I do is post pictures about it on social media and talk about it in nearly every conversation. Read more

A quintessential moment in time captured – this is me.

We’ve all seen questions like this, whether in social media, magazines, interviews, etc. where you’re asked what three words best describe who you are. I’ve seen numerous variations of the question and despite the simplicity of it; it’s actually a difficult question. As human beings, we have so many different facets of our life that determine who were are, and often they can change like the direction of the wind. I’m typically coined creative, compassionate, and determined, but that’s only scratching the surface. The same with a photograph – a photograph captures an image in time, but depending on who is looking at the picture; it will conjure up different connotations. And then there are the moments where the sun and the moon perfectly align and purity is revealed. That’s what happened to me when Dan took a random picture of me. I looked at it and realized in an instant that it captured the essence of me. Read more

Makin’ Biscuits by Deborah Barnes, ZZP Publishing, LLC.

It happened nearly two years ago – I got out of the shower one morning and bent over to wrap my wet hair with a towel. Moments later, I felt something land on top of my head – it was Mia, my extroverted cat who normally didn’t like close-up human contact. For whatever reason, she had decided it was the perfect place to settle for a nap. Being that I’ve had cats my entire life, I was accustomed to them doing weird things, but this was odd, even for my standards, and that’s when the idea of a book of weird cat habits formed in my toweled, cat-covered head.  Read more