Things That Caught My Eye (Whale Edition)

I can't speak for any of these companies or crafters as a customer, but there are some really nifty things out there in blogland that have caught my eye...

These whale twins by Fog and Swell just look AMAZING.  I can't even imagine the time and effort that went into them!  You can read more about these guys on her blog and see more of her amazing work in her Etsy shop.  I find myself lusting after her Orca stuffies.  Bug has always kind of had a soft spot for Orcas, and our nightly lullabies all center around sea creatures, so I'd imagine that both Bug and Boo would find comfort in it.  Nevermind that it it's just gorgeous.

To continue with the sea creature theme, I absolutely adore this felt whale pillow by PuNk rAwK pUrL.  It looks so cuddly and happy!  I've been doing a lot of work on pillows lately, but don't often get to work with felt (nor is it likely that I will anytime in the foreseeable future).  He'd fit into our bedroom pillow pile quite nicely! This little guy and his friends in different colorways (and different animals!) are available in her shop.  She has some great stuff on her blog, too.

And, while I didn't initally intend to focus on whales, here's one more that caught my eye recently...

This pair of organic whale pillows by Cecil & Clyde make me quite happy.  I think it's the smiles. ;)  I'm quite drawn to the bright, happy colors in the piping (a really nice touch!), and I love that they're really quite large.  Seems like they're perfectly sized for some serious snuggling.  There are other animals available in the Cecil & Clyde Etsy shop (I'm really drawn to the elephants), too.

Desert Critters

We have, in the past year, learned a bit about differences in wildlife between Houston and Phoenix.

There are things I miss, not being near Houston: deer, frogs (which are here, too, just not in the same abundance), squirrels (I've seen one, here), vultures, hawks, mosquitoes big enough that you can see them coming (versus the sneaky, painful microscopic version here)...all sorts of things.  Which is not to say that I haven't been impressed by the wildlife here.  I've seen a roadrunner, more rabbits than I ever saw in Texas, a jackrabbit, wild lovebirds...all sorts of things.

But.

There is one bit of desert wildlife that I am not at all thrilled to have met.




Look a little closer.



That's right.  That's a scorpion.  A LIVE one.  Thankfully, it didn't come from my house...though Richard was kind enough to bring it by to visit.  He wanted Bug to see it.

As I recall, our conversation went something like this:

R: "I brought something home for Bug to look at."

Me: "Oh? What?"

R: "A scorpion."

Me: *stunned silence* "What?  Not a live one."

R: "Oh yeah, it's alive.  Don't worry it's tiny."

Me: *beginning to freak out* (Because the tiny ones are dangerous, you know.)  "What?!  What are you going to do with it once he's looked at it?!"

R: "Let it go."

Me: *now in full on freak-out* "NOT HERE?!"

He assured me not, and said that he hadn't expected such a strong response from me.  Holy crap.  A SCORPION.

And, yeah, it was tiny.  And maybe a little bit cool.  But, holy crap.  A scorpion.  *shudder*

Solo

Meet Solo.




It was not my intention to get another cat after we lost Pie.  Our pet losses have been high this past year: Hope adopted abruptly just before we left Texas, Emma left behind, Elliott and Lili succumbing to a hereditary heart defect, and then Pie giving in to his age.  I kind of thought we'd give Chin a go at being a single kitty, keep our hearts open and if the universe decided that we needed another cat, we'd take it in.

Enter the three year old.

Not long (at all) after Pie passed away, Bug floored me.  We were playing with a very affectionate Chin when Bug told me "Miso needs a friend who isn't dead".

...ouch.

I put in a call about a cat I'd seen on craigslist that spoke to me, and the kids and I took off to meet him.  Solo.  So named because he was all alone in the world when the family we adopted him from found him.  Though lots of people prefer to think it's a Star Wars reference. ;)

He was a pathetic little baby kitten when he was discovered.  The family he'd been living with already had a cat and a dog and had no intention of keeping him, but took Solo in, fed him, cleaned him up, got him to the vet, etc.  He was ten months old when we met him (and there goes my "no more kittens!" rule, right out the window) and the three boys in the family had gotten quite attached.

The woman we adopted him from felt that we were a good match for Solo (Bug took to him instantly and was very gentle - yay!), but I wanted to talk to Richard about it, and I hated the idea of taking the cat while her oldest son was at school.  Not getting to say goodbye is hard.  I wasn't going to do that to someone else's kid.  We went home, I talked to Richard, she talked to her son, and we went back that evening.

Solo has been a real sweetie, and fit into our house very quickly.  I expected it to take a few weeks before Chin and Solo were okay with each other, but they'd stopped hissing at one another by the end of the second day, and were tentative buddies the day after that.  Now they're inseparable.

Solo is still very much a kitten - very active and playful - but also quite mature and thoughtful.  He'll attack anything that moves (so he's not a good bedroom kitty at night), but if he knows that there's a person beneath the movement, he will NOT put out his claws.  Bug can use him as a pillow, and Solo's okay with it.


(That's an early morning sleepy-face, not sad.)

I'm glad he's here.

Raccoon!

This evening, on the way home from the studio, we saw this little guy hanging out outside of the gas station.



Having grown up in the suburbs, my initial thought process went something like: "AHHHH! Raccoon out in daylight!  It must have rabies!"  ...And then I remembered that I was a block away from the nature center, and realized that two bicyclists were tossing nuts at him, and so he'd probably just snuck out of the woods for a little snack.  He looked really healthy, if terrified, and startled back into the trees before I could get a better picture.

Cute little guy, huh?

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Yep...that'd be me.

I've certainly *thought* about updating the blog quite a lot, but we've had quite a lot going on, too. Obviously, since it's been about a year since I've really written anything. Sheesh.

A few big things, though.

1 - We've moved. We're in a HOUSE again - yay! C has a super duper awesome playroom and, to be honest, we live in this. Seriously. We wake up in the morning, come in here, and we're pretty much in here until we go to bed at night.

2 - We got a dog. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had forgotten my big major dog rule though: NO MORE PUPPIES. So, like a fool, we adopted an 8 month old lab mix. Mostly because C absolutely loved her and she was awesome with him and that was a pretty big deal because he was well on the way to developing a fear of all dogs, especially the larger ones. At the time, he only liked chihuahuas and that was largely because he thought they were cats.

So, Hope entered the picture, thanks to Second Chance Pets. We love her. She's awesome. She gets along well with the cats and she'll let C do anything to her. I've seen him pull food out of her mouth while she's eating and she didn't react at all. She's also a really big, really rambunctious puppy. And she eats anything that doesn't run away from her. Like the sofa. Gah.



3 - I'm pregnant. Didn't see that one coming but we're quite pleased about it.



There have been some good projects going of late and our camera just made it's way back to us after I managed to leave it in Arizona, so I'll be taking some pictures and getting stuff posted asap.

Links:

Second Chance Pets - www.secondchancepets.org/index.html

Palm Oil, Turning the World on it's Ear

Generally speaking, I'm the one who introduces soap box issues into our lives. But the world was turned on it's ear last night by a trip to the zoo, a sheet of paper, and a casual question.

We took C to the zoo last week - his second trip - and he loved it so much I didn't think he was ever going to want to leave. One of my favorite parts was dropping by the orangutans. We missed it on our first trip.

At first, the habitat appeared empty, but then we realized that a large male (Doc, as I recall), a female (Kelly) and a baby (Solaris) were tucked off in a corner. There was a glass viewing wall on that side and we went over so C could see what was going on. Doc sat with his back to us for a bit, then ambled over to the playground type thing in the middle of the habitat. He grabbed a thick rope, which snapped from it's supports when he put it's weight on it and then, as though he were embarassed about it, went to go hide in the back where no one could see him. Kelly, who had been cuddling with the baby, got up and went to check out the snapped rope. She tugged on it to untangle it (her problem solving skills leaving R open-mouthed) and eventually left it and followed Doc wherever he'd gone. Solaris followed her throughout.

The little nook where we were had information on all six of the zoo's orangutans (only three are out at a time) and I was tickled to see that the baby was six years old and always with his mother as he's still nursing. That made me happy.

Before we left, I picked up an information sheet. C started getting fussy so I tucked it away without reading it. By the time we got home six-or-so hours later, I'd forgotten about it.

R found it last night and sat down on the couch to read it. After a little while, he asked if we ever used palm oil. As far as I know we never have, but I almost picked some up for a project last week.

R told me that, according to the fact sheet I'd picked up, harvesting of palm oil is one of the largest dangers to orangutans. He seemed really bothered by it.

So.

No palm oil for us, thanks.


A photo of Kelly, 29, checking out the broken rope and her still-nursing son Solaris, 6.



http://www.houstonzoo.org/

- Kiza