A bit of a contradiction, you can seem both lighthearted and serious.
That’s because you’re good at going with the flow - but you also are deep.
Highly intuitive, you tune in to people’s emotions and moods easily.
You are able to tap into deep emotional connections and connect with others.
You prefer a smooth, harmonious life - but you can navigate your way around waves.
You have a knack for getting people to get along and making life a little more peaceful.
Mademoiselle is her given name, and I do call her that, but mostly she’s my Miss Maddy.
Don’t let that sweet sleeping face fool you. She is the instigator of all kitten shenanigans. The doer of all things naughty. She’s the curtain climber, the plant digger, the bowl breaker, and the explorer of the highest of high things. She is also the brother baiter, and the older cat’s bane of existence. Oh, and let’s not forget, the biter of toes. She is the terror of our household.
Numa, big brother (in size, but I don’t know who was born first), when left to his own devices, chases dust bunnies and paper balls and stares out of windows, longing for the great wide world.
He follows people, wanting to be wherever the action is, and sometimes, he’ll play with long flowing robes that swish by him. He bites toes, too, but only when they’re under blankets and move around. He sometimes swats at the plant leaves that hang, or the curtains when the fans move them. He jumps on tables, too, because that’s what cats do, but he’s never jumped to stand precariously upon the top of a chair back just because it’s higher. Nor has he been interested in jumping from the piano bench to the top of the piano only to notice that one can get to the kitchen counter from there. He’s an explorer of the low ground. He also respects the older male cat, only sometimes swatting his tail when it’s just too tempting, but mostly he just follows him in admiration, happy to be allowed to be near him.
Enter Miss Maddy. She cannot abide such tame doings. Oh, no. She must stir the pot and pounce on what rises to the top. She encourages her brother in all sorts of bad manners, and steals the older cat’s favorite toys, places to sleep, and peace of mind, right out from under him. And she thinks that feet are her personal chew toys.
You wouldn’t think that to look at this picture, would you? Numa looks like the one most likely to leave mayhem and destruction in his wake. That’s him on the left, bright-eyed, ready for anything. You know what Maddy’s doing? She’s biding her time, lulling you into thinking she’s a lazy cat who can’t be bothered with adventures. (Actually, she was sleeping, and I disturbed her with my picture taking.)
At first I thought that she was the smart one because she learned what No! and Get down! means first. Silly me. Of course she learned quickly. She was the one who heard it being shouted at her the most. I don’t know what it is about my plant by the window, but she loves to sit in it. And she will do it just to make me mad, I swear she will. You can see it in her eyes as she looks at me before jumping into the plant as if to say, ha! I’m going to do it ANYWAY. When she was a very little kitten, she seemed to be learning to do as told when I would tell her to get down. Usually, I would have to get up and walk toward her first, but at least she understood I wanted her down and would comply. But now that she’s solidly settled in as family, I think she thinks the people are just big cats to annoy like she does her brother and Tiger because she fights with us just like she does with them.
Firmness and an angry tone don’t work. That just incites her to deliberate mischief. As do smacks to her rump while making her get down. I had to prevent my plant from falling and the pot breaking in one such attempt because she clung to it so tightly, determined to win the battle of the plant.
So if she wants war, she has it now. It’s much more fun than yelling and smacking. Not to mention more humane. I have a water bottle. It has a far reaching stream. I don’t need to get up. I don’t need to yell. I simply say, “Maddy, get down,” and squirt. It’s beautiful. Am I a horrible person to get such a kick out of this? She’s off like a shot to lick herself dry and doesn’t come back for the same mischief.
She finds different mischief instead. That’s my sweet Maddy.
Actually, she is very sweet in between her bouts of ADHD behavior, and I don’t mean while sleeping, either. She likes being held and cuddled, and she purrs almost constantly. I love my Maddy.
Here she is licking herself dry after her very first bath. No, I didn’t go that crazy with the water bottle. She really got a bath.
It’s hard. There are so many things to distract me. My daughter. The kittens. Looking at a house that needs cleaning.
I usually wake up between 9 and 10 unless I have a night in which I just can’t get to sleep early enough. Last night I went to bed at midnight. I should have woken up at about 8:30 or 9. My daughter had to wake me up.
“Hey, mom, it’s 12:00. Did you want to sleep that long?”
I certainly did not. I had a lot of work to do because yesterday was an errand running day.
The sky was gray, and I discovered that it had been raining. That might have explained it because I seem to be affected by some pressure systems. I get headaches quite often when a storm comes through. Which means I’ve had a lot of headaches lately. Maybe I sleep longer, too?
So I slowly came awake. It always takes me at least an hour to get going. I ate, took my meds/vitamins, and settled on the couch with my laptop. Part of my problem is that I can’t use my studio yet. My husband is in the process of insulating it, and until that’s done it’s just too hot. The air conditioner runs and runs without effect. If I could go out to my studio, it would feel more like going into work. I’d actually get dressed and my mindset would change.
The first thing I do is go through my email and check blogs. Yes. Check blogs. I’m not awake yet, so I may as well be productive at something that doesn’t require me being awake. Today, as I was going through the email, I wanted to look up something that one message reminded me of. In doing that I got off on a tangent. I ended up learning how to needle felt by watching some YouTube videos.
Which got me to thinking. I wrote a post a couple of days ago, then deleted it. But in it I mentioned that my real desire is to be creative, not to run a tutoring business. Sometimes I get really bored with tutoring. (You didn’t hear me say that, okay?) I have a 2nd business license as AJ Artworks. In fact, I’ve had the license for years. Just in case, you know? I’m hoping that once the online tutoring thing is running, it’ll be like it was when I was in the tutoring center. I’ll be left with a minimal amount to do other than troubleshoot and oversee things to make sure all stays in order. At the TC I would invent projects to do that would allow me to learn things I wanted to learn, like making videos, doing book layout, creative stuff. But now I’m at home, so I can do whatever I want. It doesn’t have to be about tutoring. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up an artist after all, or a crafter. Makes no difference to me as long as I’m creating. And maybe I’ll end up as AJ Artworks after all, with the tutoring bringing in extra money.
I still want to open the cafe, though. That has been a dream of mine even as AJ Artworks, the difference being I used to want it to be a student hangout where budding artists could have a place to show their work and musicians could have a place to practice with a real audience, and people would just enjoy the atmosphere. Now, though, I could still do all that and have tutoring!
I’ve even thought of having all aspects of it be like an internship place where college students could practice their vocation-hospitality, cooking, even the computer end of things because I want to develop other tutoring solutions and have a computer network for students to use.
They’re growing fast and beginning to lose some of their kittenish looks. Tiger still mostly treats them like invaders of his domain. He tries his best to ignore them or stay in parts of the house where they aren’t. Since it’s been raining so much, and he’s deathly afraid of thunderstorms, he doesn’t go out of the house unless we make him, and he’ll only stay on the back porch, mostly standing at the door wanting back in. The kittens, on the other hand, have no such fear. Maddy doesn’t really care about going outside, but Tiger is out there and she likes to annoy him. Tiger tolerates her. She’s on the right. Numa is on the left, and he wants to both get at Tiger to play, and he’s dying to explore the great outdoors.
Numa loves playing with Tiger. Tiger occasionally comes down from his throne of righteous indignation to humor the little one.
Tiger and Numa playing peekaboo
My mom would have a fit over where these cats like to sleep (after laughing just like I did), but I’m training them Mom! I just had to get this picture. Maddy is starting to learn, “Get down!” Numa, well…it may take a little longer.
Sleepy kitties. They make me laugh so much.
Miss Maddy’s rabbit imitation.
This pretty much sums Numa up. Nothing fazes him and he lives life with complete kitten abandon.
So, I got my laptop back from the shop last weekend, but it still wasn’t quite fixed. Before taking it in, I did a complete restore, which didn’t help, and made it act even crazier. Well, it was still acting crazy, meaning something went wrong with the restore. So I had to restore it AGAIN. The thing is, I use honking big programs which take forever to install, and lots of programs of varying size. Lots. So. I’ve lost hours and hours of work time just getting my computer back into shape. And, of course, nothing is ever simple with me and computers. There is always SOMETHING that doesn’t go right. Like my Palm wouldn’t synch. And the backup file of contacts that I exported from my Palm desktop program to synch to my Palm after the restore turned out to be only one contact. $#*$*&*# aaaaarrrrrrrgg ggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! I’d spent over an hour or more combining all of my addresses into one neat file. So tonight, I did it all over again.
I finally got my Palm to synch, but forgot that I need to install a program on my computer that makes it synch Microsoft Money to it also. That’s what I use as my checkbook register. I don’t remember where that program is. I know it’s on a backup disk, I just don’t know which one. I’m not that great at organizing my disks other than writing the date of each backup on the CD. I have to go through all the ones I think it might be on to find it. One day, I’m going to do a big reorganization of all of my important files. When I have nothing else to do. Which means probably never.
My husband teases me and says I give out some kind of aura or energy that messes with all the computers I’ve had. Sometimes I think it’s true because he never seems to have the problems that I do, and often, the problems I do have are completely new to him. He’s never seen them happen before. I suppose there’s a silver lining to that. He learns something new in case he ever comes across it again.
But, at last, I’m up and running again. And this time I didn’t put everything on it that I usually do. I decided I’d add things as I actually use them.
My disaster yesterday wasn’t quite the disaster I thought it to be. The only file that was overwritten was the index file for the Wordpress app. I simply replaced it, et voilá, my blog reappeared.
Today, as I was going through the email, I wanted to look up something that one message reminded me of. In doing that I got off on a tangent. I ended up learning how to needle felt by watching some YouTube videos.
