Sheamus Popoki at work

Well, his photo appears at least. The content producer at my work wanted a cat portrait on a t-shirt and asked if I minded if we used one of my cats. Of course, I was delighted to use one of them and for the design that was described, Sheamus Popoki was the best one suited for it.

Above you see the T-shirt with Sheamus on it. The green part is supposed to be brains, but whether it reads as brains or not, who knows. My fluffy boy is on Meez!

And yes, I gave him extra cuddles for it. No treats, just cuddles. I don't want him to get a swelled head and make the other two jealous :)

Sunday Sunday

Mom finished the Cheshire Cat. She's pretty happy with it, but decided not to make cards of it. She much prefers to use paint. In fact, now that her sale is over, she's planning on just finishing up some of her drawings and then concentrate on painting again. She likes the finished look of acrylic paint.

Here is her display. As you can see, she didn't have much to sell. She didn't make much money at all (less than $100), but she sold a lot of cards. We think Mom needs to somehow spread the word about her artwork. Maybe that way, she can make more money for our treats and such. At any rate, Mom won't sell at this venue again, but she will look for some weekend markets where she can sell her art. She's also working on making some cute acrylic charms of the Yin Yang Kitties.

Even though Mom isn't all that depressed about how little she made, we made sure she was feeling OK by cuddling with her. Since her feet were hurting from standing all day, Chani and I made sure she  put her feet up and stayed there for a whole evening.

I believe she was quite comforted by us. Who wouldn't be?

We hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Cheshire Cat in Pencil

I started on the Cheshire Cat. Hope to finish it tonight!

I should really not do my art in bed. Chani wants to sit in my lap because the bed is our 'cuddle place' and I can't let her because the paper is in my lap. I do make it up to her later, but I also hate disappointing her at the time. Not that she is deprived of affection or anything!

But yes, I am forgetting that my Chan-chan girl is much more important than some silly old paper and pigment

Boys in Boxes

I bought some boxes to hold my greeting cards at the next sale. Of course, Box Boy, 9, had to check them out. In fact, all 3 cats checked them out and sat in them.

9: I say, this is a lovely box. It fits me quite purrrfectly, if you'll pardon the pun.

Sheamus: I like the bigger box. It's much easier to contain my floof in this one.

Chani didn't stay in a box long enough for me to get a photo. She did sit in the same one that 9 did. But she's not as much of a box lover as he is.

And here are two pencil drawings of kitties.

I needed to do some quick drawings to fill up some frames for my sale this weekend. I already drew the Yin/Yang Kitties and then decided to do a feline face.These are not going to be reproduced as cards, so they're one offs. Now, I'm wondering how much to charge for them. The frame cost $15. So that plus whatever I want for the drawing. Oh these details are too boring for the kitties, but they try to help by inspiring me to draw more.

Oh, and I thought about drawing a Medusa for the last frame, but then decided a purple cat would be better. THEN, I thought: Cheshire cat! And there you go, the sketch. I will post the finished one when I'm done.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Chani stakes her claim

 I was folding laundry when this happened. Um... I was hoping to not have as much cat hair on my clothes, my dear Princess.

What did you say? Your clothes? I beg to differ, Mom. This warm is mine. How could you ever forget that?

Sheamus on a Sunday

I was thinking about what to post and came across one of the first photos I took of dear Sheamus Popoki. So, there you go. One of the first photos I took of him while he was at his foster mom's place. He was such a little fluffy boy. Took me forever to realize how much he was needed in our little home.

And here he is not too long after he joined our family.

What a sweetie peety he has turned out to be. He's started to rub against me and actually asking for attention. He puts up with huggle time and allows me to love on him practically any time I want.

I love this little boy so much! So happy you joined us, dear SPAM-chan!

9 and Chani at the V-E-T

Today, Mom took 9 and me to visit Dr. S. She tried to trick us by putting out the carriers two days ahead of time. Can you imagine?

Ugh. At any rate, we both checked out just fine. 9 was super wiggly when he got his temperature taken. I was a good girl and sat very still. We were good about getting our rabies shot. AND I was good when I got me right ear cleaned. Also, Dr. S found a little notch on my tongue. Apparently, I had some sort of wound there, but neither Mom nor Dr. S had ever noticed it before. Mom feels a bit guilty that she didn't notice it when it happened. But, Dr. S said that it has healed just fine and not to worry.

Now, you know how Mom calls me "Princess Chunky Pants"? Not a nice name, but well, Mom thinks it is appropriate. At any rate, I will have everyone know that despite the fact I feel super solid and chunky, I weigh the same amount as 9. AND Dr. S said that 9 has a bit of fat around HIS belly. So, HA! I'm just perfect the way I am.

After our visit, Mom gave us all treats. Mom then bought some boxes to hold her printed cards at next week's sale. We all checked out the boxes, but 9 sat in one the longest. Long enough to get his photo taken.

I've forgiven Mom. I even sat on her lap and cuddled with her.

So, Mom is very glad that we are healthy and we are happy to be home. I even got brushed. Uh-oh, now we need to get our claws clipped. Hmm... maybe tomorrow.

Drawing time!

Mom has a sale coming up (April 27 and 28). Usually she would be selling pottery, but lately, she hasn't been feeling the clay bug. So, she's been painting (the Om Kitties) and drawing (Q and the Moon - see below) .

the original Q and the Moon image... way back when Mom was learning Photoshop

Now, one of Mom's favorite (and repeatable with many variations) images that she's come up with is the Yin Yang Kitties. She's painted these before on plates and platters. This time, she decided that she wanted to do them in colored pencil. Eventually, she will paint them with acrylic paint, but for now, she's using colored pencil and trying to get better at using them.

Here's her first attempt.

It's pretty tiny. Only 3.5 inches in diameter or so. It's meant to fit in this 5x5 frame that she's had hanging around the condo forever and ever.

Here's what it looks like framed. And another drawing that she made and is willing to part with.

Mom hopes to get 2 more Yin Yang Kitties done up. AND she needs to start putting together all the Om Kitty cards with price tags. So, she will definitely be busy this weekend. We'll make sure that she gives us as much attention as we desire. And we'll also be sure to keep her on task. She keeps muttering something about painting up 4 little acrylic paintings of feline faces and fish, but we're not sure she'll be able to do that.

OH! And taking Sparkle's human's suggestion about signing up for a 5K race, Mom has signed up for the Color Me Rad race on September 14th. Mom better start training hard so she won't be too messy hahah!

Huggle time with 9 and Sheamus Popoki

We are both trying to find our happy place in this photo... At least Mom is happy

Circumstantial Evidence

Mom says this is evidence that 9 is naughty. 9 says that this photo is not truly proof as Mom did not see him at the frying pan licking up the bacon grease much less putting his paw in there. She only saw the result.

So what if he's the only one of us who climbs on the counter tops. And honestly, she should not have left the congealed grease there on the stove!

Marlene's ankle

Tonight, we thought we'd share a bit about what Mom is going through and has been going through the past few months.

Some of you may remember that Mom was being entirely humanly graceful (i.e. not graceful at all) and sprained her ankle. Now she's not completely healed as she cannot stand on that foot by itself for much longer than a few seconds. However, she has been stretching it on occasion (we try to remind her to do this by lying on top of her foot whenever she's lying in bed) and by going to hot yoga.

Now, on top of this, Mom had a bit of a health wake up call in the beginning of March. She was trying to lose weight and failing miserably. She went to her doctor who recommended that Mom give up dairy (no, not cheese! Not ice cream that she would share with 9!) and to try to do more of a plant based diet. She doesn't need to be vegan, but red meat is a no-no. Fish is still ok (yay for tuna!) and so are eggs (chicken and turkey too... no bacon! Darn! 9 loves bacon!) Mom also got her blood tested and her glucose came back a bit high. Not diabetic... yet. Diabetes runs in Mom's family (her mom, her grandfathers) and so with this wake up call, Mom is really motivated to change her diet. On occasion, she does give in to a bite of cheese or a bite of steak or a bite of cake, but for the most part, she's been good.

Tonight was a bit of a milestone in that Mom went to the gym and actually jogged on the treadmill. She didn't push herself too hard. And she made sure to do some stretching after her jog. Her ankle was a bit stiff in the beginning but loosened up just fine. Here's a photo of her workout summary:

That's 463 calories burned, 3.34 miles in 45:17 minutes.

As of today, Mom has lost about 10 lbs and is hoping to lose more. One thing that has been nice with her diet change is that she's never hungry and so is never cranky due to hunger. Not that she is ever cranky with us, even when we are naughty or attention seeking when she is trying to work.

And so, we thought we'd share that bit of personal info about our human.

And to remind Mom that this blog is supposed to be about us, here are some photos of we three kitties.

New Friend, Ravenpaw

A week ago Friday, Mom came home smelling like a new kitty. We made sure to inspect her bag and her clothing thoroughly! Then, we made her tell us about our new kitty friend, Ravenpaw.

Do you remember Spaz? Well, Spaz's family decided it was time for them to adopt a new kitty. The oldest daughter, Miss A, worked very hard so that she could earn this privilege. Miss A was determined to adopt a kitten, not buy one. And she was determined to adopt a black kitten because she knew how hard it is for black kitties to get adopted. After months of searching, she finally found Ravenpaw at the local Humane Society.

"Sergeant", as Ravenpaw was known, was adopted by a family with his sister named, "Semper". However, something must have happened and their family had to surrender the two kittens to the Humane Society. Miss A had fallen in love with Semper, but by the time they got to the Humane Society, Semper had been adopted.

But, Sergeant was available and so, they adopted him and renamed him, "Ravenpaw".

Mom got to meet Ravenpaw, who is now about 8 months old,  and she says he was soft and sweet and quite the climber. He would leap up and climb across the window shades. And since there are 4 children in the house, 2 who are under 7 years of age, it's a good thing Ravenpaw can climb out of their reaches!

Now, it is Miss A's duty to clean his litter box and make sure to feed and water him. So far, she is doing very well.

And so, now we know Mom has another kitty friend to take photos of. And since he is all black, it will be quite the challenge to make sure you can see all his handsome features!

Kisses

Well, I decided to go with a lighter touch. I heard something about attracting more flies with honey, but that kind of grossed me out. Sheamus Popoki is more of the bug chaser here. I like twisty ties.

At any rate, Mom was doing some work and I decided to crawl into her arms. After all, I'm much more important than some silly old number crunching. Mom gave me kisses. And so, I shall forgive her and just soak up the love.

Sun! Sun! Sun!

In a rare occurrence, Mom opened up the slats in the office. Needless to say, Chani and I thoroughly enjoyed the massive sun puddle. It was amazing and I had a lovely snooze here.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

9 Paw in Hand

Chani-chan

Hello Furiends,

I've been giving Mom the look of Doom lately. She hasn't been very good about posting these last few weeks. Yes, she says that she has been busy setting up her ETSY shop where you can buy the cards she has been making of the Om Kitties and the Cat God of Mischief (or Loki-cat. Mom wasn't sure she could get away with titling the image with that name) and the Charlene Butterbean and Her Motorcycle. But seriously, I think she is forgetting what or who is most important.

Me.

She is endeavoring to remedy this situation. And she has been giving us treats and attention. So, I'm not quite sure what to do. What do you think? Should I forgive her and give her a break?

At any rate, I'm going back to my beauty sleep.

purrs,
Chani
 

Sheamus on a Monday

 

Hello dear Furiends,

Sometimes I just lie next to these fake, battery operated vanilla scented candles and look adorable.

And then, I wink just to show the Mothership how well I am doing portraying the clueless Orange Fluffball.

I think I play this role quite well.

A contest and Chani

Sheamus Popoki's foster Mom works for Adobe. She let me and another friend know that Adobe Photoshop Elements is holding a pet photography contest. And so, I decided to submit the above photo. I think it is one of my favorite shots of Chani helping me change the sheets on our bed. I have posted the photo before on this blog. I don't remember when, but it's a couple of years ago.

Here's another shot from the same series, just adjusted a bit differently.

And finally, a recent shot. Yes, she looks a bit worried here, but that's I don't think she really was. She might be worried that one of the boys is going to attack her, but also knows that I won't let them bug her for too much.

If you have a favorite photo of your pet, you might want to consider entering the contest. The prizes are pretty cool.

Big Flashy Box Portraits

After many months of only using my cell phone to take photos, I finally took photos with my 'real' camera. I'm quite pleased with the results. 9 was peeking from the empty box that I have left in the hallway for him. He likes to sit in there and observe me, Chani or Sheamus Popoki. I think he knows how cute he is sitting in the box and does it to attract my attention. Not that he needs to do much to attract my attention.

My only problem with using my camera is that I often over expose my photos. Too many hot spots. Ah well, at least Chani's distinctive face markings and beautiful eyes provided some incredible detail and contrast. Her pink nose too.

And now, I present to you, Sheamus Popoki's official portrait. This photo really captures my sensitive boy's features and eyes. He looks a little sad, a little dreamy and just plain handsome. I'm always amazed at how much emotion a cat can show in his or her eyes.

Love these three very very much

Messages from the Mothership

Greetings, Mothership. I, Sheamus Popoki, am ready to receive your messages.

Hmmm, is that so?

Ok, I shall continue in my earthly guise of a clueless floofalicious Orange Interloper. I appreciate you checking up on me.

Oh, yes, I do enjoy those freeze dried chicken treats and highly recommend them.

Thank you again.

Please feel free to visit again.