Mister Oroku Saki

I can't get enough of this picture, so, sorry for the repeat.

I love animals and it's not a secret. If it weren't for Brandon's insistence on keeping our cat population down I think we would have reached a large number of animals by now. But alas, the things you do for love. Just kidding.
Anyway.
A little over a week ago I was watching one of our cats out the back window and saw her stalking something. This is a common occurrence so I didn't think much of it until I went out to see what she was after. Well. It was a kitten. Man, that thing sat there until Pita was right up on it, full on attack mode, and with the combination of my screams at Pita once I realized what was going on and the fact that there was a 5 year old monster attacking her, it ran away. I kept my cats inside after that (mean ol' grump) and I started putting food out for the little thing. Turns out there were two of them, about four weeks old by the looks of them, and no momma that I could see. Another cat had kittens a couple of months ago, and any time you walked within 10 feet of any of her babies, Mumma Kitty would come out and let you know what was what. She was sweet and let me pet her, but she was the boss. That's usually how it is, even when you have kittens in your home. Anyway, two kittens and no momma.
The next day I walked out to put more food out and one of the kittens was laying there drinking out of the bowl of water, the other one was nearby, but ran pretty quickly when I walked up. I stepped closer and closer, not wanting to make it run by any sudden movements (I just laughed out loud at the way that sounded), and I walked right up to it and picked it up. Now. Have any of you ever been around a wild kitten? Tell me how many times that has happened to you. I can tell you without you telling me. Never. Ever. I mean, ever. Heck, there are a lot of times I can't do that with my own cats. So I picked it up and brought it inside because it was just skin and bones (and fur). I ran to the vet and got some kitten formula and fed it with a dropper, thinking that I could nurse it back to health. I kept it for a day and ended up taking it to the vet because it wouldn't eat anymore and couldn't walk because there was something wrong with its leg. That poor thing just broke my heart. Well, Brandon and I are not made out of money...and it was a stray that we had only had for a day, so when we took it in and there were all these things they had to do and they offered to keep it, help it and find it a good home, we took them up on it. We wouldn't have been able to help it at home, so we felt like that was the best place for it.
But back at the ranch: I made it my mission to catch that other kitten. If the first kitten broke my heart with everything that was wrong with it, the one that was left broke my heart more because not only does it not have a momma (and at four weeks you need one), but now it was all alone because I took its sibling away. I think everyone and everything needs companionship and it just pulled at my heartstrings too much, so I sat outside and tried to catch it. Well. I sat, and I sat and I sat. I sat there with the crate nearby with food in it for hours, but he wasn't going to have anything to do with it while I was anywhere nearby. Fast forward 2 days and the clever finagling of a cat carrier, a string, a stick, and a bowl of wet cat food, and we had ourselves a caught kitten.

Well, that was about the summation of the next day.

I have to share these videos too because they are just too cute:

It wasn't until the next day that we got a little progress:

I let Brandon name him (I "let" Brandon name him? Yes, I let him name him. Cats are usually my domain and I had already come up with a name for him, but I wanted Brandon to name him. So he came up with Oroku Saki. Now, Brandon fussed at me for not knowing off the top of my head who that was, claiming it to be a "household name" but I call false on that. Falsehood and lies. Turns out it's the real name of the Shredder. Now, if you don't know who the Shredder is, then shame on you. Look it up. I at least guessed the right genre and even the right story just from Oroku Saki! But I guessed the wrong Sensei.
Now, the real trick is for you to guess where the Mister comes from... That's a remnant from what I was going to name him. But looking at him now, he's much more of an Oroku Saki. My little Mister.

So now we have another cat:

He is such a sweet little thing. Oh, and just for good measure, in-case you missed this picture already:

I am such a nerd.
The end.

Some moments

I posted on Facebook today a little complaint about how some of the people I like to follow on Blogger aren't posting anything on their blogs. Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black...
Granted, I don't feel as if there's anything to really blog about. My life is hardly anything of legend. In-fact, I get so bored thinking about my day-to-day life that I often try not to think about it.
But that's not what life is all about, I suppose. It's about the small moments, the little things here and there that make life special. So, here are a few things in the last few (several) months that have been special.

November:
I hosted Thanksgiving. This is the third year I've done it and I love it. Even in the moments leading up to sitting down for dinner when I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, rebuffing all help because "I can do this, damnit!", getting irritated because my brother doesn't put the crackers on the plate right, fussing at the food because it's not doing exactly what I want it to do and wondering why I chose to do so many different dishes...even in all of that, I love it. After all, it's once a year, not every day. Goodness knows, if it were every day, I probably wouldn't do it.

December:
Christmas. I'll keep that one to myself, I think.

January:
Justan and Shana Slagle got married. I love these guys.
Also-
I went to the Cape Fear Museum with Isabella and Kayla. The #1 reason I wanted to move down here to NC was to spend more time with my niece, Isabella, and any moment I can spend with her is special. Especially when ice cream is involved. And the river.

February:
Bonfires, pancakes and a little dusting of snow.

March:
Family dinners, Easter decorations, Brandon's ## birthday (complete with Swamp Thing cake), Amanda's baby shower (which was preceded by an all-nighter so I could finish the crib set that I may or may not have procrastinated.

April:
A life change that I don't think I'm quite ready to talk about on the internet, if at all. No, I'm not pregnant.
The discovery of termites!! Have you ever experienced a termite swarm in your bedroom?? DO NOT put that on your bucket list. It's disgusting and terrifying at the same time (not terrifying because I was scared of them hurting my person, but scared that they would find their way into all of my furniture and eat it!) This was followed by the death of all the said termites. (Note: if you -do- find yourself in the middle of a termite war in your bedroom, your greatest immediate weapon is a Swiffer Vac)
A lovely trip to Elizabethtown, NC with my husband, complete with: a plaster statue factory, a tour of downtown, a farmer's market that wasn't very farmer-y, a lock and dam (I'm still not entirely sure what that is), a furniture store (I love love love love love looking at furniture), and lunch at an awesome little spot.
Amanda had her baby - sweet little AJ.
My cat brought me a snake into my dining room... yes, still alive, but fortunately very small.

May:
I discovered An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor and I fell in love. Thus began my small Irish obsession (and by small, I mean short, I never obsess in a small way). Which I haven't entirely given up...but I have toned it down a bit. After further thought I -do- think I'd rather live in GB and just visit Ireland on the odd weekend.
We finally shed our top blanket off of our bed.

June:
The tree frogs emerged! I love 'em. I guess I had forgotten about them... It's funny the things that you grew up with and somehow became part of the background and that you never missed until you came back and realized "Oh! I forgot about those!" I didn't miss the mosquitoes. Those came out in May/June too.
Blueberry Festival. Strawberry pickin' (which, strawberry season is before blueberry season, so the pickin' was quite sad). Beach time! Family time.
I made rice crispy treats with Isabella. This is the first time I'd made them in years, if not a full decade (or two), and...they didn't turn out quite perfectly... haha. They were a little...crunchy, not just crispy.
I went though the arboretum with Brandon. That is always one of my favorite places and it makes me want to have a huge garden (complete with gardener, of-course, because that's just too much work for me).
Ingram Family Reunion in VA. Good times.
I made bread for the first time in...a very long time. Over 10 years I'm sure. Gosh! It's surreal that I'm that old. It's been more than 10 years since I was in high school!  I graduated on May 23, 2003. Goodness. Thank goodness... I wouldn't go back to high school for anything in the world.

July:
Independence Day. Did you know that it wasn't until I was in college that I learned how to spell independence without trial and error? I was in a class with Dr. MacDonald, he had it up on the board and somehow it just clicked. I remember saying to myself "Oh...all the vowels are e's, okay" (except for the i, of-course). True story.
A horrific sunburn. Man. It hurt for 2 weeks. And it -still- itches!
A lovely (mostly) family vacation to Atlantic Beach, NC. A yearly tradition that is always a joy (mostly).

And that brings us up to speed... I will try to post more regularly, if for nothing else to avoid the trap it sets for me that I don't want to post because there's so much I haven't posted about.

Oh!  I almost forgot Oroku. He's my new little Mister.

I know, I already have four cats, what am I doing with a fifth? Well, I'LL TELL YOU!  In the next blog post. Because he deserves his own.

Also, just so you know

Also, I started a travel blog. Brandon and I love to travel (who doesn't...), and although we don't go a whole lot of places very often, we do travel some (and we plan to increase that in the near future), so I have started a travel blog (on a separate blog site...because blogger just wasn't up to the challenge on this one) on Travel Pod. I have already added a link to your right, as well as a tab above that provides a little explanation, but I thought I should post a little post about what I love about this site so far, and to introduce it to all of you.

So, the way blogger works is that you have a blog and you post posts on that blog. Straight forward.  However, Travel Pod allows you to have a separate blog for each trip you take and then you post however many posts underneath that blog that you want.  AND you can post straight from an app that is available on the iPhone, which I have, so I find that quite convenient and amazing for when I'm out wherever, traveling it up. Also, you tell it where you are (I'm pretty sure that's required, actually, but since it's a travel blog, that's exactly what I want it to do), and it pins all of your locations on a map for you.  Right now, I'm catching up on our trips to Boston, Missouri '11 and Missouri '12.

Love it.

Here's another link: Entsminger Clan's Travel Pod.

Something looks familiar...

Well.
Remember how I said that I was going to blog more often? {A post here from my personal blog that says it} Well. I didn't. Who would have thought? (Other than myself....that would probably be -everyone-)
I admit it. I don't entirely apologize, because I never really feel like I have anything to say, so therefore I don't say anything. But let's move on.  Acknowledge and move forward.

I need to catch up, but instead of doing it in pictures, (just check in with the family Shutterfly Account for those...but as I write this there is nothing new on there...so check back later) I'm going to do a generalization.  Especially because I'm in the middle of the process of uploading all of my pictures to Shutterfly, and then I'll move them to albums for you to see later. You may not know this about me....but I take -a lot- of pictures. So, literally, it has taken me 9 straight hours of uploading to put them on there (and that's just February through August!). Don't worry, I give you the condensed version in the albums, I use Shutterfly as my online backup for my pictures and then give you guys the interesting ones in the public albums.
But anyway.
Let me see if I can remember the highlights of the year so far since I blogged in January-ish.

February -

• Valentine's Day (Brandon made me dinner) 
•  It snowed, and thank GOODNESS we didn't have anywhere to go that day, because we lived in a house that had the driveway of death.
• I decided that I wanted to live in a Manor House (ideas on how to fund this house to come...).
• I passed my PTCB exam (the national pharmacy technician test).
•  I started working full time at the Kroger Pharmacy in Vinton, VA.
•  The Oscars.

March - 

• Brandon had a birthday and turned 31 (don't remind him, thanks).
• St. Patrick's Day...but I don't think we did anything. 
• Brandon started working at Bell Nursery (which is for plants, not babies).
• The flowers started to bloom, including the dogwood trees in-front of out house, one of which had a hollowed out gourd made into a birdhouse that played home to a family of bluebirds.

April -

• Brandon packed my lunch for me, and made cutsie strawberries that were all fancy.
• We went out to Missouri to visit my parents. Where we:
• Went through the Open House for the new Kansas City, MO temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• Visited the Jessie James Farm Museum.
• Enjoyed a few bonfires.
• Met Steve Lightle (a comic book artist).
• Visited Watkins Mill.
• Toured the National WWI museum.
• Walked around downtown Kansas City a little bit.
• Saw an Apple store for the first time. Wasn't impressed.
• Went to Opening Day with the Kansas City Royals.
• Met my Mom & Dad's cat and chickens.
• Fell in love with the Missouri countryside.

• Joined Pottermore (after waiting for a very, very long time).
• Got sorted into Hufflepuff.
• Started a new Pottermore account in order to work the system, where I then got sorted into Ravenclaw.
• Realized that I really am a Hufflepuff and went back to my old account.
• Went to a Salem Red Sox game.

May - 

•  Free Comic Book Day!!
• Watched animals in my yard, including: deer, bluebirds, our kitties, etc.
• Went to a Memorial Day get together at Brandon's cousin's house.
• Had a nice cook out at home on Memorial Day.

June - 

•  Made lemon bars for the first time. Oh my gosh...SO GOOD!
• Went on our Annual Family Vacation to Atlantic Beach. Where I (along with my family):
• Went swimming a lot.
• Went to the beach a lot.
• Painted toenails.
• Ate at Amos Mosquitos.
• Went on a boat tour in New Bern and saw Nicholas Sparks's house.
• Visited the NC Aquarium.
• Played with sparklers and fireworks.
• Made tie-die shirts.
• A huge storm hit the Roanoke area and we were out of power for 4-5 days.

July -

• Watched fireworks at the Salem Fair.
• Attended the Salem Fair later.
• Brandon and I got hair cuts.  Both were much needed...
• We made some sushi together. Love it.

August - 

•  Went to another Salem Red Sox game (and we lost again).
• Found a couple of gigantic mushrooms in the front yard - and I couldn't help but picture a caterpillar on one of them.
• I had a birthday. I'm still depressed that I'm now 27... *sigh* but we ate out at Annie Moore's Pub, so that made it much better.
• I discovered the awesomeness that is DrawSomething on my phone.
• Isabella turned 6! We went down for her birthday party and I made her cake.
• We found our new house, since our move date was coming up.

September - 

• We started packing up our house (ah!) and I realized that we have way more stuff than I thought.
• I put in my notice at work and it broke my heart, I really grew to love some of the people there.
• Went to another Salem Red Sox game, and we won!
• Went out to dinner at Macado's with Judy and Sarah from work.
• I bought J.K. Rowling's new book A Casual Vacancy.
• Things went crazy at work...
• I literally stayed up all night packing up the rest of my house and then...
• 29th - Moving day! We moved down to Burgaw, NC, which is where I grew up. In-fact, we moved into a house that's right next door to the house that I grew up in.

October - 

• I rested for a good 2 days after moving. It's rough!
• I started reading J.K. Rowling's new book A Casual Vacancy.
• We made a castle out of boxes for Isabella.
• I went to River Fest with Beau, Kayla & Isabella.
• We went to Isabella's cheer competition - where they didn't really compete because they're so young, but they did perform, and she was so stinkin' cute.
• Unpacked our house...some...
• Brandon's parents came down for a visit, and we:
• Went to the beach.
• Explored the arboretum.
• Checked out P.T.'s Grille.
• Went shopping.
• Toured downtown a little bit, including a house his mom saw on TV that was a renovated firehouse made into a home.
• Halloween!

Okay, that's enough for right now. I'm tired of blogging.  {And that, self, is why you should do it more often, and not after 8 months of not even a peep...}

Pictures Pictures Pictures

Don't worry, I'm not uploading them, as the thought of posting more than a handful of pictures makes my heart panic. Blogger doesn't like me sometimes.

Anyway, I do believe that I have posted links to the Shutterfly account up through the Missouri trip (yes, I realize there is a link on the right side bar, but I like to cover all of my bases, okay?) SO, here are some links:

Spring 2011

Summer 2011

Atlantic Beach 2011

Fall 2011

Christmastime 2011

And so far this year:

Wintertime in Roanoke - 2012

Did you know

I'm not sure if any of you are aware, but I'm crazy.  I don't think Brandon is going to have me committed anytime soon, but I'm pretty crazy.
And I'm crazy about a few things, and that crazyness is pretty intense.
Namely -
Harry Potter
Batman
Doctor Who
Organization
My felines
Brandon
Pictures
Christmas Ornaments

Now, that doesn't mean that all I do is think about these things 24/7, but I'm crazy when it comes to these things. I won't go into detail about all of them, but this post is going to be about Christmas Ornaments and Pictures.

I LOVE Christmas Ornaments. Love love love them.  Since I can remember my mom has always gotten me Hallmark ornaments for Christmas and I have quite the collection. And I am obsessed with taking pictures and documenting everything in my life. So. This year, I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to take pictures of every ornament that I have. *sigh* Yeah.
Well, I did it. After trying for hours to take pictures of them with my camera and finally giving up because there were all blurry or washed out, I finally asked to borrow my Mother-in-law's camera and spent a good solid hour making sure I had gotten every single one (but of-course I still missed about 8).
But then...I couldn't take down the ornaments yet because Brandon and I hadn't taken our family Christmas photo. Every year we take a picture of us by the tree as well as a picture of the cats and us by the tree (which is -always- a disaster...4 cats + 2 people + a self-timing camera doesn't always equal a good time). And we have to look pretty for the picture, of-course, which is pretty much just Sundays, because that's the only time we're simultaneously pretty. Long story short, we decided that today was the day we were going to take the picture and uncharacteristically got dressed up on a weekday and FINALLY took our picture.

I love Brandon's face in the one with the cats, lol.

Anyway, that brings us to taking down the Christmas ornaments. As I took down each one, I had to make sure I had a photo of it before I put it away, and then sorted each picture into folders by year of when we got the ornament (2006 and before were lumped together because I'm not -that- crazy...). So, 5 hours later, here I am, ornaments all off of the tree and their pictures sorted.
I told you I was crazy.
Good news is that next year I only have to take pictures of the new ones we get next year.

And that is why I didn't take down my Christmas tree until January 20th.

The problem with me is...

The problem with me is that I am a procrastinator.
What's that you say? You don't believe me??
Well, here's my proof.
-I did not apply to college until April of my senior year. And I ended up only applying to one school (SVU, obviously) so...good thing they wanted me! And good thing for Student Ambassadors who called me to see if I was applying or not, haha. Otherwise I may have never gone.
-I am always, always late. This has nothing to do with how early or late I get up (unless, of-course, you count my procrastination of getting out of bed) because I can start getting ready 2 hours before I have to leave or 20 minutes, it doesn't matter, I will nearly always be late.
-I put off doing things because they seem overwhelming (um, blogging?) and the longer I wait, the more overwhelming they become, and the longer still I wait. *sigh* I never just man up (woman up) and do them, until it is something that takes me all day, and I devote an entire day to doing whatever it is, and thereby procrastinate -other- things that need to be done that are more overwhelming than the aforementioned task. (scrapbooking, blogging, journaling, bill paying, unpacking, etc.)
-I will almost always, always, always rather watch television or goof around on Facebook than do anything productive. It doesn't matter that I have looked at so-and-so's pictures a half a dozen times before already, it will always be more attractive to me than folding laundry or doing dishes.
-I can probably count more papers that I turned in late than ones I turned in on time in college. Good thing I had professors who were cool. If I'm ever a professor, I think I will make it a blanket rule that there's a 36 hour grace period. The later they turn it in, the longer I have to grade it...right?  But I won't tell my students that. So...if you are reading this in the future and you're my future student, just assume that I've changed my mind and you need to not be like me and turn in your papers on time. *cough*

Shall I go on? Or is that enough proof for you? I'm going to assume that it's enough, and move on.
So. On to the original intent of this post.
You know what day it is. January 1st. And you know what that means.
New Beginnings, Resolutions, Goals, Tasks I want to complete in the next 365 days.

However, since I am incapable of moving on without feeling some sense of closure of the year before, I feel that I must recap all of the (mostly boring) events of the past year that I have not blogged about. It is amazing how much breaking my ankle put me behind...which is funny because you would think that all of that time there sitting on the couch with my ankle propped up would be perfect for blogging, but it wasn't. It was perfect time for watching television. And Facebook.

So, I do believe that I was caught up through the break of the ankle, yes? Let's go on, but quickly, because....I don't have all day to do this today. I have stuff to do!

April 2011

April 28th-
-Got my cast off, and went back into the boot.

Um, can't forget the Royal Wedding!!
And, in case you were wondering, yes, I was obsessed with the whole thing.

 

April 30th, 2011 - Brandon graduated from SVU-

 

May 2011

May 4th-
Please don't judge my hairy leg....

















May 8th - Mother's Day
Being a crip isn't cool when everyone else is having fun....

But...it did leave me with time to revisit an old friend while I prepared for the new movie.

 May 20th- Healing update-

May 23-
Pita was my buddy through the whole process. She and I put my new swing to good use in the back yard.

June 2011

June 18th-
Brandon and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary down in Wilmington, NC.

June 26th - July 3rd
Atlantic Beach, NC

July 2011

July 14th/15th -Harry Potter 7.2 Premier
So, um, yeah, no I don't usually look like this - I'm actually dressed up, despite the fact that it is hard to tell. I'm Luna.

August 2011

August 9th-
I'm still in denial that I'm 26...I think I will stay 25. 25 sounds good.

August 20-21st - Isabella's Birthday Party
Brandon -was- there too, I just didn't have any good pictures of him.

September 2011

I got a hair-cut

October 2011

We moved into a new house -

November 2011

 I saw a deer in the backyard.

 I made a pie.

I built a box for the kitty litter boxes (this is unfinished, obviously, but it now has a fourth wall and a lid on hinges. And it's painted blue.

 I hosted Thanksgiving.

 We went to the zoo.

 We took our annual picture by the Christmas tree.

December 2011

First frost