A little of this, a little of that.

Since each of us is blessed with only one life, why not live it with a cat?- Robert Stearns

We are back to *things as usual*, or as usual as they ever are around here. My computer is down, probably for good I think, so I am confined to Dearest's laptop & no piccies for the time being. Sorry folks but I'm just not real good with these inanimate things.

Dearest greeted me, the morning after we got home with,' Do you know what your cat did?' As a beginning it does not bode well. I decided discretion was the better part of valour & remained discretely silent. I was thinking birds but it is so unlike Issi to hunt our bird life sits round mocking him. No, not birds.

Now at bedtime Issi goes to bed with one of us girls. This is to prevent him having a psychotic meltdown in the middle of the night. So I carted him upstairs with me as usual where he parked himself on my chest gazing moonily into my closed eyes until he sensed I was drifting in to sleep then lept of me to go & sleep on top of the chest of draws...where he stayed until Dearest came up to bed. I'm not sure if Dearest gets blamed in that cat's mind for our occasional departures but Dearest's arrival was the signal for Issi to leap onto the bed rush up to me, park himself on top of me & glare at Dearest. I slept through the whole thing. I always do.

Meanwhile Ditz has settled pretty well & we seem to be getting a fair bit done. We are finishing off the last few things for her history scrapbooking, I have organized some tutoring for this multiplying fractions that makes no sense to either of us, Ditz is practising her instruments without me having to go ape in order to get anything done, we have brainstormed questions she would like answers to about WWII, & I am starting to think I may just be getting my grip back on her work. We have been working; it's just life gets so out of control I feel scrambled all the time. I mean, in the middle of school there was a bellow from the kitchen where Dearest was in the process of making pies & having asked my opinion on why his pastry was...strange...& adjusted it accordingly, suddenly found he had far more pastry than he had anticipated & was in no condition to roll it all out....but we now have 30 pie shells in our freezer.


And the best thing of all? We have screwed down the first board of the verandah!!!! This has been a mammoth task for us. Dearest has a broken back. He's lucky to be able to walk let alone work so everything gets done at a snail's pace, a little at a time as his pain allows. We hope one of the boys will give us a hand this weekend to get it all done. It is a very big deck....we will practically live on it during the summer as it will be the coolest place around & get every little breeze so having it for Christmas will be wonderful. I am hoping we will have it for my birthday at the end of the month but we will see as our summer storms have arrived with a vengeance. Hot, humid days are being punctuated with violent thunderstorms, torrential rain & cyclonic winds. Still, anticipating the end result, I am going to look at some outside furniture on Friday. I'd like a cluster of small tables & chairs rather than one great big one & a rocker...or two. I mentioned a rocker to Dearest & his eyes lit up so I guess I need two. I love rockers.