God Bless Us, Everyone!

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Merry Christmas!

I had a quiet but nice Christmas meal with my parents at their house, and then went over to brother Tommy's house to hang out with his family and his wife Mary's mother and sister. I'm truly blessed with a wonderful family, who are my very best Christmas gifts, year-round.

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I'm a stereotypical spinster -- I'm single, childless, I live alone, I knit, I garden, I own two cats. In celebration of spinsterhood, let me introduce you to one of my fuzzy children.

This is Ali, (pronounced "alley"), which is short for "Alabaster", since she is solid white. She is seen here sleeping on a pillow on a little table to the left of my desk chair, for, you see, she must be within six inches of me at all times, and so, to keep her from sitting on the desk in my way, I've made her a little pillow bed. She's my little whiney needy baby kitty. Her meows truly sound whiney and demanding to me. I blame this on the fact that she was weaned way too early. I got her when she was six weeks old and plagued by worms, fleas and ear mites. She was already eating solid food, but still craved the comfort of suckling her kitty-mama, so she used to wake me up in the middle of the night to "nurse" on one of my fingertips. I know she now thinks I'm her mama, and that's okay, most of the time, since fuzzy children may be the only children I'll ever have.

But sometimes, sitting six inches to my left is still not close enough. She'll start to pester me by trying to pull open and climb into my zippered hoody sweatshirt, while I'm still wearing it. This is what it looks like, from my point of view, when I give in and let her climb inside:


No, I'm not particularly well-endowed, nor am I pregnant. That bulge underneath my sweatshirt is none other than:


my little baby girl, trying to get just a little bit closer to her mama. I may have to get one of those papoose things in order to get anything done!

I'll introduce my other fuzzy child, Casey, in a future post.

May everyone have sugarplum dreams tonight!