WHERE has the time gone?!

Wow, its been quite awhile since I've been here!  Life has been pretty busy lately -- lots of cleaning out and getting rid of stuff that has accumulated over the last 19 years and trying to keep up with the day-to-day stuff as well.  -- but that's no excuse to neglect reporting on Duncan!  Thanks, Mary, for the nudge!  Will try to be better from now on!  But I DID get rid of EIGHT bags of work clothes!  And, naturally, Duncan was right in the middle of the action!  While I was piling clothes into bags to put out, he was busy tearing HIS bag into pieces!  It was the only way I could keep him from "helping" me -- his idea of helping was to climb into the bags I was filling and pull all the clothes back out again!  You should have seen his face when I took the bags to the door and tossed them down the stairs!  He seemed to think I'd completely lost my mind!  We also got rid of the cushion I had on the hope chest -- it seems Duncan didn't like it and kept knocking it off the chest so I decided it might as well get tossed.  It was old anyway and I'm guessing maybe he smelled Gus, Sybil and Esa on it which would explain his disdain!

Now for lots of pix!  Just have to try to remember what we were doing when I took some of these!  I'll just have to consider it a test of the old memory bank, which is no small task these days!

First, just some shots of my handsome little boy being adorable!

Hanging out on the couch watching mama watch tv!  Now you know why I lose track of whatever show I'm watching -- Duncan's just so cute I have to stop what I'm doing and take pictures of him!

And now some of his latest "trick"!  Yes, that IS a lump in the rug!  His new thing is to get under it and hide!  The first time he did this, I was hysterical!  Then our neighbor, Teresa, was visiting one night and he showed her his trick.  The two of us were howling and now he seems to have figured out this trick gets him lots of attention so its becoming more frequent -- not enough to get boring, but often enough to have me in fits!  Unfortunately, this trick won't be available for too much longer.  That rug is one of the things on my list to toss out.  Its long out-lived its usefulness -- it was a hand-me-down from my sister and I put it down to protect the carpeting from Sybil who had a bad tummy and used to toss her cookies on a regular basis till we discovered she liked olive oil.  A tablespoon a day was enough to keep the nasty old furballs away!  So, one of these days when I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I plan to roll that old rug up and drag it out for garbage day.

He has also discovered what I think should be a new Olympic event!  I have this blouse that has ties in the back and he thinks they are the coolest "kitty toys" going!  I was getting ready to go visit friends and had the blouse hanging on the outside of the closet waiting for me to put on.  Well, I was putting my makeup on when I heard this THUMP followed by frantic scractching so I turned to see what Mr. Mistoffelees had gotten into NOW and just imagine my surprise when I saw him hanging from the blouse, trying to scramble up the door with his back paws!  Evidently he'd leaped up from the floor to get at his prized "toy"!  Little monster!  Luckily, he didn't rip the blouse but I won't be hanging it up there again anytime soon, that's for sure!

Well, that's about it for now.  Still have lots of cleaning out to do -- tons of stuff to still be shredded and I have GOT to go through my bookshelves and get rid of the books I know I'm never going to read.  I've been carting them around for so many years that my tastes have changed so now its time to weed through them and clean house.  Then I can drag the six boxes of books that are in the attic down and go through them, too!  Thankfully, I found the Vietnam Veterans will come take the books away for me!  I doubt I'd do anything about them if I had to lug them further than my front door!

Happy 4th everyone!

Had a wonderful time today!  Met some friends for lunch at my favorite restaurant (Gencarelli's, of course!) and had a great time chatting and catching up on what everyone's been up to and fabulous food with lots of leftovers for tonight's dinner!  Actually tried something different today instead of my usual favorites and, as always, it was wonderful.  Of course, everything I've had there has been delicious so this wasn't a surprise!  The place is spacious, clean and comfortable, the staff is friendly and we were able to sit and eat and visit at our leisure, which is just what we all look forward to wherever we go.

After a 3 1/2 hour lunch, Mary and I exchanged kitty stuff.  Duncan never warmed up to the EmeryCat scratching board and he had no use for the mice I got him for his birthday -- they weren't fur covered!  Yeah, he's SO spoiled! -- so hopefully Mary's Buddy will like them.  She had some food that Buddy can't eat now -- he has FUS so he's on a special diet -- so Duncan got lucky!  So did I becasue we were getting low on food and now I don't have to make a trip to Petco!  Talk about a win/win!  There were some loose treats on the bottom of the bag and before I could even finish emptying it, he was IN the bag chowing down!  Obviously he likes them and, after the day we had yesterday, it was a really nice treat for him.  He woke me up yesterday around 4:40 zooming around the bedroom like it was the Indy 500!  Usually when he does that SOMETHING winds up broken but he got lucky for a nice change.  Of course, then he woke me up again around 8:30 because he was hungry after all the energy he burned racing around like a lunatic and I gave up and got up for good but I was definitely NOT a happy mom-cat!  He had a case of the crazies most of the day and about drove me nuts with his antics -- mostly because I was still tired (read: CRANKY!) and not in any mood to put up with him!  I know, I know, I should be a better mom-cat but I've never done well at anything after a bad night!  What can I say?  I NEED my sleep!  But today's been a lot better and I'm looking forward to watching the fireworks tonight with my little guy.  There were some last night but for whatever reason, Duncan parked himself on top of the wall unit and refused to come watch!  Guess we were BOTH out of sorts yesterday! 

So, all in all, today has been a great day for both of us and things are back to normal -- he's being adorable and I'm happy just being with him!  Life is definitely good at Casa Kelly!  Hope everyone has just as great a 4th of July as Duncan and I have had!