My Secret Weapon

This is one of my favorite kitchen tools. I use it to spray paper towels to wrap up cilantro and lettuce, to spray my knife and fingers when chopping garlic (so the garlic doesn't stick), to spray the cats when they jump up on the counters, and to spray rice or pasta before reheating them in the microwave.

Miracle Cleaning solution!!!!!!

HOORAY!!! I discovered the miracle drug for cleaning!! You know how your stove and the areas above and around it get all greasy and oily and dusty and it's imPOSSible to clean? I'm sure most everyone's heard of using vinegar, which I tried, and it worked ok, but I still felt like I was making very little progress for the amount of work I was putting in. Then I remembered that the bottle of GooGone I've been using to clean labels off of glass jars says "Removes GREASE, Gum...". So I thought, 'Hmmm, what if I combine the two...?' And TA DA!!!!! That greasy oily mess came right off! So easy, too!! I was so excited that I stopped in the middle to take a picture and write this post :D.

Can you tell? Below knobs - grease. Above the knobs - no grease!

p.s. GooGone is flamable, I think. So be cautious and read the instructions. I washed my surfaces off afterwards w/ soapy water, then just plain water. Hopefully I won't start any fires...

Bird Graveyard & Other Cat Happenings

I would love to let Jason run free in our fenced-in backyard (much safer than the front yard), but Kitten & Elvis seem to have started a dead bird collection by the porch. A few days ago there was one. Today there's a fresh one. And when I went outside to show Jason something, Kitten pounced on another little bird. I ran after her to stop her, but the bird seemed to already be injured somehow. With Jason in one arm, I was able to keep our two cats at bay, grab Kitten by the nape of the neck, and put her inside. Then I set Jason down and went back out to get Elvis. The little bird was now hiding in a bush, and Elvis was batting at it. I was able to coax him away w/ cat treats and bring him inside, too. Hopefully the little thing will be able to get to a safer place and recover. But the cats are definitely staying inside for the rest of the day.

In other cat news, Elvis jumped onto our back neighbors roof this morning. He went from the porch railing to the roof in one giant leep. I wondered if he'd be able to get down w/o any assistance, but he did!

Can you spot him?



Just relaxing.

Now on the upper roof. Can you spot him this time?



Weird Dream

Warning: this may be a little sacrilegious, but it was just a crazy dream, so please don't be offended.

Last night I dreamed that Andy Bernard (aka Nard Dog) had been called by President Monson to be an apostle (one of the 12, I believe), and gave a "talk" in General Conference.
Yep, Andy, from The Office.
It seemed that he stood up to speak on a whim, not as one of the scheduled speakers. I guess the Spirit just got him so excited, that he had to stand up. He was wearing turquoise little kid gloves. And he started out by saying that he was shocked by the call to be an apostle (I think this part was his "testimony" part). He then paused for an emotional moment, then went over to the pulpit (because before he was just standing in front of his chair), and proceded, out of nervousness and a realization of what he had just gotten himself into by standing up, to tell jokes or little anecdotes.
It was all very strange to me, and I kept looking at President Monson, thinking, "I bet you're regretting calling him to be an apostle now!" and "Aren't you going to stop him? Make him sit down or something?" and "Are you sure that calling was through revelation?" But it all had something to do w/ a correlation between Andy being an apostle and Judas Iscariot being called as an apostle in Christ's time.

Last night (before bed and this dream) I was debating whether to watch an episode of The Office or to watch a GC talk. I watched a conference talk. Then I planned a little for my Primary lesson by reading in the NT - and at one point, thought about Judas Iscariot's calling as an apostle.
:)
THE END.

To Sleep or Not to Sleep...

A good friend of mine recently told me how her baby girl woke up when mama tried to put her down, but slept through the city's tornado sirens. Reminds me of my own child:
(For anyone who doesn't know, the bedrooms in our split-level house are downstairs, while the kitchen, living room, and laundry room are upstairs.)

Jason wakes up when I'm upstairs, texting. He wakes up when I open the fridge door, or when the bar stool I sit on creaks, or when I put on makeup and things make a tiny click noise.
On the other hand, he sleeps through our smoke alarm going off (dinner fiasco). Doesn't even stir when someone rings the doorbell, or when the appliance guy comes to take away our old washing machine and install the new one - loudly clunking the old one down and the new one up the stairs in his metal dolly (or hand truck, as they're apparently called now).

I'm quite certain that it all has to do with what STAGE of sleep they're in, rather than whether or not they're a heavy or light sleeper. When they're in that deep sleep stage - make as much noise as you darn well please. But when they're not in that sleep stage - be careful how you breathe.

Quote from The Jungle Book

Good blog title, I think:
"Fall apart in my backyard"
:)