Yes, I know ... bad, bad blogger! 

1.  Remember that cold that I had about two weeks ago?  It turned into a sinus infection, and though I went on antibiotics last Tuesday, I really just started to feel human again this weekend.

2.  Meanwhile ... I've been working on my crochet skills!  (More details to follow ...)

3.  ... and I've been spinning!  (More details to follow ...)

4.  ... and I've been dyeing!  (Dyeing yarn, that is .... more details to follow ...)

5.  ... and I've been obsessed with knitting afghans!  (Yes, more details to follow ...)

6.  ... and I've been knitting pinkish things for Project Spectrum: March!  (By now you know this -- more details to follow ...)

7. The Big Sweetie went out of town last Thursday to visit his mom on Cape Cod, and so I've been kinda busy with short-term-single-parenthood, too.

8.  But then, I found a local source for vintage Noro!  I had to think twice about sharing this link, but I just can't help myself.  I mean, if I can't buy it all up myself, I might as well let you all in on the action, right?

9.  I had a big, fun group of knitting friends over this last Saturday -- because with the Big Sweetie out of town, this is how I manage to still have a social life -- and it was great to see Cathi, Wanda, Erica, Alex, Lesley, Kristen, Sam and Diane.  (If you couldn't tell, the guest list of the party was carefully orchestrated to make Diane, an insanely talented and prolific knitter, want to be a knitblogger, too.  When are you starting a blog, Diane??)

10.  Cathi's virtual enthusiasm has completely rubbed off on me, and seeing her recently with her new running bod (she looks so great!), has encouraged me to up my running a notch and try to start running 5-6 times per week, versus the measly 2-3 times that I've been averaging.  I got fitted at a really cool local running store for a pair of shoes -- they videotape you running on the treadmill and analyze your gait -- and I'm all set to train for the Title 9K coming up in May.  Anyone else out there want to join me?? 

So ... watch for more details this week.  Knit on!

We pause here for a little holiday quiz:

Your Irish Name Is...

Fiona O'Carroll

I know that this is shocking to everybody.  But, it is a Monday.  So, for random Monday-ness, this is what I have:

1.  My apologies for the footnote to yesterday's post ... yes, it still freaks me out and it's all that I can do to look at the photos of that apartment without being reminded of this other poor Jennifer's fate.    As an aside, it was supposedly some guy that she had met in a bar, so I'm sort of hoping that this wouldn't have been my fate had I remained in "Fort Fun," as the local Fort Collins citizens sometimes call that fun city.

2.  Because I just know you're dying for photos of the kittens grown-up, here is Rini:

This is a typical Rini expression.  What she's really saying is, "You really should just put that thing down and pet me right now!"

One more crazy aspect of the Rini personality:  Her one love besides me is going outside every day.  She will brave snow, cold temperatures, and even rain so that she can go outside.  Brrr.

More random kitty stories:

Rini remains the "more difficult" one between my two kitties ... she has an incredibly demanding and annoying meow (the kind that makes the Big Sweetie cringe, and go straight for alcohol), and she is very fickle -- "let me in;  no -- let me out;  no -- let me in;  no -- let me out."    I actually find it a little bizarre that she is such an odd cat, because most kitties are, well, just kitties.  Rini in fact only loves me ... when my MIL (an enormous cat lover, and owned by a black kitty named Lilibel) comes to visit, Rini just barely warms up to her by the end of the week.    My MIL is, in fact, the only person that I can recall Rini ever warming up to.  Meanwhile, it's all that she can do to just follow me from room to room hoping that I will maybe just extend my hand and give her one little pat.  Right now, she's behind me on my chair hoping for a little extra love.  If I just look at her, she meows.  "Are you going to pet me?" 

Because of this, we've nicknamed Chloe "La buena," and Rini "La mala."  (Poor little Rini.)  My cats, in fact, have a lot of other nicknames; the kids have christened Chloe "Cocobel," after the MIL's cat.  Rini is also known as "The Big Rini Kitten," or actually "BRK" for short, as well as Rinibel (if the kids are feeling generous). 

Ah ... having pets sure does give our lives a little drama, doesn't it?  :) 

3.  I also spent the weekend with a cold ... the kind where no matter how many drugs you take, your nose still needs a perma-kleenex on it.  (I'm *so* over the kids-bringing-stuff-home-from-school phase.)

4.  We're also entering crisis mode with the vehicular situation here ... and we're preparing to go one-car-family as one of our cars is just on the verge of breaking down, and we just keep postponing buying a new one.  By "one of our cars" I mean it could be either one, as they're both in pretty bad shape now.  And by "a new car", I mean a car that's six years old.   (I'm *so* over the trying-to-live-on-one-salary-and-not-really-making-it phase.) 

5.  And I ripped a bunch of projects!!! I'm rather exasperated with my WIP list, so I'm in a ripping mood.  Sorry, no photos ... but trust me, it was fun.

6.  But then I cast on for this ...  what was I thinking??  I'll never finish it. 

(I can tell that I'm a little stressed when my blog entries reflect the attention deficit disorder that is reigning my life.)

So ... when we last left off, I had two little kittens that I found in a shelter.  Going back to this time period, this was when I moved to Ft. Collins to work on my master's degree in Spanish literatures, and I also decided to do a "graduate certificate" in Women's Studies (it was sort of like a minor in a Master's program).  It was an empowering time in my life as I was living by myself for the first time ever, and I was learning, exploring, and growing.  (Sometimes, I really miss that time period.  This isn't really the life that I have now, as a mother of two little kids!)

I couldn't decide what to name "the girls" ... so I thought long and hard, probably as hard as I did with the naming of my own children. 

I finally decided that the little half-orange-faced kitten was beautiful, gracious, well-mannered ... and, well, French.  She had to have a French name. 

Meanwhile, the little orange-stripe-on-the-nose kitten was feisty, unpredictable, a little demanding, but very passionate in her absolute love for me ... and, well, Spanish (in a Latin lover kind of a way).  She had to have a Spanish name. 

So, I then made it a must that the kittens had to have names that began with C ... they were cats after all ... and I finally settled on Chloe and Catarina.  (Get it? Cat ... Catarina?)

They were the cutest little kittens around.  Really.   

Seriousy, they used to hang out in the window of my apartment above* and everyone in the building loved and adored them.  (With the possible exception of the property manager.) 

Meanwhile, the Big Sweetie had already entered my life the year before.  We met when I was working on my teaching certificate -- okay, I was a student teacher! -- at his school.  Around the time I went to Fort Collins, however, we really weren't sure that what we had was going to last.  However, as time went on, we would break up and get immediately back together as we just couldn't stand the thought of breaking up.  So, when the kittens entered the picture .... I will say that the Big Sweetie wasn't entirely pleased.  I think that he actually called me something like "insane" for taking on two cats.  (Hmm ... there's a pattern to him calling me that, now that I think of it.)   

In time, Chloe really took to him ... she thought he was great, and she has such a happy little personality, that all that she really wants in the world is lots of love and little bit of wet food.  (Actually, reverse those two, and that's what she wants.) 

Rini (as Catarina became known) did not take to the Big Sweetie.  They developed an intense dislike for each other, and we joke to this day that Rini is still mad at "The Big Mean Guy" (that's what she calls him) for moving in and taking time away from her one true love ... me.  In fact, Rini really hates everybody else in the world ... she doesn't really care for her sister that much anymore ... she intensely dislikes the children ... but she is absolute in her need to always be near me, no matter where I am in the house.  (She's on my lap as I write this.)  She's kind of crazy, but -- hey, she still my little Rini kitten. 

And those are my two little calico kittens!  More stories to come, as I'm running out of FO's to report ...

*I seem to be doing lots of annotated blog entries lately ... anyhow, do you want to hear a crazy story?  After the girls and I moved out of that apartment my second year of graduate school, and moved in with the Big Sweetie, there was another girl named Jennifer (and from my hometown!) who moved in to that place and finished my lease.  Guess what?  She was murdered in that exact apartment!! Isn't that such a horrible and freakily coincidental story??  Just had to share.

I was cleaning up my sidebar recently, when I realized that I'm still on the Knity Kitty blogring.  And ... how long has it seriously been since my two girls have made it onto the blog?  I feel like I haven't been "blogging" much lately, just "cataloguing" my FO's.  So, in an effort to be a better blogger, I feel I must at last re-introduce my two girls.

I have to tell you that I've been a cat lover my whole life ... so it of course worked out perfectly when I learned how to knit, as don't we all know that knitters love cats?  (Or rather, that cats love knitters [and their yarn]?)  When, at the end of my college years, my boyfriend (whom I was actually living with at the time) informed me that I "just wasn't the one for him" (loser!), I took heart because he was allergic to cats... and this meant that I could finally buy a cat of my own one day without having to make the choice between a significant other and owning a cat.

So, when I then went to graduate school and lived in my first apartment (alone, that is!), I went on the search for the perfect cat.  But, it had to be the perfect cat.  And, for some reason, I've had a minor obsession with both dalmatians and calico cats for years and years.*  (As an aside, I think it's the same reason I love Noro ... I just love random spots, blotches of color, and just absolute spontaneity in patterns.)  Well, the Dalmatian was not going to fit into a one-bdrm apartment, so off I went on a hunt for the perfect calico cat.  I went to shelters in Fort Collins (where I lived) ... shelters in Boulder (where the Big Sweetie lived -- yes, he was part of the picture then) ... and even to random shelters in Denver ...

... until one day I stumbled into a small little animal shelter in Denver, and who did I see peeking out of a cage at the end of the row but an adorable tiny calico kitten!  I knew at that moment that this is the one!  When I walked up, however ... guess what?  There wasn't one adorable calico kitten, but two in the cage!  Two little sister kittens, who had been found together with no others.  So, the first one that I saw was the most precious and beautiful little kitten with a half-orange face.  The second was a scrawny, terrified little kitten with a weird orange stripe down her nose that made her eyes look crossed.  The first, I just knew, would be perfect ... she was such a sweetie.  The second, I just knew, would be a complete loser and have serious issues to deal with.  But I couldn't leave her behind, could I??

I of course came home with both of them. 

The "girls" and I ca. 1996.  (Holy cow ... they'll be ten years old this summer!)

And guess what I just joined?  Yep, the Calico Cats webring.

*And, as another aside, did you know that calico cats are almost always females?  I don't know why, but the subversive feminist in me loves that only girl kitties get to be calicos.   But who ever knew that calicos were the official Maryland state cat?