As a person owned by 4 cats 7 cats if I count the neighbors cats (outside) I can attest to the truth of the Cat Rules. The only one that the cats have not done is drinking water from the faucets. But I do have a tabletop fountain that they love to play in and splash water all over the couch from. Tube mouse and hampering reading is a favorite of 2 of the cats.. one in particular does not stop with just capturing the tube mouse when he gets to the tube mouse he then turns his attention to shredding every tiny piece of TP all over the bathroom floor. Never a dull moment around here. I have some hampering going on right now..the TP attacker is walking back and forth in front of the monitor. Oh yah, it's time to feed them. SEE they have me well trained. :-) If I am a bit slow with the feeding he will go and recruit the "head butter" to climb in my lap and start with the head butting under my chin... OK OK... time for food, rubbing my chin,Pat

I expanded the garden beds in the fall. Trades are done and my seed list is all organized so I know what I've got. I've got some good seed starting mix at hand and plenty more scheduled for pick up in January. For now, the "work" is thinking about all of the goodies on my seed list and falling asleep each night thinking about my garden and how it might look next year. Then in January I'll sow the hardy perennials over the course of about 10 days. In February I watch for a day with a big snow coming in followed by a week of cold temps and when I get one of those I direct sow perennial and hardy annual seed out in the hills in goatland. Not quite sure on when to do my WS hardy annuals. I guess late Feb, early March and keep an eye on when Bakemom does hers. March/April, watch the garden beds and wheel hoe them up once the soil is thawed enough to work it. Relocate some perennials from last year. On April 15th I'll start watching the extended forecast and sow tenderish annuals whenever the 10 day forecast is starting to look like freeze risk is very low. No problem if I have to end up holding off until May 1 for the tenders if the forecast looks like serious cold or frosts in late April. If it looks like April will be warm and wet I'll start plunking and running with any perennials that look like they are ready to graduate to the garden bed. If it's cold and dry, that might wait until May. Early May, watch weather for incoming rains followed by 10 days of warmish temps and direct sow tenderish annual seed out in the hills of goatland. May to June - plunk and run like a crazy lady. Start pawning off over abundant plants on the mail carrier and on the neighbor up the hill. Consider selling plants to the strangers that pull into our driveway to ask if we are a garden center that sells plants. Hoe hoe hoe the gardens a bit each day to aerate the soil and let the intentionals grow while keeping weed levels down. June - check T&M site daily for their end of season half price sale. Hoe hoe hoeing continues. June to August - run around the garden with a watering can like a crazy lady. July on - run around the garden with seed collecting containers like a crazy lady. Try to eat, can or freeze produce as fast as we can harvest it. August - start planning end of season humongous trades with other WSers. September- start checking Value Seed website daily for the day when they go from 2 pages of seeds to 13 or 14 pages. Watch the oak tree and stop hoeing before the acorns start to fall. Let garden paths get packed down so I can maybe just sweep up acorns this year instead of picking up each by hand. October - clean thousands and thousands of acorns out of the garden. Make more acorn wine and some nutty acorn bread. Wait for the massive leaf fall to start. November - ugh. Leaves leaves leaves. December - hunting season. Confine goats and cow and toss edible annuals over the fence for them to snack on. Use spare time to huddle over seed list and get ready for January. Of course, I hope to also have a bit of time in there to sit on the porch and enjoy my gardens. Lynda

This post is bringing up many wonderful memories. When I was a kid, our family played Yahtzee just about every night when we were on summer vacation (it was one of the few things that brought us together.) My sister and I would quietly stay up well after bedtime to have "Spit"(the card game) tournaments (it was also a great procrastination tool to keep us from homework--which also worked in college.) Our family also played Hearts, Spades, Sorry, Big Boggle (I can no longer find this version of Boggle) and Risk (there were always a lot of hurt feelings with this game.) When I was 16 I went on a bike trip across Maine with two older sisters--we brought a word dice game called Perquacky and played it in the camping area rest rooms (where there was light) at night (I think we only played if there was some sort of vanity shelf or large sink area. I hope we didn't sit on the floor.) Many of us got together this summer for vacation and we had fun with Texas Hold 'Em. My parents and a couple of my sisters really enjoy(ed) bridge. The games I've enjoyed playing with my kids are Scrabble, Cribbage (a favorite for my daughter and I when we are on vacation--we keep score with pencil and paper rather than a board), Sequence, Canasta, Chutes and Ladders, Life, Careers, Battle Ship, Rack-O and some lesser known games. Several of these come in small boxes and use special cards: Quiddler, Rat-a-tat-cat, Frog Juice, and for small kids Panda-momium and Hiss. We were/are particularly fond of Rat-a-tat cat and Frog Juice. Blink is also supposed to be very good. A game my teenage daughter and I got hooked on for a while is Fluxx--which is a card game with a special pack of cards. The rules of the game continually change depending on the card you play. It is great fun. We wore through a couple of decks. Mary 228: Harry's Hat game sounds like it would be lots of fun. Thanks for the chance to reminisce.

Love this one. Thanks Karen