Kerry'd Away

I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to share my kitties with you. I told you that my blog was going to be all over and you never knew what I would be posting about next. I love my cats and couldn’t imagine my life without them.

First we have Bissell (the oldest):

Bissell is a seal point siamese mix. His dad was siamese and his mom was a gray tiger. Bissell was supposed to be my cat, but he chose my mom instead. Siamese and Himalayans will choose a person to attach themselves and that’s it. When I move Bissell will be staying here with my mom. Bissell is very friendly and loves to be petted. He especially likes to have his back patted. He sits on the arm of the chair and you have to pat his butt. If you stop he will look at you and meow because he obviously did not tell you to stop. Also, when you take your vitamins he will be right there at his feet waiting for his treat. lol

Next we have Chester:

Chester is my talker. If you give her a chance she will talk your ear off. And yes, Chester is a SHE. She was originally supposed to be my sister’s. My sister had a coworker who said that she had some male orange tiger cats if my sister was interested. Chester ended up coming home with her one day. Silly us didn’t bother to check to make sure that Chester was a boy until we took ‘him’ to the vet to be neutered. That’s when we were informed that Chester would have to be spayed. lol. How dumb did we feel! By that time it was too late to change her name. It fits her, though. The only problem is that the boys pick on her terribly. Chester didn’t move to North Carolina with my sister because she doesn’t travel well. It will be an interesting ride with her when I move her to our new place! Thank goodness it will only be a 30 minute drive. Chester’s favorite activity is to watch the birds at the feeders. If I haven’t filled the feeders and the birds aren’t there, as soon as I walk in the door at night I have to hear about it!

Next up is Bob:

Bob is my baby. His mother brought him up onto our front porch with his brothers and sister. It was just like Christmas! He really is something else. He LOVES to run! He’s so skinny and at his last check up the vet told me that I need to have him eat more. It’s the first time I’ve ever been told to put weight on my cat. It’s just because he’s so active and loves to run. He is also addicted to electricity. When he was 9 months old he chewed on the cord to my mom’s iron and electrocuted himself. Thankfully, he survived that. The next Christmas, though, I had to fix the lights on the tree because he had chewed through them. *sigh* Robert! That’s what he’s called when he’s being bad. lol The vet laughs every time I bring Bob in because apparently they’ve never met a cat named Bob. And yes, Bob will be moving with me.

Our latest edition is Elmer:

Elmer cracks me up. He was born in our barn about a year ago. My dad saw him and hoped that he would disappear before I could spot the cute little kitten. Unfortunately, my mom’s dog discovered Elmer and that alerted me to his presence. I called him Elmer because I felt that was a good name for a cat born in a barn. If it had been in the manger then I would have named him Jesus. 😉 Anyway, much to my dad’s chagrin, Elmer made his way into the house. He is Annabelle’s best friend (that’s my mom’s Yorkie). He was in the house for less than 24 hours and had already made himself quite at home. lol. He wants attention and affection, but doesn’t like to be held. He also learned that if you sit patiently when Kerry gets her vitamins then he will get a treat. He’s so silly.

I can’t forget Joey! He’s my sister’s Himalayan that we rescued. He was being mistreated and abused so we took him in. He has definitely adapted to being spoiled. He’s just so adorable, though, that I couldn’t forget him!

And one more of Joey:

Don’t you just want to kiss him on his little scrunchy face?? lol

And just because I mentioned her, this is my mom’s dog Annabelle (or as my dad and I call her, Buford):

Today we take a moment to remember the men and women who have given the last full measure of their devotion in order to protect and defend our country. May they all rest in peace as we thank them for their sacrifice so that we may continue to live free and pursue our dreams. I would like to leave you with some words that I always think of on this day. They were written by Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine.

“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.”

Today I realized that I can no longer look at my Civil War Desk Calendar as being factual. If they have a fact on there that I don’t know I am going to wonder if it’s really true. Why? Well, let me tell you (as well as I can remember) what the calendar told me today:< “Let us pass over the river and rest beneath the shade of the trees.” – reported to be the last words of General Stonewall Jackson before he was shot between army lines by his own men, which eventually lead to his demise. > For those of you who are screaming at your computer screen… I know!!! I literally took my pen and crossed out everything after his name. There might be a couple of people reading this (HA! Like I have more than one or two people reading this… that’s pretty funny… lol) who have no idea what the correct answer is for this quote. Those WERE Jackson’s last words… on his death bed!

*puts on her Civil War nerd kepi* Jackson was shot on May 2, 1863 while riding between the tangled and crazy lines of the Union and Confederate armies. This was the end of the first day of the Battle of Chancellorsville and Jackson had done a fantastic job of surprising the Union army and catching them with their pants down. *insert music from the Gods and Generals soundtrack when Jackson’s line charges the loafing Yanks* Jackson wanted to continue to move his men forward after dark, but the lines were so close and so tangled that nobody knew where anybody else was located. The Confederates had done such a good job of keeping the Yankees on the run that they lost track of their own line. Everybody was on edge and jumpy that night. They are in this thick tangle of woods, brush, and dense vegetation. They know that the enemy is out there somewhere, but where? As Jackson comes riding through some of his men mistake the horses and men as Union soldiers so they open fire. Jackson ends up taking a minie ball in the left arm and his right hand. He is put on a stretcher and rushed back further behind the lines, except they are still being fired upon. One of the litter bearers is hit and Jackson is dropped. At this point he suffers a broken rib (which is what experts feel eventually leads to pneumonia and his death). Jackson is eventually hauled back to the safety of his camp where the very hot Dr. McGuire, his personal physician, is dispatched to take care of Jackson’s wounds. Jackson’s left arm ends up being amputated, but he is on the mend and is able to enjoy the company of his wife and infant daughter while he heals near Guinea Station. Except, he takes a turn for the worse and develops pneumonia. Back then they couldn’t cure it, but they had seen it enough that they could tell you almost to the minute when the person would pass away. Sunday, May 10, 1863 was Jackson’s last day on this earth. He passed away at a little after 3 pm in the afternoon. He was happy that he was going to his maker on the Sabbath. As he was laying there he suddenly started giving orders to his ‘men’, and the very last words that he spoke were, “Let us cross over the river and rest beneath the shade of the trees.”

It feels like forever that I’ve read or talked about the Civil War. Is that sad or what? I am very happy, though, that I am able to recite that little blurb about Chancellorsville and be able to give dates without a problem. Once I move and can actually put all of my Civil War books on shelves in my library (one of my spare bedrooms) then I want to get back into reading them. In fact, I’m not going to have cable or satellite when I first move so I’m hoping that it will give me no alternative except to do more reading. I will have internet, but I have so many projects that I want to work on that I’m hoping I won’t live on it.

I guess that’s all from me for now. 🙂

I finished this yesterday. Now it’s on to the quilt squares that I signed up for!

Tonight I decided that I would start packing. It’s going to be a while before I can actually move, but it would be nice to have some things boxed up before that happens. I figure that once I get the floors refinished I can start moving some things in little by little in order to keep down on the number of trips that will have to be made. I’ve been grabbing empty boxes from work that hold the copy paper because they are about the right size for my books. Well, I had five boxes tonight that I filled within 15 minutes. The sad thing is that I didn’t touch any of the books on my shelves. Those were just the books that I had piled in FRONT of my shelf! That’s going to be a foreshadowing of what the move is going to look like, I think. To be fair most of what I have to take with me are books. Is that a bad thing?

My parents bought 7 plastic totes the other night in order to haul home the meat that we had processed. A week ago we took our bull over to be beefed. My dad would have preferred to keep him, but he was getting snotty and there was no way we could turn him out to pasture. He would have easily gone through the fence in order to get at somebody if the mood had struck him. My dad’s friend, who has been around cattle all of his life and makes a living selling cows, looked right at my dad when he saw how the bull was acting and told him that the bull needed to go before it killed somebody. This bull hung over 900 pounds and when all was said and done we hauled somewhere over 800 pounds of meat home. Most of it was ground up into one pound packages. I think that they usually do something like an 85/15 mix. We’ve had people rave about our ground beef. One of my dad’s friends told him that he made hamburgers one night using our beef and it was like eating sirloin burgers. That’s because we grind up the entire cow so all of the good meat goes into it. As my dad says, “It’s hard to screw up ground beef.” People always want to try it because they know where the meat is coming from. They know that there aren’t any antibiotics, no hormones, or anything else bad in there. It can’t be classified as ‘organic’, but that’s fine with me. I dread the day when something happens to my dad and I will have to buy my meat from the grocery store. 😦

Anyway, to get back to the totes, I believe that I’m going to use them for my books. Since all of the meat is now in the freezer the totes are empty. We won’t have another cow to beef until the fall, so they will be free for my use until then. My dad said that when the totes were full of meat they were heavier than all get out. I told him that was good practice for when they are full of books. lol. He didn’t appreciate that comment.

One other thing that I have done tonight is picked out a couple of cross stitch patterns. It has been a while since I’ve stitched a square for a COLE’s Quilt (http://www.our-sma-angels.com/colesquilts/). In order to try to combat some of the depressed feelings I’ve had lately I felt that this would be a good thing on which to focus my thoughts until I get my house. I enjoy doing things for others, and these children and their families really are touched by the quilts. In fact, I have a picture of one of the little girls that I stitched a square for her quilt up on my overhead at work. When I’m feeling bad for myself I can look at that picture of her and how happy she looks and it makes me feel better. I enjoy stitching and if it brings a smile to somebody’s face, then that is all that I could ask.

One of the first things that I wanted to post were pictures of some finished cross stitched pieces. Please excuse the fact that they are kind of crooked in the pictures. It’s hard trying to take a picture without getting glare reflecting off of the glass. 🙂

One of the pieces is mine. The other two are finished pieces that I found in a bunch of cross stitch stuff that a friend had given to me. Her niece had passed away from cancer and left behind a lot of crafting supplies. My friend doesn’t craft so she was giving me what she knew that I would use. When I came across the finished, though unframed, pieces I knew that I had to frame them for her. She probably doesn’t even know that they exist so I can’t wait to surprise her with them.

The first one is a bouquet of Pansies:

The second piece that I found was a trio of butterflies:

And finally, the last piece that I have to show off is one that I stitched. This is based on a Norman Rockwell painting entitled “Bottom of the Sixth”. I have this framed and will hang it in my house when I move in:

Welcome to my blog!

I guess that I should forewarn you that this blog does not have a clear theme. If you follow any blogs online it’s probably because there’s a common thread to every post. I follow blogs where the theme is cake decorating, celiac disease, gluten free cooking, encouraging women through the love of God, and that sort of thing. If you’re expecting to see something along those lines, then this definitely isn’t the blog for you. You see, the theme of this blog is Kerry and everything that makes me who I am. One day I might post about the Civil War. Two days later you might find a post from me regarding my latest discovery/experiment with gluten free baking. It really will be whatever floats my boat on that particular day.

Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. 🙂