New York Renovator

OMG OMG OMG!! We are celebrating in the house today!! We won first place with PayU2Blog’s “My Hometown” video contest!! I am absolutely flipped, totally totally thrilled! This was such a fun contest and I have to laud my children who did a great job with the skit! Here’s our video in case you didn’t see the earlier post.

Thank you so much, PayU2Blog, for having such a terrific contest! You guys are GREAT!

Our new kitten, Olivia, has more than doubled her size now! She was originally the runt of the litter, and you could hold her in one hand at 8 weeks. She is now quite the two or three handfuls, and her Siamese heritage is starting to show, too. She knows her name, but her most favorite word is “Friskies” (the canned cat food).

She’s also been very cat-like, shredding the nice fabric on one of my lovely wing chairs. I was mulling over buying her a cat scratching post at the store, but they didn’t look very durable and were expensive! So two of the children decided to set aside some time, rumble around in the garage for some materials, and build her a bona fide cat-scratching post! It is entirely made from scrap materials (plywood and some old carpeting remnants) and saved me $20!

In the photo, you can see the leg of the wing chair that I do NOT want her to rip up. It’s a very nice wing chair and has been damaged in the past by previous kitties. :S

It’s obvious she loves her new post! Those razor-sharp kitten claws are amazing.

Here’s a photo I took on “Pets” setting. Yes, she IS a blur these days! Keeps us busy…

I bought one of those huge exercise rubber balls, to aid in my at-home physical therapy sessions for my ailing back. Years ago, I’d seen these big balls at my physical therapist’s. I can’t express the utter, utter relief of laying across one of these balls. It was the only thing that really brought comfort because it completely removed all pressure from my spine. Ahhh.

So I bought one! And a good price, too– $13 at Amazon. It’s called the Valeo Body Ball (75 cm). I got the big size, 75cm diameter. Came with an air pump, too!

My boys think it is a terrific toy. They were running all around with it, bouncing and sitting on it. They were so funny that we snapped some photos.

You know, I’m going to have to wrench the thing away from the boys in order to use it now. Might as well get them one of their own, lol!