Pet-Proof Your Christmas Tree

One of Kitty's favorite times of the year is the winter holidays. Why? The Christmas tree is like a giant jungle gym! We've had many ornament casualties and broken branches from his tree escapades. No matter how many times we yell at him, he continues to get in the tree!

I came up with this solution that works very well to keep him from breaking our ornaments. Binder clips! You've probably used these hundreds of times to organize papers, but they're also perfect to keep your ornaments from getting broken. I bought a small box of them and spray painted them dark green.
For all our delicate ornaments, I wrap the ornament string around the binder clip and then clip it to the tree branch.
Now Kitty can bat them as much as he wants, but they won't fall off and get broken!
Hope this tip helps to keep your favorite ornaments in one piece!

Who uses Blogger?

I'm so needy this week! I need your help again!

Since you all did awesome answering my questions earlier this week, it's time to try again. This time, it might be more complicated.

Does anyone ever notice that when they upload to Blogger, their photos get duller and the color changes slightly? Maybe you don't even notice but the graphic designer in me gets annoyed by this.

Here's an example below. This photo looks awesome on my computer. The grass is bright green and looks very healthy. Here, it looks kinda dead and you wonder why Kitty is eating dead grass.
I did some research and it looks like some people suggested uploading PNG files instead of JPGs, but that didn't change the color. Other people suggested using Picasa to upload, but I can't use it because my mac is too old : (

Any other ideas? Make me feel stupid again with your brilliant suggestions!

Here Kitty! A toy for your meowing friend

This is Kitty showing off his new toy that I made him. It was SUPER easy and just used some scraps I had at home.

I just took some old leopard print fur fabric that I found and cut out a little tail and mouse-shaped piece. I folded the mouse in half with the wrong sides out and pinned.
Then I sewed up the mouse and left a little opening at the end to turn the fabric inside out.
Now for Kitty's favorite part: I hid some cat nip inside the stuffing.
I stuffed the cat nip & stuffing inside the mouse, pinned the tail on, and sewed up the hole.
And here is Kitty showing off his new toy...

Family Room...More Progress

Another update...

It's a very slow and frustrating process, but we're getting there. Last week we organized the garage and took a break from the family room, but it's back to working in there this weekend.

I wanted to share some pics of my little helper getting caught in drop cloths.

New satin nickel door hinges

New satin nickel door knobs

Finished recessed lighting

And Kitty helping us clean up the dust...

Movin' on up...

We're movin' on up eventually, but not just yet...

Tonight we finished packing and moved the rest of our stuff into my parents' basement and left the house one last time. As I carried Kitty out the door for the last time, we both cried.

Here's Kitty's last meal in the house. He gets a little excited about canned food!



It's pretty weird living here again after 5 years! Here's our new temporary home (please excuse the mess! I don't have everything organized yet)

The "closet" area

Kitty's area

All the extra crap that didn't fit in the storage unit