December 15, 2013-- WV

What Have I Been Up To? An Update From Tsarmina Greeneyes:


Well, after an awesome time with Seriah in New Mexico, I returned to find this interesting substance all over the ground--

Maisey had never seen it before, either.

Don't be deceived by its soft, fuzzy appearance, because it feels nothing like cotton batting. If you bury your face in it expecting to become warm, all you will get is a face-ful of cold-- the stuff actually turns to water when it comes in contact with you!

Rebecca says it's snow. I say it's snow joke-- being a cat, I naturally do not enjoy the presence of things that make me cold or wet. But everyone else seems to have fun playing in it. In fact, Rebecca and her visiting cousins all bundled themselves up in stiff-fabric-ed clothes and went out to play in it!

I think they're crazy.

Well, I know I haven't blogged in a while. Sorry about that! So busy. Apparently, in this world, people have a holiday right in the dead of winter. They call it Christmas (am I the only one who had never heard of it?). It's where they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. They use several interesting methods of celebrating: chopping down trees and dragging them into their houses to be decorated, exchanging gifts, setting up statues of men in dresses beside wooden boxes that have been turned sideways (they call these nativity scenes), baking spicy cookies shaped like dead guys (they're called gingerbread) and cleaning houses up just for visiting relatives to make dirty all over again.

Rebecca lives in a family of bookworms.
When the relatives visit, they read all the books
in the house. LITERALLY.

Try and find me in this picture

Meanwhile, Rebecca's room is Santa's workshop.

She turned her dresser into a desk for sewing and the like.

 

Sssssshhhhhh! Secrets in progress. . . .

But you can't come in, because you might get a peek at the secret Christmas presents that we're working so hard to make! So go out and play in the snow, and I'll be back with you Christmas day.

And I'll be staying warm in this gorgeous scarf Seriah made me! 

Napping on the upstairs Christmas tree. . .
it's actually quite comfortable!

 

October 15th 2013 -- Rio Rancho, NM

Yeah! Seriah finally got to go shopping for cowboy boots today! Since Seriah started riding again, she has started to learn how to barrel race. (That's racing around three barrels in a clover-leaf pattern in an arena.) She really needed boots because since she has started riding again, she has been wearing some old sneakers. Boots definitely help you remember to keep your heels down! She has been saving up her money from babysitting for MOPS and looked on Craigslist and Ebay and she finally found some she thought would work from Boot Barn. They were on sale, thank goodness! Seriah managed to get some pics in the store while nobody was looking; she didn't want to get questions about having a mountain-lion in the store!

Find the cat---If you can!!!


Here are the boots she finally decided on:

Nice plain toe for riding, but some pretty stitching to keep them from being too boring



 

September 27th, 2013-- WV

A tired Rebecca after the 2nd parade.
I was pretty sleepy, too-- that's me in the corner of the front porch half asleep!

 

 

We went to the Buckwheat Festival today. Rebecca marched with the Unified Middle School Marching band. There were only two other kids from her school's band, and they all wore these red t-shirts. So Rebecca was pretty easy to spot after the parade!

I walked around with Rebecca. There were rides and the usual carnival stands, and buildings filled with crafters displaying their work. Some of Rebecca's friends were showing their animals in the 4-H section, too.

Did you know you get tickets for the food booths just by marching in the parade? If that's the case, I might just join the marching band next year!

 

Do you think I can learn to play it by next Buckwheat Festival?

 

There's one more parade tomorrow. I can't wait to taste funnel cake again!

Friday the 13th in Dunlow, West Virginia

Isabelle and me.

The curtain is pulled aside and the scene unfolds:

     The day is Friday, September 13th, 2013. The location is the Cabwaylingo State Forest. A family unpacks their things in a rustic cabin by the creek late at night. Six children, all cousins, skip merrily out of the house and down the lane, lanterns bobbing in their hands. Oh, yeah, and there's a wildcat with them, too. They're off to their grandparents' cabin, a mile down the stretch of one-lane road. They are singing and laughing, innocent as to what is lurking behind a monstrous oak just ahead. A man waits with a chainsaw, his teeth bared in an evil smile. He revs up the chainsaw and jumps out from his hiding place. The children scream, standing there alone and unprotected--
     Not really!

Looking out over the creek.

     But that was true up until the chainsaw part. Rebecca's mom's family had a reunion, and we stayed in cabins in the State Forest.
     The first thing I heard the next morning was pounding and screaming. I jumped up and fell out of bed.
     "Ruffians!" I cried. But no, it was Rebecca's cousins telling her and Isabelle that it was time for breakfast in the other cabin.
     "It's alright, Tsarmina," yawned Rebecca. They got up and the cousins dragged us the practically the whole way down the long road, which seemed much longer in the daylight.
     During the excruciating wait for more relatives to arrive, the cousins and I walked back and forth between the cabins. Good exercise. And then we had to wait even more for the food to cook. And then Rebecca was told to run back to the first cabin and fetch the forgotten pasta salad, so she waited even longer. But I told her not to worry. I guarded her plate. And then a cousin had to take it away and guard it from me. Hmph.
I also guarded the lemon cake:

There is NOT icing on my face! No, there's not!

The vegetables, however, sat cold and alone.

The adults sat and talked (boring!) We target shot toy arrows and BB guns-- although it was a little difficult for me to load the gun (not having fingers, and all). So Elijah did it for me.

Scary, right? I think I'd feel safer with the chainsaw murderer!

At some point, some of us got bored with playing militia and climbed on top of the wood shed.
These are some rare one-of-a-kind scenes that you will only see if you are a member of Rebecca's family, or a reader of this blog:

Grandmothers playing football

Girls who prefer to enjoy their s'mores reduced to ashes.

Children playing with fire-- just kidding! They were supervised.

Breadmaking in August -- Rio Rancho, NM

 

Seriah loves to be artistic. . . even when baking bread!

(She braided it and brushed it with egg-whites before baking it)

 

 

I don't remember the exact day this was...August was super busy.

 

August 24th 2013 -- Bible Bee!!! Rio Rancho, NM

Ah! Today was Seriah's very first Bible Bee. It's a good thing I was there for emotional support, she was so nervous! There were some girls from church competing too, and that helped as well. Seriah didn't place, but she still got a medal for participation:

A (relieved) proud Seriah in the car after the Bee. She did better than she hoped,
even though she didn't study as much as she should have!

August 16th 2013 -- In The Air!!!

Here is a picture of Seriah and I in the plane. (I think this is before lift off, but I'm not sure.)

While in flight, Seriah and Grant switched, so that I could see out the window. But whilst Seriah's elbow was resting innocently on the armrest, she felt a small poke! on the back of her arm. One minute later, poke! This time Seriah was ready: she reached around and poked the attacker on the nose; a little girl, probably around four years old. Well, then Seriah told the girl that I was her pet cougar!!! As if! I am NOT a pet. More like a traveling companion...

 

Here is a photo of me and Grant. Grant got to sit next to the window for the first 2 hours and Seriah the next two.

August 14th -- *In The Evening*

Well, Seriah and I were sad to leave Rebecca, especially after the fun afternoon we had, but we knew it couldn't last forever. It's a good thing that we got to go to the Lakeside Creamery so that Seriah had something to distract her. Above, Seriah and I pose in the boat in front of the Creamery docks.

Here we are eating lemon ice-cream (in a waffle cone) and being silly in front of a map of Deep Creek Lake.

 

That's a long way down!

August 14th, 2013-- WV

 Seriah Visits MD

     Seriah flew in from New Mexico last week, and she and Rebecca met up today for the first time in a year and 3 months! We had lunch at Dottie's Café inside Englanders'. Well, Rebecca and Seriah had lunch. I had to stay hidden, because apparently the other customers aren't used to seeing a mountain lion in a restaurant!

Rebecca, Seriah and I outside the bookstore in Oakland. It took all my willpower to drag them out of the store. Bookworms!

 

In The Transportation Museum: 

 

 Seriah signed a guestbook at the front desk, writing that she was from NM, and the gentleman there couldn't figure out why Rebecca was wearing a Preston High T-shirt if she lived in New Mexico.  So I had to explain to him that Seriah was from New Mexico and Rebecca was from West Virginia. And that Seriah was visiting. He had never seen a talking mountain lion before.

 

 

Here is Seriah, posing next to an old-fashioned saddle (which I had fun sitting on-- for once I was taller than Rebecca!)

 

We walked around some more, and I made the acquaintance  of a very odd bear riding a rusty bike..... I think his name was Corduroy or something.....he was trying to hide from the security guard......

 

 

There was a sign on the elevator that said "No children under the age of 12 allowed on elevator without adult supervision." Well, Rebecca and Seriah are over 12, but we took the stairs anyway. Upstairs, there was a snowmobile:

 

 

There was also a giant yacht, but we didn't get a picture of that.

 

Garret County History Museum

 

 This is how you would have to make yarn to knit with if you lived in 19th century, Seriah!

 

At the museum, Seriah's favorite room was the log cabin, and Rebecca's was the Victorian room.

 

Mirror, mirror, in the Victorian hall, who's the fairest of them all?

 

 

This is what Rebecca would have to wear in the marching band if this was 1933!

 

 

 But only tragedy would await me in the dreaded train room:

The things I do for this blog!

Seriah thought it would be a good photo opportunity. So they tied me up with embroidery thread and thrust me onto the tracks-- right in the path of a speeding train!!!! (just kidding, it was not running)

 

In the Library:

 

We waited in the library for Rebecca's Grandma to pick us up and take us to Rebecca's house. We found this magazine in the adult section:



Can't you see the family resemblance?



 

At the Church:

Bye! Seriah and I are headed back for NM on Friday.

 

August 10th, 2013-- WV

     Rebecca and I spent the night at her friend Sidney's house. There were so many other cats! There were eleven the first day (seven big ones, four kittens), and then this morning we went outside to get in the truck, and the cats were screaming! There was a new sound, though.
     "Mew," it shrieked. "Reeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk!" After careful search, we found a new kitten behind some boxes.

Sidney held it for a minute. A grey cat with a crescent shape on its chest watched warily. It was her baby. She let us play with it for a minute...

 

Then picked it up...

 

Carried it off...

 

And hid behind a tank in the garage.

 

 

Judging by the speed with which she ran, I don't think she approves of our friendship with her baby. 

     So, anyway, now Sidney's garage has twelve cats.

     We decorated aprons together (since Rebecca and Sidney are forever making messes in each others' kitchens), looked at old pictures, jumped on the trampoline, and then talked all night.

     We also climbed out the window, just for the fun of it!

 

 

July 26th, 2013-- WV

                                                                                         Doing my duty and guarding the brownies

I helped Rebecca make brownies for Vacation Bible School tonight. Hannah had a sleep over with her friend Anna in the tree house. They chickened out at midnight and left Rebecca alone out there, though!

While we made brownies, the two of them were immersed in watching Matilda, so we didn't have many distractions. Still, Rebecca and I turned up the radio loud to drown out their giggling and got our brownies done in record time. While the radio was blaring out Florida Georgia Line, Rebecca spilt some of the batter on the floor. I would have helped clean up but, you know, I had to eat make sure nothing happened to the rest of the brownie batter.

Rebecca said I'm not allowed to taste them. So I might sneak along with Rebecca's family tonight to sample the brownies!

July 21st, 2013 -- WV

Rebecca just got back from Camp Galilee. I couldn't go because they don't allow animals. What I want to know is, then how come they let geese on the camp grounds? Rebecca showed me pictures and those creatures are everywhere!

While she was gone, I got to know her family a little better.

                                                     Gracie
 
This is Gracie, who rules the place. She's really very agreeable once you get to know her. Just stay on her good side!

                                                    Snickers

Snickers is more docile. She's a good friend of mine and of Franklin's.

Rebecca's brother, Levi, is-- well, this picture should describe his personality to you:

                                                                    Caught in the act!

Yes, that is a screwdriver. But it was taken from him before he could dismantle anything.
Nathan is Levi's identical twin brother. Only he prefers naps to running wild and being malicious with his screwdriver.

                                            Hannah and Joshua

Hannah and Joshua had a water fight.

While I watched them I, Tsarmina Green Eyes, worked on my blog. It does take a while, considering that I don't have fingers to type with. I just peck on the keyboard with my paws. Like this: