So, anyway…

I have more recipes to post, but I don’t feel like it now, maybe later. Right now, I am annoyed. Just found out that our household goods are STILL sitting back in the US. This smacks of yet another example of not bothering to follow-through on paperwork or a phone call. (update: I guessed it was something about being slightly over our weight allowance and someone needed a 'go ahead, we know, ship it anyway'... duh!... notification - I was dead on.) Seriously. We’ve done what we are supposed to do, is it really too much to ask that others do their jobs – in a timely fashion – without our having to dance on desks every day? Looks like I will be going out to buy a Christmas tree. We own a nice artificial tree – which I prefer over killing trees – but obviously, an 8ft tree is not something we carried in our suitcases! At least I have seen artificial trees for sale in numerous stores around town. I hate this sort of incompetence. Honestly, we can make do when we have to make do… and I actually have no problem doing so, when there is good reason, but this is getting stupid. I’ll try to put a positive spin on it for the kids. We’ll have a second tree. We can make our decorations from paper and salt dough (I do not need to get more!), etc. But it’s a good thing they’re at school because I do NOT feel like being positive about it at this very moment!
So, anyway…
What else have we been up to? We had a long 5-day break. Thanksgiving holiday on one side of the weekend and Eid al-‘Adha on the other. We relaxed. We watched movies. We had friends over and baked cookies and bread. We had tons of great family time with gaming and crafting. Brian is working on his project at school and so he and I had a blast making all sorts of quick-dry modeling clay figures for the book he is reading, “James and the Giant Peach”. Honor and Brian also made a box into a kitty fort.
I had Brad help me move some furniture around too, and merely switching around the formal dining table and the living room set in our big front room has made that area 10 times more inviting for the whole family. The dining table had been in the more dim corner, and by moving it in front of the big window, under a bright light, opened it up for use as a crafting place, a reading and homework spot, and yes, even nicer for meals. The sofas arranged in the corner where the table had been, with the entertainment center, etc. is now a cozy book-nook and play area – and when (IF!) we ever get our household goods, it will be a great place to have our TV, wii, stereo, etc. 
We took the kittens to the vet for their booster shots and de-worming yesterday. Their little personalities are getting so predictable. Pumpkin George saw us take out the box we use to carry them and went back to sleep. Ninja Cat decided to ignore the threat and had dinner. Princess Pixie, who is the most clever – immediately departed the room and had to be fished out from under the bed! She’s no dummy. She’s also the one that was the most difficult to dose with the deworming medicine – she spit it out repeatedly, despite the vet’s use of a tool that plopped the pill halfway down her throat! Pumpkin swallowed his before he knew what was happening, and Ninja had quite a few unladylike things to say about the whole deal.
They really are sweet kittens and are getting very attached to everyone in the family. There are a few examples of favoritism – such as Pumpkin likes to sit with Brad, but sleep in Honor’s room, and Ninja is my lapcat, but often sleeps in Brian’s room. Pixie is an equal opportunity shoulder cat, but she sleeps with mom and dad. We named them well too.
Pumpkin, who has earned the middle name George, is still the big, sweet, roly—poly ball of fluff – just, well, bigger, and his legs are getting longer too, so I guess he’s less of a ball. He’s going to be a big guy. He can be trouble – he’s always instigating wrestle time with his siblings and tipping over glasses because our drinks are obviously much better than cat water. He gets inside the seat covers in order to conduct stealth attacks on anyone attempting to use the furniture. But as big and tough as he pretends to be, he’s such a sweet little angel. He’s got the biggest purr and tiniest meow. He loves to be picked up and snuggled… and is too cute to be denied when he begs for said snuggling.
Ninja is still the tiniest, and definitely looks most like a baby. She’s now, as she often is, on my lap being a momma’s girl. She’s laying on her back, curled in a ball with toes up, chewing on the end of her tail. Big baby-doll eyes, looking so innocent! But she’s the mightiest of hunters – and the reason I cannot leave hotpads, or towels out in the kitchen. She often finds lost toys for the kids, like marbles or little stuffed animals – although I suspect she is often why they get lost in the first place. The buttons on our clothes are not safe – she can tell which ones are evil and must die and makes it her mission to make them dead. Today, as I walked toward the pile of laundry on my bed to do a little putting away, Ninja ran from the other side of the room, up onto the bed, and when I was about 4 feet away, she ran and leapt at me – not to be caught, no, but to bounce off my stomach and back to the bed! Oddly enough, although I haven’t seen this particular move before, I wasn’t too surprised – it was a typical Ninja assault. She’s always training.
And Princess Pixie. She is the littlest human in the family. She believes she should be able to do all that we do, and so we have to watch her when we open doors and things – she was refrigerated this morning. Fortunately, she is loud and regally demanding so we found her fast. If I put the cats’ food down at the same time I am serving our dinner, she will be the last at the bowl because she always attempts to get a plate of people food instead of her food – even though we’ve never given her her own plate. Obviously we are mistaken and will eventually figure it out. She has only recently started heading to bed at the same time I go, and happily tucks me in so she can sleep on my pillow. She’s also starting to figure out my morning routine. Instead of waking up and just playing like she usually does with her sibs, this morning, after giving me hundreds of good morning kisses, she excitedly led the way from our room, to each of the kids’ rooms, so we could wake them up for school. She was prancing along in front of me, so proud that she knew what we were supposed to do on a school day (wish I’d had the video camera, but that would have involved my being more awake…)
So, anyway…
I guess these cats have earned their pay/upkeep. I sat down here mad, annoyed, ticked off etc. … the kittens hopped up and liberally applied purrs, cuddles, distractions, and kisses. I am all better now.