Please help, do something good

Read the story of Anya, Nastia, and Keri Cahill here. An effort is currently underway to try to reunite these long lost sisters. You can follow the latest efforts here.

The younger sister, Nastia, collects postcards from all over the world. If you could find it in your heart to send this girl a supportive postcard I think it would mean the world to her. She's absolutely distraught over the fact that the government has broken up her chance to be with her sister, after all these long years, and she really deserves every kindness that can be shown.

The address is available on the Facebook page, but if you can't get on that page, let me know and I will forward the address to you directly.

Photos and fun

We went over to pick up Truffle's photo (we chose #4) from Claudia yesterday. We'd initially had some vague plans to go into town later to look at some running shoes (not for me!!!), but Claudia and her husband Ken offered us Neapolitan espresso and cookies, and we ended up chatting with them for a couple of hours about everything from records and iPhones and Etsy and gadgets to vegetarianism and music and marketing and cats. It was so much fun!

And of course the framed, matted photo of Truffle looked so great that we were inspired to frame up some of Stan's photos of the rexes. We had good pics of Eisa and sweet Finny already, but Echo is always a challenge - she simply does not "do" photographs. But we tried anyway because we didn't want to leave her out.

This is as close as we could get - nearly perfect pose from the cat, but with an unlovely background and shot from the wrong angle. Oh well, it'll have to do!





We definitely want to get together with Claudia and Ken again, probably back at our place, so Stan can share his gadgets. And hopefully now that Echo is on beta blockers and Truffle isn't having to model, they'll be feeling as friendly as Eisa was last time.

Diet makeover

My check-up last week revealed that my cholesterol is higher than it should be. My father and paternal grandmother both have/had high cholesterol so some of this may be unavoidable. But I know I've been really sloppy about the whole sensible diet and exercise thing lately, so I am giving myself a dietary makeover (both to address the cholesterol issue specifically and just to eat better).

I have been trying to limit things like sugar, rice, white flour, etc., and have been increasing my fruit and veg intake. I've also added blueberries, flax seed, and walnuts to my diet, all things which are supposed to help lower cholesterol.

(Speaking of walnuts, we went out in search of whole walnuts yesterday and ended up at a veritable vegetable heaven: a store called Russo's that had aisles and aisles of fruits and vegetables, some of which I'd never even heard of before! It was fantastic, and I can't wait to dig in to all our yummy fresh food!)

As for exercise, I am starting back on that too. Just walking for now. But, we'll see what happens. :)

Truffle photos

Earlier in the year we attended a benefit for Truffle's animal shelter, and participated in their silent auction. One of the items we won was a b&w pet portrait with a photographer, who also happened to be one of the shelter managers.

We decided to have the photo taken of Truffle (since it was his shelter, after all), and scheduled the photo session for last weekend.

It took quite some time to coax him out, and the first set of photos were taken with him on my lap. Eventually he did pose for some stand-alone shots, although I don't think he'll ever be a fan of flash photography.

Anyway, here are a few photos from his photo session, while they're still online. You can see some of his apprehension on his face in a few of them. We are deciding between #4 and #5.

Bunting

I've been playing around with making bunting out of fabric scraps. I can imagine using this as a eco-friendly party decoration (in place of the fragile paper streamers that invariably get mangled after a single use) or to make a child's room feel festive and fun. You could glue on felt letters to spell out names or celebratory phrases as well if you liked.

Bunting in its natural habitat ;)