Daily Photo: A Busy Week With Time for Contemplation
It’s hard to believe it’s Friday already! I had posts planned for each day, plus beautiful photos, and I just don’t know where the time went each day. Purrhaps Mr. Sunshine is watching it fly away with the geese in contemplation the back yard on a late summer morning just before the autumnal equinox.
I actually do know where it went. This was another of those weeks when I spent a few hours each day working on just a little more settling back in, both indoors and out. Sometimes this is just to take the time for something that has to be done at some point, sometimes it’s because stuff gets in my way generally, and sometimes it’s because I couldn’t find something or the way things were arranged made it really difficult to do what I needed to do. One day I took three hours and sorted through all the mat board I moved from all over the house to the basement, organizing it by size and color so it’s easier and quicker to find when I do some framing, which I did following that. I also sorted through tools looking for all my screwdrivers! I was about to buy some more because I couldn’t find a single one.
Measuring this and that and deciding what I’d put on the landing so I could have some storage there, and keep my geraniums over the winter. I was given a tall cat tree that stretches from floor to ceiling and never had a good spot for it. It’s a little short for the ceiling upstairs, but with a wooden box under it I can fit it just fine, right by the tall narrow casement on the landing. I moved the wardrobe everyone has napped on for decades into the bathroom. It’s a little bigger in there than I like, but I like having more open space on the landing and more light from the window. The new window is deeper than the old metal casement so there’s not much of a windowsill left. I also plan a windowsill napping shelf added there, and with that the wardrobe doesn’t fit.
I’m also planning a windowsill napping shelf for the bathroom window; Sienna runs in there and tries to hop up on the windowsill where she loved to sit, but it’s not wide enough. I am also planning what art and photos will go in there and putting that together, and planning some plants for the top of the wardrobe which is right across from the window.
Unpacked my car of everything from vendor shows (and now get better gas mileage), put all the merchandise out on my shelves, waiting for my three paintings to come back from the show next week before I rehang everything, planning lighting for my stairway gallery.
Started shuffling the tables and display racks into the shed, moving some things out of the shed to under the deck, moving things around under the deck to fit them and undoing what the groundhog did in excavating under there, leveling out the soil, once again creating a floor from used bricks so that I can keep it neat and get in under there without having to remove everything. That will be ongoing, probably through the winter.
(Scroll down to photos from 2013 to see my favorite peemail photos of all, with Mewsette, and 2017 to see Mimi and Mewsette with their harnesses.)
I found a new foster for the remaining three kittens, Midnight, Moonlight and Pepper. Their foster seems reluctant to list them with a rescue which will take them when there is room and will find a home for them, and a move to a new place with new people and other animals, and experienced fosters, will do them good.
And more things like that, just one thing leads to another, along with everyday work, and before I know it I’m ready for bed. This perfect cool weather, a little cloudy but good weather to be moving things around and active, every little bit of new organization feels good.
No new artwork yet, though I’m about to start on a couple of covers for Patricia. I have to finish organizing the studio and clean it once again. I have a “screen door” like the one I used to block the kitchen doorway for the studio doorway so I can work in there with the door open, and perhaps that will facilitate a different integration for the boys.
So from the time Mimi and Mr. Sunshine and Giuseppe and I go out in the back yard before breakfast to the time I’m nodding off at my computer, I am quietly busy, and keeping an eye on Mimi and the boys with occasional fluids for Mimi, appetite stimulant and Pepcid for Mr. Sunshine, and extra food for all three. And loving on them all as each of the household finds their new places and patterns around the house.
From around this date in past years
Brothers Nose to Nose, 2021
Ya know…they do this, all on their own, and it’s totally sweet. Mr. Sunshine and Giuseppe simply fell asleep side by side, noses touching, after bathing each other. And wrestling a little bit, semi-seriously, because they are equals in the household. I could just look at them like that all afternoon. And then do it again tomorrow. Sometimes I do.
~~~
From Instagram
Headed off to the North Hills Art Center to submit my artwork for the 2021 Members’ Show. It’s a pretty fair sample of things I like to paint, Little Mimi Cat, local landscapes, and local neighborhoods. Mimi will be staying home. I have too many other places to stop that I can’t bring her into. But she can rest up at home after supurrvising the framing, and the photography.
From the back yard and beyond
Check my daily photo blog Today for any photos I may have missed posting here.
I’m a little behind!
From around this date in past years
Bella Is Being Watched…By Herself, 2018
Bella was enjoying a nice nap in the kitchen when suddenly she realized she wasn’t alone in this comfy spot.
Who is that? She looks familiar, but she doesn’t smell like anything.
Hey, all that stuff in there looks familiar.
And who is that lady holding a dog up there?
And who is that over there? Where am I ?
I’m just going to get back to my nap. Maybe it will all go away by the time I wake up.
Don’t mind my bread crumbs. Bella is napping next to the chrome-finish mid-century bread box. I have refrigerator magnet reproductions of famous portraits and landscapes from the Impressionists and other eras in fine art. Bella really was quite alone until the sun came around and shone right on her, causing all sorts of reflections and reflected light. What’s a poor sleepy kitty to do?
Other daily photos shared on this date
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Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, 2017
Hamlet is imitating Basil. This is not to make fun of Basil in any way. Hamlet reveres his fur elders. He will put up with any treatment from them just to be noticed. He even asks for it. And he imitates them on occasion. I guess that’s how you learn to be a socialized cat when you didn’t grow up that way.
So we’ll take a little break.
Basil might be a little weirded out by it.
Maybe not.
~~~
From Instagram
Saturday, organizing the kitchen.
The boys help me with a little rearranging in the kitchen. Whenever I move something they need to try out the new empty space.
Jelly Bean and Mr. Sunshine model the new “bean counter”. Mr. Sunshine wants to know why we’re counting beans instead of sunshines. I managed to work around them to organize my jars of beans, but of course it’s not complete without the feline models.
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My explorers are ready for adventure.
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This morning.
Mr. Sunshine is #supurrvising the gas company man who is replacing our meter this morning. I said I’d leave them to it and he petted Mr. Sunshine and said, “We’ve got things to do.” His family adopted two cats and another who chose them.
Other daily photos shared on this date
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You Haven’t Forgotten, Have You? 2016
“Excuse me.”
“Just because we don’t do this every day anymore doesn’t mean we don’t still like a nice drink at the bathroom sink anymore.”
Giuseppe decides he’s just going to sit in the sink and wait to see if I “get it”. But he’s got his ears pointed in my direction to keep track of me.
I did.
Other daily photos shared on this date
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Daily Photo: Mewsette Gets the Message, 2013
Mewsette is shocked, shocked I tell you!
Every once in a while Mewsette comes out onto the patio by the basement door with Mimi and me, especially when I’m hanging laundry. Mimi shows her around, and gave her a lesson about pee-mail.
“You see, just get your nose close to it, and inhale.”
Mewsette stepped over and took a whiff; you can see how much taller she is than Mimi just by where her nose can reach.
“Mama Mimi, what does this mean?!”
“Just take another smell, my daughter, the truth will come to you.”
“Is this what boys are like?”
“Only some boys, my pretty Mewsette.”
“My brothers aren’t like this!”
“We fixed that, my dear.”
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2011: Out in the Backyard
Namir is stalking through the wild areas in our backyard, looking for some little mammal to kill.
Cookie and I have been out in the yard every morning and sometimes again during the day. Cookie got herself up on the picnic table yesterday while I hung up the laundry, and she sat and quietly looked into this area for quite some time. There are times she does this and I know she’s deep in her tortie cat thoughts, and times when I know she’s remembering our buddy, that gray and white pest and mole killer, Namir. In these moments she may even forgive him for pulling her tail and poking her in the butt, then trotting away, giggling.
I was thinking about him too and how the three of us went outside every morning, so both of us must have sensed him out there. I remembered this photo and thought I’d share it, from me and Cookie.
It also shows we haven’t always been a two-tortie-and-five-black-cat-house!
This is a memory in a memory in a memory. This morning, hanging laundry and photographing and picking tomatoes I remembered my garden cats through the years, and Cookie last year. When I looked to see what photo I’d posted on this day last year, this was the one, while I hung laundry and photographed a few things and picked a few tomates Cookie managed to get on the picnic table to contemplate, while we both remembered Namir from three years before. I guess it was a morning filled with memories of mid-September as I also remembered Moses and a certain tribe of kittens who were just about six weeks old. This colors today’s photos, with love.
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After seeing the “Van Gogh Up Close” exhibit I wanted to work the same energy and form I saw in his brush strokes choosing oil pastel to layer and blend the strokes. It’s Giuseppe and Mr. Sunshine, just quietly hanging together on the landing, Giuseppe sitting upright, Sunshine loafing. Find this art on a garden flag, a keepsake box, a tile, and more. Read more and purchase.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
