This week I am showing you more recent pictures of my baby boys so that you can see how much they have grown. To give you something for comparison, the top three pictures are from early summer. As you can see from Picture 5 of Trey with Joey, they still have a way to go before catching up with their 20-pound brother, but they are thriving. Not bad for the little bits that came to me weighing less than a pound (Deuce) and just over a pound (Trey). :)

Here's a bonus post for you for this week because I wanted to share.

My little Deuce has an attraction to toilet paper. I spent a lot of time rerolling salvageable toilet paper and cleaning up toilet paper that he and Trey had dragged and shredded throughout the house ~ making the place look like snow had fallen indoors ~ not to mention making the boys look as if they were foaming at their mouths with the shredded TP there. Deuce was definitely the TP unroller in these cases, but Trey happily joined in the fun when the TP hit the floor.

I thought I was so clever when I installed another TP holder ~ this one higher up, out of the reach and sight of my little guy because I hang my robe over it.

So *NOW* what does he do? On three different occasions ~ so far ~ today, I have seen him with a Puff in his mouth. He is pilfering my pop-up Puffs by snatching them right from the box.

Oh for the good ol' days when he was too small to jump up onto my desk! :)

[Photo courtesy of Itchmo News for Dogs & Cats.]

Since school has begun, I have even less time and energy for something like housecleaning. And sharing a house with six furry critters only compounds the problem.

I hire a lady once a month to clean for me. She is extremely efficient and thorough, but once a month isn't really enough to keep the homestead as spic-and-span clean as I like for it to be. However, I am stretching my budget beyond its limit to afford even that.

Consequently, I have learned a few shortcuts for between Tisha's monthly visits. Many of these methods were highlighted in an e-mail I received from Dr. Jon, a vet who sends out his daily advice column through the sponsorship of PetPlace.com.

Here was his e-mail with a few comments from me, too!

When you own a cat, keeping the house clean is never easy. From all that shedding to hairballs and those occasional "accidents" every day can be a real challenge.

And the more pets you have, the more challenging the task becomes. So here are a few quick and easy tips that can help keep your house clean:

1. Avoid white furniture and accents. That goes for walls, rugs, couches and pillows. Outside cats and indoor/outdoor cats get dirty. And all cats shed. Add to that the occasional hairball or "accident" and, well, it's a bad combination all around for white furniture and accents. Continuous contact between your pet and your house will destroy these items quickly, so consider darker tones. [Vikki's Note: I knew better, but I fell in love with a *big* sunflower rug that I bought for the living room ~ the problem being that the background is *beige.* *HUGE* mistake. All my kitties but Trey have some black on them, and that fur accumulates on the rug and sticks there like glue. Only my Oreck has enough suction to pull it up, and because of my back problems, I'm not supposed to vacuum with anything but my little cordless vac. So I have to wait for Tisha ~ or run the Oreck myself and then hit the Vicodin bottle. Occasional barfy messes on this rug are that much harder to clean, too. For any kind of stain, I highly recommend OxiClean Stain Remover, found with laundry products. If OxiClean won't eradicate the stain, nothing will!]

2. Get yourself some throw rugs, pillows and furniture throws to use around the house. They're decorative and can hide problem stains. [Vikki's Note: Yep, I'm all about hiding those stains when the OxiClean is overmatched!]

3. Keep closet doors closed. Cats love to hide and nap in closets, which also means that they shed in your closets. And if they happen to have an "accident" in the closet, it may be a while before you realize it. That makes clean-up even more of an issue. [Vikki's Note: You may have to be creative if you have louvered doors as I do. My kitties can paw them open. So I installed latches on some, and put heavy, decorative doorstops in front of others.]

4. Spot clean messes quickly. Take a few minutes each day before you leave the house and before you head to bed to remove pet hairs and stains that may have collected throughout the day. I strongly suggest investing in the Swiffer Sweeper for this. It's great for quick clean-ups. This 2-In-1 Swiffer allows you to sweep and mop at the same time, cutting your cleaning time in half. It picks up 50% more dirt and hair than a broom and removes everything from dried food, vomit and pet fur to paw prints on virtually any surface in your home. So not only is it quicker, it also works better than traditional sweeping and mopping! If you own a cat, you really should own a Swiffer. This is a pet owner must-have!

Check out the Swiffer Sweeper. [Vikki's Note: As soon as I get past some financial obligations, I'll give the Swiffer Sweeper a try on that living room rug and get back to you with the results. By the way, one of these financial obligations happens October 1 when Deuce and Trey have their little operations on their doodles. Please keep us in your good thoughts! Thanks! And as Dr. Jon says...]

Happy Cleaning!

Until next time,
Dr. Jon
And Vikki, Too! :)

[Photo courtesy of Somerville Free Classifieds. Yes, I know the kitty isn't cleaning, but she is the photo for a housecleaning ad. Besides, she was too darn cute to resist!]

Bonus Kitty Comics for Labor Day! :)

Were truer words ever spoken? :)

I know you're wondering what the heck this cartoon has to do with *Purrspectives of the Crazy Cat Lady.* I can sum up my reasoning in two words: KITTY LITTER! If ever there was a man who should be buried in it, here he is ~ though maybe I'm insulting kitties and their litter in the process? When I first heard that *Blago* might be impeached, I said, *Ding dong, the witch is dead.* However, this particular witch lingers and lingers in the most public and disagreeable ways ~ kinda like the odor of skunky roadkill on the highway. Or is that insulting skunks?

Most of us have encountered this hide-and-seek game when it's time for a trip to the vet. How do our babies *know* when we work so hard to trick them? :)

I had another use for my carrier on Friday. We had quite the adventure here.

Friday morning, after a killer week at school, I was awake kinda early, so I decided just to get up and maybe finally get to read my morning papers online. I have been seriously out of the news loop since school started simply because I've had no time for reading or watching news. I fed my inside kitties, and then, as I opened the door to feed outside kitties, one of them ~ Deuce's littermate ~ jumped over my foot and got inside.

The poor little guy was terrified and went ripping through the house ~ and I mean *ripping* ~ tearing up things in his path mostly in the bathroom and bedroom, where he went up the curtains, down the curtains, and up the curtains again to perch atop them ~ howling and knocking down my pink-rose garland there along with a wall-hanging that had belonged to my mama.

After sharing a bed with six kitties overnight, I am wheezy on a good day, but after chasing this kitty, I was *really* gasping, and my attempts to calm him down weren't working very well. I must have sounded like a wheezy monster to the little guy.

I finally got him off the curtains, and then he ran to my office and hid in a corner, underneath a cabinet. As much as I *HATED* to bother her at 5:15 in the morning, I had to call neighbor Elly for help. I had to get ready for school soon, and with my arthritic back, I knew I could never get down on the floor and get both the kitty and me up again if I happened to catch him.

Bless her heart, Elly came right over. We hoped to lure him into a carrier baited with some canned kitty food, but he didn't budge. After about 15 minutes of futile waiting, I decided a more active approach was needed. I lay on the floor, reached under the cabinet *carefully,* and scruffed him. He wasn't happy, but with the scruffing, I didn't get scratched.

Elly held the carrier tipped up so that I could drop him inside, and then she let him out outside. He was *VERY* happy to be outside again. My own fuzzy half dozen were amazingly calm throughout the whole ordeal though Deuce showed no signs of remembering his littermate ~ and vice versa. However, I was a mess.

At least our adventure happened on a Friday, not a Monday! :) After school, I took Elly out for her favorite, Chinese, to say thanks. I'd still be lying on the floor with the kitty huddled in the corner without her help.

This morning I kicked the door before I opened it so that any kitties gathered there would scoot back a bit. I didn't have to worry about Friday's kitten. He watched from a distance until the food was in place. :)

Have you missed me? I'm guessing posts will be fewer now that school has begun, but I will surely try for at least once a week. And I will rely heavily on the kindness of others, too ~ meaning I will use that wonderful copy-and-paste feature on my computer.

First, though, I will share with you that we have late-summer kittens in the neighborhood. One stray had a litter over by Elly's in some unknown location, and another stray had hers literally by my back stoop. I saw them when I was carrying in groceries Saturday. She kept them there overnight and then moved them to a more secure location this morning ~ thanks be to God because I was a frazzled mess trying to keep watch over them in their fairly exposed location. She had four, but one didn't survive. Five dead kittens in one summer is a little hard on the emotions, but I managed. We definitely didn't need more kittens in the neighborhood, but I don't want to decrease their population through death.

Now for the *borrowed* part of this post. I subscribe to a daily kitty newsletter from a wonderful place called PetPlace.com. Today's e-mail included recipes for homemade kitty treats. *I* will certainly give Julia Child no competition, but I thought maybe some of you with more culinary expertise would like to try them:

The pet stores are full of cat treats. But did you know that you can make your own healthy kitty treats at home? Here are some recipes to help you find a way to your cat's heart:

Savory Cheese Treats

* 3/4 cup white flour
* 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
* 5 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

# 1/4 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
# 1/4 cup cornmeal

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine cheeses and yogurt. Add flour and cornmeal. If needed, add a small amount of water to create a nice dough. Knead dough into a ball and roll to 1/4 inch. Cut into one inch sized pieces and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Makes 2 dozen.

Chick N'Biscuits

* 1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
* 1/2 cup chicken broth
* 1 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/3 cup cornmeal
* 1 tablespoon soft margarine

Preheat the over to 350 F. # Combine chicken, broth and margarine and blend well. Add flour and cornmeal. Knead dough into a ball and roll to 1/4 inch. Cut into one-inch sized pieces and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Makes 18 cookies.

Crispy Liver Morsels

* 1/2 cup cooked chicken livers
* 1/4 cup water
* 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/4 cup cooked carrot, mashed
* 1 tablespoon soft margarine

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Place well-done livers in a blender with 1/4 cup water. In a bowl, combine flour and margarine. Add liver mixture and carrots and knead dough into a ball. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut into one-inch sized pieces. Place cookies on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 325 F for 10 minutes. Makes 12 cookies.

Tuna Tidbits

* 6 ounce can of tuna
* 1/4 cup water drained from tuna
* 3 T cooked egg white, chopped
* 1/4 cup cornmeal
* 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine tuna, egg white and water. Add cornmeal and flour and blend to form a dough. Knead into a ball and roll to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into one-inch sized pieces. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes. Makes 12 cookies.

Happy cooking!

[The image at the top of this post was borrowed from Whimsy of Andrea.]

This poster released by the Michigan Humane Society shows the poster for 'Catfax' which allows would be owners to get the history of their 'new' cat before they adopt. (AP Photo/Michigan Humane Society ~ Courtesy Yahoo News)

Check into the Michigan Humane Society Web site for further details. :)

Are you planning a trip to Lithuania in what is left of your summer? Well, have I got the site for you see when you are there: the Cats Museum!

Founded in 1990 at Young Naturalist’s Centre, the museum was established by Vanda Kavaliauslkiene, who was collecting exhibits for the museum many years. The first exhibit, a little black wooden cat, came from Poland in 1962. Visitors are greeted by cats in stained glass, on stair handrails, on the lamps, and in over 10,000 other exhibits there.

Here visitors can get acquainted with cats, their breeds, and their character features. The museum features exhibits from many countries throughout the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, China, Portugal and Taiwan. Miniatures of both male and female cats are created from porcelain, glass, amber, marble, crystal, and other media.

Children's pictures, artistic photographs, works of professional painters, and other items are also presented in the expositions. Visitors are greeted by a beloved cat, Mikis, who is considered to be the head of the museum.

You can e-mail the museum at jgs@splius.lt.

Your bonus post! You can probably guess why this appealed to me! :)