Gather in the Garden

After much thoughtful dreaming, I decided to join "Blogland." I've been inspired by Kydia's blog, Understand Blue, Sam's blog, stampinsamsgarage, and many others. I can only aspire to be creative like them. In the words of Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "You're my hero."

Here's a picture of my garden. I love roses and have been amazed at how well they have grown & flourished. I choose my roses by their color and then their scent...they have to have a strong scent...none of this light, slight or non- existent. I want my roses to smell like roses. I also have honeysuckle, star jasmine, pink jasmine, night blooming jasmine, sweet peas, freesias, daffodils, narcissus, dutch iris, gardenias and hydrangea as well as French lavender, English lavender and rosemary. I love the sights & scents of my garden. It's truly a place of tranquility for me.

As I'm typing my first entry, my surrogate fur child (kitten) is helping me...make that attacking my sleeves and hands. She's a cutie and belongs to my two nieces. They have named her Dinah. However, as my sister is extremely allergic to cats, Dinah lives with my husband & me and our four fur children, Stevie Ray, Jimi, Zoot & DK...so now we have five fur children...but it's NOT like having five dogs...at least that's what I tell people when I read their facial expression as "OMG! You have five, I mean FIVE cats! What are you thinking!!!" Guess they're just not cat people, or I really am crazy! Yep, crazy in love with my darling fur children. So without any further adieu, here are my children.
This is Stevie Ray, our "first born." He's now 12 in human years...not sure what that is in cat years. He was homeless and showed up on the doorstep where my husband worked. All the gals there said someone needed to take him home, and as we had just decided to get a cat about two weeks earlier, Stevie found his home. When we brought him home, Stevie was all legs, all tail & all voice. He's still very vocal and loves to be around people.

We adopted Jimi and his brother, Charlie, nine years ago. Their mom was a homeless cat and ran into my friends house and gave birth to Jimi and his two brothers, Charlie & Junior. Junior found a home, but Jimi (originally named Bubba) and Charlie were still looking for a home. After seeing their picture, I just couldn't resist. We renamed Bubba to Jimi in keeping with our music theme. Charlie's name stayed the same...for the drummer of the Rolling Stones. Charlie has since found another home, but still comes back to visit.

Zoot is very photogenic. I have LOTS of pics of him, so I'm sure you'll see more on my blog. Zoot belonged to another friend who could no longer keep him due to a hospital stay and move to a new place. He's a cuddler...loves to lie on my lap and be pet. He also loves to play with the other cats, but Stevie & Jimi are the only two who will play with him...and only for a limited time. He & DK used to play & chase each other when she was a kitten, but now she won't have anything to do with him. Poor Zoot! I keep telling him that if he plays his cards right, he'll have a new playmate in Dinah. I'll keep you posted.

Here's the queen of our household, DK. She was originally adopted by my husband's daughter and her roommate. They named her Dangerous Liaisons and called her Danger. I wanted to change her name to Billie (for Billie Holiday) or Etta (for Etta James) both in keeping with our musical theme, but since she has a strong streak of daring, Danger stuck and my husband's oldest son said she reminded him of a cartoon character, Danger Kitty...so she was renamed and now goes by DK.

And here is the new addition to our family, Dinah. She was seven weeks when we got her and has been growing like a weed...just like all children. Our other fur children are starting to come around. There was quite a bit of hissing, growling & running away at first, but they are beginning to realize that she is here to stay. It's been quite awhile since we've had a kitten in our home, so it's great fun watching her play.

I hope you've enjoyed reading my first post as much as I've enjoyed putting it together. Take care & talk to you later!
Auntie Del
;o)