Great Suffering! (Or, Adventures With Cats and Salt Dough)

The weather is really turning colder here, unfortunately the Pacific Northwest isn't known for our really cold and snowy winters. Still, I'm hoping for some snow like I used to get back home. There's a sense of school child giddiness that overtakes me when there's snow all about and I can't help but laugh and run and catch snowflakes on my tongue no matter how old I get. I don't know if I will ever stop. Snow is one of those beautiful things that takes my breath away. Many of my holiday decorations will usually revolve around snow, snowflakes and greenery of the season. Speaking of! We've only gotten a few things put up so far, we're all three feeling very under the weather, but here's what we do have.

Just the door and the garland on the stairs so far, but there will be so much more to come! After doing the ferret paws yesterday, I wanted to do the cats' paws as well. The only problem with that was the fact that it's not just my cats we have to do. It's Shepard, Wiseman and Raja's cats, giving us a total of 8 cats to humiliate for the sake of our nostalgia. Ah well, they'll survive it even if they want to tell you differently. Jump below for many more pictures of the cats being displeased with us!

Here's the dough all rolled out and cut, just waiting for little kitten paws to be pressed into them!

Micha is Shepard's Birman kitten, only a year old, and she's very very skittish. She doesn't like attention unless you're otherwise incapacitated (such as trying to sleep). Since she seemed amicable at the time, we went ahead and did her paw first. There was much looking around with a very dazed expression on her face, but she let us press her paw into the dough with little argument.

That was the best picture we got of her. She's such a cute little one, I promise! Next was Wiseman's cat Nibblett, also known as "Halloween cat" and "our $1400 cat". When he was a year old, on turkey day, he ate the binding string of one of the living room rugs and had to be rushed to an emergency vet for surgery! Thankfully we were able to get a care credit card and paid it off slowly, but we weren't about to let him go and we're so glad we paid for the surgery.

He's 8 years old now and we think he learned his lesson about the evil rugs, but we're also paranoid about leaving string out now. The paw prints were coming out great! Here's Nibblett's...

Uther is Wiseman's other cat, also known as "Piggle-snout" since he steals all the treats when he can. He's a year old and sometimes when he purrs and snuggles you boogers will drip from his nose all over the place. It's....cute? Ew. I try to ignore it.

He really really wasn't sure about this dough stuff. He could have sworn it was a trap! It's all just so weird. That is, until he realized that the other cats were getting treats after they had their paws pressed into the dough....

Not so much arguing anymore! Next up were Raja's cats, Ditto and Narp. We did Narp first, mostly because he usually doesn't care about anything you could possibly do to him. He doesn't care about flea meds, nail clippings or snuggles. He cared a little about this, though.

I'm quite certain that face says "It's between my toes, mother!" All in all, he only squirmed a little, and Raja got a very nice print out of it. Her cat Ditto, however, was aghast  We often compare him to a very fabulous gay man with how he primps and cleans and struts around the house. But then, he is a Maine Coon. 

There was no dignity in this scruffing. He let us all know how displeased he was. He'll forgive his mommy anything, though. A few moments later and he was mewing by her side again. Lastly were my three. I started with Freya since she had been nearby and watching intently. She's the matron of the house and spends most of her time yelling at all the other cats or curled in my lap. She nuzzles my face and chirps to me on a regular basis, sometimes when I'm busy (like writing a blog post).

All she had to say about it was to give me a long suffering sigh and stare through the table till I was done. Her print came out pretty well, I think!

Then came Brodie, he's....special. When he was born he nearly died, but we managed to save him and he's always been a little slow. He's not the smartest, or the wisest, but he will love you forever and crash into you with every ounce of his 18 pounds just to show it to you. He purrs and kneads your arm or leg until it goes numb and will fall asleep like that.

This picture sums up Brodie's comprehension of the world around him pretty succinctly. "I don't know what's going on and I'm pretty sure I don't like it. Stoooooooooooop!" Thankfully Wiseman was nearby with some reassuring scritches and he suffered through it like a trooper.

See? It was alright in the end. Lokai, my black and white poly-dactyl kitten, was last and he was not pleased. Not pleased at all! There isn't as much a death grip on his leg as there seems in this picture, but moments before his face was pressed against me in a "I don't like this, I don't like you, there's too much going on, UGH!" gesture.

He got his treats though, and ran to sleep on our bed. By the time we went to sleep he had forgiven me and curled up on my pillow to purr me to sleep like usual. That's the sum of the kitties and their paw prints which I forgot to get a picture of, but we'll get them painted and labeled all nice and neat and I'll update you when they're done!

There was also just enough left that I cut out four stars from the dough and made Shepard, Wiseman, Raja and myself all press our thumbprints into one. Those turned out cute but I don't seem to have a picture of them! Ah well, I will post finished pictures once they're done.

With how easy this is to do, I challenge you all to give it a try! If you do, you have to link me your results! You can print anything you like...though hopefully in the spirit of Christmas and not...you know. I'm thinking of pressing one with one of my hands and one of Shepard's since it's our first Christmas married.

Going Dark,

Snowflake