Other residents of my home

DH, the Stooges and I are not the residents of La Maison du Psycho. We have four-footed furry critters too. We are owned by cats.

DH and I have had as many as 6 cats at one time. Before we had Larry, we had 5 cats, four of whom slept on the bed with us. The fifth cat slept underneath the bed because she didn't get along with the others (she was a calico - need I say more?). But at the moment we have three kitties. I lurve my kitties.


Sylvia is really Larry's cat. She was dumped in front of a pet store, and Larry rescued her. We think she was about 2 weeks old. Larry bottle fed her around the clock. I didn't think she would live, but she did. Here she is as a little kitten:

Tiny and cute, huh? She got a lot bigger. Sylvia is now a very beautiful and porky 2 year old cat. She has an odd double layer coat, with a long rough black outer layer and a soft light silvery undercoat. Gorgeous. Sylvia wants to be Top Cat, but she's not. She is somewhat socially deficient because she did not have a kitty momma, only a Stooge who liked to play roughly with her. The other cats don't care for her, and all the Stooges say she is BAD. She will bite the snot out of you. But she thinks this is the way to show affection. (She does love me - she will sit on me and purr and rub on my face for a while before biting.) If only she was as good as she is pretty.....

Cisco is my only boy kitty. He loves me soooo much. He's a big handsome boy, about 4 years old and 20 lbs. He's so soft and silky. He spends a lot of time grooming - that white fur doesn't stay that way on its own! Cisco is not a lap cat (except occasionally on my lap) but he truly adores sleeping in my bed, especially if DH is out of town. He is the Top Cat in the house. And he hunts - a lot. One Easter morning he brought us a present of a dead baby rabbit. Yes, Cisco killed the Easter Bunny.



Sophie is my tiny white girl. She is very petite 2 year old girl - about five pounds - and a very subservient cat. She is happy to be the Bottom Cat. Sophie is happy to be any place where people will be kind to her. She gets ridiculously happy when petted and drools a lot, and then she shakes her head and drool flies everywhere! She likes to get into small containers and sleep. Sophie spends time with Cisco and will groom him. Consequently, she is allowed to eat when Cisco eats canned kitty food. Sylvia must wait until they other two are finished. Unfortunately, Sophie was not blessed in the brains category. Sophie is a bit dim. OK, a lot dim. She is a very dim bulb. But soooo sweet!



The Stooges love to have Fun With Laser Pointers and amuse the cats. The boys get no end of joy out of this, and the cats get a lot of exercise. They will all participate in their own way. Sylvia gets the most pleasure out of this.


I've taken a little break from the hanky to make a quick split-ring edging for a lavender shirt. I'm using the Lizbeth Caribbean,

More on why I tat....

I quit tatting sometime in my early 20's and didn't pick is up again until well after I got married and had the Stooges. In 2004, I started have some odd symptoms in my ear and my hearing. I went to my internist, then to my ENT who thought I had something called Ménière's disease, but sent me to get in MRI "just in case". And here is the happy MRI:

It turned out that I had a classic version of a non-malignant brain tumor. So I started having to spend a LOT of time in medical waiting rooms. This is when I picked up tatting again. I had to have something to keep my busy - those waiting rooms are dull! Plus it kept my mind off my troubles. And bookmarks make a nice thank you gift. I was blessed with many people who helped me and my family during this time.

I had the tumor removed in April of 2005 (it progressed pretty fast) and I have a lovely scar as a badge of honor for my craniotomy. I have recovered just fine from the surgery - you'd never know I had such a thing. But as a result of this, my left ear is both totally deaf and has no balance function. I can't use a hearing aid - they removed the nerve in the surgery. So I stagger a bit and avoid going down stairs. And I say "What?!" a lot.

I made a list of good things about being deaf in one ear:

1. If I lie on my good ear, I sleep great!
2. It only takes one finger to block out the Stooges' yelling, leaving a hand free to use my computer, or to swat kids.
3. If I sit next to annoying people and they're on my deaf side, they don't bother me much at all.
4. I can pretend I don't hear things and no one is the wiser.
5. I can use little headphones twice as long as most people, even when one side is broken.
6. And (my favorite) I can never be drafted! HA!

On the tatting front, I'm still working - slowly - on the hanky. But I signed up for Palmetto Tat Days. You should too! It's lots of fun!

Why I tat

Some of my friends wonder why in the world I would do something like tatting, something they see as too tedious and time consuming for them. These folks don't have hobbies that involve a lot of handwork. They don't knit or crochet or do needlepoint or cross stitch. It's hard for them to imagine WHY I would spend so much time and effort on such a little thing. Especially since I give it all away. I can't imagine selling any of my tatting - it's way too much work to get a piddly amount of money.

(Another blogger thought that I was driven so crazy by my children that I did tattoos!! HA HA HA HA!!!! She laughed too...)

I really love tatting. To me it's like creating a work of art. I used to do costume design, and I have a real appreciation of vintage clothing. It's relaxing to me.

My dear maternal grandmother taught me how to tat when I was in high school. I think she may have tried to teach my mother and my aunt to tat, but they didn't or wouldn't learn. I learned to sew on my own, and my grandmother was delighted. So she offered to teach me to tat and I picked it right up. My friends remember me tatting quite a bit during my college years.

Here's my grandmother in about 1949. I think she's really elegant.

My Grannah (and that's what we called her - I had trouble saying grandmama when I was little) was a character. She was well educated for her time. She was born in 1906 and ended up with a Master degree in Early Childhood Education from Columbia University, really unusual for a woman in the 1920's to do. She was a fine pianist and she sewed a lot. I have a cedar chest that she left me that's packed to the gills with beautiful clothes she made for recitals. And there is a tin in the bottom of it with old tatting thread.

My mom's sister says that Grannah was always carrying tatting in her pocket so she could work on it any time she had a moment. She tatting tons of edging for her girls' clothing. I think Grannah tatted because she liked to stay busy. She didn't like folks who just wasted time doing nothing. When she became bedridden late in life and couldn't tat because her arthritis was so bad, she found some other hand crafts to do. She sewed a form of bargello on towels.

Recently, my mother gave me a bit of Grannah's tatting along with the metal shuttle she was using. And here it is. I'm grateful to have had such a grandmother!

Monday, Monday

Had a normal busy Monday at work. Mondays are usually full of meetings and paperwork. I work in a semi-governmental agency and there's always a lot of crap paperwork and BS to fight through. We are grossly under-funded and therefore understaffed. Not much I can do - I try to keep my head above water and keep my staff informed. I support a large IT Financials package (think "The _____ of Delphi") and I have a large user community to keep happy. At the moment, they all lurve me. That could change in an instant - some folks are ones you don't turn your back on.

Anywho, I got home after work and grabbed 2 of the Stooges to find clothing to wear to my brother's wedding. We are soooooo tight on funds right now and it's a problem to find good things for kids who tear up their clothes. So I took Larry and Curly (along with their cousin Amy, who lives around the corner) to the best of the local thrift stores. (Moe was at Boy Scouts.) I felt if we could find an appropriate suit jacket there for the boys, even if it needs to be tailored, it would be a better deal than buying a new one.

And we had success! Curly found a suit that fits him almost perfectly! Bonus - this store has half off their cheap prices on Mondays. So Curly's black suit cost $15 - here it is. Note the footwear.

Larry is tougher to fit. He's a bigger build, taller and chunkier with broad shoulders and big biceps. He found some ugly items that I would not purchase. One was a chocolate brown 3 piece suit, one with big cream stripes that looked like something Morris Day would wear. (You remember him from the movie Purple Rain.) It looked like a pimp suit - and Larry called it that. I finally compromised with Larry on a charcoal grey suit with lighter stripes, one that's cut more squared off at the bottom than his conservative mom prefers. But it was ok, and cost only $35. Larry's suit will need to have a bit of tailoring, but not much, mostly sleeves. Amy (who's not going to the wedding - she's DH's niece) found a pair of jeans for a whopping $1.50. So success all around!

(I love a bargain. It's my Scots heritage. I can't help it.)

I haven't had much time to tat, but I did get the first corner turned in the fourth amd final round. I'm pleased. It's looking quite pretty, I think.

Who dat?

Just so you'll know, here are some facts about me:

I've been married to DH for 23 years. DH loves football and reading and sci-fi. He has a man cave in the basement that he hides in while I deal with my stuff. We like it this way. We live in a big house in the 'burbs of Hotlana. It's really a small town - I can't go anywhere without running into someone I know. Small towns are good for raising kids. People pay attention and let you know if the little urchins act up.

I am a native Southerner and proud of my accent. (Just 'cause I say ya'll and love grits doesn't mean I'm stupid. I have a good education - I went to a fine southern women's college - and I read several excellent publications daily.) Sho. Whachu tawkin' 'bout. Ya'll come back now, ya hear? I was born pre-Sputnik, during the Eisenhower administration, so I'm no baby. As a PK (preacher's kid) I'm happy that we aren't Baptist, 'cause my late Daddy taught me how to drink, swear, tell dirty jokes, and play poker. You know, the finer things.

DH and I have three heathen male offspring, Larry, Curly, and Moe. Larry will be 21 in two weeks. He's is very bright - he's currently teaching himself Japanese - but is not a college student because he decided to flunk out of the local university. Larry lives in his own lair in the basement and works retail. He's actually pretty pleasant and has learned it's best not to argue with The Mama. I hope to God he will get a better job and move out SOON.

Curly is 17 and a senior in high school. He's very cute and thinks he is God's gift to women. A typical day with Curly starts him saying to himself while admiring his reflection, "DAMN, I'm good looking!" Curly loves to play his guitar and sing to the girls, and they swoon over this. He's also smart and lazy. Curly (like his brothers) is pretty damn ADHD, and he's got an additional fun part that causes no end of fun for DH and I - he's bi-polar. So we spend a lot of time at doctor and therapists offices. The combination of ADHD, bi-polar stuff, and wild hormones means that Curly is incredibly impulsive and makes very poor decisions. It's really fun for DH and I.

When I was in college, we used to refer to blind dates as "a good time -or a good story". Life with Curly contains a lot of good stories. Not that I'm complaining - he's a sweet kid who tells me daily how much he loves me and drapes his lanky bod over me for hugs. But it's an adventure for sure. We've had pregnancy scares, giant cell phone bills, probation, a zillion visits to the ER, and bathtubs that overflowed into the kitchen below. Woo-wee, them's some good stories!

Moe is my baby at 12. He's in 7th grade and utterly charming and gregarious. Moe makes friends with EVERYONE. He doesn't know a stranger, and is happy to get along with who ever will spend time with him. His big brothers pick on him mercilessly. What else are little brothers for? But Moe is such a sunny kid. He makes my day.

Living with the Three Stooges and their entourage is like living in a fraternity house. I used to say it was like a junior frat house - like a regular one, but without the drinking or the sex - but that's not true any more. The house is a disaster - clothes and food leavings everywhere. DH and I try to keep a handle on it, but when we aren't around, things fall apart. I'm really glad school is back in session - it limits the amount of unsupervised hooliganism.

On the tatting front, I've made a bit of progress. What do you think do think?

Currently tatting

I'm making an edged wedding hankerchief for my brother's fiance to carry at their wedding in October. It's tatted in DMC Cebelia size 30.

I'm working on the last row now - will post soon.

Hello......

Hello internets - this is your friendly psycho mom the tatter!

I'm a working mom of 3 boys, married for 23 years, and an IT professional. And I tat for fun. I do other things too, like throwing pots and singing. But work and my kids take up most of my time.

I have to do something to counteract the craziness around me or I'll go psycho!