Yay for wintry kitty cuteness: Nov/Dec Cat Photo Contest Winner

The hubster had a hard time picking the winner from the submissions sent in by my newsletter subscribers for the Nov./Dec. contest. This time, besides just the typical difficulty of him hating to choose amongst cute kitties (during which time he mumbles and grumbles about not knowing how he could have possibly been foolish enough to volunteer to be my "objective" judge for the photos that were sent in), he also had to contend with each of the kitties vying for a different choice.

Allie Mae, of course, was pushing for this one of Luxor all snuggled up in a blanket, since she has a super-big and not-so-secret crush on him.

Snacker, meanwhile, thought that Miz Allie Cat looked adorable in her Santa hat--and like a potentially nice replacement for Allie Mae (who has been annoying him lately), pointing out to me that I wouldn't even really have to learn a new name or anything. He was undeterred by my suggestion that PBDesigns might not want to give up such a lovely kitty in the first place.


Then Puma chimed in to say he was very impressed with Angel's (of BeadedTail fame) stocking-snagging skills, hoping that if her photo won she might be willing to give him some free lessons.


However, Zorro was equally impressed with the seating selection made by QuirkyDolls's kitty, and asked me to please procure some tinsel so he could add it to his unusual perches repertoire. He also got into a slightly heated argument with Puma about why the ability to choose the perfect spot to sit was superior to the ability to stand on two paws, accusing Puma of acting far too "human-y" for a "proper" feline (Zorro has very definite notions about these things).

Still, despite all 16 kitty paws trouncing across my DH's hands as he tried to make his selection, he was finally able to decide.

So.... (kitty paw drumroll please) Congratulations, Luxor--you've won a $20 gift certificate to the PurrPrints etsy store. Just contact me about what you'd like to get with it and I'll let you know what to do from there.

They'll be another cat photo contest starting shortly for my newsletter subscribers, so if anyone new would like to participate just subscribe to the newsletter and you'll get the necessary info in the next couple days.

Thanks for sending in such wonderful, sweet, wintry photos!

Could frivolity be defined as "the refusal to follow directions"?

I ask this simply because I promised, in my last post, that the next post would be frivolous. Then I realized that I need to announce the giveaway winner in this post, and figured the best way to combine those two needs would be in a picture of my cats (frivolously) batting at the image of the winner on the laptop screen. Usually, of course, the cats are all too happy to attack the computer--especially, say, if I am working on some terribly important paper that is already late and I'm re-reading what I wrote and suddenly my paragraph is obscured by a big chunk 'o kitty fur as one of them slaps the screen, or sticks their head up close to the monitor for a better look, and so on.

Or perhaps I'm being unfair and they are trying to be as helpful as this kitty here?
Or perhaps, like all cats, they just love (love, love) being difficult. So that, of course, when I try to get one of them to do something cute (and frivolous) in front of the computer screen, this is as close as I get:
Anyway, as you (perhaps, if you have super-human eyesight) can see from the picture, comment #3 was selected by randomizer.org as the winner--thus congratulations, and a set of cat snow angel cards, go to QuirkyDolls.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered my giveaway--I'll have another one again next month--and it's not too late to enter my December giveaway for my newsletter subscribers--just subscribe to my newsletter (see upper left corner of my site) to find out more.

A guest post from Zorro: Sitting pretty

Since my mom has been too busy to write about us lately, I figured I'd just take over the keyboard and do a post myself. (Sheesh--it's so hard to get good help these days.)

Anyway, since I am an absolute champion at the sport of Unusual Perching, I thought I would share a few pointers with those of you who wish to expand your seating repertoire.

This first photo is a good example of taking advantage of unusual spots that open up when your humans get distracted. Mommy was putting things into the big thing that makes weird liquid-y noises sometimes, then my obnoxious younger brother went tearing through the room and distracted her, and I took the opportunity to check out this new unusual perch.

Now this one exemplifies my preferred approach to unusual perching: find the smallest surface area you can possibly fit on, preferably one that is precariously arranged, and then show off your unusual feline grace by perching perfectly atop it without knocking anything over. If possible, position yourself against a really ugly background while you're at it, so your human has to spend an hour or two going o.c.d. over removing the background and replacing it with something that doesn't hurt to look at. This way the human will keep a nice perfectly still warm lap open for a while due to sitting in front of the glow-y flat box for so long--and you can take advantage of it! This is an especially good choice during chilly winter months when it is such a bother to try to generate your own heat.

Of course, there are dangers with unusual sitting. The most risky one is the chance that your human will see you sitting there and for some reason feel the irresistible urge to scoop you up and give you kisses. Ugh!