Half Hearted

When I finished yesterday's post, I went straight to work hand-sewing the binding for It's Raining Cats and Dogs. I've turned the second corner now. The next side is a shorter one, and so I expect I'll turn the third corner soon enough.

It was time to go pick up the turkeys at Erik and Mae's house. I'd also planned to do my grocery shopping. A check of the weather forecast found that the threat of snow had been removed from today's forecast. And, hey...there's nothing like a good reason to procrastinate on a hated task. Instead of going to the grocery store, I went straight home. Grocery shopping could wait another day.

Also yesterday morning, Sadie took the bold step of jumping up in the high window above our bed. It's a short wide window...sort of like having a skylight on a wall. She discovered she can practically sit in the trees there, and she can keep a close eye on bird activity outside. Why...it's almost as if she's a bird herself.

Smitty has no time for that kind of nonsense. He was busy keeping up with catsultant duties in the sewing room.

You might recall from yesterday's post that I'd sewn together January's heart block for Hearts A-Plenty.

I wasn't completely satisfied with it though. The heart fabric was over-shadowing the embroidered heart. After talking it over with my catsultant, I decided to take the borders off, trim the block a little bit, and add a narrow border...one-quarter inch, to be exact. And, yeah...I think I like that better.

And so I continued on with February...

And March...and pretty soon, I had the top row sewn together.

It's looking pretty cute to my eyes. Sadie liked it too. She helped me keep things organized and lined up as I continued on with April's block.

Smitty parked himself behind the sewing machine to keep me sewing in a straight line.

Seriously. Keep those seams straight.

By day's end, I had half the hearts sewn together.

While I've been slaving away in the sewing room, Mike's been hard at work customizing the fifth wheel. He's been working for several days installing solar panels on the roof. When one heads south, one should absorb as much energy from the sun as possible. This has been quite a task since he also needs to run the wiring through the RV, which involved drilling holes in the roof. Yikes. Sometimes the man just amazes me with his handyman skills and his courage.

But solar panels aside, he's also been working on a fix for the window where the catio goes. Now, here's the saga of the catio window. You might recall when the fifth wheel first arrived here at the Three Cats Ranch, the catio window was this new stupid kind of frameless window that has a crank (circled) opener. It only tips out about two inches at the bottom.

So in order to accommodate the catio, we had that window replaced with one that slides open from the bottom.

And that was all well and good, except with such a wide opening, it lets in a lot of cold air. Here in the Northwest, that's rarely a good thing, especially in the winter, and so on one of our camping trips, Mike upcycled a big sheet of plastic to cut down on the draft. It's a little like those plastic curtains they hang in the refrigerator sections of grocery stores.

Classy, huh? Nothing like a good dose of duct tape to liven up your interior decorating. Maybe you've noticed this method has fallen out of favor, and grocery stores have returned to glass cases for refrigerated goods. There's a reason for that: it isn't a particularly efficient method of insulation.

So...clever Mike used the screen from the window to create a template, and then had a sheet of plexi-glass cut that would fit inside the window frame. Then, he installed a regular kitty door in the plexi-glass, and ta-da!

Cool, huh? And I would estimate we've spent about a thousand bucks on this catio window solution.  Anything for our kitties...although I guess, technically, the kitty door is for us.

But he's not the only smart person living here at the Three Cats Ranch. Smart me...I talked him into going out for dinner and then to the grocery store yesterday evening. And so my most dreaded shopping trip of the year is done. And it was relatively painless. And I had someone to help me put things away when we got home.

This morning, I'm heading out for my monthly pedicure, and then back home to do some cooking and more sewing. I'm really hoping to get the Hearts A-Plenty top sewn together before the end of the week. It's going to get busy from here on though.

How are your Thanksgiving preparations going?