You know that part in Twister where Jonas says “shit, shit, it’s moving away!” That’s how I feel when I look at the calendar. Summer is over, we are well into autumn and October is two days away. I think I packed my brain away when I was packing up after the Mutt Market. I’ve lost time since then.
The Mutt Market, despite morning rain and thunder, was a success. We had 25 booths set up (previous most was 14), and a 85% increase in the number of adults, dogs and kids who attended. Vendors, volunteers, and attendees all seemed to have a good time. Mom sold quite a bit in our booth. I sold 3 of 3 mosaic bricks, 2/6 mosaic rocks, 1/3 painted birdhouses (Mom bought it), 1/10 mini beaded flower magnets:
1/15 potion bottles:
0/3 mystery dice bags:
0/19 silicone bead key chains, 2/31 bag charms (both were cat mom themed) and had maybe $3 of quarters in my dice gumball machine:
I have sold five of the potion bottles on my Etsy shop since then.
But! Bob was so kind to help me set up early, and then help many of the other vendors set up. And my Mom is always my biggest supporter. And the most fun thing, my best friend Amy came from Chicago and worked the booth and hung out with me all day! Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for more, even without great sales personally.
I’ve been working on some other projects for my Etsy shop since the Mutt Market. I am crocheting rune and tarot bags, which can be used for solo role playing games. And I’ve been working with rhinestones and Eco Resin.
The Eco Resin is fun. You can make trinket dishes, vases, and other small items. I’m also using it to make some paint kits for the shelter’s Etsy as well.
Honestly, I feel like I’m crafting through the apocalypse. Crafting to escape my brain and my worries. It’s only half working. And I keep adding more crafts (and supplies) to my list.
I was going back through old posts here on Catobear, and remembered when I used to do a Misc. Monday post regularly. I also used to do a Feline Friday post. Maybe I should get back into those, for my own sake. I doubt many people come to this site these days. Better things to do with their time, no doubt. I’ve been blogging in one form or another since 2007, nearly twenty years.
My Michigan Garden
If you follow My Michigan Garden on Facebook, you’ve seen photos of all of the gardens from the Marshall Garden Tour and the Battle Creek Garden Tour. Lots of inspiration. Today we had rain for the first time in forever. We’ve had to put the sprinkler on every other day and fill the birdbaths in the off-days. Honestly, we’re not getting much produce this year despite the watering and fertilizing. We pulled two green peppers and have some sungold cherry tomatoes each day. Looks like we have a total of three small-ish green tomatoes and two quite small cucumbers. The green beans put on a good display of growth, but not a single flower or bean. Probably time to dump all of the soil this year and start fresh next year. No frogs have attended the pond, but the flowers are starting to look nice.
Feral Cat Crafts
Yesterday I managed to get some grouting done on the mosaics. I used a pre-mixed grout and one powdered you mix yourself made especially for mosaics. Not surprisingly, the pre-mixed one (white, below) cracked like crazy as drying and yet took so long to dry it was a problem. The gray one you mix yourself was really quite good. The dark gray rock is the winner, and the same grout was used on the heart saucer and cat brick. I like the little rock mosaics, so now I need to see if I can get three of those done, and maybe three bricks, before the Mutt Market. The ones in the photo were just to try things out, and will be hidden somewhere in my own garden.
I have two of three sides painted on the second birdhouse. The third side should go pretty fast, then the first two birdhouses need to be sealed and I still need to come up with a concept and paint the third one.
You can see this one is a water theme, sunset over water on the front side, sailboat on the second, and the third will have palm trees. It’s obviously not fine art, but I think it’s cute enough and will hopefully sell.
I have my keychains and bag charms half packaged at this point, and I had an idea to make some of those cute beaded mini-flowers in vases. With less than a month to go until the Mutt Market, I’m once again pushing it to the very edge of getting everything done. It’s been kind of fun looking back at the last few years of Mutt Market items I’ve made and sold. I think the crochet froggies and scrunchies should have sold better as they were cute AF. Also, the zippered pouches were quite good. The Blind Date with Books should have gone better at the MM but they went to staff members after the event. I don’t really have any expectations that anything will sell well this year, but it has to go somewhere, right?
Wish You Were Here Snail Mail Club
I need to get to work right now on the September 1st Back to School issue. Now. Next week is August.
Reading, Watching, Exploring
I finished This House Will Feed, which I enjoyed. Then I read Kill House from Scott Thomas, which I also enjoyed. I’d say it’s the most “real” horror book I’ve read from the horror genre lately. I’m currently reading Richard Laymon’s Funland, which is actually not much fun. This must have been a print on demand book and not especially well put together as half the pages are still attached to each other at the bottom of the page. The characters are unlikeable as is the plot. I’m half way into it and thinking of just giving up.
The third season of Trigger Point is on Britbox and I’m obsessed. We’ve also been watching every game that’s available for WNBA’s Indiana Fever.
Although I am a huge fan of Mortal Kombat, you wouldn’t really call me a gamer in any other sense. This week, I’m exploring Solo Roleplaying Games in the journaling format. I’ve been watching YouTube videos trying to figure out if it’s something I might enjoy doing. As if I needed another hobby. I sat down and came up with 35 hobbies I’ve tried since roughly 2007, and quite a few I still pull out with regularity or would do so if I had more time.
It’s mid-March, and so it’s time for a Mid March Update. I’ve been working on various projects, and experiencing some bits of joy in between some mental issues most unpleasant. I’ll focus on the former here, and obsess about the later in a destructive manner of my own making.
Art
I’ve been making more Artist Trading Cards, both collage and some small paintings as well. My goal is maybe three painted ones a week, quick studies. Will I improve if I do this type of practice for a year? Probably not. The first three are pictured above. I rather like the one with ink on the right. I’ve used both the neocolor ii and gouache paint for them.
I finished the full-sized Who is Who zine and had 50 of them professionally printed. They are up in my Etsy store, where no one has purchased one. I have sold a couple more of the Cats zines though and might need to consider printing another round. Maybe I should just make zines about cats.
Crochet
I have almost finished the crochet baby blanket for a Board member who is going to be a grandma for the first time. It’s Lion Brand Ice Cream Baby Yarn, waffle stitch using a 5.0mm hook, and has a ripple edge. If I had yarn left and some ambition, I’ll make a hat to match. I also signed up to make eight or so crochet cup cozies for the Whisker Mixer coffee pull May 15. I can just about finish one in an evening.
Substack
I joined Substack. So far, I’m posting “interviews” with some of the shelter cats. I got one of those kiddie cameras that prints thermal black and white images for something new to play with, above. If you are interested in that kind of thing, check out my Substack here.
Misc. Other Stuff
Mom had cataract surgeries the end of February/beginning of March. She did great with the first one and hopefully will heal up with the second with no issues (we’re only a couple of days out). She can’t bend over for a week after each eye, so I’ve been on litterbox duty with Fanny, pictured above.
The weather has been a bit better, though still up and down. In the 70s today, very cold and maybe snow tomorrow. We are less than a week until the spring equinox, so the cold won’t last forever. The maple tree buds have started to pop and the pussy willows are out on the CWBP trails.
Holy cats, all of January has passed. Time for a February update. It has been a busy start to the year. I’ve kicked up my exercise routine, made significant changes to my eating, been reading and working on various projects. The weather has been rough for me. January was mostly below-average temperatures, including some single-digit highs. February is also expected to have mostly below-average temperatures. It is wearing on my soul, as often happens. I have seen flocks of robins here and there, and I suspect they aren’t enjoying it any more than I am.
Zines
So far in 2025, I’ve sold three zines on Etsy. I created the 2024 Year in Review zine (Detroit Lions had a great year, zine illustration above). I also made a fast mini-zine, Alternative Things to Celebrate in February Other Than Valentine’s Day that I included in my pen pal letters. I’m working on a mini zine on haikus, and I started the full zine about the World Health Organization. The Year in Review was professionally printed, and I will do the same for the W.H.O. zine.
One of the zine purchases was a lovely person who purchased my Cats mini zine and a sticker for her mom for Valentine’s Day. I wanted to do up a really nice package, so I made a little mini-journal as well:
If you would like to help me pay for my printing costs and receive a zine in the mail, check out my Etsy store here. All purchases get a few fun bonuses added. Maybe you’ll get some stickers, or a bonus zine, or an original Artist Trading Card!
Artist Trading Cards (ATCs)
You may recall in the past that I used to make and trade Artist Trading Cards, or ATCs. Or you might remember that I often make altered playing cards collage-style as a stress relief tool, and I even made a zine called Collage for Motivation (available on my Etsy store!). I am in an ATC group on Reddit and one on Facebook, and a few folks asked for trades so I sent out a few including these two (of three) from the series called My Blue Heart. The third one went in the Valentine’s Etsy order.
Valentine’s Projects
Speaking of Valentine’s Day, I always put together small packages of items for my staff members. I had been seeing these keychain charm lip balms on social media and on Etsy, and I decided to make some. It’s really fiddly work that requires good manual dexterity and good eyesight. I don’t have either of those things these days, so there’s a fair amount of frustration and swearing in the creation. I think they are cute, though. I hope the staff members like them.
Reading
Finally, the February update for reading. I’ve listened to two of the Murderbot series audio books by Martha Wells. They are sci-fi and really short, like four-hour listens. I love them! They were recommended to me by a pen pal and I recommend them as well. I also picked up Shadows in the Ward by one of my pen pals, Katherine Anderson. It is a super fast and fun spooky read.
Misc. Thoughts
January again was a rough month. We had lots of anticipation as to what would happen after the inauguration, and the results have been even worse than I could have expected. Each day reading the news is a new horror. We are living in some weird timeline, a Star-Trek mirror universe. It is not good. So for the end of this February update, I encourage you to take time to take care of yourself and feed your soul. Just like on Twin Peaks (Twin Peaks Day is February 24), each day give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen.
As I haven’t posted since last month, it is more than time for an April Update. Things have been scattered since March. I’m hoping everything will settle out once the warm weather comes and stays. We will have a few days of lovely warm spring weather, then it gets cold again. We’ve had a freeze warning the past two days. Anyhow, the month started out with the moss terrarium class. As you might remember, I offered a private class as part of a package for last year’s Humane Society silent auction. The day came when I actually had to teach the class. The folded sleeves above were given to each of the participants. They were made from vintage children’s book pages, washi tape and stickers and included a small description of each moss in the terrarium as well as a page about moss and how to care for the terrarium.
I’d teach a class like that again, but I wouldn’t do it in someone’s home. I feel more comfortable at my Mom’s church or ideally if I had a studio space.
Zine Update
I did manage to get one zine done in April. I have an idea for the next one, but not sure I will have time to work on it. Collage for Motivation and the Star Trek zine are now up on my Etsy. I’ve had a good month of zine sales as well, which is nice.
Slow Stitch Meditation Rolls
The weather has been too cold for outdoor work. I started on a new project, slow stitch meditation rolls. The idea is the slow stitching itself is a meditation for you, and when you gift them the roll becomes a meditation tool for the recipient. They can look at the individual bits of fabric scrap and the different stitches, and run their fingers over the different ways the fabrics feel. These scrolls would be especially helpful for someone with anxiety or dementia.
The scrolls are created using fabric scrap. For the first one I did, I purchased vintage fabric scraps from Etsy. I’ve also purchased vintage trim and lace for upcoming scrolls. However, if you have your own scrap at home, especially if it was meaningful, that would be especially nice. If I could go back in time and save scraps, these are some of the fabric pieces I wish I had in my collection:
the yellow and white gingham curtains in my bedroom on Winston
a piece of fabric from one of Hudda’s house dresses
a bit of my favorite skirt from junior high, purchased from Mervyn’s
a bit of the red upholstery fabric from Grandma and Grandpa’s couch at Long Blvd.
some of the orange curtains that covered the doors up north in Ocqueoc
a piece of the turquoise Camp Merrie Wood tshirt I wore at Girl Scout Camp
What are some pieces of fabric from your memory that you’d like in your own meditation scroll? Share in the comments below.
Today’s high is supposed to be 57 degrees. That’s unusual for the first week of February in Michigan. In fact, today’s normal high/low should be 34/16. It will drop back down and there’s word of a potential winter storm for Valentine’s Day. With 40 days left until the official start of spring, we do have a fair amount of time remaining for cold and snow. Even though it has been a very, very mild winter so far, and we’ve had more sunshine in the first few days of February than in the entire month of January combined, I admit I’m growing weary of winter.
I did complete one painting for January. One of the folks who signed up to do the Humane Society pet portrait punked out, so I painted these two parakeets in gouache. I’m working on a zine now for February also painted with gouache. Hopefully it will turn out well and will be completed this month.
January was a bad month for cats. Cass, above, had a health emergency and spent 48 hours at the vet with IV antibiotics. I really thought we were going to lose him. Bob went with me to take Cass, which really made a big difference to me. I went the next day to visit him at the vet as well, so he knew I didn’t abandon him. Cass is also featured in my Cats zine I created last month. That little cat has my heart, and I don’t know what I’d do without him. We also have ringworm in our kitten population at the shelter, and two different illegal cat drops. The first one included a FIV+ cat which thankfully we were able to transfer to a sanctuary, and the second one involved the police.
One of my goals for this year is to create two zines a month. In January, I did slightly better than two. So here are my 2024 zines part one. In addition to these three, I did a completely hand-drawn piece that will not be circulated but was more of an experiment, and a fun piece for a dear friend that was just copied and sent to her.
This is a mini-zine, eight pages including the front and back cover, was made using washi tape, fancy paper, mini sticker photos, printer text, hand text and drawings. I had 50 copies printed at Allegra and have sent some out to pen pals and for zine trades. It is also available on my Etsy and I actually sold one yesterday! That’s right, first ever zine sale to Redondo Beach, CA. Super excited about that one.
Next zine up is a slightly larger zine, again eight pages including front and back cover, stapled. This zine was created with washi tape, vintage wrapping paper, vintage wall paper, vintage postage stamps, hand lettering, and the whole thing was typed up on my 1965 Olympia SM9 typewriter. Then I had it printed at Allegra as well. I have also been sending it to pen pals and in trades, but still need to put it up on Etsy.
Finally, we have Brood XIX. This is another eight page mini zine including front and back cover. It’s hand drawn and handwritten, and then photocopied on plain paper. However, it does come with it’s own sticker! Again, I need to get this one up on Etsy. I have been sending it in trades and to pen pals.
I’ve got a couple of zine ideas written down, and I am working on painting one right now. It is a slow process though. For whatever reason, February seems to be especially busy and I don’t have much time for projects as of yet. Hoping that will change a little. Keep an eye on the old YouTube channel, as I will be doing flip-throughs on these zines and a review of some excellent zines I’ve purchased or traded for recently. Hope your February is off to a great start!
My goodness, the January blues are here and they’ve hit hard. We are down to the last week of the month. Yesterday we had a tiny bit of sunshine, and we really haven’t had much sun at all this winter, but today is a dump of snow. The polar vortex is on the way next week, and it will be super cold again. It always seems to correspond that the January blues happen and we have a bunch of sick or stressed cats at work. I am counting down the days until spring, and I know time is passing, but there’s nothing I’d rather do more than curl up in bed. Fortunately for everyone around me, I am somehow able to get up and remain a productive human being.
I haven’t managed to get my latest scarves up on Etsy. Maybe I can muster the energy this weekend? Since the start of the new year, I’ve finished four scarves or cowls and I’m working on a fifth. My next one after the one on the hook will be Tunisian crochet for sure. Mom got me some hooks for my birthday and I’m anxious to give it a try.
The sun briefly came out for Mom’s birthday. We had lunch and made some zines. That’s right, I’m back on my zine making and zine collecting. I even forced a bunch of Girl Scouts to make zines.
Yesterday was also the Oscar Nomination ceremony. I’ve seen three of the ten nominees for best picture already, one of the documentary shorts (plus five on the short list that weren’t nominated), one of the animated shorts, and none of the international, feature documentary, or live-action documentary. I’m going to have to get busy.
When I tried to think of how to express my current state of being, mid-October ills seems to be the closest fit. Is it allergies, or is it illness? Is it the state of the world in general, or just a series of things I don’t want to do? I didn’t realize so much of adult life would be a mental bargaining in the form of “if I just get through this event, that event, and the next thing, then I can relax and enjoy life.” But there’s a never ending number of new events or things that get in the way between now and the time when I can relax and enjoy life. I need to get my flu vaccine and COVID booster, but I know you can’t get them if you think you might be ill. And right now, the mid-October ills are dominating my life.
I have put together a few more moss terrariums, mostly as holding jars for moss I’m propagating. It’s just a matter of keeping it all healthy and alive now. I do wonder what will happen when it gets quite cold in my art space. I know the moss survives outside in the winter.
Shelter Feline Update
At work, Cass has moved into my office. In fact, everything at work is a bit of a topsy-turvy mess now. We had the lower drive paved. All of the cats have gone on a urinary rampage, causing us to move some of them to other locations (including my office). Kittens are moving onto the floor, and new kittens are coming up. Pi is still here and doing fine enough.
He’s cute, but he’s a mess. He sheds more than any other cat I’ve known. He insists on sharing my lunch. He’s so desperate for attention after a night alone, he’s frantic for the first half hour I’m at work. But he hasn’t destroyed anything yet. And sometimes, when he’s curled up napping in the bed next to my keyboard, I can’t help but reach out and pet him. I had to do a BIG cleaning on my office, and it is now more cleared out than just about since I took the job 14 years ago. It’s my office, but it’s Cass’ new home.
Art Projects
I started a little Etsy thing, as I spend a good deal of time crocheting in the evenings. Might be nice to have the cost of the yarn returned to me. We’ve done no cat adoptions, so I don’t need to make cat blankets, and right now I’m caught up on lap blanket projects. So I’m currently making dish cloths and decorative pumpkins. I still have the embroidery hoop art, birdhouses, reusable paper towels, painted quilt squares and book nooks on my list of things to do. We’ve been cleaning up stuff around the house and moving things to proper locations, and unfortunately quite a bit of it has temporarily ended up in my art space. Hopefully sometime soon I’ll have time to work on straightening it out.
Weather
It’s more than time to put the gardens to bed, and then there’s that rock garden that I didn’t get to this summer. It has turned cold and we might even have some snow next week. I will try to bring in the hose this weekend, and I did pull the bubbler for the tiny water feature. As always, I wish I was doing something fun to celebrate Halloween but I don’t have the time or ambition. And I’m even, dare I say it, starting to get more in the mood for the winter holidays. I know they will be here before we know it.
My goodness, February is over and it is the start of meteorological spring. I don’t recall there ever being any other spring than the vernal equinox when I was younger, but this meteorological but started popping up a few years ago. Either that, or maybe I just never paid attention? When was the first time you heard the concept of meteorological spring? Anyhow, there’s still snow on the ground, Bob still had to scrape my car this morning (thank you, honey!), and I don’t suspect we will see crocus until around the vernal equinox or the actual real spring.
I’ve done some artist trading cards here and there, working mostly on a stamp series where I take a vintage unused postage stamp and draw it as the background before affixing it to the card. I’ve sent out ten of them in total. I’ve also been collecting some zines as inspiration for creating my own. That will be the next project, I think.
I finished the Cornell Botanical Illustration class. Here is my final drawing.
I sent out letters for InCoWriMo 2022, which was really just a chance to catch up with my pen pal letters I’m behind on. I suppose overall it has been a fairly creative month, and I’ve even wound up completely caught up at work which seems quite odd. March starts some Fridays off here and there and I would like to get a zine done and available. That’s provided WWIII doesn’t actually start or anything.
