Finally! Shred Proof Litter Box Liners!

We have finally found the perfect shred proof cat box liner! While this is truly the world’s best cat litter box set-up, we recently had to put our cat box in a space where that style of litter box wouldn’t work. We had to go to a non-covered cat pan, and once we did that, we wanted to start using litter pan liners, but even the ones claiming to be shred resistant – let alone shred proof – cat box liners, well, weren’t! But we found something that is truly cat shred proof!

Here’s our secret – trash compactor bags! These things are thick and simply don’t shred!

Just take your cat litter box pan, slide it inside the trash compactor bag to the end, tuck any excess underneath (or if you have a pan with a snap on rim, as do we, just snap on the rim) and you’re in business! When you are ready to change your litter, just carefully turn the bag inside out as you remove it from the pan, and your old litter is nicely enclosed and ready to toss!

And they’re cheaper than those fancy litter box liners, too!

Check it out! You can get a box of 40 shred-proof cat box liners – a/k/a trash compactor bags – here

I’ve Been Nominated for a Shorty Award!

I can’t begin to tell you how honoured I am to have been nominated for a Shorty Award in the “Amazing Womam” category! Thank you!!

Shorty Awards are given to the best producers of short content, i.e. the messages of 140 characters or less that are sent out on Twitter. In short (no pun intended!) Shorty Awards are given out to “honor the world’s top Twitterers”

Once someone is nominated, the winner is determined by whomever gets the most votes (additional nominations) submitted through Twitter.

If you would like to ‘vote’ for me (thank you!), here’s how to do it:

Go to Twitter* and send this exact message (including the @ and # symbols):

@shortyawards I nominate @AnnePMitchell for the #amazingwoman award because …

(and then fill in your own reason in place of the “…” 🙂 )

*If you don’t already have a Twitter account it’s very easy to sign up for one – just go to Twitter.com and sign up. Twittering is basically like one-to-many instant messenger. It’s easy and fun!

Thank you again, to those who have nominated me. I’m deeply honoured.

P.S. You can see how the voting is going here.

P.P.S. All votes must be in by midnight 12/31

Our Goats Get New Goat Coats – And Where to Get Them!

Our goats now have new goat coats, and are they ever stylish! Warm, fleece coats, they are soft and comfy and they really like them.

And look how cute they are!

Best of all, they are so easy to get on and off because they have a velcro closure along the back, and they are relatively inexpensive because they are actually …ready? There’s the secret… they are dog coats! But they come in large enough sizes for even the biggest of goats!

Here are some pics…how cute are they?

You can even get these coats right from Amazon! Momma goat is wearing a size 28 (there is one size that’s even larger, a size 30) and baby (who isn’t such a baby any more) is wearing a size 24.

Here are links for the coats at Amazon, and below are the cute pictures!

Fido Fleece Goat Coat in Mom’s Size
Fido Fleece Goat Coat in Baby’s Size
Largest Size Goat Coat
Goat Coat for a Smaller Kid

Women Look at Men Who Drink as 1 of 3 Things

Last night I shared something with my husband which, as I was saying it, I realized that few men actually know. It’s another one of those woman-secrets which, being the mens’ rights advocate that I am, I delight in sharing with “the enemy”.

Here it is:

Women look at men who like to go out drinking as one of three things, and if you’re a guy who regularly goes out with the guys, you will be categorized in one of these three ways by most women who know you. You are either:

1. A drinking buddy

2. Rehabitable

3. Reprehensible

Of the three, being seen by a woman as a drinking buddy is by far the rarest of the three categories into which you will find yourself pigeon-holed.

If the woman wants to have (or already has) a romantic relationship with you, then you are “rehabitable.”

If, however, you fall into just about any other relationship category – including being romantically involved with one of her friends or relatives, or being a drinking buddy of someone else with whom she is romantically involved, then you will almost certainly find yourself slotted into the “reprehensible” category.

Now, how many of you knew that?

Goats in Coats

Yes, it’s very cold here in Colorado, folks. And while our goats have little insulated houses to sleep in, they don’t have a nice heated barn, and so we were a bit worried about them.
And so, yes, they are wearing coats.
P.S. They are only closed in the pen at night when they sleep – otherwise the pen is open and they have free range of our large yard. These pictures were taken when we went out in the morning to feed them and let them out.

Kiss My Eardrum

A Chinese man has deafened his girlfriend during the throes of passion by kissing her so zealously and passionately that the air pressure in her mouth dropped so dramatically as to rupture her eardrum.

According to a doctor at the hospital at which she presented, having been completely deafened in her left ear, “The kiss reduced pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear.”

Ouch!

The report went on to say that “While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution.”

Wow, it really sucked to be her.

Please Take a Moment to Send Positive Thoughts for this Wounded Sea Lion

This is the quick and dirty post – just copied and pasted directly from what my daughter (creator of the awesome fashion shows to benefit animals organization, FABShows.org just emailed me. It’s heartbreaking but maybe – just maybe – our collective positive thoughts can make a difference. Please read on.

“There has been a sea lion here in the Sacramento River, he traveled from the San Francisco Bay. He has been hanging out on the Delta here outside of, of all places, Joe’s Crab Shack restaurant :). He kind of became known amongst the locals and I could even hear him vocalizing from my house when I lived in West Sacramento. Well anyways, he was shot by a fisherman here in Sacramento who claimed the sea lion was eating all his fish. Marine Mammal Center was able to finally rescue him on Saturday (after he had swam all the way back to the SF bay, and then all the way back up to Sacramento again). He’s in critical condition and has a 50/50 shot of making it at this point. So just trying to get as much positive vibe going for him as possible! Here’s the story: http://cbs13.com/local/sea.lion.shot.2.1360802.html
The fisherman, by the way, has been arrested and charged with felony cruelty to animals.”

You can reach my daughter on Twitter at @AnimalRescueGal.

No Longer Looking for a Carved Oriental Zodiac Table

For years my signature (.sig) file on Usenet included that I was “looking for a carved oriental zodiac table.” In fact, this Google groups search reveals several hundred hits, all of them me. I’m no longer looking. After 20 years, I’ve finally got one.

It all started with a visit to the Asian curio shop in Maple Leaf Village in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. I used to live just cross the bridge from there, and went to visit often. This particular visit, I saw the most incredible table – it was a coffee table, the bulk of which was carved out of a single piece of wood, with figures from the Chinese zodiac carved in very high relief down into the top of the table.

It was gorgeous.

The craftmanship was exquisite.

I WANTED THAT TABLE!

But at the time, it was waaaaay out of my price range. It was $1500 even back then, and I, a single mother supporting herself and her child, and putting herself through university, didn’t even have a spare $1.50, let alone a spare $1500.

I’ve been searching for that table, or one like it, ever since. Every few months I’d do a web search… every time I walked past an Asian furniture or curio shop I’d go in and ask them if they’d ever seen anything like it. I even called that store several years ago, and they remembered the table, and that it had sold to a doctor in North Carolina, but that’s all they knew – or I would have called that doctor and asked him to sell it to me.

Finally, about six months ago, and after 20 years, I gave up. I stopped searching, stopped going into the stores.

Yesterday, searching on Craigslist for something else completely (a work table), out of the blue this listing turned up in my search results. What were the odds??

There was my table.

Not the one from 20 years ago – but the same type of table – the same style, the same incredible craftmanship.

It had been listed that very day, at a firesale price because the young couple, with a new baby, needed to get rid of it.

Amazing.

And now it’s mine.

And so, my search is over. I am no longer Looking for a Carved Oriental Zodiac Table. I am now She with the Amazing Table.

Here it is:

The Best Fruitcake Recipe – and It’s a Non Alcoholic Fruitcake Recipe!

This is the best fruit cake recipe ever. And it’s an alcohol-free fruit cake recipe, too, even though it’s one that you baste and let age and cure! Yummy, aged, and non-alcoholic. What more could you ask of a fruitcake?

This recipe is based on a recipe that Mike from Houston gave me when I posted a request for a great fruitcake recipe on the Usenet group rec.food.cooking, years ago.

He in turn got it via Tom Lester.

This fruitcake should be made several weeks – at very least 2 or 3 weeks – before you plan to serve it. Four or five weeks ahead is even better. Do not try it before it has cured – it is icky until it has aged a few weeks, and then it’s heavenly.

The Best Ever Fruitcake

1 lb candied red cherries (reserve 8 or so for decoration)
1 lb candied citron peel
1/2 lb candied orange peel
1 lb dried sweetened pineapple (you can use candied pineapple, but dried is nicer)
1 lb figs, chopped
1 lb raisins
1 lb pitted dates, chopped (you can use the pre-formed and coated date pellets, but they aren’t nearly as nice)
1/2 lb currants
1/2 lb golden raisins
2 1/2 lb pecans – chop all but a handful to use for decoration
1/4 lb walnuts, chopped

1 lb butter, softened
12 eggs
1 cup molasses
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar

1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
2/3 cup apple cider or apple juice juice
1 teaspoon brandy extract

Bottle vanilla syrup (such as Torani or Monin brand, like they have in coffee shops)

Mix fruit and nuts together in an enormous bowl (we have to use our big stock pot).

Dissolve the baking soda in the molassess and set aside.
Mix the brandy extract into the apple cider and set aside.

Mix about three tablespoons of the flour in with the fruits and nuts, mixing thoroughly so that each individual piece has some flour on it, so that nothing sticks to anything else. Set aside.

Cream butter well, and then add the eggs, sugar, molasses & baking soda, the
spices, the vanilla, the cider & brandy extract, and the rest of the flour. Mix thoroughly.

Pour batter over fruit and nuts, and mix and mix and mix, until completely mixed.

Preheat oven to 225.

Press batter into baking pans that have been well-greased, then lined with parchment paper. The recipe will make 8 8″ loaves, although you can put it in just about any pan so long as you don’t pack it more than about 2 1/2 to 3 inches deep. I like to put it in mini-tube pans.

Cut reserved cherries in half, and use along with the reserved pecans to decorate the top of the fruitcakes. (See picture below.)

Put in oven, and be sure to put a pan of water on the rack below it.

Bake 3-4 hours, being sure to start checking half-way through. Don’t let the bottom pan run out of water. Fruitcakes are done when cracks appear all over the top – or when a toothpick comes out clean and they seem otherwise done (here at altitude for some reason the cracks don’t appear).

Let fruitcakes cool completely, then remove from pans.

Mix a teaspoon of brandy extract into about a cup of the vanilla syrup, and brush outside of fruitcakes with the mixture. Then wrap each fruitcake individually in wax paper, then foil, and store in cool place for at least two to three weeks – longer is better. If you like, you can brush them every week with more syrup mixture.

Vegan UGGs Boots – Half the Price and None of the Suffering

I was so excited to find Vegan UGG Boots – well, Vegan UGG style boots, that is – and for a fraction of the price of actual UGGs! And they are so comfortable! All of the comfort, half the price, and none of the suffering!

And actually, they are generally not even half the price – with genuine UGG boots running between $90 and $160, the vegan UGG-style boots are a real bargain at $30 to $35 dollars.

Yes, you read that right – Vegan UGGs are only $30 to $35 a pair!

It seems counter-intuitive that a specialty boot – vegan boots – would be so much less expensive, but when you think about it, it really does make sense. After all, think about what has to go into making each type of boot.

I ordered the black vegan Uggs, but I have to tell you that I am sorely tempted to order the purple ones!

One note: because I’m in Colorado, and it’s winter, I waterproofed the heck out of these with three coats of shoe waterproofing for fabric shoes. It worked great, and it had no effect on how the boots looked at all.

You can find links for both the black and purple vegan UGG boots below, along with a few others.