Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Don't Hate Me but ...

... I'm moving. Again. Explaination is below but in case you want to skip that, here's the new link:

www.byootaful.com

Yes, I have a .com! I told my boyfriend Phill that I had started up my blog again after trying to find a blogging site that was better than Blogger (and couldn't) and how much Blogger had messed me around with eating my last blog, and how long the photos take to upload and how much I hate Blogger (hehe, I was a tad cranky) and he said, "Well, why don't you get your own domain?"

And I was like, "What?" (Always the smart cookie, I am)

So him, being the computer-literate *cough* geek *cough* he is, he went out and got me a domain name (.com's were on special the other day! lol) and now I'm nearly done setting up my blog over there. It's not quite finished but it's finished enough to let you all know. So this will be my last post here and then I'm off to my *gasp* own site!

It's going to be for my relatives and "real-life" friends too so I'm still experimenting with password-protected posts etc and there will be more posts on a whole heap of things, not just Puddy and cooking, but I still hope that you will still visit me and comment everyone once in a while. :)

Thanks for your patience as I move (again) and I really am sorry to make you change your bookmarks if you link to me! Phill told me to tell you that I am at www.byootaful.com FOREVER. That sounds scary. But good. :)

Oh side note - "Byootaful" is my nickname given to me by my boyfriend and his brother. It's spelt that way because it's Ocker (Australian slang) for beautiful, it's sort of how they pronounce it. So that's trivia for you today.

Oh and if I suddenly start referring to myself as Katie, I'm still the same person. The way I spell "Katie" depends on the day. It tends to change between Kate, Katie, Katy and Katherine. Man, I'm so creative it makes me want to dance.

I hope to see everyone over there! There's all these new things like RSS feeds (whatever THAT is) and categories and pages and stuff. It's so much fun! So please bear with me as I change over and finish doing up my new site. And once again... don't hate me. Heh.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Litter Kwitter

Ahh, the Litter Kwitter. There were three reasons I asked for a cat toilet-training system for my 21st birthday (don't laugh) and they are:

1. Cleaning up Puddy's poo every day is disgusting.
2. Puddy tends to trail litter throughout the house for us to stand on.
3. My friends reckon I can't train her.

And me, being the stubborn ass I am, decided to prove them wrong.

The second I got the Litter Kwitter I pulled it out and gave it a go. You get four parts, the white toilet seat that clips over the normal toilet (rather cute in my opinion), the red part which has no hole in it but it does have a bump where the hole goes, the amber part which has a small hole in it, and the green part that has a larger hole in it. You start the cat off with the red part (obviously), moving to the amber, then the green.

First off you have to move the kitty litter into the bathroom where the toilet is. This wasn't a problem because since we moved, Puddy's litter is next to the toilet which is just off the laundry where her food is. And a few times I've caught her with her paws up on the toilet seat, sniffing around, so it's good that she's at least open to getting up there. The aim is to get her to use the red part (which fits into the plastic toilet seat) on the floor next to the toilet. You put a generous amount of litter in the red part and then position her on it so she's using it the right way.

Well, immediately Puddy jumped onto it and ... err... christened it (not in these pics, this is new litter, I'm not *that* disgusting! Hehehe).


But that's all she would do. Pees galore, but poops were for the floor only. For some reason she would refuse to poo on it. Darn. I looked at their website and it seems like a lot of people have the same problem. I think it may have something to do with the bump in the middle. I've seen other ones that don't have that bump. I think it would be hard for poor Puddy to try to cover up her poo with that bump to hit her paws on. I've gone back to her old litter (we changed litter when we moved house and she's found it hard to adjust) and now, success, she's using her litter properly again so I'm going to try with the red stage again.

I think a big problem for her is going from her large litter box to this new smaller odd-shaped one. So I'm going to potty her... ie. feed her at the same time, then put her on the litter so she goes. I'm going to baby her for a few days (just for the poo's) to see if she gets the hang of it. I have to ensure I clean it out regularly, I can understand how a dirty litter wouldn't be appealing. Anyway here's a pic that I thought was adorable:

No, not these again Mummy! I'm soooo over it!


Now for the food part. Is it gross that I have a post on kitty litter and pooping, and then talk about food? Ah. Oh well. Here was last night's dinner, shepherd's pie. That's not oil, it was just really runny because I didn't boil it down enough, but it made the mince nice and moist. There's nothing worse than dry mince in pies. Ick. And the potato and cheese on top was delicious! I don't know if it's because I haven't had it for ages, but it was YUM-O!


And here we have today's lunch, toasted sandwiches. The round meat is Strassburg because they didn't have any Polish Salami (aww) and the other meat is Triple Smoked Ham (my favourite). Of course I popped the tops on before toasting. Oh and they weren't all for me, hehe.

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Sunday, January 14, 2007

Weekend Cat Blogging

EDIT TO ADD: Sorry these pictures are rather big if you click on them. I took them when I first got my new camera (see Christmas post below) and I didn't realise how big they were until my bf started playing around with it. It's since been fixed, but unfortunately for these older pics, you just have to put up with it.

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For Weekend Cat Blogging, here are some rather old pictures of Puddy on Christmas Day. We got her a cat bed to sleep in and this was her reaction (it was quite humorous, she didn't waste any time in checking out this new present! Check out other kitties at What Did You Eat? who is hosting this week's Weekend Cat Blogging! =]

Step 1.
Cautiously sniff around this new weird bed thing.


Step 2.
Yup, still sniffing. Get right into that corner!


Step 3.
Enjoy a brief pat while making oneself comfortable.


Step 4.
Feel pat was slightly suspicious and may be a ploy to steal bed.
Must protect bed at all costs!


Step 5.
Ha-HA. Bed is mine! MINE I tell you!



The whole time she was loving it, the bf and I are looking at each other, thrilled that we bought something else she loves, apart from that pink thing which she now hates for some reason. Could it be because we moved house and she's thoroughly confused?

Oh and I nearly forgot... here's the kicker, I got this present for my 21st birthday from my boyfriend... I'll let you know how it goes *wink*...

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I'm back... with Christmas food pics!

Gah! Blogger totally ate my last blog so I've given up trying to cross it over to the "other side" and instead I've decided to start a new one. New year, new blog, new camera, new ... yes, you heard correctly (or read correctly!). I have a new camera! No more taking crappy pictures with my mobile phone! I got it for Christmas from my beautiful and so-full-of-surprises (thought I was going to say something nasty then, didn't you?) boyfriend! It's an Olympus 3.0x Optical-Zoom u720 SW with 7.1 megapixels! I'm in love! It even has a food mode which I have had a lot of fun playing about with. Now you can imagine that I've been taking photos non-stop since December 25, so be prepared for photos (hehe). I'll start off with Christmas food pictures. Now it's been too long for me to totally remember when we had these things, so I'm just going to post them all like crazy. I know these ones are from Christmas though.

Christmas turkey. No it's not burnt, that's basil on top, haha. It was the best turkey ever. My family aren't big bird eaters, so we prefer to just buy one of those breast things so we don't have to pick around bones and take forever cooking an actual turkey. Also, I had just moved into my new house (yay) and I'm still not used to my oven. It's so darn hot!! But it doesn't seem to cook anything, it takes forever. So I'm thoroughly confused. My parents said it was the best turkey they've ever had and at the time I believed them, but maybe they just said that because they, uh, love me? Hmmm.

These were the crispiest, yummiest roast potatoes I have ever eaten! And do you know what the secret was? Oil. And lots of it. But shh, don't tell my mum. Ok, so I didn't make them swim in it, but let's just say I was a little more generous. Hey, it was Christmas! It's the season for oil and all that comes with it! I seasoned these with a bit of garlic, basil, oregano and mixed herbs and they came out very tasty and crunchy (almost like chips actually, but that may have been caused by the amount of oil!)


Mum's delicious fruit cake! I love her fruit cakes because she knows her kids hate nuts and dried fruit, so the only things she puts in it (apart from the obvious like flour and lots of alcohol) is sultanas and cherries. That's my mum. Oh and here's a close-up my boyfriend took. I'm quite jealous of it - I couldn't get my hand to hold still so all my attempts turned out fuzzy. Poo.



Notice the cherry, hehe.

Mmmm this was dessert - home-made meringue with homemade chocolate ice-cream (I got an ice-cream maker for my 21st birthday!), cream and brandy flavoured custard! Yum! The ice-cream came out really well, very creamy, almost like mousse. Delicious!

And this last pic looks pretty disgusting, doesn't it? It's my first attempt at making home-made pasta. It didn't really work, but we still ate it. It was....watery. Sigh.


There ya go, that's all the pictures I can find. I have some of Puddy that I'll put in a different post for Weekend Cat Blogging (it's nearly 6pm Sunday here but hey, it's still the weekend!) It's good to be back and blogging again. =]

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