Mom's Latest Quilt, a Farewell to Our Lawn Care Guy, and a Shout Out to My Very Talented Man

I love showing off Mom's quilts.

This one is her latest, which she's giving to her lawn care guy for Christmas. He's cut the grass and shoveled the snow at her other house for more than a decade. They have a better-than-average contractor-client relationship; she's been invited to his family's house for dinner, and he knows all about our family and our new adventures at The Box House. But now that we found a tenant for the house who is willing and eager to take on the outdoor chores himself, we can't see fit to continue with professional lawn care, even though we really, really like the guy. We'll definitely miss him! (If you're out in the Bloomingdale/Roselle area and need a recommendation for lawn care, let me know.)

On the kitten news front, the furry babies seem to be making themselves at home. Here's Seamus just hanging out with Mom while she works at the computer...

Maggie was having a difficult time accepting the kittens at first. We call her the Omega Dog, because she is the most submissive creature we've ever seen. For the first few days after the kittens arrived, she would try to avoid them. If one looked at her directly, she would turn away, refusing to make eye contact. She'd hug the wall, eyes averted, if she needed to get past, or whine for one of us to get her. She stuck to me like glue, constantly craving reassurance. Usually she'll nap next to me, this weekend she napped on top of me. All of her behavior indicated she was making herself submissive to the kittens. And she seemed to have lost her spark.

But today there was a noticeable shift. She sat next to the kittens on the floor; she even went into downward dog position once. I found all three animals alone together in our bedroom. They weren't interacting, but they were all sitting on the bed in a row. And now Maggie wags her tail like crazy when they're around. Okay, not every time, but there was a definite lack of whining today and more tail wagging and I could walk through the house without a shadow. I think she's trying to make friends now and it helps that the babies are so laid back. It would be cute to see all three critters snuggling together. The kittens themselves are very curious about her as well, especially her tail, but she's so big compared to them that I think they're holding back a bit.

And finally, I just have to publicly proclaim that I'm a lucky, lucky girl to have a guy like Ted around. The heat in the tenants' unit went out, so we went to check the pilot on the boiler. We tried relighting it twice, but it wouldn't stay lit. My first thought was "let's call the heating guy" because really, I have no clue about these things. But Ted somehow figured out it was a faulty thermocouple, went to Home Depot for a new one, and popped it into our ancient boiler, saving us a service call. I think I'll bake him a pie tonight!