Baxter and friends hope everyone has a Happy Canada Day!

Smudge seems to be planning a quiet holiday with a good book bear.

Fifteen years ago today, my Mom passed away. It’s hard to believe it was that long ago, as it still seems like yesterday sometimes. This week has been particularly poignant as, as soon as I got my website up and running on Monday evening, the first thing I wanted to do was call my Mom and tell her. Even after all this time, that urge was still so strong.

There have been many times over the 15 years when I’ve thought I should call her and tell her about something that happened or something that struck me as funny, as we shared much the same sense of humour. I was very fortunate, as she wasn’t just my mother; she was also my friend. We shared the same taste in books and would often moan at each other about staying up way too late to just read “one more chapter” in whatever book we were reading. Mom was always a baseball fan and was at the very first Jays game in the snow, back on April 7, 1977. So  in 1992, when the Jays won the World Series for the first time, she was ecstatic about the win. I am so grateful that she lived long enough to see her team win the World Series.

Mom was brought up with cats, and used to tell a funny story about her mother’s Persian cats who would sit on top of a grandfather clock and hiss at her and her sister, the aunt for whom I made Chintz Circles. She had a lifelong love of cats. When she moved into the same building in which I lived after my father’s death, she used to come and visit Max, the first Maine Coon cat I had, every day while I was at work. He was a smart cat and knew that she couldn’t bend over to pat him, so would jump up on a desk as soon as he heard her come in the apartment.

She always encouraged me in whatever needle art or craft I was dabbling and I like to think that she would have been fascinated by the use of technology now in so many crafts, although I remember her being somewhat bewildered by a laptop I had brought home from work and took to her apartment to show her.

I often think about how much my Mom would have loved to have seen Smudge drinking. I know she would have been as fascinated by it as we are. I remember the day I got Max. As soon as I got home, I called Mom and she immediately came down. Thinking back, it’s rather funny. There we were, two grown women, sitting and watching a kitten for hours and hours that first afternoon. He was, in many ways, as much her cat as mine.

The kitty picture today is one of Max.

The random number generator, aka Mr. Quilt Obsession, picked a number and Joan has won the $20 Inklingo gift certificate. Congratulations, Joan! I’m curious to find out which collection she purchases.

Blog posts are going to be a bit sporadic over the next little while as we’re back to where we were with Smudge last November — back to syringe feeding, et cetera.  We’re not sure if the loss of Lester is what has brought this back or if it was a normal progression but, whatever the cause, my attention is going to be pretty much focused on Smudge.

I am leaving comments open for now but will likely only be responding to them with brief updates via blog posts.

I couldn’t resist posting this.  A friend sent it to us this afternoon and we loved it — so much so that I’ve played it over and over.  Watching the smiles on people’s faces is fabulous!