A quiet week

I have quietly not been getting any sewing done recently. My sewing room sits upstairs abandoned. Instead, Tetsu has been devoting his free time to me and our GPS enhanced car and we drive off and around. This is nice for the two of us but doesn't give me a block of time to sew much anymore... That's actually okay because I'm still plodding away on Tetsu's Christmas vest whenever I sit in front of the TV.

I've also been down and out because there are more cats and kittens in my neighborhood this week. My neighbor down the street was depressed herself when she came to tell me that a stray cat she had been feeding escorted a litter of kittens to her front porch this week. What can I say? I warned her about feeding the stray without getting it neutered. I offered to help pay for the neutering if she could catch the kitty but she said it was too skittish. So now she has four cats to contend with. And I've offered to help pay for neutering those too. I just don't want to go and get my heart involved, so I'm staying away from that end of the street. And then another cat showed up in the lot next to ours. That sent me to bed for three hours. If I reach out to feed or neuter or whatever then I can't put the cat back outdoors later. (This has always been the plan with ALL my cats and they ALL ended up being indoor cats.) Please Lord, help those kitties find families, but please don't consider mine!

So that is one reason I've been a quiet blogger this week. And another reason why Tetsu has been taking me out to enjoy ourselves elsewhere.

Miscellaneous news. I heard from the kindergarten principle that the bazaar raffle alone pulled over $2000 for the kindergarten. Alone! The years when Mrs. Furui and I were running the raffle we were THRILLED when we could hand over more than $500 to the kindergarten! Of course that raffle has really grown and there were over 70 prizes that day (coasters, pin cushions, tapestries) and as I said before, the mother's group quilt was fantastic, too. (Notice the too. I think our contribution was pretty fantastic also.) But still, for a smallish kindergarten with less than 100 families and a three hour raffle, that is pretty amazing!

Tetsu and I bought a heater this week. We are heading into winter. Our house is always cold. Our last kerosene heater was giving out on us. And after March's earthquake there were many people without electricity for a week or more. Even Mrs. Furui's neighborhood had no electricity for 24 hours after the earthquake. The government had the scheduled blackouts for a couple of weeks in order to save electricity and we huddled in blankets with with bottle warmers. (We may be faced with more this winter.) So electric appliances didn't work, but even our kerosene heater which ignites by electricity didn't work. This week Tetsu suggested a free standing kerosene heater that emits heat in all directions and doesn't need electricity.

There are merits and demerits to this heater. Of course, we still have kerosene fumes (which I've never been happy about). And I worried that the cats wouldn't realize the top of the heater is hot and might burn themselves. (They used to be able to sit on top of the electric kerosene heater.) So far they seem to understand that a heater is not a sitting place. We can keep a kettle or a pot of stew on the heater and cook dinner or have tea at hand while heating the house. However in the event of another earthquake I then I have to worry about boiling water or soup.... But the house stays warmer! And the moisture in the air hopefully keeps cold germs at bay.

And last but not least, the cats like the new heater!