Bunnings don’t offer plastic bags, but they do offer cardboard boxes for you to carry your plants home in. Great idea if you ask me, although transferring your plants from your basket to the box at their tiny little desk of a register is a little bit of a hassle, especially with a queue of people behind you.

We got the plants home and decided to set them up on the BBQ, where they would receive plenty of morning and afternoon sun, but lots of nice shade too. While we repotted them, we absent-mindedly left the cardboard box on the table. Minutes later, we saw this:

Seriously … what is it with cats and boxes??

I love the leg up on the side of the box. She doesn’t like her legs being touched. One of my favourite games with her is to poke her legs as she’s lying down – she curls them up close to her, then when she can’t curl them any further, she lunges and swipes at me. She’s so cute.

Are you talking about me?

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted at Paulchen’s Foodblog, the Carnival of the Cats is being hosted at When Cats Attack and the Bad Kitty Cat’s Festival of Chaos is at Nikita Cat. It’s been a loooong time since Puddy last participated in any of these round-ups so she’s very excited this weekend! I’ve been a little quiet lately because I’ve been sick with the flu, but I’m finally recovering (and my voice is back, yay!) so I’m eager to get around to your blogs this weekend to leave some lovin’.

]]> http://www.byootaful.com/2010/04/wcb-puddy-featuring-a-box/feed/ 7 http://www.byootaful.com/2009/08/wcb-playtime-with-puddy/ http://www.byootaful.com/2009/08/wcb-playtime-with-puddy/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:49:15 +0000 Katie http://www.byootaful.com/?p=1073 I must admit that I have been rather neglectful of Puddy since Phill and I returned from our holiday.  Of course, I’ve been feeding her and giving her the odd head scritch and I always give in when she jumps up on the bed and wriggles under the doona (much to Phill’s displeasure), but other than that, I’ve sort of been leaving her to fend for herself. I can’t remember the last time I sat outside with her, trailing grass runners across the yard for her to pounce on. I’ve simply been too busy and too distracted. There’s been laundry to do, a kitchen to clean, showers to scrub, carpets to vacuum, lawns to mow, jobs to attend … the list goes on and on.

That is why today, on my day off, I decided to go outside and spend some quality time with Puddy. She lapped up the attention, flopping and rolling and pouncing and biting – she had a ball and frankly, I enjoyed it too. Oh to be a carefree cat whose day consists of sleeping, eating, bathing and sleeping! Sure would be a pleasant change from having to be an adult with responsibility and stress.

The grass is looking a little dead because of the recent mow and lack of rain, which doesn’t make it the most comfortable to sit on, but I sucked it up for some playtime. I couldn’t find any grass runners since I guess I must have mowed over the majority of them, but I managed to find a longish bit of grass for Puddy to grab at.

I love Puddy’s concentration in this photo – she’s really eyeing the grass (yes, it is grass although it doesn’t really look like it!) and wondering if it’s worth her attention or not. Of course it is – any cat owner will see a cat preparing to strike in the above photo, her left paw about to reach up off the ground to swat at the grass. After all, who could resist something dangling right in front of their face?

I told you so.

It’s a half-hearted one-paw attack since the rest of her body is still flat against the ground. Her attention is obviously not completely attracted. Well, I can fix that, can’t I? With a little more effort on my part, Puddy finally can’t ignore the fact that this annoying dangly thing is really bugging her and she goes for a two-pawed attack.

I love her little claws ready to grab at the grass. Those babies were really long by the time we got back from holidays. Her new scratching post is scratched almost to death (I will have to show you a photo of the damage) in an attempt to keep them under control. I forgot to show my brother how to trim them but, to be honest, I am flat out myself trimming them because I am terrified of cutting the quick, so I’m not sure how my brother would have gone with it.

For more cat-related posts, visit Pet’s Garden Blog for the Carnival of the Cats. I’m not sure who is hosting Weekend Cat Blogging, but I’ll find out and update this post when I know. Have a great weekend everyone and thanks for dropping by, we love visitors!

]]> http://www.byootaful.com/2009/08/wcb-playtime-with-puddy/feed/ 3 http://www.byootaful.com/2009/07/wcb-its-time-to-mow-the-lawn/ http://www.byootaful.com/2009/07/wcb-its-time-to-mow-the-lawn/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:23:31 +0000 Katie http://www.byootaful.com/?p=1019 The worst part about being away from home for five weeks, besides missing Puddy, is that by the time you get home, the lawn has become a jungle. Sure, my brother was house-sitting, but as I didn’t list “mow the lawn” as one of the things to do, it didn’t get done. I must admit, I’ve been putting off mowing the lawn this week because I came home from holiday with a broken toe and the thought of pushing our old-fashioned push lawn mower up the hill, battling the long grass, just made me want to cry. Today, however, I was feeling up to it, so for documentations sake, here is the “before” photo:

Notice the cactus in the back which has appeared to keel over and is now being supported by the air conditioning unit? I went in for a closer examination and discovered a monster of a weed had sprung up behind it and pushed it over. I hate that back corner of the yard. The reddish plant is nice but makes it almost impossible to climb through to the back bit which was just dirt when we moved in and is now dirt plus weeds. I pull out the weeds every month and within days they are back. I want to tear up part of the reddish plant to make stepping stones, but when I asked the real estate I was told I couldn’t – apparently it looks good the way it is. Yeah, right.

Puddy decided to come over and see what I was up to. I don’t know what it is about our yard but as soon as we venture out into the grass, Puddy comes bolting over from wherever she was hiding. Perhaps it’s because I often sit out there with her and play with the long grass runners so she associates us in the yard with playtime?

Apparently she disapproves of the length of the grass … or she’s preparing to come and head-bump me because I’ve lowered myself to the ground in order to get a photo of her and am therefore vulnerable to her attack. Which one is it?

Yup, that would be a head-bump right there, silly cat!

Anyway, I got out the lawn mower and that sent Puddy running off. She’s terrified of it and I don’t blame her – it makes a really loud whirring noise. Our neighbour has a similar one and she’s outside at least a few hours a day mowing her (perfect) lawn and after about ten minutes of the noise I just want to scream. Our lawn mower is not my favourite thing in the world, but hey, it’s a work-out, it was free with the house and … it’s yellow. And yellow things are cool.

So, after a lot of sweating and swearing, I present the “after” photo:

TAA-DAA!

Haha, okay so it’s not totally finished (I didn’t even step foot in that back section), at least the grass is mowed.  I did lean over and prod the cactus to see if I could push it back into place, but it didn’t budge, so that job is delegated to Phill for this weekend. Oh, and see that darker green patch in the middle of the yard? That’s where the weeds were the thickest and I had to mow over that section about twenty times. By the end of it, I was completely exhausted!

I love this flower (weed?). I think it is the only remotely-pretty thing that has ever survived in our garden, so I didn’t have the heart to massacre it with the lawn mower. It still stands there proudly, untouched, next to the driveway. Aren’t the colours beautiful? Puddy gave it a half-hearted sniff and decided it was boring.

This weekend, WCB is being hosted at Mind of Mog and the Carnival of the Cats is at Kashim, Othello and Salome’s blog. We’re looking forward to catching up with all our blogging friends – both human and feline!

]]> http://www.byootaful.com/2009/07/wcb-its-time-to-mow-the-lawn/feed/ 7 http://www.byootaful.com/2009/05/electric-shaver-of-death/ http://www.byootaful.com/2009/05/electric-shaver-of-death/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 04:06:56 +0000 Katie http://www.byootaful.com/?p=548 Puddy doesn’t get scared easily. Being a former stray, she had to learn to be strong and brave early on in life. I will never forget the first time she saw a rottweiler that was being walked on a leash past our house. Instead of freaking out and running away, she lunged at it, puffed up and hissing and I found myself attemping to pull my cat off the (stunned) rottweiler, apologising over and over to the bemused owner.

Since then, she’s tried to attack other cats, a german shepherd and even the poor mail man, so as a result, she usually goes outside on a leash, or when I am within grabbing distance. Even though she’s a quarter of their size, she thinks nothing of starting something with them!

While she is a brave cat, she does have her limits. The vacuum sends her into a frenzy. Strong winds freak her out, forcing her back inside the house to hide until it calms down. And hair clippers … oh dear, we discovered this particular phobia by accident one afternoon when Puddy was napping and Phill and I were examining my brother’s old electric shaver. We turned it on, it whirred to life and this was Puddy’s reaction, which took about a second to play out:

Her pupils dialated and she stared at the shaver apprehensively. I was surprised at this, since she tolerates more intense noises without a problem and the shaver wasn’t particularly loud. The only thing I can think of is maybe it reminded her of a trip to the vet last year. She had to be put on a drip, so they had shaved a little fur off her front leg. The vet had told me when I came to pick her up that she had been extremely pissed off the entire time and kept hissing at them, but particularly lost it when they started up the shaver.

Poor Puddy!

How does your cats handle loud noises, crazy winds and hairdryers?

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted at Life from a Cat’s Perspective, the Carnival of the Cats is being hosted at the House of the (Mostly) Black Cats, and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is at Meezer Tails.

Where’s the head? Where’s the tail? It’s a bit hard to see!

I was taking some photos and Puddy must have heard me because she woke up. Well, let me clarify: she woke up but didn’t move. I only knew she woke up because she opened one eye and glared at me.

Stealth mode!

(Too dark for you to see? Click on the photo to view one I took with flash!)

Puddy watched me for a while, the only sign of life being her little beady eye following me around as I took photos. Once or twice her ear flicked, but that was it. She was obviously very comfortable and wasn’t impressed with me disturbing her (I was trying to be quiet!).

It’s getting colder here as we approach winter, so it’s always nice to be close to a warm, fuzzy purring cat who is, in fact, a wonderful substitute for a hot water bottle – as long as you can stop her from kneading your stomach long enough for her to curl up and fall asleep!

Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted at CatSynth, the Carnival of the Cats is being hosted at When Cats Attack and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is being hosted at Life from a Cat’s Perspective.

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I know this is supposed to be wordless, but I wanted to jump in here and say thank you to you for visiting and reading my little blog. Since April 14th 2009, A Byootaful Life has had 120 comments and over 1,000 visitors, which is not a bad effort at all. It’s nice knowing my words are being read, and I love reading your comments.

And even though Puddy looks totally pissed off in this photo, she secretly loves the attention, so thank you.

Edit: Okay, some of my posts are not showing up in my feed at all. I have no idea why this is happening, but I do know that this feed: http://www.byootaful.com/?feed=atom appears to work okay. If you read this blog via a feed, please consider changing to the atom feed, since it appears to be the only one displaying all my posts.

Now I’ve said feed so many times, I am going to go and have lunch, because it’s made me hungry!

However, I recently got some photographic evidence that Puddy is indeed crazy and I would like to share that with you.

Photographic Evidence #1:

Yes, that is Puddy hugging her scratching post. She was kicking the living hell out of it, then suddenly lunged forward and wrapped her arms around it … and stayed there. I slowly inched towards the camera as she watched me, and managed to get a photo before she pushed away from it and began to attack the carpet next to it.

I knew she recently has started loving her scratching post, but I didn’t know she loved it that much!

Photographic Evidence #2:

Every night without fail, Puddy experiences a 5-minute ‘crazy episode’ where she dashes across the room, jumping on the chairs and racing under the dining room table, bunny-kicks her carpet toy and bolts up and down the staircase, before disappearing into the laundry to poop. Don’t ask me why she does it, she just does.

Anyway, last night Puddy was having this “moment” and we, of course, were ignoring it, when all of a sudden we heard a thump, then a timid meow. That’s never a good sign, so we went to investigate … and found Puddy sheepishly looking up at us from behind the water cooler, sandwiched between the piano and the fridge.

I have no idea how she managed to fall down there, but it was pretty funny. She was rather disgruntled when she realised I wasn’t going to help her out, but rather I was going to stand there and take some embarrassing photos for use on my blog.

No, I’m not cruel – this has happened before and as we can’t reach in there to pull her out, we let her figure it out herself. After sulking in there for a few minutes, she finally sucked it up and jumped out.

Of course, she then went straight to the laundry to poop.

Such a strange, crazy cat!

For more Weekend Cat Blogging, visit Paulchen’s Foodblog. The Carnival of the Cats is being hosted by Three Tabby Cats in Vienna. And last but not least, the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is being hosted by CatSynth. Have a good weekend everyone!

This ratty mess is Puddy’s scratching post. Let me clear something up – exactly one week ago, it was almost in perfect condition, and Puddy rarely used it. The only reason it is beside the screen door is to try to deter Puddy from scratching at the door. Apparently putting a scratching post there would distract her (didn’t work).

Then suddenly, out of the blue, Puddy started using her scratching post again! The first time she did it, I yelled at her and squirted some water her way because I thought she was scratching at the door. Phill was watching her and said, “Uh, I think she was actually scratching at her post.” I didn’t believe it, but when I stood up and looked at her, I saw her looking at me with a confused expression on her face, one claw still clinging to the post mid-scratch.

Of course, I felt so bad and hurried to get the Temptations.

Here is a close-up of the ripped post. Phill and I can’t figure out why she’s suddenly started using it again – it’s very strange, but hey, as long as she’s not scratching at the door, we’re happy! It’s just very confusing now because whenever we hear scatching noises we have to look over at the door to make sure we know if it’s good scratching or bad scratching!

So there you go – Puddy’s scratching post, about three years old and hardly used until last week … and now it’s ripped to shreds! At this rate, I’ll have to buy her a new one – and I bet you she won’t go near it!

For more Weekend Cat Blogging visit Mr Tigger & The M-Cats Club, to see the Carnival of the Cats, visit When Cats Attack and finally, the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is being hosted by Kashim & Othello and Salome. It’s been a while since Puddy’s participated in these round-ups and it’s good to be back!