I have noticed a strange habit all cats seem to have in common.

Our house cats as well as the strays out in the garden love to sit under the washing lines!

Could it be the smell of the fabric softener? The fact that the clothes are cold and wet perhaps creating an "air conditioning" that they enjoy?

I do not know what it could be, but they all seem to be obsessed with the washing! Now that it is winter and we are hanging our clothes in the house, the house cats come running down the stairs to the clothes lines as soon as they hear you fidgeting with the washing.
They sniff, they rub themselves all over the place... it's quite annoying actually since i'm allergic and don't appreciate them putting their fur all over my clean and still wet clothes!

The outside cats loved the washing lines too. They are strays and very much afraid of us, yet they would come real close and sit under the washing while i was hanging it! Weird!

I've come to think it's either all cats, or it's our fabric softener that attracts them. What do you think?

Has anybody else noticed this strange feline obsession with the washing?

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1Th 5:16-21)

Photo by Nemo.
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Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isa 55:6-9)

I find it difficult to comprehend people that ask why God does things (like take "innocent lives"), why He doesn't do other things (like save the homeless and starving) and so forth. People seem to think that they are the ultimate race in the ultimate place and that nothing could be better than being alive on this earth. At the same time they hate the idea of being "controlled" by a god and that they don't have control over their destiny. They want the best of both sides, not having a God who guides you and sets rules for you to follow, yet they want Him (if he exists) to take care of everything that's going wrong on earth because of our godlessness! Now isn't that a bit contradictory?

If you think about it for a moment...

IF this whole story about God is true, then God being God, being Creator, has infinitely more knowledge and understanding than we do or possibly can have. Who are we to even consider trying to fathom God's motives or methods. But besides that, if it is all true (and I totally believe it is, I'm just talking for the doubter or unbeliever) then God can make anything happen, sure, but why should He when He has given us the laws and great examples of how to live and love each other and build each other instead of breaking each other down. He shouldn't have to intervene, we are meant to take care of the Homeless and hungry, we are meant to tell them about Jesus and heaven and hell. We are meant to do that so that they have a chance at turning their lives over to God who will bless them for it and if they die, even homeless, they are saved and will be in a better place one day. If not homeless but struggling with deaths of loved ones and such... we are meant to be following God's will, remaining in contact with Him through prayer and reading the Bible which is His Word and His way of communicating things to us. By doing this and living our life in a Christian way, we don't have to blame God for taking away loved ones but we should rejoice that they no longer have to suffer hurt or sadness or see others suffer here on earth!

People seem to think that God is like us, that we could somehow understand His ways and that He should give reasons to us, but we only see a tiny part of the big picture. As the song goes:

God is God and I am not
I can only see a part of the picture He's painting
God is God and I am man
So I'll never understand it all
For only God is God

- Steven Curtis Chapman

So many write off the possibility of there being a God because they cannot fathom His ways:

• How He could create the world in 6 days?
• How He could become a man and be God at the same time?
• How could He be born as a baby from a virgin?

All these things, I mean... He is God after all!

People put The Holy and Almighty God into a little box, a matchbox, having such small ideas for such a Huge and Awesome God!

I just don't understand their way of thinking, honestly....

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isa 55:8-9)

I personally prefer to trust my life to a God who sees the end from the beginning and knows what tomorrow will bring.

He alone hold the Universe, and most definitely my life, in His Powerful and most Loving hands. Amen!

I have started up a craft that has been in my family for many years, generations really... Knitting!

My great grandmother first taught me to knit when I was 5 years old. I used to go to her house after pre-school and wait for my parents to pick me up from there after work. I remember rice puddings and smell of the house... it seems like forever ago.

I don't remember knitting much after that, until school when in third grade they started us on needlework class. I went to school in South Africa in case anybody is wondering. The girls would do needlework and the boys would be marched off to the workshop to do woodwork! Those were the days... I loved that.

The girls would forge great, almost personal with some, relationships with our teachers because of this time together. We would have the radio on softly and talk while we worked on our handcrafted goods.

I knitted a coat-hanger cover, red and white, when I was 8. Don't think I did much else at school, probably tried a few more things at home. But im the queen of unfinished crafts... I still have some unfinished projects from many years ago.

These needlework classes included cross-stitching, knitting, embroidery, candle-wicking and later in high school sewing with the machine and cooking, the high school class was no more limited to needlework and was then called Home Economics.

My sister went to a different school than I did, even though in the same area, but they did not have this wonderful subject in their curriculum. What a pity! She is now 20 and hardly cooks, cannot sew and has just learned how to knit the other day.

She is really creative and it's her fault if im loving beading so much, it's thanks to her interest in it that I learned how also.

I'm sure she would have loved to be around great granny and also my grandfather who was a carpenter and artist! Unfortunately they both died when she was quite young.

Well, here is my latest effort after years of not touching knitting needles I have taken it up again. This is meant to be a scarf, its a bit wobbly but it will get better with practice.


Thinking of granny as I knit... she could knit such beautiful things with her eyes closed, literally!

I'm sure she would laugh if she saw how slow I'm going and how tight I'm pulling the wool, I have to learn to let go and not knit so tightly, the needles squeak when i push them through the loops sometimes! haha....

[This is a repost from my photo blog at http://nemonotes.blogspot.com]

Tonight we had a yummy dinner of Fish patties (fish cakes), spicy potatoes and veggies.

I love fish cakes but don't know my family's recipe for them so I decided to improvise and make my own one.

I must admit i looked around online and gathered some ingredients from various other fish dishes and in the end just made it up and i must say they turned out quite well even though they could be bettered, they are easy to change with variations of your choice. Here's tonight's recipe

They might look a little burned, but they certainly didn't taste burned 

They were quite yummy!

[This blog was first written on May 22, 2007]

I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, [and] established my goings. Psalms 40:1-2

If we are patient, the Lord will reach out to us and hear us. He will bring us out of the darkness to set our feet firmly on solid ground and direct our paths.

We must always remember that the Lord's time is not our own. He deserves our faith and trust. He knows more than we do what we need and desire. He loves each of us more than we can imagine. He only wants good for us. Is there any reason we should then complain that things are not happening as we want them to? As we think they should? When we think they should?

God always hears us and reaches out to us (inclined - Strong's 05186). The hard part is not getting God to hear, its having faith that He does!

Have you ever prayed about something so deeply and honsetly, something that is really hurting you or frustrating you or worrying you... and then after that prayer just letting it go...
I just say: Lord, i cant deal with this, i cant change it, or fix it... I give it to you Lord. I surrender the whole situation to you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. (because you may rest assured He will as promised)

And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. Matthew 21:22

Then with that confidence you let it go, no more worrying about it.
Have you ever done that?

I have, and i can tell you whenever i'm able to pray in that total faith, without any doubt, i feel the weight literally lifting off my shoulders! (I dont always succeed because as always the devil is there whispering doubt into our minds)
If you are in total faith and trust when you pray, without any doubt, God will answer your prayer. That is all He requires of us. That is what He promised.

Remember also that it is really up to us... God is waiting for our answer to His knocking. He is ready to help, protect, comfort, deliver - at any time, He's just waiting for you to stop trying to do everything on your own!

Satan loves to tell us otherwise... that we dont need God. That we are strong enough to handle things, that our ideas are great, all the subtle little things he keeps whispering to us, we dont even realise it...

But God is there too. Who are we going to trust?
I think the choice is easy to make when you know you have to make it... but in the middle of trials we tend to get sucked in by worries and temptations and pride that we forget all about calling on God for help and surrendering our lives and each single situation to His loving Will.

Heavenly Father, thank you for always listening, always hearing and always answering our prayers. Help us to be patient as we wait for your perfect timing and Your will to be done. That we may be directed by Your hand to the path You have set out for us. Amen

I was recently asked why I do not approve of celebrating Halloween and thought that perhaps it is a good thing to explaikn my reasons as I imagine people have a few ideas already as to why I dont, but I have a few more...

Being Christian I do not believe that celebrating halloween is correct. Dead people, half dead, zombies, witches and ghosts.... not very Christian like to celebrate these things or pretend to be them but that is not my main reason.

Now oyu may think "what? her faith is not her main reason for it?"

Nope, the real reason is I see no reason to celebrate it.

I have never done it. I was born and raised in a country (South Africa) that does not celebrate it except for the few private parties that people have started throwing just to have another reason to party or be more Americanized or cool or whatever....

I now live in Italy and they do not celebrate it here either.... again only a minority might attend parties and such but again its just for party reasons, I still dont agree and I still see no reason to join in as I have never found such things entertaining.

So as you can see, other than the fact that I dont believe it to be Christian-like I simply dont ever think about it. Halloween to me is an American thing that I can see on movies, but never consider joining in myself.

That's it! Make sense?

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Loren
Date: Nov 8, 2007 7:25 PM


Seemed like a worthy warning.  Thanks Shiphrah for posting.

Just so everyone is knowledgable about movies they are taking their kids to, the new movie, The Golden Compass, is based on the first book in a series of anti-God, anti-Christian books. I've heard about this book a while ago, and the author is pretty vitriolic against Christians and others who believe in God.

Here's the warning from the internet which is true:
There will be a new Children's movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud atheist who belongs to secular humanist societies. He hates C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show "the other side." The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won't hear on the regular TV.

Pullman has a right to be an atheist, but parents should be knowledgeable about what they are taking their children to. It's highly unethical for the studio behind this movie not to give all the information about the movie to the audience.

See the link, this isn't an urban legend. http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

Unfortunately this little kitty died too.
He died this afternoon at the vet. (30 Oct 2007) We had taken him there at 3am this morning because he refused his food and was vomiting. He was the last of 3 kittens we had rescued from the freezing cold outside last week. It's been a terribly sad and draining week. You pour your heart and time and love out for these little creatures who depend totally on you for survival and then their little tiny bodies just cannot fight the cold or the illness that attacks them.


We tried so hard. The vet kept him all day - in the morning he had shown signs of improvement, he was on a drip (IV?) and had antibiotics and they were keeping him warm, but it seems between the cold he had suffered when his mommy abandoned them, the infection in the eyes they all had, the upset tummy and losing his siblings and mommy maybe it was just too much for a little one like that.

He was happy yesterday... he purred almost all day. He spent most of the day cuddled in my hand against my chest, probably liked the heat and my heart beating... he would pur and paw at my hand... i heard that is a sign of contentment and something they do to the mommy too. So at least I know he was not in pain even thought he was very weak, probably his immune system was just not strong enough to heal him.

His little brother on the other hand was surely in pain and had difficulty breathing, but i wont go into that again... i'll just end up upsetting myself again.

My little cousin (12 years old) was going to be his new mommy as soon as he could eat on his own... she had to hear today that her little kitten did not make it.

It's better that they died now than suffering for longer. So I accept that. Now i must just deal with the loss and grief. Spent so many hours lovingly taking care of this tiny one... I really hoped he would be able to live a happy kitty life.

Well, I thank you all for your prayers and kind words as I went through this for the first time in my life... I never understood how people could get attached to animals, but now I know...


They grab hold of your heart and become part of the family... so it tears your heart to pieces to watch them go...

Dad buried all 3 of them together in our garden. i'm sure there is something i had to learn from this... I'll figure it out soon enough... once the clouds roll away......

Thanks again dear friends.
God bless you all.
nemo