I Spy Rosie and Something Red

Welcome to the eve of the weekend, friends! There is much to love about Fridays, like the Friendly Fill-Ins challenge, hosted by our friends Ellen of 15andmeowing and Annie of McGuffy's Reader.

Here are the clever fill-ins our hosts created for this week:

1. New _________ are _________.
2. I love to _________ on the _________.
3. When I was a child, I loved to play _________.
4. One _________, I _________.

And here are my results:

1. New books are one of my favorite scents.
(Does anyone else sniff books? Surely I'm not the only one. While I have finally learned to enjoy reading ebooks as well, for me nothing will ever beat a wonderfully old-fashioned book.)

2. I love to stay home on the weekends.
(Way to party hard, huh? I honestly love nothing more than parking myself on the couch with my furbabies.)

3. When I was a child, I loved to play "make believe".
(My sister and I used to think up all sorts of scenarios for us to "make believe". We would be doctors, teachers, race car drivers, all that jazz. We especially loved pretending we were detectives. Books like Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy really spurred that, I'm pretty sure. Our childhood kitties and pups, including my girl Rosie, used to play roles in our games, too, of course! When the mood would strike us, my sister and I would pretend Rosie and her brother Sammy were our babies, and we'd push them around in strollers. Poor kitties.)

I've shared that there photo once before, but there it is again. That is, indeed, 

my sweet angel Rosie being pushed around in a stroller by my roughly 

7-year-old self. Rosie had to put up with me for 21 years, bless her heart.

4. One day, I will be owned by another calico.
(Rosie helped me fall in love with calicoes. It's been almost 3 years since my girl Rosie flew to the Rainbow Bridge, and another calico has not yet found me. I will never in a million years be able to replace my Rosie, but I've always known that, someday, another calico will be in my life.)

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It 's probably no surprise to most of you that next up is our newest installment in the A to Z Challenge.

Our theme of course still involves putting animal-inspired twists on classic story titles. Today we're at the letter R, and so we went with The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. But, of course we made a bit of an alteration to that.

Do you want to know a secret? I really don't enjoy drawing birds. Why? Because I'm terrible at drawing birds. This was a really tough one for me. But, there it is, The Red Budgie of Courage. Do you want to know something else? I had a budgie bird when I was a small child. His name was Pippin, and he was a great friend.

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Don't worry, we didn't forget to give you an Eddy fix!

Don't mind that grumpy face. Eddy is indeed happy for some sunshine, regardless of that expression of hers.

Eddy and all of us here wish you all a beautiful, sunshiny day!

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Our Tip of the Day:

 

Yesterday's tip for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month offered suggestions for reporting animal cruelty that you might witness. To further that, did you know that some areas have cruelty prevention programs or task forces? These are often part of the local animal control, humane society, or other similar organization. Therefore, if you wish to further assist in the prevention of animal cruelty in your area, do your research and see if your area offers a program such as this and inquire as to how to join. If your area does not offer such a program, there are still ways you can help when it comes to preventing cruelty. Over the next couple of days we'll be going into detail about some the ways you can help prevent animal cruelty, so stay tuned.