Cat Thursday 47

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! Hosted by Michelle of The True Book Addict.

Image Source

My sister took a sweet pic of my Wolfgang. I am sharing that this week. I love my babies and look forward to coming back to them in July!

Cat Thursday (46)

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! Hosted by Michelle of The True Book Addict.

Image Source

Yes, a giant wool cat head exists! How cool is that or creepy?! I love it and want one.

Housetu Sato and his students from the Japan School of Wool Art have created the only giant wool cat head in the world.

They took some pretty hilarious photos with it on! I must have!

*All cat head photos were taken from the original Japan School of Wool Art and Boredpanda.com sites.

Reading With Gabe--Little House in the Big Woods

Source

It's been hard this year getting used to Gabe in full-time school. I'm a stay-at-home parent and I enjoy (most of the time) being home with him. Kindergarten was the time to ease into the whole school schedule with only half days. But here in Japan it's been all day.

I wanted to connect with him more in my own way. So I've been reading various books to him throughout the year. Life gets busy, especially with him in school all day so we don't get through as many books as I'd like but we've managed to read Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the books as a kid and I enjoyed the TV series. It's been a great experience sitting down with him at night and reading. Gabe enjoyed Pa's tales and his songs. He even wanted me to sing some of them to him. There was only one I knew the tune to, though.

There are a lot of great children's fiction today but there are also so many that aren't. I've ordered a few chapter books for him from his school and they haven't been great. Just silly and that's OK. But I want him to know what really good literature is as well. And Little House in the Big Woods is that. With our modern conveniences it's so easy to forget that only 100 years ago we didn't have our modern appliances and ease of life. Wilder describes how everything was done and made. How did a family survive? Fascinating. A simple tale about Laura and her family in a year.

I look forward to reading the rest with him and I hope he enjoys it on his own one day.

Living and Reading in Japan (8)

This weekly meme has been inspired by Michelle at The True Book Addict and Lisa at Lit and Life--Life: It Goes On...but I wanted to tweak it a bit for myself since I am living in Japan for the next year (2014-2015).

We just got back from a trip to Okinawa! A week-long funcation! Okinawa is beautiful. The bluest ocean and the whitest sands...but I haven't been to a lot. We built sand castles, soaked in the sun and the ocean water, and ate some great food. I now have post-vacation blues...

Reading:

• Persuasion Jane Austen

  

  Source

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker

Finished:

• Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris (audiobook version)

Looking Forward To:

Golden Week here in Japan. It'll be crazy crowded but Hiroshima has one of the biggest if not the biggest flower festivals in Japan and all within walking distance. Gabe will have the week out of school and we'll be enjoying ourselves with all the sights, sounds, and food!

Making:

Source

Okinawa loves taco rice dishes. I had two while I was there. So this week I'll be making some of my own. Forget the shell and add the rice!

Listening To:

Common Sense with Dan Carlin. The man has so much insight into what is going on in the world. It's depressing but liberating at the same time.

I also got a membership with Audible. I'm really enjoying digital audio!

Watching:

iZombie. Such an interesting concept of crime and zombies and women power! Love it!

Source

Grateful For:

Earth and the ocean and how beautiful and healing it is.

Things I Did This Week:

Okinawa! Okinawa is so interesting because the U.S. military has such a strong presence there. There's an American Village area, lots of people speak English, and there are a lot of tattoo parlors, and burger joints. We got our Mexican food fix!

We went through Airbnb. Such a cool site. You rent out people's homes and apartments for so much less than a hotel. We stayed close to the beach and had comfortable beds and two separate rooms.

We hit the aquarium and the old Okinawan village, Shujiro Castle that was completely rebuilt after its destruction during WWII, and the rest of the time were all beaches!

Tokashiki Island is where we went for our last beach day. We took an hour long ferry boat ride over the the island. Crystal blue waters and white coral beaches all day. It was amazing.

Cat Thursday (45)

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! Hosted by Michelle of The True Book Addict.

Image Source

This week features cats that camouflage! From BoredPanda.com.

Parks and Recreation

Source

I just finished binge-watching "Parks and Recreation." I started and stopped a few times with the first season but I kept hearing such great things I decided to just pull off the adhesive bandage and get to it! I'm so glad I did.

It's a funny and tender-hearted show about a woman, Leslie, who just loves her job because she gets to help people. She works hard at making government actually work for the people and it's just fun to watch. Her ultra nemesis in all-things government is Ron Swanson--basically a libertarian anarchist is how I'd best describe him; he lives to sabotage government while working for them.

My favorite episodes are the ones that show how awesome people can be. I get the Kleenexes out...

Here's my favorite Leslie Knope clip. She lays out all the fake reasons (she didn't actually shoot Ron but is protecting a friend) she shot Ron. It's fantastic.



Leslie was a great advocate for good government and feminism. I just can't get enough of this show and am so grateful it was created and I got to watch it. It's one I'll be watching again and am so sad there will not be any other episodes.

You are gone but not forgotten! Please and thank you :)