nipheads

LISBETH & COOPER MURPHY HELP WTH FILL-INS

Friendly Fill-Ins: Week 89

Each Friday we join Ellen (15 And Meowing) and Annie (McGuffy’s Reader) for their fun Friendly Fill-Ins. It gives us the opportunity to share things about ourselves and discover new things about our fellow bloggers. Today I asked a couple of the Kitties Blue to help me complete the unfinished sentences. Our completions are in teal italics.

  1. Lisbeth: I have never been able to resist a pile of nip (and a nip nanner for good measure).

 

Friendly Fill-Ins

 

2. Cooper Murphy: I wish I could still fit in the pink cat cube like Sawyer does.

 

Friendly Fill-Ins

Friendly Fill-Ins

 

3. Mom Janet: Curled under a warm blanket surrounded by Kitties Blue is my ideal winter night.

4. Mom Janet: Cooper Murphy and Sawyer are two peas in a pod. (One’s just a smidge larger than the other and has a tail.)

If you’d like to take part in the Friendly Fill-Ins blog hop, you can find the sentences for completion on Ellen and Annie’s blog on Thursdays. The hop takes place at McGuffy’s Reader. To join in, click on the Fill-Ins badge.

 

MEETINGS, RULES, LEARNING & NIPHEADS

Friendly Fill-Ins: Week #65

We are back with this week’s Friendly Fill-Ins. Mom completed numbers 1, 2 and 4, and we kitties completed number 3. We think she did a pretty good job this time around, and we totally agree with all her completions. As always, we (Mom and us) used teal italics for our portions of the sentences.

Usually, Mom has long, drawn-out explanations along with her filled-in portions, but they really were not necessary today.

1. Meetings are boring unless they are meetings with friends for lunch.

2. Rules suck but are necessary or our lives, those of others, our society and the world would sink into chaos. It already may be there!

3. The best time to get treats and/or nip is when Chris comes to clean the house. She is not stingy like our parents. As soon as she arrives, we all gather around her.

 

Lisbeth and Astrid wallow in nip for the Friendly Fill-ins post.

 

4. I have learned that if I remain open to new information and ideas, I will never stop learning.

Friendly Fill-Ins is a blog hop hosted each Friday by Ellen (15AndMeowing) and Annie (McGuffy’s Reader). Each week Ellen selects the first two incomplete sentences and Annie selects the second two. The hop is on Annie’s blog, which you can get to by clicking on the fill-ins badge.

 

If you haven’t participated previously in this fun hop, give it a try. It is an excellent way to learn a bit more about your blogging friends.

Coming Up

Mom will be here tomorrow with what is sure to be some wild and crazy art for the Caturday Art blog hop.

We also hope to announce the winner of the $80 rescue/shelter donation from Allie and Mau’s Anniversary Comment-a-thon. An alternate winner was selected using Random.org as the original winner did not respond to our e-mails.

Our Sunday Selfies blog hop this week will be dedicated to a dear friend and new angel, Mitalee HoneyBee, from Critters in the Cottage. Please make a special effort to join us and honor this sweet and beautiful angel.

Until then, we remain your faithful friends.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, angel Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth, Calista Jo and Cooper Murphy

p.s. Will you please continue too send your purrs and POTP and ask your humans to pray for Allie and Raz’s dad, Bill, who remains hospitalized.

 

TUESDAY NEWS DAY WITH NIPHEADS

Recommendation for The Cat on My Head

Best for the Kids I was delightfully surprised when I was contacted by the Best for The Kids web-site representative and asked if they could include our blog on their list of the 16 best cat blogs for kids. The Kitties Blue and I have always considered The Cat on My Head a family-friendly blog, with the occasional PG rating when Mauricio talks about being bitten on his bum. Regardless we are honored to be selected for this list.

This is from the Best for the Kids site:

An overwhelming majority of kids absolutely ADORE pets. A large portion of those kids love nothing more than a cute, fluffy cat. Here at BestForTheKids, we cover the importance of pets in the life of kids and how pets help kids become compassionate human beings.

It took us more than 3 weeks to come up with this list of carefully vetted cat blogs that had to go through several filters before being considered useful for parents who’d like to know about cats mainly because their kids love them.

The Best for the Kids mission really appeals to me, and Kitties Blue and I thank them for thinking our blog worthy of their list. You’ll find several other blogs, with which you are familiar, on their list as well. Click on the link above to find the complete list.

Now for the Nipheads

Kitties Blue favorite person was here yesterday—Chris. She’ll be here in just a couple of days to care for them while Dad Tom and I are at the BlogPaws Conference. She was here yesterday to clean. And she never comes empty handed. Chris always brings treats or catnip. The minute the gang realizes she’s here, they begin circling like starving sharks. Yesterday the offering was nip. Chris covers the foyer rug, and the gang goes crazy…rolling, sniffing and nomming nip! They always have a few hours to get their fill before Chris vacuums it up.

 

 
When nip is involved, Astrid and Lisbeth actually get along. At one point they were even touching.

If you think this looks like the gang is being spoiled, it is just a prelude to what they can expect while Dad Tom and I are away. They’ll even get their catio time, but no outside for Lily Olivia, Misty May or Mauricio. Of course, Mau is already on house arrest. He’s not happy about it and continues to complain, but he’s healing. That is what’s important.

Wishing you all a day filled with nip dreams. Hope to see you right back here tomorrow.

 

KITTIES, GUARD YOUR NIP!

Do your catnip plants look like this?

 

Kitties Blue thriving nip plant.

 

Or do they look like this?

 

Kitties Blue sad nip plant.

 

Crazy Cat on nip.If your nip looks like the sad little plant above, you may have a nip-addicted cat at your house. Or you may have a human nip thief. This is a most serious situation. Why in the world would your humans be pilfering your nip? Did you know that catnip has uses other than turning you into a crazypants?

One of those uses can come in very handy this time of year. With summer just around the corner, insects will be on the increase, especially those dastardly mosquitos. Those little blood-sucking creatures have been in the news more than usual lately. Humans are talking and worrying about the mosquitos that spread the Zika virus finding their way into the U.S.

But what in the heck does that have to do with your beloved catnip?

Here’s a little history:  Humans have a long tradition of planting catnip near a house or barn to repel mice and rats and to keep insects away. Research has shown that cockroaches and termites are repelled by catnip. And nip has been used where cats sleep to help keep fleas away.

Napeta cataria (catnip) has been shown to be 96 percent effective as a repellent of flies and mosquitos. The U.S. National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has reported that tests have found nip to be as effective as DEET. And recent research done at Iowa State Univerty showed catnip is ten times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET.

So what is this DEET stuff?

N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, also called DEET (/diːt/) or diethyltoluamide, is the most common active ingredient in insect repellents. It is a slightly yellow oil intended to be applied to the skin or clothing. It provides protection against mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, chiggers, leeches and many biting insects. However, a 2013 study suggests that mosquitoes can at least temporarily overcome or adapt to the repellent effect of DEET after an initial exposure.

A little stealth on your part should help you keep an eye on both your humans and your plants. If you see your humans ravaging your nip, they may be planning on making their own mosquito repellent by boiling the stems, flowers and leaves in a pot of water. They will allow the water and plant mixture to steep until cool. The nip water will be put in a spray bottle and applied as needed.

If you don’t catch your humans in the act of thievery, you can test them to see if they have been pilfering your plants. Give them a sniff to see if they smell like your favorite plant. If so, you might want to encourage them to remove all standing water from your property and add some mosquito-repelling plants to your yard, such as marigolds, bee balm, citronella, lavender and lemongrass.

Good luck on preserving your catnip for your own personal use. If necessary, you can always hold it for ransom. It should be worth several thousand treats at least.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo aka Nipheads

NIPHEADS ANONYMOUS

We are nipheads, and we can’t deny it.

Don’t criticize us if you’ve never tried it.

It’s good to roll in and sweet to eat.

Nip is by far our favorite treat.

If we are being completely honest,

Maybe we should join Nipheads Anonymous.

No, on second thought, definitely not.

Give us nip and make it a lot.

We are nipheads and darn proud of it!

 

 nipheads

 

Whenever Chris comes to the house, whether to clean or look after us when the humans go away, she brings us goodies. It may be treats, catnip, bonito flakes or any combination of the three. Today we got fresh and ground nip and treats. Jackpot!

This is what we did in the morning. Astrid demonstrates what we did during the afternoon. Mom says she was really out of it. She was sleeping on a big pile of toys and let Chris vacuum and clean all around her. She didn’t even blink. Astrid only changed positions after Mom started taking photos. But she never woke up. Good nip!

 

nipheads

 

We love nip, and we love Chris. We wish she would come everyday.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo