Elise and Lydia

Those fantastic blue eyes up there belong to Elise and Lydia. Their aunt sometimes posts over yonder.

I Blame Pinterest For A Lot of Things. This Is #1 On That List.

Do not let the fuzz fool you. This is a face you should fear.

That face will eat anything. And by "anything" I mean ANYTHING. Especially if it's inappropriate.

We have three cats. I'll let you do the math and figure out what my least favorite thing that Penny will eat might be.

::gag::puke::wretch::

The ANYTHING problem has me prepared for a fuzzfest stink bomb at any given moment. Penny kisses are strictly prohibited and I've trained myself to do The Exorcist head spinny thingy the second she tries to get near my face.

That wasn't enough for the assault that went down yesterday.

The odor smacked me in the face the minute Penny jumped up on the couch.

Wait...side note. Penny didn't figure out that she was big enough to jump on the couch until last week. Before that she would cry and slam her paws onto my keyboard until I picked her up. I was really very happy when she finally figured it out. The cats and Cody? NOT SO HAPPY. The couch was their last refuge from the Fuzzy Flurrball (it's totally a word).

Anyway, the odor smacked me in the face the minute Penny jumped up on the couch. It was a combination of death and rot and horror rolled in feces and puke and that chicken that you bought last week but accidentally left in the trunk of your car.

If you think I'm exaggerating, know this: There are no words that can adequately describe the horrific stench. I can't possible exaggerate that which is beyond the power of the English language.

I shoved the Fuzzy Flurrball outside, gave her a bowl of water, and shoved approximately a gazillion Breath Busters into her trap. I didn't let her back into the house until I had scattered breath mints and bars of soap all over the house.

Penny will put anything in her face. Sometimes that works to my advantage.

I didn't think to question what she had consumed. (I was more curious as to what one of the cats had consumed. Ahem.)

Until today. Today silence reigned over the house, which is a VERY VERY BAD SIGN. It so rarely happens, however, that I made the decision to just not care for a moment. As I sat floating in a sea of quiet, I was suddenly jarred into caring by That Smell.

THAT SMELL.

Penny was nowhere near me, and yet I was gagging on week-old-rotten-chicken-rolled-in-poop-and-puke. I gagged as I shot up from my chair to investigate. With my sleeve covering my face, I walked into the kitchen.

And saw it.

THAT SMELL.

There was a time when I absolutely loved Pinterest. As of late it has been overtaken with spam and annoying self-promotion (My nonprofessional and absolutely bitchy opinion: if you have to ask people to post your stuff to Pinterest, it's probably not interesting enough to deserve to be there in the first place.). As such, I've strayed from it a bit. But, I have projects that I found there before it became a sea of annoying that I am/will be working on.

This is one of them.

The thing about Pinterest projects is that it seems that about half of them really are great ideas. The other half make me think the universe is full of Liar McLiartons. THAT project is definitely on my LIAR, LIAR PANTS ON FIRE list. I followed the directions exactly and not a single pumpkin sprouted out of those mini pumpkins. I tried it with EIGHT OF THEM, so I'm thinking the logic is flawed more than my execution.

But, you know, I'm an optimist and stuff. I started those seedlings a few weeks ago and knew within days it wouldn't work, but I wasn't quite willing to throw away the attempt. I figured I would plant the entire pumpkin out in the garden just as soon as Mother Nature stops throwing a temper tantrum. So I left the pumpkins on a tray in the kitchen, right next to the pumpkin seeds I planted the old-fashioned way (which, btw, are now 4" tall).

As I waded through THAT SMELL, Penny sat happily munching on those mini pumpkins. Which were rotten. VERY ROTTEN. They didn't look particularly awful from the outside, but OH MY WORD. "AWFUL" IS SUCH AN UNDERSTATEMENT.

Penny will put absolutely anything in her face, including the world's worst smelling Pinterest idea.

Hi, Owen!

In the interest of full disclosure, I took the photo that is currently the header. I am not at all responsible for the awesome scrunchy face, however. That was all Owen. You can read some of his mom's fantastic writing over here.

Completely related to the subject of photographs that I took, I'm running mini sessions on May 12th in Schenley Park. For $100, you get a 30-minute photography session, a CD with 3-5 images, and a print release. Email me at burghbaby (at) gmail.com for more information or to reserve your spot.

Also, I still have some spaces available in the May 5th Getting Started with Your DSLR workshop. If you have or know someone who has a DSLR and is stuck on that green box, it's the perfect class. There are more details over here.