50 Simple Ways to Pamper Your Cat - Week 1

Did you know that cats are capable of making as many as 20 meow sounds? Each meow has a distinctive message that can be misinterpreted by humans.

Mew - tiny sounds from young kittens - seeking food or warmth.

Chirp - musical sounds seems to end in a question mark - friendly greeting, such as "welcome home."

Meow - commanding your immediate attention. "Come play with me - NOW."

Hiss - "Back off"

Purr - cats purr when content.

Cats understand our voice tone much better that any specific word. My cats jump on the kitchen counter when I'm cooking and I say "D-O-N" meaning DOWN and they run for cover!

Make sure to chat with your cat often - they love soothing, flattering tones.

Use your cat's name everytime you talk to him so that he'll recognize his name. Most cats recognize that their name is associated with good things - treats, play, petting...

Foodie Friday - Black Bottom Banana Bars

It's Friday! And it's time for Foddie Friday, hosted by Designs by Gollum. Stop by and check out all the other recipes, who knows, it might just become your families next favorite thing!

It doesn't seem to matter how green the bananas are when we bring them home from the grocery store, they seem to be overly ripe by Friday. Here's a great bar using those ripe bananas , so yummy!

Black Bottom Banana Bars

1/2 c butter or margarine, softened
1 c sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla1
1/2 c mashed ripe bananas(about 3 medium)
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c cocoa

In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla, beat until thoroughly combined. Blend in the bananas. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Divide batter in half. Add cocoa to one half and spread in a greased 9X13-inch pan. Spoon remaining battr on top and swirl with a knife. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until bars test done. Cool.

Placemat to Pillow

When my oldest daughter was in grade school, I was her Girl Scout leader and one of our projects was to make sit upons. We used a vinyl tablecloth and stuffed them with newspapers and stitched around the edges with yarn and had the neatest sit upons for camping. Back then we didn't even realize we were being green, we were just being frugal.

I decided to play on that same idea and take a couple of placemats and opened one edge and stuffed it with lots of plastic grocery bags. And then because I have trouble sewing on a button, I used the iron on fusible web and iron the edge shut.

Here's the placemat before....

And here's the placemats, now as pillows for our covered deck....

Pretty cute huh?

Be sure to check out all the other DIY's on A Soft Place to Land.