Surprised Kitty video, and New Year's Day Cookies

This has been around the web for a long long time, but it's so cute that no one should wonder why cats/kittens are a woman's best friend.  This can make me happy for days and days.  I might not stop watching it for that long either!  Lovely way to start the new year.

Wolfie's tricks are pretty good, too.  He is a short dog, like any Shih Tzu, and he can be sitting on the floor next to my computer chair and the next second (literally) he's up in my lap, and that's 14 pounds of dog.  His back legs are like a bull dog's!  

Two days ago we went to see our friends who own a female purebred Shih Tzu from a shelter.  With the DNA record for the Wolf including so much Shih Tzu, all the humans sat around and compared notes and characteristics.   We took note of the way  both dogs lay flat out on the floor, go under the bed standing up, and try to lick lips if a person gets anywhere near their heads.  We are sure all this marks Wolfie as at least 30% Shih Tzu, as the DNA test says.  Wolfie's face isn't flat, but the base of his mouth is really wide, like our friends' little female.    And, the spectacular jumping can come from poodles but it's definitely Shih Tzu, too.

So, yesterday, as DH was digging in the garden, Wolfie was exercising his Siberian Husky and Saluki ancestry by digging a big, BIG hole under a Lime tree.  This must be how this little dog survived down in the "wilds" of the San Diego River.  He dug a den.  His paws are huge for his stature.  Wolfie certainly wants to dig a den in the bank in the back yard!  I love this little dog.   It's not the same intensity as my love for Jazzie, from whom I couldn't stand to be parted, but Wolfie is such a good and loving little guy, and is completely deserving of love, AND, he will get loads of love. 

I've knit almost up to the easiest part in the pattern again on Manly/Beastly, but am saving that part for when I can whip through it without thinking too much.  Or drinking too much.  lol  Drunken Cables!

UPDATED bit.......

Somehow I managed to lock myself out of the house this morning and spent a few hours in the rocking chair in the shade patio, communing with nature.   We knew we had a resident lizard on the wall but what we didn't know is that there's another one on the other side, and that the two of them meet at the top of the wall and scuffle!  I guess it's a tiny border war.  hehe.  The birds were all very active in the bushes again today, after DH pruned back the roses yesterday.  One of the hummingbirds came over to investigate me as I sat quietly musing about "Harmony" as the Navajo teach.   I felt very much in harmony out there amongst the reptilians and avian hordes. 

New Year's Day I baked some Dried Orange flavored Cranberry and Pecan cookies, using this RECIPE for a base and substituting Pecans for the unavailable Pistachios.   Since my experience taught me that slicing ice box cookies without chopping up the nuts and dried fruit was going to be a nightmare, I chopped them up.  Also made THESE for Christmas... and THESE for New Years Day.

The way I handled the dough for the cranberry orange cookies was slightly different, too.  I just rolled them without squaring them off, and chilled the rolls overnight.  Then I cut them in half - across the roll,  and rolled each halved portion through a pie dish with well beaten egg in it, and then some course sugar - cheap old Turbinado sugar, then cut the slices on the waxed paper that was used to chill the roll in.

The sugar and egg helps the sliced cookies hold together when they are baked, and parchment paper really helps in the clean up because egg and sugar can stick like super glue to a cookie sheet.

Oh are they ever good, and pretty easy, too.