Aby-a-Day – 14 Augusti: Heels over head (Silly Saturday)

I honestly don’t know how this can possibly be a comfortable way to sleep. And yet, Lorelai sleeps like this a lot.

She also sleeps with her eyes a little bit open sometimes. That’s just creepy.

Aby-a-Day – 7 Augusti: Funny Angel (Silly Saturday)

Since moving to Sweden and becoming the eldest female in the house, Angel has become very comfortable and secure in the house.

She has several favourite spots, and one of them is the IKEA cat bed at the end of the sofa.

She loves to sit there whilst I am doing things on my computer.

However, when she yawns…

…she shows off the fact that she only has one tooth in her head!

Aby-a-Day – 28 Juli: Wordless Wednesday (Sometimes, Izaak just stares at me for no reason)

Aby-a-Day – 15 Juli: Snuggly Freddy (Thursday Things)

I know some of these photos today are a bit blurry, but I wanted to share them anyway because this is so Alfred’s personality.

Freddy loves to cuddle between us when we’re sitting on the sofa watching television.

He especially likes to lay up against my bare legs when I’m wearing a skirt. It’s kind of sweet to see him next to Jacoby.

It’s not the most fun when it’s almost 30°C, but it is cute.

For some reason, he also likes to touch peets.

I am not sure what this is, however.

Aby-a-Day – 17 Juni: And that’s called Sisterhood (Thursday Things)

So…this happened the other day.

Angel was sleeping on the IKEA cat bed, which is Lorelai’s usual afternoon, post-breakfast napping spot of choice.

So Rory, seeing Angel in her “spot,” just decided to join her. And Angel went with it.

It’s kind of a big deal, because Angel isn’t exactly known for her cuddling with other cats. Voluntarily, anyway.

But then, this happened: Rory started licking Angel’s head! And Angel LET her!

It was just so sweet to see Angel accepting cuddles from another girlcat!

Aby-a-Day – 14 Juni: Sun and shade (Hipstamatic Monday)

One of Izaak’s favourite summer sunspots is on the rug in the living room.

One day, he flopped down and there was this interesting series of stripes in the shadows.

How could I resist?

And of course,

Aby-a-Day – 31 Maj: “Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible” (Hipstamatic Monday)

Good news, everyone! Last Wednesday, I got my first Covid vaccination (#teampfizer)! However, it also kicked my butt for a few days; today is the first day my arm doesn’t feel like I was hit by a stick. So, here: have some random Hipstasnaps taken around the house. First we have Alfred and Izaak cuddled up next to Jacoby on my leg.

It’s interesting to see the pair-ups that occur amongst the cats. Dashiell and Alfred hang out together quite a bit.

So do Angel and Zak. Sometimes, it’s Angel’s choice…

…other times, not so much.

I wonder if I should be concerned about what Dash and Freddy are plotting…

Not quite sure what’s going on here. Moving on…

Lorelai looking at me hopefully. She always wants to go outside to run.

This was taken today. Zak was looking particularly smexy this afternoon.

Aby-a-Day – 3 Maj: Look at this smexy boi! (Hipstamatic Monday)

Sometimes the simplest things make beautiful photos.

Dasshiell was at the end of the sofa, just grooming himself, but something about his pose, and the lighting, intrigued me.

His fur is growing back on his belly, by the way. The Zylkene seems to be working.

As I have said before, Hipstamtic can salvage a bad photo…but Hipstamatic also transforms good photos into art.

And apparently, Dash has inherited a bit of Jacoby’s ability to work a camera. Look at these poses!

That is some steamy side-eye Dash is giving me.

Pure smoulder. Yeah, baby!…Oooh, behave!

Aby-a-Day – 7 April: Wordless Wednesday (Sunshine Girl)

Aby-a-Day – 20 Mars: Sofa face plant (Silly Saturday)

I noticed Dashiell napping on the back of the sofa the other afternoon.

He has a very…interesting napping style, I must say.

Aby-a-Day – 20 Februari: Special Viewing Unit (Swedish Saturday)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has been on the air for 22 years, and I have been watching it since the very first episode. Since moving to Sweden, it’s been hard to keep up with the latest episodes, but I manage.

New episodes air Thursday nights at 9pm Eastern time, which is 3am here, so I watch my SVU every Friday morning (good lord, I sound like my mom). And I rarely watch it alone.

Björn snapped these photos of everyone watching the show with me. This is what our life in quarantine looks like. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year of this.

Aby-a-Day – 16 Januari: Sometimes, you just need a partner to nap with (Swedish Saturday)

It’s been a busy week…and I got to today and couldn’t think of anything to post.

So, here are Alfred and Izaak, the nap partners.

Aby-a-Day – 14 & 15 November 2020: Learning curve (Serious Saturday and Sunday)

Okay, so the new laptop arrived on Friday. I spent the rest of the day and part of yesterday transferring data from the old MacBook Pro to the new one.

Problem is, I had to upgrade the system. I don’t have a choice; there’s a Magic Keyboard that I don’t think will work with the older software. However, I must say, the thing is wicked cool. The functions you have change depending on which application you’re using. In Facebook, you get predictive text like on the iPhone. Listening to music on iTunes, you have the play, pause and skip functions. And in photo apps, you get controls for whatever you’re doing.

Also, no need for passwords; there’s a Touch ID button so you can log into everything with your index finger.

However…I am absolutely bereft without Photoshop. I did everything I could find to work around it…to no avail. I have been using Photoshop since…1997, I think. I can do everything so reflexively…Why, Adobe, why?!

Well, I absolutely do NOT want to pay $20.99 a month for a subscription. So I’ve been investigating other apps that have very high ratings. I’ve downloaded a couple of trial apps. The first one I tried was Acorn. It is highly rated, especially for Macs, and it’s only $29.99. It’s pretty nice…but I couldn’t figure out how to do simple tone, colour and contrast corrections (the things that are so easy to do in Photoshop). I’ll go back later and play with it. The other one I am trying is Affinity Photo, which is a LOT easier to figure out. It’s much more similar to Photoshop, and it can open .psd files. I can also import all my special brushes into both Acorn and Affinity, which is awesome. It’s $49.99…but it seems worth it (and, okay, it’s a lot less expensive than Photoshop was).

As a bonus, in learning about these two apps (and another one, Affinity Designer, which looks interesting), I discovered I can also import my brushes into Procreate. That means no more having to finish drawings in Photoshop…I may just be able to do everything on the iPad now.

Still, I really want Photoshop back. I have a lot of work and research to do in the next ten days.

Aby-a-Day – 11 Oktober 2020: Stealing Pusheen (Silly Singapura Sunday)

I have a collection of Pusheen plushies that I keep on the bed as extra pillows.

One day, I discovered one of the Pusheens in the living room.

Gee…I wonder how she got there…

Someone doesn’t look at all guilty, does someone?

What’s funny is, this Pusheen is almost as big as Izaak is! I wish I had seen him dragging it into the living room from our bedroom. And now Pusheen lives in the living room, thanks to Zak.