Each petal of the four-leaf clover stands for something; faith, hope, love, and luck. It requires all of these to survive Lady Brenna of Fairfax, an adventurous Bengal cat with a very unyielding personality. When Brenna entered my life I was a fairly sane individual, someone who could actually get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night if I chose. That all changed the day Brenna walked into my heart. I spent the first night of our life together on the living room floor, attempting to comfort her as she screamed her lungs out for attention. B.O.B. Bob slept through it all upstairs in our comfy bed. It’s very difficult to soothe an animal that doesn’t want to be touched. Things have never changed in that area. She still evades my attempts of snuggles, and I still spend almost every night listening to her howl, while attempting to comfort her. B.O.B. Bob still continues to sleep soundly through it all. Don’t get me wrong, I love this little ball of fur above all else in this world, and my love for her comes before most people I know; she is, however, completely bat-shit crazy.
The greatest love of my life, other than B.O.B. Bob and Crazy Psycho Brenna, is baking. It is something that I usually find soothing, because it allows me to spend time with myself, without the outside world crazies working their way into my head. My mom handed down her love of being in the kitchen to me at an early age. I would sit at the kitchen table with my Tupperware Children’s Mixing Set, attempting to copy her with whatever scraps she would give me. I was completely head-over-heels in love with the mini pastry sheet. I’m quite sure that none of my creations were ever actually edible, however, my mother’s cooking was not always wonderful either. The one thing she didn’t have to worry about was keeping a cat out of the oven. Sometimes curiosity is just not a good thing. Sharing a kitchen with a four-legged ball of fur creates certain challenges. The main one is that every food that is poisonous to a cat, is of course the one food that will always roll off the counter and be swatted around the kitchen floor.
In addition to concocting recipes, crafting brings a great amount of pleasure to my life, but in a whole different way. I love holding a finished project in my hands, knowing that I’ve put a little bit of myself into every design I conceive. It’s even more fulfilling when I give that project as a gift, seeing someone else’s appreciation of my abilities. I absolutely adore gift giving, and feel homemade gifts are always the best, especially when they are wrapped up in pretty paper. The process of getting to that finished project, on the other hand, is not always so wonderful. You see, Brenna also shares my love of crafting, and this makes my life a complete living hell. She loves to play with ribbons, step on every piece of expensive pretty paper, and dig around in plastic containers overflowing with supplies. Let me just give you some advice right now. Glue guns cause great pain. Always. Thankfully, Brenna seems to understand this. It is the one crafting tool she absolutely has no interest in. (If only I were as smart as her.) Everything else is up for grabs, making my life completely miserable. You try ripping double-sided tape off of a cat without getting mauled.
Every craft project I attempt, each recipe I create, and every gift I give, will always have one thing in common. There will almost always be cat hair involved. Brenna sees it as her duty to make this happen. It is her mission in life to be right there beside me, helping me create wonderful creations, even if I don’t always see it as a positive thing. Brenna and I invite you to share in our domestic adventures with one another. I promise it will not be a dull journey.
