Catman at Catmas

Simple and fun! Enjoy this magical time of year! Does Santa in this art remind you of anyone? :-)

Purrs,

Tommy & Teaghan

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hi all! It's beginning to look more Christmassy around here. The mom learned how to make a centerpiece made out of tree things and brought it into the house. It's not too fancy, just some plain holly sprigs and a couple of pine cones in it. She wuz afraid we would eat some of it but I leave it alone and just like to sit near it. That's me, Teaghan (I know it's hard to tell us apart...) posing with it.  Here are some pictures of our holiday decorations. We are going to visit some blogs today to see how y'all are doing with your holiday decorations. 

Teaghan with the centerpiece

Looks a little scraggly here, but it does have five different kinds of evergreens in it. It was fun making it especially because the greens were provided. Now I can make some other ones in the future.

This is the top down view while making the centerpiece

The fake reindeer at the park where the centerpieces were made

Teaghan with the Seas and Greetings Pillow

And finally one picture of Tommy's favrit Holiday hanging out place

For those who celebrate, hope your holiday houses are bringing you joy too! 

Purrs, 

Teaghan and Tommy

 

Catch Up and Upcoming Hollydaze with the Ts and Family

Catching up with the Ts and the Pawrents

Tommy and Teaghan (The T's):  Hello all! The pawrents finally put up the tree and we have been good. We just sit around underneath it waiting to pounce on each other.  Meowmy is hoping we don't pull the Christmas thingy out from underneath it though. We know we are :cough cough: pretty heavy... but that would really be pushing it! 

Hey look at the tree!

The Boston Fern looks good with a few lights on her too.

It got really cold here in warm land for about a week. Then it got really warm yesterday and we opened up all the windows again, thank goodness!  While the cold snap was on we got to sit on the couch and get all comfy in front of the fireplace. The weather sure is fun here :-).  

Back in late October, Meowmy and Food Man had to go back to CT to visit Grammy cuz she fell and broke her arm, then fell and broke her hip. Things are improving finally but as anyone who knows of someone of has broken a hip you know how long a process it is in getting better.

Anyway, while they were back in CT, visiting Grammy at the rehab place, they went managed to eat at some of their favorite places they missed so much. We'll let you hear from her now....

Meowmy: "First and most important, we had LOBSTER from our favorite place, Lenny's in Branford CT! We managed to get in 3 lobster rolls while we were visiting. Yes, we were gluttons but we have not had a lobster in over 3 years since we've moved. It was wonderful! It was so great I even ate the green beans (that I can't stand normally but they actually tasted good!). 

And while we were visiting family, we met our great nephews in person finally. And look what beauties they have at their house! CHICKENS! Real free range chickens that get to run around and act like chickens should. 

Our other favorite most wonderful missed food is apples fresh picked from the farm, Roger's Orchards in Southington, CT.  All kinds of apples, fresh baked cider donuts, and fresh apple cider.  The smells of apples and Fall on a beautiful sunny day and Oh dear we were in Heaven.

We also drove by our old house and visited the farm down the street and saw the cows we loved to look at. There are plenty of cows in NC too, we just don't get to see any unless we drive far away. Aren't they beauties?

Next, we went to our other favorite place that we missed, The Wharf restaurant in Madison, CT at the Madison Beach hotel. The view is spectacular and it was the most beautiful sunny Fall day. We could not resist getting another lobster roll. Warm, buttery, lobster goodness on a grilled buttery roll along with some Prosecco.  

Not to be missed as well are the donuts from the best donut place ever, Neil's Donuts in Wallingford, CT. Bob has been craving these for soooooo long! 

And not to be forgotten and near and dear to our hearts is our most favorite Italian restaurant where we spent so much time and ate practically every week and hung out with our friends, Michael's Trattoria. The pizza oh my! 

Last but not least, we managed to split a Roast Beef sandwich from the King of Roast Beef, Vinny's Deli in Wallingford, CT. Roast Beef with horseradish on a Weck roll. That topped off easing our cravings. I don't know how we managed to eat so much good stuff now that I look back on it. :-) And in between all that we visited with Mom and brought her food and her favorite soup and sandwich from Panera for Mom so she had her favorite food to eat while in rehab. 

Lastly, the view on our way home to the T's, flying over that gorgeous Fall scenery.

Tommy:  Finally the pawrents came home. I wuz keepin an eye out for them. Hey beans! Where you been?!"  Hurry up and make me some chick-hen!

If you've managed to read this far, God Bless you! Just a few more.  Thanksgiving came up quickly and we ended up making Turkey at home at the last minute. Thank goodness no one came over to eat the sickly looking turkey that came out.  And I also made collard greens for the first time in honor of being in NC.

Bleh turkey! What happened to it's legs? I need to find a fresh turkey farm around here somewhere instead of this frozen kind that everyone was buying.  It ended up only costing $.19 a lb with the specials the store had. 

Ok, that's about it for now. Thanks for reading! Hope you all enjoyed your holiday and will enjoy the upcoming Christmas/Hanukah/New Year's season. 
Goodnite!,
Purrs, Tommy, Teaghan and the B's.

 

Everything is back to Normal with the Ts

The Sun always comes out again and everything is beautiful once again! 

Some beautiful sunset pictures taken after a ride home from Oak Island

Ahhh, everything is back to normal and trusting in the Universe that everything is calm and trusting once again!
 

Purrs and hugs,

Tommy and Teaghan

Bad Rain Storm in NC

Tommy:  

Meow almighty! A big bad rainy storm came down here over St. James, Southport and Oak Island and lots of other towns in North Caroliny. We were mostly just chillin out watching it from our kitty beds in the room with the big windows. We watched it as it rained and rained and rained and then it  FINALLY STOPPED! All day long we watched the rain (in between naps of course) and then the water got closer and closer to our house and the back yard filled up and all the sudden we had lake front property!  

Then at one point the screaming noise coming out of the phone thingies happened and we, (well only one of us got trapped and dumped in there)...  had to go sit in the room with no windows to "be safe".  Then Teaghan escaped under the bed and no one can get her out once she gets under there hah! After a little bit, I got let out and the doors to our sitting spot were closed so we had to hang out in the rest of the house for a while. We looked out the door windows to see what was happening and watch the waterfall coming from the roof of the house. The street disappeared for a while as more water came   over the neighbor's lawns and crept over to the other side. 

The best part was Mom told us there was probably lots of SNAKES in dat water. We kept a look out for them and the gators. That was our job for the day. 

Finally our watching job was over just as we were getting ready for our third meal of the day. The clouds moved over and the sun came out.  

Mama B:

That wasn't the end though, because so much damage has happened in our town and all around us. Overall, some parts of St. James and Southport got up to 24" of rain. Several roads collapsed and some homes were flooded. Some roads leading into our town were closed as the main roads around us were shut down as sections of the road washed away.  The road at the end of our street is flooded and the roads in and around us were shut down. Roads and a small bridge in Southport, NC were washed away. Roads and bridges leading into Oak Island were shut down. One of the roads near the intracoastal in our development is shut off from the rest as it washed away and is impassable.  It is going to take some time for a bridge to be rebuilt that connects it to the community. 

We have to stay put for now at least, but will have to try and make it out soon to get some provisions (cat food and chicken, shhhhh don't tell the Ts... 😂). 

So grateful and thankful we and all around us made it safely through the storm. Rebuilding the infrastructure will just take time.

Hey, where's the food, humans!

I hope dat water doesn't come in here!

Our new Lake Front Property

This is where the new stream was!

The stream making its way to form another Lake in the neighbor's yard.

 

Toys for Teaghan

Toys for Teaghan

Hello efurrybuddy! It's about time that I got some blog time here. Here's a quick catch up on what's been going on. I've been looking all around for my favorite toy and finally had to go digging and sniffing around to find it. For some reason, most of our toys have now been stuck in this basket. It doesn't matter I can still find it when I want it. It's a puffy feathery kind of toy that I go looking for every now and then. You can see though that I have to dig past all of Tommy's feathers first! Geez Mommy, you think you could clean this thing out? :-) 

Purrs, Teaghan

 

Happy Cat Day and Debby Update

Happy International Cat Day!

Happy International Cat Day to effuryone! Mom made some crazy AI cat picture for the event. Some days things come out good and some days they don't. MOL! 

We are also tired from listing to the weather man warning system scaring us every now and then with the loud screeches coming from the phone thingies. All in all though we slept through most of storm Debby. 

After the storm noises and exhaustive playing with our favorite tunnel and the "snakie" stick, I finally just laid down right on the floor and took a nap.

Hope y'all in range of storm Debby fared as well as we did.

Purrs,

Tommy and Teaghan

Peek a boo and cleaning day

 Tommy:  OK Mom if you are going to clean and move my tunnel then I'm going with it! Does the snake come with it? And, you know you probably should vacuum a little more often since our furs are still coming out so much! 

Quick post, but wanted y'all to know we are still alive. Love you all!

Purrs,

Tommy and Teaghan

Caturday Art Pretty Tabbies

In keeping with some Saturday Cat art, I wanted to show you some different styles that I have learned in AI art recently.  The first one is a double exposure, with a field of flowers inside the beautiful Tabby. And the second one is a mixup of a few things like alcohol ink colors, flowers, and lace in the furry features; and including words like panpsychic and utopic connectome. Loving the vibrant colors that come out of some of the images. Both created in NightCafe.

And, just for fun and giggles, Snakie came by for a visit! We think it's the baby of the big snake from a month or so ago. It slithered off into the stand of pine trees just off to the side of the house. I won't be going over there at all now. I have a feeling that's where it and maybe more of its kind are living. Ugh. At least Tommy and Teaghan got a little thrill out of seeing it. And when I finally scared it off, it was FAST! There is no outrunning that thing. Although hopefully I believe they will be running away from people not to them. 

Purrs,

Brenda and the Ts

 

Caturday Art with Tommy

Caturday Art

AI art creation of a red and white Norwegian Forest Cat made by me in NightCafe. And, NO I am not getting paid anything or getting credits on this post for telling you about Night Cafe. This post is my opinion and for information only.

Now y'all know Teaghan and I cannot go outside but we can pretend in a picture.  It's a pretty picture right? Mom makes these with a thing called AI. To get this picture, all Mom did was type in the words in Night Cafe (because she has thumbs she can do this and we cats cannot...): "beautiful red and white Norwegian forest cat painting done in pastel style".  I'll let her tell you more about it.

"Lately I've seen how easy it is for others to confuse an AI generated image with something that I have photographed. Many know I have posted many of my photos on FB over the years so I can see why some would be confused. But it's all over the place now where it's hard to tell the difference in many instances. You can see how easy it is to confuse a picture as something that is a real photo or as a painting actually painted in real life. In an AI art creator, like Night Cafe, all this is done with just a few words describing what you want and the style you'd like it to look like. 

Thank you Tommy.  Because of the closeness and inability of many to distinguish between AI art and a photograph taken by a human, or a photo of a painting, even "FaceBook is going to require images that users post to Facebook, Instagram and Threads when they can detect industry standard indicators that they are AI-generated so that people know they have been created using AI." 

Night Cafe is the program that I use the most. There are many ways to get a different output, choosing a different painting style, or a different preset that already has a particular set of modifiers in it. It's very addictive, as you enter the words and wait literally seconds before you get your result. It's as someone said, "it's like pulling the handle on a slot machine, and waiting for the jackpot".  The "jackpot" is a creation that comes out perfect the first time. It doesn't happen often. Many times there are extra paws, two heads, six or seven fingers, no thumbs, too many thumbs, the wrong thumbs, you get the idea.  

As with a slot machine, you have to use credits. With Night Cafe, you get credits to use to make your creation for things such as liking other's creations, publishing your own creations for 5 days in a row, welcoming and commenting on newbies creations, entering challenges (there's even a "Caturday" challenge) to win credits, and other things for credits. 

There are many other AI art generators that are free besides Night Cafe and/or you pay for a subscription. I just happen to use NC the most because of the ease of use and learning it and the community that is in there. It's like blogging, with commenting and meeting and liking others through a common interest, such as with us and our cats.  It's a dream for someone like me who likes to learn new things above all else.

In learning how to create AI images, I have learned from others in the Night Cafe community so many things about art terms that I never knew before. For instance, ever hear of "tenebrism"? It's a style of art mostly associated with the painter, Caravaggio, to do with the use of light in highlighting a subject. I had studied Caravaggio, but never heard of the term. And being able to create anything with a style of art like quilling, alcohol and ink painting (my favorite), watercolors, palette knife, just to name a few is simply amazing.  

So I will continue to create these beautiful images until I get tired of it and I will. I tend to jump from one thing to another all the time and never quite stay with something long enough to master it. But that's what makes my life so interesting to me. There's so much to learn and create in this wonderful life we live. If you've read this far then thank you. I just feel like I needed to get it out of me. :-).  Surprisingly though, I have stuck with blogging here for so long.  I have been on and off many times but that's all relating to me running off and spending time on something new. Thankfully I don't work anymore although I seem to spend the same amount of time on my computer as before if not more! At least now it's for me and not for work. lol.  So thanks again for reading and I'll be back writing, reading, and commenting again soon.  XO everyone and hope you continue to read and enjoy Tommy and Teaghans (real and AI created) photos!

Purrs,

Tommy

And Mom Brenda