Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)!
Grab a cup of coffee and share with us! What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans? Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?
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This weekend construction on my Catio continues! I started to expand it a little bit last weekend, adding some walls and giving it a wider footprint. This weekend I’m hoping to construct a door and enclose the entire thing. My hope is to get it to a point where I can let Monster out into the larger catio space while I’m also in it — and then I can work on adding more shelves and ledges and general amusement spaces for him.
Last weekend he surprised me by being pretty chill in the smaller part of the catio while I worked on the expanded part. I honestly had not expected him to want to be anywhere near the sound of power tools. He did have a bit of a fit, hissing at me, when I first started working outside, but once he figured out it was me, he was perfectly content to watch from his perch. Can you see him glaring at me?
In addition to this work, I’ve got a little TBR pile going for the weekend. I’ve been thinking a lot about children’s books, particularly those that would fall into the “Middle Reader” category these days. One of the things I’ve been playing with is the different thematic categories that these books can fall into. I posed the question to friends over on Facebook about what categories/themes of books they enjoyed when they were younger. This is the list we developed, can you think of any to add (and book examples to go with them?)
- Dolls that come to life/dollhouses that contain mysteries. (i.e., Midnight in the Dollhouse, The Doll in the Garden, The Dollhouse Murders)
- Books about kidnapping, or the main character discovering they’d been kidnapped (i.e., The Face On The Milk Carton)
- Wilderness/Survival (i.e., Jack London, Scott O’Dell, Julie of the Wolves)
- Time Travel (i.e., Charlotte Sometimes, Ghosts I have Been, Princess in the Pigpen)
- General Ghost Stories (Wait till Helen Comes, Goosebumps, Bruce Coville)
- Kids making it on their own (Dahl stuff)
- Tragic illness romanticized (Lurlene McDaniels)
- Ballet/Gymnastics/Dance (The Little Gymnast, Maybe Next Year.)
- Anthropomorphic Animals in Epic Situations (Watership Down, Rats of Nihm, Redwall)
- Horses
This weekend I’m going to dig into my doll-related books, I have a number of them and am looking forward to a bit of a themed read after my outdoor work.
What are you up to this weekend? Any plans?
Eclectic Alli 
Cool catio. A friend told me I should do something similar and have the “kitty litter” outside (she wasn’t complaining about my house – she hadn’t been in it to smell 😉 ).She said she once did it and it made the cats feel great and the kitty litter was out, not in, so everyone was happier. I’d just have to be 100% sure the cats can’t escape – we have coyotes and bob cats that come up close to the house (when our big dogs aren’t playing out back!)
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Yup, we’ve got coyotes, and bobcats not far (and mountain lions, but I dont imagine they’ll venture this far into suburbia too soon), so I’ve tried to make sure to make it pretty secure. Won’t put the litter in it though, or any food or anything that would provide to much extra scent to draw other critters.
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What an exciting weekend you have ahead of you. All the little projects you have going on makes me think of my little sister. I think the two of you would of become really good friends, if you lived close by 🙂
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Your calico is looking very cool! Shame you can’t teach your fur baby to hammer or saw since he likes to watch so much! Growing up the one book I remember reading over and over was “Little Women.” I loved the historic aspect and the idea of living in another time. Have a great week!
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That was a favorite book of mine too!
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Hi Ali,
Thanks for the coffee. I was very impressed with your catio, although my dogs have now started badgering me for a doggio. They’re much much into equal rights and get especially narky about spoiled cats. Indeed, they want to write their own book and I suspect that might account for the paw prints all over the kitchen floor.
Best wishes,
Rowena
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A lot of books currently being published are what are tagged as #ownvoices in which the characters learn about themselves and learn to be confident in who they are.
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Yes. One of the things I love about the #OwnVoices tag is that they are also being written by people who identify similarly to the main character. I haven’t seen so much of that historically though — but it’s definitely a trend I’m looking at now!
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Found mostly in the more recent books. The last MG one I read was by Kit Pearson.
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Oh, that list is amazing! I loved reading as an older child/young teen. My favorite book would fall into the wilderness category, as it is about the Sager children on the Oregon trail in 1844. I only recently discovered the author had many things wrong.
I’m so glad Monster seems to like his catio.
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