The Best of Schmutzie.com's iPhoneography 2011

I listed my top iPhone photos from each month in "The Best of Schmutzie.com's iPhoneography 2011". I don't think I'll be falling out of love with my iPhone camera any time soon.

You Should Probably Enter To Win A Free Photo Book From Shutterfly and I, Because They're Darn Spanky

Despite the fact that spring is coming on with all the verve of a snail on quaaludes — I live in Saskatchewan, and WE HAD MORE SNOW LAST NIGHT — I'm starting to feel that energetic thrum moving through me. It happens every spring. I am filled with a near-anxious excitement over new things, whether there are new things happening or not. Of course, I'm lucky this year, because there are actually new things to celebrate. This will save me from manically searching for meaning while I clean out the backs of our closets.

Oh, who am I kidding? I don't clean out the backs of our closets, except for when we move. When we moved last fall, I discovered all the musical instruments from my elementary school music classes and am still fairly certain that I need to learn how to play the recorder, ukulele, and kazoo to some level of proficiency.

Aaaaanyway, on to celebrations, because it's Spring!

My friend Mrs. Wilson just had huge chunk of a boy very recently, and this seems to be the time of year when everyone is having smaller and larger chunks of their own, and so it just seems fitting that there should some spanky birth announcements or photo books to crow about them, which is why — jeebus, my sentences are long today — I am giving away a Shutterfly 8"x8" photo book.

If you would like ONE chance to get your hands on a Shutterfly 8"x8" photo book, do one of the following. If you would like TWO chances to win, do both of the following:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You can tell me how you're going to use the photo book or just say hello if you want to.


2. Post the following tweet on Twitter, complete with hashtag:
   I want to win a Shutterfly photo book - http://tinyurl.com/shutterflyFTW  #shutterflyFTW

I will pick one lucky person at random on April 22nd at midnight using random.org, and then I will announce the winner both here and on Twitter.

So, go forth! Comment and tweet! Your beautiful photobook awaits you.

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Are you a blogger, too? Click here to register for a chance at 50 free announcements!

This post is part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

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UPDATE: And the giveaway winner has been chosen. It is Brahm (alfred lives here)!

I See Kitten Mittens In Onion's Future

This is Onion nosing around under our door early in the morning, and it's what we wake up to more often than not since all cats have forever been banned from our bedroom.



We used to let all three of the cats pile up on the bed with us at night. Onion would stake out his corner at the bottom on my side, Lula would turn and knead and curl up on the Palinode's side, and Oskar would make his own neurotic ruckus by turning in circles and crawling under the covers and hiding under my knees and crawling out from under the covers and meowing about the whole thing and generally being really annoying.



Our bed was always covered in fur. (I am discounting the scant five minutes during which it was hair-free between my making a fresh bed and their leaping all over it, gleefully shooting fur from their backs and rolling it into my clean blankets.) The fur got into our eyes. We ate it. I joked about its being extra fibre. It was disgusting, but I wuv my widdle cuddle-muffins, oh yes I do, and I was reticent to kick them out.

And then the cats forced our decision. Lula and Onion started tag-teaming making pee statements on the bed, Lula because she was experiencing sexy times and wanted everyone to know about her sexy times and Onion because he was mad at me, oh so mad, because I told him he couldn't eat my boots or stick his feet in my water or something else totally unreasonable and unfair.

They have not gone gently into that good hallway.



They sincerely miss cuddling with us on the bed in the morning, but none so much as our Onion. He paces. He scratches. He mewls mournfully. He scratches. He scratches. He scratches. He scratches. OH MY GOD, HE HAS A DEATH WISH. HE DRAGS HIS NAILS DOWN THE BEDROOM DOOR. IT'S EAR-SPLITTING, AND I JUST MIGHT FORCE HIM TO WEAR LEATHER KITTEN MITTONS:



Early every morning, Onion wants to know why we have forsaken him so. He is bereft.



But look at that ear curled against the door frame. And that paw! The big galoot and I lay on our respective sides of the door on Saturday morning while he reached through to stroke my face with his fluffy little kitty foot. So what if he caught my lip on one of his claws and I bled a little, right?

Dude's cuteness bought his ass out of a snowdrift AGAIN. Cute is powerful, people.