National Catty Cowls Day

Wrap your cowls on three. Ready? 1...2...3!!!! If you own a cowl, wear it on Friday to celebrate our annual Fall Retreat. See you in Jackson playa!

Happy Birthday Farmer Faith!

TCK found their hands in the dirt for this birthday celebration. Farmer Faith happily gave us a tour of her stomping grounds and we helped her tend to her medicinal herb garden. The weeds in this place never stood a chance once we arrived. We hope you had the happiest birthday Faither and will love you until you compost!

Birthday Season is Upon Us

And wouldn't you know, we are behind posting everything. I still need to wrap up our retreat and spa night entries. I know, right? The retreat? That was in November friends and it is still not finished. But never fear - birthday season is here! We can always go back and pick up the rest of the stories.

Amy Stamy is the first birthday Queen and this year we are doing small questionnaires to help better acquaint you with each Kitchener. So please, join us at the winery for camaraderie and reverie and drinkery and...okay I'll stop.

Question the First (Faith): What do you like most about being in TCK?
Amy: Mostly I like the company of other female civilians, who are not only humorous and educated, but skeptical, silly, crafty, and cool.

Jenn: If you were to describe yourself as a drink, what would it be?

Stamy: I would be an amaretto sour because it is sweet and you need 1000 of 'em to get you drunk.

Mel: If you could go back to high school and choose your clique, what would it be?

Stamy: I was the hybrid. I was the jock softball player. I was on the math team. I was a math-lete.

OP: What is your favorite activity to do when your husband is not home and when he is?

Stamy: My favorite activity to do at home without James is spooning with my Mama! and taking a nap. [When he is home] I really love, on Sunday, when we get our foods and snuggle on the loveseat. But I like snuggling with Mama! better because James is too hot!

Faith: If you were a constellation, in the sky, what would you be?

Stamy: Well Faith, that's easy. I would be Orion's Belt.

Jenn: I knew that's what you would say.

Stamy: Well, I mean, what is Orion without his belt?

Did I mention there is video of parts of this interview? Well, it's coming. Stay tuned to find out Amy's favorite song to sing along with. I couldn't get it out of my head for a few days. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STAMY!

Retreat! - Section C

I think I am gonna start letting the pics do some of the talking for our trip. Our friends finally showed up by the way.

Tave and Mel with sunglasses headbands.

Jenn doing a dance...as usual.

yummy - snacky - lunchy

Mel prepping our craft. We should finish that sometime.

Old lady rocking.

Someone should keep an eye on her.

Aside from the lethal stares, check out our cute matching cowls. I know!

Not sure how you can be sad with two glasses of good wine.

Maybe she just needed her friend.

Ciao!!!

An Official Welcome

On behalf of

The Catty Kitchen and TCK Mini 

we would like to extend

a warm and fuzzy

welcome

to our newest brother

ELLIOTT

Let's Make a List! - Twilight Edition

(source)

Imagine that...a group of girls that likes romantic bloodsucking vampires. Yes, we like this stuff too...well, most of us here at TCK do. It all started with those damned books, which I picked up because I wanted a quick, not-too-involved read. I got my first wish, but that is only because my second wish wasn't granted therefore I was unable to put it down until I finished each one. It was pretty ridiculous, but I embraced my silly, lustful love of Edward and then Robert Pattinson. My, my he is dreamy! Faith brought me up to speed on the latest movie installation in the series last week and we had a blast watching the story further unfold. So we thought, let's make a list of what we LOVE about Twilight.

• Edward
• Jacob
• Shirtless werewolves
• Sparkly, somewhat vegetarian vampires
• Book #3
• Kristen Stewart's inability to act
• The soundtrack
• Melissa's reinvention of the soundtrack as the movie progresses
• Other movie patrons casting filthy glances our way because we cannot contain our laughter

Hi House!

January 21, 2011 7:00 PM - The Catty Kitchen and Honorary Members begin arriving at My Crib for the inaugural meeting.

7:01 PM - The noise and chaos level escalates.

7:04 PM - I open a bottle of red. The evening has begun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TCK AND WELCOME!

We had so much fun we have hardly a photo to share. Let's start with the new faces...Stamy, would you please stand up? That's her up there on the left looking rosy and cozy next to J-Fer. Stamy is a world renown marine biologist who dedicates her life to the pursuit of wrestling deep-sea anglers. As she dries off in her spare time you can find her reading Chaucer and snacking on blackberry scones. Welcome Stamy!

Next, we were paid a visit by a special gal from Kalamazoo. Would you please give a hand to Shawnee?! Again on the left, Shawnee met Melissa while learning the tango at a local dance studio while Mel was in college. She has met Robert Duvall and sings Cher songs in the shower. This non-local lass is our newest honorary TCK patron. Hooray for Shawnee!

Sadly, our petite Catty girl, Kora Ducky was present, but her purple hair managed to elude my lens. She is such a spunky monkey. I love it!

 Next on the agenda (yes, we had an official agenda) was the planning for birthdays and future soirees. We are all pretty stoked about the upcoming year. For the birthday season this year we have decided to let each birthday girl choose what they would like to do and the rest of us make it happen. We also decided on our Royal Titles. You may now refer to each of us as follows:

 Faith - Emperor

Jennifer - Her Highness

Melissa - High Priestess

Amy - Pope (although Faith and I think she should be Pharaoh...just saying)

Octavia - Caesar

In addition to our new nomenclatures which command respect, we have a few new blog features. First, for each girl's birthday they will get an individual post from each of us to celebrate her day. We discussed a cookbook challenge and dinner club to try something new. And the High Priestess will have her baby show at the end of April! The Emperor and I also thoroughly enjoy making lists and have decided to post our random lists from time to time and invite the other Catty ladies in the world to join us. 

We never did paint our nails, but the colors sat there and laughed with us all night.

XO,

Caesar

Get Cho Cookie On!

 Cookie Bake 2010 was a quiet affair this year, but a winner nonetheless. We ended up with a low cookie count, but all the dough was baked which doesn't always happen.

As usual we had one attendee who was sick...A petite attendee to try all the goods...and the rest of us baked and drank until we were Mary, I mean merry.

 Also this year we opted for a random gift exchange with $15 limit instead of buying for everyone. It was a hit and somehow we all chose the number of the most appropriate gift for ourselves. Weird.

 Sadly, there are no pics of our sick friend or our honorary Cattee (love you Megan). We were also short one member this year, but I can't wait to see her back when life gets on track. I also heard the Pfuhn's are getting down on New Year's and TCK was invited. Should be a hoot. And on that note we look forward to seeing you in 2011. Faith will be a farmer, Jenn is trying a new schedule, I turn 30, Jenna will earn her Master's degree and Mel will be a mommy. It's a big year.

XOXO,

The Catty Kitchen

We Went on a Trip

We are back from the first annual Catty Kitchen retreat and I think it was a smash! We took a whole weekend just for us girls at the Lake of the Ozarks-maneuvering their new highway and relaxing in a penthouse that far exceeded our needs. Since their is so much to share I am opting to break this in to several posts because chances are you have been dying to hear more from us anyway. By the way, these may not be in any sort of order whatsoever.

Skipping over Mel's birthday to our stop off in Hermann...the drive to Hermann was the prettiest stretch we could see while on the road. Freshly shaved sheep, autumnal changes in the leaves, overcast, but well lit sky and rolling hills with a coolness in the air. We (well me-I don't think anyone else saw this) also saw two white doves canoodling atop a window unit AC. First time I have ever seen them live and they were beautiful.

 

Arrival...Fa and Je cozy up in a alley

 

Outside of Tin Mill Brewery...the beer was good and the place was subtle but classy for a brewhouse.

 Evidently in Hermann bathrooms are strictly relegated to the basement.

 Mel checking the settings on her new birthday pressie.

 Jfer takes shelter from the wind in a tiny tree.

 

All in all Hermann was very pretty, but quite small. They did have one hell of an antique shop and German fare around every corner. Quaint is a good word for it.

 Then we hit the dusty trail, pulling our wind tussled locks into side ponytails a la "Deb" fashion.

The lake was calling our names.

We're Ba-ack!

It's Official.  The Catty Kitchen has finally got its shit together and are ready to blog, drop and roll.  Seriously.  We will be trying out a new format for girls' night and the data upkeep to hopefully make it easier on us busy TCK ladies and keep you in the loop more consistently.  Because really, who wants to miss out on what we're doing?  I know I don't.  So, look for us next Friday casually sipping wine and egregiously gossping at J-Fer's house.  Hope you can make it and in the meantime check out what we did on Friday.

Scarlett opened her first studio space!  We are so proud of her for teaming up with Maven to give herself some room to make all those pretty accessories you will often find us wearing.  And guess what else?  If you have any old, tired or broken jewelry you just can't seem to part with, Scarlett Garnet offers classes to revamp the pieces and give them a new life.  You may remember we tried this a while back and came away with some fantastic pieces.

 The feisty jeweler is ferociously protecting her wares.

And look what you could get for free with the purchase of any other piece!  Talk about a bargain.  Ms. Scarlett will also very kindly adjust the fit of any piece you buy while you are right there.  Thanks Kate!

Afterward, we headed to the Schlafly Bottleworks around the corner from her shop to catch up with another catty mistress, her husband and some work buddies.

 The meal was hardly vegetarian between the pulled pork, bison nachos, bison burger and mountainous plate of sausages.  The pumpkin beer was out too, but Schlafly's pumpkin has never been my favorite.  Too clove-y for me this time, but the APA was rocking.

 This speaks to so many facets of my German heritage...OMG!

F-Bomb and I split some scrumptious hummus and pita.  Then Faith left a treat for the bus boy...

So fricking gross!  Can't wait to be back next Friday with the whole gang.  It's been far too long ladies.