Blog - Page 72 of 90 - Karen Shanley

Feliway Review — A Cat Product That Really Works!

August 2, 2007 / Finnegan the Coon Cat / By Karen Shanley / 14 Comments

This is Finnegan, our Maine Coon clown. As you can see, he lurvs my laptop. And he lurvs to scratch and claw my furniture. In fact he lurvs clawing so much that he’s been systematically ruining each piece of upholstered furniture I have.

A while back, I asked for advice about Finn’s clawing the furniture. Jen, from Fuzzy Logic, recommended Feliway (Comfort Zone) spray and diffusers . Feliway is a cat pheromone that duplicates the smell of a cat’s

The Happy Box

July 31, 2007 / Cait and Me, My Favorites / By Karen Shanley / 17 Comments

“Mom I can’t get to sleep,” Cait yells from her bedroom. She’s been in bed for almost an hour.

“What’s the problem?” I yell back from my study.

“I’m having bad thoughts. I’m worried I’m going to have a nightmare.”

Since birth, my daughter has been inordinately sensitive to her environment. She takes things in that others hardly notice. The upside is that she’s very compassionate and caring. The downside is that any images, especially from TV, that are at … Read More

Garden Experiment 2007

July 30, 2007 / My Garden / Recipes / By Karen Shanley / 15 Comments

To Break Scape or Not to Break Scape?

That is the question no more.

When I first started growing garlic, I’d read that breaking the scapes (the flower stalks) off the garlic plants soon after they appeared would allow the bulbs to grow bigger (and so I’d always broken the scapes). Made sense, logically speaking; the energy that would be used to grow the scapes would then be forced down into the bulb. I wanted to test this logic for … Read More

Training “Quiet” the Brilliant Aussie Way

July 26, 2007 / Dog Training, Funnies, My Dogs and Me, My Favorites / By Karen Shanley / 24 Comments

At dinner, Kiera lies by my chair while we eat. She likes to monitor my eating, as she knows she gets my leftovers when I’m done. If I take too long, she starts “talking” to tell me to hurry up.

Andrew finally gets annoyed and wants me to discipline her to get her to stop being pushy. So I remember Suzanne Clothier’s time-out lesson where you remove the dog from where you are for a few moments to essentially help … Read More

My First Rule of Writing

July 25, 2007 / On Writing / By Karen Shanley / 11 Comments

Rory, over at Clean Cut Blog has a Group Writing Project . He instructs: “Write your own blog post presenting your first rule of writing. Not a top three, or five – what would you say is the most important rule according to you, and why? What would come before anything else?”

Okay, then. I’ve got my assignment; let’s get to it.

Your’s is one of a few hundred queries sitting on an editor’s desk. He’s hit the mid-morning … Read More

Doesn’t Get Any Better

July 18, 2007 / Cait and Me / By Karen Shanley / 3 Comments

Five Ways to Set Up Your Blog To Chase Readers Away

July 16, 2007 / On Writing / By Karen Shanley / 29 Comments

If you’d just spent a good bit of time getting your place spiffed up for company, and you were really looking forward to having them come and visit for awhile, would you then welcome them by piling some of your furniture in front of the door for them to climb over? Surely not. Yet, metaphorically speaking, this is what some bloggers do to their visitors.

A blogger friend and I were just discussing this very phenomenon; annoying stumbling blocks bloggers … Read More

Dog Lovers and Others

July 16, 2007 / My Dogs and Me, The Mail Bag / By Karen Shanley / 7 Comments

From the mail bag: Kevin writes, I love dogs and live with a partner who doesn’t. She merely tolerates them because she loves me. I’m wondering how you and Andrew work out ways to keep everybody happy.

Dear Kevin: I was born with an affinity for dogs, and was permitted to have dogs from an early age. Andrew was never allowed to have pets growing up. So he’s never had the experience of being changed by a dog’s love. I … Read More