My kids and I make and donate several hundred twine rosaries to the Rosary Army every year. We used to purchase colored twine, but lately, we’ve wanted more color, more varigated hues, more, well, WOW in our twine. Teen Daughter #2 also wanted something to do to fill these long, boring summer hours.

So I taught her how to use dye. This is her first effort, and I must admit to being very impressed with her eye for colors and blends. She even named them: Tongues of Fire (in honor of Pentecost), My Pink, Melon Blast, Mom’s Olive Green, PinkyBeige, I Want a Chihuahua.

Now she has aspirations of starting her own business dyeing and selling twine to other rosary knotters. After she paints her room.

We have two cats, both of them rescued. Jinx was saved as a newborn, bottle fed and mothered by our lab. Zoe came to us from another family who had rescued her at the brink of turning feral. She’s a nut-case; about as weird as a cat can get. For one thing, she can not pass by any open door without dashing through it. Oh, Zoe doesn’t notice care that the door leads into a closet, or a kitchen cabinet, or even the laundry chute. If it’s open, she barrels through it, ploughing through anyone or anything in the way.

She also sleeps flat on her back, in the strangest locations. It’s not unusual to find her upside down smack in the middle of the living room floor; in the bathtub; or on top of the washing machine. I’ve seen her upside down on the pool table, with her head hanging over the edge and her mouth wide open, sound asleep. This by far is the strangest – lying on the garage floor under the wheel of the car. I had to remind Teen Daughter#1 to wake the cat up before backing out.