My sweet darling has always said that it is better to have a wife that can cook and doesn’t cook often than one who cant cook and cooks all the time. I have never liked critters in my kitchen; especially when I am in my once a year major cooking mode. I like to start a week out to prepare for the feast. Thanksgiving is my favorite time of year.

Today I woke up with cooking on my mind! I put on my favorite Christmas music, Erics new “Christmas Wish” and “Appalachian Christmas” by the Nashville Sessions. The kitchen was clean thanks to my routines and it was so easy to get started or so I thought.

The kittens are curious by nature but our new white kitty that we have named Penrod after a precocious young man from literature written by Booth Tarkington around 1900. Penrod lives up to his name every day. This kitty wants to know everything about what I am doing. He is under my feet and on my kitchen counters. I have tried everything to discourage him from walking on my counters. I have yelled, blown a whistle, yelled some more, chased after him with a spray bottle of plain water. Nothing has helped me. Robert will not scold them either.

Now I know what it is like to be the bad firm parent when the other one lets the babies get away with everything. Needless to say the kitties love Robert. The minute he sits down the cats are in his lap. As for me the kitties think my laptop is a heating pad and I find them curled up on the keyboard one too many times. Did you know that cats don’t type well and computers are not fond of cat hair?

Today as I started my cooking marathon I had to disinfect my counters for the third time. I was not happy! The bottle of cooking wine started to look pretty good at that time then I had an epiphany! I need a cat fence to keep them off my counter. I had already put a sheet over my table to protect my dishes and centerpiece from the infamous cat hair. I would hate to have to write about another Thanksgiving mishap.

Our curious kitties have not figured that they can jump from the floor to the counter top yet. They need cat ladders which amount to window sills, chairs, the dining table and Robert’s lap. I had to figure out a way to blockade the cats. So I moved our toaster to their favorite entrance by the chair of the man who will not correct the precious babies. I backed it up with a coffee pot, coffee canister and coffee grinder. Wow I think this might work. Then I looked at the opposite end of my kitchen to a white cat sitting on my dining table just dying to come see what I was up to!

I had to stop him from his surprise attack! I need a half of sheet of plywood. That would take hours. I needed something NOW! As I looked past his kittie blue eyes trying not to make eye contact; I noticed a gate that we use on the deck to keep the dogs in the yard. It is three feet by four feet wooden frame with fence wire stabled to it. I brushed it off with my trusty Rubba Scrubba and propped it up by the end of the counter wedged in by our heavy duty 45-gallon crock that we use for a trash can. By golly I think it is going to work! I have thwarted the cat attack on my Thanksgiving Dinner preparations.

I have found such joy in this that I had to holler down the stairs for Robert to come and see how brilliant I was! He just laughed. This got me to thinking! Who was the smarter one here? Were the cats really training me! Back to cooking! Happy Thanksgiving!

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For more help getting rid of your CHAOS; check out her website and join her free life coaching at www.FlyLady.net , listen to her channel http://www.blogtalkradio.com/channels/flylady show or read her books, Sink Reflections published by Bantam and her New York Times Best Selling book, Body Clutter published by Fireside. Copyright 2008 Marla Cilley Used by permission in this publication.