I love Pinterest. I have more than 4000 Pins saved. “Holy crap!” You say. “I know,” I say, “but let me explain.”

I primarily use Pinterest as a big old recipe box. I have been known to waste reams of paper printing off recipes…only to be lost, or mis-something’d. And don’t look so innocent. Or superior. I know that I am not the only one with a kitchen drawer full of well-intentioned, mis-organized recipes printed from a myriad of websites in the heat of the moment.

Has anyone mentioned that blogging is a bit like therapy? I feel so much better after confessing that.

The problem with the drawer o’ recipes is finding the one you’re looking for at the moment you’re looking for it. We’ve all been there.

And then came Pinterest.

And the heavens opened, and the sun shined down and puppies and kittens scampered about under rainbows.

Truly.

Okay, maybe not truly. But close.

I no longer print recipes. I post them to a myriad of categories in my own personal digital recipe box called Pinterest. The kind of recipe box that always has pictures. I love recipes with pictures. Because, really, what’s the point if you’re not going to tantalize me with a picture of the item I’m going to cook. Even if the item I cook never, ever, looks like the picture posted in the recipe. Such is life.

Can I take a moment to lodge a complaint about the majority of the food blogs out there? And don’t get me wrong; I am a lover of food and recipes and pictures of food and when we’re deep into winter and it’s been raining for 39 days straight and I’m unable to go outside because when the wind and rain makes umbrellas and hoods impossible I will likely post more recipes…..BUT!!!!

Have you noticed how many food blogs post an exhaustive number of pictures and miles of text before they get around to the recipe?

What is up with that?

And, often, the chitter chatter has absolutely nothing to do with the recipe they’re posting! It’s like this entirely unrelated story that goes on for entirely too long and I’m scrolling and scrolling and sccccrrrrrrrrroooooooooolllllllliiiiiiinnnnnnnnggggggg….and FINALLY there is the damn recipe!!!

Of course, you may have already reached that point with this post. You may be scratching you’re head going, “what the heck is the point of this drivel?”

At least you’re not waiting for a recipe.

That would suck.

So, what is the point? The point I’d like to make is about a cat tent.

You heard me.

C-A-T T-E-N-T.

Remember that I adopted Colby Jack, orange cat extraordinaire, but a week ago. He’s settling in very nicely. Which is a nice way of saying he’s quickly taking over. As one would expect.

A couple of months before I adopted CJ I stumbled across a post on Pinterest for a homemade cat tent. Piece of cardboard, some tape, two wire hangers, a t shirt. What could be simpler than that? I’m relatively, semi-sorta crafty like.

I made the cat tent. The picture in the post shows this perky, perfectly taut “tent” with a cat joyfully rolling around inside. My tent is lopsided and would, perhaps, be attractive to Colby Jack if he was still living on the streets.

The other thing about the tent is that it’s small. Turns out that Mr Orange is…..beefy. Not fat, though if we’re not careful he could go there. But, he’s big. 13.1 pounds of cat.

So, when he came home and I saw him next to the Pinterest cat tent that I invested 30 or so minutes of my time constructing I kind of laughed. It does not appear to be a “one size fits all” cat tent.

Colby J. has passed by the tent this entire week with nary a glance. Until yesterday evening when he was laying on the floor in close proximation to the tent and I picked him up and crammed him into it. There was some flayling of limbs (his) and some giggling (mine) and suddenly he was in the tent.

The good thing about the fabric that makes up the tent is that it’s cotton. Stretchy.

He was in….and he stayed in. I was shocked. I began running g my fingers along the outside of the cotton and he slapped at them from within. I poked my face in the “door” (the neckline of the t-shirt) and he batted at me with a large paw.

After a few minutes he popped his head out and announced he had had enough. Fine by me. I was happy that he had given 5 minutes of attention to my Charlie Brown tent.

This morning he (shockingly enough) crawled in the tent again.  Then he began to play with the tent.  It may not last long with behavior like this:

So, what’s the point to all of this? Well, let’s see….Pinterest is cool and you can find out how to make your own tent by going to this link. But, unless your cat is petite…and gentle…the tent may not last long.