August Contest Winner, and a New Contest!

The August contest went as follows: “Since I have a kitten, tell me a story about a kitten. Or a cat. Or, if you’ve never had a cat, a dog. Or perhaps your younger brother. Someone smaller than you, in any case, and ideally kind of fuzzy.”

I’m afraid I indulged in a bit of nepotism in choosing my winner, and it is indeed my own mother, who brings us this tale of the cat we had while I was growing up:

My favorite cat story involves our first cat, Spot. When she was about 8 years old, my husband came home from work and found a dead cat in our front yard. It had been hit by a car and since it was white with black spots like our cat, he assumed that Spot was the victim of a tragic accident. He carefully put her in a bag and waited for the rest of the family to come home.

As each member heard the news there was a lot of crying and gnashing of teeth. Karen was the last to arrive and I really dreaded telling her. When she heard the news, she could not believe it was true and insisted on seeing the cat in the bag. (The rest of us had only taken a peek.) I tried to convince her not to look but she was persistent and when I dumped the cat out of the bag and saw the belly we all looked at each other in amazement as we realized that the cat in the bag wasn’t Spot.

At that point we all looked around asking each other where she could be. She was always patiently waiting for dinner when we came home from school & work.. It didn’t take too much calling before we saw her coming across the yard. I would love to know what went through her mind as we all ran screaming to greet her. I don’t think she had ever gotten a reception like that before.

Spot lived to a ripe old age of 18 or 19. She had adopted us when she didn’t have a home and I think she was a very happy cat.

Unfortunately we never found out who the cat in the bag was. I am sure that some family missed her though.

I’ve decided to make a change in the way I run my contests — instead of only offering them to people who get my newsletter, I’ve decided to open them up to anyone who reads my blog! Here’s September’s contest:

Tell me a tale of harvest — whether it’s ‘tomatoes coming out our ears’, or a ride in a haywagon with a teenage sweetheart; a corn maze, the farmer’s market, or your grandmother’s favourite method of cooking up all the extra zucchini. Pictures, recipes, poetry, I’ll accept it all! The prize as always is a ten dollar gift certificate to Om Shanti Handcrafts.

I’ll take entries here, or you can email me at om.shanti.handcrafts@gmail.com; even send me a link to a blog entry if it fits the theme. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Deadline is early next month, whenever I get round to doing next month’s newsletter.

July’s Contest Winner

But wait, you say, I didn’t know there was a July contest!

There’s a contest every month, in fact — but you have to be subscribed to my monthly email newsletter to get it. I write up a bit of shop news, an article or two, and the contest around the first of the month (sometimes later than others) and send it out. If you’re interested in subscribing — if only for the contest! — you can comment to this post, or email me at om.shanti.handcrafts@gmail.com to subscribe.

July’s contest was ‘how do you beat the heat’ and this month’s winner didn’t take but a moment’s thought:

That would in fact be Dani of SweetTarragon, lying there looking oh so nice and cool. I admit to jealousy! Okay, I do that too.

Sign up to find out about this month’s contest!