I love cats. I have always loved cats. And I have lived most of my life with at least one cat, often times many more.

One of my earliest memories involves cats. When I was about 3 or so, our family had an orange tabby cat, Kitty George. I remember scooping kitty kibble out of a bag to fill his bowl and thinking that if he liked it, it must be good (3 year old logic, what can I say?). I remember putting a few pieces in my mouth and two things seemed to happen at once: My mother appeared as if from nowhere fussing at me for eating cat food and I came to the very quick realization that kibble was NOT TASTY. Even half a century later I have a visceral memory of stale fishiness. Gah!

I currently share my home with two old lady cats, Celine and Maya.

An emporium is a large store that sells a variety of merchandise. Well, I'm not selling anything but I do have links for you to all things CAT. This is my , as it were. Below you will find links to art, cross stitch patterns, fun stuff and personal sites, all having to do with cats. Meow!

• Monmon Cats - Japanese tattoo style cat art. There are a few non-cat items but you all know I'm here for the cats. I have several of his art prints hanging on my wall right now.


• HS_illustrator - An illustrator who loves cats, astronomy and religions, all of which show up in his drawings. Beautifully detailed black and white drawings of cats in a variety of settings. I love them all which is why I don't own one yet - I need to narrow down "everything" to something manageable!

• Cat Faeries - I've been buying catnip toys from this site since back in the day when I had my original website. Their catnip toys are THE BOMB. They use some seriously quality nip and the toys come in all sorts of cute shapes. Another item I've bought from this site was 2 plushy cat beds. No foam, American made and so soft and warm!

• Kitty And Me Designs - On my cross stitch page I have a blackwork kitty that is almost finished. I found where I got the pattern from! This site was around as a webpage, not a blog, back in the day when I had my first personal website. I'm so glad this is still in existence! Lots of great cat cross stitch patterns to buy plus free patterns (including the blackwork kitty!). Also, needlework tutorials.


• 18 free cat cross stitch patterns - Really cute cat cross stitch patterns plus ideas on how to display your stitching (in a hoop, on a card, as a fabric tag, and how to mount stitching in a trifold card).


• The Happy Cross Stitcher - This is a site in the UK with lots of really great cat cross stitch designs in a variety of styles. They do ship worldwide but just be aware of postage and possible duties.


• Unconventional X Stitch - Unique cross stitch from Down Under. Lots of cat cross stitch patterns (also needle minders!) but just beware these designs are beautiful but very detailed. A few of the patterns I checked out used 90 colors or more!


• Schrödinger's Cat from Kooky Cross Stitch - Cool pattern using glow in the dark thread.


• Stitchingland - Lots of very colorful cat patterns. I especially like the Flower Window Cross Stitch pattern.

• ::procatinator:: - This is so cool! A cat image -sometimes a gif, sometimes a static image, and a coordinating song snippet will appear. Sometimes it's really clever, sometimes just stupid fun.


• CAT BOUNCE! - Watch kitties bounce on your screen!


• The Official Written? Kitten! - this could be a cute encouragement if you need to write a certain amount of words for whatever reason. You set the world limit but for each x amount of words, you get a kitten pic to look at!


• Cat Ipsum - A Furrier Lorem Ipsum - How did I not know this existed until now? Someone take away my cat lady card. This is really cute - you can choose how many paragraphs you need, add a title and/or sub copy, choose to have cat ipsum which gives you cat related words and phrases or standard lorem (but why???) or just cat breeds.

• Love & Hisses - This lady has been fostering cats and kittens for what seems like a bazillion years for Forgotten Felines in Huntsville, Alabama. She has a constantly rotating cast of mamas and kittens in her foster room. Not sure how I stumbled on her site originally but it was in 2018 and her kitten group at the time was named after ice skaters. I love watching ice skating so that caught my attention and I've been a dedicated follower of hers ever since.


• Cutetropolis - This site was created after the demise of Cute Overload! by one of that site's users. This is a one-person operation but there is a dedicated core following and awesome funny pics of cats of course but also all sorts of other critters. Come for the pictures and heartwarming links, stay for the awesome alt text he comes up with for his images.


• Tails from the Foster Kittens - Stories from a cat fosterer.


• Summer's Fabulous Cat Life - Summer is a purebred Somali show cat. This site is full of cat facts and info, videos of Summer, Summer's "diary" (this is one busy cat!) and reviews of cat related items.


• Random Felines - Great fostering/rescue blog and it has a foster kitten cam!


• It's all about the cats! - blog about life with Jim, Rene, and three cats (Sadie, Ringo, and Lucy).


• GLOGIRLY- Waffles and Ellie live in the Colorado mountains with their cat mom Glogirly. There are product reviews, photography tips and all kinds of funnies involving the cats.


• (added 1/20/23) Van Cat Meow - Willow travels throughout Australia in a campervan with her humnan. Beautiful pictures, sweet stories, definitely worth a follow. I'm so excited when I get a message about a new Willow story in my e-mail!