Category Archives: Fur Kids

This here is the Perfectly Flawed weekly round-up, so if you missed me on Pinterest & Facebook, this is where I’ll be sharing some of that LOVE on Fridays. Enjoy!

__________________________________________________

Dinner, Produce Bags & Baby Steps!

Woo Hoo, got my cooking grove back this week! Love Pinterest, so many great recipes being shared. I’ve made Gingery Soba Noodle Soup, Shrimp in coconut sauce over rice, Roasted rep pepper & goat cheese alfredo and last night we made homemade chick pea veggie burgers with a side of Brussel sprout & Swiss chard salad!

Finally purchased our reusable produce and bulk items bags. I bought five of these from Flip & Tumble, I also got 6 of these from Kootsac on Etsy. I can’t wait to get these, another stride towards being plastic free!

I’ve been gathering information on making our own cleaning products. I already use alternative non-toxic products, but they come in plastic so…. Next Tuesday on Natural Living Tips I’m switching from Coconut Oil to Home-made cleaning products and I’ll be discussing them throughout April. It is time for Spring Cleaning after all!

Though I did manage to make home-made toothpaste this week, Gavin’s not thrilled, lol. He’ll get used to it.

Just a reminder to anyone trying to go green or make strides in that direction. The best way is baby steps. I’ve not arrived here quickly or without challenge and I’m still far from where I want to be. Here’s an article, from Almost the Truth,  I read this week about Baby steps and why it’s so important to celebrate every one of them. Please read it.

What Baby steps are you taking?
Peace!

Harry says "chill"!

Murdock and Amelia - The lovebirds:-)

Matilda

Warning…. This is a rant, a rage and will be negative in tone at times as well as endearing!

It may just be the phases of grief, I’m in denial, deeply upset, emotional and have an incredible amount of anger built up over the probable loss of our kitty Matilda. This is where some reading this will stop and say “Oh good grief about a cat again?”  YES it is. See, I’m one of those that has deep feelings towards my pets, and though I’ve always known that not all people share these feelings, living out here in the country I’m surrounded by more people now who see animals as a means to an end, a way of life, as working animals, not as creatures that can give and receive real love. It’s not hard for me to understand how they come to feel this way but I wish some understanding was allowed for the way I feel about them too. Matilda has been gone for six nights now, living out here with the coyotes (of which I haven’t seen or heard yet, but I’m told are here), the bald eagles (which DO on a regular basis swoop in and take whole chickens from our farm neighbors yard), and other predators, the likeliness of her coming home is slim. This compounded with just having put down our Amelia, of 13 years, only five weeks ago, and then our Murdock (16, our first kitten together before we were married and mama’s boy) lost his battle with cancer yesterday, I’m at my limit, to say the least!  This has been an incredibly difficult week for the family. Matilda is three, she was the kids first kitten.   Addy picked her out at Pet Pal Animal Shelter. Then her name was Heather,  she would let Addy carry her around endlessly and would lick Addy’s hands and face.  Her hair like a bunnies, so soft and this dark black chin strap marking that reminded me of the penguin. She was our kitty with Catittude, was really good at giving the”F-you” or “WTF do you want?” glare and then at night she’d curl up in whichever lap was available and fall into a deep sleep, totally content, peaceful.  But she was a free spirit and craved the outdoors, she started missing a meal hear and there to prolong her time outside. We were gifted with a squirrel, a bird and a lizard in just the short time we’ve been living here.  Always so proud of herself.  We fought over what to do with the cats when we moved, knowing the possible consequences of allowing them to go outside, knowing about the dangers that linger just pass the fence line and some within.  We decided it wasn’t right to keep them locked up if they so badly wanted to be free,  that  we’d have to be ok with our choice.  But I can’t scream loudly enough that even though we made that decision it absolutely DOES NOT make this any easier, in fact, with a personality like mine, I just go through the guilt of not doing my job of protecting her. Oh yes I do. I will at times blame myself for this, so I don’t need anyone judging me for letting her explore, though they will, have, and in lack of knowing what to say have judged out loud.  I know they meant no harm, but seriously, I’ll beat myself up enough.  I  stare out the windows see her in the shadows, I hope to see her just walk up suddenly, see her head staring at me to let her in, like she did.  God how I miss her face!! I’m not sleeping, I cry all the time, I’m literally sick about it! The sadness of missing her is hanging over the family like a thick fog.  If she’s not home by Sunday we’ve decided to have a small family service for her by the fire pit just to bring some closure, to begin the healing process.  We can think positive and say maybe another family took her in, I’d like the kids to think so anyway.  I know, like our neighbor said so bluntly “Oh, you’ll never see that cat again”.  Only I’ll keep hoping we will.

I just want those that don’t share mine and so many others deep love and emotion for our beloved pets to know that there are those who do have these feelings and to us losses like this are tremendous, can be debilitating, are not funny or easily dismissed. We take it like a loss of a family member because that’s what they are to us, I know, silly?  Not to people like me. Please, please try to respect our grief as we respect what animals are to you.

I’m just terribly missing my kitties!

It’s Sunday morning and I was hoping to have a missing kitty walk through the door for breakfast. Now that we live in the country we know there are inherent dangers to having kitties that go outdoors, but Matilda is our little huntress and she just loves her outside time. She has now not come home for three meals, at the most in the past she’s missed one. This is the kids cat, Addy picked her out as a kitten, she’s also our lovey lap cat at movie time in the evening. This will not be easy on any of us, especially the kiddos, if she doesn’t return. I’m holding out hope that she’s on an adventure, trying to find the perfect rodent to gift us with. Ugh, cats, I’d like to catch a break soon, with three seniors in the house, just having lost our Amelia last month to cancer, this has been tough.

Here’s to Matilda coming home!

Times Up!
This has been my Sunday 5 minute Stream of Consciousness.

Want to try it? Here are the rules…

* Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
* Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
* Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
* Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
* Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
* Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Amelia in one of her happy places.

This is so difficult! After a week of stuffing Amelia with five different medications and force feeding her every 2-4 hours there is no improvement, instead she’s worsened. She’s so weak, still getting up to go to litter box but not making it out of it. She pees herself and then collapses for rest. I grabbed her out and gave her a warm sponge bath this morning.

This decision is killing me, I’ve chosen to discontinue the nasty med routine and let her go, though part of me feels like I’m taking away the only thing that might be extending her life. But for what? She doesn’t seem to be in any pain, so I make a point to spend quality time with her, setting her up next to me on the couch in cozy blankets with her bowl of water in front of her. This seems to comfort her, she lays her head in it and periodically licks some up like one of those bobbing bird things. Last night Murdock came to lay with us in bed, not with her, with me, but this put him right next to her and he purred loudly. I think she liked this, she tried to nudge a bit closer. It was sweet. The waiting game is just as hard, when will she pass? Today, tomorrow? Soon…. The thought of finding her, I so hope it happens with me nearby, as hard as that will be.

For now, I’ll sit here and pet her bony body and talk to her and wipe her chin when she’s had enough water and love her.

Amelia June 2011

I remember going to pick her out. She was one of five kittens that were born to a momma cat that had been brought into The C.A.R.E. Foundation, the Animal Sanctuary I volunteered at in Orlando. I went alone, Michael and I had been married for just two years and this would be our 2nd kitty together. I picked the long haired calico over the tortoise shell. The litter was born on Easter morning 1998 which has always made it easy to remember her birth date.

It took us a while to name her and I remember exactly where we were when the name was chosen. We were camping at Ginny Springs with a group of friends and were sitting around the fire at night throwing name ideas around. One had been Marseilles after the Jimmy Buffet song “Coast of Marseilles”. Then it came to us, “Amelia”. It’s a street in Orlando, the street that Michael and I were on when our relationship took a more serious turn back in June of 1994. That was it, she had a name.

I’m writing this now because she’s turning 14 in April and she’s very sick, so sick she may not make it to her birthday. Those who know me are aware that we have eight kitties, the seniors, Murdock (16), Amelia (these two have been boyfriend/girlfriend for like ever until recently, so sad), Nelson (14 April) & Roswell (14 April) and the newer additions, Jenny (5), Matilda (2) , Carmello (2) and Harry (9mth).

Amelia, along with the other seniors, Laslo, Yoda, and Truffles, made a cross country trip twice with us when we moved to Las Vegas and back in 1999/2000. Amelia has lived in six different homes with us, has been more of a recluse, especially around strangers, but very sweet and affectionate around us. Always the pretty girl, Murdock’s girlfriend. They would sit together for hours, grooming each other, curled into a ball and sleeping together. It’s sad that they’ve parted ways, more on Murdock’s end then Amelia’s. Since she’s been sick she’s tried to snuggle with him and he walks away, it’s sad to watch. He’s been sick too, just not as critical as her. He has a tumor in his liver, but for now he’s a skinny, spunky old man, ha.

Right now Amelia is being force-fed every 4-6 hours and on five different medications. Not sure if it’s cancer or not, definitely some type of internal infection or inflammation around the liver. Fatty liver, loss of appetite, dehydration. Hopeful that this week she’ll improve or we’ll have to make a tough decision. See, I don’t believe in making them live being poked, prodded, stuffing a food syringe and pills in their mouths daily. Just not a quality of life. I can’t have her last days like that. So I’m holding out hope that she’ll turn around this week.

It’ll be a rough couple of years with so many getting so old. We’ve already lost Laslo, May off 2011, one of the brothers (Laslo, Nelson, Yoda and Roswell). Yoda left us years ago.

Hardest part of caring for them and loving them so much.

Bear, before spurs:-)

We had our first ‘living in the wild’ experience today. Our dog Bear got into some sand spurs. Actually, it was more then some, it was A LOT! It was the first storm since we moved in last Friday and the kids and I were outside with the pups while it was still drizzling. I had my camera in hand, they were running around the property on their new walkie talkies (they arrived earlier today in the mail). I was taking tons of pictures of our friends the banana and orchard spiders and of course our kitties, who were wandering the yard for the first time. Suddenly the dogs were gone, we couldn’t locate them for about 15 minutes, it had started to storm and thunder again. Then out of the wild, the fern and weed covered wild area between the house and front gate, Lilith comes running, then Bear shortly behind her. Only Bear was COVERED with sand spurs. There must have been 100+ easy. She’s a chow mix, longer hair (luckily she had been groomed not too long ago, so it was shorter than normal). Anyway, with the help of scissors, tweezers and a metal prong pet brush, oh and about 30 minutes, I managed to get them all off. UGH! Then we took a shower together:-).

Day done, Peace!

April 1998 - May 3rd, 2011

He was the needy one. He came to us in a bundle of four brothers. I was volunteering at a large cat Sanctuary in Orlando at the time, 1998, and our Compound Cat had a litter of kittens. We couldn’t find them for a couple of weeks, thought them to be dead, mama went in to be spayed, we found the babies. Michael and I took them in, dirty, matted, one had a badly injured eye, (he would later be named Yoda). Laslo, (from Real Genuis in case you were curious), was the needy one. He tried to suckle on his brothers, did this well into his 2nd year. We lived in a loft apartment while we were bottle feeding the kittens. Laslo had bad balance and twice fell from the loft to the coffee table below. OMG, freaked me out! He was fine. A little over a year later, we loaded them (and our 3 other kitties) up in the car and moved them all out to Las Vegas. We road tripped with our seven kitties in 5 days and as many hotels and then road tripped back a year and a half later.

Laslo was the needy one. The pawer, “hey, I’m down here”, he’d say, “I need you”. When you called any other cat, it’s Laslo who came running, belly swinging side to side. “I need you”! He’d curl up with lovebirds Murdock and Amelia, the three Musketeers I called them, now there are two, they can have alone time.

Thirteen this past April, not too old, not young. He was thinning, recently stopped eating. Liver, kidney, mouth injury?? It all happened so quickly, just in the last couple of weeks. Nope, none of the above. A mass on the x-ray surrounded by fluid, lots of trouble breathing, no prognosis is good.

You don’t go to the vet thinking you’ll have to make that kind of decision right then, no time to think, complete confusion, he’s suffering, trouble breathing, could die overnight of respiratory distress, put him down peacefully, kids are with me, PFMan on his way.

Goodbye Laslo. I write this to remember you, to never forget, you were the needy one. We love you!

Peace now.

Carmello

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a cat lady.  I just love kitties.  I say hello to every one I see and talk to them the way most women talk to babies. We have 8.  I’m not allowed to get any more right now, PFMan is very kind to be ok with the number we have now, but NO MORE, lol!  I thought I should begin introducing you to them one at a time.

This is our newest member of the family, Carmello.  I have a fondness for Orange boys and I had lost my love, Putter, in March of 2009.  A client of mine travels a bit with her husband and helps out stray kitties on her journeys.  She knew I loved and wanted another Orange boy, even though I was at my limit of 7.  Well, needless to say, we now have Carmello.  We adore him and him us.  He has two speeds, seriously playful, attack mode or the LOVE mode.  Especially at night.  He’s a cuddle bug, he slams his head into your head or hand and curls up and licks your arm or face, then falls asleep in a ball all pushed up against your body.  I LOVE it!!

I’ve had so many kitties in my lifetime, come by it honestly growing up with parents who always had kitties too!  They still have 6 of there own.  It always amazes me how incredibly different each and every one are.  So many personalities.  I cant’ wait for you to meet them all.

They are baby making machines. Just one pair of cats and their kittens can produce 420,000 babies in just seven years. So please, unless you want a “clowder” of cats in your home, spay and neuter your furry friends.

Happy Monday to you!