Random Tuesday Thoughts

Hello? Hello? Where am I? I think I forgot how to get here, or there, or anywhere.... What?

I am back again. I thought Random Tuesday would be a good place to begin. Go on over to The Unmom and check out everyone else's randomness too.

I, uh, well, I really don't know where to start. I'm sorry seems like a good place. I have abandoned my blog here for the last couple of weeks. And for no good reason. Mostly I have been very easily distracted and unfocused. I am going to start working on that. Let me share a couple of stories to give you my frame of mind these past couple of weeks:

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my tub was not really draining very well. Now, I have had issues with this house's plumbing pretty much since I moved in. Usually not too major, and never with the tub. But it was draining slow. I left it alone for about a week. Then a week ago, I went to Walmart and got a couple of buckets from their bakery. I took them home and washed them out. Those things are great for storing anything and everything. And best of all they were free. Any way I digress, again. Washing the tubs out, yes that's where I was. I washed them out and dumped the water. It did not drain. I left it alone for a bit and it did eventually drain completely. I took a shower and noticed that I don't use nearly the water for a shower as I would have run for a bath even for a small child. Decided to hardly ever take a bath again, only showers. Not that this has anything to do with the tub draining, or not draining as the case may be. I had to soak the free tubs with some baking soda and vinegar to get rid of the icing smell completely. While I was at it I decided to soak the garbage cans too. I went in to dump the cans and nothing drained. I came back a little later, and nothing had drained. I tried plunging and nothing drained. Next day after work, I bought some draino at the dollar store, except it was more than a dollar. Why do they call it a dollar store if everything is more than a dollar? I poured in the drain cleaner when I got home. I waited about 30 minutes and went back to check still no draining. I ran hot water like the directions said to. No draining. I poured more in since the directions said to repeat if necessary. 30 minutes later, still had not drained. This is where I started to ignore the directions. I started plunging even though the directions said not too. At this point I am wondering if my cats stuffed a mouse carcass down the drain to save for later. No draining. So I gather my courage and stick my bare hand down the drain. Now I know that I should have used a glove since there was so much drain cleaner in there, but how was I supposed to feel anything? Yeah, I felt something all right. The drain plug. I had apparently knocked the little lever while cleaning the tub originally and finished knocking it closed while cleaning the buckets. I opened the drain. It drained. No mouse, no clog, not even slow....Whoosh, all the water when right down.....

Wow.

The next episode of pure genius occured this weekend. I was playing tennis with my son at the park. He really is not that great (neither am I) and likes to hit the ball as hard as he can. Right out of the courts, over the fence. And right towards the pond. Fortunately it hit a rock and did not become a floater. Time to go. We load into the new to me minivan (which has been great by the way). I turn the car on, and yes! that air feels great. We were both really hot and sweaty. I put the car in reverse, take my foot off the brake, hit the gas and we start to roll --forward. I slam on the brakes and put it back in park. I try to put it in reverse again. We roll forward. I am getting really scared at this point as it is time to take S back to his dad's. My car has to go. So, I open the door and step out of the car, and realize, are you ready for this? It was not on. Nope, the van was not running. I could not tell because the fan was running on high and I could not tell that it was not on. I turn the key and start the car. What do you know?! It went into gear. Yeah.

So there is the randomness of my life for the past couple of weeks. Want some more? If not then you can stop reading now. I have more though. I'm sorry again. If you are one of those people that has to read until the end and you want to move along, here you go: The End.

I took my cat in to the vet's office for her surgery for her skin cancer. It is the kind that does not spread (I can't remember today what that is called-I swear I am brain dead lately), it just affects the cells it is in. They grow, I get them cut off. She is high for a few days. This time they did blood work first, with my permission of course, and discovered that her red blood cell count was low. They could still do the surgery, just had to twilight sleep her and inject some pain meds. She was great, she was not high, and shortly after I got home she was back to her normal self. I took her in early this morning before work to get the stitches out. Poor baby does not like being in a cage at all. She kept trying to bite the carrier door. At one point I stuck my hand in front of her face hoping to stop her from chewing on the bars and breaking a tooth. Yup, she bit me. It hurt, but that was better than her breaking a tooth.

Our county is preparing for the H1N1 virus. It is kind of scary some of the things they are talking about implementing if the virus spreads too much here. I am really hoping that it avoids our area all together. I doubt it though as the college in the town next to us has already had 5 confirmed cases. No deaths, just students with the flu. Me, I think it's just the flu, some will get it, some will get it and die, some will not get it at all. It happens with the flu virus that hits every year. Why is this one so different? Get over it. We don't freak out when 1/3 of our county has the "regular" flu. I am concerned that it will affect my visits with my son if they "discourage" travelling. The interstate runs right through the middle of our county though. I am not really sure how they would do that any way. Besides, I live about 2 miles from the state line. I will just go out the back road and be on my way. (politics-warning!) Personally I think the "big scare" is to help the awful and dreaded health care reform get movement to be passed.

It has been really cool here for the past few days. I got up yesterday and today and it was only 60 degrees in my house. The warmest it got all day yesterday was about 64 degrees. It is a bit chilly in my house during this season. I would say time of year, but this is the first time it has happened this early. Usually it is still hot outside right now. Homemade potato soup sounds really good for tonight. Good thing I bought potatoes last night and stocked up on evaporated milk when it was on sale! Way to go stocking up!

I finally got rid of the fleas. I can't remember if I posted about my war on fleas, but it has been an ugly battle that I finally won! I sprinkled Sevin Dust all over my entire house. I did NOT put any on the cats, but sprinkled all non living things in my house liberally. This was after treating the cats, spraying the house and bombing/fogging the house. I have not seen any fleas since last Thursday. I will begin cleaning up every scrap and sprinkle of dust tonight. Time for the fall house cleaning anyway. Gotta get everything nice and clean to close the house up for the winter. I don't much care for spring cleaning, but I do love a good fall cleaning to get me in the mood to keep the windows shut and start burning those wonderful, good smelling candles. And now I can start baking without melting from the heat.

Gotta love fall. Crisp leaves. Beautiful colors. I am fall coloring by the way. I love the smell of the leaves burning after raking them up. I love a good campfire, or just a fire in the fire pit or the little fire table thingy I have on my patio. Yup, good times.

So, how have you been? How is life treating? Assuming of course you are still here reading....

I'm Tired, and my cats are destructive

I had my weekend with my son. I got stuck in traffic that was nearly at a standstill in Kentucky. There was construction on the interstate and I was not paying attention to my radio and missed the fact that there was a backup. I could have gone around it if I had been listening. Oh, well, I got to be amused by the truck drivers. I got down there late and conked out in the backseat for a couple of hours. I picked up S and showed him my new phone. He was not nearly as impressed to start with as I thought he would be. That eventually changed. We played hard all day. It was hot and sunny. We went swimming, played cars, star wars, all that good stuff. He did warm up to the phone after he realized that I had the bluetooth and he could talk with the earpiece. He then wanted me to show him the internet. He had a blast with it after that.
After I took him home, I took a shower to get all that icky pool water off of me. I called S to talk. While I waited for him to call me back, I read more of my Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich. These books are the best. Always enough funny stuff going on to keep my laughing and bring my mood up. Thanks to my friend K for showing me this series. After a while S called back. I made my way into the tent for the night. I read by the light of the dvd player while some batman movie was in. I have never actually watched the movie, but after seeing part of it last night, I will watch the whole thing one of these days. Somewhere in the middle of the night it started raining. At first it was that gentle rain that you enjoy while slumbering. Then it started raining hard. It was really loud in a tent. Then it started raining even harder. Then harder yet. I thought my tent would collapse it was raining so hard. There was a dry creek bed next to our campsite. I could hear the water rushing through it. I was slightly worried it would make its way over to my tent. It was impossible to sleep at that point. I laid there and listened hoping it would lighten back up to that enjoyable level of rain. Nope, it just kept raining so hard I could not hear myself think. Which was a good thing because I was still wondering if I was going to float down the hill right into the river. It did finally ease up a bit by the time the sun was coming up. Course by then I needed to get up so I could start getting ready for my day with S. I climbed out of the tent to a world of soppiness. Everything, and I mean everything was soaked. Water even got into the car somehow. I dried up what I could. Thankfully I don't leave much out. So it was just a couple of plastic tubs that got wet. Everything else had been picked up before bed. I got ready and picked up S. We played in the tent while it was windy and rainy outside. Eventually I moved the gazebo over the tent so at least one thing had an opportunity to dry. Then the sun came out. OMG, talk about humid. I was dripping and it was not sweat. There was that much water in the air and the sun came out. Ugh. Thank goodness it was relatively cool out. We enjoyed our day with toys, games and water balloons. When it was time to deliver my buddy back to his dad's house, he started playing with the phone. It has a "notepad" to make notes (duh). I now have half a dozen notes. I have voice recording on the phone as well. I now have my son's voice and requests recorded to listen to anytime I want. He sure did have lots of fun with that phone.
On the way home, I ran into car wrecks with backed up traffic and again-construction with backups. It was a long ride home. I was already tired because of a lack of sleep the two previous nights. Just get home, I kept telling myself. Open the window, close the window. Find a good song to sing along with, shift around in the seat. Just don't close the eyes and we will be good. I got home, grabbed my purse, the keys and the phone. Drag up to the door, put the key in, start swinging the door open, hang on what was that? Something just brushed up against my legs. Please tell me the outdoor kitty made it in. She has been trying for weeks. Nope, it was my goofy Kitten. I grabbed the bag of food to try to get his attention. I don't leave him out for fear of him getting into a fight. Because he would start it. The heathen. I finally got him close enough to grab. The brat. I dragged his butt back into the house. I made a pit stop in the bathroom, stripped on the way to the bedroom and crashed. Next thing I know, it is about 5:30. I am dog tired and I wake up at 5:30? What is wrong with me? I lounged there for about a half hour petting the cats. More accurately getting smothered by the cats. They must have missed me. I get up and get started cleaning out the car. I can not figure out why it takes so much more time to unload than it does to load. I throw on some clothes and head off to the car rental place. I am so tired that my eye started twitching this morning. After some (un)healthy doses of caffeine, it stopped.

To get to the destruction part: My cats are destruction with fur. They are little time bombs waiting to happen. I walked into my kitchen last night and the floor was covered with fur. I swear they kidnapped a cat and plucked its fur for fun this weekend. There has to be a naked cat running around in my neighborhood. Otherwise I cannot figure out where all the fur came from. Not just a puff or two. It seriously looks like enough fur to cover an entire cat. Then I walk into the living room. From the corner of my eye I can see something big in the storage room. I turn on the light. It is something big alright. It is everything in the storage room in a big pile in the middle. Gone are my tidy stacks of tubs and boxes. Tipped are the lamps and coat tree. It looks like a bomb went off in there and all the rubble was piled up. I could not even look at it. I decided to ignore it for now. I think tonight I will close the door and not look at it again til this weekend. That seems like a good way to deal with it. Pretend it is not there. After all, when I get home I have to find the naked cat and stick some of that fur back on. Do you think if I spit on the cat and stick the fur on it that the fur will stick? Or should I break out the glue stick? I also have to get ready and repack and wash and all that for my next trip, which I leave for on Wednesday. I visit for my eight hours on Thursday, which is my birthday, come home and get Sassy to the vet by 7ish in the morning on Friday for her surgery. I was going to take the day off to sleep, but if I have to take her into town and then wait until after 3:00 to pick her up, I might as well go to work. Then I get to take her home and start cleaning the disaster zone. Hopefully there are no new ones in the mean time. I also get to watch my kitty. Apparently she is one of those cats that does not tolerate the meds well and so she is pretty loopy for a day or two after the surgery. She runs into things and falls off the couch. If it weren't so nerve racking, it would be funny. She normally is very graceful and classy. Give her a bit of anesthesia and she is a klutzy dope. She would certainly be a cheap date, one drink and she would be done.

So how was your weekend? Any excitement for your life?

Thankful Thrusday

Thankful Thursday..... Hmmm, what am I thankful for this week. I am feeling really sarcastic today so I am having a hard time coming up with things that I am truly thankful for. So here is my sarcastic list for today:
1. My mom never listens. I tell her something and the next day she totally has forgotten it. I swear she has dementia.

2. My atty is always so prompt at returning my calls. I have been calling and waiting for over a week now....ugh.

3. My sister is a scatterbrain. She and her husband both actually. I don't know how they keep track of their kids let alone their keys...

4. Work--by golly I just work with the most efficient and knowledgeable folks ever. I really don't know how some of these people don't get lost on the way to work.

5. The stray outdoor female cat is in heat. Let me tell you, I have heard enough growling, hissing, yowling and cat noises for a lifetime. Hurry up and get knocked up. I've had enough. Although that seems to be the attitude that the female cat has. She doesn't want anything to do with those randy little basta***. I can't say as I blame her.

So that's it for today's edition of Thankful Thursday. What are you thankful for. Even if it is a bit (okay a lot) sarcastic.

Why my kitties kept me laughing

This week my cats have been pretty funny. They have been getting into everything. When I took the sheets off the bed, they burrowed into them. When I was doing laundry, they jumped into the washer and dryer. I always check them now to make sure there are no cats before I turn them on. But the best one was this:



This was Tiger Crisp hiding out in a box I had saved for putting Christmas gifts in.





Affirmative Sir, I see my target. Count down to pounce...

Update for Several Days (Where Have I Been?)

Wow, I feel like I have been out of commission here for a long time even though it has only been four days.

I have been to the grocery stores several times over these last few days taking advantage of sales and q's that were about to expire. I now have a completely full deep freezer. I did not fill up the freezer on the fridge as it runs more efficiently when less than full so air can circulate. I also found Parmalat milk. I was looking and asking for advice on The Pound to see if anyone had suggestions as I could not find it. Well, this weekend I found it. I bought a couple of the containers. They are not big containers, but they will be perfect for my trips. I also have been taking advantage of the Vitaminwater10 q. It expires in a few days so if you are hoping to use it-hop to it. Most of the stores here have had the water on sale for a dollar, so I only pay a few cents tax. Gotta love FREE!
I also got gas this weekend. It cost me $75 to fill my tank. The gas prices have leveled off here for a couple of days now. The prices jumped a total of $.74 in nine days. Wow. I am sure it will continue to rise.

I plan to have my May monthly totals tomorrow. I did not have time to sort everything out last night as I went to the store again to get more vitamin water, and some flours and an oven thermometer so I can start making my bread. I plan to start the bread process tomorrow night for bread in five minutes a day. I hope that goes well! I will let you know. I also was getting my van ready for the weekend trip. I pulled everything that was washable out to wash last night. I was still washing this morning and I have two more loads tonight. (We have blankets, sleeping bags, sheets, pillows, throws, left over clothes, etc in there.)

As for the update on the Yesterday's news cat litter: My cats would like to tell you
"we do not like this stinky cat litter. We will not use it and you can't make us." This is a first for me as my cats have eaten just about any cat food and have used all cat litters that I have put in the box. I think that one of my kitties tried it, but only once and as far as I can tell no more even checking it out, pawing it, nothing. But we do have really full litter boxes for the other two. I will have to dump it for this weekend so my poor kitties are not trying to go in just the two litter boxes all weekend. I don't know what to do with the other half of the bag either....

I do not do the weekly meal plan because more often than not I do batch cooking on my Sunday at home for about two weeks worth of food. This Sunday, I was out looking at a motor home. It was about two and a half hours away, and it was owned by this wonderful older couple. They were very crafty and handy and we sat for about an hour talking shop about building, sewing, knitting, painting, crocheting, and quilting. Finally we made our way home. So no batch cooking for me.

In an effort to save money by not eating out, I will not buy pizza at lunch today even though that is what I wanted. I found some leftovers in the fridge that I might have needed to throw out if I did not eat them today or tomorrow. They became my meals for today. No extra money spent on food, and no waste. A win-win! Woo Hoo!

I will be back tomorrow with monthly totals and all that good stuff. And I will hopefully remember to take pics when I do the bread start tonight. Then the baking begins tomorrow!

The Outdoor Kitties

EDIT/UPDATE: I talked to a lady that I work with and she brought me an antibiotic that she used for one of her pets. I am going to start giving him that in some canned food. I gave him a super small smidge of an antibiotic that my sister had left over (the pharmacy gave her too many). I opened the capsule, put a tiny bit on a plate and put the canned food on it. He ate all of it last night and I put some more out there for him this morning. I figured the worst that would happen is he would have a reaction to the meds. If I don't get some into him though, he will most likely die anyway. He will not let my get near him anymore. I am sure he is in pain and scared. I will let you all know how he does. Hopefully he will be fine as I will be leaving Friday night and will not be back until Tuesday morning for the holiday weekend I am spending with my son. I will just resume the meds then I guess.

I have several cats outside that I have been feeding. Last year I also gave them flea treatments and the like as I did not have to catch them and take them in to the vet for that. I had one of the cats die not too long ago. I was saddened by that, but that is the way of life. I now have another grey cat that comes around. He did not stick around too often when the old cat was there. The old cat was kind of the "boss" of my back porch! Now that he has gone, this new grey cat comes around a lot more. It took about two months before he would allow me to just pet him anytime I walked up to him. It was a gradual process that allowed me to be standing at the door, then be on the porch at the same time, to being near him as he ate. When I was finally allowed to pet him, I found a sore on the side of his face. He had obviously been in a cat fight. I figured it would heal on it's own. A few days later, the sore is now a wound and it looks infected. I got some neosporin and smeared it all over the side of his face. He did not come around the next evening due to the storms we had all evening and into the night. I saw him again on Saturday and put more neosporin on his face. I am assuming it hurt a bit because he flinched a bit as I was applying it. I did not see him on Sunday. When I got home last night, he was on the porch. I was thinking "oh, boy, I can put some more stuff on his face". Then he turns around. The poor kitty. The whole side of his face is swollen, puffy and oozing. He even looks like his eye is infected. It has green puss looking stuff all over his eye. I am thinking that he could not really see because he was scared of me and would not let me touch him. He was probably also in pain. I am sure that the infected area hurts. This morning I call my vets office. I wanted to get an antibiotic that I could set out in some canned food to make sure he gets it all. They won't give me any unless I catch him and bring him in. Now, I can't afford to pay the vet visit fee for my own three cats, I sure can't afford to for the strays in the neighborhood. Not to mention if I catch him and take him in, he would probably never let me near him again. Then how am I supposed to take care of him? The gal at the vet office just repeated herself and said to try to catch him and bring him in. I told her thanks anyway. I figured at that point that nature would take it's course and another kitty would die.
Then I ask another animal lover in my office who also helps with the local animal shelter if she thinks the shelter would be able to help. I do not want to take him in. I know that they will put him down. He looks a little mangy from living outside and has this awful looking infection. They are not a no kill shelter, so killed he would be. I just want an antibiotic. She says they don't give out meds like that, and only treat animals that they are going to try to adopt out. BUT there is this lady that lives in the county that rescues cats. Call the shelter to get her number. I call the shelter, they do not know her number, but try calling this other lady named Connie. She helps rescue cats. I do give her a call. She tells me she cannot talk right now as she is not in a place to talk about this, can I call her back? Absolutely I tell her. I call her back and basically she says the same thing. I need to trap him to take him in and then keep him in a cage to make sure he gets the meds each day. Well, I simply cannot afford that. She also tells me that there is a low cost spay/neuter program for community animals like this that I can participate in to keep from having more kittens in our little kitty community. I will definitely take her up on that as the female cat has already had one litter of kittens. I assume she abandoned them as I have never seen them. She was probably right around a year and this was her first litter, so it does not surprise me that she did not care for them. Hopefully I can get her fixed before she gets preggers again! I am really worried for this little grey kitty. I wish that I had the money to get him better care. I will update if there is any progress in the help of the kitty. Most likely he will die from infection before I can find someone to help. With my luck it will be the same as the last time the cat died, I will find his body in my yard when I come home from my visit with my son. Then I will just bury him as well. It makes me sad that there are not more programs to help with feral animals.
If you have any ideas, please let me know.

My furbabies

Here are some photos of my indoor furbabies.

This one is Sassy. We have had her the longest. She is the only female kitty. She is the Boss. She sure looks pleased, don't you think!








This is Kitten. He got this oh-so-original name because when we got him we called him kitten. My son took forever to decide on a name for him, but by then it was too late. He would only respond to Kitten. This is the nosy, gotta be in everything, be in the way cat.









This is the baby. He is also the biggest. You can't really tell from the pic but he out-weighs Sassy by about 5 pounds and out-weighs Kitten by only a pound or two. He is also the shyest. When we got him he had been abandoned and brought in by my ex who told my son he could have him for christmas. Then my ex told me that he gave my son a cat, but he could not keep it down there. Either I took the cat home with my son and me or my son would not get to keep him. Isn't that nice. I do love the kitty though. My son named him Tiger Crisp.

Challenge - Update April 23,2009

I did not go to Kfart yesterday. They are not doing doubles. I looked at the online ad and it said they were according to the front page of the ad. Something told me to call before I drove clear to the other side of town. I called and they are not participating. Dang and double dang. I guess it means I did not spend any money again though.
I did go and see my dad, which is free of course. Then I went on home. I was going to go to wags and get something really cheap so I could get my free bag, but I lost my q I had printed off. I was really not having to organized of a day yesterday. I did get my van ready for this weekend. I have a couple of things to add tonight and that's it.
I also played with Sharktooth, my outside kitty. My son named her. Yes, I said her. She is preggers right now. I do not know when we will have kittens, but I am sure she will bring them to me. My house is where she eats. She is not really my cat, I found her outside but she is cute so she can stay. I have been careful about just putting food out all the time and am trying to just feed the kitties when they show up. I do not want to keep feeding the dogs. These dogs have homes, they are just piggies. I feed and pet all the feral cats in the neighborhood. They are friendly for the most part. There is only one cat that won't let me pet him. I figure all kitties need someone to care for them. I am going to try to TNR some of the kitties if I can get my son home soon. I do not need even more kitties to feed. I am sure they will not be too happy about that, but the neighborhood will. Less cats to get into crawlspaces, pee on the flowers, and have more babies.
Other than that I did not spend any money but I did not save any either.
How are you doing on your challenge?

My Critters

I have known for some time that when I put food out to feed the cats outside, other animals dig in. For example, I know that the birds and squirrels have also been chowing down. The squirrels also chewed through the plastic container that I keep the bird food in to chow down on that. I don't mind really. They have to eat, so especially in the winter I am happy to help.

A few weeks ago after one of my trips I noticed that all the food was gone. I really do put out a lot of food to make sure the cats don't go hungry while I am gone. I was curious just how many cats had come to eat that weekend. Then one evening while sitting in the kitchen, I heard a noise on the porch. I flip the light on and push the curtain back to see just who it is that is eating so noisily. It is two dogs. I let them eat, then refill the bowls for my feline furbabies who will come out to eat early in the morning.

Then last night, I hear more noise on the back porch, so again I flip on the light and there stands the dogs again. They take off running when they see me. About 30 minutes later, I hear noise again and am curious which dog is the brave one. It is not a dog at all! It is a little possum! He was a little one and still kind of cute so I did not run him off either. I am sure that as nature goes he will grow up into a big ugly possum, but for now he was cute, so he can stay.

Can you tell that I love animals?