Hello Monday

Hello friends and happy Monday. I want to get back to a regular posting schedule. I think it will be good for me. Also, my Word Press subscription renewed and I hate wasting money. And I miss all of my blogging buddies so much. I still read many of your posts but I am a bit behind.

I shared with you on my last post about losing my sweet husband. If you missed it you can read it here. I am trying to navigate this life without him and I will be honest, at times it is unbearable. It is such a new world for me and one that I did not want to be a part of. I will carry on. I know he would want me to. I just don’t know how to do it yet.

Unfortunately before the end of the year we had more loss. My oldest brother Donnie passed away three days before Christmas. In November he suffered from what we thought was a stroke but it turned out he had several lesions on his brain that were cancer. He did ten radiation treatments that we hoped would slow the progression of the cancer but it really didn’t. He came home with hospice about two weeks before Christmas and had all of us with him for his last days. We also lost my sister in law Pat, not my brother Donnie’s wife, the day after Christmas. She was diagnosed a few months ago with ALS which is just a terrible disease. She had actually had a lot of the symptoms for over a year. We had two funerals within a week. Sometimes it’s just too much.

The babies are so much comfort to me. Bunnie, our big Golden Retriever who came to us back in June, is getting as big as a house. She has also become even more needier than ever, if that’s even possible. She is still terrified of people and I am trying to work on socializing her more. We take short trips in the car and come right back to the house. I am hoping this helps.

All of the kitties are fine. I know that Gus and Kitty Kitty miss Mark. They still look for him at times. I don’t think the outside kitties really realize what is going on but they have been extra sweet.

I have been at home a lot. I am back at work pretty much full time and it helps to have the structure. Otherwise I am at home. I watch too much T.V. and scroll my phone but I think I just do what I can do to survive. I worked several jigsaw puzzles during the last few months and I have gotten back to knitting and crochet. I attended a twelve week grief share at a local church in town. It helped somewhat. I take lots of walks with Bunnie. She needs at least two walks a day for all of her energy. I also take a lot of pictures.

Something I have discovered about grief is that it truly has many many layers. I have unbelievable brain fog. I actually lost my drivers license, my phone and my glasses all in one day. I eventually found all of them and they were not all in the same place. I found my glasses in the silverware drawer. Usually I have a melt down every time this happens.

***A chilly morning out walking with Bunnie***

***Gus and Bunnie in a very serious conversation***.

***Allie (Mama Cat) and her daughter Izzy. They are inseparable.***

***My brother Donnie and I. He was about sixteen here and I was about 6 months old. He was just the best big brother in the world.***

***Kitty Kitty loves lying on the puzzles.***

So that is a bit about what I have been up to. How about you? How is your year starting out?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!

Hello Monday, Goodbye July

I always say how fast the days and months are flying by, but let me tell you it seems as though July lasted an entire year.

First of all the heat was crazy hot, the humidity felt like you were walking through water, my hubby and I had to do another overnight to Nashville at Vanderbilt hospital, I had blood work and a doctor appointment, also a trip for me to the dermatologist to have some places taken off of my face that were pre skin cancer, another vet appointment for Bunnie and then Izzy going missing for three days, and the worst is that hubby has been sick for two weeks. It started out as a sinus infection and seems to have gotten worse. He is on immunosuppressants, because of the kidney transplant, and everything hits his system harder and takes twice as long for him to recover. And work, July was the busiest month of the year for us. With all of that, you would think the month would have absolutely flown by, but it didn’t. I guess with my husband being sick and not himself it has been a long month. Hopefully he will soon be on the mend.

Now, with all of that said, I have to put a spin on this long month. I have also loved this month. I loved Celebrating America on the Fourth of July, the long sunny days, the beautiful blooming flowers, the lightning bugs or fireflies you might call them, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, time spent with family and friends that I haven’t seen in a long time, Fresh fruits and vegetables at the farm market, green luscious fields, reading, knitting and enjoying some time at home with my husband and the fur babies, air conditioning.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

Crazy Cat Days

Hello and happy Tuesday. Wow what a heat wave we are having here in the south. Temps will be in the triple digits this week with the heat index being hotter than satan’s arm pits. We know the heat will be this way, we expect it this time of the year, we prepare by planning all indoor activities, but dang it is so miserable when it happens. And of course we all have to whine and talk about it like it’s never happened before. This too shall pass in a few months. Often we have summer weather well into October. Gulp!!!! You’ve heard of the Dog Days of Summer. Well I think we are in the Cat Days of Summer.

I’m not sure if it is the heat or the moon or because Mercury is in retrograde or what, but my kitty cats have been wild. We have three feral cats that we have had for over three years. We originally had five including mama cat and her four kittens. We took all of them in. About eight months after we took them in two of the kittens were gotten by coyotes. Because of that we now bring all of the feral cats into the garage at night. Well, let me say we lure them into the garage. Believe me when they say you can’t herd cats, you really can’t. Sometimes the cats come in easily enough. They are usually hungry and come in and get on their beds. It looks like kitty nirvana in our garage. We have numerous beds, toys and even an air conditioner for the summer time. They also have a heated kitty house for winter. But still there have been times that I have been up at all hours of the night trying everything I know to coax those babies into the garage.

Last week we could not corral them and get them in. After two sleepless nights I told my husband that we could not continue to lose sleep over the cats. It was getting ridiculous. We would give them until a certain time at night and then the garage door would go down. They are cats and yes we would worry sick about them but they are still a bit feral. We have never even been able to pet them. But does that stop us from loving them more than anything in the world? NO.

As soon as we pulled this kitty operation, Izzy disappeared. She is the smallest of all the cats and a bit on the goofy side. She is not smart enough to be scared like Allie, the mama cat, or her sister Sadie. She disappeared Friday morning or sometime late Thursday. We were sure a coyote had gotten her too. We have security cameras and we have not seen a coyote in a long time but still they are very sneaky.

I cried and blamed myself and thought there surely was something I could have done. Hubs assured me that there was not. It was not our fault. We wandered through the woods all weekend trying to find Izzy or a trace of her. Mama cat mourned her baby and was so sad I couldn’t stand it. We mourned our Izzy girl and told stories about her. Mama cat dutifully came into the garage every night but her other daughter, the vixen black cat Sadie, stayed outside near the neighbors house. I took her some food and water. Sadie is very smart and will run up a tree or something tall as soon as the first sign of danger. I don’t worry quite as much about her being out all night.

The really strange thing to all of this is that my friend Sherry’s cat, Grey, went missing at almost the same time Izzy did. We live miles apart, maybe thirty minutes or so from each other. They disappeared at almost the same time.

On Monday morning I went outside to check on Sadie and see if I could find her. I let Mama cat out of the garage. We were walking along the driveway and all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw a gray streak. At first I thought it was mama cat but then to my surprise I saw it was Izzy!!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I think I screamed and I started yelling to Sadie and mama cat that Izzy was home!!!! I ran into the house and told my husband. We were so excited and relieved.

Another funny thing is that my friend Sherry’s cat Grey also returned that same day. Maybe they were out living it up together.

Please don’t think we haven’t tried to tame these babies. We have. Once a year we capture them and take them to the vet for their annual check ups. It is not easy. We want to love on them so bad. Mama cat is a little better and will allow some loving, but not much.

I am so hoping for a break in the weather and maybe the cats will calm down a bit. Mercury will soon be out of retrograde, fall is on the way. We are a little worried that the cats are out of sync because of Bunnie, our new girl. She is a very large but sweet dog. She’s loud and boisterous and loves the kitties and just wants to be friends with them. I did a post about Bunnie and if you missed it you can read it here.

Hello my name is Lisa and yes, I am the crazy cat lady.

I hope your week is going well.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Life Or Something Like It.

Hello friends how is your week going? I apologize but this post was for last week . I meant to post it last week and didn’t get around to it.

We made a quick overnight trip back to Nashville last week. My husband had to have a follow up on the procedure he had a couple of weeks ago, the kidney biopsy. If you missed that post and want to read about it you can read it here We left out on Wednesday and returned Thursday evening. I was coming off of a six day work week which included the Fourth Of July holiday, so it was a bit tiring. Fortunately I had a long weekend off to catch up. As I said this check up was just a follow up to make sure the biopsy site was still looking good.

For my long weekend off I would like to say I had a lot of down time and read and knitted but that was not the case. A lot had to be done around the house. After the kidney biopsy hubby had to take it easy and could not lift over ten pounds for two weeks. Because the kidney is located in his abdomen, and had just gotten a couple of good pokes, he couldn’t bend or twist a lot either. Fortunately after our visit on Thursday he can return to normal activities.

On Sunday I decided to hang some mini blinds I had bought for my bedroom. I figured I could knock that little project out in about 30 minutes. Wrong. I was not paying attention when I bought the blinds and the box read “cordless” Now, I haven’t bought mini blinds in a long time. And to be honest I went a little cheap with these because I was in a hurry to get them up. I just like having my blinds pulled at night. I guess cordless is the latest and greatest of the mini blinds. They are not a favorite of mine. I know how to measure the blinds and put the little insert boxes on each side at the top. But these were totally different. When I asked my husband to borrow his drill he decided he had better get involved. He said he would help me and we would get them put up twice as fast. Not.

We started by putting the new hardware onto the window frames. These were totally different from the other blinds I had hung previously. We actually did this, putting the three brackets up, three times before we got it right. We argued, we were hot, we were sweaty and I think the word divorce may have been tossed out. And if you have ever done a small project with your husband you know what I mean. This 30 minute project had already taken over 2 hours. I was feeling very much like Homer Simpson. I call times like this “The Homer Simpson Chronicles.” You can read my post about me often feeling like Homer here. Homer is a goofy cartoon character who makes tons of mistakes and can’t get anything right. I was Homer that day.

We finally got all of the brackets put in correctly. When I went to hang the blinds I noticed the right side of the blinds was hanging at an odd angle. The string was broken. Yes, the little string in between the blinds. I’m pretty sure it was my fault. I think I did this when I was getting them out of the box. So I did the only thing I could do, I ripped those blinds down and pulverized them. And that is all I am going to say about those blinds. But I will say I bought another pair and it was very easy hanging them because the brackets were already in place.

***I love the way the blinds look behind my lace curtains.***

Lots of work and living have been going on. Since we now have a large inside (mostly) dog and still the five kitties life is very busy. We call our home the Zoo Crew. It seems like something always needs to be cleaned up after, fed, watered or walked. My work has still been very busy with barely a break to breathe. I feel like my house and yard have been neglected but with the heat and humidity, being outside has been almost unbearable.