Pet Loss And Why I'm Not A Halloweener

Last night, I received a very sad message from a friend who had to put down her beautiful Rottweiler. He had cancer and it was the right thing to do, but it is NEVER easy.

 

Then, this morning, I saw that Clemence from Oh the lovely things lost her mew recently.

 

The timing is impeccable because I was already thinking about loss. This time of year hits me pretty hard and I'm so sad to add another soul lost to the list. October and November are my least favorite months because of this sadness. It's not that I don't like Halloween. It's that Halloween has been tinged with darkness since 1995, when I spent it in a rocking chair in a dark living room, listening to my dad cry in the next room. And since then, the sad has piled up. Cats and dogs and people...they just don't seem to last through the season around here.

 

I just want to go home and cuddle my mews. Am I off work yet?

 

Cart-Worthy + Heart-Worthy: Kitty Toys Edition! {And a Discount Code}

{Oliver and Crash}

As you know, I have cats. Amazing cats. And because they're so amazing, I want them to have amazing toys and be stimulated so they can keep being amazing. Which is why, I have been looking for cat toys on Etsy. Here are some of my favorites!

{catnip caterpillar}

{catnip banana}

{set of 4 jingle bell balls}

{set of 3 catnip oreos}

{set of 4 non-catnip toys}

{set of 3 birds of a sweater cat toy}

{set of 3 crinkly catnip candies}

{set of 6 rainbow catnip monsters}

{set of 2 catnip macarons}

{catnip mouse - made from recycled socks!

**free shipping on a darn!socks mouse or three blind mice toy with discount code OLIVER**}

I am off to snap up some of these! let me know if you fund any other cute ones!

The Mew Mood Meter

{like a rattlesnake?}

Destruction: Oliver-Style

{dad: why is there a hole in your shirt?

*fumbling around, looking for the impending disaster*

me: oh no, OLIVER!}

In other news, I'm getting a haircut today and there (assuming it's fabulous) will be pictures later!

Oli, Oli, Oliver!

{how can you not nuzzle that nose?}

What Would You Call This Pose?

{streeeeeeetch}

Sunlight On His Face

{look at my beautiful boy :)}

Stretchy Mew

i am seriously jealous of how much pleasure Oliver gets from stretching.

and how much time he has to do it.

<3 my mew :)

Oliver Meets THE ALLIGATOR!

Phone Photo Phun!

So, I recently got a new phone and have been taking pictures non-stop with a super cool app called FXCamera. It can create a fisheye lens, a polaroid effect or what they call a toy camera emulator. I'm obsessed! :) Here are some of my faves...

{ a property we're renovating - like the fresh paint job?}

{a new dress i love}

{tibetan prayer flags above the sink at cooper's house}

{cooper playing with my camera}

{child's chair at cooper's house}

{donna's memorial}

{donna's memorial}

{oliver}

{peach tree!}

{peach tree (part deux)!}

{sadie}

{mr. bird}

{tallulah}

{deli - adam's cat}

{burrow - adam's cat}

Meet My Leopard Belly Mew!

So, you probably know that I am Kate. Of Kate and Oli. But do you know who Oli is?

Why, he's Oliver! My mew. :)

I thought it was time to give credit where credit was due (we all know our pets keep us sane) so here's a fun bio all about my little monkey mew, Oliver.

I grew up in a house with lots of cats and dogs and when I moved out, I missed them a ton – even though I saw them almost daily and lived a quarter mile away. There’s nothing like falling asleep with a pet :) So, I asked and I asked and I asked my roommate/landlord/best friend Jonathan. After a year and a half, he surprised me with a trip to the SPCA to pick out a kitty!! We ended up choosing the very best kitty ever and proceeded to take millions of pictures of this teeny tiny kitty.

Oliver is the most talkative cat I have ever known. He started talking when we brought him home and never stopped. He talks if you look at him, walk into the room, walk out of the room, or even think about him. He talks in his sleep, he talks when he’s happy, angry, hungry! We have conversations with him, me by saying, “Oh really? That’s interesting,” in between his meows, Jon by trying to match his meows, which just makes him meow louder and more insistently.

The first picture is him as a baby mew while we were doing a photo shoot and playing with a long fabric toy. This shot was so cute we made it our Christmas card since it looked like he had a scarf on!

This is Oliver in bed with me – you can see he’s a little bigger, but still a baby mew. He has the most amazing coloring – with stripes on his back and spots on his belly.

This is Oliver in his rocket ship, aka the empty water bottle package on top of a monitor we were going to donate to charity. We ended up leaving those two items by the door there for months because Oliver was so happy with his rocket ship. Jon and I often wonder what we did before to pass the time, because so much of our time now is spent just watching him and laughing.

The fourth shot is of Oliver in one of his favorite places – Jon’s lap. He’s my cat, I feed him and clean his box, but oh how he loves Jon! He runs to the door and waits anxiously when he hears the garage open. As soon as Jon walks in, he walks around his feet, meowing over and over until I yell to Jon, “Just touch him, already!” The second Jon sits in his chair, Oliver jumps into his lap and curls up or stretches out, it doesn’t matter as long as he’s on Jon’s lap.

This is the mew in bed with me. He likes to sleep in the crook of your arm and if he's not touching your face in some way, he's unhappy.

A few weeks ago, I was home sick and I got to see what Oliver does all day. Which apparently is this.

(Note that he's staring at the floor, not out the window.)

And this.

(Shoes make good pillows, right?)

This last shot is of Jon and the mew pretty recently. As you can see, Oliver is a HUGE cat. He is really tall and really long and while he does have some flub, he’s also just a BIG cat. He’s extra cuddly this way anyway! :) You can see, he’s still pretty spotty and still very cuddly and still the best mew ever in general.

A New Lifestyle And A Leopard Belly Mew

I have so so so so much to do! And I can't get organized to do any of it! I need to clean my desk, get ready for tax time, take a ton of stuff to goodwill, make more cards, list more cards, use my new cricut create(!), write papers for school, catch up on my tivo'd shows, buy tickets to Florida for Toni's wedding, find a birthday present for Jonathan, and go to the gym.

Oh, and blog on a semi-regular basis.

And go to work.

There is no time! Actually, I've been thinking and I think there's time. There's 24 hours of time each day. But I need to set my priorities. And then I need to stick with that. Maybe, I need to make a really pretty, frameable poster of my priorities and hang it next to my bed. Because, sometimes, it's really easy to convince myself that Grey's Anatomy is way more important than sleep. Or essays. Or showers.

I went to an ear, nose and throat doctor today, who I was referred to by my neurologist. I never thought I would be someone who said "my" neurologist, but I guess I am. They both think I have sleep apnea, a condition where you stop breathing for short periods of time when you sleep. This causes sufferers to stay in the upper layers of sleep, never getting into the body-and-mind-refreshing REM stages.

My mom was diagnosed with sleep apnea in the late '90s and I remember her scary C-PAP machine that allowed her to stop dozing off inappropriately and took away her fatigue, irritability, and general malaise. I also remember that after the effects of her gastric bypass surgery in 2001, she no longer needed the machine.

The ENT today told me that I need a sleep study to confirm the diagnosis, but the only options to treat sleep apnea are a C-PAP and weight loss. Then she told me a discouraging (and slightly encouraging) study finding; overweight people with sleep apnea have a harder time losing weight than those without. That means that I have a small reason why I never lost weight when I gymmed regularly. That also means I'll have to work even harder than I did then to get this under control.

I've always thought that moderation is key, in diet, exercise and life. I've said this, I've believed it, I've written it. But have I lived it? Probably not. It's time. This year marks the beginning of a new type of lifestyle. Not a new me; I'm me and I'll be me no matter what I weigh. But I can embrace a new lifestyle that leaves me feeling stronger, better rested, healthier, and happier.

This is not a weight-loss blog and I'm barely comfortable saying these words to myself, let alone to the blogosphere. However, in my short time here, I've seen such an amazing community between bloggers, most specifically female ones. I care about the women behind the blogs I read; they have won me over with their wit and humor, their humility and humanity, their stories of dogs and kittens and babies and knitting, of projects made and projects wished. I feel a kinship with the blogging community and therefore I think it will be a smart move for me to post a lifestyle update every now and then, if only for the support I know I can expect from all of you. There's also something to be said for accountability, and how much more accountable can I be than telling the whole world (in theory) that I have a goal?

To lighten up this real-life post and to leave you with a smile, I present you with this picture of Oliver on Jonathan's lap last night.

Behold the leopard belly mew!

:)

Sunday Adventures

Today, the boyfriend and I went on a mini-adventure. We woke up early and drove out to Seal Beach so we could go to Nick's Deli on Main St. for breakfast burritos. SO yummy :) Then, we wandered around Brita's Old Town Gardens next door where we took pictures of the plants and walked into lots of spiderwebs. Here are some of the highlights:

That's the extent of my experience with Seal Beach, so we decided to just walk down the street toward the beach and to our surprise, we hit the Seal Beach Arts and Crafts Faire! The first booth we saw was a greyhound rescue group called GreySave. I promptly fell in love with these beautiful, injured beauties. I learned a lot about greyhounds I never knew, like they don't shed much, they don't smell much, they are the SOFTEST dogs you've ever felt, and they sleep a lot. As soon as I have a backyard, I'm calling GreySave. These pictures are from their list of available adoptees:

Pepper (saw her at the fair)

Rocky (don't you love those ears?)

Odette (I think the brindles are my favorite)

GreySave is an amazing organization that does a lot of really amazing work. Go here to read birth to track to home stories and go here to become a benefactor for only $50. Next time you're looking for a canine addition to your family, think of greyhounds first (and always choose a rescued or pound dog).

We also saw a lot of other lovely booths, but we were there to look, not buy and the dogs had already stolen my heart. Then I came home to this and realized he already had my heart :)

:: End weekend ::