My Cat... again

I've been having fun with my newly learned PSE skills from Jessica Sprague's photo editing class.  She's great!

 

Yes, my cat really is that cute! She covers her eyes while sleeping.

Rachel's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Morning!

Okay, so it hasn't been quite that bad, but it is now only 10:17 in the morning, and I got up at 9:30!

So here's how it went...

I woke up this morning hearing my dad in the kitchen.  I wondered what time it was because lately I've been waking up just before my alarm goes off.  So I looked at my alarm clock and it was blinking 2:11!  Still thinking it might be around 8:30 or so, I looked at the wall clock we have hanging in our room.  It said 9:30.  Ahh!  I'm supposed to be up, dressed, and available to help my mom at 9:00!  So I jumped out of bed and headed towards the shower.

When I got to the bathroom, I noticed a HUGE puddle of cat urine.  My cat's urine.  My perfectly behaved cats urine!  And the worst part was it was surrounding the littler box!  Not in it, all the way around it!  Why?!  WHY?!  But then I looked in the box, and it was in need of a change, so I kicked myself.  By changing the box yesterday, I could have avoided the mess!  So once I got the mess under control, I took my shower and got dressed and ready.

Then I went to get some gloves and a trash bag to do the real dirty work.  It's not too bad cleaning the littler box.  We use Feline Pine so the solid waste is flushable, but there is something rather disgusting about dumping out a bunch of moist sawdust.  Especially when it flies in your face!

And I needed some assistance.  With all the pee locked in the sawdust, the litter box becomes at least twice as heavy as when it's clean, so I needed my dad to dump the box while I held the bag.  I walked over to his office (home office, it's literally just 10 steps away from everything in the house), and just as I was about to say, "Dad, would you help me for a minute..."  I noticed a little pile of kitten puke on the floor, just inside the door.  Darn!  Well at least this little pile was easy to clean up this time. 

He came and helped me (THANKS DAD!!!), and once I got the box rinsed out, dried and refilled, I knew I needed to clean up the floor a little better.  So I put the rugs in the washing machine, got down on my hands and knees, and started cleaning the floor.  Once I got all that done and the box back in it's place, I breathed a sigh of relief and thought that I could just get on with the morning!

But that was not to be because all over the counter and the last homemade cherry turnover, were a bunch of sugar ants!  I quickly put the dish in the sink, and turned to get some paper towels.  But the paper towels weren't open yet and I had a little trouble getting the first sheet or two off.  I ended up tearing off a big chunk from one side.  Then I started pounding.  Then I noticed that they were under the rice cooker and mixer too.  So I got out the spray and sprayed them to smithereens!

And then I still had the dish with the turnover and all the ants to deal with.  So I took off the plastic wrap, wrapped it around the turnover, ran outside and threw it away in the big trash can.  Then I drowned the ants in hot water, washed the dish, and then put it in the dishwasher!

Then I ate a mini-muffin.  And I felt better! :D

In process of moving

We are moving, slowly moving.  But we should be moving faster.  We've got a lot of stuff to go through/get rid of/reorganize!

Last night was our first night officially living at my parents'.  Not as weird as I thought.  Definitely not as nice to not to have the bathroom attached to our bedroom, but I can live with that.  I think I'll keep house better here.  Who knows, I might even vacuum! :D  But I have been a little more emotional about this move than I thought.  I don't have any doubts about moving in to my parents' house; it's definitely the right thing for us to do.  But for some reason I feel really sad about leaving our apartment!  I almost cried last night.  It's not even that great!  I guess I feel attached to it because it's the first place we've lived in the US completely on our own.

And here's a random picture of Willow.  My grandma sent this lap quilt to my mom and Willow fell in love with it.  You should see her on it now.  One big ball of fur! :)

Feline Pine

Can I give a shout out to Feline Pine?  I love the stuff!  Derek and I have tried multiple kinds of kitty litter with our cats that we've had over the years and hadn't found one we loved or even liked.  Feline Pine is the best!  No stink!  Ever!  Unless you leave the litterbox unchanged for 2 weeks like I did last time...

And yes, this is another chance to enter the SV.Soap give-away!

Willow in a bag

Willow got stuck in a bag this evening and she wouldn't take a picture, so I had to take a video.   Sorry it's so dark.  When you're in our living room it really doesn't look that dark.  I guess it's just not photogenic.

On to the Willow video...

 

And please ignore my obnoxious, talking-to-Willow voice.  I swear!  I don't sound like that in real life!!!

Ugh! Another Cat Picture!

I know you're all probably getting tired of pictures of my cat.  Other people's pets are never as cute as your own, aren't they?  Sorry about the overload.  I just can't help myself!

The Many Faces of Willow

It's very rare to get good pictures of my cat, Willow. I finally got one without her eyes glowing florescent green, just faint green, so I tried a few picnik.com tricks to mask this problem.

Fetch!

Last night, we discovered that Willow, our cat, likes to play fetch in her own kitten sort of way (meaning she just kind of quits half-way through).  Holy crap, who would have thought that a cat would do such a thing!  Evidently, it's fairly common with the Maine Coon breed.  Willow keeps doing more and more things that convince me that she's at least part Maine Coon.  She has a squeaky, high pitched meow; uses her paws as if they were hands (pulling our hands closer to her so we'll pet her); has a HUGE poofy tail; and is a bit poofier in the face, ears and legs.

Post Korea

We've been busily setting up our lives here in Caldwell, ID.  It's funny, we never thought we'd end up in Idaho, but here we are.  Funny how life ends up in ways you wouldn't expect.  The most unexpected thing for me is how much we really enjoy it here.  Derek and are both so used to living in busier cities.  He sort of grew up in Alexandria, VA and I grew up in Cary, NC, both fairly busy.  Even Sokcho, small town South Korea, was pretty busy.  Caldwell is transitioning from being rural farm town to being a more suburban area.  It's actually really nice.  People are more laid back, life seems a bit slower, and it's not at all ritzy like Cary was.  

We were able to find a nice apartment pretty quickly.  It's actually a four-plex, but that's weirder to say.  For those of you who don't know, I came back from Korea a couple months earlier than Derek to help my parents out.  They were (and still are, although not quite as seriously) having some health problems.  Mr. Kim, our boss, was really understanding and worked it all out with us.  So back to the point... I came back in February and started looking around for a place to live.  We knew we didn't want to stay with my parents forever, as nice as they are to live with.  I found the perfect place within a couple of weeks.  I wasn't expecting to find something so quickly.  Derek didn't want to be left out of this important decision, and I didn't want him to be either, but the deal was too good to wait ($550 rent for a 2-bed, 2-FULL bath, 950 sq ft place, and there was a $99 move-in special).  After talking at length over AIM and Skype, we decided that it was a great place, and I put in a deposit and signed the lease for the beginning of March.  

Derek finished his contract at the end of March, April 1st, we were able to start getting settled into our new life.  We spent a couple of days with my parents just hanging out and helping out, and then traveled down to Provo and Las Vegas for a little relaxation after a job well done in Korea.  We had so much fun!  It was great to be able to spend some time together on a real vacation.  Also, on the way back up, we were able to take another load of our stuff out of Derek's parent's garage (I had spent a great weekend with Derek's parents in March and took a load back then, too).  Then on April 15th, we slept in our apartment for the first time.  We'd been moving stuff in and around so it was too much of a mess to have moved ourselves in earlier.  Thank goodness my parents live nearby and were able and willing to have us stay at their place for so long!  Now we're mostly all moved in.... at least all the stuff we have at the moment.  There's still a TON of boxes in Derek's parent's garage.... Who knows how that will all fit in our place!

Part of the reason why we chose this apartment was because they allowed pets.  We knew we wanted to have a cat or cats, so this place was perfect.  Last Wednesday (16th) we went over to a place called "Pet Haven" with my brother.  I wasn't planning on getting one then.  We didn't have all the essential kitty supplies, i.e. a litter box, etc. But as soon as we saw Willow, we knew we had to have her.  We went planning on a couple other cats.  But as we played with them, we realized they didn't have quite the personality that we were looking for.  I think we tried out about six cats there at Pet Haven.  Just as we were about to leave, the lady working there suggested Willow.  "She's a sweet cat," she said.  And she was right!  She was the only cat that wanted attention from us!  All the other cats were so excited about the toys and cat trees in the play room.  Willow only wanted to snuggle with us.  Needless to say, we took her home right then.  What a cutie!  And she's turned out to be just about the best cat you could ever ask for.  Never uses her claws, always uses her box, loves to snuggle, and can also entertain herself.  We haven't had to worry about our furniture at all!  YAY!!!!

So here we are, a half moved in, two bedroom, one cat family.  And we love it!