About Me

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I live on 6 deeply wooded acres in the boonies of Middleville, MI. I'm married to an amazing man, Brian. He's pretty much the best thing that has ever happened to me. I'm a big animal lover. I have 5 cats; Bella (6), Cognac (3), Georgia (3), Maggie (2), & Auggie (8-9mos.) We recently lost our kittens, Aesop & Amelia, to a battle with Feline Leukemia. I feel the need to mention them. They were amazing beings that showed unconditional love like no other cats I've had. I also have Cheech (9) that I'm fostering. We have two puppies; Charlie & Henry. Having a blast! I'm a dabbler in photography, photo shop, & crafts. I'm kind of a bookworm/nerd/geek. Yes, I have read the Twilight Series. No, I'm not obsessed. I love Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne, C.S. Lewis, and L. Frank Baum - among others, obviously.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

I Am Sick

So, this is my second day this week that I've stayed home from work. I'm pretty miserable right now with a throat that feels as if its on fire. I went out to dinner with Brian and his parents last night and had chicken tenders. When I order "breaded" chicken tenders, I assume they are baked... Well, the ones that ended up on my plate were fried.. And not just fried, but they were like a dark brown color and incredibly crispy. Not wanting to make a big deal about it, I ate a couple anyway. After dinner Brian and I go home and not more than 5 minutes after I walk in the door I am almost vomiting. I fought it, because I hate throwing up so much. I used to take a prescription that would make me sick and vomit all the time. It's a miserable feeling. Anyway, this nauseousness last night was hopefully from the fried food, since I don't normally consume fried food. Because my sickness seems to be more cold like than flu like.

Since I'm home, I thought maybe I'd take this time to at least make a post.

Last Monday we had to take the kittens to the vet because Amelia was having really bad tummy troubles. She had no control over her bowels and I was worried. The vet wanted a stool sample, too. I had a cup of poop in my car cup holder. *shudder* The vet went over her stool and found no parasites. And he put her on a kitty Imodium. The vet also put an anesthetic in Aesop's eye to make the third eyelid go down, since it's usually half exposed, and discovered that Aesop has no pupil in his left eye. So, he is partially blind. The night we brought them home from the vet, Amelia seemed to be more spry than ever.

The older cats are getting better adapting to the kittens. They pretty much ignore them. Once in a while Georgia will try to play with one... Then will get mad and smack one. So, we have a spray bottle with water ready when that happens.

This past Saturday I woke up in kitten pee. It was gross. Since Robert was coming over anyway, I asked him if he'd stop at the store and buy some Woolite mattress cleaner. Since Brian and I needed to wash our other blankets anyway, we decided to go to the laundromat in Middleville. It's a poor excuse for one, too. Only half of the machines work, the floor is dirty, there is no person visible that works there - only about 7 cameras. Also, the bathroom looks like it has 70s wallpaper. Robert joined us, which was nice. Then after that we went to GR to make our final payment at La-Z-Boy... Then to Pet's Mart because the vet wants us to put all of the cats on Science Diet. After that we headed to Gaines area and went to Target and Meijers.

Sunday, we attended Catholic Mass to attend the baptism of a wee young lad, Carter. I had never been to an actual Mass before. It was quite enjoyable. Brian was pretty excited about it, too.

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I enjoyed that they sang a lot of older hymns, too. At TVC, where Brian and I go, they don't really do that.

Also, yesterday our sectional was delivered!

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We are quite pleased. It's definitely worth it. Our living room is kind of long and narrow, so a couch and a loveseat wouldn't have worked out.

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The far left seat is a recliner. Brian's pretty happy since he's never owned a recliner. It was a must have in my family, though.

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The seat to the left of the chaise is pretty neat. The foot area slides out and there's a drawer for extra storage. And the back of the chair folds down to reveal a tabletop area with cup holders.

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I picked out the fabric. Brian was a little skeptical, but it does indeed match our carpet.

I felt up to taking some pictures of the cats as well. There are more pictures of Amelia than Aesop... He's pretty active and playing almost all the time. It's harder to get him to stay still.

Anyway, here are some pictures...

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Double trouble...

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:) Amelia has a permanent smile look to her fur pattern.

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Georgia with her tongue out.

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So cute.

Lastly,

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Bella is laying on our old couch. See the icky pattern?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Stuff & Things

I stumbled upon a couple of blogs that I've been following...

Cake Wrecks (Click Here) is a funny blog. From what I've gathered it's a blog that's run by a woman, and sometimes her husband will post, about cakes that people bought/ordered that were wrecked. She's quite witty and I've enjoyed reading her posts.

Love-A-Cupcake (Click Here) is a blog about cute cakes.

Ever since the wedding and deciding what I wanted our wedding cake to look like, I've been a little intrigued in all of the work it takes to make something so gorgeous. Not to mention that the possibilities are pretty much endless.

Last weekend Brian and I decided for our three year dating anniversary that we would take a trip to GR, stay in a hotel for a couple nights and then do some local shopping.

We lodged at the Crowne Plaza in Grand Rapids. I must say, it was pretty horrible. The first discovery made was the hair in the toilet that we hadn't used yet. Then a little bit later Brian found a toenail on our freshly made bed. He called the front desk, told them of our situation, and he asked for fresh linens. What we got a few minutes later was a member of the housekeeping staff knocking on our door, handing us new sheets (which were not the correct size), and then walking off. Brian then went down to the front desk to make sure that they understood that he wanted someone else to come and re-make our bed. Which eventually happened.

Throughout the night someone in the next room had their TV blaring. Brian even remembers waking up from his slumber in the middle of the night and heard the Spanish channel blaring. Awesome... Not. Then the next day we discovered that our shower had black mold in areas, the drain was clogged, and there were questionable black spots on the ceiling that I guesstimate could have been mold or insect eggs.

This is not all...

Our second night in the room I was woken up by someone pounding as loud as they could on the door across the hall from us... I did not sleep well after that and managed to have a string of bad dreams until...

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... I woke up to Brian killing this earwig. Yeah, that's just great. To brush up on your Earwig trivia, click here.

When we checked out we told them of everything that was wrong with our room. Wanna know what we were told? And I quote, "Unfortunately I cannot help you because you paid online. I can offer you a free breakfast for your troubles." Ummmm.... NO thanks. After I'd seen the bathroom in just one room, I was sure I didn't want to eat something from their kitchen. Brian and I plan on writing a letter.

The weekend wasn't a total bust, though. We did some shopping and got some great deals. I got a pair of dress shoes, a pair of slip-on shoes, and a pair of heeled boots... Not to mention a few other things here and there.

Sunday, Brian and I brought home not one, but two, kittens. We were originally going to take one... Then my Dad wanted to keep all of them... Then that became too much for him... He asked Brian and I to take two. If one of them is separated and alone it cries constantly.

We brought home...

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Amelia (tiger striped) and Aesop (black). Anyone remember Aesop's Fables from Rocky and Bullwinkle? One of my all time favorite cartoon shows.

Having had them for almost a whole week now, I'm almost certain that little Aesop is blind in his left eye. Though, it doesn't slow him down any.

They have kept us on our toes. When they're not snuggling... They're wrestling... And it's always a laugh when they snuggle wrestle. :)

They kept making a mess of things in the shelter we had for them. It involved poop and it was not pleasant - twice. So we decided to venture to Hastings and head to the Tractor Supply Store to look for a kennel that would be larger. (With the bigger cats, we can't really leave them unattended. Georgia is the biggest grump now.)

Back to the story... Whenever I'm in there I must look at the baby bunnies in their cages. I love bunnies. There was a top cage with three bunnies in it. And then I noticed their water bottle was bone dry since they were trying to get a drink. I quickly found someone, appropriately named "Dick," and informed him that the bottle was completely empty. He said, "Thanks. But we only re-fill them at night." Ummm, excuse me? ANIMAL ABUSE. They were obviously trying to get a drink, all three of them, and were unable to. So, I took the bottle from the cage underneath them and held it up for a minute or so and one drank from it. I was livid. I went up to complain, but "Dick" was up there, so I'll be filing a complaint with the store.

After all of that, Brian and I did a little more shopping in another store and came home.

I baked oatmeal raisin and cranberry cookies for my Father-in-Law. It was his birthday on the 7th and we're heading over tomorrow to spend some birthday fun time with him.

Since I've been writing this post from my kitchen floor, the kittens prefer it, and my butt is rather numb now... So, I'll be heading off to bed.

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Well, how about one more snuggle picture?

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