Hershey
She gets the short end of the stick sometimes, because I find that I don't take as many pictures of her. But I promise you that it's not because I'm not trying or that I don't want to. We both think she's really stinkin' cute, but the problem is that when she does something cute, she moves before we can even think about getting to a camera. That's why the only time I can get pictures of her is when she's sitting still, doing nothing, being totally boring:
But she is a cute and spunky little girl. She's the oldest pet we have (13 and a half), but she far from acts like it. We have a small butterfly cat toy that I think has some catnip in it, and I've caught her rolling around with that toy, carrying it in her mouth and hopping around like a kitten. But when I reach for the camera, it's like she knows my intention will be to post it here for you people, and she simply cannot allow for her name to be disgraced. So there you have it.
Fred & Ethel
I love to include these two together. After all, I raised them together since they were kittens, and they act like an old married couple, very much like the Fred and Ethel from I Love Lucy that they are named after. It is very common to find them like this:
Ethel has been her usual cute self. She has certainly warmed up to Daddy, but she'll always be a Momma's girl. I love how when we're watching a movie, Ethel will not stop for anything to crawl into my lap, curl up, and go to sleep purring loudly. But sometimes, when I'm not available, we'll find her with a substitute:
She's a snuggler, and that's part of why I love her so much.
Fred has had a few changes in his life lately. If you recall from a previous post, we let Fred play outside a few times and he seemed to enjoy it a lot. Well, I neglected to mention until now that he has a bad habit of peeing inside the house...not in the litterbox mind you. It started when we moved into our house, and only happened every month or so. And it was always in the same spot in the corner of the living room. So that told us that it was a behavioral problem as opposed to an infection. (He has had infections in the past, but we get him treated every time and the gap in time between peeing-inside-events seems more territorial than health related.)
Now for those who don't know, cat urine is the worst. The worst. Whatever its chemical makeup, it's soooo much worse than dog urine. Cat urine leaves an awful smell. And it's really, really difficult to clean and remove all the odor. In fact, I'd venture to say it's near impossible to remove all the odor. Making it even more difficult, he peed in such a way that he put his butt against the wall, peed, which then allowed the urine to seep between the wall and carpet edge, not to mention getting some on the wall.
Having moved into a brand new house, you can imagine how upset we were at this newfound habit. We tried to be patient, thinking he may still be adjusting.
But then, we woke up one morning, and he had peed on our kitchen countertop. Our granite countertop.
So not cool.
You may think, "What's the big deal? Just wipe it up!" But no. Granite is a porous material. Even though the top is coated with a clear sealant. Even leaving a puddle of water sitting on a granite countertop would cause a darkened stain until it fully dried out. And since urine is so not water, we weren't sure if the darkened stain we were seeing would be permanent or fade, and so we Googled how to remove the stain just to be sure. Thankfully, the baking soda/water paste tactic worked perfectly. But this is just not something we want to make a part of our household routine. So we took that opportunity to permanently move him outside in the backyard. It was just too stressful waking up every morning, worrying if we were going to have to clean up any cat urine.
Now Fred stays outside in the backyard when we're not home, and gets indoor privileges when we are home. It's worked out better for everyone because he truly seems to enjoy it. We've seen him skipping and jumping through the grass trying to catch spiders or flying insects. It's so cute to watch!
This second picture is what he does on Saturday mornings when he's telling us it's past time to feed him.
The only downside to having him in the backyard is that he's managed to climb out a couple times. Since he's declawed in his front paws, it's important for his safety to stay in the backyard because he can't defend himself or climb a tree if he needed to. We figured out he's been jumping on a window ledge near the fence, and that gives him only half the height to jump up to the top, so then he just tumbles over the other side, lands in the soft grass, and is then an escapee. So we've placed some chicken wire along the top of the fence as a temporary solution to keep him in the backyard. One of our upcoming house projects will consist of extending the height of the fence, so it will be a permanent and aesthetically pleasing solution.
Ginger
This is just not Ginger's year. First she had to face the Cone of Shame. Then this past Tuesday morning we woke up and Ginger couldn't walk. She stayed in a sitting position, and scooted around. When I barely touched her lower back, she yelped in pain.
Folks, talk about heartbreaking. She is our sweet puppy. And the thought of her being in pain makes me tear up. I can't stand to see any animal in pain, let alone my own baby girl.
So we rushed her to the vet (thankfully it was a weekday morning, and our normal vet was open), and they did several x-rays and found that she has a calcification on one side of her vertebrae, lower spine on her right side. They said they had to sedate her a little bit because she was in pain, and they sent us home with anti-inflammatory and pain medicine. She's been slowly acting better each day, but it's obvious she's not recovered. She still moves gingerly (lives up to her name) and seems to be sore and hurting a bit. We hope and pray that she continues to recover and hopefully returns to 100%. She's only 6 years old, and we want her to live many more years if possible.
We had just gone on the NWYM Camping Retreat this past weekend, so perhaps she tweaked her back somehow there. We did have a ton of stuff to pack in the car, and she was afraid we weren't going to take her.
"See Mommy, I still fit"
She ended up having to sit in the front seat with me, and was such a sweetheart.
At one point, she got tired of being cramped in the front seat, and climbed into the backseat to be with Abby. Ginger really had no grounds to complain, because Abby was even more cramped for space.
So we're thinking that perhaps being cramped in the car, taking really long hikes/walks with us while camping, and maybe tweaking it somehow caused some inflammation that then irritated the nerves that exit from that vertebrae where the calcification is. We're hoping the medicine will help and that this is just an isolated event as opposed to long-term medication needed. It may sound silly to some, but your prayers for her to heal quickly are much appreciated!
Abby
This little girl turned 4 years old this summer. We keep waiting for her to grow out of "puppyhood" and behave more like a grown-up dog, but she just refuses to do so. She has so much energy, there's just not enough time in our schedules to take her on the runs she needs to release all her energy. We do our best to throw her ball for her and let her get exhausted, but she usually gets a second wind shortly thereafter. Doesn't she look crazy?!
I just don't know where her energy comes from. She's totally bonkers sometimes, running around the living room doing laps to wear herself out. She did finally get worn out on the Camping Retreat. This was Abby on the car ride home:
"Mommy? There's no room to lay down..."
The Humans
We are hanging in there, and enjoying working on house projects. Separate blogs to come about that. Michael and I went to Six Flags with the NWYM class recently, and Michael got his thrill quota filled with all the scary roller coasters. I hate roller coasters. Yes, I was that sissy child who sat with the teacher on school trips to amusement parks. There is nothing amusing about extreme heights, loops, speed, and insanely steep declines.
Michael finished his arm wrestling table! He worked so hard on it, I'm really happy for him. And a big thank you to Remington for helping him so much! He is so excited to train in time for March's tournament.
I have been having a blast riding horses again. Like I said in a previous post, I can pick and choose which of two horses I want to ride that day. When I want a challenge and excitement, I ride Laddie and practice jumping fences again. When I just want to unwind and relax, I ride Sonny in the beautiful pasture. At sunset. Dream come true!
A couple weekends ago, we went to visit the Cherrys for our annual Cherry-Yager TX State Fair Trip. You would think we'd remember to take more pictures, but this was the only one I got of their stinkin' cute baby:
He gets so cute when he's sleepy! It's like where most babies seem to get fussy, he gets an extra dose of love and sweetness. He gives big smiles and makes cute faces. :)
We've been trying to eat a bit healthier. We're in the process of researching a wheat-free diet, and are taking steps towards that completely. Little did we know until after some research, but wheat-free and gluten-free are not the same thing. Apparently "they" can extract gluten from bread or other wheat-based products, which then makes them gluten-free but obviously not wheat-free. We figured a good way to start is to make our breakfasts, lunches, and daytime snacks wheat-free, and then dinner meals are meant to use up all the wheat ingredients in our house. We're almost done! I think we have maybe two more weeks of wheat-containing dinner meals.
These are our lunches every day. We were already in the habit of eating an apple everyday, and then we started taking fresh fruit and veggies as sides for lunch instead of crackers or something. But the sandwich was the biggest change. We now make lettuce wraps instead of sandwiches. And instead of a Kashi granola bar, we eat unsalted nuts. Our favorites are pistachios, walnuts, and almonds. For breakfast we make either an omelet or oatmeal. But we're hoping to expand on that too once we're in the habit of leaving enough time each morning to prepare breakfast. Like I said, we're still not 100% on this diet, just slowly working our way towards that, so I'm sure we'll have future updates about it.
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