Oh, I have a blog!

So, yeah, this blog.  This little blog I started, then abandoned.  Looks like my last post was a sad one.

Um, yeah.  I lost a kitten suddenly, almost lost another kitten, but we got him okay.  Then after treating (saving) the two kittens, I lost track of time.  Add in the addition of this:

New house!!!!

Yup.  We got a house back in October.  It doesn't look too different now, except all the weeds in the yard.  Yeah, we didn't get grass seed or sod right away, so now it's all weeds.  Anyway, moving was stressful.  Stupid stressful.  Luckily I had some help.  You wouldn't think moving to the other side of town would be bad, but OMG I don't want to ever do that again.

It's not a large house.  With 4 cats it seems extra small, but you know what?  It felt like home the moment we walked in when just looking at houses.  New construction, so it's super new, and that means it's OURS!!  We can do whatever we want... except, we won't do much because we aren't that crazy.  It was scary putting the first hole in the wall to hang up something I couldn't hang up in the apartment.  Scary, but I did it!  No regrets either!  :)

Let's see, what else happened since then...

There's an Orange in my apple box!

Kittens made unpacking a challenge.  Luckily the apple boxes kept them occupied while I put stuff away.

New house, means new oven.  It's weird.  I thought it was broken since there was no element in the bottom of the oven.  After finding the manual for it, I discovered the element is under the bottom of the oven.  Something about it being more efficient or some-such.  Only one way to find out if it works - cookies!!

Pixel is so domestic!

So far the oven works wonderfully.  I was so happy to have an oven that has a window.  It's been YEARS since I've had a window oven.  And the light worked!  Yes, worked.  It's out now (wut?), and since it's nearly impossible to reach the back of the oven, I haven't changed the light.  Also, I can't get the cover off.  Pfft.

Nap time!

So far 3 out of 4 cats love it here.  The two kittens and my grumpy old lady Anya.  I thought for certain Anya would hate it, but nope, that went to Pixel.  It's taken a while, but he's finally starting to like it here, well, he's not as mopey at least.  I think having bird feeders in the back yard helped.  Pixel LOVES watching the birds.

"OMG BIRDZ!"

Big kittens "stalking" birds

At some point, they started chiseling out the caliche next door to us.  It was shaking our house.  I guess our property really only has the big part of caliche in the backyard, but it's right through the middle of the lot next to us.  Piles of "rocks" were going to be taken to the dump.  I put on my gardening gloves and picked up a bunch for the empty spot in front of my front porch.

Ignore my wonky tinsel, it was nearly Xmas

There are "weeds" growing among the rocks now.  Little purple things.  I like them.  I think they are pretty, so they aren't weeds, they are wildflowers!

Sorry, only pic I currently have is up close

Yup.  I'm not sure what else to say now.  I yawned and then poof! all thoughts flew out!  Oh well, I'll just have to look at more pics and post again tomorrow!  :)

Anya trying to get those crumbs at the bottom of the bag!

Sadness from the loss of a kitten

Disclaimer - this is a sad post and I'm crying a lot while writing it.  I can't edit very well with tears in my eyes, so excuse any misspellings or grammatical errors.

Miss Grey <3

Little Miss Grey had a short life.  I found her this morning (Aug 27, 2015) lifeless.  She was cold so she must have passed away right after I put her and her siblings in their cage for the night.  She had been acting a bit punky yesterday.  In the morning she was her normal loud energetic self.  By afternoon she was more subdued.  In the evening she was very subdued, but still ate and acted like a lower key version of herself.

Yesterday afternoon

Purrito bowl

She was the middle of the kitten sandwich/burrito bowl when they all settled down for a nap after eating.  I thought it was adorable.

Wet food is best food Omnomnomnom

She had a good appetite the whole time.  I have no idea what happened.  Some people think she may have had a heart condition, or some other internal condition that finally reached it's breaking point yesterday.  There were no clues that she had anything wrong with her.

Pixel making sure they don't escape

Pixel was always nice to Grey.  Always licking her face and keeping her clean.  Not that he was mean to the others, but he was more gentle with her.  I think he knew something was wrong with her and was just trying to keep her as happy as possible.  She seemed to like him, so it was heartwarming to witness.

Grey stalking Pixel, who thought he was well hidden.  Ha!

One of her many attempts at escape

She was only in my life for a short while, but she will be forever missed.  I buried her under the tree my mom and I planted 14 years ago with some of my dad's ashes.  He will take care of her now.

Good bye my sweet kitty

Thursday was a mixed day

What is this?!

I know I need more sleep, but how can I possibly hallucinate this?

It's like someone cried onto my windshield!

Yes, sprinkles AND it's after 10am and not approaching 90!  So awesome!

It stayed cloudy until about noon, then all the clouds just vanished.  Seriously, they vanished.  It was very weird.

So, running errands and what not, you know, the usual.  Then a curb happened.

So much for keeping my new car new.

My car is low, it's just low, not a low-rider or whatever nonsense.  I had a lower car once, but that thing was a tank that hated me (MG Midget - British car that was 3 months older than me).  A high curb that ran along the side of the parking spot I was pulling into.  I don't even know how it happened.  I've parked in that same spot at least 2 other times with this car.  :(

Of course my day couldn't get better, now could it?  No, of course not.

WTF?!

Forecast for the next week is almost the same every single day, 97 give or take a degree.  Why can't summer go away until next year?!

No pictures of my poor hands/wrists from all the kitten scratches.  Seriously, anyone want one??  I need some sort of magical hand cream.  Something to stop the burning.  Yay eczema!  :(

Distracted

So this happened last Monday morning (8-10-15)...

Grey is a girl, Orange is a boy

My husband brought them to me because they were found outside his office.  He woke me up an hour and a half before I normally wake up.  I will forever stand by the statement that if someone wakes you up, it's NEVER good.

Sorry, no banana for reference.  Only had the Tic-Tac container.

So of course I got a bottle thingy and some kitten formula and googled all things kittens.  I don't know what I'm doing.  I've never dealt with kittens that aren't already on solid food and litterbox trained.  This is all stressful.

Pixel isn't sure about this.

So after a few days of this:

I'm innocent!  Call my lawyer!!

Let's climb out!

Freedom!

Now what?

I thought I was doing okay, considering I have no clue what I'm doing.  They have energy and are very kitten like.  Then Thursday morning happened.

Meet Tiny

Another kitten.  He brings home another effin' kitten.

Some sort of small gang

The third one is smaller than the other two, and is also grey, so I refer to her as Tiny.  I was going to call her spot because of that spot on her head, but that's just a weird cat name.

I need to get rid of all of them.  Yes, they are adorable or something, but I can't deal with 3 screaming things with scalpel claws tearing up my skin.  We are at our pet maximum anyway, so I need them to go.  I think I can care for one until it's ready for adoption, but I can't deal with all three.  Seriously, anyone want a kitten???

I melted

It's been hot.  I survived the 100 days over 100 degrees back in 2011, but this year is worse somehow.   It's killing me.  I run mom around once a week, sometimes twice a week and we're both dragging after those days out.  This past Saturday I got a full blown migraine.   I haven't had full one in months, I'll get a light(?) one or whatever every now and then, but they aren't bad and I can still function.  I think the heat helped push it into full migraine.  Mom got me a super nifty water bottle and it's been a life saver.

If I ordered online it would be purple

This is a Hydro Flask.  Claims to keep cold drinks cold for up to 24 hours.  I left it in my car one day for a couple hours while in appointments and whatever.  The outside of the bottle was hot, but the water inside?  Ice cold.  Amazing!!  I saw someone talk about these on a message board saying how awesome they are.  I looked at their website, but was horrified at the price.  A couple days later I see limited colors at HEB.  Same price, limited colors, but it's the real thing.  It's worth the horrible price. Yesterday I was outside with it.  I finished the water, but the ice cubes were still whole.  It's wonderful.  I'll probably put some stickers on it or something to make it more me.  :)

Anyway, here's some pics from my car.  Car likes to over embellish the temp, but sometimes it's only a degree or two off.

7-29 My car's first car wash.  I hate touchless washes.  Useless. :(

7-31  Only now realized the time is the same but 2 days later.  Weird.

8-4 Ugh.

8-4  few hours later.  Double ugh.

8-6  Today was the first heat advisory day.

Actual temps have been around 103, give or take a degree or two.  Today was actually 105. When the pic was taken it was only 101.  Sometimes it feels like my eyelids are actually sweating.  Is that possible?  Ugh!

In the midst of all the horrible heat my baby had a birthday!  My Anya turned 16!!!

WOOHOO!!

Party girl!!

As you can see, she is a total party animal.  I love that she'll let me put a party hat on her.  It's a tradition.  I have pics from years ago with party hats on her.  She's a sweetheart, but she's also a cranky old lady.  I hope she has a lot more birthdays!

It's been stupid hot recently.  I hate it.  At least the hot part of summer didn't hit until July this year.  On the first of July I planted some cotton seeds in a pot, just to see if they would do anything.  One tried to do something.

Toothpicks so I know where the seeds should be

That was on July 5th.  One little bugger was all sorts of eager to get growing!

One day later!

Holy crap, this is amazing!  One day and it went from small to rather big.  Yay!!

Rain drops are nice

Some epic rains on July 7th that really didn't drown any of my plants.  I figured the bit of rain it got would be fine for it's speedy growth.

So tall!!

I was gone on the 8th, so I missed a day, but that's okay, it grew a bit so it was towering over the toothpick.  For the next 8 days it didn't really get any taller, so I didn't take any more pics.  Was waiting for more leaves to appear.  That didn't happen...

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The evening of the 16th it was fine, but the morning of the 17th I was greeted with this horrible sight.  The only difference in all that time was that the 15th through now was 100 everyday.  Kinda on the horribly hot side.  Some of my flowers were a bit wilty, but not like this.  I watered poor little cotton anyway, but I haven't see him bounce back.  :(

To end on happier note, here is a picture of a sunflower, with some sort of bug.

Taken with a real camera!

Happy and not happy

Happy because yesterday my awesome husband graduated from the NCO Academy.  A big congratulations to all the graduates!!

Sorry!  Didn't get everyone, but congrats to all the graduates!

He finally is home now after 6 weeks in San Antonio.  We did get to the zoo, ate at a few restaurants we don't have locally, and he got to meet some of my family that live in San Antonio.  Didn't get to the Alamo, but I guess that's a reason to go back.

Not happy because I did my nails on Monday for his graduation.  Why not happy?  They were perfect until yesterday when I noticed 4 bits of polish missing from 3 fingers.  I have no idea what happened.  I did everything like normal, the only difference was that I used my new OPI polishes, Silver Canvas with Indigo Motif stamped over.  They looked great.

Need to work on my stamping, but I love how vibrant that blue is.

I really thought the only problem at first was the bubbles in my top coat.  I didn't care.  All the bubbled parts are still intact.  Guess I need new top coat??

I did my nails on Monday because I was going to leave Tuesday.  Uh, nature said no.

That brown part was about a foot deep, and was flowing like a river.

Sudden downpour, but not a short downpour.  It was stupidly raining for almost an hour.  I have no idea how much we got, but it had to be a couple inches.

Poor little plants.

Perfectly clear pic! Okay, I shot through a sheet of water, but still a lot of water!

Of course with that crap ton of rain and it all moving generally east (the direction I needed to travel), I didn't leave until super early yesterday morning.  The only good thing about leaving at 6am is that traffic is almost nonexistent.

Back to happy.  I hadn't looked at my spearmint since Monday.  Apparently it's shooting out flowers EVERYWHERE.  Too bad it was windy today.

Flowers all over the one, uh, stem? branch? shoot?

ZOMG! Flowers EVERYWHERE!

Spearmint is just flower happy.  We had spearmint growing in front of my house in Utah.  I do not recall it ever flowering.  I didn't even know mint flowered at all until I was in my mid 20s.  Yeah, dumb me, but it was not something I ever thought about.