The past few weeks have been nothing but eventful around here, and of course that means I haven’t had any downtime to blog. Going back to my last post, I’ve had a follow-up visit with Bella, she’s got a clean bill of health. I’ve got all of the paperwork together to send back to Del Monte and I’ve made it a point to photo copy freaking EVERYTHING so they can’t claim they never received everything I sent to them.
Our friend Colin came down last week, we were able to get a few nights of fishing in and a night of mini-golf but unfortunately Sean and I were overbooked so that was kind of limiting to any real fun. It isn’t too bad though, we got to see our best friend for an entire week and while he was here we were introduced to a new member of the family.
Last week a little Grey cat showed up out of absolutely no where, and me being a push-over when it comes to something with four-legs I instantly said “Go get some food for him”, he ate, came on on the porch and rubbed up against my leg and from there he stayed. Knowing full well that I didn’t want to deal with another flea problem, we kept him outside, I treated him with Frontline (which doesn’t work BTW) and then was utilizing the Vets Best Flea & Tick Spray to help cut down on his itching. Note: That stuff works fucking beautifully when it’s used as a Mosquito repellant too! I’ve been using it instead of “OFF!”, it smells so much better. I just ordered the 32oz replacement bottle of it cause I can’t get over how well it works. So thankfully with this spray (that my mom introduced to me when we brought the last lil girl into the house) it’s kept the fleas at bay. I do believe that the stuff that the exterminator put down a few months ago helped quite a bit but thankfully we’re good to go.
During the course of the week a lady showed up at the house wanting to know what animal we were feeding and told us that he bounces from house to house, just about everyone in the complex feeds him so he’s – by no means – malnuroushed. BUT the alleged owner of the cat isn’t this lady, it’s someone else. I then got a nasty look when she was informed that the cat was treated for fleas and ticks, she claimed that the owner actually treated him – considering the amount on him I’ll just go ahead and call BULL SHIT on that one. Out of respect, I said if I was going to actually keep the cat I knew I needed to speak with the ‘owner’. So today I went looking for the alleged “owner” and found here with no problems (everyone knew who she was), the lady claimed he actually wasn’t hers and said take ’em, she doesn’t care and if anyone sees him in your window you just say “Too freakin bad, he was on the street long enough to be picked up and that’s that”. Someone else said that she was full of shit about not knowing who he belongs to but whatever, I wasn’t going to argue, I already knew he was gonna be mine anyway. I was only standing there out of respect, I didn’t care if I was told “No” when asking to take him off the street, clearly the ‘owner’ couldn’t do it – why should I continue to allow him out there?
So I went and contacted my vet, they gave me Capstar which works within a half hour and lasts for 24 for complete flea removal. I was able to get that into his mouth (with a can of Tuna as a chaser of course) and then not even 10 minutes later I brought him to the vet because they scheduled the appointment ‘immediately’ (for some unknown freaking reason) and they did a complete work up on him, he was perfectly clean (minus the fleas), his bloodwork came back normal and he had no medical issues at all. He got his nails clipped and a much needed bath (he’s so much softer now!), and we were informed that he’s actually about 2 years old, he’s not the Kitten we thought he was. So…he was brought home and now he’s a member of the family.
I kept him in the bathroom initially, he does still have a few fleas coming off of him but thankfully they’ve been medicated with the Capstar so of course it’ll clear him right up. The bath at the vets office certainly helped quite a bit, I’m confident I would have seen many, many more floating around in the bathroom if they didn’t bathe him for me.
Karen and I (after getting him situated in the bathroom) left for Walmart to pick up the necessary supplies. We needed a second litter box, and food, and the usual “I’ve got a new cat” shopping spree. Two hours later I returned home with a crap load of stuff and after getting everything situated we decided it was time to introduce him to the rest of the house. Knowing that Bella was OK with him we knew it was just the little girl (Meow-Meow) that was going to be the problem. She didn’t like him AT ALL, and normally for me that means OK, we’ll keep him in the bedroom and then slowly re-introduce them to each other. The problem now is Sean is having a horrible allergy attack and putting the cat in our bedroom is counter productive to get his allergies to calm down. I’ll be throwing a Zyrtec down his throat later this evening when it’s bedtime for him.
Right now, however, the little one is in the bedroom with Karen (where she usually sleeps anyway), and then the little guy is hanging out in my recliner while Bella snores away behind me. Sean is down the hall sneezing away (poor guy).
We’ve named him Smokey, supposedly he was “Macey” to whoever actually found him first, but he doesn’t look like a “macey” and since he’s mine I can change it whatever freaking name I want. More than likely I’ll wind up continuing to call him “fat boy” anyway lol. Who knows what’ll happen…
I do know that I haven’t had anything to eat today AND I’ve only had one cup of coffee, so if I’m gonna put in about 8 hours of work tonight (somehow) I’m gonna have to start brewing that cup right away or I’ll never be able to meet my deadlines.
While that can get a little annoying, it also worked to our benefit this year. All family members were well taken care of for Christmas, Sean and I did spend quite a bit of money on ourselves but it was on things that we both wanted (for a while) and desperately needed. We know the difference between Wants and Needs – unlike anyone under the age of 16 these days. We both were in desperate need of new desks. I had my Mac sitting on a Rubbermaid folding table and being as the 27-inch iMac (2011) weighs about 40 pounds, it was starting to sink down in the middle. To avoid it completely caving in, we went out and got me a new desk. It’s a super nice one, with plenty of storage and it’s even a little bigger than the previous folding table so I actually got the chance to organize things where I can still completely function without any issues at all. Obviously after Sean spent 7 hours putting this thing together (one warped piece was throwing EVERYTHING off) he gladly took a little nap. I decorated the drawers with dollar store shelf liner so that they can list a super long time without getting destroyed. There’s more than enough room for the work phone so my boss can stay on my butt too heh. I had it across the room next to the TV because we didn’t have a long enough Ethernet chord, but that was taken care of with the addition of a ZyXEL wireless switch that now sits behind my monitor. It supposedly boosts the Wifi in the house, but turns the Wifi into an actual plugged in connection as well, so I’ve got the phone plugged into it and if I needed to I could plug a printer in to it. It was actually strong enough of a feed to handle Sean’s XBOX 360 for a few weeks as well, so obviously it works how it’s supposed to.
Sean, after my desk was put together, began increasingly becoming annoyed with his desk. After drilling into him that he spends way too much time at his desk and needs a new one…. we headed back to Staples a little over a week later (this past weekend actually) to pick up a new desk for him. The one he’s been using for years was a typical students desk with the metal legs, the pull-out keyboard and the thin table top. One you’d see in college students dorm, basically. So it was creaking like all holy hell and we wound up replacing that one as well. He found a nice wide desk that he was in love with, but it unfortunately was not going to fit in the room so he went with one that was closer to size (in comparison to mine). He’s in love with it as well. It’s very nice dark wood with a nice sturdy base, some drawers – finito.
Either way, we both were playing with the Tablet for a little while and found out when browsing through the Settings to get all of the stats that it was now possible (with Android – Ice Cream) to have multiple users. This sparked our interest almost instantly, and we both looked at eachother and I was like “I want”, he said “Go get it” (cause he’s fricken awesome) and while I was pulling the car around (cause he was picking up his desk the same day) he paid for both. Turned into an expensive shopping trip on our parts, but we walked out of there with a want, and a need. 
While he was in the Bedroom for a few hours setting up his new desk, I was prepping the house for Christmas. I did more baking in the past few days than I ever thought possible. Everything from cookies, to breads, to brownies – you name it, I probably baked it. I went all out for Christmas this year, because I actually had more room to do it. I know that sounds a little weird but it’s true. A huge living room and a big footprint in reference to the front end of the house, things just kind of happened. The baking was really just phase two, we’d spent quite some time decorating prior to my even pulling the flour out of the cabinet. So the tree was decorated, the bulk of the outdoors was draped in white lights and the rest of the house had random little touches here and there. Thankfully, minus today, there was really no wet weather going on outside so my garland didn’t get all mucky and was nice and clean for Christmas. I was also really happy with the tree in the living room. With the combination of Karen’s ornaments and mine everything kind of came together that worked out really nicely.
I also got him some new Happy Feet, this is a brand that we were in love with long before Snooki put it on MTV. I’ve always had a pair, and so has he and his were worn to the point that his toes were going to start popping through the bottom. Knowing how comfy they are I changed it up a little bit and got him the “All Around” ones, they look like real sneakers and there’s about an inch-thick rubber sole on the bottom of them. They’re better than my usual outdoor slippers so of course I’ll have to pick up a pair for myself in the future but for now this was all about him and that’s what he got. So that was one pair, and instead of getting him the standard color variations I decided to take a look under the “Animals” section and got him the most ridiculous ones I could find – and his favorite animal – the Penguins. Watching him walk around in these is more amusing than the slippers themselves, but they bring a smile to just about everyone’s face so it was more than worth it.
The thing I was surprised about, however, was the ViewSonic 24-inch Monitor that was under the tree. I’ve been using a 17-inch monitor as my “Email Screen” for the past couple of months and it was working out pretty well for me. I kept my email completely on that window and when I was actually in Photoshop or Dreamweaver I would just load project free TV and watch television right on the desk, no complaints at all. So you can imagine my surprise when Sean upgraded me to a much larger screen. This was one of those items that wasn’t on my wants, or my needs – which then turns into a complete and total surprise. And that wraps up Christmas Eve.
