From my eyes…

I remember last year on this day I wrote about how my sweet kitty came into my life and how I enjoyed every little detail of every little thing about him since day one.

Today I want to share with you his 4th birthday. It’s a little dark, but you can see that he is still as sweet as ever!!

I love you little man! Happy, happy birthday!! And happy birthday to Lucy (his sister), too

There is a slide show here. Be sure to check it out! You’ll get to see his new “Fat Bastard” t-shirt. Hehehe.

18 pounds people. 18 pounds.

In my defense, the vet said I am doing all I can do to control his weight. He’s just a big boy.

I am the worst “mom” ever!! I just did the human equivalent of letting yout toddler suck on a bottle of Windex. I let my dog lick out the inside of an empty Nutella container. I know, I know! Chocolate is poison to dogs. I was just thinking what a nice little treat it would be for her. Then I went to check if she was done (I’d put her out on the porch with it) and only then did it dawn on me what I had done!

I am the worst mom in the world.

And now we are getting a tornado and I don’t have a basement. Eek! I have already run through the emergency plan three times in my head - stow pets in downstairs storage area, grab file drawer with all important documents, grab roommates tub of important documents (she’s out of town), grab blanket. If there is time, grab water, pillows, laptop, cell phone, purse….scratch that. I am putting those things downstairs now, just in case. If I don’t need to stow away in the closet (it’s pretty big) there still downstairs ready to go to work tomorrow. Wouldn’t it be cool, if there WAS a tornado (but it damaged very little) and I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow…..one can dream.

WHOA!! That was som SERIOUS thunder right now and piercingly bright white lightening. My brother will be so jealous when I tell him about this storm!

Here’s Mr. Adorable helping me check email…

I have strep

I hate strep. It is my arch nemisis. I fell ill with Scarletina in college. It was horrible. I just wanted to die and left my well being up to my roommate until I was able to get home and sleep away a week at my parents house and heal.  Then about three years later, I fell ill with such a severe case of strep throat that I thought for sure would progress to Scarletina again and I would forever be on antibiotics. It was horrible. 

I’ve taken precautions to avoid people with strep in the last 4 years and managed not to get it. But recently, my roommate’s co-worker and her sons all had strep pretty fierce. I was exposed there and at school, where some students were out for a while battling this crap. 

My body just gave up the fight. And here I sit waiting for the doctor’s office to open. Their website says they are open, but the phone lines are still off.  Boo.

I hate strep.

This weekend was the first time my babies went in to get groomed. I’ve just always found a better place to spend my money and bathed them and brushed them myself. But this time they needed a little more and I was just too tired to do it myself. Plus Petco was giving $5 off the deshedding treatment (which I think just means they brush and brush and brush them, but still).

When I went to pick them up they looked so poofy and cute! I was beside myself. Abby was all trimmed up and looked great and my fluffy kitty just looked like and adorable little fuzz ball. Oh and Abby got a bandana and Ricky a bow. So cute! 

These are some pics I took of them when we got home. It’s a shame you can’t smell how yummy they smell and feel how soft they are. So much fun to cuddle. I’ll be going back for sure.

September 20th my household celebrated my little doodle bugs third birthday :) 

When my little Ricky was just a couple months old my brother decided to move out and take his cat, my cat’s only friend, with him. Ricky has not been alone since he was born (having lived the first weeks of his life with his sister Lucy) and I was worried he would get lonely while I was at work all day. His breed specifically says that he is social and does not do well alone.

As much as I hate cats, I decided the only thing to do was get another kitten. My brother went to the Humane Society with me that day in November. Of the few kittens that were there, none caught my heart. I was on my way out with the plan to return the following weekend, when all of a sudden this woman popped up from behind the counter with two cow looking puppies on her shoulder. One was a boy, one was a girl. They were so tiny and their little butts fit in the palm of an adult hand. Of course we stopped. I asked to hold the baby girl. She was sleeping and oh so sweet. I asked all kinds of questions, knowing that a puppy is much more difficult than a kitten. I asked how big she would get and how much she would shed. How much attention hre breed needed. How much room. All the answers seemed right and her puppy breath just hypnotized me into loving her immediately. I took home a groggy, little, black and white spotted, furry tennis ball bellied, puppy that day. We stopped at my parents house on the way home to show off the newest addition to my family. She was darn cute.

Then I was off to the store to get all of the appropriate things a puppy mom needs. I held her tons and stared at her continuously.

That first night something amazing happened that I’ll never forget. I was rocking her and rubbing her freshly shaved pink belly (she’d just been fixed a few days prior) when she used her front two paws to put my forefinger in her mouth! Then she sucked and sucked. I was in shock. Did all puppies do this? How come I’d never heard of it before? I called my mom to tell her how adorably sweet my new baby was. When she was done with that finger she switched it up to another. Abby nursed on fingers until she was about 8 months old. It hurt really bad when she started getting adult teeth. Ouch. 

My favorite parts of the last three years with Abby have been when we do new things together. Our first time to the park, when I was so overprotective because she was so small that I ended up just holding her the whole time. And her first time swimming and how she hated it. And her first time swimming with her life jacket and she loved it! And her first time on the snow how her face lit up. And her first best friend Moxie, the Husky who is the same age. And of course the countless silly things she does around home and how she plays with the cat. And how she embarassed me by barking all through obedience school so they had to take her out and I just stood there with no dog listening. But how she was still the best one at school and they always used her as an example to learn new things because she is so smart that she gets it on the first try.

On Tuesday, Abby was happy to open a present from Grandma and Grandpa. It was a striped fleece blanket with different girly colors on it. I put it on her spot on the couch so she uses it everyday. Abby also was treated to a small (like two bites worth) bowl of ice cream and peanut butter - her two favorites. Plus she was doted on all day and hugged and kissed and loved even more than usual. We couldn’t go to the park because it was too dark by the time I got home. I think Abby had a good day anyway.

*This site wouldn’t let me post pics today I’ll try again soon.

Three years ago my little kitty and his sister were born. I don’t know what activities, good or bad, filled the first 8 weeks of their life, but I do know that on the weekend of September 27, 2002 they were brought to my best friend and me.

We didn’t want kittens. She had two cats of her own already and I am allergic, and well, I don’t like them.  We didn’t know what to do with them. It was Sunday and I had only a few (what would prove to be very short) hours before catching a plane back to Phoenix. every two minutes we changed our mind about what to do with them. For a bit, we decided to hit up PetSmart, get some food and a carrier and I would take one (the tan one becauce he completely stole my heart) back with me and Melissa would keep the other. Then immediately, we started thinking that was crazy talk and there was NO WAY either of us could have a kitten, much less wanted one. This ensued for about an hour. We had to drive from Venice beach to Burbank with these kittens in the car. Then a ways into the ride I picked up the tan one…his white belly was CRAWLING WITH BUGS! I gagged right there and wanted nothing more than to leave them on the side of the road….but really, who could do that? We decided then and there we absolutely could not keep them. We headed to the nearest PetSmart to leave them with a vet and find a good home. Long story short(er), PetSmart wouldn’t take them. Ever try to find an open vet in Burbank on Sunday at 4:00? Yeah, don’t. It’s hopeless.

We ended up in Beverly Hills, yes people home of Brenda and Brandon (yum) Walsh, with these kittens. They were the only vet office open for miles. We took them in (and thankfully they had a disinfectant spray they put all over me to stop the icky feeling of things crawling on me even though they weren’t) and they wanted us to leave our names. We spent about 10 minutes trying to explain that they weren’t our cats and we didn’t want them, we just brought them in because it was the right thing to do, etc. The vet wouldn’t hear of it. They wouldn’t treat the cats unless they had an owner name. Melissa caved and gave her info. We figured we’d think of what to do later after the kittens had been bathed and fed. The vet told us that they were probably just about 8 weeks old then (which is why I celebrate the birthday today).

The kittens spent a week in Beverly Hills living the high life being adored at the facility we’d left them at. Melissa kept getting phone calls about them and she’d call me everytime. We spent those 8 days trying to decide if we were going to keep them or not. Finally, after the money and energy we’d put into them we decided it was silly not to.

Ricky lived with his sister and Melissa for another week and then we met in Indio, CA for me to pick him up. We spent a night in the hotel with them and then went our separate ways in the morning. I was elated to see my little bubba all clean and happy and playing and sleeping with his sister. So, so cute. In the morning, it was heartbreaking (Melissa still won’t talk about it much) they cried and cried as we put them in separate carriers, in separate cars. My boy was crying so much I took him out and held him all the way back to Phoenix. It was so wonderful. I loved him instantly.

         
                       They were barely bigger than a Dairy Queen Spoon!                

Ricky & Lucy turn three today. I still remember when they were babies like it was just last week. I am so very happy we decided to keep them. I can’t even imagine my life without them - mostly Ricky of course, but I have a very big sweet spot for Lucy, too.

Ricky came into my life at a time when I really needed something. Still unsure of what it was, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because he’s gone and filled it.

4 mo.

Keeping him is truly the best worst decision I ever made.

Happy Birthday Rico (& Lulu)!

My parents, mostly my mom who drive 15 minutes to help out, are very generous in giving love to my pets. They are especially helpful when it comes to my very needy puppy (she’s almost three but whatever).  When she was a baby I had class on Tuesday and Thursday nights, my mom would go by my place and make sure she was ok, let her out, and give her some attention. Whenever I leave town, I just drop her by their house. When I am working late and my mom is going to the park, she’ll come pick up Abby and then bring her home again. This week, since I’ve been working all that overtime, my mom came by when she got off work (early afternoon) and took her to their house for a few hours, then I picked her up after I got off work. Abby loves it. She gets to play with their dog and usually go swimming. It makes me happy to know that Abby is ok even when I can’t give her as much attention as she’d like.

This Saturday, on my way in to work an overtime shift, I dropped Abby off at Grandma’s for the day. On the way, I got really depressed and jealous. I wanted to spend the day with her and I was sad that I haven’t spent any time playing with her in the past week. We haven’t been to the park in forever. I can’t even hold her like normal (on my lap leaning on my arm rubbing her fat pink belly) because of my shoulder.

I miss my baby.

I took my dog to the park today. Not her dog park, but to our neighborhood park. As soon as we walk up I see my dream dog and of course go right over to it. He was the cutest little cinnamon colored six week old huskie puppy with two blue eyes. To die for.  I thought Abby would run over to him and bark a few times then sniff him and roll over on her back. Instead, she didn’t even look at him but became immediately enthralled with her ball and begging me to throw it. I did. Then sat down to play with precious little Copper. Oh the puppy breath and teeth and paws to big for his body and fuzzy little fur and little buddah belly. So, so cute! Abby came back and continued to ignore the sweet little pup. Then he started whining because he wanted to play with my little brat who was not giving him the time of day. I threw the ball a few more times and Abby continued to run after it. She refused to bring it all the way back to me like normal because the puppy was in my lap or laying along side my leg. When she did bring it to me, only after much coaxing, she would growl if he came within three inches of her. She actually snapped at him twice and I was TERRIBLY embarassed!

Then my mom showed up (she was on her way to my house and saw that we were still at the park). She too awed over the puppy and held him in her lap. Abby kept ignoring him, but was always aware of where he was. If my mom talked to the puppy or held him, Abby would go butt in. If the puppy came to me, Abby would butt in. She never wanted to play with him, but she sure didn’t want him to play with anyone else.

I left feeling a little aggitated that she was being such a spoiled brat that she wouldn’t even play with a sweet little puppy. I know some of you that know my relationship with my dog are probably thinking I did this to her, but honestly, she’s always been this way - a little fussy and crabby even when she’s in a good mood. I guess I should have known based on looks like this.