Halloween: Part Two

I didn't have either battery in my cameras charged. On Halloween. Mom FAIL. (my sisters will say it is hereditary)

Sam was Minnie Mouse for Halloween.

Charlie was Alice in Wonderland for Halloween.

She never really stopped moving, this was the best picture I could get.

Sam peed herself while Trick-or-Treating and so that made for an early night.

Charlie spent most of the evening after they got home screaming at me because she wanted more candy. Girl after my own heart.

Sam did this earlier in the day, earning herself a bath.

Charlie has decided that she is never ever ever going to bed again.

Hope ya'll had a great Halloween!!

Halloween: Part One

My office had Trick-or-Treating last Friday.

No, I don't have any good super cute pictures of my kids in their Halloween costumes. I'll try again later today.

I do have this video of Sam, taken after she had about 20 minutes of unsupervised time with her C-A-N-D-Y.

To get the full effect, you have to have your volume turned up.
Disclaimer: To get the full effect, you have to have your volume turned up.



What? She likes to scream.

See Ya Felix

So, I accidentally adopted a cat. I named him Felix. Workaholic named him Roger.

3 hours after I brought Felix home, Sampson was found. Yay for Sampson! Not so yay for Felix.

It isn't that there was anything wrong with Felix, I just didn't want two cats. Especially if one of the cats was going to be inside all the time, as that means the litter box (s) have to be cleaned out a lot more often. And I hate litter boxes.

So I let him go outside. Felix, that is. Sampson always goes outside, and generally, for the most part, he finds his way home. Except for that one time when he didn't and I went out and took in another cat.

So one night, I see Felix and Sampson and Fonz and Kale outside, and it was a nice night, and so me and the girls decide to take a walk. I was going to take the dogs, but didn't want Felix following us. He didn't need to expand his horizons. (or so I thought)

I tried to catch him, and of course the damn cat didn't want to be caught. He ran under my deck. At which point I said, "Fuck it", and left him home.

Or so I thought.

Instead of staying home, Felix followed us. At a great distance, but he followed us. All the way to the end of my street. (which, to be fair, is only about 6 houses down) Again, I tried to catch him, because I like my neighbors and I didn't want another black cat stalking their houses pooping in the yards. But the damn thing refused to be caught. And I refused to chase a stupid cat.

So I let him go. And sort of forgot about him.

After the weekend, I realized he was still gone, and promptly forgot about him again. A couple of days later, I started taking more walks to the end of my street, and finally one of my neighbors asked if I was looking for my black cat. I hung my head and admitted that yes, I was indeed looking for my black cat. Not the one I have that always comes home (except for that once) but a new one. Who apparently doesn't know his way home.

And this is when something happened and I decided I didn't care if he pooped in her yard. She told me that she had been feeding him. And letting him sleep in her garage.  No wonder he didn't come home! Let's see...his choices were either a) have free roam of several rodent infested yards and free food and a warm/dry place to sleep at night, or b) being locked up in a house with 2 dogs, 2 kids, and another cat who hates you. Hell, I'd choose A too!

This neighbor stopped short of saying that she wanted to keep Felix, but she offered to bring him down whenever she found him.  (Little did I know that meant that she would walk down, put him in my yard, and then he would follow her home.) She actually said that she would love to keep him, but she was allergic. I made no secret of my desire to re-home the adorable little kitty, but knew ultimately he was still mine.

Fast forward another few weeks and I have only seen him once for a couple of days because another neighbor called when he saw him. I had long before made an appointment at the vet for Felix to get a booster shot, and it was time to take him in. I walked down to my neighbor's yard and looked for him, and shamefully rang the doorbell to see if she had seen him.

And guess what? The reason why he wasn't outside in the yard was because he was inside her house! He had food and water dishes and a litter box and he slept with her every night! He even brought her dead mice as gifts! Every day!

I was so overjoyed I couldn't be annoyed that my neighbor basically stole my cat. I took him to the vet, and immediately returned him to her, with paperwork. All she had to do is send in his microchip paperwork stating he is hers, and I am back to one cat. Wa-hooo!!!!

Regressed

Do you remember way at the end of last year when I was all, "I'm going to simplify my life." ? Yeah...I sort of regressed.

I knew at the time that the Simplification Project wasn't really going to work. I knew that there was a good chance that my husband would be taking on a HUGE project to do in his "spare time", and that project indeed did happen.

So the past 9 months have been a whirlwind of constant work for my poor husband. We did get away to Puerto Rico for a long weekend, and there have been other occasional days off here and there, but for the most part, him and his dad have been working 7 days a week since the beginning of February.

In the past 9 months, (since I am sooo smart) I pretty much gave up any sense of simplifying. I got another dog. I got another cat. (I gave away the 2nd cat the other day, wa-hoo!!!!) I've shopped relentlessly, to the exhaustion of my credit cards and bank account. My house was bursting at the seams with disorganization. But since Workaholic has "slowed down", things have gotten better. (Slowed down being relative, he now is working 6 days a week instead of 7, and usually only 12 hour days instead of 15.) He gets in these moods where he just does a clean sweep. Often that means putting things in closets and drawers, instead of sitting out on the counter. But it looks so. much. better.

Lately I've had a nasty case of writer's block. Of course, I only get it when it is time to sit down and write. When I am wandering around my house, folding laundry, or in the shower, or trying to sleep, I write the most greatest fan-tab-u-lous posts in my head. I tell you all these funny stories about what the girls or dogs or cats have done and people post it on Twitter and I get a gillion new followers.

What are those funny stories, you ask? Umm....well, there was the day that Sam took a brand new bottle of baby powder and emptied it. In her room. On her carpet. And herself. (How does a 2 year old get baby powder on her back??) Or there was the time that Kale was running into the house, at full speed, and didn't realize that the sliding glass door was closed. THUMP! And then one three nights Charlie pooped in the bathtub. Twice. Each time. (She hasn't had a bath since, showers all the way now. Although she still poops in the shower. Gross.) And Sampson. Well, he really hasn't done anything funny or cute lately. He is just being his dog/cat self. Which is pretty cool. I am quite interested in seeing how he handles the (much) colder weather and the snow, if he'll still want to go out as much. Felix, the new cat, found himself a new home down the street. So that was awesome. I dropped him off for the last time the other day. His new owner's daughter told me that the cat is now at the top of the list, as in...#1-cat, #2-dog, #3-kids, #4-husband. As it should be.

There also are not-so-funny stories. Fonz turned 12 last month. I knew he would get old. I did, I swear. But it makes me so sad seeing it happen. In the past year, he has dropped about 10lbs. I increased his food, and he gained maybe a pound. He had his annual well visit with our beloved vet Dr. P, and she noticed muscle loss in his hind end. Which helps to explain why his back legs give out on him sometimes. She also did the nerve test where you flip over his feet and see how long it take to right them. He didn't right his left hind foot. Workaholic says it is because he is so obedient, we put his foot in a position that he was waiting for permission to flip it. (Of course, I couldn't replicate it when I was showing Workaholic, so maybe he is right!) But that also explains the weakness in his back end.

Fonz is also now almost completely deaf. He can't hear you when you call, it is super easy to startle him when you walk up behind him, and when I give him commands, it has to be hand signals. Otherwise he just ignores me. (Good thing I taught him those years ago.) He has this weird tremor thing going on too. Every once in a while, he'll just be standing or laying there, and his head starts to tremble. It only last a second or two, but he is definitely unstable at that point. And can't move. Dr. P says that it could be seizures or just a palsy thing. Whatever that is. It makes me sad. I don't like it, not one little bit.

I know that Fonz's symptoms could have been gradually coming on for a while now, especially the deafness. But it just seemed to hit me like a brick wall this summer. First there was the mysterious toe infection. Then an ear infection. Then pneumonia. When all of that seemed to go away, he started trembling and completely not listening. Sigh. I am hoping he'll just stay the course now for the next couple of years. I don't expect his hearing to come back, or for his nerves to magically repair themselves. But hopefully things don't get any worse.

On a bright note, Halloween is coming! And the leaves are changing colors and being all beautiful! On a not-so-bright note, um...winter is coming. I can handle the snow. I can, really. What I can't handle is the cold that snow requires. And the length of winter. Why can't summer be as long as winter? It just seems to last for-ev-er.  And ever and ever and ever.

Next Friday I am taking the girls in to my office for our annual Trick-or-Treating at work. I love it. The little kids all look so damn cute, and the girls have adorable costumes this year. I did NOT sync their costumes, one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, there are plenty of years left for that. So I'll be sure to post super duper cute little girl costume pictures. Because my girls are cute. Or did you not know that?

OK folks, enough update for one day. I'll try to post tomorrow. I am going to Purdue football homecoming, so that may not actually happen, but we'll see. I'll try. I'll try to come up with a good story. And actually write it down instead of keeping losing it in my head.