Cats and Home

Mr. Sir has been extra playful lately. It's so much fun to come home and have him waiting right in front of the door for me! Kory was at my apt the other day when I got off work and he said that when I got out of my car and locked the doors, (when I use the clicker, it honks the horn as the doors lock) Mr. Sir heard the horn and jumped up and went to the front door to sit. Precious! :)

Sir has also apparently decided he is a dog now. He wants to play fetch ALL the time, he loves having his belly scratched and will roll over so you can scratch it and just the other day I promise he was wagging his tail as he waited for me to throw his fetch toy.

He and Kabie still wrestle and fight all the time, but thankfully it's playful now and isn't mean/aggressive like it used to be. There used to be hissing and clawing, but now it just looks like a brother and sister wrestling/pouncing and having a good time. Unfortunately, this means a LOT of cat hair left on my carpet. It does force me to vacuum more often though, so I guess that's a positive thing.

We're in the process of moving Kory's stuff into my apt right now...and have been for the past couple months. It's been great that we've been able to do it a little at a time, since he's only a few apt's away from me. The problem is that we each filled up our 2 bedroom apartments, and now we're trying to combine into just one. We've each been getting rid of a TON of stuff...but it's not enough yet. Of course, it doesn't help that every day we're getting more wedding presents, which is GREAT, but that is just more stuff to try to fit in our limited space. Kory's apartment is our storage shed right now. His living room is full of all the stuff we're getting rid of and most of it will be donated to our youth group rummage sale next month.

I think we should be able to raise a good amount of money for the youth group because we had two of almost everything and now we've got a nicer, newer version of most things so we are getting rid of 2 dining room tables, 2 coffee tables, 1 entertainment center, 1 desk, 3 side-tables, 4 dining room chairs, 1 microwave, 2 toasters and a billion clothes and other small items. We've considered having our own garage sale, but ultimately we decided the money isn't worth the work. Plus, if the youth group doesn't have money for events, we'd end up donating anyhow, so it all works out the same.

The plan is to be completely moved into my apt (and out of Kory's) by the time we leave for the wedding, so we'll come back home to one, clean apartment. Oh, I can't wait to only pay rent for one place! That will be so great!!

Mr. Sir

Well my life has certainly changed over the past couple days! Meet my new roommate and best friend, Mr. Sir the kitty cat =)




Our church secretary found Mr. in the church building on Tuesday afternoon. She was showing someone the food pantry and happened to hear a very weak meow from one of the rooms she was passing. This poor little kitty was starving and very weak. He had probably been shut up in that room since Sunday, with no food or water. Whoever put him in the room wrote on the wall in Sharpie, "Joey is the cat." I think it was probably a kid, but we don't really know for sure why he was put in there.

Luckily, Jodie found him and Kory immediately got him some food and brought him to my apt. Kory asked if he could stay in my bathroom until we figured out what to do with him and I agreed, knowing he couldn't be at Kory's apartment with Kabie...because she's crazy! Not surprisingly, the second I saw this scrawny little guy, I fell in love! He is so loving and affectionate, unlike Kabie the snob. He went to the bathroom in my plant and got sick on my floor the first night, but has done great ever since. My downstairs bathroom has become his home, which works well since I always use the upstairs bathroom anyway.

He looks SO much like Kabie did when we first got here. It is a real problem because I keep calling him "Kabie" and "she". They met each other Wednesday night and it was not a pretty sight. Kabie kept hissing and snarling at him and I kept getting onto her because I thought she was being mean and was going to claw or bite him. Kory figured out that she was really scared of him and was shaking anytime he got near her. Kabie will NEVER sit in your lap or let you hold her and when she was at my apartment with Mr. Sir, she sat in Kory's lap for probably 45 minutes without moving at all. We're hoping she'll become more loving, even if out of fear or jealousy or hate.

Last night I had to do responsible, parent-like things for him...and to be honest, I'm awful at it! I forgot to buy him food because I was busy hanging out with our small group and it was 10:45 p.m. before I realized he was probably starving. Thankfully, I did feed him when I got off work at 5, but it wasn't very much because I used all the food he had. So Mr. got some of my chicken I didn't finish for dinner and warm milk. I don't even know if he can handle the chicken in his tiny little tummy, but hopefully it's better than starvation!

He has been VERY cuddly and loved rubbing up on you since the moment we got him. Turns out, part of the reason is because he is covered in fleas and is probably itching like crazy. Since we don't know how old he is, we can't give him flea medication yet. Hopefully the vet can give me an idea of how old he is next week...my very uneducated guess is about 6-7 weeks? 

So about the fleas...oh, the stinking fleas! We had our small group last night in my apt and they are a group of cat lovers!! Luckily, they know more about kittens than I do, which by the way, is easy to do! I know NOTHING about kittens or cats or  indoor pets really. I had never seen a flea before tonight and was really freaked out when Natalie told me he had fleas because I thought they were like ticks! My family only had outside pets and before I was too old, we realized we killed every animal we took in as a pet, so we took pity on the animals of this world and didn't have pets for most of my life. 

Several people in my small group told me how to bathe him and pick the fleas out with a pair of tweezers. After they all left, (which was just as we discovered Mr. was using my plant to potty in) Kory and I gave him a bath in the kitchen sink. He was GREAT! He barely fought or resisted at all. I was expecting it to be much worse! So we got quite a few fleas off him, but those things are really fast! I could barely catch them. Mr. Sir started getting really cold too so then we wrapped him in a towel and blow dried him. He didn't love this too much, but again, I expected to be clawed to death and come out bleeding, so he did great! 

Since he was doing so well with all of these chores, I decided I could just trim his claws while he was so chill. Yeah, he definitely drew the line there. No more Mr. Nice Kitty! He was not having any of that and I gave up pretty easily since he'd already had a pretty traumatic evening. He curled up and fell asleep on my lap, and that was just pretty stinking cute! 

So here I stand today, a reformed cat-hater. I went through this weird phase of life where I didn't really like animals very much, but I'm definitely over that now. This weekend will probably be spent trying to rid Mr. Sir and my apartment of fleas, as well as getting him some toys and things to make him feel more at home. I did get up early this morning and go get him some food before work, so maybe I'm not a terrible parent after all.

Birthday Weekend

**WARNING: Very long post ahead!**

I logged into my Gmail account yesterday morning and had 88 new e-mails! Yikes! It was exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Of course, I hadn't logged into my e-mail all weekend and it was my birthday, so that explains most of the e-mails: Facebook notifying me someone wrote Happy Birthday on my wall. Regardless, it is still fun to feel popular.

So, speaking of my birthday, I just had the best birthday weekend ever!! It was so fun! Kory did an awesome job. This was my Golden birthday--turned 24 on the 24th, so the stakes were high :)

Friday night I got home from work to find a bouquet of roses on the table, surrounded by a delicious supper Kory had cooked for me! It was one of my very favorites--Alice Springs Chicken. It's a dish from Outback that Kory makes, but I actually like his version better. He made it in my brand new skillet/frying pan...not sure which it is because I'm not sure what the difference is. haha Anyhow, I'm pumped because I had a really crummy old one and this new pan is awesome!

We had mini eclairs for dessert which were incredible. I had an eclair our first day in Paris that was seriously the best dessert I've ever had in my life. These mini's were a pretty good replica! After dinner we rented The Invention of Lying. I didn't love it--basically the whole premise of the movie is that God/religion is the lie upon which all other lies are founded. There were funny moments, but it's not something I'd recommend.

Saturday morning, I got to sleep in and then Kory gave me my next gift. It was this super cool soccer ball. Although I loved it, I was a little confused about why I got that as a gift...he told me to look at the features on the back of the box and this note was attached:
In case you can't read it, it says, "Do you think the beaches at Bandon are nice enough to kick this around today?"

So we took a surprise trip to Bandon for the day! Bandon is a cute little tourist town over on the coast that I have been wanting to visit for a while now. The weather was so great! Everyone warned him that it would be cold and cloudy and rainy/windy, but it was sunny and almost warm. It was a beautiful day--especially to be January. I got REALLY sick on the way to Bandon. I think it was just car sickness but I have NEVER felt that bad in my entire life. I kept making Kory pull over so I could get out and walk around/see if I could rid myself of this sickness. When we arrived in Bandon, I started to feel a bit better until I got a whiff of all the fresh seafood and that made me even more nauseous! Kory had a delicious lunch:
and this was my gourmet meal:

Luckily the 7Up and crackers did the trick and I started feeling much better. We walked down to the water and then saw some huge waves crashing in the distance. We went off in search of the huge waves and found this awesome beach!

We had so much fun playing on the jetty, walking on the beach, climbing rocks and running away from the tide.

(There are a lot more pictures on my Facebook)

After we left the beach, we went back into town to look in some of the shops and see the sights. We spent quite a while in this cute little bookstore where I found this HILARIOUS book:

Even though I enjoy Twilight, this book made me laugh so much! I would have bought it but I already have several books I have started and not finished, so I don't need to add another one to the pile.

We also got some yummy fudge and went to sit down by the water to eat it and soak up some sunshine. We headed to Coos Bay next since we had dinner reservations there. It was closer than we realized, so we had some extra time to hang out there by the ocean as well. We went to Coos Bay one time last fall, and we found one of my all time favorites spots there. There is a place with hundreds of sea lions and seals that are laying on rocks, swimming around, playing with each other and being very entertaining. I just love watching them!! Supposedly you can see whales there too, but we haven't spotted any yet.

Dinner was at Benetti's, a fancy little Italian place in Coos Bay. We were feeling adventurous since it was a special occasion, so we both tried escargot! It was covered in garlic, so it wasn't that bad. I have never even seen it before, but this was definitely not what I was expecting. You put it on bread, so you really can't taste the snails at all, mostly because of the garlic. However, at one point I bit down on something crunchy (shell??) and I about lost it. If you aren't aware, I am not an adventurous eater and I have a very sensitive stomach (read: I throw up/gag really easily). Kory begged me not to cause a scene in this very nice restaurant, so it took everything within me to keep my calm on the outside while internally really wanting to throw up and gag and make disgusting sounds. I thought I did great--Kory said I did decent.

You got a free dessert for your birthday and we knew this because there had already been two birthdays that evening. Kory scored me a free dessert minus the singing, so that was great! It was SOO good! I wish I could remember what it was called...but just trust me, it was awesome.

We drove back to Myrtle Creek after dinner. Sunday morning we got up and went to church together. We only had a few kids in class so we treated them all to donuts. I got all the donut holes they had in the shop for my b-day! :) So yummy! The kids sang Happy Birthday to me...a bit rough sounding but very sweet. The preacher also decided the entire congregation should sing to me before services were over, so that was a good time :) It's great to be loved though, so I appreciate it.

I got my final gifts when we got home from lunch. I got a pair of Toms shoes from Kory and a new iPod Nano from my parents! I love them both and am so excited to use them :) I had a pretty lazy day on my actual birthday. We laid around and watched Food Network, Extreme Makeover, Man vs. Wild and What Women Want. So I ate and watched TV/Movies all afternoon and evening. That is my kind of day! Kabie cuddled with me on the couch during Extreme Makeover, which is a huge deal. We're trying to teach her to love people and to enjoy being held/cuddling, so it's exciting when she will do it and not run away from you. I like to think that was her birthday gift to me.

SO...if anyone actually made it through this entire post, you can see that I had a magnificent day! I'm excited about 24. I actually feel like a young adult--not a college student anymore. Not that anything in my life will really change, but I do feel older now!

Holiday Pictures

I always made fun of people who dressed their animals in costumes, but this was so worth paying $1 for the Santa suit.

Kabie loved being in his sweater. She laid down there forever and almost went to sleep. I think she must have liked that it was warm in there.

My Christmas tree finally got some presents underneath it this past week.


Presents under the tree at our church building to give away to struggling families in our community as a part of our Christmas Service.
The kids sang several Christmas carols and were hilarious. I love that kids they can sound terrible and still be so stinking cute!

At our youth group Christmas party, one of the middle school girls did face painting. She did a great job!

Random Thoughts about Christmas & Summer

I am getting very excited to fly home for Christmas this week! I fly out Christmas Eve morning, so the airports might be pretty crazy. We'll drive to Portland after our youth group Christmas party on Wednesday night. My flight leaves at 7:25 a.m. so it's going to be a very early morning after a very late night. BUT being home with family for Christmas will make it all worth it!

We had our Christmas Service and Giving Event last night and it went really well! We had 30 families and 91 children who received food boxes and Christmas gifts. We also had a fun program with Christmas carols, skits, an awesome music video, stuffed animals for each of the kids, a children's version of the Christmas story and an awesome message about Peace on Earth from Kory. I have a few changes I'd like to make to our program next year, but it still went really well, especially for my first year organizing it.

Kabie (Kory's kitten) is a definitely a female. That girl has some insane mood swings. One day she loves being held and will fall asleep in your arms or lap and follow you around and loves affection. The next day, she runs from you and refuses to let you touch her and will go crazy if you try to pick her up. Maybe she is still adjusting to her new home and owners? Perhaps we need a visit from the Cat Whisperer. Does that even exist? I know they have one for dogs and horses.

A lady at work recently asked if I had a Master's or just a Bachelor's and I said "Oh, I just have a Bachelor's." Then another lady piped in, "JUST a Bachelor's?? What do we have? None of us have a degree period." :) Thank you! I worked stinking hard for that degree.

I am so ready for summer! Now that I know how wonderful Oregon is in the summer-time, I am planning so many fun trips and activities as soon as we get some warm weather. I am becoming a pale Pacific Northwesterner...but not in the cool, vampire way. I want to go camping on the coast, swim a lot, visit Crater Lake, go white-water rafting, see the Redwoods, hit Cannon Beach, float the river, go to SU Falls where you can slide down the waterfall, hike a 14er or two, and definitely spend lots of time chilling in the water that is so abundant around here! Oh sweet summer...come quickly!!

Kory's Xmas Present