A Happy Life

When I was growing up, I always imagined myself in a big house, with lots of kids and of course a handsome husband. It's funny how things are different than what I thought, but as I approach 40 my goal is to have a happy life.

My house isn't big, but honestly I wouldn't want it much bigger because that would be more space I'd have to keep clean. Our house has enough room for the 3 of us, plus the cats, along will all of Emily's stuff (mine and Todd's too but she has more!)

My marriage is happy, even after nearly ten years. I adore Todd and he seems to be fond of me too, of course. Our family was completed many years ago with the birth of Miss Emily and we have three cats who are her furry, little siblings.

Todd mostly likes his job. Like most people, he has bad days and good. I really don't like my job but I'm able to work part-time which gives me time to do other things as well as rest when I need to. Of course, I do have chronic pain and Todd has MS. But I try and not let my pain get me too down. Plus Todd's been in remission since the initial diagnosis so he tends to ignore it.

Emily is a happy kid. She has lots of friends at school, loves learning and loves being a Girl Scout. It's a joy to be her mom and watch her grow. But I'm glad there is just one of her. One and done as far as kids go works best for us.

We don't make a ton of money but we make enough to be able to do fun things. We go to conventions, mostly Dragon Con, and Disney World. We are hoping to make it over to Italy in about five years. Todd wants to start seeing the world. I want to start visiting the Disney parks around the world, so same thing.

I suffer from depression and anxiety so some days the clouds get really dark and stormy in my head. But all in all, I have a happy life. It's something to remember on the not so good days.

Our Newest Addition!

Our family is growing! Not with kids, one kid is enough for us. But it's been about a week since we adopted our newest cat!

When I was growing up, we always had dogs. I'm not a huge fan of dogs and always wanted a cat. We adopted our first cat, Star, right after we bought our house. Willow was adopted as a kitten after we got married and then we brought Sam home when Emily was about three.

Our Star kitty passed away a couple of years ago and he left a hole in our family. Todd didn't want to get another cat though - he's a dog person. But a few months ago, he decided that he would like to have another cat.

My dear husband tends to research a bunch and starting looking at available cats in the area. We decided to wait until after Christmas to get a new cat because of the tree and because were going to be going out of down for Christmas day. We also decided not to adopt a kitten, but instead an older cat.

The weekend of the big snowstorm, Todd happened upon the profile of a kitty named Sirius Black. He contacted the shelter he was at, and he and Emily went to look at him as soon as they were open again which was last Tuesday. They came home with him, and we couldn't be happier!

Sirius Black is a black kitty who is two years old. He's very affectionate and loves getting pets. Willow was indifferent to our new addition - she tends to ignore everyone unless she wants something. Sam was not happy, but he's mellowed out in regards to Sirius and it's only been a week since he came home.

 Our cats are members of our family. We talk to them and they talk back (especially Willow - she's a big talker). Emily is very happy and Sirius loves her because she protected him from Sam when Sam was trying to display his dominance. 

Our family is complete again!

My Ghost Adventures - Ghost Cat

Last year, I did a series of all the paranormal experiences I've had over the years, from my childhood basement to the fact that I now live in a haunted house. But I had a new experience yesterday that I thought I'd write about.

We used to have three cats. Star was the first cat we adopted after we had bought our house. We added Willow to the family after our wedding and then Sam a few years ago.

Back in December 2013, I found Star had passed away. He had been sick for a while but the vet couldn't figure out what was wrong. It was probably old age. The really crappy shelter we got him at didn't know how old he was, and actually thought he was a girl until we took him to be fixed. We were told he was fixed, and was a boy.

We all were very sad, even the other cats really mourned his passing. He was such a sweet boy.

Now, we do live in a haunted house but it's a human who hangs out in the bathroom. I've never had any inkling that Mr. Star was still with us until last night.

It was after I had gotten Emily to bed and I had been walking from my bedroom to the kitchen. As I was walking, I felt a cat pass by my legs. I didn't really think much of it, until I looked down. It was a black cat, my Star.

I went into the living room. Sam, who is orange, was asleep in the car and Willow, who is grey and white, was asleep on the arm of the chair.

Of all the paranormal experiences I've had over the years, I've never seen an actual spirit before. It wasn't scary at all, but I felt happy and comforted that my sweet boy was still around.

Next up - The Moving Flower!

Emily and The Cats

When we first got our house, both Todd and I got a pet. I got our Star kitty and he got a dog that kept trying to bite us in the face. We took the dog back because he wasn’t a good fit for us. We adopted our second cat, Willow, after we got home from our honeymoon.

I love my cats and I was a little afraid that they would be weirded out once we brought Emily home when she was a baby. They adjusted quickly and all was well. Even when Emily was very small, we taught her to be gentle with the cats.

A few years ago we decided that Emily was old enough that we could get another cat. We picked out a small orange kitten and named him Sam. Even though Emily was good with our other cats, the addition of a kitten was probably a little too early. Sam was young and so is Emily so there was a bit of an adjustment period.

We continue to stress that Emily needs to be nice to the cats. She has gotten scratched before because she tried to do something that wasn’t nice (like pulling on Sam’s tail) and we would patch her up, but not punish Sam at all because he was just defending himself.

She’s pretty good now and likes petting any cats that happen to be in my lap or Todd’s. She knows that our cats are part of our family and that we need to be nice to them.

Misadventures When Working From Home

Emily with our cat, Willow

For me, working from home is a lot like working in a call center. I have coworkers that I talk to over a chat program, I have one boss and a set schedule. My husband works 2^nd shift so generally he’s around if Emily needs anything. Sometimes Todd does have class or needs to leave for work early. Since Emily is four, she is pretty good about playing quietly with her toys while I’m working.

There have been a few incidents were she has damaged the calm of my office. One time, Todd was at class and she tried to change to regular TV. She pushed a wrong button which caused the TV to turn up to full volume. That didn't take me too long to fix though.

The other day we had our biggest issue to date. Todd had left for work and I was working a little over because I was stuck on a long call with a customer who really was clueless. About a minute after Todd left, I heard Emily start to wail. I quickly put my customer on hold to see what was the matter and found that one of our cats had scratched her.

We have three cats, two of whom have been around since before Emily was born. We do our best to have her realize that the cats are living beings and not playthings. But she has been trying to carry around our oldest cat, Star, around lately. He’s usually really gentle with her but he must have not wanted to be picked up so he scratched her.

It wasn't that bad but my child thinks any boo-boo is the end of the world. I hurried to get off my call and finish my shift but it took a while. It was hard because Emily kept crying but I had to finish that call.

Once I got off work, I saw that the scratch was bleeding so I got a band-aid on it. I snuggled her while we watched her current favorite show, Teen Titans Go. She was fine but it was hard to work hearing her cry outside my door. 

Hopefully that will be the worst misadventure we have!