aging and pets

Last night, I went to start the shower and noticed that the bath mat was all messed up. When I pulled it out to straighten it, I found a mess. Cat urine and poop.

My heart sunk. I know Pumpkin is getting older. She's 12 years old now. I've noticed a decline in her activity levels over the past year or so, and contributed it mostly to the move to the new house and the dog-- less familiarity with her surroundings, and less freedom to roam about simply because every time she emerges from the bedroom, the dog shows up wanting to be friends but mostly causes the cat to observe us from the safe zone or run back into the bedroom and hide. I hate that. She rarely goes outside anymore because she wasn't familiar with the new yard/neighborhood by the time the dog came around. I knew this adjustment would not be easy but didn't realize it would affect her activity level so much.

Either way, I've been very aware that the cat is getting older and might not have many years left. While she does have plenty of spunk, I've been paying attention to it, maybe just because I don't want to be blindsided if her health does decline.

At any rate, incontinence is NOT a good sign. In her 12 years, Pumpkin has NEVER pooped in an inappropriate place. Which was alarming. It's not her usual way. I assumed that this was the beginning of the inevitable decline.

I was gearing up towards full-on internal panic/worry mode, when Chris reminded me that Andy was outside in the back yard all day. Which means that every time Pumpkin attempted to exit via the cat door, Andy heard it and was right there on the other side waiting for her to emerge. We think that she probably tried to go outside, but was thwarted by the dog at every attempt. (Cat's thoughts: Dammit dog I just need to take a crap) We don't keep the litter box available anymore because of the cat door, so she had to resort to relieving herself inside the house. A logical and incredibly probable situation.

After that, I was so relieved that Pumpkin was probably not incontinent with failing health, and also relieved that she chose the bath mat instead of the bed. In the meantime, we brought back the litter box just in case this situation does happen again.

My feelings towards the dog change on a daily basis. Some days she's cool. Some days all I can think of is how damn inconvenient the dog is. Doesn't even let the cat go outside and totally ruins my carefully cultivated plans for litterbox-less-ness. Pain in my ass.

I'm mentally concocting a method to allow for the cat's freedom, even while the dog is in the back yard. Possibly some kind of barrier separating the cat door from the rest of the back yard that can be set up when we leave. Which is another incredibly annoying thing to have to think about just because of the dog, but at this point I have to think of solutions to the problems she creates.

Cat, you can't die yet and leave me alone with this dog-ful house. I need you as an ally.

active

Who needs a gym membership when you have an old house and a huge yard?
My muscles are feelin' the sweeping and raking and pulling weeds and painting and everything else we do around here. If I stop mid-clean, my little heart is pumpin' just like I'm getting a workout. Yeah. I'm that hardcore.
In other exercise news, now that I'm driving to work, I walk a little bit more to get to the parking garage. I've also been trying to take the stairs more. My old rule was if it was less than 3 floors down, I'd take them. Less than 2 floors up, I'd take them. Any more than that and the risk for being out of breath/breaking a sweat was too great. Now, I take them unless it's a whole bunch of floors.

Getting in the mood for spring cleaning. Dead bugs hiding behind the blinds on the windowsills? Prepare to be swept away!... and so on and so forth. I hope I can keep my sanity as everything will inevitably get filthy right after I clean it. Now that it's warmer, cat and dog hair is everywhere. At least I have Roomba.

Speaking of, he has no problem jumping the threshold to the back porch when we leave the door open. We've had to rescue him several times. Every time he ends up out there, I can't help but think of this scene from Wall-E. Poor little guy.

So anyway, who would have thought my obsession with clean would actually be sneaky exercise?

Boring ass Saturday recap

Adultful things done today:

-Quarterly review of the finances. I figured it was necessary since I planned to put my bonus into savings, but it disappeared. Meaning we spent it before it even hit the bank account, somehow. Upon review, over 1k spent on groceries this year? Yeah, we can probably cut back on that. And so on and so forth.

-Cleaned out the gutters. Well, Chris did. They were basically trough-shaped aerial weed gardens. Before venturing outside I went to grab sunscreen, but I threw out all of our expired sunscreen a few weeks ago and it turns out apparently all of it was expired. I tried to stay out of the sun but alas, it always gets me. I bought a tube of SPF 100 this evening (ALL the potential protection!), after the damage was done. Coconut oil helped after last weekend's sun exposure, so I'm back to slathering it on again. I love that stuff. It can do no wrong.

-Put a "No Soliciting" sign on the door. Everyone is always really nice when asking if you want a free estimate for paint, windows, etc, but it really is getting ridiculous. The other night we got a knock on the door at like 8pm and it was already dark and Chris was justifiably rude to the guy. Not to mention the menus and flyers and business cards always littering the front porch. Enough already.

Regular things done today:

-Frankish stopped by for a bit and it was good to chat with him for a while. I miss him. He said he liked the bathroom mirror, and then asked if the walls were pink, haha. Gotta love the effort.

-Chris keeps trying to pause the move We're The Millers at the part where Jennifer Aniston takes her pants off. He can just get the picture on the internet if he wants. Men.

Fighting the natural fatigue that comes with too much fresh air and sunshine. The wine isn't helping.

sistah

Put in my request today for PTO for Suzy's graduation! I miss my suzy bear. I wish I got to spend more time with her the last time she was here.
Only a couple more weeks, really. You got this Sug!

Work baby shower

My coworkers and I threw a baby shower for our other coworker today. It is pretty hard to throw a  baby shower at work. I figured out that it's much easier if you simply lower your expectations/standards.You can only haul so much stuff into work.

The following are obligatory shots of a conference room with streamers and food, plus the diaper cake I made that only kind of fell apart:

Overall, it served its purpose because she got gifts + food, and I'm glad it's over. I think she felt loved and special.

I spent most of the day gorging on leftover junk food and I'm pretty sure I just need to eat vegetables only tomorrow because the bloat is real. You know, after I finish my wine.

determined gardening

Woke up with a dick of a headache, but it stopped raining and the sun was trying to peek through. I was determined to plant flowers.

I took a bunch of drugs, then went to Home Depot to get a few things + flowers. I looked everywhere, but was unable to locate much else besides impatiens and petunias. Definitely no vincas.

Disappointed but not deterred, we headed to the local nursery. There was much more variety, but still no vincas. Thinking that it might just be too early in the season for them (last year I spotted them in stores during the summertime), I headed back into the greenhouses. After a short search, I located their telltale leaves. After confirming with one of the employees that there were no larger vincas, I got two pallets of the baby vincas.
I was planting them today, darn it! We also brought home a citrus tree. I wanted a lemon tree but Chris wanted a different one, and either way they're useful, so it came home. The flowers smell lovely.

The sun poked through, and I rounded up the dog and the cat for mandatory fresh air, then dug the holes for the flowers.

Each side got two rows of flowers, alternating between a blush color and a pink color. Or, at least, that's what the tags said. We'll know for sure once they bloom! IF they bloom!

Hopefully soon visitors will be greeted with pretty flowers instead of empty dirt.

sugar and plants and social graces

Eating some of those reject brownie balls from the choochoo leftovers. P.S. Here's how the choo choos turned out.

The reject balls are ugly, and plenty sweet. Probably too sweet.

It's weird. If I avoid sugar for a while the cravings go away, but the second I indulge, BAM the cravings come back full force and I'm craving brownies for breakfast.
I had Beaver Nuggets for breakfast yesterday. The boys stopped at Buccees and Chris was sweet enough to buy me a bag since I pretty much hunker down and oink my way through them. Actually, that's the excuse he usually uses to NOT buy me beaver nuggets. But he indulged me this time.
BTW, I ate pecan pralines for breakfast the day before that.
Disgusting but I can't stop myself.

I got seeds planted a bit late, but I'm seeing sprouts. Parsley is taking its sweet time but the others popped up right away.

 
I'm going to let them get a bit bigger (ie more sturdy) before planting them outside. I had luck with that last year, so here's hoping. The squirrels seem to leave my pots alone at this house, too. Maybe simply because there are fewer of them.

Chris' friend just left this morning, so that means I get to hang out in my underwear bra-less again. He was fun and a good houseguest, though. I enjoyed having him around. He even lined up the shoes at the door. A guest who indulges/shares my OCD whims can stay as long as they want. Of course though it's pretty realistic for a Marine who just got out to be uber tidy. Either way, I'll take it.
With him and Chris occupied doing man things, I was able to use my free time to get a bunch of stuff done. I finally got a pair of jeans that fits, hung out with my mom, checked out the new Trader Joe's, bought a baby shower gift + the supplies to throw one at work, caught up on laundry, went grocery shopping, cleaned up the front flower beds, etc. Very productive and it's just now Saturday.

Of course the baby shower today will take up the entire afternoon. I keep telling myself that I CAN NOT bail on this. Even though it's about an hour away. But I already have the gift. But it's the entire afternoon. And it's raining. And I haven't spent any quality time with Chris. But I bailed on her twice already for other things. But I'm throwing her a shower at work on Tuesday so that will redeem myself, right? But it's pretty lame to flake again. But... let's face it, I am a flake. But I insisted on being invited to the baby shower. Merp. If history prevails, I'll tell myself I'm going to go all day, until it's time to get ready and then I'll say fuck it. But we'll see. If Chris is busy studying I might as well go. There, it all depends on Chris.

The dishwasher is making a different noise than usual. Not necessarily louder or bad, but different.