Fun with kids

Tyler had a swimming party yesterday. I wish I could have observed, but I headed to Paw Prints to give Beth a relief for a few hours. While I was there, a nice couple with two little boys that reminded me of mine came in looking for a cat. They were there a while to try and find the perfect one for their family. Unfortunately, I had to leave before they made their decision, so I'm really excited to find out who they chose. Prince, the beautiful all white cat, was acting so much more friendly and social, so I really hope they chose him. They may have chose a younger and more playful one like Milo or Katy. Beth dropped her phone in the cleaning bucket so I couldn't get a hold of her....darn phones! That's what happened to mine a few months back. Big expensive mistake since I had only gotten it about six months prior. Verizon wasn't very forgiving on that one.
We went to a friend's house for dinner and let all the kids play. Theirs and ours are about the same ages, so they have a good time together. Their two older boys came home with us (with our kids too) and stayed overnight. They're now watching Andy play Wii Star Wars. I just have absolutely no interest in these sort of games so don't understand the draw to boys. Must be testosterone.
The mom cat in the basement with the five kittens is about to be named. I found lots of cute names for black, names of gems, and just cute names, some from Disney. The kittens are growing like weeds. I weighed one on Friday night and he was 6 ounces. There are three boys and two girls if I looked right....the boys are a bit bigger. Mom cat still hisses and growls at me when I come in, but she's never been aggressive or anything toward me. She was an outdoor cat and lived under a deck, so she was probably always in defense mode. I hope she warms up and realized what a posh life she could have if she just quit hissing! Once she settles, after a hiss or two, she lays down with her kittens and lets me pet her, hold her, and rub her chin.
Well, better get going on my day!

We're full, very full

I have told Beth several times that when you say that we're down cats, something will happen and our seams will be busting within days. I was right. She said we were down cats and could handle more and it's now Thursday, and we're busting. We have ten or more additional cats that we didn't plan on. Some were returns, some were expected to test positive, but nonetheless, we have many many adoptable cats. I hope it's a big adoption weekend for sure!
I am burned out on running this week, probably from such a high mileage past two weeks. It's been well over 100 miles in under three weeks. I'm tired from the running itself, tired from going outside and being on the hills for the first time in months (although I don't mind this one as it means it's nice enough to be outside), tired of getting up at 5am to do all the running, tired of being tired! It's all worth it and I hope my mental strength can hold out for a little longer. I'm working on my marathon playlist to keep me motivated while running. Some songs will be repeated and I'll have to figure out how to do this.
The NCAA tourney is going on, my hubby is missing in the house at the moment and I have 30 minutes to play Wii Sorry. I have to go, NOW!
More later, a lot more later!
Oh, and the momma and babies here are doing great. The little ones are already 5 or so ounces. I'm going to weigh them every day if I can to just see how fast they grow. They did hiss at me this morning, which is about the cutest thing to ever hear and see! It's like seeing baby chicks and bunnies.....ahh, babies. And I think my olive branch is growing leaves.

Politics and Olive Branches

New Momma with her five babies! Need names for all of them.

We will see if my olive branch was long enough to repair a relationship that was damaged by someone else. Doesn't matter who did it or why, but this is something I feel strongly about and we will see. For the sake of privacy and POLITICS, this other person/entity shall remain nameless although I'm sure some people who know what is going on could easily figure it out! We will see, we will see. At least I can rest knowing that I did my part and did what I thought would be the best thing, to make ammends and go from here.

I do not have my foster kitties any more. Monday was a really emotional yet a day filled with a ray of sunshine. There were some storm clouds, but there was that ray that shined down on my newest foster mom and her babies that were born on Sunday night. We thought they were going to test positive for feline leukemia or aids, which are deadly diseases. They were negative. Yes, some cats can live a while with aids but Paw Prints cannot handle the influx of healthy cats, so there's no way we can place cats with contagious diseases. It's a catch 22.

So anyway, we have our new mom and her five kittens. They are doing well and I think I'm gaining the mom's trust more every time I go and see her, which is several times per day. All the kittens seem to be doing well too, so that's just a good day. I have gotten used to being hissed at but then she smells my hand, purrs, and turns over so I can see her babies.

There's so much more to talk about, but I just don't have time right now. I will probably go to lecture mode in my next blog...so be prepared!

What a good week

Misti

Chocolate

Snickers

Miss Lady

Pictured from top: Misti, Chocolate, Snickers, Lady: my newest rescues and entertainment, probably the cutest kittens ever!

Before volunteering at Paw Prints, I had no idea what kind of people owned pets. Well, unfortunately I quickly learned that people adopt/buy pets who do not deserve them. Beth called me on Monday and said that the South Sioux City Animal Control had a mom cat and babies and could we help with them. Of course we could. I met Beth at AC in South Sioux. The ladies there were very nice and seemed like they really wanted to help the cats. The mom cat, now named Lady, because of the way she acts...like a true Lady, had been left in a house after the resident moved out. I assume it was a rental property and the people (I have another name for them, but can't use that sort of language on this- let's just say it's spelled like this: &*^%#!@#) left the cat and kittens there. Evidently, she was left for a few weeks. She had been at Animal Control for a week or so and wasn't doing very well.

We drove her and another little 4 1/2 month old tabby named Milo, to our vet for a check and emergency care. Milo checked out great and is looking forward to being adopted!

Lady and her three kittens, on the other hand, were not so great. She was tested for feline leukemia/AIDS and came up negative, thankfully, but was severely undernourished and dehydrated. Lady was so tired or hungry or dehydrated or sick that she just laid on the exam table and didn't seem to give two hoots about anything. Very strange for a mom cat for sure. The vet gave her fluids and we got a few cans of the super vitamin rich soft canned food for all of them. I took them home and got them all set up in my "momma/baby" room, which is the small half bathroom in my basement. It's perfect for kittens since it's warm, small, and easy to clean. Lady seemed brighter later that evening. It was such a rewarding feeling. She ate quite a bit too, which wasn't that great after I had to clean up her barf the next morning. Too much too soon for her, but that was the end of the barf thankfully. She started purring immediately and even meowed the next day. She loves to be hugged and petted. I'm so glad she's here and safe.

They all seemed to be doing better, especially Lady, until Thursday.

I was playing and cleaning with my son and noticed that one of the babies, named Snickers by my son who always wants to name kittens Snickers, was just not acting right. He seemed like he was just scooting instead of bounding around like the other two were. My radar went up since I recently had a foster baby who seemed ok except for a limp and come to find out, he was extremely sick with fever and dehydration! Anyway, I took Snickers to the vet Thursday afternoon. I almost cancelled the appointment because when I went to get him for his appointment an hour later, he seemed fine. I decided to take him anyway.

The vet determined that Snickers had a LOW temperature and was borderline dehydrated. Kittens are so suseptible to anything at this age and since they had already been compromised, they were more at risk than normal. He got some fluids and sent him home with me with instructions to make the room very warm and be sure to give them more liquids. He seems to be doing fine today, thankfully, so I am glad I paid attention to my instincts and took him to be checked out. Thank you Dr. Merritt!

I am truly enjoying these kittens. They are so adorable, it's just such a pleasure to be a part of their lives. They are so little and innocent, yet they bound around and act like they are going to show YOU who's boss! Unfortunately, they are VERY hard to photograph. I'm working on it though. I've heard them purr a few times, but most of the time, they are trying to climb my jeans. The black one is Snickers, the black one with white is Chocolate- named by my oldest son, and the grey one is named Misti, who was my horse when I grew up. She was a grey quarter horse and I could do anything with her and loved her so much, so I decided to name a kitten after her.

The Paw Prints website is really coming along too. It's been hard to find the time to take care of the baby kitties, my human babies, do all my running this week (30 miles in 4 days), paperwork for myself and Paw Prints, and maintain my sanity. Yet here I am on Friday night, sitting here with my sanity~maybe not the full tank, but at least it's not empty. It can all be done, just not all at once. Patience.

I am running my first of three 20 milers tomorrow. Hopefully it will be the last one at the gym as the snow has shrunk a ton this week. There's a lot more to go, but thankfully the temps weren't ten degrees colder this week. What a mess it could have been!

Well, I think I shall go eat a little more. Ocean's 13 is on so will probably catch a little of that before going to bed.

What a weekend

There were three cat adoptions for Paw Prints on Friday and Saturday! The new arrival, Sparrow, and two others from the store got new homes. I had the pleasure of removing them from the web page for available cats today. (www.siouxlandpawprints.com) I really want to remove Velvet, who we have had since August, when she came to us from Animal Control, starving and with a litter of kittens. What a wonderful mom she was to them and to two others she took in as her own, one of which I kept. Wait a minute, I have one of her actual kittens too so I guess that makes it two!
I did my 19 mile run yesterday morning. 190 times around that tiny little track. Maybe I can get outside next week. The warmer weather is shrinking the mountains of snow, thankfully.
I did the run in a 9 minute mile pace. I'm slightly sore today, but after figuring out that I ran 47 miles between Tuesday and Saturday, I'm surprised that I'm not more tired and sore. I did "reward" myself (or almost punish myself?) by having 3 of my favorite martinis at Luciano's with this wonderful man. It's hard to believe that I could meet and then keep such a person in my life for 12 years-we met almost exactly 12 years ago, March 14 1998. I don't feel worthy most of the time of all he is and does, but I'm so lucky and happy, truly satisfied, that he picked me and loves me every day and isn't afraid to tell me. I am going to dedicate a blog to him shortly...in the next few weeks. It's funny how he is the steady one, the one who maintains his cool, when I am the roller coaster of emotions pretty much all time. That's the way I am though, the way I was made. My highs are high, and my lows are low, lots of passion. I'm up, I'm down, I'm a one-woman circus sometimes, but he's always there loving me. Sigh, I love you, Andy!

I wasn't planning to write about that, but it's interesting how the words come and a subject creates itself. It all started with me having a sense of gratitude towards myself. I'm very hard on myself, I have extremely high expectations, higher for myself than I do anyone else. But after this week and the entire marathon training, I feel so lucky...lucky doesn't seem like the best word....probably blessed is the best word to describe how I feel. Maybe grace is more like it. I have something that is given to me without me deserving it. I have a very strong healthy body and I did nothing special to get it. I do take care of it for the most part in spite of my addiction to jalepeno kettle chips and an ice cold beer. I feel so thankful that I have the body that can carry me, injury free, for 19 miles in one morning at the gym. AND I am able to walk after and enjoy my life with my family. The only "one" I can thank for this is God. So thank you God for all you have given me without me deserving it, but I am taking care of it and appreciate all you have truly blessed me with.

Now I'm going to make an apple pie for my dad. Today is his 62nd birthday so we are going to their house for a pork roast dinner. Yum! Happy Birthday, Dad. We love you!

What a week!

What a busy week! I have to give kudo's here before I write anything else.

I am so proud of Beth for
1) Being a founder of Siouxland Paw Prints Rescue
2) Blogging for the past several days!
Way to go and it's very interesting reading.
Check this blog out at www.diaryofacatrescuer.blogspot.com I am a follower on this blog, so become a follower if possible!

I am going to have it available on the new website of Paw Prints too! Check that site our at www.siouxlandpawprints.com The site will have more information on it in the coming weeks, but photos of the available kitties are on it as well as our current address and such. Steph Storm is the one who has done most of the work on this, so thank you to her! I'm sure there will be many adoptions this weekend, so check them out whether or not you plan to adopt! What a bunch of sweethearts.

In Paw Prints news, we were in the news twice this week. Once was on Sunday for a short blip of a story and once on Tuesday. It was a 2 minute story and covered our goals. Thank you Zach from KTIV! We appreciate your attention to the importance of what Paw Prints is trying to accomplish.
I can't blog here without mentioning my running.....today was my 9 mile race pace run. I ran the 9 miles in 73.5 minutes, exactly the same as I did last week. That's just over an 8 minute mile pace. Can I handle that for 26.2 miles? I sure hope so! I have a 19 mile run (yes, nineteen) in the morning. I got a 24 hour pass to the gym so I can go before 8. I hope to have many many miles done by then!
Well, I must play with my boys now, all three of them. I have been working with cat stuff, birthday parties, and other things this week so it's time to take a work break and focus on what is the most important in my life, family.
I will report back after the weekend.

Paw Prints in the news

There was a small story about Paw Prints on KCAU last night. Another story should be running on KTIV this week as well. Yeah! Good thing about press releases. We'll see what happens with it.

I've been sick again this week so have taken THREE days off from running. Back to it tomorrow for a 9 miler. I did have a fast 9 miler last week at 73 minutes. I was happy with that!

Lots more adoptions and lots of new cats coming in. I'm going to start working on the web page this week so hope to have it up and running in the next two weeks. I have no idea how hard it's going to be, but I at least hope to get some basic info out and donation opportunities.

Well, more later!