My kitty cat

Smog, a cheeky and cherished kitty. 2008 - 2017

I lost my beautiful kitty last week. It's been a pretty horrible week but time waits for no woman, so I've had to "get back on the horse" in terms of going to work each day and getting through the day. Still, it's not really getting any easier. I miss my naughty boy.

Just today when thinking about updating this blog, I was reminded of this below average quality poem I wrote in 2005 after losing my childhood kitty (she got to age 18 though, unlike my boy above who was only 9). I thought I'd share the poem:

Back in your box - 11/8/2005

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Baby in a box

You touched her hand so tenderly

Tentatively

You knew not where you went

But you felt safe enough to return her gesture of kindness

A little one

Left alone at such a young age

Your sister gone

Who knows who had the better fortune

You or her

But we all know you had great fortune indeed

My little one

A face I cannot imagine forgetting

But I bet the image will fade in time

I think I need another thousand photos

To remember you by

Before we put you back in your box

And bury you

Anyway...my plan is to make a big photo book of my boy's life, to remember him by. I'm not really the type to bring ashes home, and don't have much room to bury pets in my back yard (it's mostly paved). So I will have to hang onto his collar and paw print given by the vet, even though it totally does not look like the Smoggy paws I knew so well. I will have to flip through his photo book once I have that done, and hang onto his memory.

A to Z 2015 - "O" Photos

Day #15 of the A-to-Z means O-Day! For my "O" theme, I opted to show some pictures of things that are...

Orange

        

A to Z 2015 - "B" Photos

I'm back for Day 2 of the A-to-Z 2015, and today's letter is "B".

I decided (last minute, as usual) to do a photography theme this year. For my letter B, I chose "Blue", which is my favourite colour. Here are some 'blue' photos:

Blue

Editing ctd., sort of (and foster kitty)

Since my last update, I've done a bit more editing - but since the weekend began, I haven't done any. Tonight I hope to get some more done, but I had a terrible night's sleep last night, with kitty rescue "stuff to do" pestering my mind, so I guess we'll see. :P

This morning while I was trying to get back to sleep after two hours awake and tinkering with said "to do stuff", one of my foster kitties, Maurizio, decided it was time to play his new favourite game - Tug on the Bit of Carpet That Isn't Meant to be Lifting But Is! It's an awesome game, sure, but at around 5:30 am on very little sleep I wasn't as in the mood for it as I usually might be! So I got my kitty spray bottle ready for the next time he started up with his tugging.

Of course he somehow sensed this was going on, because he quit the game immediately. But not wanting to encourage a later continuation, I locked him and the other fosters out of my room anyway, and managed maybe 40 minutes more sleep before my alarm went off.

So that's where I'm at today - sleep deprived, but reasonably happy I guess. And I have chocolate in my drawer here at work - I can tell you right now I won't be waiting till Chocolate Friday to crack that open (it's only Wednesday).

Maurizio, my stunning foster boy.

NaNoWriMo ~ Slowly she goes

As of the end of Day #18 (yesterday), I had written 37,556 words.

I have slowed right down to barely 1k a day, because this is all I require to hit 50k by the end of November. I think I wrote about 1200 words yesterday.

It's possible I won't finish the novel by November's end, but I'll definitely hit 50k!

I'm still enjoying the story, but I guess I am slightly burned out with other stuff going on in my life - namely, kitty rescue stuff - so it's all I can do to hit that small amount of words.

Today we are rescuing at least 12 cats (including at least 10 kittens).
There are 8 kittens with no mum, in one lot.
The other kittens are with a mum - all I know is that there's plural kittens there, but not sure how many.
We are also rescuing an old boy who looks sore, tired, and in need of serious TLC.

I volunteer with a bunch of awesomely generous and caring people. But it takes a lot of coordination to make a rescue like today's happen.

First we have to find a rescue to take on the cats. We also have to find a carer if the rescue doesn't have one available. We always try to have carers sorted first, so we can 'entice' our affiliated rescues to take the new kitties on. ;) Then we get to think about how to collect kitty from the pound. We have to organise transport, which often involves multiple people participating in a "transport relay", as is happening today.

I guess that's the challenging part, but after rescue, we also need to get the kitties healthy, get their vetwork done, and find them a forever home! And while we're doing all this, we have to find room for new cats coming into pounds weekly.

But it's very rewarding to be a part of this. Here's an e.g. of why:

One of our little foster babies in care at the moment - Webster.
Look out on Facebook for his very own page, coming soon. ;)

2 kittens down, 2 to go ;)

♥Champagne♥

Back on May 15th I posted about one of my foster kittens being rehomed.

At the time it was 1 down and 3 to go.

Now I've rehomed two, and have two to go!

I'm pleased to say that Batman's sister, the super-awesome Champers,
has now been rehomed as well. :) A lovely young guy secretly
arranged to adopt Champers for his girlfriend's birthday
(she had spotted Champers and said "I want that one!",

so no fear that he was making a mistake).

Apparently the girlfriend shed happy tears
when she and the kitty met for the first time. ;)

One of the admin ladies from the rescue I work with

made this picture up for Champers:

Anyway, I have to say that my house is very quiet without Champers,

and I miss her extreme wackiness. But it's good to get the

boisterous kitties rehomed, so I can concentrate on

socialising my remaining scaredy fosters.

1 kitten down, 3 to go ;)

♥Batman♥

Last night my foster kitty Batman's new mum

(and new little human brother ;)) came to pick him up.

It was sad to say goodbye, but I think he'll settle in well.

I hope he will, anyway. Fingers crossed!

He settled in immediately when I first picked him up as a foster,

so I don't doubt he'll do the same in his "furr"ever home.

To celebrate my time with Batman I wanted to share a few pics:

Yup, he is a total cutie. :)

Anyway, that's 1 kitty down and 3 to go.

Batman's sister Champagne is adorable as well,

and the two scaredy fosters I have are coming along nicely.

In truth, part of me is relieved that Batman is gone,

because he ate the lion's share of food each morning/night,

and my budget could use a break from that. ;)

Revision report #2: SQUEAKY #1

What that means is this is the second report on my revision of Squeaky book 1. Just thought I'd clarify the blog post naming convention. ;)

So, uhhh, since I last wrote about this, I've definitely got a lot done. I have edited up to chapter 7, I think, or maybe it's chapter 8. At one point, a chunk of one chapter got put into another chapter, and then two little chapters became one, so I've lost track of the count a bit. I've also lost count because it's been many days now since I last edited anything.

Firstly, last week was full of nights when I had to go out. On Friday night, not only did I have to go out, but I also picked up two foster kittens. Eek! So not only do I have kittens who take up a lot of my time and attention, I also have a bit of foster kitten anxiety (leaving them alone all day, getting their diet right so they don't have diarrhoea anymore, etc.). They are getting used to a diet of boiled chicken breast, and tonight I will be steaming some pumpkin for them too.

I feel mean leaving these little guys (well, one's a girl) alone. But hey, being alone is better than being put to sleep, right? The people I'm fostering through are very reassuring. But I do feel a bit tense!

Soooo, all of the above means I have totally slacked off on my revision. But at least I got something done. I am currently stalled needing to input edits of a chapter in Scrivener. Then I need to print the chapter out again & give it one last go over. I already have the chapter after that ready to edit. But it's proving to be a struggle to get over these hurdles as they appear before me.

So, then. That's where I'm at. I hope you are all having a much more productive time of it. :)

IWSG #4 - When you fall behind

Hi guys. Sorry I'm posting slightly late - it's the 6th over here by now, but I know for many of you it will still be the 5th, so maybe it counts. :D Anyway, today for the IWSG I don't really have much to say, except that I guess I'm now 2 days behind in my revision goals, or more like 2.5 days. I've had appointments after work twice this week and then last night I got home and realised my cat's shoulder is out of joint (literally) again - he had a big operation last year. So today I have to take him to the vet and hope he doesn't need a leg amputation after all!

Anyway, when it does come to my revisions, I feel that I've been doing pretty well. But it can be rather daunting when I get to a chapter that needs a great deal of work, i.e. not just editing but largely rewriting. I've had one chapter so far that needed a fair bit of rewriting, and the one I'm stuck on right now needs to be entirely rewritten (I'm halfway through it). I guess it just feels like your momentum stalls, and in fact one could say mine's been stalled for 2.5 days now. But I blame my after-work appointments and my cat.

Just kidding. Really, I blame myself 'cause I could have squeezed more revision work in there somewhere. So will I be getting back on the bandwagon this evening? Wellll, I'm going out for dinner after going to see about my broken phone, so ... I dunno. ;)

P.S. I've been paper editing, and also editing one chapter at a time, over and over until I'm satisfied with what I've done. The paper edit part isn't new to me, but the one chapter at a time thing certainly is.

Happy New Year everyone!

It's nearing the end of my first day of 2014, and what have I got to show for it? Well, so far today I have:

• eaten a big and delicious breakfast at a friend's place following NYE celebrations last night;
• finished re-watching all the Harry Potter movies, and become suitably depressed as a result;
• taken my cats for a walk - or rather, been taken for a walk by my cats; it's a thing with them (yes, my cats are weirdos);
• eaten really bad take-out for dinner;
• thought about the fact that after this week I'm back at work!

I'm sure I did other things, but I'm in a bit of a holiday haze right now so those other things are escaping my thoughts.

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve. Probably the highlight for me was when the Bon Jovi DVD reached a live version of "Always" and we all started dancing around my friend's kitchen and singing to each other about how we will love each other, aaaaalways.

It's been an uncharacteristically cool Christmas and New Year's around here, even if our friends in the Eastern States are sweltering. I have to say it's a really special treat when temps only reach, say, 25 celsius at this time of year.

I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts!

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to put up a simple post without any pictures (because I have none at the ready to put up), just to say Happy New Year to all of you - and let's make 2014 a great one!

I think I'm going to go and set my yearly GoodReads goal, at least if the widget is available yet.

[O&AM] Cats vs. dogs

This month I'm going to talk about something very near (literally and figuratively both) to my heart: CATS! More specifically I'm addressing that age-old question: do you prefer cats or dogs? All I can do is answer for myself, but I definitely look forward to seeing what you guys think on the matter (I already know what some of you out there think). So, let's get down to the matter at hand:

Cats vs. dogs

Some people are dog people, and some people are cat people. Sometimes people are just general animal people, with no clear "winner". And of course there are people who just don't like animals at all (I don't understand these people). I guess I don't really understand the universal creature lovers, either, because how can you love a two-inch-long flying cockroach as it zooms straight at your face ready to scuttle around in your hair? EW. But anyway ... moving on.

I'm mostly an animal lover in that I care about the welfare of all animals (I even feel sorry for theose scuttly disgusting cockroaches as they die very slow deaths in my vicinity). But there is one type of animal I love most of all: CATS! Not only do I love cats, but I have a slight aversion to dogs, even though I have known a few that I actually liked. In the contest of cat vs. dog, cats definitely are the winners in my world. And here are some reasons I love cats:

• they are totally weird (okay, dogs are weird too)
• they don't smell (well, sometimes my boy cat smells after he's done a stressed-out poo in his carrier after a vet trip)
• they're not completely needy (welllll, yeah, my boy cat craves attention and walks around the house meowing if something's not quite to his liking)
• they purr. ha! dogs don't purr! (at least I haven't heard of a dog purring)
• they don't sniff crotches
• they don't eat their own poo or spew, or anybody else's
• they are generally very neat and tidy when it comes to toilet time, i.e. you don't need to carry a poo bag around with you to clean up after them
• you don't have to bathe them (until they get really old and can't bathe themselves)

I think you get the picture here. I love cats, and while I can admire dogs for their silliness, their cute personalities, and their very cute faces, I definitely prefer them not to be near me. The two dogs I've loved most in the world are dogs that are incredibly well-behaved and placid. And yet there have been dogs associated with my family that were the naughtiest dogs ever to live, and I loved them too. But that's more a case of "you can't choose your family, but you still have to love 'em." :P

Are you a cat person, a dog person, both, or neither?

I went to the library, and took some photos

I thought I had a blogfest to post for today, but it turns out I got the dates wrong so after I spent like an hour composing this rather 'large' post, I realised I don't have to post it until early September. Ahhh well, at least it's ready to go now! I'm just usually not a "do stuff faaaar in advance" sort of gal.

Anyways, I do have something to talk about. The library. I joined a library at the start of this year, with a view to spending less money on books and still getting to read them. I borrowed three books and read them all within the three-week loan period. Returned them on time, no fines. And then that was it. No more visits to the library. No more books. Hey, I work in a library so I tend to visit one 5 out of every 7 days of the week, but still, no more visits to that other library for free books.

It's now August and I finally made myself go back. There are some Jodi Picoult books that have been on my TBR since 2009 that I have finally borrowed - albeit in large print format, as they're the only ones that aren't checked out to other patrons for months and months at a time with no availability date in sight - and currently I'm reading My Sister's Keeper. Then I saw Mum today and she said, "Remember to ask me if you want any Jodi Picoult books - I've got them all." And I'll bet they're not in large print or quite as dirty and worn as the ones I got from the library.

Now, pictures of my two cats and a recent sky view from out front of my place:

SMALL TOWN, house move & a kitty video

SMALL TOWN
is 61% complete

30644 / 50000 words written

Hi folks! This is where I'm at with my BuNo novel. Pretty happy with my slow and steady progress, though I'd like to have actually hit 50k by now so I could fixate on other stuff (see the two paragraphs below). I'm pretty happy with how the story's going, even though I did find a stash of early notes I had written many months ago and realised I haven't done some stuff I'd planned on in them. So I have started incorporating some of those plot points, but other stuff might have to wait until revision time.

In cat news, the little guy is doing well and tomorrow afternoon I can take him to get his sutures out. At last!! No more bucket hat for the kitty! Still, he needs to be confined for another 2+ weeks, so the saga is not anywhere near an end. But he's getting better at not sprinting through doors he's not allowed to go through when I open them. Guess he's adapting, a little bit. Even if he still hates being as confined as he as (and so does his mummy!).

Here's a little kitty video from when he was a baby, just for fun:



And in house moving news, I did an inspection on Sunday and basically all I had to note down was nitpicky type stuff. Pretty soon I will be able to start moving some stuff over to the new place - hopefully sometime this week! I will be a very happy person when that time comes.

Hope you are all doing well!

What are you working on?

Are you moving house, or have you recently?

Do you have needy pets?

A BuNo update and some kitty pics.

SMALL TOWN
is 34% complete

17266 / 50000 words written

That's where I'm at with BuNoWriMo. I'm basically plodding along this year, though I got a bit extra done tonight. Not much extra, but a bit. I do love my idea, but this time around I actually look forward to this whole thing being over. See, I am actually supposed to be sorting through a house full of 'stuff' right now, to prepare for moving. But truthfully, even if I weren't doing BuNo, I wouldn't be getting much done. See, my cat injured himself recently and had to have a rather serious shoulder operation. And he's always been a rather needy, sooky cat. Now that he's cooped up inside the house and no longer free to roam the neighbourhood as he wishes, he's even more needy than usual, and is quite frankly driving me nuts! Luckily for him, he's totally cute:

Photo © Amanda Shannon.
Somebody called this a "postcard shot".

Photo © Amanda Shannon.
You can see his shoulder injury -
and gigantic paw he got to
keep due to the surgery - here.

So yeah, when I'm home I basically have to sit with the cat at all times, or else he gets up to mischief that could risk his shoulder - and result in the amputation we've managed thus far to avoid! He's a terrible patient, and he's really wearing on my patience. But like I said, he's cute - so he gets away with it. ;) Meanwhile, my house is a bit chaotic and I'm sleeping on a foam mattress instead of in my real bed, to keep my cat company. No, really, this is what I've resorted to in order to ensure I do actually get sleep. Otherwise he's in his room and I'm in mine and he's meowing all night and I'm not sleeping.

Anyway, that's an update for now. I'm enjoying my little BuNo story as it unfolds, and also looking forward to hitting 50k so I can let it lie for a little while. At least until I've moved house. Part of me is scared to lose momentum, but I know I can always go back later and finish it - I've done so before, I can do it again!