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 - "K" Photos

For Day #11 of the A-to-Z challenge, we're at the letter "K", and I have the chance to show off some of the little cuties I've had the privilege of fostering ... or adopting ... or taking photos of for other foster carers!

Kittens

  

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

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.

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!