A Crazy Cat's Life

OK...the past two days have made up for the overly sucky week I had last week. Grandma was moved to a rehab center today. I had just gotten up the courage to visit her in the hospital--I really hate hospitals--when my father-in-law told me she was being moved. This is a Good Thing. Supposedly she is responding well to therapy and is making some progress. She is also talking now which is great! I'm going to try to visit her on Friday when I don't have school. Hopefully she's settled in my then. As for the crown situation, yes it was salvagable. My most magnificent dentist, Dr. Cheng, cleaned it up, sanitized it, and put it back in. If my insurance doesn't cover things, I'll only be out $100 for office visits versus $1,500. Another stressor off my back. And, I managed to get some work done on my Christmas cards. Yes, I'm actually not only sending out cards this year (a rare moment) but making them as well. I have all these darn stamps and stuff, I migh...

I know the holidays are supposed to be a stressful time but things are going a bit overboard for me. Grandma is doing better...relatively speaking. She's awake and somewhat communicative and the pneumonia has subsided. However, the doctor said that she'll probably never regain movement in her left side. This means that she'll have to be put in a home of some sort because there is no way my father-in-law could take care of her. It's been hard on my father-in-law and I hate to see him be put under any more stress. The poor guy has a hard enough time as it is. Last Tuesday I somehow managed to swallow one of the crowns from a tooth while eating Milk Duds. Ya I know. I shouldn't be eating them in the first place with all the dental work in my mouth, but I was depressed and having serious chocolate cravings. Of course this freaked me out 'cause there is some question as to whether or not we have the dental coverage for a replacement crown. Either way, it would've...

I guess I'll start with the good news: I got to see the new Harry Potter movie yesterday. Overall the movie was really good, but don't read the book right before you see it 'cause you'll be disappointed. A lot of stuff wasn't in the movie, like most of the Quidditch World Cup and Dobby and Winky. Still, considering that the screenwriter had to cram a 600+ page book into a 2 1/2 hour movie, it was really well done. The special effects were great and the tournament scenes were the best. It was a little dark but the humor--like Malfoy getting turned into a ferret--balanced it out nicely. The bad news: Darren's grandmother had a stroke yesterday. It was a major one too. She is such a nice lady and I love her like my own grandmother so it has been really hard. She is conscious but it looks like her left side is paralyzed and the doctors aren't sure she can breath on her own yet. Then again, we won't know much for a few days to see how she recovers from it. My...

It's finally starting to feel like fall. It's about time too, eh? We're supposed to only get into the mid-40's for a high today and it's going to be this way for the rest of the week. I was starting to get a bit worried that I would show up to Thanksgiving dinner in shorts. LOL. Speaking of which, we finally decided to spend Thanksgiving at the in-laws. I had been hoping to visit my brother up in Providence but it looks like he's going to his in-laws for the holiday. Oh well. We'll just have to visit them sometime before Christmas. I really want to see my niece again. Yesterday's Life Drawing class went well. I was incredibly tired but I got into a good rhythm after a bit. Paul loves to put on classical music when we draw but it was starting to put me to sleep. Finally one of the students convinced him to change to a classic rock station. It's so much easier to draw listening to the Doors and Floyd, though Paul couldn't understand why. LOL. I...

It's almost that time: the dreaded last month of the semester. I know I've been complaining about school a lot but this semester has been really tough because of my depression acting up. I'm just dreading the next few weeks though. With the semester dwindling down, I tend to suffer what I call "Last Month of the Semester Syndrome" or LMSS for short. My brain feels fried, all I want to do is sleep all the time, and I seriously stress out over the smallest of things. Luckily being an art student makes things a bit easier since I don't have any tests to study for, but I still have big projects to work on. I think one thing that is helping somewhat is the weather. This has been a really weird fall so far. Once again, temperatures are a good deal higher than normal. It's 67F right now at 10am. I think we're supposed to be upper-40s/low-50s this time of year. Having the warm weather is kind of nice. It just feels weird keeping the t-shirts and shorts out of ...

It's not even the last month of the semester yet and I'm already starting to feel the burnout coming on. I know the depression is making things a lot worse for me but come on...I really like school. I should not be feeling this way when it's not even the middle of November yet. After Thanksgiving is a different story. My Life Drawing class driving me a bit nuts. The professor wants us to do four hours of drawing a week for homework. That isn't so bad, but I tired out after only two hours. Since the projects lately have been one drawing that takes four hours, it's not like I can stop and take a nap or rest or anything. Instead I have to push myself. What was worse is that in his e-mail to me for this week's homework (as I missed last week's class), was really unclear and I ended up not doing the project correctly. Ya, I could've asked him to clarify it, but unfortunately, he's usually never very specific so he would've just confused me anyways. LO...

I've been reading a lot of blogs written by cat owners, and since Ayla even has her own blog I would start one too that's dedicated to the Fuzzies. So I created Flock O' Fuzzies . Enjoy!

Somedays, I just like to take a ton of photos of the Fuzzies and see what I get. Here's one photo that came out really nicely, with Bailey right in the foreground:

As I was finishing up my last post, I heard this racket in the kitchen. Normally I just ignore most of the noises in the apartment 'cause with two large kittens things get a little crazy. However, this noise sounding like kitty food being spilled all over the floor. So, I went into the kitchen. There is Loki with the lid for the container of their Feline TD food around his neck. Not only did he manage to get the lid off by he somehow got his head into the spout (the spout is about 4" in diameter). The TD was spilled all over the floor, and there were three cats eating the food, including Loki with the lid over his head. I should've gotten a picture but I was too worried about him choking with that thing around his neck. Luckily I got it off. After I cleaned up the mess, I made sure that the food was too high for him to get at. What a silly kitty.

Is it really November? You couldn't tell by the weather outside. It's been in the mid- to upper-60s for the past week and I've even been wearing shorts. Heck...I'm wearing shorts now. This isn't right for northern NJ for this time of year. You would think I would be out enjoying the nice weather, right? Hehe. Both Darren and I had such a hectic week last week that both of us just crashed over the weekend. For Darren it was two days of sleeping. For me, two days of reading. I managed to start and finish two books over the weekend to bring my yearly total to 89. Yep, I'm a nerd. Darren and I did manage to catch our first live hockey game in a very long time this past Thursday. His boss was kind enough to give us tickets that evening for the Rangers v. Devils game. They were primo seats (center ice lower tier), and they were FREE. That's the important part, especially since they were $95 seats, and we even got free parking. The game itself sucked. ...