New Kitten



Merlin

My Christmas Present from my DH this year was a new kitten. He was very secretive leading up to Christmas, not even telling me what time the store was open, and on Christmas Eve telling me that someon would be coming over to help him set up the present, but he couldn't tell me who.


He made me sit on the bed in my craft room with my eyes closed and told me to hold out my hands. Then he proceeded to search the room because he couldn't find the little guy. He finally managed to put the little bundle of fur into my hands. I've been talking about a second cat (well, kitten, because I managed to miss that phase with our big sweetie) for months (possibly years). The deal was that DH would get his dog, before I could get my second cat, but DH started a new job in July that's a lot more demanding, both in terms of time and effort, so a dog just hasn't been an option.

Sir and Merlin (I may have posed this)

The little guy came with the name Spike, but we decided to rename him, and he's now Merlin (due to his little disappearing act that first day, and multiple others in the days to follow). This continues our Arthurian legend trend, started with Sir Galahad (Sir).

The first few days were also pretty tense between the little guy and our big guy. But it soon turned out that behind all the hissing and growling that Sir was doing, was a big ole scardy cat. Even several weeks later, if both guys are in bed with me, and Merlin gets too close to him, Sir will lick his head, then hiss at him, and jump off the bed. I'm hoping this will pass.

Merlin is a bit clingy as far as cats go, perhaps because he was a stray rescue. When I'm at home, he'll follow me around the whole time. And when I pick him up, as long as he's tired, he'll go right to sleep in my arms. I wouldn't change my two boys for the world.

Blog Makeover

So, my blog is getting a bit of a make-over. Primarily because the old one felt way too dark and depressing. I didn't feel like it was inviting anyone in to read and comment. It also made for some depressing entries, because, let's face it, if the blog is dark and brooding, why shouldn't my posts match?

As you may have noticed, I've fallen a bit behind with my 30 Days of Lists. Never fear, I plan to continue, but definitely at my own pace, since the actual prompt is long since done.

There's been a lot of stuff happening in my life lately and I haven't had the chance to share it with much of anyone. Our house hunt continues, maybe more on that once I am at home and can post a few pictures. My job is going superbly well. DH and I had an altercation last night, but as always were able to patch things up rather quickly [after I retreated to the bathroom and he retreated to a friend's house for some much needed time to reflect on what happened and why, followed by the obligatory "talk" to explain why we thought it had happened and what we could have done differently]. The cat is still superbly silly and has returned to sleeping curled up in bed next to me. He had a good long sulk for kicking him out of the bedroom while my sister was there, and wasn't ready to believe that he could go back into the bedroom once she was gone [my sister is mildly allergic to cats, primarily to cat dander in her bed].

Well, perhaps more later.

Stopping at Home

We have not looked at any houses yet, and won't start until next weekend. Part of the problem is that Eric and I have not found any time together. Eric did make it through Restaurant Week last week largely unscathed. Past restaurant weeks have done a major number on his hands. If you've never seen the hands and forearms of a working chef, you don't know how much I dread restaurant week every half a year. He doesn't cut himself on his knives too often, but he manages to cut himself on just about everything (from a broom to tin cans). He also comes home with grease and fire burns all the time. He can also pick up hot plates with his bare hands without even thinking about it, which is a problem when he then hands said plates to me. Although I worked in a restaurant for several months, I just never gained the tolerance to heat that so many career servers and cooks develop. However, back to my original point... we didn't have time last week because Eric worked a 6 day week, and his only day off was Wednesday.

This weekend is my fault. I am flying to Portland, OR next week for a work strategy meeting. But I'm leaving late afternoon on Friday of this week and stopping in Grand Rapids, MI on the way. Both my parents and my in-laws live there and I'm beyond excited to get to go home for two days. Eric gets to stay and hang out with our cat. I've already finished packing everything. All I need are my keys and I'm good to go. I've even packed my toothbrush and will have to either use Eric's or pull out my spare (wherever that went).



Sir managed to climb on top of a stack of chairs not seconds after Eric had stacked them on the table to vaccum.