Today is my last day as a foster, and I’m gonna miss this little guy so much. I love all my foster kitties but this one is extra special. He’s just too sweet & cute for words. I’m sure his new foster mom will love him, as will whomever ends up adopting him.
A bit of foster kitten swapping has gone on this week. On Monday evening we dropped Cilantro and Peppermint off at the rescue organizer’s home, hence forward known as L, so they could be spayed on Tuesday. Basil didn’t go with them because he had diarrhea. He turned into a little terror once his sisters left, however, carrying on with the meowing like there’s no tomorrow and nothing would satisfy him. He also jumped on my back Monday night and put three holes in the tank top I was wearing, effectively ruining it. He then spent all night and the next day constantly moaning whether he was outside the kitty room or not. I thought if I let him roam the house he would calm down but instead he would follow me everywhere meowing and run in front of me and suddenly stop, causing me to nearly trip over him. Needless to say I was happy to swap him with two other kitties who needed a home since his sisters were not coming back as planned because someone is already interested in adopting them. I know Basil will be happier at L’s home where there’s plenty of other kitties to play with. He’ll be neutered tomorrow and then at an adoption show this weekend where he’ll no doubt be taken home as he’s super soft, cuddly, and affectionate. I just hope his new home has another kitty to play with or he will drive everyone crazy.
The two new kitties are small for their age (11 weeks) because they had no mom so they were bottle fed. They also have colds so I’m giving them antibiotics. I’m not sure how long they will be with us because they are going to be our last foster kitties. Last night at 2:30 am Joe woke me up because he couldn’t breathe. Luckily there’s a Walgreens right down the street where we purchased a nebulizer which worked like a charm. It was really scary, though, and it has to be the cats as Joe’s asthma hasn’t bothered him so severely before. I let L know today what happened and that we will no longer be able to foster, although I’ll still help out in other ways. She was very understanding and expressed how much they like me and would like that I still do other things for the organization so that was nice.
In any case, here are Rodman and Pippen (both males, and not named by me, but obviously someone is a Bulls fan!)
Rodman
Pippen
Now that we have a dedicated cat room we took in three kittens on Sunday to foster while they prepare to be adopted. They are adorable but making a mess of the room because they have diarrhea and don’t always use the litterboxes (we have two set up; one makeshift from the bottom of an old hamster cage). Luckily the rug in the bedroom is old or I’d be more upset.
These kittens are little lovers in comparison to the the last two we had. They would run away when you approached them whereas this trio runs toward you because they want cuddles. All three of them are lap kitties for sure. Since they came straight from Chicago Animal Control to the coordinator’s home and then to us in the same day they hadn’t been named yet, so we got to name them. We decided on Peppermint (girl), Cilantro (girl), and Basil (boy).
Even though they seem to suck the time out of the day (from playing, to feeding, to cleaning up, to just hanging out and letting them all pile onto my lap), this current arrangement is so much better than before. Of course now when I open the bedroom door they rush it, and Peppermint keeps getting out, but it’s still less of a hassle than before. Once their diarrhea clears up I might allow them to venture beyond the bedroom but I’m definitely not doing that until I’m sure my good carpeting isn’t going to get pooped on!
Basil 
Peppermint 
Right now I’ve got chili in the crockpot and I still haven’t showered for the day because I’ve been pretty busy. In addition to throwing that together this morning, I also worked out on the elliptical machine, descaled the coffee maker, did two loads of laundry, put away the St. Patrick’s Day decorations and replaced them with Easter decor, re-organized my glass beads, went through the mail, dusted and decluttered the house a bit, and created a cute Easter basket for my stepson.
I stopped making baskets for the kids on a consistent basis because they never seemed to care, and perhaps they still don’t, but I really like doing it so I made one anyway. Nothing big, but I like how it came out.
I noticed that I really don’t spend a lot of time watching tv during the day, yet it still flies by. Sure, I’m on the internet a lot, although last week I watched a few movies thanks to the local library. I’ve been getting through my list of movies I’d like to see with all this time on my hands. I like that I can rent 5 movies at a time for “free” (I put that in quotes since my property taxes pay for the library’s services). My local library has even started getting new releases in on Bluray. You can only rent them for one night but I still think it’s great. The library is less than five minutes away and not much further than the local Redbox. I just have to be flexible in what I want to watch.
Yesterday my brother came over since he didn’t have to work. We hit the library to borrow a few video games and went to lunch at Buona Beef since I’m restricting myself to eating at places where I have a gift card. The card I have for them is so old I was surprised it worked! I also forgot how good their cheeseburgers are and not a bad price at $5 either. I still have almost $10 left on my gift card too.
I’ve been put in charge of updating Adopt-A-Pet and Petfinder with the rescue organization at which I’m volunteering but that doesn’t take up much of my time – probably a few hours a week, give or take. A lot of that time is due to waiting for the Petfinder site to respond; it has to be the slowest website I’ve ever dealt with! I can post five cats on Adopt-A-Pet in the time it takes to post one on Petfinder. In any case, it’s been busier lately because of all the cat shows in the area which causes the adoption rates to rise. I don’t mind, though, because I like keeping busy.
My brother asked me the other day why when he’s not working he is lazier than when he is, and I’m not sure why, but I’m the same way. The more I have to do in a given day the more motivated I feel. The less I have to do the more depressed I feel and the lazier I become. This is why I’ve been doing what I can to keep busy, including entering sweepstakes. I know it sounds a bit silly but whatever. It’s free, keeps me occupied, and I won $15 from VISA so far.
Both foster cats are gone. Skipper was adopted on Saturday and Myagi is at a new foster home as of yesterday.
After Skipper was adopted Myagi was very restless and unhappy, meowing constantly, including all night Saturday into Sunday which resulted in little sleep for us. We took him to a weekend cat show in the hopes he’d be adopted but unfortunately he wasn’t. Other cats were adopted, however, freeing up room for him to go to a new foster home that has other cats since he’s happier when he’s not alone. His new foster mommy is keeping me updated on him, including texting me photos which I appreciate. I will miss both kitties but not the mess they made, the time spent cleaning up after them and socializing them, not to mention worrying about what they might destroy.
This experience has taught me that I’m not as much of a cat person as I once thought. At least in the respect to having my own cat. I am too nervous about letting the cats have the run of the house and keeping them in the master bathroom wasn’t fair to them or to us. I had to carry them downstairs daily since I didn’t want them getting loose in the master bedroom as that is a designated cat-free zone to help keep my allergies at bay. It worked pretty well until Saturday when suddenly my eyes were super itchy, my nose was runny, and I kept sneezing. At first I thought it was a cold since I only experienced that reaction the first day we had the kitties but it promptly went away on Sunday once Myagi was gone.
Needless to say I’m a bit relieved and am feeling much better. I spent the entire morning cleaning the master bathroom, including washing the bathroom rugs, as well as shampooing the couch. You should have seen how dirty it was, not to mention how much cat hair was on it even though I vacuumed the heck out of it yesterday.
I would like to continue helping the rescue organization in other ways so I’m in the process of discussions with them as to what that might be. I may even foster again once a spare bedroom is available since it will be more room for the cats and I can just open the door and let them out when necessary which eliminates the need to move their food, water, and litter-box (another thing that had to be done with the setup we had).
Speaking of litter, that stuff gets everywhere! I was vacuuming it up daily. Also, I don’t understand how people can go a week without cleaning their cat’s litter-box. I was cleaning ours daily and probably could have done it twice a day given how many “presents” the kitties were leaving.
The timing of this change worked out well since my new hard drive was delivered today and I will no doubt be preoccupied the next few days reinstalling software and configuring everything in an attempt to get things back to normal. Plus I am studying to become A+ certified in the hopes that I will have a better chance of getting a tech support position at the library should another opening arise.