Introducing Gordon

June 25, 2010 - 5 weeks old:




June 28, 2010:




Here he is sticking his tongue out like his mama does but I don't think he does it all the time. Was it a fluke?

When I was looking at cats to adopt last year, I knew that Sonny would be the guy for me. On his fact sheet he was listed as being good with dogs and cats so combined with his mellow temperament, I knew he was the boy for me.

I had all intentions of adopting a cat younger than a year after I had hopefully moved into a house within a few months but I'm still in the apartment and not sure when circumstances towards that will change.

In May, I start volunteering for our local library while they were doing a conversion to RFID and worked with another woman, Dianne, who had a pregnant cat. In our conversation, it just happened that I was thinking hard about adopting a young cat and she had a pregnant cat (long story short, she has property outside our city limits and often people abandon animals outside the city limits...).

My initial intention was to get a kitten from a rescue but this is not unlike a rescue seeing as the mama cat had been abandoned, got pregnant and had her kittens on May 21st.

I first visited the kittens on June 12th and had thought the female kitten (Gordon has two brothers and a sister) would be the good fit for me, Sonny and Jake but the tabby patch kitty really felt right. On the way home, I was just thinking about names for kittens and "Gordon" just clicked in my head. No rhyme, no reason, it just popped into my head and stuck with me.

After a second visit, I knew the little guy was for me. He's a bit behind in getting off the breast milk but that's okay. In other visits with him I was happy to see him look at canned cat food as a way to nourish his body. He was the smallest but now is about as big as his litter mates and oh, he's such a mellow kitten.

I've been taking a hand towel (seen in the third photo) that has Sonny and Jake smell on it and then bringing it back for Sonny to inspect, which he does for a few minutes. I have a rationalization that if Sonny recognizes the smell of Gordon, he wont seem like as much of an intruder (as cats are prone to think when a new cat is introduced). The reverse is true too for Gordon, so he recogizes the smells of my home when it's time to leave his brothers and sisters it hopefully wont be as traumatic for him.

I've started to kitten-proof around here and that's been good for the front bedroom, not as good for my main bedroom because now it lacks character. I took down the sheers on my bed canopy. The duvet is stored away and soon the gold curtains will be replaced with the black curtain I had over the door to the laundry room. I need to find a colorful throw to put on the end of the bed and perhaps find a cheap canvas to paint with some color to get back some personality...but that's not a problem. Gordon will be worth all of that effort.

It's been hard to visit him and have to leave him behind but he's so worth the wait.

Sonny checked out in great health at the vet recently and Gordon will be visiting my awesome veterinarian on the way home from his current digs.

In addition to my new addition, today is the last day of smoking. I am down to my last cigs and after that, I am done. In part for my health but also for Gordon's health. Also, helps to have that cash for veterinarian bills (shots, "deworming", neutering). So, bringing Gordon into my life will have some definite positives other than having a new furball to add to my little animal family.

Lamp update

You may or may not remember the lamp bases I purchased last August from Hobby Lobby for $1 each, but I finally finished updating the smaller one. It basically went from this:



To this:





Sprayed it with a flat black and went to town with Rub 'n Buff in Antique Gold. I used my fingers to apply and a paper towel to manipulate it a bit. Being the "perfectionist" I am, I did mess up in a few places but if you work with it a bit you learn how to correct some of your mistakes and forgive it a bit. Seriously, you don't need hardly any at all (especially if you use your fingers) to get the look you're trying to achieve. I am digging this stuff. Now I just need to put it aside or I might get happy with it on other items around the house. Haha.

I need to look around for a better shade but the one that I have on it now will work. At least it's a shade and boy, what a difference some paint and antiquing can do to make something work for your own decor and preferences. It's sitting where it was intended, in my bedroom now and with the gold curtains and black and goldish bed covering, it works.


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It's a Sonny-versary

It was a year ago today I brought my Sonny home from the PetsMart cat adoption area. While there was a regular adoption fair going on (they do that every weekend), Sonny had been in one of their permanent kennels.

I almost brought home a younger female cat (she was a year and a half old) named Natasha. She was a smokey grey with the most beautiful eyes and as loving as Sonny. One problem, they hadn't mentioned if she was good with other cats and dogs. I tracked her on their website for several months and she hadn't been adopted for at least four months. I almost went back to get her and in that thought process I was thinking, screw it, she can learn to like other cats and dogs but I never did it. Sonny, however, he had his fact chart of being okay around dogs and when I held him, I knew he was the boy for me.

He's hefty but not nearly as large as Montgomery (my previous boy) was and it made me laugh when a couple of people mentioned how large Sonny is. I said to them, if you had seen my previous cat, you'd know this cat is small in comparison.

Anyhow, he's been with me for a year and I couldn't be happier. He's about 5 years old now but still acts like a kitten at times. Overall though, he's a gem of a cat and I thank the previous owners for whatever reason they had for giving him up.

Here he is last night:





So Happy Sonny-versary to Sunshine who became my Sonny.

Clean Walls!

It's pretty amazing how much better (I think) my walls look now that they are clean:





It took me five days at about five hours each to do the living room, kitchen, bath and hallway. It may have not been a new coat of paint but spring cleaning sure makes a difference in how you see your home!

About the only advantage to living in an apartment this size, you can actually clean walls. I would never do this in a house unless it was about the same size...

BTW, the two rust/copperish pillows on my futon are actually placemats that I purchased on sale from King Soopers - one of our Colorado flavors of Kroger...yeah, diggin' the idea you can shop your grocery for decor! I still need to sew the ends up but I already had fiber fill and some quilt batting. You can put quilt batting inside and put the fiber fill inbetween to eliminate lumps you can get from fiber fill fluffs.

Dang, looks like I'm moving...

...I wish. But no, prep for more spring cleaning:


(I caught Sonny mid yawn there in the bottom pic)



I'm wiping down all the walls in here. Thus far I have completed the kitchen (to include the ceiling), the entry, the hallway and the bathroom (also the ceiling in there).

It's cheaper than new paint. It's taking me forever to do because of my wrist, arm and shoulder but the places I have done it has been completely worth it.

I will have to wait till the cold weather is completely gone for the bedroom because of the double layers of curtains tacked up, which is fine. The front bedroom just isn't going to be done, that would be way too much to pull out the stuff in there since it's basically a storage room instead of a living space.

I've done this in two other apartments I lived in because the size is just right. Never to any house or place that had more than one level though.