Homecoming!

As my good friend Alice pointed out to me this morning, its been a REALLY long time since I updated this blog. Life has been pretty hectic lately, but its finally hectic in a good way.

After 7 months of things breaking and going wrong, while I suffered through the wrath of Murphy by myself, Mr. V is FINALLY home from Iraq!!! He actually got home at the beginning of the month and life has been a whirlwind since then.

After his return date and time changing several times, homecoming ended up being wonderful. I had all these plans to decorate the house and have "Welcome Home" signs hung up for him, but I'm sad to say that didn't happen. He was originally supposed to arrive home on a Thursday morning. Then it chanegd to Wednesday at 8:30pm. I babysat on Wednesday morning and assumed that I had several hours after I got home to decorate the house, but nope! That morning, while I was babysitting I got several phone calls from the CO's wife. The first one changed his arrival time to 6:30pm. The next one changed it to 5:00pm. The finally one changed it to 4:30pm. At this point I realized that by the time I was done babysitting I had just enough time to take a shower and rush off to the hanger where his plane would be arriving. I had just enough time to throw a wooden P3 with his name and squadron on it, that I bought at a recent OSCWI boutique, on a nail on the outside of our house. Flags and "Welcome Home" signs will have to be stored to use after the next deployment.

So after a quick shower, some primping and some panic because he hadn't seen me in 7 months, I rushed out of the house. Halfway to base I realized I wasn't wearing my wedding rings (I take them off when I shower) so I had to turn around and race back home because I wasn't about to great my husband after 7 months, with no wedding rings on my finger.

Homecoming was great! The only thing that sucked was that even though the plane arrived at 4:30, it was already completely dark outside. It would have been nice to get some nicer pictures of the plane he arrived on, and everyone walking off the plane, and some nicer outdoor pictures, but I have to just be happy with the nighttime pictures that I got.

(Opening the hanger doors)
(the plane they arrived home on)

(He's back!)

(he gave me some chocolate that he bought in Germany because it had cute kittens on the box)

(I loved my box of kitten chocolate :-))

I spoke too soon...

Remember the 3 cats that I wrote about in the post directly beneath this one? Yep. I spoke too soon. I don't have 3 more cats. I have 6 more cats. I'm hoping that number stops at 6, and as of right now, I'm 99% sure that it does. Last night I decided to try to figure out what the heck is going on in my backyard. My yard is completely fenced in by the way, which makes it a little more interesting to me because they guys (or their mother) had to find their way over the fence to find my shed in the first place. While jumping over a fence isn't exactly hard for the average cat, I still don't completely understand why they chose MY fence to jump over.

So last night was observation time for me. I turned on a light in the backyard and turned off the lights in my living room. Then I sat at the window like a crazy cat lady, for almost 2 hours, watching the show outside. In this time, the 3 original cats appeared. Then a brown and white tabby appeared. Then another black and white one appeared, and then another black and white one. All of them were eating the food I left out for them and all of them were playing with each other. The little tabby is the only one who looks a little different. They all have different distinct markings, but they are all black and white, so I'm not sure where the brown tabby came from. I know he could easily be from the same litter, but I just always think its cute and amusing when there is that one odd one out (like my little calico from the litter I fostered).

So as I watched, this is what I figured out:

First, they know my backyard. They were way too comfortable running around, jumping on things, and falling asleep in the middle of the yard to NOT know the yard. I guess the reality is, I never looked at my backyard in the dark, and that seems to be when they come out and play.

Second, most of them are young, so while they could easily be feral, I've managed to tame a few young ferals already. Its hard and it requires a lot of work and patience, but I am thinking that if I can work with them, I MIGHT be able to get them friendly enough for people to want to adopt them. That might be wishful thinking on my part, but one of my ferals is a total snuggly attention whore now and she was just plain mean and nasty when I first brought her in the house.

From what I can tell, it appears that there are 4 young ones, maybe 5 or 6 months old, and 2 full grown ones. However, the larger ones can easily be the same age, just bigger cats. But it was the 2 large ones that sat in front of my shed and watched the 4 young ones play, so thats what makes me think they might be a little older. They weren't acting like kittens, but who knows, maybe they just weren't in the mood to play.

On a positive note, I also solved a scary mystery last night. For several months now I have laid in bed listening to what sounded like someone trying to break into my house through the roof. Actually, thats just what my wandering mind thought it sounded like when I was alone and scared. What it actually sounded like was raccoons running on the roof. If you're wondering how I know what raccoons on the roof sound like, they used to run on the roof of my house all the time in New Jersey. I know that there are raccoons on Whidbey Island, but I've never seen them anywhere near my house, so that explanation wasn't sitting completely right with me. I spent several nights completely freaked out by the noises on my roof. Well...as of yesterday I now know what the sounds are. There aren't raccoons running on my roof. There are CATS running on my roof!!! We have a tree with great climbing branches that sits pretty close to the house, and as I watched last night, the cats would run up in to this tree, jump from branch to branch, and then occasionally jump from the branch to the roof!! So it was quite a relief to hear the scary sound immediately after I saw a cat jump on the roof, so thankfully that mystery is solved. I guess no one is trying to break in, and I'm not being stalked by rabid raccoons. I am, however, being stalked by every stray cat in the world.

So the conclusion I reached? Perhaps I should make a better effort to pay attention to my backyard after the sun goes down. Maybe then I would have noticed an entire family of cats living in my backyard for the past few months.

It Figures...

I have 3 more cats.

There was once a time when stray cats stayed far, far away from me. I was a rabbit person my whole life. I wasn't particularly fond of cats in general and I never had a dog. I just had rabbits growing up. Then my roommate found a stray cat, handed her to me, and it all went downhill from there!

Now they flock to me - ferals and strays. Suddenly after years of not caring about cats, I now seem to have a sign on my head that says "all cats are welcome here!"

So yes, I have 3 more cats. Apparently they live under the shed in my backyard. A few weeks ago I saw 3 cats in the backyard. This wasn't highly unusual because lots of people around here have outdoor cats and they tend to wander into other people's yards. What WAS unusual, was that they all looked the same, as if they were from the same litter, AND when I opened the door and scared them, they all ran right under the shed - like they knew it was there. I would have thought that if they were just playing in the yard, they would have sniffed around the shed a little and then went under it. But nope. They knew exactly where the hole was to fit under it.

Then so many other things started happening in my life (have I mentioned I can't wait for this deployment to be over? I'm so scatterbrained and stressed, and I wasn't like this before Mr. V left. I just can't get myself organized.), so I kind of forgot about the cats under the shed.

Fast forward to a few days ago. My friend stopped by to drop something off and she saw something run across my backyard, and she thought it was a cat. It was dusk so it was hard to see, but she said it looked like it ran under the shed. Thats when I remembered the shed cats! So that night I put some food out next to the shed. My plan was to see if they came out from underneath it, and they did. 2 of them. Within 2 minutes of me putting the food out, there they were. I didn't see them come from the shed, but I would think that if they came from a different yard they would have taken more than 2 minutes to find that food. Then they inhaled the food. So they were obviously hungry. Eventually, these 2 disappeared back under the shed. Last night I put food out for them again, but I didn't see them at all. Then this morning I woke up, looked out the window and saw 3 cats frolicking in my backyard, and the food bowl is empty. I say "frolicking" because thats exactly what they were doing. They weren't just casually strolling through my backyard. They were playing in it like they owned it. And then, they ran back under the shed.

Sooooo great! I apparently have 3 cats living in my backyard. I don't know where they came from or how long they have been there. I don't know if they are strays or ferals, but my next step is to get them spayed and/or neutered because as much as I love cats, the last thing I need is a litter of kittens in my backyard along with these 3 cats. So out comes the feral cat trap! Wish me luck on this and cross your fingers that they are friendly. If they are friendly, then maybe I can find homes for them. If they aren't, then it looks like they are going to be trapped, neutered and released right back into my backyard. (and if anyone is wondering why, when you do TNR, they tell you that you have to release them back where you found them. You can't just relocate them because that confuses the cat and can ultimitely be bad for it in the long run.)

So seriously, why do they always find me? There are plenty of houses in this neighborhood, but they found MY shed. Why??

Goodbye to a Great Woman

On Tuesday, October 13, my Grandma "Spring" died. She was 91 years old and died peacefully in her sleep. We all knew this day was coming, but considering the fact that she was fairly healthy for her age, it was still a bit of a shock. Her mind was starting to deteriorate but her body was healthy (or as healthy as it could be for 91 years).

The whole funeral experience was an interesting one. I haven't had to deal with a lot of death in my life, so in general, death is really hard for me. When I was 6, my Great Grandma died, but I barely remember that. When I was a sophomore in college, my Grandpa died, but beyond that, no one close to me has died.

So 2 weeks ago I flew home to New Jersey to say a final goodbye to my Grandma.

It was an odd trip home because it was obviously for a sad reason, but at the same time, I can't even remember when the majority of my family has been together. Most of the family lives in New Jersey, but I have aunts, uncles, cousins and 2nd cousins scattered around in Georgia, Ohio, and Western NJ (which isn't really that far from where I grew up, but for some reason they were never around us much). For various different reasons, it wasn't possible for the whole family to be there, but most of us showed up which was nice. I am the 2nd oldest of 13 cousins (and the oldest is 14 years older than me), so up until recently, all of my cousins still seemed like babies to me. Only a few weeks ago I realized that one of my best friends is actually younger than one of my cousins, and she's married and has a baby. That was sort of a wake up call when it came to my "baby" cousins not being babies anymore. So that fact alone made for some interesting times while I was home. It was the first time I've ever sat around drinking beer with my cousins, and the night before we all went home, we all just stayed up late talking about life. It all sounds like simple, minor things, but they were sort of special moments to me because I've never had the opportunity to be that close with my cousins. Family wise, we were close, but when I'm 8 and the next oldest cousin is 4, that makes for a large age gap. But now at 28 and 24, we've become equals, and I love that.

Before I ramble on and on about my cousins, I'll get back to the funeral. My Grandma was an amazing woman, and I think everyone in my family knew this, but it wasn't until the funeral that we REALLY seemed to understand this. Its sad to me that so much was taken for granted, and that we never had the chance to really appreciate her. From the moment that she had her first child, my Grandma was never alone. Looking back now, she lived her entire life for other people, and it just seems so rare to know a person like that.

Grandma has 6 children. Her oldest 2 sons were drafted and sent to Vietnam. My Uncle Ralph met and married a Vietnamese woman that he met while he was over there. When he married her, she had a 7 year old daughter, who my uncle adopted as his own daughter. However, my uncle decided to make the Army his career, so when he came home from Vietnam for good, he didn't actually come "home". He moved to Hawaii, and my Grandma and Grandpa moved to Hawaii too. She moved there to take care of her new adopted Granddaughter. I'm not clear on all of the details as to what happened next, but I do know that at some point, my Grandparents left Hawaii, and my uncle dropped his new daughter off to live with them. Uncle Ralph may have adopted my cousin, but he never raised her. My Grandparents did. Grandma welcomed her into the family as a 7th child, and to this day, Julie refers to my aunts and uncles by their first names, not as "aunt" and "uncle" because she was raised with them as a sibling. Julie ended up living with my grandparents until she was 35, which is when she finally moved out and got married.

Within just a few weeks of each other, my cousin prepared to move out, as my aunt prepared to move in. I don't remember the exact time frame, but it was close - probably about 3 weeks. My Aunt ran from an abusive husband in Texas, drove through the night and ended up in New Jersey with 3 kids and no place to go. So 3 weeks before Julie moved out, my Aunt Bridget moved in. Aunt Bridget still lives in the house today. So couple this with the fact that my Grandma not only moved to Hawaii for several months, but she also moved to Texas when my cousin Colton was born, Georgia when my cousins Garrett and Brian were born, and she babysat me and 5 of my other cousins - every day for years, when did this lady have any time to herself? The short answer is that she didn't. But she never complained. She smiled every day! She took care of me and all of my cousins when we were sick. She came to every graduation, dance recital, soccer game, etc that she could. She did everything for her own children when they were growing up, and then she did everything for her grandchildren. She even made sure to never forget one grandchild. When I was 2 my Aunt had a baby girl, Caitlin, who didn't live past the day she was born. There may be 13 living cousins, but if you asked my Grandma she would always say that she had 14 grandchildren. She always made sure, that noone ever forgot about Caitlin. My cousin Julie now has 2 children of her own, which means that Grandma had become a great-grandma. Even in her last years, she lived for those 2 kids. I think the reality of that hit me when I saw my cousin's 6 year old daughter crying her eyes out at the funeral. That really hit me hard because when I was 6, I don't remember much about my great-grandmother. I vaguely remember her dying, but I know that I didn't cry at her funeral, or even care that much. Basically, I just didn't know her and as a 6 year old, I had no reason to be upset and I really didn't understand what was going on. But Jocelyn understood that she was losing her great-grandmother and that fact alone made me realize just how involved my grandma was in all of our lives. If she had the ability to touch a 6 year old like that, especially since the last 6 years of her life were spent slowly getting alzheimer's, then she must have been an amazing woman.

The priest at her funeral told us that God rewarded my grandma with a peaceful death. He said something along the lines of "Her life was spent doing nothing for herself and everything for others, and God rewarded her by making her last moments simple and peaceful". I think that was the point when I really started crying. Grandma did deserve to be rewarded, and I think that all of us wish that we had appreciated her more when she was alive. It makes me sad to think that she might not know how much we all loved her, but I hope that she does know.

One testament to the fact that she was so loved and so appreciated was the response that my aunt got for her viewing. My aunt wanted to make a picture collage so she asked everyone to contribute pictures. The response she got was so overwhelming that instead of one picture collage, we ended up with close to 20. When my aunt realized we all had tons of pictures, she asked us all to create our own collages. I had a lot of fun going through all of my old photo albums to find pictures, so I thought I'd post the ones I ended up using for my collage. Sadly, I don't have many pictures at all from the last years of her life, and I wish I did. I wish I had been around more, but knowing that it wouldn't have mattered does make me feel good. I know my Grandma loved us all, but I don't think she ever had a chance to really miss us all since there were always so many people around and so many people to take care of! She truly was a remarkable woman.

I know that I will always miss her, but now Grandma is with my Grandpa, her husband, who died 9 years before her, also peacefully in his sleep. She's also finally with Caitlin, the granddaughter she never got to know. It makes me happy to know that, especially after going through her stuff after the funeral. Someone had gone through all of her photo albums and distrubted pictures to everyone. In a pile of pictures that my dad ended up with, I found a picture of all 13 grandchildren. Its actually the only picture that exists of all 13 of us and it was taken about 12 years ago. On the back of the picture Grandma had labeled it with all of our names, and at the top of that she had drawn a small angel and wrote "Caitlin" next to it. I always knew that she never excluded Caitlin from anything, but seeing that on the back of the picture made me cry. Its the only picture of all of her grandkids, and she even made sure that Caitlin was included in that picture. Now she can finally be with Caitlin :-).

Feel free to laugh at my middle school awkwardness and my general growing up awkwardness from these pictures. I just wanted to post them because they were my favorite pictures out of all the ones I had and these are what my collage was made up of.

(My christening)

(Not sure how old I am here but thats little Brooklet with Aunt Aggi and Grandma)

(this is one of my favorite pictures of me with Grandma)

(with both sets of Grandparents)

(Grandma and me)

(both sets of Grandparents again)

(Grandma and Grandpa went with Aunt Aggi, Uncle Bernt, Aunt Bridget, me, Erik, Evan, Alex and Brianna to Storybook Land)

(75th Birthday - with their kids)

(75th birthday with their kids and grandkids)

(surprise 50th anniversary party!)

(surprise 50th anniversary party - the ONLY time the entire family has ever been together at the same time!)

(me with Grandma and Grandpa at their 50th anniversary party)

(Grandma and Grandpa with the 13 grandkids - the only picture of the 13 grandkids)

(me, Aunt Aggi, Grandma and CJ at Christmas one year)

(Grandma and her girls - her daughters and granddaughters - New Year's Day 2000)

(Grandma and Grandpa with their grandchildren - New Year's Day 2000)

(Grandma and Grandpa with their children, children's spouses and grandchildren - New Year's Day 2000)

(Grandma and me at Christmas one year)

(Grandma, me and Dad)

(Grandma and her Grandchildren)

(Grandma and her girls)

(Grandma "Spring")

(Grandma Roberto, Cousin Julie and Grandma "Spring")

Wonderful Washington Day 14 and 15

I just realized that I never finished posting about my "vacation" when Alice was up here visiting. I have 2 days left to talk about, but since its been more than 2 months since her visit, I have to admit that I'm tired of writing about it! It was a great time, but somewhere along the way, I lost my motivation to keep writing. So instead, I'll finish it up with pictures and small captions.

Day 14, Saturday, July 31: Jan's 28th Birthday! We spent the afternoon at the Woodland Park Zoo, and then had a yummy dinner at the Space Needle to celebrate her birthday.

(Mountain Goats at the zoo - I took this picture for Mr. V since he loves these things :-))

(Of course we had to ride the carousal)

(Penguins at the zoo)

(Dinner at the Space Needle...this is our waiter Matt, who was by far the best waiter ever, so we had to get a picture with him. We were hoping to set Jan up with him (he told us that his birthday was 2 weeks earlier - they were the same age), but it turns out, he was married...so sad...but if you go to the Space Needle, request Matt as your waiter :-).)

(Jan with her Lunar Orbiter dessert. Matt gave it to her for her birthday :-).)

(close-up of the Lunar Orbiter)

(Alice and me being adorable on the Space Needle observation deck :-). Actually, we were having wind problems with our skirts, so this was the best way to take the picture. )

(sunset seen from the top of the Space Needle)

(The Space Needle at night)

Day 15, Sunday, August 1: Last day of the vacation! Jan was up super early to go to the airport to head back to Kentucky. Alice and Carol still had one more full day so we wandered around Seattle a little, checking out more stuff at Pike Place Market and going on a Harbor Cruise.

I do have a picture of this day, but I can't find it at the moment. It was a professional picture taken as we got on the cruise boat, so I need to find it and scan it. Hopefully I'll be able to post it eventually.

Love What You Do

I have to admit that I've spent the past few years a little upset that I don't have a career job. I've blamed the Navy. I've blamed myself, but in the end, it still just upsets me. I have a college degree that I feel like I am wasting. I also feel like I need to make at least some money for myself so thankfully I have survived off of temp jobs and nanny/babysitting jobs. I can't really complain too much. I still don't like to think of the fact that I will probably never have the career I once wanted, but at the same time, I also really appreciate the flexibility that my schedule allows now.

I have always said that I want to open my own animal rescue. In my mind, I'd have a cat rescue, and take in some other animals on the side, but mainly cats. Its not a job that would earn me any money since rescues typically operate as a non-profit organization. So I'm aware that a lot of my own money would have to invested into this venture. I've also wondered if its something that I can actually achieve, and I've decided that it is.

For the past few months I have felt more stressed and overwhelmed than I ever have in my entire life. I feel like I haven't had any time to myself to have fun, and when I stop to think about what I've been doing thats taking up so much time, I find that I can't actually answer that question. I don't know what I've been doing except fixing problems, cleaning, organizing, and stressing out.

In the midst of my stress a few weeks ago, my friend called me from the Veterinary Clinic she works at and asked me if I wanted to foster a litter of orphaned kittens. No one was able to foster them from the clinic and the woman who usually would, wasn't in. So call the crazy cat lady to do the job! I agreed, and I went to pick up 4 adorable, motherless kittens.

I have to admit that I had a moment when I thought that I really shouldn't be taking on any more tasks because it will only stress me out more, but I just can't say no to abandoned animals.

Surprisingly, while these kittens did take up a lot of my time, they also relaxed me. I enjoyed bottle feeding them. I enjoyed spending a large part of my day playing with them to ensure that they would be socialized. My life was still spinning out of control around me, but the kittens calmed me down.

I only had them for a few weeks before the clinic put them up for adoption, and they were adopted very fast. I have to admit that while I was happy they found homes quickly, I also cried a little at first. The crying made me think that this isn't something I can do, but it didn't last long and while I miss the little guys, it does make me happy to know that they didn't die when they lost their mother, and now, because of me, they are happy and healthy and have good homes.

I do still have one kitten with me for now. This particular one is going home with Larry (read past blogs for crazy Larry stories), because Larry took an instant liking to him, and Larry's owners agreed that Larry will be lonely when he leaves a house full of cats and returns to his empty house, with a new baby. Larry's "dad" has named the kitten Moe, and the 2 of them are pretty inseparable. So I am happy that I get to enjoy this kitten for a little while longer.

My point of all this is, is that I think I would really do well with my own rescue. When a person is already stressed and you just lay more work on them, that tends to stress them out more right? Well, in this case, it helped my stress, so clearly what I was doing was something that I loved doing. I would love to foster kittens again. And I hope that one day, I really will be the owner of my own animal rescue. Maybe that will end up being my career, even though I probably won't ever make a dime from it :-).

I took tons and tons of pictures of these little guys, but here are some (ok a bunch) of my favorites: