Empty

I am generally a very emotional person. I cry at weddings, at engagement or baby news and when I’m just sad. I have learned to control these emotions quite well as of lately, until my super sweet kitty Ceecee went missing. I last saw him on October 6th in my garage. It is very out of character for him to just up and leave, especially because he is neutered, which decreases or eliminates their desire to roam.

Nothing in life has trained my emotions to deal with such a lost, empty feeling. The butterflies in my stomach will not go away. The questions will not stop running through my head. Why did he leave? Where is he? Did someone take him? He is hurt? Alive? Lost? Is he coming back?

Being here at home I simply cannot stop going to the door to see if he is there. I have scoured our yard, neighborhood and woods behind our house since Saturday morning with no signs of Ceecee boy. Fliers of posted throughout my subdivision and the adjoining neighborhood.

I did get one call this morning in response to my fliers. A potential Ceecee sighting one street over from mine, but sadly when I got home I was not able to find him. I did spot a Ceecee look-a-like over the weekend and wonder if this is who was spotted. I’m not giving up hope that he will return. Many friends have reassured me that their cats have gone missing for 1, 2 or 3 weeks and returned to their surprise. I hope and pray with all my heart that the Lord will bring our little Cee Monkey back to us safe and sound.

I still feel like I’m going to wake up from this horrible nightmare and he will be there under my neck purring, like always. He is never not purring, EVER. It was the strangest thing. Even at the vet where most cats are terrified and angry, he would just sing the whole time. I love my Beebee, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to leave her out. She is still gracing our family. She is my heart, but her brother just had some aura about him that just lifted you up because he was ALWAYS in such a loving mood.

It’s so hard to go out looking for him. Calling his name and praying you hear his little ‘maow’ back, not ‘meow.’ He is very vocal and loves to talk. Calling for him and wondering if he can hear me is just so sad. Seeing the geckos in our bathroom window at night also hit me hard and make me miss him so much more. He loves to sit up there and watch for the geckos on the outside of the glass. Each time when we come home and he’s not sitting in his typical chair in the garage just makes me so sad. Waiting and watching the door go up to slowly reveal the empty chair just breaks my heart all over. Driving through my neighborhood every day and passing so many of his ‘missing’ signs with his picture just tears me to pieces. I drive by and think, I put that sign there and that is MY cat that is missing. Lord have mercy.

I will keep everyone posted if he returns. Our family appreciates your prayers. We miss our sweet little man so bad.

Pinterest

Have you heard of Pinterest?

If not, welcome to your new favorite website. Thanks Suzanne for the new obsession!

This website has really made idea saving more easy. Before, I was saving images from online in various folders on my computer for future reference and safe keeping. If you know me, I am a planner! I plan for everything. I have folders for wedding inspiration, baby room inspiration (never too soon to start planning, right?) DIY project ideas and décor inspiration. Before I would Google search my ideas or simply save the picture after stumbling across it on the Internet.

I love this!

But now my friends, it’s all saved on Pinterest and I get to share my “pins” with my friends as well. It’s also fun to look at what other people have “pinned.”

Searching ‘fall décor’ was dangerous, very dangerous. At this rate I’m going to be changing out the filler in my hurricane vases every day because there are so many easy ideas for filling these things. I mean, I fill them with fresh cranberries for the holidays, but would have never thought to fill them with candy corn for Halloween. I’m not too much on actual Halloween decorations – I like to stick with pumpkins and more fall-related stuff – but will definitely be buying some candy corn very soon!

I have held back from searching for Christmas stuff at this time. I would obsess over it and have the house full of all-things-Christmas the day after Halloween. I did get my Christmas tree last year the DAY they were available at Home Depot (I spy HD right outside of my work window) and unfortunately the tree was a little dry and turning brown come Christmas day (yes, I kept it watered). This made me a bit paranoid about having the lights turned on because I am horribly afraid of a fire. I just can’t bring myself to buy an artificial tree.

Ok, see, I start thinking about Christmas and get overtaken. I hope you will check it out - you won't be sorry. Put on your craft hat, head to Michael's and grab your glue gun people!

Random weekend post

Fall is definitely in the air, even if it is not offiicially here until Friday. What else comes with the cooler weather? The sickness. Michael had it, then I got it. It was a relaxing weekend to say the least.

At least I got up for a bit to help Michael out with some seasoning the our baby back ribs. My container of brown sugar was left empty, so that meant it was time to rejuvinate my brown sugar bear. Have you heard of this little guy? I got him at Bed, Bath & Beyond about a year ago and he is great! No more hard, clumpy brown sugar. You just soak him in warm water for a few minutes...

Then add him in to your container filled with brown sugar. Always a fun little surprise whn you go to get some brown sugar.

Did I mention I was sick in bed most of the weekend? I wasn't alone. Ceecee boy isn't sick but was good company. He's such a little snuggler! I hope he enjoyed his time in the bed because the bed linens have been washed and will remain kitty free. No worries Cee, you'll get your bedtime snuggle time next weekend when it's almost wash time again.

And, though it's not officially fall doesn't mean my house can't smell like it's fall, right? I'm back on the Bath & Body Works smell kick for a while. Thankfully they had a big sale - 6/$24 - wich included the warmers. All of my warmers of theirs had died and wouldn't get hot anymore. I love some of their new fall scents. Currently I have Leaves. When these are up I will change them out to the Sweet Pumpkin. Speaking of pumpkins, I spotted the first pumpkins of the season and couldn't resist buying them. Michael reminded me that my pumpkins last year didn't last until Halloween (they weren't even carved). Well, oh well! If these won't last I'll just have to pick up some more. This is one of my favorite seasons and I definitely have to max it out.

Saturday was Suzanne's birthday! Friday night I joined her and some of her friends for a pajama party complete with Papa John's pizza, American Honey and my FIRST viewing of Sixteen Candles. Yes people, I had not saw this before, but I really enjoyed it! It was a great night!

Well, not to get too ahead of myself. Earlier in the week I went to check on the kitties outside (we leave their food in the garage since they are technically outside kitties) and what do you know, Ceecee had a girlfriend with him on the couch. I stood there in shock and Michael came to see, this is who was making her little self at home.

So anyways, back to Friday night. I'm leaving Suzanne's and Michael calls. Said this kitty had been hanging out with him and some friends and he ASKED IF WE SHOULD KEEP IT. I wasnt sure if I heard him right. Did you just ask ME if we should keep it? Me, miss animal lover, heart of gold for animals, would live on a farm with 100 cats and dogs if I could, ME? So I get home and she is just loving on everyone who was over. I stayed up for a bit since there was an impromptu bon fire at our house. She sat on my lap most of the night. I fed her and Michael finally had to bring it to my attention that she had been eating all night and wouldn't stop. I guess when you have lived your lilfe this long without a home or regular feedings you just want to eat as much as you can.

Instead of continue to call her "new kitty" or "little kitty" I started calling her Liddy. I'm not sure how old she is yet (going to the vet this week) but she seems so petite, and was skin and bones. She's a sweet Liddy kitty. I hope when she goes to get spayed this week that she will still want to come around.

Hello Goodbye

"I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello."

On Monday I did the unthinkable. I said goodbye to my beloved XC90.

 

I knew "Betty" was going to be upset. Then I knew she was really upset when they parked my new Accord right next to her. It made the transition easy, but actually seeing my old car sitting next to my brand new car was pretty sad. I couldn't help but shed a few tears.

The XC90 is still my favorite car I have had. But WHY did she have to be such a gold digger?  Instead of  preparing to invest MORE money into her, it was time to say goodbye. I opted to go back to Honda. Yes, it's my fourth Honda and third Accord. I really didn't know what I wanted to get, and I'm pretty partial to Honda for some reason anyways. 

Not the greatest pictures from my phone.

I tell you what, it's weird going from a SUV to a car again. I have to actually watch out for curbs now, and be careful not to pull up too close in parking spots. The bonus, I don't have to get premium gas anymore! Goodbye bad gas mileage and super pricy gas, hello good fuel economy and sparce gas station visits.

It's good to be back on team Honda. Let my OCD kick in now with having my first brand new car. I know I will die at the first spot or scuff, but I keep reminding myself - it's just a car and it WILL get a dent.

Another guardian angel

My sweet Aunt Kay is now in heaven with the Lord. After an 11-month battle with cancer, she is now home with our Savior.

This weekend was one of the hardest weekends in my life. The pain I felt for my cousins, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and all of my Aunt Kay’s friends and family left my heart so heavy. I pray for everyone’s peace during this time and know that as we are followers of God, we will see her again. I tried not to think about this as ‘goodbye,’ but more of a ‘see you later.’ I tried not to mourn the fact that I will not see her again, but celebrate her wonderful life she had and know that she feels no more pain. She is in the best place she can be right now. As the pastor said during the morning service, “she’s eating breakfast with the Lord right now, then she will eat lunch, and dinner with the Lord as well.” How lucky is she?

My Aunt Kay with my cousin (one of her daughters) Natalie.

We will miss her deeply until it is our time to join her.

DIY - goodbye carpet

Hello hardwood!

While we have redone the floors in every room in our house, the last room to get some TLC was our bedroom. With dogs and allergies, carpet is not our friend.

Thankfully Michael is super handy! Patrick came over to lend a helping hand and the fellas finished 'project hardwood floor' in about 5 hours. Props guys!

We also upgraded to some taller baseboards, which makes a HUGE difference.

It is so nice to have all of these pending projects finally checked off the to-do list. Do you think we could really be done with DIY projects? Absolutely not! We are now exploring the idea of a screened in back patio. We shall see where that road takes us...

Best friends

So I'm a bit late on this post. Why is it so hard to plug my memory card into my computer and download pictures? They need a Nikon DSLR with wireless and a Facebook and Blogger button!

My bff Jacky celebrated her 20-something-ith birthday on August 20th and we had a great time celebrating with her and her boyfriend Joe's family. Jacky and I have been friends since 9th grade and she is THE person I can tell anything to! We can also relate in more ways than one, joking about how we are two of the very few people in our graduating class who are 1 - not married or engaged, and 2 - do not have a picture of a child as our profile picture on Facebook.

Joe's sister and husband cooked up quite the seafood feast! They caught their own blue crabs down in the Bayou and cooked them up with shrimp, corn, potatoes, Conecuh and onions. I finally learned how to properly crack, shell and eat a blue crab.

Singing Happy Birthday, then eating super-yummy cake! Or cakes, I should say - she had two!

Happy Birthday, bff! I can't wait to see where our lives and friendship take us on down the road!