The Great Adventure: Soft Kitty....Broken Kitty

If you watch Big Bang Theory (which we love) you will recognize the title as a take off of their song Soft Kitty but for us it has real meaning right now. Well, poor Simba kitty. We noticed a couple weeks ago that Simba was limping and we were worried. Now, let me back up. Simba has been in our guest room. He couldn't roam the house when he moved in because the dogs are kenneled at night and he was sitting in front of their kennel and teases them. So we put him in the guest room with a gate in the door to keep the dogs out of his food and litter box. Anyways, we thought he had injured himself jumping the gate and so we took the gate down and thought he would get better. Well, he didn't so we took him to the vet and the vet found that his back leg is really swollen so we still thought he had sprained it or Molly had bit (pinched) him. So we took him home on an anti-inflammatory. Then 2 days later, he was sooooo much worse. He was holding his leg up and just crying all the time. What was amazing was as we were trying to pet him and carry him...he would cry in pain but NEVER once lashed at us or bit us. That is amazing if you know animals. When they are in pain they don't always have that control even with their owners. He is a sweet, fantastic kitty. So on Monday I dropped him off at the vet for them to take x-rays and guess what? It looks as if he has a fractured hip. How? I don't know and neither does the vet but he does. Luckily, the vet thinks that he has a good chance at healing so we are keeping him on an antiinflammatory and just watching him. When the vet went to get him...he meowed in anger...not a happy cat after being manipulated and poked all day. We brought him home and the poor thing was so much worse. He couldn't get comfortable...he meowed and cried and tried to lay down and tried to stand up...oh it was horrible to watch. So we put him in his room and closed the door. Each day since the vet visit he gets a little better but it is still soooo painful. It is hard to watch him go through this. The vet said it could take a month so we will watch him and see what happens. The next step would be to do surgery to remove part of the hip. I hope we don't have to do that.

First semester finals start this week so if the girls don't have finals, they don't have to go to school. I guess that is a high school thing. So Tiana is off tomorrow and Friday and part of next week and Tabitha is off Friday and some next week. Tiana was excited this week because she got second highest on a standardized math test. I told her this just proved she was smart. Tabitha will take hers next semester.

It has been very, very cold still. I guess that is winter here but it has been abnormally cold even according to the news casters. The cold though isn't as surprising to me as the fact that is snows all the time and yet it doesn't seem to get much deeper. But I would say everyday for the last 2-3 weeks it has snowed all or part of the day. It does make it very pretty..covers up the ugly with a fresh coat. If you look closely in this pic..you can see the ice rink Wil is working on building for us. This picture is from our front door looking right...that is all our property. I will put some more pics of the house and the fresh snow below.

I am in the process of going through cabinets. I have done the cabinet in the girls bathroom and the bookshelves downstairs. I have taken everything off and evaluated whether we use it and where it is stored and put it back on the shelf or thrown it away or in the case of books, put them in a box to take to a used book store. Now I am starting on the craft/scrapbooking area. YIKES! There is so much down there..but I have a good start so I will keep it up and hopefully finish in the next couple days. That may be wishful thinking but we will try.

So I had an interesting experience today. I have wanted to get involved with the American Cancer Society but never had the time. We I went to a volunteer fair a couple months back, before I had a job and signed up for a couple of organizations and then came across the Canadian Cancer Society. I remember turning to Wil and saying...I could spend my days volunteering. Then I got the job and I thought well there goes that idea. Well, they contacted me and they were so friendly and not overly persistent like organizations tend to be. I kept trying to make an orientation and they were always on a day I worked. Then I got an email from the volunteer manager and we set up a time to talk on the phone. Our 15 minute interview turned into almost 45 minutes. So there was finally an orientation today on a rare Wednesday off for me and I went in to see what was up. Well, guess what, they want me to be their new information outreach person. They have a new power point presentation that gives information to health care professionals about the services they provide and they want someone in that field to do some lunch and learns to present it and they want me. Really? I am not sure how I feel about it. It would be easy in the health care sense, I used to teach CPR so speaking in public on something I am schooled in is no problem but I am not Canadian and I am not sure how that will be received. I haven't had any problems so far but still I can see where it could be a stumbling block and I don't want to have that be a problem ...hmmmm. Quite an honor for the fact that they don't know me. Anyways, I have signed up to work in the office a bit and in the mean time I will review the "job description" and see what happens. I look forward to being able to immerse myself in a worthy cause and organization. BTW, the daffodil is their "symbol". I love daffodils and always have, others love tulips and rose...I have always loved daffodils.

Along the same lines there is one big difference I have noticed in the US vs Canada. In the US (at least in the larger cities) the question are you comfortable with computers better be yes or you are looked at as behind the times. Here (at least in this rural setting) if you say yes, people are so excited and happy. Then mention that you like manipulating spreadsheets and data and they look at you as if they just struck gold.

Keep us in your prayers as I pray and thank God for all of you often!