400th post winner!

The winner of the 400th post drawing was comment #1 - JustMe!

I'll try to track you down through your blog, but I don't have an email address for you, so drop me a line so you can claim your prize!

Thanks so much for participating everyone.

The newest member of our family

Everyone, meet Gizmo



He is a flame point Himalayan/Persian mix which is like a cousin breed to our Ragdolls.

We found him on Craigslist and the lady said he was eight weeks old. On the way home I saw a couple fleas on him, so we went straight to the vet's to get him dipped. The vet took one look at him and said, "That cat is not eight weeks old. He is way too young for anything other than a bath and a flea comb." So we did as we were told.


And that's how he got his name. Doesn't he look like a little Gremlin here?


We felt strongly about getting a kitten instead of an older cat. This little guy has a big job ahead of him to fill the shoes of our sweet Lobo, and as a kitten we have the best chance of training him (as much as you can ever really train a cat) to be Atti's best buddy and playmate.


Although he hasn't really needed much training so far. He seems to be taking to his job like a natural.

Since Lobo died I've been so sad that he wasn't here just as Atti started really discovering the cats. Now that he can commando crawl he's been trying to chase them all over the house, shouting Kitty! Kitty! the whole way, but the older girls want nothing to do with him. Now he plays with little Gizmo and laughs his head off as the kitten frolics around him.


Until he just runs out of steam.

400th post giveaway!

I had not planned on slowing down for the summer, but, as I really should have learned by now, I seem to have very little control over how things go in my life. Atti's still recovering and doing awesome but his eyes just look gruesome right now. The white part is still red and blistery looking, and his blue/hazel eyes are set off in such stark contrast against it that it's a little bit spooky. On top of that, I was used to a little cross-eyed baby and now I have these bloody blue eyes peering directly into me. It's a little bit disconcerting.

I've been running around like crazy behind the scenes here, trying to make some career opportunities happen, trying to track down the cause of all these nerve-wracking chest pains, and trying to not blow my top at any medical professional who doesn't listen to me. I guess some people think that it's calming if the doctor doesn't seem terribly concerned, but all you have to do is have one doctor call you crazy and suddenly any attempts at calmness just seem like you're not being taken seriously.

I have been neglecting you my dear blog, and I have a bunch I have to share, but for today I thought I'd throw a little party. My five year anniversary is coming in November and I have a bunch of stuff planned for that, but I couldn't resist a mini-celebration for hitting the big 4-0-0. You guys have meant so much to me, particularly over the last year. The needs of my little man keep me fairly isolated from my community, but I don't feel that loss for a moment because I have such a supportive and nurturing group of people cheering me on. Really, I can't say enough how much I value you all.

So, leave me a little comment (make sure you enter an email address or leave a link) and I will draw one winner at random who will get to select *any* item they wish from my shop. That's right, one free item of your choice just for coming by and saying hi. I'll pick a winner on Friday, at 9am Pacific time.

Because I love you guys, and sometimes I just don't say it enough.

2009 Year of Pleasures #27

Atti did great. Doctor checked him out today and was really pleased with what he saw. For me, it was absolutely grueling and I'm no where near recovered. Sleep. I would really love some sleep.

Atti hard at work

Tomorrow's the big day. My brave little guy is going in for surgery. I really haven't been that concerned about it, honestly. In fact I've been so far from concerned that I actually missed his first pre-op appointment and sent our whole schedule into a tailspin that we haven't fully recovered from. It's just his eyes, he's not sick...But now that it's here, well, who could help but freak out?


His physical therapist is really gung-ho, and I love it. As soon as we started coming to see her, she just skipped all the stuff in between and said, "We're going to get this kid walking." Atti adores her, and he adores his time on the treadmill. The PT sits behind him and moves his legs in the walking motion. He laughs hysterically, and she tells me that he's doing more and more of the work himself every time.


He works so hard. When I see him around other kids his age it's so easy to get caught up in what he can't do. Or even to get caught up in the myopia of just what we're working on, and to forget what a miracle he already is. It's hard to stay in the moment when you're working with everything you have to get him to a normal future.

I've been trying to remind myself of all this as I've been freaking out about his surgery. It was not that long ago that we were holding our breath to see if he was going to be blind. Since then we've faced so many new concerns and conquered so many other problems that we're eons away from that initial terror, but I'm trying to remember it. So that I can tell myself that this terror will go away too.

I'm sure that in a year's time I'll be obsessing over his latest milestone, trying to remind myself of being freaked out about a minor surgery and how it turned out to just be one more thing that happened along his way. But no matter how brave I aspire to be, no matter how minor this procedure is, no matter how hard Atti works at what's in front of him, he's still my baby and I suppose it's just part of the job description that I should worry.