Acceptance - Quirks of Pets

21 year old cat dies.  15 year old dog dies.  Within 2 months of each other.

Enter new pets, adopted several months later, fully grown pets, with issues known and unknown.  2 male cats, 2 female dogs, double down this time!  

First the cats were frightened of the dogs and hid.  Slowly all became aware that no harm was meant by any under this roof, and so it became a somewhat peaceable kingdom.  The cats play together and enjoy each other.  The dogs are inseparable, both have to go when one has a vet appointment; despite not knowing each other before we adopted them and being totally different breeds and dispositions, they adore each other.  Ruby is afraid of nothing!  Mariah is scared of all noises and became severely ill on her first 4th of July with us.  Which one do you think is which from the photo?

We tore out the carpet and put in hardwoods after that first 4th of July.  

Several years pass and the big orange and white Angora cat Simba (his name when we adopted him) becomes diabetic.  I have nicknamed the cats Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, Simba being larger and not quite as fast as the brown Tabby, Miles, who strikes with the speed of a snake and finesse of Bruce Lee.  Miles (I contemplated long and hard for a fitting name for a handsome cat) has also taken to believing that my husband is the lead male cat in the house, the only male allowed, and thus hides in the closet when my Ralph is home.  Simba is the curious cat, the one with the sense of humor and he absolutely adores Ralph.  He is the smartest cat I have ever had and I've lived with many, many cats through my life.  Miles is like a cougar, long and sleek.  Simba is just like a lion, with large paws (tufts of hair in paws) and a beautiful mane.

Fast forward some more years when everyone is older now.  Miles (unknown age but older than Simba's 10 years) still hides when Ralph is home and will only come out when he is absolutely sure the "leader" is not around.  The problem is that these cats are indoor only cats and the litter boxes are not near the closet.  Miles won't pass by Ralph so I have to carry him to the litter box in the morning on weekends.  Ralph many times stays up late and he gets up early to give Simba his insulin injection.  This means less time for Miles to sneak out to the litter box, and means more stress for me, worrying if he has woken in the night and used the box, or slept through the night and then really has to go but is afraid to run past Ralph!

It's not Ralph's fault - he hasn't done anything to Miles and he has no mean intentions towards him.  We even had an animal communicator come over, early on, when Miles still crept onto the bed once we were asleep.  Miles told the animal communicator that in the wild there's only one male allowed but during the night everyone stays together for protection.  She tried to communicate back that we wanted him to join our family at all times, but he is just not comfortable.  I've tried pheromones, drugs, holding him on my lap next to my husband - no steps taken have worked.  

So now he lives here with acceptance - we accept his irrational fear of Ralph and I do carry him to the litter box to ensure he has gone.  As he gets older, we may have to change the location of the boxes, or isolate him in a room during the times when Ralph is home more such as weekend.

What is sad is that Ralph doesn't get to see how cuddly and sweet Miles is - he only sees him running away to the other side of the house into a hiding place.  He doesn't get to see Miles and Simba rough housing together.  Simba is still trying to show Miles that he is the king and Miles allows it because he knows he can take Simba down whenever he wants to.

I swear that when these pets die I will not get more pets.  I am tired of the stress, the messes, the hair, the expenses.  They are more trouble than children are.  

Yet, oh! the pleasure they bring to us, the love, the humor, the companionship....time will tell.......and everytime I see animals needing a home my heart softens just a wee bit. Then the logical mind screams in my ear, "Are you CRAZY?  Don't you want to travel?  I thought you were sick of accident clean ups, trying to find pet sitters!"    We'll see............

Trees, Yann Arthus-Bertrand was appointed by the United Nations to produce the official film for the International Year of Forests.

This video is wonderful and the images are breathtaking -
http://youtu.be/-HSaAlPRN-c

Clouds

Yesterday and today had the most fabulous clouds here in the South Puget Sound.  When I was small in Illinois, I would lay in the grass in the summer and watch the clouds.  We all could see different things in them shout it out to our friends - it might be an animal or a person's face or the shape of a flower.  Clouds in the Pacific Northwest are usually stratus clouds - flat and gray and all encompassing.  Cumulous clouds make me light up with excitement.    The cumulous and cumulonimbus ones are so magnificient - sometimes miles high, sometimes dark and threatening - a sky with these clouds fascinates and thrills me.
Perhaps the underlying current of a possible electrical storm, also are rare here in the Northwest, adds to this excitement.  Having grown up in the Midwest, I miss the electrical storms, the huge clouds floating across a sky that is usually blue, and the fireflies.  I do not, however, miss the humidity or the huge amounts of snow snarling traffic or the tornadoes.  Seeing mountain peaks everywhere (because Puget Sound is in between the Cascade and the Olympic mountain ranges), and the ocean and large lakes surrounded by tall fir trees gives daily inspiration and I never tire of these views.

The sky is still blue this evening and I now see stratus, cumulous and cirrus clouds.  Mt Rainier (about one hour from my home on winding, country roads, so large, it makes its own weather) is just barely visible now with a layer of various types of clouds above it, around it and moving toward it.

© Andrea Corwin

Myrrh and Goldenseal

Well, I said I would talk about myrrh in a post and this is it. 

If I eat too many walnuts the roof of my mouth gets sore; yet sometimes this happens without ingesting walnuts.  

During one episode I kept rinsing with sea salt for days and the soreness would not resolve.  Then came the big "ah ha" moment!  I had forgotten my herbal remedies!  Ta Da...........myrrh healed it within a day.  Sometimes I mix liquid goldenseal, an antiseptic, with the myrrh in the palm of my hand and then use a finger to put it onto the tender area.  Years ago I bought Dian Dincin Buchman's "Herbal Medicine," an excellent herbal compilation with in-depth information on ailments and herbs.  I believe there is an update to now to this book but I still have my original, falling apart copy.  I don't know if I found the remedy from this book or elsewhere but I do highly recommend the book.

Speaking of goldenseal - here is something I use during cold/flu season and when traveling by air:  I mix liquid goldenseal with echinacea in the palm of my hand and add a bit of water.  Then you close one nostril and sniff the mixture into the other one.  Repeat on both sides.  It burns a bit when it hits your sinus cavities in the cheekbones but that is all right.  Wait a few seconds and then you can blow your nose.  I use this regularly along with some other nutritional support (Shaklee of course) and rarely get sick.  The one time I was flying a lot and forgot to do this, I did get sick.  If I'm on travel, I use it before I leave for the airport.  Mixing the 2 together and using it this way puts a barrier to germs in your nostrils and is especially important on airplanes.

Shaklee Cinch Success:Matt

My last post was from an article talking about obesity affecting one's income in different ways.  Since I am an Independent Shaklee Distributor, I thought I would follow up that post with something about Shaklee's CINCH product.  Cinch has helped many many people lose weight, and INCHES.  I dropped a size in the top and the bottom by using this program.  I found that using this keeps your blood sugar levels more stable and can positively affect cholesterol levels (as it did for me). 

It is tasty, science based, fills you up, has variety, is very comparably priced and very easy to follow.  I lost inches but retained muscle and I have continued to use Cinch to keep the weight off.  The money I would normally spend on meals is redirected to the Cinch product and my tastes have changes - we rarely eat breakfast out any more because I have a Cinch shake. 

Some diets get the weight off of you, and many times that includes losing muscle; people also tend to gain it back after stopping the diet and it comes back as more fat. CINCH has scientific proof that muscle is retained, that is why this program is so fabulous.  Muscle helps to burn fat.  We watch the inches melt away with Cinch, and retain muscle.  This translates into:  changed body shape, some weight loss, possible improved blood chemistry, more energy.  You can view more about it at my Shaklee website. 

To Your Health,
Andrea

Finances suffer by being overweight (Jennifer Openshaw - MarketWatch)

OK, this article at link below if quite fascinating and brings up several items of note - and keep in mind, my comments below are my comments, not those of the link's authors):
1) if you are overweight, you eat more calories, thus spend more money on food
2) if you are overweight, your health can suffer in numerous ways, thus increasing spending on health care (either out of obese person's wallet, or tax payer if the person isn't covered by health care) - chronic disease costs a lot over the long haul and even more when you are elderly and have to be in a medical assist facility
3) life insurance costs more if you are obese because the actuarial tables show obese people have shorter lives - thus, are charged more for life insurance (and medical insurance - remember pre-existing conditions!)
4) and what I think is a weird study on BMI (body mass index) showing think people earn more (what about all those "fat cat" males who ARE big earners.......whatever.  Ms. Openshaw makes some good points in the article, so check it out.
What do you think?  Post comments and be sure to subscribe to my blog (at top of blog) and  follow my blog by clicking the Follow link, lower left.

If you don't lose weight your finances will Jennifer Openshaw - MarketWatch