perspective

There has been a lot going on lately at Chateau Notes. Life happens. And sometimes it is messy and hard. (we are fine...just normal stuff)

Recently we purchased new floors. Buy buy Bye-bye carpet and hello looks like wood vinyl planks. (Cali Bamboo LVP). I chose Cali because they are a pretty clean product with ultra low VOCs and that is important to me. But what an ordeal!

We spent about two weeks moving as much as we could to our dining room and kitchen..and even our extra bathtub..stack stack stack. It was crazy. But our installer called us dream clients because we did so much of the work for him. :) They ripped out all the old carpet..dust dust dust flying everywhere. GROSS. And they got busy installing our new floors. It took three days. We stayed two nights in a hotel.

And then we came home to a dusty dirty post reno MESS. But I couldn't get the floors looking clean. Major struggle bus. I think I figured out my problem today and used a different cleaner and they seem much prettier today..but its cloudy and dark out and I need a sunny day to know for sure.

But this whole thing along with a few other things going on, had me flaring with my breathing problems and just generally annoyed at life. Sometimes the everyday funk just gets me down, ya know?

I was scrolling and generally feeling sorry for myself when I stumbled upon a video from a local news personality. I knew she had breast cancer just three years ago. And then had a handful of 'state of the art' surgeries to rebuild her chest. Her latest video was announcing that she had metastatic breast cancer.  Her clock is ticking.

Y'all.

I had to stop and pray. And thank God that I feel great and can do things like left heavy furniture and boxes and that I'm dealing with everyday life..and not dealing with mortality.

It's hard to get flustered about smudges on floors when I could be fighting even harder for my life than I currently do.

So today I mopped my floors..again...with a new perspective. And Hope that goes beyond a better floor cleaner. 

Romans 15:13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (italics mine)

on contentment

A few years back we thought about selling our house. But we never found something we liked. And then I got sick. So yeah..that was that.

Fast forward some years and we are thinking about it again. We need a little more space. Our daughter, while grown, isn't going anywhere. And we could use a tad more space.

I think about what I want style wise and I get overwhelmed. I look at my own house and begin to dream about all the ways I could change it.

But to what?

I started following a lot of home decor instagrammers. It just kinda happened. I followed Layla at The Lettered Cottage forever as a blogger and then followed her on insta. I guess she was the 'gateway drug' to many more decor accounts. But the funny thing is, their houses are all but identical. I'm not saying they are exactly alike, because they certainly aren't. But they have some serious similarities. And then I look around at my house, not looking a lick like any of them.

And I get restless.

My walls aren't gray. My cabinets aren't painted white. I don't have dark hardwood floors. I don't have hardwood floors at all. I don't have white slip covers. I don't have neutral, muted, soothing tones all over my house. And it was really getting to me. I kept thinking about going for 'the fixer upper look'.

But then I remembered what I have been saying for a long time about Fixer Upper...even though I totally adore Chip and Joanna, there is no way I could live in a black and white house. I need more color than a basket of apples or a vase of flowers. That is not a pop of color in my world.

So I am learning to look around my house and be content with I see. To be thankful for our house. It isn't photo ready or all grays and whites. It isn't 'all of the things', at all. But it is us. It has 'friendly yellow'..yes thats the actual color name..walls. And I love them. I have a dark red chenille couch..and I love it. I have simple antiques and things I have collected over time that mean so much to me. I made the curtains in my living areas..deep red with flowers and red, yellow, green and blue checks too. And I love those too.

I am so thankful that I have taken a pause from drooling over all things insta and looked around my own house and realized I don't need gray walls and white cabinets and wood floors and all of the things, for my house to be 'just so'.

It already is. Because it's mine and it was lovingly curated over many years. And I don't plan on changing it anytime soon. And that's good.

Be content today, friends. :)

wild man's happy ending

Boys Will Be Boys

Dudley the kitty was (happy ending..just hold on) pretty rowdy. As in completely crazy. I have several friends with kitties and I was forever asking them if any cat they knew of ever (fill in the blank) and the answer was always a resounding NO. He didn't like to get in boxes, but he liked to eat them. He ripped my soft sided sauna and swung from its rafters like a cat on the flying trapeze. Freaked the hubs out when that happened. He got on top of my kitchen cabinet..he wasn't always a great hop, so he was scratching to pieces one of the cabinet doors. Fun. Times.  He was addicted to food so he started waking me up for breakfast around 4:30am. Ya know what I don't want to do at 4:30am? Be awaked by a cat. Ya know what annoys a cat at 4:30am...a 'mom' that's not dosing up the vittles. He hung from the window toppers in our bedroom one night. And knocked every component off our little tv table beside our dresser...vcr, roku box etc..on the reg. He was ruining all the rugs in the whole house. And every afghan too. I could not keep him off the counters when I cooked which was very hard. And I was terrified he was going to jump in the oven. I'm not even kidding. The weirdest thing he did though was lose his ever loving mind for about 20-30 minutes every day...that is when he would do super charged things like jump on top of the frig..from the floor. It was insane. He would run full force into WALLS.  I can't even describe all the things he did. Just too many.

Attack Cat

The thing that was the most disturbing was the attacks. Often times when I was sitting up in bed, he would get this wild look on his face and I had about a half a second to protect myself. Which is hard to do sitting up in bed. I was attacked on the face and head more than once. I called my vet's office in tears several times just asking what am I going to do with this cat???? I wanted him put down because honestly he scared the cr@p out of me. But she would never go there. I get it. But it left me high and dry. I could not surrender him again to the city because he would have just been stuck in a tiny cage again..and he was berserk and crazy from the last time that happened. So it furthered my feelings of being trapped by the situation.

Cuddly Dudley

He was super friendly and cuddly a lot of the time. He demanded a lot of affection at certain times..especially when he was hungry. The cuddly times tugged at my heart. I loved that part and I tried to love him. But the cuddly feelings were always cut short by the remembrance of times when I was cleaning up my face from the latest attack.

Just Plodding Along...UNTIL

So things just plodded along. I felt trapped. Hubs HATED him. And daughter wanted to love him because he was the resident kitty and well..that was enough for her. She got swatted at a couple of timed but never walked away with the wounds I suffered though, thankfully. One day I made a random private comment on an instagram story about the horrors of declawing. She asked me a bunch of questions and I told her we were going to have to consider it if we could not get a handle on his behaviors. I don't think she heard anything from me but that I considered declaw. In a heartbeat she told me that she was going to have a lady that runs a very prominent account for rescue contact me. I said that I recognized her name and that I knew there was no way she had time to talk to me. Within a few seconds, I had a private message from her. We talked extensively and she actually agreed to take Dudley and work with him etc..if I could get him to VEGAS. I texted the husband who was traveling on a business trip at the time. He was all for it and was looking up airfares. Like I said..he hated the cat. Over the course of couple days, the lady in Vegas got me in contact with a more local rescue after telling her my story. And very long story short, I talked to the local (well... 40 miles or so) lady and she said she had an open spot in her rescue if I could get him to her the very next day. So suddenly the plan went from 'in a few weeks we may fly to Vegas' to 'tomorrow I am driving Dudley to the big city'. I have to say I jumped at the chance for him but it tugged at my heart also. Even after everything we had been through. But overall I was happy he might get a chance with someone else.

The Big City

I texted the hubs about the whole 'I can take him tomorrow and we don't have to go to Vegas'. He was all for it. So the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I was to take him.  I woke up early and he got the wild eyed look that I knew all too well. I sat up in bed with my hands out but he tore me up anyway. I was angry that he did it but it certainly made the day easier. I was growing more and more scared of him. So was my daughter. I had told the Vegas lady and the rescue lady about his propensities and i really don't think they heard me. The day I took him, she 'tested him' and told me she didn't think he looked like he would just do something unprovoked. I said ok and signed the papers and walked out. I have wondered since that time if he just did not like me. Or if maybe I did things that rubbed him the wrong way..but I don't know what that would be. Or like I said..maybe our personalities just weren't right, ya know? I knew I never wanted him in a cage because as I told her, he would go nuts. Thankfully Vegas lady talked to the rescue here and he was going to stay with a very experienced foster mom. I have trolled the rescue on FB and about a month or so ago, he was adopted by a single lady and her bf. I am glad there are no kids. And I'm glad its somebody who knows more of what they are getting into as far as his extreme energy. I hope he ends up with a kitty sibling eventually. I think he would like that. I have obviously not reached out to the owner or the rescue etc but I stalked a bit hoping to see if things went well for him. I hope this home is his happily ever after.

Instagram Haters

I unfollowed a billion cat accounts that I had followed. I just needed a break from cats. I was pretty messed up by everything that happened with D.  One day I decided to try to follow the Vegas lady again...I really loved her and appreciated all she had done for us. I figured out she had blocked me. So she could post pics of D and talk about his urgent need for a home...and drag me through the mud as his owner in the process. And then all her minions chimed in as well...some saying pretty nasty things about me. It really hurt me. I was just trying to save a cat from a shelter and I did the best I could.

Sometimes I think about writing Vegas lady and telling her how hurt I was by her post..but at the end of the day its not about me..and she doesn't even know me so she can't be my judge anyway. It's about the cat. And everybody involved did right by the cat and I'm forever grateful..even to Vegas lady.

So that's the story. Pretty crazy, huh?! Sometimes people ask me if we will ever have another cat. Honestly I really don't know. If so, not for a while. We really need a break.

the cat we adopted twice

This has been in my drafts folder since May of last year.  This is the beginning of the story about us adopting a nightmare kitty. In my next post, I will let you know how the 'story' resolved. Hold on to your hats..its gonna be a bumpy ride.

********
There is a new kitty boy in our lives. It's been a rocky start. Ok, sometimes it just feels rocky all the time.

I had been scouring the Petfinder app starting about two weeks after Annabelle passed. Too soon..I know (now). But anyway, this one "little" cat stood out to me every time I searched. I secretly hoped one day I would search and not find him because I had this bizarre draw to  him and I hoped someone else would get him. I know that sounds weird. It was weird. So one day I went to the shelter and he was there. His shelter name was Lance. And he was so so affectionate. And for some reason the people at the shelter thought he had been declawed on all four. And yet he didn't seem to have a mean bone in his body. So I felt like he was too good to be true and called the hubby and finally decided to bring him home.

Immediately upon getting him home we realized he did indeed have claws. I wasn't quite ready for that. So I called the shelter and they said I could bring him back. It was late and they were closing so I planned to take him back immediately the very next morning. He stayed in our bathroom. I encouraged our daughter not to get too attached to him because 'he was leaving'. I would go in and take care of him..and cry..because he was super cute and showed a lot of affection. Hubs thought he was 'too big'. So his fate was sealed. I took him back.

And I continued to think about him for the next two and a half weeks. The girl and I talked a lot about him. Hubs and I talked about him. In different lights of course. ; ) But I finally talked the hubs into trying again with him.

So one day I told the girl that after lunch we were "going to get him". She knew exactly what I meant. Y'all...he was an absolute terror. He was beyond crazy! It stressed me out so much that long before the week's end, we planned on returning him. But I never felt settled about the matter so it never happened. I also took him to the vet because we wanted to know just how much this tub of bricks weighed, because he felt like he weighed almost 20 pounds. 8.3. Whaaa?! He knows how to make himself feel heavy. Very weird. The vet told us that she expected him to weigh about 10  full grown. So the 'he is too big' argument went out the window...AB weighed 15. He currently weighs 10.5. ha. I think he's going to weigh a little more still.

He is extremely active. And playful. He was estimated to be about 8-9 months when we got him in May. One day he got so "playful" that he kind of went off the deep end and attacked me. I got two gashes in my ear! So we planned once again to send him back. Or better yet...I know..terrible thing to say..euthanize him because he's such a horrible and scary animal. Before you say anything..I know! But that never happened. I read a lot of books and talked to a lady I met on insta who is a behaviorist.  And we are taking more careful note of his affect before he goes nuts. And he is learning through some discipline not to go bonkers on me. (He did it today and he had not done it in quite a while. But it was less severe and he stopped much more readily). He's an active teenaged boy.

To be fair, he is quite affectionate..when he is hungry. Which is in the mornings before I get up. So I get some cuddle and purr time early in the morning. Sometimes he goes under the covers and suckles on my pajamas and purrs his brains out while I pet him. It's sweet..but kinda gross. He is super smart. He plays fetch. And he is very athletic. He can jump from our kitchen counter to on top of the upper cabinets. He can also jump from the floor TO THE TOP OF THE REFRIGERATOR. No joke. It was crazy. He has only done that once..during one of his Tasmanian devil moments when he's just super charged. We are hoping he grows out the kitten stage sometime before we lose our marbles.

And that's how we adopted the same cat twice. We almost named him Ditto. But instead we named him Dudley.

the aftermath

I walked in the door with the empty carrier and wasn't quite sure what to do with myself.

I knew I needed to clean the litter box area and throw all of that stuff away. I mean..I was sad, but that wasn't my idea of something special to keep.

I cleaned things up and threw some things away. I washed the towel from her carrier and her special blanket. My girl put the blanket on her bed and I put the towel away with all the old 'extra' towels we rarely use.

If I walked past the bathroom, my head turned involuntarily to check to see if the litter box needed scooping. If I walked past the bedroom, I looked for her form in the crumpled up covers on the bed. In the mornings, I shed tears because I didn't have that cute little furry mouth to feed and doctor. My daughter checked the hallway every time she left the bathroom. She also missed being needed for drinks at the bathtub water fountain.

So many routines just shattered by loss.

But mainly I just rattled around the house, numb with grief.

I know she was just a kitty. But the grief is very palpable.

And in some ways, it set me back in grieving our little boy. So many similarities. I was the main caregiver for both. So many routines just gone. I was buried for a number of days. It was so hard. And for the first time, I experienced an anniversary of Bub's without Annabelle to sit and watch me to make sure I was ok, if I got upset. I felt a little lost. I would sometimes just hold her and cry..and now I needed her to cry into and she was gone too.

We are some better now. My sweet friend bought cute little necklaces for us within minutes of AB's passing and had those in the mail to us very quickly. We think of her and smile more than crying now. And somewhere along the way, I ordered necklaces with Annabelle's name on them. We wear one or both of those every day. It helps us. We can see them and smile and think of her.

We miss our sweet kitty. But thankful for all the love we could share with her..even if she didn't always 'love' in return. Cats!

Our sweet Annabelle's last day

On Monday March 20, I was a mess. I knew. I called the vet early but she was busy. She was supposed to call me back around 11 but by God's great grace, she didn't call then but called right after I got home from dropping of my girl for a college class. Dr G said the way she was acting meant her kidneys were failing pretty quickly. She said we could do fluids (and make her miserable because of repeated vet visits) in hopes of buying a little bit more time with her. But I knew from the last time we went to the vet, that she was 'finished'. She had let me know that she was done with interventions. I had been praying that I could keep my mental promise to her. So I declined the interventions and the vet and I both agreed, that this was a very reasonable and merciful time to stop. Tears fell. The vet couldn't get me in until 2pm..or wait until the next day and then she could come to our house. I had wanted to do this at home, but I didn't want to watch her suffer for yet another day. So I told her I would be there at 2pm. And then I cried. I busied myself crying on the phone to a friend but before I knew it, the dreaded time to leave was upon me. So I did my little hunt to find her buried in the folded bedspread on the floor. I folded back the layers to find where she had crawled in..much like many times before. But knowing this time was the last time. This time it broke my heart into a million little pieces. I snuggled her and talked soothingly to her, all the while falling apart on the inside. I could not lose it. I had to drive. So I put her into her kennel easily. Usually she could or would put up quite a stink. On that day, I just set her inside without a fuss. She didn't even cry on the way to the vet. She was so unwell. Bless her heart.

We were quickly ushered to a room and I took the lid off the carrier. I wanted to hold her. But she wasn't having it, so I set the lid back in lace so she wold feel safer. The vet came in ad told me she would be right back. Some techs came in and I signed some papers and answered some questions. Soon the vet came in with the first sedative. She told me she had to give it in the muscle and it was sting a little. It must have because she hissed. Her last parting gift to Dr G. Everyone left the room and I waited and watched. Soon, her head lowered a little bit and her breathing calmed significantly. I started petting her somewhere along the way, trying to soothe her and tell her what I good job she was doing. She purred for me which was a sweet parting gift to me. Soon after, her little head lowered against the carrier. I continued to pet her and tell her I loved her. I took the lid off the carrier at some point to kiss her and be as close to her as I could. (I was a little upset about the idea of holding her at this point, because I knew she was limp.) I pressed my face into her body, taking her in. I kissed her little head and back and rearranged her face so it wasn't pressed against the carrier. I knew it didn't matter but I needed and wanted to care for her and fuss over her, soI did. And then the moment arrived for the vet to come in with the last injection, to be given in the vein. She very gently lifted Annabelle's sedated body out of the carrier and spread her out on her side on a towel. I could see her face and pet her while Dr G administered the drugs in her hind leg. The room was completely still as we watched her, petted her and talked about how beautiful and soft she IS. I enjoyed using the present tense with her in those last moments. I cried and kissed her. After just a couple of minutes, the vet listened under her little tiny chest, and told me she was gone. The vet offered to make a paw impression so we did that and also did some paw prints. I asked for some of her fur, so she went for the clippers and a bag an did that for me. And then she quietly told me I could stay as long as I needed to and slipped out of the room. At this point, I was sobbing. Kissing her all over. Admiring her sweet tiny body. I tried to close her eyes, but they didn't really close. I snuggled and nuzzled around her neck and under her eye (my favorite softest place to kiss her) I wanted to breathe her in and for my skin to memorize the feel of her fur. I got fur all over my chapsticked lips, but didn't care. I kissed her some more. And sobbed.

I knew I had to be aware of the time. And yet I dreaded the thought of walking out the door. I took some pics of her precious little feet as I held them in my hand. Finally I knew it had to be 'time' whether I felt like it was time or not. I went down the hall to tell them I was ready to leave. A tech came in and wrapped up our sweet girl in the towel she was laying on, holding her much like a baby, face side up, just like my hubby did when we gave her steroid pills. I hugged the tech so I could be close to Annabelle one more time before she carried her away..giving her more kisses and looking at her one last time..one last touch. I turned my back and they carried her away. They told me I could pay later and I was so thankful because I was a wreck! After a bit, I went down the hall and gave them all the techs and Dr G a huge hug and thanked them. I didn't want to leave but I knew I had to. I gathered myself and put the carrier back together, placing everything inside the empty carrier for the terrible ride home. A tech walked me to the car so I could give them unopened food for a credit and gave me another huge hug and I was on my way. Heartbroken and somber. I had survived one of the most difficult things I had ever done. We are crushed and so so sad. Many tears. But we are so thankful for her little life and all she meant to us.

Forever loved, sweet kitty girl. Gone but never forgotten.

Annabelle Late 2002 - March 20, 2017

For the next little while, I am going to blog about my kitty. We had to make the difficult decision to put her to sleep a week ago today. It was devastating for our little family.  I know she's "just a kitty" but she was our kitty. And she came into our lives a little less than a year after we lost Bub. I have cried many tears with this sweet little fur ball standing watch to make sure I was ok. Bless her little heart. She's a special girl to us. And dealing with grief in another form has been a struggle that has brought back thoughts from the past.

Today I'm going to begin telling the story of her final months and her final day. My sweet friend Amy suggested doing it as a form of therapy. I have struggled with wanting to forget because it was so hard, but never wanting to forget because I loved her so much. So here goes...

We knew she was going down hill. we had lived through a few bouts of kidney failure. and those brought us some added years. Last year at Christmas, my girl and I enjoyed buying her some fun presents. We got her a catnip paper bag and some pop up cubes to rest and play in. We got a book from Amazon and it came in one of those fold out cardboard contraptions, so we laid that in front of her little two room pop up condo and it looked like a sidewalk. Very cute. It provided hours of entertainment for her and for us as we watched her having a good time.  But we knew she wasn't well and that it would probably be her last Christmas, so we wanted to enjoy her in it and we did.

A few months ago (I honestly can't remember if we learned this before or after Christmas) we found out she had probable lymphoma. The vet asked if we wanted to pursue treatment. My answer was absolutely not. I did not want to potentially harm us by exposure to harmful drugs. And besides, she already had a long list of health problems. I could not see putting her through any more misery. Just doing the blood draw was so traumatic that she wasn't herself afterwards for days. (I secretly hoped at this point I would never have to do more interventions for her because I felt like she was telling me she was 'done'.) So we did a round of oral steroids. It was cheap and safe. And it bought us a little bit of time.

Early on during the steroids, she acted like a kitten again. She was super playful, was eating and drinking well and gained back a bit of weight. She was so happy and enjoying life. but as it goes with steroids, the dose tapers off. And with the tapering off of the dose, we could see the life and liveliness in her tapering off as well. It was sad. We knew. And I spent a lot of time trying to get our daughter ready for the inevitable. And to get myself ready for what I knew would be the task at hand. One of the most difficult tasks of my life. But that's getting ahead of the story.

We were doing the steroids and trying to make the best of things. Giving our kitty girl extra cuddles and love when she would allow it. Giving extra broth pouches an wet food that I made into a slurry, in hopes of getting more fluids down her and making it into a treat for her. but most of her days were spent hiding, since it was winter. But we had some warm days and she enjoyed playing and we enjoyed watching her.

As we tapered off of the steroids, things started to change drastically for her. she was losing weight. and begging for water. It got to a really bad point on her last weekend. She just wasn't herself. I knew then that she was miserable and not enjoying herself in the least. I was preparing our daughter for the end. And trying to prepare myself for what I knew would be up there on the 'worst days ever' list.

To be continued...