Humor Happens

Today’s thankful list:

1. Although I am terrified of my cat Daisy dying, I am TRYING to be grateful for this time with her to be with her. Being on holiday until January 5th has given me more time to watch over her. Going back to work will be difficult to not be around her and make sure she is still doing well enough.
2. I AM grateful that when I do go back to work, my mom will be with her to check on her regularly.
3. Grateful that I now have the number of a vet who will come to the home if needed at her end. She doesn’t like the vet, and I don’t want her last moments to be any more upsetting than they may already be.
4. Grateful to have friends over today to distract me from this situation and give Daisy some extra love.

This Love:

2015 is here! In the past few months on Facebook, people have posted three things they are thankful for. My new years resolutions are…

To give thanks for three things daily OR write a post for this blog.
To perhaps lose some weight or at least get more motion into my life (not calling it exercise or it won’t happen).
To learn to hold my tongue when it tries to wag without my mind’s input.

What are yours?

Here are three for today:

1. Faith in the Lord of Love.
2. Hope for better days to come.
3. Seeing my great nephew and his girlfriend for a visit tonight. We got to enjoy them more and talk more than we do when the whole family is together.

Today was chilly, but there’s no snow. I’m sad and I’m glad. There was far too much in 2014 at this time.

The day started with the alarm ringing long before I was mentally ready to get up. I then proceeded to drop my English muffins, both halves landed buttered side down. I followed that up by spilling the pureed concoction my kitties eat for breakfast.

Today was our family Christmas, which I always look forward to with a child’s heart to have my family gathered together in one room, share a meal, share gifts, and – most of all – share conversation. All but two of my nephews and one future niece (well, maybe two future nieces) were able to join us. I so enjoy their banter, laughter, and smiles.

During the day today, I managed to wear four blouses. Okay, one is a pajama top, but all three blouses had to go in the laundry basket because I managed to spill something or other on them.

All in all, having family here was far more important than any quantity of laundry piling up in a single day, or how many spills I cleaned up along the way (I lost count of the spills that didn’t result in dirty clothes).

Moral of the story: May your joys outweigh your concerns each and every day.

It’s official. Today I became the mom of my second terminally ill kitty. The first was earlier this year when Daffodil was diagnosed with Kidney disease. Today, a tumor was found to take over more than half of one of Daisy’s lungs. She may have days, weeks, or months, but in the meantime, I have her and her sister with me.

On January 30, 1999, two adorable and feral kitties entered our home, our lives, and our hearts. They were healthy, happy, and humbled to be given everything a girl could want: three squares a day, a roof over their heads (with a comfy bed beneath them), and unending human devotion.

Now, they are on the other end of life. They still have a home with plenty of soft surfaces, a loving family, and three squares are offered daily. But now they don’t always feel able to eat, they enjoy the soft surfaces more than ever before, and they need the love to make the illnesses tolerable.

One blessing for me is that I have the ability to pray and decide when to end their suffering. I pray that I will do so without being selfish. In the meantime, I am going to love them even more than I already have. I am going to enjoy every moment with them. I am going to offer them whatever food options I can get them to eat.

They are worth the journey. I pray you have love in your life that is worth the journey.

Moral of the Story: From ashes to ashes and dust to dust, make the middle time worth the while.

Kim shooting a gun using air during scenarios at Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center

I’m a baby killer. It’s true, yesterday, I killed a baby.

For work, we had a pretty awesome tour of the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center Thursday. It just so happened to include firing real guns (with air instead of bullets) during practice scenarios. The scenario I and my colleague Penny ended up in front of was with a kidnapper.

This criminal held the baby in front of him as a shield while shooting at us. During my first ever time holding a weapon such as this, I didn’t aim high enough to shoot the creep in the head, but I shot the baby right through the middle.

Later, we had the opportunity to use a machine gun in desert scenes with military missions. My supervisor managed to get off the most rounds in the time allotted for the test: 93. She had to reload three times to do it, with help of course from our tour guide.

All in all, our colleagues fear us: She for being the fastest with the machine gun and me for killing their children and laughing while I realized my mistake.