blogkitten.com

Getting Older

Carolyn — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:31:59 +0000

We found an amazing new vet through a referral from a good friend of mine: Caravan Vet. Instead of taking the kitties to the vet (whom over time we’ve grown to loathe) and making them unhappy with the car ride and subjecting them to the horrible vet, Dr. Christa comes to you! Worked out so well – and we got everyone checked out and up to date with their shots.

Well, except for Pixel, she doesn’t do well with the Distemper shot, so we skip those.

They took blood on all of them to make sure they were ok, and we got the results back a few days later.

Chester and Roxy? Other than some dental disease, they’re healthy as horses. Pixel, while having great teeth, was diagnosed with having hyperthyroidism. We were lucky enough to catch it before she got symptomatic. I had noticed she lost some weight over the past few months and her grooming habits had gone downhill to the point where we had to give her a bath every 2-3 weeks because she was getting dirty.

There’s a number of treatments – irradiation and surgery to name a couple – but we decided to give her medicine twice daily.

At first I was a bit freaked out – that’s my baby girl! I can’t stand that she’s sick! Combine that with the fact I’m terrible at giving the cats any medicine/Petromalt – this was going to be hard on me. Thank gawd Tim is amazing at being the kitty doctor, otherwise I don’t know what I’d do.

He gives Pixel her medicine twice a day and I’m on hand to give her treats for being a good girl. She didn’t like it at first, but now, she knows she has to do it and will begrudgingly take the medicine without any trouble. Such a good girl.

One of the things Dr. Christa told us might happen is that the medicine might make her sick or cause her kidney problems. Given Pixel’s track record with medicine giving her horrible allergic reactions, I was concerned. But, it’s had the opposite effect. She’s more healthy, her fur is back to its bunny-soft texture, and she’s put a little bit of weight back on! So far so good!

I have an appointment in a week and a half for Pixel’s checkup to see how her kidneys are doing and other tests to makes sure the medicine isn’t causing any other problems.

It’s hard realizing that your youngest cat is going to be 12 years old this year and seeing the effects of aging on all of them. It’s going to be so hard having to let them go when it’s their time.

For now, I’m thankful they’re healthy and happy. Makes the 2am “cats gotta snuggle” time easier to bear because there’ll be a time when I’m not being woken up by 13lbs of cat stomping over my body. And I’ll miss it.

Engineering Happiness

Carolyn — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 21:51:34 +0000

A lot has happened in the past few months!

You all know about my career transition plans and goals, but my goodness there’s been a lot going on since I last wrote about it. To make a long story short, I posted about it over on my other blog, carolynsonnek.com.

Go read it. I’ll wait. In the meantime, look at Chester hatching a giraffe:

Cute, right?

Oh, you’re back! Pretty cool, eh? New awesome career -> acquired.

Since I have Awesome New Job, I finally quit Ye Olde Part Tyme Jobbe! With the travel opportunities that my new job offers in addition to the more demanding nature of the position, I need to have my full weekends back. Before, when I was slogging away in Cubicle Hell, I only needed a full day off to recharge. Now? I have much bigger plans!

We also bought a new car! We traded in the old 2003 Mazda Protegé for a 2013 Nissan Juke SL in Sapphire Black. She’s pretty. And fast. And awesome.

Next, I get to go to San Francisco for the first time in May – completely non-work related, funny enough. Our good friends Jason and Vicky (our only in-person guests at our wedding) from the UK are taking a California trip in May and we decided to meet up with them in SF for a few days. I’m very excited. Might have to get in touch with a few friends that live out there to meet for coffee or cocktails. I can’t wait!

Finally (I told you there were a lot of things!), I’m getting back into running and healthier eating after I saw myself in a fitting room mirror today. Who put my head on this fat body? I had been getting back to running on a more regular basis, but as always, I can’t run away a bad diet. The standing desk has really helped in my form and I’m not having as many hip issues like I used to. Score!

Since I don’t have the temptation to eat out for lunch all the time like I used to when I worked downtown, I’m going to refocus my energies into eating healthier and dropping some of this winter coat I’ve acquired. A goal I can stick with!

Hell, if I can transform my work life in 6 months, I can transform my body…right?

So that’s the latest in the life of ye olde Blogkitten! Keep an eye on my other blog as that will be more focused on the tech things I get interested in. And a lot of my Instagram photos.

Happy blogging!

Come Stand Me Up!

Carolyn — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 01:59:36 +0000

So this happened…

For my 40th birthday (at least that’s what I keep telling myself), my best friend Diane got tickets to the Soundgarden (SG) concert in Minneapolis on February 2nd and flew out here with her husband to celebrate my late birthday!

Little known fact – Diane and I met way back in 1999 on some SG bulletin board (REMEMBER THOSE?!) and over the years we’ve gotten up to some shenanigans and good times traveling to see various members of SG do their side and/or solo projects.

Another little known fact – as massive of fans that we are, we’ve never seen SG live. For me, I never had the chance to – work or other commitments always got in the way. For Diane, she became a huge fan *after* they broke up.

Fast forward to 2013.

We both warned our husbands that we would be going insane waiting for the show. Does this look like sanity to you?

Long story short, it was AWESOME. They played the songs we wanted to hear – and none of the songs we didn’t (mainly “Black Hole Sun”….geh). We were on our feet for the entire 2.5 hour show dancing and screaming our hearts out singing along to these songs that we know so well. Songs that created a mutual bond, then a lasting friendship.

If someone says that music isn’t powerful – they’re either lying or they’re stupid. Music – and the shared love of it – can change your life.

It Are Mah Birfday!

Carolyn — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 03:31:37 +0000

Yes, today is my birthday.

Yes, I’m of an age that now has a zero as its last digit.

And you know what? I’m ok with that!

In the past 6 months, I’ve undergone the most amazing transformation of who I am and what I’m going to do with my life.

I’m on the cusp of the most amazing career ever – no worries, I’ll fill you all in once it becomes final. I can’t wait, though, as I truly love what I’m doing. But patience!

Had an amazing birthday dinner with my amazing husband. Nothing big, just the two of us. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. <3

Here’s to the next decade!

Winter Sucks

Carolyn — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:14:16 +0000

This weekend we got a winter storm of epic proportions. Although the “official” reports put the total around 10 inches, we got a lot more than that. We had to shovel the driveway three times on Sunday and I can tell you, there was more than a foot of snow! Here’s a picture from around 2pm that day:

Mid-way through the storm.

Prior to that, we had NO SNOW.

As I get older, the more I dread winter. So much so that we’re seriously considering moving to the Pacific NW. Yes, it rains…but it’s not snow. Or the month of January when it’s below zero for weeks at a time.

I think Chester would approve.

Chester hates the snow too.

Black Friday was a time to get some early Xmas gifts. Oh, who am I kidding, I bought the Vita for me because it was on sale and Persona 4 Golden finally came out.

My precioussss…..

Such a good game. They added enough new social links, scenes and a bunch of other stuff from the original PS2 version that it feels like a whole new game. Had so much fun so far…and there’s lots of game yet to be played!

Since Tim has a PlayStation+ account, he has access to a ton of free games every month. One such game we downloaded was Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack. What a fun little platformer! One of the graphics in one of the stages really cracked me the hell up:

I had to take a phone pic of this. So absurd.

If you’re not familiar with the YouTube video, there’s a part where they say “PORKCHOP SANDWICHES!” Never fails to crack me up.

“My god did that smell good!”

*dies laughing*

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Carolyn — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:35:13 +0000

I just noticed that I’ve used this post title two other times (as referenced by the addition of “-3″ to the permalink of this post!)…well, so I’m a Go-Go’s fan. So sue me!

Earlier this month, Tim and I took a vacation to Vancouver, BC. Per our usual, we didn’t take many pictures. We always have grand plans of taking a bunch of pictures, then we’re too busy absorbing our surroundings and having fun to stop and take photos. But we did take a few!

Here’s me at the Olympic village in Whistler, BC.

Somewhere between Vancouver and Whistler on the “Sea to Sky Highway.”

We had such an amazing trip. That Sea to Sky Highway was an hour and forty-five minutes one way of us driving and gawking at the scenery. We thought about taking photos in the car, but knew they wouldn’t convey the majesty that we were seeing in front of us. Stunning.

We really didn’t want to come home and we’re making plans to return – once we go to Seattle, that is!

Scary.

Carolyn — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:59:40 +0000

Had a huge scare last Thursday night.

Got home from work and was home for about a half-hour or so and noticed that Chester was nowhere to be found.

I eventually found him in the bedroom closet – where he had been all day.

Side note: We keep the cats out of bedroom closet because we don’t want to have cat hair all over all our clothes!

Now Chester is fourteen and a half years old, and he has a tendency to get dehydrated. When he gets dehydrated, he gets constipated. When he can’t go, it makes him throw up/dry heave. This happens when he hasn’t been locked in a closet all day.

I found him asleep on top of a pile of my sweaters (of course on the black one!); he sleepily blinked at me, jumped down and started high fiving and snuggling with me. Everything seemed fine!

Until he went downstairs to use the litter box.

He went from happy and energetic to lethargic, weak and dry heaving. And he started making these moaning noises…like he was in some serious pain…and it made my blood run cold.

I immediately (at 4:50pm!) called the vet and thankfully they were open until 6 and they told me to bring him in as soon as possible. I looked at my poor orange man limp on the floor and at the cat carrier in my hand and I thought “there’s no way I’m going to be able to shove him in there like this!”

As I’m doing that, I called Tim to see where he was – and he was less than 5 minutes from home. I told him to get his butt home ASAP because we have to take Chester to the vet. He asked me what was wrong, I said “I don’t have time to tell you – just get home!”

I felt bad for leaving him in suspense, but I didn’t have time to talk on the phone; I thought my cat was dying in front of me!

I went into the closet and emptied out the clothes basket (full of clean laundry that I was going to put away that evening), grabbed a few towels out of the hall closet, laid one on the bottom of the basket as a cushion, gently laid him on it and covered the basket with the other towel. I wasn’t worried he would jump out; he was in no way able to even move, much less jump out of a clothes basket.

I sat by the front door and waited for what seemed like an eternity for Tim to get home. The whole while I petted Chester’s head and told him to “hang in there” and that I wasn’t ready for him to leave me yet.

Tim finally got home. I ordered him around to help me get him in the car and answering his “what’s wrong?” questions with “I’ll tell you when we’re driving to the vet…I can’t focus on that right now.”

Again, I felt bad for making him wait…but I was so focused on getting on the road, I wasn’t wasting any time talking. I let him know what was going on once we started driving. He felt horrible as he was the last one home that morning. I said it was nobody’s fault. However, we have implemented a “cat check” before we go anywhere now.

Got to the vet, where after they weighed him (while on top of one of our heavy bath towels!) all we got was a constant lecture from the vet how he was “overweight” and kept harping on us that he was “too fat”.

For fuck’s sake, lady, my cat is DYING and all you can talk about is that he’s a couple pounds overweight?! (a lot of which was TOWEL?!)

Long story short, she finally focused on the issue at hand (after I yelled at her “fine, we get it…but we have bigger things to worry about right now!”) and said he probably had a UTI (and despite us telling her he was constipated). They brought in a litter box to see if he would go, and he immediately went to it and got into his “#2 stance”. She still insisted he was trying to pee.

Lady, I’ve seen my cat do both #1 and #2, and he wasn’t trying to pee.

After an x-ray (where it showed a normal-sized bladder, meaning no UTI), she finally admitted that he “might” be constipated.

Ya think?

We went home with some kitty painkillers (to calm him down and alleviate some of the pain), some wet food and a laxative. We also had to isolate him from the girls all night so we could be sure he was going to the bathroom normally again. Thankfully, he did both before we went to bed.

Zonked.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night worrying about the little dude. Friday and Saturday, he was still pretty lethargic…but by Sunday he was starting to be back to his old self again.

Got me thinking about how I picked up this naughty, six-month-old orange cat named “Mischief” from the Humane Society on Halloween back in 1998. Bottle-fed from the age of two weeks since his mama died, he was raised by people around a lot of other cats. The first three days we had him home, he never left my side (not even while I showered…he had to be in there with me). He wasn’t with me for about 5 years (he stayed with my ex), but one snowy day in February 2007, I met my ex in Mankato to pick up my orange man and take him home.

The worst thing about being a pet owner is that you will outlive your pet, no matter how much you love them.

I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to live that reality this past weekend. I’m not ready for that.

But, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.

Changing My Pace

Carolyn — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:20:59 +0000

This is what I was looking at yesterday morning freezing my butt off while I was waiting to start my 10k race in Mankato. I originally signed up to run the half-marathon, but once again my traitorous body sabotaged my attempt.

Despite my disappointment, I had a great run, setting a PR and cracking a sub-10min/mi for the first time ever in any race! I haven’t been able to do that in a 5k, much less a 10k, so I was super happy with the time. I think that 0.5 mile downhill stretch may have helped that achievement, but hey, I’ll take it!

Today, it got me thinking about my running goals. Why am I so focused on running a half-marathon again? Just to say I did it? Well, I already “did it,” so that shouldn’t be my motivation anymore. What do I have to prove?

Nothing, really.

I also realized that I really like the 10k distance. When I trained for the half, I felt that all I did in my spare time was run (which was true)! Now, all I need is an hour of time out of my day to devote to training for a 10k!

In addition, every time I’ve pushed myself to run more than 8 miles I’ve ended up aggravating my old “pain in the ass” injury from 2011. After how long it took me to even run again after injuring it, I definitely do NOT want to injure it again.

So, my goal has changed: get faster in the 10k. I think that’s doable!

After getting together with my family for lunch after the race, my sister said that she has a goal to do the local “mud run” next summer and said I should do it with her. I’m so excited!! I didn’t realize how much I wanted to do something fun like that with family until she mentioned it. If you recall, I was supposed to do the Warrior Dash with my cousin until she sprained her ankle mere days before the race.

In other news, I finally will be checking off one of those items on my life to-do list: travel outside of the country! We booked a long weekend trip to Vancouver, BC and I can’t wait!

Stand Up!

Carolyn — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:18:10 +0000

I have converted to a standing desk.

See?

(ignore the baby carrots and the wrangle of cords – I was hungry and I need to find a solution for my 4-1TB hard drives to be stored on a shelf below the desktop respectively)

I’ve been having a problem, which can only be described as “dead butt“. Apparently, dead butt is an issue of weak glute muscles brought on by excessive sitting. When you combine running and weak glute muscles, you get IT band issues and the feeling like you’re dragging your leg behind you when you run. It’s a weird feeling when your legs don’t work like they’re supposed to. So over the past week, I’ve been doing specific glute-targeting exercises and started making plans to convert to a standing desk at home.

Since we already had a small desktop from Ikea from our old office setup (where I had to cobble together an L-shaped desk from two desktops), we made a trip to get the extending legs to make it tall enough for me to use as a desk. We got the parts and set it up on Sunday and I spent the afternoon coding…ah who am I kidding, I played Glitch for 3 hours. I needed some downtime!

Anyway, yesterday, I really could feel the difference in my hamstrings and glute muscles! Like I did an intense workout the day before. But all I did was stand up!

Mission accomplished!

I discovered one problem: my feet were KILLING me! Although I made sure I moved around so I wasn’t standing in one spot for too long, my arches by the end of the afternoon were sore and angry at me for standing on them so much.

So for now, I’m going to wear my minimalist shoes until my feet get used to standing up.

(ignore the sexay lounge pants.)

In other news, the PT job is going very well. My new co-workers are awesome and I’m pretty confident that I’ll be kept on past the end of my contract in a full-time capacity. I’m making some great contacts in Marketing and I’ll be working on some discreet web work for them while I’m in the Education department. Gotta love small companies!

Awesomesauce!

Carolyn — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 23:17:23 +0000

What? A new post?

Yeah.

I am going to start posting on here again as a lot of the things I want to write about don’t apply to the mission over at HealthKitten. To be frank, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be blogging over there. So, I’ll put the update here.

1. Health. Good, for the most part. Getting a foam roller has really helped with my IT band issues. However, I haven’t been able to put on the miles like I did back in 2010 when I did my first half marathon. Mainly because I haven’t been running through the pain like I used to. That mindset literally bit me in the ass last year and kept me from running for 3-4 months. Stress has also been a factor in my lack of mileage. While running is a stress reliever, my mind hasn’t been in the right place to really train effectively.

Weight is stable, but I can stand to lose some pounds. Having no gym membership that would give me access to a scale, I ended up buying one of the Fitbit Aria scales as a present (more on that later). After an arduous setup, it’s been neat getting my weight and body fat percentages. Now that I’m monitoring things, I’m trending downward. Result!

2. Food. The garden has been a mix of successes and failures. Successes: kale, tomatillos, and summer squash. Failures: peas, green beans and peppers (jalepeno, poblano, bell). The already-established asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberry patches gave us a great bounty as well.

I’ve been having issues with other people’s recipes lately. Mainly because they’re just not that good. I made a mushroom stroganoff the other night that was dreadful; bland and all the leftovers just went into the bin. There’s another food blogger with a great following that has more misses than hits too. Everything of theirs that I make is just underwhelming…which baffles me as people rant and rave on their blog as to how “delicious” the stuff is. Perhaps I just have a more refined palette?

My greatest successes with cooking lately have been when I just improvise with the ingredients I have on hand. I made amazing tacos from summer squash, kale, pinto beans and homemade salsa verde. No measuring – I just threw in what looked right. And it was delicious. At our couple’s cabin retreat last weekend, I made two egg bakes for the morning we were responsible for breakfast: the ubiquitous sausage/cheddar and the vegetarian kale and artichoke (with swiss and gruyere cheese). Did I use a recipe? Nope. Was it awesome? Based upon everyone’s comments, I would say yes!

Stuff just seems to turn out when I cook with intuition.

Also, my lack of recipes (and lack of food photography) makes for a shitty blogging experience! More reason to blog here and not HK.

3. Work. Here’s where the big shakeup is happening. As of Friday, I no longer work at the law firm!!! Quitting that job was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. I had been struggling with the stresses of the job for months now, and almost two months ago, I figured out what I wanted to do: go back to web development.

How was I going to do that? Well, I immediately started finding resources to update my skill set that didn’t require me to 1) go back to college or 2) spend a bunch of money. I found a great resource at Lynda.com and I’ve been absorbing like a sponge the latest on HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and jQuery. Next my plans are to learn PHP and get really good with the WordPress stack.

Then? Take over the world! Mwahahah!

However, doing this on nights and weekends started to take its toll on my well-being (and cut into my half-marathon training time!). After a long, heartfelt discussion with Tim, we decided that I needed to devote more time to my career change and by reducing my work schedule to 3 days a week, I’ll have more time to study and work on any freelance projects I would land during this time.

Once that decision was made, there was no stopping me. I found, interviewed and landed a PT job within 48 hours and I put my two weeks notice in as soon as I had the offer in hand. I start the new job tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more excited. Initially I’ll be working as an Educational Coordinator, but in the interview process they mentioned (or more like offered?) that “we have a web development team here too…so maybe if you really like it here, you can transition there after this contract is up!”

Um, yes please?

Also, as word has gotten out over my departure from the law firm, a former colleague (who now has her own business) asked me if I could help her out with her website and what my rates would be! First potential freelance client and I haven’t even started yet! Woot!

When I put in my two weeks, it felt like the 900lb gorilla of stress finally got off my back. I didn’t realize how unhappy I’ve been until then and now I’m so happy and I’m super excited to get started on my new career. I was especially happy to finally get away from Windows XP and the stupid Websense filtering BS that the firm uses. The picture that is accompanying this post was from the last day of work. Bye bye, crappy OS! LOL!

I never could’ve taken this leap without the amazing support that Tim has given me. I’m so lucky to have him in my life.

(d’awww)

Anyway, expect more from the ol’ ‘kitten in the future…along with some hawt new website action!