I'm interesting

I'm not sure how many of my friends regularly use Twitter, but I've decided that I'm interesting enough that I should probably get one, so that I can tell everyone I know everything about every day of my life! It's a perfectly crafted blogging substitute, for those days when I don't feel like writing a book. I even got the "Twitterific" application for my iPhone, so updating my Twitter is as easy as sending a text message! So, if you would like to know what I'm eating for dinner, or what TV show I'm watching, or how many times my cat just sneezed in a row, please feel free to come on here and look at my Twitter widget, or 'follow' me on Twitter!

Stay home

It might be the winter weather. It might be the recent turmoils in my life weighing me down. It might just be that I'm lazy. Whatever it is, it's urging me in the strongest way to just stay home. All the time. And above all else, it urges me to stay in bed. I come home from work, and the first thing I do is crawl into bed. It's soft, and it's warm, and it's so so comfortable. It makes me feel safe and secure. It takes away the feeling that I'm shirking duties.
"The kitchen is dirty? Oh, I'll clean it. But not now, I'm in bed. I'll clean it when I get up."
And then I just don't get up. Or I delay getting up until I have something else to do that does not involve chores or anything else I don't feel like doing.
It's even getting into my dreams. Today is my first day back at work after 3 days off. I should feel refreshed and ready to come in, but my dreams say otherwise. The dream started out with me waking up, looking for my work clothes, and finding them completely missing. They just didn't exist. I started to panic, ended up finding some nice black pants and a white shirt to wear instead, but I had gained too much weight to fit into the black pants, so my only option was jeans! (I have, by the way, been gaining a lot of weight. I don't exercise at all anymore, and I have a strange insatiable hunger for everything fattening. I haven't even weighed myself, I'm afraid to see what I've gained.) Anyway, I got to work, Kitty (my manager) told me that my dress was completely innapropriate, and that I was going to be written up, and wasn't allowed to work until I found my clothes. I woke up a little out of breath. I had the feeling that I had been talking out loud moments before I woke up, and I hoped I hadn't bothered Christopher... but I think I woke him up several times last night.
I managed to get back to sleep after that, and immediately went back into dreaming. This time, I was driving to work, and (I can't remember his name) the bald man from Heroes that makes blue fire was in the middle of Mill Plain just a couple blocks from my work, and he was rampaging all Hulk style; throwing cars, throwing fire, screaming and lunging at every passerby. I decided that since it was such a big deal, that I would be excused for being late, so I went to Starbucks and bought a Soy Chai Latte (Yummm!) and sat outside for a few minutes listening to the car alarms and screams coming from down the road. I looked at my phone, and saw that I was now over half an hour late for work. I didn't care. I woke up.
I went to sleep again, and in this dream I was standing right across the street from my work watching it burn. Seriously. It was on fire in the worst possible way. I knew instinctually that I was now laid off. You can't exactly work at a nonexistant hotel, and mine was most definitely not going to exist anymore. I had a huge sense of relief. Also worry, because I obviously need to pay rent and buy food, etc., but I didn't want to go to work. I didn't ever want to go to work, and now I had a fantastic excuse not to.
I'm sure that a lot of this subconcious worry stems from recent conversations with my father. He wants me to start school again. Which means that for another 2-4 years (my last 2 year degree took me 4, so I'm estimating on the high end) I will have to spend every waking moment working. Go to work, eat, go to school, come home and do homework while eating, sleep, repeat. That was my life for a few years, and I don't want to do it again. I don't know if I can. It's not that I've grown any more of a social life than I used to have, but I do have a boyfriend that I enjoy spending time with. I also have grown accustomed to getting an appropriate amount of sleep at night, and having time to watch tv, and anything else I need to do. I think I might be weaker than I used to be. And as much as I love my boyfriend (I really really do, Christopher is fantastic) I feel like if I had to go to school as well, that my "this isn't fair" feelings would start getting even bigger. He doesn't do many chores around the house. He's been trying to be better, but I still find myself doing the majority of the work. I go to work 5 days a week. He doesn't have a job. He does go to school, but only for like a day and a half, accumulatively. He usually spends about 4 days a week not doing anything but playing games. And although it is a little off balance, I think a lot of my feelings are unjustified, because I remember how hard it was for me to work and go to school and never have a moment to breath, and he doesn't have to experience that hardship. When we started dating, I literally had to fail one of my classes to be with him. I just skipped it and spent time with him instead, and that was the only time I had with him. I feel like he should have to work harder, because I did, and I recognize that those feelings are not fair. I should be happy for him, because his parents worked to make sure he had the opportunity for this kind of leisure during such a stressful time of life. In my defense, in a live-in relationship, they do say you should sweat equally. Meaning that if I work for 40 hours a week, and he works for 30 hours a week, he should spend 10 cleaning or doing something to for us before I should have to do anything else. That's why housewives can stay home, and it's still fair. They do all the laundry and dishes and cleaning and child-watching. They "sweat" equally, if you will.
I feel like if Christopher had a good enough job to let me stay home, that I would definitely pull my share. I would be so grateful.
This has turned into WAY more of a rant than I thought it was going to be..... I apologize. The real point here is that I want to stay home. I'm so tired of coming to this repetitive, pointless job. I want to make something for myself. Christopher will probably never be able to support us well enough for me to be a stay at home mom. That's okay. Not a lot of people can afford that anymore, and I understand that. If we could manage it, I know I would have enough time to take care of all the chores, put in a nice dinner for us, and volunteer too. I know how to find meaningful work, just not how to get paid for it. It's just that I know of hundreds of people who have meaningful jobs that they look forward to going to. They may not make a lot of money, but they're good jobs. They help people. They help animals. They help. I just take reservations at a hotel..... I feel like I'm wasting my time. I know lots of things that I could do to move myself forward, but it all seems like either way too much work for me to handle, or like I'm reaching for some far off star that I will never be able to touch. I'm almost embarrassed to talk about some of my ideas, because people look at me like I'm insane. I almost don't blame them. Starting a feral cat rescue? Seriously? It's rediculous. Where do I get the funding? Where do I put it? Is that what I want to do with my whole life? I just look like a crazy cat lady.
And trying to fight whatever kind of depression I'm working on right now PLUS being considered a crazy cat lady is a little too much for me. So I'm putting off my dreams until I can get more emotionally stable. Or am I emotionally unstable because I'm not going after my dreams? I don't even know. I just want to go home.

Redonkulous

This month has been really REALLY crazy. Probably a little too much going on for me to try to get into this blog, but just so you know, it's crazy. We're officially moved into our house. We have been for about a month now. The cats LOVE it, because they have about 3 times the amount of room to run around and be redonkulous in. They sound like tiny elephants constantly stampeding. We haven't figured out a permanent solution for their litter box yet. Right now it's in the kitchen, but that's a little stinky and messy. We're hoping to have it in the garage once the garage is empty.

Thanksgiving was really nice. My mom is in Hawaii, (which is fortunate for her, but a little unfortunate for me, cuz I love her) so I didn't get to spend any time with her, but I had a nice dinner with Christopher's mom and Gail, and his squeestors, and aunt. Yesterday we spend a little time with his Dad, but it ended up feeling more like Christmas than Thanksgiving because they got a tree and decorated it, and we listened to Christmas music. :3

AND IN OTHER NEWS, I was accepted into the Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue Program!!! If I haven't squealed to you about this particular program, they're really amazing! Everybody wants a purebred dog, so they go to breeders to get them because it's easier than scouring the humane societies for the one they want. The problem is that there are thousands of purebred dogs in humane societies at any given time, and they are getting put down, because people don't know they're there! It's super sad, so the Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue created a little program where the humane societies in the area will call them when a purebred dog comes in, and anyone who has been accepted into their program (aka they have proven that they are good non-abusive owners who would have a suitable home for the dog) will get a phone call if that dog fits their specifications, and then they can just go pick it up! How cool is that?! REALLY COOL! I'm waiting for the perfect little boston terrier!!! I could get a phone call any time. Or it could be months! No one knows! But with 6 to 8 MILLION animals being euthanized every year in America, I feel like it would just be selfish to adopt one from a breeder and leave another to die in an overcrowded shelter. I love you, animals. I wish I could help more.

Anyways, I'll keep this a little more updated. Things have just been too busy lately!!

In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of Ham posing with a Wiimote.

Getting Excited

There are only 17 days left until Christopher and I have to be out of our apartment! I'm getting REALLY excited about moving into a house. I'm ready for the extra space, and the yard, and the possibility of a dog because now we will have a yard. The only thing that scares me is boxing up all of our things and getting them moved. We've been in our apartment for a year and 6 months now, and it has been a really wonderful place to live. We are all nestled in with little decorations and nick nacks on all the shelves and in the corners, and it seems like a rather daunting task, but I know we'll be able to get it done in time. I'm taking all the boxes from the food shipment my work is getting in today, and I'll start filling those up with things we don't use regularly, like books and old clothes and the like. I've also started work on a couple of Halloween costumes for me and the hubby! Very fun. Very time consuming. I will update more on those later with pictures!! Right now, I need to get back to work. I'm being a slacker.

Hungry Hungry Ham Cat

Hello!

It is time for blogging. I haven't had an official "blog" before, I've been doing this on my myspace, but I think it's time now.

I have 2 cats... Ham, and Samus. Right now, I'm going to talk about Ham, because she is harassing me. Every morning, as soon as I wake up, she starts following me, and screaming. It's meowing, really, but it's this kind of urgent, demanding meow that makes it more like she's just yelling at me. She does this meowing more or less constantly. She does it when I wake up in the morning until I leave for work. She does it when I come home from work, and doesn't stop until she has decided that I've given her enough attention. She does it any time I get up from the couch, any time I go to the bathroom, and any time she feels like she hasn't yelled at me recently enough, or been petted recently enough, or thinks there is something interesting happening that she isn't involved in. And, most importantly, when I go to the kitchen.

Every single time I go into the kitchen, no matter where Ham is or what she is doing, she will appear right behind me and yell. She will never stop yelling until I feed her. My wonderful loving boyfriend Christopher thinks I'm making her fat, because I give in and feed her when she yells at me, but if I don't, she KEEPS YELLING! I even have a special blue bowl that I leave in the corner of the kitchen to put shredded cheese in for Ham, because it's in a resealable bag, and I can just get a little pinch out and put it in her bowl, and as long as I am out of the kitchen before she's done eating it, she will stop yelling.

Ham has also has a history of stealing food. If we buy new cat food, and don't put it away IMMEDIATELY, she will chew the bag open, and eat as much as she can. I once left a bowl of ramen unattended while I went to the bathroom, and when I came back she had eaten almost half of it! I once found her gnawing on an apple like she was a starving animal, which she is not. If I'm eating yogurt, she will physically force me to give it to her. She will paw at me, and shove her face in the yogurt cup while I'm eating it, so I have to be constantly on guard, or eat it standing up. I usually give in, and give her little samples of whatever I eat, because it seems to keep her happy.... I'm starting to think maybe I'm just encouraging her food-stealing ways.

This morning I woke up, took a shower, all the while listening to her wander around the bathroom meowing demandingly. I brushed my teeth and hair while she stomped on the counter trying to get me to pet her. I went into the kitchen to get some food ready for my lunch at work. I decided on a peanut butter sandwich. I took out the bag of bread, and pulled out a couple slices. I was running a little late, so I figured I would take the bread and peanut butter with me to work and make my sandwich at lunch time, so I went to do that and mistakenly left the bread unattended. I have never seen Ham eat bread, so I didn't think it would be a problem....

I WAS WRONG!

When I came back, she was on the kitchen counter licking my bread! I started walking toward her to take the bread away, but she grabbed the whole slice in her mouth and RAN. She jumped up onto our big brown chair in our living room, and the majority of the bread slice broke off and fell on the chair, but she took the rest behind the chair so I couldn't get it. I had to climb over the chair, into the awkward space between it and the window, and get the bread back so she didn't make a horrible mess. I got out a NEW piece of bread, and successfully took it to work to make my sammich.

So, the morning worked out okay. Usually, everything does work out okay, but I feel Ham's hunger escalating all the time. I don't know how to fix it. I have tried not giving her food, and she just keeps yelling at me. I have tried just petting her instead of giving her food, and she just keeps yelling at me. Nothing makes it better, and giving her what she wants seems to make it worse.

I think if I passed out while Christopher wasn't home, she would freak out and start eating me.