Class Act

Happy Birthday BayLee

You know what happens to couples that don't have kids?

They celebrate their pet's Birthday's.

Happy 6th BayLee - Jump for Joy!

Night Watchman

I am so glad there is a shelf for BayLee on our console table. I don't know what I would do if he didn't have a place to relax and observe us each and every evening. BayLee is so funny, he will literally sit and stare at us for hours and then he disappears into the bedroom for a while. I swear, one day I am going to find his top secret human observation journal. Until that day comes, I can only speculate as to what is going on in his kitty brain.

Silly Cat

I love this photo, BayLee cracks me up each and every day. I tell you, it is hard to have a bad day when you have animals in your life; they add so much color.

BayLee's Dreamy Nap

BayLee loves these little spongy balls - we decided since it was Easter, we should give him some sort of surprise so we surrounded him with all of his balls and he actually napped and woke up and napped again surrounded by his favorite toy. This went on for over and hour; each time he would move, the balls would move. It was so cute I had to share.

BayLee's Bad Habit

BayLee has a bed in the living room and in the bedroom. I don't know if he is protesting for some reason or what is going on, but he has taken to sleeping next to his beds and not in/on them. Really?

Isn't it weird how his coloring looks different depending on where he is laying and the lighting? I love the second photo, so darn cute all wrapped up in a ball.

George Bailey (BayLee)

I haven't posted a photo of BayLee lately, so here he is. I took this yesterday morning while he was trying to relax on his cat tower but he was just so cute I had to get out the camera.

Oh, and by the way, his name is George Bailey this time of year a la Its a Wonderful Life.

Weekend Recap

Monday is here again....way too soon if you ask me.
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

I spent most of Saturday in the Birds Nest working on a couple book orders. I finished one and am gearing up to finish the other two next weekend. I had planned on going there yesterday too, but my allergies got the best of me and I now have a sinus infection or just a really bad cold so I was down for the count yesterday with Vick's and tissues shoved up my nose (which I would like to do right now, but not at my desk!). I may be going home early today, honestly I feel like crap.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time reading the manual for my new camera and a DSLR Photography magazine which is filled with great tips. This is my first step up from a point and shoot camera and I am super excited, but have been taking most of my practice shots on automatic until I feel confident enough to move on from that. I had been looking at a new camera for a couple years and decided to take the leap since I have some travel coming up in June and would like to take it with me (more on that in another post). So, my test photos have mainly been of Tim and BayLee (poor guys!). Here are a few I took yesterday while laying on the floor waiting for BayLee to yawn (he had just woke up). Still need to work on the focus and what setting works best for the distance I am at, etc. I shot these on auto no flash but wish they were more clear. I think I need to change the shutter speed when shooting BayLee since he moves around so much. I don't know the technical terms, but watch out, I love taking photos so I will be an ace at this camera in a matter of months. Can I just say, it is strange to put a camera up to my face again after using the Canon Powershot Digital Elph for so long (which I will still use, its in my bag right now - as a matter of fact, I still use my 35mm camera I got in 8th grade!).
Almost time for another Photo A Day project as well...

Springtime

Tomorrow is officially the first day of Spring!

We are all enjoying the extra hours of sunlight at our house. My kitchen faces west so I get the late afternoon sun creeping in between the buildings leaving us heavenly slices of light on our floors and furniture and I love every drop of it. Last night I prepared dinner without even turning the kitchen light on (so nice).

One more thing I love right now...

Can't believe I forgot this one (two)....

• Flannel Sheets (it is COLD at night)


• BayLee in the morning, once I make the bed he is right up by my pillow for the rest of the day (don't tell my allergist, I do clean it with a lint roller every day though).

New Developments

I just realized I have not posted since Monday and the week is already over (well, the work week that is).

I have to be honest and say that I have not been feeling that well. I was excited at the start of the week because after many, many years of suffering, I decided I would go to an allergist to see what the deal is. I was excited to find out what I am allergic to and what I can do about it to give me some relief. I was finding out more times than not, I was miserable the weekends I spent inside my own house, which is never good. No one should feel like they are allergic to their home.

I must have the best allergist on the planet because he met me in his office (not an exam room) for about 40 minutes before even checking me out. No one does that any more. After talking with me he told me he noticed my breathing didn't look right and wanted to take a listen. Well, after many checks with his stethoscope he told me he thinks I may have asthma and my breathing seems labored and he can hear a wheeze. So, we move on to some breathing tests, one where you breathe into what looks like a toilet paper holder and one you breathe into a machine where you breathe out and then in and it measures your force or something like that. Turns out I have "severe asthma" apparently I have had it for so long and never knew because I never got the tightness in my chest, never wheezed too much unless it was a rare occasion where all of my allergies took over at once, so I thought that was part of it. Not the case.

Dr. gives me a nebulizer treatment and then runs all the other tests again and my breathing gets somewhat better. So he leaves me with a hard core asthma regimen for the next three weeks and then moves on to the allergy test portion of the appointment.

The nurse scratches my back with all kinds of things to see what sets me off, she leaves me there for 15 minutes to see what has an effect and what does not. The nurse comes back in to take notes and the Dr. is reading the results, a combo of numbers that is a secret code to them as to what the allergies are. By the way, this is NOT FUN, it is like having mosquito bites on your back because whatever you are allergic to starts to get red and itch and you can't scratch - think chicken pox. I cannot believe what they test for, the one that blew my mind was cockroaches, I guess some people are allergic to them, not me though.

I am allergic to....guess what?

It is very sad because it is one of my favorite things....are you ready?

Are you sure?

OK - I am allergic to......

Yes, that is right, I have an "acute cat allergy" and was told "immediate removal of cat from the living facility" is in order to restore my breathing and quell some of my other allergies.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN FOLKS.

We talked about some other options because BayLee is my baby. Seriously, if I didn't have him, I would probably have lost my mind a long time ago.

There are a million of other things I need to do around the house because I am allergic to other things as well but the cat is the major one and probably exacerbates the other allergies. We are making some changes in our bedroom (wish I could remove that old carpet in there that has been there since we moved in and God only knows how long before we moved in). Removing it would make it a cleaner breathing room for me but honestly there is only so much we can do as renters. I have more tests they need to do and am getting some lab work done this weekend to see what else may be present, but we have to get the asthma under control first before any other "scratch tests" that may send me into an asthma attack. I am on medication that so far has helped, I guess, I mean, I didn't know I had asthma in the first place. Funny thing too, I have had cats my entire life and no doctor ever noticed. My allergist told me that I had what he is calling an "in-audible wheeze" - you would have to be looking for it to detect it so he was not surprised no one else caught it.

Crazy - with all of that said, the medication has put me in a bit of a mood, headache, stomach issues, and no appetite, but they said it could take a week to get used to. We will see.

All of this happened on Tuesday and I have been a little down (not emotionally) ever since, just super tired, worn out and trying to get used to my new lung capacity - ha ha!

PS - thought this photo was funny, BayLee is like "who? me?" so cute!

Happy Birthday BayLee

Today is by B-Boy BayLee's Birthday!

He is 4 years old and the love of my life. BayLee came to us when I thought I would never be happy again (after Marley passed away) and he helped put me back together. BayLee has brought so much laughter and silliness into our home and we are blessed to have him.

Addict

Maybe the reason I haven't been posting on my blog as much as I used to is because my computer is always occupied by my YouTube addicted cat.

Heat Wave

22/31

The heat has made us lazy - hard to sleep, hard to get up once it has cooled off, you know the drill. Even my Blue Boy BayLee is lazier these days. He did not want to get up this morning and do his normal morning routine. I wish I had that choice!

Little Boy Blue

I seriously could not even get BayLee's bed fluffed up for him and ready for his day of napping fast enough this morning. Once it touched the bed, he was on it kneading it like a ball of dough, once he got settled, this is what I get for fluffing it up for him...the ignore, back turned and blinders on! How's that for Thank You.

My Mom always said, "you haven't been ignored until you have been ignored by a cat".

Saturday's

It is not even 10 AM and so far it has been a perfect Saturday.

Here is what I generally like to do on Saturday mornings to wind down from the week and start relaxing for the weekend.

Wake up, have coffee in my favorite coffee cup - come on, you know you have one too. Everything tastes good it in it: coffee, tea, water, when desperate for a clean vessel after a crazy day...even wine works in this mug. Mine sort of looks like a men's shaving mug, footed with a K on it. Oh my, was this mug meant for Kevin, Kyle or Keith to contain a frothy head of shave cream to remove stubble and not for holding Katie's coffee to give a boost in the morning?

So, sip a cup of coffee while sitting on couch curled up like a cinnamon roll (yum, I wish I had a cinnamon roll), kiss Tim goodbye before he goes to play tennis.

Ahhh, alone time, get back into bed with a couple magazines and BayLee. After having my heart broken upon getting word of March being the last printing of both Domino and Country Home magazines I had to find a new love. Like dating, I checked out a couple other home decor magazines at the book store over the past couple weeks. I carefully scrutinized, I asked the questions: is this right for me, do we have a future together, do I want to invest my time to learn more and start a relationship? I know that I wear my heart on my sleeve and wanted to be careful when making a decision about who would replace the last two decor magazines that I loved so much. Then I saw it, could this be the one? We had a rocky love affair in the past when the magazine also had a television show that went along with it but our romance was one of ups and downs and got off balance with the downs becoming more frequent than the ups. Should I go back, did it get better? It has been a couple years, maybe a brief flirtation will turn into something more solid. I took a leap, I bought the February and March issue and read them this morning and I had to say that me and House Beautiful are back together for now. Elle Decor was the runner up so we will see what transpires over the next couple months, maybe I will be ready to take on two lovers again by then. I got burned last time when they both went down, so I will be more cautious this time.

Get up, need more coffee, tuck BayLee into bed and leave him alone for his nap time. Seriously, he likes to get in the bed like a human with covers over him (see above photo), head on the pillow, the whole deal. I just went in to check on him and he is all curled up with his head under the blankets. I wish I was a cat sometimes.

After this post, I will watch a movie (Sybil, I taped the updated version from Lifetime) and then maybe take myself for a walk or bake something... we'll see. I really have no plans, which I love. That may change when Tim gets home though.

Hope you have a great Saturday!

Waiting for Santa

I took this photo on Sunday and think that it is so sweet. BayLee has the cutest little face and sometimes has human like expressions. We are truly blessed to have him.

BayLee waiting for Santa.

Hiding Out

Today is one of those days I feel like hiding out. I wish to be a turtle so I could crawl inside of my shell and seal off the world for just 1 hour. Sometimes I just need some peace, darkness and time to be alone, you know? I know some people like to be surrounded by others at all times, I don't think that is very healthy though. Time alone is always nice.

Went to get live scanned last night at the SFPD station at 850 Bryant. What a weird place at night, or any time for that matter. For some reason the theme song from Night Court kept playing in my head as we looked for the right department to report to. Pretty scary, we walked in and the security alarm went off and no one came to check it out. I am notorious for setting them off though so they must have gotten the memo about my day planner with the magnetic closure - thanks to my PR people, ha ha! We were only at the station for about 20 minutes, it doesn't take long and is a pretty cool machine they use to capture your prints. That was our big outing last night besides going out for Mexican food before hand.

Tonight no plans except to go home and hopefully purge more stuff from my bedroom. I hate working in there in the evening though, it is already dark and at night it is even worse which makes me loose motivation. Baby steps and it will all get done. We or I should say, I, have collected so much crap in the past couple years that I need to have a sale or something to get rid of it; even more tempting is to just donate it all and get it out of here.

Oh, I forgot to mention another movie I saw, that I am not embarrassed about called Monster House - made for kids, but enjoyed by adults, like Nemo, you know? The animation is pretty cool, and I usually am not into anime. The characters are hilarious and it was a great story for all ages. Check it out and let me know what you think. I have some movies on their way to my house from Green Cine that I am looking forward to and will review after I watch them

Stay tuned!