Podcast recording tonight! Catales and Harley and I will be featured topics :)

Www.TheJSG.com has invited me as a guest tonight on their Something and Someone Show! I will be talking about Catales and my upcoming book aka the 20 year project lol So excited! Check out the JSG at the link for info on their business and ministry.

Happy Update :)

Five nights sleeping without Harley in bed or the room with me and I sleep through the night now! I actually wake up with my alarm or just before it. It's been sooo nice for me. I already have a sleep disorder so this idea to not have him in there with me has been genius!

He still nips at my calf or hand but its maybe once and he seems to understand he has been demoted, so to speak. He is also more affectionate when he for a see me after the alarm clock for a off. This is the first cat I have had that I had to evicted from the bed at night but I understand that Harley is not like any other cat lol

We will check in again soon :)

short and sweet

harley has taken to nipping a lot again. i know he misses my roommate who is on a different schedule than me and so harley had some company more often than not. i know i was off schedule with mom and her surgery and treatments that followed. i'm hoping this biting is going to end soon because now i am wearing sneakers when i sit at the table to type to protect my feet and i cant do that all the time. sometimes i put a blanket over my feet instead. i had to put him in time out this morning because he was stalking me and i couldn't move from point a to point b safely. i have been playing with him and giving him treats and we hang out during movies and when i'm reading. he has all the comforts he could ask for. i'm considering getting more pheromone plug ins again. i haven't had to use them in about 6 months or more.

here's to less nipping in our future!

finally, an update

to say I have been lax in my blogging is more than an understatement, it’s really more of a shame. life got away from harley and me after my last post which is april 2011. i returned to work after my surgery then went on a cruise to Bermuda as planned and then I celebrated two years being single and on my own after a much needed divorce. what i hadn’t anticipated was all that would come after and all that kept me away from my love of writing. what follows is a brief summary; you’ll notice harley is present throughout everything and was a comfort and a joy when I needed him most. dont let the strong silent and sometimes nippy types fool you; he stuck by me, sometimes because he had no choice but I like to believe it was because he wanted to as well.

• ·        june 2011 – a young coworker was in need of a place to stay and after attempts to find him somewhere sooner than the september gig he had lined up, he landed on my air mattress for a few days. we got along so well we decided to rent an apartment together and we have been in a two bedroom ever since, with harley loving the extra company. it’s a blessing my roommate isn’t allergic to harley as he thought he would be. I knew when i saw him on the floor playing with harley we would be ok. we are due to renew our lease this month.

• ·        july 2011 – in a sad and unexpected twist of fate, my step father, neville, was diagnosed with cancer that has already spread too far throughout his body to hope for any kind of recovery. he passed a week after he was diagnosed at 89 years old and he is missed something fierce. my mother is in year five of her ovarian cancer treatments; he was her rock and her warrior and so his passing has dealt the family a doubly hard blow. i received a lot of support from my friends during this time, bt other personal matters came up and it was a very bad time for me.

• ·        august 2011 – my roommate and i settled into our new place with a rocky start: on moving day he was sick to his stomach and i had some bad bug bites on my hand that tured into cellulitis in a matter of hours. he recovered with some sleep and ginger ale and i got treated at the walk in clinic and return to work after a few days.

• ·        september 2011 – yes so it’s my birthday month and you’d think i’d catch a break but no, every september has been rough for the last several years and i don’t know why. same for every birthday too except for my 40^th – that one was perfect. this month we have a freak tropical storm and during it i came down with something nasty that included a fever of 103 and was misdiagnosed for five days. this means that with no power or hot water from the storm and a fever that will not come down, i was sick as a dog and getting sicker by the hour with zero relief. i made it to the er of a second hospital and am diagnosed with tonsolitis and mono. i am home a total of three weeks and lose 20 lbs because I couldn’t eat anything and only drank water or some broth. it was the worst three weeks of my life with no talking, gross medicine – the only thing i could taste was that nasty stuff -  and terrible throat pain. i even asked my roommate to shoot me. graciously he declined. i was well enough a week before my birthday to celebrate with coworkers at a local restaurant for happy hour. during this time that i was sick, harley was my hero. he kept me company and was no bother.

• ·        october 2011 –this month i got cellulitis in half of my left leg from stepping in a puddle of dirty still water when i had an open bug bite on my leg. this hospitalized me for a week and once again i had a fever of 103. the infection is so bad and hit me within hours. in about two hours i went from walking out of bed to not being able carry my weight at all. the pain was just awful. I returned to work after eight days of rest. the state also had a freak snow storm and lot power in a lot of locations. harley and i stuck it out for four of the five days we went without. i built him a fort with every blanket known to man but even I had to admit it was too unbearable. harley and i traveled to my mom’s house where she had power restored the day before and we spent one night in heat which was lovely. harley did so well there, too, not fussing with the new surroundings at all, just making himself at home and climbing on everything. mom was pleased he was so well behaved.

• ·        november and december 2011 – relatively quiet – thankfully – with the holidays and me sorting through a lot of things in my personal/romantic life.

• ·        january 2012 – more loss. my beloved grandmother fell at home where she lived with my aunt and uncle and, at 94, she succumbed to an infection and other issues related to the fall. she had alzheimers as well.

• ·        february through june 2012 – healthy and happy, i have been following through with my “nesting and resting” philosophy since my stint in the hospital in october. i was going out about once a month special like, but now those times are spread out maybe dinner out with my sister and then a weekend with my close friend. a lot of this time was spent processing some very closely personal concerns and events that i haven’t noted here as well the ones i have.

through all of this, i worked on the CATALES newsletters, i put together raffle baskets for their fundraising dinners, and i made it to a walk a thon for them raising $250 through donations. it made me feel good to help and kept me focused on something positive. currently mom is in chemo after radiation after emergency brain surgery where her ovarian cancer has spread. I am grateful every day i wake up, even if i’m not in a good mood, i remind myself, “it could be and it has been worse” and i get moving.

harley has been a bit out of sorts, nipping more again after a long respite, and i believe it’s because my roommate and i have been keeping strange schedules with deaths and other changes taking place in both our lives. The best thing i can do is play with harley and make sure he is fed well so he knows that even if i’m out longer than usual he will have a full belly and playing with him, like with an interactive toy, seems to relieve him of some aggression or energy or both.

right now i’m focused on the next CATALES newsletter and as always, i hope i do the kitties justice. its my small way of giving back to the people who saved harley and kept him healthy and happy for when it was time for me to meet him and take him home – he was there a full four years and i can’t imagine my apartment or my life without him.

peace, love and catnip.

sharon and harley

busy few months

january is a blur as i made the decision for harley and me to move into a studio apartment in our building the following month. its a buck twenty five less a month but more importantly, we weren't using all the space we had in the one bedroom and i didn't see the sense is paying for something we weren't using. so january was spent sifting and packing and welcoming in in the new year.

february was moving month but towards the end of it. we reorganized our storage space in the basement to accomodate some new boxes and made plans for the moving folks - a couple of my mom's friends - to come by. leaving the apartment were my curio which is now with the sally army, two pine bookcases that went to mom, the desk went back to my sister, and a few odd end tables etc that weren't going to fit in the new place. the whole time this prep was going on. harley seemed a little more agitated than usual. i constantly reminded him he was moving with me to try and put his mind at ease.

in an effort to help with his postential anxiety of living somewhere new, i asked my aunt to make him his own cat bed. the results of which are shown here. he loves the thing and often tuckes himself in it without any coaxing from me.






march we moved in and harley has done amazingly well ever since! i sincerely believe he likes this space better for some reason or another. maybe because the bed is always accessible to him, or maybe because he can see everything from one spot in the apartment? the comfort zone with feliway plug in was here before he was to help with the transition, but he has a peace about him that is refreshing. i think he must pick up some good vibes here.

march was also the month harley and i wrote up the first of our newsletter issues for CATALES, harley's shelter home. i love how it came out and encourage you to check it and the shelter out through the CATALES link provided on this blog.

today is april 2nd and its a couple of days after my gall bladder surgery. when i first came home, harley was alllllll snuggles and head butting me and wanting to lie on my stomach which he couldn't cause of his weight and claws etc on where they'd operated. he has since found a way to lie on the pillow i hold against my stomach to ease the pain when i cough or laugh or clear my throat. he's also slept on my legs in bed to avoid my stomach. he just has to be near me, even serving as sentry by the bathroom door.

from now through may it'll be equally busy as i recover and return to work in a week, have a few events to attend to, one being the Spay-ghetti dinner for CATALES' spay and neuter program, and then in may its off to bermuda for a week with mom, my step dad and my friend, lisa. harley will have the company of our pet sitter, donna, who owns FurNanny 911.

now i think i might take after harley with a nap after some preparation for the cruise :)

peace. love. catnip.,
sharon

harley was home fur the holidays

hello and happy new year from harley and me :)

the holidays were loads of fun which is in large part why the blog has been idle since november. harley celebrated his first thanksgiving, christmas and new year's eve in his new fur-ever home. yea! i've included key pics from the holidays with harley.

his encounter with my collapsable and fully decorated christmas tree went better than i had anticipated. it was up for about three minutes when he launched himself into it, making his way through the space between the green garland covered springs. he also quickly launched himself back out! after several chomps on the faux greenery and an equal number of squirts to his bottom from the water bottle, he left the tree alone and came to enjoy the lights on it at night as much as i did.




in addition to the single girl christmas tree, harley seemed to take issue with the holy family as represented by the delicate precious moments nativity set given to me by my mom many christmases ago. at first i thought the issue was just with where i had placed them, on his favorite look out spot on a dresser that serves as a linen chest. this was when i discovered the shepherd had been thrown off the cliff, mary and joseph had been smacked down, and a wayward sheep was found under foot on the floor:





in response, and for their safety, i moved the holy family to an undisclosed location. it was actually the center of the dining table but harley should have found no offense in that.

wrong!



seems a wise guy got it this time and was moved to have his back to me, baby jesus was moved away from his parents and the poor lone sheep was tipped!

at this point the family has been packed away for safe keeping until next year when they'll either be behind glass or on a shelf where harley won't be able to reach them. either way it will be a win-win in 2011.

blessings to all,
harley and sharon

more harley news

its been another long break since i last posted, due mainly in part to my net book having contracted a virus and leaving me uninspired to blog. with the exception of a nip here and there that does still draw blood, harley has come a looooong way from the striking bites he was making back when all this new training began. i attribute his better behavior from a combination of the Feliway room difuser - think glade outlet room air freshners - and my learning to read his signs, plus, he doesn't sleep with me in bed anymore so when he does its a treat and its monitored. i also make sure i spend more time with him if i have been away longer during the day and that he has a good supply of food, which he always did have but which seems to put him at ease to know he's going to have food a plenty.

harley has taken to a new morning ritual of greeting me on the bathroom sink as i step out of the shower, usually in the morning. he will purr and head butt me and loves being petting up to a certain point at which time he lets me know he's had enough. it seems to bring him some comfort knowing that we have this time in the morning.

he has done well with guests but has a thing for running out into the hallway of the apartment building. sometimes he has driven me to say, "remember you were a stray once and think of how good you have it here." shame, i hear, works well with kids so why not cats? ;-)

i do love him though, its just taken a time of transition from a long line of lovers and not fighters. my scars are healing and hopefully they'll eventually fade. they stand as reminders of how far we've come and where i don't want to go with him ever again.

this holiday season is our first together and i admit i miss tiger quite often but i know i gave him a good life and i'm trying to do the same for harley bug. we're a work in progress. :-)