Only took me a week to finish this post…

May 10, 2021 Catlady Natascha21 Comments

First, I just want to say thank you to all of you, for leaving all your absolutely wonderful and kind comments! You are always amazing to me, to Ralph and the kitties. Thank you!

Just in general, I rarely get to sit down and write a post in one go, because there’s always something going on that I have to get up for. But I love those reasons, because it’s for Ralph and the cats!

This time, it took me days to write this post was simply editing it over and over again, unsure if I should even mention what has been bothering me.

I’ve already been dealing with anxiety since my teens, but it’s been pretty much the same for many years, not too bad. But since about February it’s gotten a lot worse, which has not happened like this since my teens.

It’s the result of a combination of outside influences, a lot of it probably subconsciously. In the most simple terms, it’s the fear losing control over my / our life in various ways due to government decisions / laws / regulations / mandates / restrictions because of covid.

These fears have always been part of my anxiety disorder, but with the difference that I was always able to realise that it’s just part of my anxiety disorder has no base in reality. Nowadays, observing different western countries (mine included) and their law changes due to covid, I’m not so sure anymore.

My disorder is likely rooted partially in all the hospital stays, treatments and medical check ups throughout my childhood (starting at 5) due to migraines. As a young child, I was totally attached to my Mum, my family and home itself, including my kitty Minky. Most of these hospital stays happened suddenly and unexpected. From then on I was worried every time I had a medical appointment, that I might get sent to hospital again suddenly. To this day I am getting panic attacks if I have an appointment at a new doctors office, especially before check ups and medical procedures.

But back to the present… Where I unfortunately feel as if anything could be changed or mandated all of a sudden. That’s just the way my anxiety has always worked. Everything feels a lot worse than it normally is, by far.

Working my way out of that anxious hole I’m in

With this going on, I could not concentrate well on writing a post or anything, especially in the past month. I just tried to distract myself a bit on the laptop when I had the time, with Sims 4… Which is amazing as distraction! I had Sims 2 and Sims 3 as well over the years. It’s the only game I have ever been interested in. I have lots of kitties in various households in my game… It’s awesome.

In addition, I also tried to relax as much as possible and focus on our life and everything I love and like to do. Basically just try to get on with life and try not to worry. I found some new things I might do as well, like live streaming! As well as posting regularly and staying in contact with you lovely friends.

Publishing posts in a more daily / journal like fashion is something I wanted to do in forever. Keeping some structure and something regular like this might help a lot and I know it would be fun. Even if I can’t concentrate well, I can still do a little post with photos from the day or something.

How Ralph and the kitties are doing

Ralph is doing well, aside from the shaking hands. We’re happy and looking forward to the weather finally warming up for good! Sonic is doing amazing! He keeps slowly gaining weight and he’s zooming around the home by now! He is walking really fast and jumping up on anything with ease! He joins the others on the balcony a lot and on the windows. There are lots of cuddles and washes between Sonic and the others. His digestion is working really well too! I’m feeding him with the syringe still in addition to what he eats on his own. I give him all sorts of pureed meats he loves.

Sonic also has a collar with a little bell by now… He is totally deaf, so he can’t hear it and the collar didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t even feel bothered by it when I put it on him. The reason is that I know when Sonic is moving about or what he’s up to. I still always keep my eyes on him and it gave me a lot of peace of mind being able to hear him when I’m in another room. The other don’t care about the little bell at all and neither does Ralph.

Hero, Lisa and Samantha are doing well too! They are really enjoying the warm sun now and spend a lot of time on the windows and the balcony.

I’ll be posting more soon!

Lots of love from Ralph, the kitties and me! Thank you for being here!

Everything

Just a little message

May 4, 2021 Catlady Natascha14 Comments

Just a little message

Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats

Late night post ;-) and update about Ralph’s blog

July 25, 2020February 6, 2021 Catlady Natascha29 Comments

First off… Ralph deleted his blog. He felt better that way, because it was wearing on him that his blog is online, but he can’t blog anything himself.

Although I saved his complete blog. I exported the whole blog through WordPress and imported it into a new private blog on my WordPress account. It’s there, 100% complete with all the comments and everything in a fully functional blog, just private. It could be posted on again if Ralph and I find something that reduces or cures the shaking of his hands due to Essential Tremor.

Just wanted you all to know that we’re fine and everything is alright. You can always reach Ralph through my blog and email address, or his email address. Ralph also always reads the comments on my blog posts.

It’s in the middle of the night

It’s past 2am and it’s raining. We’ve had a thunderstorm come in every afternoon since Monday. The rain that started this afternoon is of the ‘constant nonstop rain’ variety. It’s nice to fall asleep to, but not so nice when the kitties want to hang out on our balcony catio all day in the sun and warm weather.

Earlier, Ralph and I were watching a movie and sweet Sonic joined us, cuddling up between us on the couch.

Now, the kitties are all asleep. They were really tired, after playing all evening.

Hero and Lisa started to party early in the day, by getting into a valerian root pouch that they ripped to bits. Then they rolled around in the mess of strewn about valerian root bits on the carpet 🤣 They were all silly and happy from it and having a really great time!

Samantha found the smell on the carpet after I cleaned it all up. Now each of the lovely 4 like to relax at that spot for a while, when they pass by there.

There’s always so much to post about… countless pictures and updates on how we’re all doing. Since that’s accumulating all the time and makes it a huge post in the end, I’ll just try to post often from now on. Just our every day life sure keeps me busy… Ralph could tell you about that and all my silly shenanigans when I am absent minded because I get distracted by cute cats…

So for now I will go to sleep, and post again tomorrow.

I hope you all are well! Stay safe and cuddle your kitties and loved ones 💁🏻‍♀️😽😽😽😽❣️

Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats

A new phone, a new Internet connection and lots of cat photos!

June 22, 2020February 6, 2021 Catlady Natascha16 Comments

Hello dear friends!

I hope you all are doing well!

I’m so excited because I’m starting to be fully active again online these days. There is A LOT to catch up on, but I’m happy to do that.

Since I don’t want to make it a long rambling story, I try to make this update as short as I can.

I’ve been feeling better regarding the daily migraines, which are now down to about two a week on average. Sometimes 3, sometimes less than 2. It’s thank’s to Vitamin B2 in high doses, and Magnesium and Q10 in normal daily amounts, that I’ve been taking and responding to well. Now, when the weather is nice and sunny, without any changes, I’ve had a migraine-free phase of over 2 weeks, which is a miracle almost. Everything is better than having a migraine every single day, or one that goes on endlessly without a break for many days.

Since things can’t be always perfect, something else happened… The internet went silly. Again. We changed providers in December 2019 and it was great for a while. But for some reason, the 4G router, which connects to the internet via mobile phone towers, started having reception problems that got worse, around February. Then the bandwidth itself was getting awful and the speed was too bad to even try and do much online. Thinking it could be due to the lockdown and everyone being at home, I just waited and hoped it would get better. Unfortunately it didn’t and instead it got even worse.

At the same time, my old iPhone was starting to show it’s age, unable to cope with the apps that are getting more demanding on older phones. My phone would shut down or crash when trying to take pictures, or trying to write anything on WordPress, or on other sites. At least I was still able to make phone calls with it! 🤣 So with the internet being awful, my phone being unusable for internet as well, we needed to get it sorted out.

I had us changed to a landline internet connection, which is mostly all fibre optics by now. I was not sure what to expect, but it’s amazing. We’ve got a plan that costs us the same as before, but now we have reliable and fast internet. It’s a huge difference. Since the new router does not have to be near a window for reception, it’s in the hallway, in the centre of our home. Therefore I have now WiFi all throughout our home, including out on the balcony.

The router and the wall socket it connects through.

Ralph also encouraged me to get a new iPhone as well, which I did. It’s the first time I ever got a new and current iPhone. I usually always bought an older one. But since even the older ones last me many years, this new one will last me even longer now. I’ve been having way too much fun with it. The photos and videos it takes are stunning. I can finally record videos and take photos with a phone in low light conditions.

Yay, the new iPhone! The lock-screen wallpaper is a photo of sweet little Hero ❤

Of course, I’ve been taking 1000s of photos and videos of the cats within a few days. Also, I can now comfortably post from my phone and do anything I used to only do on the laptop.

What’s going on these days

We enjoy to sit out on the catio (Balcony) as much as possible. Now I can even blog and do other internet things from out there thanks to the new router!

Hero and Lisa spend the most time outside. Like sweet Murli, they want to go out onto the balcony no matter if it’s raining, cold, storming, hot or ice cold. Hero and Lisa even flop down or sit down right in a puddle!

Even if it’s hard to tell in the photos, it was raining hard at the time and the floor of the balcony was really wet. Especially in the night time picture, Hero sits right in a puddle.

That’s why I’m going to try and see what they do if I put a basin of water out on the balcony on a hot day. I’ve seen them play with water and I’d be curious to see what they do if they have the possibility of actually going into the water.

As of today, the weather has been like summer again, but with storm winds. Now in the evening, it has calmed down and it’s now a hot summer evening.

All week before the sky looked mostly like this and it was rather chilly…

But if the weather is too bad, we just enjoy our time in our home. The kitties can still watch kitty-TV from the bedroom window, as it’s the closest to the bird feeder.

I will end this photo-rich post now, before it gets too difficult to load for some.

Now that I can post a lot easier and with internet that works all day and night, I’ll post a lot more frequently, but shorter posts, just like so many of you do as well. Little updates of our daily life.

It’s now nearly 10pm and I am looking forward to bed. I’m not necessarily going to sleep, but I can be online on my new phone too! It’s so much comfier in bed, with kitties around me.

Sonic, Hero and Lisa leaving no room for us to get into bed

Ralph will be watching some videos on the laptop or a movie on the TV.

I hope you had a good start into the new week! Sending love from us all and purrs from the kitties 💖

Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats

Good night post, May 7, 2020

May 7, 2020May 13, 2020 Catlady Natascha12 Comments

Hero… From playful to fast asleep within a minute 🙂

Not surprised, he’s running around playing all day and so is Lisa.

I’m in bed, Hero asleep, leaning against my legs and Sonic to the right, next to me.

Samantha is asleep on the comfy round chair near Ralph’s desk and Lisa fell asleep on in the hallway on a soft kitty bed. She was too tired to wait for me until I was going to bed and fell asleep while waiting for me basically. But she’ll come and cuddle up with us a bit later.

By the time Ralph comes to bed, there’s cats all over the bed🤣

I’m answering all your lovely comments as soon as I can. I just keep getting distracted by cats and things that need to be done around the home. But I wanted to say thank you! It’s always so wonderful to receive all your kind words and I really appreciate it a lot!

So good night from us! We’ll be back tomorrow 🙋🏻😺😺😺😺❣️