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Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats · Videos

Looking back on our September

Natascha and the Cats22 Comments

Hello everyone! The late evening of October 7 already! Unbelievable. September was a busy month and a month with lots of migraines and fatigue, unfortunately. But as of now, I’m getting into a good phase again, feeling well. Hope it will last a bit longer than the last.

Sweet Sonic is doing really really well! He’s not had any issues anymore with his tummy. His digestion is working like it should now with the new food. He’s happy and playful.

The weather has turned to autumn for good by now. But it started getting rather cold at the beginning of September already. Since then we had more days with rain or heavy overcast than sunny days. Though we had two wonderfully sunny and warm days the previous Thursday and Friday. So the cats were able to enjoy the sun on the balcony again. Sonic enjoyed the sun on the bed, while Murli and Samantha were on the balcony.

Sonic on the bed
Sonic on our bed, enjoying the sun
October 4, 2019
Murli and Samantha
Samantha
Happy Samantha in the sun

Recently it had been too cold to leave the balcony door open all day, even with the sun it had been too chilly. But the cats have to get used to that again for the winter…

Now I will often put a chair in front of the balcony door when it’s sunny, because the girls absolutely love to curl up on chairs in the sun. But especially Murli really isn’t too happy with the door closed most of the time now.

Everyone a the door
Murli right at the door, Samantha on the chair and Sonic sitting behind them.

I recently started to give them kitty grass again and they can’t get enough of it. They just absolutely love it! I only put it down for them a couple times a day, because otherwise, they would be at it constantly.

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As I mentioned, the weather turned cold right at the beginning of September. We had planned to go to a huge Airshow not too far away from Graz, which only takes place every two years. We had looked forward to this one for so long! Though, right at the weekend of the Airshow, the weather had turned from summer to autumn from one day to the next. The temperatures had plummeted, it was raining, windy and the visibility was low. That is why we decided not to go, as we would have been in the cold and rain all day. Hopefully, we can go to a different Airshow next summer!

The Birds

The Sparrows and Pigeons are all quite happy! The swarm of Sparrows is very active and lovely to watch. I feed them every day and they’re not afraid of me, coming really close sometimes.

Sparrow nearby
Cute Sparrow near our balcony
Sparrows
The flock of Sparrows on a bunch of freshly mowed grass, that has been laid around this tree.

The pigeons are coming really close to me too! Most days there will only be one or two visiting. But sometimes it seems they have a party going on and bring all their friends.

Pigeon Party
Pigeon party on our bedroom window and balcony

Of course, it’s great entertainment for the cats inside, when the birds sit on our bedroom window.

Pigeon 2
This pigeon likes to sit on our bedroom window shutters

The Bathroom

Two weeks ago, they fixed and sealed off the area around our shower tap, so no shower water can get into the wall anymore. Also, it was found that the shower tap itself did not even have a problem… That was great, as it made the work a lot easier.

Tomorrow morning, the man from the company who measured the humidity, in the beginning, is coming again to see if the humidity is decreasing. Since the repairs dragged out for so long, it’s kind of early to measure now, since it was sealed off only two weeks ago. But we will see what comes out of that. I guess he’ll have to come again at some point when more time has gone by.

There are many more posts coming

I have lots I want to write about and share! I’ve got many ideas and hopefully my health (migraine, fatigue issues) will be holding up as well as possible, as there is so much I would love to do.

We’ve been doing great and are really happy! Though we feel the summer was too short for us. Ralph isn’t looking forward to the cold winter… But I’ll make sure it’s going to be comfy, warm and cozy at home.

All the uncertainty regarding Brexit isn’t nice and no one really knows what will happen in regards to Brexit, but hopefully things will get worked out. It will already be good to have an end to the uncertainty regarding it.

Hope you’re all well! Thank you for stopping by.

Love and Purrs!

Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats

Hot day today! Some more flopped out cats.

Natascha and the Cats22 Comments

It’s been hot with high humidity all day. Even Murli didn’t stay on the balcony and went inside at 10am already. She’s been up on the fridge all afternoon. I found out that there is a slightly cool spot right in the middle at the top of the fridge. So that smart girl found that out at some point, which is why she’s always up there when she feels hot.

Murli_Samantha_20190811
Murli and Samantha

Even Samantha likes to be near the fridge and she enjoys Murlis big cat bed. Though Samantha likes to move around a bit more and changes her sleeping spot repeatedly.

Sonic moves around as well and changes his sleeping spot constantly throughout the day. Especially when it’s hot, he likes to simply be flopped out somewhere. It’s his favourite position when it’s hot.

Here is a of photos of him flopping all over the place. Some of the pics are from earlier in the summer, but most of them are recent.

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After Murli has been on the fridge for most of the day, she’s just gone on the balcony again. It’s almost 7pm now and still hot outside, although less than during the day of course.

Murli is herself all flopped out now…

20190812_1800_Murli_flopped_out
Murli

Cute Cat Lady Stuff
I’m enjoying working on my crochet Cat Curtain for the living room. Once I have a bit more of the cats, I’ll post my progress. I just love doing it. It’s relaxing! I especially enjoy doing it while I listen to podcasts on my phone, sitting outside on the balcony.

Something else I wanted to share are those cute things:

CatladyStuff_20190811_01
Cat figure on the bathroom window

A little cat figure on the bathroom window…

and a kitty wind chime above the balcony door…

CatladyStuff_20190811_02
Kitty wind chime

I love wind chimes! When I saw this one on Amazon back in 2018, I had to get it for our home. It’s lovely when I hear the chime when a breeze comes through. It’s been difficult to photograph because it’s so high up. The chime is hanging in front of the top window that’s above the balcony door.

There is a lot of Catlady stuff throughout our home… But it makes me happy seeing those cute things around lol.

WordPress Premium
In case you’ve seen the way my blog looks, with the new background and colours changed, that’s because I have finally decided to get WordPress Premium. The reason I did that was to be able to monetize the blog. It would be crazy awesome to be able to earn a little bit with blogging. I want to get into blogging a lot more and it would be wonderful if I can add a tiny bit of income with it. No matter how small, everything counts.

Yet another unexpected update regarding the bathroom/wet walls problem
Today a contractor from the company that will fix everything rang our doorbell. We didn’t expect anyone today, but I guess he was having a look at everything outside. He asked to have a look at the shower tap and shower wall. Of course, there’s nothing to be seen, but I explained to him what the other contractor found out.

He told me that they will come by again soon to decide how to go about fixing everything. Because apparently, they do want to get into the wall now to look at the pipe. On the other side of our shower tap is the back of the communal toilet in the hallway. And it’s that wall that is quite wet. That wall can’t be seen at all by anyone, except the people using the toilet, which are two people. I never knew what it looked like in there until the contractor showed me.

Thankfully we have our own toilet IN our apartment and also thankfully, our toilet is not wet and won’t have to be messed with.

Something has been going on there for a long time and I guess they just want to have a proper look at it all and fix it all for good.

He said they will come by at first to decide if they are ripping into the wall from the side of the communal toilet, or if they go in from our side in the shower. If they go in on our side, it means a much bigger construction site for us and tiles being removed and everything. Which is a shame, since it’s looking really nice. I love the tiles we have…

If they have to rip out the whole shower including basin and everything, then we’ll have them put in a new shower. The new shower would be paid by us anyway. The reason we would have it changed then is that the shower basin currently has no proper foundation/support underneath. As it is now, it will break completely anyway at some point. You can feel it is a bit bouncy, because the shower basin kind of just hangs in the air, for the most part, only supported at the edge probably.

Whoever did the installation of the shower and shower tap long before us, probably wasn’t a proper professional. Thankfully they’re all professionals from proper companies now. So things will be done properly.

Of course, being me, I got a refill of anxiety after hearing about having to have a construction site in our bathroom after all. But Ralph got me calmed down again, talking about how there isn’t really anything to worry about and how I should just let them get on with it, doing their jobs and then it’s over with and how it’s a good thing if they fix everything. We also don’t have to pay for that fix either, since the landlord’s insurance pays for it.

Like I wrote in my post yesterday, somebody from the landlord’s insurance company is coming tomorrow morning to also have a look at everything and measure the humidity in all the walls.

I just hope nobody tried to call me today because there’s a massive outage on Magenta Telekom’s network. Magenta T. belongs to T-Mobile. Nobody on that network had cellphone reception since the early morning. No calls or text and no internet on cellphones. But thankfully the normal internet modem works fine. It’s just the cellphones for some reason. I can’t remember there ever being such a big outage. It’s all of Austria. Not that I care all that much, since it feels actually nice to know that nobody can call me, which means I can’t get any calls regarding the bathroom/wet wall problem, which would only feed my anxiety again lol.

The title in the image below translates to: “Map of Magenta’s outages/problems”

Underneath it translates to: “The last reported problems mostly came from: …”

Screenshot of Magenta-Störungskarte _ Allestörungen
Outage areas for the Magenta (T-Mobile) outage. The only white area is where the big mountains of the alps are lol. No cell reception up there anyway.

So we’ll see what comes out of the appointment with the man from the insurance company tomorrow. I’ll keep you all updated.

Thank you all so very much for your wonderful and kind comments on yesterdays post! All of you are always so sweet to me! Love you all! 💕🙋😻😻😻💕

Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats

Spring is coming, cat sitting and Ralphs apartment in Spain

Natascha and the Cats24 Comments
March 24, 2019
Samantha

This afternoon was warm enough to leave the balcony door and the windows open! I put up the protective cat net on the living room window as well! It’s lovely. The cats really enjoy being out on the balcony and getting some fresh air on the windows. Samantha took the chair for herself right away of course, and had a nap on it. But we have enough chairs.

Murli was out too, but first she had her nap on the stove this afternoon. Just like the other day, when I took the following picture.

March 21, 2019
Samantha and Murli

But after her nap and having some food, Murli got some sun as well.

Murli
Murli

I put our umbrella up on the balcony every day now, because it’s just so bright in the kitchen otherwise, which easily gives me migraines. But it’s lovely at the same time that it’s finally getting warm.

Our balcony today. It was a lovely afternoon

I just took these pictures before I started this post. The trees are blossoming and there are primroses and daisies and all kinds of other flowers on the lawn.

Samantha is doing a lot better now with her tummy. The chronic inflammation has gone down and she’s not throwing up (except for furballs sometimes) or having the runs.

img_7781

Samantha just before, waiting while I was preparing the kitties food. That’s how she sits and looks at me when it’s time for food. 

Murli is doing perfectly well too. Her mouth is healing without problems and she’s eating properly. The latest blood test results came back a few days ago and it shows that she’s doing very well. The thyroid meds are working and everything else is perfectly fine. But she’s going to have her milligrams for her thyroid medication reduced, since the blood test shows that it’s just slightly above the desired level now.

Sonic is still on his month long treatment with the tablets that help his immune system and he’s the usual happy boy he always is. His eyes aren’t as runny anymore and his nose is better too. But he’ll be getting some long term medication for his auto immune disorder after this round of tablets is done.

March 24, 2019
Samantha and Sonic after they just woke up

In all, the cats are happy and doing well!

Also, we had an idea…

As many will know, I had to stop working because my migraines and my joint condition had gotten so bad, that I just could not do it any longer. That was in 2012. My day to day life feels so much better, but even with just normal household chores and/or grocery shopping, I reach my limits regularly. Because it does not take much for something to feel physically exhausting to me. Yet I still wonder if there is anything I can do. Now with Murlis quite expensive medication, I felt that it would be great if I could at least earn that little bit with SOMETHING.

Then Ralph said I should be a cat sitter, since I am good with cats, including cats that don’t know me, and I just love everything that has to do with cats. I did think about it before, but I thought there are so many pet sitters/cat sitters, that I would not have much of a chance without official cat sitting experience.

Still, if there is something I can do and that I can do really well, then it’s dealing with cats. I can do it physically and should not reach my limit, even if I had to visit a home with cats once or twice a day. It’s just a bit different and does not require a long stretch of strenuous activity, and does not cause stress. Even if I do get a migraine while visiting a home to care for cats, then I just take my medicine and let it work, while I sit down to pet the cats, or brush them, or play with them, without having to move around a lot.

Anyway, I thought why not. It’s not going to hurt to try. So I used my FB account to make a page for myself, offering cat sitting for Graz. You might have seen it in my sidebar already. It’s in German since it’s for my local area. But I’ll put 2nd description on it, that will be in English, since there are also a lot of English speaking people living in Graz.

What I noticed so far, and expected anyway, is that people looking for someone to feed / care for their cats in their absence, are asking specifically for someone experienced in that job. I mean I’d be really picky too if I would look for someone coming into my home while I’m not there, to take care of my fur-babies. That person would have to be really trustworthy and nothing but kind to the cats.

So we will see what happens with that adventure 😄

And another thing…

Ralphs apartment in Spain still needs to be sold. After nothing really happened with people wanting to buy it, we knew we needed to do something. So the first thing I did was to create a blog to show case the apartment, since ads usually have a limit on photos and text. Maybe some sites where I can put up ads will allow me to link to it. It will probably take a while, but it would be such a relief for Ralph if the apartment is finally sold.

That’s it for now 😊 The kitties and myself wish you all a lovely Sunday! It’s already past 9pm here, so I’ll be off to bed in a bit.

Love and hugs, Natascha and the cats 😺😸😽

Everything · Pictures · The Cats

How yesterdays Vet appointment went with Murli

Natascha and the Cats35 Comments
Murli on the washing machine
Murli

Yesterday, I was just so knocked out after that day, that I went to bed quite early. I was too tired to even try to write an update. I also got a really bad migraine in the late afternoon.

Murli is doing well now, she’s tired but you can see she’s feeling very comfortable and relaxed. No pain!

Yesterdays day began with me getting up early, and giving Murli her Thyroid medicine in a treat. That was all she was allowed to have. Of course she was hungry and meowing for food, as was Samantha… I tried to feed Samantha in the living room and closed the door, so Murli would not see it. But Samantha did not want to eat there, she wanted her food at the usual spot in the hall near the kitchen. Oh dear. Poor girls. Sonic had his dry food anyway and Murli does not go for it, so he was fine.

At 10:20am I put Murli into her carrier. Because it was looking like it would rain any minute, I decided we’d take the bus and tram. That carrier belongs to a buggy, sort of like a pram. It can be attached and detached easily. I use them because I just can’t carry anything even slightly heavy for long.

In case it would rain, I took my rain cape, which I can use to protect the carrier on the buggy. Murli and I left right after I put her in the carrier. We were lucky, as the bus got there right as we got to the bus stop. It wasn’t packed either and we didn’t have a problem with space.

Murli is always quiet in her carrier. No meow meow at all, even if she’s in it for a long time.

We arrived at the Vet at about 10:45am and it just started to rain after we got there. There was an emergency before us, but the wait wasn’t too long.

Murli in her carrier, in the waiting room at the Vet.
Murli in her carrier, in the waiting room at the Vet.

Once we got taken in, the Vet was having a good look at her teeth again, checked her breathing, heart and temperature. Then Murli got a tiny shave on her right front leg, right where the vein is. Then a needle was used for a venous catheter, and fixed onto her leg with adhesive strips. Murli tried to rip her leg away and grumbled… but it all worked out fine anyway. Blood was taken to check her Thyroid again to see how the status is now after taking the medication for a few months. Then a drip was put in place, and the anesthesia was slowly injected into that line. Murli was still grumbling, since her leg was still being held, which she does not like. I held her head and I could feel her muscles relaxing and then I was able to feel she wasn’t holding her head up herself anymore. She was asleep.

After that, I had to leave and the Vet brought her into the surgery room. It was nice that I was able to stay with her until she was asleep.

The weather had turned really nasty as I left, which was at about 12:15pm. It was raining and a cold wind was blowing. Ralph and I both went to have a rest soon after I got home. But about an hour and a half later, the Vet called to tell me that Murli is fine and that I can come to pick her up. It was 3pm when I arrived back at the Vet, and a migraine had just started.

The Vet brought me in to Murli. She was in a bigger cage, in a darkened, warm and quiet room. She was awake, but clearly not all there yet. The Vet Lady told me all about how it went and that a few teeth were already totally loose and one was really bad. So bad it had gotten into the bone. It was now clear which tooth caused her all that pain. It was amazing, as it was not really clear by just looking at it at first. Only as she took that already loose tooth out that the infection became visible.

Murli had already gotten some antibiotics on Monday and got some more yesterday. I also got some pain medicine for her for the next couple of days.

With that we made our way home again, and it had finally stopped raining again. We were lucky and had a tram right away.

Once home, I let Murli out and she ran around the whole apartment, checking EVERYTHING. She was not too dizzy, just slightly. I made it easy for her to jump onto her current favourite spot. The first thing she wanted was food, but that had to wait for a bit longer.

Murli had a bit of a sleep and I took my migraine medicine, because my head was almost exploding by the time we got home.

At about 7pm Murli finally got her food, even though she did not eat much.

Today in the morning, Murli was wide awake again and wanted her breakfast. I was amazed that she was able to eat much better now than before, even though quite a few teeth were missing now.

I gave her one of her pain tablets at midday, and she’s been doing really well. She’s purring a lot, and cuddly, and looks really happy. She’s a bit more tired than usual, but it’s obvious that she’s feeling well now.

Poor Murli must have really been in agony with that bad tooth. I know what that feels like. So it was really absolutely the necessary to have her teeth sorted out properly. Shes free of that horrible pain finally.

Murli is feeling great, but she’s still mostly tired.

Murli was purring happily when I took those pictures

Thank you all for your wonderful and kind comments! We all wish you a nice rest of the day and hope you’re well. Lots of love and purrs <3

Everything · Pictures · Ralph and I · The Cats

How the cats get their medicine and new blog address

Natascha and the Cats13 Comments

Maybe you have noticed that I’ve changed the address of my blog
from https://freecatlady.wordpress.com/ to https://catladynatascha.wordpress.com 

Changing my username and the address of the blog itself was something I wanted to do for a long time now, but I was worried it would be such an inconvenience for everyone. But because I want to start getting into blogging a lot more again, I just went ahead and did it finally. The reason is that the old username and url just did not fit anymore. Before I met Ralph, I was sure and content with staying happily a single catlady for the rest of my life, which freecatlady was representing.

But being happily married to Ralph and having my little family of us and the 3 kitties, it just didn’t fit anymore.

Now back to the cats…

As you read in my last post, all 3 are being medicated for different reasons. I found that putting the tablet into a treat works best for us and I wanted to share how I do it.

I found those soft cat sticks, which are wide enough to fit a tablet into them. 

What I do is, I cut a piece off, as small as possible, but still big enough for the tablet. In Samanthas case, it’s half a tablet, but I’ve done it with whole tablets in that size too.

Then I’ll make a hole to fit the tablet into the piece of cat stick.

Then I’ll carefully stick the tablet into the hole. Afterwards I’ll squish the end a bit. Like this, I’ll either give it to them like a treat, all by itself, or I’ll just put that on their food. Both seems to work. 

I’ll basically use anything the cats like that can hide a tablet well enough, so that it wont fall out right away when they eat it up.

Murli started to have tooth ache on Thursday, and it was obvious she was in pain. The tip of her tongue out most of the time, not wanting to eat despite being hungry, and being really quiet and apathetic. And so, as I went to pick up more medication for Samantha, I also told the Vet about Murli. She agreed that it sounds like she’s being in pain from her teeth and gave me pain meds for Murli for the weekend. Because tomorrow morning, Monday, March 11, 2019 we’ll have an appointment at the Vet, to see what’s going on with her teeth exactly and trying to fix it.

A while after I gave Murli her the first pain tablet on Friday, Murlis demeanour totally changed. She was suddenly her cheery happy little self again and started to eat. It was obvious she must have been in quite some pain before the tablet. I was just glad it helped. Over the weekend, she got a pain tablet every 24 hrs and she’s been fine and continued to be her happy self.

I’m of course anxious again, worried and hoping that everything will be fine. It’s likely that I’ll have to leave her with the Vet for a few hours and that’s always really difficult. But it’s important, she needs to have her teeth sorted out and I’m already looking forward to have Murli back home later tomorrow, reunited with all of us.

I’ll post an update for Murli tomorrow night.

Thank you all for your wonderful comments on the previous post and on Ralph’s blog post too. You’re all absolutely lovely!

The link below was nessessary to update the blog with the new address on my account at Bloglovin. They ask you to put a code with a link into your post, to confirm that it’s actually your blog when you claim an url there.

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