A special bond.

Some of you may remember the post I made yesterday (Tuesday) about being sick. At the time I wrote it I was having a ridiculous amount of trouble sleeping due to a bad cough. Well, I never got to sleep. I ended up going to the doctor first thing in the morning. There I was informed that I have currently have the joy of fighting off the flu, a sinus infection and bronchitis. The coughing is so bad (even with the prescription cough medicine) that I have been unable to stay asleep for the last 28 hours longer than like four minutes at a time. As it is now the co steroid shot and the antibiotics seem to be working but of course that won't help the cough. 

The cough suppressant medicine they gave me is not helping AT ALL. Which is absurd since it's supposed to be one of the best and cost like $40! The only thing it's doing is adding to my already exhausted state. (It makes you drowsy.) I think once it wears off I'm going to try taking what I was taking before which is an over the counter cough suppressant/expectorant. At least when I was taking that my coughs were mostly productive. Now I have more dry coughs which is not the way to go if you want to get better. Loose, productive coughs break up the phlegm causing the issue. I'll also try taking a sleeping pill. Those usually knock me right out no matter what. My issue of course isn't falling asleep since I'm so tired, it's staying there. Usually those are pretty good about that. So here's hoping.

Anyway my reason for this post is about my kitty named Bella. A little while ago I was so frustrated that I couldn't get to sleep after such a long time.

Well, she curled up next to my chest purring and put her paw on my hand to soothe and reassure me. Every time I'd cough she would either curl her paw gently on my hand or lick it as if to say it's gonna be okay mom. The purring was soothing on it's own, and the act of her curling up with me was very sweet but the hand holding, squeezing and kissing made it extra special.

Bella has asthma. She's actually on a daily pill for it but occasionally she still coughs when she purrs. I always try to calm her when it happens. I guess this is her way of trying to do the same. Cats are smarter than many give them credit for. They know when something is wrong. Especially if it's with a person (or another animal) they have a special bond with. ♡♥

In sickness and in health.

My husband and I got married last month. So I thought the title was appropriate.

He actually got sick with the flu first, and is still dealing with the lingering cough. At least he is now able to sleep a few hours at a time without waking up. I can't wait to get to that point.

I've been sick for about a week now and I've reached the coughing portion. It's not as bad tonight as it was last night, but still bad enough to keep me awake. Last night I didn't sleep at all. I think I finally passed out around 7am. The cough is a little better tonight but not much. Even under my tongue hurts from coughing so much. It's really awful that these things are worse at night isn't it? The doctors all tell you to get rest but it's kind of hard to do when the sickness is keeping you awake. Over the counter medicine that makes you sleep is only so good also. I actually ran out of that medicine last night. I've been taking something different today. Seems to work about as well as any other really. I could take a sleep aid but let's face it... I'm tired of taking pills and that can't be good to do either. So instead I sleep during the day when it's not so bad. Being sick makes me a vampire. Ha!

There I am in my bed tonight desperately trying to fall asleep after finding a semi comfortable position that I am able to breathe in (stuffed up nose). Every single time I start to drift off I cough and wake up. The last time, the time that got me out of bed I had actually fallen asleep and I jolted awake gasping for air as I coughed. That's not only a miserable feeling, it's pretty scary. So instead I lie there thinking about random things. Then I figure I may as well get up and type out some of them.

Now I'm sitting in my office, pretty much in the dark because too much light bothers me at the moment. It is almost 4am here after all. There is just the glow of my laptop and a night light in the corner where the cats bowl is. The only sound is my cough, my husband's occasional cough and oh... Now there is a cat eating at the bowl.

Okay I've rambled enough for this post. On to the next insane 4am post.

Hello Kitty not a cat... Say what?

To quote a real cat's meme... No. (Grumpy Cat)

"That's one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat. She's a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She's never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it's called Charmmy Kitty." (Source:http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-hello-kitty-in-los-angeles-not-a-cat-20140826-column.html#page=1)

So by this logic Mickey Mouse isn't a mouse, Donald Duck isn't a duck, etc. So what if she has a pet cat? There is goofy AND pluto. A mouse with a pet dog... Since when do cartoons need to make that much sense? lol She even has KITTY in her title AND her name. Makes you want to look at them and ask, "are you serious?" Okay so she can't just be a girl cat? I mean, it's pretty apparent that's what she is.

You can't let people think all these years that Hello Kitty is a cat and then pull this. It's obviously a publicity stunt.

I for one refuse to believe it. Call it denial or whatever but that's how I feel. She's a cat. End of story! :p

Wedding Adventures (Picture Heavy Post)

Good morning and happy Saturday to all of you!

Today I wanted to share a bit about my recent wedding and honeymoon. I'm sure a few of you followed along with the adventures...and in some cases misadventures of the prep. lol So here we go!

Before the wedding.

The weeks leading up to a wedding is always stressful. Ours was even more so but it had NOTHING to do with the actual wedding. As some may have heard our landlord basically decided that he didn't need to pay his mortgage and the house was sold at a sheriff auction. Keep in mind that we had NO idea this was happening. Our neighbor across the road informed us that they had seen it in the auction listing online so we contacted our landlord and asked him about it. He pretty much lied then and said that everything was fine and he had it handled. Imagine our surprise when about two weeks before our wedding date we get a letter in the mail saying that the place was sold and we had ten days to get out. (It was nine days by the time we got the letter.) The letter came from the lawyer of the bank who had purchased the house.

We tried contacting the landlord but he did not return any of our calls. So we contacted the lawyer responsible for the letter as well as our own lawyer. Unfortunately due to the fact that we were month to month renters and given the situation with the actual sale they were not required to give us more time. This came as a bit of a shock to me. Sure, we could have drug it out and forced them to evict us. That may have bought us some more time. (I know how long it takes because I had to evict someone before.) However you need to understand that our wedding was two weeks away and we were going to be gone on honeymoon for about  2 1/2" weeks after that. So by the time we would return there really wouldn't be any time left to get out. Not too mention we'd be stressed and worried about it on our honeymoon. So instead we spent the next few days exhausted and stressed trying to find a new place to live.

At the last minute we did.  We literally found a place two days before the deadline and of course it takes a day or so to process the application. The Realtor knew our situation and expedited it though...bless her and the landlords for that. We actually moved out the day after the deadline. We had no choice, that was when we could do it and when we would have help.  The new place was/is not without it's problems. I won't go into that but at least they are being worked on by the current landlord//landlady. They have both been great. Especially after the last landlord. The place is MUCH bigger though. It's 1200 sq ft (town house) as opposed to the 700 sq ft (shotgun home) we had before. I actually have my own office now! It did come with a higher rent but it is what it is. At least we didn't end up homeless right before the wedding. There is a special place in hell for people like that guy and karma is a you know what.


The night before the wedding one of my good friends and her guy came over. She actually was coming a good distance to attend the festivities so we helped them out by letting them stay with us. She was awesome with helping me out as well and it was a lot fun having them there.


Day of the wedding & accessories!


The day of the wedding started off with me going to get my hair styled. My then fiance dropped us off so he could go get his own hair cut and a couple of other things that needed to be handled done. You may remember me talking about how difficult of a time I had finding someone to braid hair. I am very happy with where I ended up at Essential Salon & Nail Spa. The lady who did my hair is named Ashley and she was awesomesauce! Here is a pic of the results.

The flowers are cherry blossoms I found on etsy. Here is a bit of a better pic of them in my hair. The earrings I made. A better picture of those along with the matching bracelet and necklace is below.

Closeup for detail.

The dress I wore was  handmade by a good friend of mine. Check out her stuff on Facebook at Daphne's Crafts. She made purse to match also!

Here are a couple of photos of it.

The matching purse. Also handmade.

My shoes.

My mani with the dress. This is what I searched high and low for the perfect stamping plate and gel polish for!

It wouldn't be a wedding day without something going crazy. The car battery died. lol Fortunately he was able to get a jump and go get a new one. After we finally got back my husband (then fiance) said he wanted to go get a new battery for his watch. It's something he's been wanting to do for a while so I didn't think anything more of it. I figured he wanted to wear it during the trip and stuff also. Well he comes back with this as a wedding present!

He also got me this later on after we got back. The artist is a friend of ours. She does some amazing stuff. (No it's not all cats. This is actually a rarity.)  Go check her out if you like art!  

http://marrusart.storenvy.com

We didn't actually have a ceremony. Both of us have been married before so we opted to just have a judge friend of ours marry us. He did it for free so who are we to argue? :p That night though we had a lovely dinner for family and a few close friends at the Irish House in New Orleans. If you're ever in town I highly recommend eating there. My husband knows the owner and chef so we got a very good deal. The dinner was held in the event room upstairs which was beautiful. The staff was wonderful as always. Very friendly and attentive. The food of course was delicious! We had eaten there several times before so we knew we were safe with that. lol To make it easier on everyone I designed and printed out these place cards. The symbols represent soup or salad (the dots), and then the cow, fish or tomato was for the entree.

The cake was from Gambino's and it was SO beautiful, and delicious! As I figured it would be. They are the best bakery in town and have been around for ages. :) I had sent them a photo and they matched it. There were some slight differences but it was perfect anyway! I was so happy!

The next day we left for our honeymoon. To keep this post from getting ridiculously long I'm breaking it up into at least one more. So keep an eye out for that soon!