September 28, 2025 Sunday

Greetings!

Well, best laid plans...

Things didn't turn out being nice and simple.

I thought I was doing a bit better for a few days, never well--but a little better.  Since it said on the news that the pollen count has been exceptionally high this fall and Leah was also stuffed up with a headache even on her allergy pills this last week, I figured I'd wait out the weekend to see how I was doing before I decided whether to go back to the clinic.  I was about the same for several days--no better, no worse...and even had a few sneezing jags to make me think it was just allergies.

Saturday I woke up to a super dry throat and some coughing, but I figured that was from the mouth breathing, you know?  I know it may sound weird if you've never had a chronic illness or known someone who does that a person cannot be sure if they are sick or not.  But when you live with chronic pain and various issues...it gets hard to tell if you are really "sick-sick" until it is bad enough.  Besides the sinus infection I've also been in a fibro flare since we moved...which means all my muscles ache, chronic fatigue, and IBS.  (Thank goodness I'm still on LubriSyn so the bones/joints aren't screaming at me, too--lol!)

I was so tired on Saturday that even after sleeping about nine hours I fell asleep for a couple more hours in the early afternoon.  Not feeling great, but still didn't think I was any worse.

Sunday, though...woke up to a really bad sore throat, coughing, and couldn't even talk.  Hours of hot coffee and I got my voice back even if it sounds gravely and a bit squeaky.  Finally know--I am still sick-sick.  So I am going to the walk-in clinic tomorrow.  I don't want this to turn into pneumonia or bronchitis or something.  (Maybe has already?)  Whatever.  So that's how things stand right now.  Probably more antibiotics and rest in my future.  Good thing I feel like I have all the patience in the world for putting my new home together. 

Ever since Allie and I moved...it's like the biggest weight off my shoulders.  Like my very soul breathed a sigh of relief.  Hard to explain, but all that stress left me.  Being sick...hey...I've been worse sick off and on for the past several years.  I've been dealing with fibro for over 20 years, for that matter...then cancer...cancer...so...feeling like crap and having to put my plans on hold is absolutely nothing new.  No matter what--when I feel better this place will slowly get organized and all put together.  I am used to having to do things in baby steps.  It's all uphill from here.   

So, what else happened this past week...

On Tuesday Dagan was down here picking up a trash bag to go to the bins outside...Blink was outside the door...so we made the snap decision to let them see each other for the first time.  (I didn't want to do it alone and deal with a cat fight.)  Blink was nervous about coming in.  She's known there was a cat in here and was very interested--hanging outside the door often.  Allie came running up, all perky, to see who we were talking to at the door.  They both froze when they saw each other.  Blink growled and hunkered down, ears back.  Allie was puzzled and took a step back.  Blink was furious!  Dagan stuck the bag inbetween them as Blink was going to run and lunge at Allie...and chased her back and shut the door.  Blink howled and yowled and carried on in sheer cat anger for a while.  Nope!  Not going to be friends.

Kind of figured Blink would be the problem.  She younger, fitter, has claws, and is extremely territorial.  They know that because she has done the growling, yowling, howling thing even when a cat has come into their yard...and run from window to window to watch them and threaten them.  And she's an inside cat!  Once a friend of Leah's came to visit and had her little dog on a leash--and Blink wanted to kill it, too.

Allie will be perfectly fine.  I think she had been an apartment cat the 8 years before I got her because she had no interest in going out in the hallway--ever.  Or outside on the patio.  Allie ran to the far end of the living room from Blink and stared at the door for a good hour after the scary cat was right outside the doorway...but then she was just fine.  The outside world holds no interest for her.  She's an apartment cat.  I think she might have felt differently if Blink had come inside, but she's all fine and mellow and happy...and I don't think Allie has given Blink a second thought.

Blink, on the other hand, is often right outside the door.  I feel badly having to chase her away, but she could do Allie some damage.  Allie isn't a fighter.  She hides and withdraws...like she had at Cat's Cradle and most likely at the Pound before Cat's Cradle rescued her from being put down.  She had quit eating and was less than half her size she is now.  Starving herself.  She stayed curled up in a corner of the room for a week and never seemed to move, they told me.  Then she finally found a cat bed up by the window.  She never seemed to move again. Spent all day curled in a ball in that cat bed with her back to all the cats in the room.  Even when I petted her and I could feel her purring but she wouldn't even turn her head to look at me.  She had given up.  

As soon as she had a new home with me and realized her past human and her cat companion were not at my place...she was a different cat!  I had been worried about her back legs being all stiff and at a bit of an angle...arthritis or something?  Nope--she had been a fat cat before she was abandoned.  Probably not two months after she had her new home with me--she was once again the fat, happy cat she used to be.  Her walking stiff back legs fit a fat cat perfectly.  So funny!

So, Allie will be fine here with me.  They don't have to be friends.  The situation will bother Blink more than Allie.  I don't think Allie has given her another thought, to be honest.  Blink is part of the outside world (often right outside the door listening and smelling under the door).  The funniest thing to me is that Allie is so used to a home that is chaotic and filled with boxes and bins (because that is how it has been for the three years I have had her at the old place) that she has felt perfectly at home here ever since I didn't try to make her go in the scary, noisy room anymore--lol!  As long as it is her and I hanging out...she's happy. 

Wednesday--Dagan met with the cleaning company and got an estimate.  That night he and Leah brought over the pile of my big flat stuff.

Was the last thing to be moved over here.  A lot of oversized art & craft supplies.  Makes me smile just to see them up there--temporarily--to be out of the way.

Thursday--the donation truck came.  Found out they don't take furniture anymore.  But they took everything else.

Dagan and Leah have had to deal with all the last things over there.

Allie and I have just been chillin'.

Moved a cat bed and it has become her latest favorite place to sleep.

Thursday night Leah searched for my folding tables and set up two of them for me.  

I need some surface space to fold clothes and unpack boxes when I am able to do that.

Friday the cleaners came.  Dagan said they did a good job.

Saturday--down to the last pieces of furniture to sell.  The low, wide cherry cabinet went.  Then there's a lady from Grand Forks (80 miles north of Fargo) coming today (Sunday) to pick up the three pieces of red furniture (cabinet and two end tables).  The last thing is my big oak table--if it doesn't sell Leah's sister will take it.  So hopefully all those pieces of furniture will leave without a hitch.  Dagan and Leah plan to turn the keys in by Monday.

Also, on Saturday--Leah saw these paper shelves on Facebook Marketplace for $10.00 each!!  She thought of me immediately.  OMGosh!!  Yes!  They were from an office and he had eight of them.  

Leah went and picked up three of them for me!

I plan on one in the living room hutch.

But we'll have to take the doors off to slide them in there and put the doors back on.  They should just fit!

And two of them for the two hutches in the studio--which don't have the glass doors and should just slide right in.

I do have a lot of paper supplies, as you know.  The living room will hold things for writing letters and journaling.  The studio would hold things for making cards and art journaling.  I have already found some cheap plastic trays on Amazon that should fit on those shelves.  Won't know how tight the fit would be until I get them--so I hope they will fit.  The trays could be used to hold a variety of things--including ongoing projects.  I already have some larger trays Leah and I have been using for various card projects and we just stack them on top of each other.  Not the best system, but it worked okay.

Some of you may recall that I had a tall skinny cherry cabinet I used for years with a bunch of small drawers that Leah and I used all the time.  They were full of rubber stamps.  We loved them because you could just pull out the whole drawer and bring it over to the craft table to work on cards.  I was so glad Leah took it for the boys' school room!  They still use it all the time.  Different drawers hold glues, pencils, googly eyes, etc.  :)  So that's the idea behind the trays for these shelves.  Please, please fit!

So much for me having surface space, eh?  LOL!

The boys still love messing with the magnets when they are down here--lol!  I am glad I bought another set of them.  (Thanks for the card, Ann!)

So, that's about it for this last week.  I will go to the clinic tomorrow.  The keys will be turned in soon.  Goodbye, Goldmark!  I will miss my apartment at North Sky, of course, but I know I am happy here already since the day Allie and I moved--even if it's a total mess!  LOL!  So in my frog voice I will say...till next week, my friends!  You all are a bright spot in my life every week!  :) :) 

P.S.

Apologies to the people I usually send birthday cards to starting in October.  They are packed away somewhere in the boxes.  Never thought I would be sick for this long--lol!  When I unearth them you all will most certainly get belated birthday cards.  :)