It comes from a place of love for cats, they're really not as "great" as folks seem to think. I did research on them since my MIL wanted to spend like $400-$600 to get us one, and I also spoke with Vets and technicians.

I hope that I didn't come off wrong, I'm very passionate about animals.

, sorry I'm not sure any of that post made proper sense...

hello!!! im glad to meet you! hope i can become a friend of yours aswell. :3

Since growing up its interesting to see different family dynamics. low-key kinda sad cause in some ways i feel like ive missed out on having a "normal" family. but they have made me a resilient person, and made me want to have a different energy when I decide to expand the family. and no worries, i dont always make sense lol

Well as I use the term "normal" loosely, everything seemed that way til about 11-12 years, we lost a relative and it divided the family forever.

I totally understand that, I wanted it so bad too but alas it didn't work for me as an adult with my family, may have worked in my favor if I chose to have children. It is what it is though.

I do sneak up on my mom but she has profound hearing loss, though I try not to. I think my body creaks enough that people hear me coming.

and we had too many people over for Christmas. It was my sister, her husband, two of his grown kids and their significant others, a teenager, a baby, and a five year old as well as me and my mom. Big family is a nice idea, but I don’t like it in actuality all at once. Maybe if it wasn’t at my house and I didn’t need to clean up and organize. I truly do wish I grew up with cousins, though, and often feel isolated from my own generation.

We went to the aquarium, smallish but neat, Friday. Teen, baby, five year old and their parents came too. Then book club today. It snowed then rained and rained more. Better than overcast and smoky.

I requested you to be a friend too. 🦋

It's an awesome trait to care about animals!

Hello, I hope everything is well with you

Everyone I hope everyone is doing well, with some of the terrible weather happening throughout, be safe!

lol i do, i am glad those 2 want to cuddle. lol!

and who i may forgot and lurkers. Sorry i poofed! Work kept me busy, finally a day off and our first storm of the year is here. Hard winds, rain and cold. We had a wee bit of snow on sunday morning but then the rain came and POOF gone..

Need to catch up with the new years tokens all i got is the sress i am wearing and i want more stuff!

Last friday me and went in town at evening for the chocolate walk. A 5km walk troigh out the city center with stops in shops and museum where we got a piece of chocolate. And we also visit along the way the light images festival, where lighted statues stand like Rudolph, christmas tree , santa, etc.

But boy it was cold! Glad i was home, Lichelle decided to stay in town and have drinks with friends.. i could not stay as i had to work the next day. Pic of us being silly friday evening.

Hahaha, I love the new intentions for the new year. Here's hoping it works, but if not having a balanced mindset is always good. Don't minimize your challenges, but don't forget to also think about the other things!

Wow, that is so affirming! I always feel like I'm tired and don't do enough, especially when I'm struggling to get things done! Hearing someone say "what you do as your normal is a lot" is like "oh wow" and helps my perspective shift a little! I have an amazing partner and I'm always tired, lol. That's how I think I get anything done.

Tripping over kitties is a fair concern. Would having little collars with bells help at all? I guess only if they are moving, but maybe that could reduce the chance of tripping because you can hear where they are? I'm trying to think of other things that could help in general. Is there any kind of system where you can use a camera and screen reader to notify you if something is in the way / on the screen? I'm envisioning my ring camera, and I could pull up the feed and something could tell you if a cat is on the screen and where so you could know if they were on the floor vs by the window or something? Sorry I'm not more informed!

Have you guys considered giant bunnies or medium-sized dogs (or even an XL dog to help with balance)? Obviously they have to be up your alley, but if you enjoy animal companions and find kitties aren't right because of the risk of tripping giant rabbits are a good compromise. Flemish and Continentals get to around the same size as cats, and can be litter box trained, but you can give them a set room of the house to stay in. Then you can go into their room and sit with them! You may just have to stingray shuffle across the room... My girl Fable (gosh I miss her so much) loved to snuggle. She would run to me as soon as I came to her gate and would stretch out or flop against me if I sat or laid down. And you can use a chair or bed or couch too vs sitting on the floor because they can jump up just fine. They can be destructive though, and should be in pairs. Alternatively, a dog big enough you can't trip over them but instead just run into them would work lol. As long as they don't jump or that's a whole new issue haha.

One of my sorrows is that I did not have a close relationship with my grandparents. For their good and bad as people, they had a unique perspective and were pieces of my history. My family lived very far away from any relatives, and never modeled close relationships with relatives (my parents had their own issues with their respective parents) so it just wasn't (and still isn't) something that comes naturally. My hubby talks to his parents via call or text most days of the week, but I talk to mine like once every other week lol.

I appreciate unfiltered, but self-aware and kind, people greatly. Like, be honest but don't be malicious or totally unbothered by the impact of your words. If you can stomach the harshness of unfiltered and not necessarily responsible communication (usually from adults or children) you can gather a lot of information though lol.

I feel you on the MIL Lyric, but it's my own mom. She is not diagnosed formally but truly, truly fits the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder and I had to accept when I was young that there was no "right" way to tell her something she didn't agree with, especially if it was about her. I remember (and will forever) the last time I tried to have an open, honest conversation about her emotional abuse and how it impacted me. I learned that day that it will never be worth trying, because she will never hear it and not convince herself she's the victim. Still working through that in therapy lol.

One of our kitties is very sensitive and if we skip more than one day of litter boxes he will pee on things on the floor, like blankets or dog beds or even plastic bags. So we have to keep in the habit of daily scooping. We have three boxes atm and are about to have four but it's worth it to keep him from being a pest. If only he had kept to peeing in the sink like he did when he was little, I wouldn't have minded that at all lol.

I'm a horrible influence when it comes to encouraging people to adopt more animals lol. As long as you have the resources (including mental and emotional energy) I'm like "doooo it" haha. I have paired up 7 dogs with 6 friends at this point haha.

I have accidentally scared people so many times because I move quietly lol. I don't mean to! One time my dad almost punched me by reflex.

I'm glad you and your mom have each other, but am sorry you have to much to struggle with. Ahhhh Loralea is SO cute I love her. Ugh I just wanna rub her sweet little head.

Coming from a family of just four people and marrying into a family of 20 relatives on holidays was ... a lot. LOL. Thankfully it wasn't my house but just that many in one place for hours on end meant I had to sneak away for breaks.

Happy holiday season to you as well! Feel free to chat awkwardly if you'd like lol. It's safe here, or in my comments if you want! No pressure though, but don't feel like you need to communicate "right" or "perfectly" to communicate at all. I have my fair share of awkward of bad communication lol, luckily some of my biggest mishaps ended up coming off as endearing.

You two look so fun! And that is such a cool idea!

and - Oh, that sounds like so much fun! I'd love it if they did something like that here. I'd be there with my son to push me in my wheelchair from chocolate stop to chocolate stop. I also miss the lighted Christmas trees they show on the National Mall during the holidays. Usually they will put up one tree for each state and then One big official tree for the whole country. I loved to go see them when I was a kid but never got around to going back after we moved back to town and before my illness. :) Oh! Oh! We got snow!! For the first time in years we've got snow! Washington DC is getting pounded with a storm and we're on the southern area of it. I know the storm isn't a good thing because of the safety factor but I'm so psyched that we've got snow! My youngest brought a bowl of it in so I could play with it. Next thing I knew my hubby had it and was dumping it down our youngest's shirt. I asked him why between laughter and he said it was in retaliation for the ornament's that were tied in his beard last month. 😂 😆 😂 😆

- Now you've made me want to sneak up and scare you. Sorry, but your reaction got a chuckle out of me. :*

- To be honest, my hubby's issue with the cat isn't that I'll trip over it. Many of the others here know that I trip over air and have chronically sprained ankles. His issues is the litter box. He doesn't want to scoop poo so I have to respect his decision. We used to have ferrets before I lost my sight. I was the one stuck with cleaning up after them because, although they belonged to my youngest and hubby, neither of them would clean up after them. I got to do it. When we moved (for hubby's work) and couldn't take them I was so relieved because that duty was over. Hubby equates me having poop scooping thrust on him the way I had it thrust on me. Not the best situation but it's mean no pets for us for the last 12 years. Now, he is amenable to me getting a seeing eye dog but doesn't want to fill out the paperwork or go to the various appointments required to get one. I told him they don't just show up at your door when you lose your sight and he laughed and said they should. Don't get me wrong, my hubby is my biggest fan, cheerleader, caregiver, and friend. I know I've made him sound gruff but he really isn't. We just have our issues and one of them causes him to get me plushie cats instead of real ones. ;)As for family gatherings, my family situation has been so fluid for the past 3 years that we've given up family gatherings. But, someday, I do want to meet my dad and visit him in Staten Island. :D :P

- Welcome! :D

Oh my! Yes I can agree with that, sometimes too many folks is too many. It also helps if you have someone in the family willing to help clean up.

It's probably the only trait I love that I got from my "mother."

I was wondering where you went! Oh snow should be a "naugty word" bhahahahaha, we've been getting some today, so cold just so so cold all day. However, SUPER bonus, we do NOT have to have a go on-site day due to the weather mess and the "FUNK" going around! HUZZAH!

Oh so much good ideas for Duckie! Hopefully one of them will work out.

Also, ha It's not just my MIL, my own mother doesn't speak to me nor anyone in the family anymore. She told me it was her or my (boyfriend) now husband. She is/was a textbook narcissist as well. So I can totally support and understand that. She was of course a different person back when we had the "family" gatherings, still a hateful mess, but just got worse as time went on.

Completely understand. Thanks for providing insight on that, I could end up doing tons of research. I wish there was a better solution for you to have that extra companionship. I am a bit taken aback by the seeing eye dog, not wanting to do the steps to get one in place, but again I respect y'alls dynamic.

- I should be clear, the state of Virginia doesn't make it easy to get assistance for the blind. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get assistance that my hubby just doesn't believe I need. I suspect that, as he gets older, he'll revise those beliefs, especially once our youngest son finally moves out and he finds himself having to do all of the stuff our son did while he still lived here. (I hope that makes sense.) He has come out and directly said that I do not need a seeing eye dog because he is my seeing eye dog. He's not wrong about that. I do not go anywhere without him. Not to the doctor, not anywhere. I have developed a severe phobia of going out in public since I lost my sight. The doc says it's agoraphobia (I think I spelled that right - the fear of wide open spaces?) My hubby is the only one I feel even a little safe with when I have to go outside. I do a lot of tele-visits with my doctors because of it. So, my hubby considers the seeing eye dog as an unnecessary expense. I can't argue with that because technically, it would be.

I have an adoptive mother who is a classic narcisist (I know I spelled that wrong. facepalm 😆 ) I completely cut her and my adoptive brother off when my step-dad died and no one told me for a month. I went to call him for his birthday and found out from my Aunt that he had died a month earlier. When I asked my adoptive mother whyshe'd not called she went into a long diatribe about how she was the widow here and I should be more conceerned about her instead of the fact that not one person called me to let me know. I didn't even get to go to the funeral. He's buried in Quantico National cemetary and I went up there and made my private good-byes. But still, a little notice would have been great. x.x _itch can rot in hell for all I care. It was the last straw. I'm much happier now with just me, hubby, kids, aunt and uncle, and my birth dad. It's much less stressful now and a lot, LOT happier. :D

Yeah, depending on house accesibility and size it may not be a good choice especially if you have agoraphobia (sp) my grandmother used to have that. I think it gets more serious with age, so if you're not leaving the house and you've got it mapped out, I can see that.

OOOf! That's nothing but awful! I totally understand cutting folks off. Especially if it's better for you and those you care for. One's mental health is very important as well. Less stress, more happy, I am ALL FOR THAT! blows party horn

I'm sick with something. Seems like it may be gone by tomorrow as it's nothing serious.

I've been tired lately but that's never a clear sign I'm sick as I have a terrible sleeping schedule.

It was really cold here for a few days XD

Oh no XD

If you do sneak up on me know that when I scream loud I mean it. So come prepared XD

Wish I could cut my dad out of my life but...le sigh.

Pet cuddles are the best!

"I just pulled my hair out a little, Everyday...4 litter boxes, I bet you spend a ton on litter ouch!

If I do get one of those litter robots, It will be because my hubby is a pain, and I definitely would get the free in home trial. I unfortunately have to do what I have to do in order to get me a cuddle kitty. :(

Do you have any sight at all, it seems to me,.. Like it would be hard to customize pets etc. Of course I am not trying to be insensitive. I used to be a CNA, and I have seen a lot.

I am so sorry you are sick, get well real soon, I have the start of bronchitis, I am going to sick call like ER, Tues morning I will get a z pack some C cough syrup. My problem is I can get severe Asthma, if I do not nip it at the beginning.

I've had bronchitis once. Hubby gave it to me around my birthday.

He will NEVER live that one down XD

I have asthma so I know how bad that and bronchitis can be.

It was fun and yummy!

Rain is gone and it turend cold today. They are saying snow is coming... i need to see it to believe it lol. It will get colder during the week.

School got cancelled thursday as flu has hit multiple work buildings, residents and co-workers. So to control it loads of stuff is cancelled. And i decided to help out on thursday instead of sitting at home, just a short shift but still will help where i can.

Ohhh that makes sense, and I totally understand. Why it's hard for me to comprehend not chronically wanting / needing to have animal companions lol, I totally respect other peoples needs. Maybe a fostering situation so you can intermittently have a pup friend until the seeing eye dog stork remembers to drop your friend at your door lol. Truly accessibility is not even decently provided in the US, but then again that tracks with the mess that is healthcare. But I am totally team - relationships mean compromise and mutual respect, that's just a part of love!

I'm at a loss for words on what your adoptive mother / brother did. That's ... truly horrible.

It's really hard to lose your mother and have her still here at the same time. I'm sorry you went through that.

I hope you feel better!

We have a nice cold front too! It's dropped to the 40s which is rare here and I am living for it lol

Thanks :)

- I'm sorry everyone is sick there. That stinks that class was cancelled because of it. I hope you don't get it again. It was nice of you to help out at work. :D

- I see no light at all, no shadows, nothing but a huge expanse of black static (think tv static) where my eyesight used to be. I have my whole house mapped out and know where things are in general. The family know not to move anything with out telling me so I don't trip over stuff or try to find something and making a huge mess in the process. It's not perfect but it works for us. Mom, I played on Subeta for years before I lost my eyesight. I know what most of the pets pet colors, and items look like. If I don't know I ask someone here to describe it to me and make a decision on the thing with the info I have. As for the HAs, my hubby does a lot of them for me. I also have a group of friends that make outfits for me. The outfit I'm wearing right now my hubby made. My son decorated my Lumi tree, he does it every year. So, for the main portions of the site, I can manage just with my screen reader, but I still need a bit of outside help withsome things. Faune, I didn't even know about screen readers or other assistive technology until 2020, 5 years after losing my sight. It's take me 5 years but I can now use it on just about every website that is worth going to.

As for the family, I'm better off without them. They were toxic in the worst way and my life is a lot less stressful and happier then it was with them in it. The hardest part of it all was making the decision, enacting it, and then making it stick. There are still sometimes when I think back about before everything went to hell. I miss those innocent days but not at the expense of my sanity. :) ❤

- I have ear plugs... :P 😂

I will test them XD

Oh: yesterday I released the latest chapter of my fic on my blog.

Just be mindful, you won't be able to see if there are any urinary issues, if they have loose stool taking it apart is enough to light it on fire. Also if the kitty is skiddish it my refuse to use it or become even more fearful. I wish you and your future kitty lots of luck.

That's what I say for snow here too. HA! I am so beyond thankful we don't have to do our on-site session for my job, calms my little introverted heart.

Yeah, I cannot stand to talk or think about it honestly.

Oh wow, I had no idea. That is so warm and squishy that your hubby and son do so much to help you out! Love that so much! Yes I totally feel the exact same way about my family that I've cut off. So weird how things just imploded but, deep down it may crush our hearts but the pain they cause (physical and/or emotional) reminds us we did the right thing.

To all that are in the US, do any of you shop at Aldi?