• blessings,  cats,  faith,  Five Minute Friday,  pets,  writing

    Five Minute Friday: A bittersweet BLESSING

    Usually when I think of blessings, I think of positive things that I find incredibly heartwarming or awesome, that have happened in my life. Today, I’m counting a blessing that is bittersweet. Our tabby striped, 12-year-old Maine Coon cat, Tikey, had to be euthanized last night at the vet, amidst hugs and an ocean of tears. What my husband, Joe, and I thought was an aggressive ear polyp that was next to his eardrum and had begun bothering him (with dizziness and nausea which had caused him to stop eating), was compounded by stomach/colon lymphoma. A good quality of life was no longer possible for him and I believe he…

  • cat,  humor,  Maine Coon,  rural life

    Maine or Rac-coon? – Blogging from A to Z

    Shortly after moving to Terre Haute in 2005, we lost one of our two cats to bladder cancer. Two months later, a Maine Coon kitten showed up at my friends’ backdoor with a terrible respiratory infection and she took it to the vet for treatment. My husband Joe and I adopted it as a playmate for our remaining orange Manx cat, Oliver. Lil’ Tyke, as he became known, came to live with us in October. Tyke darted out of the house one Saturday evening in May 2006 while I was out of town and Joe didn’t notice his absence until the following morning. When I returned home, we looked in…