Cats Cats Cats

It has been a while since I've done a cat post that wasn't harboring on Lloyd's recovery (which, he's 100% better, by the way!), so here are some photos of the boys enjoying the new apartment. They spend most of their time in the living room - Sylvester loves the couch and stretches out to take up half of it, and Lloyd loves the rug in there. (I actually think he misses the carpet from our old spot...) And when we can't find Lloyd, looking for him underneath the steel cart in the kitchen is usually a safe bet.

They also love hanging out in the windowsills, and meowing at us from inside when we're out on the balcony. We have let them out there a handful of times under our supervision, but as soon as they make a move to go towards the edges we plop them right back inside. Those are photos for another post though!

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Fun Finds Friday #127

• Diggin' the 70s vibe of this skirt, though I'll admit, I went for a cheaper option.
• I love our new duvet cover, but this one is really pretty too!
• I must be embracing my girly-side more as I get older, because this skirt gives me heart eyes.
• This pillow would fit our living room colors SO WELL!

Also...

• Shawn and I were talking about making beer-scented candles, and a few days later I stumbled upon these.
• I love this list; my parents had a Briard when I was younger!
• Anyone want to rent a mansion with me? Because I sure as hell don't have 30+ close friends.
• Part of my yoga teacher training is developing a daily meditation (SO hard!); these tips are really helpful if you're interested in starting too!
• Why oh why didn't I buy the rhubarb at the farmer's market this week?!?!
• Serious patio envy.

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Snapshots

Favorite things lately:

• Breakfast. Well, that has always been a favorite thing, but summertime means fresh berries, and those make breakfast extra special. So do raisin danishes and good coffee. I've also been making myself breakfast burritos, since our go-to breakfast joint has been closed all month for renovations. Mmmm!
• Old Lloyd is back! It's like he was never sick! I've been catching him in the most ridiculous poses again and it makes me so happy. Plus, he and Sylvester have been getting along so well since we moved, now that they have something to bond over.
• The sunlight in this apartment. The walls in this apartment. The floors in this apartment. The balcony in this apartment. All the rugs and decorations that look amazing in this apartment. Okay, I really love this apartment.
• Having Wednesdays off again! There's a pop-up farmer's market that I used to go to every Wednesday, but I hadn't been in over two years because I had been working on Wednesdays. Now that I took over the Thursday bakes, I have Wednesdays off again! You can expect more farmer's market posts this summer!
• Hanging out with Rhea and Aesop and their mama the day of Lloyd's surgery. His vet clinic was about an hour away from home, and I didn't feel like making four trips in one day, so I hung out with my colleague's wife and their Bergamascos. It was a really great way to take my mind off of Lloyd for a few hours, and we had a lot of fun!
• That dress! It's old old Anthro and I've had my eye on it ever since seeing it on Poshmark. It's 100% silk and I snagged it at my local consignment shop this morning for $15!!!!!!!

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This is just an update...

Shawn hooked up our internet on Sunday, and I finally have a day off to be able to post, so I figured it was high time to update you guys on what June has brought us so far.

Lloyd:

In case you missed the previous post, Lloyd needed emergency dental surgery earlier this month, and we needed help financing it. I reached out to Kaylah to help us get the word out, because Lloyd was close to her readers' hearts before he became a member of our family, and the donations came pouring in. Thank you all so so much! We really can't express how sincerely grateful we are for your help. When I told my dad that I wasn't sure how best to say "thank you" to everyone, he said the best way is to just take care of Lloyd and ensure he's back to his silly happy ol' self... so that's what we're doing :) But seriously, thank you.

Lloyd had his surgery last Wednesday, and although the surgeon recommended that all of his teeth be extracted, they were only able to remove 18 during the few hours he was under anesthesia. Yes, 18 teeth! They left his canines and a few incisors, so he doesn't look like a gummy grandpa ;) We were sent home with some painkillers, anti-inflammatory medication, and dental rinse. Anyone with cats knows that giving them medication is a task in and of itself, but Lloyd has been pretty good about it. I think he realizes that all those things are helping him, not hurting him. At the previous vet's recommendation, we've been feeding him baby food (because he refused to eat anything else), but he is slowly coming back around to eating cat food. We may need to try some new wet food though - I think the smell of the old food is triggering him to be afraid of eating. Aside from that, he is getting his personality back! It has only been one week since the surgery, but he's hiding less, and cuddling more, and he was playing with his toys this morning! Our little guy is a trooper, and we are incredibly happy to be seeing the Lloyd we know and love coming back out of his shell.

The new apartment:

The same day that Lloyd initially went to the vet, we got the keys to our new apartment. It was a bittersweet day, because of the dual experiences, but now things are finally starting to look up! I don't know if it's the painted walls, the different sunlight, or just the overall vibes, but this apartment already feels more like home than our last place ever did. We have been picking up little odds and ends to add decorative touches and fill in the gaps, since it is completely different from our old place. I can't wait to show you guys some photos! Right now I just have a few snapshots from Instagram... the office and front room are still in serious need of some organization and finishing touches. This past weekend we both finally had some time to tackle a few things together - we recently had a few people leave at work, so I've been working like crazy and haven't had as much time to focus on the apartment as I'd like to. I am eager for my schedule to be back to normal so that we can put up some wall art and find a place for everything! At least we've been making use of the balcony and doing a ton of people watching ;) Also, my brother is bringing us a couch this weekend - we can't wait!

Yoga teacher training:

I had my second weekend of teacher training and it was just as amazing as the first weekend was, if not more so, since nerves were out of the equation now that we are all more familiar with each other. With everything else going on in my life this month, it was great to have a calm space to reflect and connect with others. That's really what I've been getting out of training so far - a lot of reflection and a deep connection with people I probably wouldn't have gotten to know were it not for this shared experience. I'm not exactly sure what I was initially expecting out of the training, but what I'm getting from it far exceeds anything I imagined. I still can't talk about it without feeling cryptic, because I simply can't put it all into words yet.

And that's about it! I can't wait to get back into a regular posting schedule... I have missed this space! There are over a hundred blog posts to catch up on in my feed reader, but those are for another day. Today may or may not be a big day for me, and let's just leave it at that for now ;)


(P.S. To those of you who read the title of this post in Jack Black's voice, I commend you.)

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Lloyd needs your help!

This is a hard post for me to write... in the literal sense because I'm using my phone, since our internet won't be hooked up until monday, and in the emotional sense because of the content.

On Wednesday I had to take Lloyd to the vet. After a few weeks of finicky eating and a few odd episodes in relation to food, he hadn't eaten in just over 24 hours, so Shawn and I realized it was time to get him checked out. The vet found his back molars and throat to be severely infected by gingivitis. This happened about a year and a half ago too, but the infection was much less severe then and we were able to treat it and got him back to healthy in no time. This time, the vet gave us some medicine for the pain, and medicine to treat the infection, but she also told us that in order to clear up the problem and hopefully keep it from reoccurring, Lloyd needs dental surgery to remove his molars. We pretty much expected as such, but we did not anticipate the cost of the surgery... she quoted us $2000 because they charge by the hour and it's an intense surgery.

Shawn and I clearly really love the little guy, but seeing as we both work in the restaurant industry, there is absolutely no way we can afford that surgery. But we also can't bear the thought of him being in pain or, well, you know... the other option that inevitably comes from a cat that refuses to eat. That dollar amount is a high estimate- I'm actually going to call other vets today and see what the range of cost is for said surgery, and hopefully we can get him in somewhere this weekend.

Because the internet had everything to do with Lloyd's initial entry into our lives, and we aren't ready to lose him any time soon, I thought it wouldn't hurt to reach out to the internet again and ask you all for help. I created a GoFundMe page for him and reached out to friends and family to help share it. Lloyd, Shawn, Sylvester, and I would be beyond grateful if you could share the link and/or donate to Lloyd's surgery fund. I reached out to Kaylah earlier today to share the link on her blog and I am insanely moved by the response and amount of money that has already been raised in less than 24 hours. Every amount helps- the way I see it, if we can get 50 people to donate $10, that's huge!

Please help us help Lloyd!
I really don't know what else to say except thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. The internet is truly an amazing place and I am so humbled by the generosity of strangers. I can't imagine what we would do without all of you! Please send love and healing energy Lloyd's way- he really needs it!

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Sedgley Woods

Shawn and I very rarely get days off together, so two weeks ago when a Tuesday finally popped up that we both had off, we knew exactly what we wanted to do. Despite the threat of high temperatures later in the afternoon, we laced up our sneakers, threw on some hats, packed up some snacks, and headed to the nearest disc golf course: Sedgley Woods in Fairmount Park.

Disc golf is, essentially, golf in the woods with frisbees. Once you've made the initial purchase of a few discs (I say a few because you will lose them. The forest eats them up! I lost mine this game :( but that's what I get for having a green disc!), the activity itself is free. Our friends Dave and Briggette introduced us to disc golf about a year ago; we played a few games with them and got hooked. There are courses everywhere, but Sedgley Woods happens to be very close to us and it's one of the larger courses in the area. We are, by absolutely no means, anything more than novices. But a huge part of the joy of the game for us is that we get to be outdoors, enjoying nature. Surprisingly, the bugs wanted nothing to do with me that day... normally I am a bug magnet!

In the middle of the course, there is a structure that has been abandoned and graffitied for years. Every time I would try to go check it out though, Shawn would stop me by saying "Oh, I've heard there's a homeless man that lives in there... you don't want to bug him" or "The grass is really high, so it's hard to get out there", but this trip I wasn't hearing any of that. Next to one of the holes, I found a clearing in the forest that led right up to the structure, with no tall grass or homeless man standing in my way. There's not much there other than rubble and graffiti, but it was still satisfying to finally see it up close.








We took advantage of the fact that we finally had an opportunity to pull out our new camera (we bought it for ourselves for Christmas) and brought it along for the adventure. I mostly took photos of the sky and played around with macro mode. There's also a sport burst option on there that we tried out while throwing the discs - Shawn captured that great still of me "floating"... I didn't even realize that I hop when I toss the disc! It's neat to see what we both choose to take photos of, and it's really cool to see things through the eye of the camera. I couldn't read what was written on that bench above, but through the camera lens it is as clear as day! Hopefully we get a few more days off together this summer for some fun outdoor adventures.

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