Who says life can't be interesting without kids?

On Monday night I went to bed feeling completely satisfied with life, knowing I had completed a true deep cleaning, transforming the entire house by Murphy Oil soaping the kitchen cabinets and dining room chairs, washing and putting away all the dishes, dusting the plantation shutters and wooden ceiling fans, vacuuming the carpets, cleaning out the kitty litter boxes, doing laundry, scrubbing toilets, and sweeping and mopping the floors. Apparently the kitty litter box wasn't clean enough, because when I walked in to my nice, clean kitchen the following morning, I found this laying in the middle of the floor:

Sigh. I have furbabies, after all.

What happens when you leave sushi unattended in our household...

The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

One of my favorite children's books is Dr. Suess' The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

In this story, the mischievous Cat decides to take a bath while eating a piece of cake. This results in a mysterious pink ring around Sally's tub after the water from the bath is drained. As a little girl, while reading this book with my mom, my head would swirl with questions. What flavor was the pink cake? Why did the Cat use Mom's White Dress and Dad's Shoes to wipe the ring up when simple soap and a wash cloth could have done it? Did all those little cats really fit into Cat's hat? How did they get the pink out of the snow when you can't even do that with yellow dog pee?

At any rate, I know how you can get your very own pink ring in the tub without having to eat cake in the tub first. You simply need to own a semi-feral cat named Roxy (who rolls around in the clay-like dirt of Sierra Vista at every chance), and give her a bath. Voila!

(a glimpse of her recent bath water)

Our New Home

We arrived here in Arizona last week after some terrific flights back to America (no delays or lost luggage) and no snags with the cats. I will tell you though, it has taken a full week for the cats to want to snuggle with us again--I think they hated us there for the first 3 days. Poor babies. A 10 hour flight with at least one hour's worth of strong turbulence is no fun for pets!

Although we were planning on living on-base, the housing the Army base offered us was unfortunately very small (1400 sq ft) and very dated--1950s to be exact, with no character to the lawn or any other part of the house. And, the house on base did not come with a W/D--only the hookups! Jared was actually the one who first wanted to decline it, if that tells you anything (and we all know he is not picky). We could have been wait-listed for new(er) base housing, but it would have been a 6 month wait or longer, so we signed a rental agreement on Friday for a 1800 sq ft 4 bedroom home out on town.

It is a nice corner property about one-quarter mile walk to the mall. Since we moved in on Halloween, we were able to hand out candy and meet a few of our friendly neighbors and their kids, though a few of the neighbors teased us about not having any furniture in the house yet! The gas is supposed to be turned on today and I can't wait--we have been taking cold showers and haven't had use of the dryer or the rangetop in the kitchen.


I love the backyard--it even has an orange and a lime tree! Rock garden all the way! I am going to miss my green-thumbin'!

I am glad we bought those gorgeous pots back in Okinawa so we can use them for water accents here--they will fit right in!

The property has a 2 car garage, W/D in the home, and is only 5 years old. We were lucky to come upon it and grateful it is below our BAH rate so we have some extra money to contribute towards utilities.

This picture is the view we see when we look out one of the two front bedrooms. In the background are the Huachuca Mountains, and technically, the Mexican border. The base is located in that general direction. Also, the sun sets in that direction, so it actually goes down fairly early--530 or so--because the mountains block it from view rather quickly. The sunset is beautiful!

Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers. Everything is working out great!

A Gift from the Kitties

Well, we feel terrible--we weren't able to save this poor bird from our cats! No more than 5 minutes transpired between letting the cat out and reaping the benefit of her stealth. Unfortunately the lens on the camera kept fogging over because of the humidity outside, so hopefully you can see it clearly enough.

**This may be hard for some of you to watch; perhaps knowing that we ensured the little critter was dead before filming will make you feel better!**

Naughty Kawaii

Our black kitty has a paper fetish--bills, letters, magazines, scriptures--anything paper, if left out (including the budget worksheet in this video that was left on the dining room table last night) is likely to get chewed up!

I finally caught her in the act this morning:

And she doesn't even care that I was watching!