I hadn’t done a caturday post in a while but seeing Zara surrounded by these scary creatures and not feeling even a little bit scared got me all proud. If an army of toy mice was ever to invade this house, I know I’d be safe.
I really need to go back to work.
Do you ever have weekends when you feel like you can actually relax and have time to do everything you planned to do? For the longest time, I thought they were an urban myth, like blair witch or instant coffee that doesn’t make me want to puke. Turns out those weekends exist, though, and the secret to finding them seems to simply lie in getting my ass out of bed before noon.
This weekend, I decided I was not going to make any plans requiring any more than a five or ten minute advance notice. I fitted in shopping (more hours than I should have – sorry, credit card), quality time with the kitty, family skype time, coffee and magazine reading (the new issue of Runner’s World conveniently arrived in my letterbox on Saturday morning – a free issue from one of those coupons you can get in most event goodie bags), and a cookie baking extravaganza.
More importantly, I ran 3 times in the last 2 days, and 4 times in the last 3 days even, since I also ran a 5k on Friday morning before work. Out of those 4 times, two of them were morning runs. I didn’t get a super long run in like I had expected (12k was the longest distance the watch recorded this weekend, and it included a couple of kilometers of walking). It didn’t matter, though. I’m still pretty happy to have gotten some kilometers under my belt. The hardest step is the one out of the door yadda yadda kind of thing, you know. My laundry pile has never had as many running clothes but I’ve also never felt so motivated about this whole marathon training thing.
I blame the sun. And also, I blame all this getting out of bed at the crack of dawn thing I’ve been doing. It dawned on me the other day (see what I did there? Hmm? Hmm?) that I have only slept past 9:30AM once this year (last weekend), and that one time was planned. I wanted the feeling of spending the whole morning in bed back again. And you know what was weird? I didn’t like it. I felt like I had just wasted a whole lot of time doing nothing. This is the same person that up until a couple of years ago would never get out of bed before 11 on a weekend, unless there was a very good reason to do so (and there were very strict criteria to define what “a very good reason” consisted of, excluding basically everything except for the apocalypse).
This Sunday, for example, I got out of bed at 6AM to run. There was no running event with a set time at stupid o’clock or anything, just me wanting to get a run in before the sun was too high up. I got to run before a lot of people were even out of bed and so the whole day was freed up to do other stuff. Turns out “other stuff” ended up including more running and I couldn’t resist another run in the evening, as dinner simmered away.
So this is awkward. It looks like all this running may have accidentally turned me into a morning person. I still dislike getting out of bed but a bulldozer no longer has to hit the walls of the bedroom for me to actually get up – especially if there’s running to be done. See you out there before 7AM sometimes. Apparently, it won’t kill me.
gratuitous kitty photo because you can never have too many of those and, well, I had nothing better to post.
You know how it was January about 10 seconds ago? Well, you and I blinked and now we’re over halfway through this year. Scary, right? What’s comforting, though, is that we have finally reached the month I had been waiting for all year long. September has officially been renamed Rocktember and promises to do exactly what the first part of the made up word says. It’ll start with an epic road trip in Europe and include my first ever urban trail run (a concept I had never even heard of but am already sold on), as well as a half marathon in Lisbon (the location alone make it straight away the coolest half marathon ever). On top of that, and more importantly, some much needed quality time with family and friends I haven’t seen in a year and cannot wait to hug. I’m sure I’ll come back with plenty to write about but, for now, off to get on a plane (well, two planes) to the other side of the world, BRB!
It was just another quiet morning in Zara’s household. By household, I mean the cardboard box she’s decided to turn into her home.
She had just finished breakfast and was busy chatting with her pink flamingo when, all of a sudden, a hand trying to cuddle her. Cuddles in Zara’s world are often confused with homicide attempts and she was having none of that.
She managed to get her owners to back off and get the heck out of her cardboard box but they were still pointing cameras at her so she grew increasingly upset. She shook her head vehemently as if to say “oh no no no! I’ve warned you enough times” and prepared to attack.
Her owners were never seen again.
Yes, I have a “cat dress”. Yes, I realise how lame it is. And I’m okay with that.
I’ve been excited about it being Zara’s birthday all week long and I don’t even care how sad that makes me. Today, I celebrate 1 year of kitty awesomeness. Happy birthday, Zara Maria, Zara Puddington, Poopinator (yeah, she’s got a few names and at least one of them is related to poop)! In true Zara fashion, she made it pretty much impossible to get a decent shot of her facing the camera so this was the best I could get.
Miss Blue Eyes here had her stitches removed today. In practical terms, it means she’s now allowed to go outside and my days of scooping poop out of her litter tray should be counted. In obsessive-kitty-mum terms, things might not work out exactly that way. Am I ever going to be able to let her out of my sight and risk her never returning ever again? I’m not so sure. Might just have to get used to scooping out poop until the end of times. She’s got a scratch post that matches her fur colour anyway so she’s sorted.
Zara was spayed and microchipped yesterday. It happened much later than it could have been because I had been dreading the day for months, worried about her being in any kind of pain. You can call me obsessed and say I was overreacting but, while she was at the vet by herself yesterday, it was all I could think about. I didn’t make any plans for Saturday to stay home and look after her, in case she felt any pain.
She has spent the day running around the house, hiding from me, giving me “I’m-totes-ignoring-you” looks, and flirting with other cats thought the window.
The lil’ bitch.
One of the reasons I really like photos of Zara is this illusion that she actually sits still for longer than 0.7 seconds at a time when the reality is actually quite different. At least through these photos I can pretend I have a normal cat and not a complete lunatic who tries to commit suicide on a daily basis.
super generic girl 