Farewell Puff

Friday evening Puff passed away peacefully in my lap. I could tell her time was near, so I was holding her while we watched TV. A little bit after 9:00PM she opened her eyes and meowed 3 times. We took a damp washcloth and cleaned up her face a bit since she'd been drooling. After we got her cleaned up, she started breathing really hard. She took perhaps a dozen deep breaths and then she passed away. It was a peaceful way to go, and I'm glad I was holding her when it all happened. We'll miss her cute and loveable personality, and we're so glad that the last two years here at the new house were better than those years at the old house. Her alergies disappeared after we moved here, and she had a backyard full of squirrels and other interesting things to explore...

February Thaw

The weather has really been strange the last couple of days. Yesterday, it warmed up into the 40s. We even had a brief thunderstorm move through. It was nothing spectacular, but it did get me thinking of spring. Today, it's cloudy and very windy. We've had sustained winds of 38 mph with some gusts reaching near 50 mph.

The warm air is causing a lot of the snow to melt. It's almost like last spring when we had the really bad seepage problems in our basement. This time, there was a nice stream of water running far enough away from the house that it shouldn't be a problem...and the window well in our back basement room isn't all full of water. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that the landscaping and sump pump system will prevent anything like last spring.

Puff is continuing to go downhill a bit. There have been times when we've had to poke her to see if she's still alive, and then there are days like today where she's doing her best to keep up on her daily routine. I think she's quickly coming to the end of her road though, but she seems to be hanging in there and doing her cat things with no apparent pain or stress.

A Taste of Things to Come

We finally have some really nice and mild sunny weather! OK, so 24 F may not seem mild to some people, but it sure felt good when I took my lunch break today. I wish I could have taken the whole afternoon off to enjoy the sunshine!

It's also nice to get January over with for a number of reasons. Winter has seemed really long and cold this year even though we haven't really had record breaking temps or snowfall. Also, it's nice to get the work-related stress of pending layoffs, yearly evaluations, etc. behind me. Now, it's just a matter of getting work shuffled around, taking on new work, training and being trained...

I'm still having a lot of fun playing World of Warcraft. I'm not very good, but I sure enjoy it. I just wish I had more time to play it, but there are always things to do at home and I have to spend time with the Richard and the pets...I've reached level 15 in the game anyway. One good thing that's came from playing that game is it does get my mind of from work.