Deck the Halls with Furry Felines

The only reason I have parties is so I'll clean the house.

(No, really, it's because I want to see you all, but it IS a good excuse to clean the house).

It also is a good time to throw things out. Mark says he's being brutal about what he's tossing. I'm tossing more things from the cat facility than the house, but neither one of us is looking at the pile the other person is tossing. What we don't know, won't hurt us.

Angel the cat is back. He's been MIA for almost a week and a half now. I almost tripped over him just now as I came out of the cat facility after cleaning the inside of the cupboards. I put food out for him both by the facility door, and on our porch. I need to trap him but gosh, I have no place to PUT him. He meows and meows, although still won't let me touch him. Obviously he's tame. And what a fuzzball.

While cleaning out the cat facility cupboards, I got brutal again. Three open tubes of laxatone? Topical flea treatment someone gave to me probably years ago, with no date? It was time to look at things and ask myself "Would I even use this in an emergency?" If the answer was "Eeeew," then out it went. Then there are the hundreds of little envelopes in case medications need to go home with cats. I adopt out maybe 50 cats a year, tops, and maybe five of those have gone home with meds. I kept 50 envelopes and tossed the rest before they scattered all over the cupboard again. Space is limited.

The cats enjoy having me up there cleaning. I put the oil-filled heater in the big cat room in the tall cage today so they can't tip it over. They'll enjoy that again once they realize they can get on top on the cage and bake in the heat. Of course, the heat lamp is also on and they bake under that, too.

We are spending far too much on electricity to keep cats warm, unfortunately. Billee is in the house since she was returned by her previous adopter, and Ivan picks on her, so I have to shut her in the Great Room at night, which we normally don't heat in the winter. I can't put her in an unheated room, so the heat's on in there. That's a pretty darned big room for one cat. (Although we open it up for Christmas, so I can tell myself the heats really on for the holidays). And of course the cat facility is heated with electric. Thomas the white cat is downstairs where there is no heat, however he's got a heating pad which he thinks is pretty cool. More electricity. Yikes. I don't want to see the bill this month.

We've got quite a few RSVPs for the holiday party! I'm thinking of also having an adoption open house on Sunday (coffee only) since the place will be all spiffed up and I MUST get some of these ultra friendly cats in homes!!!!!