Annabelle's Antics

I'm hiding!

I'm all ready to pounce on any cat that walks by me too.

You'd be surprised at how fast I can go.

I have supersonic cat speed!

Vrooomm...mmmmmm

Mancat Monday

Ping glows in the morning sun on the catio.

Sunday Selfies

Hello everyone! I'm relaxing out here on the catio

and about to join

THE CAT ON MY HEAD

for this week's sunday selfies blog hop.

See everyone there!

Caturday Art

Annabelle is joining

Athena the cat goddess

for this week's

CATURDAY ART

blog hop.

~αηηαвєℓℓє

Feline Stillness

Why is she ruining a good nap?

Throwback Thursday

C. August 2012

A year before the long fall down...

A cat and her box.

Looking mighty fine Miss AbbaDabba.

#TBT
#Missingyou

Blogoversary

Angel Gracie

Boo

Angel Abby

Ping

Jinx

***

2005 what a different world it was especially in terms of how

technology was beginning to develop.

I had been online since the 90's, but the world was rapidly changing

in how we communicated. Those of us old enough will probably always 

cherish being "pre" internet children.

But, in June of 2005 I found my soul cat Abby. I had been documenting

that search in the form of a Journal I kept off line on my computer.

I also had always been interested in photography, but I had not caught the

digital bug. Thinking it was a fad. But so much for that insight.

After Abby I wanted to get into this new way of photography.

I had a horrible camera, but maybe they all were in those days.

So between my terrible camera and my little known knowledge of 

online Journaling I began this blog. There were so few cat bloggers in those days.

Timothy Dickens was one of the very first I found and I was especially

drawn to him because he was a tuxedo like Boo & Abby.

Timothy lived a long life until November of 2016.

There were a handful of others and we began a very small tightknit

community. There was so much fun.

Now I can't believe how wide and vast the community has grown.

So many have come and gone, including my own beloved

Abby and sweet Gracie.

When I started it never occurred to me that there would be a downside.

It simply never crossed my radar that there would be loss.

I know.

I know.

Truly I know how could I not fathom that?

But, the losses happened and cats and their Moms stopped blogging.

I've always understood why the blogging stopped, but it was terribly sad

to lose all contact when a kitty went to the Rainbow Bridge.

Things come and go, ebb and flow, I've certainly had that happen.

I've always wanted to keep some type of record

and I'm glad I did. I am not as connected as I once was because my heart

is still broken, even after 5 years, and other losses have added

up over those 5 years and I find myself at a crosspoint.

But, I still know that my kitties have kept me grounded and I want to honor

them.

Especially this one....

She has helped my heart more than anything.

What a loving little Momma cat she is.

So I will continue to honor my special seniors and

my Annabelle who herself is now 6.

I see that blogging is now almost a technological dinosaur.

One day I sense it too will go the way of all of those 

outdated AOL , Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and LiveJournal.

There will be a new way, one day and probably in the not distant 

future and blogging will become like snail mail.

(Which I appreciate btw)

But for now, I want to continue to document my babies.

I was so grateful to have Abby's life with me to fall back on.

It was a comfort once I got through the first stages of Grief.

I hope those who follow us still enjoy our meager updates.

We sure do appreciate all of you.

Fourteen Gotchas

Boo

Jinx 

Ping

The original Three Amigos.

***

14 summers ago, it hardly seems possible these 3 appeared at my doorstep.

I easily remember one night hearing a cat cry outside the window.

Nothing so unusual about that, but little did I know at the time,

it was Jinx and I'm betting he was hungry.

(HE IS ALWAYS HUNGRY)

***

Sometime during August of 2004, I remember walking up towards

the front entry to the house and seeing two cats asleep on the chairs that sat

in the entryway. Immediately, Boo jumped off and ran into the bushes,

while Jinx sat there. Of course, they weren't Boo & Jinx then.

I went in and got a can of tuna, because I had no other food to give them.

Boo came back and out popped Ping from the bushes.

He was the one a lot harder to get close too. 

Both, Boo & Jinx were tame.

Off and on throughout the next several months I took them from being

outdoor to indoor,  which was the best decision I ever made.

We've been through a lot together.

They have been through it all.

I hope that time grants us many more years to come.

But it's been a great 14 years so far, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Happy Gotchas to Boo, Jinx, & Ping.

***
We got a lovely graphic from
MEEZER'S MEWS AND TERRIERISTICAL WOOFS
wishing us a happy Gotcha.
Thank you Pipo and Dalton and Mom Ingrid!

Mancat Monday

Ping, loving his sunny window sill morning.

Happy Monday ya'll! 

The thin space between us

Dearest Abby,

I find it very hard to write this to you.
I cannot comprehend that it has been 5 years since I last held you in my arms.
Where has that time gone?
 I cannot grasp that you left this house ON August 13th and simply never came back.
I was so lost in those first days and months after you died.
 I was searching and searching and just doing things to keep myself going on the outside.
But, on the inside time stopped at 9:44PM on the night of August 12, 2013 where you slipped out of my sight and out of my life. I've struggled with that thin line of you being here at 9:43 and gone at 9:44 since the moment it happened. That stark, brutal, incomprehensible small sliver of time and space between living and leaving.  That silent piece of time still haunts me. There was a final breathe and then there were no more. There was a heartbeat that suddenly halted. There was life that ceased to exist in one small incalculable amount of time and I was powerless to stop it. In that one infinitesimal second of space, life was over for you, and for me it was irrevocably completely altered. 

***

In the width of that final breathe,

everything changed for me.

***

There are realities that hit a little at a time as a death is processed. Hard truths that you don't acknowledge or just won't let you mind process. Perhaps it's just the way we insulate ourselves from the harsh truth. But one thing is very clear, my life will not get better. That it not to say it won't be good or that there won't be laughter and joy. No, what I mean is that life will never be as good as when you were here. It will never be better than before you left. No matter where I go from here, nor what happiness I may find, those future events will never replace the past that is gone.

***

I suppose that is why the word

LOSS

while incomplete
 sums it up well as we grieve.

***

When you lose someone close, you adapt to the loss,
with the horrid subtraction that death brings.
You realize once there was a time when you were
  whole,

and no matter what,

THAT is one thing

you

will

never

be

again.

***

The further out I go from your death I do realize it prepared me for things I didn't even understand I needed to be prepared for. But, I will simply never again live in a world of invulnerability. I will never live in a world of completeness nor of feeling secure. I lost all of that along with losing you. Now it remains to me so important to keep your memory alive. For there are so few who knew you, so many are gone too. We lose part of our histories when we lose someone we love. It's a sad reality that it makes some uncomfortable when the dead are mentioned. For it brings great fondness to the person who grieves that although it may bring a tear talking about the one we lost, it also brings great joy, just knowing they are still remembered.

***

I am still searching.
I am still lost.
 I am still trying to understand.
I am still feeling less secure because I've seen firsthand
 how unpredictably the world can be turned upside down in that single sliver of time.
I struggle trying to understand how others can accept death seemingly so simply and push onward outwardly,but that I can't. I don't understand that. I haven't reach that "switch" where I can turn off or on all of the things I feel are gone which once meant so much.I realize that we all have to go on, as forward is the only direction time takes us in. But, I haven't been able to put a pristine ending to you being gone. I suppose I see it as the catalyst of the beginning of many things that ended and made my life so deeply complex. But all I know is that I loved you then and I love you now and I know with clear certainty I will love you with my dying breath.

***

And that I miss you

everyday.

Every

Single

Day.

***

July 1, 1999

August 12, 2013

***
The words I put on this haunting photo are:

Grief is forever.
It doesn't go away.
It becomes a part of you.
Grief and love are conjoined.
You don't have one without the other.
 the reason we never heal
is because LOVE never dies.
That maybe....
the reason we never heal is
to keep hope alive.

Hope begins in the dark,
the stubborn hope that if you show up
and try and do the right thing,
the dawn will come.
You wait and watch and you work.
You don't give up.
~Anne Lamott

And Piglet said....

if ever there is a tomorrow
when we're not together
there is something you must always remember,
you are braver than you believe,
stronger than you seem
and smarter than you think.
But the most important thing is even
if we're apart...
I'll always be with you.

***
Somewhere out there
I believe you are still with me.
But, it's hard being the one left
behind...