Daily Life

Long time no Daily Life! Just like every year, the last few months seem to fly by and I keep waiting for a calm day to sit down and actually write something other than a recipe! To catch you up on the last few weeks we’ll start with our annual Friendsgiving Feast!

As the RSVP’s rolled in, I quickly realized that setting up a few card tables together wasn’t going to cut it! I rented two 8ft long tables to accommodate our twenty guests and had everyone bring a chair or two. We might have been a bit short on space, but we definitely didn’t have a shortage in food! I served up a 21lb pomegranate and orange glazed turkey, bacon wrapped chicken drumsticks, and of course all of the other wonderful Thanksgiving side dishes.

I had a few moments where I wished I had a second kitchen, but managed to pull it all off and get everything out at relatively the same time. We ended the night with peppermint vodka spiked hot cocoa and a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity. Getting everything together while battling a cold/upper respiratory infection/The Plague seemed like a feat in its own and I have no doubt that next year’s will be even better!

Life has become a fulltime juggling act that I’m proud to say I’m keeping up with pretty well. Between two jobs, I’m only able to get about 1 day off a week. It takes everything in me not to stay in pajamas and sleep all day.. ok let’s be real.. I definitely did that a few days, but I’ve been trying to make the most of my brief and fleeting free time by cooking by buns off all day so I can still provide posts on the blog. Thanks to you guys with your comments and shares I know my efforts are not going to waste!

In some not so good news.. We finally took our stray, Mokiki, into the vet to get a check-up before we brought him inside to interact with Punk. We noticed he had put on a little weight or that his tummy seemed a bit bloated, but we thought it might just be a simple fix of medicine or diet change. I knew things weren’t going to be good when the vet continued to poke, prod, and ask questions while looking very perplexed as to what was causing this. We had an x-ray done and discovered that his stomach is filled with fluid caused by a terminal feline virus and possibly a tumor. He said that there’s nothing we can do other than continue to care for him as we have been. I was devastated to hear that we didn’t have much time left with him and that we wouldn’t even be able to bring him indoors since it poses a risk to our other cat.

We continued to care for him and he was doing okay, but then he disappeared during some bad weather we had a few weeks ago. While I was getting ready before an event I had to work, I discovered him next to our house..barely moving or breathing, covered in his own feces, urine, and dirt. I scooped him up and rushed him inside and set him up in our bathroom with clean water, food, and a litter box. When I got home from work I bathed him twice and made him a bed in my office where we kept him over the weekend. He wouldn’t eat and we had to use an eyedropper to get some water in him. We took him in Monday morning so that he could finally rest in peace. It was such a heart breaking decision but we knew eventually it was going to get to that point.. I just thought we had more time with him. We both took it pretty hard and it’s still very painful to even talk about, but I’m relieved he’s no longer suffering. Thank you to everyone for your kind words and support over these last few days.

Despite the ups, downs, twists, and turns that life has been giving me, my overall attitude has remained positive and optimistic. There’s going to be a lot of changes for Tattooed Martha in the new year, so stay tuned!