Star Struck

Yesterday I had a little brush with fame...right here in Tulsa!  Daisi and I went to a late lunch at Mi Cocina and as we were headed in to the restaurant Kristin Chenoweth was heading out...EEEE!

Daisi and I did what any respectable thirty somethings would do - we FROZE!  After coming to our senses we were disappointed in ourselves for not at least saying hi.  She seems like the nicest most bubbly person ever so she probably would have said hi back and might have even let us reach out and touch her. 

Kristin is even more beautiful in person and tiny, tiny, tiny!!  Did I mention tiny?  I don't think I've ever been star struck but then again I haven't seen that many celebrities up close and personal.  My celeb sightings include Mike Tyson, Kirstie Alley, Ted Kennedy and Hoda Kotb.  Daisi on the other hand is a celebrity magnet...I think she saw three in 2011 alone!

What celebs have you seen?  Did you play it cool or freeze?

She's Back

I am happy to report that this little bit is back to her normal wild self.

Yes, that is my kitchen counter.  It's called failed pet parenting but the fact is, she was unfazed by any form of punishment we tried to dole out...

• Sprayed her with water - Phoebe loves water and welcomed the refreshing spritzer
• Put muffin tins and other objects on the edge of the counter - this resulted in the loud bang it was supposed to when they fell to the floor but the noise only seem to startle us and our other cat...Phoebe not so much
• Blow dryer - this is one thing she doesn't like but a solid 30 seconds later she's back for more
• Foil - most cats do not like the sound of walking on foil but Phoebe not only didn't mind the sound, she ate some of it and threw up
• Physically removing her after every jump - this resulted in 30 minute TV shows turning into 60 minute TV shows because I had to get up every 2 minutes.  Something had to give and it wasn't going to be TV!

Needless to say we sort of gave up but not to worry - I thoroughly clean before cooking, etc!  I hate admitting it but I'm happy to see her jumping on the counter again, she wasn't up to doing much for a couple of weeks there.  I'll tell you someone that is not happy about this new development and that is poor Tavia.

The week that Phoebe was at the vet, Tavia was the happiest I've ever seen her!  She was like a little kitten again, playing and loving on everyone.  She's really having a hard time acclimating to the reintroduction of Phoebe.  She's been much more aggressive this time around than when we first got Phoebe.  I just hope it doesn't take several months like it did the first time. 

I'm not sure where I left off with Phoebe other than mentioned my belief that the snow flocked tree had something to do with her sickness.  I still don't think it was a coincidence.  After a week at the vet partaking in IVs and force feedings her biopsy results came back.  The results weren't as conclusive as they had hoped but the vets were still leaning toward inflammatory bowel disease and decided to move forward with that treatment.  After her first steroid shot she started eating and was doing ok so they sent her home but when we would give her a prednisone pill at home she became sick again.  After a couple of goes at that, it was determined Phoebe was having negative side effects to the prednisone.  They wanted to put her on a different steroid but before switching, the vet consulted with a colleague at the Oklahoma State Vet School.  After reviewing her information OSU didn't think she had inflammatory bowel disease but rather had developed an aversion to eating.  They also said they had received several calls regarding fake snow.  I knew it!  Of course, the manufacturers claim it is not toxic and it may not be, but it is definitely an irritant to animals.  They thought the snow could have caused the inflammation and recommended we give Phoebe an appetite stimulant to get her to eat.  She instantly responded to the stimulant but the first night we gave it to her she became very lethargic, uncoordinated and disoriented.  The vet said 1 in 10 cats have that reaction so she said of course Phoebe would be the 1 - ha!  All it took was decreasing the dose and she was eating like Takeru Kobayashi.  Christmas Day she was really acting back to herself and eating well so we decreased the dose to once a day and today the vet told us we could stop giving it to her all together :)

It is such a relief to have Phoebe feeling good again!  Sorry to make a short story long!  Having a sick pet can be stressful at times due to the fact they can't communicate with you.  The cause of the illness can become a guessing game of sorts but we love our vet and know our four legged friends are always in good hands there. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday!  I will blog more about my Holiday happenings and subsequent Holiday hangover later this week....

Copy Cat Chic - Shoes Addition

Who doesn't love the copy cat chic blog?  Lately I've been doing my own copy catting but in the shoes department.  For some reason I'm really digging faux fur this season and I say some reason because fur has never really been my thing.  I've always associated fur with women who start drinking scotch and water at four o'clock in the afternoon.  Who knows, maybe I'm maturing?  I should point out real fur is still not my thing.  I'm not going to go all PETA on you and I do think Tavia would make a pretty coat...

 but I just can't get into it! I don't see any harm in the faux look and in my search for a pair of black non-heeled boots I was really drawn to the faux fur pairs.  Particularly this pair.

While I've never really been into Uggs, I was digging these!  Of course they came with the $250 Ugg price tag which is kind of ridiculous and I came to my senses AB said absolutely not.  In hind sight he was right, they are trendy and as soon as they go out of style I will no longer wear them.  Lucky for me I was able to find a similar pair at Express for 1/5 the cost!  I love them and I especially love that I didn't pay a fortune for them!

The story of these boots reminded me of a similar copy cat shoe experience I had last year so I just had to share!  Everyday I walk one or two blocks to my office building from the parking lot which is absolutely no big deal, I enjoy the exercise.  Although, when it rains small streams and ponds seem to pop up everywhere on that small journey and I'm always soaking my shoes and the bottom of my jeans.  As you know, denim does not dry!  So I decided to break down and buy a pair of the ever so trendy rain boots.  Of course I fell in love with these Sperry's, the most expensive pair I could find (my standard M.O.)

Even AB didn't have to tell me it was crazy to spend $80 on a pair of shoes I was only going to wear in the rain.  After some Internet scouring I came across these very similar boots from Walmart - yes! Walmart!  And again I only paid a fraction of the cost.

What girl doesn't love a good deal on a pair of shoes? 

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

This year we embarked on getting our first Christmas Tree, or I should say our first full size tree.  In years past we've used this little guy as our main tree.

I'm still using him but I decided after 4.5 years of marriage combined with the fact that we are hosting Christmas, we should have a full size tree in our living room.  I set out online to do some browsing and came across this beauty from the Martha Stewart Living collection at Home Depot.

My head was swimming with visions of how beautiful she would look in my living room.  It was love at first sight!  Unfortunately for me love can be a little blind and those beautiful snow flocked branches...

...were a disaster!  Putting the tree up and fluffing the branches caused snowpocolypse 2011 right in our living room.  Not to mention I'm married to a neat freak so the messiness of the snow was not going over well with him.  But it just looked so beautiful, I was determined to make it work even if that meant vacuuming every day!

That is until this Lil' Bit started chewing on said snow flocked branches and ingesting all the fake snow.

Within a day of the tree being up she started acting very lethargic which is not like her at all!  She is usually into everything and getting into places she should not be (ahem)...

We knew something was up and after a couple of trips to the vet it was determined Phoebe had an obstruction in her stomach that would require exploratory surgery.  She had the surgery on Thursday and they pulled out a very large, congealed hair ball (gross!) from her stomach.  This was the best case scenario of what could have been in there but while they had her open they noticed some of her bowels and pancreas were inflamed which could actually be the cause of her sickness.  They did a biopsy and we should have the results this week.  Either of the inflammatory diseases she possibly has are very treatable which is good news, the bad news is she hasn't been doing so well since the surgery :(  She's had a fever and refuses to eat which puts her at risk for some sort of liver disease.  Lucky for us she is in good hands!  The vet's office has been keeping her on an IV of fluids and antibiotics and they have also been force feeding her (something we would have a hard time doing).  She's been keeping her food down which is good and this afternoon we found out her temp is down a degree!  This is the first day we have not been able to visit her which has been hard because we miss her!

I have a hard time believing the fake snow ingestion is a coincidence although it very well could be.  The vet agreed that the snow could have helped the hair stick together in her stomach and I'm thinking it could cause some inflammation issues.  Needless to say I didn't want to always wonder if it was just a coincidence so the tree in all it's snow flocked glory came down!  A big thank you to my BIL for coming over, taking it apart and boxing it up for me!  AB was out of town and I couldn't even get the top part off by myself!

Maybe we'll find one next year, maybe not, after all Christmas isn't about the tree!