Lots of stuff....

Today was a busy day, I guess you would say. Yesterday, I realized our youngest cat, Chelsea, had not come home all weekend, which was very unusual for her. I thought of her on sunday, but assumed I just had not been the one to let her in and she was just hiding out somewhere here in the house. I searched down the road a bit, around our yard, and talked with both neighbors. My neighbor across the street had seen a white cat (she's half white) a few nights ago, hopping around holding up a paw as if it was injured. Long story short, about 45 minutes after looking for her, Chelsea came home. She laid on the couch after a little while, and I sat beside her. She kept meowing when I would pet her back, as if she was in pain. After several hours, she got up and acted very stiff. She seemed to be tender on one front leg. I was very concerned that she had possibly been hit by a car. She just was not herself. First thing this morning, I called my vet and got a 10:30 appointment. I felt better about the situation as she felt good enough to climb the stairs last night and even hop on our bed and purr the night away. I took that as a good sign but felt it was probably still a good idea to have her checked over. After a thorough examination, during which our happy kitty purred the whole time, it was determined that she has a fractured rib. The vet told me that cats front legs are not held in place by a socket or joint of any kind, just muscles. The muscles that control the leg that seemed to be tender runs over her rib cage. Her leg was not hurt at all, it just hurt her to extend that leg fully. She's on pain meds for a week, and we cannot pick her up or hold her. Even petting should be limited to her head as its still a possibility of her puncturing her lung with the fractured rib. The vet thought that since she already seemed very improved since last night, that we should likely see a quick and full recovery. I was so happy to hear that. When asked what he thought could have caused this injury, he didn't think it was a cat fight. It was definitely blunt force trauma of some sort. He didn't think she was hit by a car or he would have seen more injuries most likely. He said the injury was consistent with something like her being kicked by a horse or something similar. We don't have horses on this end of the street, so we really have no idea what happened.

My poor mom had to rush from taking my great aunt to the hospital for some testing all the way out here to watch the kids so I could take the cat in. I'm so thankful she is around and willing to help like that. The kids all love spending time with Nana.

Noah had only one major accident today. He was so good about going on the potty when I asked him to, and even went poopy on it. We were really proud.

After watching the kids all day, then sending them home for the evening, it was time to vote. I really believe strongly in voting and feel that a person has no right to complain about government if they don't even take the time to vote. They lose that right. This year, even I considered not voting in this election. Our town government officials were actually running unopposed this year, and there were only 2 other offices, I believe that I could have even voted for. Nonetheless, I still went out. Its setting a good example for the kids, and I feel like its the right thing to do.

Then, it was dinner time. That was easy since I had made soup in the crock pot this AM and bread in my bread maker this afternoon. That made clean up easy and allowed me to get right to work making more jam. I hope to finish making the jam tomorrow, which will leave me thursday evening to decorate the jars and get everything ready for saturday. I feel like I got a lot accomplished. I'm really relieved that my kitty is doing better and quite happy with Noah's consistancy on the potty thus far.