Rest In Peace Phantom, My Beautiful Boy

Today I lost my cat, Phantom after a long battle with cancer. He will be greatly missed! I still  can't believe he's gone. My heart is broken. I love him so much. The day I brought him home life got better for my son and me. I can't imagine my life without seeing that sweet face everyday.

I feel like I failed him. He depended on me to help him make the cancer go away and I couldn't. He endured all the vet visits, chemo, pills, nasty tasting holistic concoctions, trusting me that I would help him and nothing worked.

I am sooooo sorry Phantom. So very sorry. I feel like I failed you.

Click below to go to Phantom's blog to read about our last days together.

http://phantomtuxedocat.blogspot.com/2015/02/today-i-lost-good-fight-and-had-to-say.html

Phantom's Selfie

This isn't a real blog post, but I just had to share my kitty, Phantom's recent selfie on Oscar night.  While he didn't win any Oscars that night as you can see, he had a lot of fun mingling with the stars.

I wasn't invited.

Some Serious Purring

Today I feel compelled to do a post on my sick kitty, Phantom. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that the majority of my posts involved kitties until Phantom decided to start his own blog (Here).

Phantom was diagnosed with liver cancer last June and heart disease last March. It has been a year since he first started showing signs of his illness and it has been a long, hard journey.  He has been to at least 4 local vets as we have moved from Birmingham, Alabama, to Pensacola Beach, Florida and finally to the Tampa/St. Petersburg area.

 He has also been to two different oncologist starting with Auburn University small animal clinic and finally Bluepearl in Tampa and Clearwater. All have been excellent and very supportive and I appreciate every one of them for taking care of Phantom even when there was very little hope and his prognosis was poor.

We've tried two different chemotherapy drugs as well as some holistic herbal things. These have prolonged his life and given him a great quality of life for several months. He was very, very sick last June, but until this past week he has been doing really good. Eating, playing, bullying the other cats, catching dragonflies, monitoring the food situation - just being normal Phantom.

He has been very brave throughout the journey with all the vet visits, blood work, medications, but now we may be nearing the end of the journey.

I still have hope, but the vets say there is nothing left to do. His liver is failing, if not already not working. He has had to have subcutaneous fluids given almost daily since Friday and I'm having to syringe feed him.

He is still being very brave, but his poor little body is so weak.

This blog post is for him. I am so very thankful he has been a part of our lives these past 9 years. He has been the best kitty for my son and me.  Phantom has missed the boy since he went away to college three years ago. Maybe this is his way of saying, "I've done my job for the boy, now I have to go."

Cadence will miss him too. He and Phantom have been together since they were both kittens. Cadence and our other cat, Ed seem to know that something is wrong. They haven't been eating much the past three days either.

I am still hoping and praying for a miracle, but now I don't think it's going to happen so I have to be prepared too.

We are just going to love Phantom and keep him comfortable until it's time for him to go.

He's beautiful and the best cat ever!

Because My Photographer Quit Without Even A Two Week Notice...

In November the Murph got a new job and we packed up two homes and three cats and moved down to the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida area to begin our new lives. I was very excited and love it down here and everything so don't get me wrong.  I guess I didn't realize that with his new job keeping him busy, the Murph wouldn't have time to do his old job anymore.

 Old job = being my Chief Fashion Photographer/Athletic Supporter/Nutrition Consultant.

With no photographer, I am having trouble doing my Fashion Friday blog posts or any other fashion related blog posts that may require a picture of me in some fashionable or not so fashionable outfit. I've made some sad but serious attempts at selfies, but the photos turned out like this....

and these... not much better photos....

How can a person who generally has trouble with picture taking be coordinated enough to take selfies?

The Murph did agree to take this photo, but I never managed to do a fashion post on it.  It was a cute dress though. I wore this one to see Wynton Marsalis in Sarasota play a fun Christmas jazz concert.

Please excuse the photo bombing cat! He is seriously attached to me in a weird way. I always believed he was taken from his mom at too early an age. Bless his heart!

Dress: Mark & James by Badgley Mischka;

Shoes: Nine West

These days most of my pictures are of the cats so if you love cats you're in luck! If you love fashion, well, I'm sorry but until I can come up with a better plan, there just might be a bunch of cat pictures on my blog again.

Also, with no Athletic Supporter, my triathlon endeavors are nonexistent, but I have hopes for the spring and summer. If I can still swim and ride a bike without training wheels that is.

With no Nutrition Consultant, I've been sneaking to McDonalds to get sausage biscuits and hash browns several mornings and I'm lucky to get in one green smoothie per week. Not good for the detoxing, but I do get an occasional salad passed on from the Murph when he doesn't want to eat his lunches.

I'm still thinking I should become a vegan, but I've tried that before. It was the toughest 2 hours of my life!

Don't worry about me though. I'm tough! I'll figure it all out and be back to normal in no time. Hopefully, I will be better than normal because my normal could use some improvement. (or so I've been told)

In the meantime, here's some cute kitty pictures and some random home interior pictures because those I can manage to take all by myself.

Enjoy....

Stop taking pictures and give us the food!

Phantom 

Ed- The Good Kitty

Reminds me of Cadence and Phantom only they wouldn't be rubbing on each other like this.

Deluded Disillusioned sperm painting.

Cool Jazz Paintings.

Cadence showing his flexibility.

Also, I have job openings available for fashion photographer, athletic supporter (aka cheer leader) and nutrition consultant (aka food nazi).  Please apply here if interested.

I Confess - I Turned The Alarm Off And Went Back To Bed (And Other Important Things)

What a week! I don't even know where to begin. The Murph's job offer in St. Pete? The Boy's eviction notice from his college apartment? Phantom, the cat's, bad, good, trying to get him to eat, drink and take his pills and supplement days? My half ironman training (that's not) days?

The 15 hours of continuing education real estate license classes I have to take so I can activate my Alabama license, so I can then get a reciprocal Florida real estate license without having to take the 60 hour pre-license class again. Searching online for a place to live in the Tampa/St. Pete area before we head back down there in a couple of weeks so we can see them in person.

That doesn't include all that's coming up next week. We are going back to Birmingham to clean out and pack up the house and then turn it over to a Birmingham realtor to sell for us. Hopefully, she will sell it quicker than we were able too. Being there to show it is key. That's hard to do when you're 4 hours away like we are. We weren't all that concerned about it until we discovered we were moving several more hours away. Any way, that's all next week.

This past week the Boy, who has Asperger's, called me from college while we were still in St. Pete saying he got an eviction notice from his apartment. This is after the fact that the Boy had gone down to the office several times to get this vendor form filled out for Alabama Rehab. AL Rehab has to have the form before they can pay the apartment complex. The Boy is eligible for a part of his rent to be paid by Alabama Rehab. Without their help, the Boy can't afford to live there. There have been a series of phone calls, emails from the Boy, me and Alabama Rehab to the apartment complex, but nothing has been done. I even called the corporate office and the Boy has been to the apartment office several times. Despite all of this, since rent is past due because the form hasn't been filled out, the Boy got an eviction notice.

This has FINALLY been straightened out (I think) so the Boy's okay for now. His classes were dropped also, when his financial aid wasn't applied to his account because of me. That was back a few weeks ago when I didn't know the difference between an income tax return and a transcript. This was taken care of as well so he's okay there too. Finally!

The Murph accepted the job offer and we are still waiting for everything to be finalized. We should know something this week. We already have a realtor trying to help us find a place to rent in Tampa/St.  Pete and I've been looking online. What a headache!

Me and Miss Mary

Phantom is doing pretty well. We had dinner with Miss Mary, an energy healer, who has been helping Phantom, last night. She's been sending Phantom healing energy and giving me other suggestions for him. She thinks he might be dehydrated. He was drinking tons of water when we were in St. Pete and not so much now that we are back in Pensacola. If you want to keep up with how he's doing he has his own facebook page here and blog here.

The Murph and Miss Mary

I had to upgrade my computer system so I could take the online CE Real Estate classes. That was a pain since I thought I could do it myself and wasted several hours attempting it. Who knows what all I've downloaded on this thing now. I have a dinosaur of a computer! I've only gotten halfway through the first risk management class and have 5 classes (15 hours) total that I have to take. Boring!

Half Ironman training? Well, uh, yes, I'm sucking at it! I haven't swam in a couple of weeks or been on my tri bike. I've been indoor cycling, weights and lots of running, but shorter runs of between 3 - 9 miles. Okay, mostly just 3 miles.

Sunday was the Trigulfcoast's club members only practice triathlon for the Santa Rosa Island Sprint that is coming up in a couple of weeks. I was signed up to do the practice race which was going to be officially timed with a chip and everything. It would have been a great practice race and good overall brick workout. The night before I pumped up my bike tires, set my tri clothing out and packed all my gear into my transition bag. I set the alarm on my IPhone for 5:30 a.m and was all set to go!

My alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. just as scheduled. It was still dark outside at 5:30 a.m. That totally sucks because I terribly dislike getting up when it's still dark outside knowing that I have to swim. In the ocean!!

I got up, turned my alarm off, fed a snack to two of our curious, demanding cats, who were probably wondering what the crap I was doing, then I crawled back into my nice warm bed between my sexy husband (he has incredible body heat at 5:30 a.m) and our other four legged furry kitty, Ed, who likes sleeping on my side of the bed.

A few hours later, the Murph woke up, looked over at my sorry sleeping ass, laughed and asked me how I did on the race.

I told him it was an incredibly tough race! I had to stumble 10 feet to turn my alarm off, followed by a couple of hours of some marathon sleeping. It was grueling, just grueling! I even shortened my Sunday long run because of how exhausted It was from getting up at 5:30 a.m.

And did I feel guilty about being a no show?

Heck no!

St. Pete Beach Sunsets, Toasted Monkeys, And Weird Moon Pictures

I thought this maxi dress was going to be perfect to wear as we transition from Summer to Fall (yeah, Fall at the beach. Really!), but I've been wearing it so much all summer that I'm probably going to be sick of it by the time Fall arrives. For sure it will be in threads by next summer. I love it that much!

Our trip to St. Pete Beach was FUN! The sunsets were AMAZING! And living in Pensacola Beach, I am very spoiled when it comes to amazing sunsets. St. Pete Beach faces west so the sunsets are right over the Gulf of Mexico, which is amazing on an entirely different scale than Pensacola Beach where the beach faces South and we get the sunset going down over the bay and the Santa Rosa Sound. Totally different and amazing as well.

There were many cool beach bars within walking distance of our hotel and we frequented as many as we could fit in in the short time we were at St. Pete Beach. I loved the name of this one - Toasted Monkey.

Very fitting since we saw several people who were indeed toasted and acting like monkeys. In a nice way though.

Of course, we took Phantom with us since he has to have his cancer and heart medications and special foods. The first day while I was doing a 3 mile run, I bought this new snappy red harness for him so he can go outside with us without running off. He didn't like it much at first (still doesn't) and did this dead possum pose where he would lay there dead weight and refuse to budge even if I poked at him and tried to bribed him to get up.

When I finally gave up and said, "Okay, lay there! But I'm going outside!" and then I would go outside and stand by the door, he caught on quick and popped right up. Even Phantom can overlook a little indignity if it means getting outside for a while.

The people who worked at the hotel were very impressed at the way we had "trained" Phantom to walk on a leash. Trained! Ha!

In this creepy looking picture we were trying to capture the moon behind us so the camera flash was turned off. Right after sunset, before all the stars came out, there was only the crescent moon with a very bright star next to it that we are pretty sure was a planet. There was several debates on which planet it was. I say Venus because isn't that one called the "evening star'"? Or is Venus the "morning star"? My second guess is Jupiter.

The Murph thinks it was Venus too. Below is a little better. It doesn't look like fairies are about to land on the Murph's head like the above picture does.

We got several pictures like the last one. Our camera's not high tech and neither are we. A couple from Germany had a high powered super camera that was taking some amazing pictures of this. The Murph offered for them to swap cameras with us, but they weren't interested. They got a good laugh at our poor camera's expense though.

Anyway all they got are silly moon and planet pictures and who even knows for sure if it even was a planet for real. We got an entire light show!