An Unplanned Week

What a week. Aside from Mark's office party, there was a lot of unplanned stressful stuff that came up this week.

I started off having to hurriedly finish a paper. For some reason, I had put down in my planner that it was due on Friday the 13th, when it was actually due on Monday the 9th. Although I had already started the paper (I take extensive notes throughout the quarter with a paper topic in mind), my planned writing schedule was going to take me all the way to Friday to get to a final, completely edited paper. I double-checked the syllabus for the word count parameters--but ended up realizing that I should have been checking the due date. That was just a fiasco, but the paper got done.

The weather has been looking like this for the
past week or so. All I want to do is drink hot
chocolate and sit by the Christmas tree all day.

Only a few days later, Smokey decided to wake me up at four in the morning by licking my eyelids. It's normal for him to come up in the morning and lick my cheeks, but it really hurts to have a sandpaper tongue go across one's thin, delicate eyelids. I figured something must be wrong, so I checked his food and water bowls and litter box. Everything looked good.

I went back to sleep until an hour later when Smokey meowed so loudly and sadly that both Mark and I immediately got up. We found Smokey sitting on the floor next to the bed, with a hairball in front of him. Mark cleaned everything up and we tried to calm the cat down.

We went back to sleep, only to wake up to the sound of Smokey dry heaving until yet another hairball came up. Later, we saw that not only was he throwing up, but he had also rubbed the area in front of his ears raw. It was awful. We suspected he must have had an allergic reaction to something, which meant that we had to attempt to brush him down with cotton balls soaked in a mixture of water and vinegar. Taking a sick and stressed out cat, holding him, and getting him soaked in a mixture that cats hate is difficult and stressful. We just wanted him to get better and act like himself again. He is finally happy and recovered now, but it was definitely scary to watch our little furbaby get sick. I was crying when he refused to eat a treat to calm his stomach that we had mixed in with some wet food to keep him hydrated. I couldn't sleep because I felt like I had to keep checking on him to make sure he was keeping his food down and not over-grooming. I don't know how parents do it with their children. When you can tell that your baby is sick, but he can't tell you what is wrong, and doesn't realize that what you are doing is helping him even if it is uncomfortable, your heart just breaks. I know I overreacted and got a little too emotional, but if this is how I act when my cat gets sick I feel like I'm just going to be an unhelpful mess whenever any children we have are ill.

Getting some love after a rough couple of days

All better! You can still tell that he had
rubbed the area in front of his ears raw

We also went to Mark's first ever holiday office party. It was at the III Forks up here, which was nice because y'all know how much we love III Forks. Mark's coworkers are a hoot, and it's always fun to dress up and socialize. The party was just what we needed to pick up our spirits a little bit.

We snapped a pic when we got home after the party

Watching Christmas movies is even better than company holiday parties, so we watched Christmas Vacation last night. Tonight we are about to sit down with some hot chocolate, Smokey, and put on White Christmas. I mean, it doesn't get much better than watching Bing Crosby and the rest of the cast (including George Clooney's aunt!) dancing and singing with family by your side with fuzzy socks on your feet! It's the perfect end to this crazy week.

Mele Kalikimaka!