Goodbye, girlfriend.

It was with great sadness that we had to put our beloved kitty, Belle to sleep on Friday. It was the day after her 17th birthday. Her condition had gotten worse and we didn't think she would survive the weekend. After putting CJ to sleep 15 years ago, I never thought I'd hurt that much over a pet again. I was wrong. I am absolutely heartbroken.

Belle was with us for 17 years. She was a member of the family. She came into our lives through my sister, who brought her over one night because she thought she looked like CJ. Except for the orange streak up her nose, Belle was a spitting image of CJ. This was around 1993 and we still had CJ at the time, along with another cat named Abby. I suppose that helped two years later when I had to put CJ to sleep. When I came home on that horrible day, Belle and Abby were there to greet me. It wasn't long before Belle took over and began sleeping in my room.

I know many of my friends are going through hard times right now. Some have lost parents, or siblings, or friends. Others are having serious health issues, or dealing with sick children. I suppose to some people, losing a pet might not seem that big of a deal. Some people can go through life with that "it's just an animal" attitude. Not me. Belle was my best friend. She has been with us so long. No matter where I went, she would find me and want to sit either on me or near me. She wasn't a lapcat, by any means, but she was on my lap almost all the time. It had to be on HER condition.

Though it might seem petty or even pathetic to some, I have had an absolutely horrible weekend. As I said, I'm heartbroken. Belle was the first one to greet me when I came into the house. If Rick and the kids were downstairs at night, Belle was always at my side when I was upstairs. Now she's gone. My room no longer has the sound of water trickling from her little water fountain. I can't hear her say "yeah" every time she meowed. It's so horribly silent. I can't sleep at night because she's not lying on me or leaning up on my leg. Every time Rick moves at night, I wake up thinking it's Belle jumping on the bed. Reality hits again and I fall to pieces. It doesn't take much to make me fall apart -- from finding a few cat hairs on my clothes, or seeing the empty place where her bowl used to be, or watching her pictures come up on my digital frame. I'd like for them to be wonderful reminders of her life with us, but right now it just hurts.

As I know from CJ, it will take time before I can sit back and think about all the good times we had with Belle. I guess it's too early for that right now because everything is still so painful. And unlike how it was with CJ, I don't have the other cats to console me. I'm a mess. We do have Kitty, but she's my girl's cat and stays in Nichelle's room most of the time. I feel so empty and alone. I just lost my best friend and it hurts.

Happy Birthday, Belle!

My kitty, Belle is 17 years old today. That's really old for a cat. She is probably one of the oldest pets I've ever had. My other cat, CJ only lived to be 14 and he seemed ancient at the time. This isn't a current picture of Belle. This one was taken sometime around 2007. Sadly, Belle's age has really caught up with her and she's not doing too well right now. She's barely eating and is getting very, very skinny. I think her little body is just shutting down, to be honest. I hate seeing her like this, but I know there's no point taking her in right now. I know what any vet would say. I'm just trying to keep her comfortable. She's been sleeping behind the chair in my bedroom a lot these days. It breaks my heart to see her like this because I feel her days are few. As much as I want to be happy about it being her birthday, my heart aches for her. Happy Birthday to my Little Old Lady!

Wish I could go ...

I've really been enjoying the Africam website lately. My boys are totally into it and have been looking up African animals for days now. We've seen elephants, rhinos, zebras, water monitors, owls, jackals, baboons, warthogs, foxes, and a lot more. It's incredible.

Thanks to Nancy, who took the time to look up the location of all these reserves, I know want to go to ALL of them! Sadly, it's not something I don't think I could ever afford. I've heard these African safari trips are something like $5000 a person, not including airfare. However, the resorts located on these animal reserves are nothing but spectacular. Check them out ...

Nkorho Bush Lodge

Tembe Elephant Park

Elephant Plains Game Lodge

They all look fantastic. Poor Nathan wants to go so bad too. I consider myself pretty lucky to be surrounded by the wildlife I see in Montana. I mean, I've had huge bears on my deck looking in my door at me! But going to Africa would be so awesome -- just too awesome.

Step, step, step ...

We recently got one of these to replace our very old treadmill that was no longer working properly. This is the least expensive of the Bowflex TreadClimbers. I wasn't sure how much I'd like it, so I didn't want to get the more expensive model and not use it. If you click on the link, you can see them all and compare them from each other. For now, the TC1000 is all I need.

The first time I used this thing, it nearly killed me. Okay, that's a little exaggeration, but it was hard. It was nothing like the treadmill I was used to. It's like you're walking upstairs on a treadmill. Well, it's more like walking up stairs that never end. It has a totally different feel to it. I've found I can't walk nearly as long or as fast as before. I used to walk for about 40 minutes on my treadmill, but when I started the TreadClimber I could only go 15 minutes. I'm now up to 30 minutes, but still at a pretty slow pace. Like the treadmill, I can only walk while listening to my iPod. I've been listening to the same CD and that helps because I know where I'm at time-wise by what song is playing. Even so, I've found I really have to pay more attention to what I'm doing on this thing, unlike a regular treadmill where I could be more relaxed.

I was doing really good where I was walking 6 times a week and taking one day off. Then I had my surgery and had to miss 4 days. That was longer than I wanted, but the vertigo threw me off an extra day. Anyway, I'm back on it now and hope to keep it up. I was pretty lax about using my treadmill. I seemed to go in spurts of using it a lot and then going for weeks without walking.I'm determined to use it, so hopefully I can stick with it.

What, if anything, are you doing for exercise these days?

Africam

I've got a new addiction -- Africam! I don't even know how I stumbled on this the other day, but it's a great site. Now, I've never been into live webcams that much. The ones in zoos are kind of boring for me. The only one I really ever check is the Lake McDonald webcam in Glacier National Park. That's usually to check the weather before we head up there. Other than that, I've never really been into webcams. Well, until now ...

Africam is amazing! This morning the boys and I watched it for about an hour. In that time, we saw a herd of zebras, a troop of baboons, several elephants, some wildebeests, some Dik Diks, a few warthogs, and a bunch of different types of birds. Last night I saw a water lizard monitor sitting in the sun by the watering hole. I still need to read the website more to find exactly where these cameras are located. I'm guessing in the African animal reserves or someplace. Even so, this is so much more interesting than watching an animal in a zoo. The other day someone spotted two cheetahs on the camera. I didn't see it live, but got to watch the video they put up afterwards.

My family is really into national parks and sometimes we'll drive around all day looking for wildlife. Yellowstone is a good one for that, as is Grand Teton. Africam is really fun for me because I get to see animals I'm not as familiar with. One of these days I'd love to go on one of those African safari photo trips. What an experience that would be! If you like, check out the Africam website. They're also on Facebook and Twitter, so if something good comes up, people will let you know. Also, I have the badge at the bottom right of my blog. Just click on it and it takes you right to their site. The only downside is that it's nighttime in Africa right now, which means I have to stay up late or get up early to see the action. It's worth it though!

So, where's the genie?

I swear, sometimes I think I have the goofiest kids in the universe. This morning Nathan is in my bathroom and sees Rick's neti pot on the sink. He laughs and says something about a genie. I'm not paying much attention, but soon after Neil comes in and looks around. He leaves and goes back to Nathan who says, "Look for the lamp!" Sure enough, Neil is back in the bathroom, giggling.

When I was looking for a neti pot image to post on here, I was totally surprised by how many people have posted pictures of themselves online while using a neti pot. GROSS! I don't know about you, but I personally don't need to see someone rinsing out their sinus passages with streams of snot coming out their nose. Now, I realize these things work great and some people love their neti pots. However, it's not pleasant to look at.

I suppose I should explain to the boys what it is, just in case they start rubbing the lamp in hopes of a genie coming out and granting them three wishes. I wonder what they would do if I said, "That's not a genie! It's a greenie!" Good grief! What would the Aladdin say?

Spinning with ideas ...

I woke up this morning with what appears to be vertigo. As I sat up in bed, the whole room tilted and I nearly fell over. When I got up to walk around, I was going at an angle. Talk about weird. Rick gets vertigo pretty bad sometimes, but not me. I'm not sure what this is all about, but I really doubt it has anything to do with my recent surgery. Maybe I slept wrong, since my neck was a little sore when I woke up. Who knows. I took something for it, so now I'm just kind of a zombie. This clipart pic is almost too much for me.

Anyway, I've been wanting to start on a picture book idea I've had for a few days, but just haven't felt up to it yet. Maybe I'll let it brew in my mind awhile as I lounge around on my bed. It's about a tiger, which is my favorite animal. As you know, I have two picture books out right now. A New Job for Dilly was my first, and there are to be two more Dilly books to come. Lemur Troops & Critter Groups came out in December, and there are two more Critter books scheduled. My next one to come out is The Marshmallow Man. I was thinking about all the other stories I have written. Some are ...

Coffee For Collie

Bananas Don't Dance

Twilight Visitors

Ocean Visitors

Manny's Big Adventure

Shaggy Dan

Too Many Worms!

Mountain Goats Are Kids Like You

Mr. Snuffles

Missing Mittens

Gooble Gooble's Scary Day

Sara Makes A Difference

Hungry Little Numbat

Sometimes I wonder if I should work more on submitting some of these stories, rather than start a new project. I know I'm very fortunate to be contracted for seven books all at once, especially since I went for over five years trying to find a home for just one of them. Now I have this idea for a story about a tiger. I guess the good thing is that I'm not lacking for ideas.

How about you -- how many unpublished gems do you have lying around?