Living the Good Life - mortgage free and living in line with our values

themadvix

Afternoon all,

Work for main client continues - have returned another decent-sized project, so now onto the smaller one (which is part of a bigger one, so hopefully there'll be more shortly). Am not in the cheeriest of moods today - a bit of a spat with Mr MV this morning put me in a grumpy mood, plus I'm trying to get B&W Cat to take his flea tablet - a day-long, drawn out process of crushing the tablet into powder, mixing it with tiny bits of cream and trying to persuade him that it's just cream. I am beginning to be at my wits' end with this nonsense every month. And I dropped the unopened pot of cream first thing this morning and it split all down one side. (And yes, the cream is bought entirely for B&W Cat temptation purposes - and even then half the time he refuses it - after I've put some or all of the £10-a-go tablet in it). I am trying to reset my mood and reframe, but am struggling. I may go for a walk shortly.

I need to go see cat client at some point, but while it's dried up here now, I am tempted to take the car this evening. No evening class, so that frees up some time. Dinner tonight will be made up soup (a riff on minestrone I think) and crumble and cream (we're out of sugar completely, so the cream will be handy for dessert too). For lunches we're onto the loaf from the TGTG bag now, but definitely missing hm bread. Have cooked some chickpeas so will make up houmous for houmous and carrot sandwiches tomorrow.

Not sure I have much else MSE to report - hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Have a good evening all!

beanielou

Blooming cats 🐈‍⬛

greenbee

My vet plan includes an option for the vet nurse to torture your cat instead of you. So you have the fun of them in the car instead… I did it a couple of times and then decided it was less traumatic to torture them myself as they're getting more compliant, even if they don't enjoy it.

Apparently there's now a once-a-year injection for dogs… and the vets all agree that it would actually be more useful to have one for cats…

themadvix

As I have to give him gaba to get him to the vets and even then he’s feisty, difficult to box and suspicious of the gaba, that’s not going to solve anything for me… but an annual jab, yes please!

QueenJess

Reminds me of a cat I had when I was growing up. She was a master at not swallowing pills. You couldn’t hide it in anything because she always knew.

My mum had to rugby tackle her, throw the pill far enough back that she couldn’t spit it out, then held her firmly with her mouth shut and stroked her for ages and saw her swallow. Relief all round that we’d managed to get her to swallow one. Much later in the day we found a pill in a discreet corner of the house….

Still no idea to this day how she managed to spit it out!

rtandon27

My mom used to get our cats to take their tablets by hiding it in a small sardine - the cats only got sardines on high days and holidays so they thought it was an unexpected treat and down the tablet went! They also had pea sized brains and were highly motivated by food! By contrast I remember cat sitting a 19 year old blind cat of our neighbours & the faff to get the little beastie to swallow tablets was not even worth the daily rate! The little thing had the claws of a sabertooth!

EssexHebridean

HRH was an absolute devil when it came to any sort of pills. Even our lovely vet struggled - as a defence mechanism he taught me the method of wrapping her tightly in a towel to do the deed though, which was surprisingly effective as long as you were swift getting the towel round her before she realised what was going on. The towel we used got progressively more shredded over time…

greenbee

It's easier to get pills down mine than to wrap them in anything!

themadvix

The reason we do tablets for flea treatment (aside from it being better for the environment) is that the spot-on stuff became a ridiculous battle every month. Anything that requires physical control is a no no. He is the softest, most loving cat, except if you are trying to do something he doesn't want you to do. Ginger Cat is no problem - he is extremely food motivated, ginger (and therefore only gets the brain cell once in a blue moon) and far more laid back - spot on was fine, and tablets are fine (crushed a bit - we did discover he was hiding his worming tablets by knocking them out of the bowl). But B&W Cat, nope, absolutely not. And the spot-on stuff was just too traumatic. I'm pleased to report that we are now 3/4 of the way through the tablet and most has gone down! Dinner tonight with the final bit of cream, chicken and a couple of kibbles to get him into it and the stress will be over for another month! 😂

themadvix

Afternoon all,

Just a quick one as I'm off to take advantage of the sunshine and say hello to the allotment. Have been for a walk to sit cat-sitting kitty as Mr MV will be home late tonight (a colleague's retirement do). And work for main client is up to date too. Have had a Cambridge meeting (ETA on restructure now mid-Feb, but no one believes it and I'm not sure anyone respects the boss now) and will come back and do a little bit later as I have another meeting in the morning with a member of faculty.

Dinner last night was a mediocre minestrone followed by rhubarb crumble and cream. Tonight I'll be dining alone, so it'll be a jacket and tuna (discovered two tins lurking in the back of the cupboard this morning) and Call the Midwife.

Did I mention that 🐙 are expected on Friday? 🤞🏼 they come this time.

Right, I'm heading off before the sun goes in! Have a good afternoon all!