Happy holidays from Somerset/Sweden! I'm at home in PA this week; Anna flew to Gothenburg 1.5 weeks ago and will return on Sunday. Christmas in Somerset has been great so far--I've been hanging out at the winery and spending time with my family and the animals.
Anna's been sick, but has otherwise been enjoying herself at home with her niece and nephew.
We'll attempt a proper post next week.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Lots of changes
We found out in October that Erin has a pretty bad cat allergy. As many of you know, we have two feline co-habitants whose eviction is the last thing in the world we are wishing for, so after the initial shock and some internet research, we started to implement a number of changes in order to relieve Erin's symptoms while keeping the cats. The top tip on all "How to live with cats and cat allergies" websites we could find was "No cats in the bedroom!"
Our new apartment is even smaller than our previous one-bedroom, and keeping the bedroom door closed at all times consequently also means no cats in the bathroom. The result: we had to move the litter box into the living room/kitchen area. This is certainly not an ideal situation, but after lots of thinking and shopping around at various home improvement and certain Swedish furniture stores, we came home with "the White House" (see picture below). "The White House" is a toy chest of reasonable size with an entrance sawed into the side (yes, we also got the drill and the hand saw from Target - love that store!), fitting a litter box, a box of litter for refills, and a little trash can, while not looking nearly as bad as any standard pet shop litter box would in its current environment.
The White House
Along with the stress of toilet training, no longer being allowed to sleep on the bed or even enter the bedroom or bathroom seemed to be a bit too much for the cats: Annabelle developed some kind of sores on her eyebrows. We decided to just stop it all, and try everything we could think of to make things less stressful and more happy. That is how we ended up with the new Armarkat cat tree:
This was the best purchase we have made in a long time - the cats were all over the tree before we had even finished putting it together, and now they spend most of their day (and night) time on this thing! The cutest part is when we get home after dark and see two pairs of green and orange eyes light in the dark at slightly different heights in the window facing the stairs up to the mailboxes...
Enough for now - I've got to make some cinnamon buns!
Our new apartment is even smaller than our previous one-bedroom, and keeping the bedroom door closed at all times consequently also means no cats in the bathroom. The result: we had to move the litter box into the living room/kitchen area. This is certainly not an ideal situation, but after lots of thinking and shopping around at various home improvement and certain Swedish furniture stores, we came home with "the White House" (see picture below). "The White House" is a toy chest of reasonable size with an entrance sawed into the side (yes, we also got the drill and the hand saw from Target - love that store!), fitting a litter box, a box of litter for refills, and a little trash can, while not looking nearly as bad as any standard pet shop litter box would in its current environment.
The White HouseAlong with the stress of toilet training, no longer being allowed to sleep on the bed or even enter the bedroom or bathroom seemed to be a bit too much for the cats: Annabelle developed some kind of sores on her eyebrows. We decided to just stop it all, and try everything we could think of to make things less stressful and more happy. That is how we ended up with the new Armarkat cat tree:
This was the best purchase we have made in a long time - the cats were all over the tree before we had even finished putting it together, and now they spend most of their day (and night) time on this thing! The cutest part is when we get home after dark and see two pairs of green and orange eyes light in the dark at slightly different heights in the window facing the stairs up to the mailboxes...
Enough for now - I've got to make some cinnamon buns!
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