Seriously, they make life SO much easier.
When we first decided to get this place I had several friends comment that the tile floors would be horrible, but I love having them. They’re so much easier than carpet.
The previous owners left us steam cleaners, and a Swiffer wetjet so I didn’t even have to buy anything special to clean them with, and especially now that we have a cat AND a two-year old, they’re a Godsend.

Any time the munchkin whips off his diaper and marks his territory or the cat decides she wants to puke up a lizard on the floor while it’s gross, it’s not a four hour repeat dab/clean job, just wipe and wash.

I remember when the munchkin was a few months old and I had carelessly left barbeque sauce out within his reach we were cleaning that carpet stain for MONTHS and it was still there when we moved out, the other day he spilled twice as much barbeque sauce and you can’t tell!

It’s great. I don’t think I’m ever going back to carpet.

I was going a but nuts last night because the motion sensor lights that we have on the front of our house kept going off and I would look outside and there would be nothing there.

After a the fifth time this happened I heard the tell-tale skitter and jingle of Nimue barreling into the trees on the side of our property. Apparently she was chasing something in the front yard and kept setting off the lights and scaring herself and me. Ah, well. What do you do?

This morning there was a dessicated chameleon on the front patio. So, I guess she got it, and she at least didn’t eat it this time, which means she won’t be throwing up all over the house again.

Nimue greeted me at the door when I got home from the grocery store with a dead chameleon in her mouth. This is her second present in the past week. I think this means she likes us.

She went on the neighborhood walk with the munchkin and I this morning too. She would follow us for a little bit, dash off into the woods like a mad thing and then pelt back at us after a few minutes of frenzied exploration. She’s on her third collar since we got her just over three weeks ago, but I at least found one of the lost ones yesterday when we were measuring the deck and yard to see about getting the fencing.

Right now she’s grooming my hand as I’m trying to type and rubbing up and down my arm and shoulder, and hubbie said she was going to be mad at me for teasing her with the laser pointer last night. This purring motor says otherwise.

We have our own personal good news this week. We adopted a kitty from the Humane Society. Her name is Nimue Caledonia. Nimue for the Lady of the Lake in the Arthurian legends and Caledonia for the ancient Roman name for the Scottish areas that my family hails from.

As you can imagine I’m very VERY happy to have this new addition to our family. My husband surprised himself and me being also happy about the cat. He has allergies to cats and couldn’t be around my old cat Ani for very long at all, but given we have the filter and the allergen reducer on the A/C unit and tile floor and I found a light haired cat who wanted to come home with us we thought it might be okay and so far he hasn’t had any allergy attacks despite the fact that she’s a very lovey-dovey kitty and likes to climb up on everyone and lick and nuzzle with them.

Nimue had a little bit of a sad story before coming to us. She wasn’t abused by any means but she was born at the shelter and had been taken home by another lady and then brought back. The lady had been calling the shelter and her vets office every day complaining that the cat was too noisy and was keeping her up and couldn’t they do something about the fact that she meowed too much. The workers at the shelter told her that perhaps it was best if she just brought the cat back to them and they would hopefully find someone else to take her. The munchkin and I came in two days later and she came up to the bars and stretched out trying to touch me. The workers had been telling me about another cat called Tigger who we had met on the previous Friday while visiting but he had longer fur and I felt that we were meant to have a female cat.

When “Angelina” as they were calling her came up to the bars and I found out her name I had a feeling she might just be our cat, and then when I heard what had happened and saw how lovey and gentle she was that was it. She came home with us.

I’m always amazed at how much good work the humane society does. Leesburg Humane Society is a no-kill shelter, which means if an animal doesn’t get adopted they’re at the shelter until they die of ill health or natural causes. The shelter is often over crowded because of this as most people want to adopt puppies and kittens or will go to a shelter which does kill the animals because they’re saving them.

I also know from working there that they take a huge loss on every pet they adopt because they charge only $50 for dog adoption and $40 for cat adoptions no matter what age the animal is. They have either already spayed and neutered the animal or will give you a certificate to get that done for free from your local vet, and cover all the animal’s shots for the first year, which means on each animal they adopt they lose at least $150 dollars. Add to that the fact that the shelter operates entirely on donations and it’s really hard for them to keep up.

They do have a thrift store in town which sells clothes and other items (like a Goodwill does) to help with their financial upkeep but that’s all they have other than people’s generous donations. They would have closed down a few years ago were it not for a very kind man giving them a stipend out of his will.

They have a large area of land and as well as rescuing cats and dogs of all shapes and sizes also rescue larger animals and farm animals. When I worked there they had a huge boar, two shetland ponies, several goats and a horse, right now they have two horses, rabbits, birds, cats and dogs. Many of these animals will never be adopted but remain at the society where they’re loved and cared for until the natural end of their days.

Think that having allergies means that you can’t have a cat, think again. There are ways to lessen the problems of allergies and still enjoy the purr-fect feline in your home.

While there have been rumors of an Egyptian Hairless Allergy Free Cat those are incorrect assumptions, perpetuated by some television shows. The fact is that most of the problems of allergies come from cat saliva and not fur. So, whether or not your cat has fur they’re still going to lick themselves clean and harrass your nostrils and eyes.

However, you can help by rearranging some things at your house.

1. Don’t let your cat in the bedroom. That’s one of the easiest and quickest ways to help. If they’re not curled up sleeping in your bed they’re not shedding dander and dander-filled fur into your bed for you to sleep in. There are plenty of other opportunities to have kitty-snuggle time.

2. If you can afford it you can get an allergy filter built into your air conditioning unit, if not just getting a HEPA filter for your a/c unit (the one that you change out once a month or so) will help to keep some of the allergens down. You can also get vacuum cleaners which are HEPA filter safe.

3. Vacuum/mop at least once a week if not more often, depending on how much your cat sheds.

4. Using a steam mop rather than a chemical cleaner can be helpful to keep allergens down.

5. Having tile floor rather than nylon carpet fibers helps also because it’s easier to clean but also because the synthetic carpet fibers will trap and hold on to the dander.

6. Also certain scented cat litters can aggravate allergies. So, either don’t use scented litter or don’t use litter at all, let your cat do it’s business outside.

7. Wash your hands after petting your cat. It seems pretty straight forward, I know, but I’ve caught myself not always doing it.

8. Wash the cat. That one can be pretty difficult, but I found a water-free shampoo when I was browsing through Walmart. I’ve yet to see if it’s easy to apply.

Sources:
http://cats.about.com/od/allergiesandcats/a/allergictocat.htm