Deborah Woehr

I’ve always loved cats and wanted one as soon as my family and I moved into our first house. However, my husband is adamant about not having pets because he had to tolerate his mother’s dogs and their refusal to be potty trained. He threw a fit when my oldest told us that she was talking about getting a cat for me for my birthday. This was several months ago.

On Thursday, I went to work, having no idea of the heartrending decision I would have to make by the end of the day. The manager asked me to order pizzas for the drivers when they came in from their routes. Everything was good. Then one of the drivers walks into the office holding a tiny Calico kitten in his hand.

I should have ignored him and gone about my business. Instead, I ran up to him and took the kitten out of his hand. We think it was less than 4 weeks old. He said that he had found it in a dumpster while he was doing his route. It kept crying and crying.

I tried to get someone else to take her home, but got no takers. There was no way I was going to leave her at the landfill. We have all kinds of wildlife — rattlesnakes, tarantulas, coyotes, and wild boar. Oh, and let’s not forget about hawks. I saw one circling above the hillside as I pulled out of the parking lot. The kitten wouldn’t have survived the night.

She kept crying, sometimes screaming for her mother. I drove to my youngest son’s school and sat in the car, thinking of the positive and negative aspects of the situation. Nevermind how my husband would react; he would eventually get over it . . . or not. My concern was who would take care of the kitten when we take our vacation. Cats are low maintenance animals, but this was practically a newborn baby.

My son was quite surprised when he came out to the car and saw the meowing box sitting in the front seat. I explained to him what happened, and then took them home so I could call the animal shelter. Once again, I tried to feed her, but she didn’t know how to slurp the milk from the saucer I had set out. She walked across it, instead, tracking milk everywhere. Next, I tried using a plastic syringe I’d had left over from my tooth extraction. When that didn’t work, I was at a loss and fearful that she would die from starvation.

Over an hour had passed since I’d called the shelter, who promised to send someone out to pick the kitty up. I decided that I’d better go because she was howling and suckling at our feet. I drove her over to the shelter and explained what happened. As I filled out a short form, the lady took the kitten into a back room.

She came back out and told me that they were going to find a foster family for the kitten. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes and the tone in her voice as she gave me the bum’s rush. I tried to keep in mind that she is used to dealing with selfish, callous jerks everyday. That didn’t make me feel any better.

When I told my husband what happened and how I handled it, he said, “That’s good.”

His nasty tone upset me. I went to work yesterday, feeling bummed. The feeling eased up when I talked to my supervisor, who assured me that the kitten was too young and needed constant care. I let it go and went about the motions of the day.

Then, just as I was about to leave, another coworker walked into our office and asked about the kitten. When I gave her the gist, she said, “If I had known you were going to do that, I would have taken her home. They euthanize kittens that age because they are too much work. I won’t give you the details because I know that will upset you.”

Thanks.

I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface with Illustrator CS3’s bells and whistles. Last night, I played around with the 3-D feature and came up with text and shapes that resembled Word’s “Word Art.” Next, I tried fiddling with text effects and thought, “Why not try to make a logo for The Writers Buzz.” I’ve been wanting to do this since I started the site, but couldn’t come up with any design ideas that would adequately convey books and buzz.

Right now, I’m staring at the image I created and unsure whether or not I like it. My inner critic has to but in on everything I create. I’m going to have to stare at this for several days. If any new ideas spring into my mind, you’ll see another sample.

I’ve spent the last week drooling over the latest upgrade, agonizing over the price and whether or not I should buy it, and doing some research. This research involved reading review articles on sites such as MacWorld and various blogs. Most importantly, I wanted to find out how CS3 measured up to endusers. Some had horrific experiences with the installation (many were PC users) while others commented on the faster speed of Photoshop.

I downloaded the trial version of Dreamweaver, which is included in the Premium upgrade and came away both impressed and overwhelmed. Fortunately, Adobe offers some great video tutorials that covers all of the CS3 programs. After watching the video tutorials for InDesign CS3, I definitely want to upgrade from my CS version. Creating things like indexes and a Table of Contents were a pain in CS, but are a snap in CS3. I love the new layout of the interface and the fact that I can import and export files from InDesign to Photoshop to Illustrator with a simple keyboard command. This is a huge upgrade from what I was using and one that I hope will produce stellar results for my books.

As for Dreamweaver, again I found it very overwhelming. I’d love to design static webpages for my husband’s site (which I have to start all over because he let the domain expire) and my home page. I’d love to design themes for my blogs that are compatible with every browser. But I have to be realistic with my goals and skills. Crunching out web code is not appealing. So, I guess I’ve made my decision.

I received this in an email from one of my colleagues and thought I would share it with you. Anyone who has teenagers may appreciate the humor, depending upon how much of a hellion your kid is.

A father passing by his 15 year old son’s bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to “Dad.”

With the worst feeling of dread, he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:

Love,
Your Son John

The father damn near had a heart attack, but then he noticed there was more to his son’s letter.

P.S.

Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a report card that’s in my center desk drawer. I love you. Call me when it’s safe to come home.

Ben has tagged me with this meme. It’s a rather difficult one. If you read the list, you’ll know why.

The Rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their 8 things and post these rules.
3. At the end choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

Eight random things about me

1. I broke my wrist while standing on the sidewalk in a brand new pair of skates, talking with my little brother. One of my feet gave out from under me, and I landed hard. Needless to say, I never wore that pair of skates again. It was a long time before I put on another pair of skates.
2. I hate wearing dresses because I have to wear panty hose and heels. I’m most comfortable in a pair of jeans and a T-Shirt.
3. I love having a slew of projects to work on at the same time.
4. I’m organized at work, but live in organized chaos.
5. I don’t need to get drunk to make a fool of myself. This quality has both positive and negative ramifications.
6. I tend to disappear in a crowded room.
7. I make a lousy first impression in job interviews because I feel that my skills have no real value. Therefore, when the interviewer says, “Tell me about yourself,” I stammer out whatever comes to mind, which usually isn’t much.
8. Today, I found out how much my co-workers care about me when I told them that my doctor thought I had a blood clot in my leg. I hope to keep in touch with these people when this contract ends.

There you have it. Eight random facts about me. Consider yourself tagged.

Our trip was too short, but it was very nice. This is my husband’s favorite place in the world, I think. He’s enthralled with Glacier Point and couldn’t wait to show me how awe inspiring it is. He took our boys about three years ago and has since described how it made him feel to look four thousand feet down to see a Greyhound bus the size of a Matchbox car.

Strangely enough, I didn’t share that “wow” feeling when I shot the above picture. The size and sheerness of these cliffs didn’t impress me until I was shooting pictures from the ground on Sunday morning. Although the area is pretty, Arizona and the Grand Canyon are still my favorite places.

If you want to get a better look at the pictures I’ve posted here, click on them. Enjoy!

Hello, Everyone!

I’m looking at the date of my last post on here and am shaking my head. I can’t believe we’re halfway through May already. Last weekend, I had to work on Saturday. When I got home, I decided to upload some more of the old posts onto The Writers Buzz and got locked out by my host’s firewall. That’s since been fixed (I think), but now I’m paranoid about uploading too many posts at once. The techie told me it had something to do with the mod security rules, whatever that means.

I set that aside and started working on Prosperity. That’s still going well. I’m hopeful of sending the manuscript to a professional editor by the end of July.

In the meantime, my husband is planning our vacations. Today, we’re going to Yosemite, which reminds me that I need to bring some fresh batteries for the digital camera. I’ll post some pics here, if I can get some good shots.

The second trip is a biggie. We’ll be flying out to Philadelphia to visit my husband’s grandfather. Then we’ll be visiting Washington D.C. (something I’ve always wanted to do) and ending the trip in Austin (to visit my family). I should have a boatload of pics from that trip.

I finally got around to publishing last year’s vacation, using Lulu’s Photo Book project. The results weren’t too bad, but I found myself limited design-wise. I’ll post more about that on my Lulu blog, when I get the chance. This has inspired me to research for another book project, which I’ll be launching shortly after I finish Prosperity. Stay tuned for more news about that.

In the meantime, I’m going to get out of the house and spend the weekend with my family. I hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day!