The Never Ending Love I Have for the Residents at Home for Life

Kris: I wrote this up and submitted as a possible guest post to the Home for Life blog.  It's not posted there yet but I wanted to make sure and post it to my readers as well.  If you want to put your money towards a wonderful animal charity, please consider Home for Life.
---------------------------
I need to start this story back a few years. I had been sponsoring a Feline Leukemia positive cat named Freeway.

He was a quiet, sweet, white cat with one blue eye and one green. We knew his time was limited but I got to give him lots of love until the end. It was a hard loss but when it was time for me to choose another cat to switch my sponsor to, another sweet white cat with one blue eye and one green stole my heart with her ridiculous amount of cuteness.



Her name was Olive and I learned from Lisa that was one of the first cats in the HFL crew. Over the years I sponsored her I just couldn’t get to see her enough as she treated my visits like she just won the kitty lottery. Always so happy and cuddly. So to cut right to it, her death was a painful loss. Her life was significantly lengthened by the care and attention she received from the Home for Life staff but unfortunately in her advanced age, an infection got the best of her very quickly.

It was hard to visit the sanctuary and not see her there but we recently made a special visit to decide who I would be transferring my sponsorship to. We spent time meeting lots of new cats and giving some love to a few that I have met many times before. I spent a day with Celeste with I volunteered at the MOA this past holiday season so she has earned a special place in my heart.

From the HFL website: Celeste was first sighted running as a stray at a trailer park in Wisconsin. Kind residents there left food and water out for her and she enjoyed and appreciated the attention. It is very likely she would not have survived had these people not reached out to her—Celeste is blind.

But you've never know it.  She gets around obstacles with ease and will come running right to me when I call her name.  And she's a serious cuddler!!  More than I've ever seen in any other cat.  She loves me to hold her and will put one paw on each shoulder and nudge my neck with her little wet nose for hours I think if I'd let her.  I’ve had a few people ask me why I didn’t choose to sponsor her but it’s only because 1) I know she already has sponsors and 2) whether I sponsor her or not, I will always go spend time with her when I’m at the sanctuary.

I had made a decision that I wanted to sponsor a cat that did not already have a sponsor. There are so many “normal” cats at the sanctuary that often get overlooked for sponsorships. They don’t have any special medical condition, unique situation or tragic story; they are just cats that need love as much as the next cat. Freeway had a horrible disease and I will always miss him. Olive, was a special cat with a special situation and I will always miss her too but now Mark and I are proud sponsors to just a sweet black cat who is a little hard of hearing.

His name is Jonathan. I didn't notice right away that he was quietly following me around. He would walk around me, give a subtle rub against my leg, then watch for an empty spot in my lap. He doesn't have any defects or known diseases, he's just a cat that was found to be deaf and found his way to Home for Life.

He's got lots of character and handsome, glowing yellow eyes. We spent a few minutes with him while Lisa was giving us his story and all of a sudden he decided the best place to perch would be on my shoulders. We have two wonderful rescue cats at home, one of who loves to spend time on my shoulders. So in that one move by Jonathan, he stole my heart. He chose us.

A New Home and Home for Life

Kris: So this morning after Mark was up until 1am working, we got up early to get back to feed the cats, grab coffee and a bagel sandwich and get to Mark's Moms to start helping Michael and Cari move into their new house. Michael rented the biggest truck available and we helped them get all they needed from storage.

As we were leaving the storage unit, our minds were on caching since we think we found a great location to put a cache. But of course when we did an area search and without meaning to, happened to see a small cache with a geocoin in it. On the story that we needed to go by the post office to drop of a FedEx envelope (which we actually did need to do), we took a long route to their new house, grabbed the cache, hit the P.O. and made our way to their house. Unpacking was 10x faster than packing and Michael and Cari got Papa Murphys pizza for lunch as a thank you for helping with the move.

Then for a few hours in the afternoon we were at the Mall of America volunteering for Home for Life ( an animal sanctuary where I sponsor a cat named Olive). I was loving holding onto two of their cats Peaches and Spyder while Mark was having a blast handling Anook and Dodi (great Dane).





They were there taking donations and people could cone meet the pets and we would tell them their story and about what the sanctuary does. I'll spare the details, just check out www.homeforlife.org

It was a long tiring yet very fun day. As we left the mall we grabbed a warm drink and then saw the mascot for the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant walking around so of course we had to ask for a picture...





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Eden Prairie,United States

"What's in the fridge" dinner and heading for the border

Kris: In an attempt to get down to Ames Iowa before too late tonight, my sister is feeding my cats for me and I can straight to Mark's after work to throw together a dinner (premade buffalo strips, corn soup and hawaiian bread)




and get out the door. Staying at his cousin's place tonight to start our busy weekend.

Mark: For just a thrown together dinner, it is very good! Just ask Rugar.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone