Using Other Cultures: Being Smart with Food

I’m going to draw upon two cultures to make up a smart food philosophy. They can either be put together or separately, whichever you choose. I simply think it is good to keep an open mind to other cultures to see how they deal with food and use the opportunity to look at our own food habits. The two cultures I will focus on are Spanish (as in from Spain) and Japanese (as in from…Japan). Let’s look.

Spanish

The Spanish have many different eating habits, including a tiny breakfast, but I’m going to focus on their lunch. The Spaniards have a time called a “siesta” around noon or a little later. This means lunch time. And lunch time is a big deal in Spain. Shops will close down for a few hours and many Spaniards will go out to restaurants for a few hours for up to three courses. I’m not saying–ditch your work for three hours and go get a five-course meal for lunch, no! You can pack a big lunch, I know that I sure do.

And this more so points to the focus around the middle of the day when our metabolism is in full gear, ripping and roaring through the food we give it. In America, most of us have our biggest meal at the end of the day, when our metabolism is starting to slow down and our body is beginning to tire. This is what I want to adopt from the Spaniards. Move the biggest meal of the day to LUNCH where your metabolism has plenty of time to break everything down rather than waiting until dinner to stuff your face and leave yourself overnight to try to digest it all. The Spanish may be wild party-ers, but they sure do know how to eat.

Japanese

Another polar opposite of the typical United States eating culture, however instead of time of eating it is PORTION CONTROL AND SIZE. If you don’t know, Chris and I have a big love for the Japanese culture and plan to live in Japan for a period of time pretty soon. And that means a big love for Japanese food. Now, of course, the United States has turned small Japanese portions into all-you-can-eat sushi (opposite of portion control), and we are lovers of that too. But for everyday life, everyday eating, the Japanese set a beautiful example of eating the right nutrients in the right portion size. Why do you think the Japanese obesity percentage is so much lower than the United States’?

Protein. Vegetable. Carb. Have you heard of the bento box? Click here for an excellent blog with tons of creative bento boxes. A bento box is basically a Japanese lunch box, usually packing in rice, some kind of vegetable, and some kind of protein (usually fish or tofu). It isn’t very big, and has no high fructose corn syrup packed into it. So instead of jumping to the supersize (a beloved American meal size), let’s try the “Bento” size. It has all the nutrients we need without stuffing ourselves to the brim. And maybe we’ll just drop the obesity rate to a more reasonable number for the US.

So let’s open our minds and our mouths and try different habits from different cultures. Who knows–it could be your next favorite thing. I sure know that I’m transfixed by the bento box. I love eating, but I love eating without feeling extremely full afterwards as well. So try it out! Cheers! Salud! 万歳 !

BONUS KITTY PIC

Sajah’s first fire

Mar072013

Alana’s Almost-Tropical Smoothie

Since Chris got me some flavorless protein powder for V-Day, I was ready to hit up the smoothie-making business. One day after a workout, I decided I wanted to break the seal and use the new protein powder, instead of a new expensive gross (in my opinion) one that Chris got. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a ton of smoothie fruit in the house (I mean strawberries, bananas, blueberries, etc.), but we still had some of our staples. So I whipped this together, giving Nymeria and Sajah scraps of fruit along the way.

Ingredients

1 scoop Jarrow’s whey protein
1/2 cup milk (I really didn’t measure this)
1 banana
4 clementines
ice

Directions

Put ice and milk in blender, ice crush!
Put in the scoop of protein powder
Break the banana and half and add in. Peel the clementines and add in, whole or cut
Blend until smooth!

blending blending blending

And enjoy! Makes about two servings, I couldn’t finish all by myself so I saved it for later. I call it almost-tropical because we didn’t quite have the pineapple or guava or passionfruit to kick it into tropical gear. But this tastes great anyhow. Feel free to mix and match with whatever fruit or protein you have. Cheers!

BONUS KITTY PIC

“Feed us!”

Mar032013

Get Your Smoothie On: Inta Juice

This weekend, on the way home from a fun triathlon, we stopped at Inta Juice, craving something light, but nutritious and filling. And we got our fill! Inta Juice is a healthier version of Jamba Juice with lots of flavors, fruits, supplements, and boosts to choose from. Overall, we give it a pretty high rating for giving us some hydration back after the race.

We were very pleased with the service, we came at a pretty non-busy time early-ish on a Saturday morning. Feeling tired, drained, and indecisive, we milled about, taking about ten minutes to actually decide. The two girls helping us were very patient, friendly and helpful. We basically told them what we wanted and they suggested various options and even made a custom one for Chris.

We both got 32 oz (and Chris’ came with even more, so I got a good amount of his) cups because Chris was convinced he was starving and could really drink all of them (we semi-regretted that later, but finished it all, of course). I got the Groovin Guava which had guava, pineapple, orange, and some other tropical flavors. It was extremely refreshing but I got throat freeze every ten seconds, which is of course my fault.

Groovin Guava

Chris got something akin to the Power Protein shake, but they added strawberries for him in addition to whey powder, chocolate, peanut butter, and banana. It was very good and filling. Lots of calories and protein! Just we needed after a great race. After he finished his, I still had mine and we shared it on the car ride home.

Remnants of Power Protein

I also tried a 1 oz wheat grass shot. I figured I might as well, I’ve always wanted to try one. It was absolutely disgusting, please never make me do that again. It’s not their fault, it’s my taste buds. And the wheat grass. Yuck.

It was a very pleasant atmosphere. We sat at the place for a good fifteen minutes, talking, cooling down, and relaxing with our smoothies. It was happy decor with lots of bright colors and information. It was very clean as well. It even had a drive-thru! Now this place is in Longmont, so I drive past it every day to and from work, so they may be seeing me more often. We are very pleased we stopped here, it was the perfect thing for our tired, dehydrated bodies. Thanks, Inta Juice!

BONUS KITTY PIC

Mar012013

Remembering Misty: Dealing with Death

So it’s been three months since Misty passed. We still miss her every day, as we saw her as our little baby. She had all of her perks and quirks which made her the unique kitty she was. I can at least feel okay knowing that she definitely felt loved by all the people around her. Non-animal lovers will think us silly in this kind of talk, so you can go ahead and skip this post. But we saw her as a big part of the family. Her passing, especially her being just a kitten, made the winter pretty difficult.

Misty snuggled up one day when she didn’t feel very well

I have experienced death before in my life, but it was either gradual, distant, or in a younger age where I didn’t comprehend it as fully or it didn’t hit me as much. This one definitely, definitely hit us. It was the most wrenching, stabbing grief we’ve felt in a long time. I have lost some very close to me. But this was sudden. That’s what made it so horrible, terrifying, and heartbreaking for us.

It was very staggering, hit us like a punch in the stomach. I didn’t understand how this could happen–she’s just a kitten, it isn’t fair. I was confused, it didn’t seem very real to me, as if I would wake up and our black and white kittens would be there, hogging food and cuddling. But I didn’t wake up, because it wasn’t a dream. It was reality, and it took a little bit for me to actually wrap my head around it. For the years I’ve lived so far, nothing really tragic has happened to me. Nothing that takes the breath and life out of you and just leaves you slumped with exhaustion and grief.

But after that day, I felt that. That deep pain and confusion after tragedy hits. We love animals so much, especially our own, and we take very good care of them. Which is why it was devastating to us that one of our little kittens died. And thus far, I hadn’t experienced such, and I am lucky for that. This hit both of us full force. Intermingled with grief was confusion: Why did this happen to us? How could have this happened? Is the universe against us? I don’t understand.

This made it harder to accept reality and eventually deal with her death. I just didn’t get it, I wasn’t able to digest it. But with insanely-supportive friends and family, I eventually got past the point of denial and was able to taste the truth. I wouldn’t have been able to get through it as I did without Chris. Reality slapped me in the face and told me, “No matter where you live, who you are, how you take care of your loved ones, how good of a person you are–very bad things can happen to you.”

It was a lesson learned–a hard lesson learned. I’m sure everyone gets this lesson some point in their life and it was probably better to get it early on (although I would trade almost anything to get Misty back). Nobody is saved from tragedy. Nobody can go through life cleanly without anything bad happening. Bad things do happen. The universe isn’t against Chris and I. It taught us to be strong even when we felt that we couldn’t be. It taught us that life still will go on even when terrible things happen to you. It taught us that death is a part of life.

It was a horrific incident in our lives and she will always always be remembered with love and happiness. I remember the point where I could finally remember Misty without images of her death and remember her funny quirks like walking on two legs and her unique meow. Thank you to all who gave us support during this time and gave Misty love during her time.

My most favorite picture of them

Jan272013

You Can Train Your Cats Too

I have always been a dog person. Not to say that I was a cat hater, but if given the choice of feline or canine, I would always go with the dogs. I am an animal lover, thus I do enjoy cats as well, but they never seemed as approachable or personable as dogs did. I’m still a huge dog person, but now I’m a cat person too (somehow that makes me sigh). Since I’ve gotten our kittens, I’ve learned to love them. Instantly. And now I see that they aren’t so different from dogs after all. Especially Nymeria.

Sleepy Nymeria

If you’ve read about her, you’ll know that she acts like a dog, rough housing, and cuddling, and afraid of nothing. Sajah, our newer kitten, behaves like a dog when it comes to food…and he’s become quite the cuddler as well. I’m drawing the connection between these two species for a reason. Dogs are trained right from when they are of puppy age (if possible) to sit, lie down, come, and so forth. Rarely will you find people training their cats this way. Sure, they might urge them towards a litter box when they’re young (although they are born with the tendency to go to the bathroom in a confined place), but when do you ever hear of someone training their cats as you would dogs?

Rarely. And I ask, why? Why should dogs be trained to do certain tasks or tricks but not felines? It doesn’t make sense to me. It just seems to be a cultural thing to just train dogs and not cats. With Nymeria, we’ve been training her to do pull-ups on her cat tree since she was young. Even though she’s smaller than Sajah (and was smaller than Misty too), she can use her upper body wiry strength to get out of a bind. That was just a little thing.

Up until the kittens, I’ve only known how to raise a dog. So I am raising the kittens like puppies. I’ve begun a training regimen with both of them, and I try to keep to it every day. And guess what–they’ve learned commands incredibly fast. At the same speed or quicker than dogs that I’ve trained. So there’s to people who think that cats aren’t made for training.

How do you train them? Some might ask. All I do is cut treats into small pieces (we use “Greenies” for good kitty dental health) and have them follow different commands. It can be tough and hectic training them both at the same time, but if one starts interfering just plop them somewhere else. Say the commands and show them what to do until they understand.

Random window pic

Both Sajah and Nymeria know “come” although they don’t always choose to follow that one without treats. Nymeria is an expert at “sit.” She does it on command without treats now and understands the word. How did I get her to understand? I would say, “Nymeria, sit” and then position her body in a seated position. Eventually, she connected it and put it together.

Nymeria, sit!

Sajah, on the other hand, is an expert at “up.” He knows even by the hand gesture of patting the couch that he will jump up right beside me. He picked that one up quickly and does it frequently whenever I ask. Of course, he’s hoping for treats, but it’s great that he will do it without them.

Sajah en route to command “up!”

It takes time and patience, as all thing such as these require, but I think it’s worth it. Some may call it odd or strange, but I believe it’s due to culture that people don’t train their cats. It’s simply not the thing to do. So break the pattern, get with your kittens, and give them a few minutes of training every day so they can become intelligent, task-managing fiends!

Cheers!

Jan052013

Kitty Spotlight: Sajah

We’ve mentioned Sajah, our new kitten, a few times here. Sajah means “lion” in Korean and he is quite the lion cub. He is 3.5 months old, and a little stocky fluff ball. We originally got him to give a companion to Nymeria when Misty passed away just over a month ago, since Nymeria is still a kitten too and needs companionship while we are at work. So, please meet Sajah:

The second day after we got him, Sajah ran away. We had the door open for a split second and he took off with his short stocky legs. We were up all night searching, and it was cold. We were worried about him. This was stress atop grief from losing Misty…wasn’t a good few weeks. Every night we searched, and every night we gave up a little hope. We put flyers up everywhere, calling his name, shaking his toys he loved so much. But we just didn’t find him. And then about five days later, we got a call. Turns out he was across the street, literally across the street from us. A woman heard a crying in the night and then in the morning and found him hiding in an undercarriage of a car. He was okay, just hungry, tired, and dirty. He knew he was close to home but couldn’t quite find it. Phew. What a little punk.

First day we got him

Sajah is very mischievous, almost without meaning to. He doesn’t quite get how to cover the evidence and sneak away from the scene of the crime. He has recently gotten into the habit of jumping on the counter (undoubtedly from Nymeria) and sneaking around for food. He loves food. In fact, he also tried to get Nymeria’s food every time after he finished (faster), but he’s stopped for fear of us and punishment. One time we were eating popcorn on the couch and he basically dive-bombed into the bowl. It was pretty funny, but not when he tipped it all over the floor.

Found them like this

Scrounging for honey

Sajah is also skiddish when we aren’t lying down or sitting or have food in our hands. It probably comes from the fact that, like Misty, Sajah was born feral (simply meaning in the “wild,” outdoors, not with humans). The few days outside probably didn’t help either. Even if we had been feeding him just minutes before, if we walk towards him he will run under the couch as fast as possible.

Enjoying the sun

However…if we are lying down or sitting on the couch, you can be sure Sajah will find his way there. He may be skiddish when we’re standing, but he will snuggle into you and Nymeria when you’re sitting. He particularly loves lying on our necks and faces while we sleep (thanks, Sajah). And he has the loudest purr, and you can feel it vibrating too! We are very happy that he has fit into our family of big cuddlers.

Nymeria and Sajah have been getting along more so now than when we first got him. At first, he was constantly annoying Nymeria, pouncing on her and biting her–playfully of course. Now, Nymeria is used to being the younger, annoying sibling. It’s good she’s getting a dose of her own medicine, but she was getting very tired of constantly getting bowled over and would seek us for refuge. He’s calmed down and now they play when they both want to. And we have caught them cuddling lots.

Lion and Panther

Sajah has the most scratchy meow when he’s hungry (which is all the time) and will not cease if we are preparing food. Gets pretty annoying but would rather him be vocal than quiet. He does have cute meows when he’s cuddling or wanting to go on our laps. Although I wasn’t really ready for another kitty, Sajah has found a place in our home and our hearts and has certainly become part of our family. We look forward to future with him and Nymeria.

Ultimate lion cub pic…my favorite

Cheers and Meow

Oct292012

Yes, That’s a Beautiful Pumpkin–But Don’t Throw Out the Seeds!

Yikes, what a long title. Anyways, I’m here to bring you something that could be possibly even more amazing than carving a pumpkin…its seeds. As some of my friends may know (cough LENA), I absolutely love pumpkin seeds. In fact, I love them so much I can eat a whole container of them (sorry, Esther). The flavor of it, the grittiness, the amount of protein in the middle. There’s no downside (at least for me, but Chris doesn’t like how long it can stay in his mouth).

Indeed, it’s a great protein source. Did you know that one ounce of pumpkin seeds can give you 9.35 grams of protein? Not bad! Well said, Watto. And it is so easy it’s not even funny. We carved our pumpkins with paring knives (that was the hard part) and then I gutted them. I have memories of my dad letting my brother and I draw faces on our pumpkins, he would cut it, then let me do all the dirty work of grabbing its seeds and goo. And I loved it. So of course, I was the one to do it this time. But I was not going to throw them out, oh no! I collected all the seeds from the two pumpkins and prepared them. All in all, it took about an hour. However, 40 minutes of that was cooking time. The rest is easy.

What You Need:

Raw pumpkin seeds
Melted butter (or oil)
Salt

First, set the oven to 350 degrees.

Next, get all the guts of your pumpkin(s) and place them in a strainer. This will take the most work. Have a light flow of water running over the strainer as you pick the seeds from the gunk and place the gunk in the sink.

Once you have all the seeds by themselves, place them into a small mixing bowl.

Place the melted butter into the bowl with the seeds (I used about 3/4 of a tablespoon) and mix around.

Then, shake plenty of salt into the bowl and mix again.

Spread out all the pumpkin seeds as flat as you can on a baking sheet. Then place in the oven from 20-40 minutes (depending on your oven and how many seeds you have) or until golden brown.

And that’s it! Serve and enjoy. I won’t be able to stop munching.

(Nymeria loved eating all the bits of pumpkin dropped on the floor)

Oct242012

Work Those Push Muscles: Chest and Triceps Workout

So there are some workout match-ups that tend to be our favorites. One of those favorites is the sweet chest and triceps pair. It’s a great combination and leaves you exhausted afterwards (my arms are very upset with me now that I am typing). So Alana, you’re probably saying, why is it a good combination? Lemme spit some reasons at ya (not literally, come on).

Triceps brachii

1. Convenience: being able to do your chest and triceps at once can really open your workout schedule. This is especially for the people who tend to try to workout every day or every other day. It gives you a few days to work on other muscle groups without worrying about overworking those muscles. Because ultimately, that will lead to injury. And that’s a no-no.

2. Effective: you’re going to get a much better chest and triceps workout if you work them together. If you’re doing it properly, every chest exercise you do will work your triceps a bit and every triceps exercise will work your chest. That’s just how our body works.

3. Power: it makes you feel huge. Think about the strength, effort, and power that goes into benching.

Anyhow, there’s a few reasons for you. Now let’s get to our actual workout. We have a few pictures for you of yours truly.

1. We started out with a super-set (one exercise after the other, no rest) of push-ups and triangle push-ups, working our chest in the first and triceps in the latter. You don’t need any equipment for this, so no excuses! Go until failure.

2. Our next super-set was incline chest press and incline pec fly. This really requires good strength and power (especially chest press). Unforunately, no pictures of us doing this. For chest press, you sit on the inclined bench, and push your arms straight up.

For pec fly, get in the same seated position. But start your arms out, like you’re going to give a tree a hug, and bring inwards (you tree-hugger!).

3. For this we didn’t do a super-set, because we wanted to spot each other for bench press. Personally, I’ve lost a lot of my strength, and can’t bench nearly what I used to (you’ll see low weight in the picture, the bar = 45 lbs). It’s just good to be there and spot for each other to get the weight up and getting help getting it down. We did decline bench press. Go for a good weight and, as usual, go til failure.

4. For our last super-set we combined triceps cable press and double-hand triceps extension. This really killed our triceps (in a good way!). For anyone uncomfortable with triceps exercises, I find that the cable press is an easy pathway to get comfy with working those triceps. You position yourself with the feet shoulder-width apart, facing the cable, and press down the steel triangle or horse rope down and bring your arms back to 90 degrees.

For triceps extension, grab a good weight and place behind your head and do vertical raises.

5. And lastly, to end our muscle workout, we did a cable cross-press. This will get a good pinching burn in your chest and triceps. We juiced out the rest of our strength through these. Always go to the end of your workout. Never stop pushing. Unless you feel sharp pains, THEN STOP. Stand away from the cables, grab each cable in each hand and cross over your hands.

For this entire workout, we did four sets of everything and pushed to failure. It could range from 8 to 100, it’s up to your body and your strength. We ended it with some excellent twenty-minute bouldering where Chris finished a new route that had been challenging him for weeks!

Please let us know if you have any questions! Cheers!

Oct072012

Kitty Spotlight: Misty

Nymeria was featured in the last kitty spotlight, so I thought I’d do a general one for Misty too. Our kittens couldn’t be more different. Misty is the elder (4 months, making her a month older) and certainly acts it, except when it’s food time. She came to us feral, under-socialized, and she’s come so far. Sure she’s still a princess brat selfish food-craving mess, but she’s found a home here. And that’s most important.

First day we got her

Okay so when we first got her, she was terrified. She wouldn’t go near Nymeria, Chris, or I. She would hide wherever she could at all times. She didn’t trust us, she would constantly hiss, she didn’t know how to play, how to cuddle…she had a lot to learn. One day, we thought she escaped and we freaked out, tearing the apartment apart, looking for her, looking outside, and so forth. And eventually we decided to look under the dishwasher. And guess what we found.

However, with a lot of coaxing, time, patience, and living 24/7 with Nymeria, she improved drastically. It took a lot of work and patience, but now she’s one of the family. Nymeria, the constant huntress, taught her how to play, hunt, and pounce. Which Misty now does on a regular basis. She hunts and pounces on the toys, and Nymeria and Misty usually play all the time. I say usually because they haven’t for the past week.

Nymeria, the fierce cuddler, taught Misty how to cuddle. Whenever we come home from work, from being out, wherever, we find them sleepily waking up side by side on the top of the cat tree. Always cuddling. They never like to sleep too far apart from each other. Sometimes, we’ll find them sleeping together under the desk which is a tiny space.

Before, she used to run away from us, now she can’t get close enough. She loves cuddling with us on the couch. In fact, she slept with us all last night, sleeping on my tummy or next to my hip, keeping each other warm. She’s an excellent cuddler, and doesn’t do the kneading thing Nymeria is so famous for (which can hurt if she has long nails). If she finds Nymeria on us, you can be sure she will be on us too.

She has a serious obsession with food. Like yeah, I get it, I had a dog, they love food. Animals love food. But no, she has like a chemical imbalance or something, because she goes bananas. Nymeria doesn’t. She will give the occasional cry for some food, but Misty, when she hears the closet door open (where the food is) or the food bowls, she goes crazy. She will run up and jump up on the closet, mewing constantly as if she’s going to die in the next 3 minutes if you don’t hurry up and give her food. As if she’s never been fed in her life. She eats within 15 seconds (no exaggeration) while Nymeria is the opposite and takes a few years (slight exaggeration). She sometimes eats so fast she throws up and then eats it again (gross, I know). And then she will go on the prowl, learning tactics from Nymeria, to use on her very own sister–to steal her food! Until we scold her and put her in the bathtub.

Misty has a very strong lower body. During food time, she will go on her hind legs and walk around on them in order to be closer to the food

Misty also has some funny and cute sleeping positions. Like the on-my-back-paw-over-face (you can see these below) or the sink nap. Before, when they were limited to only the bathroom when we were away from the house, Misty would decide on her sleeping spot–the sink. Wet? Sometimes. Comfy? I guess…? Anyhow, when she’s not sleeping with Nymeria, you can be sure to find her in some of those positions.

Misty can also be a very naughty girl (like stealing Nymeria’s food). We constantly find her jumping onto the counter where we eat and prepare food. Several times, we’ve come in and found her sleeping atop the fridge, which is yes, adorable, but still not allowed. Sometimes we find her in the kitchen sink, scrounging for food due to her serious addiction. We either spray her with a water bottle, grab her scruff and say “No!”, or put her in the bathtub, depending on the severity of the crime.

Well regardless of everything, she’s really grown into the family, cut out 90% of the hissing and is a great cuddler. Sure, we wish she’d play a little more, but everything comes with time. I can hear her mewing now because apparently it’s food time. There were just too many pictures, I wish I could show you all of them.

Cheers!

Oct042012

Kitty Spotlight: Nymeria

Very connected with the name (although she doesn’t quite respond to it yet), Nymeria is wild, mischievous, and…well, adorable. She’s our baby girl, 3 months old! She’s younger than our other kitten, Misty, by a month. I actually have the two of them on my lap right now, and Nymeria is watching me as I type. A little too cute to handle, she gets really excited. You can read about when we first got them here. So let’s go over how she was around a month ago (though I feel we’ve had them forever) to how she is today.

Watching me type

So let’s start when we first got her. You can see the first picture I took of her below. She was wide-eyed, hyper, and ready for action (and still is)! She was very friendly, and while we were trying to decide on what kitten to get, she just jumped on my lap. Kind of a give away there. She loves to play, really loves to play. And if Misty is being too prissy to do so, she will sprint around the house, jumping up on the couch and cat tree then jumping off. We play a bit of tag then too, and hide and seek.

First day we got her, wide-eyed Nymeria

Nymeria playing hide and seek

One day I was looking for something in the very small desk drawer, and she hopped right in and laid comfortably

She is very mischievous and she knows when she’s doing something wrong because if we go near her during her crime, she will scamper away as quickly as possible. Nymeria loves to play with this black and white pen and we’ll find it on the ground when we come back or clamped in her tiny little jaws. She has the adorable little nature to her that will be apparent in her face, this baby-like innocence and curiosity. If we push her away from cuddling, she will come right back every single time. She’s also gotten into the habit of cleaning Misty a lot, licking her head and ears, sometimes with a bite to go with it if she’s feeling playful. You can see that below.

Tried out her Halloween outfit. She wasn’t pleased

Nymeria (true to her name) seemed born a hunter. Right from the start, she knew how to hunt and pounce. She had perfect form in her waiting-for-pounce mode and sprung at the exact moment. In fact, Misty didn’t even know how to pounce or play when she got to us, but by observing Nymeria, she does all the time now. Although she’s significantly smaller than Misty, she can do pretty well when they wrestle together. Nymeria is excellent at grabbing the toys we annoyingly dangle over her head and great at catching the toys we drag on the ground like animals. We just need to watch our toes.

Nymeria was not without her problems, though. Actually, she came to us with quite a few problems all at the tender age of two months old. She came with roundworm, a bacteria that affecting her pooping habits. She couldn’t really control it and it wasn’t very good. There were a lot of baths, a lot of scrubbing the carpet, and wiping butts. We kinda got used to it. We had to give her medicine every day which wasn’t fun (using a syringe to plunge the icky goo into her mouth). Then, she got a pretty bad cold, wheezing, sneezing, lots of big bogeys. And we could really tell she was sick. You know with kids, you can tell–her usual rascal self was not there, she slept most of the time, and never felt like eating. But we slowly got her back to health. She has the occasional sneeze now and then, but it’s cute.

An adorable sick Nymeria passed out with her cute shaved belly (from her spaying surgery)…we may or may not have wanted to shave it again just because it’s adorable

Yet, despite all her rambunctiousness, she’s extremely sweet and friendly, and would never purposely hurt anyone. Misty, time and time again, steals Nymeria’s food out of her bowl (before we catch her and reprimand her), and Nymeria doesn’t fight her, doesn’t growl (like Misty does), but simply waits until she can get her food again. She’s very patient and loving and would never hurt her sister, who I think in return would eat everything so Nymeria would have nothing. She has an amazing tolerance and easy-going nature which makes her never act aggressive. Nymeria is the ultimate cuddler, whether it be Chris or I or Misty, she will always initiate.

I would say her most distinguishing aspect (besides her adorable waddling bowleggedness) is that she kneads. I’m guessing she was taken from her mother very early and was thus unweaned. Never got used to not having mama’s milk since she didn’t have time to properly wean off it. So, if anyone lays on the couch, you can count up to 5 before you’ll have little black Nymeria paws on your chest. She will then curl into your neck, put both paws on your neck or arm, and knead them, like she’s trying to push milk out of mama. She does this all the time. In fact, right now she’s doing it to Misty on my lap, who definitely does not mind the massage.

Well, I wrote way too much, but I love my kitties. Nymeria is growing up great and healthy, can’t wait to see how she is all growed up. Keep an eye out for the next Kitty Spotlight!