Busy, busy with cat drama!

I guess it's been almost a month that I wrote anything. It's been busy with the kittens around so that's my excuse!

There is a lot of work having six cats in the house. Yes, six! There's the two originals, Neko and Sammy, then the newcomer, Pulla, and her three kittens. Just providing food, water and three litter boxes(!) takes time and energy, but then you gotta try to spend some time with all of them, especially with the kittens so they grow into responsible and social cats. It's been stressfull too, because Neko and Sammy don't get along with Pulla and there is a lot of hissing and growling going on several times a day.. :/

The kittens are almost 5 weeks old, so we are looking into giving them away in the beginning of June as long as they are well trained and independent. One of them has been reserved already, and there's been some interest for the other two as well, and I am waiting for confirmation on both of them. But then we gotta find a place for Pulla too, we can't keep her with our move getting closer, and I have no idea what to do.

We are very seriously wanting to make September the moving month. It's a lot later than we wanted, but we are trying to pay off all the credit card debt before the move, and even then it will be a tight schedule. We just got our tax returns for last year, so that helped a lot getting one of the higher interest cards down. We don't have crazy amounts of debt like most Americans - our credit cards have been used mainly to buy flights to Finland in the past. We hate having to use them, and hate the American concept of getting into huge amounts of debt to go through school. That is one of the biggest reasons why we feel there is not really a future for us here..

Anyway, September could be the time to move on, finally. To be honest, I don't think there's ever going to be a perfect time, but we need to make the leap at some point. I am trying to find out about finding jobs and apartments in Finland, but it's hard to do  from here. I'm gonna be keeping my eyes open and send some job applications in a few moths and if nothing comes back, I'll just have to get there and I'm sure I'll get something pretty fast.

It's weird that I am actually a lot more nervous moving back to Finland than I was four years ago moving here. I came with two suitcases and that's it. But Chris already had a job and a place for us to live here, so that made it easier. This time we are both going and starting all over. Plus Chris will have to get used to a completely different society and language. I know he will enjoy the challenge and I know his personality will be a better fit over there, but I know it will not be easy! That's why I'm hoping he'll find a school program in English pretty fast to give him some direction on the new life. 

I have my citizenship exam next week so I should study a little. The questions are actually pretty easy so I'm not too worried about it.  

The weather's been hot lately, and it's hard to believe it can still get a lot hotter, which it will in the next month. I haven't spent time out that much at all anymore. I step out to water the peppers and then I run back in all sweaty. But the peppers have ripened nicely and we've already eaten several. They are delicious. 

Time to check on the kitties and clean the litter box. :P Like I said, been busy lately!

Kittens

Pulla's kittens were born on April 2nd, and today they are 12 days old. There is three of them and they are cute as can be.

They were born on a Monday morning. The first one must have born before 6, since I woke up to a faint miau sound at 5:57 somewhere close to my bed. I laid still a few minutes, and then turned on the light. I saw some water on the floor but no cats anywhere. I got up to clean the water and then saw Pulla in the closet, licking at something. Only then I realized what was going on. She was not a boy, that was clear.

I stayed home a few extra hours before going to work to make sure she and the kitties were gonna be okay. Luckily she didn't need any help other than just some soft pettings to help her feel more at ease. Poor thing was in pain and she kept looking at me with her big eyes all round. It was pretty intense because after she had the second one I thought after a little while that the kitten was dead because it was just laying on it's back all still and I touched it and it didn't move at all. But it was alive I found out a little later, and then Pulla had one more. So she had three in total. I hated to have to go to work, but when it was around nine am and she didn't look like there would be more kitties coming, I had to go.

I was happy to come home that night, with all the kittens in the nest, and Pulla looking happy as well.

This kitty is taking a break from all those hungry babies!

Sometime during the next few days Pulla decided to move them into a different spot in the closet. The first week they were pretty much just sleeping and eating. Pulla was very patient with letting me look at them and touch them.

After the first week, their eyes started opening slowly. Now, at almost two weeks they are awake a little more and they are learning to stand on their feet to walk a little. You can start telling some of their personalities already. The grey one is the one that is constantly eating or sleeping while the other two are a little more active. They have all grown a lot but the grey one is easily the biggest of them now. The black/dark one is very friendly and likes to say hi to me. And the white spotted one, the only girl out of them, was the one that started purring at only a few days old, and she seems to be always purring for the smallest reasons. 

The picture is blurry but you can't miss how cute they are!

Now we gotta figure out where to find homes for them. I know somebody at work who might be interested, and the good thing is that we've got several weeks before they'll be ready to leave their momma. 

In other news, I got my fingerprinting done, and I will have my interview and the civics and American history test on May 16th. I have to know answers to a 100 questions. After I pass that, I'll be taking my oath probably sometime in June. 

That's it for now! Miau!

Orchid

Chris got me an orchid almost a year ago on my birthday. The flowers died pretty fast since I didn't really know how to take care of it. The leaves stayed green and I kind of just let it sit on the front window all year, watered it maybe 5 times total.

Last week I started looking at it and it had this new growth, little brown nut looking things at the top of it. Two days ago I came home from work and was so surprised when one of them had opened and it was a perfect beautiful flower. Today there was already two open, but the photos are from yesterday. What an interesting plant!