Those – contrary to what I thought when I first saw them – are not rats or furry lizards. They are kittens who have only been alive for a matter of days.

Will called me at 4:30 today in awe/panic to tell me that he had found three abandoned kittens in our driveway. Now Will is terribly allergic to cats but has an extreme denial about his symptoms, even when he’s itching up a storm, because he really loves cats. So I knew when he told me that kittens were in our driveway that we were in for a long night.

One was found in the drive, one was found in our garage and the runt was found next door being mishandled by the neighbor kids. The one from the drive way was covered in cuts and scrapes and its umbilical cord was wrapped around its ankle, cutting off circulation to a foot. So step one was to cut off the umbilical cord, which was harder than I thought because the kitten kept squirming and I was so terrified of hurting it. They’re just so tiny after all. But we got the cord off, no worse for the wear.

We put them together in a box with a towel because that’s all we could do. Will Googled how to care for kittens, again, completely convinced that we were adopting these, while I called animal hospitals trying to find a referral to a no-kill shelter that was also set up to handle kittens with such extreme needs. Apparently, as I learned today, kittens need to be fed at least every two hours. It has to be a special formula or, at the very least, goat’s milk. Absolutely no cow’s milk (and I doubt my soy milk would have been a fair substitue). Also, and this is just lovely, they need to have their bottoms stimulated with a warm cloth since they don’t naturally  go on their own at such a young age. Usually the mother’s tongue services this purpose. I’m glad our species is more evolved than this. Just sayin’.

And I’m sure you can imagine that someone else was quite curious about all these goings on. I was really worried at first that she would try and eat them but, later, when I was holding the kittens against my chest to warm them up, she seemed genuinely more curious than vicious and probably would have mothered them herself had I let her get close enough. Despite her bitchiness, she would have made a great mother if she wasn’t fixed.

Will was practically beside himself at the thought that the kittens might die and went door to door and recruited two of our neighbors (both new moms, which I think helped) to call everyone they knew, trying to find someone to help these kittens. I have to say, he really owned this one. I was prepared to put the kittens back in the garage and pretend their mother was coming back, knowing secretly that wasn’t going to happen. But Will wouldn’t let it go and because of that, three hours after they were discovered, our neighbor’s mom came through with a shelter in Mission Viejo with a foster mom who can care for them better than we ever could have.

Huge sighs of relief were breathed.

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Yesterday was a very reflective day for me as a blogger. Having been at this seriously for about a month, I did some evaluation of what I’ve learned and what I can do better. The biggest thing that I came out of it with is that I really want to put some effort into the visual part of the blog. That means the layout and the photography. I’m currently transferring my blog to a self-hosted domain for the flexibility it offers. So if I’m a little spotty for the next few days, it’s because I’m drowning in code and custom theme options.

I’m also going to really step up my photography, especially when it comes to food. Up until now, I’ve just been more lazy about it than anything but a picture really is worth a thousand words and when I think about other blogs I love, the photos definitely are a key piece of that.

There are also a few other things I’m go to be working on adding. Some resource pages on vegan/vegetarian cooking and information of training schedules and weight lifting circuits. I’m debating the OC Half Marathon mid-May and would love to do some in depth information about preparing for my first race in quite a while. That one is still up in the air but it would be fun and I hope I get to do it.

Lastly, Will and I have an exciting life change coming up after his graduation and I’m really excited to get to share all the steps of that with you. No, it’s not wedding related (it actually completely ruins any wedding plans we already had) but it’s another thing I’m really excited for.

Over all, I’m really happy with what I’ve done in terms of blogging so far but I’m also very excited to tap into the potential that’s ahead. Here’s to the next stage!