The Husband…man of genius that he is…knew probably before I did that I was going to be a bit lost when the children went off to the grandparents’ house, and suggested we paint their bathroom…partly to keep me occupied, but also partly to get them to take better care of it.

Paint job partially complete

Well, I showed him, not only are we painting the kids’ bathroom, but we’re changing out the mirror (if we can figure out how to remove the old one), light fixture and faucet, too… *just realized who will be helping on all these projects…facepalm*

I believe I may have mentioned it is the Rainy Season. Perhaps. Here’s what that means…

Overflowing water barrels:

Fiddling with your camera’s ISO setting in order to capture water mid-bounce:

For hours at a time:

Pretty water on flowers:

And leaves:

And falling through the air:

Backyard “grass” that can’t be mowed until the weekend because it’s always raining by the time Husband gets home:

Yep, that’s the new composter there. It just needs some touch up paint on the body, and the roof painted black.

And, of course, “See Rock City” painted on the side. Yes, I am a child of the South.

And how are the kitties doing you ask? I was honestly afraid we’d lose the little one. After scarfing down dried kitten food that first night, and being assured by the vet that he could eat it either wet or dry at 5 weeks of age, that’s what we served him. And he refused to eat it. And continued to refuse to eat it. And basically did not much else other than that kitten hunch, the one they do when frightened or sick. His fur felt awful and he was skin and bones to the touch.

Can you imagine that…the kids coming back from vacation to a dead kitten?

In desperation I looked up pseudo-kitten food on the intarwebs and ran across a recipe for Kitten Glop, a high-calcium mixture made from evaporated milk, egg yolk, karo syrup, pedialyte, yogurt and mayonnaise. Euch. With the help of a syringe, we shoved that down his gullet a few times, accompanied to a symphony of tiny growls. Lonely and wishing for his mama he might be, but he still objected quite seriously to having Glop sent down his throat. We’d also tried the soft food packets we had used when our Hero cat was on the decline, and, faced with the prospect of more Glop, Hermes decided to eat.

He’s gaining weight, fur feels better, and he’s playing instead of just sitting watching the world. Oliver regularly kicks his ass in the wrestling competitions, but it won’t be much longer before Hermes is getting some of his own back. Meanwhile, Oliver is getting introduced to Mister Spray Bottle when he gets too rambunctious with the little guy…because the sounding-like-he’s-killing-him drives me nuts, yes.

He’s still cute as hell though:

UPDATE: You may call me the Painting Machine.

No, I won’t come to your house and paint your bathroom.