how we accidentally adopted two cats

lately, our life has been disrupted by cats. don’t get me wrong--TJ and i vehemently love cats. we’ve always wanted one, but just didn’t feel like it was our time. we didn’t want the responsibility and we were gone so much anyway. we could love them, but we’d love them at a distance where they weren’t relying on us to eat.

then, we got this idea in our heads one night that we were ready. we discussed it for a few days, and made our decision. after much ado, we got the okay from our landlord. we got the food, litter, toys, and scratcher. we had everything except the cat.

we went to the san diego humane society and picked out the sweetest cat. her name was Harmony and she was very shy. she was a 2 year old, female, black cat (the least likely to get adopted!) and came from a neglect/abuse situation. she was stifled and often overlooked in an environment with numerous other cats around. we wanted the underdog, and we found her. 

we took her home and let her loose in her new home, excited to show her how much we wanted her. she immediately ran and hid under the furniture. we gave her some space, but she only got more skittish as she knocked over some picture frames and books, and lost her footing on a shelf. she was so startled by all of this that we decided to leave for a few minutes while she took some time to get comfortable. we returned about 20 minutes later and she was nowhere to be found. she wasn’t in her spot under the futon. she wasn’t anywhere in the living room or kitchen. we saw paw prints on another chair, and figured she was just hiding somewhere else in the house. we searched closets, behind major appliances, under beds. nothing. we pulled out boxes, unloaded shelves, destroyed any sense of order in the house. this cat was nowhere to be found. i started panicking, then sobbing. we owned a cat for less than 20 minutes and then we lost her. 

the only explanation we could come up with is that she had gotten out of the cracked window by the futon where the screen wasn’t fully secured. she would have had to do quite a maneuver, but she could have wriggled out the window, pushed open the screen, and jumped outside. she was so scared of us and her new situation, that she would never come back. she was going to die out there, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

the rest of the day was a fog. we walked around the neighborhood looking for her. we sat on the couch staring at that stupid cracked window. we cried and asked each other what we were going to do, then repeated the cycle. we did everything we could think of- left kibble all over the house and on the front porch, put out full cans of tuna and treats, and played with cat toys in open spaces hoping to lure her out of some fabled hiding spot we’d missed. 

the next morning we woke up and checked the tuna we’d left out. nothing. we checked the litter box, the food, the water, the front porch- nothing. we decided that, while we were devastated, there was nothing we could do for her. behind the devastation of losing the cat was the ache was that we had cat accessories all over the house, but no cat. 

so, we decided to get another cat.

we drove to the escondido campus of the humane society, unable to show our faces in the san diego location we had been at the day before. we picked a new feisty cat, a tiny little 2 year old orange tabby who had the same color hair as TJ. she had been picked up as a stray and was much more outgoing. we immediately renamed her from her shelter name (Amber) to Piper Cub, after the little yellow airplane she resembled.

we were much more prepared this time around- we let her roam in the guest room only, attempting to get her familiar with her surroundings before letting her loose. she explored and cuddled and jumped onto shelves. she had only been here for a few minutes, but this was where she belonged. i still thought about Harmony. i still cried at the thought of her fending for herself. but we had Piper now, and that was our new reality.

eventually we let Piper loose in the house. a few minutes after she started exploring, we heard another loud meow. it didn’t come from Piper, so TJ ran out to the alley where we thought Harmony would have jumped, but he found nothing. he came back inside feeling slightly defeated.

then we heard it again. it was coming from inside the house.

“the refrigerator!” i yelled to TJ. he pulled out the refrigerator and in a tiny enclave underneath, a little black head peeked out. even though we’d looked behind the refrigerator, Harmony had managed to wedge herself into a tiny space underneath the fridge where she was no longer able to remove herself. she had been back there for over 24 hours without making a sound until she sensed Piper.

we definitely only intended on getting one cat, but we like to think that it took getting Piper to help us save Harmony. we’ve slowly been introducing the cats to each other, and they are quickly becoming friends. Harmony still has a long way to go before she feels at home, but Piper has been helping to draw her out.

it’s been a huge adjustment, but TJ and i have learned a lot through the process. more on that later.

Gigantic, Gigantic

At the risk of wearing out my welcome, I've come to you today after a 2 month hiatus to brag about my husband again. TJ recently had the opportunity to contribute electric guitar to a Pixies cover that was used in the latest Apple iPhone 5s commercial. While there is an actor in the commercial pretending to play it, it's actually TJ's recording from start to finish. His part starts at 28 seconds in the video embedded below.

Planes: Fire and Rescue

We all know that I love to gush about how incredible of a musician my husband TJ is. He has dedicated his life to music, and it shows in the quality and originality of his work. He is a mix of eccentric creative with a touch of engineering genius, which makes him skilled at understanding not only how to create something beautiful to listen to but something that also looks good on paper.

Being a musician professionally is not for the faint of heart. It involves doing way too much work that is often underpaid (or not paid at all). Even for someone as talented as TJ, it's just tough to catch a break.

Recently, however, TJ has had the opportunity to do some higher profile freelance work. He's played on some promos for NBC such as this one for The Voice and some demos for the new Madonna album. However, probably my favorite thing he's done recently is played guitar on the featured song in the upcoming Pixar movie Planes: Fire and Rescue.

While it's a small part that made it into the song, he spent a couple days coming up with various guitar options which were then reviewed by John Lasseter himself. Yes--the mastermind behind Toy Story reviewed TJ's work. Later it became the only original song that they kept in the movie, and then it became the featured song in the new trailer for the movie.

I am incredibly proud of TJ for his diligence in keeping at this music thing, even though it can be discouraging at times. If you'd like to check out the trailer, it's embedded below.



Trailer 1 - Courage - Planes: Fire & Rescue on Disney Video

on being a part of The Founded

TJ and I got married in July 2013. While most of our friends in our Christian circles got married in their early 20's, we, at the "ripe" ages of 27 and 28, still managed to be one of nine couples in our fringe friend group to get married between May and October 2013. It's a weird time of life to be newlyweds and Christians; most of our close friends have 2 or 3 kids in tow, while we are still terrified of the possibility of accidentally becoming parents. In our community, we struggle to find the balance between "single" and "married with children." We feel rushed to figure out this stage of life and pressure to have an amazing, hassle free first year of marriage.

But it's not like that. It's hard. Apart from getting married, we went through huge life transitions: both moving to San Diego, me quitting my job and being a stay at home wife, TJ taking on his first structured 9-5 job. Also normal marriage transitions: joint budgeting, sharing a bed, boundaries with family, time management. There's always the couple that can give advice about when they went through it, but sometimes you just need to know that someone else is going through it right now too.

That's where The Founded comes in. These nine couples that are entering this stage of life have decided to do it together. We are dispersed across southern California (from San Diego to Pasadena), but we are going to be intentional about meeting every other month to do life together. 

We kicked things off in Pasadena this past weekend and discussed highs and lows in marriage thus far. There were plenty of highs to discuss: honeymoons, no longer having to say goodbye at the end of the night, acts of service, and teamwork. But there were also some significant lows: fights, loneliness, questions of personal worth and value to the relationship. Even though some of us were closer than others, everyone made themselves incredibly vulnerable. We laughed and cried, but most of all, we were able to understand that we didn't have to go through this alone; others are navigating this awesome, awkward, difficult time the same way that we are.

on hanging out in the back of a plane with Nancy

This is Nancy. She is awesome.

I first met Nancy when she cooked for my "soup and salad" bridal shower last May in northern California, along with several other ladies I hardly knew. The reason I was attending a shower thrown for me by people I hardly knew is because TJ grew up in a big church where his dad is a pastor, so they have a pretty tight knit community up there. They say when you marry someone that you also marry their family. I would say that not only did I marry his biological family, but I married his home church family as well. Nancy is part of that family.

Other than the ability to cook a mean soup, the first thing I learned about Nancy is that she is super talented at crocheting. Her gift to me was this (legitimately stylish) blanket that she made. She even crocheted in things like our initials and music notes. The more I learned about Nancy, the cooler she became. She has her pilot's license, she was a registered nurse for most of her life, and she is trained in sailing. She and her husband have their own boat and plane that they take all their friends out/up in. She has a license plate holder on her car that says, "Lady pilots don't stall around." Pretty awesome, right?

However, probably the most inspiring thing about Nancy is that she is contagiously joyful all the time. We were in TJ's hometown over the holidays, and Nancy's husband Don offered to take us up in the plane. We went for a 2 hour ride over the coast of Monterey, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, San Francisco (over the Golden Gate Bridge!), and more. We detoured on the way home to the airport in Concord to have lunch and pick up Nancy.

A few months ago, Nancy found out she has cancer. She gets chemo from a place down the street from the airport, so we just picked her up after she was finished with her treatment that day. You read that right: this picture was taken in the back of a Cessna after receiving her chemo therapy treatment. She was boisterous at lunch and chatting it up in the back of the airplane. She was teaching me how to read pilot maps and listen to the tower communications, all while texting with her grand daughter.

Nancy's joy even through exhaustion and pain is incredible. If I can be half as cool as Nancy someday, I feel like I'll have accomplished something great.