Change

Well, I wanted change. I certainly got it. Most of it was good. Some of it was bad. I got a new car, roommates, furry friend, house, and it almost feels like a new lifestyle. Then some bad came along. Well, maybe not bad, but change I wasn't quite ready for.

Kandice went to boot camp, one of my friends Patrick moved away, and I lost a close family member. Kandice has been gone for a week and a half now, and it's been hard. I can't text her to ask her random questions, I can't text her our stupid hilarious inside jokes, and I can't call her just to talk. I really would have liked to talk to her the other day. But I have to keep on reminding myself that she's doing this for her and she's going to come out as an even more incredible girl. She's amazing. Patty Cake is missed a lot. It feels off when all of us hang out, (Chris, Andrew, Brad, Kyle, Me and Rachael) that something is missing. I miss his company. We all do. The comedic boy circle I'm used to when we all hang out has been a little lacking lately. It's like we're missing the punchline to all of the silly jokes the boys tell or something. He'll be back soon, just not soon enough. We all miss him a lot. Can't wait to have him back! <3

Then Boozdo was called back up to heaven. I know it's going to be different during family gatherings. His humor will be missed, his stories will be missed. He'll be missed. He already is.

But enough about all the bad change. Everything happens for a reason. I have to keep telling myself that. God works in mysterious ways. I may not always understand why he does the things he does for me right away, but after a while something else will happen and it's like God says, "Remember that time when this other thing happened? Yeah, now you can see why I did what I did. You can thank me." He's cool like that.

But with all the bad things, the good things were really good. My car is AWESOME. I lover her, and she finally has a name: Lady. Because that's what she is: a lady.My roommates are incredible. I feel like the place I live in is home. I haven't felt like that in a while. I just feel very loved here. (:

Samson is a monster, indeed. But he's a great cat. He loves me so much. I know this because he runs up to the door when I come home and purrs. He loves to snuggle me and he follows me around the house. No matter how badly he pisses me off sometimes, I still love him. He's just a lively kitten. I wanted a kitten that had some excitement to him so when he grew up he would be a lump-on-the-floor cat. He'd be a lively, happy cat.

Everything's pretty great about life.

I've been meaning to post this since like... yesterday morning but I was retarded and forgot the internet password for my computer.

Boozdo

Today was hard.

I lost one of my favorite uncles.

Well, they're all my favorite.

But this one was hard.

It's almost as hard as when I lost my cousin, Daniel.

Granted, I haven't been to the funeral yet.. so we'll see.

Boozdo was an incredible man.

He was so kind and wanted to help as many people as he possibly could.

He was in the National Guard and was a volunteer firefighter.

He's the funniest man I know.

I miss him so much already.

Boozdo was scary when I was little..

Not because he was mean or anything.

Just because he was SO TALL.

AND if I didn't give him a hug he'd give me a wedgie.

Seriously.

Even when he was getting sick I knew that would be the case.

Boozdo suffered from Diabetes.

It led to him becoming blind.

I know he would still bump around the house to give me a wedgie to this day.

I never missed a hug. I knew, even at the age of 21 I was not excluded from a wedgie.

Boozdo liked to give names to everyone in the family.

My cousin Christi is Fritty Jo

His sister is Cookie.

One of my cousins is Taz.

Me? I was peanut butt because I was so little.

My cousins Ashley and McKell were Cracker Ass.

Then when I got a little older I was promoted to Cracker Ass.

He still calls me that to this day.

A typical conversation would go:

"Hi Boozdo!"

*Me walking over to give him a hug*

"Cracker Ass?" He'd say.

Boozdo had been not super well for a while.

Then on wednesday he took a bad turn.

Turns out he had had a massive heart attack -- one big enough to damage the entire bottom part of his heart.

For a while he was having his heart pumped for him by balloons.

Then he started to get better.... a little.

He was off the balloons and they were getting ready to take him off of oxygen.

Then he got worse and they think he had a stroke.

This lead to a tough decision.

But one that was fair to him.

My aunt is a strong woman and she prayed for the right answer to come to him.

Boozdo had been in a lot of pain for a long time.

It was time for him to go.

So he was sent up to God today.

I feel like Boozdo was with me a few days ago and he was telling me everything was going to be okay.

He was ready for whatever had to happen.

It's a shame he had to go the way he did.

But I know he's in a better place.

A place where he can see us.

Where he can really see us, where he can watch his grandchildren grow and watch the rest of the family grow into old farts.

A place where he's not in any more pain and he's healthy.

I'll miss his humor.

One thing that never went when his eyesight did was his sense of humor.

Case in point: Boozdo was talking to a family member on the phone one day and my mom didn't want them to know she was in town.

So my mom wrote on a piece of paper for Boozdo to not tell the family member she was there.

Then she realized he couldn't see.

This led to all of us almost wetting our pants with laughter.

After Boozdo got off the phone, we told him what had happened.

His response, "Are you kidding me?! Geez, Karen."

Pretty sure he teased her about that one for a while.

He was a great man.

Things are going to be a lot more quiet around the house without him.

One thing that will change drastically is him belching and the entire family yelling "McCados!!"

It's a family thing. You wouldn't understand. (:

Rest in peace, Boozdo.

You will be missed terribly.

You already are.

I hope you're having fun up there partying with the rest of the family.

Nana, Papa, Big E, Randy, Dee, Grandpa Gross, and all the others.

Send them our love.

We'll see you on the other side.

Xoxoxox

Lately

Just a little update on things happening in the world of Destinee.

For one, work is awesome! I've never seen the office so organized and I love it!

For another thing, Samson is finally adjusted to being in a new home.

He gets pretty overly-excited when I come home if I've been gone for a while which makes him run around the house for like... 2 hours. And then he bites me in celebration.

We're working on celebrating just being he rubbing up against my leg instead of biting me.

AND

In other news, I'm going to open an Etsy shop!

I'm going to sell my hair clips and headbands I make with feathers.

I think it will be fun.

I've got a good helper in getting my business started; Rachael.

Her shop has been open since November and she's been doing really well!

She's going to help me get started ie, take my pictures, show me how to list and all that jazz.

It'll be good. A little extra income (hopefully) to battle the massive amount of taxes that are coming out of my checks from work. Sheesh.

OH!

And I'm going fishing!!!

I haven't gone since I was in Alaska (like when I was eleven) so I'm pretty excited.

Well. Yeah.

That's about it. Life's just steady right now.

Which is good.

Another Post about the Cat

Some nicknames Samson has acquired over the week he has been in my care:

Monster,

Crazy,

Monkey,

And my favorite,

Night Fury.

Night Fury has a double meaning in this case.

For one, that's all he causes at night; fury.

Some nights I'm certain something has possessed him.

The second reason is because he really does look a lot like Toothless (AKA, Night Fury) from How to Train your Dragon.

I see the resemblance, don't you?

Samson

The longer I have him, the more I'm learning I can't quite figure him out.

One day he likes to have his paws held, the next he bites me if I come even close to his paws.

One day he's a little snuggle bug, the next he's nothing but a monster.

(Last night I could have sworn that Satan had embodied my kitty.)

He has a nasty habit of waking up around 5:00am and he wants to play.

That's been a pretty big constant since I got him.

Yesterday he learned he's not allowed on the table.

It was probably the funniest thing ever.

If you ever need to teach a cat not to walk on the tables, the best way to teach him/her is to put masking tape on the top of it.

The cat steps on it, it sticks to his feet, and then he never does it again.

Our plan backfired a little bit this time, though.

Samson got up on the table, walked around the tape for a little bit, then his back foot got stuck to the tape.

He saw it, freaked out and stepped on the other 2 stripes of tape we had on the table.

Somehow all three of the pieces of tape got stuck together and then stuck to him.

This resulted in a massive cat meltdown.

He ran across the table, across the couch with many people sitting on it, and then down the hall into my room.

Shallise and Chris ran to his rescue (I was laughing too hard to do anything) and pulled the tape off him.

I walked into the room to find him laying on the floor absolutely exhausted.

It was probably one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while.

He has a nasty habit of biting feet when I or Brad or Rachael, or Kyle walk.

If I'm laying down, he'll bite my face or my chin.

Needless to say, it's not something I enjoy.

So I brought a spray bottle home to discipline kitty a little bit.

It's working so far.

On the plus side.

Samson does like to snuggle when he can hold still.

He and Wicket are getting along really well.

I think they're going to be really good friends soon.

Samson realllllly wants to play with Fungus, (Rachael's cat) but Fungus is a little unsure about that.

He's a love.

He loves me.

He loves Kyle.

He loves Rachael and Brad.

He even likes all of our friends, which is awesome.

I think he's going to be a really good adult cat.

He's a pretty good kitten right now.

Just needs to be shown who's boss a little bit :p

He went to the vets on Thursday cuz he had a little bit of a cough it sounded like.

He also got some de-wormer.

He had the beginnings of an upper-respiratory infection, so they gave me some antibiotics for him to take and some other stuff to put in his food to slow the virus a little.

He's doing really well.

I can tell he's feeling better because he's a little shit again. (:

I really do love him though.

I can't imagine this house or my life without him now.

The house would be too serene. :p

The Mister has arrived. (:

I brought Samson home last night. (:

What a little monster!

He's so cute though.

He doesn't like to sit still for very long, but when he does, he likes to snuggle.

He purrs A LOT.

And he likes to sit on my shoulders.

And sleep on them.

Last night he was kind of a terror.

He slept in his kitty carrier (because I knew he wouldn't settle down long enough to sleep with me.

He did pretty well until about 5:00 this morning and then he cried a lot.

I took him out and let him climb all over my face and stick his butt in it (argh) and then put him back in his carrier.

He slept pretty well after that.

So far he's a good kitty!

He sounds like he's got a little bit of fluid in his lungs right now, and I called to make sure it's nothing serious. They haven't called me back yet. :/

But he's not sneezing, doesn't have a runny nose or anything, so I think he's going to be okay.

I'll keep an eye on him all the same.

I love this kitty.

(:

A Day of Babies

That's right.

We had a day of babies.

Two new babies were added to the Caringella-Rowley-Rhoades family. (:

It's been a big week of changes..

I moved into a new apartment allllllllll day yesterday.

That was a process.

Then today Rachael got her puppy!

His name is Wicket.

He's 6 weeks old (roughly) and he's chihuahua.

He's adorable.

Then while we were down in the area we stopped by the Salt Lake County Animal Service shelter to look at the kitties.

I've been itching for some animal friendship lately.

I walk in and see a lot of older cats; cats in their 3-8 years of life age.

The problem with getting a kitty that old is they're usually used to living in a different house for so long it would be hard for them to adjust.

So they had some younger kittens at the front of the shelter.

They're 3 months old.

I see this kitty that's running around the inside of the cage while all of his brothers and sisters are sleeping.

And he's a medium-haired kitty so he kind of looks like he's been electrocuted.

He's perfect!!!!

I hold him and he's purring.

He puts his little arms around my neck and he hugs me.

(Pulling on my heart strings, too)

So I decide to go for it.

He's hasn't been fixed yet, so I didn't bring him home today.

He's getting fixed on Tuesday morning and then I can pick him up around 3:30 (and Tuesday just happens to be my day off)

He's got 2 sets of booster shots, has a micro chip and I got a free bag of food.

Total for him with all of his shot plus him getting fixed: $75

(:

I get him on Tuesday and then we will be in love forever more.

I've already bought him a collar, bowls, and a tag.

OH.
I forgot to mention his name:

SAMSON.

<3