Link's Visit

This big big boy is visiting us this week.  Link is my brother's cat, and they are on vacation for Spring Break.  Link needs medicine twice a day so instead of me driving out to their house, we decided to have him come to us.  He's mostly living in the basement, but during the day when we are home, we are letting him upstairs.  I'm pretty sure he is in love with Kira.  He is trying so hard to win her heart, and she hisses at him and whines at him to go back to the basement.  Occasionally she charges at him, but he backs away and so does she.  Sometimes when the basement door is open so Link can join us upstairs, Kira sits at the top like a guard dog, and he chirps and sings to her.  😂

Arien wants nothing to do with Link which is why she's not in any pictures.  At first she hid from him.  Then she grew comfortable just ignoring him and letting Kira take charge of keeping Link in line.  But I guess Arien felt Kira wasn't doing a good enough job and decided she'd handle Link herself.  When she saw him upstairs yesterday, she chased him through the house going in circles a couple times because Link missed the exit to the basement.  They knocked over a plant before I got them to stop.  😑  I escorted Link to the basement, and Arien calmed down.  However, we do have a cat door installed in our basement door.  Link doesn't know how to use it so it's enough to keep him downstairs.  Kira has occasionally wandered to the basement (she helped Link empty his bowl of food once when I left it out for him 😒), but she mostly likes to sit and watch him from the other side, but if he is up close, she'll hiss, smack the door, and walk away.  Arien won't go downstairs, but being the little firecracker she is, she always hisses when she passes the door to make sure Link knows how much she doesn't like him.  Hahaha!

 

Shenanigans with Kitties

Arien snagged a turn in the basket while I was in-between photographing the hamsters.  She seemed to think it was for her, not them.  😅

 

More Plants

I recently got this gorgeous Philodendron Brasil from Young's Greenhouse & Florist.  I'll admit that I haven't always been that interested in these, especially since I've learned of the cream splash variety which I think it so much prettier.  But the cream splash is pretty much unavailable to me, especially in a price range that I'd even consider, and when I saw this, I actually thought it was so neat that I couldn't pass it up.

This is my Global Green Pothos that I got at Lowes.

My Fiddle Leaf Fig is exploding with new growth right now.  I think there are 5 new leaves coming in right now.  😮

Look at how much my String of Pearls has grown!  And it's even bigger now as I actually took these pictures a couple weeks ago.  It's been so neat watching this grow!

I really love the Calathea Vitatta, so after my first one tanked because I kept doing all the wrong things, I decided to get a new one and actually do my best to do all the right things.  It is currently living in a terrarium I made along with my Fitonia and some prayer plants.

I LOVE my Manjula Pothos!  I especially love that I found it at Walmart for $3.50.  😁  I actually ended up giving part of it away to a new friend who was sad that she missed out.  But I'm starting to see new growth on mine so hopefully it fill out again.

I never thought I'd get a Peperomia, but this Frost has stolen my heart with its shimmery leaves!  It's stunning!  I found this beauty at Lowes.  😊

I picked up this Scindapsus Pictus Exotica from a lady on a Facebook group I'm in for plants.  I'm so excited to watch it grow in to a full plant!

This Philodendron Brandtianum was another Lowes find.  Half of it died off pretty fast, but the rest hung on and I've seen a lot of new growth.  I know others who got plants from this same shipment lost their plants completely.  I'm not entirely sure what the issue was, but I'm glad my has survived.  

Plants

I posted elsewhere that my plant collection that I've had for years has grown a lot in the last year.  I find myself taking pictures of some of my pretty plants and I didn't really know where to share them so for a while I just didn't.  I think I've decided to share them here.  I know this is the spot where you come to see my cute cats, but now you'll also get some pretty plants.  😁

 

This tiny thing is a String of Pearls from my sister.  She's on her third one and I asked for a cutting to try my hand at them.  So consider this the before picture.  Hopefully in a few months I can show some beautiful growth!

I actually ended up giving away this Pink Polka Dot plant to a friend of mine.  I originally got it as part of an arrangement with other plants from Lowes.  It was half off because they all looked pretty sad and were half dead.  I didn't really have high hopes for this because it was so tiny and sad looking, but it grew fast and even flowered for me.  All the other sad looking plants from that arrangement are also flourishing with the exception of the Croton which was in such bad shape that I misidentified it, didn't provide it with enough light due to my misunderstanding of what it was, and it declined even more until it died.  Truthfully, I'm not even the slightest bit upset about that one.  Hahahaha!

Demanding Kitties

I love these pretty kitties!  Arien has become much more affectionate the last couple months which has been especially evident due to her seeking attention and even cuddles from Joe and our friends instead of just me.  She's also been worse about waking us up during the night, but hopefully that was just because of Christmas Break and she'll get back to the regular schedule again.  I've actually noticed that Kira has been more demanding for cuddles.  She can be almost scary about it when she wants it.  A lot of times she will lay on the mouse pad and bite my finger while I try to work.  Or she climbs into my lap and aggressively pushes my arms or whatever else out of her way so she can lay exactly how she wants.  These two definitely keep us on our toes!  

Curious Kitties

These two have been crazy!  I think they've been working on reestablishing which one is the alpha cat, so they have been fighting more.  You can see in the second picture that there is a tuff of Arien's hair from them wrestling.  They definitely know how to get into trouble, but they still love their time cuddling with me and each other.

Arien

Kira hide from me when I had the camera out, but I caught Arien being cute.  😊