Happy 3rd Birthday to Arien

We've had Arien for 3 years now!  Actually, her real gotcha day was Tuesday, September 6, but I'm just now getting these posted.  I really love how much Arien has grown and matured over these last 3 years.  She is such a sweet girl who definitely still has a crazy streak in her to keep me on my toes.  She still loves to jump onto my shoulders as I make my coffee or wash dishes.  She does spend a lot of time sleeping during the day, but she often chooses to sleep in her hammock in the office if that's where I am to work.  If she instead chooses to sleep in our bedroom during the day, then whenever she wakes up in the afternoon, she finds me and rubs against my legs and begs for some cuddles.  

The biggest change this past year is that Arien decided Joe was a nice guy to cuddle and ever since then, I think she actually prefers him.  Which I admit does sometimes make me jealous since she's only alive thanks to me hand-raising her.  But I generally love seeing her climbing up Joe's chest and head butting him before he finally pushes her to lay down where she stays purring and drooling on him.  😂  Whenever Joe or I reject Arien's advances for cuddles, she goes to Kira who always happily gives her a bath.  Typically about half way through this, Arien gets upset at Kira for licking her hair the wrong way and then Kira gets upset at Arien for not appreciating the effort and after a bit of fighting, Arien decides she should check again to see if the humans will cuddle her.

Arien seriously is such a great cat!  I'm so glad that after my parents found her and realized they were stuck with her, I didn't wait for them to find someone else to take her and instead decided to hand-raise her myself.  💓

Check out the videos at the bottom!  The first is from about a week after I brought her home!  The second was a couple weeks later.

 

Curious Cats

These cats are so curious about anything new in the house.  Not much goes unnoticed.  I like how attentive they are because that generally means bugs don't last long as they are quickly found.

 

Some of my favorite leaves

I really love the plants I have!  Sometimes I want more, but generally I realize that what I have is the right amount of work for me and not causing too much clutter so I am able to really enjoy the ones I do have.  They also are thriving which is fun, but sometimes feels a wee bit overwhelming because I am not sure how I feel about how fast some of them are growing.  Again, I am weird about wanting to find balance of having beautiful things like these plants that bring me joy, and also wanting lots of open space for my soul to breath.  I've been telling Joe that I think I want to get rid of some plants because that balance seems a little off now as many of them are getting so much bigger.

Weird Kitties

Arien is such a little weirdo, but it makes me love her even more!  I never quite know what to expect from her when she gets into a silly mood.  I caught her laying on the window sill behind this chair trying to squeeze through the tiny gap.  She was trying so hard to attack me, but couldn't quite get those mittens through.  So dumb, weird, and cute!  Kira often tries to hide when Arien is going crazy.  That is unless Kira is also going crazy at the same time, in which case stuff normally gets knocked over and broken.  But it's okay because I love them.  😁

Pretty Plants

 I really enjoy taking pictures of my plants!  Some of them are hard to get good angles to show off how pretty they are.  These are some of my favorite plants that I own.