Meowllo everypawdy, weez here. Mommy’s been tryin’ to relax and rest up after sis Lexi’s 36 hour throw up fest, but she sed we wasn’t missin’ 2 Blest Sundays in a row. Cuz no matter how bad things might get, or what’s goin’ on, weez still blest and me wants to meow ‘bout it. As ya’ know we find blessings in everything. We are blest to have all of you in our lives, and we are blest to have each other and a warm home full of luv. But we also received a kupple material blessings this past week. And we are so thankful to those who blest us.
Furst up is our new pawsum humidifier. Ifin you’ll recall, sis Lexi recently had to go to da VET and hers skin was dry and flakey; leavin’ depawsits of white dandruff all over her black furs. and of course da itchy ripple skins. Our humidifer broke a few years ago and mommy just didn’t have da money to buy another one, so we just dealt with da dryness as bestest we kuld. Well, one of our pawsum awnties sent us money to buy a new one and it arrived this week. Mommy got it all set up and placed on da vanity beside da bed where Lexi likes to sleep away da day. Within 24 hours da skin ripplin’ stopped and we all kuld breathe a little easier. Fank you so much awnty Anonymous, we reallly purreciate and luv our new humidifier.
But dat’s not da only material blessin’ we got this week. We also received 2 bags of da Primal freeze dried noms weez been eatin’. You all know mommy changed me’s noms recently, and she’s workin’ hard to get us to an all natural, species appropriate raw diet. Altho’ she sed ifin da freeze dried raw is where me draws da line, she can live wiff dat. She sez it ain’t purrfect, but it’s close. Course it be spensive, but as you know mommy will do whatever it takes to keep us healthy, so it’s really nice to have received 2 bags. Fank you soooooo much LouLou and awnty Suzanne. And hey, ifin you like gawjus kitties, good food and breads, you need to check out hers bloggy. She posted a gweat pizza recipe da other day, and she also has a recipe book out. You know pizza be our favorite human food so weez been meowin’ at mommy to make us one. We even purromissed to share.
Ooooops Me didn’t move me’s paw fast enuff. Oh well how ’bout a paw selfie.
We woke up this meownin’ to a parkin’ lot full of emergency vehicles and da ambulance. They left wiff an empty stretcher so all must be well. Mommy sez we are very blest dat none of those peeps was here fur us. And we have sum sunshine today and a little warmer temps out so me’s hopin’ to talk mommy into a stroll later on. In da meantime, weez joinin’ da Kitties Blue fur da Sunday Selfie blog hop; and altho’ weez a day late, weez joinin’ Athena fur da Caturday Art blog hop too. Fank you all fur your purrayers fur sis Lexi, keep ‘em comin’ ifin ya’ don’t mind. And weez’ll be by as soon as we can to visit ya’.
Well as you can see by da title weez takin’ da Pet Blogger Challenge hosted by Go Pet Friendly. We had a lot of reflectin’ to do afur this post, so dat’s why weez getting’ in on da last day. While readin’ fru da questions we thought this was a gweat tool fur all bloggers to ask themselves maybe even a kupple times a year. You know it’s easy to get off track sumtimes and wiff life getting’ in da way, it’s hard to refocus on your own. So we plan to keep these questions close by and refer to them often to see whether or not weez meetin’ our goals. Now, let’s get on wiff da challenge.
1. How long have you been bloggin? And fur any new readers tell a little about your blog.
Our furst posty was February 18, 2014. Yep we’ll be celebratin’ our 2nd blogoversary soon. Meez blog was a happy accident. Sis Lexi and me are da latest of mommy’s Service Cats and boff of us are bottle raised rescues who have a story to tell. We learned real quick tho’ dat our daily services kuld get boring fur our readers as we purrform da same tasks everyday. So our blog is a lot of our everyday activities, mixed wiff reviews and everything dat goes along with havin’ cats in your life. There’s health, diet, fun, adventure and so much more covered in our blog posts.
2. What is the one thing accomplished in 2015, either on your blog or because of it, that made you most proud.
This one be really hard cuz we think da blog has been one of da bestest things dat has happened to us. Because of da bloggy we got to go to BlogPaws in Nashville. And sissy was so sick at da time, it was da kick in da furry behind she needed to bounce back. Me thinks da one thing we are most purroud of is havin’ all of you as readers, visitors and furiends. Ifin not fur da blog we wuldn’t have you. And in 2015 we added more of you to our family. Fur dat we will ever be grateful.
3. Which of your blog posts was your favorite and why? (include a link)
Well we wrote several educational posts this past year and are very purroud of all of them. Me thinks da ones we did ‘bout Sterile Cystitis are probably da ones we be most purroud of. We shined a light on a very serious illness in cats dat often go unnoticed, undiagnosed, and often cause da most twubble fur cats and their owners. You can read those here.
4. What is the one thing you’ve done in the past year that has brought more traffic to your blog?
Well the only thing we can see that brings people to our blog is commenting on others. We do have a lot of readers dat come from Facebook, but many don’t leave comments. We wish they wuld, cuz we so luv inneractin’ wiff our furiends.
5. Which of your blog posts got the most traffic this year? why do you think it was so popular?
Well our most pawpular post last year was sis Lexi and mommy tellin’ ‘bout her VET visit to find out what was wrong wiff her. This post revealed dat sis lexi had CKD/CRF and you can read it by clickin’ da link below. Now sum of ya’ have trubble readin’ da cat speak, but the post has mommy splainin’ in human speak what was done. As fur why it was our most pawpular posty? Well we like to fink it’s cuz so many luv us and care ‘bout what be happenin’ wiff us.
6. What is one blog you read religiously – other than your own – and what makes it such a good read?
Mee-Ow this is another hard question. We follow so many blogs and read a lot we don’t always comment on. And truth be told we try to read them all everyday whether we comment or not. Weez just not sure we kuld pick just one. We read sum fur fun and a daily laff like Easy’s blog. And sum fur adoptable kitties like Animal Shelter Volunteer Life and Brian’s Home; which we also read to keep up wiff all of them. And then…you see? We kuld go on and on, cuz every blog we follow is a gweat read or we wuldn’t be followin’ ‘em. We luv all our furiends regardless of where they are or what social media platfurm they use. We try to keep up wiff all of ya’.
7. What resources do you rely on to enhance your technical, writing, photography, social media or other skills that improve your blog?
Well we use da innernet of course. Google, Yahoo, Bing and several other search engines have become our bestest furiends since getting a catputer. But mommy also has a lot of books on carin’ fur cats dat she refurs to offen. And mommy was a VET tech, animal twainer and rescue volunteer fur many years, so she also draws on past sperience. Mommy is a bottomless pit when it comes to learnin’ and she tries to learn sumfin’ new everyday. As fur da fotography pawrt, well she’s tryin’. MOL
8. What is the best piece of advice you can give to other bloggers?
“Be True to Yourself!!! You can’t please everybody all the time.”
Dat’s purrobably da bestest advice we can give to anypawdy, blogger or not. As long as you’re bein’ true to who you are, you can’t really go wrong. And member, you can’t purrlease everypawdy all da time. We have used cat speak from da beginnin’, and have had an occasional complaint about it. So we have tried to make our writing and cat speak a bit easier to read, but we also have to stay true to who we started out as…cats in social media. And when we started duin’ reviews we determined to only share items we use or have tried ourselves. And no matter da outcome, we wuld always tell da truth. Your trust is very purrtant to us and we don’t want to lead you astray.
9. What is your vision for your blog in 2016? Do you have specific goals?
Well of course we wanna grow bigger this year. And we hope to post more adoptable kitties. We hope to get into a posting pattern so dat our readers will know when to expect a post from us. We also hope to educate more this year. Two years in and we really haven’t yet found our rhythm. Mommy is movin’ us closer and closer to a raw diet and we hope to share more ‘bout da advantages and disadvantages to raw feedin’. And of course we hope to continue to bring you lots of fun and adventure. And we so wanna go to BlogPaws again this year. We branched out and created a Zazzle store (which you can see by clickin’ da link under da foto below or in our sidebar) in the hopes of makin’ enuff money to pay our way. Weez learned dat might not actually happen as we don’t make a lot of money from da sales, but we can hope. And we hope to get our furst book written and published this year.
10. You have the attention of the Pet Blogging Community – is there one blogging challenge you would like help with or one aspect of your blog that you’d like input on?
We wuld purrobably say we need help wiff time management and growth. And we need to figger out what makes peeps share posts; specially when we share adoptable kitties. Da more they get shared da more likely it is they get adopted.
We think this challenge is a bit difficult and certainly makes one think. But retrospect is a good thing sometimes and like we sed, weez gunna be keepin’ these questions round fur a while to revisit offen. We hope we can learn from da past and move furward to a brighter and more fruitful year. Da one thing we are most happy ‘bout and purroud of is all of you. Thank you fur bein’ our furiends and visitin’ wiff us. Thanks fur your purrayers and kind words and fur just bein’ you.
Well meez been retrospective enuff fur one day so meez gotta go and play wiff sum nip toys and lighten up. It’s stormin’ out yet again, and playin’ takes meez mind off of it. MOL
Yez Dezi, I hearz it. I know mommyz really glad dat youz not hidin’ out unner da bed cuz of it. Altho’ da livin’ room floor kinda lookz like storm Dezi hit in here yesfurday what wiff all da boxez and wrappin’ paperz and scattered toyz. MOL
Dat storm sounds really scary.
Well me has to tell ya’, me gave dat a lot of thought and unner da bed sounded purretty good; but me wanted to be wiff mommy and play wiff all da pawsum things we got fur Christmas from our furiends. And since you wasn’t up to openin’ da purresents me had to do it all meez self. Mommy will clean up da mess. Dat’s what mommys do, right?
We shur did get a lot of gret toys and treatz didn’t we Dezi. I know I wazn’t in much of a Christmas mood on Christmas day, but I shur do purreshayte all da scoutz dat included giftz fur me. And da great stockin’ we got from awnty Sylvie, Cleo, Mika and Patteron waz full of toyz. And da great nomz awnty Jennifer sent us shur are tazty. Thank yawl so much.
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Sure ‘nuff Lexi. We are so blest. We wanna say a meowsy big Thank you to scout Cat, her brofur Nugget and awnty Lisa, scouts Gracie and Anya and their mommy, scouts Timmy and Einstein and their furmily, scout Sammy Pilch, awnty Ellen and their furmily, scouts Dora and Tiger and their fursibs Trouble and Spooky and their furmily, scouts Charles and Foxy and their furmily, and even mr. W who brought us a little gift bag with a mousey and can of noms each.
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Yep sissyfur they are awl such pawsum furiendz. And maybe mommy iz getting’ fru to mr. W after awl. He got hiz kitty Buddy sum great Christmas giftz too.
Girls I would like to thank your friends too. A lot of them included gifts and/or gift cards for me in their packages. Yes I had the leaky eyes, but they were tears of joy and humility. To see my girls have so much fun enjoying their new toys makes my heart swell with happiness. We appreciate all of you and are so grateful for your friendship and love. And I’m so thankful to have had another amazing year with you girls. I pray we have many, many more.
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Yep mommy we are so thankful to all those who stop by fur a visit and read our blog, facebook posts, tweets, instagram posts and comment, share and like. And we are thankful fur all those who have shared their love, furiendship, money, and purrayers with us. We wouldn’t be here without all of you. So from da bottom of our hearts we thank you. Me has to go now so we can schedule this posty afur da storm knocks us off da catputer. And me wants to play wiff meez new toys. Weez ‘spectin’ da white stuff and more rain and sleet, so we’ll be by to visit as we can.
All dat playin’ has really got me tired. Maybe a little nap’s in order.
Are you plannin’ sumfin’ big fur New Years? Do you make New Years resolutions?
Welkum Sunday, we’ve had so many blessings this week. We have received so many beautiful Christmas cards thru da mail and e-mail. Mommy’s twyin’ to help me make a purretty with them so we can post ‘em all on Christmas Eve. Each one came with da most wunnerful wishes fur da holiday season and da New Year. Weez a little behind ad haven’t got all our Christmas wishes out yet, but will be wrappin’ dat up this week.
Now You all member me tellin’ ya’ ‘bout dat hot rod scratcher mommy finagled fur me? She went back over da email to see what was said and altho’ me can’t use it in da derby at Cat Scouts, me will be postin’ it there purr our purromise to receive it. But meez also gunna be showin’ it to you all today. Mommy finally took off da wrapper and let me have it. OMC it’s sooooo cool. Da racin’ stripes make me feel like a Mario Andretticat.
Check it out.
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Me also wants to send out a meowsy big Thank you to awnty and cousins Anonymous who sent us a gift card. Mommy’s gunna be getting’ a paw purrint kit to make paw purrints of sis Lexi and me. She’s so ‘cited ‘bout bein’ able to do dat. Me also wants to Thank awnty Sylvie, Cleo, Mika and Patteron. They sent us a little package dat mommy sez is fur Christmas, so we can’t see it or have it yet. And a meowsy big Thank you to awnty Belinda fur donatin’ to sis Lexi’s care fund. Weez both doin’ good right now. We be eatin’ well and playin’ and workin’ and luvvin’ mommy, each other and life and all of you. You can donate directly thru PayPal (our account: lexi.dezi@yahoo.com), or thru da fundraiser here. Monies donated thru da fundraiser or PayPal are used for sis Lexi’s care and then meez care unless da giver notes it fur sumfin’ else.
We wanna thank you all fur readin’ our blog, followin’ us on social media, sharin’ our posts and fotos, and bein’ a part of our lives. We are so blest to have you all and to share in your lives as well. We hope this holiday season is joyous and peaceful and full of luv fur each of you. As you go ‘bout da purrepurrations and hustle and bustle take a moment to remember da reason fur da season and give thanks fur all da blessings in your life.
Service Cats U.S. 