Butterball has moved in with us now. He's the Muckheads' cat but he's also Kaboodle's son. Kaboodle didn't seem all that pleased to have her son back. She likes to hiss at him and swat. Poor Butterball is just trying to be friendly. He and Dusky seem to not have such issues although Dusky hasn't taken him for a bosom buddy just yet. Most the time Dusky ignores him. The biggest change in Butterball's life has been his introduction to the cat enclosure. He's been strictly an indoor cat so he wasn't too keen on the outside digs. They put him out there the first day or two but he was more fearful than happy so they brought him back in. He didn't want anything to do with the ramp leading up to the window in the basement where the cats go in and out. Except for the burnt orange coloring and the shapes of it being in some different spots, Butterball is very similar to Dusky.

Now two weeks later, Amy took Butterball out through the main door and sat inside the enclosure while her cat explored the confines. She let him stay in for some time and then brought him back inside the house through the regular door again. Later that night, all of us were outside having a wood fire in the fire pit and Todd decided to help Butterball learn how to get out to the enclosure through the ramp in the basement. Todd pushed the cat's head a bit through the cat flap and Butterball went on out. Later, when we decided to go to bed, Butterball figured out on his own how to get back in the house through the cat flap. And now, guess who's out in the enclosure like it was nobody's business all day and night? Yep, you guessed it.

Probably at best, all I can give now are impressions of how it's all been going since I was too tired and too overwhelmed with all the changes to write about them while they were happening. It feels all strange and yet all comfortable at once about them being here. I knew that I could use a boost in the organizing department. Meal planning is a joint effort now instead of all up to me. Bill doesn't have any concern about what he wants to eat from one day to the next. Long as he gets something before bedtime, he's happy. The Muckheads taste buds aren't very different from ours so integrating the meals hasn't been a problem. With Amy being pregnant, though, things are turning her stomach more than they used to. She can't take the smell of eggs right now and other certain foods while they are being cooked. But she's been doing really well.

The biggest change for me has been hearing the dishwasher going twice as much. Man, they love to do dishes but Bill has been loving it. More often not, they would rather do the dishes instead of letting me to do them. They rinse them off more thoroughly than I do. Hey, I figure that's what a dishwasher is for. I do have to admit, though, that if you don't get the gunk off it does leave residue on the glasses. Also, I have to be aware to take more sanitary measures since Amy is susceptible to food germs.

The only major disruption, after the main disruption of them moving in, came about because Bill had to move his computer into our bedroom after the first week hoping to cut down on his reaction to Butterball, the new cat, dander. After one morning of not having my hubby here in the computer room with me while doing computer work, I bailed and started thinking about moving in the bedroom with him. I was missing him. I went into the bedroom where he was and gave him a cow-eyed look and told him that it wasn't working having him in the bedroom. He rather gave me one of those looks back and admitted he was missing me, too. Wah.

So, the team regrouped and talked over the options. We decided to go with the original plan I had come up with before they moved in. That their bedroom would be the back bedroom where our computers had been and that the computers would all be in the middle bedroom. Originally, I hadn't wanted to give up the back bedroom because there are two windows in that room and a nice view of the backyard with all the trees, flowers, and birds in it. But, I reconsidered that priority after finding out that Todd and Amy's noises in the middle bedroom were rather distracting when Bill and I were trying to fall asleep. So, moving the computers to the middle room was the better choice. And the biggest priority had become to produce a buffer zone between us. Secondly, even though the middle room was smaller there would be more wall space to shove computers up against because there was only one window in there. The Muckheads would get a bit bigger room in the back room which they really needed.

So, poor Todd had to dismantle and remantle his bed frame once again. And all our computers had to be unplugged, moved, and replugged. The process took a couple of days because Todd also was busy getting registered for classes for the upcoming quarter and Bill had to go to work. But things are once more settled down except for the problem with Todd's server having trouble supporting my webpage. It's been one thing after another with that so it's been down half the time over the past week. I have faith in him in being able to solve the problems but I hate to see him have to keep being bugged with it.

Integrating two kitchens has been the most tedious part. That has overwhelmed me for the past several days and the poor kitchen sure showed signs of it. Amy and Todd went to visit his folks over the weekend and to attend a birthday party for his grandmother. Amy came back sick. She has a low immune system so she's susceptible to everything. And being pregnant makes her system even more susceptible. So, she hadn't been able to help me figure out where to put the rest of the stuff. She gave it a good start before they went away for the weekend.

Actually, all the rest of the stuff has been worked out pretty well. The house feels fuller, for sure, and it was nice for Bill and me to have the house to ourselves for the weekend again. We had a fairly comfortable routine going and it was nice to slip back into it for two days. But when they are here I don't feel like my life has been turned upside down too terribly much. There's just more bodies to contend with and other likes and dislikes to consider.