Suzy's Sunday Selfies

Today's Sunday Selfie post is in honour of Suzy - Mum's beautiful black and white kitty that she had during her younger years. From the age of 19 to 32, Mum shared her life with sweet Suzy, the family cat. 

Suzy crossed the Rainbow Bridge on 29th June 1998. 

Lots of hugs and purrs to Mum as she remembers this adorable tuxie lady 💚💜xx

Rest In Peace, Suzy (1985-1998)

We are joining The Cat On My Head for Sunday Selfies.

Suzy #CaturdayArt

Today's Caturday Art is dedicated to Mum's other soulmate cat, Suzy. 

Sweet Suzy left for the Rainbow Bridge on the 29th June 1998.

  .

She was a cute kitty, for sure. 

Chromatic effect 

I love her white belly and white socks

Chromatic effect

Mum says she will never forget her and that she lives in her heart forever.

Tintype version of Mum and Suzy

Forever

Tiny baby Suzy in Mum's loving hands

Arty version of Suzy being adorable and silly on the sofa

Cuddles from Mum

Remembering Suzy Sunday Selfies

Today we are remembering Mum's cat Suzy, who sadly crossed the Rainbow Bridge on 29th June 1998 at the age of 13 years. Mum wrote about her in The Cat Years: How My Cat Soulmates Saved Me and Suzy even got to be a star in Mum's novel The Snowflake Pendant. 

Sweet Suzy was born sometime in May 1985. Mum had lost her previous kitty, Cas (another tuxedo kitty) a few months previously. She just went out and never returned. Mum and her brother John were devastated. Mum decided that she didn't want another cat because she was heartbroken. However, a few months later John was passing a pet shop and went in and spotted this adorable little black and white kitten sitting there looking lost and lonely amongst her loud and boisterous siblings. He told Mum that he'd picked her because she was different. It was meant to be!

John bought Suzy and brought her home (things were different then - Mum would never buy a cat now since there are so many homeless pets in shelters).

Suzy doing what cats do

Mum fell in love with adorable little tiny Suzy and her big round baby blue eyes. Looking back, Mum says Suzy was far too young to be sold by the greedy pet shop owner. Suzy was so little, squeaky and helpless as you can see. But she was a lucky kitty as she received so much love and care from my mum and Uncle John.

Pretty tuxie 

You can see below how small Suzy was on the picure of her sitting on Uncle John's lap.

A collage Mum made a while back

Suzy was Mum's other soulmate cat. The little black and white cutie with beautiful green eyes and tender nature helped Mum through the ups and downs of late teens and through her 20s. Uncle John was her daddy really, since he was the one who bought her. She was there for him too throughout his rather troubled life. But they had some fun times too. Suzy could be funny as you can see below. Suzy loved her family so much.

Funny Suzy

Mum loved Suzy like her baby and took the most care of her. Granny looked after her too and Suzy loved my late granddad (who I never met because he died the year before Mum adopted me).

Mum and Suzy in the mid 90s

Mum is teary-eyed as she writes this post. She misses Suzy still, but next month will be the one year anniversary of her brother John's death. He was one month short of his 52nd birthday. He was taken too soon and it's been a shock for us all as he died suddenly in his sleep from heart failure. 

My late Uncle John with Suzy in the mid 90s - together in Heaven now

The Sunday Selfies Blog Hop is hosted by The Cat On My Head

Sunday Selfie and Remembering Suzy

We hope you are having a great Sunday!

Here is my Sunday Selfie. I took it myself (OK, with a little help from Mum).

Mum is sad today because she is remembering her first furbaby, Suzy. 

The 29th June 1998 is the anniversary of when sweet Suzy crossed the Bridge. She was 13 years old and Mum was in her early 30s but she was 19 when she got Suzy as a tiny kitten. 

Suzy (1985-98)

💚

We are joining the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop sponsored by

The Cat On My Head

Athena Cat Goddess is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Autumn Art and We Love Memoirs Day #caturdayart

Happy Caturday!

Well, it's cooler than last week but still quite warm. Hard to believe that it's autumn tomorrow. 

From now on you will see a lot more autumn-themed art because it's Mum's favourite season. 

Here are some autumn tones for you today. Both were created with LunaPic. We are not sponsored for mentioning this great editor, we just like to use it quite regularly for our blog art and so we wanted to share.


This is the Geometric and Landscape art filters together but Mum toned them down a bit to create her own artwork.

This one is the Geometric art filter on its own.

Before we go, we heard it's We Love Memoirs Day.

Mum enjoys reading memoirs. She's also written one herself as regular readers of this blog may already know. It's not a new book as it was written some few years back. It's no best-seller but we thought we'd give it a mention. It's called The Cat Years: How My Cat Soulmates Saved Me  No need to tell you what that's about, hey?

Mum has always been a sensitive soul and not very good with humans. She hasn't had much luck in human relationships and she's had a lot of depression and anxiety throughout her life. But her cats have always helped her cope and she truly believes we are her soulmates. It was published in 2013 and there is so much more to tell that she may well write another memoir one day. 

She's gone right off writing though so it might not be for some years yet. 

Do your humans like to read memoirs? If so, what are their favs? They don't have to be animal-related, although they are usually the best!

Caturday Art Blog Hop

Pet photo art using filters.

Cat art (not on the actual cat).

Animal art (not on the actual animal).

Your own drawings or paintings of animals.

Just keep it safe, clean and respectable!

Purrs and peace to you all 😻

Amazon Associates Disclosure Athena Cat Goddess is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Happy International Cat Day!

Happy International Cat Day!

It's always cat day for us but it's great to have a day like today to celebrate cats and for the world to be reminded of our awesomeness 😻

As it's also Throwback Thursday we are sharing this photo from late 2013 and if it looks familiar it's because we've posted it before and Mum also used it for the paperback cover of The Cat Years: How My Cat Soulmates Saved Me.

Right, book plug over now let's help some cats - the real purrfect way to honour International Cat Day, is it not? 

Adopt a Cat

Sad to see that these two wonderful chaps are still at Wood Green, The Animals Charity (where I was adopted from).

We've featured them before on this blog and we can't understand why they have not yet met their forever human.

So we are sharing them again. They deserve it on this special day!

Keano (Photo: Wood Green)

Ozzy (Photo: Wood Green)

To find out more about Keano please click here

To find out more about Ozzy please click here

Help Save The Scottish Wildcat

Did you know that today is also Scottish Wildcat Day?

 

photo credit: Peter G Trimming 'Kendra' (3) via photopin 

The elusive Scottish Wildcat is a descendent of the European Wildcat that colonized Britain around 9,000 years ago and due to deforestation and the loss of habitat in Britain, there are only a few of them now left in Scotland. It's heartbreaking to know that these beautiful wildcats are on the brink of extinction.

Save the Scottish wildcat by protecting Clashindarroch Forest

Please sign this petition urgently calling on the Scottish Government to immediately halt the logging and exploitation of Clashindarroch Forest to ensure the iconic Scottish wildcat survives.

The Scottish Wildcat is one of the rarest animals in the world; there are only 35 of them left on earth. A third of them live in the publicly owned Clashindarroch Forest in the Scottish Highlands, but they are in danger from logging by the Scottish Government’s Forestry Commission Scotland. If this doesn’t stop immediately, the wildcat will become extinct"

https://www.change.org/p/scottish-government-save-the-scottish-wildcat-by-protecting-clashindarroch-forest?


Links 
https://www.wildcathaven.com/scottish-wildcat/

http://www.scottishwildcataction.org/about-wildcats/



Athena Cat Goddess is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Dry January Sunday Selfie

Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Dry January?

Does it have anything to do with the weather I hear you say?

Not quite, as January is the middle of winter so you can bet your life it will be wet and windy most days. And what a wet and windy week we've had so far with Storm Eleanor truly battering many parts of the UK and Europe.

However, that's not what Dry January is about. Perhaps this selfie will give you a clue if you don't already have an inkling...

Yes, that's right. Dry January is that abstaining from alcohol thingy that humans do after the crazy overindulgences of Christmas.

So, that's why today I'm handing you over to Mum for this special post about her participation in Dry January 2018. I support my mum in everything she does and I am fully behind her wanting to give up the booze for a month, Hope she gives it up for good, but we shall see. One small step and all that...

Mum: You make me sound like an alcoholic, Athena. But yes, I am totally into taking part this year and I am pleased to say that today is my 6th day sober!

Me: Well done, Mum! Keep going 💚💖

Mum: OK, here is a deeply honest post about my own relationship with alcohol. Sorry if it is a bit long and too deep for a cat blog. But I think it's important to share in order to help others going through similar issues.

Thanks in advance for reading. If you don't want to read, that's OK. Just enjoy Athena's selfie 💖💜

Oh, and you can laugh at this selfie of me with Athena, which is from a few years back.

Morning after selfie from a few years back

WHAT IS DRY JANUARY?

Dry January is an annual campaign that sees millions of people signing up to abstain from alcohol throughout the whole of January.

WHY AM I PARTICIPATING IN DRY JANUARY?

If you've read my memoir The Cat Years: How My Cat Soulmates Saved Me you will know I once had a big problem with alcohol. I wasn't a drunk in the gutter drunk but if I had not stopped then who knows where I would have ended up?

For me, it's the reliance I have always had with it that kept me trapped in the negative thinking that alcohol was a friend that could help me get through anything in life. An introvert by nature and always socially anxious, drinking helped me come out of my shy Cancerian shell a bit.

Also prone to depression since my teens, I wrongly thought alcohol would make me happier, so every time I got depressed I felt that the only way to get through it was to drink. I did this for about 5 years - drinking every day and partying hard at the weekend (yeah me, the shy girl that has always been happier in my own little world).

In the end, it was my dear beloved cat Suzy dying in 1998 that changed all that. I don't know what happened but I truly believe she helped me from the other side because for some reason I didn't want to drink anymore. I wanted to get better and sober. I was too young to let the poison that is alcohol destroy my life.

But I soon began to miss having a drink to relax after a stressful day and thought I'd only drink in moderation. And it worked. For a while. I still can't believe how I managed to keep my drinking to a minimum through some traumatic times - like my dad's liver transplant and my brother's major ear operation that lasted 10 hours and which left him deaf in one ear. More depression followed, along with anxiety, panic attacks and through all that I was studying hard for a degree in Literature. I got through all that drinking normally.

After my dad passed away from liver cancer in 2010,  I swore I would never drink again and focused on my dream of becoming a published author. When that didn't happen I decided to self-publish.

But slowly, slowly, the drinking crept up on me again. By the time I self-published my books the market had become over-saturated - everyone suddenly wrote and published books and it did not matter that I spent over a decade researching and writing my precious vampire trilogy or my semi-autobiographical novel. No one cared. And why should they with so many books and authors to choose from?

My failed writing career (I had dreamed of being a writer since like forever) exacerbated my reliance on alcohol. I drank to reduce the anxiety and to help me forget the pain of being a failure in almost everything I have ever done. Yes, I know there are worse problems, but it had been my dream for so long and I was unemployed (or depression had made me unemployable) that I wanted to make a living doing something I loved.

This time around I only drank wine. White mostly - my favourite being Chardonnay. Throughout the heavier drinking days of my youth, I used to down vodka, brandy (often starting the day with brandy in my coffee), whiskey (the thought of it now makes me want to puke), Southern Comfort (yuck) and even beer (which I absolutely hate).

I do have quite an addictive personality. It runs in my family. My dad was a gambling addict and yes, he later became an alcoholic, got cirrhosis of the liver and so he needed a liver transplant. Seeing him suffer should have been enough to put me off drinking for life.

Alcohol is an addictive drug. Some can handle it and drink in moderation. But I know I can't. I just can't stop at two drinks anymore. Once it enters my system I just want more and more. I have noticed that. And if I don't stop now I will return to my old ways. Now is the time to STOP.

THE BENEFITS OF DOING DRY JANUARY

So now I've been sober for 6 days and I already feel better. I feel lighter, have more energy, and am not stressing out so much even though I am still worried about the same problems that made me drink in the first place. I do have a lot of problems. But drinking doesn't help. It's better to face those problems head-on - and SOBER!

WHAT I'VE BEEN DRINKING INSTEAD

Apart from drinking 3 cups of coffee a day and taking Athena's advice to drink lots of water, this is what I am also drinking to keep me going.

I am a chocoholic and so I love this chocolate Oatly Healthy Oat Drink  both cold from the fridge, and when it's freezing outside, I like to pop it in the microwave and heat it up in my Crazy Cat Lady Latte Mug to make a lovely hot chocolate drink.

DAIRY FREE!

To sleep at night I enjoy a cup of  Clipper - Snore & Peace and I occasionally have a cup during the day too so I can take time out to nap with Athena.

And as always, a nice cup of Twining English Breakfast Tea  

Here is my progress so far as of yesterday (6th January) using the app.

Keep track and motivated with the excellent Dry January app.

ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO QUIT DRINKING?

Here are a couple of books I can recommend which I've read lately and they've really helped me look at alcohol in a whole different way.

                                                                

AND HERE IS MY MEMOIR 

The Cat Years: How My Cat Soulmates Saved Me

(published in 2012)

As always on Sunday, we like to participate in
THE CAT ON MY HEAD's SUNDAY SELFIE BLOG HOP. 

Throwback the Music: Suzy #throwbackthursday

On this day 19 years ago Mum lost her beloved angel cat Suzy (the fur daughter before me) so we are dedicating this Throwback The Music post to her.

If you remember a few months back I had an idea for a new regular feature on this blog and came up with Throwback The Music.

Copy this badge and link-up if you want to share your Throwback the Music story.

Music always evokes memories for you humans (and for us kitties too). It becomes the soundtrack of our lives.

So seeing as it's Throwback Thursday, why not do a post about a favourite song of yours that conjures up memories from your past? Or it can be a favourite album that takes you right back. Or a list of fave songs that remind you of a certain time in your life.

Then you answer a few questions to make it easier to write up your post. Or maybe don't answer questions (which can be of your own choosing) and just write about your memories that relate to your chosen track(s).

And if you wish, how about linking to us when you post? (Actually, it would be greatly appreciated if you would!)

I've asked Mum to tell us about music which reminds her of Suzy. Not specifically music that she was listening to when Suzy crossed the bridge, but music or any songs that reminded her of her precious girl. 

She's chosen a few tracks from YouTube which you can see below.

Suzy came into Mum's life as a young kitten.  She was adorable as you can see. Apologies for the poor quality of most of these photos but they were taken back in the very olden days of the 1980s and 90s.

The year was 1985, it was summer and it was the year of Live Aid. 
Mum's favourite bands of the time were Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, and of course Wham/George Michael.

She liked a lot of other artists too but here's the end of the concert from Wembley before everyone switched over to watch the concert live from the United States.

Here is the Live Aid Finale from Wembley. So sad that some of the people we see on this stage are no longer with us too 😿

As the 80s drew to a close Mum got more interested in Rock music and began to look back to the 1960s for music inspiration. She's always loved sixties music and most of the bands from that era. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc. But she also rediscovered The Doors after watching The Doors Movie by Oliver Stone. Jim Morrison soon began to inspire her poetry and other writing.


There are so many songs that remind Mum of the years she spent with Suzy, but that would make one very long post. So to keep it short, here are two songs that sadly will always remind Mum of the days she lost her sweet little girl 💚

Even though Mum isn't really a Robbie Williams fan she does love this song a lot.





And she isn't a Celine Dion fan but this song always reminds her of the loss of Suzy and makes her cry.

💜💚💖