The weekend, coffee, and cats

The mornings are getting lighter and the evenings are getting longer. Ahhh, spring. Our yard has lots of birds and I enjoy hearing them in the morning. It's natural music and I love it. Wildflowers abound in the yard.

My morning has been filled with RefNet's music and a Sproul sermon. I also listened to Ligon Duncan's FANTASTIC T4G2018 sermon called The Whole in Our Holiness

Stop what you are doing and go LISTEN to that sermon RIGHT NOW. I don't usually urge or gush, because I know different people react to sermons differently. But this is one of the top sermons ever.

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My cat is with me each morning as I sit and type or do my morning routine devotional etc. He has coronavirus.

FIP generally follows infection of a feline coronavirus, which typically does not cause any outward symptoms. It is assumed that there are some types of coronaviruses that mutate into the feline infectious peritonitis, either on their own or as the result of a defect in the cat's immune response. Also complicating the matter is that a coronavirus can lie dormant in a cat's body over months before mutating into FIP. The FIP virus then infects the white blood cells, using them as transportation to invade the entire body. Source

So a cat can live for a long time with coronavirus but then for unknown reasons something triggers the virus into its more deadly form, Feline Infectious Peritonitis. (FIP).

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a viral disease in cats which carries a high mortality due to its characteristic aggressiveness and nonresponsiveness to fever, along with other complications. This disease is comparatively high in multi-cat households as compared to those with a single cat. It is difficult to diagnose, control, and prevent...Source

All three of my cats have (had) coronavirus. Luke declined rapidly after the coronavirus triggered into FIP, and died fairly quickly after getting the disease (which was caused by my adoption of the stray, Murray, who unknown to me, had it). I've been noticing that Murray's coat is a bit rough and dull and he has been quiet lately. I am hoping it's my eyes playing tricks, or it's the change of season or something, and that he also is not declining yet. I know eventually they both will, Bert has it too, but not now. Not yet, please.

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I am definitely a woman of contrasts. Found these at Kroger on the marked down shelf. I could resist neither of them.

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Ahhh, slow Saturday mornings. Breakfast of cheesy grits, veggie hash with a fried egg on top. Yum! And coffee.

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Speaking of coffee, I found this at the Dollar store. I looked at the price and then looked again, it had to be a mistake. Nope. It was $1 for 7 ounces. The price per ounce was less than half of the next highest item, one I had been buying for years. (The Dollar General restaurant sized generic coffee). If I remember, it was 7 cents per ounce. Coffee that cheap can't be good, right? I bought one bag to try it.

It was good. Looking up Mountain High Coffee, it seems that the coffee is gown and processed in VietNam and then shipped to port Savannah for distribution to DG stores. Um, OK, well, it tastes good and I'm thrilled to find something at DG that's both inexpensive and actually tastes decent!!

PS, I went back and bought 4 more pouches.

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Speaking of buying things, The Special Store was having a 50-75% off sale last weekend. I saw on the photos they posted that they were selling a floating shelf bookcase. In inspecting the real thing, I saw that it was clean, new-ish, and heavy duty industrial (which I like)., There were three there, two black that were taller and this one that was gray and shorter.

In a 'use what you have' moment, a few months ago I had brought inside my wrought iron plant stand and had been using that as a bookcase. But now that spring is here I really wanted to bring that back outside as I am anxious to spruce up my patio area. I want to put come small cacti on the plant sand and the painted birdhouse I'd gotten a few weeks ago. This floating shelf book case was only $20 and I thought that was a deal. When I got home I swapped out the plant stand for my new book case.

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Speaking of using what you have, I had taken down a hanging quilt I'd had up for ten years in order to put a painting there instead. Yes change happens slowly in Casa Prata. What to do with the lovely hanging bar so it doesn't get lost or I forget about it? Oh, use it to solve another problem. I'd somehow accumulated a lot of bracelets. This is what I did with the bar:

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I plan to stay quiet today. Next week will be a bit busy as we begin a mandated statewide grade level test for 3-8th graders. I am proctoring. Today I will stay in, nap, read, and write some more. Lucky me, this is exactly what I love to do. About only 30 more days of school with the kids, so soon enough I'll have the summer off to do this every day, not just Saturdays. Have a good weekend everyone!