Grateful for Genghis Khat-Day 2

I fully recognize that if you’re looking for unconditional love, adopting a cat is generally not the wisest of strategies. But I got lucky. Genghis adopted me, and he clearly knew what he was doing.

11 years ago, we were renting an apartment and I had an itty bitty garden. You can kinda see it in the pic. After countless hours of work, I got about 2 peppers and 4 tomatoes out of it, but I did meet my darling. He would come and watch me dig and plant, and when I got lucky I was permitted the honor of petting him. He was so skittish way back then that if I was petting him with my left hand and then decided to get all wild and crazy and used the right, he’d get scared and run away. Despite his scaredy-cat nature, he had no problem commandeering our patio, so we called him the Emperor. That morphed into Genghis Khat.

I won’t lie. His name is totally appropriate, because he’s an Imperial bully and rather insistent on having his way. But for me, he couldn’t possibly be more perfect. I’ve never owned a cat before, or should I say, I’ve never been owned by a cat. So I’m pretty new at this. But it was love at first sight, and I love being his human. Although it’s entirely possible that if he finds out that I’ve shared such an undignified pic of him, I may become his former human. So sssh! don’t tell.

From everything I understand, he can be very un-cat in many ways—generally he comes when I call, even if I’m not holding salmon. I mean, he’ll even leave a heated floor mat to come snuggle me because I’ve asked nicely. Pretty much any time of day or night, he’d love a good snuggle, as long as he’s made sure he’s perfectly comfortable. He’s also extremely affectionate, and LOVES hugs. Although it’s taken him a few years, he’s often my meditation buddy and will sit still with me, unless birds or squirrels come up on the porch.

One of his entertaining habits is that he loves hanging out with his humans, but doesn’t want own up to it, so he’ll follow me from room to room, and then ignore me when he gets there. It’s kinda like when a 5 year old thinks they’re outsmarting you, and it’s quite endearing.

Being with Genghis fills me with a tremendous amount of gratitude. Cats only visit with us for such a short period of time, and G is already 14. He was pretty sick last year, and it was a rude awakening to me to realize he’s not always going to be here. I’m often aware of treasuring the time we spend together, because I can’t imagine not having him by my side.

I bet many of you also have furry, feathery, scaled or finned creatures you’re grateful for, too!

More on the December Sanity Retreat & Contests

The holidays can be a beautiful time of family bonding, celebration and beauty. They can also be an overdoing, overspending, overstressing time of all flavors of excess. For the last 3 years, I’ve been delighted to host the December Sanity Retreat and the July Self-Care Retreat. This is our 6^th retreat! I wish I could say it was all about altruism, but honestly, it’s been wonderful for me to have an extra excuse to focus on self-care and rein in my natural tendency to need to bake (at least) 18 kinds of cookies.

I know how powerful it is for me to focus on self-care, and I imagine it’s similar for most of you, so as a gentle extra nudge, we’re doing 2 giveaways.

Giveaway #1: Let us hear your voice!

Prize: a $50 nuts.com gift certificate) they are not sponsoring, I just wanted something with healthy gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, etc. options (US/Canada)

Comment on any of our hostesses’ posts on the Sanity Retreat, like this one. Leave me a comment on how you cultivate gratitude in your life, OR what you’re most grateful for on this week’s post HERE

Giveaway #2: make the challenge your own!

Blog on your own self-care plans, and a post will be chosen at random as the winner. If you don’t have a blog, contact the hostess of the week and they’ll post for you.

Prize: um, ironing out details–either a gift certificate or a box of self-care books, meditation CDs, chocolate and other fun things from me.

As always, self-care is whatever it means to you. So the December Sanity Challenge can be on whatever YOU need to work on to stay sane during the holiday season

Balance around food * Joyful movement * Sanity & stress management * Making space for art, expression, and spirituality * Connection with friends and family

Or whatever else speaks to you along those lines.

The challenge—post on what you plan to do to make your holidays sane, happy and healthy.  Make it specific!  Not just “I’ll get more sleep”, but “I’ll get at least 7 hours of sleep, 5 days a week”.  Not just “I won’t go crazy making desserts”, but “I’ll make a maximum of XX desserts, and space them out over XX time”.  You know what you need to do to keep this doable, and writing it down will help you get there!

I’m delighted to be joined by wonderful hostesses with likeminded blogs:

• Kickoff: Gluten Free Goodness (moi)
• Dec 7th Kate of Eat, Recycle, Repeat
• Dec 14th Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl
• Dec 21^st  Valerie of City Life Eats
• Roundup: Gluten Free Goodness (moi)

I hope you choose to join us, too.  Grab a badge and we’re good to go!

We’ll also be meeting up in our Facebook group for extra encouragement and support. You’re more than welcome to join us there.

Posts so far:

• Valerie’s Kickoff post
• Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl’s Seeking Joy
• Eat Recycle Repeat’s Joy to the World

My 30 days of gratitude:

• Day 1: Gratitude
• Day 2: Grateful for Genghis Khat
• Day 3: Grateful for amazing people
• Day 4: The roundabout road to gratitude
• Day 5: Grateful for beautiful weather
• Day 6: Grateful for New Experiences
• Day 7: Grateful for Local Apples
• Day 8: Grateful for Acts of Kindness