Can you spell "MOTIVATION"? I can and it's spelled....

CAT URINE!

That's right, folks, you read it right. CAT URINE.

Some background: An outdoor cat adopted us last summer, and has been living on our front porch.  I love this cat (we named him Russell). He is a very loving cat, but it was clear to me that he would not want to be an indoor cat. He also was not neutered, so I had thought it would be the right thing to do to get him fixed, so we would not have him contributing to the feral cat population. Turns out that the Humane Society in the county next to ours was having their annual  "Neuterthon", so for $10 ($22, if you had to include the rabies and distemper vaccines) you could have your male cat neutered. I figured, well, if Russell runs away after the trauma of having his male parts removed, I'd at least feel better knowing I only spent $22 instead of spending $70 at the vet. So I decided to take him in.

I decided to bring him in the house and keep him in the bathroom overnight, so that I wouldn't try and hunt him down in the morning to put him in his carrier. All was well and good, as he didn't howl like I thought he would. So I get up the next morning and go to the bathroom to check on him and the bathroom door is OPEN. NO RUSSELL! I then walk around the house and as I make it to the living room, a whiff of CAT URINE hits me square in the nose!!! UGH!!! Poor Russell, who is not litter trained, had managed to get out somehow and used the living room as a litter box. I really could not be mad at the poor guy. I mean, after all, he just wasn't used to all of this. I had put a temporary litter box in the bathroom, but apparently he just didn't get the idea to try and use it.

Anyway, my whole house is such a mess, that when I got back from taking him to the vet, I proceeded to tear down the living room and thouroughly clean everything so I could locate the source of the cat urine smell. Apparently he had peed on a trash bag, which I proceeded to clean up and get out the door, and also on the Christmas tree (yes, I had not taken down our run down, pathetic Christmas tree), so that went in the trash, too. I don't think I have worked so hard on cleaning something in months. So although I really wasn't wanting to deal with cat urine, at least it got me to FINALLY make some headway in getting this house organized.

And on a final note, when I picked up Russell from the vet, I fully expected him to give me the middle toe of his front paw and run away. But it didn't happen. He was a bit disoriented, but soon was back sitting on his porch railing. He let me pet him again, and came running up to the kids when I picked them up from school. He still loves us, and in a silly way, that makes me very happy. :)

Thanks for letting me share a non REI story!

P.S. Still working on the action items. The cat urine kind of got me sidetracked this week.