It Works for Me

Have you ever noticed that we all have our own ways of making things work for us?  It’s one of those little things that comes to my attention periodically and reminds me that solutions are often unique to the individual and situation.

As a cat lover, I belong to several Facebook groups focused on snuggly felines, and as I commented on one post this afternoon, it dawned on me that others might do this as well.  (It also dawned on me that it was Thursday, and I hadn’t yet written today’s blog!)

As a “frequent mover”, I’ve developed methods for this which work in my world.  One key consideration in this is absolutely my cats (I’ll cover some others in an upcoming post now that I’ve triggered my memory on this).  Cats, as a rule, don’t like change.  In fact, they like it even less than humans do – and you’ve probably noticed that most humans cope with this poorly.  Cats are worse.  Trust me on this. 

Cats also have a nasty habit of hiding in times of stress.  Such as, you know, moving.  Hidden cats when you’re moving furniture or boxes are a bad thing.  They run out through open doors, get trampled on, trip people etc.  Nothing good comes of this.  Worse still is the “I think we’re done getting things out of here” moment when you realize you don’t know where a cat has gotten to.  Are they in? Are they out? 

Given that I like to avoid these worries, I of course came up with a solution targeting what I considered the key areas:  feline safety, feline stress, and human stress.  (Yes, that’s the order in which I view them.  Really.)   At the source location of the move, I designate a “cat room”.  This room is completely emptied before the friends-who-carry-stuff enter the home.  Usually the day before.  Cat carriers are placed in this room, along with a litter box or two, food and water, a few cat toys, and a comfy chair or cushion. Prior to the move’s start, all cats are placed into the cat room, where they’re joined by a comfort human – typically someone they know who isn’t a great help at carrying stuff.  They stay in this room throughout the move. 

Once the source location is empty, cats and comfort human are then migrated to the destination, and an already-designated cat room there.  Again, they’re placed inside the room with the same necessities before the move-in starts, and remain there until moving is complete and all outside-access doors are firmly shut.  The door is then opened and cats emerge in their own time.  Sometimes, that’s a day or two.

Is it a perfect solution?  Well, no.  It’s a little inconvenient to avoid moving anything in or out of the cat rooms as this is contrary to my “put it in its destination room now” philosophy of moving.  I do, though, choose cat rooms with this in mind, so the items to be moved in or out are typically not onerous.  It’s also a solution I consider pretty worthwhile as it eliminates all of those fears, like missing or crushed cats, or injured humans.  (yeah, that order again …)  It works for me.

Do you have solutions which are unique to you, but that work?  Or is there an area where a solution is needed but you haven’t come up with one?  Today’s lesson is the one I apply above – work backwards. Look at what you want to achieve, and then see what you can do to get there.  Perhaps your solution will seem strange to others (and perhaps mine does!), but if it works for you, that’s the main thing.