Last weekend, while my hubby and I were out doing some shopping for our furry friends at Petsmart, we met found something we were not expecting. Petsmart has an adoption center for cats and dogs that need a good home. He called me over to look at one particular kitten. She has a huge resemblance to our Merlin that we lost last month. So much so that I burst into tears when I saw her.

We went home, mostly so I could put myself back in order again. Then we went back to Petsmart, and half an hour later, brought home this new little bundle of joy. Since she’s so small, I’m breaking her into my photographing ways slowly. But here are some candid shots of our new kitten named Natasha.

You're reading Meet Our New Kitten Natasha by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• Getting Back On Track
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This weekend, we had to say goodbye to our kitty, Merlin. This post is a tribute to a cat who, despite his snarky personality would be the first to cuddle up on the sofa with you when you were sick. He will be greatly missed by all of his human and fellow animal companions.

More photos of Merlin on Flickr

Merlin: A Tribute

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here,
that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.

There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.

There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together.

Rainbow Bridge – Author Unknown

You're reading Merlin Crosses the Rainbow Bridge by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• Macro Photography of Merlin the Cat
• A Double Rainbow
• Meet Our New Kitten Natasha
• Dow Gardens in Midland, MI
• My Grandmother

A few weeks ago, I was tagged by Evita at Evolving Beings to do six random bits of information about myself. Since I like the way she themed hers to spiritual and personal growth, I have decided to do my six nuggets of info on my journey towards a healthier lifestyle.

For the most part of my life, I had never been concerned about a healthy lifestyle. Like many other women, I dieted if I was getting above the weight where I felt comfortable, but those were more crash diets than healthy diets. Otherwise, fast food, lots of soda, energy drinks, minimal water, little to no exercise, and anything the doctor prescribed to combat problems arising due to my lifestyle choices worked for me.

After a doctor’s visit in the June of 2007, during which I was told I may need to get on cholesterol medication for a rising cholesterol level, I had finally had enough. I came to the realization that it was not normal that I was going to my PCP every three months to have my liver tested to make sure it was still functioning properly. Not because I was a raging alcoholic, but because I was taking so many OTC and prescribed drugs. Pills to make me happy, calm my anxiety, help me sleep, relieve heartburn, digest dairy products, relax muscles, minimize the pain of migraines 3 – 4 times a month, suppress my allergies, and so on and so forth. And now they were considering adding another one onto the list, one which I have comes with many unexpected and undesirable side effects.

The most obvious, non-medicinal solution to fixing a variety of my problems was by changing my diet. Reducing the soda and eliminating the energy drinks altogether would help my insomnia and anxiety. Going vegetarian would reduce my cholesterol. And because I always fully immerse myself into new things, I decided to take it one step further and go vegan, to see if it helped with some other issues I was having which were also antagonized by diet. So, as non-veg as it sounds, I went cold turkey. The day after I decided, I started a completely vegetarian diet. And a week later, vegan. It didn’t seem to difficult, although I must admit, a year and a half later, I’m leaning towards just vegetarian. As a child, I had to be bribed into eating meat by having my vegetables withheld. This says to me that ever since birth, before I consciously knew better, my body knew that I was meant to live a vegetarian lifestyle.

Although the religious meaning to “man does not live on bread alone” has nothing to do with supplements, it certainly seems fitting. The change in diet is not a fix for everything, but certainly the step in the right direction. In addition to the vegetarian diet, I have researched the internet and alternative medicine books for supplements and natural remedies to replace OTC / Rx drugs for certain ailments. Vitamins and Emergen-C to boost immunity during the flu season, lysine for cold sores, cranberry to prevent UTI, stinging nettle for allergies, and flax seed oil with omega-3′s to aid in heart health and help with depression and anxiety. I also drink a vegan protein shake everyday.

I saw many benefits from just the diet change and supplement intake. But the best results came after I started incorporating some exercise into the picture. I don’t mind weight machines, but I was never the type to do treadmills or stair steppers in the workout room, even though I knew exercise that gets the heart rate up are beneficial in so many ways. So in addition to the yoga I was already doing, my fiancé got me into tennis and ballroom dancing. In a few weeks, we are planning to join a gym and start doing some muscle training to aide in better tennis and better shape. The combination of exercise and diet has made a huge difference in my level of energy and overall positive mood.

At my last annual checkup a week or two ago, my doctor reviewed my medication history, and was amazed that I was not on most of the daily meds, and taking less of the ones for migraines, which I now get much less frequently. My cholesterol, blood sugar levels, and other tests came out good. When I told her what I had been doing in terms of dietary and lifestyle change, she said that she wished she could bottle that formula up and have more people take that approach in terms of their health. She said that while most people know they can make natural changes to improve their health, not many are able to make the sacrifices and stick to them.

One thing I would like to note is that there is not a natural solution for everything. There are still medications I take, such as migraine medicine (Zomig) when the homeopathic cure just does not cut it, muscle relaxers (occasionally) when I tweak something while playing tennis, and antibiotics if I get a major infection. Anytime you are going to make a drastic health change, it is important to do a LOT of research and talk to your doctor – maybe even consider a second opinion if your doctor is one of those that does not take alternative medicine seriously. It takes a lot of mental preparation and motivation to make a change, and even more to maintain it.

You're reading Living a Healthy Lifestyle by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

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This Christmas break was absolutely wonderful – the best ever. I decided to take an online hiatus during the holiday season to focus on just absorbing every moment of life detached from the pc. It was a very relaxing, yet still eventful week, which included having our engagement photo session by The Pic Chick (I’ll do a photo post soon, but for a sneak peak, see a my engagement photo album on Facebook), getting surprised with the most lovely engagement ring on Christmas Eve morning, hosting a family get together, spending all of Christmas day quietly at home with the love of my life (which was the best present ever), playing a fair share of tennis, and seeing the Dancing with the Stars tour.

I plan on getting back on track with this site, my subscriptions, and all my online communities once the new year begins. In the meantime, I hope that everyone is having a great holiday season, and is looking forward to the start of a fantastic new year!

You're reading Holiday Online Hiatus by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• Living a Healthy Lifestyle
• My Grandmother
• Blog Tagging – Fun Facts
• Say It, Right Now
• Meet Our New Kitten Natasha

With the seriousness and stress of day to day life, it is an important thing to allow oneself guilty pleasures. Those things that we may not want to readily admit to everyone, but regardless, they entertain us, whether they are tv shows, movies, or some particular activity. So, in an extension of revelations in the blog tagging post, here are some of my guilty pleasures.

I love listening to the Twilight series and Harry Potter audio books. I also downloaded the soundtrack to Twilight just to hear “Bella’s Lullaby”, and inadvertently got myself addicted to another song on the soundtrack, “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse.

And for those of you who say you would rather watch the movies, I won’t argue with you. I just look at it this way. Instead of enjoying the story for only two hours and having to wait until next year for the next part, I can enjoy the audiobooks for many hours, get the full story instead of an abbreviated version, imagine my own characters, and continue on to hear the rest of the series.

I am somewhat addicted to magazines. It started with celebrity tabloids, then fashion magazines. I have since migrated to yoga, photography, Asian pop culture, and British web design magazines.

When I am out shopping, I like to try on formal dresses and gowns. Especially the big, poofy ones. So needless to say, I am going to have a ball when I go shopping for my wedding dress!

This is probably one of the most offensive, strange, and disturbing cartoons I have ever seen aired on network TV. But it is so funny, I can’t help myself.

Now that I have shared some of my guilty pleasures, it is your turn. What are some of the things you enjoy?

You're reading Guilty Pleasures by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• Meet Our New Kitten Natasha
• Changing My Moving Perspective
• Holiday Online Hiatus

Happy Thanksgiving!

You're reading Happy Thanksgiving! by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

No related posts.

Over the weekend, I was tagged by two great bloggers, Jess at How Did I Get Here and Asif at Life as I Know It, to share seven facts about myself. So here are some interesting tidbits about me.

I am somewhere between vegetarian and vegan.



Some of the poems I have written in the past scares me. It’s as if I was not the one who wrote them, but I know I did.



I believe that inanimate objects have feelings. Especially ones with faces, like stuffed animals.



I can sketch cartoon characters pretty well, almost exactly, like a tracing.



Most of my dreams are just the opposite of reality – if things are very happy in my life, my dreams are very dark.



I am much more extroverted online. It is easier for me to write to complete strangers online than it is to walk up and talk to someone I do not know in person.



The first R rated movie I saw in the theatre was Rising Sun in 1993, when I was 14.

You're reading Blog Tagging – Fun Facts by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

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• She knew how to dance the Jitterbug, Charleston, Waltz, Tango, Rumba and Samba.
• She was betrothed to a member of the Mikimoto Pearl family, and was disowned when she chose to marry my grandfather instead.
• She was an athlete – she loved to ski, and could have been in the Olympics for swimming.
• When she moved to the US, she insisted the household be purely English speaking, and lost her ability to speak in Japanese.
• She feared flying – when her, my grandfather & my mother were supposed to leave Hawaii, they got on an earlier flight, and the one they should have been on exploded on takeoff.
• She was able to watch Soul Train and imitate the dance moves perfectly.
• At the nursing home, she learned how to play hangman and was able to win at it.

It’s still hard right now to remember things other than being with her in that final moment. Watching her color change, hearing breathing slow, and seeing the beat of her pulse stop on her neck. I’m comforted by the fact that she wasn’t alone, that I was able to tell her how we loved her and everything was going to be ok, and that she is finally in a place where she no longer suffers. The afterlife is a mystery, but whatever it is, I just hope that it includes her being reunited with her family, my grandfather, all the pets that she once loved. I hope that she is able to dance again, and is surrounded by nothing but pure happiness and beauty.

Light a Candle

You're reading My Grandmother by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• The Japanese Friendship Garden in Phoenix, AZ
• Moon Photography
• Dark Knight Exposes Dark Questions
• Say It, Right Now
• My Mom and Grandma in the early 1960′s

His official name is Dobby, after the house elf in Harry Potter. He was pretty quiet his first two days home, but now he is an adorable little ball of energy.

You're reading The Weekend Puppy Post by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• The Weekend Puppy Post
• Dobby is Growing Up
• Dobby the Miniature Schnauzer – Latest Pics
• New Photos of Dobby
• Guilty Pleasures

On Saturday, we adopted a Miniature Schnauzer puppy. He’s six weeks old. So tiny and excruciatingly cute!

You're reading Our New Miniature Schnauzer Puppy’s First Day Home by Kristi Hines, originally posted on Kikolani. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Kristi on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+!

• The Weekend Puppy Post