A little more than a year ago I've decided to take action after a long longing period and I've adopted a kitten. And this kitten has so far had become a full-size indoor hunter. It was one of my best decisions if you'd ask me. I was prone to feeling sad and lonely from time to time, but with her by my side I don't have a chance or the opportunity to feel the same way ever again. The moment my thoughts would start to linger around not so happy topics she would come and indicate that she wants me to play with her. I don't think that she is particularly capable of reading minds, but she is simply needy when it comes to social interactions.

To be totally honest I always thought that I was a "dog-person", just because we always had dogs at home. But since lately I've been living in a tiny flat I came to the conclusion that probably adopting a tiny creature (or at least a slightly smaller one) is a better alternative. And also it was love at first sight. The moment I've seen her photo I was fallen.

In the beginning I was calling her a "therapy cat", because she had this rare ability to always lift my mood up whenever I came home. And just as how I've described it previously, she was always there acting cute and wanting to play all the time. Of course in her own way, she is the one creating the rules here. No touch is allowed, only when she feels like it. But she was regularly bringing her favourite toys into my bed in the morning attempting to wake me up at 5 or 6 because she felt like playing.

So slowly I've gained more and more knowledge on how to keep a cat, and my experience started to build up. I wanted to pay tribute to this unimaginably sweet little more than 1 year of our life by gathering my thoughts and creating a list of 3 things I've learned so far about being a cat owner. Or more so about my cat.

1. Cats like cardboard boxes more than you would ever imagine

Before I adopted my cat, one of my friends (also a cat owner) had told me that cats particularly like smaller separated spaces so as a result of that they enjoy getting inside of all kind of boxes regardless of their size. I only started to pay attention to this more, once deliveries arrived to my home. In boxes. Whenever I brought in a new box filled with purchased items, my cat inherently knew that the whole delivery happened just for her to get her paws on the cardboard box. And faster than I could have a glimpse at my new things she was already discovering all inches of all cardboard boxes.

So in the beginning I was keeping them since she really liked them all. And let me tell you it's a fast way to find yourself in your own home at the middle of a cardboard box dumpster. So after a while I've started selecting and only keeping a few, but still she has her favourite ones. And I just figure that cats don't differentiate between expensive and cheap materials. They sometimes just like the simple things the best. Because she is sleeping in cardboard boxes, but never in her dedicated really expensive cat-bed.

2. Nestflix and chill

My cat finds the window very fascinating. She could spend hours sitting on the windowsill intensely looking at how the wind is blowing and moving the strands of grass in the garden below. Sometimes I stand next to her examining the situation: what could she possibly look at and why is it so interesting to her. And sometimes I have no clue. It's different when I can see the neighbour's cat on the roof or small insects flying around, but even without any of these she can just stare and stare for hours. Maybe it's the hunter inside her who can wait for hours to hunt down her prey.

3. Cats prefer open doors

Cats don't really like limitations on their freedom, and they don't like if they cannot let themselves in any places. Since I have a cat I always keep my bedroom door open, so she cannot complain about it being closed. But it comes with some compromises. During the night, when optimally humans would sleep, cats are having zoomies and becoming really alive. So over the past year I've learnt a little bit about sleep deprivation. Once I've even tried closing my door, even though we are sleeping together a lot, but the moment the door was closed she started scratching it. And when I opened it, she was taking a turn and not coming in. So I thought maybe I should close it again. Apparently I thought it wrong. Because the problem was not that she wanted to come in but could not do it, but the closed door itself. So I've learnt never to close any doors again. :)