A continuation of the guest blogger series, Me, My Pet, and I, where I ask bloggers to reveal their pet-loving side... This entry is from Celeste Lindell behind the Average Jane blog.
I met Celeste at th Blogher conference just as I was leaving and remembered afterwards that Yvonne, over at Scratchings and Sniffings and recent guest blogger, had suggested I get in touch with Celeste. So I got in touch and here we are, guest blog entry in hand.
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From the time I was a small child, I have absolutely adored cats. I grew up in a semi-rural area with dogs, barn cats, horses, chickens, peacocks and other miscellaneous pets, but I always loved the cats the most.
After college when I moved out on my own, I had a 6-month-old cat named Kato and quickly added 6-week-old Friday to my household. They lived to be 17 and 16 years old, respectively, and were my companions through many residences, boyfriends, jobs and other milestones in life. Both of them died early this year, and my husband and I still miss them.
Our current crop of felines includes 15-year-old Velcro, a pastel calico who originally belonged to my late mother. When Velcro was a kitten, she was found tied into a pillowcase in a Salvation Army donation bin. Velcro was prone to nipping when she was younger, but she's mellowed considerably with age. She had a mastectomy due to breast cancer earlier this year (it's been a bad year for cats at our house), but she seems to have recovered nicely.
Our youngest cat is 11-month-old Xena. She has sleek, shiny black fur and crazy yellow eyes to match her kittenish disposition. Her hobbies include ferret-like stealing of anything she can carry in her mouth (she's particularly fond of my makeup brushes), 
knocking breakables to the ground, and snuggling up adorably when scolded. She has my husband wrapped around her little dewclaw.
The most recent addition to our household was Velvet, an adult cat from a nearby animal shelter. We got her as a bridge cat between grumpy old Velcro and exuberant 
Xena and she's fulfilling that role well. Velvet's original owners got a dog and decided they didn't want a cat anymore. Eventually they moved away and just left her behind. She roamed around trying to get into people's houses until a kind-hearted neighbor brought her to the shelter. It's difficult to believe that someone would so mistreat such a sweet-tempered cat.
Three is my personal cat limit, so we're stopping there. We had four for a while and discovered that it's one too many for our small house. My husband always says I'll turn into a crazy cat lady when he dies, but really we both agree that this is the perfect number.
The cats add so much joy to my life, I can't imagine living without them.
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Bio: Celeste Lindell blogs at Average Jane and divides the rest of her free time between singing with her band, Dark Crucible, and volunteering with Soroptimist International and various animal charities. In real life she's a senior copywriter for the interactive division of an advertising agency.
