Grumpy Cat Problems

This has been a crazy week about which I'm not 100% divulging. However, there is one thing I'd love to share about this week:

Our twelve year old cat, Fred, has been a really big booger. He once was an incredible cat, who adapted to so many of our life transitions. He was so sweet, and I was proud to talk about his neat little quirks. But since Ali has been 6 months old (so that's been about a year now), he's acted strange. He will go in and out of the house really frequently (we let him roam outside, but now he's outside maybe 80% of the time). He meows SO incredibly loud to be let back in, yet he refuses to use his litter box. He used to just pee in the bath tub, next to the drain, which honestly didn't bother me. However, it progressed to the kitchen floor, which is wood. Now that wood has gone from a cinnamon color to black, and it's warped and peeling. This past week, we discovered he'd peed and pooped inside the box spring in the guest bedroom. We had to take the box spring apart and we were so disheartened by the smell, we just took the bed out completely. We rented a Rug Doctor and started cleaning the carpets, only to have him use the bathroom in every single room in the house after having cleaned them. We are now on day five of the Rug Doctor rental and there's no end in sight. I've come to believe that Ali is really the only major change of this kind, that he hasn't adapted to. I'm not saying it's definitive of his behavior because I'm just not a professional. But out of 12 years, he's had many "brothers" and "sisters" both feline and canine, and he's adapted to them all. He's also had many homes with many transitions and no problems. But a baby... Ali's the only one. So I'm wondering if an older couple on a nice acre of land would do the trick?

The silver lining this week is that there's possibly an end to the craziness. I like the idea of the stress being reduced, and I like the potential for Fred to be happy somewhere else.

We've converted the guest bedroom to an office and we've been able to sort through a lot of things simply because the situation called for it. So it kinda lit a fire up under us to be a little more productive. For that, I'm thankful.

But I'm praying I find a good home for my buddy. After all, in our household, I've known and loved him the longest.