Welcome!! So good to have you here "one of us, one of us, one of us..."
RE: Houseplants: Me too. I love gardening, but I am not big on houseplants. I have a pothos that has hung on forever mostly because I usually forget it's there until I happen to notice it needs water. A couple of geraniums that I somehow manage to keep....your supermarket friend is right. Keep everything on the dry side during winter.
And as for cats...yes, I know what you mean. They get into everything. Mine assume that any container with dirt in it is a porta-toity. One year I lost an entire tray of tomato seedlings to cat pee. *LOL*
