Circus life

I have 5 cats. Four of them have some kind of issue with their health. The fifth one is slightly neurotic. Okay, several of them might be neurotic, but Runt is the only one without physical issues. Because of these issues, I have to feed my 5 cats separately, which ends up being quite the production. Thankfully this chaos has grown on us a little at a time or we would be truly overwhelmed.

Allow me to explain.

Thirty minutes before each meal (aka twice a day) these two get some Pepcid AC.


Not the same dosage, of course. Emma gets 1/4 of a 10mg tablet, Blue gets 1/2. Note: it is not easy to cut those tiny little pills evenly, so the actual dose they get varies. Emma has been getting this pill for a couple of years now and has gotten used to the idea. Blue, not so much. It's always a battle of wills with him when pills are involved. His papa and I always win, though. Eventually.

Half an hour later, the fun really begins. Starting from the eldest on down....

Ripley


For breakfast, Ripley gets a heaping 1/8 cup of dry food, which is a 50/50 mix of Blue Buffalo Weight Control (for the fiber content) and Blue Buffalo Mature (she'll be 17 next month). Mixed with this, I occasionally add 1/4 to 1/2 tablet of Standard Process Feline Renal Support. She doesn't really like it though and will eat everything in her dish except that if I don't crush it up.

For dinner, she gets 1/3 of a can of any smelly food she'll eat, with one Marin tablet (for liver support) crushed up in it, and a capsule of Cosequin (for her joints) mixed in, along with a bit of water. She's not a big fan of this, either. She's lost almost 3 pounds in the last year, so we don't like it when she doesn't eat. We pretty much toss dry food in her dish any time it's empty and she's yelling at us. We've been keeping the other cats separated from her at night and when we're not home so she has access to food all the time. She went to the vet on Saturday for some tests, and I was expecting the results today. Unfortunately, the lab didn't think there was enough blood to run the tests, so she and I get to make a return trip Thursday morning. I haven't told her yet.

Max


Max gets a between 1/8 and 1/4 cup of prescription Royal Canin Modified Diet dry food for breakfast and dinner. Once a day he gets 1/2 a tablet of the Standard Process Feline Renal Support.

Emma


Emma gets a rounded 1/8 cup of prescription Royal Canin Modified Diet dry food with a dash (according to my measuring spoon) of Epakitin and some water added for breakfast and again for dinner. Once a day she also gets 1/2 a tablet of the Standard Process Feline Renal Support. Adding water to her dry food serves 2 purposes. First, it dissolves the Epakitin so it doesn't all lay at the bottom of the bowl, uneaten. Second, it helps keep her hydrated, since she has to drink the water before she eats her food. For now, this is working as an acceptable substitute for the sub-q fluid injections, which we all hate. Her kidney numbers were all in the normal range on her last blood test!

Blue


Right now, Blue gets 1/2 a 5mg metoclopromide tablet (to prevent vomiting) and 1/3 cup of prescription Royal Canin Green Peas and Duck food for breakfast and dinner. When I remember (which hasn't been often lately), he also gets 1/2 a Standard Process Feline Whole Body Support tablet with each meal. Since he is still throwing up once or twice a week despite the restricted diet, we're looking at switching him over Royal Canin's Siamese 38 food, which isn't much cheaper than the prescription food, but I can buy it at the pet store instead of trekking to the vet's office for it. Speaking of the vet, Blue's picture made it on their web page. Check him out here.

Runt


Runt gets just shy of a 1/4 c. of Blue Buffalo Weight Control dry food for breakfast and dinner. That's all.

Did I mention they get their meals in four different rooms? Ripley is in the kitchen. Blue is in the dining room. Max is in the living room. Emma and Runt are in the computer room, but they have to be supervised to prevent meal sharing/stealing. An alternative is to feed Max on top of the entertainment center, Emma on the living room floor and Runt alone in the computer room. John doesn't like that option because it encourages Max to use the coffee table as stepping stone to the entertainment center.

Life is fun at John's house, too. Check out Doc the cockatiel's new look and digs:


Somehow she managed break her femur. We don't know how or when she did it, but she'll be in a splint for a few weeks and living in the reptile cage till the vet says she's allowed to go vertical again.

Since I have pictures of everyone else, here is Solomon, the Congo African Grey parrot.



He's a pretty cool bird. He can whistle part of the Andy Griffith theme. He talks, though we're not sure where he picked up some of that language. :) He says his name two ways. One way is in a fairly deep voice (John's), and the other is higher, which we assume is my voice. Pretty funny.

In non-pet related news, the hard drive on my home pc crashed last week. After trying the things I found online to recover the disk (chkdisk /r and fixboot), I gave up and bought new laptop. I'd been thinking about doing it for a while, so it wasn't too traumatic. Getting used to Vista is another matter. I have backups of most of my stuff, but I haven't installed the software to get them back, thus the cell phone pictures today. I'm not sure all my software will work here, or even if I can restore my XP backup to a Vista system. Should be interesting. I ordered a replacement hard drive in hopes that I can re-install the OS and maybe get something off the old disk. Worst case, I'll restore my backup to the old XP system and transfer the stuff manually. Ick.

My car goes to the shop tomorrow morning for what will probably be some pricey maintenance. I'm pretty sure I need new brakes.

Last night John and I replaced the springs on my garage door, since one of them broke over the weekend.The garage really needs a new roof, too. It needed that back in the fall, but I put it off. Sigh....

And to make things even more interesting, the first case of the new and improved swine flu in Ohio is a kid who goes to school less than a mile from my house. Fortunately, I don't have kids and don't socialize with my neighbors who do. Of course, I do have to shop in the area and I use my local public library regularly. And I've seen reports that there might be 2 or 3 more cases in the area. Pass the Purell, people!

North Coast Needlers 2009 Quilt Show

Yeah, yeah, I know it's been a while. It's just been crazy busy lately. Seems like there was something going on every day, and if there wasn't, I was exhausted. Today I will give you a re-cap of the quilt show.

This past weekend was my guild's bi-annual quilt show. It was impressive, as usual. We have some very talented ladies in our guild. Our show isn't a judged or juried show. Guild members got to vote on quilts in different categories, Miniatures, Wall-hangings and Bed quilts with some sub-categories for pieced, applique, mixed techniques, and whether they were made by an individual or a group (i.e. more than one person). Then there are the Viewer's Choice awards, which are voted on by the general public.

I got pictures of some of the ribbon winners.


[Notice my quilt *next* to the ribbon winner]


It's not a quilt show if Gloria doesn't get a ribbon!


This one's for Ann

Some quilts got multiple ribbons.



Here is the miniature category:



They look a little forlorn there, but they were amazing. Notice the committee made small versions of the prize ribbons for them. Very cool.

These two were from a class by George Siciliano a year or so ago. That is one crazy man! But if you ever get a chance to see him, I highly recommend it.



The squares in this one are *maybe* 3/4" tall. Each one has *five* pieces in it!!



This one didn't win a ribbon, but the idea that someone not only did all those curves on the machine, but did them that size just blows my mind! The information tag is almost as big as the quilt.



Three dimensional flowers were popular at this show. Here are a couple of examples.


This quilt used fabric flowers


These were freestanding machine-embroidered lace.

I didn't win any ribbons. And I was a little disappointed that my bigger quilts both ended up hanging at the corner of the displays, so I couldn't get good pictures of them. But the hanging crew said they just ran out of room, which I guess isn't such a bad thing.



Just a couple more I'd like to show you.


This one's for Sarah

The quilting behind the chickens looks like chicken wire. The top was made by Gloria, the one who always wins a ribbon or two. It was machine quilted by Eleanor Burns' cousin in PA, who's name I can't remember. Gloria sends a lot of her quilts to cousin-somebody. She does exceptional work!

Whew! That's all for now. More on non-quilt show stuff another day.

Curses, frogged again

When you last saw my first toe-up sock, it looked like this:



I proceeded to follow the directions for a short-row heel. I managed somehow to end up with an extra stitch somewhere, but didn't worry about it too much. K2tog, go on from there. I did pick up an extra stitch intentionally on each side when I joined the heel back to the instep, which is supposed to close up any hole that might appear. I knit a round or two on the leg and noticed a ginormous hole on one side at the join (no, I didn't take a picture of it). Grrrr...

I tried to just add a couple of stitches after the fact to fill in the hole, but that didn't work. Then I tried to pull it back to the heel, but then I lost stitches on the foot that I didn't think I'd be able to recover. So I ripped back the heel and tried to get it back on the needles. There was a bit of cursing. And I might have thrown it once. Or twice. It now looks like this:



I'll be knitting that 1-1/4" to get back to where the heel starts Real Soon Now. Only after I had ripped it all back out did it occur to me that I should have tried the darned thing on to see if it fit. It's not been a good week.

In other news, my dad is still in the hospital. After the appendectomy on the 3rd, he had some complications and has been in ICU for a week. He's doing much better now and will hopefully be moved back to a regular room tomorrow. With any luck, he'll home soon after. While I was keeping Mom company on Friday I started this scarf, which I finished Saturday, before the Sock Incident:



It's a little shorter and narrower than my last scarf, but I think it looks pretty good for a ball of yarn I got on clearance for under a buck. Someone will enjoy it. Not John, though. He doesn't even like looking at it. It's too fuzzy for him and he says it makes his eyes hurt.

Blue had his staples removed on Friday. He's still on his special Green Peas and Duck food. We don't think he likes it all that much, but he's been eating it. He got sick a couple of times Thursday, and I was hoping that it was just the medicine I gave him on Wednesday night that upset his tummy. He hadn't been sick since then. Until today. :( The vet is stumped. I guess there's still a chance that he has IBD, even though the biopsy wasn't conclusive on that. The results said there was some of whatever indicates IBD, but they didn't think it was enough to say yes he definitely has it. My poor little baby....

Boy, that was a long week!

So, when we last left off, Blue was home from his surgery and awaiting test results. We got the biopsy results back on Friday and he doesn't have IBD or any kind of cancer. The doctor also said if he was allergic enough to the food that it made him throw up, she would have expected to see a lot more inflammation than she did. So basically, we still don't really know what's wrong with him.

I gave them a fecal sample to test for weird parasites. The plan is to keep him on the Green Peas and Duck food for 3-4 weeks then try to move him back to the Blue Buffalo food. That will make it a little less complicated to feed the cats. It's a nightmare now - five cats being fed in 5 different rooms.

Blue managed to pull out a staple Thursday night, which got him another car ride and a new accessory:


Just a little off the top, please.

But last night he found another way to wear it:


Is this why Papa calls me a sissy-boy?

Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture, but it's *really* hard to get him to stay still after being locked up alone all night. I got some really funny video of him in the skirt, and impersonating a satellite dish and walking backwards after I put the collar on him the first time, but I can't post it here. Blogspot doesn't appear to like the format. Today he must be feeling better, since he was running around like crazy. I feel sorry for him - he's just a baby and wants to play. He doesn't know he's not supposed to. What a goofball.

Speaking of goofballs, this kitty had his teeth cleaned on Friday and didn't have to have anything pulled!



The vet said he had another questionable tooth back in September, but they didn't see anything this time. Weird. Notice Max is sitting on the printer/scanner/copier with his paw is on the buttons. This is a favorite nap spot for him, especially when I'm in the computer room. This habit results in a lot of scans and copies like this:


I have to make sure I don't leave anything on the scan bed, or I waste a lot of ink.

In other news, my dad had an emergency appendectomy Friday night. He's okay, but they're keeping him till at least today. So I spent yesterday at the hospital with him and my mom. While I was there, I finished this:


Really long garter stitch scarf made of Lion Brand Colorama yarn (discontinued)

I had to weave in the ends with a pair of mini tweezers from my Leatherman since I didn't have a yarn needle with me. I don't recommend it. Not fun. I need to put together a knitting/sewing emergency kit and keep it with me. I have some ideas, one of which I can thank Sarah for. I'll keep you posted on the progress of that little project.

My brother had to work yesterday, so we he got home, he and my mom and I went out to dinner at The New Era in Akron. If you like chicken paprikash and are in the Akron area, definitely check it out. The prices have gone up from the what is listed on their online menu. It's now $9.50, not $8.50, but you get 4 chunks of meat (i had a leg, thigh and two pieces of breast meat), a side dish, and strudel for dessert. Still a pretty good deal, if you ask me, since I couldn't finish it all. Oh, their bread is good, too!

My brother works at a sports bar, and he gave me this, along with a request to make him a quilt from them. Time to check out Google for ideas.....


That's a lot of Crown Royal bags!

Oh, one other thing, I'm ready to turn the heel on my latest sock.



That looks a little long to me, but I've never done a short-row heel before, so I'm going with the instructions. I'm sure I can find someone who can wear them if I can't.

Six Million Dollar Cat

Okay, it didn't cost quite that much, but this is the face of a kitty who is very happy to home!



It turns out he didn't eat anything after all. What they saw in the x-ray wasn't a foreign object, but a thickening of his small intestine. He had surgery yesterday and they took a biopsy of the inflamed area. The theory right now is that it's Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which we can treat with a different diet and medication.

He was in the hospital for three days and hid most of the time he was in there,burrowing under his blanket. He really objected to the I.V. fluids they were giving him, I guess. Poor little guy. He's completely laid back with us, but he doesn't like strangers. They had to force fed him because he wouldn't eat there. As soon as I brought him home, he tried to eat Max's food, which is forbidden. He gets only canned green peas and duck food for the time being. Plus a whole menu of medicines and supplements of course. He needs to eat small amounts every 1-2 hours so my boss agreed to let me work from home tomorrow so I can take care of him.

Despite the 10 staples in his belly, he's ready to play.



This is the goal for the next few days, though. I might have to lock him in that kitty carrier, since he's already tried to jump up on the table. :(


There's no place like home!

The Original Sewing and Quilt Expo

The Original Sewing and Quilt Expo was in Cleveland this past weekend. I usually try to at least stop in every year. I've never taken any classes, but there are usually lots of good ones offered. And there are always lots of good vendors, usually with good show pricing.

Last year and this year, Beth and I volunteered to take down the displays on Saturday after the show was over. It's pretty easy work and we get to touch the stuff. :) This year there was an exhibit of clothing and quilts made with men's ties. There was a skirt made entirely of ties, along with several items that had ties or bits of ties as accents. It was interesting. We also took down the Hoffman Challenge doll and clothing collection. I was impressed and awed that these people would put so much time, effort and talent into something that would be out of their possession for the better part of a year. I didn't take any pictures of the displays, since we weren't allowed. I did pictures of the goodies I bought, though.

I bought a baby blanket kit:



That's the pattern and some Jeanne cotton/acrylic yarn for the edging and 4 balls of Tofutsies sock yarn which is a blend of wool, soy silk (made from tofu manufacturing waste), cotton, and chitin (made from shrimp and crab shells). No, it doesn't smell fishy - I checked. It mostly smells like the vinyl project it came in. :-P The kit was kind of pricey, so if I make this as a baby blanket, it would have to be for a baby I really like. I'm thinking maybe I'll get some cheaper sock yarn to substitute in the blanket and use the Tofutsies for socks. Is that wrong of me? The Deborah Norville Serenity sock yarn is really soft and only $7 for 100g (2 balls) vs $16 for a 100g ball for the Tofutsies. That would take the price of the yarn for the blanket from $78 down to $42. That's more my speed for an item that's going to get barfed on, or worse.

It seems to be all socks, all the time for me lately, since I also bought some Noro Kureyon sock yarn (color #S102).



I love the Noro colors, but wasn't sure about this sock yarn, because it's not very soft. I talked to one of the ladies in the booth, and she said it wasn't the best yarn to knit, but it's her favorite pair of socks. Apparently it does soften up when you wear/wash it. I might have to use that yarn for a two-at-a-time pair. I didn't have a problem with second sock syndrome on my first pair, but I have a feeling I might if I don't like the yarn.

Finally, I bought a bracelet kit.



Yeah, I made that! I think it was offered as a class, and I was tempted to sign up for it, since volunteers get a free class. But I'm lazy, so I didn't. Then I happened to be walking by the booth where they were selling the beads, and they were doing make-and-take projects. I didn't have much time, so I picked out my beads and got about an inch and half of it started, then finished it when I got home, before I forgot how to do it. It was actually really easy as long as you didn't get the thread tangled. It cost $35, which was the supply fee for the class, and I got to learn it without "paying" for the class itself. Pretty cool, huh? And I have enough beads leftover to try to make matching earrings.

Notice it was the Sewing and Quilt Expo, and I bought beads and yarn. :)

Saturday was a milestone birthday for John's mom, so we had dinner at her house on Sunday. With the expo and visiting with the "in-laws", I didn't get a lot of knitting done over the weekend. I did manage to make enough progress on the 2-at-a-time socks that I've decided not to frog them.



I also got a bit farther on my toe-up sock.


I figure I have about about an inch or two to go till I start the guesset increases.

Finally, this is a very cute, but very naughty boy:



Blue has been sick off and on for over a week. Sometimes he was keeping his meals, sometimes he was giving them back to us. We took him to the vet last Tuesday and they did x-rays and blood work and ruled out a whole bunch of stuff. They didn't see anything on the x-rays, so they thought it might be a food allergy. We started switching him over to some special food (green pea and duck), but he was still getting sick and then he seemed to lose his appetite. Back he went to the vet this morning. This time they saw something cigar-shaped, about the thickness of a pencil, and about 1 or 1-1/2" long, possibly with some yarn or string wrapped around it. We have no idea what it is, but we'll find out tomorrow, when they do surgery to take it out. I'm sure he's scared, since he doesn't really like strangers and the vet's office smells funny and has lots of strange noises. I'm hoping he'll get to come home tomorrow, but it depends on how quickly he comes out of the anesthesia.

Think good thoughts for my baby Blue. I hope this experience makes him think twice before he eats something that isn't food, but I'm not counting on it. I've had cats for 3/4 of my life, and I've never had one eat something that had to be surgically removed.....

Saturday was National Quilting Day

Want to know how much quilting I did on National Quilting Day? Zilch. Oh, I thought about it. But after I ran my normal Saturday errands, we put in the last 2 discs of 24: Season 3 and my behind never left the couch.

I made up for it on Sunday, when I finally did some quilting on the border of my Getaway project and put the binding on the front.



Now I just have to get the binding stitched down on the back and I'll have a finished project. It could probably use some more quilting but that's unlikely to happen, since I have the sleeve attached already. I'd have to take out the top section of binding (releasing the sleeve) to do it. Very unlikely.

Other things I completed over the weekend:


Tea Cups

My guild is doing a fundraiser at the quilt show (April 18-19, at Westlake High School, mark your calendars) called Bras for a Cause. Proceeds go to a charity that supports breast cancer patients ad their families. So Thursday night my friend Beth and her 11-year-old daughter got together to decorate bras for the auction. There are some very clever ladies in my guild. You can see some of their creations here. Beth did the Cupcakes bra, and her daughter did Moon Beamers. It was fun. All I did to mine over the weekend was add the tags (sorry, Sarah, they don't spin) and sugar packets.

Side story: I bought the bra at the dollar store during my lunch break. A couple of my friends went with me, and when I started looking at the bras, one of them wanted to know if I needed to borrow money. She was relieved when I told her what the bra was for. :)

I made the clay part of this name tag at the NEORQC Getaway.



Sunday I added the beads and put some felt and a pin on the back.

Some unfinished knitted objects that I worked on over the weekend include a garter stitch scarf, that makes for good TV knitting.



It's going to be really long when it's done. I figure I'm 1/2-2/3 done so far. I'm just going to knit till I run out of the yarn. I have a bunch of yarn like this that I bought when I first started knitting, thinking I'd make sweaters. I don't think it will work out too well for that purpose, since it snags pretty easily. So I'll either make a boatload of scarves for charity, or I'll just give it away. The women's club at my office is always taking yarn donations.

I also worked on some socks.


Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Sock


Two socks at a time (worsted weight yarn) from Knitting Circles Around Socks

I'm not sure about the 2-at-a-time socks. They will eventually "match". The yarn is the same colorway and dye lot, if you can believe it. I really don't know if I'm going to like the technique. Friday night the two balls of yarn got pretty badly tangled, but I think part of that was my own inattention when I was turning the needles. I'm also not sure the joins are joining right, but I'm only about 3 rounds in, so maybe it'll be okay.

The nice thing about knitting is that do-overs are usually pretty easy. Not so with quilting. Like when you've just cut that strip 2-1/4" and it should have been 2-1/2". This normally happens when you only had 4" left of a fabric you bought 3 years ago and don't have a snowball's chance of getting more. Good times.

So far this week, I haven't done anything crafty. I took in my car yesterday morning to get the bumper fixed. I picked it up this afternoon and it looks great! Actually, the bumper looks better than the rest of the car. But since I park in a garage downtown, there's really no point spending a lot of (my) money to get the dings in the doors fixed. As long as the car's not in danger of rusting to oblivion before it's paid off, I'll leave the dings there. They add character.