Category: pets

  • better

    Thank you to everyone who reached out after yesterday’s post. I will be okay.

    Today has been better; I still slept in until 9:30 and didn’t get up until nearly 10:30. Jared is gone to a day conference and left about 6:30 this morning but he made sure the boys were up and getting ready and I got up and took my meds and stayed up until the boys left for school.

    One of the BIG bonuses to having a teen driver in the house is that he can take his little brother to school. We ask him to do it as little as possible, but this morning it felt necessary.

    My solitary task for the day, the one non-negotiable, is that I have to get Oliver from school, after school today.

    And I suppose if I’d had to I could have done it in my jammies– or more accurately– the clothes I put on after my shower last night. Most of my clothes double as jammies; one of the bonuses to living in leggings.

    But, when I got up, I came out and got myself some plain greek yogurt and walnuts for breakfast. I sat down at my computer and I did my gratitude list for the first time since October 21. I actually journaled, as opposed to coming straight here to blog.

    Things on the gratitude list for the day:

    — I am grateful it was a Democratic sweep yesterday

    — I am grateful for Abby

    — I am grateful we have plastic to put over the windows because of the cold

    — I am grateful I have the luxury of being bored

    There were 50 things on my list, but you get the idea.

    And then I remembered my Minolta lenses, and went to read a few reviews between the 58mm 1.2 (a lens I used to have and sold) and the 58mm 1.4 (a lens I currently have) and got the lens out and put it on the GFX:

    And obviously, I took a photo of the GFX with the 58mm lens on it, with the X-S20.

    And then I took this photo of Trixie, with the GFX:

    I do love Minolta lenses. And this one works in regular crop, so I don’t have to use the 35mm crop setting on the GFX. See the above photos? They don’t have the same dimensions because the top one is APS-C and the bottom one is medium format.

    And then after poking around online for a while…..I got myself cleaned up. And then I sent this photo to J:

    And along with the photo, I sent this text to J:

    “I cut on my hair so that it is now all close to properly one length; most of the layers including the thin section at the back of my neck are gone. Back to properly chin length but it felt good to give myself a haircut.
    And I got a shower. And now I am about to warm up 3-day old coffee.
    I feel not quite myself, but almost.”

    The hair thing: I desperately want long hair. But my hair is extremely fine, and thinning by the day. So chin-length it may be. Regardless: now that it is all one length, it is so very obvious that my hair definitely needs absolutely not one single solitary layer in it at all. Too thin for that.

    And yes, I do feel almost myself. A pizza is about to go into the oven for Oliver for when he gets home from school, and after I get him I am going to set to work about finishing the plastic-over-the-windows projects in both our bedroom and the living room. There is an awful lot more to do window-wise– the rest of the house– but if I can just get the hole in the plastic Trixie pierced the other day in the living room and the final door in the living room, along with the second window in our bedroom, it will be a successful day. I am determined to get most of this project done before the extreme cold hits next week.

    Tomorrow is the diagnostic mammogram with potential ultrasound. I’m trying hard to not think about it.

    If you’re new here, you can read more about me here.

  • absent but busy

    I’ve been quiet because it’s been busy around these parts.

    October 2 was our 21st engagement anniversary. We went to Sutton’s for dinner– yummy pecan chicken fingers! And we went to watch band practice. Jared got me the cutest little bunch of sunflowers, leaving them to surprise me as I walked in the door from my ladies’ group.

    Friday came the sad news that Eats in Atlanta is closing effective October 18. Makes me sad, but then I read a little and found out that the pasta bar– the station that I’d picked up the only thing I’d eat there– pasta with olive oil and garlic– had closed with the pandemic and never re-opened. So, we are not trying to go one last time before they close. It does make me sad, though.

    Late Friday night was preparation for the yard sale that we had Saturday. It was mostly a flop, we made a grand total of $17. But it was still a massive win because we borrowed my Mama’s truck and hauled off every last little bit of the stuff we had out, either to the convenience center or Goodwill. Not a bit of it came back in the house. So our garage can park both cars in it again, which is a massive, massive win. I am thankful. Goal achieved.

    Mostly since Saturday has been recuperating from Saturday.

    But, I am back to having a laundry day! Per Dana at A Slob Comes Clean, you don’t really know how much dirty laundry you have in a week until at least the second week, and that proved true since this is the second week. Mondays are laundry day and I was able to get all our clothes laundry plus all the towels clean today, so massive win. Everything is put away.

    I’ve been making dietary changes, too. My T3 is low– my endocrinologist wants to repeat the labs now that I have stopped drinking Athletic Greens– but I think my body is just not converting T4 to T3 as efficiently anymore, and I don’t know why that is but I’m going to my primary care doc to investigate at my next physical because I don’t know that the endocrinologist is going to be that helpful.

    I’m not waiting for my physical in December, though. I have gone mostly for an anti-inflammatory type diet. Today’s breakfast was a smoothie with a banana (a whole one, and yes! I chopped it in and put it in myself– those of you who know me will know what a big deal that is), a cup of wild blueberries, a cup of almond milk, and a cup of powdered spinach (!) (and yes, I drank the whole thing, really. Those who know will know how big a deal that is, too). And I downed a couple of tablespoons of sunflower seeds with the smoothie.

    Lunch was my beloved almond flour crackers, along with a 1/4 cup serving of walnut pieces.

    Snack was a 1/2 cup of banza pasta with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

    And dinner was half a container of egg whites, which equates to about 5 egg whites’ worth.

    It’s a far cry from my preferred bread and cheese fare. And I still have goat cheese in the fridge, but it will have to be an occasional treat now.

    Only really two days in (well, Friday and Saturday sort of counted until I threw in a Little Caesar’s Italian Cheese Bread in Saturday night and a strawberry banana smoothie from Costco which sounds good but has 25g added sugar), but I am feeling pretty good. It’s not going to be able to be an all-or nothing kind of diet– I cannot do this forever without little treats occasionally. But progress counts, right?

    So that’s where I am….still fantasizing about sugar and cheese. But much less grumpy and for once, not depressed.

    Also, the hell-beast cats have been released from their captivity and Nancy seems none-the-worse for wear.

    Anybody want a cat or two? For real?

  • for real: anybody want two cats?

    Abby and Trixie did not feel like having their picture taken this morning.

    I joked in the post about Nancy yesterday about whether anybody wants a cat, but it really wasn’t a joke– we really are looking to re-home Nancy and Bess. They’re a package deal though; a bonded pair.

    Bess
    Nancy

    On a wild hair one Saturday afternoon probably 3 years or so ago now, I wanted to go visit the cat cafe. And I wanted a cat even though I was noncommittal to Jared and the boys. And we came away with Nancy and Bess– a bonded pair.

    They’re good cats. Nancy may have a slight death wish given her recent shenanigans, but they’re good cats. And to all appearances Nancy and Bess are not a bonded pair, but things do go wonky with Bess’s litter habits when Nancy is not around, in all transparency. She is fine when she has adequate litter and Nancy. And to be completely honest, Bess is the lap cat– Nancy is definitely not.

    I just cannot keep up with the care of 5 pets. And MowMow is for sure Oliver’s baby, having spent much of the last 3 years in Oliver’s room since she doesn’t get along with Nancy. And Abby and Trixie….well…. They’re here for the long haul. They’re our children as much as our people children. And Trixie is Porter’s baby, and Abby is my therapy dog as much as I am her therapy human.

    Note that in the photo above Trixie was ambivalent about the camera, but Abby….Abby looked away because big cameras terrify her. I do not know why but the longer the lens, the more afraid she is.

    Plus, being 100% real here: the financial cost of caring for 5 pets is astronomical. We couldn’t afford them when we took them on and we can’t afford them now.

    Nothing will change if we can’t find homes for them. They have a home here as long as need be. We do love them and want what’s best for them.

    And all the boys know, and they all understand. They don’t like litter duty any more than we do, and they know our financial situation as much as is appropriate given their ages. Liam wasn’t in favor of more cats when we adopted Nancy and Bess.

    Liam is the most level-headed person in the house.

    I am trying to be more responsible, and being more responsible is doing what is best for everyone in the house. Including the cats, including the boys, including Jared, including myself.

    But if anybody local wants two cats….. well, it’s a serious thing.

  • nancy is an asshole

    Several weeks ago now, I crocheted myself a jute purse. It is cute, and I am in love with it. It went with me to Kansas City and fits perfectly under an airplane seat, and it went with me through all three Universal Parks a week and a half ago.

    I love it.

    I don’t love that it sheds pretty badly. I’ve tried sealing it with mod podge, I’ve tried heat blocking. Nothing helps. It is going to shed. It’s not a problem with the outside, but it does get all over anything you put in it, and it’s the perfect size for both my camera and laptop so that was a big problem.

    So, I decided to finally line the whole thing. Here it is before lining:

    Yes! It has a pocket! A really great one.

    So, we went and got felt for the lining because I knew that would be easy on my camera.

    Jared was kind enough to sew the actual lining part into one piece, on the condition that I do the hand-stitching into the bag:

    All went well, until Jared was sewing away and here comes asshole Nancy, above, literally to bat the THREAD OFF THE SEWING MACHINE WHILE IT WAS SPINNING….

    Nancy took off with the thread in her mouth… got all the way to the other side of the house before Jared caught her and pulled the thread away.

    Or, so we thought.

    The finished bag is fabulous. Solved the shedding problem; here is the lined bit before I lined the pocket:

    I did decide to line the pocket, and it is all the better for it.

    This was all last Saturday. Today is Thursday.

    Nancy was low-key missing most of the week. I didn’t go looking for her, I saw her sitting in a chair yesterday morning, but I didn’t worry about her. She is not a social cat in general and will vaguely tolerate Jared’s picking her up to harass her, for very brief periods.

    Jared likes to cuddle cats. Nancy only just tolerates it occasionally.

    But yesterday, Nancy pooped outside her litter box for the first time in a couple of months. It was a problem previous to us getting two more litter boxes. But it hadn’t happened since. And I noticed, too, that she had black drool coming out of her mouth.

    So we thought maybe she had been eating her own poop or Bess, our other cat’s poop? That was all we could think of.

    But, she was also clingy. She came up and sat by me, but her fur was raised like something was wrong, too.

    It is not normal for Nancy to be clingy, so finally we decided about 8:30 last night to get her to the vet.

    We managed to get to our vet here in Carrollton at 8:30 before they closed at 9 last night, saving us a trip (and lots more in fees) to the emergency vet in Atlanta, thank goodness.

    They took Nancy straight back, and took us to a room. We were just starting to tell the vet tech the sewing story, that she did get into something last weekend, when the doctor came in and said, “I found this? I don’t think she’ll lose her tongue.” And set the surgical utensil with attached string on the table:

    *sigh*

    Apparently when Jared yanked the string to get it away from Nancy last Saturday, the string had only just broken, with a good portion of it lodged around her tongue. The string was deeply embedded in her tongue, and the black stuff was infection.

    So, Nancy got an antibiotic shot, and has to eat canned food for at least a week which means she has to be isolated from the other pets for that time, and we are out $230 which makes my homemade purse I love a lot more expensive than the $35 it had set us back to that point.

    Dumbass cat.

    Anybody want a cat?