hand eye crafts

. . .is starting with a pulverizing headache. . . .is the week of Stitches South in Atlanta.  I'm going --- are any of you?  Is there anything any of you need me to pick up for you while I'm there? . . .while at Stitches, I may need to buy yarn in "my" color: . . .has me taking one new medicine and new dosages of two of my "regulars."  My doctor is seriously considering ElectroConvulsive Therapy.  I'm just stuck.  And still can't give you a good reason for me to go on. . . .will hopefully have Riley getting her feeding tube removed.  She is eating a good bit on her own.

Riley is home.  And eating some of her dry food.  We still have to syringe-feed her canned food, and there are pills to be given, but she is here and she looks so, so very much better. The funny thing is, she has never eaten canned food.  My mother never fed it to her because her previous owners never did, and we never fed it to her because Mama never did.  And here's everybody forcing it on her.  She was probably glad to see that crunchy stuff in her own dish.

Riley is now at our vet, and will be until at least Friday.  She is showing signs of improvement: she's noticeably less jaundiced, has gained a couple of ounces, has less bilirubin in her urine.  They're still having to feed her with a syringe, but that is SO much better than a feeding tube.  We miss her, but would prefer she stay with them until she is completely stable. In addition to calling off all my travel plans for the rest of the year, I've also cancelled acupuncture for the time being.  I wasn't having the best luck with it anyway, but that's another weekly cost that     would have eaten away at the money I have. And I'm still looking high and low for a job.  Without any luck.  Wonder if I qualify for unemployment again? Just bought this bead from my friend Shannon.  Not so clear in the photo, but the "sky" is swirly purple, like a storm.  Just gorgeous, and so me.  The plan is to make it into a pendant. ...

Riley, my mom's cat whom we adopted, is in the vet hospital as I type, receiving treatment for "fatty liver disease."  She hadn't been herself for several days, and last night, we decided we should take her to the emergency vet.  They kept her overnight, gave her IV fluids, then we picked her up this morning and took her to our vet.  She (our vet) seemed a little grimmer than the emergency vet, and now Hannah is a wreck.  She's kicking herself for not having said something sooner. We've got 24 - 48 hours without her, as the doctors drip more fluids and see if she will eat.  She'd become almost skeletal, and, handily, the treatment for this is food.  We are hoping she'll be able to eat on her own, or with the help of a syringe.  Worst case scenario is a feeding tube. The bill last night was $630.  No telling what a few days at our vet will be.  I do know my monthly visits will have to be off for the rest of the year.  At least I ...

Finn has the oddest habit of grabbing shoes when someone comes in the house.  Not when someone is leaving , and needs to put shoes on , but when they're coming in. When you adopt a rescued pet, you wonder (or at least I do) what kind of life they had before.  Finn was definitely trained to "stand up" and have his leash put on.  I wonder if this shoe thing was part of his training, too. Sort of a quiet weekend.  Hannah worked both days.  I got a good amount of knitting done.  Briton  came over last night to watch "The Walking Dead."  Obligatory Daryl photo now: I spent a whole lot of time looking up and printing out patterns.  I've got a sock and a scarf on the needles right now: the scarf courtesy of Roxanne .  A while back, she sent me two skeins of Chunky Mochi  (color 817), and one of the patterns I came across was a scarf pattern calling for --- you guessed it --- two skeins of Chunky Mochi. Got a follow-up appo...

You would hear Klunk behind Hannah's bedroom door, begging  to be let out. You would hear Hannah yelling at him from the den, because his mewling is interrupting her "Deep Space 9" marathon.  You would have seen Briton hastening out the door after receiving a call that one of his actors is AWOL from tonight's performance.  He "gets" to fill in. You would find me lying as still as possible, as I have had a headache today that feels like the hell-bound bastard child of Sinusitis and Migraine.  With Cluster Headache lineages on both sides.

Finn scared me deeply Thursday by first vomiting and retching, then literally collapsing against one of the bathroom cabinets.  It was the first time I'd ever seen him anything but jumpy-happy, and it was unnerving.  I laid on the bed with him, gave him ice to lick, and, within a couple of hours, he was back to normal.  Still pretty tired, though: Pretty sure I put something about this organization on my facebook wall.  Well, the bracelets I ordered from them arrived: The top one says "Dropped + Made in Laos."  Hard to realize I'm wearing parts of bombs or guns or ammunition around my wrist. Spent a good part of this morning updating my etsy page.   I didn't make a single sale over the holidays, so it isn't like I had to re-stock or anything.  There were just some pictures hanging around that needed to be posted. On THE other economic issue, I am still unemployed.   I told myself I was going to jump back into the hunt with renewed ...

New favorite book.   Wish I weren't working on two things already. A couple more Christmas pictures: The traditional top-of-the-stairs-before-opening-presents photo. Hannah wasn't having any luck explaining Christmas to Klunk, so she turned the job over to the big brothers.  (Note Klunk's Fair Isle turtleneck.) GET IT? Finn's favorite toy.  He has scarcely let go of it, save for an adventure or two with the "baked potato" on the left.

So, Ann Curry began a "movement" on twitter: 26 Acts , where you are encouraged to do 26 random acts of kindness in honor of the 26 victims of the Newtown murders.  I got to it sort of late, but am really enjoying coming up with ways to randomly surprise people.  And I'm going to try to get to 27, as the shooter's mother was as much a victim as anyone at the school. Things are proceeding well here for Christmas.  For as long as I can remember, I've liked to wrap one present a day leading up to Christmas.  It extends the spirit, and it's fun to watch the stack of gifts grow every day. Hannah's new kitten is doing well.  He was "in quarantine" for a week, so yesterday was the first day he was allowed to walk around in the house.  He's very interested in Riley (the feeling isn't mutual), and is of great interest to Finn.  Unfortunately, it's hard to get a clear picture of the little guy --- he's surprisingly fleet afoot.  So her...

In a week, maybe a little more, there will be one more heartbeat, and four more feet at Chez Dean: Hannah has wanted a Sphynx cat forever, and she made the down payment on this little guy tonight. There were kittens climbing all over me for some reason.  The sweater maybe?  That's the adoptee curled up in my lap. And here. Hannah is over the moon.  Which is what counts.

For some reason, both our dogs have been whining all day long.   It has driven me insane.  Rupert, in particular, has been persistent with his shrill yodel.  I have no idea what the problem/issue is, I just know I have a column of agony in the right side of my brain drilled from the top of my head down to my top teeth. My psychiatrist refused altering my medications, though I begged  him to.  He said, firstly, I am taking so many things, trying to pinpoint exactly what to change and how much would be almost impossible to do.  I can understand that, but I NEED HELP.  His answer was that since depression is such an isolating disease, I need to get out and with other people as much as possible.  I told him that I volunteer once a week, and have my knitting group every other week.  Nice "start," he said.  Add one more activity before the year is over was what he sent he me away with. I could have punched him in the throat.  I a...

I would tell you how long I slept between Wednesday night and this morning, but it's kind of embarrassing.  Surely, my body and mind required that many hours, or they wouldn't have stayed checked out, but it's still. . .  sort of. . . a lot.  So let's move on. Our air conditioning unit is running full tilt, non-stop, and, yet, there are periods of each day when it feels like it has stopped working.  A quick glance around the house, though, shows an animal parked on each of the floor vents, so we humans aren't always getting the complete impact.  Hannah and I are both spending lots of time sitting very still directly under ceiling fans. One of the things I found while going through things at my parents' house was my baby ring.  It was never engraved, which is a bit odd.  And it is teeeeeen-iney. I also found a photo of Daddy that struck me as almost identical to my high school senior picture: Boy, am I his daughter, or what?  P...

Periodically, our dogs will get into snarling tussles over a treat or a piece of food.  Pulling them apart is only a matter of grabbing a collar or two. But the other afternoon, a fight broke out over, as far as I could tell, nothing .  So, I had to get in there and separate them.  In the melee, I got a serious bite.  From Rupert, I think.  And it hurts like a mother. It's swollen and interestingly colored and makes knitting very uncomfortably and short-lived. You?

Nice to be finished with all my Saturday errands before 10 AM, especially as it's already a muggy 80+ degrees out there. Grief over Gable still hangs in the house.  I've been watching the animals carefully, as they almost always take these things the hardest.  Madeleine seems to be acting the most differently, which is kind of weird, since she knew Gable a shorter time than anyone (except Riley, of course.)  For some reason, I expect Lily to show the most obvious, the worst signs, but she seems alright so far.

The nightmare trip to Nashville finally ended, but not before my finding more evidence of mice even more everywhere.   I just cannot figure how they got in.  There are steep, steep stairs both from the garage into the kitchen and from the first floor to the second.  These must have been some in-shape rodents. Back here, I found Gable severely weak and in pain.  I was taking him to the vet to get checked out;  he died in the car on the way.  I was holding him in my lap, so I was with him, but it's still a fairly crushing blow.  He'd been with us a long time.  But he's never been the same after we had Jessie put down.  He adored her. Hannah is back for the summer.  Or for part of it.  She and a friend have got to find a house to live in in Atlanta;  they're aiming to move in in late June/early July.  Looks like she'll be living out of boxes and bags until then. I finished several little knitting projects w...

Doesn't Yoda look just darling in my Lacey ruffled scarf?   A closer look at the color and ruffles: Today has been a relax on the couch, knit, read, watch movies sort of day.  I never wanted for company, either  --- Madeleine, Finn and Finn's Hound were particularly constant companions.

Hebetude.  Lassitude.  They've all settled in at Chez Dean, and the animals and I are helpless to take up arms against them.  We're all just rather lying about, shuffling from room to room only when absolutely necessary. And yet, despite the torpor, I finished the other "beach" sock, wrapped up a Noro scarf I had also been working on at the beach, and finished Gentlemen and Players  (which contained quite a twist, let me tell you.)  I'll be casting on a dishcloth at some point today, and have already begun the "I" book: John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany , which I began once, but did not finish.

I do not drink coffee.  Yet coffee houses are, generally, places that I like.  Ironically, my two favorites (one old, one new) both have canine-inspired names.  There's Fido , near Vandy, in Nashville (the old) and Lost Dog Cafe , (the new), in Folly Beach.  (Although, I got the best white hot chocolate ever from Black Magic Coffee in Folly Beach.) I do not remember ever having been to Charleston.  After going yesterday, I know I would  remember, as it is so pretty.  (At least the parts of town I drove through.)  Just for an example, look at the stunning Charleston Bridge: The reason I went into Charleston was knit.   An internet search had shown 3 yarn shops within easy driving distance of Folly Beach --- one which sounded more like a needlepoint store, two which were definitely knitting-heavy.  Knit. was the nearer, so I stopped on my way back.  And, OH. . .  Just OH.  It was a fantastic find, if only for the ...

You're trying to knit, trying to actually make some progress on a project, and this happens: Madeleine decides to be bookmark, yarn holder, lap warmer.   And yet, success!!