Brr! Whew! Brr! Whew!

I know my posts are getting further apart from each other, but that's because there really isn't any excitement going on that's worth writing about.  But just to let you all know that I'm still kicking, I thought I'd write something, even if it puts you to sleep.

(this is the part where you close your eyes and drift into snooze land)

We just over a cold spell.

How exciting is that?  Well, it's not really.  But the temperatures dipped pretty low, and it's been a long time since we've seen them this low.  If we lived in Fairbanks, this would be pretty normal, but thankfully, we do not live in Fairbanks.

So what do I do to stay warm in the cold dark days of January?  Well, for starters, I wear lots of layers.  But of course, since I am a middle-aged female, those layers sometimes gotta be spontaneously peeled off, and stepping outside in the sub-zero temps can feel like a nice cool breeze from heaven on a hot sweltering day in the deep South.

I know you other females know what I'm talking about.

When I'm not desperately trying to cool off, I'm desperately trying to stay warm. Seriously, my fleece jacket that I wear around the house is on - off - on - off - on - off........

I know it sounds crazy, but that's the way it is when your personal inner thermostat goes on the fritz.

So, when I'm trying to stay warm and my fleece jacket is on, a hot bowl of soup is appreciated, and a cup of coffee becomes my best friend.  I'm also going through lots and lots of hot herbal teas (with a dose of Black Cohosh).

Cuddling up on the couch under some blankets with my purring puddy tat is also very nice.

That is, until I get a spontaneous and very desperate need to cool off again.

Then I'm frustrated when I can't whip the blankets off me because there's a calm, peaceful, purring puddy sitting on them. 

I don't like disturbing the special bonding moments with my kitty, so I try to take off my fleece jacket without moving her too much, and I break out into a sweat anyway, because she emits a lot of heat into my legs from her furry little body.

(Oh the joys of the age of transition!)

When Bossy isn't on my lap inducing these "heat waves", she likes to stay warm by the fireplace.

"Who me?"

Speaking of Bossy, she had a hard day yesterday.  I took her to the vet.  The whole experience is always "torturous" for her psychological well-being.  Listening to her howling in the car, you'd think she was going through the worst agony ever.  She makes noises I didn't think was possible for a cat to make. And then to be poked, prodded, and manhandled by a strange man - what an ordeal!

Anyway, she wasn't technically due for a routine checkup yet, but I noticed she was losing weight.  Of course when an animal (or a person) is losing weight with no apparent explanation, the first thing that comes to mind is the "C" word.  

But Bossy wasn't acting sick, nor did she act like she was in pain.  She still plays and has energy (when she's not "chilling" by the fire), so I wanted to know why she was losing weight.

After an expensive blood test, we found out that she has hyperthyroidism.  Luckily, it's something that can be easily managed, but the vet said if we do nothing about it, she will continue to waste away.  So, as long as she's still lovable and enjoyable and easy to live with, she's still a "keeper".

But now I have to get into a new habit.

I have to give her one of these little pink pills twice a day.

How do you make a cat swallow a pill?  Well, it can be done, but if this is going to be a continuous never-ending thing, she will quickly learn to run away from me twice a day if I have to force it down her throat.  So what I do instead is crush it between two spoons and then stir it into a spoonful of soft food.  She gobbles it right down.

Normally we only give her dry food, but sometimes we give her soft food for a "treat".  I guess this means she will start to think she's a really special kind of kitty getting "treats" twice a day.

I hope it doesn't go to her head.

We have to do this for a month and then check her blood again.

Oh yay, another ride to the vet in that "torture chamber" on wheels we call a car!

Anyway, I'm just glad I can still enjoy her for awhile yet.

She's 14-1/2 years old, so I know her time is coming.

But as long as she's not peeing on my couch, she's more than welcome to stay and cuddle with me.

Stay warm, or stay cool! - whichever one fits you at any given moment.

Scrapbooking vs. Quilting vs. Time

Hello All!

I hope the new year is starting out good for everyone!  I am always desiring to keep history in the past while looking forward where lies hope for the better, no matter what kinds of challenges we are currently facing. Even if your life feels like total bliss, c'mon admit it! - you know there's always room for improvement in some area of your life.

"Endevearrrrrrrr to perseveeeerrrrrrrr", says the old indian in the Josie Wales movie.

Anyhoo, that's not the subject I want to get into today.  I haven't blogged for a while now because, now that the holidays are over, everything is back to humdrum normal and I don't have anything to say.

But that's a good thing.

Really, that's a good thing.

Well, actually it depends on what humdrum "normal" means.

But anyway, I finally "finished" my Halloween quilt yesterday.

You can see that I had a lot of help from my feline friend.

It's very hard to sew with an animal sitting on your sewing project, but she just had to make sure all my stray threads were completely and thoroughly dead.  Thank you, Beaner Weaner.

Now that I'm up to the very last step of sewing the binding on, I told PW to start looking through my quilt patterns and pick one she liked because my next project will be for her.

I gave her my whole stack of magazines and books and expected her to take a few days to carefully choose which one she would want.  This a quilt, something specially made for her, something she will hopefully cherish for a long time, so I would think that she'd be excited and really take her time to choose carefully.  But she only looked at the top book, and had one picked out in 5 minutes.

Really?  Are you absolutely SURE you don't wanna browse through the rest and see if you like something else?

She was sure.

Okay, so today we started looking at different fabric ideas.  The pattern calls for 4 pre-cut charm packs OR 1 layer cake, and 2 jellyrolls.  I put her on the Missouri Star Quilt Co. website where I like to buy that stuff from cuz they have SO many choices!  But she wasn't finding anything she liked, so we went to the quilt store just 1/2 a mile down the road from my house.

Here is what we walked out with:

As you can see, they are not charm packs or jelly rolls.  No, that would be too easy.  Instead, I will have to do a lot of cutting before I can do anything.

She started out wanting red, black, and white, which was fine, but then she saw the brown material and liked it.  But it clashed with her black/white/red theme, so she ended up going with browns, greens, grays, and yellows.  I'm not quite fully satisfied with these combinations (yes, that black fabric has ears of corn on it!), but it's her quilt, she picked them.  So we'll see how it goes.  Who knows, I might actually like it when it's all done.

Now the problem is, how am I supposed to work on two different hobbies?  I really want to keep going with my scrap booking, but the quilting is pulling me in the quilting direction.  

For the past couple years I've been trying to get Justin's 1st year baby album done.  It's taking so long to get it done because "life" keeps getting in the way.  I am getting close to the end - he's 10-1/2 months old now!  Just a month and a half to go and his first album will be done!  

But here's another interruption - when he was that age, we took our first trip back home to Wisconsin as a married couple and as a family (this was in the year 1989).  So now I gotta make a Wisconsin album too (on the side of Justin's baby album).

please try to ignore my poofy 80s hair

So, I wish I was a clone so I could be upstairs working on these scrap book pages, while at the same time working on PW's quilt downstairs.

Should I finish the album before I start on the quilt?

That might take awhile  - I can already imagine PW bugging me to get started on her quilt.

Or do I put the scrapbooking on the back burner while I get another quilt made?

Argh.

I am just gonna have take turns!

Isn't that what my mom always used to tell us when we were kids?

The frustrating thing about wanting to do what you wanna do is that it seems like there's never enough time to do everything you wanna do.

But NOT wanting to do anything at all, I think, is even worse.

So, even though I get flustered about having too much to do and too little time, I am glad that I at least have some interests to keep life fun and enjoyable.

And now that I took up the time to write all of this, I have no time left for scrap booking OR quilting today, cuz "life" happens, and in order to keep life going, we gotta eat.

"Time keeps on tickin', tickin', tickin'.....into the future.........."

I don't know how many more years I got left, but I hope it'll be enough to pump out a bunch more quilts and albums.