On the 29th of July, a good friend messaged me that her daughter had passed away. She was at camp, not home when it happened. I've shared photos of the cards I've made her for the past couple of years, she was the best natured kid ever. Twenty six years old.
Then this past Saturday morning, Brian and I tried a new place for breakfast (won't go there again), then headed over to Lowe's to buy me a clothesline (I've wanted one for years, solar energy, dude!). They didn't have them in stock, but I could order online (I did, from Amazon for $30.00 less than Lowe's for the exact same product). Brian's cell rang as we were walking out. It was his younger brother, the one who lives next door to my mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law had passed away. It was a shock, she was in pretty good health. She'd passed in her sleep. Eighty seven and a half years old. I don't know if it's because it hasn't hit yet or everyone is pretty much okay with it, but no one seems to be deeply affected by her loss. Yes, they are affected, but everyone seems to be moving on quickly.
Then there are the everyday things I need to do, still have paperwork, but it's cooled off considerably this past few days, so I should be able to concentrate. I'm sure it will take me three or four days to catch up, and that's okay.
My clothesline is supposed to be here today. I got clothespins and a bag for them yesterday.
Then there's the living room. Brian got the paint. It's sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I need to get going on that. I'm really stoked about the photo wall. I searched and found these removable mounting things and I won't be using nails or anything like that to hang my pictures. And I won't need to have string or ribbon at the top. I'll place them directly on the wall. I'd love to cover it. I think I've found a way to make the frames for a full sized 13" x 19" sheet of paper. I have to test it out, though.
Brian and Mark went to the company who is taking care of Marion's cremation yesterday and Brian saw a Foster Freeze, so we're going there for dinner tonight. They used to have one fairly close by, but it's been years. It's a Greek Chicken place now.
Anyway, that's the update. Not a real good one, but life goes on.
Israel is the guy who was in charge of trimming the trees last year. He also did a lot of work around the pool.
Well, I'm not all hot on pulling weeds, neither is Brian and the pool area was overgrown again. Brian called Israel earlier this summer, but he never called back. Yeah, he actually did, a couple of weeks ago. And the pool area is clean again as well as the grass that was growing over the pine needles and chips from last year in the front yard was all pulled last week. (Nothing was hauled away after the trimming, we just used it all as ground cover.)
Brian had another project for him, to replace the broken PVC pipe next to the house, the pipe that's supposed to drain the water from the driveway in the front yard. They started early this morning and it turns out all seventy feet of the pipe is full of tree roots and it all has to be replaced. ~le sigh~
This pipe is why I had no garden this year, this was where the garden was suppose to be.
Next year! Next year tomatoes and peppers and lavendar and catnip.
Bring on the rain! This year it had better not back up into the garage like last season.
Old, emaciated cat. Gray, tabby female. Tested, negative on all counts, complete blood count, all good. About thirteen years old. The person who found her was going to take her, but changed her mind. So, it was off to Animal Control.
Sucker light flashes brightly. Getting her tomorrow (too much going on today with the noise from the handymen).
Still working on Tommy. If I knew he was FeLV negative, he'd be in by now. Brat won't go into the carrier or trap. But he will stand at the front door waiting to be let in. He lets me pick him up, but went wild when I tried to put him in a carrier and we didn't see him for three days.
The topic: Frames
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Yesterday I tried to make one of those shadow box frames bigger. Like 19" x 13", the size of my photo paper. Here we hit "dur* again because my Silhouette only cuts 12" wide.
But, darn it, where there's a will, there's a way and I'm just too stubborn to give up (like all those years of making Disney videos of our meets, every year researching how to get them HD on my computer, which, no matter how many times I tried, just didn't have the capability). What I'm planning on doing is trimming down an inch off of a 13" x 19" paper and make it 12" x 19".
Then I'll make the top piece that goes over the box part from two pieces. Hopefully, the splits won't be noticible unless you're looking at it very, very carefully. I'm hoping my photo that it contains is so frikking awesome that one is blown away and doesn't pay attention to how many pieces are on the top part of the frame.
I went through about six tries at cutting the frame pieces. Each time, after cutting, I had an epiphany. This ain't gonna work. First it was the angle of the edges. They were stretched out, too, so they were no longer in proportion and the angles were all wrong. Needed 45° angles. And I fixed that. After cutting a couple of those, I measured. Damn it. The new edges I put on the longer frame piece, the edges with the correct angles, were added onto the tips, not taking into account that they didn't need to be.
So, like I said, I finally got it mid-evening. I can get one long and two short on a piece of 12" x 18' cardstock when I put the pattern at an angle.
Woohoo!
I would have worked on this today, but I've been doing other stuff.
Like hanging up laundry on my new solar clothes drier (yeah, a clothes line; I got a clothes line and it works).
The topic: Meet Bernadette
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Thursday morning, the phone rings. I answer it, nobody there. I check the caller ID, it was the vet's office. I call them back.
Small talk ensues...why? And then she gets to the point.
"Somebody dropped off a kitty here, they found her by the courthouse and they were going to keep her, but changed their minds. They said to take her to animal control, but Charlene [the office manager] said we should call you first. She's emaciated and very tiny. She's been tested for disease and had a complete blood test and there's nothing wrong with her."
I ask about how old she is, because we are NOT taking in kittens or young cats at this point. Just seniors and it has to be pretty dire for us to do that. Well, the vet figures she's around thirteen years old.
"Just a minute..." BRIAN!! (He's out with the handymen.) I relay the info. He said whatever I wanted to do.
"Okay, we'll take her, but not today, they're doing stuff in the yard today and it's noisy. Tomorrow."
Then it's yesterday. Brian had some errands to run, then he was going to finish the stuff at the side of the house, cover the pipe that had just been replaced (which he'd uncovered before all those torrential rains hit last winter - yeah, remember that El Nino that seemed to bypass San Diego?). I wait and wait and wait as he did his chores, I take a shower, and then he's finished. I didn't want him to be running the tractor when we got home. I grab the carrier and off I go.
Elena takes me back to where the little kitty is. She's so small....Elena opens the door to the cage, I start to pet her. I can feel bones, her hip bones are prominent. I put a little of the kibble that's in a bowl next to her in front of her. She starts to eat it. She purrs for me....my heart melts.
And I get more of the story. It seems she was living in a neighborhood and some people took pity on her and decided to take her in. First off was to the vet's office. The vet didn't charge for eighty percent of what they did for this little kitty. Disease tests, blood tests, a bath to get rid of all the fleas, parasite treatment, trimmed off all of her mats (she's a short haired kitty). The new owners call to see how everything went. She's all good, there's nothing really wrong with her. "How old do you think she is?" About thirteen. "Oh. Well. I wish you'd have told me that to begin with, we'd just have her put to sleep."
Crickets.
So, instead of animal control, Charlene says "call Dianne". The vet asks later "have you called Dianne yet?" Shannon is reluctant because of Smokey, the cat who stayed there for over a month because they were waiting for results for a definitive FeLV test that had been sent out to a lab. In the meantime, Charlene's aunt said she'd take him. But for the sake of this little scrawny girl cat, she made the call.
And here she is! I got video before I got photos. And where she is now, the lighting isn't all that good and I really don't want to keep blowing the flash in her face. She's absolutely adorable!
Brian didn't come inside to see her right away because he was busy. But when he did, she meowed at him and gave him her best kitty smile. He's smitten.
We're calling her Bernadette. If you watch The Big Bang Theory, you'll understand why. We will call her "Bernie" for short.
She's tiny, she's cute and she's very vocal (I was listening to her last night and at times, she sounded just like Marco).
We have her in the double decker large dog crate right now. There are a couple of boards on the bottom that serve as steps to the top level and the litter box is under those on the very bottom. I have pee pads covering the bottom because those make for easier cleaning than a towel or nothing. She's been really good about using the box. She doesn't seem to like the top level so much, she's been hanging out on the bottom. I wish she'd move more freely between the two because the food and water is up. If it was on the bottom, the other cats thinking this was prime marking area would pee in her food and water and that's not acceptable. So, I spend some time trying to coerce her to the top, using tuna. It's worked, but as soon as she's done eating, she's back down.
When she sleeps, she sleeps deeply, but she's not sleeping for long. It will take a few days for her to relax in her new home. We have her in the crate so the new smells and the other cats aren't overwhelming for her, a safe place for her to be as she becomes acclimated. The other cats don't seem to care about her at all, very little interest in her on their parts. Which is good, because like I mentioned, she's pretty vocal. And when she yells at another cat, they run.
Here are a couple of pictures I took this morning. Clicking on a picture will take you to a bigger photo in my family album; clicking on that picture will open a larger photo.
On her little wooden porch
This photo gives a better idea of how thin she is.
We don't know how old she really is or how long we'll have her, but it will be as stressfree a life as we can make it for her.
So, welcome to your forever home, Bernadette! No more life on the streets for you.
Oh, I called Shannon yesterday afternoon to let her know how she was doing. Shannon said she was going to call the lady who brought her in, because she had really been concerned about this little cat. Geez, don't these people talk to one another? I told her what Elena had told me.
Shannon didn't call her to update on Bernie's progress. Good. Asshole people.
UPDATE 1:15 PM:
I just saw her drinking water, then eating kibble on the top floor, so we're good! Then she was back on the bottom. We're golden!
She's a shy eater. If she's eating and I start to open the cage door, she bolts.
Which makes me wonder if this could be one of the reasons she's so thin. Being chased away from what little food was available.
I wonder about her hearing. If I snap my fingers over her head, she doesn't show any signs of having heard. Like looking up. Hmmmm.
She's finally sleeping and deeply. This morning I opened the cage door, pulled out the litterbox, cleaned it out and slid it back in and she didn't twitch. Which also makes me wonder about her hearing.
She likes tuna and she likes chicken. She really likes water, I wonder if she got much before.
I still haven't held her, the only time I have picked her up was when I took her out of the cage at the vet's office and she wasn't happy about it. I know she's very affectionate, last night I sat in front of the cage with the door open and I petted her for over a half hour. She didn't seem anxious at all. But it was on her terms.
This little kitty can poop! Really nice firm poos, but, boy howdy, are there a lot. I'm cleaning out the box a couple of times a day.
Saturday night I got a blanket and sat on it in front of the cage with the door open. We had a very intense petting session. She purred up a storm, rubbing her face all over my hands. At one point I petted her under her neck and got a love bite for my troubles. I think she was getting a little over stimulated so ended the session.
I ran Botti this morning and watched her watching it vacuum. She seemed very intrigued.
She smacked the bun on my head this morning when I was petting and talking to her. She wasn't real sure what that thing was, so let's just kill it to be on the safe side.
And I actually saw her stretching this morning and clawing at the wood she lays on. That's a first.
She's showing more interest in leaving the cage. Not a lot, but when the door's open, she looks past me. It won't be long before she's ready to leave it and join the population.
The topic: The cameras
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I'll probably be closing down catcam.us later this month. Viewership is way down and the office really needs to be redone. Everytime I look, there's not a cat in sight, so it's just a waste to run it, the camera, the light...
A sad realization that something I've had so much fun with over the years will be shutting down. By my own hand.
The topic: The cost of energy
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Our local utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, A Sempra company, just keeps screwing the users over. They keep thinking up new ways so suck the populace dry. Cut back, cut back, cut back, they implore their customers. The customers comply.
Holy shit! They aren't using as much energy, we're not making as much money! Our shareholders, our employees, our upper echelon suits salaries! We can't afford to not make as much money, in fact we need MORE! MORE!!!!
(Doing research into the San Onofre shenanigans where the utilities made backroom deals with the Public Utilities Commission on how to cover their losses by sticking it to the consumers is a real eye-opener; losses that were a direct result of their own greed that could have cost thousands and thousands of lives.)
We lost our low income discount last year because our usage was too high. That was thirty percent off of our monthly bill. We adjusted. The bills were still higher, but not as bad as if we hadn't cut back. They have a place where you can view your energy usage on their website. It comes directly from the meter. I watched it and realized that one of the big sucks was the pool pump. Brian didn't believe me, but after much nagging on my part, he cut back how long it ran and started it earlier in the day. And since it was running when not much else was, it was very easy to point it out to him on the hour by hour usage chart. We need to replace the pump. He admits that now.
Anyway, earlier this summer they went to two tiers of pricing. The first was basic usage at a cheaper rate, then you get bumped up to a higher rate when you go over the basic. Previously, there were three tiers. Now there is just one. It started past one of our billing cycles. Our cost for last month was $480.00. The most current wasd $507.00. I once again started in about the pool pump. There was a little yelling that ensued. He was yelling "when do I have the time?" and I was yelling "everytime I check into it, you tell me you'll go down the pool place and ask them what pumps have rebates! Why are you yelling at me because you aren't doing something you said you'd do? And besides, I can't cut back much in the house anymore. I don't use my computer, I use the laptop. I don't run the fans. We quit running the whole house fan and attic fans. The air conditioner hasn't run all summer. I now hang our clothes on as clothesline instead of running the dryer. I can't cut back anywhere else! But you leave the fans and lights on in your shop and you aren't in there! You're running all over town doing errands, yet everything is going in the shop! And it makes no sense!"
Crickets. Crickets are big around here.
So, yesterday, we went over to his mom's house. His brother and SIL were there, as well as his niece and nephew. We got on the topic of the electrical. Mark said that their previous month's bill was over $400.00. Marion's was almost $300.00. It's crazy.
So, we're all bitching about the costs when Brian says to Mark "remember that big fan you had that I brought down from the property?" Mark kind of did. Brian told him "I checked out the motor, that thing is 35 amp!" So, that puppy has been unplugged. I'll be curious to see what else he can cut back on.
But it frustrates me to no end that I even have to bring this stuff up, yanno?
The topic: Bernadette
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Bernadette has trust issues. These will take time to work through. I also think there was a level of physical abuse, not deliberate abuse, but mom or dad isn't watching the kid who's picking up the cat by her head abuse.
I cannot pick her up. If I put my hands on either side of her and even attempt to close in enough to just lift her a little, she freaks out. Last night, I was cupping her head in my hands and she quickly pulled back. I wasn't forcing her at all, but something about the position unnerved her.
She has gotten comfortable enough with us that we can watch her eat. I haven't tried to open the crate and pet her while she noms, but I can talk to her through the door without her heading back to the bottom.
This morning, I opened the door to the crate to see what she would do. She stepped out, let me give her a little pet, she walked over to the screen door, sat and looked out for a couple of minutes, walked back by the crate to the other side, she walked around it and checked it out, then she made her way back in to the crate and up onto her little wooden stoop. Safe once again. Showing no interest at all in checking out anything outside of her little world.
I've put in a few toys for her. They mean nothing to her. I have a little catnip left from when I used to grow it (next season, I'll have catnip again now that the pipe at the side of the house has been covered) that I'll test her with today.
Trust. It will take a while for her to trust us, but we aren't in any hurry. She can take it at her own pace and live out her life here in love, comfort and peace.
She's also putting on a little weight. Here's a photo I took of her yesterday, her belly is starting to fill in.
I have muliple ear piercings. Four in my left ear, three in my right. I have lots of earrings, I used to play with changing them on a daily basis, back when I worked, choosing earrings took more time than picking out what I was going to wear.
Well, I still have lots of earrings, but I don't play with them like I used to. I find something I like, then just leave it in. Right now, my left ear has some small, flat, created opal earrings, same size for each hole and I have some very tiny diamonds in my right ear. I think a pair of those is 1/4 carat TW. The problem I have is the backs. I have some rubber backs that harden over time and it's a pain to remove them, but I do it every once in a while. Then I put new backs on.
The last time I did this, I didn't use backs that held on well enough. And three days ago, one of my little tiny diamond earrings wasn't in my ear. I looked around the house for it, but Botti had run earlier and I'd dumped the tank and the trash was picked up yesterday. I was sad because I've tried to find decent CZs for the ear, but they end up getting cloudy over time. The only CZ I've ever bought that didn't cloud was Diamonique from QVC and I can't get them this small. I figured I'd just find something else tiny in my earring stash, maybe gold balls or something.
I didn't run Botti yesterday. I was working on finishing up the last three bank reconciliations and the noise would have been a distraction. But he needed be run, he was born to run. It's in his DNA. This mroning, I took his cover off and started him up.
He does this thing where he tries to go where no Botvac has gone before. And there's a reason for that. They don't fit. Case in point, the stand my Cameo is on. The one under my work table.
I'm sitting here, checking out FB and Botti tries to clean under the table. He gets part of it done, then decides to clean under the Cameo stand. He backs up, tries again. He's not going any deeper. It's not gonna happen. I'm watching him just to see how long it takes. I notice the brush on his side, the one that brushes debris from along edges and corners isn't spinning. Which means there's something caught up in it. Like strands of my hair. I pick him up and take off the brush, pulling the hair and fur from it. When I put it back on, I noticed a bunch of cat litter in the track, so I kind of shook him, dumping the litter on the floor. I set him back down to run and was looking at the little bit of litter on the floor and guess what was there?
My little tiny diamond earring! I picked it up and washed it off and it's not bent or anything!
To the formatting of my blog entries. You should now see a category picture above the name of the category. It used to show up at the bottom right corner in a permalink, but I wanted the picture to show up when my blog notifier posted the blog link on Facebook.
What has been showing up is the photo of me at the bottom, unless the post actually has pictures in it.
The topic: Last time tonight
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The other one put up a graphic but it was way too big and I can't find a place that gives me a definitive thumbnail size. Trial and error. So far, all I've gotten are errors during my trials.
The topic: Bad night’s sleep
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Why? Because I kept thinking of how to fix the stupid graphic that posts next to the link to this weblog on facebook!
Well, I knew how to fix it and it meant I had to turn on the other computer to access the bigger lisaviolet flowers graphic I made years ago. But I just laid there thinking about it.
My new rotary blade cutter showed up yesterday and that was another thought locomotive running through my head. Now I can start designing the wall photos, since I can trim my 13" x 19" paper down to 12" x 19" so it will fit on the Silhouette mat. Then I started thinking about how to color/print the frame.
Since it's been so hot, I sleep on the sofa because the ceiling fan isn't as noisy as the one in the bedroom when it's on high and the breeze through the window is better. The downside is Bernadette is not that far from me and when she walks on the wood, it makes a noise.
I tried counting, I even took a melatonin, but sleep didn't show up until after two. And I woke up often, having to pee.
I'm beat this morning. I made breakfast and now I need to take a shower because I really stink. Seriously, I smell so bad I can smell me. My mom used to refer to this scent as "coyote bait".
So, the graphic has been redone, it should look nice on the facebook links. Having the photo of me at the bottom keep showing up annoyed the hell out of me.
And I really want the new Silhouette Cameo 3. I skipped the 2 because it wasn't new and fabulous enough, but the 3 has dual blade holders and blue tooth and an LED screen and an autoblade (that automatically adjusts to the paper) and storage. And that's plenty reason for me to want to upgrade.
I ordered a bundle on Amazon, the bundle has extra blades and mats. There were more bundles, but I don't need the sketch pens (just got some a few weeks ago), absolutely do not need vinyl (I have a huge storage container in the garage full of different flavors of vinyl), not interested in the silk screening (I print transfers and have a heat press). This was the only bundle that had items I didn't already have as well as items I do buy. I put my order in only to realilze that it wasn't shipping until the end of the month. And then I had an epiphany. Amazon promo codes!
I checked my MyPoints balance, I'm -->this close<--- to a $25 card. Then I remembered our BankAmericard has rewards, maybe one of them is Amazon. And it was! Enough points there for a $50 Amazon card. I ordered that and took a survey over on MyPoints that put my balance over the needed amount. What, wait? I have to wait a week for them to show? Well, crap.
I went over to Amazon to cancel the order. I can't. It's processing. How can it process when it's not even available for shipping? I contact the seller and the order was cancelled. Now there's not so much pressure about payment. Saving seventy-five bucks is nothing to laugh at.
What's really cool is a few years back I went ahead and purchased the business edition of the Silhouette software. I still have my first machine, the one that did 8.5" wide paper and with the business edition, more than one Silhouette machine can be used at a time. I never made much use of it, but I sure will with two Cameos. It should cut my time down immensely.
The topic: Hey! Check it out!
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<------------------ the graphic...it fits. (This is for my facebook peeps.) Success is mine.
Oh, and earlier this very hot week, I realized that the catcam computer had been frozen for almost ten days. It's been so hot I was checking the weather station. And it hadn't updated since the 6th. So....I guess losing the cam page will be no big thing. I'll probably leave the backyard cam up since I won't be shutting down the weather station.
I did turn off the light on the catcam earlier this week, the lamp that was on 24/7. It's strange. The hallway is dark at night now.
After he's spent the last ten to fifteen minutes in the family room "there's more than one room in this house, yanno".
Did he listen?
Nope. Still going over a spot he's been over at least four times. If he didn't repeat so often, I bet he could get the entire place done on one charge.
In other house cleaning news, guess what's back?
Yep. Creepy little things. I was in the process of taking some video of Bernie this morning and she went over to the screen door and I saw them. I followed their trail over to the dry catfood. Of course,. there was a fair bit of yelling and swearing. Brian immediately got the spray and sprayed along the door bottom. Which left them trying to find a way out.
A couple of hours later, I see they've made a trail to the front door from the patio door.
The topic: More just stuff
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(I'm still watching Botti, he's in the dining room right now, pushing around the stools in front of the counter, I hope he doesn't get caught up in a dining room chair, he did that yesterday, the same chair twice - he's not very smart sometimes.)
So, with the passing of Brian's mom, there's the usual question "what do you want?" Kids calling dibs. I called dibs on a picture in the dining room, I've always liked it. It's some sort of laser print on a metallic paper. I don't know what it's called, but I have three small pictures like that, summer, spring and fall. The one she has is winter. I've always liked it and now, it's coming here to live.
I'm getting all of my cards back (they're all on display at her place) as well as the vase I made. And some afghans I crocheted for her living room a long time ago, back when Brian's dad was still alive (he died in 2001). Brian found a painting he really likes, it's a fall/winter scene, very nice.
(Botti is working on getting stuck under a chair right now. Well, good for him, he got out of it.)
I called dibs on her electric skillet. The one we use now was my mom's and it's not very good. I've gotten used to it's crappy ways, food is undercooked when using the part closest to the plug and overcooked on the other side. I've gotten pretty good at making bacon in it. Brian likes his bacon crunchier (burnier) than I do, I like it kind of chewy. But it's not much good for cooking, really. A consistently heated cooking surface is pretty important for a decent meal.
I tried the new to me skillet this morning. I got me some more learnin' to do. My mom's I'd set at 225° and the bacon would come out nicely. This one heated up to 225°. Then it was like it quit cooking. So, I bumped up the heat setting to 300°. Same thing. Good thing I hadn't started the eggs yet, the bacon wasn't sizzlin'. Finally, at 350° it kept cooking and the bacon turned out perfect.
Now, I know.
(Okay, Botti is now in the living room; he spent three times as long in the family room as he did the dining room...what's up wth that?)
The topic: Hydrogen peroxide
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I love this stuff. We get two bottles for $1.99 at Costco. I use it to clean up cat poo. We have two cats who don't use the litterbox, the two oldest. Mystie and Pete. And their stool is often loose and when it happens during the night, most of it is dry in the morning. Oh, I can wipe up most of the solids, but there is always a little residue left and if I put some of this peroxide on it, let it soak and soften a bit, it wipes right up.
I also put it on Q-Tips when I clean out my ears. I love it when it bubbles.
Another use that I REALLY appreciate, is cleaning the grout on my kitchen counters. White tile, white grout. And over time, stuff gets stuck in it. I'm not big on cleaning and, even though there's still scrubbing involved, it's more of a fun thing for me than a work thing (which is why I do my best to not overdo...I'm one of those people that when something actually becomes a job, I become resistent to finding the joy in a "job" well done; and I don't do it).
The bottles we get at Costco don't have special lids with holes in them. They just pour it out all at once. But they do have a safety piece of aluminum over the opening when you take off the lid, to insure that it hasn't been tampered with. I keep this little safety paper in place and poke a hole in it with a needle. And now I get a nice little stream of fluid. Whatevs, it works for me.
So, yesterday, I was wiping down the counter and the bottle was close at hand. I grabbed it and squeezed some on a couple of grout lines and left the room, letting it soak and work. A half hour or so later, I grabbed a stiff brush (it looks like a big toothbrush) and started scrubbing the grout. Whoa, how nasty is this? All of this crud is coming right up. I did the worst counter twice and last night did the side that wasn't really bad. Another nice thing about peroxide is its bleaching abilities.
My counters look mighty fine this morning. Brian clearly isn't as enthusiastic about how nice they look. "It's old grout." Yeah, I'll remember that little comment....
Today is the nicest day in weeks, the doors and windows are opened, there's a warm (not hot) breeze blowing through and it's very pleasant. I've done two loads of laundry today and they're both out on the line in the sun, drying.
I opened the crate door, she made her way out and walked around a little bit. Back behind the chair, looked out the door, where Rocky was looking in, she gave him a hiss, he backed up (he's probably at least three times as big as she is), then he laid down in front of the screen. She sat and looked out, then walked around some more, came back to her crate and walked back in.
And that's where she is right now.
I've been trying to get a comparable photo to the one I took last week. So, I can see the difference in her, but the angles just aren't the same. But she is putting on weight, it's slow, but it's happening.\
She's just so super affectionate, as long as you do it on her terms.
I got one! We went shopping to Walmart, needed catfood and when we got back, she was fast asleep in the bottom of the crate. I slowly opened the door (remember, I don't think she can hear), and snapped a couple of shots.
Here's today's (Clicking on a picture will take you to a bigger photo in my family album; clicking on that picture will open a larger photo.):
Here is the photo from last Saturday:
You can see she's filled out a little. It's slow going, but it's going.
I absolutely hate my washing machine. I love my clothesline, hate the washer.
It has no agitator. I didn't really how much difference the agitator makes.
Clothes don't seem to get as clean as they should. I just washed two sheets and a lightweight bedspread. The sheet on the top came out okay. The other sheet, when I hung it up, had all of this fuzz and dirt (?!!!?) in creases. The bedspread still had quite a few stains on it.
I hit the spread with Spray & Wash and put them back into the washer on high, pre-soak, and hot water. They're soaking right now. I just checked and the water is filthy.
Never again. I will never again have a washing machine without the agitator.
Doors to the out are closed, but I think it's time for her to start exploring a little bit.
So far this morning, she checked out the water fountain in the dining room (she drinks a lot of water) and had a hissy fit at Pete, who was obviously wondering what the hell he did to get such a reaction. After she was done telling him to back off, she ran back into her crate.
Last I saw, she was standing at the door of the crate, looking out.
Oh, I have to share. When I fed her this morning, a new flavor of Fancy Feast, she was nomming away and she was purring. Poor little thing, probably so happy to still be getting fed on a regular basis. (She has dry food available as well.)
While Brian is checking out, I was standing behind him looking at all of the little things that you just know you need. Gift cards, lip balm, ear buds, lighters, you know, stuff.
Oh, and this. There was this:
Not that I'm into Mario Cart or anything, but look! Isn't it cute? It's a guy with a mustache in a yellow cat suit!
I couldn't resist. I picked it up and put it on the belt. I walked in front of Brian. The cashier picked it up to scan. Brian said "oh, no, that's not ours" and starts to take it away from her.
Alarmed I said "it is, too! Put it back!"
Poor cashier was all confused. But I got my Mario Cat. He's right next to my laptop.
It's more boring than paperwork. And it's time consuming.
I'm down to three years' worth now. The next year is 2008, the year my mom went into the facility and died six weeks later. I'm not looking forward to it at all.
I'm thinking I'll try to get at least six months a day done, stopping if I don't feel like doing more.
Right now I don't feel like doing more, but I've put it off long enough. I need to finish this.
The topic: Well, at this point
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I have twenty-two months to go. Today (so far - the day isn't over) I did fourteen months. I did all of 2008. It was rough, that's the year my mom died.
I didn't read the entries completely, but did skim over them. I was a lot more forgiving back then, it seems, because now thinking about her brings to mind how much more she cared about beer than me. I cried a little. It wasn't fun, it was hard to do, but 2008 on up is fixed. I've got two months of 2006 done. What's left is March 2006 through December 2007.
Tonight, I will take a Benedryl before bed so maybe I can sleep. The mosquitoes are not my friends. My blood keeps them living, but I wish I could take something that when the mosquitoes started sucking my life's blood from me, would be poisoned and die. Last night, at one thirty in the morning, I was online over at Amazon looking for something to repel them.
The topic: Bernie update
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Yesterday I picked her up a couple of times. She freaked out until I held her close to me and gave her kisses. I sat in an armchair in the living room, holding her and stroking her. She climbed off of me and sat on the ottoman next to the chair.
As the day went on, I did this a couple of times.
Last night, on her own, she slept on the ottoman.
I have some pictures to share, but I have other stuff I need to get done first. But I will keep you updated on her progress.
The topic: Batshit crazy
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That's where I'm headed right now.
This morning Brian lets me know he needs clean jeans. Okay, start up the washer while the laptop boots up.
I found some speakers to attach to the laptop. Set them up, sounds pretty good. Much better than the built in speakers. Then I see if Windows Media Player will pull from the network drive. It does. It's indexing the files and I start one that's already indexed. Make It Big - Wham. Then it double plays a song. What? What? No. That's not right. I check it out.
Oh, look, duplicate files. Duplicate files eat up space. I spend almost an hour researching the duplicate file finders I have on my system and am not enthused about any of them. Then I do a websearch. I try one out, yeah, okay, but it's finding more than just mp3 files. And to go "pro" will cost $29.95. Sorry. Not going to happen. I search some more, and I find a webpage with a list of good ones. The second one listed?
CCleaner by Piraform. Who doesn't run Crap Cleaner? I have one on every computer, only running the pro on my main computer, the rest are freebies. I open it up. I don't see a duplicate file finder. I re-read the article.....that's where it is. I test it out. Woohoo! I'm ready! Shut down the big PC, then start up the laptop. Brian comes in. "Let's go shopping, the pharmacy opens at 10:30."
Wait until your pants are ready to be hung out.
Shortly after, I get them hung up, change clothes and off we go. I want to get rid of those duplicates. I want to get started on the last year of file fixing. I don't wanna go shopping.
But we do, I get my BP meds, we ate at the CostCo food court, came home and put stuff away, changed into comfy clothes and booted up the laptop. Got CCleaner started. Went over the tools section, found the duplicate file finder, ran it twice before having any luck (duh, needed to look in subfolders, too). Found the duplicates, got rid of them and WMP is now re-indexing the music.
I start to do the file fixing and Firefox is not automatically filling in my logins and passwords.
This started after renewing (and upgrading) our virus software yesterday. I do a search on the interwebs and see that it's probably Trend's new password thing. I remove that from my laptop (using the CCleaner software) and now my autofill is working again.
I start copying and replacing. Who is that screaming? Damn, Bernie, you sure are loud for a little cat. She's next to me here in the family room. Sitting there. I pet her. She moves to the other side. I pet her some more. She hisses at Bobby, gives him a little rebel yell. He backs way off. Then she wanders off, she's back in the crate, sleeping right now.
Then DaNiece decides she want some attention. She's a screamer. I scream back. I'm having some issues copying part of an entry, the whole thing is showing up as a link, a full paragraph, damn it, and I can feel the frustration building. Niecey screams some more. I yell at her. She just sits there, looking at me. I get up and put my hands on either side of her. I pick her up and cradle her in my arms, giving her little kisses on her face and nuzzling her tummy. I hold her to my chest and as I walk into the bedroom with her in my arms, I tell her how much I love her and I gently lay her on the bed on her side.
Where she is still. Maybe I can get some work done now that all of the cats have settled down.
The topic: I am DONE!!!
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It took less than a week to finish up with over five years of format fixing!
I'm gonna go put my feet up. And maybe watch television or something.
Maybe do some Silhouette stuff! Maybe let my back feel better. I've been sitting in pretty much the same position for almost a week, doing repetitive stuff with my right arm and it affected my back, I think.
But I can let this cloud that's been hanging over my head for so long go away....
So, I'm happy I finished the formatting yesterday, but gosh darn it, the underline function wasn't available in the WYSIWYG editor. I vaguely knew this because I noticed it when I first started using this software. But an upgrade was needed and even though it was free, I didn't feel like spending the time on it.
But my frustration of having to use the source application to underline words finally got the best of me and yesterday afternoon I downloaded the upgrade, then uploaded it to my server. Well, . There were only like twelve smileys available. I had a ton more.
I worked on that for a couple of hours last night and again this morning. I finally figured it out. What a pain that was. Anyway, everything is back up and running smoothly. I think. I need to add my little link code back in so the stuff I type often is just a link (like my thumbnail photos). But that shouldn't take too long to do. I hope.
I have some little videos of Bernadette I want to put into a movie and share with you all. As well as some photos. I have a lot of photos of her.
And getting some loves from Brian (see how tiny she is?):
And begging for some of what he's eating (Pete is behind her and Pete is a pretty small cat):
I have some video to put up, but I don't feel like it right now. I've been back here on the computer most of the day and I have some litterboxes to clean.
A couple of weeks ago. I had over a hundred dollars in gift cards, so that substantially dropped the price. I reluctantly used a credit card to pay the rest (all credit card accounts will be paid in full after Brian's mom's estate is settled - we used them a lot during the final years of Brian's old business and they got pretty high which we're slowly paying down; paying them in full will save us almost seven hundred dollars a month, a substantial amount when you don't have a lot coming in).
I'm so excited about getting it, but it's not going to be available for shipping until mid-September!
Originally it was supposed to be the end of August. It IS the end of August! Right now! Send it! Want! Want! Want! I even got a new blade holder on eBay (because I'm still cheap) so I can use both machines at the same time if the mood strikes me. And it's striking me RIGHNT NOW! I want my ma-cheeen! My weblog is all pretty and updated, got the diary all formatted so the entries aren't one long paragraph and I'm ready to move on!
Scanning and printing out photos that Mark and Brian want to send to the other kids when checks are sent. They're old photos that Marion had up on the shelves in the dining room. Family photos.
The first three went pretty smoothly, no issues. But the last, the studio portrait of Brian's mom and dad? I spent hours trying to get the colors right. Her jacket was a dark turquoise color and when the jacket color was right, the skin tones were awful. I tried all sorts of settings, five different types of photo paper. After six last night, I finally got something acceptable. I'm still not thrilled with the skin tone, but it will be okay.
Like Brian said "at least it looks real in this one".....
There's minimal hissing. Charlie discovered the top floor of the "house" yesterday, I found him asleep behind the towel. Brian said he'd seen him in there earlier eating the little wet food she'd left.
She laid with me on the sofa last night, Brian went to bed, I stayed where I was because I didn't want to bother her. Then, Tommy started yowling out front, he was late, so I got up to feed him. She got up as well, so I just went to bed.
I can hardly wait until I feel secure enough letting her go outside. The breeze is better with all of the doors open, even the screens. Her hearing is what has me most concerned about her being in the out. (And I just shake my head thinking that she had been living in the out before she came to us.)
She does check out the house more, not so much as exploring, but just checking it out. Maybe remembering where the food and water are for emergency situations. Whatever she's doing, she does not seem curious at all.
lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.
In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.
. There were only like twelve smileys available. I had a ton more.
