Which is why I haven't been here much. Well, busy, plus my stupid intestinal thing. I'd love to see the doctor about it, but I'm still paying off the labs for my colonoscopy last October, and the removal and testing of a tiny mole on my back. Since I had my gallbladder out, the reflux can be so bad that it burns my esophogas. I should know better and take a Pepcid before I have a meal I know will upset me, but last Sunday I forgot and I made spaghetti. I had half as much as I normally do and I had two small pieces of garlic toast, but around ten o'clock, i was in misery. I'm finally feeling better. As much as I hate doing it, I've been taking naproxin to help with the inflammation of my esophogas. You know you have a problem when you feel hot or cold liquids going down. So, I hope one of these days I take the pill before I know I need it. Tomato sauce is pretty acidic.
So, Boyd is still here, trying to get him to eat on his own. I got some Lafeber's Avi-cakes for him and he seemed to like it, he was even pecking at the seeds a little. I'm no longer syringe feeding him and he has to eat for himself off of the spoon. He's not eating nearly as much as he was when I was feeding him, but he flies off when he's had enough.
Adding to the stress of the trees and Boyd, came the taxes. It was tough this past year, money was actually made so that we owed a ton to the IRS. Well, the majority of that was the self employment tax (social security for the self employed). And the property taxes were do on the tenth. Brian and I kind of got into it Thursday morning because he went into this "we have to do something" speech and because I was still reeling from the amount we owe the IRS from the night before, I told him "what do you expect me to say? What do you want me to do? I can't find the money when we don't have any. I sold all of my jewelry, I have nothing left. I hate when you put this off on me, when there's nothing I can do." Probably added to my intestinal problems. He doesn't want me to leave the house to work because he needs me here when he needs something researched or shipping labels or a check.
And then he tells me he needs to buy more cylinders, he doesn't have enough stock to fill the orders he has. What am I supposed to do? Find money? I sold stock to pay for the trees, I really don't want to sell anymore. I really don't, that's all we have for retirement.
Gah.
Anyway, he had to go get his mom's new glasses and he was gone for quite a while. When he came home, he had a check. He didn't ask for money, he just told her what kind of pressure we're under and she gave him a check for what we need. We don't have to pay this back, it will come out of his share of the inheritance. So, we'll be paying it back later, I guess. But that was a big problem taken care of. And this year I'm going to do everything I can to pay the estimateds each quarter.
And I've been working on the vase with flowers I'm making for Mother's Day. Yesterday, I cut out the greenery and a bunch of paper for pansies. Then the computer and Silhouette quit talking to one another, so I quit for the night. Today I'll finish cutting the paper for the pansies and go on to different flowers. I'd like to have everything cut out, then start the assembly. I did some begonias last week and they turned out nicely. Here's what I've done so far:
This is the vase. I've got a ball of styrofoam in the top and I'll be putting flowers in that. The vase is from SVGCuts Mom's Garden Gifts kit and the flowers are from their Enchanted Sparrow Paperscape kit. I added a little of my DNA to the flowers when I poked my thumb with a wire end, but unless you're looking for it, you'd never know.
And the begonias from the 3D Flowers Kit . I like how these are looking so far. They've got a lot of 3D flowers in four kits, so I have a lot of great choices. I got some green wire over on Amazon and I think it should work pretty well.
I discovered that SVGCuts is having a spring design contest, with some nice prizes, so I have to get this thing done by the end of the month. I'll enter this, then give it to my mother-in-law.
Katie is eating less dry food, but that's alright. She gets A/D and chicken baby food, with water added to make it really lappy and it gets warmed up. Of course this is a much wanted meal, so one of us needs to stand with her as she eats and keep the other cats from bothering her until she has her fill. And if you move suddenly, she'll run off. But she's grooming and seems to be as happy as she can be, under the circumstances.
Charlie is still an asshole.