Friday, August 31, 2012

Blue Moon

Well, tonight was a blue moon. So all those 'once in a...' that you've been talking about, it's time to get them done!

Blue Moon

Doesn't look all that different from a normal moon, huh?

I think this is what they're really supposed to look like.

Blue Moon

Also, have I been the only one to have that song stuck in my head? Personally, my version is the one in Grease.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

I am Not Left-Handed

My right arm is currently in a sling, so typing is difficult and this will be short.

Thursday night I ended up going to an urgent care place for my shoulder pain. The x-rays they took showed nothing bad so they referred me to another place to get an MRI. They also gave me some medications (including tramadol, which was lovely as it took the edge off the pain but sadly made me vomit... a trade-off that I might consider worth it if I didn't find some of Dan's old hydrocodone in our bathroom drawer) and a sling. The MRI was Friday morning and it the results were in that evening: tendonitis and bursitis.

The current treatment plan is one week of immobilization, ice, pain medication and anti-inflammatories. After that, I should be able to gradually get my shoulder back to normal, though it could take three to four months(!) to fully heal.

If one week doesn't do enough for the pain, the next step is to make an appointment with the orthopedics the urgent care center referred me to. Fingers crossed that such an appointment will be unnecessary! (Just three days of being trapped in the sling have greatly helped my pain decrease so I'm hopeful!)

In the mean time, the house will not get cleaned and making meals shall be... interesting.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Finally! Some Good News!

Bitty had a vet appointment yesterday because we discovered a lump in her back Wednesday night. Both Happy and Chloe have had similar lumps that turned out to be fat lumps, but they still had to be surgically removed and biopsied before we were sure they were safe. So I figured, best case scenario, Bitty's lump would be the same thing.

Bitty

But the best case scenario was even better than that! Turns out the lump is a sebaceous cyst, basically a pimple-like bump that will fill back up if popped. They can be surgically removed but it isn't necessary unless it becomes uncomfortable or aesthetically unpleasant.

So yay! Good news, finally! I hope this means that the difficult weeks (months) we've been having are turning around. But even if they aren't, I'm happy the Bitty lump isn't a bad thing!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

It's Wet

We had massive rain last night. Massive. From about 7pm on. It looked like it was done this morning but a lighter rain recently started falling, so apparently not. Needless to say, things are very wet outside now. But the single tomato in my garden seems happy.

Marglobe

As an aside, did you know that some cell phones - mine, for example - will make a massively loud alert to inform you of dangerous weather issues - say, a flash flood warning - even at absurd times - such as 3am - and will not stop until you acknowledge the warning? I didn't. But now I do.

Aside from interrupted sleep, the rain storm also left us with a swollen screen door on the porch (which is on Dan's to-do list to fix but somehow manages to always be pushed down my more important things - especially since it only swells when it rains and, well, this is Texas), a massively tilting pool and a bit of broken fence.

Broken

And speaking of the pool, guess what I found in it yesterday?

Grass! But not just any grass. No, this grass was growing through the bottom.

Yes, you read that right. Grass has poked its way through the tarp beneath the pool and pierced the pool bottom. Delightful, is it not? (It is not.) That coupled with the massive tilt that always seems to pop up after windy, rainy weather means that we are most likely going to drain the pool this weekend to patch the hole and try (again) to level the ground. (Oh look! Something just leapt in front of the swollen porch door on the to-do list! Amazing how that happens!)

In other news, Gidget has been doing a lot better since I made another follow-up dentist appointment for her. She's regained the weight she lost post-extraction, is eating (quite a bit) more and seems to have stopped pawing at her mouth. So this morning I decided to cancel my appointment instead of making her go through the stress of a road trip and vet office visit. I figured canceling would cause the problem to instantly reappear but it hasn't so far! Four hours and counting - huzzah!

I still have to reschedule my dental appointment though. Meh.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Our Current Excitement

I (finally) got my order in from Le Palais des Thés, which means big excitement all around! I got new teas and the kitties got a new box.

On a Box

What a thrilling life we all lead!

(Also, I feel the need to state that I did not, in fact, order so much tea that they needed to send me such a large box. I ordered a total of 400g of tea - less than a pound. Yet while I did not need such a large box, who am I to reject something that gives Cocoa such entertainment?)

Monday, August 13, 2012

Update of Nothingness

It's been a while since I've updated but that stems from having nothing all too exciting to post about. Mostly it's been a dental-themed few weeks with Gidget having some pain issues related to her tooth extractions (she's got another appointment Wednesday to see what else might be causing the problem since grinding the tip of the tooth that was poking into her extraction site didn't seem to fix it) and Happy having to get a cavity filled during her last teeth cleaning. Oh, did I mention that Happy also had tonsillitis? No wonder her breath smelled so bad!

In other dental news, I was supposed to go to the dentist Friday for a cleaning but had to cancel because I accidentally poisoned myself with corn (we think, at least) and felt wretched. Non-tooth related, my joints have been unhappy in my hands lately which has decreased my knitting time. I'm still making good (though slightly slower) progress on my cotton tank top though - I've got almost seven inches of stockinette done! (The pattern calls for 10" but I think I'm going to do closer to 12" so it is a bit longer. We shall see how it goes.) Knitting actually seems to help my hands feel better (have I mentioned before how much I adore my needles?) but sometimes it is hard to want to pick it up when everything aches so. I'm 34 and I'm falling apart!

Oh well. Hopefully the kitties will stay in one piece!

Friday, August 3, 2012

I Like Numbers

So today I've been watching some DVR'ed back episodes of the History Channel series, United Stats of America and here are a few of the things I've learned today:

  • When we multi-task, our IQ effectively drops 10 points
  • 1 our of 7 Americans is tattooed
  • The average single-family American home (as of 2010) is over 2300sq ft
  • Money can buy happiness: it costs around $75k per year
  • It is funny watching someone creep into a stranger's personal space

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Stop Mocking Me

It's been a bit too long since I've updated, so I figured it was time to fix that. It's not so much that I haven't had anything to talk about (I can babble about nothing with the best of them), but rather that the things going one aren't all that huge, I've had no related pictures and I've been rather busy doing housewife-y type stuff (or being in the pool) and that doesn't really mesh with being able to type up a blog post.

First off, an adorable Gidgie:

Gidget

Gidget (and Bitty) have their post-extraction check up this weekend so hopefully that will all be good news. Happy-doodle gets to go in with them so she can get her teeth cleaned as she now has the stinkiest mouth in our herd. Hopefully that will just be a cleaning, no extractions needed.

Next: our garden. Meh. We've only had marginal success here and I don't think there will be much improvement because things are so darn hot. My squash and zucchini have decided to die gracelessly (the zucchini without doing anything, the squash after putting off lots and lots of blooms - all male), my tomatoes are alive and kicking but only one Marglobe is doing anything (happily, that "anything" is growing a tomato), my peppers are pretty but unproductive (though we did get one jalapeño) and my butterbeans have finally lost the battle against the grasshoppers.

I Hate You

I hate the grasshoppers. They keep perching on windows and I am convinced it is because they are mocking me. "We just ate your tender butterbean leaves and they were delicious. Muahahaha!" Evil, stupid things. Many have drown in our pool and I can't find it within myself to be sad. Drown butterflies? They make me sad and guilty. Drowned grasshoppers? I want to do a little dance.

On the plus side with the garden (the grasshoppers have no plus side), the okra seems pretty happy. We've gotten slightly less than a dozen okra from it and it is doing its best to give us two more in a few days (the blooms are just buds right now). The grasshoppers have attempted to munch on them some but don't seem to like them.

We have managed to get enough okra to fry some up, but we got them from my parents' garden so I don't think it really counts.

Fried Okra

They were really good though. I'd say I've officially learned how to fry okra without cornmeal. Millet flour works great (and tastes pretty much the same)! Thumbs up!

And speaking of frying, no picture but I did learn a new way of cooking venison - frying it! Dan gave me some cookbooks for my birthday (no, I actually wanted them, they weren't a hint about my cooking or the equivalent of giving me an iron or anything like that) and there was a recipe for batter-fried venison which turned out to be so tasty. They were kind of like steak fingers but better since I'm not a huge fan of steak fingers but I really liked these. It's good to have another way to cook venison since my dad keeps us fairly well stocked in it. (I did recently learn that you can actually buy venison, but I'm not exactly sure where. I don't think my grocery store carries it though they tend to carry lots of not-so-typical products.)

Oh, in other news: tea! I'm one step closer to my New Year's resolution to buy from some new tea vendors! My tea pantry was getting pretty thin - I was down to 68 teas, which might sound like a lot, but manages not to be when I'm more used to having 100+ teas - so I placed two orders, one with American Tea Room and the other with Le Palais des Thés. Neither order has arrived yet (since I just ordered them yesterday) but I'm looking forward to it! That plus some stuff I picked up at the grocery store today and I'm at a much more comfortable 86 teas in my pantry. Whew. I was worried for a bit.

Speaking of being worried, last week I came to the realization that I didn't have enough yarn for the top I was knitting. I had enough for the pattern as written, but I needed to top a bit bigger than the pattern and that left me with enough yarn to make basically a crop top. So I hunted down a second ball of yarn through Ravelry, ripped back my almost 5" of stockinette and started alternating the yarns. (For the non-knitters, since the yarn is hand dyed, I have to alternate between the two since the two balls are slightly different from each other. That way there won't be a noticeable line when I switch to the second ball.) So now I've got about two and a half inches done with another foot or so to go.

Tank Top

I'm hoping it will be done in the next couple of weeks but we shall see. Fortunately, my lovely HiyaHiya needles make the stockinette portion go so easily and fast. I'm still in love with them!

I think that's about it as far as recent news. (Which is good cause who really wants to read this much?) Oh, one little thing - tomorrow is our anniversary. Ten years! Yes, ten! I can't believe Dan and I will have been married for a decade. I'm too young to have been married that long! But I'm totally pleased that he's put up with me that long!

In celebration, I give you Cocoa belly.

Cocoa Belly