Friday, September 28, 2012

Surprise! More Dental News!

Shockingly, I have more Gidget-dental news. (I swear, this blog is becoming the Kitty Dental Update blog.)

Gidget is back at the dentist today to have another x-ray since the chlorophyll gel did not help enough (the severity of her pawing was reduced, but it was still in the moderate-to-severe category).

I just spoke to Dr. Bloom and she said Gidget has two issues currently: an ulcer in the back of her mouth and a canine that is undergoing surprisingly fast resorption. Today, they are going to laser the ulcer to remove all of that (and hopefully prevent a reoccurrence) and remove the canine tooth. We are currently leaving her other teeth in but, if she continues to experience discomfort, we will go ahead and remove the rest of the teeth.

Hopefully we won't end up with two toothless kitties running around (well, two and a half if you count Bitty since she only has two "real" teeth), but I'd much rather have a toothless Gidget than a pained Gidget. But fingers crossed that this takes care of everything and she'll only be partially toothless!!!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Dental News

Just a quick update on the Saga of Gidget's Teeth. We went to the dentist yesterday since Gidget had begun pawing violently at her mouth (again).


We have a few options open to us. Right now we have an experimental gel (though the dentist said she wouldn't add Gidget to the study) that is chlorophyll-based to hopefully help with the pain and inflammation in Gidget's gums. If her problem is immune-based, this could help. If, however, she has stomatitis (which is what Cocoa had that cause us to remove all of her teeth), it might not help and we have to take more x-rays to see what teeth are having issues. (But, per the dentist, it takes six months for dental damage to be viewable by radiograph so we could have up to four more months to wait before her teeth show up as damaged since her last x-ray was two months ago.)

In the mean time, it's been difficult getting Gidget to eat and she's lost some weight, so we are currently trying to tempt her with lots of canned food. Nothing has hit big yet, but I have found she loves beef-flavored Pill Pockets. So I'm augmenting her diet with lots of those.

We have a dentist-directive to call next week to see if the gel has helped. Her problem is fairly cyclical though, so even if she's okay next week, I'm not going to hold my breath that she's all better until she can go two to three weeks without pawing. But still, fingers are crossed!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

I Made Something!

A couple of days ago, I finished my OMG-this-is-taking-so-long-why-isn't-it-finished-yet project! Yay! I made a bathmat to put down for post-shower wet feet.

Ten Stitch Blanket

It's nothing amazing, but I like it and it works great! Which means I can get rid of the green one I had in there that didn't match anything.

Of course, I've got about five other projects I'm dying to do (and even have the yarn for), but naturally I was derailed when I saw a pattern for this pair of slippers. While I'm sure my cold feet had something to do with it (I just decided to start wearing socks again yesterday), I kind of fell in love with the obnoxiousness of the slippers themselves. So I'm making some.

Slipper One

Oddly enough, it looks like I'm using the same colors as the pattern, but that's not exactly true. The pattern calls for a bright pink and a yellow; I'm using a muted pink with a orange sherbet-y color. It doesn't help that, for some reason, my camera has issues with getting red/pink/orange just right when taken under the yellow fluorescents.

Anyway, I'm on the foot of slipper two, then I just have to do the cuff on both of them. I hope to have warm feet in about a week! (Though honestly, these are wool slippers so they might be a bit too warm for my feet for a few more months. We shall see! But I don't really make things to have them... I make things just to make them - and I'm having fun learning how to make these!)

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Okra and Weirdness

The weather has turned cooler, which I'm not too thrilled about. For a while, though, our garden plants liked it. But a couple of days ago, the Marglobe tomatoes (which had really perked up when we had a "cold" snap a few weeks ago and temps went into the 80s) decided they were done and promptly kicked the bucket. The grasshoppers took care of any delusions of grandeur the Rutgers tomato plant may have had. The butterbeans gave up the ghost long ago and the jalapeño and banana peppers are the only peppers still alive (though the jalapeño looks unhappy about it). The Romas are still riding high from last month's cooler weather though I'm not sure if anything will come of all those blooms.

But the okra? Is a champ. In fact, I just got four okra from it this morning - the most it has put off at once all year! And there are still three or four baby okra on it, a few blooms and two okra that I'm leaving in an attempt to save some seeds for next year. It's the only plant that hasn't been totally disheartened by the broiling Texas summer and I hope it keeps on kicking for a while!

In other news, we had a strange visitor today. Well, we had a couple. First off, our neighbors have a new-ish kitten and puppy, both of which decided to frolic in our back yard today. Honestly, it was pretty cute but really drives home the fact that we desperately need to fix our fence. The gate has a huge hole in it. Why, it's big enough to allow a puppy in! (For the record, it's about a fifteen pound puppy, so not like a four-pound baby. Which means, yeah, the hole in the fence is not tiny, either.)

But after returning said puppy to her owner's arms, I noticed another little uninvited guest.

Keroppi Catepillar

Quite the funny looking caterpillar, isn't it? I think it looks like Sanrio's Keroppi. Just spikier.

I know that this guy and his friends might love to nibble on my okra and other assorted growing things, but I can't find it within myself to kill caterpillars when I see them. Too many fond memories of playing with them as a child. (Well, that and they make a horrible squish - I can't kill things that you feel crunch or squish when you stomp them. Yuck!) He was on the brick of the porch so I just left him there. After taking many photos of him. Such an odd creature!

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Sling-les-ness

Just a bit of an update on my shoulder tendonitis/bursitis issues.

As of yesterday, I have been slingless for one full week. One week in the sling helped marvelously, so this past week has been spent trying not to overdo things and regaining full motion to my shoulder. I have had to spend some short times back in the sling when things just hurt too much, but overall it's gone quite well. I think I've pretty much (finally!) gotten full range of motion back, though I'm still having issues with how much pressure/weight I can apply/lift with my right arm. Hopefully that can be resolved in a few more days.

Fingers crossed!

In other news, Dan's making more beer. This weekend he's making another pumpkin beer and next weekend he's going to make an orange honey wheat beer especially for me! Yay!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

My First Top!

In all of the years I've been crocheting (and the one year I've been knitting), I've never made apparel. Hats, scarves and even gloves sure, but not any actual clothing.

Well, now I have!

Knit

I'm pretty pleased with it! The pattern was just one size and it would have been a bit small for me, so I made some massive adaptions (check out my Ravelry project for the specifics on that). So the fact that all that math-work turned out makes me happy. I've made lots of math-based adjustments for both Dan's gloves and my alpaca hat but I'm not 100% confident yet in my ability to adapt a pattern properly.

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It's not perfect - the lace at the top wants to curl a bit and I'm not in love with the way the yarn colors pooled - but I feel pretty accomplished making something wearable and comfortable. The yarn is massively soft so it is so comfy to wear. In fact, I'm wearing it now!

My First Knit Top

I will have to make sure no kitties try to dance on it, but hopefully it will wear well so I can really enjoy my first knit top!