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The Invalid Cat (you can call that in-VAL-id or IN-vuh-lid…take your pick) refuses to be invalidated. how many days? Thursday she had hip surgery…so let’s call it (counts on fingers…looks at calendar) 4 days post-op and she’s all “hey lemme outa here YOOOWWL” and has figured out how to tip her crate over so now she kinda rolls it around the house like a hamster ball. It’s better to just let her out of the crate and give her a big soft pillow (freshly fluffed in the dryer, thanks) to curl up on. Down in the gameroom, where Will set up his computer so he can multitask with Travis, whupping a collective Korean butt in some MMOG something or other whilst watching Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares on the Netflix, she’s content to sit on the couch, as long as the soft and freshly fluffed cushion is there. She’s actually less active like that than cooped up in an offensive prison crate.
I remember 4 days post op from my hip surgery and I was totally “pain pill please, I don’t want to move can I just go to sleep please has it been 4 hours yet can I have another vicodin?” and she’s like HEY! Can I GO CATCH A SQUIRREL YET?
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I have a request. First, background…for Christmas I like to make massive quantities of nibbles that get set out and we all nosh on them all day long. I don’t fix a big fancy sit down dinner, because who wants to do that when you’ve been up since 5am? NOT ME! I like to make things ahead of time and put them in the freezer, then warm um up that day.
So… the request is…What are some of your favorite nibbles recipes?
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So my cat, Grace (or Gracie) was (we think) hit by a car Wednesday morning around 9:30. She is not, however, a grease spot on the road. For this we are thankful. She does, however, have a broken pelvis. And that has been surgically repaired and now owns a scar that matches mine!
Gracie, looking Noble
Then at the same time she had her medical drama, my other cat, Phleud, chose to do a 2 day ramble so I got to fret that he was dying a horrible and lingering death in the woods, which is totally how I roll when I don’t know whats going on with the creatures supposedly under my domain. However, this morning he showed up, looking remarkably fit for an animal with a high metabolism who supposedly hasn’t eaten in 2 days. I think he’s 2-timing me.
Phleud and Gracie
Now this is cool-the repair surgery for Grace’s hip. Because cat’s are horizontal instead of vertical (like humans), the stresses on the hip joint is quite different. What the vet (who fortuitously is an orthopedic surgeon) did, was remove the ball head of her femur, so that the femur won’t bump against the breaks in her pelvis, instead it will just slide right by them. Eventually, scar tissue will form over the breaks and the head of her femur, growing together and forming a thing like the rotator cuff we humans have around our shoulder. This will make a flexible joint and she will have full mobility with the added bonus of never getting arthritis in that joint.
There will now be several weeks of recovery. She will need to be crated for a couple of weeks, but will be allowed to get in our laps, use the littler box, and move around a little bit. Then she will become exclusively a house cat.She is NOT going to like that.
but she *is* ok. no internal injuries, no concussion, and the vet said she’s the sweetest natured cat he’s ever worked with.
Of course!
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Typewriter Gimmick The writing blog of mine own #1, Will. Go there, do things to his stats.
I had a couple of weeks reprieve, that was nice. Like a little vacation from…something…reality? I don’t know. I just know I went 2 whole weeks without any drama or tension or STUFF. Now it’s back, the feeling that there’s a couple of hooks pulling at the backs of my eyeballs, pulling them into my head. That’s what tension feels like, along with the sensation of not being real sure where my feet are, how far the floor is or where doorframes should be. I get clumsy, start crashing into furniture and getting bruises. It’s a sure sign of my mental state, how many bruises are on the arms and legs.
But I did get a couple of weeks! And that’s been really restful, so I reckon it’s time for Drama to come back, time for some tension and angst and worry.
Worry’s a SIN, I am told. It means I’m not trusting God to handle the situation. I suppose that’s true. I am a control freak. I admit it. I despise uncertainty and surprises. I want to know what’s going to happen and 2 weeks in advance, please. When someone comes along and throws a wrench in the monkey-works, it’s discombobulating and I start crashing into furniture.
I’m supposed to pray, when things get hairy. I’m supposed to pray when they’re not hairy, too. And I have. The past 2 weeks have been full of praises, thanks to God for things going well. Now it’s time to pray for guidance and wisdom (something I am terribly short on), forgiveness (oh yeah…especially that) and peace.
(why did the radio come on spontaneously just now? That’s weird.)
I’m not so special that I don’t get hardships. I’m really not. Life happens, and along with living comes dark times and difficulties, and sometimes those are of our own making.
A couple of years ago I read “The Shack”, it made the rounds of the world, and everyone was singing its praises as a story of redemption…I thought it was tripe. The main character had something awful happen that was outside his control, and abandoned his relationship with God, then found redemption. That’s all very nice and well and good. Redemption is a wonderful thing. What I have YET to see (please correct me if I’m wrong) is a story with a main character who is thoroughly bad, all on his own, and does terrible things because he wants to, not because of some childhood trauma or some tragedy beyond his control, but because he’s willful and selfish and thoroughly bad, and THEN he finds redemption, but still deals with temptation and old habits. Real, unmerited Grace and mercy. The kind that makes you fall down on the floor and weep, because you know completely how undeserving you are.
I know life sometimes sucks, that sometimes things are going to be difficult. I want to be able to roll with it. I’d like to be able to smile sweetly and say God’s will, or “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” and blithely accept everything that happens without argument or fear of consequence or whatever…and I have to assume that when Paul is saying “all things” he isn’t meaning “most things” or “those things that probably look like they might have a real purpose”…but everything, good and bad, the ones that cause that fish hook feeling in the backs of my eyes, the things that I cause with my own willfulness or lack of wisdom …God knew those things were going to happen and somehow He will use them for something grand. I simply don’t know what that will be. I am a thread in a tapestry, and can only see the threads around me, not the whole big picture. I have to hold on to that promise.
But I still feel fish hooks, I still look at my own behavior and wonder what the hell I was thinking, and I still hold to the promise of redemption. I have to. Right now it’s the only thing keeping me from sinking.
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I was griping at the boys about their bathroom resembling a 1970s truck stop restroom, odor and all. See, I don’t use it. I don’t go in it, I don’t go near it. It’s theirs and if they don’t care that it’s gross, why should I? However, it’s aroma was starting to infiltrate my sewing room,so it was time to say something. (David cleaned it, and it smells nice now, like lemons and bleach)
then i realized my bathroom wasn’t much better. You see, the bathroom Terry and i share is still in “remodeling” mode, which means I don’t see much reason to really clean it. I mean, sawdust, paint, 1967 vintage hanging lamps…yeah. So, I wasn’t cleaning it. Much. At all. Then I realized it resembled a 1970′s truck stop restroom.
So today I cleaned it. Even to the point of getting on the floor with ajax and a scrubber and SCRUBBING the floor. Now it’s clean. nice right?
So Terry came in, went upstairs and did something manly and mysterious that probably involved Febreeze, and when he came down he said “The bathroom looks nice, did you clean it?” and when I said yes he said “Did you scrub the floor?” Yes, I answered. “Like on your hands and knees scrubbed it?” yes, I answered. “Why did you do that? With your shoulder and back like it is, why did you get down and scrub the floor? has it ever occurred to you that you hurt because you do stuff like this?”
When I finished looking at him over the tops of my glasses, it occurred to me that MY HUSBAND JUST FUSSED AT ME FOR CLEANING.
Yesterday I had to take Carmina (the Salsa Red convertible that was my reward for driving a minivan for 22 years) to the dealer for some warranty fixin’. Since it was going to take several hours, the dealer shuttle gave me a lift to the nearby shopping mall.
I hate malls, and I hate shopping, but it beats sitting in a Panera store, eating endless pastries and drinking endless coffee. ok maybe it doesn’t. Anyway, earlier in the week I realized that I only had 5 long sleeved shirts. It being South Georgia, they aren’t really all that necessary anyway, but still it’s nice to have more than 5. So I decided to look for long sleeved shirts. I am picky. No prints, ruffles, spangles, stretchy gross knits or weird colors. No big embroidery or loud labels declaring “THIS SHIRT COST MORE THAN YOURS” (looking at YOU, Ralph Lauren). Since I am not petite, the first places I looked were Lane Bryant and Ashley Stewart, both catering to the +12 sized types.
Dear Designers of Clothing for +12,
I do not wish to look like a birthday cake.
It was frustrating. Eventually I found a few shirts that, on the rack, looked great. Classically cut button up shirts in classic colors like french blue or white, and a nice pink stripe. Great! So I tried on one. Apparently if you’re a size 18,you’re supposed to be flat chested and have shoulders like a 19 year old linebacker. I don’t know where they got that from. All the women I know who are my size tend to have rather bodacious boobs.
When I whined to Terry, he said “make your own” and that’s exactly what I intend to do. To that end,after retrieving Carmina (problems fixed!), a call was made to the local Viking (Husqvarna Viking makes high end sewing machines) dealer for a look-see and a test drive.
Nice. Very nice. AND I can get a top of the line combination sewing-embroidery machine that will interface with my computer and allow me to make my own embroidery designs AND will sew through 6 layers of 16 oz denim with nary a whine for the paltry sum of $10,000. yes. As much as a small car.
There is, and always will be, a part of me that refuses to consider making payments on a sewing machine. So, no $10,000 machine in my future unless #4 digs a deep hole and discovers oil in our backyard.
Maybe one day. After the house and everyone’s college and EVERYTHING else is taken care of.
I’m going to make another trip down there before long, to look at Bernina machines.
And after all that, the bursitis in my left hip decided to make a comeback, so here I sit, with a cup of coffee and a bottle of motrin, not weeding,not cutting the grass,not climbing the stairs or doing any of those other things that need doing.
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So, a week ago today #1 son moved back home. Today he said he found it briefly humiliating, but when all of his friends called him fortunate (The FOOD! The hot water!) he got over that, and is now feeling much better about it all.
I am glad about that, but he’s still not off the hook. And he knows this. To that end, today he discovered that because he is considered A Nontraditional Student by the local university, he can enroll without considering things like SAT scores or high school GPAs. Which is a VERY good thing, since he never took the SAT and the high school grades were not stellar. So he downloaded the application form, got a haircut (much needed), and has plans to go to the school tomorrow and get himself enrolled for the next semester, which starts January.
Yes. My oldest son is going to college. This makes me very, very happy.
And it’s time to change the header, as he no longer has that long shaggy hair. He’s also discovered the joy of 1950′s slide guitar music. Which I think is awesome. I’m also finally getting things done around here, like the patio cleaned off. For the paltry sum of $15 of gas in his tank (I am not an ATM machine, and do not give out money), he cleaned our enormous brick patio, which is truly a PITA to clean thanks to pine trees and brick pavers that weeds like to come up through, and lots of heavy furniture.
All things said, I have an excellent family. No one’s dead, and no one’s pregnant. That’s the mantra around here. Anything else is just an inconvenience.
We had a long weekend, 3 days! And Terry in his sweet way, TOOK THE WEEKEND OFF. Let me repeat that. He TOOK THE WEEKEND OFF. That hasn’t happened in a while. Naturally, I took advantage of it.
Friday we drove to my parents place 4 hours away and spent the night. Mom and I bonded (again) over creative stuff. She’s making these cute aprons out of old jeans, and I offered to employ these new machine embroidery skills to fancy um up a little. #4 spent the 3 day weekend there while Terry and I drove to Atlanta Saturday and visited The 2 Happiest Places In The World. No,not Disney. The Dekalb Farmer’s Market and Gail K Fabrics.
At DFM, many ingredients were aquired AND I learned something entirely new that made complete sense but had never occurred to me. The DFM is highly international, catering to all sorts of people fromall over the world, with a heavy emphasis on North Africa and The Middle East. Thus you tend to see many Muslims there. Now, I’ve seen plenty of women in Hijab (the hair covered modest dress bit) but had only seen pictures of women in a niqab (the whole covering thing that’s black, with just a slit for the eyes). Well, there was a family there, and the woman was completely covered in the black niqab. Froma distance I saw her and thought “I wonder if that’s hot” then at one point we were crowded together in a narrow aisle, and I got a good close look at her and what she was wearing. I was amazed…that thing was beautiful! It had a 4 inch wide black embroidered border with beading, and was made of what looked like some kind of lightweight silk so it was very flowy. Talk about Style! AND I learned something new!
So now I’m all stocked up for Christmas baking, and Terry helped me pick out some pretty fabric for a dress at Gail K. The fabric is a supple black knit with tiny white spots,very conservative and just right for Fall. AND it will look great with the red shoes I want.
And…apparently everything went ok while we were gone. Even with 2 of the 3 older boys back in the house. I admit to a bit of trepidation if #3 needs to come back, even though we had room for all 4 boys when we moved here, we don’t anymore having converted one of the bedrooms to my studio and I am NOT giving that up. Perhaps he could sleep under the pool table. Perhaps if he gets in that sort of a crunch, he’ll join the Navy. One can hope.
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Aaaand Will, 23 year old #1 Son,is moving back in. Due to circumstances involving work not providing enough to live on and some other stuff, he’s back. I am thankful we have a room for him, thankful that we didn’t sell our house and get a smaller one,and thankful for the support of good friends who also have adult sons capable of egregiously gooberish behavior.
But the fact is, I love my kids,all of them, gooberish behavior or not. I’m going to do whatever I must to keep them healthy and whole.
and I’ll finally have someone to teach me how to use Photoshop!
