Tonight I finished up a set of pillows for a client.

I used a new technique I recently learned - Turkish corners. You can see it best on the all stripe rectangular pillows. I used the technique on all of the non-round pillows, but it's a bit difficult to see on the ones with the black backing fabric. It's a method of folding and stitching the covers to eliminate pointy empty corners. It also makes it much easier to attach the cording. The pillows look a little more like cushions, but I think my client will still be pleased with them.

Today is day 16 of Josie's carcinoma treatment. We're finally past halfway! WOOT! We have 14 days and 5 doses of medicine left. I cannot wait for it to be over. She has been beyond miserable. Wearing the e-collar is very uncomfortable for her, never mind the pain and itching. She's also been begging to go outside, but she can't be in the sun at all. I feel so bad for her. Poor baby.

Tonight, I went slug hunting.

It's amazing how even the tiny amount of rain we received today can bring them out. I saw the light was on, peeked out the bedroom window and noticed about a million slugs all over the patio. Gross! And, here in Oregon, we don't get the tiny cute slugs like most places. We get the giant 6" long banana slugs. Double gross! I wear latex gloves and plop them into a milk carton full of Corry's Slug Death.

Best slug killer ever. Normally, when it comes to animals, even pests, I'm a live and let live kind of person. Slugs, however, fall into another category for me. They gross me out big time and, if I don't do at least a little control once in a while, they will eat every single plant in our yard. They also climb on our house and the slime trails, which are seemingly impossible to rinse off, can damage the paint. Unfortunately, it's a losing battle on my part since the detention pond is right behind our house. For every one that I manage to kill, there's about 100 more waiting in the wings.

Utah Trip - May 2008

From almost everywhere in Arches National Park, there are spectacular views of the La Sal Mountains.

It was strange to see snow when we were just baking in the heat.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 129

Click here for the entry form.

The wildlife highway running through our backyard was in use again this week.



Looks like a momma and her baby. They ran through around noon yesterday.

I'm fairly certain we have a pair of hummingbirds nesting/living in one of the trees in front of our house. For several weeks, I've been hearing a high pitched chip chip sound, but thought it was bushtits or sparrows and didn't pay much attention to it. Today, I confirmed that it's hummingbirds. Several crows were having a huge fight a little while ago. They came flying by and nearly crashed into my office window. One of them landed in the tree on the west side of our driveway. I immediately started hearing the chip chip sound again so I peeked out. The tiny little hummingbirds were going at the crow and trying to drive it away! They were zooming all around and dive bombing the crow. It's amazing how aggressive small birds can get when defending their territory. I'll go outside later and see if I can find any signs of a nest.

Today is day 11 of Josie's squamous carcinoma treatment. We have officially entered phase 2. For the next 10 days, she will get her medicine every other day instead of every day. For the final 10 days, she'll get her medicine every third day. Today is her first day off since we started treatment. Even though we aren't applying any medicine to her head today, I think I will still wash her up later on to make sure there's no residual medicine left. Afterwards, I plan to take off her e-collar for a little while so she can give herself a bath. She hasn't been able to give herself one since we started and she's starting to get a wee bit odoriferous. I will have to supervise very closely though to make sure she doesn't scratch her head at all.

You know what should be a crime? The amount car rental companies tack onto your base rate in fees and surcharges. Our two week compact car rental in September has a base rate of of $224.20 ($112.10 per week), which is a very reasonable rate, in my opinion. What sends me over the edge is that they are tacking on an additional $140.43 in fees. That's more than the weekly rental rate! I realize that there's no escaping the taxes, but a $51.00 "facility usage fee"? And what the heck is "apt conc recov fee"? I won't even bore you with the rest. It's a crime, I tell you. A crime!

Boy, the vet wasn't kidding when he said Josie's head was going to get worse before it gets better. I couldn't believe how much of her skin sloughed off when I washed her head last night. A lot of it came off in large sheets. It was like peeling skin from a really bad sunburn. The skin underneath is really raw and bleeds a little in spots after the sloughing. I feel so bad for the munchkin, especially since the weather has been so nice and all she wants to do is go out back and lie in the sun. Unfortunately, with half the fur on her head gone and all this raw skin, she absolutely cannot be going outside in the sun right now. Heck, I even limit how much time she lies in the sun on the window seat and that's through UV filtered glass. It's not worth the risk of her getting sunburned or developing full-on melanoma.

I spoke with my aunt yesterday about Mr Moo and I going to MA in September instead of December this year. Figured it would be a good idea to check with her first before making any other plans since we stay at her house while we're there. There is vacancy at the inn all month. Yay! Assuming I can get us on some reasonable flights now, look like the trip is on. I still need to finalize the dates with Mr Moo. He usually responds with, "Yup. Yup. Whatever." when I make arrangements, so I'm not expecting any resistance there.

Josie gives new meaning to the phrase "monkey on my back".

She jumped up on my chair then decided she wanted me to hold her. What she neglected to notice was that I was facing the wrong direction.

We're back and, boy, is Josie in a bad mood. The doctor decided I hadn't cut nearly enough hair away from her sores, so he broke out the clippers - Josie's least favorite thing in the whole wide world. She's now half bald and looking a bit Borg-ish. He was pleased with how her head looked though. He said the medicine is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing. He also warned me it will probably get even worse before it gets better. One thing that did trouble him a bit was her weight. She's dropped a bit more and is now down to about 6 lbs 12 oz. She's still quite round so we're not worrying too much about it yet. We will be keeping a close eye on it though.

I took a photo of Josie and her sad looking head, but it's kind of gruesome looking, so consider yourself warned. Click here to see it. It looks a lot worse than it really is. The pre-cancerous sores are mostly in the dark areas. The discoloration is due to the natural pigmentation of her skin, not the disease. The redness is from the medicine.

I knew the doctor was going to want to touch and feel her head today, so I held off putting on her medicine earlier (it's quite toxic) and brought it with us instead. Josie is the first cat he's ever treated with this medicine. I asked if he would like to apply it today so he could see what it's like. He enthusiastically said yes, grabbed some gloves and got to it. Afterwards, as we were heading out, he thanked me for bringing the medicine for him to see. I jokingly said he needed to give me a teaching discount for letting him do it. We laughed, and Josie and I headed home. Imagine my surprise upon arriving home and seeing "Teaching Discount 20%" on our receipt. He really did give me a discount! Have I mentioned lately how much I adore our vet?

We're off to see the Harbinger of Kitty Misery, otherwise known as the vet. Poor Miss Josie has no idea that she's about to have her head poked and prodded much worse than anything I've done to her so far. Poor baby.

I fulfilled a Photo Request recently.

Snoopy Weasel requested: How many remote controls in your house ?

This was an intriguing request. It took a while to collect them all, but here they are:

I arranged them into five groups. Clockwise from the top left: family room, exercise room, office/sewing room, master bedroom, guest room.

Individual remotes from each group are as follows:
Family Room - universal remote, VCR, television, HD TiVo, receiver, DVD player, light control
Exercise Room - TiVo, television, DVD/VCR combo unit
Guest Room - stereo, television, DVD player
Master Bedroom - DVD player, television, portable DVD player
Office/Sewing Room - heat pump, fan, PC video card, stereo, DVD player, television

We have way too many remotes and electronics.

Today is day 8 of Josie's 30 day treatment for the squamous carcinoma on her head. The medicine is doing exactly what the vet said it was going to do. It's burning the diseased skin off to allow new clean skin to grow back. Unfortunately, it's also taking a lot of non-diseased skin with it. Her skin is coming off in chunks. It's disgusting, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's for her own good. What troubles me more than anything is how much it hurts her when I have to rub more medicine on or wash off the old stuff. I try to be as gentle as possible, but since it's, basically, a giant raw open wound, any contact is painful and she's very vocal about it, too. Breaks my heart to hear her cry like that and know that it's because of what I'm doing to her. She's gotten an awful lot of treats this past week in an attempt to assuage my guilt.

The vet asked to see her one week after we started treatment so we're going to see him this afternoon. I'm sure everything will be fine, but I still have this horrible feeling he will say something like, "Oh, it's not supposed to look like that!" or something equally bad.

I was woken up way too early this morning by the faint sound of music. The first thing I thought was I accidentally fell asleep with the TV on, but that wasn't the case. Then I thought Mr Moo got up and forgot to turn his snooze alarm off, but that wasn't it either. Once I took a few minutes and woke all the way up, it finally dawned on me that it was my own clock/radio. The strange thing is I never set the alarm or turned the radio on. The music was playing through the speaker even though everything was turned completely off! I ended up having to unplug the silly thing to get it to shut up. It was all very bizarre. Mr Moo seems to think something in the electronics has shorted. Basically, it's toast and I need to get a new one.

Just as I was about to go back to sleep after my ghost in the machine incident, the landscaping crew showed up with a tractor to mow the pond area behind our house. Gah! Apparently, it wasn't my turn to get any sleep this morning.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 128

Click here for the entry form.

This is the first brand new round of the "Name That Movie" contest since April. Sorry it's been so long.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 127


Click here for the entry form.

Hey. Does anyone remember the "Name That Movie" Contest? I'm making an attempt at resurrecting it. Round 127 is still open from April. Impress me with your movie knowledge!

From our trip to Utah...

...a tree for dan.

Regarding yesterday's post about the raccoon...

We are fully aware that the raccoons and all of the other animals that cut through our yard were here long before we were. We have no intention of driving them out. When we put up our electric fence, it's strictly around our tiny vegetable garden just to protect our corn stalks. Nothing more. We have no plans to capture, relocate or kill any of the animals that visit our yard. We enjoy the fact that they feel free to come into our yard for a drink on occasion. Sorry if there was any confusion.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Cathe Friedrich's Basic Step

I took a few days off from working out because my back was bothering me. However, with today's workout, I did manage to work out four days this week, which isn't horrible. Hopefully, my stamina will increase a bit soon so I can start doing some of the other more difficult workouts because this one is borrrrrring!

Today was weigh-in day. This week's weight loss: 4 lbs. Looks good on paper, but I know it's not entirely accurate. I was bloated and full of food last weekend when I weighed myself, and was dehydrated and hungry today. And week one's weight loss is always larger than normal due to water loss. Will be interesting to see what the numbers are next week.

Height: 5' 2"

Current Weight: 128
Current BMI: 23.4 (normal)

Restart Weight: 132 (July 13, 2007)
Restart BMI: 24.1 (barely normal)

Goal Weight: 110
Goal BMI: 20.1

Pounds Lost: 4
Pounds To Go: 18

I think we have identified el Chupacabra from the other night.


Looks like it was a raccoon after all. The previous cam capture was just a weird one-off since, even when they're blurry, you can still usually see the tail stripes. Since he seems to be visiting our yard more frequently, looks like it's time to get the electric fence erected around the vegetable garden.

I hate you all with the fury of a thousand suns.

The new layout for my website has been up and running for a while now. Has anyone (besides my sister, who can't tell the difference between beige and white) had any issues/problems with it? If you have a couple minutes, I'd love some feedback.

No sign of el Chupacabra on the Random Cam last night. Several people suggested I try to lure it back again by putting some food on the patio. I might, just for kicks, one night, but I definitely don't want to make a habit of it.

We're on day three of Josie's head meds. It's not going great. I have to wash the medicated area every day, eight hours after applying the medicine. I can tell it's really hurting her. The area is very red and puffy, and she's crying every time I have to touch it. It's breaking my heart, but it has to be done.

I also noticed that she was really struggling to eat, drink and just get comfortable on the first day. Since her head is so small, we had to set her collar on the next to smallest setting so it couldn't slide off. This made the cone quite snug and tight to her face. Whenever she tried to lie down, her face pressed right into it, almost smothering her. And forget trying to eat or drink. It was just completely in the way of her mouth. Early yesterday morning, I cut a large notch in the bottom of it around her chin. It seems to have helped a lot comfort-wise and she's able to drink much easier now. However, she's still not eating very much at all, to the point where I'm getting concerned. Josie's never EVER had a problem with her appetite and, after watching Zoe wither away from not eating, it's freaking me out. I gave her some soft canned food last night to make sure she ate something yesterday. She gobbled most of it right down (the rest she ended up wearing all over her collar) so I know it's a comfort thing, not her appetite. I'm going to put her kibble into a couple different containers today to see if we can get her noshing again.

Josie and her newly notched e-collar.

Something was on our patio last night, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out what it was.

It might be a raccoon. However, the camera didn't capture a single other shot of it, which is odd because raccoons don't normally scoot out of camera range that quickly. They also don't usually move fast enough for the picture to be blurry either. I think it looks like an anteater and I'm sure my sister will say it's "el Chupacabra". What do you think? Here's a picture of the patio empty so you can compare:

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Cathe Friedrich's Basic Step

shoelace coming untied in the middle of a step workout = epic fail

It has begun.

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

Today is the day we're beginning Josie's head meds. She's had her bath, her anti-flea medicine has had a chance to spread and we fitted her e-collar last night, much to her dismay. We're all set. Based on her reaction to wearing the e-collar for all of about 30 seconds last night, she is going to be one unhappy kitty. I feel terrible, but it's all for her own good. Can't wait for this 30 days to be over.

Playing Possum is what we do. We die, so we live.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Cathe Friedrich's Basic Step

I am made of flab.

The Random Cam caught this pic of me yesterday evening.

You can see how swollen my left leg still is because of my lymphedema. It's kind of frustrating that it's still this bad after all the wrapping and physical therapy I went through. I might try wrapping it again once the weather cools down to see if I can shrink it down some more.

Because of my annual winter doldrums, my illness and Zoe's death, I've managed to spiral completely out of control regarding my eating habits and workouts. Since the beginning of the year, I've put back on almost 20 of the 53 pounds I lost last year. I've been watching it steadily creep back up, but because I was doing so through the haze of depression, I just didn't care. I decided this weekend that enough is enough. I need to get back in control. I'm starting back on my food plan and working out again. It's not going to be easy as I still have a lot of grief and other issues I need to work through, but I'm going to do the best I can. Here's to a fresh start.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Cathe Friedrich's Basic Step & Stability Ball Abdominal Workout

Wow. It's been a while. Workout totally kicked my ass and it's the most basic beginner one I have. Sad.

Height: 5' 2"

Current Weight: 132
Current BMI: 24.1 (barely normal)

Restart Weight: 132 (July 13, 2007)
Restart BMI: 24.1 (barely normal)

Goal Weight: 110
Goal BMI: 20.1

Pounds Lost: 0
Pounds To Go: 22

Just finished giving Josie her bath. She is one unhappy citrus-smelling kitty. We towel dried her as much as possible then used the hair dryer on her for a while, but she's still pretty damp. She's currently in the hallway furiously licking herself dry. Can't wait for the gargantuan hairball that's sure to come.

0n our list of things to do today: give Josie a bath. Yup. We're going to give the cat a bath. The plan is to bathe her today, put Advantage (behind-the head preventative flea medicine) on her when she's dry and start her on her head meds either tomorrow or Monday. For anyone who missed the earlier posts, she has some pre-cancerous growths on her head that we're going to be treating. Since she'll be wearing an e-collar for upwards of 30 days, it's going to be up to us to keep her clean. We figured we might as well get off to a solid start by giving her a full bath. Fortunately and amazingly, she doesn't really mind it. Don't get me wrong, she doesn't love it by any means, but, as long as the water is warm and you don't splash her in the face, she'll just stand there and take it.

She's sleeping peacefully in her bed right now. Little does she know what lies in store for her later. Muh ha ha ha!

We went to see...

...tonight. It was good. I had heard it was very depressing in a lot of spots, which I was dreading, but it never really got that bad. You'd think I'd have learned to ignore stuff I read online about movies by now. One of the best parts of the evening was the preview for the Disney movie Bolt, which is coming out this November. You can watch it (the preview) here. The hamster is so going to steal that whole movie. "I have a ball!"

I watched I Am Legend tonight. I forgot about the scene where he had to kill his dog. I wasn't ready for that. ((sob))

Have I ever mentioned that I can't smell skunk? Normally, I have a very strong sense of smell. I swear I can smell a peanut butter cup from a mile away. When it comes to skunk smell, however, I'm "blind". We've driven past road kill that has made Mr Moo retch, but I could only detect the tiniest bit of something "off". I wouldn't have known it was a skunk without him telling me. I remember being able to smell it as a child, but not so much as an adult. I can't remember exactly when it turned off though. It might have been a puberty thing. I might have smelled it too strongly one day and it killed off certain cells in my nose. The hypochondriac in me swears it's a brain tumor. Who knows. I just know I can't smell it anymore. It's a blessing and curse. It's a blessing because, well, it's gross and I don't have to smell it anymore. It's a curse because you know it's just a matter of time before I have an encounter where I'll be completely oblivious and get doused. Not that I'll care since I can't smell it, but think of poor Mr Moo having to live with me.

Last last night, just before bed, Mr Moo started making that face and complaining of the stink. The patio light was on, but we couldn't see anything (from the safety of our second floor bedroom window, of course) out back. He must have been hiding out in the shadows because one of the MooCams captured the following evidence just a short while later:

At least we know Mr Moo's nose is still working properly.

We had a trespasser on our property Monday.

With all the houses that have been built in this area, I'm surprised to see them passing through still.

I'm going to the dentist at 1430 today to have a chipped filling replaced. Joy. Several weeks ago, I spat out a tiny white piece of something. I suspected it was a piece of tooth or filling, but I couldn't find where it had come from. Since it was so tiny and nothing was hurting me, I let it go until my cleaning two weeks ago. Turns out, it was part of the filling from tooth #15, on the top left all the way in the back. No wonder I couldn't see it. So, off I go today to get it repaired.

Josie's head medicine arrived from Canada yesterday. It's in six tiny boxes, which I can easily hold in one hand. I showed Mr Moo and said, "Can you believe this is $150 I'm holding in my hand? Can you believe, had we bought this at Walgreens, I would be holding nearly $700?" Thank you, Canada, for your cheap meds. I've been really busy and distracted lately (as you may have guessed by my complete lack of posts) and have a feeling I will continue to be for at least a few more days. Since the course of Josie's meds require her to wear an e-collar for a full 30 days, I think I'm going to wait a bit before starting them. The first few days will be the roughest on her and I want to be able to give her my full attention, if necessary. I also want to try to make her a little fabric helmet-like head cover before we start all of this and I won't be able to fit her once she has meds on her head.

Mr Moo and I have been discussing our travel plans for the rest of this year. Since my parents, sister and BIL are going to be here for Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November for my non-US readers) and the holiday is so late this year (the 27th), we're seriously considering doing our annual trek to Massachusetts to visit family in September instead of at Christmas. Besides the fact that we'll have just seen most of my immediate family, it will be nice to not have to run around like crazy people right after the one holiday to get ready to go for the next. The weather will be better in September (remember my three day getting there during a blizzard nightmare from last year?), everyone won't be crazy busy with holiday plans and it will just be all around more relaxing. While we enjoy being with everyone on Christmas Day, I think it's worth the sacrifice to make there rest of the trip so much better and easier for everyone. We're also considering heading up to Acadia National Park in Maine for a few days, but I'm not sure we'll be able to sort that this late in the game. We'll see.

One nice thing about having a cat who is almost completely deaf: Even though there are fireworks going off like mad all around the house, she's sleeping like a log. I hope all of your pets are coping and safe tonight.

Sometimes work is hard.

And, as I've discovered, talking to the monitor doesn't help one bit.

Zoe left us two months ago today. Sigh. It's hard to believe it's been two months already. Where does the time go?

I'm making updates and modifications to my website. Most of it is going to be a hot mess for a while. Please be patient. I'll get it all straightened out eventually.