Off the Clock

I was reading a post from Sauntering Soul about some life changes she's been going through and it's inspired me to post about some things in my own life I've been wrestling with. Our lives are not static; they change and evolve as some things become less of a priority and other things become more important. This is always a hard concept for me to grasp, as I HATE change. Even if I'm not in a good situation I find it hard to make a break. Better "the Devil you know" so to speak. Probably one of the reasons I found it so hard to leave my troubled marriage so many years ago until it was made indisputably clear to me that my and my children's lives were at risk if I stayed. And yet being the diplomat that I am I have a perfectly good relationship with my ex-husband as we try to co-parent our teens today. I've lived the last 18 years of my life with my children as my main priority. It hasn't been easy, especially since so many of the choices I...

I finally took my Boston kitty in to be euthanized on Friday. It was a tough day knowing what i had to do later but he has been suffering for quite some time now. Now Boston HATES going to the vets. He freaks out, and as soon as we're in the examination room he jumps down and hides under the bench until the vet comes in; then he cowers on the table until the visit is over. Well on Friday he was completely calm and purring up a storm. He gave both me and my partner a cuddle (he's not usually a cuddler) and he lay contentedly on the table purring like crazy while we petted him waiting for the vet to come in. He calmly let her shave a patch off his front paw and didn't even flinch when she put the needle in. He didn't stop purring until she started the injection. I was holding his head while scratching behind his ears as he slipped away. Do you think he knew? I know he made the whole aweful experience a lot easier for me. Farewell sweet kitty.

Well it's been a whole month since I've posted. I'm not very good about posting bad stuff and frankly that's about all I've been dealing with around here. Boston is still with us though. After I took him off his meds he cheered right up. He's still wheezing like a chain smoker, his fur is coming out in clumps and he's leaving presents out of both ends for me to find in my socks but he's happy, dammit! This is his favourite time of year, when the evenings are cool and he can hang out in the backyard. He doesn't want to come in when I go to get him, he's too busy doing the rolling on his back thing on the concrete. Or sitting on the cushions on the wicker loveseat out there surveying his domain. So I'm taking it day by day. When I don't see him getting enjoyment out of life anymore I'm going to have to call it a day. And no, my kitchen isn't coming along thank you very much. The contractors were supposed to come two weeks ...

I just got home from the vet's with my two kitties. Tabitha got her annual shots and checkup, but Boston is quite ill and the vet and I discussed his future; she said I seriously need to think about putting him down. He's on thyroid meds and heart meds. He is not responding well to the thyroid meds (he gets vomiting and diarhea) and he has a heart murmer and an enlarged heart. His breathing is terrible; he's literally gasping for air all the time, wheezing and his insides are all gurgling from his heart to his lungs to his digestive tract. His body is not oxiginated enough, and he keeps loosing weight. I knew this was coming, I just wasn't sure how far to let it go. I give my vet credit; she discussed with me how his quality of life is not very good right now and it's not getting any better. So she gave him an injection of the meds to get him through the weekend and I'll probably take him in one day next week. As I told DS who was with me it's not like we d...

I'm a little embarassed to be posting this but I consider it a public service announcement; keep a fire extinguisher near your bbq. I was bbqing ribs on the weekend following a recipe from a bbq book. It had you put a pan under the grill to keep liquid in and for the drippings to go into. The liquid ended up running dry so I refilled it, but I didn't notice when it ran dry the second time. The drippings that were in the pan then caught fire and the whole Binford 9000 was up in flames! I pulled the pieces of ribs off with Mom trying to blow out the flames as I went (yeah, we're a real Laurel and Hardy team here) , then I slowly poured water into the edge of the pan which put out the pan fire (please don't spray water on a grease fire!) . So then I had a huge mess to clean up out there. I'm just so greatful I didn't burn down my house! :o The Binford survived it's ordeal (would that be "trial by fire"?). So off I went to Canadian Tire the next morn...

Still no knitting news; sorry! The rheumatoid arthritis is kicking in as bad as when I was first diagnosed 17 years ago. Which means very little mobility in my hands and what movement I can make is painful. Not a good recipe for recreational knitting. I did get myself on the waiting list for a rheumatologist in London; hopefully I'll have an appointment within the next couple of months. The one (and only one) in Windsor is booking for next year so I'm hoping to get in sooner by driving to London for treatment. I usually try not to be a whiner and accept that there are waiting lists and stuff, but the problem is that once the damage is done it's irreversable; the key is to get good meds and fast. Unfortunately the family doctor I have now is reluctant to prescribe anything strong. I can't bend my wrists because of the damage done before I got on "good" meds the first time round. Now it's going after my... (what do you call those things?) where my fingers...

Well it's not my knitting. Although I'd like to thank Amanda j for her suggestion about purling the dropped stitches in clapotis; that's speeded things up immensely. Not to say I've got much more done on it, but I'm on the right track anyway. In other knitty news there's suddenly lots of hits on my Diced Tomatoes page; I usually get 5 or 10, this week there's been over 300. What the heck happened there?! Well with a little detective work it turns out the page has been linked from a free pattern site . How cool is that?! Anyway the reason there's been such little knitting is because a) I've been busy trying to "deal" with my 15yo DS who has a birthday in a few days but might not live to see 16 if he keeps it up; b) my ferns are suffering from sunburn and my Peeping Tom neighbours over the back have a clear shot of my pool from their kitchen window, so I spent the weekend building a triangular arbour to give shade/privacy; and c) may ...