There’s No ‘Fun’ in Fungi

About 3 weeks ago, Jason and I were ‘backroading’ some of our county’s fine dirt roads. In true redneck fashion, I always carry my rechargeable spotlight to check out anything interesting we may see along the way. What can I say? I’m a nighttime naturalist. So, we came upon a couple of coons in trees and a snake or two. Then, as we were heading back home, we saw a big group of ‘somethings’ on the side of the road. Jason thought they may be possums, but as we got closer, no, it was just a starving group of ragtag kittens.

Now, one thing that drives me absolutely insane is when people don’t deal with an issue and it becomes YOUR issue. Like when other people litter, allow their dog to bark all night long, or someone is so kind and gracious that they dump their unwanted pets upon your doorstep. Thinks like that make me a little closer to crazy.

So here is a whooooole passel of cats; a virtual cat assortment, half-dead with starvation sitting patiently by the roadside to wait for someone…anyone to come and pick them up. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised…things like this happen to me all the time. Once you have worked in a vet practice, you are ~~cursed~~ blessed with such gifts at every turn. I feel like a Statue of Animal Charity:

“Give me your unwanted, packed with louse*,

Your un-neutered masses yearning to spray pee,

The hairless refuse of your teeming house.

Send these, the homeless, parasite-laden to me,

With anthelminitics* and shampoo I shall douse.

(*: yes, I know the plural is lice…it didn’t work for the poem, and * #2, that is a fancy word for wormer)

Somehow, getting 5 cats into our vehicle wasn’t much of a problem (thank you Jesus for that…I still have my eyes and skin intact), and we got them home. Most everything was going pretty well, besides the fact I had become the Insta-Crazy Cat Lady in a span of 5 minutes and the annoying fact that I simply do not want a pet cat, much less five. I even like cats, but when you’re in the process of downsizing, adding 5 more mouths to your home doesn’t make much sense. Fortunately, or perhaps ‘un’ (keep reading), we adopted out the two babies, so I was down to scooping 3 cat poos a day. And by the way, who came up with scented cat litter? They ought to be forced to sit in a room sniffing mounds of Country Flower Fresh poop. Adding perfume to cat crap is what I would label an epic disaster. Thank heavens they poop a lot so I could hurry up and get a non-scented box of litter that DIDN’T smell like someone sprayed a floral Glade air freshener on fecal matter.

Anyhoo, so this week on Animal Rescue House, we all broke out in itchy red bumps…which magically morphed into circles and we all look like a really gross and creepy dot-to-dot. You know where I’m going, don’t you? Yes, the fun and exciting fungal world of Tinea corporis AKA ringworm. Oh, the joy of zoonotic disease! Oh, how gleeful I was to have my skin blister and peel away. It’s so fun I almost could scream…in fact, I already have! I love going through about 100 Band-Aids a day and the feeling of sheer dread when I get the slightest itch anywhere on my body. I LOVE DEALING WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S ISSUES!!! YAAAAAAY!!!!

Maybe next time, I’ll tell you all about the time I got lice from one of my kids and got to comb them out of my two foot long hair! I already have the blog title: “Party Lice it’s Nit-Teen Ninety Nine”.

Parasites suck. That is all.

We are Siamese, if you pleeease. We are filled with ringworm and with fleeeeas

Shhh, the incubation time is 2 weeks! By then, she'll love us! Bwahahahaha — Shhh, the incubation time is 2 weeks! By then, she’ll love us! Bwahahahaha

Back to school…oh wait, we never left!

IMG_20131119_011243 — Homeschool Lesson #2387: How to learn despite the obvious distractions of the outdoors + a cute dog

Today is the first day back to school for thousands of kids across the nation. This morning on Facebook, there are tons of pictures of uniformed and non-uniformed little students holding up their Pinterest-inspired chalkboards and letters denoting the grade they are entering. Little scrubbed-clean cherubic faces smiling with huge backpacks, bulging with supplies. They are all so cute and happy in their photos and I wonder how they did at their morning drop offs and walk-ins. Everywhere, moms (and dads) are probably crying on one hand and breathing a collective sign of relief on the other as their little ones enter a new year and life gets back into a schedule after the randomness of summer.

For us, ‘school’ started last week. What does that mean to me? Worksheets, new books, spelling words, math problems, writing, history discussions, arts and crafts, and all those other things we didn’t do over the past few months. I learned the hard way that year-round school definitely has its benefits.

Last Monday, as we began a new year, suddenly no one remembered how to add, multiply, divide, read, write, read directions, or for that matter, what school was. Tears were shed over ‘long’ division until she realized that it was what she had been doing for 2 years already. I came as close as I’ve ever been to beating my head on a table when a simple calendar exercise caused major confusion. Zoe declared very loudly that she “couldn’t read words (text) this small” and that all she liked to read was “Frog and Toad” by Arnold Lobel. Not true, by the way. She also told me that reading the Bible made her have bad dreams (“Remember, Mom? Remember when I dreamed that (name removed to protect the innocent) died?”) Biscuits served for breakfast that morning nearly caused civil disobedience and the dog pooped in the laundry room. I felt like a captain being forced to walk the plank on his own ship. It was mutiny on the Bounty, for sure.

The day was salvaged when we went to guitar lessons that afternoon and then soccer practice after that. I have to say that Tuesday was much less eventful…the kids magically seemed to remember what I had taught them the previous nine months, so I was happy to find that it WASN’T a total waste of our time/money. Today begins our second week, and we are all back to our own brand of ‘normal’.

So, this means that we begin another year of homeschool on our little farm. It’s nice to get back into a routine and hit the books again. For me, I am looking forward to another year of seeing my little people learn…it was something I didn’t get to fully experience while they were in public school. I love to see the lightbulb going on above their heads!

Three cheers to all the moms, dads, teachers, and home educators! Here we go again!

IMG_20140501_014529 — Homeschool Lesson #4, 679: How to build your own wood-fueled stove (and then cook hot dogs and S’mores on it)

IMG_20140416_134753_620 — Homeschool Lesson #5671: How to dye Easter Eggs without becoming a rainbow yourself

Brass Nipples and Buttery Nipples Go Hand in Hand

The last few weeks have been a blur of school, a county-wide livestock show, a plethora of hatching chicks, and repairs on the motorhome. Don’t ask me what day it is, or what I ate for breakfast because it’s highly likely that I can’t answer you correctly.

We have been sacrificing most of our nights and weekends to get our RV road ready. Each and every system has to be tested, re-tested, and stamped with our own seal of approval. My goal is to fix something every day. Two days ago, I was ready to beat my head on the Corian countertop in the galley.

Plumbing isn’t for wimps or for the faint of heart. I’ll be frank, plumbing makes you want to drink. Heavily. I’m not talking about tea or water here, unless you mean Long Island iced tea or firewater. There is nothing more frustrating than connecting all of your hoses, fittings, and associated faucetry (?) while in an impossibly contorted position because some moron put a DIVIDER under the sink so that you have 10 inches of workspace, turning on the water and then having water spray in your face and soak the pressed particleboard underneath.

So now you have:

1. a permanent crick in your neck and back

2. busted fingers from trying to tighten a nut in about 1 inch of space

3. a soaked upper half

4. rapidly decomposing particleboard, getting waterlogged by the millisecond

5. a desire to make a strong mixed drink

6. the realization that you were probably better off BEFORE you tried to ‘fix’ the plumbing.

It’s an utterly depressing feeling. Hats off to plumbers everywhere. Really.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the hardware available today is just plain crap. There’s no way around that. It’s junk; I have no clue how the company making it thinks that in any way, shape, or form it will ever work, let alone hold up in a real world situation. It’s worse in an RV/mobile home plumbing world. So much worse. For example, in our shower stall there is no plumbing access panel, and I do mean none. No, it isn’t hidden behind a mirror or anything like that. If you want an access panel, you’re gonna have to cut yourself one. We thought that by removing a corner shelf in the shower stall that there would be access to the pipes. Nope…after 10 minutes of unscrewing and finally ripping the shelf off, it was….dum dum dum duuuuuuum….nothing. just the wall of the shower stall. No hole.

So, how to replace the shower faucet? Well, cross your fingers, say a prayer, cut yourself a hole and hope that you don’t sever anything vitally important. Either that, or rip out the entire shower stall. By sheer accident, I did find that you can replace the inner workings of the valve (located in the handles themselves), and so I bought a new one as a trial. It leaked WORSE than the old one. Yes, it was the correct valve, too. It was at least twice as pliable as the old plastic valves. Did they make them out of recycled straws or Baggies or something? I don’t know. You could almost bend it, the plastic was so soft. Luckily, I am married to He-Man/Mr. Fix-It and he took the old valves and replaced the O-rings. There. Problem #1 solved.

Now, for the kitchen. Since all the fittings to the faucet were plastic, and since you would have to be the girth of a ratsnake to actually see what you’re doing, they initially got cross-threaded. Thus, the spray in the face. And also, because the brass nipples (yes, this is a real plumbing part) were not beveled at the ends, they didn’t seat properly into the rubber seals in the new hoses. That’s what my husband told me. Where any technical wording begins, you can be assured that is where his words begin and mine end. I would have probably told you that ‘the brass thing and the hose thing don’t work’. I can’t help it that I have the mechanical know-how of a toddler. In fact, I probably can be out-done by a toddler, for that matter. A Playskool Cobbler’s Bench is almost too much for me to bear. Anyway, that was the problem and so he fixed it by using nipples that were actually intended for hydraulics. So, hydraulic nipples. I had to say it. Our problem was solved with hydraulic nipples.

I want to also step in here and talk about hardware stores and men sending us to get parts. I was in town already, so I volunteered my services and told my dear husband that I would pick up the needed hardware to repair the kitchen plumbing. It sounded easy enough. A male to female hose, half-inch diameter. And I even know that he meant 1/2″ I.D., which means ‘inner diameter’ and NOT O.D. which is outer diameter and can cause you nightmares in certain situations. So I go into the hardware store with high hopes and my little list. A man came to help me. This is where the trip started sliding downhill.

Me: I need a male to female, half-inch extension hose for a sink.

Him: Extension hose?

Me: Okay, maybe it’s not an ‘extension’ hose then…just a hose.

(we walk over to the hoses)

Him (holding up a hose): Would this work?

Me: Uhhhh.

(we stare at the hose together in an uncomfortable silence)

Me: Well, it’s supposed to be male to female and I know that’s probably not standard…that’s female to female, right?

Him: Oh, well I guess it is. Hmm. Let’s see (digs among the hoses) Do you know how long it needs to be?

Me: Uhhhhh. (suddenly realizing that I am about to use my hands in the stereotypical way a woman measures and say, “About this long?” and I shove my hands in my pockets) Gosh, I don’t know, what do you have?

Him: (holds up a hose)

Me: (refusing to use my hands to show measurement) Yeah, that looks about right. I mean…I think it is. I sure wish my husband was here to see this…he knows what he’s talking about. Let me call him. (I call…no answer) Well, I don’t know.

Him: Ha ha, us men are bad about sending y’all to town like that. It sounds easy to us in our heads, I mean we know what we’re talking about, and then we get upset when y’all get the wrong thing. I guess that isn’t really fair, is it?

Me: Well, try picking up a box of tampons at the store for your wife sometime and then let’s talk about what’s “easy”.

I think I’m getting a little sassy in my older age. We recruited help, and that’s how I came home with the brass nipples. Luckily for my husband, it wasn’t brass knuckles because I probably would have used them on the plumbing at that point.

Of course, when I walked in with my hoses and the nipples, he said, “Yeah, I thought that’s what they’d send you home with.” Translation: “That isn’t what I would have bought. No, I wouldn’t have bought that at all.”

I am happy to say that one of the brass nipples has held up so far, so it wasn’t a total wash. And the hoses did work just fine.

If I ruled the world, I’m just saying that I’d stock butterscotch schnapps and Irish cream in the plumbing aisle.

RV there yet? Yes, we are.

Finally, finally, after years of hesitating, looking, researching, and wasted gas and time, we found a motorhome. Oddly enough, I found the ad on Craigslist not minutes after we left an RV dealer’s lot. The ad was only about an hour old, and I jumped on it like a duck on a June bug. It is a 1994 Pace Arrow (by Fleetwood) motorhome. The couple selling it had lived in it for over 2 years while building their home. Fortunately, it was well-maintained, and seems to be in very good condition so far. The downside to a motorhome is that there are a LOT of different systems contained in a single vehicle and you have to go through each and every one of them. So far, we know we need:

New air cylinders for front suspension (think: The WeebleWobble Mobile while driving!)

Remove and reinstall the refrigerator (hits trim on the interior and also the water drain tube broke into a zillion pieces

Reseal and assess roof.

Check the LP alarm and the LP system to see if it is functioning and if it leaks or not

Test all appliances

Check dates on rear tires (I looked at new tire prices…shudder)

Check all belts and hoses

Get water tank and pump sanitized and running

If I weren’t married to Mr. Fix-It, it’s likely that I would have been much more apprehensive about buying this rig. Ideally, you want to check out ALL systems before buying an RV, but we were happy that it ran, the body is in great shape, and the a/c worked. Also, the price was right for what we got. I have seen similar, if not almost identical rigs going for double what we paid, which is hard to imagine, especially for being a 20 year old mass-produced motorhome.

Anyway, after doing some serious upholstery/carpet cleaning on the interior, I have vowed (yet again) to never live in a house with carpet. Ugh. I finally have my equilibrium back after 3 days of working in an unlevel ‘house’. I kept on running into walls on my RIGHT to try and compensate for leaning to the LEFT. The night before we moved it indoors to another location, Jason checked the leveling system. The man had not used this system at all and used aftermarket jacks to keep it stable. Well, we found that the fuse for the leveling system wasn’t even in the fusebox at all, so after replacing that and hitting a few switches, the 4 leveling cylinders popped out of their places and leveled us right up! Sure wish we would have done that a few days sooner so my right arm wasn’t so bruised…

Looking forward to NOT setting up a tent in a downpour any more. We’ve taken a whopping 2 vacations, and both have been in the pouring rain and both were spent in a tent. It’s not really “fun” doing the “Wet Tent Dive” to get in and out of your tent. Nor is it fun to get up at 3am and walk to a toilet where bears lurk, or breaking camp in the rain, and shoving your stuff as quickly as you can in the back of a truck without forgetting anything or anyone. That’s the part of camping that I admittedly, will NOT be missing. I’ll enjoy having my own potty, my cooktop, and a roof more solid than just nylon. Oh and a heater…let’s not forget the heater. Most of all, I will not miss being crammed in a small compartment with 4 people, and having to stop for pee breaks and food. Who knew kids’ bladders were the size of a pea, or that they could rapid-fire questions for 4 straight hours? Did I mention that the driver and passenger’s seats are like La-Z-Boy chairs? It’s literally like driving a huge recliner down the road.

Looking forward to traveling in Big Bertha and seeing what there is to see!

If the Shoe Fits…Or, the Toe Woes

It’s official. I am now at that age where I want to flag down strangers at the grocery store and tell them all about my medical conditions, holding them captive with my too-long tales of woe. Or, tell the world in a blog post. Whatever.

If you are the kind of person who hates to think about other people’s feet, go no further. If other people’s medical stories make you want to vomit, go elsewhere. You’d better stop right now. If not, read on.

I have had a several years’ long quest to find footwear that doesn’t cause me pain. I have to tell you that I have failed miserably. Finally, I went to a really expensive shoe store and had my feet measured (reminded me of going to Buster Brown as a kid…why they did away with that, I have no idea), and after I told him about how all shoes hurt my feet, he looks up at me and said, “Have you been wearing regular width shoes?” “Ummmmm….I’m a wide, aren’t I?” “Yes, you are.” “Oh.”

Okay, issue #1 addressed. So I did end up with wide width shoes and they did work much better for quite a while.

Then you get into winter and you really *should* wear something other than flip flops. Unfortunately, by then said athletic shoes I had bought looked more appropriate for my Mastiff’s chew toy than footwear. For the second (or maybe third?) year in a row, I found myself in November with no other shoes besides flip flops, a scary pair of wrecked New Balance, and house shoes. I admit, I wore the houseshoes. The upside to the houseshoes is that they do look more like moccasins, so you can pretty much pass them off as such. The BAD part was that I had forgotten how they nearly crippled me last year. I was reminded of this fact, quite painfully, about 2 weeks ago when my fourth toes screamed out in the Shoe Revolt of 2014. Initially, it wasn’t so bad. I switched shoes for a while and then stupidly went back into the houseshoes. Well, last week, the Toe Uprising occurred. Last Thursday, I woke up to a horribly distorted toe and of course, the temperature outside had to be like negative 30. (not really, but close enough) Now I had absolutely no shoes to wear outside of summery flip flops, because my little pea brain finally associated my mangled feet with the wear of my beloved houseshoes.

Well, they went in the trash. Forget a bra burning party, I had a shoe burning party. I had to wear *something* to go out and feed the chickens. I chose my mud boots. Bad decision. By the time I was halfway to the chicken coop, I was hobbling like I had arthritis in every joint below my waist. The top of the boot was scouring the top of my toes like sandpaper. I was almost in tears. When I did make it back inside, I ripped off the boots and stuffed them in the trash can. With God as my witness, no shoe will ever cause me pain again.

I made a doctor’s appointment that day, and I’m the kind of person who will avoid going to the doctor unless I’m at Death’s door. Close enough.

When I arrived at the doctor’s, I hobbled in and took my turn to wait. I have to say, I never realized that a podiatrist would be so busy at 8:30 in the morning, but I guess that bad feet are a common thing. I don’t go to see a doctor any more than I really have to. I looked around. Apparently, this pair of doctors saw a ton of wonky feet. The office was brand new and very nice. Even the magazine selections were good. Not just Golf, People, or AARP. I looked down at my clothes. That’s a whole ‘nuther issue because I have no nice clothes, either. I had on my pair of black fleece North Face pants, which cost more than I have spent on pants in years. I was horrified to see that they were coated with a mix of dog and guinea pig hairs. OmG. Great. Country comes to town. Nervously, and without trying to draw attention to myself, I try to remove some of the fur, and then realize that the cleaning ladies would be wondering why there was a small pile of animal fur in the lobby. Note to self: Do NOT leave my house ever again (!!!) without a lint roller. Okay. Also, do not wear black fleece in public.

I was called back, and the nurse looked at me and said, “You’re limping.” He got points in my book for good observation. I sat in the chair and propped up my feet. He asked the normal questions about meds, height, weight, etc. Then we get to the issue at hand. I take off my shoes and he immediately palpates my feet. Without gloves. I look at him in awe. Wow. This guy handles feet all day, sometimes gloveless apparently, and does this by choice. I’m slightly amazed. He’s an everyday hero. He asks a few more questions and then says, “Okay, so you didn’t fall out of a truck or anything, did you?”

Oh, dear. My thoughts go back to my furry fleecy pants, my ugly shoes, my address (small town, poor county) and the fact I’m a self-pay (no insurance) client. Did I look like I was the kind of person who randomly jumps out of trucks? Do I look like a person that would even own a truck? Couldn’t I have tripped over a lump in my hand-knotted Persian rug and stubbed my toe on the stand that holds my Ming Dynasty vase (vahz…not vayce)? Couldn’t I have fallen out of my Land Rover? No, I suppose that people who come in wearing furry fleece pants don’t own any of those items anyway. I kinda wanted to say that I indeed did fall out of a tater truck earlier that week, but I didn’t want to make anything awkward between us. After all, this man was part of the bridge to my recovery. So I told him the real truth and that it was due to shoe friction.

He left the room and then popped his head back in to ask if it was okay to perform an x-ray. (I’m self-pay, remember) I said most definitely, YES. At this point, I could frankly care less what you do as long as I can walk normally. He said, “Okay good, because usually when people are in this kind of pain, the toe is broken, and your toes are a little weird, I mean…” Suddenly, I realize he is very embarrassed, “OH! I don’t mean they’re weird…I just mean…” He trails off. I think to myself, my God, in an office that sees thousands of feet a year, I am the person with the weird feet. Great. I tell him that it’s fine, I know my feet are, in fact, very weird, and that it’s okay and there is absolutely no offense, because a fact is a fact, right? I’ve known this ever since I compared my feet to other girls’ in school and realized that toes are not, as a general rule, bent at odd and hideous angles, but in most cases are actually straight. I even complimented a girl once in school about how pretty her feet were. Yes, I was jealous. I’m sure she thought I was a total weirdo. A weirdo with weird, wonky feet.

Anyway, we get the x-rays done and I sit back down. The doctor comes in, and I have to tell you that I don’t even know his name because he didn’t tell me. Oh well. It was one of two doctors, so I’m sure I’ll figure it out by my follow-up visit. So, he takes a look, and then shows me the x-ray. I am absolutely amazed to see that my bones are actually straight in my toes. Wow. Would have never guessed that. Then he tells me what I have. It was pretty much a list. Hammertoes, mallet toes, claw toes, claw hammer toes, pliertoes, wrenchtoes, bunions, Funyuns, bunionettes, marionettes…whatever kind of malady a foot can have, I probably have it. He tells me that I will, eventually, need surgery, both for hammertoe relief as well as for my tailor’s bunions (they actually shave the bone on that one….ugh). I say, “So, basically, you’re saying my feet are doomed, right?” He wasn’t expecting that, really, and says,”Oh no, no, I don’t mean it like that.” I say, “It’s okay, my feet are doomed.” After some more small procedures, I set up with some arthritis gel for pain, Medrol for the swelling, and some custom inserts for shoes that I don’t own. I ask him about shoes. He said to find some with a squared toe box type shoes. I was literally crying in the back of my mind because I have sought these Holy Grail of shoes for years unsuccessfully. I’m still holding out hope. He tells me that the steroids I will be taking are inexpensive. Okay, I say.

I go to pay, fully expecting to shell out at least a couple hundred bucks. The total came to $130. I blurt out how cheap that is. I know that even in our business, we usually don’t do much for under 200 dollars, and here is this nice and beautifully decorated, fully staffed, modern office and they do an appointment for less than $150. Nice.

I get back into the car and tell Jason that I think I may need to upgrade my appearance. “Why?” he said.

“Well, because I think I give off the impression that I’m extremely poor or something. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being poor, I’m certainly not saying that at all, but I think I look, well, maybe like I am the kind of person who jumps out of large trucks on a whim. Like the kind of person who may shoot coons off of her deck at night. Does that make sense?” He laughs. “Well, it got you some free medicine, a cheap prescription, and a cheap appointment, didn’t it?” “Well, I guess, but…” I absentmindedly pick a dog hair off of my pants. I make another mental note to do some wardrobe upgrades in the future as well as buy a case of lint rollers. “Anyway, I think it would have been funny if I had hobbled outside to climb into my brand new Lexus, right?” I giggle. “Yes,” he answers, “but you climbed into your Prius, and they probably thought, ‘That poor woman can’t even afford gas.’ ”

I laugh.

So, the next day, I start my Medrol pack. I am one of those kind of people who actually reads about the side effects. Sweating, acne, insomnia, changes in appetite…pretty much all the normal stuff. Then I get down to “could possibly cause frank psychotic episodes”. I try to let that sink in for a minute. Frank psychotic episodes.

Great.

I have a cooking class at a grocery store that I take the kids to, and today is that day. Of course it is. Well, I’ll be the wild-eyed nude woman in the store trying to free the lobsters while I’m declaring to the shocked onlookers that I am either Jesus or the reincarnation of Cleopatra. This is lovely.

I do have to report that I did make it through the class without removing any garment of clothing, nor telling anyone that I was the materialization of the Lord and Savior or the Queen of the Nile. I stayed as far away as I possibly could from the lobster tank.

By the next morning, I realized that the ‘insomnia’ part of the side effects certainly held true. I may not have actually had a psychotic episode, but as I looked in the mirror that morning, I looked like I was psychotic. After a whole night of tossing, turning, and waking up in a dead panic about 10 times, my hair had a Bride of Frankenstein quality, my traces of mascara were down to my cheeks, and my eyes had the look of “If you touch me today, I will likely scare you as well as myself.” Luckily, after a shower, most of those qualities were erased.

I picked up my new shoe inserts. I flipped them over. On the back was a big letter “D”. D for Doomed. I sighed heavily and limped to the Keurig.

So, here’s to shoes that fit, feet that don’t hurt, and the medicine of podiatry. Wonky and janky feet owners of the world unite! I may not be Queen of the Nile, but I declare myself Princess of the Wonky Feet.

Sewing for Dummies

I love to sew.

I don’t get to do it too often, but as of late, I have been sneaking into my craft room and stitching when I can. I love to sew, and yet it is the one craft that can drive me slap out of my own mind.

My latest project is a copycat of a tubular scarf/hat/balaclava/head wrap thing that I bought from Academy for an embarrassing amount of money, considering that it is 2 thin pieces of material. I thought that recreating it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

I was wrong.

I thought that sewing a dual sided tube wouldn’t propose much of a problem.

I was wrong.

I thought that what I paid for it at the store was way too much.

Actually, I have to say, it was the deal of a lifetime, considering the mental abuse I just caused myself.

There is an optical illusion…I forget its exact name, but it is an impossible creation. It looks similar to the infinity sign in shape, but its essentially a long, twisting tube that has no end nor beginning. Well, they SAID it was an impossible creation. I’m here to tell you that I made that thing out of fabric tonight. There was no logic, rhyme, nor reason to the various shapes that I turned out this evening. What was supposed to be a simple tube-like scarf turned into a pillow, then a giant headband that could have fit an elephant, and then the shape-thing that actually defied any current laws of physics. I’m pretty sure I just disproved several laws of physics, in fact. My seam ripper burst into flames after I tore out enough stitches to sew an entire closet full of garments.

Finally, I laid down the fabric, turned off my sewing machine, iced down the seam ripper, and slowly backed out of the craft room.

It’s one of those kind of days.

Evolution of a home

Sometimes, pictures are the best way to tell a story. I would like to share with you the progression of our farm house from when we moved in, back in 2008, to the current day. First, a story of our home.

This house wasn’t built on site. It was purchased from Kilgore College in the early 90s and moved to the current location. I heard that it cost around $32,000 for the house and the moving costs. From the little information we have gathered (that is, looking at a date stamp on the underside of a toilet tank lid), the house is from 1952. Of course, it could be older than that, but it sounds pretty good to me. Overall, the construction seems to be pretty good. Most of the walls are solid tongue-in-groove pine, which is great because I hate sheetrock. Unfortunately, the exterior was an absolute nightmare and there was no way for it to hold paint properly. The edges of the house had aluminum caps, which was where moisture would seep in and cause paint to fail, and thus peel. The roof was asphalt shingles and in bad condition. There wasn’t a scrap of insulation to be found. The A/C unit was on its very last legs…honestly, I can’t even say it had legs at all. In other words, it was just a worn out old house in need of repair, just like any other old house. I like to to think it was waiting for us.

I have loved this house, I have hated this house. I have cried over it, cussed it more than I should admit, cursed it, beat it, yelled at it, and wanted to put a match to it (don’t worry, State Farm, I would NOT do that!). Still, never have I not appreciated it. It’s our home, we have worked hard to get it where it is today, and I am proud to show it to you. Click on any photo to enlarge it.

It’s been a crazy 5+ years. Here’s to many more.

August 2008:

January 2009:

June 2009:

February 2010:

January 2011:

February 2011 (sick of the cold house):

July 2011:

April 2012:

October 2013:

I don’t think that I need to tell you that it looks different, yet again, only 3 months later. The painting/staining is still underway and it looks much better today. I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane with us!

The Cat Who Came for Dinner

I’m not usually a ‘cat person’.

I typically like cats that are dog-like, or at least, just don’t act like in the snobby and stuck up way that a cat usually does. I like cats with distinctive personalities and not the kind of cats that solicit a good rub down then claw and bite you mid-way through when they have had their fill. Or cats that give off the impression that they don’t need you, don’t really want you there, and would, quite frankly, probably be much happier should you drop dead in front of them.

I have had such a cat. Actually, I have had a few cats that I can remember. First was Tinker, when I was just a wee pup of 3 years old. Tinker turned out to actually be a neighbor’s cat, but she was my first official pet, even if I couldn’t claim her as my own. The next was my solid black tom, Blackie, and his adopted ‘brother’, Tiger. Blackie sadly ran off to a neighbor’s house after one of my brother’s ‘friends’ chucked pinecones at him one too many times. Tiger was with us for many years until he decided to car surf (don’t ask) one day down the road and we never saw him again. The next was a cat that I have written about before, Garfield. You can read about Garfield in my posts, Super Fantastic Cat Alarm 5000, Super Fantastic Cat Alarm 2, and finally in his last blog, It Ain’t Always Easy. That was the last time we had a cat that I really loved.

I told myself we would never own another cat. Ever.

Every cat that I loved either packed up and left of its own accord or met their end with an automobile in some way. Cats, for whatever reason, are attracted to cars in the same way that moths and June bugs are attracted to your porch light. I also don’t like the idea of an outdoor cat, because they usually will kill birds, lizards, toads, and all of the creepy crawlies that I enjoy having around.

God, as usual, had other plans.

One day, as we were quietly doing math problems in our homeschool room, in the midst of division problems, the kids scream out, “CAT! IT’S A CAAAAAAAT!” After recovering from my minor heart attack brought on by the piercing screams of 2 children during a moment of silence, I look out the window to see the slinky tail of a cat sauntering (because that’s what cats do…they don’t walk, they saunter) past our barn. I make the kids stay inside and I run outside to try and find said cat. Of course, it’s nowhere to be found. They can do that, you know. Disappear magically without the slightest trace.

About a week later, we were in the barn when suddenly a cat came flying out from nowhere…right by my legs. I’m doing a weird, leaping dance while making strange, unintelligible choking noises with 3 small dogs chasing a stray cat who is running through my legs and a big 100 pound goober dog who is frantically trying to escape the situation unsuccessfully as his claws skate perilously on concrete while doing sideways donuts around the whole of the fracas. Of course the cat made it out. You knew that, though. As Jason says, anyone with any sense at all will yield to a cat.

A couple of days later, one night I happened to see the cat in the barn snacking on dog food. I call Jason out and as he slammed close one door I closed the other. The cat was trapped. We snuck in. The cat was in a corner, under a workbench and he was not a happy camper. He was meowing in the most pathetic manner you could imagine. Well, as I’m on one side of the barn, Jason makes his way to the other, which in turn is herding the cat STRAIGHT TOWARDS ME. I don’t turn my back on animals I don’t know, and I don’t want to reach for the door because I am terrified that this cat will use me as a human pole vault to escape. Jason is calling, “Here, kitty kiiiiitty!” in his nicest voice and I’m getting slowly cornered as the cat creeps closer and closer. All I can see is the cat attached to my face, I get rabies, and lose my vision.

In one singular motion, cat leaps (flies) through the air and is now above my head on the supporting 2×4 on the wall of the barn. Only a cat can make a 6 foot leap, scale a post, and walk across a 2″ surface without so much as a single false step. Now is my turn to escape. I run back to Jason in the safety zone. I don’t think he notices how breathless and pale I am.

J: Well, what now?

Me: I don’t know. What do you think?

J: Well, I mean, we don’t need a stray cat out here. Should we….

Me: Get rid of it?

J: (frowns and shrugs)

Me: I mean, I don’t want to…you know…he’s such a pretty cat. But we can’t have a feral cat around the kids and the chickens.

J: (nods)

Me: (sighs and looks at cat)

(cat is staring at us accusingly through slitted eyes still balancing on his perch)

Me: Crap. Well, we can’t kill the damned thing, I mean, we just can’t. Let’s just wait and see. Let’s let him out.

A week after that, we lost a chicken to a raccoon. Jason set up a live trap using a can of cat food. The next morning, my oldest comes running in the house. “WE CAUGHT A CAAAAAT!” Maybe I should have used a can of coon food. Apparently, if you set a trap using cat food, I guess you’re gonna catch a cat. Well, there you go. There’s a lesson for you.

Let me pause the story to tell you about cats. After working in a veterinary clinic for a few years, there was one animal that I feared the most. Not a snake, huge hissing monitor lizard, angry dog, or a pissed off parrot with a beak like a set of Vise-Grips. It was the cat that struck up the most fear. Not only does a cat have a very impressive and deadly set of nice pointed teeth, but it also has 4 sets of equally sharp claws. Cats have the muscle tone of a bodybuilder and they can rotate their heads and body something akin to Linda Blair mixed with an owl and a Cirque du Soleil contortionist. You don’t want to tangle with a pissed off cat. You want proof?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMNSVMyxzxA

This woman was trying to keep this stray cat away from her dog which it had just attacked. Note the body language of the cat. It is completely puffed up, including tail, ears are all the way back, in an extremely defensive posture. Do not EVER approach an animal with these signs unless you want to end up with some time in the ER.

This video gives me flashbacks of two cat attacks I have personally witnessed, and one I didn’t. The first was when I was attacked myself. As I was walking past a friend’s bed, her cat who was the spawn of the devil himself, leapt from the bed and latched all of its teeth into my elbow. It was shocking, it hurt, and I was in disbelief. I am sure that the cat was extremely territorial and I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. At any rate, it wasn’t an animal that had any business around children.

The second time was when I was a grooming assistant at a pet store. My co-worker was about to bathe this cat, and I had my back turned. Suddenly, she said my name in a strange and terrified voice. I wheeled around, and the cat was attached to her arm, teeth fully sunk into her flesh, and all 4 sets of claws were also engaged. Wide-eyed, all I knew to do was pop the cat on the head to get it to release. It did, and my co-worker promptly fainted.

Last story I have was about Jason’s aunt. She was going to clean out a storage shed at a new house they had just bought. When she walked in, a feral cat leapt onto her face, attacking her viciously. I can’t remember if the cat was rabid or not, but I’m sure she at least had to get the vaccines.

So, bearing all that in mind, back to my cat story.

Well….

Well, dear readers, here it is that I have to stop my cat story.

Because, you see, I was writing this nice long blog, all about my love for our new cat. I was writing this on a lovely Saturday afternoon. Our cat (whom I named Churchill, and ‘Church’ for short) was contentedly sunning himself on our front porch all day long. That night, I locked him up in the barn and the next day, he was gone.

I guess my words held more truth than even I believed.

Cats really can disappear magically without a trace.

Goodbye, Church. One day, maybe we’ll meet again.

Baby, it’s cold outside!

I think potty break time is over, don’t you? Looked out the side door to see this motley crew staring at me with their most pathetic little looks. Don’t worry, it worked. They were back in the house hogging up space in front of the heater right after I snapped these photos. How could anyone say no to those mugs?