I am practically atingle with happiness

Whilst I still have a load or two of laundry to do, no one has hassled me or given me grief or yelled at me about using the machines today.

If this is not pure, unadulterated bliss, well, I do not know what is.  Were I able to move with comfort, I would be happy-dancing all over the place, but really quiet, like a mouse.  Wee, tiny, little happy-dancing mice.  I would dance with them.  My peeps.

Ah, whatever happens for the other half of this day, I can survive it relatively unscathed because this early part is worth appreciating, seeking out and bringing on the dancing and very blissful little guys with the naked tails. 

To leap, to soar, without a care
Is a blessing of the rarest kind.
Through the air and in my soul,
One to be held in heart and mind

For times less peaceful,
Times less calm and quiet and gay,
When struggles are met
With the strength gathered today

It is life's dance, at least mine
To experience as best I am able.
And gather the soft remembrances
For future times unstable.

Dance, baby, whilst you can.

K's tote bag

I sort of forgot about making this, but did a little preliminary choosing of the parts and sewed the bottom closed and added the flap last night.  Today I finished it.  I had a nice mattress ticking fabric, in pastels, but I am still under the spell of the Hello Kitty flannel fabric and it worked brilliantly.  Much better than the cotton ticking.

I will drop it off when I get home from upnort' tomorrow night, as she is leaving to go home sometime on Wednesday.

I wish that she would stay here,
Where her friends hold her dear,
But the heart wants and knows,
What the heart wants and knows,
So back across the big water to her honey she goes.

Then denim is from that sack of jeans and overalls, most of it used now.  This is from a jeans leg and the trim is some old upholstery tape I have. I had planned on hand-sewing the lining onto the body of the bag, because it is kind of bucket shaped, wider at the top than at the bottom.  But, the lining came out like magic and fit perfectly.  How did that even happen?  There is a double pocket on the front and three pockets inside, the largest of which divides the depth of the bag.

She wanted one similar to the one I made earlier this year from her father's tweed sport coat.  She refuses to use it for every day, even though I made it very durable, so this one is the daily-use one she requested.  They are her bags, so I guess I have to just let go of any attachment I have to them.  Yep.

This is the bag from the sport coat.  I kept the front, the pocket and the vent in the back and lined it with the jacket lining; even though it was quite old, it still worked fine.  I used part of a sleeve and buttons for the strap, trying to keep it looking like, well, whatever it looks like.  Those are her beautiful, artist's hands.

The ornaments are mostly finished

Hankie quarter, beaded and made into a tree

Lace hankie quarter with green glass center

Shell center

Shell cluster center with blue rose bead

Stoneware beads center

Wooden bead with goldstones

One of the hankie quarters, beaded

Ribbon layered over red lamé

A whole bunch of fluffy wreaths

Fluffy turquoise wreath with tiny jingle bells

1.5 inch diameter beaded wreaths

I also made some tiny, purple felt purse shaped ones.  They had dangley beads at the bottom and ribbons scraps and rhinestones at the middle.  Made them on Friday and gave them all away on Saturday.  I will be making some more tomorrow when I sit at the gallery.

I also want to finish up the beads that I am using for the teeny wreaths, and will take those supplies along, too.  They were a pharmacy purchase because a friend gave me a gift card to the pharmacy for my birthday.  Yeah, I know, but she does stuff like that and my guess is that she thought I could buy one of my favorite chocolates there.  I went to spend it just a week ago and found some cool beads for making bracelets in the toy aisle.  I knew immediately what I wanted to do with them and bought three packages.

I have more of the fluffy yarn wreaths to make and have/had another ornament idea, but I cannot remember what it is.

Anyway, today is the first day in weeks and weeks and even more weeks when I have felt more hopeful about things.  Nothing has really changed, but I just feel better.  Even better is that I was able to walk today with less pain, and much less medication.  That may account for some of my good and groovy feelings, but there must be more to it.

Whatever it is, I want to hold on to it for a long time.  It just feels so wonderful to not be all sad and weepy and sad for a change.

Days of bliss I fear to be lost
And, not knowing why is the cost
Of doing the business of a life.

Brighter moments break the thrall
Of being lost and sad, and all
Those aspects that come with strife.

Holding dear the blessings of hope
I beg, will help me to cope
When the darkness returns with its knife.

Hardly anything in a simple-focal life is simple

It just is not.

Long and boring story about my cats.  Nope.  Just the results.  Yep.

So, anyway, I noticed that C is walking less comfortably and that his arthritis is not being kind to him.  L had really bad breath.  Strange as it seems, both of those issues are connected to the fact that someone who is not me feeds them those tiny cans of wet cat food all day long.  As a bonus, both are gaining weight.

So, off to the vet clinic we go yesterday for a check up and some pre-surgical blood work.  C has great teeth and was scheduled for a cleaning today.  L has horrible, really crappy teeth and even brushing them with this nice tasting liquid and gauze does not really help much, so she was scheduled for surgery as well, as it looked like she needed a tooth extracted.

They went in today and the surgeries went well...one extraction for C, totally unexpected by all of us...four extractions for L, two of which required jaw surgery as well.   Well.

Someone there suspected that more than poor dental hygiene was a factor for L, and expressed some of the blood that was drawn yesterday to one of the state labs, so that we would have results today.

I am still stunned all of these hours later, but both of them seem to have feline stomatitis, an autoimmune disease.  I mean, that does not even seem possible, that both of them have it.  FS is usually accompanied by FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus) and FeLV (feline leukemia virus), neither of which either of them have.  I mean, stunned really, hardly expresses what I am feeling.

So, in the next week or so we will be discussing some new methods of keeping their mouths cleaner, but, honestly, I am so not looking forward to that.  Having to perform regular, like weekly, dental cleanings on them is not going to improve the quality of our relationships.  Simply pilling a cat every day messes up your relationship to a certain extent.  I am going to have to hold each of them down and do some serious rubbing around in their mouths.  I feel sick about it and we have not actually decided to do anything.  Heaven forbid that I should waste worrying on certainty. 

So, I was supposed to fetch them at 2 p.m., then 3, then 4:30 and finally brought them home at 6.  They were having difficulty recovering from the anesthesia, which is always a possibility with kitties.  They are, however, just fine and only a little groggy, three hours later.  At least they are home.  We have antibiotics for ten days and pain meds, syringes, until Friday.  If they are still uncomfortable then, I can get more.

The good news is that all is well for now.  The other good news is that I had already saved some money for my next trip and the $1400.00 in costs for all of the services is easy to pay.

I was thinking a bit earlier that getting a very, very part-time job might not be such a bad idea.  I was offered several for the holiday season, so it would not be difficult to do and since I am taking a break from all of my family for a while, well, I have the time.  Maybe when I am helping clients tomorrow I can take a few minutes to make a call and help myself, although I have to be honest and say that I am not looking forward to working in the belly of the beast again.  Translated, that means the mall.

All is well that ends well.
And, you can never tell
If working in a store will
Be the final pill
That pushes you over the edge.

I cannot know until I try.
Eventually, however, wondering why
I thought it would be fine
To take a bit of time
To earn some vet clinic fees cash.

Close enough.