The gangs first pet bed!

Got tired of doing nothing but digital stuff yesterday and grabbed my crochet bag and went to work. 

I had so much fun, and the time passed so quickly that I went from 2:00 pm to 11:20 pm in a flash.  I didn’t even eat, which is saying something.  LOL

Anyway, here’s pics of the cat bed and a couple of the rollies I made.

The cats are crazy about it.  Piper tends to hog it and swats at everyone who gets near it.  lol  The kitten in the pic is Grey Beard.  She’s a sweetie. 

The second one I’m working on is a little smaller.  It’s the main colour of the one above.  I forgot to change when I started on the trim.  I’ve only got two more rows and I’ll have it done. 

 

And so ends the day…

It’s been a good day.  I woke up at 5:20 AM with a headache, and it went away before 5:45.  : )  I’m over the moon about that!   My bladder exploded and I peed all over the bathroom floor.  That was exciting.  For Jeff the Cat, anyway.  I swear he was laughing.

By 9:30, I’d completed my days work on a new squid lens.  And from there on the day was pretty much all to myself. 

You can read about the rest in my blog at scruffy zines.  I hope the weather is good tomorrow so I can take the latest pics of the shelter.

There was a bright side to the turkeys not using the shelter today.  It meant I got to use it for a bird blind!  Thanks, turkeys!!!  It was fun.  : )

 

Technorati Tags: scruffy zines,turkeys,bladder leaks

It’s nice having an extra excuse…

Spent today working on the shelter for the turkeys.  You can see pics in the blog at Scruffyzines.  After everything was done, I stood back and wondered how on earth I could possibly be so exhausted.  There really wasn’t that much to do: cut branches, bailing twine the boards, haul a couple pieces of plywood.

I felt like a wimp afterwards, and then I remembered the magic word – “dystonia.”  My thoughtful sidekick and companion.  (pause)   It’s nice to have an excuse for stuff, other than saying, “I’m over 50.  I’m supposed to feel this way.”    LOL

One of many posts on the net of Whitney Houston’s death–There’s more to life than talent.

Between facebook and twitter, there’s been lots of postings of Houston singing the anthem at Super Bowl XXV.  There’s posts of Houston singing Dolly Parton’s song, and this last one is the reason for my post.

Whitney had extremely beautiful voice, which gave her so much potential for success in all areas of her life.  But Houston lacked a solid foundation for her life.  She got involved with a low-life, became a drug addict and alcoholic, and contributed nothing to society, except being an example of how you don’t want to live your life.

Houston’s life was so empty she tried everything she could to fill the void.  I’m sure as the weeks go by, she’ll be lifted up as one of the greatest in the music industry and an example to us all, much like Amy Winehouse, who also led a wasted life.

Hollywood and the music industry have a really weird idea of what success is.  True success can be found in people like: Dolly Parton, Marie Osmond, John Schneider, Julie Andrews, etc. 

Sticking with just those, what makes them so successful in the true meaning of success?

Dolly Parton took her music success to create Dollywood. Dollywood provides families with fun entertainment, provides jobs, and brings money into the community helping others profit from her venture.

Marie Osmond (plus her family) and John Schneider started the Children’s Miracle Network.  That says it all, especially to those who have benefited from this extraordinary program. 

Julie Andrews!  A magnificent legacy with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.  I’d love to know how many little kids have jumped out of trees, and off anything they could find with an umbrella and broken an arm or leg.  LOL (Thankfully, I never broke anything – except my pride.)

Her books have thrilled children all over the world, and she works to encourage children to love books. 

That’s true success.  They’ve done and do big things, and not for themselves.

It’s something to think about as people hold up those like Houston and Winehouse to be something more than they were.  They both could have been so much more.

There’s more to life than talent.

 

bumfreezing cold

This has been a crazy week, but I’m mamash proud of myself.  I managed to get my zine done, get another almost 100% prepared for Kindle, got a product review up, and started a new web site.  I love this one.  It’s fun.  It’s cool.  And oddly – it’s black.  Never tried using that colour before, and I really like it.

The one thing I wish I would have gotten in more, is time in my secret spot.  I did a lot of watching from the kitchen window, but wasn’t able to get out the door as much as I wanted.  I need to spend more time with the turkeys, if I’m ever going to tame them so I can pet them and put them in the pen if I have to. 

Anyway, it’s late and I still need to say tehillim.  And get 5 cats off my sleeping bag so I can go to sleep.

Good nite  : )

Pic: Nigella on the gate.

My experiment with making my first online zine

Technorati Tags: online zine,zines,turkeys,turkey pictures,turkey journal

Ya gotta love a turkey!

It’s bitter cold outside tonight.  The wind is whipping and shortly here it’s turning to snow, and all I can think about is those darn turkeys.  I hope they’ve found a warm place for the night. 

They were in the lower pasture this afternoon.  I’m hoping they took a stroll through the barn while they were out exploring.  There’s plenty of hay there for them to bed down in for the night, plus the protection the walls will give them from the wind.

Here’s a snippet of a quick little project I have going.  It’s part of my “new year” goals.  I’ve been wanting to make a chapbook, and so I am.  The pic is from simplebooklet.  It’s an app I found on google chrome.  You can make all kinds of little booklets with it and post them on facebook, blogs, etc.  It’s super cool and really easy.

Anyway, if I get all my toons redrawn tonight and scanned in to the laptop, I should be done tomorrow.  : )  So, I guess I better get going. 

Those shiny things rock!

That’s my problem.  I really love shiny things.  Shiny things are the newest thing that comes out and looks super cool.  Most of the time they are super cool, but not always. 

So, this year my goal is to avoid the shiny things and use what I have.  That includes using the tools my laptop came with and not searching around for something cooler and shinier to download and take up much needed space on my hard drive.

My Toshiba laptop came with some pretty cool stuff.  Microsoft finally got its act together and gave a free version of all you need with Microsoft Office Starter.  For once, it won’t expire. 

It has a cool sticky notes program and snippet tool, and I’ve even grown to like google chrome and started using the apps that work with it.  I like it!  I’m organised and set.

I’ve even set a limit on how many programs I load.  Most are for learning (biblical hebrew, talmud, talmudic aramaic, modern hebrew, torah, etc), and I’ve got a couple rpg games (Fate). 

This new laptop could possibly go down as the only focused computer I’ve ever owned.  lol

Alas poor Mountain Rex, I knew him well...

No more riding MR until his wheels are trued.  I didn't realise how bad they were until I set my bike up on the stand in the living room and got it under an overhead light.  Wow!  No wonder I can't get the brakes properly lined.  So, now the task at hand is to take off both wheels and take them to Athens Bike Shop and have them trued.  Hopefully, it won't cost a fortune.

When I was reading the customer reviews for this bike, there was a guy there who said he had to have the wheels trued when he got his.  A bunch of others didn't.  Another guy had to completely replace the breaking system. 

All of this leads me to say, Mongoose, even though this is your extremely low end, dirt cheap, bike - you guys could at least send the wheels trued.

Off to begin the first stage of editing my nanowrimo.

 

 

Technorati Tags: mountain bike,mongoose mountain bikes

Mountain Rex's First Big Adventure!

Took Mountain Rex on his first ride to Walmart.  We got splashed by a big truck, then MR decided, "Hey!  Let's just splash ourselves!" as we rode through a deep pool of cold water on the road.  Needless to say, it was an interesting ride.

The best part about the 23 mile trip was having awesome suspension.  Next, would be my right knee not hurting.  I've never had a trip in yet where I didn't think my right knee would be shredded.  Quite a few people who ride bent bikes all have the same problem - trying to find the right way to pedal without our knees hurting.  So far, I've not mastered it.

On the downside, that bloody seat on the mountain bike, even with the new gel cover, is nothing short of brutal.   It was ok for the first 12 miles, but after that it was hell on earth getting back.

All in all, though, it was a great trip.  I could ride as aggressively as I wanted without worrying about killing the bike, and I got to enjoy getting out of the cottage after days of rain, and countless hours at the computer hammering out my nanowrimo novel, which got done 8 days ahead of time.

Total miles so far this month: 102.22.

The tally

After burying the 3rd cat/kitten in the past 4 weeks, I decided to do a tally of everyone who has passed on in the past 13 months:

Bindi (Aug 2010)

Kitty  (July 2010)

Pudgie  (July 2010)

Blackie  (August 2011)

Frozen Fred  (August 2011)

Frozen Matt   (September 2011)

Not Frozen Amy  (September 7, 2011)

White Boy  (May or June 2010)

Stanley (Summer 2010)

2 kittens who were Stanley’s siblings  (Spring 2010)

Wooki (Summer 2011)

____________________________________________________

12 cats/kittens total. 

_____________________________________________________

Still remaining:

Jeffie

Dougie

Conner

Alex

Abby

Spotty

Squeeky

Tiny Tot

George

Little Bo

Lillie  (It’s Skyla’s kitten, not mine.)

Piper

Chuck

Twitchy

TOTAL 13 + 1 not mine

_______________________

It’s been a tough year.

Parents, Kids and Pets

The title should really be irresponsible parents, their irresponsible kids and killing pets for no reason, other than it’s a tradition or trend to have a particular pet.  Prepare for my k’vetch.

To my right, across the yard, in a pen is a dying dog named Emmy.  Emmy is the by-product of a couple kids saying, “Oh she’s so cute!!! I want her!!!”  Of course, in this generation of see, want, buy – the kids get the pet.  The parents know full well, unless they’re in some sort of sick denial, that their kids are irresponsible, and will not take care of the pet. 

However, the kids will run around telling everyone how wonderful their pet is and how much the love the pet they totally ignore.  The irresponsible parent’s try to pass the buck by saying, “If you get the puppy or kitten, you’re responsible to take care of it.  We’re not helping you.”  So when the moment comes that the pet needs to go to the vet, the parent will say, “I told you, it’s your responsibility.  We don’t have the money to take your pet to the vet.”  However, there’s always plenty of money to waste it on constantly eating out, rather than actually cooking a respectable meal. 

Meanwhile, the pet suffers because no one wants to take responsibility.

It’s shameful.  People like that have no business having a pet.  It’s cruelty to animals – literally. 

So!  I’m taking care of the pet and trying to get it put to sleep.  Unfortunately, not being able to drive and living 8 miles from the vet I can’t get it there myself.  I know very few people and none of them are available to help me get Emmy to the vet.  If it wasn’t for me, Emmy would have no water.  Emmy would have no food, because she can’t eat unless she’s hand-fed.  It’s shameful and right now I’m absolutely furious over the whole thing.

Sadly, same person who has the dog, is about to kill a sweet little cat as well, while all the while claiming (as the dog has been) how much they love the cat and can’t wait to take it home……blah blah blah….so they can kill through neglect.  I hate to see this little cat die.  It’s precious, and thankfully I’ve gotten to care for it over a month, so at least it’s had a good life, which is something it won’t experience later.  I hate this.  And right now, I’m hating every irresponsible person in the family for being abusive to animals. 

Stupid, idiotic, irresponsible, moronic, immature, redneck trash.

There, I’ve had my k’vetch and I feel a little bit better.

I’m sorry little Lillie, I wish I could protect you from the horrible fate that awaits you.  I wish I could stop it.  You don’t deserve what they’ll do to you.

Birds-eye view of where I live!

The farm is the 3 fields that look like a golf course, plus all the woods which goes back a bit further on the right than what’s shown.  It comes to 300 acres.  If you look southwest of the pushpin tip, there’s a cluster of white buildings nestled in that little corner of trees.  That’s where I live. If you squint really hard, you can see the pond east of the tip.  : )

The Farm

Some days you just have to stop

Maybe it’s the heat that's getting to me, because otherwise I can’t come up with any other excuse for why I’m not being productive.  I’ve had so many opportunities lately, but nothing is getting done.  The thing is, for every day that I don’t meet my goals – I lose money.  But as the honey badger t-shirt says, “DON’T CARE!”  Way too much of me really doesn’t care.  That’s scary.
Hoping tomorrow will be better. 

Feeling like a geezer

Ever since last Wednesday I’ve been so sleepy.  I can be sitting in a chair and wake up whenever wondering when the heck I fell asleep.   Took till today for me to figure it out – it’s taking my bloody meds in the morning.  Lamictol makes me sleepy.  Zanaflex makes me sleepy.  I’m taking them both at the same time.  No wonder I can’t keep awake.  LOL

Meanwhile, Alex the Farting Cat is doing his best to keep me awake – or trying to make me pass out. 

Deadly noxious fumes keep seeping from his butt, which is strategically located directly below my nose.   

Gears, gears, gears

No luck getting my gears working right.  Really close - but sooo far.  Anyway, Bent Rex should be running full speed Sunday, complete with canopy.  : ) 

A gut shabbos and a great weekend!

The Return of Bent Rex!

With Scooter Rex down and in the repair shop, I've had to pull Bent Rex out again.  I've avoided him like the plague because of my right knee being blown out and still giving me problems from a couple years ago when I was nearly taken down by 3 dogs hell bent on killing me.

But now, I don't really have a choice but put the ol' guy back in action.  Out of curiosity today, I decided to pull up my old records from bikejournal.com and see what my best year was and figure out how many miles I've ridden.

2005 - 1,057.57 miles
2006 - 465.86
2008 - 28
2011 - 10.60

Total:  1,562.03 miles  (That's almost as many as I have on Scooter Rex.)

The missing years are ones where I either didn't feel good due to Dystonia or my right knee was too squishy to ride with or the dogs got the best of me and I just didn't see the point in being eaten alive.

What surprised me by the figures was how many miles I managed to pull of in 2005 when I didn't feel all that great.  Can't wait to see what I can do in 2011 or what's left of it.  : )

Been Awhile!

Been awhile since I last posted.  I've been super busy: painting the cottage, replacing broken windows, tearing out a floor, rebuilding it, installing a new hot water heater, built a feral shelter for the cats, repaired mom's table stand, and a bunch of other fixer-upper stuff.  I'm looking forward to winter so I can kick back and take it easy.  : )


Anyway, as I promised Lo, here are some pics of the bathroom disaster:


This first two pics are the disaster that had to go.

At this point, I'd ripped the floor tiles out.

If you look closely, you'll see stints trying to hold the water heater up.  They didn't work.  I ended up putting 2x4 pieces between the heater and wall.  It worked pretty good.

The lovely floor after tearing out the toilet & hot water heater.  The board that ran along the bottom had been eaten out by termites.  That's what caused the whole thing to collapse.  The tough part was since the plywood had set in water for so long it had pretty much turned to thick glue.  All my tools were sticky as can be.

Better view of the mess.  The portable replacement floor I made is from scrap wood that was left when my brother remodeled his house and wood from my handicap ramp I took down. Yip that wheel you see in the upper right hand corner is my walker.  : )

The end result.  Mom had a lot of leftover linoleum from when she had her bathroom remodeled, so I put that down.  I still need to tear out the rest of the tiles and finish with the linoleum, but that can wait.  I'm in no hurry.  LOL


Anyway, I love my little tank.  It's 30 gallons.  I wanted a 20 gallon one, but no one had it, so this little baby is mine.


So, there you have it folks!  A week long project that made me rue the day I was born. LOL

A wrench in the works

Image by cotinis via Flickr
P90 has been on hold for the past several weeks.  I found I can't workout and work on the cottage at the same time.  P90 takes too much out of me.  bummer.  Anyway, the cottage is looking great.  This past week the termite dude came and killed off the termites and carpenter ants.  Can't even begin to tell you how great that one is to go in the kitchen and not see an army of ants lined up under the cat food bowl.

 A part from that, absolutely nothing is going on except a 2 day old headache.  Waiting for it to cool and mom's running me to Jim's to pick up a coke.  Coke is about the only thing that works awhile.
Tomorrow is pay day.  My entertainment budget is set for a beading loom, cardstock paper and pens.  I'm trying to make pop-up cards to mail to a friend every month.   She loves my cat toons, so I've spent part of the day coming up with weird and gross ideas.  (evil grin)  

Welp, that's it.  I've got some toons I'd like to post, but I'll do that when my head quits hurting.

Of Werewolves and Cats

Image via Wikipedia
There's a show on BBCA called "Being Human."  Awesome show about a vampire, ghost and werewolf who are all roommates.  To make a long story short, this past week the werewolf decided to put a cage in a room and take tranquilizers so that when he transforms he'll be in a safe place, won't kill anyone and sleep through the whole thing.  

It worked!  Well, at least until the next day when he discovered there were side-effects.  For no apparent reason, he would begin yelling out cuss words.  He'd try putting his hand over his mouth, but the stuff still flew.  At days end, he told his roommates that the werewolf in him felt deprived, cheated because it hadn't been allowed to do it's thing.

I feel a bit like that this week.  Since Bindi died, I haven't been able to really grieve.  It's impossible when people are constantly around you.  Thankfully, this morning was different.  Mom was finally back in school and Sklya had her first day of school out near the high school.  I had the farm to myself.  Just me and the cats.  Bliss.

So, I'm lying on the futon watching tv and one of the kittens hops up on the arm of the futon and begins cleaning itself, occasionally licking my head.  That's what  Bindi used to do.  He would lick and lick my head till that one spot was soaked.  He was so funny.  

Anyway, I broke down and cried.  It felt good to finally cry when a memory made me want to.  It felt good to finally get it out. 

While I was crying, I realised something important.  My heart, like George's werewolf, has felt deprived in not being able to do it's thing - grieve, but unlike George's werewolf, my body didn't respond with sudden outbursts of anger and hilarious outbursts of cussing.  My body responded in the only way it knows how - by sending my Dystonia into fits.  Once I was able to cry, with the freedom of knowing I wasn't going to be interrupted, my body began to feel better.     

Of course it wasn't just Bindi that was sending my body into chaos, there were a couple secondary things as well, but the main one was holding in emotions that needed to express themselves.  It's a lesson worth remembering.

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