I just spent a whole bunch of time working on getting this sketch recreated in Illustrator.

And I don’t like it.

I hate it when that happens, when I spent a lot of time on something and am not happy with the result. Well, I’m too tired to fix it now. Maybe my new banner will grow on me.

Sorry, I’ve been missing for a few days. It was Waldo.

On Wednesday night, Waldo didn’t eat his dinner and vomited twice. Then the next morning, on Thursday, he didn’t eat his breakfast and he wouldn’t come out of his crate. He just lay there. So we made an appointment to see the vet the next day. That night he didn’t touch his dinner either. He’s such a little pig, you know something’s wrong when he won’t eat. Alan even tried giving him a chip, Waldo didn’t touch it.

Friday, we had the hardest time getting Waldo out of his crate. And once out, he was walking very slowly. Then Alan had to lift him into the car. At the vet’s he was not his usual self. He was very quiet and not excited at all. They gave him an x-ray and saw a mass so we left him there for an ultrasound. We went back later for the results. The ultrasound revealed that Waldo had a tumor on his spleen and he was bleeding into his belly. That’s why he was so lethargic. They didn’t know if the tumor was benign or malignant but the only chance of survival would be surgery to remove his spleen. If they opened him up and saw it had spread everywhere they wouldn’t even wake him up, it’s more humane that way.

The doctor gave us the costs, the survival rate (50%), and the cold hard facts. In these hard times it would be an economic decision. If we couldn’t afford it, he didn’t want us getting into trouble financially to give him this surgery, because there are no guarantees. We could have opted to bring him home, spoil him rotten, and then let him go. It was basically a repeat of Nestle, the crying and tears, and poor Isabelle crying too.

We decided on the surgery. Waldo came through fine. That night instead of bringing him home we sent him to an emergency clinic so he could have round the hour monitoring. His PCV (blood count) fell from a 26 to a 21, normal for dogs is 37-55 I believe. The next morning, Saturday, we picked Waldo up from the emergency clinic to bring him back to our vet’s for a blood transfusion. But when we got there they rechecked his blood and it was a 23. There was no need for a blood transfusion though we did go back to recheck his PCV yesterday, it’s up to a 26.

Waldo seems to be doing a lot better. He”s eating and not laying around in his crate. When we went into the yard to check on Isabelle’s plants and plant new ones, Waldo seemed good. He was happily exploring and following Isabelle around.

Now we just need to wait for the biopsy results.

This is what I was working on, on Wednesday night, before Waldo.

An advent calendar. I’ve been wanting to make one for years. And this year I finally made one, though it was a little bit late when I started. Every year I have these grand ideas of sewing something up. But that hasn’t happened so far.

So this year, since I was already late, I thought I’d do something quickly with paper. They’re basically paper pouches like these from zakka life and didn’t really end up being quick seeing as there are TWENTY FOUR of them.

I made the design to fit four little pouches onto one sheet of paper.

Anyone want to make them too? Here’s a pdf of the pages.

I designed it so that if you can print borderless, it should take 3 cuts per page. Though if you’re like me, you can’t figure out borderless printing and will have to cut freaking 7 cuts. Thank goodness for paper trimmers. Just make sure all the grey boxes on the corners are showing when you print. That’s how you know the numbers will be centered properly.

Then it’s basically follow the directions on zakka life. Just cut on the grey lines. Fold on the red line. Oh and don’t crease the other fold where the number is. And that’s it.

Enjoy. Or sorry for the tortuous folding, cutting, and taping.

I’ve been sewing. SEWING!! What a long stretch of not sewing that was. I haven’t sewed anything since September.

I was procrastinating because I wanted to sew some Christmas gifts this year (actually I think that every year). And it seemed wrong to start a new project if it wasn’t a Christmas gift. But I couldn’t get to the starting point. The task is too daunting when I include Alan’s big family. Just counting the young people means 15 kids. FIFTEEN! Well some of the older ones I can leave out, they’d probably be happier with money. And my sister doesn’t want any gifts for her kids. But that still leaves 10.

Instead of running myself ragged making handmade, I thought I could buy handmade. I had the cutest idea: Bethany’s crocheted snowballs. I could imagine all the kids having a snowball fight. But Alan thought that was lame. Well he probably thinks me making the kids clothes is lame too. What fun is clothes for kids?

But I’m going to go ahead and make them anyways. I’m determined to make simple shirts made of knit material though I can buy them at a store for ridiculously low prices. And why are they so low in the store? Probably paid their workers for pennies a day, that’s why. But I digress.

This is the pattern I used: pattern 27 from Ottobre Spring 1/2008.

As usual, I started with a muslin first. I need to see how big the actual shirt would come out. I wanted something large enough for the older kids, and something the younger kids can grow into it. And, well, it’s quite large.

The sleeves are too long.

And of course with the material being a knit it stretches.

The sleeves just flop all over the place. Flip flop, flip flop.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…

Project Notes
Pattern: 27 from Ottobre Spring 1/2008
Fabric: knit interlock
Size: 110cm

Oh my god we grew plants!!

Ok, not really. I’m soooo lying. We didn’t grow plants. We replanted plants and planted more seeds in between drawing with chalk. That’s a castle Isabelle drew.

She also drew a lollipop. And, yes, that’s what she says they are. I did not put the names to them. I drew a menacing message and when Isabelle sees it she says, “I drew that!”

Isabelle thinks gardening is so fun. She loves digging through the dirt with her little shovel and sticking the seeds in. In her rush to plant everything I cannot tell you how many times she knocked over the envelope of seeds.

Whenever we spilled seeds, it would be a mad dash to grab the seeds up before Isabelle started planting them willy nilly. Alan couldn’t make holes fast enough for Isabelle to plunk the seeds into the container. In the end I said, “oh let her do it”, the result being: a gazillion seeds in the too small holes.

Then at one point we gave her some dahlia seeds.

Dahlia seeds do not look anything like sugar snap pea seeds. Isabelle must have thought I was handing her pieces of dirt or something because she just tossed them into the wind. Luckily I had only given her 2 seeds and not an entire handful.

Once we finished planting her Wall-e tree she tried to go after my terrarium plants.

But that’s for another day (because I’m a dork and didn’t have all the supplies needed)

So, the grand experiment continues. We’re still waiting patiently for something green to come up.