Summer Thanks Giving…

Every summer L and I do a full Thanks Giving meal. It's my favorite meal, and I suppose if ever faced with “last meal” choices, this would be it. We cooked a turkey breast, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls, cranberry jelly and mini spice cakes. I really didn't want a heavy pie or cake, so I made these little spice cakes simply powdered with sugar. The recipe has sour cream in it, and the cake is really tasty. I spiced mine with vietnamese cinnamon, chinese five spice and star anise. Yumm!!! I did something a little different with the sweet potatoes too—used the star anise there. What a difference that makes. It really cuts the sweetness down from a syrupy style to a spiced taste. I use fresh sweet potatoes, brown sugar, spices and a little butter. I top it all with marshmellows and cook until tender.

After my birthday breakfast, L and I went antiquing—I've never before done that—and I found a cake plate with cover. It's something that I've always wanted but have never found before. Since this one is used, it was super cheap. Here's the spice cake presented in my new cake plate. Just look past those stupid water spots!

Hometown Tourist…

This past week L and I celebrated my birthday by spending the day in downtown Tucson. It gave me a great opportunity to be a tourist in my own town, snapping pictures with my new digital SLR camera. Our first stop was the famous Hotel Congress, where John Dillinger stayed shortly before being caught by the local police without a single bullet being shot.

The sign, as seen from the southern side of the hotel.

One of the coolest things about the bar area, where we had breakfast is the penny floor.

A close-up of the Hotel Congress penny floor.

I enjoyed the repetition of forms in the bar chairs. I also really like the
convenience of the little hooks for your handbag underneath the bar.

I had the Eggs and Gunpowder breakfast, which is a big bowl of roasted potatoes,
two poached eggs, cheese and turkey chorizo.

L had the Eggs Chipotle & Borracho Pork. Both breakfasts were excellent.

After breakfast we drove up A-Mountain, which really is not very large compared to the mountains in the background of this image. But it provides a great vantage point of my little town. In this picture you can see the downtown metropolitan area and the U of A campus in the background. The mountains on the far side are the Catalina Mountains, which are about 9,000 feet high.

Finally, L treated me to an ice cream birthday cake, and yes, put all 34 candles on there. Wow! That was pretty crazy.

Fluids, needles and more…

Did I say giving sub-q treatments was easy? Where the heck was the real me? OK, I'm pretty squeamish about intentionally hurting my friends, family, pets, whatever. Plus, that needle is frickin' huge!

First round by myself went OK, but Ash jumped into my lap and pulled her needle out. D'oh! I decided to give her a rest and try again later this evening with L's help. It went smoother and she got the necessary fluids.

Cats, Bikes and More…

So with Ashley's new medical care, trading to a scooter is now out of the question. The bike will be up for sale today through Motorcycle Traders Magazine. Also, no vacations for a while as Ashley adjusts to her daily regiments of Sub-Q treatments and feeding her as much as she wants. It's official though. I have a dromedary for a cat. When you give the fluids it creates a weird little bubble on her back until the fluids are absorbed into the body. It looks a little bit like a dromedary's hump when it is low on water. Weird! Her little foot was swollen yesterday until I was able to take off the bandage for her IV.

By the way, I'll have to hook up her fluids at home; not nearly as ooky and difficult as you'd think. I feel I could now give a shot to a person. Maybe someday I'll post a pic for the non-squeamish.

I now have two very spoiled cats. I can no longer leave the dry food out for them because they don't want Ash eating any of the higher protein food. So now, whenever Moses is hungry he comes to me where I keep his food in a closed container. This is going to get busy!

Oh, and now she's sleeping under the covers. That's new. I thought I was going to totally squish her last night.

The Vet Hospital…

A quick note; Ashley is staying one more day in the hospital hooked up to IV to get her numbers in as normal range as possible. She comes home tomorrow as long as everything goes well.

Thank You Cards…

Here are two of my latest Thank You cards. I made these using images cut out of an old botanical calendar that I have. My biggest weakness is my lettering, which I am working on the most. My favorite thing to do is add dimension with foam sticky pads. Here, I have elevated the illustration for added impact.

Ashley’s Journey…

One of the few decent pictures I've gotten of her. I played around making the image
sepia toned, then brought back the color in the eyes. Soft blur on edges
for a vignette look. If I use flash, she blinks,
if I don't she usually moves so much it's just a blur. Like the next picture!

I just got back from the Vet Hospital to see Ashley and she looks a ton better. She's been on IV fluids for two days now to get her toxin (everything the kidneys do) levels to normal. Yesterday her numbers for her BUN values were in the 80s, where normal values are 14-36. Today she is only slightly above 40. She'll be in the hospital at least one more day, if not two.

The biggest problem is that once she gets home, she is in for lifetime treatment to minimize the kidney usage. She looks good today but could be in terrible shape once I bring her home. Essentially, I am prolonging her ability to live. There's a lot of guilt that goes along with this, especially considering that I don't like the idea of euthanasia. I don't even like the concept of capital punishment either. I don't agree with it. So I help her live comfortably by modern medicine, but I don't want to prolong her beyond her ability to choose to die. Like I said, guilt. Lot's and lot's of it.

This is actually a happy Ashley. L was scratching her ears last night

and she is sort of tucked in here enjoying the moment.

She likes gripping my hand with her wee paws. She's very judicial with the claws too!

Again, I come with the disclaimer: she is part of my family. I've always had a strong connection with my pets and animals and treat them as I would humans. I fully believe the afterlife is not based solely on how we treat our own kind but how we treat the world in total. Many people may not agree with what I am doing, but that is their decision to make.

PS: If anyone else has pets going through something like this, this site HERE has been quite helpful.

New Look…

How do you like the new look?

• Good
• Bad
• Indifferent

I decided to revamp the blog a little bit to make navigation easier. I get a lot of requests for the few recipes I have on here, so it's all easy to find now. The navigation was very simple to add, just in case anyone is interested!

I took the photograph with my little point and shoot last summer during our Monsoons. We were out driving and I thought the clouds on the mountains were amazing. This year, I have a new SLR camera and plan on doing the same. I've been trying to take it everywhere with me just in case I get that magical shot.

Healthcare Costs…

So, moving forward with Ashley's health care I'm at a small dilemma. We have officially canceled our 11th Anniversary trip to the coast of California. I'm also spending a bit of money on the whole thing, so I'm toying with the idea of finding a part-time job to pay for the costs of medication. I know most people think, "it's just a cat." But she is a member of my family and since she is not in pain, I don't see how I could simply end her life for my convenience. I'm also putting the Ducati up for sale—if anything, money that I make from that can re-pad my savings account. The third thing I've done is opted to be incredibly frugal.

Here's my dilemma. I have recently started to get into sewing, but can no longer put money towards that hobby. If anyone has any ideas on how to be a frugal seamstress please present them. And if anyone has any leftover fabric that's just laying about the house unused, unwanted, I'd gladly take it off your hands. I'm certainly not looking for handouts, but I know I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies and would be interested in an exchange. Seriously, a lot of supplies—the puzzle place I worked at owned a scrapbooking company for a while and I got lots of freebies.

By the way, this all just sucks. I know animals get old and die, like everything else in this world. But knowing that in the future I will likely have to choose for euthanasia is heartbreaking to me. There's a saying the pets give you unconditional love because they have to break your hearts when they die. I totally agree.

Bloodwork…

Numbers are coming down = good
Phosphate in normal range = great
Now, because of all the hydration we have to look for anemia and possible shots to help with red blood cell production.

Luckily I get to visit her anytime between 8 am. and 10 pm. I'm going back tonight to visit and spend a little time with her.