Just Nicky

“Good Enough” is pretty good October 13, 2005

Girl Detective posted an entry on her blog a couple of days ago which really resonated with me. You can read it here.

One of the downsides of our individualist, consumerist society is that we’re encouraged to believe that we can and should be/have/want more and better all the time. It’s just crap and, if we think about it, we know that. But it’s crap that leaves us fundametally unsatisfied with our lives when there’s actually a lot to be happy about.

Not today Indi

Day 2 of early bird-ness and I was up and had walked the PuppyDeluxe by quarter to 6. The PaddleDog has been watching me hopefully ever since, but she’s out of luck today. I’m a bit tired and have some soreness in my legs, so it’s just not going to happen for her.

I feel awful because she’s sitting out under the pergola, watching me through the door and whining all the time.

Maybe tomorrow.

Early Bird October 12, 2005

Our dogs have recently taken to wanting to be let out at dawn. Which is to say 5am, every morning. Most days I stumble to the door, let them out (resisting the urge to kick them up the bum as they go past) and fall back into bed. Sometimes I go back to sleep until the alarm goes off. Sometimes I don’t. Either way I get very irritable and have a lot of trouble getting up when I’m supposed to and I end up running late for work.

This morning I got up when the dogs started to hassle, put on my trackies, runners, big fleecy top and beanie and took Emmylou for a half hour walk. Then I took Indiana for a 15 minute walk. It was quite pleasant. And I’ve managed to have breakfast and spend half an hour phaffing on the internet before quarter to 7.

If I don’t get sidetracked I might manage to get to work early, which will mean I can leave early with a clear conscience and come home and help Mark Foozle-wrangle. So it’s a pretty good start to the day. Let’s just see what the monolith has in store to stuff it up.

Feeling better & better October 8, 2005

I let Miss Poo out of the spare room after Finn went down for his sleep this morning, since all was quiet.

She had a bit of a cruise around the house then settled on my lap for a while to help me read the paper (if nudging my hand as I tried to turn the pages could be called ‘help’). When that got boring she thought she’d like to go out the front door. Not bloody likely!

After staring hopefully at the door for a bit she gave up and is now snoozing in the indoor cat cubby. She can stay there until the dogs come in this evening. I don’t think she’s quite up to the attentions of the PuppyDeluxe yet.

Today she seems pretty much back to her normal self. Just thinner and a bit ratty looking, thanks to losing heaps of fur (it’s still coming out in handfuls). I’ve bought her some Nutrigel to add to her meals, so hopefully that will help her put on condition nice and quick.

Hoorah for the Zeldapop at home!

And the stash just keeps growing

I’ve been very good for quite a while about not buying any more yarn and just focussing on knitting my way through what I’ve got. To knit the Jayne hat, though, I had to buy more wool because I didn’t have the right colours & weights in the collection. That kind of opened the flood gates.

Some of it I had to buy because it was such an amazing bargain. These were all $1.49 a ball at Lincraft. The purple and the bluey/green mix are for things just for me and the rest I don’t know yet.

This lot are my recent eBay purchases. The blue yarns at the front are both hand painted/dyed yarns from here & here. They’re really gorgeous. The other 2 lots were just irresistable bargains and I have no idea what I’m going to do with them.

Given that I plan to knit a lot of christmas presents, I really should be spending my time knitting rather than posting about it!

Oh & here’s a close up of the fabric of the felted bag.

Feeling the need to Felt October 6, 2005

I’ve been wanting to try felting for a while - even bought 2 books on Amazon - but just hadn’t got around to it. Then I decided that I need a wee bag to use at lunchtimes during the week. You see, normally I carry a backpack to work with my laptop in it and when I go out at lunchtime I have to carry my wallet, phone and work id in my hand, which is awkward.

Yarn is a new Australian knitting mag that’s just started and I liked the look of the bag patterns in their online sample issue. So I thought I’d give the mitred stripes tote a whirl. I didn’t follow the stripe pattern - just made up my own and I used up some Panda Woolbale yarn I had left over from a long abandoned project.

I’ve taken some crappy photos of it and I didn’t think to put something in the shot for pre & post felting size comparison, so just imagine that the felted version is about 75% the size of the unfelted one.

Here it is pre-felting:

And post-felting:

I did the felting in the washing machine. I washed it in hot water for about 30 minutes before letting the wash cycle finish. I might have managed to make it smaller if I’d keep going, but I doubt it and I’m pretty happy with the size of it. It’s not the little spare bag I want to stuff in my back pack to use at lunchtimes, but it will be handy all the same.

Our Girl is Home

Mark went and picked Zelda up from the vet this afternoon and it’s lovely to have her at home.

Of course, I’ve barely seen her yet because she won’t come out from under the spare bed while I’m in the room. There’s something strangely comforting in that because it’s exactly the type of behaviour I’d expect from her. It kind of proves that she’s still our Zelda-pop.

She still has medication for her eyes and has to go back in a few days for a check up, but apart from that she’s well and truly on the mend.

Hoorah for the Melbourne Uni Vet Clinic. And hoorah for the Popsicle.

A Hospital Visit

I went and visited the Popsicle last night. I hadn’t done so before because I kept expecting that she’d be coming home soon enough. Last night, even though she’s probably coming home tonight, I decided it was time for a visit.

She looked pretty awful at first. Her face was wet from the discharge from her nose & eyes and she just looked completely out of it.

I think it took her a while to realise that she knew the person patting her and then she brightened up heaps and sat up to head butt my hand and turned on a full strength purr. That seemed to tire her pretty quickly and she lay down again and went to sleep. I left her then because she looked happy and relaxed.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of the staff because they were all occupied with a couple of dogs on the other side of the room, so I didn’t get another update. I’ll ring them again this afternoon, if they haven’t already called and see if she’ll definitely be home today.

A Good Popdate October 5, 2005

Just spoke to Zelda’s vet and it’s all looking good.

Her CK level (related to the muscle breakdown) is down to 2200. The corneal ulcers are healing. They’re not completely happy with her gag reflex and she has a bit of a runny nose, which might be related to a herpes type virus and triggered by stress.

If the gag reflex improves this afternoon, she can come home tonight, but it’s more likely she’ll come home tomorrow.

Are we there yet

Bleh! I woke up feeling fairly crappy this morning and really don’t feel like going to work. It could be hayfever, or it could be that I’m getting a proper dose of the virus that Mark’s got, or it could just be that I don’t want to go to work.

Emmylou yapped 3 times during the night to go out (she sleeps in a crate now) - it’s almost like having a small baby again, except that it’s not. I didn’t get up the second & third times, Mark did. And there was a puddle on the rug this morning… hmmm…

Better keep moving…