Springtime is a busy time. Pulling weeds, planting flowers and vegetables is in full swing. Spring is my favorite time of year. The dull brown winter landscape fades away with the glorious colored spring flowers. With the fresh foliage comes critters of all kinds to feast at the buffet. While drinking my morning cup coffee and enjoying the morning sun coming through window, I spied this cute little guy making his way towards my flowerbed off my front porch.
This must be the little fella who found my pink tulips to be so yummy he ate them all before they could bloom. It was disappointing but he has to eat. So, next year the pink tulips will be off the menu and protected by a fence. This mischievous little fella made me smile with his little nose twitching. I'm pretty sure he was sniffing out more of my delicious flowers for his all you can eat buffet. Eat all you want Mr. Rabbit because I'm in no mood to close down the buffet. This week's yardwork used muscles I forgot I had, and I need a little sit-down time, but your presence has inspired me to work on a UFO.
All that is needed to finish the block is a few inches of hand stitched applique.
Within minutes he was finished and ready to become a pillow. A quick dig though the batting scraps and I found a piece of 100% cotton batting that fit perfectly.
In the UFO box was enough fabric to make the envelope closure pillow back.
However, there isn't enough of any one darker fabric to use as the binding/faux piping, there's enough for the cream background fabric but I would prefer color. This was good time to switch projects so I can think over my options.
So, it was back the quilting my Chaos quilt that is on the frame. It's been neglected this week due to the yardwork. I'm hoping for a next Friday finish. If it would rain, I would be forced to finish it sooner...come on rain! HAHA!
Just a little heads up....the rest of this post is non quilting things.
First topic is the circle cropped picture above.
Vicki in MN left a comment wanting to know what program I use for circle cropping. I've used PhotoscapeX pro for about 10yrs. It has a lot of great features, and it was reasonable priced at the time. I think it now might be a free download. It was fairly easy to learn how to use all the features by watching YouTube videos.
Second topic is my girl Khaleesi.
We are still battling the Perianal Fistulas. It's an autoimmune disease that some dog owners have put in remission. Right now, her treatment plan is topical antibiotics, and a very expense immunosuppressant medication called cyclosporine. Cyclosporine without GoodRX it's almost $700 a month. With the GoodRX coupon it's still $198 a month. The topical antibiotic is $59 with GoodRX coupon and so far we are still using the first tube. We also give her over the counter pro and prebiotics, $75 a month. A supplement, $40 a month, to keep her urinary track in good health since she also suffered from chronic urinary tract infections.
Two weeks ago we started a laser light therapy once a week. It too is costly. $75 every week without a discount, $55 a week with a discount that we get from our membership with Thrive Pet Healthcare. The Healthcare plan is only $15 a month but it saves us much more than it costs. No office visit charges, reduced yearly exams, vaccines and with most procedures.
Our thought is to throw every treatment we can at this horribly painful disease and put her into remission. So far it's looking very promising.
She's doing well and doesn't struggle to poo anymore. Every time she poo's we clean her bum. In the beginning of this horrible diagnosis cleaning her bum was painful for her. Now that it's healing, she doesn't try to bite me when cleaning her bum.
My girl went through hell before coming to live with us. If your new to my blog, she's a rescue dog and was alone in a cage for 23 hours a day for the first year of her life. She had almost no human contact. And when she did it was not good. Her owner sent her to an abusive K9 training program where she was beat and shocked.
When she came to live with us, we were given the cage she lived in because it was her safe place. The cage was left open, she was free to leave anytime night or day but didn't. She would only come out to go the door to let me know she needed to potty.
She would come out, go to the door, we would let her out and she would come back in and go back to the cage on her own. On day 10 she finally came out with her tail tucked and head down she made it across the room to the nice comfy dog bed I had waiting for her since day one. She sat there for about 15 seconds and ran back into the cage, terrified of what was to come. I'm sure she was confused when I praised and loved on her for being so brave.
She made great progress after learning we were not going to hurt her, only love her. After a few months of her rarely using the cage for comfort and safety we removed the horrible prison cage from our home. We also hired a professional dog trainer to help us and her deal with her anxiety issues without medication.
It's been baby steps for 6 yrs. It took about 2 months for us to gain her trust and for her to untuck the tail. Her tail hasn't stopped wagging since. She still has some odd behaviors and is easily startled but she for the most part she's just a happy dog.
Thanks to all of you for your love, support and prayers for my girl over the years.
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