And so it starts....

Monday. The busiest day of the week where I work. And because it's also the school holidays, we've been busier than ever as we've had less staff to answer all the telephone calls coming in. I was glad to leave at 3pm!

I had a quick dash to the supermarket before getting home and parceling up an order from my Etsy shop 😊 It still makes me excited (and a little nervous) when that note pops up on my phone that I've had a sale, that somebody wants to buy something I've made. I know that's the whole point of me making things, but it's still a strange feeling! I even managed to get out to the Post Office and get the parcel sent today! How's that for service?!

I really want to get some more photo's taken of the recent bits that I've made to get them up on Etsy too. That's my challenge for this week so I'll update this when I'm sorted. I managed to get a couple of framed pictures done over the weekend as a bit of an experiment. I think they turned out ok ..... Here's one of them for now......

Tomorrow I have another trip to the vets, with Gizmo again as she's going in for a dental. Hopefully after this, and being on a special diet, she should be ok for a while. But who knows with my cats at the moment.........

Gizmo update

Well, Gizmo was allowed home yesterday, for the weekend. She's to go back to the vets on Tuesday for a dental (clean her teeth up and sort them out). But at least they let her home. I had two calls from the vets yesterday - one in the morning to let me know that Gizmo was doing fine and they were going to run some more tests later in the day, and then a call in the afternoon to arrange when I could pick her up. They said that although the tests they'd done showed that the levels weren't as bad, it showed that it is her kidneys which aren't working properly now, sadly. And this means a change of diet for her to make sure her kidneys don't work too hard now, which will hopefully give us a lot longer with her. Although at 17 1/2 it might be that her age catches up with her before her kidneys give up.

I'd met up with my 'Ladies that Lunch' yesterday when I got the call from the vets, so I had to fill them in with what's been happening - and all this after having numerous trips to the vets with Aveline, Molly and Gadget! Lunch with my friends was lovely. It's so nice to have a chat up and a bit of moan about stuff every few weeks. Next time we meet up we'll also have our friend who moved to Bali with us as she's coming back to England for a few weeks.

Then today was spent helping my friend on her nursery again, with me ending up paddling through puddles in one of her greenhouses as it was so wet! And then a bit of crafting at night as I'm trying out a few ideas……..so watch this space!

Oh….. and the clocks go forward by an hour tonight, so we lose an hour :(

But it means it will be lighter for longer at night and it means we're heading towards summer :)

Vets again

I ended up back at the vets yesterday. This time with Gizmo, my Tonkinese girl who's 17. She's been losing weight gradually over the last few weeks and so I wanted to get her weighed again. She was last weighed about 4 weeks ago. What I didn't expect to find when I got to the vets was that she's lost one of her front teeth! There was a bit of a hole where the tooth was supposed to be, and it looked quite sore, poor thing. And she'd also lost a bit more weight, so it was time to do some blood tests to see if there is something going on that can be treated.

The vets that we use are really good. They rang me this morning to let me know that the blood test results weren't too bad, but they are a bit concerned about Gizmo's kidneys, and could I get a urine sample. With 5 cats at home I don't think that's really an option for me, and as the vets had also mentioned putting Gizmo on a drip to rehydrate her, as they thought she might be a bit dehydrated, it made sense for me to take Gizmo back to the vets and get her admitted and let the vets see what they can do. So I went back to the vets this afternoon to leave Gizmo for further tests. I saw the same vet who had seen Aveline a few weeks ago when she had problems with her teeth! (I think I've been spending far too much time at the vets this year). I'm not sure how long Gizmo will be at the vets for. They said it will either be 24 hours or 48 hours. I hope it won't be too long as it's been very strange only having 4 cats in the house tonight…….

I also made the mistake of doing some crafting tonight, starting after we'd eaten, and using Fimo. I got a bit engrossed in what I was doing and completely forgot that I then had to bake it for half an hour ………. so i'm now up a bit later than I'd like, with a long day at work ahead of me tomorrow ……. I had fun though ....

The pink books really are tiny - less than a centimetre. And then rainbow books, which I've been told look like lollipops!  Ah well. You have to experiment. 

My Gizmo......

What a weekend!

Sunday night again. And another weekend gone. But it's been a good one. 

I spent yesterday with my friend, helping her out on her nursery, potting up some tomato plants and tidying up some primroses. It was a lovely day and got quite hot in the greenhouse. And then I made pizza for tea. We all like my pizzas - I let the bread maker make the base, then I make the tomato topping and add whatever we want on top - lovely! 

Today has been a good day walking with DH and Oscar in the Lake District. It was a sunny day, with plenty of blue sky, and hardly a soul around where we were. We parked at the side of Thirlmere and headed up to Harrop Tarn first (finding a geocache along the way), 

.....then carried on up to Blea Tarn, over lots of very boggy land! 

Blea Tarn was beautiful, and so peaceful. We stopped there for lunch and Oscar had a bit of a nap!

We'd passed about 4 people in a group on the way there, and then a group of 6 walkers went passed as we got to the edge of Blea Tarn, and then we didn't see anybody else until we were nearly back at the carpark. All this in about 4 1/2 hours! It was lovely. 

A fabulous walk. 

And then we treated ourselves and ate out tonight at the local Carvery while DD went out with friends. 

All in all a very good weekend. 

Eclipse!

Well. I had to post tonight really didn't I? An eclipse? That doesn't happen every year? What's not to be a bit intrigued about? I saw it from my friend's this morning, and, although it was cloudy, it was fascinating to watch. I managed to get a couple of photos on my phone so they're not that good, just a memory of the spectacle. 

Although it didn't last long I'm glad I saw it. 

And then tonight I've managed to make just a few stretch bracelets. 

Mid week day job!

It's been a funny week so far. I've had a couple of days off work and it feels like I've had so much longer off work. I booked yesterday off work because it was my mum's birthday and I was going to go round and see her. Then I booked Monday off  to make it a long weekend, so it feels like I've been off work for ages! Monday was spent doing crafting, I'm pleased to say. It doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes I have all good intentions to make things and get carried away with catching up with housework and shopping. Monday, however, I managed to go food shopping, make a few cards, make meals AND go line dancing at night! Quite a busy day! I don't think I stopped all day.

Then yesterday, as DD was also off work, we both went to my mum's and then took her out shopping so that she could choose her birthday present (I won't say how old she is). We went to one of our local garden centres and after browsing the shop we ended up in the cafe for a bit of afternoon tea which was lovely, being able to sit and look out over the river while having tea and cake. 

DD wanted to practice a bit of driving on the motorway while she was off work too, so I let her drive my car from the garden centre back to my mum's via the motorway, which she handled quite well. 

And then today I've been back at the day job, so no crafting for me for a couple of days now (unless I manage to sneak a bit in tomorrow night……… we'll see how it goes). I miss crafting when I have to go to my day job. I still have so many ideas that I'll just have to book time off to try!

Why not pop over to my Facebook page www.facebook.com/catztayl for a look and to leave some comments, or my Etsy shop www.etsy.com/uk/shop/catztaylcrafts (which I will be adding new items to over the weekend, hopefully).

Oh well, time to round up the cats and head off to bed I think ……….

Rainbow Bridge

It's been Mothers Day today. I know that a lot of Mothers will have received flowers today. Not me. No flowers off DD today. She did get me a gift though. A book! What better gift for a book lover :) and one that's been at the top of my list for a while too, so I was very impressed. Unfortunately DD had to work today so I haven't been able to spend the day with her. We have, however, visited both our mums and taken them both bunches of flowers and a card. While DH helped his mum by removing some rubbish across to her garage, I helped my mum with her mobile phone and some internet sites, so hopefully she'll be able to read this each time I update my blog (Hi Mum!) and get on other sites ok.

I can also finally reveal the finished product that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks!!! Yay! Finished at last!! 

Since losing both Molly and Gadget, in the space of a week, I've been wanting to create something that would be a memory/keepsake. For the pet lovers out there you may be familiar with Rainbow Bridge, a place our pets go when they leave this life, where they run free, without pain, until we meet again. With the idea of 'rainbow' I have tried to create a keepsake which can be carried round as a bag/purse charm or worn as a necklace. 

It's been hard work trying to find a way of getting the rainbow colours to layer without moving. I tried a few ways of doing it, but eventually ended up using resin and glitter. The finished product has taken a week from start to finish, waiting for each layer to set before adding the next layer so that the colours won't mix, before finally adding some charms to complete the end piece. I'm really pleased with the finished product, that I've been able to take an idea and make it work how I imagined. 

I'll aim to add a couple of these to my Etsy shop this week. 

I hope you like them. 

Distractions!

Ok. So I'm a bit later this week with this post. I normally try and blog on a Wednesday as a mid week update, but crafting got the better of me I'm afraid. I'm planning on taking some new pieces in to my hairdressers next week, so I thought I'd have a bit of fun with some beads. I stayed up later than I'd planned with quite a lot of beads out! I ended up with these .....

Just something different to see how they go. I'm quite pleased with them. 

It's also been our first week back at work after a week off - always hard work to get back in to a routine. DH had his usual two nights away, which was a bit strange after having him at home for a whole week!

I've also been working on my craft project all week. I really hope it works. I know what I want it to look like. I just hope I can manage it. So far it looks good though. Fingers crossed I don't mess it up at the last minute! It's a slow process but hopefully will be worth the wait. 

While you wait, here's a cute picture of two of my cats who joined me in bed a few days ago 😊

It's over .......

Well, my week off work is over. It's Sunday night and I'm back at work tomorrow. I don't feel like I've achieved what I wanted to, but I've been kept busy all week. 

After walking on Wednesday, I went to my friends on Thursday. It's that time of year for her plant nursery when it all gets busy with bedding plants, so it's time for me to start lending a hand. I could only help out one day last week though. Friday I was at the hairdressers, getting a nice colour done on my hair. Then Friday afternoon I agreed to take my mum to look for a mobile phone. She's had one before, quite a few years ago, but didn't really use it. This time she said she wanted one that would do Internet aswell, so she can search for things herself rather than relying on other people. I think it's ace that she wants to go online - she's over 70 (sorry Mum if you're now able to read this) and has never used a computer, so to want to be able to go online from her phone I think is fantastic. DH came with us as he knows more about the types of phones and the techno stuff, and we managed to find a suitable phone at a reasonable price. 

After helping mum set up the phone I told her to see if she could send me a text later on. We were going away for the night on Friday - DD's boyfriend was staying at ours this weekend so we'd decided to have one night away. The text from my mum arrived not long after we'd got to the pub we were staying in - complete with smiley face, so we can text each other now 😊 I think it's brill! 

We'd planned to go walking on Saturday, as we were in the Lake District (near Penrith), but the weather was so awful - overcast, drizzly and very windy - that we didn't stay, and ended up heading back towards home, to where the sunshine was - Darwen! 

It turned out to be a good walk - one we've done before, but it was lovely. 

Oscar ended up quite muddy though as he insists on walking through the muddy puddles! 

And today I've managed to do a bit of crafting. I think I've managed to find a solution to my project that I'm working on, but it will be a few days before I can post anything about it. But I've also managed to get a few more cat cards finished. 

So it's not been a totally wasted week. Just not quite what I'd planned. But isn't that what usually happens when you have plans?! 

Half way through the week …….

I'd love to know how a week off from work can go so quickly! Already Wednesday evening? It can't be! I've too much to do!

Monday morning involved another trip to the vets with Aveline again. She hadn't really settled overnight and was still clawing at her face, although not as bad.  The vets decided to keep her in so that they could anaesthetise her to take the problem teeth out later on in the day. 

I also had to phone the pet crematorium and arrange to take Gadget. In a rather  bizarre way I have to say that it's a lovely place to take your pet after they've died. They let me place him in a small coffin and left me to spend a few minutes saying goodbye, which was lovely. Sad. But lovely. 

And then we were waiting for the vets to ring to say when we could go back for Aveline. DH went to collect her late afternoon and it was like having a different cat when he got home with her - she was all purrs and cuddles! What a relief!

I went back to the pet crematorium yesterday morning to collect Gadget's ashes. It think he'll have to go where our other cats are buried in the garden. 

Today has been our walking day as the weather forecast was quite good. So we headed back to Sadgill and took a different path, heading over to Skeggles Water. It was so beautiful - blue skies and snow all around - wonderful! 

Oscar seemed to quite enjoy himself too. 

Fabulous!

I've also been trying to fit in some crafting this week while I'm off work. I have an idea which I'm trying to bring to life. It's not easy and it's getting quite frustrating. But hopefully I'll get there! Watch this space as they say!! 

In the meantime, why not have a look at my facebook page and Etsy shop to see what else I've been up to .......,.

www.facebook.com/catztayl

www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CatztayCrafts

Gadget update and the vets yet again ........

After a tough week dealing with the loss of Molly, this morning it was very clear that Gadget really wasn't well and didn't have long with us. We'd more or less decided that we'd take him to the vets tomorrow so that it wouldn't prolong anything. 

DH had suggested that we go walking today as we both needed to get out, so we set off to head up towards Kendal. We hadn't gone far, however, before DD rang to say she was really worried about Gadget and didn't want to be on her own. Luckily we hadn't gone far so we came off the motorway as soon as we could and headed home. 

I think Gadget was already more or less unconscious when we got home sadly.  We'd put him in DD's room and made him comfortable and then we stayed with him until his time came and he left us. One week on from losing Molly. 

It's been a difficult week. 

And then later on today we noticed that Aveline was starting to claw at her face, getting worse as the day went on. So a phone call to the vets and an emergency trip there, a sedation for Aveline, and the loss of a wobbly tooth! (And a recommendation to have two more removed). I'm losing count of the number of trips to the vets I'm having lately, but I think we're up to about 14 visits in 3 weeks so far. I wonder if I'm due a free visit soon?! 

R.I.P my dear Gadget .........