stress

You may think that veterinarians do not stress over the health of their own animals but we are probably the worst at it. Plus, we tend to adopt the charity cases that were about to be euthanized because they were sick, behaviorally challenged, or only walked on 3 legs.
My cats are relatively healthy thank goodness and thanks in part to today's visit to the hospital. Teo was there for a routine recheck ultrasound. He had cancer removed from his tail and leg about 2 years ago so I like to check his internal organs fairly regularly to make sure nothing has come back. He looked fantastic on ultrasound and much younger than his 14 years.
Ash, my 6 year old, had a dental cleaning. It is always nerve-wracking to have a patient under anesthesia and even worse when it is your own. We make it as safe as we can though, and he sailed through. He is now minus one tooth but still searching everywhere for food.
There definitely is a satisfaction to making sure everyone in your household is taken care of, especially when you have been putting it off for too long.

New year, new chandelier

We have a new dining room light fixture! Thanks to a Black Friday sale and my apparently electrically inclined husband this was installed yesterday.

It replaced this:

Kinda zen but decidedly less mod.

Happy New Year!

window farming

I heard about a new movement in urban sustainability this morning on NPR.

Window farming helps apartment dwellers grow leafy veggies in their windows. This looks perfect for kitchen herb gardens in a tight space. It seems the biggest downside is the sound of the water pump that supplies nutrients to the plants but apparently someone came up with a solution for that too.

Read on and join the group to create your own indoor farm: http://www.windowfarms.org/

Happy harvesting!

gettting crafty

A few weeks ago I tried my hand at the felt flower barrettes that http://www.purlbee.com/ has so kindly provided a tutorial for. They are quite possibly the cutest felt flowers ever and so I had to test them out on the cutest thing I could think of: my niece. Here she is in all of her post-nap glory (read: crankiness) still willing to model the barrette. She knows a good thing when she sees it, even if it is through sleepy eyes.

I also made one into a brooch for my mother's Valentine birthday and used it to decorate the package.

While the first attempt was fairly time consuming and sometimes frustrating, the second one was created much faster. My production time should decrease dramatically as I plan on making enough to cover all of my friends and family members (especially my other, equally adorable niece).

Fresh eggs daily

I have always wanted chickens in my backyard. What a great way to connect to the environment and harvest fresh food, besides chickens are fun and can be very beautiful.

My dreams of raising city chickens reached a new mod level when my mother showed me a picture of Chicken Cribs (http://www.chickencribs.com/). Because one of the things that was holding me back from being a city farmer was actually constructing a well crafted coop, I now feel my new obsession is suddenly, stylishly within reach.

Only a few simple steps left:

1. What until Chicken Cribs start shipping their coops out of state (which is supposed to occur this month).

2. Choose and attend a backyard chicken keeping class from Seattle Tilth: http://seattletilth.org/learn/classes-and-workshops/adult-classes-and-workshops

3. Decide whether or not I want to start from eggs or chicks. When I was in elementary school I created an incubator from a cardboard box and hatched a chicken from a fertilized egg. I was such a proud mama!

Happy chicken keeping!

Addendum

I came across a great article yesterday that deals with some of the things I touched on in my "How to Find a Veterinarian" post. Also, check out the article about anesthesia-free dentals that is linked. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/02/petscol030210.DTL

A Single Man

I saw A Single Man last night. The gorgeous set design alone was worth the ticket price. The glass-walled rambler belonging to Colin Firth's character is a mid-century moderner's dream. The movie was also not quite as depressing as I thought it would be. There were some funny bits and Colin Firth did an amazing job. I give it 4 out of 5 meows but less for the plot and more for the visuals.