Thursday Thoughts

1. I have a sick kitty.   :(   He’s been having sneezing fits since yesterday, and you can just tell he doesn’t feel well.  My poor baby, I feel bad for him.  I don’t think it’s time to call the vet yet, since he’s still eating some and drinking, but once I see that he’s not eating, I will put out the wet food (they can smell it better and will eat more when they are sick) and call the vet to see if he needs any antibiotics.  See, not feeling well:

Hubby put his blanket in the corner by the bookshelf in the office, and I know Jasper likes blankets, but this is a little unusual for him.  It doesn’t help that it’s chilly, and and the heat hasn’t been on yet.  2. Speaking of heat and chilly weather – I’m so tired of the rain now!  I know we had quite a dry summer here, and needed some rain, but I’ve had enough of it now.  I have outdoor things to do – fertilize/weed kill the lawn, plant my daffodil and tulip bulbs so we can finally mulch the planting bed around the patio, and I’d like to use my brand new fire bowl some evening before winter hits and make some s’mores.  We’ve had some nice days, but the nice days have either been too warm to plant the bulbs (I was waiting until the temps got cooler and stayed consistent – now that we’re there, I feel like I can’t get enough dry days to plant!), or busy with other tasks and errands, and lately we’ve gotten a late start to dinner, so it gets a little too late to sit outside around a fire for a couple hours.  I was supposed to have a baton lesson today, and that got rained out.  Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer, but windy, so I can have the lesson tomorrow, but the wind might be too much for a fire.

3. Oh, and as I was typing this post, the heat did get turned on.  Everyone is warming up, and so far I haven’t heard the clicking from the vent in the bedroom.  I don’t think it’s quite cold enough for the clicking to start yet.  Yet another stupid issue with our brand new house – the vent coming up through the garage/family room wall, running along the floor of our bedroom and coming to it’s opening in the back of the bedroom is made of aluminum, and expands and shrinks when we use the heat.  So, the result is we hear a clicking/pinging sound on really cold days when the heat kicks on.  When there’s no heat blowing, the vent “shrinks” since it runs through the one garage wall, and gets very cold, and then when the heat blows it starts to warm up the vent causing the metal to expand, which creates the noise.  Kept me awake and irritated soooo many nights last winter.  We were told that it sometimes is an issue in these houses, and they need to fix it by cutting into the garage wall, replacing the aluminum duct with a plastic flexible duct, and fix up the garage wall again.  If it’s a known issue, why don’t they make these houses with the flexible duct in the first place???  But no, I have to deal with the noise and have them cut holes in my home to find the problem and fix it.  My issue is that I don’t think the expansion problem is coming from the garage wall area, but where the duct runs between the family room ceiling and bedroom floor.  If that’s the issue, they might have to cut open my whole family room ceiling!  Really not looking forward to dealing with all that this winter…

4.  Back to my sick kitty – if you’ll notice in the above pictures, he is quite a tubby cat.  We have tried switching to light food, and now even strictly measure out his daily amount of food.  We don’t regulate the food bowls overnight, because if we did, we wouldn’t sleep at all!  But we are trying to get his weight down, and I don’t think we have been successful yet.  So, I saw this fun little toy, and thought it would be a super success!:

Not so much…  I figured I’d fill it with some of his regular kibble (not treats, as if he needs anymore of those ever!), and make him work a little for his food.  He’d get some much needed play and his food would be the reward.  He would still be able to eat a lot of it from his regular bowl, but I was trying to incorporate some mental and physical work into his feeding.  He hasn’t figured it out yet…  He looks at me like I’m playing a cruel trick on him.  Maybe someday he’ll finally figure it out.

5. I have things to do that I just don’t feel like doing.  I have to hem a pair of costume pants for one of the girls in the baton group.  I offered to do it so I knew it would get done and hopefully come out well, but I really never feel like hemming pants…  It’s tedious and boring.  I don’t want to fertilize the yard.  It needs to be done, and seems pretty easy, but I just don’t want to do it.  The basement and garage need some major cleaning, and I really don’t want to do that!  I have some crafts I really want to finish up, but I’m at a tedious and boring part of the process for some of them, so I keep pushing it off.

6. Along the lines of crafts, I made these on Tuesday as well: 

Swirly Blue Chandelier Earrings:  I have not added these to my Artfire site yet, because I have to figure out their cost and selling price.  There we go again with the tedious part of a craft that I really dislike to do!  Hopefully by tomorrow I will have them priced and added.  The ear wires are a different style for my typical selection, but I really like them and think they make this pair look more elegant.  The blue beads are leftover from my Beachy Blue set, and I bought the swirly chandelier parts a while ago, but just got around to using them.  Look for them there soon though!

7. I’m a little disappointed about some things.  I have yet to make a sale from any of my shops, and I hate to admit that to anyone reading this, but I don’t get it.  I think I make/create some cute stuff, and my jewelry and other crafts are priced right around what other people charge, if not less, but yet still no takers, no orders…  The stuff on my Cafe Press shops are slightly expensive, but I promise I don’t mark them up a whole lot – most of the cost for them is Cafe Press’ base cost for the item.  I even have my Breast Cancer Awareness items that I’m donating profits to the American Cancer Society, but sadly no takers on that stuff either…  So, I hate to do this, but I’m going to be a little shameless here – go check out My Style Crafts on Artfire, My Style Crafts-Photography Gifts on Cafe Press, and My Style Designs on Cafe Press (currently all breast cancer awareness designs on this shop with ALL profits going to American Cancer Society – changed from a portion as stated before) – if you like anything, buy it!  :)  Christmas is coming.  ;)   If you have any questions or would like to make any special orders, feel free to contact me!  I love to craft a whole variety of things, and I have some cute ideas for future projects, but struggling to get my dance business going, and not working otherwise, it gets hard for me to spend money on more supplies when I haven’t gotten any returns from previous projects.  It just makes me feel disappointed that I can’t seem to get anywhere with this stuff, and I have no idea why.  I know people are looking at it – if you have comments about anything, please send them to me!  I don’t know how to better my products or services if I get no feedback!

I think that’s all for today…I’m very tired because I hardly slept last night.  Jasper woke me up with a sneezing fit, and then there was just no going back to sleep after that.  So, at 5pm, I say goodnight!