A New Kitchen

The cabinet refacing and the counter top installation are complete. I am very, very excited about this because I have been without a kitchen for a while. I have other sinks and such, but I have to say, it’s been weird using the microwave in the guest bathroom (it was the only space with a usable counter top).

Even though the installers finished their jobs, there were still things for me to do. First, I installed the new faucet and plumbing. The faucet went in ok, but I had a lot of trouble keeping the pipes underneath from leaking. The new sink is a different size than the old one – it’s deeper and the bowls are off-set. The drain pipe from the wall came out too far for the new sink, and the drain pipe from the left hand sink bowl ran into the wall pipe. For the first time since starting all this DIY stuff, I suggested calling a professional. They came out to fix my drain, and like I suspected, they had to cut the pipe coming from the wall. It made me feel better, because that is the sort of thing that I don’t really feel comfortable with. Later that day, I tried out the sink and it leaked again. The plumber came back, free of charge, and redid the silicone seal around the flange. The next morning, after the silicone had cured, I tested the sink again, and it still leaked. The plumbers came out, again free of charge, and tried to fix it. It turned out that the nut the manufacturer supplied with the sink flange didn’t fit properly, and that was the biggest cause of the leaks. Who knew – it wasn’t me?!

Of course, Duck helped me every step of the way.

After the plumbing came the backsplash. I really like the idea of a tiled backsplash rather than a painted wall. A chunk of the counter top and a drawer front in hand, Michael and I went to the tile store to select the tiles for the backsplash. We came back with something I didn’t expect – travertine tiles with marble and glass accents. The sales person helped us design it, and here’s what we came up with:

I’ll admit, it’s not perfect, but it’s the first time I’ve laid tile myself. As of this moment, I’ve sealed the tiles, but I haven’t grouted. I’ll put up a picture when I’ve absolutely finished and cleaned up.

As a first timer, I had a lot to learn. For example, you can spread mortar on the walls and place tiles after, or you can back butter each tile. Counter to what I expected, the back buttering went faster. When I put the mortar directly on the walls, so much squished out between the tiles that I wasted time cleaning it up, and then the rest of the mortar would dry up while I was cleaning, so I had to scrape it off the wall and start again. The other incredibly important thing I learned, I debated talking about publicly. It’s slightly embarrassing, but I’ve decided in the end that other people need to know this. In all the instructions I read on the internet about tiling a backsplash, no one mentioned how to handle the plug sockets and switches. I removed the plates like I would for painting, and worked around what was in the wall. After I got all the tiles up, I finally found someone who spoke of his own backsplash, and he said that you need to unscrew the switches and plug sockets from the walls and rest them on the outside of the tile. There was no mention of turning off the breaker first, and this is what I think others need to know. While unscrewing a switch, my screwdriver slipped and touched what I think is a grounding screw attached to live wires. There was a huge spark, and the heat from the connection melted the screwdriver. The handle on the screwdriver was rubber, so I didn’t get hurt in the least, but it was shocking (pardon the pun) to see that sort of incident. So I’ve now learned that you can remove the switch plates without turning off the power, but don’t touch the rest of it without visiting the breaker box.

Tiling the backsplash took four days for me to complete. The problem was, I had classes to teach at the yarn shop before I could work, and with the short winter days, I ran out of daylight in a very short period of time. It’s really hard to use a tile saw in the dark, and I can’t imagine the neighbors would have appreciated me sawing tiles after midnight! Fun fact about the tile saw: it’s a grinder, rather than a cutter, so if you get your fingers in the way, it won’t cut you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you CAN injure yourself on a tile saw, but it’s harder to do than on your standard table saw.

Lamb and Duck helped me with this job, too, but I was so covered in mortar that I didn’t want to ruin my camera taking pictures of them sleeping on the dropcloth next to where I was working.

Speaking of Lamb, she finally did get her spay surgery. She is ready to go up for adoption now, but I am going to wait for the Twilight kittens (who have become incredibly affectionate) to make weight. So far, only Bella is under two pounds.I think it is a matter of days now.

This week I learned that not only am I really fond of Duck, be he loves me, too. I thought he was just a people person, but when he had the choice to hang out in his Daddy’s lap or watch me work, he hung out with me. He stays in bed with me until I wake up, just like Serra does (unless he’s really hungry, which happens a lot with a growing kitten). He was in the hallway calling for someone earlier today, and Michael answered him. Duck kept looking around in the hall until I called him, at which point he came running to get in my lap.

I started Duck on some training this week. When all of my cats were little, I got out a clicker and taught them a few parlor tricks. I have since given up the clicker, but only because the cats seem to learn from one another. I do a particular trick where I put a treat in my closed hand and tell the cats to touch. I occasionally put one in each hand and ask the cats to touch the one they think has the treat. They always win that game because every choice is a winner, but I bet they could figure it out based on smell. In any case, Wesley had to be taught using a shaping method. At first, he would touch my hand with his nose and I’d give him the treat. He moved on to licking my hand, and at some point he touched my hand with his paw. Now, only the paw touch gets the treat, but Wesley is all over it. Serra learned that trick simply by watching Wesley when she was small. She got it on the first try when I offered her the chance to do it. Duck took a few tries to learn (I think he isn’t as bright as Serra, but she is really smarter than the average cat), but now he gets “touch” as fast as anyone. I got Lamb to sit, but not Duck yet. Duck begs really well, though. Since Duck is still young and fearless, I want to teach him to balance on an exercise ball. The older cats seem afraid of falling off, so my previous attempts had been unsuccessful. Wesley used to jump back and forth between two chairs or stools I set up for him, but now he climbs off the original perch and walks across the floor to climb onto the destination. I guess the kittens I got eight years ago are just getting old!

As my constant companion, Duck seems interested in everything I do. He helps me blog by purring in my lap and occasionally walking on the keyboard. He helps me sweep by chasing the broom and rolling around in the dirt pile. He also knits when I have to get off the couch to get some sustenance or empty the tank:

He’s actually pretty good about not eating the yarn unless I am actively using it.

My favorite thing about Duck? He makes Serra happy. I think that Serra wanted a kitten to take care of and a playmate to entertain her. She tried to get Buttercup to be said companion, but Buttercup has never liked poor Serra. Now that Serra has Duck, they do everything together.

Serra doesn’t like to share her dry food, but look at this! I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

Dreaming of a White… Birthday?

I have to admit, I’ve never seen snow on my birthday before. I was born in Ohio, and I lived in Maryland and Arkansas. I had the opportunity, but never in my life has it happened. It’s kind of a shock, and I’m not sure what I think.

There has been so much snow that we’ve been unable to leave the house for 2 days. Just today, I drove in the snow for the first time.  It was a little tough to get through, and a little slippery, but I drove slowly and it was ok. I had a private lesson at the yarn shop and someone dropped off a big bag of things she just wanted me to finish for her – at my hourly rate! It was worth leaving the house today.

It was nice to just get out and knit while the kitchen renovation was going on. They made some real progress before I left. Check this out:

And by the time I got home, it looked like this:

Pretty marked improvement, no? I should point out that the contractors on this job came out to our house on the 2 days we were snowed in. I told them not to risk their lives driving in that weather just to work on our kitchen, but they were here (a little late on one day, but they made it), and they worked. Best contractors ever. They have a few hours of work left to do, so they are coming back tomorrow. Seriously dedicated people, these guys.

On Monday our countertops will be installed, and on Tuesday our gas cooktop and the sink will be hooked up. At that point we will have a fully functioning kitchen again!

Another good thing about these contractors is that they are good with the cats. One of them has 4 cats of his own, so he gets it. He also has 2 dogs he rescued. The guys were very happy when Wesley wanted to lie in the middle of the work zone because they got to pet him. The guys thought Duck was cute when he explored the demoed kitchen. The lead contractor even got Serra to let him pet her. I let the little kittens roam the living room/office area right outside of their room, and the contractors actually enjoyed watching them. It turns out, one of the guys knows how to knit as well. Is it too good to be true?

I realized recently that I will have the chance here on my blog to chronicle a foster kitten growing up. This excites me more than I expected. The best part is that here, I have an audience who is completely willing to look at all the adorable pictures that I take of my newly acquired feline son.

Duck has a habit of taking a drink out of my glass. He seems to really like my tea.

He’s also good with the other, littler foster kittens. These are some buddy shots of Duck with Edward:

Is this not the cutest?

And we can’t forget Lambie, Duck’s poor sister who is stuck here. She had a spay appointment for the day that the huge snowfall started. We couldn’t get out, so she couldn’t make her appointment. I have to reschedule when the shelter gets back in working order. In the meantime, Lamb is pretty sure that she’s part of the family. She sleeps with me, and she loves the toys I make for her. Ok, I don’t exactly make them for her, but Lamb loves to steal my swatches from my knitting projects. I’m sending them with her to the shelter so she will have them in her new home.

Lamb carries these swatches with her everywhere, and she growls when other cats get too close while she is playing with them. Maybe I should be spending my remaining time with Lamb making her toys so that she will have them long past her adoption. I really will miss her. Doesn’t anyone I know want a sweet, beautiful black kitten? She gives kisses…

While I was out

Last week, I was in San Francisco. I mostly spend my time out there on social calls, barely getting any rest. Michael  goes for work, and this time he was in meetings all day, every day. We are mighty busy while we are there, but I really love going back.

Before the trip, Duck and Lamb wanted us to know that they were going to miss us. They even offered to go.

But I doubt they’d make it through airport security.

Remarkably, I don’t think I really took many pictures of the trip. I took pictures of the yarn I bought at my favorite yarn store. I took pictures of the mitten I have in progress. Somehow, I just couldn’t seem to get pictures of my friends or the city. It’s a shame, but I will be back.

On the plane ride, I cast on a Bella’s Mittens. The version I made for my friend Vickie was too small for my hands, even before I felted it, so I used a larger needle (size 9) and a slightly thicker yarn (Rowan Cocoon). So far, the first mitten seems to fit. I am going to use it for a shop sample for the class I am teaching on these mittens. I figure it’s a good way to teach magic loop knitting and how to do cables.

By the time I left Knit Night on Wednesday, I finished the first mitten. These really work up fast, and might make good Christmas gifts…

So, of course, while I was gone it snowed. I can’t say for sure how much, but there was some snow on the ground when we got home. In fact, if you look at the back yard, you can see we have two seasons in one. Pick a lane, Mother Nature!

On the left we have winter, and on the right, fall.

The kittens continued to thrive while I was out. This is the first time I’ve ever had to leave foster kittens at the house, and I had to wonder how they would do without me. I must have good judgment in sitters because, I’ll tell you, those kittens are huge! Jacob made weight today, but he’s so far ahead of the others that he won’t get to go up for adoption while he’s little. It’s all well and good, because he’s fluffy and cute. I managed to get pictures of all but Bella since I’ve been home.

They have lost a lot of the baby look in the few days I was gone. They’ve also gotten really playful. Some of them (like Emmett and Rosalie) are even interested in people as playmates. Edward seems to have lost his mind – who knows what that boy was thinking when he chose to lay on my shoulder in the head stand position!

Duck and Lamb are still doing well. Lambie finally got cleared of the whole ringworm thing. The problem is, she is a bigger black kitten, and that makes her less attractive to potential adopters. Plus, Halloween is coming up soon, and I just don’t think it’s the right time to send her back. We’re going to have her spayed on Wednesday, and then I’ll try to get her a return appointment for November 1st, after Halloween.

I have no idea how Duck is going to take the loss of Lamb. She’s  been living with so long that she’s practically family. I have to admit, I’m not sure I can take her to the shelter. I may have to make Michael do the dirty work for me, or at least go with me. I just feel like such a jerk. She’s wonderful, really, but five cats is too many for me. Four is questionable with all the extra kittens that wander through here. Luckily, Duck is pretty easy-going. He doesn’t demand a lot of attention, and he plays well by himself. The thing is, this is all true while he has another kitten in the house who happens to be his age. He may not be so easy without a young playmate. Fortunately, Serra likes Duck a lot. She bathes him in the morning when they wake up, and she tries on occasion to play chase with him. Wesley is indifferent to the little guy, and Buttercup has decided that she can sleep on the couch with the kittens, but only if she is on the back of it while they are on the seat.  Butters still refuses to stay in my lap if Duck approaches us. Still, it’s a start. She’s way cooler with Duck than she was with Serra at this point.

In addition to all the kittens and the classes, we have another renovation going on this week. Fortunately, I’m not doing it this time – we have professionals.

This is my kitchen. We’re having the cabinets re-faced and we’re having silestone countertops installed. Fortunately, this process only takes a week, so I’ll have the kitchen back soon enough. I should get to the painting that got put on hold when the floors went in, but I think I hear the yarn shop calling…

Addition and Subtraction

Your favorite knitter/foster parent/blogger/insane do-it-yourself-er is finally back. The whole floor, trim, and most of the touch up painting is done, done, done. I feel so much better now.

I had a serious case of start-itis near the end of the flooring project. I think the stress and chaos of living in a construction zone made me want to escape, so I just kept starting new yarn projects. I even obsessed about plans to make a crocheted sock – my mind was racing with thoughts about how to construct the thing and how exactly I wanted to do the ribbing – to the point that I had to get out of bed one night and start crocheting. I guess when a muse takes notice of one of my ideas, she won’t let it go until we get into action. I think it would be most helpful if we took inventory of what is on the hooks and needles again.

Knittin’

1. Crocheted Sock – I am going to turn this one into a class. Unlike knit socks, I consider crochet socks to be an advanced beginner project. Yes, the hook is small (but you could make a worsted weight sock with a slightly bigger hook), but you only really need to know how to single crochet to start a sock. In my class I am going to teach skills like increasing, decreasing, and even how to crochet to fit. Socks are really great for teaching technique.

2. Mr. Greenjeans Cardigan – I really need to start layering now that I live somewhere it snows. It seems like a cardigan is the easiest way to get started.

(All of the following will be Ravelry links)

3. Two-in-one socks – I tried this technique, but it was so slow going that I had to admit I hated it. I separated the socks and began knitting them separately. I am much happier now, but I did learn that my gauge is much tighter when I knit double-stranded.

4. Robert’s Boot Socks – These are going to be much like kilt hose, but at the same time more plain. Robert is my brother in the Marines. He wanted a good pair of thick socks for hiking, and he really liked the pictures of some kilt hose I made in the past, so he asked for some. The thing is, I started it using Cascade 220. Somewhere after I made the first 20% or so of the first sock, I realized that I should have used a superwash yarn because the hiking will most likely felt the things. Does anyone know if Cascade Superwash comes in khaki?

5. Cat Couch – I started working on this project for the cats again when I started teaching classes. I really owe them something nice, and I now I’m starting to owe them lots of nice things for neglecting them. I am such a bad mom.

6. Beaded Deep Space – This is a Christmas project for a friend. I do hope to finish it for this Christmas, but it may have to wait for next. The long floor project robbed me of quite a bit of time.

7. Colorado Gloves – I am actually thinking of turning these into mittens or fingerless gloves. I realized that the fingers make it way too slippery to wear the gloves while knitting or driving, and they wouldn’t be nearly as warm as mittens.

I also took something out of my project list recently – the Earl Grey socks. I know now, without a shred of doubt, that I am allergic to alpaca. Sometimes when I help a client at the store, my throat starts to itch and then swell up. Every single time I ask the client what fiber she is using, it turns out to be alpaca. I was seriously crushed to learn this because alpaca fiber is incredibly soft and warm – as a matter of fact, it would make a great winter blanket. In the end, I rehomed this project and some unspun alpaca fiber to my friend, Julie. I know she’ll take good care of it.

Kittens

In the time when I was absent, the kittens continued to grow and change. Goose made weight, and I had to return her earlier than I expected. She is incredibly friendly. Too friendly. Every night since I got the Twilight kittens, she got to sleep with us. In the middle of the night Goosie would wake up so happy, purring and rubbing her face against mine and Michael’s. While it was perhaps the sweetest way to wake up, it was still waking up. Multiple times a night. I was a wreck.

I was completely flattered that Goose loved us so much.

Lambie is still with me. She had a lesion on her muzzle that looked suspiciously like ringworm. Since the shelter I currently volunteer for puts kittens with ringworm down (they are working to change that policy, just slowly), I had Lamb’s spot checked. What a mistake. She is still with me because the test came back positive even though the lesion cleared up within 3 days. As anyone who reads my blog regularly should know by now, no ringworm has ever cleared up that fast. Ever. While the vet agrees with me that it is probably a false positive due to cross-contamination, they have to wait until Lamb has a negative test to release her for adoption. The test takes 2 weeks for a negative result. I am leaving for a trip before that test comes back, so I was distressed. Fortunately, the shelter vet has a plan – they’ll treat her with lyme-sulfur and put her up for adoption with a note that she was possibly exposed to ringworm. It means she will be in a cage by herself, which makes me really sad. However, she is a black kitten. Nice as she is, people are superstitious about black cats, and the older she gets, the less adoptable Lamb will be. I cannot stand the thought that my baby will be overlooked because her coat is the “wrong” color. You could do a lot worse than Lamb. Lambie loves to give kisses, and she really loves yarn-based cat toys. And face it – she’s beautiful.

That Duck character – well, where do I begin. I’ve loved other foster kittens. I loved Carrot, who found a perfect home right before I left San Francisco. I knew when her new mother started to speak to me that Carrot was meant for her, the only person good enough for my baby. I loved Margo, a black momcat whom I fostered long before I started this blog. She has bright orange eyes, and she used to pull your face to hers with her paw so she would kiss you. She also had this pure joy that you couldn’t help catching. I loved Roman, the first foster kitten that I really had to fight to keep alive. He died in the end, but I thought if he lived that I might not be able to let go. I also loved Gareth, who survived Panleuk with some brain damage. He didn’t seem to have a good flight instinct when a situation was dangerous. He also couldn’t figure out simple obstacles like glass doors. He got into my entertainment center once, through an open glass door. The other door was closed. As Gareth tried to get out of the closed glass door, he started to panic. He threw himself against the glass, not noticing that there was  a way to freedom just inches away. He also panicked if he was alone. It was heartbreaking to realize what he was going through. I would have kept him, too, if a woman hadn’t come along who inquired about him, left the adoption center to really think through what she was getting into, and came back completely prepared to love him the way he needed.

Duck is like the others I’ve loved. He’s handsome. He has a very gentle personality, and nothing really bothers him. He has the innate joy that Margo had. I went through a lot to save him. On October 1, Michael took Duck to the shelter. At 4:00 that afternoon, after his neuter surgery, I adopted him. That’s right, I adopted my first foster kitten. I managed to resist the charms of 183 kittens, only to be suckered in by Duck. Save for a fight he started in his carrier the moment I signed the papers and handed over the adoption fee (Duck was recovering from the anesthesia, and we think he’s a mean drunk), Duck has continued to be the same, wonderful baby cat he always was. And now he’s mine.

The Twilight kittens are all still alive. I truly thought that Renee, at 197g and at least 3-4 weeks of age was going to die, but she is still alive. She’s still tiny, but she is bright and friendly and gaining weight, just a little at a time. Edward and Bella are alive and thriving, as are Jacob, Emmett, and Rosalie. Alice is struggling, but I think even she might survive. She looks awful, but she gains just a little weight most mornings. There will be more photos of them in the future, but they won’t be with me much longer. When we leave town, the kittens are going to other foster homes. They are off the bottle, so the healthier ones can go to any foster home. The little ones will need special care, though. These poor kittens came to me with giardia (I know, what a surprise). When the meds didn’t clear up the infection, the doctors found clostridium in their stool. This is another disease that people can catch, but not as easily as they can catch giardia. You might know other forms of clostridium: botulism, food poisoning, and tetanus. It is also responsible for lethal hospital infections, under the name of clostridium dificile. I think this may be what killed so many of my bottle-feeders in San Francisco. Luckily, there is a treatment – an antibiotic called Amphoral. I think I like that drug, given that it seems to save lives.

So, I believe that you are now caught up. If there is something I missed, please mention it in the comments so that I can be sure to update everyone. Feel free to raise your expectations to the previous level

Completed Projects

Just give up on me. I can’t seem to blog as often as I like, and I spend half my time feeling guilty for not updating. Ok, don’t give up on me, but maybe lower your expectations. Right now, I can’t seem to keep it together.

I’ve completed a lot of projects of all sorts in the last few weeks. I finished putting hardwood on the stairs (I still need to paint the risers, but no big deal there), I finished putting wood in the hallway, and made it about 1/3 of the way into the office. After several disasters with the trim, I ended up having to paint it (which I didn’t want to do, and it took forever!). I also finished the sweater made from my handspun yarn and started a new one. I also sent Chimera, Sylph, Pegasus, and Griffin back to the shelter, where they got adopted immediately. Duck, Goose and Lamb are not quite ready for various reasons.

(click to embiggen)

For a rank amateur, I think I did pretty well with these projects. The people who sold us the wood for the floors made it sound like the installation would be really hard and that I was making a mistake by not having it professionally installed, but I can honestly say I think they were wrong. I will qualify that, though. If you are thinking about installing hardwood floors and just want to save a few bucks, doing it yourself is not the way to go. There are some very frustrating things that can happen while installing floors (for example, though they are supposed to be exactly the same, the boards occasionally varied in width by about 1/16th of an inch, which turns out to matter very much for how the install goes), and you may have to rip out some boards to correct your problem. You also have to occasionally come up with creative solutions to the problems that come up. If, however, you are installing hardwood floors yourself because you like doing home improvement projects, have at. Translating to knit speak – if you are a project knitter, hire a pro. If you are a process knitter, do it yourself.

Despite how it may appear, I am actually not a glutton for punishment. I made plans to buy pre-finished baseboards for the walls. Finishing trim sucks, as I learned when I put the kitten bathroom together. When I went to the home-improvement stores, I learned that the pre-finished trim they had looked cheap and fake. I then decided to buy unfinished trim to stain and varnish myself. For some reason, no type of stain would take properly to the wood, despite the fact that I followed the directions on the cans exactly. In tears, I went to our local paint specialty store and told them what happened. I asked if there was a way to paint over the stain disaster. As luck would have it, there is a primer that you can use to paint over a stained or varnished surface, and then you can finish it with latex paint. The catch is that the primer is oil based, so the clean-up involves mineral spirits.  I could not bring myself to do the priming. I didn’t want to finish my own trim in the first place, and now it was going to take 37 steps to complete. I made every excuse I could not to finish, even resorting to the honest “I just don’t feel like it.”  Luckily, Michael stepped in and helped me finish the trim in the last 2 nights. This was important to completing the flooring because I used the un-floored section of the office as a painting studio. I figured if I got any sort of paint on the sub-floor it wouldn’t matter because it would be covered up. Plus, the office is a place where I can close the door to the cats and open a window to let the fumes out.

This is what the trim looks like when it is against the floor and the walls. What do you think?

I had to install some trim so I could put my desk back. It was so inconvenient to have to use my computer in the living room.

In the time between the floor and the trim, I managed to finish the sweater I made out of my handspun yarn. On the bright side, it’s the best-fitting sweater I’ve made for myself to date. It isn’t too wide and I don’t look like I weigh 50 more pounds when I wear it. However, the sweater is a little shorter than I like. I ran low on yarn, so I figure that I did an ok job given what I had available to me.

While I do have this picture of Lamb snuggling with the sweater in its project bag, I do not yet have a picture of it on myself. We have had only dreary weather since I finished and I want to take a picture in good lighting. Given that we had our first snow this winter on the last day of summer, I think the world owes us a few more bright, sunny days for taking sweater pictures.

The 4 kittens I returned to the shelter on Saturday are all here in this picture, along with Duck, Lamb, and Serra. And Michael. I am happy to say that they are all snuggly, happy kittens and I am proud of the job we did with them.

The kittens who were left behind have been absolutely wonderful to live with. I’ve been sick all day today, so all of them spent at least some time snuggling me. They are mostly here because they had some sort of ailment to overcome as well. Lamb had a spot on her face that had a trace chance of being ringworm (now that she’s got some skin medicine, I am thinking it was a false alarm), so she has to wait 10 days for a fungal culture to come back negative. Goose still had soft stool despite 2 courses of Flagyl (for Giardia). It turns out that overeating, which Goosie loves to do, can cause soft stool and even diarrhea in kittens, so we’ve been testing out a restricted diet for her. So far, so good. And Duck is just underweight, and trying to convince me to adopt him. He makes a good case for it.

If you know anything about me by now, you are wondering how I am surviving with only 3 kittens in my home. Ok, so maybe I am a glutton for punishment. One of the foster coordinators sent a note saying that they needed to get kittens out of the shelter, and I happily answered the call. I asked for bottle-feeders since the shelter finally knows that I am experienced enough to handle that sort of challenge. As it turned out, 7 kittens, one of whom is a loner who got added in, came to the shelter the day I was able to make time and room for them.

They all have Twilight names. You had to know it was coming.

At this point, Bella, Edward and Renée have struggled a bit. Renée had diarrhea on the first day and wouldn’t eat, but a night of fluids and Nutri-Cal seemed to solve her trouble. Edward threw up about 6 times last night (roughly every 2 hours), and Bella threw up a little today and abstained from a meal. My new policy is “If you throw up or have diarrhea today, you are getting sub-q fluids.” So far, I think it’s a winning strategy. Edward is the only one who worries me still. A few of the kittens have been interested in wet food, so I think that it won’t be too demanding to care for all the babies and make sure the sick ones get the special looking-after they need.

The big kittens are jealous of the new babies. When I bring the babies and the bottle out, Goose comes up to them to hiss. Even sweet Duck (aka Mellow Yellow) made it clear that he was not willing to accept kittens who might be cuter than him. I swore to all the kittens that they were equally cute to me, but when little Alice tried to play with Goose when I had her out for feeding-time, Goosie growled. They won’t really have to interact at any point, so I am not worried.

I hope to have more completed projects of various sorts to show you in the next few days, and I really hope not to have to report any kitten casualties. I think life will be easier when we can put all of our rooms back the way they belong. Here’s hoping.

Dude, where’s my camera?

After taking a week off, I decided to finish the hardwood flooring project. The living room is done, but I needed to finish the hallway and connected office. The thing is, in the midst of all the furniture removal, my camera disappeared. It’ll show up, along with one of the knitting needles I was using for the sweater I am making out of my handspun yarn. I just can’t tell when.

What the missing camera means is that you’ll just have to believe me when I give you updates about the floor. You’ll also have to have a little faith that I didn’t murder all the kittens and bury them in the back yard.

In kitten news, Sylph’s foot seems to have improved. She only occasionally limped for the first few days, and now I can’t see any limping at all. Duck still refuses to do anything evil. He even answers to his name when I call him. So does my little Lamb-chop. Maybe I need both of them. Sigh.

Regarding my knitting, the unprecedented happened yesterday: I finally admitted defeat. I was knitting socks one-inside-the-other. The process was easy enough; I knit the back sock with my right hand the front sock with my left. It’s just that it took FOREVER to make any progress. I finally separated the socks last night, and I don’t think I will be doing that method again. I did learn something interesting from that experience, though – when I knit with both hands, my gauge is tighter. You can see clearly where I switched methods of knitting each sock. Oh well, it tells a story.

So, that’s it for now. When my camera comes home (I think it ran off on vacation with my knitting needle), I’ll make it show you pretty things.

The Project

Warning: Graphic Content

I give you the graphic content warning because, as you might expect with a home improvement project, I injured myself. There are photos of the injuries, and I know that some of you have a weak stomach. You have been warned.

As you must know by now, my entire house is covered in white carpet. Everything except the main entry way and the kitchen floor, which is made of oak that is getting to the point where it needs to be refinished. When I say everything is carpeted, I mean everything. Remember the bathroom project? That was previously white carpet. The other 2 bathrooms are still white carpet. The dining room? Yep, white carpet. There is a blueberry stain near one of the chairs. And the living room? White carpet covered in cat barf. There is also a spot under my desk where the Island kittens used to poop. I can’t imagine that every molecule of that came up.

This just doesn’t come out.

So, I decided to change that problem room by room, and this time it was the living room. For at least a month I researched hardwood floors. I watched DIY Network, I watched videos (2 separate videos)  on the Lowes website, and I asked questions at local flooring stores. Ultimately, Michael and I settled on acacia floors pre-finished in a bronze color. We ordered the wood and tools, then got to work. There were 25 boxes of wood. 1600 pounds. Michael and I hauled it in ourselves.

I had to rip up the carpet and the padding on the next day, but I could go no farther because some drama outside the scope of my blog, the need to finish assembling my table saw, and my first injury of the project slowed me down. Got me to a grinding halt really.

Let’s meet the tools that I used, shall we?

This is the Dremel tool. He turned out to be my best friend.

This is the table saw. Also an amazing sidekick.

The pneumatic flooring nailer, its hammer and its compressor.

The dead blow hammer (aka Poundy-Poundy) and tapping block.

The hammer/stapler (for putting down the rosin paper underlayment).

The regular hammer.

The drill.

The pry bars.

The tape measure.

The combination square.

And the safety equipment.

Which of these tools do you suppose I managed to injure myself with? Go ahead, guess.

Well, you’re wrong. This was sort of a trick question. I descended the stairs to the living room while carrying drill bits, and that little bit of extra weight set me off balance (I swear!) and I fell down the stairs. I twisted my ankle, which isn’t really visible, but it still hurts today (a week later). I also skinned and bruised my elbow. This might not be the first time I took a tumble down the stairs, but I won’t say for sure.

Aren’t I graceful?

I took 2 injuries total on this project, and the second one was perpetrated by an actual tool. While tapping one of the boards in place, I managed to smash a finger with the dead-blow hammer. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t smashed a second finger 2 swings later. This was on my third day of installing the wood.

The second blood blister was on my 4th finger of the same hand.

You totally expected that I sawed a hand off, didn’t you? Or maybe injured myself with the safety equipment? I think that the problem was that I have a healthy respect for the saw and other power tools, but not enough for the hammers. Especially the plastic one. Michael tells me that the most common tool for people to injure themselves with is a screwdriver, mostly because they use the tool in ways it was not intended to be used. I could believe that. Moral of the story – the hammer is scarier than it looks.

The installation itself wasn’t too bad, save for a few kinks. I nailed the first board in nicely.

The first row has to be face-nailed because there is not enough room for the pneumatic nailer. I used spacers to keep the boards 3/8″ away from the walls (there needs to be an expansion gap for when the weather changes). This would have been great, except I failed to see if the walls were flat. They were not flat, in fact, and a few boards ended up crooked. We had to rip out 9 boards the next morning, which is no easy feat when you’ve used a pneumatic nailer. I learned the importance of perfection on that first day.

I am proud to say that I got really good with the table saw. I had to cut around the air vent, and I did so with amazing accuracy, if I do say so myself! I learned that the vents were not square to the wall, which made my cuts different on each board. There was also a place where I had to use a hole saw (the gas turnoff is in the floor in my house), and that came out perfect on the first try.

We did run into some trouble in a few spots, but with patience and creative problem solving, the project went well. Michael helped when he could, but he had to earn the money to do this project, so I was largely responsible for it.

What do you think? We still need to add baseboards, but that is a later project.

While I was working on the floor, I had to deal with sick kittens. This meant I took lots of breaks. Duck and Chicken had to be given fluids twice a day and they had to be fed with supervision (and occasionally force-fed) 4 times a day. It started with just Duck, so it was only he who got photographed, but I wish I had pictures of Chicken, too.

Duck also needed affection.

Caring for the kittens probably slowed my work considerably, but the kittens are my #1 job. Besides, I also took breaks to knit when I was weary of swinging the hammer. Although Chicken didn’t survive, I think my work with Duck paid off. He was on an outing today, looking more handsome than he has in a long time.

He is still hovering at a low weight, but I can feel his muscle tone improving. This is good.

I still need to install wood in the office and hallway connected to the living room, and I still need to work heavily with Duck. The floor is on hold until the weekend, save for the stairs. I need to fix the squeaks and install the wood on the treads. So far, the floor and kitten projects may not be perfect, but they are going to be just great in the end. I feel it.

Mystery

I love waking up to this every morning.

I love having 8 kittens to care for. I love bottle-feeding them, I love snuggling them, I love introducing them to new food, and I love watching them learn. There is a lot to love here.

But there is one thing I do not love. There is this mystery… thing… that has been plaguing my kittens. They seem fine, and then I come back a few hours later to a half-dead kitten. These kittens have been tested for bacteria, viruses, and whatever else the vets can think of. Nothing comes back positive. While I think it’s great that the kittens don’t have any recognizable diseases, it’s really terrible that there is nothing to treat either.

Friday night, just after midnight, Lamb went down. I came in to do the final feeding of the day, which involves Michael making rounds at the litter boxes. When he pulled back one of the boxes, Michael found poor Lambie, cold, barely breathing, and unresponsive to her world (I’ve learned that a veterinary term for that is “obtunded”). The thing is that the kittens make a full recovery by the next day. I don’t get it.

Duck has been looking kind of yucky lately, but at least he has had the decency to warn me that he might crash. He has been losing weight consistently and he’s had very low energy levels. I want to get him into the vet for another vitamin B shot. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to give him exclusive nursing visits with his mother. Theresa does still nurse the kittens, but I try to make sure that anyone who lost weight gets time alone with her. The catch is that she likes to lie on the narrow part of the counter, so I have to hold the kittens up to her to nurse – it’s exhausting!

In addition to the kittens, I’ve had a bunch of knitting and crocheting to do. I’m going to be teaching a few “Mommy and Me” classes at the yarn shop, so I had to make samples of the projects we are going to do.

This is the crochet scarf

and this is the knitted scarf.

I’m also going to be teaching some amigurumi classes next month, but I haven’t gotten to those projects yet.

I embarked on an ambitious spinning project as well. I wanted to spin enough yarn for a sweater, and then make a sweater pattern that will fit me, come hell or high water.

The yarn I came up with is a 3-ply, with 1 ply of a merino wool (the reddish brown color) and 2 of a merino wool/bamboo blend. It came out somewhere around a worsted weight. Since it’s handspun, it’s a little inconsistent, but the inconsistency isn’t terribly obvious. I’m going to knit it on size 9 needles. I tried size 6, but the fabric was just too dense. The challenge at this point is to find stitch patterns that help achieve the shaping I want, but that aren’t so complicated that they will be lost in the pattern of the yarn – it’s a little busy when it’s knit up.  You know, I should photograph the swatches. A project for later, I guess.

So, I have a few mysteries right now. Will all of my kittens survive their stay here? What is causing them to crash like they have been? Will I finally be able to knit a sweater that fits? Will it look good enough that I will wear it? Stay tuned for the answers.

A few good days

The last two weeks are a long story, but I’m going to try to catch you up.

My lovely little Island family has gone back to the shelter. All but Palau had made weight, and more kittens came in that needed a home NOW, so I traded my big kittens in for smaller, younger models (like a man with a mid-life crisis). Palau was so close to being ready that the shelter decided to put him up for adoption anyway. The vet tech/foster coordinator who took the kittens in confirmed that Marquesas was indeed deaf, and they put a special note on his kennel card. All done.

So, I took home 4 new kittens. These kittens are of the tinier variety, still nursing on a surrogate mother. I have no idea what happened to the real mother, but the new mom seemed not to notice that these children did not belong to her. The new mom’s name is officially Melba, a name that I just don’t like for some reason. We had to rename her.

The morning after I brought the new kittens in, I weighed them to be sure that they were getting fed. In fact, the mother cat has been so good with those kittens. They are so incredibly clean. They kind of hated me, hissing whenever I reached my hand into the carrier. These little kittens felt no need to have human intervention.

A few hours later, I got a call from the shelter. The foster coordinator asked how my kittens were doing, and could I take 4 more of the same age? I missed bottle-feeding, so of course I said that I would be there as fast as I could. After my dentist appointment, anyway (I had 4 fillings, all between the teeth – ugh).

When I arrived at the shelter I was given a box full of kittens with the cutest names – Duck, Goose, Chicken, and Lamb. They were kind of scraggly looking, not at all like the kittens that came in with the surrogate mommy. I figured there was no way that the mom cat would take 4 extra little ones, so I prepared myself to bottle-feed. The kittens peeped and cried the minute they saw me, so I knew that they hadn’t been with a mommy in quite some time. My heart went out to them.

Upon our arrival to my house, I showed the mom cat the 4 new babies. I was prepared for her to reject them, so I offered them one-at-a-time, careful not to frighten the existing litter. Mom greeted each addition with a bath and a little help going to the bathroom, then allowed each one to nurse with the existing litter. All told, this mother cat has accepted 8 kittens who do not belong to her. Deciding that she must be a saint, we changed her name to Theresa (as in Mother Theresa).

A check 24 hours later revealed that Theresa just didn’t have enough milk to support 8 kittens. The new kittens looked as clean as could be, and Theresa was clearly keeping up with their bathroom needs as well. She just couldn’t produce food fast enough. I cheerfully broke out the baby bottles and started to supplement the kittens’ diet. Hey, mommy cat is doing the dirty work, and the least I can do is keep the babies fed. Deal.

This is Theresa and 3 of the original 4 kittens.

We’ve renamed these kittens to fit (sort of) with the newer kittens. The siamese kitten in the front is Pegasus, the grey one one the left is Sylph, and the grey one on the right is Chimera. The missing kitten (I think he’s behind mom) is Griffin.

These are the other 4:

Chicken

Duck

Goose

and Lamb.

This poor mommy cat has a lot of work to do!

For about a week, everything was great with the kittens. They were all gaining weight, albeit slowly. Goose started eating a little wet food on her own. It was starting to look like it was going to be an uneventful litter.

Until.

Pegasus threw up an entire stomach-full of milk on Tuesday. I planned to give her some Pedialyte in a few hours, after her stomach had a chance to settle. When I went back to the kitten room to check on her, Peggy wasn’t getting up with the other kittens. I woke her up, and she was wobbly on her feet. It became apparent that she was going to crash soon. I called the shelter to warn them that I was bringing in a crashing kitten. I gave her fluids and rubbed a little Karo syrup in her mouth to bring her out of shock. Her gums were so white, I was sure that she was on her way out. Michael drove us the nearly half-hour to the shelter. I was so sure she wasn’t going to live.

The staff rushed Pegasus to the back. I waited nervously in the lobby for news. A doctor came out, and I prepared for the worst. “Can you come into this exam room, please?” The vet asked me. After she closed the door, the vet asked me to describe the events leading up to the crash. I told her the story, then offered the fecal sample that the kitten so generously left in Michael’s hand when I thought she was in the active stages of dying. The vet’s first guess was that the kittens has Panleukopoenia – Parvo for cats. That would be the worst diagnosis ever. I’ve had the disease in my house before I started keeping a blog. It’s usually lethal. Because the virus can live in the environment for a long time, the shelter would shut down my fostering operation.

But the fecal test came back negative. As a matter of fact, the doctor could find nothing wrong with the kitten, other than the obvious symptoms. She gave Pegasus a vitamin B shot, a little more fluids, and some more Karo syrup. They asked (as if I would say no) if I would be willing to take her home over night and care for her since they didn’t have the capability in the shelter. This meant that I would have to feed Pegasus Karo syrup every 2-4 hours all night long until her recheck in the morning. I agreed without hesitation.

Peggy slept all the way home. I watched her breathe, terrified that at any moment the gentle rise and fall of her chest would stop. As we pulled into the garage, the kitten snapped back to life! She hissed and growled at me, but she was alive and angry. I tried to keep her in a carrier with a heat disc in it, but it became clear that the kitten wanted food and feline company. I let her have a special nursing session alone, then laid her in a pile of warm, sleeping kittens. I kept checking on her, waking up every 2 hours that night without an alarm.

I brought Pegasus back to the shelter at 10:00 the next morning. “I have a surprise for you,” I told the vet. I then produced a completely normal kitten. I brought in a few others to keep her company as well. The doctor took Pegasus around the back rooms, marveling at how a kitten who was so close to death yesterday could be so normal today. Because of Peggy’s incident yesterday, and my description of Duck’s too mellow temperament and slight diarrhea, the vet treated him with a shot of vitamin B as well, just to be safe. So far, everyone is just fine and starting the conversion to food instead of milk. I will never understand kittens.

Meanwhile, a yarn craft drama began to unfold for me. On my way to pick up the second group of kittens, I heard a story on NPR. The idea of the story was that someone thinks it best to live as if every event in life was neutral rather than good or bad. Personally, I have a wide range of emotion and I cannot imagine being so neutral all the time, but to each his own. The story went like this:

A man has a ranch, and his horse runs away. “That’s too bad,” say the neighbors. “Maybe,” replies the rancher. The next day the horse returns with 7 new horses. “What good fortune,” say the neighbors. “Maybe,” replies the rancher. The next day the rancher’s son tries to ride one of the horses, but he falls off the horse and breaks a leg. “What bad luck,” say the neighbors. “Maybe,” replies the rancher. The next day the government comes by to draft the son for the war. Because of the broken leg, they reject the kid and he gets to avoid the war.

That day,  I had planned to meet a group of knitters I discovered on Ravelry. I only met them once before at a yarn shop, but they seemed nice enough, and quite frankly, I needed to get out there and meet some people. I hadn’t slept since the day before, but I knew I was getting over the hump and heading toward a daytime schedule (which I have kept for about 10 days now, most of them good days, but a few were bad and I had to sit on the sofa all day). I walked into the bookstore where they were supposed to meet, and searched for knitters. There was not a single person in the store holding yarn or any other knitting related paraphernalia.

Thinking that the knitters may have wandered over to the yarn shop in the same plaza, I left the book store and headed over. When I opened the door, there were no customers inside. The shop girl behind the desk asked if she could help me. I explained that I was supposed to meet some knitters, but it appeared that no one but me came. I wouldn’t recognize any of them without knitting in hand, so I was pretty sure I got stood up. “Well, you can knit with me,” the shop girl said.

We spoke for awhile, and the girl told me about the various knitting groups that came to socialize at the store. “We have Crochet Club on Thursdays,” she said. I then explained that I had just gotten my Crochet Master’s Certificate (if you can’t brag to the yarn shop, who can you brag to, after all?) and this stopped her cold. “Really?” she asked. “Would you be interested in teaching crochet?”

The next day, I went back to the store to hang out with my new found friend. Her manager arrived shortly after I did, and the shop girl excitedly told her about me. Not longer after that, a customer entered the store with a knitting problem. “Let’s see what you can do,” said the manager. After spending quite awhile reworking a pattern with the customer (her gauge was off just enough to make the pattern difficult), the manager seemed satisfied that I had the skills required to do the job.

The last few days have been filled with designing classes and making samples of the projects for those classes. What seemed like would be  a day of misfortune became the day that I got officially employed in the field of yarn craft. Maybe there is something to that story after all…

Getting Better

Mostly, I am posting to check in. It’s been awhile, but I’m thinking that the content of my last few posts may have illuminated you as to the reason I have been away. I’ve had 2 good days this week. The first was on Monday, when I went to a baseball game with Kyle and Tammy, some new friends of ours. Kyle started out as our Realtor, and we remained friends after the business was over. I made it my own personal stitch-and-pitch game, and I finished all but 1 finger of my Colorado gloves. The second good day was yesterday, so I got some much needed shopping out of the way.

I have taken a lot of my down time to knit and spin. As a matter of fact, I have almost spun all the singles I need to have enough yarn for a sweater. I’ve been working on another sweater for myself (the Shapely Tee) in order to be sure I can make a sweater that fits – it’s a surprisingly tough thing for me to do. I can measure another person and make a sweater that will fit. When I measure myself and knit from a pattern, the sweater comes out too big. Sometimes it’s way too big, and sometimes it’s just a size or 2 too big. I seriously wonder if there is something psychological to that. Since I’ve spent so much time on the couch I’ve watched a lot of TV, especially DIY Network and TLC. On an episode of What Not to Wear, a comment that 1 of the hosts made kind of stuck with me. They said that the person they were making over seemed to not see herself clearly, that she was actually better shaped and prettier than she thought. They thought she was hiding because she didn’t like who she was. I started wondering if maybe I knit sweaters for myself that end up way too large for a very similar reason. This is a big revelation for me, given that I have a hard time believing good things about myself. It’s even an bigger deal that I realized this given that my current too-low meds often leave me depressed. If I could see it through all that, well, it must be a huge revelation.

In other news, the kittens are nearly ready to go back. I feel terrible that I haven’t been able to tell you much about them, but I assure you they are very much alive and well. There have been no significant health issues, aside from the Giardia. All but 1 kitten, Palau, has made weight. Ah – but there is something to tell.

There is a genetically linked abnormality in kittens with 1 blue eye and 1 other colored eye – usually the ear above the blue eye is deaf. I expected Marquesas to have that problem, but all my tests indicated to me that his hearing was equal in both ears. I was right, but not how I expected. A few times, I opened the door to the kitten room and all the kittens raced to see me except for Marq. He was usually sleeping when this happened, and I thought he was just a deep sleeper. I could gently shake his shoulder and he would wake up, purring his little heart out. He never responded when I called him, but then again, kittens get so wrapped up in the schemes they have going that they rarely notice my attempts to distract them. But the thing that really told us something was up was the vacuum. Michael sat in the kitten room while I vacuumed the carpet outside of their room so he could tell me how they reacted. As soon as I turned the machine on, 4 of the kittens freaked out and hid in corners of the room. Marquesas kept eating. When I turned the vacuum off, Michael made odd chirping and cooing noises at the kittens, and 4 of them cocked their heads to the side, curious about the sounds. But not Marq. It was then we realized Marquesas is not deaf in 1 ear, he is deaf in both ears.

It’s funny how that fact hit me. My first thought was, “Oh, I’d like to have a deaf kitten.” Not that I need another cat, but something about his hearing loss endeared him to me. I was going to say that his disability made me love him, but I realized that he isn’t exactly disabled. Honestly, if you didn’t know what to look for, you wouldn’t be able to tell that he is deaf. He plays with the other kittens, and he meows like a normal kitten. He purrs when he is held. He just doesn’t hear me call him. The other cats and kittens in the house pretend that they can’t hear me anyway, so what’s the difference?

With any luck, I will have more good days in the near future and I can give you a more detailed account of the knittin’ and kittens. For right now, know that I haven’t forgotten about you or the rest of the Hawai’i posts, but it’s just going to take some time. If you’re as young as you feel, then I’m about 85. I’ll write more when I feel more like 35 again.