Off to the vet...

One year ago this month, we took both cats to our veterinary to have their yearly shots.  At that point we had had Sassy one year and Sadie five months.  Sassy was her usual placid self, she doesn't like the carrier and struggled when we put her in it.  Sadie, screeched, and was all legs.

At the office, Sassy didn't like the exam and shots but didn't make a fuss.  Our vet, Dr. McFarland is amazing.  Always willing to listen to your cat tales, she takes the time to show you she actually loves the cats and has said that Sassy is one of the most beautiful cats she's ever seen (any wonder we love her?).

Sadie, on the other hand, was a completely different kettle of fish.  When Dr. McFarland reached into her carrier to grab her, Sadie tensed up and started to yowl, screeched actually.  Dr. McFarland called in an assistant and between the two of them pulled her out of her carrier, gave her both shots and shoved her back in.  Sadie hissed, spit and yowled and earned a big red "CAUTION" on her file and even had to be weighed in her carrier.

Naturally, yesterday we were apprehensive.  Sadie is on Kitty Prozac, 1/2 a tablet every other day which calms the marking she does when seeing feral cats outside.  Carl gave her an extra pill the morning of the appointment in the hopes it would calm her.  The appointment was in the early afternoon so about fifteen minutes before we were due to leave, I picked up Sadie without a struggle and put in her the carrier.  Easy peasy.  Sassy was harder to get in than Sadie was.

In the car, Sadie meowed several times and then was quiet.  We took both carriers into the examining room and I suggested we take Sadie first before she could get really worked up.  We pulled the blanket out of the carrier with Sadie on it, I held her and talked to her while Dr. McFarland gave her both shots, I lifted her onto the scale to be weighed and then put her into the carrier.  Easy peasy.  All the anxiety was for nothing.  After Sadie was securely back in the carrier, the assistant tried to talk to her and she lunged at the side of the carrier at the assistant and screeched.  The assistant jumped back.  And Sadie was back to being Sadie again.

After I paid the bill, I said that Sadie had been so good that next time they could handle her on their own.  Dr. McFarland has a wonderful laugh - she laughed and laughed - and I'm guessing that they won't be handling Sadie on their own for some time yet.  On the way home, we joked that Sadie would probably kill us in our sleep, but she just went to the bedroom and went to sleep.  She's been fine since.  And that's the story of the 2014 Vet Visit.

Back from vacation...

We were on vacation for two weeks and used the same cat sitter we've always used.  She lives in our neighborhood, comes by the house once a day, gives Sadie her medication, and spends a little time with the girls.  Sassy started hiding the first day.  Tiffany found her and tried to coax her out but she wasn't having any of it.  She was eating and....no messes to clean up.  Except for a couple of incidences, we haven't had any accidents to speak of.

Sassy was so happy to see us that she followed me everywhere for three days.  She even let me hold her - unheard of.  Our next vacation is a week in Wisconsin and we plan to take Sassy and leave Sadie.  Sadie doesn't seem to care if we are home or gone, but Sassy pines.  We take a cabin in Northern Wisconsin one week a year.  We've taken Sassy once and the reason we adopted Sadie was so Sassy could stay home and have company.  But since they really don't like each other, we'll give them a break this year.  Sassy traveled well, she slept inside her cubby the whole way up and back.

We can only hope that the potty issues are mostly resolved.  The rivalry is another matter.

Thoughts on digital art....

I have been a fan of digital art for stampers and colorists since I discovered them many years ago.  I started with Make It Crafty in Australia.  I now use Saturated Canary, Sassy Cheryl, East Wind, Simply Betty, and Tickled Pink among others.  I love that I get instant satisfaction.  I can print in any size or color.  I can print on any paper, patterned or plain, water color.  I can create scenes with .png images without masking.  Versatile?  Yep.

But organization of 1.12 GB of files has been daunting.  I started out by putting them all in one folder so I could just scroll and see them all.  Then I got the crazy idea of sorting by artist so if I was in the mood for a Saturated Canary (which rocks, BTW) I could check the folder and print the image.  Then I developed thirty-five folders and sometimes I just didn't know what I wanted to color.  So, over the last three days, I went into every folder, added the artist's name to each image and moved it to my hard drive in one whopping big folder.  It took three days.  Some images only had a number, i.e. img 723, so I had to rename it something that made sense for searching.  I can now search for Halloween and every image from every artist that has Halloween in the name will show up.  Plus, I can just scroll until something jumps out at me.   As a result of all this hard work, I can see multiple images at once, the original files are on my  back-up drive so I won't lose them and all my images are on my hard-drive where I can take them with me when I travel (they had previously all been on my back-up drive) and each image has an artist attributed to it so I can give credit .  I also moved any Word, Corel Draw, Adobe Elements, Powerpoint, and Make the Cut files that related to the images.

So far I am very happy with this folder.  Using extra large icons or Microsoft Office Picture Manager, I can look at each image until I decide which image I want to work with.  I'll let you know how it works.

Happy day...

Supplies:

Sassy Cheryl Callie's Spring Afternoon

Winnie and Walter Big and Bold:  Happy

Stardust Stickles

Stampin' Up corner punch

Spectrum Noir Pencils:  (pants 069)(shirt 064)(hair 102, 100, 109)(pinafore 020, 022, 091, 015)(ground 113)(grass 057)(shoes 094, 090)(ladybugs 025)

Happy day...

Supplies:

Sassy Cheryl Callie's Spring Afternoon

Winnie & Walter Big & Bold:  Happy

Stardust Stickles

Stampin up corner punch

Spectrum Noir Pencils:  (pants 069)(shirt 064)(hair 102, 100, 109)(pinafore 020, 022, 091, 015)(ground 113)(grass 057)(shoes 094, 090)(ladybugs 025)