Mostly Crafty

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted here. I've been posting primarily at my other blog (Geek Kraft) because that's really the most interesting thing I've been up to. We've been busy this month with people coming into town, but mostly we're just hanging out and catching up, playing games, eating food, etc. The trips are great, but much more fun to experience than to read about, I'm sure.

So, here's what has been taking up my time: Feline medical care. Caring for Antonia was a lot of work and a lot of emotional stress. Then we had to put her down and there was a sort of respite from the stress of trying to get her healthy again. We decided to get a kitten to keep Levi company. The day we brought home the kitten (his name is Admiral Smithington, Smitty for short) Levi was really sick. We took him to the vet the next morning and found out that he had a really bad urinary tract infection. They gave us some meds to give to him and an IV bag to get fluids into his system via subcutaneous needle-poking. We did that for a few days and took him back to the regular vet. He told us to stop with the meds and just gave him a long-acting penicillin shot which worked much much better. We finished off the fluids and a week later, Levi is doing much better. he's out and about, playing with the new kitten, jumping up onto the bed and couch (so it's safe to assume there's little pain) and starting to get back to his old self. He still isn't eating or drinking as much as he should be, but he's eating a little bit and seems to be drinking a bit. If he isn't drinking more by this evening, we're going to get more fluids into him. So anyway, that has been our situation. When it rains it pours, I guess. At least Levi is recovering.

So now we have a new kitten and he is incredibly adorable. See for yourself:



He's really fitting into the family very well. He's super tiny and feisty and cuddly. He likes to alternate between playing very hard and snuggling very hard. It's super cute. We're really enjoying having him around the house, to the point where we're actually thinking about getting another kitten in a few weeks, after we're sure Levi is fully recovered. The thinking is that then these two cats will be roughly the same age, so when it finally is Levi's time to go, they'll still have each other. We'll see how that idea progresses, but we're at least considering it.

*Update* I didn't mention this before, but we're pretty sure he's a Russian blue. If not completely, at least a very large part. he has the double coat, the silvery sheen (right now, particularly around his paws) and the green eyes. His eyes aren't the perfect color they like, and he has a few white spots on his chest so he certainly wouldn't be show quality. Still, he meets almost all of the other criteria (even having maroon footpads) and looks quite a bit like most of the photos we saw of other Russian Blues. So that's cool.

I'm still going to jiu-jitsu classes, albeit far less regularly than I was. I would like to go to more, but it seems things always come up that require my attention. bah. I'm going to try to work much harder at making it to class at least 3 times a week, if not 4. I've also completely stopped doing my morning workouts. I really do need to get back to them, though. I stopped originally because we had to force-feed Antonia every morning and that always took quite a while. Recently I haven't been doing it because we've been staying up super late and it's tough to get up any earlier than I absolutely have to. Really, any reasons or excuses aren't going to do anything for my health or my stamina or anything, so they aren't worth much. I just need to buckle down and make it happen. I'll keep you guys informed.

I'm doing a lot of work in the garage recently, too. If you read my other blog you'll get the specifics, but basically I got a wild hair to try to make bows, and then got another wild hair to do some cool projects for halloween. Mostly these involve very simple little things that I could do pretty much in no time, but I'm trying to make them a bit cooler. I'm working on joinery, specifically finger joints, because i think they're awesome and they're easy to do with a jig. If I can perfect my jig and my technique, I should be able to get tons of these things done in pretty much no time, leaving me with a great-looking traditional joint and not a ton of effort. To me, that opens up a lot of cool small projects.

I've also started playing some video games again. Nothing too crazy, just grabbing a few hours here and there. I'm still working on Fallout 3 because that game is absurdly enormous, and I recently backtracked to Assassin's Creed. I want to get all the achievements for it, and that's no easy task. It's a great game and I'm wondering now about making a costume based on it. The aesthetic is very original and cool, and I'm thinking I could make an excellent representation of it with a little work. We'll see how that goes.

Aside from that, we're doing our normal gaming, trivia, hanging out, eating, visiting friends and family, playing with tiny furry babies and so on. I'm also reading a lot of non-fiction, primarily about making bows and violins (another project I'm sort of curious about).

That's it for now!