An Invisible Enemy

 

Well....where were we? Oh, yeah. Sick Pup. Five vet visits and $1000 dollars worth of meds and treatments later and we finally have an answer-from our family doctor. Why our family doctor? Because The Mister and I are also sick. We look like we have small pox but we don't. We have sarcoptic mange and so does Pup. After we were diagnosed with scabies it all made sense. We can't have human scabies because thanks to Covid we haven't had a bit of human contact in months but we have been in contact with one very itchy dog.

We are now all one week out of treatment but we are all still pretty miserable. It's like having poison ivy over your whole body. You itch until you shake. We can't sleep. You don't want to eat. You feel sick.  We take lots of showers scrubbing the mite debris off our bodies. It is so gross and it can take up to 4 weeks after treatment for the intense itching to stop. Ugh.

Poor Pup. We kept her confined in her stroller and made her wear a cone for THREE MONTHS while she was being eaten alive by mites. Eventually those mites found their way onto us and all that weird "winter itching" and hives we were having made sense. We changed soap, diet, everything to figure out what was going on. I even blamed the new floor because it all started while we were putting it down. 

So.......how did our vets miss this? I don't know but I am pi$$ed about it. Pup's lost so much hair and weight. Her little legs and her face are almost bare. It's so sad to see her this way and we can't even touch her to comfort her without gloves or protective gear on. Treatment is simple but it takes 58 days for the medicine to kick in and kill all the mites on all the animals inside and out. The Mister and I have a cream we apply from head to toe every two weeks but we are still considered highly contagious until the end of those 58 days as we keep passing the mites back and forth with the critters. It looked like a scene from Outbreak when we showed up at the vets with the critters for their pills. They were ready for us and took every precaution. For the next two months we can only do virtual visits. 

In the meantime we have to bag up everything we can't wash. That means the couches, chairs and mattresses are all covered in plastic too. We can't have skin to skin contact with anything we can't boil or douse with bleach. We can't even get in the car because we have cloth seats. It's pretty uncomfortable living. We get up at dawn from a mostly sleepless night and work all day vacuuming and scrubbing everything in sight over and over. We are exhausted. 

Our washing machine can't hold a hot enough temperature so we drag pots of boiling water down to the downstairs bathroom where we soak all the linens and clothes until we get them in the wash. They have to be 125 degrees for at least 10 minutes to kill the buggers. 

The very worst part is the Lime Sulpher shampoo, dip and cream the critters get slathered with. It smells to high heaven and it got too cold to bath anyone outside. It also turns everything yellow. 

Luckily, only one cat seems to be having symptoms so poor Dexter got his first bath ever. He took it pretty well but I don't think he's forgiven me. 

One week down and seven to go. It means I will miss the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival again this year but that's okay. I can't even think about woolly stuff right now. The itch is too bad. 

So this is why I am MIA. All my projects are bagged up to kill the mites and I don't want to re-infect them. I'm too miserable to want to do anything but binge TV and nap when I get the chance. I'll post when I have some positive progress to share. Right now, I'm still waiting for a sign that we've turned a corner....

On Fire

 

I know, I know.....I said I wasn't going to post because other than complete misery at the moment I have nothing interesting to say but...yesterday we had some excitement at the marina down the street. Two big charter boats went up in flames yesterday morning. No one knows why but I'm sure we will find out soon enough. 

That's All She Wrote

 

I hate to do this but I'm going to take a blog break for a while. I've got a very miserable Pup to take care of right now and lots of $$$ vet visits ahead and all the worry that goes with that. Me and The Mister are also dealing with some silly but uncomfortable health issues (non-Covid related) and I am in no mood to be even thinking about doing anything interesting. I'll see you on the other side of this and I'll explain it all. It's a Lou Lou of a story but I'm not in the mood to tell it right now. I'll be visiting you when I get a chance and if I don't visit you regularly but you would like me to, leave me a link in the comments. 

TTYL

Operation Sock Drawer

 

It's official. The Capitol Weather Gang, out local meteorological gurus, have declared winter over. It may get chilly but it won't get cold from here on out. It was time to put all my good woollies to bed for the summer. I only wore two pairs of wool socks all winter. We never went anywhere and when we did it never got cold. I don't tend to wear socks in the house anymore, hot flashes, you know. 

My mittens didn't get much of a workout either. They are now clean and bagged up until next year.

My sweaters are also tucked away. They live in zippered nylon bins under the bed. Those bins got a good cleaning too. 

I did keep out my favorite baggy mess of a sweater just in case it does get chilly. It's made with the cheapest of cheap acrylic and it even has a big hole I had to patch when some mice decided to make a nest out of it years ago. 

I love the pattern. I made it in 2002 and have always meant to make another to replace it but never have. It's a mess but I can't part with it and it's always the first sweater I grab when I need one. Don't we all have that one holy mess we just can't part with?

March Madness

 

It rained all day yesterday and The Mister was in a world of hurt from crawling around doing the molding for two days so we took the day off and.......did our taxes. It's not nearly as fun as it used to be. When we retired we turned into people who have to pay in instead of getting a nice, fat refund. And yes...we do it the old fashioned way with the booklets we get from the library. We've tried filing online but The Mister won't have it. He can be very set in his ways. 

The rest of the day was filled with basketball. I've got seven brackets going over on ESPN. 

But... it wasn't a total loss of a day. While we were figuring out how to pay Uncle Sam the crock pots were working overtime with a corned beef and some Irish stew. The house smelled wonderful.  And....the store bought soda bread wasn't half bad. It was also cheaper than buying a box or raisins and some buttermilk to make my own. I'll have to remember that for next  year. 

Ribbit, Ribbit

 

After an early morning rant on how much I hate putting down molding The Mister and I made a deal. He would work alone if I helped him set up his ESPN March Madness brackets. All he had to do today was countersink the nails and putty the holes. We'll be touching up the paint and putting down the quarter round today.  We'll be able to finally move all the furniture back this weekend. I can't even wrap my head around the fact that we are almost done. 

While he was working on the floor I was at the table starting to put together that last row on the Sunflower quilt. Uh, oh. I had to sub in some material for the last few blocks after some bad cuts and didn't realize I had put two yellows together. That won't do. 

I had to take the whole block apart and sub in some blue I had in my stash. It's a bit wonky but every garden has one wonky flower, right? 

I hope that blue works with the rest of the quilt. After fighting with it and ripping it out several times to try and get it all lined up right I was afraid to lay it out with the rest of the blocks and check. I'll do it today. Maybe. 

And.........Happy St. Patrick's Day to all who celebrate. I've got a corned beef in the crock pot for The Mister and a store bought soda bread for me. We just need to head up to the drive thru liquor store this afternoon for some Killian's and we've got a party.

The Ups and Downs

 

Yesterday was no fun. 

It was molding day. I HATE putting down molding. All I do is stand around and listen to The Mister throw one conniption fit after the other when things go badly-as they always do.

The worst part is when he hands me the hammer and tells me to put in a nail while he holds something down. I've never quite developed the knack. 
 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

I had an easy fill in block this week. The next green block will have another gosling in it. They are no fun to stitch around 

I stitched three little pots of flowers on the bookmark. 

And....I got one wonky flower on the Village Quaker. I lost count somewhere along the way but it really doesn't matter so it's staying that way. If only everything was that easy to let go of. 

New Stuff

 

We didn't go up to the mailbox on Saturday because of the snow so when we did get up there yesterday it was stuffed with packages. My new rayon thread is here along with some new stitching needles. 

I also got a box of yarn. If those colors look familiar it's because they are the colors I am using for the Holm mittens. I frogged the one I was working on and am going to start again with this yarn when the spirit moves me. The Arne and Carlos yarn I was using made me sneeze. It had a lot of fuzz to it which is nice in a mitten but my nose wasn't having any of it.

I had a water testing kit delivered on Sunday. Our water softener is on its last legs so I thought it would be a good idea to check it. It was fine.  

Something else new to me was making bread in a crockpot. 

I usually make bread when I make soup and since I still have no oven I gave it a try. It wasn't half bad. Not like fresh out of a real oven but not terrible. We ate the whole loaf. 

Quinlan

 

Hopefully winter had its last gasp yesterday. We got about an inch of snow on an extremely windy and cold day.

I tried to settle my mind by picking up some mindless projects but the howling of the wind and the swaying of the trees kept getting in the way. 

What I actually spent most of the day doing was staring out of the window and watching the big feathery flakes fall. I do like a nice snow event-just not in March. 

Little Things

 

It was quite the week around here. We had big drama and little drama. Yesterday morning we had yet another vet appointment with Pup for her allergies. We got more meds to try. The poor thing is so miserable that it's no wonder I can't concentrate. Add on a Covid scare with the new Grand (negative, thank goodness) and you've got a week I'd rather forget. When I did sit down yesterday I picked up small stuff. Number 7 is together and I'm working on the neck. 

The big Sunflower quilt is in time out until things calm down a bit but I did pick up my hexies and start of one of many flowers that will go on the border of the runner. Of course we've got bad weather expected today-high winds and.......snow?

Oh, well. March is gonna March and I've got plenty of stuff to keep me busy while waiting out the weather. I picked up the Audun blanket again and had a head scratching afternoon trying to figure out what went where. It took a while but I did it. Now I only need about 100 more. 

First World Problems

 

I hate to be all whingey with the world in such a mess but I've still got that cloud hanging over me. I got a soap supply order yesterday so I woke up excited about making some oatmeal glycerin soap to help ease our winter itchies. 

That didn't happen because look at the glycerin soap block. I have no idea what all the crud is in it but I'm not using it. That block wasn't cheap either so I was not happy. 

The third row of the sunflower quilt went as badly as the second. I had to rip it all off and try it again in order for it to line up right. Then I managed to sew the white on wrong side up. More ripping but it doesn't end there. When I was ready to take my victory lap I noticed that I had sewn the whole third row on upside down so.......rip. 

I did get a fourth row on-eventually relatively pain free. Only one more row to go. Whoopie. 

Rainy Day Blues

 

Yesterday was a rainy day. I love rainy days. It would have been a good day to pick up a good book and curl up in a corner and I should have done just that because everything I did turned out awful. At least The Mister got the molding painted without any drama. 

It was a good day for soup. It would have been a better day if I had thought to turn the knob from warm to high. I had raw soup for dinner.

While the soup wasn't cooking I was trying to put the Sunflower quilt together. I ripped out more than I sewed on. 

For the life of me I couldn't get that white sashing lined up right. I used all the tricks I know but it turned out to be a day of trial and error with the emphasis on error. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Wednesday WIPs

 

We've got a new pile of stuff in the kitchen. The molding is here but we need a few more days of recuperation before we start putting it down. The Mister really did himself in with the push to get the floor done and he's been in a world of pain since. 

I'm taking advantage of the down time by putting all the construction tools away and turning the dining area into a sewing corner. I've got the big sunflower quilt to put together and my little sewing room is just too small for it. 

Even though the weather got chilly again I'm still having trouble finding my knitting mojo so I picked up the hexie runner again and finished what I think will be the last row. I think I will surround this center panel with hexie flowers and then call it day. Sounds like a plan.