Some beads and some knitting

These are some beads I made the other day. I'm trying to get back into making sets again, so I made a set of Terranova2 rounds. They came out pretty good with lots of color.

And other than making beads, I've been knitting. I've shown some stuff here before but here's some more. This is a pattern I got the link to from my friend Amy's blog. It's a bag that I keep in my purse so that I can go into a store, buy something and not have to use an odious plastic bag. I despise plastic bags because so many of them wind up in trees. I don't want to contribute to that so I refuse those plastic bags. It's more coral than shows up here. My flash went off and the picture I took without the flash was too blurry. I was very impressed with being able to do an I-cord border all by myself!

Now that it's spring, I made myself a scarf! I wanted to learn how to cable, so here is the first project with cabling that I've done. I can wear this next winter.

And here's a shawl/wrap that I made myself. In February I went to a women's group at church and it was held in the chapel, where the heat is really noisy, so in order to hear each other we'd turn the heat off. I'd sit there and freeze! So I modified a pattern in an afghan book by cutting it in half lengthwise. It's made out of cascade 220 wool and it's toasty warm. I used two skeins of different colors at the same time.


I took little Java back to acupuncture yesterday and who was there but one of her regular vets, by coincidence, to observe the acupuncture process. She seems to be doing well pain-wise, but is losing sensation in her rear hind leg, unfortunately. We have her back on the anti-inflammatory drug she was on before in hopes that that helps and she has a follow up with her neurologist on Tuesday. I hope it gets better.

Java's acupuncture adventure

Here's Java arriving at the vet's for her second acupuncture treatment.

Here's the hospital in Woburn, Mass that we go to. They have all kinds of veterinary specialists. I hate to admit how many we have seen.


Here's Java relaxing on the table with the needles in. A few of the ones in her legs came out because she sat and lied down, but the ones in her back stayed. I didn't dare take my hand off of her because I do not trust her not to jump down.


And here the treatment is over, we're back at home relaxing in the sunbeam.

Here's a picture of my new car. It's a hybrid, and I've been getting over 44 miles per gallon. That's a huge difference from my 20 mpg SUV. So far I love everything about it, especially the color.

Java has been doing much better. I'm not sure that it's due to the acupuncture, because she had started feeling better before that, but the acupuncture can't hurt. She goes tomorrow for her second treatment. She did very well last week, only shaking out the needles once. After they were placed, the vet left us in the room to relax. Java did lie down and mellow out a little, which is pretty impressive for being at the vet's office. I completely forgot to take a picture, so I'll try again tomorrow.

Here's a picture of Java in her favorite place: a sunbeam.

Little Java had been feeling great but last week her back (we think) started bothering her again. She makes a little grunt, resulting from a sharp intake of breath, when she's feeling pain. She started doing this last week so we put her back on the medicines she had been off of to try to alleviate her discomfort. Luckily her pain did not reach the level it had prior to her surgery, as she kept up her appetite. That's my barometer for her well-being. If we can coax her to eat she's feeling pretty good. If we can't, then she isn't. She's much better now than she was at the beginning of last week, but she still has pain. So tomorrow she goes for her first round of acupuncture. It's supposed to really help, and I hope it does. I cannot stand to see her in pain. I wonder if it'll really work. There can't be a placebo effect like there is in humans because she doesn't know what's going on. Maybe there is something to it. I'll definitely post her results.