Vets and some sewing updates

So, brought both of my boys to the vet today... and walked out $630 lighter.  Ouch!  May have to start looking into this animal insurance stuff!!  If dogs are this expensive, how much are kids??

Slade, they now think, has a *partially* torn ACL, and they want him on bedrest (read: keep your dog immobile to the extreme) for the next 2 weeks.  Ummm... right.  I'm trying, but he is making that TOTALLY impossible!  I tried to lift him into the car, so instead of jumping in the car, he jumped on me.  Tried to walk him down the steps to go to the bathroom, and he still jumped down them, taking me with him!  It's going to be a long 2 weeks, especially since they put him back on the painkillers, so he's going to have more energy again.

Augie's allergies have been getting worse, so we brought him in too.  His paws are dark red, he has a rash on his belly that's been there for months, the skin around his eye is red, and he's been itching a lot.  We've gone through 200 Benadryl with no success, so it's the doctor's turn now.  She put him on a prescription diet with exactly NO ingredients... seriously, the only word in the ingredients that I know what it means is "starch".  Everything else is a chemical.  The food is white, and about half the weight of his other food.  He's eating it much slower though!  He is allowed to have exactly NO other foods- no treats, no scraps, no sharing food bowls, and has to stay this way for 3 months.  He's also on a new antihistamine and an antibiotic.  The doc found a lot of broken skin on him from all the scratching, so we need to let it heal so it doesn't get infected.  She also thinks he has an environmental allergy, but we're going 1 thing at a time here.

So there's my doggie excitement. 

Now for the fun stuff!

I have been working on figuring out this paper piecing thing... I printed out my pattern, started on the color scheme, and cut out my pieces.  This is my first stash-fabric only project!  I also got the first 2 pieces sewn down.  I still need to press them open and trim and all, but progress is progress!

I also started gathering fabrics for my challenge block for the cruise in June.  I've had it designed for a bit, but have some tweaks floating around in my heat that may come into play when I start the actual sewing.  I think I'm going to be saying "What was I thinking??" the whole time I'm sewing the thing too.  Counting up the pieces in the block.... I'm probably bordering on around 500-600 individual pieces in a 12" finished block?  And then putting them on point... I may be redesigning (read: Scrapping and doing a complete revamping) throughout, lol.  But here's the ideas and start of the fabrics for now.  The purple is probably going to get exchanged for red, and the hideous brown is mandatory, so I'm cutting it into itty bitty pieces for the footprints in order to use as little as possible, lol.  The cream is actually white fairy frost, so it has a gold-ish shimmer, which actually helps out the brown a tiny bit.  The black is for the night sky, and the blue, green, and (future) red will be Northern Lights colors.

I also got a few new toys... I got these Easter weekend, and my "discount egg draw" at the local quilt shop was for 20% off, so I splurged a bit :-)

The color wheel is also for the cruise, although I've been playing with it and learned a few new things about color.  It's dual sided, and has some interesting info on it.  The checkered package is a "spring needle".  Supposedly, you can use this little guy in place of a darning foot while doing free motion or embroidery.  For less than $5, figured it was worth a try :-)

In other news:  I interviewed with Accountemps and OfficeTeam yesterday, and Primerica today.  Accountemps says they can place me, Primerica is a financial planning firm, so it's commission based, which I'm not quite comfortable with yet.  I'd love to learn the trade, but actually building a client base... well... different story.  They don't cold call, but you start out trying to help friends basically, and then get referred out from there.  I know if my friend came up and said, hey, lets go over your finances, I'd say.... no.  And I hate cold calling.  So, I feel already dead in the water there.  I have a couple more things to finish with Accountemps though, so I'm hopeful they may have something for me eventually!

I also only have 2 more classes of school left.  Technically, if I finished my 2 projects this weekend, I could turn them in Monday, take my final, and be done.  We'll see how the weekend goes though :-)  Well, it's quarter till midnight here, so I'm going to say g'night y'all!  Enjoy the weather, and hope it stays!