MFA Mama

some happy things

*   Thanks to a generous friend, last night I was able to go out and get bread, milk, and butter (and also? APPLE JUICE! And there was great rejoicing amongst the MFA Children).

*   I am the queen of frugality, but I did not know about this. Of course I'd just BOUGHT milk when I saw it this morning, but we will absolutely try it next time and report back on our results! Thanks, Anissa!

*   I have been sick since yesterday with GI symptoms, which sucks, but Isis gives the best snuggles when I'm not feeling well. It's like she knows:

Figure One: Behold, the vishiss killr pitbull!

*   Hotter told me a funny that I'd never heard before, and it had me howling. It's a new-to-me term: "rodeo fuck." 

Rodeo fuck (n.) - When you're doing your girl, and call her by your ex's name then try to hold on for seven seconds.

a pinteresting weekend

   Sorry about the title, y'all. The devil made me do it!

   So today I set about doing some of the many wonderful things I have discovered on the Pinterest, and so far I've been pleased with all of them. First I made this; my parsley survived the winter in fine style, and the fresh parsley really adds to the flavor nicely; I used homemade white-balsamic vinaigrette as my dressing, substituted white kidney beans for the chickpeas since that is what I had in the pantry, and crumbled in a little feta. SO GOOD! I packed it up into five little tubs for my work lunches this week. Then I went out and put a HURT on the DIRT! I got a small bed ready to plant (cleared away weeds and hauled them to the compost pile, dug down and removed encroaching roots, turned some organic vermiculite into the soil, and spread a layer of last year's dark, rich compost overtop) and used this little trick when I set out my cabbage seedlings. Not only will it help prevent the cabbage moths from eating my plants, but I also found it helpful to position the squares of waxed carton before transplanting the seedlings to ensure even spacing.

Figure One: Look at that gorgeous compost!

   Here is one of my little seedlings wearing its waxed-cardboard cabbage-moth shield.

Figure Two: Double eco-nerd points for pesticide-free pest-control measures AND re-using the milk carton itself (our locality does not recycle these).

   And yes, I know, the cold weather isn't TOTALLY over. That is why I covered the bed up with a hoop-tunnel when I'd finished planting my seedlings and surrounded them with freshly-planted radish and clover seeds:

Figure Three: All tucked in until after the last frost date!

   Finally, we finished a bunch of celery today and I planted the base of it like this. I'm getting kind of a crap germination rate on celery this year, so I really hope it works--if it does I'll just plant the base of each bunch as we use it and in theory I'll end up being able to harvest new celery at the same rate we go through the store-bought bunches! So neat.

   What have YOU done after seeing it on the Pinterest? How did it turn out? And how the heck was your weekend? I'd really like to know!

 

P.S. We took Isis's cone off this evening, since she's pretty well healed up and her stitches can come out on Thursday. She's delighted to be able to lick her arse again, the nasty dog. Don't forget to go and check out every one of the fabulous advertisers who made it possible for her to have her surgery!

DRAW ALL THE THINGS

   If anyone needs me for the next week, I'm MFAMama on Draw Something.

 

P.S. It's about all my brain is or will be fit for, seeing as how Isis shook, whimpered, and twitched all night last night as the anesthesia wore off, and then I went in early today to make up for leaving early yesterday, and now Isis seems determined to whine, whimper, and grovel all night tonight because there is a cone on her head. Yes, I know YOUR dog adapted just fine to the cone. Want to trade?*

*  That's right. She is being SUCH a pain in the ass about the cone currently, what with the trying to shake/lick/scrape/paw it off and the whining that it only took us twenty-four hours to go from "DA POOR BAYYYBEE" to "is she better enough to kick yet?" SPOILED DOG DOES NOT LIKE THE CONE OF SHAME.

in which Isis and I receive excellent veterinary care & hobos save the day

   First of all, Isis is going to be okay. That said, the surgery ended up being a bigger deal than planned; the vet said that the surface lumps were the tops of two "tracks" where it appears that something (she thinks smart money would be on barbed thorns of some kind, although she didn't cut the hunk she removed apart because apparently Pathology likes to do that themselves) burrowed down into Isis's belly and kept on going, nearly piercing her abdominal wall (which would have been VERY BAD NEWS). So Isis has a two-inch incision with a LOT of stitches, and apparently it goes waaaay down internally as well (they sent her home with a second course of antibiotics and some heavy-duty narcotic pain pills--she is also sporting a Cone of Shame) The good news is that the vet said she is 99% certain that this had nothing whatsoever to do with anything malignant (although Pathology will still have a go at the cutlet she excised to be sure). The terrifying news is that apparently waiting even a few days could have had an awful result--THANK YOU, INNERNET!

   That out of the way, when I picked Isis up and lifted her carefully into the MFA Minivan, I placed my keys and phone in the cup-tray and shut the passenger door. While I was going around, Isis jumped up and stepped on the lock button, and...yeah. Fuuuuuudge. Here is where it gets ridiculous! There was a drycleaner RIGHT THERE and I easily obtained a coathanger, but was then accosted by a group of chivalrous hobos who were all "ma'am can we help you? You're bleedin' pretty bad." One of them took a knee and covered his eyes, another one took the coathanger, and a third ran for the vet (who apparently is a friend of theirs). Son of a gun if I hadn't nicked my knuckle somehow, except I couldn't tell WHAT the hell I'd done because I honestly felt nothing but there was blood POURING out of it. I must say, our new favorite veterinary practice went WAY above and beyond; the vet frog-marched me into her clinic, leaving her techs to ride herd on the hobos, and scrubbed my hand with surgical soap, then applied a neat pressure dressing, grabbed a "spay hook" to arm the hobos with, and came back outside with me, and within a few moments they were able to jimmy the lock on the MFA Minivan and Isis and I were on our way.

   When I got home, Hotter wanted to have a look at my hand. "This will go one of two ways," I told him. "Either I will need to go and get some stitches, or else it will be something the size of a paper cut and this is just that thing where Levaquin effs up my platelets and there is a bloodbath." We unbandaged it and...there was no visible mark. I bent my finger slightly and there it was, the size of an effing papercut, and there came the bloodbath. Yay? I mean, I'm super-glad I didn't have to shell out for stitches, but I'm guessing I shouldn't have bled enough to make a hobo woozy from something so utterly insignificant. 

   Oh well. I am calling today a wash, honestly, because while there was suckage a-plenty, everything bad pretty much ended up turning out to have been the best-case scenario in the end. And you?

quickie

I just got word that Isis is out of surgery and it went well! They removed the mass cleanly and easily and did not see anything alarming about it on visual inspection but are sending it to pathology to make sure. Thanks, y'all xox

an update on the state of things

   WELL! The sun is shining, I FINALLY (after ten days of antibiotics, two trips to Urgent Care, two days of steroids, antibiotic eardrops, numbing eardrops, enough Vicodin to block up a pony, and a day and a half of missed wages at the worst possible time) feel human again,* Isis's surgery tomorrow morning is a go (YES! YESSSS!!!) and now naturally Hotter is as sick as the proverbial dog. 

   WHOSE PEOPLE DO WE NEED TO LET GO AROUND HERE, ANYWAY?

   Still, things look considerably better than they did a few days ago when I was neverendingly sick and the dog needed surgery we couldn't pay for, and for that I have only you lovely people to thank. THANK YOU SO MUCH! I'm still hoping to sell maybe one more ad to cover a Cone Of Shame and any after-surgery medications Isis may need, but if I don't I should be able to carve that out of the budget without anyone missing any meals or vital medications. So the phone bill might be late. NOBODY WILL DIE OF THAT!

   I am giving myself the remainder of the weekend off from thinking about Hotter's teeth, because yeah, I dunno. 

   Now I am off to DO ALL THE THINGS, because with me having been sick for so long and Hotter now down, there are a LOT of things to do. I will leave you with this ridiculously adorable video of Pitbull vs. Kitten that slayed us all dead over here and made Isis cock her head all the way to one side, then all the way to the other, and then back again.

 

 

 

*   We will not, for the time being, put much thought into how quickly I turned around once the steroids came into play after fainting at Urgent Care on the second visit with a blood pressure of shit over are-you-sure-you're-not-dead? because my adrenal glands are Known Problems...everyone just cross your fingers that I do okay coming off of those and this doesn't become a Regular Occurrence, please.

if you want to help but can't afford to donate or buy an ad, grab a button!

 

   Since I've conquered HTML via TKO, with the help of smarter friends, here's a way that you can help raise money for Isis's surgery without having it come out of your pocket! Grab the code below (highlight and copy the blue text including the hyperlinks, which might show as purple or grey) and add it to your sidebar to display the ad above (I am hosting the image on my bandwidth over here, so don't worry about that). If you have Typepad, you can do that by signing into your account and going to Dashboard>Design>Content>Embed Your Own HTML (in the center column--scroll down!)>Add This Module and pasting the blue text (plus the hyperlinks, whatever color those are) below into the box (name it whatever you like--that won't show on your blog) and then dragging it to where you want it on your blog and clicking "Save Changes." Easy-peasy!

 

   Here are instructions for adding HTML to the sidebar of a Blogger blog.

   Here are instructions for adding HTML to the sidebar of a Wordpress blog.

   Here are instructions for adding HTML to the sidebar of a Squarespace blog.

<a href=" http://mfamama.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/03/the-first-annual-oh-my-god-life-sucks-ad-sale-extravaganza.html "

target="_blank" title="BOGO Ad Sale">

<img src="http://mfamama.typepad.com/IsisAd.jpg"

alt="BOGO Ad Sale" /></a>

   Because I'm getting desperate, I will even kick back 10% of ad revenues from your readers to the PayPal address of your choice (I'll grill any new ad buyers as to where they learned of the BOGO ad opportunity). This is win/win/win--your readers can get ads on TWO blogs for the (reduced) price of one, you can earn a few bucks, and my dog can have the surgery she needs. If you decide to run the ad code, please drop me an e-mail (my e-mail address is on the About Page) and let me know, so I can in turn e-mail YOU when I've raised the necessary funds, at which point everybody can take the buttons down. I'm not trying to get rich or anything, I just want to do right by Isis without breaking my family to do it. GO!

 

at this point I kind of have to laugh, probably because I've come unhinged

*   Cytology results: mixed inflammatory and neoplastic cells. Neoplastic = cancer per our vet. God dammit.

*   For fun I spiked a fever at work and my ear and the whole left side of my head started hurting badly enough that I didn't even argue with Hotter when he said he really thought I ought to go back to Urgent Care.

*   Where I promptly fainted, which apparently they frown upon. The good news is, it was just my blood pressure sucking ass, as it tends to do when I am ill in pretty much any way. The bad news is, I still have a fever, a crappy ear and infected sinuses. They put me on steroids in addition to the antibiotics, because I need reasons to not sleep, be emo, and eat my feelings right now.

*   On the way through the drive-thru at the pharmacy where I was dropping off my four (YES, FOUR! BECAUSE I CAN TOTALLY AFFORD THAT OH HAHAHA) new prescriptions, smoke started pouring out from under the hood of the MFA Minivan. Or maybe it was steam because I was driving through several inches of water, from all the tornadoes? The temperature gauge looked okay and I'll see how it acts tomorrow I guess.

*   Lightning struck our big tree out back, the one with the engine hoist I use to hang things while I butcher them. HA! YOU MISSED ME! 

*   Isis has surgery scheduled for bright and early Monday morning. The good news is, I found a surgeries-only veterinary practice/animal healing ministry that caters to low-income families that'll excise the mass for a flat fee of $125 since it is smaller than a quarter. They sound a little woo-woo, but I don't really care if they pray over my dog while she's asleep as long as they remove the mass and don't expect me to join in. Pathology is another $100 and I really want to get that done, just so we know, but I don't know if I'll be able to afford it (you have to pay up front, in cash or certified funds) (I told you they catered to low-income people there). No, I would not put a dog through chemo even if I could afford it because I don't think that's fair to do to a creature that wouldn't understand the why of it all, but there is a chance (if this thing is, in fact, malignant) that it's isolated and removing the thing would be a cure. I'm not going to let a dog who's not even two yet NOT have at least a chance at that by getting this thing removed, and if it IS cancer then I guess we'll just love her until she's not having fun anymore.

*   The bad news, of course, is that we really can't afford surgery no matter how reasonable, especially in light of the money I just spent at Urgent Care and whatever the hell the MFA Minivan's problem is. 

*   Banfield Pet Hospital = assholes. Not only did they pretty much refuse to fax the cytology report to the surgeries-only place, but they also didn't bother calling me back with a treatment plan (I at least wanted to find out how much they'd charge to do the surgery there, if for no other reason than that it would console me somewhat if we end up saving a bundle).

*   I was going to cap ad sales when I'd filled up the immediately-visible portion of the left sidebar, but I'm willing to put up with my right-sidebar content (which you may have noticed I try to keep to me-only stuff) being displaced for a couple of months if anyone else would like to buy an ad. I need to raise at least $125 but ideally at least $225 by Monday, plus I'm in the hole for a co-pay and four prescriptions (at the very least; currently we are not even thinking about what the deal is with the MFA Minivan).

*   I hate to do this, but at this point I'm desperate and the trolls can rant all they like if it means I'm able to get my dog her surgery and still make rent this month: if you've even considered hitting up the Donate button, now would be a fabulous time (although I'd rather sell you an ad--as you can see, someone already took one out for a cause near and dear to their heart so you don't necessarily have to have a blog/Etsy shop/small business you want to promote--you can even gift a blogger you like with ad space, and if you want to play anonymous Santa for another blogger I'll play along). 

*   Thank you (yes, YOU), for the ad purchases, donations and other small helps, moral support, and just being here, reading this. If you're reading this, I appreciate you, and that's not even (just) the narcotics and steroids talking. Even if you're that uptight butthead at work who tried (and failed) to make my life suck just a little bit more by complaining about my big bad blog to The Powers That Be, your traffic has helped make this place more marketable to advertisers, so it's all good I guess. Imma get off the innernet before I burst into song and/or tears, but I love you guysh.

the first annual OH MY GOD LIFE SUCKS ad sale extravaganza

   So it's no secret that things here are pretty fucking awful. My husband needs dental work, my dog probably needs surgery, I missed a day of work due to the sinus/ear infection that JUST. WON'T. END., and finances are grim. A very nice person kindly donated enough for Isis's second packet of antibiotics (I was only able to pick up the first of two cards of pills in the course the day of the needle biopsy, the cytology results of which are still "pending," DAMN it), but we still have a problem in that I spent our entire "reserve" at the vet on Monday.

   I have three jobs. I'm doing everything I can to help my family up out of this pit. It's just not enough.

   The only thing I've got that could even potentially be marketable is this-here blog, so with that in mind I am holding an ad-space sale. The prices below reflect a substantial mark-down from what I've sold ad space for in the past, and if you want to buy an ad but can't afford anything listed below, e-mail me and we can probably work something out:

Text link only, thirty characters including spaces:

One week: $5
One month:  $15
One year: $150 $100

 Small box, text and/or graphics (the approximate size of the Clever Girls Collective badge on the left sidebar), shout-out in a post, and one promotional tweet:

One week: $10
One month: $30
One year: $300 $200

Skyscraper, text, graphics, and/or Flash (the approximate size of the Frugal Dad ad on the left sidebar), dedicated post, and three promotional tweets spread out over the course of a month:

One week: $20
One month: $60
One Year: $500 $350

   With each of the above, you provide the content, or for a 10% surcharge I can put something together for you. If you don't have a blog, you can always advertise your Twitter or Pinterest URL, or use the space to promote a cause you care about. If you don't give a crap about having an ad for any purpose, donations and/or retweets/shout-outs to generate traffic to this post are gratefully accepted because I have no pride left. GO!

medical (non) updates

   Lots of you have asked, via various social media, so here is the non-update on Isis: doggy pathology takes "a couple of days" (this per the supremely unconcerned veterinary receptionist I spoke with today). So I guess MAYBE tomorrow we'll know something? The patient is in good spirits; we played a game of tire tug-o-war earlier today and she seems to be enjoying getting held like a baby twice a day while we apply the hot compresses to her lumps.

   I meanwhile am bleeding freely from my sinuses and GI tract (I know: whaaaat? I think this is just a combination of "took forbidden NSAIDs recently" and "all my body's bullshit gets worse under stress" and also "infections irritate sinuses" and "opiates irritate the GI tract") and feeling really tired and beat-down. I'm trying to convince myself that those two things are unrelated (fuck no I am not going to a doctor; labs come out of my deductible and I do not have the time, money, or driver for any -oscopies right now) (that said, my gums are not pale, my resting pulse is a respectable 82 bpm, and it is not an OBSCENE amount of blood so, you know, NOT DYING). I'm concerned, but not WORRIED.

   Also, uh, does anyone know the signs and symptoms of a hernia in a six-year-old? A...friend wants to know.

 

The observant among you will note that I changed the Tip Jar icon on the right sidebar to a Donate button. This is because a couple of people asked why I didn't have a way for people to chip in and help out with the current financial clusterfuck; apparently the Tip Jar is not terribly obvious. I was hesitant to do this because TROLLS but also did not want anyone who wanted to help to not feel like they could, because I am totally drowning and willing to grab any lifeline at this point. I had saved almost half the cost of Hotter's upcoming dental work (three weeks from now, OHMYGOD), but spent all of it yesterday at the vet. If you feel like that was stupid of me, you are entitled to have that opinion and part of me even agrees with you. But, as a wise friend on the Twitter pointed out, if human beings always made rational decisions we would not be human. Also, if the tables were turned, my dog would do whatever it took to save MY life (judging by how courageously she protected me from her own reflection in a window the other day, bless her poor unselfconscious little heart). So.