This time last year

The old garage was a-comin' down.



Last week, we made our own laundry detergent for the first time.



This is shredded Ivory soap. Looks like albino ramen noodles to me. I've done two loads with the new soap, and the clothes are coming out clean so far. I added a half-ounce bottle of lemongrass essential oil to the batch, and boy does it add something special to the air when the washer is working. By the time the clothes come out of the dryer, though, there's not much scent left.

I've also made some progress on the Almost Amish BOM.



Still have the vertical sashing and borders to add. I was interrupted by the brief adoption of one five week old kitten. Ava.



She'd had all her current shots; we were given the papers to prove it. The family from whom I adopted her said they'd gotten her from a local vet's office. They said she was the kind of cat that went limp in your arms and was quiet most of the time. She had a problem getting to her litter box in time and keeping herself clean. But for a long-haired orphan, I wasn't surprised.

I was surprised to see her go into a seizure not more than two hours after I brought her home. Turns out she was hypoglycemic, malnourished, couldn't maintain her body temperature, and probably had some brain damage. We discovered all this piecemeal as we tried to help her get well. In the end, though, she wasn't strong enough.

Weeks ending like this just drain me. It doesn't help that sick cats seem to go downhill faster the later it gets. At about midnight Saturday morning, THOMY and I had left the off-hours vet. clinic and were at the Village Inn decompressing. We ended up having a useful, coherent conversation about prayer, disappointments, pat answers, and the day to day gravel path that is trust. And Ava was a bit of a catalyst in all this.

(Heh. Just saw the pun there. Sorry.)