#Crafting And #Baking Again, More Medical Mutterings, And Weather Reports

Kelly still does Warhammer - though he hasn't played in a while... He'll have quite the army when he does play again though - which means he still gets figures for it. He recently decided to catch up some on putting them together, and painting them, which he's gotten rather behind on. I was busy with other things while he was putting them together, but joined him while he was doing some of the painting, bringing some craft kits of my own to work on.

I didn't join him every time, but the times I did, we played with and walked Lilie first, and then settled her with one of her treat balls (she has a variety of different types, to keep things interesting for her). Then we put a DVD on (we watched some NCIS, since I still need to finish catching up with that, and it's something we both like) and settled ourselves at the table to watch it while we worked on our various projects. Mollie was sleeping at the time, while Joshua was happily playing on his wheel, and with NCIS on both of them would have been happy anyhow. So all three of the furkids were perfectly content to leave us to it. It was very pleasant and cosy.

I had a unicorn I wanted to paint. Well, actually, I kind of think it's an allacorn (I think I spelled that right) since it's got wings as well as the horn. But the kit calls it a unicorn, so I will too. Either way, I thought I'd work on that one, since Kelly was painting, and since I needed him around to help with colours and things, so it was an ideal time. So, I'm painting it as best I can, and then Kelly will go over it to tidy it up a bit for me afterwards. It's not quite finished, but I'll get Kelly to sort a photo for you when it is.

In the meantime, I've been working on a couple of other little projects while the various colours of the unicorn are drying. So I figured I'd share photos of those with you, since they're finished.

I finally finished the little owl sewing kit...


Yes, his eyes are a different colour. It's because I didn't realize the buttons for his eyes mattered which way around they were stitched, and had atatched both eyes before Kelly saw and said something... I decided to just leave it. Oh, and the purple bit is because he has a little pocket on his tummy. It's not big enough to hold much, but then he's not a very big owl, so I wouldn't expect it to be a very big pocket.

I also made this little wind chime...


I've been meaning to put together that particular kit for a very long time... I've had the wind chime kit for several years, and don't even remember where or when I got it. Actually, I forgot I had it for a while. I found it when I was sorting my craft stuff out a couple of months ago, so put it with the kits I haven't yet done from my subscription boxes (which I'd just started to get when I found the wind chime kit). While the unicorn's paint was drying seemed a good time to work on it. Plus, now I feel good for finally getting around to doing it.

Anyway, I also made this heart shaped dream catcher...


I know it's not done in the traditional way... I kind of just put it together how I felt it should be done, not caring if it wasn't quite how they're normally done, since I figured something like that should be a bit more personalized.

I started a new kit a couple of days ago too. I'm doing my other owl sewing kit. It's a different kit, so at least my owls will be a bit different. "Ollie the owl" - as the kit itself calls him - doesn't have that pocket on his tummy for a start. Either way, I'm stitching another owl, and he's maybe about a third done. Of course, I'll post his photo when I've finished him. Or, more accurately, as soon as I get to it afterwards, since it does often take us several days to get around to sorting photos, so sometimes they get posted a week or so later than they otherwise might have, as regulars on here may have noticed. Hey, we get to them... Eventually. We just don't tend to rush. Not unless we need to, because it's time sensative, or it's something I'm desperate to post about. Don't take it personally though, because we're the same way with most things.

Anyhow, as well as crafting, I've also been baking.

I made a spice cake, made with the same sort of spice combination you'd use for pumpkin pie, or pumpkin spice cake, just because I've got a lot of "pumpkin spice" mixed up, and it seemed like a good idea. Plus, I made more brownies for Kelly, because he's a big fan of my brownies. I did eat a couple myself, but I'm not a fan... Brownies are as close as I ever get to chocolate cake though. But I made myself a spinach and mushroom quiche, a mini lemon tart (done to use the scraps from the pastry from the quiche) and - since it's something I love that Kelly doesn't - this coconut cake with lime butter icing:


I made most of them over a week ago, so they're long since gone. We enjoyed them though. I made the spice cake last week, but that's gone now too, since we were enjoying that over the weekend. They were a lovely addition to our crafting and DVD watching time. At least, I think so, and Kelly sure seemed to be enjoying his brownies, and his share of the spice cake.

In other news...

My post-op appointment, which I thought was on April 9th, was actually supposed to have been on April 8th. Since I went to the hospital on the 9th, I missed my appointment, and they just discharged me. They did ask when I was at the hospital if I had any concerns that meant I needed to be seen urgently, but since I seem to be recovering just fine, and wasn't about to say otherwise just to be seen (especially since I'd have had to waste my day in A and E to get seen, and had apparently wasted part of it already as it was) the hospital couldn't - or wouldn't - really do anything. If I want to be seen by a gynecologist properly, I have to go talk to my doctor for a referral, or have a big enough issue that I end up going in to A and E. Since they would have just been poking at my scar and asking if I felt OK, and then would have discharged me anyhow, and it will take several months for me to get to see a gynecologist if I ask my doctor to refer me again, I'm not going to bother. No point going through all that fuss just for someone to poke at my scar in six months or so (possibly even close to a year) and then tell me to go home. If something comes up, I can always call the doctor when it does. That or go to A and E, depending on how bad the issue is. It will get resolved quicker that way anyhow. In theory I shouldn't need to do either though. I'm no longer in pain, and the scar has knitted itself together nicely by the look of it. I'm even getting in and out of the bath by myself easily, playing with Lilie properly, and was fine with the stairs. So, while I officially shouldn't have been fully discharged without a physical examination, I'm not going to fight them on it. I don't see the point. Like I said, if something crops up, I'll get myself seen. Otherwise... *shrugs*

Oh, and... Yes. I took the bins of needles with me when I went to the hospital, like I planned to. No. I didn't bring them home. I almost ended up doing so, but the woman from the help desk helped me out. Well, women, plural, actually. They were great! They contacted various departments in the hospital, and eventually managed to get SAU to agree they should take them as part of their duty of care to me, since it was them spacifically who had discharged me with the shots (a fact they couldn't dispute, since one of the bins actually had a label on it identifying it as being property of that particular ward). Apparently, had they had purple lids instead of yellow ones, I wouldn't have had to go through all that fuss. I did offer to paint the lids purple, but it seems that wouldn't help. No pleasing some people! Either way, despite them having yellow lids, the little plastic bins of needles are finally gone! YAY!

Still on the medical front: I do have one issue, but it's not something the hospital would have dealt with usually anyhow. They cracked one of my teeth during surgery. I didn't think it was bad, and didn't notice it at first... Too distracted with the pain in my stomach, and the allergies to the pain meds, I suppose. Either way, when I did realize, I figured I'd get the post-op stuff out of the way - thus giving myself time to heal enough to sit up for as long as needed for it to be dealt with - and then see about calling the dentist. I'm past due a check-up anyhow, since being in and out of hospital so much in the past year has made going in for check-ups difficult to say the least. I guess the tooth was worse than I thought though, because it broke the other day. Needless to say, that was enough to prompt me to hurry up with that call to the dentist. I've got an appointment for April 24th at 12:45pm.

Luckily, my cold never came to much, and seems to have gone already.

Anyway, the weather's been all over the place. One day warm and sunny, so we have the windows open. The next cold and stormy, so the windows end up closed, and we're reaching for extra blankets. We've had temperatures ranging from about 2 degrees C to around 16 degrees C, and an interesting mixture of conditions, including rain, sun, and hail. A couple of days we even had fog and haze. At one point they promised snow too, though I wasn't surprised when that never showed up. It is April, after all, and we almost never get snow this time of year (if we're going to get it, it generally comes between the start of November and the end of March). I'm not saying it would be impossible for us to get snow between April and October. Just unusual enough that I never bothered getting my hopes up. Of course, Lilie and I would have enjoyed it if it had snowed though. Since it didn't, we enjoyed some puddles from the rain instead. Lilie loves puddles. She's quite the water dog at times. As for me... Well, I'm just a big kid, so of course I love splashing in puddles! *wink*