Author: Tanie

I’m not having a good day.

That’s my poor sick kitty meow in intensive care at the emergency animal hospital after I got up this morning to find her unresponsive on the living room floor. Like she was breathing and everything but her eyes were staring and not blinking and her body just… wasn’t working. I tried to get her to sit up and she just collapsed like a poor sad pancake.

We took her to our vet right away and they sent us the emergency hospital, where we were told she was very hypoglycemic (low blood sugar), with low blood pressure and a low temperature. Just low everything you need to be alive, basically. Because we don’t know how long she was like that (probably a while, judging by her temperature) they don’t know what kind of damage their might be to her brain (hypoglycemia = your brain starves). She could go blind. She could die.

Because she’s pretty old and what with this whole diabetes thing, I thought I would be okay if something happened to her. Like it wouldn’t be totally unexpected or shocking if she passed away, so I thought I had resigned myself to it, but I guess not. As soon as I realized something wasn’t right I just started crying and crying, I wrapped her up in a blanket and carried her around the house crying and then when I was getting ready to go to the vet I made Taylor carry her around because I couldn’t bear for her to be left on the floor.

I’m supposed to call the animal hospital in a couple of hours to see how she’s doing, and I’m really hoping against hope that she’s doing better because I feel like her passing away is gonna break my heart. Also, this:

They bring you the estimate while you’re waiting and let you “discuss it as a family” before you decide, and it’s like, either I’m gonna pay all of my money to try to save her, or I just let her die. How can I just let her die? I can’t. I just can’t, she’s just a tiny kitty and I’m supposed to take care of her! But that estimate is for just one day, if they need to keep her longer I can’t afford it, so please send all your positive thoughts to my poor Claire-Claire. I just want to bring her home.

My beautiful friend Brooke bought a Sailor Moon cat face banner from me a couple months ago and she decided to put it on her little Christmas tree this year.

LOVE! I think it looks so cute! If anyone else has pictures of banners I’ve made for them that they’d like to share, leave a comment or email me at taniewanie@gmail.com.

When I make glitter banners I generally end up with glitter scraps. Lots and lots of glitter scraps. Scraps to small to use for letters but too big to throw away.

I’ve been saving them all up in a box but it’s basically overflowing so it was really time to do some scrap crafts! I decided to try making a dot garland. Using a quarter and a penny as templates I cut out lots and lots and lots of glitter circles and stuck them to a ribbon.

So cute, right?

I also made the red, green and silver one I posted previously. Unfortunately I ran out of the ribbon so I used monofilament instead, which looks cool but I haaaaaaate working with it.

I have ideas for all sorts of other dot garlands, so good thing I have all those scraps!

A little more of the holiday decorations at my house, this time the foyer.

Sym drew a panda & bunny dressed for winter to put on my reminders board (which I never actually use for reminders anymore, oops). I put up my Joyeux Noel banner and some red, white and green paper bunting I made last year. I hung up my old white wreath and unearthed the snowman light from the bottom of my Christmas storage bin. The little red felt tree on the right is from Ikea, I love it but haven’t really found a home for it yet. Right now it’s just perched on my Spud grocery bins. PRE-POST UPDATE: I wasn’t able to find somewhere to put the little tree when it was put together, so I took it apart and stuck one half to one of the canvases, and I actually really like how it looks!

The green wreath is actually meant to be on my front door, but I haven’t been able to find a hanger for it. So weird, I know I saw millions of them in stores a few weeks ago but now I can’t find anything

I bought a plain artificial wreath and added tiny white ornaments from Ikea (I pulled the tops off and stuck them right onto the ends of the branches), some fake red berries (which I had stuffed in a box for years), and tiny gold leaf garland. Originally I was going to wrap the garland around the wreath, but that looked cruddy so instead I cut it into 4-6″ lengths and tediously twisted it around individual branches of the wreath. Really.

I hung this red, green and silver dot garland (more on this in another post) up on the cloud wall just to take a picture, but I think I might leave it there, and make some more for the other birds!

In case you didn’t know, I love finding old furniture and making it awesome, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve done it exactly once. My desk really is great though!

Anyway I spotted this little end table in the alley the other night and made Taylor bring it home for me. Right now it’s sitting on the patio, filled with diatomaceous earth (I need to know it’s bedbug-free before I bring it inside) but soon it’ll be painted turquoise (maybe?) and beside my bed.

In other fixer-upper news, this happened this weekend.

In case you can’t tell, that’s the remains of the toilet roll holder in the half bathroom. It’s so weird, it isn’t like there was anything really heavy on it or anyone yanking or leaning on it, I wonder why it pulled out of the wall for no reason like that?

MAYBE BECAUSE THE BUILDERS DRILLED A GIANT-ASS HOLE FOR ONE OF THE SCREWS AND JUST LEFT IT LIKE THAT??? Ugh it baffles me how terribly put together this place is, like is it REALLY that hard to put up a toilet roll holder? Anyway I think I’m going to get one of those free-standing holders so I can put it closer to the toilet- you can’t tell in these pictures but it’s so far away that the non-diaper-wearing daycare kids can’t reach it, so I always have to get toilet paper for them and it’s preventing them from becoming fully independent, toilet-wise. Of course I’ll have to take the remains of the old holder off the wall, fill the holes and paint it, which is gonna be super fun because I don’t think I have any of that orange paint left. I guess I can get some more when I get the turquoise for the table!

Sooooo I basically spent all of the weekend shopping. It started on Friday night: Sym had come up with an idea for candy boxes to make for her family, so on Thursday night her dad took her to the store to buy the candies she needed. Then on Friday she LEFT THEM AT SCHOOL ARGH. She was seeing her grandparents this weekend so after I finished work we headed out to buy replacement candies. I was hoping we would be able to find what she needed at the store by our house but NO DICE, we ended up walking around the city for 2 1/2 hours before we finally gave in and went to the store by her dad’s house instead. It was super exhausting and kind of annoying BUT we got to look at Christmas lights and buy other candy and get yummy drinks from Starbucks, so I think we really made the best of it.

Sym in the St Paul’s Hospital Lights of Hope. Just over ten years ago I carried her outside for the very first time through those doors behind her (I gave birth at this hospital)!

On Saturday after Sym left I went out for brunch and shopping with Jenn. I didn’t have my camera, although I should really start bringing it out because then I could take all kinds of pictures to post on my blog and she could take pictures to post on her blog and we could be those annoying bloggers who hang out and post pictures of our hangouts.

Unfortunately I can’t post pictures of most of the things I bought, but here are a couple things I picked up for myself.

I’ve been wanting a knit circle scarf FOREVER but I’m also feeling cheap. I found this one at Front and Company for only $22!

I don’t remember the name of the store where I got this feather print top.

It’s not like anything I’d normally wear but think it’s so pretty. I’m planning on wearing it to Taylor’s office holiday party on Friday, but is it weird that it matches my hair?

Nope, it’s awesome.

I also got a couple new decorations for the tree, a couple glittery stag heads in silver and green. They were only $0.99 each! They had gold and red as well and it was difficult to only get two.

Sinead says my house is like a zoo for glittery animals. SHE’S NOT WRONG.

On Sunday Taylor and I also went for brunch and shopping, although we had to split up a lot so that the other wouldn’t know what we were up to. I will say that between the two of us we spent over $100 on candy. What was that thing about feeling cheap again? Anyway I can’t share most of what I got, although when I was waiting for Taylor I bought some holiday sprinkles for holiday baking!

These are all going on donuts btw, Christmas cookies are so last year.

… the “I’ve been slacking at painting my nails and everything else” edition. I meant to paint my nails on the weekend so I’d have this post ready this morning, but did I? NOPE. Luckily I have a very easy work day today so I was able to throw on a couple coats between playtime & snacktime.

Sally Hansen HD in Pixel Pretty
I’ve had this colour for months but have never used it until today, but as you know I can only do green/blue/turquoise polishes because of my hair. This colour looks WAY more intense in the bottle, but I only did two coats and I actually kind of like it- it’s more subtle (can turquoise nails be subtle?) and sheer, almost. I think this polish would be great with a different topcoat as well- matte, or Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, or the OPI silver crackle Sym bought me.

Also I think I’m getting better at painting my nails without painting my entire fingertip, which is good because half my nails snapped off and I had to cut them all really short. My cuticles are still a mess though. I bought some Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream this weekend so maybe that will help, but until then LONG HAIR DON’T CARE.

I know some of you guys sometimes do Manicure Monday posts, if you do, leave me a comment or tweet @ me with a link to your post and I’ll add it to my post!

Taylor’s grandmother passed away recently and he had to go out of town for her funeral. I asked him if he wanted me to come along for emotional, wifely support, but he said the way I could best support him at this time was to stay here and look after his dog. It’s been pretty easy; all the dog does is sit on the back of the couch and stare at the door, waiting.

To stop me from being lonely like Kichou, Sym brought the Little Taylor from the Felt Family I made for her 9th birthday to keep me company.

Please ignore the clutter on my desk, yes I absolutely DO need that stack of Moomin books, precariously perched tissue box, moustache on a stick, lighter, unicorn scarf, and pile of paperwork.

I realize I never made a post about the outcome of Taylor’s epic allergen elimination diet extravaganza. He had originally planned to be on it for eight weeks, and after six and a half he’d had the amazing result of nothing. NUH THING. No change at all in his skin. Really the only thing that changed was the THIRTY POUNDS he lost by eating nothing but vegetables and replacing all other foods with going to the gym. Now, he’s 6’4″ and didn’t really have 30 extra pounds lying around, so at that point I made the executive decision to stage an intervention because tbh he was starting to get a little manorexic about the whole thing. That was a few weeks ago and he’s back on food and put a little of the weight back on (which is good) but he’s (we’re) back at square one with this whole seborrheic dermatitis thing :/

Friday was our 2nd Annual Donuts & Wine Christmas Tree Decorating Party (it’s still a party if I only invited one person, right?). I had promised Sym I would make donuts, and I had all these ambitious ideas involving holiday-hued sprinkles and crushed peppermint candies. In the end I was too tired and hungover (remember, I’d been at a hockey game the previous evening) so I just bought some cinnamon sugar donuts and syrup wafer cookies and said GOOD ENOUGH. Also, we’re supposed to have sparkling wine, but Jenn brought over a giant economy-sized bottle of pinot grigio and it was only polite to drink that instead.

Does your dog make too much noise?
Sym has a little purple tree, but last year she took it to her dad’s house instead of putting it up here. This year she’s staying with us for Christmas so we’re having a two-tree holiday. At some point I decided it would be a great idea to fold it in half to make it fit in a bin and I must have really hulked out on it because I couldn’t straighten it out to save my life. I did the best I could, and have it set up so that it’s angled towards the wall so you can’t really tell, but it’s kind of obvious in some of these pictures.

LOL IT IS COMPLETELY ASKEW

The first couple years she had this tree we had really terrible ornaments on it, but I’ve slowly built up a sweet collection of cute donuts, cupcakes and miniature glass balls. She used to have a whole collection of Disney princesses as well but we could only find Sleeping Beauty.

After we helped Sym with her tree we started on the big one. I put the lights on it a week earlier so it was ready for Sym, Jenn, and I to put all the ornaments in place (Taylor just took pictures).

I put it at the end of the wall that separates the living room from the kitchen, right next to my festive holiday fire extinguisher. Safety first!

The dogs were very helpful, but which I mean annoying. Dougal and Georgie kept fighting over her toy pig and bashing into the tree. At one point Dougal stole it and promptly fell asleep with it in his mouth, much to Georgie’s dismay.

All decorated & ready for the star…

Sym can’t quite reach the top…

… so she climbed up on the counter! I was there to spot her as she put the star in place.

Finished!

I mean, except for me going around and rearranging all the ornaments in my typical Christmas control freak fashion. I CAN’T HELP IT I JUST WANT CHRISTMAS TO BE PERFECT.

l-r: me (I should have redyed my hair to match my jersey), Fin, Lori, Jenn
Last night I was lucky enough to attend the Canucks-Predators game with my friend Jenn. Actually every time I’ve gone to a game it’s been lucky, and here’s why:

OUCH
Because I’ve always been fortunate to know someone who has access to free tickets, because otherwise, WOW. Unfortunately these particular free tickets were in the alcohol-free section, so we spent every intermission out on the concourse chugging Budweiser (bleagh).

Unfortunately our team didn’t win, but it was a great game and like Jenn said, it’s better to go to a good game that you don’t win than a boring game you do. I mean, this happened right in front of us:

SCREAMING WITH LAUGHTER. From the poutine to the hockey to the beer, it was a super fun night so a huge thank you to Jenn for inviting me!