Maybe, just maybe, the cat is going to get better. The vet took her off the penicillin derivative and started her on a sulfa drug, and continued the blood-detox (phosphorus binding). My mom reported this evening that the cat looks a lot better than she has, and she ate with more gusto than she has in quite a while (finished the whole plate of food in one go, rather than eating it slowly and coming back to it). She does have to go back to the vet (this is the "emergency" vet open weekends) for more IV tomorrow.

I know this is going to be expensive but I also know it's important to my parents to feel like they are doing everything possible for the cat. Some people might go, "eh, it's 21, it's at the end of its life" but I think they feel that since the cat still seems to be 'enjoying' life it is the ethical thing to do to treat her.

So I have some hope. Monday the cat gets blood tests which will be the definitive thing as to whether the treatment worked. The vet did say a day or so ago that she was surprised the cat was still eating considering the blood levels of things like creatinine and her elevated white-blood-cell count. So maybe the cat still has pretty strong will to live, and that counts for something.

I hope.

I did a bunch of sewing today, and I finished cutting the pieces for the Flower Garden quilt. I changed one of the fabrics at the last minute: I had had a piece of that "Dimples" fabric in a turquoise color, but I was concerned that that would blend in too much with the Moda Marble I was using as the tiny little sashing (and it is tiny little: the strips are 1 1/2 inches wide) and look funny. But then I spotted another fat quarter of a butterfly fabric, different from the butterfly fabric I already had put aside for the quilt but in the same colors as I was using. So, delighted, I took the fabric and substituted it in for the turquoise "Dimples" (which, I am sure, I'll be able to use elsewhere).

That's one of the reasons I like having an extensive fabric stash - when you're planning a quilt, if you're not totally in love with one of the fabrics, you can often find something you like better tucked away. Or you can sort through it and realize that a new fabric you bought coordinates nicely with some you already have, and you have what you need to piece a top. Even though I have a quilt shop in my town, it's nice to be able to go to the stash - for one thing, the quilt shop isn't open 24/7 (and often, I'm sewing on a Sunday afternoon or after 5:30 pm on a weekday, and they aren't open then). And for another, it's kind of like I said the other day about making a meal out of food you already have on the shelf: it's kind of satisfying to be able to turn to your own resources for something you need. (I'm not going to pretend it's being frugal, because I know I buy lots of quilt fabric, and I also buy lots of it without any set pattern or project in mind).

I have all the rows sewn together for the Hill Country Spring quilt but I need to press the seams (a less-favorite part) before I can set the rows together into the top. I did start sewing together the blocks for the super-simple "Dozen Roses" quilt because I was able to figure out a configuration that I liked and because it's a regular pattern, once I got the order of the colors for the first row, all successive rows were set. 

However, when I'm concerned or troubled about something, I can never sit still for too terribly long - I tend to flit from project to project. (I kind of envy one of my mother's friends: when something's troubling her, she can sit down at her quilt frame and "quilt it out" - work for several hours at a go and get up from the frame feeling better). I get antsy and need to be moving and often feel like I need more physical activity.

(I think the fall that my dad was going through a long diagnosis process of a medical condition was the fall my house was its cleanest).

So, I went out to the garden center and bought the rest of the soil I needed for the raised beds. Eight bags of topsoil, six of the "garden soil," and three bags of sand this time. (half of the soils I did get carried out to my car for me by one of the young men working there). So I spent part of the afternoon mixing sand and soil and shoveling it into the raised beds.

Oh, what do you call it when you open a bag of topsoil in your wheelbarrow, then a bag of sand, then a second bag of topsoil on top of that? A Sand-wich. Heh.

The beds are ready now. Ready for when I have a bit of time in the coming week to consider what I want to put in them. I'm thinking if I can find Arkansas Traveler tomatoes (my favorite variety of the ones I've grown, plus, they do well in this climate) I'm going to get some of those, and maybe a couple Roma plants, because their tomatoes are good for bruschetta or on sandwiches. I might see if I can find a couple butternut squash plants, or maybe try watermelon (maybe third time is the charm: the first time I grew them, borers got the plants. The second time, they got watermelons but then the watermelons never got bigger than marble size, I think because they got choked out with weeds - I got busy and couldn't get to weeding the garden). And I might stick some basil in as well. And yes, marigolds. (All the old-timers around here tell you that if you want to grow tomatoes, you have to plant marigolds as well: marigolds help prevent nematodes from attacking the tomatoes. And yes, it is really truly true, scientific studies have shown it.)