Finished, Finally!

As I write this I'll have you know that I am sitting outside with a hot drink, in many layers, and wrapped up in my electric blanket. But I am determined to be outside, damnit! It's unseasonably warm but not sunny so therefore I'm cold. I did manage to spill some of my coffee on the way out here which led to me uttering a string of obscenities that would make a sailor blush.

I bought this paint-by-number kit it 2024 at Michaels and then we started looking at houses and I never bothered to open it up. Well, last summer I started working on it while I roasted outside. Did I follow instructions? No, of course not. Starting with white was boring! I did the bottom left portion first, then the landscape and buildings.

Then I let it sit for months and months. So long that my paint dried out and I had to mix my own colors. But I would sit with the cat - her dozing in her cat tree or chair and me at my table, working on this painting. I finished it on Christmas and here's what it looks like:

I think I did okay with mixing colors even though I ended up with way more than I needed for some small areas. Most were pretty accurate but there was one that I couldn't quite get perfect.

I added a black border and tried to tone down the very bright red in the left portion, though it still seems very red to my eye. But those were the paints that came with the kit - I mostly made the blues and purple.

After I finished and hung it up, I immediately started another smaller painting. I like the colors and that I'll finish before the paints dry up. I don't have any photos of it on my phone and I live in this blanket now so maybe I'll share in my next post.

I picked up this Christmas camper cat scratching thing at Aldi (love the aisle of shame!) and it was too small for Lulu. But the bunny loves it!

He also got a new tunnel for Christmas as well as some stacking cups. Do bunnies know about Christmas? Not this one because he barely knows he exists! But we all went up and he got to unwrap his presents and I'm sure he enjoyed all the attention. I got him the same tunnel as last year (different color) and it comes with a little bed. He prefers the tunnel though and that's where he sleeps all day. His old tunnel was pretty chewed up and gross. He has seizures and that happens, he has little bunny accidents.

He really does enjoy attention and he's very demanding when it comes to pets. When we first got him we could barely touch him or he'd make that little growling noise to let us know he didn't appreciate it. We could pat his head but we immediately figured out he had a terrible case of ear mites and sores all in his ears, along with missing fur on the back of his head from scratching. The so-called "rescue" was awful and his living conditions there were abysmal. His feet were stained from sitting in urine, he was malnourished, had ear mites and we'd later learn also e.cuniculi, a parasite that causes neurological symptoms such as seizures and a head tilt. Moo doesn't have a tilt and he gets around alright but he does have the occasional seizure.

E. cuniculi is incredibly infectious so we can't have any other bunnies. I bet he'd love a little friend but we can't risk infecting another bun. He loved Lulu but she didn't know what to make of his attention. He was probably begging for her to groom him but she wasn't interested. 😂

But we got rid of all the ear mites, which took a lot of time, meds, and vet visits. He had surgery on his ears and eventually his hair grew back. He lets us pet his whole body and he begs for pets by nibbling on your clothes or head-butting us. He gets fresh greens twice a day now and the occasional bit of banana. He's not spoiled at all!

Dead to the world...

Nah, not spoiled.