feathers and a decoy

hello friends,
i can't believe it's been over two weeks since my last post!!!

i need to get my act together!

the other morning while walking aaron to school, we saw a large amount of feathers littered in one spot and it was pretty obvious that a poor magpie had fallen prey to a cat overnight. 

i always feel sad when i see things like this.  i know there are feral cats out there but domestic cats are often responsible for this type of thing too when their owners allow their cats to roam free at night.  they can do so much harm to the native wildlife.

i picked three of the feathers to take home and sketch,
 my way of honouring the magpie's life

pencil-free sketch using ink pen and watercolour in A5 sketchbook

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the results are in. after seeing my rheumatologist on the 25th, he confirmed that i have rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis AND carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands. i wasn't surprised because mum suffers with both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis and RA can be hereditary. RA is an auto-immune disease where the immune system gets confused and starts attacking its own joints, body tissue and, sometimes, organs. the rheumatologist said that, nowadays, they treat it more aggressively with drugs used to fight cancer as they've found it gives better results for up to 70% of patients. the drugs are given in lower doses than what is given to cancer patients but scary nonetheless.

i've been dealing with a lot of pain lately, particularly in my right hand and elbow, and it can bring me to tears and keep me awake at night.  the daily feldene doesn't seem to be helping much at this stage. i hope the methotrexate helps but i'm told it may not show any improvement for 5 to 9 months.
wish me luck.

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our neighbours own a couple of staffordshire bull terriers and every time we go around that side of the house, they go all vicious and try to break through the fence to attack us.

actually, they did break through the fence going back a few months and i was SO grateful that we were all indoors at the time. i quickly mended the fence when it went back into it's own yard.  just the other week, one of the staffys bit beau after it escaped into the street when it's owner arrived home.  beau was mowing our lawn and it obviously didn't like it.  thankfully, beau was wearing long pants but he did end up with a huge lump and graze on the back of his leg.  i was so upset and wanted to tell them immediately but beau didn't want to cause any neighbourly upset. i just pray that it doesn't happen to a child.

last week, aaron went to hang out some washing on the line and the neighbour's dogs started their usual vicious barking and trying to break though the fence at him.  so, aaron came up with an ingenious plan...
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i belly laughed when i went around the side of the house to see THIS!

aaron had created a decoy!

and it worked quite well too because their dogs were going crazy vicious trying to attack the decoy while aaron was able to hang the clothes in relative peace.

i marvel at the way aaron thinks sometimes. LOL

anywhoo, i hope you all enjoy a beautiful weekend!

~ love, light and peace ~