On Sunday I will be travelling to Inverell to house and dog sit for 8 weeks while my mum and dad. I was looking forward to it up until a couple of days ago, when I had to make the decision to euthanise my dog Lucy. Her epilepsy and seizures have become so severe, she's suffering multiple times a day. She's started clawing at her mouth (or chewing at her feet, whichever way you want to look at it) during the seizures and so now she has to spend her days with her paws wrapped up and one of us keeping an eye on her, so she doesn't hurt herself much more.

It will have to be done within the week, as letting her fit all day and all night is just cruel. The heartbreaking thing is, she's her complete self in between. It's quite deceptive, because in between the moments she's okay you almost convince yourself that you're over reacting and you should just stick it out.

Reality hits when she drops out of consciousness, and there's screaming and blood. Or when you wake her in the morning to find she hasn't slept at all through the night. 

I have to give a hand to the vet though. He was nothing like what I had expected. 

When we brought her home, she managed to swallow a whole pork chew. We thought she'd picked up Parvo (she was lethargic, unresponsive and generally ill) and so I called the vet to see what we could do. He didn't seem phased and said to bring her in the next day. I went against that advice (as I had a little dachshund die from Parvo, and it all happens very quickly) and took her to the 24hr Animal Referral Hospital. She was okay in the end, but our vet pointed out the next day that we were being very silly. He told us, "If I spend $1,000 on a cow, I'm not going to spend $1,000 trying to cure her if she's ill. If one of my $10,000 bulls falls ill, then it makes more sense" after he learnt we paid $300 for her, and spent $350 at the Animal Referral Hospital the night before. Safe to say, I asked to see another vet after him. 

Well, I had to see this same vet last week. I was anxious but thought I'd deal with whatever he threw at me. He was nothing but sympathetic and did not push any sort of treatment or outcome. He offered more medication, advice on how to make her comfortable and a whole lot more. It made me feel a little guilty as I thought perhaps I should have been doing more, but he reassured me that euthanising her was humane. 

So that will be the first week we're home. I'm not looking forward to it, but I have had the past week to really think it over and I think it's for the best. 

This completely spins me out. At the moment I haven't thought enough about it to have an opinion on whether it's good or bad. I only know that it's really incredible.

A really lovely video by Maisy Stella, aged 7.

Because I had never made one, and they were becoming more and more popular on the internet I thought I would have a go. Turns out it's pretty easy with a store bought cake mix and some food colouring. 

Prepare the cake as per instructions. Separate batter into bowls. Add colouring to each. Pour each into cake tin, don't mix. Bake. Ice. Honestly, I'm not a fan of cake. I think I turned 14 when I started telling my mother not to bother with birthday cakes. They're okay, but not really my thing. I really just did it for novelty.