Vetster experience

So I tried Vetster today for the first time;  this is an online vet service - I found an Ontario-based vet and made an apt for 30 mins later.   They’re doing a trial of it with our benefits at work so would be no charge to me, and I was worried cause Sash was on Day 3 of diarrhea and that’s long even for her.

Plus side - long weekend, holiday Monday, we’re an hour from my vet and I was reasonably certain not tragic, but had a couple very specific questions relevant to meds she’s on and interactions (turns out good call - one of them needs to be stopped if they have diarrhea - key detail).  Aka the kind of call I would’ve had a hard time justifying an emergency bill for but ended up being helpful (Sasha is feeling much better now btw!).   This was affordable by any standard ($55) but even better with free thanks (temporarily) to work.

Also - I was emailed her notes afterwards that I could either just keep for my reference or share with their normal vet so they have a full picture of what’s going on.

Some neutral notes for the curious: 

• it’s a video call, you pick any time with more than 30 mins notice 
• you can choose the vet you want.  There’s info about where they are licensed to practice, if they can write prescriptions (I’m pretty sure in Ontario all vets can write scripts?  But I don’t actually know, and I have no idea the rules other places), and areas of expertise. Also a random blurb but those were painful ;).  I’m sure some people like them though.
• You can send notes, history, video (if it were relevant - I skipped this step!  lol squirrel note: when Sasha was like a year and a half old and demonstrating exercise induced paralysis which TERRIFIED me because I had no idea whatsoever what it was and still have trouble believing it’s a thing even though I saw it multiple times, the vet then did ask me to video cause he’d never seen it in person 😂)….  Anyways - I could see that for lameness or a cut or something weird that was visual for sure.
• The call was on time, the vet asked appropriate questions and answered my questions; my dog is better now, so I’m going to say it helped :)

The down side:

• obviously it’s video - they can see your pet if you so choose but can’t do anything physical
• They have no history on the animal besides what you choose to share and no relationship whatsoever w you…. Which means any vet I’d trust is going to be very careful given that the average pet owner is an idiot (present company excluded of course!); ie - you get the vet equivalent of “is the power on?” Or “did you reboot?”

Overall a good service and, I think (?) appropriately priced.  Not sure how it works on the vet’s end at all so can’t comment to that.  My vet was at home on her couch so I’m assuming it’s a “on call” situation but I don’t actually know.

I didn’t even know such things existed so figured I’d share in case it helped anybody else.

Beginner drawing adventures

As always, I'm forever amazed by the learning curve when I target something really new; especially things that seem so obvious once you know them.  These are some of the things I've discovered in the last few weeks:

- there is a distinct difference between tutorials that aim to teach a drawing skill and tutorials that aim to have you successfully draw an image at the end.   I'm getting much better at following the second type (see pics below ;).  And honestly, still so green I've learned something from literally every one, so Follow-the-Leader it is.  For now.  As to actually learning to do anything on my own - I'm being a little facetious - I do try those too and it IS making a (slow) difference.  But I very much love the "follow along and get results" version for now (yeah endorphins!).  Except there's a sad dearth of dragons, so at some point will need to apply those skills to creating my own.

- there are coloured pencils that are wax based, coloured pencils that are oil based, coloured pencils that are really pastels in disguise, and who knows how many others lol.   And while the online pastel enthusiasts tend to be serious purists about it, the others tend to mix and match intentionally.   All of the above are friggin expensive.  I should go back to a nice affordable hobby.  Like riding.

- Pastels generally, but of course not always, are layered dark to light.  The others go light to dark.  In both cases they need WAY more layers and colours than I would ever have imagined.   And some of those colours are wildly not something that would ever have occurred to me; this is an example of the difference between ability to follow and ability to do it myself ;).

This one theoretically took 22 pencil crayons, of which I had about 15 ;)
By far my favourite in-colour follow-along artist (Bonny Snowdon Academy) so far.

- my thought of learning to draw with pencil first seems to be the right track - all the others seem to start with very light pencil (cause it's erasable) and then build up from there.

This was one of the first, and still a favourite.
Follow-along instructions by my overall favourite YT instructor I've found yet:  Mark Crilley

- many "beginner" tutorials still often assume more skill than I posses.   Also, some of the ones for pencil crayons will share a sketch to trace first for colouring - I tried this a couple times and found it even more confusing since sketches for colouring often don't look much like what I would consider sketches lol.  So now I either take their version and use a grid to try and draw a simpler version myself (this is most reliable although still involves a ton of erasing) or I just do the outline and make up the rest as I go along.  Kinda depends how much patience I have at the time (eg - the kitten was a grid, the flower below was 100% freehand DIY lol - I just can't bring myself to care about the flowers at this point). 

- paper matters.  OMG does paper ever matter.  These two pictures were a day apart (first coloured pencil effort), with no practice in-between, following the exact same instructions, using the exact same materials.   All I changed was the paper.   Unfortunately though, I generally have no idea what paper to use for what and why -- and of course the internet has ALL the opinions ;).  In some cases it makes sense (if you're water painting you prob want something thick enough to handle being wet), theoretically all the pencils need to be layered so something with texture to allow layers is good.  But too MUCH texture gives what happened here.  And then on the flip side - the kitten above would've had whiskers if I'd had thicker paper lol - apparently the trick is to emboss the whiskers into the paper before ever starting anything w colour, except it was just in my little sketch book; there wasn't enough paper depth to emboss anything lol.

The difference the paper can make

- my social media doesn't know what to do w me having another hobby - mildly amusing to see it trying to figure out whether I want drawing, embroidery, handstands, fitness, dance, or something else completely random ;)