Haunted Humpday- Coffin remote tray- I'm sort of jumping in because I actually crafted a little bit this week.

Recently, I decided to start squirreling away some money for the things Amanda and I need or want. I need things like underwire replacements for bras and I want to buy an embroidery machine. I also want to save up and get an air conditioner for the bedroom and have a down payment for a new-to-us car. We'd also like to make some repairs and improvements to our house. But in the more upcoming savings deaprtment, I have been saving for Halloween. We haven't really been able to do Halloween shopping and since this is really the time of year that Torrid USED to have decent clothes in my preferred style come out (before the GAP bought them-assholes) and stores come out with decor or things to make decor that fits my decorating style, yeah, we or well, I decided to save a little. Of course, I told Amanda what I was doing and she was for it. 

So, on a day she had off and I had off, we decided to take a trip to Joann's and we found a few small things. The trip was mostly geared to window shop and research the texture and feel of what fabrics I want to use for some costumes and clothing later on. But we made it out of the store with a few little things. I'll get to the rest of them in a later post, this one is about a remote tray. 

I found this coffin tray and knew it was coming home with me. The embellishments, above, were coming home with me too. You can never have too many of those. 

I also knew this pretty holographic star and moon paper was coming home too. I've had a sheet of this before. Its a vinyl, sticker paper you can find in the scrap booking section. 

I was thinking of making the coffin a shelf or open shadow box, but decided against it while I was painting it with black acrylic. I sealed it after it was painted with a clear polyurethane spray. 

After the polyurethane coat dried, I measured and cut the sticker paper and had Amanda put on the bottom inside of the tray. She, for some reason, can apply that kind of paper much easier than I can. 

To finish it off, I used the black embellishments on the rim and added my remotes. Its silly, but works much better than the caddy I had the in before and its easier to move from place to place. When we get our sofa back, we're going to put this tray on the ottoman or a side table.

 Unfortunately, that's all I have for today. 

I'm going to make some tea, go a round with my netti pot, and go watch something from the warm, cozy comfort of my bed.

Hope everyone's Haunted Humpday was great!

Cat Tales Zoological Park

In conjunction with my last post about Rocky Horror Picture Show, we also spent the morning with our friend for her birthday at Cat Tales. This park takes in big cats and animals that people stupidly get to be pets, or animals that retire from the circus or show business and so on, and lets them live out the rest of their lives in the sanctuary. Its a small facility but has grown from the small house it started in. They are also working to expand. 

I was pretty tired that morning so I didn't manage to remember all the cat's names, but I remember the Lionesses name is Nala. She's the only lion they have at the moment and when the train goes by, the conductors will blow the horn and she will roar back at them. 

This guy was quite the talker and very handsome. He's the only white tiger they seem to have at the moment. 

On to the orange tigers...

It was getting close to feeding time and while it was a cooler day, it was still a little warm. So some kitties were hanging out in the water or taking a nap. 

There are some Bobcats, apparently someone thought it would be a good idea to make one a service animal. Um, no, a wild animal should not be made into a service animal. 

A touch of fall.

And some information

This little guy, if you look really hard through all the cages, is a sleeping raccoon.

This is one of the foxes. This one might be the newest, born this year.

Here is the wolf.

And a few more tigers!

I really like going to this park. It's actually rather peaceful and the cats and other wildlife there are very calm and relaxed. The folks working out there are nice and knowledgeable too. Honestly, the place is really awesome and I wish I could gush more, but I think my nose is doing enough of that for me. I'm sick with what I think is a sinus infection... But I really wanted to get this post out before I lost what little drive I have to blog today. Because I do love this place and while I wish these cats and animals could be returned to the wild, they can't and they are being well taken care of at Cattales. 

For more information about the park, here is the link to their website:

http://www.cattales.org/

Rocky Horror Picture Show Friend Birthday fun!

Oh look a selfie while waiting to get into Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Garland Theatre, in the Garland district. We got a group of us together to go to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror for a friend's birthday.  Prior to the show we had a small pot luck dinner at my house and our friends at Lavender Moon Bakery made a cake that looked just like the lips at the beginning of the film. I didn't happen to get a photo of it before it got eaten, but I can honestly say, it was an awesome cake!

Oh and earlier in the day, we went to Cattail's big cat sanctuary but that's going to be in the next post. 

Someone got a picture of me and its not that bad. But I can tell I didn't get my foundation even between my neck, chest, and face. Still, considering I did it in the living room with a compact mirror, it's not that bad. And yes, that is a David Bowie Shirt. Technically it is Amanda's, she LOVES him, but she lets me wear it occasionally. 

There's my Amanda, being her usual vulgar self and a random girl photo-bombing her and looking like a badass demon while she's at it.

Here we are with some of our small group of friends. 

Us again.

Me with the Birthday Girl, please don't look at my house, it is unfinished as far as decor goes and we are going to redo the living room floor eventually.

Birthday girl with another friend and a friend in the background.

My Amanda posing. I am so glad she kept her boobies restrained, she could kill someone with those.

Another friend who was so freaking excited!

Thorin was keeping watch over the preparations for the evening and a moth that got in the house. Said moth was later rescued because my cats are assholes. They don't kill anything, just fuck with it. 

I don't know what it is about this pic that makes me think she's on the red carpet, but it does. 

What can I say, she's my wife, I took some pics, lol.

The line wrapped around the front and down the street. It actually sold out! Which was awesome

Amanda and a friend.

All in all it was a really fun  night and a lovely new experience. I was a live show/movie virgin, a couple of us were. And being that it was so late and most of us work or have first shift lives, we were all pretty tired. I was actually so tired that I fell asleep three times during the show. One of those times, I had been sitting forward in my chair and woke up in time to catch myself from falling into one of my friend's laps. It was nuts! But I think we all had a really good time and the birthday girl seemed to enjoy herself. 

Sometime soon the same group that did the show is going to do Clockwork Orange. While I want to support the group putting these shows on, I'm skipping that one. I hate that movie. But it looks like the group does other shows like these, so that's kind of cool!

So much and I think I am back

Takashi Shirogane Art by Clandestineknight

I'm back, I think, I hope. I've had a major spell of depression, bad enough that Amanda was talking about taking me to the hospital. I've stuffed enough crap for so long that I couldn't stuff any more and my lid popped. Without going into  too much detail, a lot of the stuff dragging me down was grief, loss, health, living situation, spiritual situation, friend and family situations, so, yeah everything really, but those primarily. Summer was miserable, in a word. 

But its fall now and I'm looking forward to the season. 

While we didn't do too much for the summer, we did go to Kuro Neko Con- which will be a post on its own and we had a visitor from Boston, again, another post on it's own. I didn't craft much and really only have one project to show. However, today, Amanda and I are working on the living room since she had the day off. We were going to try and finally do paint touch ups and paint and install the chair railing but we just don't feel up to it and it can wait another week or so. 

Oh we are missing a sofa. Our sofa was damaged during our move and we dealt with it a long time before the company finally came to pick it up for repair. But I am very ready for it to come home. My office chair is okay, but sometimes my back needs a break. 

I am writing again, everyday. I started work on a novel but got horribly discouraged. So, I've been doing some written rps with Amanda and her cousin Kat. I also started a fanfiction for Voltron. Its been fun but I am feeling a little more confident and am ready to get back to the novel. Also, my Aunt Debra wants a story to read when she's moved into her new house, so I'm going to find something I've already written, that's short, to send her. I don't have tons of time to work on something new aside from the novel, not with the rps, the fanfic, working on the house, and also...

I am helping some friends with their bakery! I'm making cakepops two to three times a week to help with a big order they have that's due soon. It's been a lot of fun and one of the girls is trying to get me hired on. It's just a tricky situation because they can't pay themselves yet. But one of them is like 'if we have you, we can take more orders and make more money'. Whatever happens, happens. Either way, I am enjoying my time there and when I need to get up and move, I can. When I get overwhelmed or panicky, I can take a break, so it is working out.   

Voltron, EMDR, and Writing

Voltron: Legendary Defender

Firstly, I'm feeling a little bit better. Time helps ease a lot of things, not all, but some. And so, I felt up to another attempt of returning to the blogosphere. 

Amanda and I have been watching a show on Netflix called Voltron: Legendary Defender. I'm not the biggest fan of robot cartoons and anime, but Amanda's cousin Kat recommended it when it first began airing and we were hooked. Immediately, I fell for Takashi Shirogane or Shiro, he's the leader and Paladin of the Black Lion. Amanda adored Keith and Lance. to be honest, we love all five Paladins, they are diverse and wonderful. But more than that, we enjoyed that the writers of the show have done something amazing. Pidge, who pretended to be a boy to get info on her lost family, and then comes out to the team as a girl (most of them already knew and didn't care), is never referred to as male or female in the show before or after that. She's just Pidge.  The show also shows Shiro dealing- or not really dealing- with some PTSD, some racism. More recently, the writers confirmed one of the characters is, in fact, gay, and was planning to get married prior to a long mission and that he also has some kind of invisible illness that would eventually ruin his career as a pilot. But even though at least one character has to know for sure about his orientation, its never a big deal. It;s so fucking refreshing and when I learned that this character is, in fact, gay, I just about cried. And apparently said character's voice actor knew about since season 2. It's wonderful representation. Plus the show is just damn good! I love the fight scenes for Voltron and the Paladins. The music adds that fun scifi flavor, and voice actors are all very talented and fun people! 

Last night, while Amanda was apply for another job on my computer (because I have MSword and she doesn't) I borrowed her tablet computer and drew Shiro. It was a quick draw and from memory. I'm not a very good artist, but that's not too terrible. Maybe I will do something more concentrated later. 

Also on the Voltron front, I am writing an RP with cousin Kat. She's writing for Keith and Shiro and I'm writing for all my characters. It has been a lot of fun and helped me cope with a lot of what's going on- most certainly a welcome distraction. 

EMDR therapy. My therapist decided in conjunction of CBT and DBT, we're going to try EMDR. She said its going to be rough and hard, but she thinks it will help. So far its made me a bit more emotional, but that's to be expected. I'm confronting the crap thats been 'traumatic' and trying to desensitize it so it doesn't affect me so terribly. The trouble is recognizing and admitting those thing as trauma- which is very difficult for me to do. And we've been talking about a lot different things, like my talent for stuffing and avoiding some issues in my life. 

The topic of writing came up one session. It's what I love. Its a challenge and is as fun as it is frustrating. Mostly writing, when I am able to focus, makes me happy. Often times I get bogged down by life stuff, social events, the fact that we have a constant stream of company in one shape or another, fibro and back pain, to shut enough life off to do what I need to get my ass in gear to write. About half of that is my own doing and half of that is out of my control. However, when I am hurting the most, I find that I retreat into writing. A friend said I get obsessive. Amanda mentioned once that I needed to find balance and another friend agreed. My therapist worried that I used writing to avoid life. All of that made me upset. In my head I thought, people say they want me to be happy, but they want to complain about the thing that makes me happy and keeps me sane, I don't get it. And how does anyone think books come to be unless there's a writer out there who obsessed a little over their work? Also, I need as much encouragement and assurance right now and this has all been the opposite of that. 

Amanda and I talked about it again and I told her how I felt. I mentioned that its not like I'm writing 24/7. I need breaks to recharge my brain. I need sleep. I need food, to move around, to clean and do other stuff. I'm not hurting anyone or bothering anybody, except to maybe prattle on about a story or something, but who cares as long as I am happier? Why would anyone want to diminish that. It is confusing. That people have issue with it, even a little bit, harkens back to the idea that my only value can be found in what I can do for other people and that by not doing what other people want or think I should be doing, I am somehow wrong, in trouble, and need to put everything I want/need/love aside for everyone else's wants/needs. Which really isn't fair to me. So, I'm trying to not let it bother me anymore. I won't get what I want if I keep letting other people dictate how things should be.  

 

My Grandpa

My Grandpa passed, I forget how many days ago. It was quiet and peaceful and my parents, Grandma, and Aunt M. were there with him. 

They brought out his old Army picture. He was a WW2 Vet who served in the Army's corp of Engineers as a typist. Later he became a school bus driver, a teacher, and later a college librarian. He was awarded a "Master Teacher" award by peers and students at the college he worked for, which is kind of a big deal. 

This was back on his parents farm.  And this was the day he and my Grandma got married 66 years ago in her parent's home. Grandma said he watched her slip and fall down a flight of stairs in high school, run passed her, and she still married him. 

He liked to fish, travel, look at maps, tell jokes and stories. He and Grandma took me to museums when I was younger and national/historical landmarks. He taught me a lot about gardening, how to paint a shed, and put up with my crazy hair-brained ideas as a kid. He came to every band and choir concert, every play and graduation he could. And he ripped apart every damn paper I ever asked him to look over just to make sure it was good. He was also the only family member who asked me what my writing processes were/are. Well, aside from my Dad but Dad doesn't have to ask because I've already told him. He even let me borrow a word processor for a whole summer to work on a story because my mom only let me have two hours of computer time a day. 

He always talked about wanting to come see me up here in the Pacific Northwest. And we liked to talk about the weather in our respective places. 

He was at war with the squirrels in his backyard. For years this went on. I bought him a stuffed toy squirrel one year for Christmas that he immediately tried to throw away. I used to hide under his pillow or in his bed. Once I even taped it to the ceiling above his bed so he would look up and see it when he tried to go to sleep. I'd often have to rescue the poor toy from a makeshift noose hanging between the dining and family room. But I'd just go hide it again, sometimes in his underwear or sock drawer.

Grandpa wrote a 300+ page history of the college he worked at. It took him a couple of years and then a couple more for someone to finally edit and publish it. They cut a majority of the book, but somewhere, Grandma has all 300+ pages. 

My Grandpa was also a devout Christian and part of Gideon's International, the American Legion, and Association for Retired Teachers. He knew I wasn't going to church anymore. He didn't fuss at me for it. I guess he thought Grandma did enough of that. I think he only yelled at me 2 or 3 times in my whole life. 

At the funeral, one of my Aunt M.'s friends said he was the model of what a good Christian, father, and husband should be, and that he provided a safe place for everyone to be. She's right. 

At the funeral I felt him come in and sit next to me in the pew. Like always he rested his hands on his cane and laughed at something someone said. He was with me for a little bit before he moved away, I think to be near my Grandma, but I was caught up in something someone was saying and then we left had to go to the after funeral receiving line where we thanked people for coming.   

Grandpa's flag, given to my Grandma at his funeral by officers from the Army. 

I wish I could write something more, something more elegant and deserving, but this is what I can manage. And I think Grandpa knows all the things I want to say or tell him, and how much he meant and still means to me.

As much of an update as I can manage.

A lot of stuff has happened in the last two months, all of which has added heavy weights to limbs scratching for the surface of my depression. I’m going to try to put piece it together so I can attempt to make sense of it all.

·         Some friends and I are dealing with the loss of connection with another of our tribe. Some feel that we’re not good enough, all of us are concerned, and some are angry and hurt, or confused. It’s hard not to feel resentment and angry toward the things that created that loss. Maybe it isn’t for us to know or understand. We’ll just have to nurse hurts, pick ourselves up on our end, and love said friend as we always have. But things are different, I feel it, I know it, and I’m still struggling with a lot of it.

·         I’ve had an overwhelming sense of feeling lost. I can’t explain it. I’m not sure which way to turn and can’t seem to decide which path is best because they all look damning. Doesn’t help when others keep stepping in to decide for you and will not shut up long enough for you to actually think and make the decisions you know you can make for yourself if only they would let you breathe.

I am angry because people want me to tell them what I need but how can I say when I don't even know? I do not expect people to be mind readers. I don't expect them to fix it all for me- its not their job and I don't want them to. I know I don't think and feel the same everyone else does, but damn, does anyone have to know the answers or know what they need? Perhaps I am being selfish in my slow sink and not considering others' feelings. But I thought I was by not wanting to bother them and drag the down with me. If that's wrong, I wish someone would tell me. 

·         In-laws have taken over my house and I was powerless to stop them. So, in classic fashion, I rebelled a little and refused to do much of anything. Which in turn got Amanda chewed out. Which then, in turn, got me chewed out. But what else are you supposed to do when the people around you are sucking the joy from your bones? And then, to top it off come snide comments. Fuck you, you won, shut the fuck up and leave me the fuck alone!

·         I had to change medical insurance to keep my therapist because the company I had was doing shady things and about to get into trouble. In doing so, I had to report that Amanda and I got married. That cost me my medical insurance.

·         My stress began manifesting in hot patches of skin and hives.

·         My therapist badgered me to seek out new health insurance and I spent two weeks fighting with the market place people trying to find something we could afford. There is NOTHING we can afford. The deductible is 2 grand, the monthly cost just for me is more than we can swing. There just isn’t money for it. PERIOD.

·         I had a gall bladder attack and ended up in the ER, not know what the hell was going on only that I couldn’t breathe and was passing out.

·         I learned my Grandpa had fallen while sick.

·         My Grandpa died either the next day or the day after- I can’t really remember.

·         We flew to Kansas and spent 4 days. The only blessing was feeling my Grandpa sit down beside me at his funeral, seeing my Grandma, and my parents and cousins for a tiny bit.

·         My Grandma told me every day I was there that Grandpa wished he could have seen me before he died, because I was his girl.

·         Came home and losing Grandpa began to finally register. I couldn’t deal, so I threw myself desperately into writing. It’s the only thing keeping me together.

·         A couple of days later I had another gall bladder attack which resulted in surgery that evening.

·         I did not handle the anesthesia well. There are bruises on my body I can’t account for and the medical staff told me I woke up “wild” and that they had to bring two extra nurses in to hold me down. I did not know where I was or what was going on. I’m scared I hurt someone because if that much effort was used to keep me still, I came out fighting.

·         I got to go home the next day and accident slept on my stomach that night.

·         Second day after surgery was hell. It was not the worst pain I have felt, but close, and bad enough that I was panicking and scared the shit out of Amanda’s Mom. I could not remember when I had taken aleve or when I had taken a pain pill or how many. She counted them and said I was okay, but it was still scary. I’m ALWAYS so careful with pain meds.

·         I’ve been having horrible nightmares since surgery, the kind that leave you upset for days.

·         One of the pieces of tape over my incision sites fell off too soon and I had to put something over it to help keep the wound closed and prevent infection.  

·         I’ve been freaking out a little over the fact that I have been sleeping so much- even though I know I need sleep to heal- and losing writing time.

·         We just learned that my depression/fibro med is going t cost us 240 dollars a month with a prescription assistance card for the generic. We couldn’t afford 130 a month for medical insurance. So now we have to find a different depression med and a medication for fibro that won’t make me gain all the weight I just lost back, that s affordable, or see if there isn’t something- some program- out there to help me stay on my meds. Being without them isn’t an option right now.

·         And I am without my meds today. I’m starting to go through withdrawal while Amanda scrambles at work to find out if an online discount pharmacy is a legitimate and the real deal.

·         I just learned from one of my best friends what she might have ovarian cancer and that there is something wrong with her youngest daughter’s spine. She doesn’t have test results back yet for her or her daughter.

·         I’m worried about my parents and my Grandma. I’m worried about my friend and her kids.

·         I’m worried about the two hospital bills.

The good news:

-          I’m writing  

-          I’m getting lost in music

-          I still love my in laws and am thankful for them taking care of me when I’m sick. At least there is that.

-          Amanda is amazing and she’s putting up with me.

-          UPDATE on meds: Amanda got it worked out and my doctor’s office was super helpful to her.