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Tuesday, December 05, 2000 Oh, yeah, the diary!! I knew I was forgetting something!! *grin*
Not really, I've just been busy with other stuff, besides being in a very, very, very bad mood. I can't believe how long the mood lasted. I also think I'm coming down with something, my right ear has been bothering me again. It keeps feeling like it needs to pop, but nothing happens. I've been eating everything edible in sight and I've just been downright crabby. And I have a headache on top of everything else.
One of the things that got me in a bad mood was Brian and money lectures. Remember last month the big to do about "where is all the money going?" We had enough money in our bank account to pay our property taxes in full (for all of our property, here and the sticks it's about $3,000.00). We have an option to split the payments, one in December and one in April. The advantage of paying them all in December is they're a tax deduction, so the more we pay, the more we don't have to pay Uncle Sam. So, Brian says to me "I need you to make a check out to Mark for $2,000.00. I got another windmill. It's on sale, a good price and we'll need two anyway." See, there is a well on each parcel in the sticks. *sigh* So, I write out the check. Then he needed five hundred dollars for pipe for the windmill, which they got a couple of weekends ago and took it up to the property. Then, last week, I found a place where I can get a lifetime website, not big, only 5M, for $99.00. No advertising, which is what I like. I was thinking that would be great for pinwheelmoment.com and bennydakat.com, which I can just point back to the merchandise page and to ben's den here on lisaviolet.com. I mentioned it to Brian and he came unglued, gave me this long BIG SPENDING LECTURE about where the money goes and how we have to watch what we spend and blahblahblahblahblahblah..... It didn't make me happy, I have to say. I told my mom about it, I only mentioned wanting one site and she gave me a check for a hundred dollars, saying it's an early Christmas present and don't tell Brian. I still have the check. Anyway, last Thursday, Brian's looking through one of the Trader magazines. I don't know which one, but he says "this is a really good price. Two thousand is a great price for this." I say it's too bad we're not spending anymore money now. We just can't afford it. When he came home Friday afternoon, he says "how much money do we have in the company?" I tell him about five thousand. "I need a check for two thousand." WHAT!?! He said "I'm getting that tank." Oh, my mood just went into the toilet. He squawks about less than two hundred for me, giving me the BIG SPENDING LECTURE and thinks nothing about two thousand for a water tank? He starts to talk and I just shake my head, tell him "don't even start. We can always justify spending." I just kept thinking about the lecture he gave me. How he kept stressing "we have to quit spending so much money". I was in a bad mood all weekend. I was in a bad mood yesterday. Yesterday. *sigh* He got his new truck yesterday. With all the stuff on it? Over forty thousand dollars. Now, come on honey, give me the big lecture about spending money again. We look at the truck. They're putting in a security system. A what?! This guy said he'd never have a security system. How much is that costing? SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!! Come on, honey, give me the lecture about spending money again, I think I'm forgetting what you said..... I felt my blood pressure rising. My head was throbbing. You know, it wouldn't have bothered me at all, this spending of the money, had he not given me the BIG SPENDING LECTURE. I just kept thinking he's spent $4,500 in the past month for stuff for the property, now this brand new truck and I get a BIG SPENDING LECTURE when I even mention two hundred dollars. Saturday, he told me he figured that he's spend $37,000 for the property this year. You know, the dump truck, the tractor, the clubhouse, etc.
I just called the towing company again. The supervisor had never called back. I ended up hanging up on him. The jerk. He was extremely rude and condenscending, saying that it's no big deal, I was blowing it all out of proportion. That they would have brought the truck back when they realized they had the wrong one. And meanwhile, what is the owner to do? He didn't care, just tried to write me off as an hysterical woman. He said it's only happened four times in the ten years he's been there. I asked what kinds of safeguards there are, don't they even check license plate numbers? "Most people don't know theirs." So, that makes it okay to take the wrong vehicle? Can we say "lawsuit?" I asked for his name and he gave me his first name. I asked for his last name. He wouldn't give it to me. "Why do you want that?" Because I want to report you to your supervisor. He informs me he runs the company. I said "are you the owner?" knowing full well he isn't. He said "no". He started to say something else, but my head was starting to get really hot, which means my BP is rising. I pressed the button on the phone and disconnected. I had hung up on him. In my entire life, I've not hung up on ten people. I searched the internet for the company and got two hits. It seems that the owner belongs to a local Chamber of Commerce (not the one where the company is located, though). So, I emailed the webmaster of that site, hoping he can get the message to the owner. I also sent the picture I put up here last week. I called the guy I worked for when I met Brian and left a message. He called me back and I told him my story. He knows everybody. Well, he doesn't know the owner of the company, but he's sure a couple of his buddies do. He's going to be seeing one this Friday and he'll mention what happened to me and we'll see if anything comes of that. If I don't hear from anyone by a week from this Thursday, I'll file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I can't believe what an ass that guy was. Condensdending and patronizing, making sure I knew I was wasting his time. A big fish in a little pond. Well, I hope I can teach him a lesson. He certainly needs an attitude adjustment. If it weren't for the public, he wouldn't have a job. I just took an additional four calcium tablets. My face is so darned hot right now. Think I'll take a couple of St. John Wort's, too. I need to chill.
I got my USB hub yesterday, but no camera. I figured they had shipped from different places. Then I received an email letting me know I wouldn't be getting the camera. They were on backorder and they had no idea when they'd be in. So, they cancelled that portion of my order. Great, why didn't they let me know last week? I ordered the camera from www.cdw.com. I should have gone with them first, but the other company was about ten dollars cheaper. Didn't want to get another BIG SPENDING LECTURE. Oh, and yesterday while we were waiting for the paperwork for the truck to be completed, Brian said I could go ahead and order the websites. *grin* What a deal. I'll probably do that next month. I've got loads to do right now, don't have time to be setting up something elsewhere. I did get the two domains hosted over at virtualave.com and got the MX records changed, so I'll have two more mail services available shortly.
I think Lola is finally getting over all of the chemotherapy drugs. Her belly fur is coming in quickly now and she's much more active around the house. She hangs out with us in the tv room at night, which is nice. A couple of nights ago, she ended up on top of the television entertainment cabinet. She spent most of the night up there. It's nice to see her climbing again.
The clicking of the mouse seems to bother Rusty. There's nothing I can do about it, except move Rusty. Then he just comes right back. Ah, he's gone now. Mystie is in his place.
Yesterday was a pretty surprising day for the catcam. Lisa was in it, then I looked in and saw a tortie, kind of spooky. It was Lucky, who hasn't been in that chair in over a year. Then, late yesterday afternoon into the evening, Georgie was in it. I don't think Georgie has ever been in the chair for any length of time. It was pretty cool.
We're having a beautiful day here. Right now, it's a little after eleven and it's almost seventy five outside. There's a slight breeze and I can hear the leaves rustling in the myrtle tree. I should relax today. All the doors and windows are opened (blinds tied back) and the warm air is blowing through the house. Oh, how I love Southern California. It's a Steely Dan day. Tomorrow, there's a possibility of sprinkles with rain coming in on Thursday. I'll believe it when I see it. I'm curious how it will look now that the camera is on the roof.
I don't know if I mentioned getting a Drinkwell Water Fountain for the cats. We ordered one hoping that the cats who like drinking from the faucet will drink from the fountain instead. I also ordered the attachment that allows you to have an additional six cups of water. Well, the fountain got here last Friday and I washed it, got it running, then tried to figure out how the little water tank attaches. Can you believe they didn't send the base? I'm not doing well with mail order here lately. But it should be here this week. The cats are getting used to it. Mystie was the first to partake, then Katie. Katie didn't know what to think, she approached it very cautiously. *grin* Last night, I caught Mickey laying by it. I think he plays with the flowing water. His face was kind of wet.
This weekend, I started playing with a tree menu java applet I bought last year. I looked for a new one, because this one looked so difficult to do, but I kept hearing the BIG SPENDING LECTURE bouncing around in my head and decided to have another go at what I'd already paid for. I got it to work!! I have one in Ben's Den, on the entry page. It has every single page of the den listed on it. I'm hoping that people will see portions of the page that they never found by clicking on stuff in the den itself. I also have it in the gameroom. I was so pleased with it, that I did another one for the declawing pages. I noticed that there are links on search engines and other peoples' websites to individual pages on that portion of the site, not to the Educate!! Don't Amputate!! main menu. I figured that people weren't seeing all of what was there, so I put this little applet on every one of the declaw pages. I also made some more counter directories, and I'm in the process of changing the code. It will make it easier to see which parts of the site are popular.
This weekend, I also made a forum for the SameGame, a place for those of us addicted to share our triumphs. It's doing well, too. That game is pretty popular.
Saturday, December 09, 2000 What a morning I've had. I keep checking out the window for little Pete. He was on the fence earlier today. Scared the spit out of me. Because he ran back to the side where that big dog is who kills cats. I was so afraid he'd jump into that yard, or get on the fence there. That damn dog will jump against the fence and the animal at the top could lose its balance and fall into the yard. I've seen the dog do it with possums. I tried to get Pete to come to me, but he kept running away from me. He was scared. I ran into the house and into the bathroom, where Brian was taking a shower. He quickly finished and got dressed and while he was doing so, Pete got back into the yard. The problem area is the fan tail palm tree down in the corner of the yard, in the pool area. I knew it would eventually be a problem when Brian planted it. So, Brian trimmed it back quite a bit and added some fencing around the top of the fence. So, if some kitty climbs it, it will be more difficult to get out. I was thinking about how people say "you shouldn't let them out at all" and it came to me that even cats who are indoors 24/7 have been known to escape. When you figure how many cats we have vs how many have escaped (and only for a matter of minutes), I don't think it's that bad. (I keep looking out the window to check on Peter.) I read all the time about cats running out front doors and being gone for days, if they do come home. I won't rest, though, until I we're both satisfied (Pete and me) that he can't get out. At least not there.
On Wednesday night, a fight in the garage woke me up. I checked it out, a little spat between George and somebody else. I laid back down on the couch and heard a really strange sound from outside. I looked out the window and saw a small cat on the fence. Was it on the fence or inside? I turned on the light and lo and behold, it was little black guy and he was in our yard. I threw my clothes on and went outside to check on him. He was terrified, ended up getting out at the part when the fencing hits the wall around the light fixture outside. I'm amazed that he got out there, but it just goes to show how scared he was. That adrenaline does wonders.
I haven't seen Possum Face in a couple of nights. *sigh* Thursday night, I almost touched Little Guy. I sat out with them while they ate. Last night, I didn't see any of the kittens. Angus and Meezer were the only cats I saw.
The new camera showed up this week and Brian put it up yesterday. The quality is excellent. It's much better than the other two I have. The streaming video is much better, a clearer image and the color is much truer.
I haven't been at the vet much since Pepper died. I went this week to get more food for Lola and more ammonil for Kirby. I also picked up some more Vetasyl for Lola when she starts to get constipated. It's nice not going in so often.
Brian and his brother are up in Ranchita this weekend to put up the first windmill. I think Brian has been a little depressed, most likely about money. I'm really going to put an effort into advertising the shirts now. I'd really like to get it going. I think he's upset that it's not doing better. *sigh* I told him it would take time to get it going. He probably thought it would be like that commercial where there's a start up company and the orders start flying in. Working on that area of my site is my next project. And it's a big one.
Monday, December 11, 2000 Pete is gonna give me a heart attack. He never did get out by the fantail again. Not so far, anyway. I've watched him (if he sees me watching, he won't try, don't believe those who tell you cats can't think, you can see him). He will sit at the bottom of the tree and look up. He'll sit there for five minutes, weighing in the various options of going up. He'll try and quickly finds out that it won't work. Knowing that he most likely couldn't get out there any longer, I let him out yesterday morning. I still watched him, would check on his whereabouts every five or ten minutes. At one point, he came back inside. A little after eight yesterday morning, I checked for him again. Couldn't find him. I check inside, I check outside. I check inside again, the bedroom window, the rafters in the garage with no luck. Spit. I go back outside and look more for him. I went out front to see if he was there. No Pete. Benny was the only cat out back and he was sitting on the doghouse at the bank. One time, I could have sworn I heard a cat jump down from something, but couldn't find where the sound came from. Just in the general direction of the pine trees and the doghouse. Then a pine cone fell from the tree. I heard a rustling (it was very quiet yesterday morning). I look up. I looked up into the branches of the pine tree. I thought I saw some movement maybe thirty feet up. Yep, I surely did. There was little Pete. Well, damn. Now what? Brian's not home, he's up at Ranchita putting up a windmill. I can't hardly call him to come home. I can't ask anybody else, because Pete isn't real people friendly. He hides when strangers come around. I call him and call him and I hear him moving around. Dead, dry needles fall from the heights as he repositions himself. After fifteen minutes of unsuccessful advice, I came inside and opened a can of tuna, grabbed a fork and went back outside. I started tapping the opened can with the fork. I called Pete. He called back. He started his way down. I went over the fence (the one that keeps the dogs off of the bank, it's steep and they've hurt themselves on it) with the fork and fish, getting close to the trunk of the tree. I happened to see a white flash at the side of the house and wouldn't you know, Mystie had figured out the catdoor. She was outside. This was bad timing. I kept up with Petey's progress, talking to him and doing my best to reassure him. It took over five minutes of slipping and stopping, but he finally made it back to where I could grab him. He got down and started in on the tuna. I climbed back over the fence and got little Mystie back into the house. She was pretty spooked. Her tail was fluffed out. I'm thinking the door must have smacked her on the backside, scaring her. Then I got Pete back inside and I set the catdoor to in only. Only a couple of the cats have the ability to open it at this setting.
Once the cats were in, I looked at the tree and got the pruner out. I thought Pete had gone up via one of the branches that has grown since the last trimming. It's not a big branch, but I figured Pete was strong enough to pull himself up that branch. I trimmed a few of the smaller branches off, branches I could reach (keep in mind, I'm only 5'1"). I pulled needles out of the barrier. Then I came back inside. Pete wanted back out, but I said "no way, Jose, not right now". He finally settled down and went to sleep. After it had warmed up outside and I had started cleaning house, I opened the doors and let him out. He ended up sleeping at the side of the shop, on the wood. From this position, he can see into the yards around us. It's a nice quiet place in the yard. I went about my chores, checking to see how he was and he was always right there, curled in a ball. I'm sure he was pretty worn out. Well, yesterday afternoon, he was once again missing, once again to be found in the tree. Coming down went much quicker for him this time, but I know now, I can't let him out without supervision. Not until Brian does something about the barrier. It obviously wasn't branches. Little Pete is a standing jumper of Olympic proportion. Went right over that existing barrier from the top of the doghouse. *sigh* Brian said he'd try to get home early today to take care of it.
There's something strange going on in our backyard. I was just watching Pete and he's been sniffing all over the bank area. He sniffed part of the wooden gate. He's smelling something not normal for this yard. Brian pointed out a part at the bottom of the bank, right by the fence, that was dug out. It looks like it would be difficult for the dogs to have done this. The angle is just wrong. And the fencing at the top of the gate by the house was bent, not standing up straight. I wonder if we had a possum in the yard. That would make sense. If the dogs did do that digging, I can see them doing it because of an oppossum, not a cat. They don't care about cats. Hmmm...... A mystery.
I didn't clean as I had planned on Saturday. Got busy putting up the page for the (ta duh!!) patio cam. Saturday night, I popped "JFK" into the DVD player, grabbed the boxes for the filing I haven't done in years, plopped down on the floor and started filing. It took about four hours to get everything sorted by year, alphabet and accounts receivable/accounts payable. My back is very sore. Now, I have to pull the files out of the cabinet in here and transfer those to the boxes (I had already started this, but never finished, just let stuff pile up). Then yesterday, I cleaned the house. Started doing laundry in the morning. In the early afternoon, I started cleaning. Got all the floors washed, the dusting and vacuuming done by six last night. Brian had called in the morning, letting me know he'd be home late. With the last couch cover in the dryer, I took a shower. Brian got home while I was in the shower, letting me know and I asked if he would please feed the outfront cats. He did. I fell asleep watching tv.
When I was talking with my mom the other day, she told me that she tries to do three things each day that she doesn't like to do. Like straightening out closets. I have to think about this.
Thursday, December 14, 2000 Wow. Mom's idea works. I've been doing things I don't like everyday. Without mention. The house is much nicer for it. It's funny, but the more little things I do, the more little things I see that need doing. When I was single, I didn't have a problem doing things like this. Maybe it was because I did them for my own satisfaction. Somewhere, being married, I've lost sight of doing things for my pleasure. It seems I do them to satisfy Brian and that just doesn't happen. It just seems like nothing I do pleases him, anyway. So, along the way, I just quit trying. This morning he made a good point. I make a big deal out of cleaning. He said it should just be done. He's right. What's the big deal about running the vacuum? I don't know when I started needed validation for what I've done. What a thought. I don't like cleaning house, but it's necessary, just like cleaning the litterboxes. I think one of the problems is I've gained so much weight. In doing so, I've gotten much less active. My bad. My lazy. So, I'm going to do it for me, no one else. I'm going to please myself and be happy in my home, have a place that I'm not embarrassed when people drop by. I can't even believe I've fallen that far. Of course, it means I'll not be spending so much time online. And the internet is a big suck on my time.
Pete has tried a couple of times to get out of the yard, with no success. When he's outside, I still check on him every ten or fifteen minutes. It's so pretty out right now, a little cool and all the doors and windows are opened. The kittens are outside, Mystie is more adventurous than Katie. Mystie just loves to climb. She loves it outside. Katie isn't so sure. Maybe it's because Katie was out on her own a little longer than Mystie.
OC is over here just about every morning. As soon as the door opens, he's gone. Back across the street. I asked him this morning if he was ready to live here. He was on the other side of the street and he just watched me. Little Black Guy spends a lot of time here, too. He's here about every morning, too, sometimes during the day.
Jackie is finally starting to let me pet him much more often. I can pet him longer without him wanting to get away. And I can pet him in different areas of the house. For quite a while, he would only stand for it in the garage with bribe food on the way. Now, he doesn't need the bribe food. Another thing is he doesn't run past me like he had been doing, he'll walk. Not always, but it's getting better. One of these days I'll be able to hold onto him long enough to get him into a carrier and to the vet for neutering. Speaking of which, I'll be taking the kittens in next month for spay.
I found a kitten tooth this morning. It's so little!! My babies are growing up. *pout* Oh, man, my heart's beating a mile a minute right now. Mystie went up the fantail. She's a lot smaller that Pete and she fit. Those damn dogs behind us were right at the fence, waiting. I yelled at them, yelled at her. That scared her and she tried to climb down. Damn, I just hate being short. I can't reach anything that matters. She got down close enough to me that I was able to get her. She started hissing and I let her go. She ran up the tube and Junior, prince of bad timing, was standing there waiting. I told him to leave her alone, she ran to the tall cat tree which is next to the plum tree and I was able to get her. I brought her inside. I paged Brian and when he called I told him to get some of that large rubber tubing to put around the trunk of the fantail. I've been told that cats can't climb it. Can't grab on. I sure hope it works. I just saw Benny having a go at climbing it. If any of our cats ever gets out of the yard via that palm tree and gets hurt/killed, I'll chop that freaking tree down myself. It was a bad place to put a tree that would get big, a really bad place. I can take care of that really quickly. Sure, it's a nice looking tree. Nice tree....dead cat....nice tree....dead cat....no brainer, tree's gone. It's on notice.
Lola is spending less time in the bedroom. Last night, she slept in the kitty bed on the cat entertainment center. All nice and cozy, no other cats walking on her or bugging her. She was sure hungry this morning, though. I usually let her eat dry kibble when I go to bed.
I don't know what to think about Rusty. He's been sleeping an awful lot. He goes through cycles where he follows me everywhere, just very needy, then times when he's comfortable just laying in the sun, like right now.
Knock on wood, but Kirby seems to finally have gotten used to me giving him a pill. It's probably been close to a month where I had to chase him to get him the pill. Now, he just lays there, putting a minimal fuss. It's so nice.
Monday, December 18, 2000 We're back. Got a phone call from the escrow company and the information we had on file didn't match what they had. Seems hubby and I had our deed with our middle initials, not our full names. *sigh* Had to go sign more papers. Hopefully, this will be it.
Last night, I noticed that Mystie's little private parts looked swollen. I mentioned it to Brian. He said he saw Jackie after her in the yard yesterday. Seems that Jackie nailed her. *sigh* We had planned on taking Mystie and Katie in January to be fixed, but if there's any chance Mystie was in heat (figure she's probably five months old, Ciara was in heat at four and a half months) there's also a chance she could now be pregnant. When I called this morning, Becky told me there were no openings this week and when I told her about Jack, she rechecked the book and it seems as if they will have time on Wednesday to do it. Last night, when I fed the guys, I started petting Jack. It's getting much, much easier. I was able to grab him (I didn't lift him or anything) and I figure if I can do that with a carrier near, I can get the carrier in front of him and just guide him in and shut the door. Hopefully, Jack will be in before too long, himself. I'll ask about the net the vet uses to snag cats (Kirby knows what this is like). Maybe I can borrow it to get Jackie. I know Jack won't be too happy at first, but I do believe it will calm him down even more.
Brian redid all of the fencing along the wall by the pool. It's the same as by the side of the house now. Looks much better. I was really curious about why it was so successful before, but then with Ciara, we started having more problems with it containing the cats. I figure it's most likely because the older cats weren't as obsessed with exploring the other side of the fence. Brian completely enclosed the fantail palm with fencing material, now the cats can't law behind it. But there are plenty of other places to hide in this yard, so that's no big deal.
Last Friday, I had a wonderful day with my mom!! I was so surprised. I had to go to CostCo so when we were on our morning telephone call, I asked if she'd like to go with me. Then maybe I could take her over to a closer WalMart than the one she usually goes to and she could check out Vons. We didn't used to go to Vons, we went to Lucky, but then Albertson's took over and we just don't like the store any longer. They don't carry much of the stuff we bought (like CatSip-milk for cats and beef bacon) and it was too big of a hassle to have to special order it like before. Plus, the Vons store is so huge and the aisles are so big and the selection so large. Albertson's has two frozen food coolers, granted they are the length of an aisle, but Vons has four or five frozen food coolers. She said yes. And we did have a good time. She's really gotten much better at being a passenger, most likely because she did all of that driving to her radiation therapy. We took hours. Got some stuff at Costco that had to be refrigerated, so instead of coming home, we stopped at her place, but the perishables in her frig, then went onto the grocery store. It was a really nice time. I had to get home so that I could go to the bank. Plus, I had to go pick up Ciara's Buspar prescription. Little Ciara peed on Brian early Friday morning, so she's back on the pill. Don't know what has her upset, maybe because Mystie could be in heat.
Anyway, before I left Friday morning, Brian came home. They were finished for the day and he just couldn't do anymore. His tooth was really hurting. He was thinking he may have the same problem I had when I needed the root canal. He had called the dentist, who doesn't usually work Fridays. His staff, who comes in to take care of paperwork Fridays, said that they would try to get ahold of the doctor. I guess it got really bad and Brian called them again and the doctor prescribed a pain killer. After I had gone to the bank, I picked up both Brian's and Ciara's drugs. When I was on pain killers with my tooth, all I wanted to do was sleep. Not Brian. Sheesh, Saturday he washed his truck and finished the fence. That man is amazing. He did rest a little more yesterday. His dentist appointment was this morning a little after nine. When he came home (before we went to escrow) I asked what the dentist had said, what they were going to do. The doctor couldn't find anything wrong!! I guess he took three x-rays and saw nothing. He had Brian put ice on his molars and the part that hurt this weekend didn't bother him, but the other molars did. The dentist said he couldn't offer to do anything at this time, since he didn't see a problem in Brian's mouth. He did tell Brian that Brian would most likely need a root canal in the future on that tooth. So, until it starts hurting the next time, Brian will just bare with it. And can you believe, that it isn't hurting today? Go figure.
Well, that's about all I can think of that's happened since my last entry. Guess I'll sign off for now.
Thursday, December 21, 2000 Kittens are home from spay surgery. They were done yesterday and boy, are they happy to be home. They were both shivering when I picked them up and dashed out of the carrier once home and the door opened. Their first stop was the garage and Katie peed for almost a minute. She peed so much she was all wet on her bottom. I heated up chicken and shredded it and boy, were they hungry. Since, Mystie has wanted to just stay on my shoulder, which isn't really good for me, because I have a ton of stuff to do today. Carrying around a sweet little kitten isn't on the agenda.
I got pinwheelmoment.com up and running. Within a week, I should have email available. I also got two new shirt designs up at lisaviolet designs. If I don't start selling more, chances are I'll have to start shutting down websites. And I might even have to go to *ugh* work. No more cameras, no more diary, no more lisaviolet. I was hoping that selling the shirts would help pay for the cats' food and medical and also pay for the websites I have. But if nobody buys anything, there's no money coming in. And if I have to work, I won't have time to run the websites. I submitted the URL to search engines this morning, hoping that it will get more exposure. Man, this sucks. If I have to work, I'll try for something in the evening, so I can take care of the cats in the day and Brian can take care of them at night. If you enjoy my website and haven't bought a shirt yet, or haven't shopped online through some of my affiliates, please, do. It will help offset the cost of running everything, as well as feed the cats and get my husband off of my back. I'm hoping to be offering more than shirts in the coming year. Mousepads, posters, stuff like that. I'm just wondering if it's even worth it right now, even though I know I have a good product. We'd like to be able to take in more cats, and if the move to the Sticks was closer, we would. But as it is, we won't be able to afford to move any sooner. I know we'd feel less pinched if I could get lisaviolet designs off of the ground.
We got our check from the home loan and it was thousands less than we had expected. Doing some research, somebody screwed up, big time. Within the next two weeks, we'll hopefully get some more money. One of the things they did was paid off our previous home loan, which was good. Except we were under the impression they hadn't. So, we made a payment. That should come back to us. They held out money for the property taxes, which we already paid. So, we should be getting that back, too. On top of the loan payment, they charged a late fee, which made no sense at all. The bank guy told Brian that it was because the payment wasn't posted until the day after we made the payment. Well, that wasn't our fault, so we shouldn't be charged a late payment. Besides which, the thing was supposedly paid off. I hate this.
There was a letter to Ann Landers in yesterday's paper from someone who was uncomfortable with a co-worker who always bought the other workers expensive gifts at Christmas and the writer felt obligated to reciprocate in kind. When I was single, I loved Christmas (I hate it now). I used to buy tons of stuff for people I knew, not because I expected anything in return, but because I truly enjoyed the giving. I especially liked shopping for the children of friends. I knew that these people wouldn't be able to afford to return in kind and I didn't for one minute expect them to. I can't do that now. Heck, this year we once again aren't putting up *any* kind of decorations, not even lights around the house. Last year we had good reason, the roof was getting put on, but this year, nothing like that is going on. It's just been a humbug season for us.
I'd wish I felt like writing more, but I'm starting to depress myself. I think I should do something else, like pay bills. *sigh*
later Okay, I have to be clear on something. I just received an email from a very, very sweet lady offering to send me money. I have to admit, I got a little teary at the offer, I was just so surprised that someone would be so thoughtful. But I'm not looking for people to just send money. I just wouldn't feel right. Maybe in the future, when we've finally moved I'll have some way to sponsor a cat. If you shop online at all and you want to help, if none of the teeshirts interest you, check out my affiliates page. When you join up with Igive, there are many different "stores" you can shop through. Shopping my affiliates, via the links on my page, helps. I'm sent a percentage of the money spent (not including tax and shipping). So, once again, thank you for the offer. I'm still smiling. And it's a good feeling. Kinda gets rid of that humbug, ya know?
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