The long update
I haven't been on LJ for a long time now. It's been kind of difficult since I wrote so much about the terrible dentist experience I had. But I actually love LJ a lot more than most other social media. So I will take time to update the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Let's see, January. We had ConFusion and husband and I got to attend it together. He and I are being turned into characters for an upcoming gaming book so that is awesome. That is serious geek credit!
February...was absolute and total crap. My Mom broke her arm and needed me to help some but the car I got stuck with was leaking coolant all of a sudden. It took 3 sessions with a friend to repair it all. This is outside in Winter. So by the end we had replaced the radiator, the clamps AND the reservoir. If we had been able to get the hoses on a Sunday we would have done all of it. But that part is running perfectly now. Of course it was attempting to break down between every visit to my Mother's!
Then one of my friends came up to visit and while we were over at her family's place/my friend's place some other friends brought their toddler to see her. Unfortunately they let out the pure white, pure bred German shepherd that was in heat out as the child plopped down in the doorway and they were halfway through the outer gate. The friends watching the dog were getting paid enough from it to afford food after one of them had lost their job and was searching for another. On top of that, the other was a close friend of the person whose dog it was and a dog trainer. The friends with the toddler stopped in while the others were briefly out so it was really on my and the visiting friends heads that it happened.
So we went out searching...for a dog that had not been well socialized, whom you were not to look directly in the eye and who would run if you called her name if she was outside. Oh, and did I mention the 3 feet of snow or more on the ground? Yeaaaah. That was fun. So there I was with the friend from out of town wandering for MILES in the dark in a LONG, BLACK COAT singing a little song that the dog supposedly would answer to. I was out for NINE HOURS in 27F weather. It even snowed on me. Most of the others gave up long beforehand. I walked, in boots, for 7 of those hours on foot. I drove for two. I sang for four. I caught the dog's tracks post snow within 20-30 minutes of them being laid down twice. But this dog came to no one, not even the owners and I am sure she heard us at some point. Mind you, we had spent time that week around the dog and feeding her treats to help socialize her. That is probably why she even had the bravery to bolt past the huge male human in the first place. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose.
I ended my stint with leaving a trail of dog food from a subdivision with tracks about a mile to where the house she was being watched at was. I really should have died from this. Walking around all day at a zoo will kill my feet when they aren't even in boots! But I was pulling on the Warrior aspect and the next evening I was out there again and walked at least 2 more miles laying down a food trail through snow drifts up to my hips and waaaay over my boots in the dark again all the way from another area she had been spotted in. I was having flashbacks to living in Sault Sainte Marie.
I did not get hit by a car. I did start to get sick. But none could say I didn't do my darnedest to help. The dog was recovered...about a week later. I have no idea if she wound up pregnant or not. But she was okay other than being a few pounds lighter and her pads a bit worn. But that was after the long bout of crap.
I may have mentioned that I have come to adopt the belief that there are bad luck pressure systems just like there are weather patterns. This period had to be a perfect crapstorm.
While this stuff was going on, the electricity for my kitchen blew out except for the stove and the overhead light. No phone, microwave, no toaster, no crock pot...which I can't find even now. I have no idea what I did with it in the process of trying to drop the load on the circuit. Oh, and no fridge.
Sooooo, we shoved what we could from the main fridge to the mini fridge and freezer in the basement. And I tried at some point in all of this fun to get some rest. But it was the weekend of Convocation and my friend wanted me to go with her all weekend. Prior to the second search for the dog (done because the other friend was losing hope and feeling miserable), my visiting friend wanted to hang out and watch movies and paint toenails at her hotel. I got done with the dog search project to learn that was right out because she had to be up early for the convention on Friday. I looked over the list of events and noticed that I would have liked to have gone to some of the events on Thursday and that Saturday and Sunday had nifty stuff but that Friday wasn't that great. I figured I would stay home and heal up a bit so I could be healthy enough to enjoy being out with her and other friends on Saturday. Well, that wasn't in her plans. She was upset and told her mom. Her mom then proceeded to call me, text me, and send me emails telling me how her one and only baby girl had come up all that way to go to the convention with me and HOW DARE I search for some stupid dog instead. This is at 2am. I got sick of this and finally went to bed.
I thought my friend was coming to rescue me, I didn't realize I was supposed to entertain her instead. So I tried hard to drag myself out of bed early. After a long, hot shower I unclogged my sinuses enough to focus and drive. I paid extra money to get in only to wind up with a cool reception from my friend who dashed off to her next event soon after I caught up with her. I had NO energy to chase after her and blearily stared at the convention booklet for something to go to. I chose "Dancing Through the Zodiac" as I was working on a book about the zodiac. Turns it was a kids event and surprisingly, it was actual dancing. Who knew? Not me in the state I was in! Ha ha ha.
But, adults were welcome as well and I was allowed to just sit and watch. That was cool because I had no energy to move. This was an hour and a half event with all sorts of ages. I learned a lot from watching! It was broken up into high activity, low activity, structured, unstructured, and rest periods. And at the end of a segment was a brief lesson summed up in about three sentences. So I did get something out of it. I then went upstairs to the con suite and talked to some regulars I know from other events. Then I was totally dead and went home to rest.
Turns out the friend found out (as I knew she would) that she knew lots of people and was totally engrossed in the seminars and events. Even if I was well I would have gone to different events so we could compare notes and learn more. I rested a little bit and then got a call at 2-3am as she had a...unusual spiritual experience and needed help getting away from a very interested masculine Divine aspect. Now I was acting as my true Shaman-Warrior calling and was able to function during the emergency. But sleep afterward was limited since the next morning was full of things I really did want to go to well or not.
The day was a little difficult but cold meds helped and I was feeling so cheery after a day of no more emergencies and after learning my visiting friend had not deliberately sicked her mother on me but rather her mother took that job on without prodding that I decided to spend a little money to get a good, hot meal in me to speed up healing and to avoid having to spend a long period cooking after a long day. (No microwave, remember?) So I invited my housemate to go with me to dinner and we had a nice time at the Mongolian BBQ. I was feeling good and came home to my cat, Shiva, yowling in fear/pain and paralyzed from the mid-back down. So much for the break in the crapstorm, I guess the eye had passed.
I called the dog-friend up as she works at a vets office and has the most recent experience. She was good enough to come over and looked at my cat, a quick diagnosis book in hand. I thought he had missed a jump on the staircase and landed poorly, she thought he might have had a dislocated leg. He drug himself with his forearms into his own crate (a place he sometimes likes to retreat to) and we opted to lock him in for the night. Her office had Sunday hours but I had to get my car worked on the very next morning by the car friend and he had no other time free. She and the other dog-watching friend took my cat in on my behalf so I could get my car fixed so I could care for my Mother.
I used money I really couldn't afford to spend to help with the bill and used some of the "fast cash" oil on it I had picked up to help it come back quickly since I could not afford to be without it. Instead of being $250+ the diagnosis cost only $99. (The oil has worked 3 times now, good stuff!) But instead of a broken leg, he turned out to have a heart murmur that caused a blood clot that was paralyzing his lower torso. My cat was put on an aspirin regime (which is VERY risky! DO NOT give your cat aspirin without a vet's supervision!). He has since recovered all but the use of his hind toes. This is bad because he is walking on his knuckles and damaging the feet, but he can use the bathroom again and has control of his own bowels which was not the case in the first couple of days.
Did I mention that I had to sort out my taxes for the business during all of this? And that my car friend was trying to help me sort them with his copy of Quick Books but that the car repair took over that time slot so I had to do them on my own in the end? Yeah, 10 hours of calculations by hand later I had what my accountant requested. He predicted my taxes would cost me $300+ for him to do. I used some of the oil again and poof, he said, let's call it $250. (I'm telling you, it really works and it does it well. It's made by Dorothy Morrison, who is basically the pagan version of Joyce Brothers, I kid you not!)
I was hearing the bad news that the initial totals were not only that I was NOT getting money back after all of Rob's sacrificing to go to Ohio so we could get the store going, but we were going to OWE $800. Yeah, let's add a new layer of depression on that crapstorm sandwich shall we?
My friend who did come up to see me as well as go to the convention really did try to help. She did the best thing of all at the time. She brought me chocolate from a little shop in her hometown that beats Godiva by x4 and Lindt by x2. And she brought a lot of it, in a variety of forms. She even had Mayan chocolate with the pepper hints and mild sweetness. I actually escaped a serious downward spiral for one night by applying copious amounts of chocolate to the problem. Do not doubt the power of good chocolate! I still believe the Aztec culture died out from denying chocolate to their women.
But I digress, add to this excitement a night of poor sleep and nightmares before one of the trips to the accountant where we were to change over the business from a partnership to an LLC. This was supposed to be simple. It wasn't. Turns out we had a DIRECT name conflict for our store! I had to come up with something immediately and I was totally unprepared. We had tested the original name for several days with a multitude of people. So I added the word "Quest" to the end of the old name. Bad choice. Even friends who knew what the store WAS thought it sounded like a laser tag place or a children's book store. You would not think that a single word could utterly alter the meaning of a name for phrase but it can. After some desperate brainstorming later in the day, after the husband woke up for his late night shift, we went with putting "Adventurers" in front without the apostrophe.
That was coming up as conflicted. Turns out it wasn't actually but the ladies at the accountant's office were having trouble with the spelling so it was coming up with matches. And if people who do this for a living have problems, the average person will REALLY have problems! So we paid out an extra $25 to amend it one more time and changed the ending to "Classic". This has brought our minor chord back into a major chord and there is harmony once more. There is absolutely no conflicts on the name and it doesn't sound tacked on like "Quest" did.
Car was starting to work so I helped my Mother out with more chores and had one of my tooth crowns pop loose. Hooray. I still don't have that sorted out. But my Mother helped me with some funds for fixing the car and her arm is healing so she can drive again. That makes her happy and I'm happy she is doing better!
Well after sorting that out I spent the first day of Spring with my husband and tried to get my mood improved as per the suggestion of one of my teachers. Then I went out and used the rest of the goodies I bought at the convention to pray for myself, my husband, and the store I wanted. I tried really hard to be positive instead of negative and depressed, I only managed neutral in honesty but I put my deep desire for the store into it. The VERY NEXT DAY the accountant's office called. We owed $650-ish to this state, but my husband would get that back from what Ohio owed him in taxes and from the federal there would be a decent sized chunk to put towards the store. So after all the suffering the sun started to come out.
It wasn't until the end of March that the crap stopped raining on my head and we were able to start fielding some of these incoming balls of trouble. Since then, the car is running, mostly (but has new things to address), my Mom is doing better, the cat is doing better, my new store name and new store in truth as we had to get a new FIN, close all the bank accounts and everything as it is considered a new entity because of the name change, is doing okay. Taxes went out (although I have to get the quarterly sales tax out now) and I'm getting headway on my book and am about to redo the business plan to see what kind of funding we really can get. Things aren't perfect but they are MUUUCH better! Oh and my tech friends managed to get the electricity working in my kitchen again, although my hall light is still a no-go. Still, all in all things are much better.
It is hard to do everything without my husband here though. He is my balance and my sense of humor. Doing conventions is something we do together and this past one drove home how much less fun it is when he isn't there to share it with. But he will be at the next one! And I will see him soon. Spring is bringing positive changes if I can just hold on until the sun warms up once more!
I know it was a lot of complaining in this one, but I don't want to forget just how incredibly crazy things were. I meant to blog this closer to the period it happened but, well, I was kinda busy. Heh, heh, heh. I'm glad I made it through. And I am grateful to a lot of friends who tried to keep me from going crazy during it all. I must do my best to be as good to them in return as they have been to me in those moments. In closing, I wish you all at least one good friend to be there in your moments of crisis, and one dear to your heart to share your sorrows and triumphs with. We are best when we work together. That is when we can truly shine because those around us mirror our light back so we can see who we truly are. Peace out!
Let's see, January. We had ConFusion and husband and I got to attend it together. He and I are being turned into characters for an upcoming gaming book so that is awesome. That is serious geek credit!
February...was absolute and total crap. My Mom broke her arm and needed me to help some but the car I got stuck with was leaking coolant all of a sudden. It took 3 sessions with a friend to repair it all. This is outside in Winter. So by the end we had replaced the radiator, the clamps AND the reservoir. If we had been able to get the hoses on a Sunday we would have done all of it. But that part is running perfectly now. Of course it was attempting to break down between every visit to my Mother's!
Then one of my friends came up to visit and while we were over at her family's place/my friend's place some other friends brought their toddler to see her. Unfortunately they let out the pure white, pure bred German shepherd that was in heat out as the child plopped down in the doorway and they were halfway through the outer gate. The friends watching the dog were getting paid enough from it to afford food after one of them had lost their job and was searching for another. On top of that, the other was a close friend of the person whose dog it was and a dog trainer. The friends with the toddler stopped in while the others were briefly out so it was really on my and the visiting friends heads that it happened.
So we went out searching...for a dog that had not been well socialized, whom you were not to look directly in the eye and who would run if you called her name if she was outside. Oh, and did I mention the 3 feet of snow or more on the ground? Yeaaaah. That was fun. So there I was with the friend from out of town wandering for MILES in the dark in a LONG, BLACK COAT singing a little song that the dog supposedly would answer to. I was out for NINE HOURS in 27F weather. It even snowed on me. Most of the others gave up long beforehand. I walked, in boots, for 7 of those hours on foot. I drove for two. I sang for four. I caught the dog's tracks post snow within 20-30 minutes of them being laid down twice. But this dog came to no one, not even the owners and I am sure she heard us at some point. Mind you, we had spent time that week around the dog and feeding her treats to help socialize her. That is probably why she even had the bravery to bolt past the huge male human in the first place. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose.
I ended my stint with leaving a trail of dog food from a subdivision with tracks about a mile to where the house she was being watched at was. I really should have died from this. Walking around all day at a zoo will kill my feet when they aren't even in boots! But I was pulling on the Warrior aspect and the next evening I was out there again and walked at least 2 more miles laying down a food trail through snow drifts up to my hips and waaaay over my boots in the dark again all the way from another area she had been spotted in. I was having flashbacks to living in Sault Sainte Marie.
I did not get hit by a car. I did start to get sick. But none could say I didn't do my darnedest to help. The dog was recovered...about a week later. I have no idea if she wound up pregnant or not. But she was okay other than being a few pounds lighter and her pads a bit worn. But that was after the long bout of crap.
I may have mentioned that I have come to adopt the belief that there are bad luck pressure systems just like there are weather patterns. This period had to be a perfect crapstorm.
While this stuff was going on, the electricity for my kitchen blew out except for the stove and the overhead light. No phone, microwave, no toaster, no crock pot...which I can't find even now. I have no idea what I did with it in the process of trying to drop the load on the circuit. Oh, and no fridge.
Sooooo, we shoved what we could from the main fridge to the mini fridge and freezer in the basement. And I tried at some point in all of this fun to get some rest. But it was the weekend of Convocation and my friend wanted me to go with her all weekend. Prior to the second search for the dog (done because the other friend was losing hope and feeling miserable), my visiting friend wanted to hang out and watch movies and paint toenails at her hotel. I got done with the dog search project to learn that was right out because she had to be up early for the convention on Friday. I looked over the list of events and noticed that I would have liked to have gone to some of the events on Thursday and that Saturday and Sunday had nifty stuff but that Friday wasn't that great. I figured I would stay home and heal up a bit so I could be healthy enough to enjoy being out with her and other friends on Saturday. Well, that wasn't in her plans. She was upset and told her mom. Her mom then proceeded to call me, text me, and send me emails telling me how her one and only baby girl had come up all that way to go to the convention with me and HOW DARE I search for some stupid dog instead. This is at 2am. I got sick of this and finally went to bed.
I thought my friend was coming to rescue me, I didn't realize I was supposed to entertain her instead. So I tried hard to drag myself out of bed early. After a long, hot shower I unclogged my sinuses enough to focus and drive. I paid extra money to get in only to wind up with a cool reception from my friend who dashed off to her next event soon after I caught up with her. I had NO energy to chase after her and blearily stared at the convention booklet for something to go to. I chose "Dancing Through the Zodiac" as I was working on a book about the zodiac. Turns it was a kids event and surprisingly, it was actual dancing. Who knew? Not me in the state I was in! Ha ha ha.
But, adults were welcome as well and I was allowed to just sit and watch. That was cool because I had no energy to move. This was an hour and a half event with all sorts of ages. I learned a lot from watching! It was broken up into high activity, low activity, structured, unstructured, and rest periods. And at the end of a segment was a brief lesson summed up in about three sentences. So I did get something out of it. I then went upstairs to the con suite and talked to some regulars I know from other events. Then I was totally dead and went home to rest.
Turns out the friend found out (as I knew she would) that she knew lots of people and was totally engrossed in the seminars and events. Even if I was well I would have gone to different events so we could compare notes and learn more. I rested a little bit and then got a call at 2-3am as she had a...unusual spiritual experience and needed help getting away from a very interested masculine Divine aspect. Now I was acting as my true Shaman-Warrior calling and was able to function during the emergency. But sleep afterward was limited since the next morning was full of things I really did want to go to well or not.
The day was a little difficult but cold meds helped and I was feeling so cheery after a day of no more emergencies and after learning my visiting friend had not deliberately sicked her mother on me but rather her mother took that job on without prodding that I decided to spend a little money to get a good, hot meal in me to speed up healing and to avoid having to spend a long period cooking after a long day. (No microwave, remember?) So I invited my housemate to go with me to dinner and we had a nice time at the Mongolian BBQ. I was feeling good and came home to my cat, Shiva, yowling in fear/pain and paralyzed from the mid-back down. So much for the break in the crapstorm, I guess the eye had passed.
I called the dog-friend up as she works at a vets office and has the most recent experience. She was good enough to come over and looked at my cat, a quick diagnosis book in hand. I thought he had missed a jump on the staircase and landed poorly, she thought he might have had a dislocated leg. He drug himself with his forearms into his own crate (a place he sometimes likes to retreat to) and we opted to lock him in for the night. Her office had Sunday hours but I had to get my car worked on the very next morning by the car friend and he had no other time free. She and the other dog-watching friend took my cat in on my behalf so I could get my car fixed so I could care for my Mother.
I used money I really couldn't afford to spend to help with the bill and used some of the "fast cash" oil on it I had picked up to help it come back quickly since I could not afford to be without it. Instead of being $250+ the diagnosis cost only $99. (The oil has worked 3 times now, good stuff!) But instead of a broken leg, he turned out to have a heart murmur that caused a blood clot that was paralyzing his lower torso. My cat was put on an aspirin regime (which is VERY risky! DO NOT give your cat aspirin without a vet's supervision!). He has since recovered all but the use of his hind toes. This is bad because he is walking on his knuckles and damaging the feet, but he can use the bathroom again and has control of his own bowels which was not the case in the first couple of days.
Did I mention that I had to sort out my taxes for the business during all of this? And that my car friend was trying to help me sort them with his copy of Quick Books but that the car repair took over that time slot so I had to do them on my own in the end? Yeah, 10 hours of calculations by hand later I had what my accountant requested. He predicted my taxes would cost me $300+ for him to do. I used some of the oil again and poof, he said, let's call it $250. (I'm telling you, it really works and it does it well. It's made by Dorothy Morrison, who is basically the pagan version of Joyce Brothers, I kid you not!)
I was hearing the bad news that the initial totals were not only that I was NOT getting money back after all of Rob's sacrificing to go to Ohio so we could get the store going, but we were going to OWE $800. Yeah, let's add a new layer of depression on that crapstorm sandwich shall we?
My friend who did come up to see me as well as go to the convention really did try to help. She did the best thing of all at the time. She brought me chocolate from a little shop in her hometown that beats Godiva by x4 and Lindt by x2. And she brought a lot of it, in a variety of forms. She even had Mayan chocolate with the pepper hints and mild sweetness. I actually escaped a serious downward spiral for one night by applying copious amounts of chocolate to the problem. Do not doubt the power of good chocolate! I still believe the Aztec culture died out from denying chocolate to their women.
But I digress, add to this excitement a night of poor sleep and nightmares before one of the trips to the accountant where we were to change over the business from a partnership to an LLC. This was supposed to be simple. It wasn't. Turns out we had a DIRECT name conflict for our store! I had to come up with something immediately and I was totally unprepared. We had tested the original name for several days with a multitude of people. So I added the word "Quest" to the end of the old name. Bad choice. Even friends who knew what the store WAS thought it sounded like a laser tag place or a children's book store. You would not think that a single word could utterly alter the meaning of a name for phrase but it can. After some desperate brainstorming later in the day, after the husband woke up for his late night shift, we went with putting "Adventurers" in front without the apostrophe.
That was coming up as conflicted. Turns out it wasn't actually but the ladies at the accountant's office were having trouble with the spelling so it was coming up with matches. And if people who do this for a living have problems, the average person will REALLY have problems! So we paid out an extra $25 to amend it one more time and changed the ending to "Classic". This has brought our minor chord back into a major chord and there is harmony once more. There is absolutely no conflicts on the name and it doesn't sound tacked on like "Quest" did.
Car was starting to work so I helped my Mother out with more chores and had one of my tooth crowns pop loose. Hooray. I still don't have that sorted out. But my Mother helped me with some funds for fixing the car and her arm is healing so she can drive again. That makes her happy and I'm happy she is doing better!
Well after sorting that out I spent the first day of Spring with my husband and tried to get my mood improved as per the suggestion of one of my teachers. Then I went out and used the rest of the goodies I bought at the convention to pray for myself, my husband, and the store I wanted. I tried really hard to be positive instead of negative and depressed, I only managed neutral in honesty but I put my deep desire for the store into it. The VERY NEXT DAY the accountant's office called. We owed $650-ish to this state, but my husband would get that back from what Ohio owed him in taxes and from the federal there would be a decent sized chunk to put towards the store. So after all the suffering the sun started to come out.
It wasn't until the end of March that the crap stopped raining on my head and we were able to start fielding some of these incoming balls of trouble. Since then, the car is running, mostly (but has new things to address), my Mom is doing better, the cat is doing better, my new store name and new store in truth as we had to get a new FIN, close all the bank accounts and everything as it is considered a new entity because of the name change, is doing okay. Taxes went out (although I have to get the quarterly sales tax out now) and I'm getting headway on my book and am about to redo the business plan to see what kind of funding we really can get. Things aren't perfect but they are MUUUCH better! Oh and my tech friends managed to get the electricity working in my kitchen again, although my hall light is still a no-go. Still, all in all things are much better.
It is hard to do everything without my husband here though. He is my balance and my sense of humor. Doing conventions is something we do together and this past one drove home how much less fun it is when he isn't there to share it with. But he will be at the next one! And I will see him soon. Spring is bringing positive changes if I can just hold on until the sun warms up once more!
I know it was a lot of complaining in this one, but I don't want to forget just how incredibly crazy things were. I meant to blog this closer to the period it happened but, well, I was kinda busy. Heh, heh, heh. I'm glad I made it through. And I am grateful to a lot of friends who tried to keep me from going crazy during it all. I must do my best to be as good to them in return as they have been to me in those moments. In closing, I wish you all at least one good friend to be there in your moments of crisis, and one dear to your heart to share your sorrows and triumphs with. We are best when we work together. That is when we can truly shine because those around us mirror our light back so we can see who we truly are. Peace out!