Well...

Friend's son who was going to take puppy is home but can't take puppy. However, did find transport to take him to a no-kill shelter some 20 miles away when they have room. They'll finish up his training, get him more solid on what I've already done, find him a good home. I love him, but I can't provide what he needs - not a dog that active, nutty, with hound and boxer energy. If I had a fenced yard, that'd be one thing. He caught a scent and tried to take off today so yeah...he's gotta get a better, safer spot.

It's been very very hard trying to shift my mindset from "he's mine and I've failed him" to "he's a foster who's already got some training and is no longer traumatized." It'll make him easier for the rescue to place. Not to mention he's used to kids and cats and dogs of all ages.

He was supposed to only be a temp anyway, then turned permanent and now it hurts my heart. But I look at Baby, Muffy, Ellie and how far I've brought them...it's not a failure. It's just I didn't know his breed or soon to be size or needs when he was 5 weeks old. And I just can't give him what he needs, so he must go to someone who can.

In other news...my best friend never got any of my messages this week! None. And she wasn't getting most of mine and we both were trying to figure out if we pissed off the other, lol. Turns out she actually knows the woman who is probate judge now so she'll take me up there Tuesday morning so we can get the ball rolling - and find out just why no one can be bothered to call me back. So hopefully, that'll help me get past the gatekeeper to actually get this stuff done.

I'm feeling better today, thankfully.

Dunno what's wrong with me today - woke up nervous and jittery. I hate that feeling. Something bad tends to follow when that happens.

Neighbor complained to son about the dogs barking. On the one hand, I'd like to just go - dogs bark, you live on a road where nearly every house has dogs, blah blah. But they're getting on my nerves too, and I don't want to risk them calling someone on me - I've had enough of the "authorities" around here. They do whatever the hells they want and that's that. A man died in front of me in my own driveway, and I wasn't even talked to and it wasn't even in the paper, and what I know they've done to others...yeah, sure. My luck they'd show up and shoot a dog or take them and what I've been trying to avoid will come to pass.

So I've had to give up and order some things to help curb the barking. I will admit - Bean is excessive. He has toys, he gets taken off his chain (hooked to a small run that has his house and a roof) to run around, lots of attention, but he's young and still noisy. Think he's bred too close honestly, but 2 hours straight today until he was hoarse. That's insane. They feed off each other. Mikey is doing fine so long as he has his house and has no desire to take his collar off and slip his chain (thank goodness, as that dog has the shortest neck for one his size I've ever seen and it's hard to keep a collar on him), Nisha is so old she doesn't give a damn about anything...Ellie is freaking insane. She is used to her med now and still neurotic as ever. She will not stay home and I don't trust her fully in some ways, so order a zip line. Here's to hoping she does better than she did when she had a nice run and big house - she injured herself to get out of her harness. I've never seen a dog hurt herself so badly to get out of a harness...my vet hadn't either.

I want to honor my grandparents in my promise to keep Ellie and Mikey out of a shelter after their deaths but...Ellie has cost me over 1K in 3 months, not counting this latest attempt to keep her home. That's nearly my monthly pay. She's still not...right.

It's breaking my heart. :'( Completely breaking it. I've contacted rescue groups but no one will take her or Bean - full up, or only work with high kill shelters. Vets have no leads. Even the pet store doesn't. And from what I hear, people are trying to give away dogs all over, esp with the mill (one of the main sources of jobs here) closing down at the end of March. Even the cat rescue is too full to take anyone, so Squeaky, Bootsie, and Spooky are still here.

I offered help to the cat rescue. I can't do finances or transport, but I can shelter the babies who need it for short term and bottle feed if necessary. And I can certainly help them coordinate fosters, appointments, and transports to no kill shelters and sanctuaries. No one has spoken to me though. Vet said the lady in charge had run off the other volunteers, so I'm no longer hopeful I can help at all. And since I rent, I can't get approved as a rescue myself supposedly.

There's a lot going on on another front too. And my heart is broken all over again. The anniversary of my youngest son's death three years ago is coming up at the end of the month, there's other things, my mom is moving into assisted living, my grandparents' estate still not settled and now I have to take that over totally...One hand, everything is ok. I have faith it will be and I'm not alone. On the other hand, I feel totally out of control and my life in a tailspin.

There's a certain thing that could go very very bad, very good, or just...okay. And it's totally out of my control and I won't know a thing until sometime next month. But it's something that majorly affects my son and I and those with the power to fix it have no inclination to do so. I wish I could talk about it. But that's not allowed either. My son and I are not in trouble...but it affects us majorly, and I hear him sometimes, in his way, praying to Deity/Creator/God/whatever you wish to call it, asking why and asking for help because he knows we can't fix it.

For over 2 years now, our lives have been cruising along, then utter chaos, then ok, then chaos, on and on, up and down. So frustrated! And I'm not allowed to talk. Which hurts even more.

Maybe it's just all this piling up on me. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed or over tired or whatever. Just a bad day.

In other news - made some good progress in research in genetic splicing for my book.

Did not realize how long it'd been since I posted! Time flies.

Sometimes. Not so much when you're working, lol.

Got a Christmas Eve lunch with a friend tomorrow. I know it's her and her husband, but I don't know who else might be there. I'm hoping not too many people. D and my mom don't like crowds or a ton of people, and to my knowledge, there won't be, but here's hoping. E will be fine. He's becoming much more adaptable in that area the more we work on things, which is good. I'm proud of him.

Proud of D too - he's really pushing himself to go. Way out of his comfort zone. Mom's too.

The rain and wind - it's so gross out. Everywhere you step it's squishy and water just seeps up. Flooding seems to be over - my yard at least partially disappears every time there's heavy rain. Gross! The wind was so bad it tore up the tarp over Nisha's run. Gonna have to replace it.

Busy next few days. At work I've been banning and muting people left and right for chat violations - everything from the last chance sanction for cussing to full-on hate speech and rape chat. So much for goodwill, huh? Of course, they're now writing in and the others in the regular tickets are telling me they're writing in whining and begging for their chat privileges back. Yeah right. Kids' game! No more chances!

It astounds me sometimes what people write in to customer support. Emails begging for their accounts to be released from sanctions they earned (some really bad), for free things, for stuff from a promotion from 2011...and sometimes they'll write in dozens and dozens of times for the same thing. And what's bothersome (to me anyway) is that it's not usually kids who are doing this. Some teens and preteens sure. But mostly 18-25 year olds. College age. Only know this cause they break more rules sending us their IDs!

No wonder ID theft is so rampant. People send us their driver's licenses, birth certificates, social security numbers, addresses, full credit card info. It's insane. And these aren't little kids. They should know better.

Got a pumpkin cheesecake cooling for the lunch tomorrow. Then when I get back, there's cleaning to do, and more baking (peanut butter cookies and pumpkin cheesecake bars! Yum!) Then Christmas Day dinner at mom's (Cornish hens, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, and of course, my dessert. I'm always the dessert person.)

Seems so odd still my grandparents' being gone.

Then on the 26th, it's to the vet for Wookie and Oreo to be fixed and Ellie a check up. Something still feels off with her, but I can't put my finger on what it is. Blood work shows up okay, or did, but something still feels off. I don't know what it is.

Most don't get it, but I can feel when something is off with the critters (people too). It creeps people out sometimes. It's like when you answer someone before they've actually said the question - you just feel it. I know something is off and she's still acting weird. I just don't know what it is. But I can't afford over 800 bucks worth of blood work. That's the trouble with rescuing, especially in an area like this - money.

Honeybear's health is declining. I expected that - she's around 14 at least, no teeth, nearly blind and deaf, heart failure and possibly renal issues. But she's still happy. And Nisha is still hanging in - she's outlived both her breeds by years and the heart failure is causing the coughing, but she's happy and still feisty.

You'd never know Mikey is 16. And Bean has come a long way from that malnourished 5-week old pup thrown out of a moving vehicle. He's such a silly dog.

12 cats, 5 dogs, and a variety of opossums of different ages (14 total, last count). At least opossums keep the raccoons away and can't carry rabies. Not to mention they eat ticks - I'm surrounded by woods and no one has gotten a tick at all.

You can't buy love. But you can rescue it. And when you think you've done nothing with your life and are worthless...look in the eyes of that animal you saved - be it a cat, dog, opossum, fox, squirrel, whatever. You see looking back trust and love and hope and you've saved a soul who might not be here without you, brought joy and love instead of pain and fear.

That's something. That's important. That's beating back the darkness of this world.

Helping people too, of course, is important. That's beating the dark too. I sometimes wonder about the family we used to help. A mom and dad, a little boy, living under a bridge. We gave them food, clothes, bought them camping gear, snuck them a teddybear at Christmas for their little one. I still remember the mom hugging me and the dad shaking D's hand and trying not to cry. I know they made it to Florida to his brother's and he'd gotten a good job. I hope they are still doing well.

I can't change the world. But I can bring a bit of light in the form of an extra cookie to brighten a child's day at the soup kitchen, wrapping up a meal to take it outside to the homeless vet with PTSD who can't bring himself to come inside so at least he gets a warm meal, feeding a hungry soul be it four-legged or two, helping someone hold on just a little longer until their door opens for help or until a home is available for that kitten who no one wanted.

And maybe...maybe that's all I'm supposed to do. Maybe that's my entire reason - just to scatter light with tiny flames, here and there, however I can. Sometimes I think I must be on the right track, because I get hate for it.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever you say to you. Go scatter the light.

Two steps back. At least, that's what it feels like regarding dealing with my grandparents' estate. Trying to find certain documents is like looking for a Hobbit's needle in a giant's haystack. Found someone who was supposedly in charge of the documents, only to find they were disbarred and no one actually knows where they are. Joy.

Nice things today - a opossum (one of the 14 who randomly come by) decided to join the outside cats at supper time. Put an extra bowl out for him/her. Don't mind opossums - they can't get rabies and eat ticks. Nobody's gotten any ticks with all the opossums that pass through all summer!

Now if only the dogs outside would get used to the deer that come wandering through. So. much. barking!

Supposed to go out to eat tomorrow. Hope we actually get to.

I have so many stories to work on - my main ones are one high fantasy and two horror. Am I the only one who seems to have all these folks living in their heads? I even see them sometimes, pacing about as they tell me what I'm supposed to write and sometimes flat-out argue with me about whether or not they are going to do something.

I'm trying to decide how to approach something in one of the stories. Applachian folk magic. I've hard it called mountain magic, hoodoo, and conjure. I don't want to be offensive in any way regarding it, but aside from somehow getting in touch with an actual Granny who practices it and convincing them to tell me anything, the internet is my best friend and we all know how reliable that is. So hopefully I can learn enough to not be a jerk by accident.

Another story I'm researching genetics and gene splicing. Trying to learn enough to make it seem like I know something but I'm sure that when/if it ever gets published, should an actual scientist read it, they'll probably be utterly horrified.

I seem to have a recurring theme lately in my writing - mirrors. They keep showing up, in some way. Big or small, they are there. I'm working on a series of short stories all revolving around mirrors. I don't particularly like mirrors - I used to be afraid of them. Now here they are, popping up in everything.

A dear friend had a birthday last month. I made her a folk art style painting and wrote a poem for her, the first one I've written in years. She was completely and utterly thrilled, but she's the kind who loves things that are handmade more than store bought. And she knows the effort that goes into writing and painting. Maybe I'll post it.