UPDATE 1 :

Quick update on my mom. She was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer.  As far as they can tell, it has not spread anywhere else. She is on heavy chemo and radiation to shrink it so they can do surgery to remove it.  Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers and your support. Mom and I and the rest of our family greatly appreciate it. Will keep updating as she goes through treatment.


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I have some bad news. I just found out today my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer. She has to go next week for more testing. Hopefully it has not spread anywhere else. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Going forward, you can catch me streaming art and gaming adventures on Twitch! Follow and ding the notification bell to know when I go live! --- https://www.twitch.tv/leopardwolf

I'm alive. Been focusing all energy on some new endeavors and adventures the past several months. Happy I can finally start sharing info about it here. Stayed tuned. Hope everyone has been well.

Apologies for not much posting, but on top of having to deal with painful emergency oral surgery and recovery over the holidays, and other general downers like not being able to eat much without blending it because hardly any teeth left ( new dieting strategy? lolz ), my greenhouse was totally destroyed early this morning due do unexpected severe wind storm. It was already damaged from a wind storm that happened while I was laid up from the oral surgery, and not having had the chance to fully repair that damage and some tension loss in the guy ropes. The wind brought in by this front had 50mph sustained gusts all day that just obliterated the frame and cover. I had plans to start plant propagation and seed stuff next week and document all that, but now I have nowhere to do it because we had to emergency move a full 20ft greenhouse worth of stuff into the garage. Now there is no other room even to mess with workshop or ceramics stuff or much anything else. Finding myself at another standstill until I figure out what to do, just as I had gotten to a place where I had the momentum and means to get stuff going again. FML. Images and stuff here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/broken-24091363

Here I am again. I know I have been pretty bad about writing updates, and worse about being able to check in on friends and see how everyone is doing.

I just can't seem to catch a break. Just when I think I'll be able to get back into a good routine centered around this, it never fails that something always happens to throw things into utter chaos. Murphey's Law.

Not complaining about it, just laughing at all the ironies and making note of much flailing and swearing that ensued. Imagine it in the comical sense of watching my spotty-stripe self run around flailing and maybe swearing in ancient Pictish or some Lovecraftian tongue.

First, my computer that is used for basically everything I do, from digital edits of images and video to crafty creative and social media related things like being able to browse Facebook or similar sites, to playing games like Skyrim, Fallout, and a handful of others that help me keep some semblance of my (in)sanity.... well, it started acting very weirdly months ago, freezing and hating on web browsing and programs.

It got worse and started randomly shutting down and restarting for no apparent reason. Right in the middle of me working. Lots of lost edits. Then just restarting no matter what I did, without warning. I posted more about it on Patrreon, so head there for that full story. Thankfully I fixed it. Which is why I can post now! Yay!


During the time that was happening, our AC broke. We were without air conditioning for a week. In 90F + heat. Those sorts of conditions are pretty miserable for normal people.

My health problems and faulty autonomic system not regulating body temperature right, made it gazillions and trillions times worse. I was overheating like nobody's business.

It made me real sick and triggered flairups of epic proportions. Bless my amazing aunt for covering the cost of repair and small portable AC unit till we could fight with the warranty people.

I glued myself in front of the window unit and stayed in one spot, with only the little portable AC to cool the entire house. I barely managed to avoid a trip to the ER from heat stroke.

I was pretty delirious during that time, but I remember thinking it was funny that all the animals were huddled in the room by the portable AC trying to stay cool. The rest of the house was an oven.

Near the end of that ordeal, our dishwasher started leaking water all over the kitchen floor. Thank goodness we didn't start it as we were going to bed. I heard the water from the other room. I actually thought it was one of the cats or dogs drinking, and went to investigate because it sounded weird. Much flailing and spazzing followed as I went grabbing for towels to soak up the water. We're still waiting to have an extra $75 to get that fixed. Put down a drip pan right against the leaking edge to catch any water for the time being.

Now that I am not melting into a puddle and my computer is behaving itself again, I will be getting back around the catch-up game. Apologies for masses of responses, comments, etc. that you might get from me at one time.

Hope everyone is well and look forward to catching up.

I haven't been online a lot since the end of November or so, mainly because a lot of things have been happening and changing in my life. I had a breakdown of sorts over the holidays and went into self preservation mode. I was in a real dark place, and I am just managing to really pull myself above it where I hope it won't affect my friends or anyone around me that I care about.

I can't really talk about part of what happened. All I can say is it mainly revolved around the judge denying my Disability case, for biased reasons. I have filed an appeal with the Appeals Council, and that's all I can really say publicly. If you want to know more, feel free to ask in private.

Stress over the Disability hearing and then denial, caused autoimmune flairups from those stress triggers and snowballed. I got pretty sick several times as a result. Also had real bad flairs with my hands and wrists, needed steroid injections in my wrists. Raw skin on my hands has also made it hard to do things. Had several bad Trigeminal Neuralgia flairs where the pain was so excruciating I just didn't want to exist. Like I said, the usual.

Had some other things happening. Family stuff. Family illness. Deaths in the family. Just a lot of overwhelming emotional things that happened back to back. I feel horrible that I haven't been able to be there and be supportive for everyone in the way I want to, and in the past was capable of doing. I feel like these shortcomings make me a bad person.


I know people have been concerned, not hearing from me. I just wanted to let everyone know I was doing as okay as can be. Just didn't want to be a downer writing about nothing but depressing things, because no one wants to read about that. I have little art and creative things, or geeky science and gardening stuff ( mostly just pictures ) I have been keeping a record of over the months. I just haven't had the energy or presence of mind to process all the photos and upload them yet. I hope to do that soon.

Some I have already shared with my Patreons, who I am eternally grateful to and thankful for their continued support and understanding despite my absences and limited capacity to create on the level I wish I could and used to be able to. I am trying. My doctors have agreed that it is beneficial to keep trying, modify and incorporate what I can into my physical therapy exercises and such.


Just taking everything day by day. Will start doing some catching up with everyone as I am able to. Hope everyone is doing well.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

My Etsy shop is restocked with tons of goodies and more on the way. I am running some specials right now.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LeopardWolf

Free standard shipping ( continental US ) on all orders. Also 10% off on qualifying purchases.

Subscribing patrons will be getting an extra discount in a patron only post as my way of saying thanks.

PSA: AOL Instant Messenger will be discontinued. For those who haven't heard and didn't get the email notice, AIM ( AOL Instant Messenger ) is being canned and dropped as of December 15, 2017. AOHell is getting rid of it completely. Per their email:

"We see that you've used AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) in the past, so we wanted to let you know that AIM will be discontinued and will no longer work as of December 15, 2017.

Before December 15, you can continue to use the service. After December 15, you will no longer have access to AIM and your data will be deleted. If you use an aim.com email address, your email account will not be affected and you will still be able to send and receive email as usual."

So basically everyone who kept it connected via linked accounts so they could keep in touch with friends via an instant messaging service might want to reach out and update contacts before you lose them. I had a feeling it would happen with recent changes they made, trying to force people to use and pay for the service.

My understanding is that they are disallowing outside connections to any linked accounts. Which means Trillian and other things like Facebook Messaging will be unable to access the AOHell buddy list content any longer, or interact with anyone using it. You will be unable to save or export your buddy list.

You can keep in contact with me via Trillian and Discord at the following:

Trillian - leopardwolf

Discord - LeopardWolf#7905

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You can see AOL ( now Oath )'s FAQ about it here:

https://help.aol.com/articles/aim-discontinued

For those of us who have used AIM since 1997 and before ( when still with AOHell as an ISP ), this really, really sucks. So much for nostalgia and maintaining old connections. Thanks for screwing us all over Oath. I highly doubt you will develop anything more iconic or life changing than the original AIM platform has been.

Apologies for the delays in more frequent updates. In wake of all the stress and preparation for my Disability hearing, the summer weather really decided to kick my ass and has caused reoccurring flairups of my autoimmune and neurocardio problems and related symptoms. I am still sick, but the bulk of the stressful events triggering symptoms has passed, so hopefully my body will stop freaking out so much. The summer heat is finally breaking a bit and there is more breeze instead of still, hot air. Once it cools more, I hope things will be more manageable.

A lot of reoccurring migraine activity and blurred vision or related issues from my Sjogren's has made it difficult to focus on creative things both visually and mentally. Even as I write this, I am seeing halos and haze and have to take frequent breaks to rest. During the downtime I have been working on various little things as able. I am looking forward to sharing them all. It might just be a combination of some photos and short writeups to begin with, but I am hoping to generate enough content during my "stable" periods to help compensate for the downtime when I get sick in the future. That has been the biggest issue I have faced, the gaps in activity and posting new content.

I want to be able to get to a place where I am able to make updates more frequently even when I am really sick, to break the pattern of falling behind every time I am. It has been a slow learning process to find the middle ground. I really appreciate everyone's continued support and encouragement while I try and find that happy balance between being a creator and living with chronic illness.

Upcoming topics will include art and creative things, gardening ( in the limited capacity I can handle ), biology and botany geekery, bonsai, raku, and discussions about small ecosystems found in aquariums, terrariums, and updates about mine and plans for upcoming development.

Hope everyone is well.

NOTICE: Legacy Livestream Streams/Videos Being Deleted End Of September 2017

This is a heads up for anyone who is currently using, or has used the legacy free Livestream accounts and may have streams/videos there that they want to save. I just logged in to mine to find a message saying they were cleaning up the servers and deleting any old content not saved by the end of the month. If you have anything stored there that you want to keep, I suggest logging in and saving the videos and downloading them just in case. I never got any email or other warning they planned to do this, so wanted to spread the word so no one lost their content.

Still alive. Been really sick on and off multiple times with flairups, including falls and passing out. Started as soon as the temperatures began to get warmer outside. Been borderline heat stroke every day since. Can't get anything done because I overheat too easy, even inside with the AC running full blast. The little energy I have has been totally devoted to preparing for my Disability Hearing at the end of August. I haven't really been online on FB or anywhere else at all since April or May, so if I missed anything major, I apologize. Thank you all for the birthday wishes back in May, they helped cheer me up while I was sick. Hoping it cools off outside soon. I hope all is well for all of you. If I missed anything you want me to know about, please share. I will catch up as I am able to, but probably won't be real active till after my Disability Hearing on August 31st. Positive thoughts and prayers for a positive outcome are appreciated. Wish me luck!

Streaming dog painting in progress. Going to try finishing this today and/or tomorrow. Chat active. Music from Pandora feed.

http://livestream.com/leopardwolf

Streaming some painting in progress. Chat active. Music from Pandora feed.
http://livestream.com/leopardwolf

EDIT EDIT: Due to the commissioner not being available tonight and me managing to dislocate my hip, jaw, and a rib in one day, streaming session will be rescheduled! Have radiology stuff tomorrow so might wait till next week and stream different subject. Might also just do random stream over the weekend to make up for it, but I imagine most people will be busy on Friday night and over the weekend. I will make a new post either way when I do a streaming session.

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EDIT: Streaming will take place Wednesday Dec 7th, starting around 8pm CST. Hope to see you there! http://livestream.com/leopardwolf

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I will be live streaming a painting session of this sketch sometime this week. Day and time will depend on the commissioner, but will be sometime after 7pm CST. I will post a reminder as soon as I have the info.


http://www.patreon.com/posts/stream.....g-this-7411995

EDIT:

Update On Hope Cat: Great news! Radiology came back clean!! No broken bones. Just really deep punctures. The inflammation is pretty bad and there is some infection, so she has been started on antibiotics. Once that reduces the swelling and everything they will assess if there is any neurological damage. She will be FeLV/FIV tested and put up for adoption. Thank you so much to everyone for sharing her story, for your donations, your prays and positive thoughts for her! Since no major surgery was needed afterall, I will be refunding donations and taking down the emergency fundraiser. Thank you again!

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Writing this exhausted and half asleep to get word out ASAP.

I got involved with a cat rescue where cat ended up having badly broken leg and was in shock but injury is old come to find out but she was clearly in pain and distress and no use of leg. So I took her to SPCA clinic and they directed me to the shelter portion for a program they have doing 3 day holds to try and find owner and vet/stabilize cat. But she probably needs amputation. I set up a GoFundMe and will spread it like wildfire to hope we can raise the money to help her because the SPCA program might not have funds and if they deem her not adoptable they would otherwise euthanize her, even if she would be adoptable after the surgery and recovery.

Changes to Patreon reward tiers and stretch goals have been completed. The most exciting change includes the following:


Patrons pledging $5 and above will be granted the right to vote in different situations that will directly influence things I make and how I make them, or what supplies I buy using the money you all have invested in me. Should I buy this glaze or that glaze? Should I use this stone or that stone? What creature do I sculpt next? You decide!




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I changed the stretch goals to give more clear direction. The original goals I used and their amounts were somewhat vague and spaced out since I wasn't sure how to best approach it when I first joined Patreon. I hope this is a better format. Suggestions are welcome.


$25 ( We are ALMOST here!! $19 out of $25!! )

This amount allows me to continue purchasing basic creative supplies monthly to experiment with. It could be spent to buy several lower cost items or one higher cost item. Examples include but are not limited to: jewelry supplies, painting mediums, several small bottles of ceramics glaze, a larger bottle of ceramics glaze, a box of ceramics clay, ceramics tools

You get to help me choose what to invest in if you pledge $5 or more.

Once we reach this goal, I will raffle off an art original equal to $25. ALL pledge tiers will be eligible to win (as low as $1 pledge ) ! Winner will pay shipping for raffle item.



$50

The higher the pledge amount coming in, the more supplies I can get and the faster I can get them. This goal amount will allow me to invest in supplies as mentioned above to offer a wider variety. It would allow me to branch out into materials and supplies that are more expensive, such as special carved gemstones, silver, raku supplies, and more.

You get to help me choose what to invest in if you pledge $5 or more.

Once we reach this goal, I will raffle off an art original equal to $50. ALL pledge tiers will be eligible to win (as low as $1 pledge ) ! Winner will pay shipping for raffle item.




$75

Meeting this goal would allow me to greatly expand on my production. The main thing that keeps me from jumping into certain projects is lack of disposable income to acquire all the supplies I might need for a project. If I only have $30 to spend per month, but the total cost for supplies for a project is $60, it could take two months just to get everything I need. It might take longer if I have to split the amount between multiple projects. The more you can pledge, the more I can create and give back.

You get to help me choose what to invest in if you pledge $5 or more.

Once we reach this goal, I will raffle off an art original equal to $75. ALL pledge tiers will be eligible to win (as low as $1 pledge ) ! Winner will pay shipping for raffle item.



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Thanks for your support!

Live art stream starting soon! 8pm CST. - http://livestream.com/leopardwolf

My health and the technology gods permitting, I will be art streaming this Friday Nov 4th around 8pm CST. Hope to see you there!

http://original.livestream.com/leopardwolf

I plan to make changes to patron reward tiers soon. Anyone who has pledged and donated toward my art and creative efforts *before* the date of the change, will be grandfathered in to still be eligible for the *old* reward system after the changes are made, based on pledge amount. The changes will take place Monday, November 7th.

When I start producing work in pure copper, bronze, silver, gold, and using dichroic and higher grade gemstones, people will wish they took advantage of the offer when it was available.

I will also be changing the stretch goals now that I have a better idea of how they work. When I first started using Patreon I really didn't have a clue what to do with them. Now I do.

I will post more information and reminders in preparation for the changes. Thank you all for your awesomeness and continued support!

By any chance does anyone have $115 to spare before the 15th? There is a dog training seminar that day that I really need to try and attend. It's to help Chakotay ( service dog in training ) try and overcome this fear period. The presenter is Debbie Jacobs, CPDT-KA, CAP2 and is specifically geared toward working with fearful and anxious dogs. It will be invaluable for me to be able to attend and likely have the chance to speak with her and others directly. Not only that, but word is a field trainer from one of the big service dog organizations is also attending. Again, a chance to talk to these people directly about Chakotay's problems is something I hate to pass up just because I don't have the money for it right now. I am taking commissions in exchange to make it happen. Animal art, anthro art, jewelry, sculptures, ceramics, all the art things can be yours!

I'm not sure how many people actually actively read any of this. It may seem like I haven't been really active with artwork related projects since I haven't posted any finished work, but the truth is I have a ton of different work in progress things strewn about that I have been alternating between when I can. I have been putting quite a bit of focus into getting my kiln set up and working in ceramics, as well as researching and learning new skills for other artwork I plan to create with the kiln. I have shared some WIPs of some of these things via Patreon, as that is the main place I share WIPs and sneak peeks now. I'll be sharing the new ceramic work soon, along with some other sculpture work. There are times it has been difficult for me to work on anything because of my medical conditions causing problems with my hands or eyes and their ability to function well enough for me to work on the art. There's also that whole having a puppy / attempting to train him as a service dog myself thing. Then unexpectedly having to relocate my entire art room and all my supplies didn't help matters any, and things are still a bit of a disorganized mess. The ceramics would have been done sooner, but it's just been too damned hot here to run a glaze fire till recently, and our AC was malfunctioning. Anyway, if you have stuck around this long, hang tight just a little longer, because a flood of art is on the way. You'll probably get sick of seeing me post things by the time I am finished.

PSA: If you aren't following me on Patreon, you are probably missing out on art content I share. You can follow me there without having to pledge any money. Just create an account and add me. Some of what I post is public. You can also see all patron-only (private) content I share for as little as $1 a month.

http://www.patreon.com/leopardwolf

My birthday is this week, May 21st. This is the new service dog fundraiser. If you have a few bucks to spare, please consider helping. Pass it along too. Thank you.

http://www.youcaring.com/brittney-steptoe-570453

To clarify something with the service dog fundraiser I have been doing, because a friend pointed out some confusion. We were having a discussion about me needing to come up with $120ish for a training class and I was saying I'd have to raise the money. Trying to be helpful she made the comment "At least you have the $700 from the service dog fund if you need to use that".

I actually do NOT have that much. That is just the total that was raised from the time that I first got Journey until the time I had to rehome him (almost 2yrs worth). This was before I made the choice to apply to CPL and everything. That money at the time was specifically raised to go toward his training and care, or toward service dog related expenses, and it did. Some of it went to help cover some expenses during the two trips I took to visit CPL.

In reality I only have around $380 remaining currently. $250 of that is tied up in a revolving line of credit (LOC) with the bank. This was done to hold the money for the service dog fund purposes but to also help improve my credit, since I had medical debt and have been unemployed. It works sort of like a credit card. I can spend up to that amount, but I have to "pay it back" at the end of the month. Until I close the LOC anuyway. When I do, I get that $250 back. But I don't plan on doing that anytime soon because it really has helped improve my credit so far.

The remaining $130ish is the actual "spending money" I have right now specifically for service dog or CPL related things. The rest of it is gone. It was spent back when I had Journey for his care and supplies, and some of it was just spent recently for the new things I needed for Chakotay.

This is why I keep sharing the link to the fundraiser. I am in limbo waiting to hear back from SSA on Disability, so unless I sell art or creative things, a commission, or something from my Etsy store, I don't have any other source of money coming in unless someone is kind enough to donate.

Did the "amount raised" display on the fundraiser confuse anyone else ( make you think that was how much I still had)?

Should I start a brand new fundraiser at $0 amount so people realize I really don't have $700 already toward the cause?

I hate that I even have to ask for help, I'd much rather people buy my art, crafts, jewelry, or commission me so they get something in return.

But aside from dog training and animal psychology related training and sharing my knowledge, that's the only other thing I can do, and all of it is limited by my health problems at any given time.

In case you missed it on Patreon. I'll probably attempt to stream some art related things over the next few days, provided that my wrist is behaving enough and puppy is calm enough. Haven't decided on subject or medium yet. Might get some time in Tuesday afternoon. Otherwise will aim for Wednesday and maybe Thursday afternoon and maybe into the evening, again depending on how I feel. Will post again with a link when the stream is active and update as needed.