So I have been doing experiments using my cats as subjects. So far, those experiments are going pretty well...unless you ask my cats.

First experiment, how sensitive is my cellphone microphone, tested by seeing if I can record either of my cats purring, both in video and purely audio formats. That was an amazingly successful test, even if my cats thought it was a horrible imposition on their time (they were getting pet but you know how cats are).

Second experiment, test all the new features of my new phone's camera. The trick to this is to catch my cats sleeping. If you point a camera at them when they are awake, they look at you cross eyed and run away.

So I woke up this morning to a purring cat, licking the inside of my mouth. I had seen him do that to my fiance all of once and it was weird. Waking up to a cat licking the inside of your mouth is the weirdest way to wake up...EVER. He usually wakes us up by purring and purring and purring and head-butting us...or at least trying, by nose butting us in the nose.

I am still unemployed, since apparently the government can't get its collective act together and have my employer call its seasonal employees back. I should be called back in January but gods, that is a long way off.

In other news, I have a small craft fair in the next couple of weeks, December 5th to be precise. If you happen to be in the Austin area and want more specifics I will be happy to let you know. It was one of those out of the blue things. My parents just moved into a new sub-division and it has a really nice new community center so they are holding a Christmas Craft fair and she signed she and I up for a spot. She knits and has a horde of native Texas Agave plants (pups, as they are called, from some big mamma plants that my mother rescued from a couple of construction sites around where her and my father now live). Right now, I am busy making more beaded angels and a few other holiday appropriate things. I will post pictures of a few of them, as the weather permits (lighting), along with all the beaded lanyards and earrings I have already made. I also decided to make two beaded masks after a commission for a little girl to make something with her favorite horse's hair. (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15070553/) One of them was what I worked on during my trip to the Mayo Clinic. It was an easily portable project with very few required bead tubes. (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15070618/) I am now working on a owl looking mask in black and gold. I will post pictures of it as soon as it is done.

The trip to the Mayo Clinic went pretty well. They gave us a lot of good directions to go in. The big one is to look into my sleep patterns and quality and the like. So I had another sleep study in the last couple of weeks. I haven't gotten the results yet but, at least this time, I did actually sleep (unlike the last one). Just to make things more interested, about the time I should have been going back to work, my body kicked over into my work sleep schedule. I must admit, I can get an amazing amount of bead work done between 8pm and 4am. I have a few other appointments with local specialists in the next month. This time I know what questions to ask.

Finally got an appointment at the Mayo Clinic to be seen for my various health issues (thyroid problems, iron deficiency, chronic pain, etc.) for the end of September.

I am still working on my Etsy store to have things to sell in hopes of raising a bit of money to help pay for all the stray expenses that health insurance doesn't cover. In the mean time, all the earrings and necklaces I have been posting are for sale. PM me for the price of the item (they are all between $10 and $25) or if you would like to commission something, I am open for those too.

So two says ago, after calling the apartment complex (multiple times) and being told that maintenance person was on the way, I got to play hurry up and wait. I eventually found out that there were fixes being done in the apartment that backs up to mine. So that was the end of that...or so I thought.

About 3:00am this morning, after getting back from a late night Walgreens run to buy my cats some wet food, I went to use the bathroom...only to see wet things on the previously dry floor. (insert lots of four letter words here) Asurea and I put down a bunch of towels and went to bed. This morning/afternoon (noon-ish) when we woke up, to find thoroughly soaked towels, wet carpet and a chronic case of "no one picking up at the apartment complex answering service" going. And it is 27 degrees F outside, so walking over to the apartment office is not exactly a very pleasant option.

After multiple attempts, I got through. They claim that the leak has already been fixed and that we will need to clean up as much water as possible. I made it clear that I wanted more details, since I am not sure that the answering service people understood that this was a new leak, rather than the one that was fixed two days ago.

I am starting to think it is time to break out the sage and the blessed salt. The toilet in my apartment that has caused two floods is back at it. This time we caught it before it became a major flood and have it contained. The apartment office closes for lunch so I have to wait till after lunch to call them. This is getting a little bit crazy.

 marjorywarrenne introduced me to needle felting a couple of weeks ago and now my demon of a muse is coming up with all sorts of crazy things for me to do with this new technique. Expect to see lots of interesting things getting posted soon...as soon as I get up the energy to take pictures.

Since I live under the proverbial rock, what is this latest round of FA drama that has so many people picking up and leaving FA?

My male cat is currently sitting in my book shelf. Not sure how he managed to get into it given he has nothing in the way of depth perception but he did. Cats...what are you going to do.

It's that time of year when I've seen these popping up again, so I figured I'd post mine. Borrowed from  Korrok

~Step 1~
Make a post in your journal containing your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple to really big. The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

If you wish for real-life things, make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where folks could get in touch with you.

~Step 2~
Surf around other lists to see who has posted their list. If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream for free--do it. You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call. There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special!

1. Art of my character, my fiance's character and/or my cat or all three of us. Nothing adult. When it comes to Lilly, catly humor is perfectly appropriate.
Refs-
Moongara's Anthro Form:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6424816/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3402283/

Moongara's "Kitty" Form:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5811938/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8406225/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5254720/

Asurea (my fiance's character)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7084644/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3610100/

My Cat, Lilly,
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5173271/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4175655/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10850866/

2. A permanent job at work....I am tired of being seasonal. I very seriously doubt anyone here can make this happen, given the particular budget issues my employer is currently facing. (if it turns out that someone on FA can help get me a permanent job with the US government, I think I would pass out from shock...but on this site, you never know).

3. Selling some items that I either have up for sale here or on my Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/Moongara) I am going to have some pretty serious medical expenses coming up so selling some things would be nice. It would also just be a nice thing for my ego, I take a lot of pride in what I do and yet it bothers me that things I think people will like don't sell.

4. A lesson or two in internet marketing and/or how to use Facebook to grow my business. Facebook is alien technology to me.

5. A wyrm or other critter from  hopefulmonsterstudios since I can't get to the conventions she goes to and am lucky to catch one or two of her livestream's a month due to a mix of a crazy work schedule and un-cooperative smart phone (would particularly like it if I could get a Fennec fox wyrm but I am not sure she has a design for that yet)

6. Audio versions of two books, Infantry Attacks and Achtung Panzer though, at this point, I would be happy with hard copies. I am a military history/strategy nut and these are two of the books on my reading list...but I am so horribly dyslexic, audio books have become my preferred way of reading as it seems to be the only way I retain information.

7. Art of my friend's horse, Jesse. She has been gone a couple of years now but I still miss her. Note me for ref images.



Note me if you need my address.

Also, if you do one of these journals, link it here, the city where I live has lots of little stores with lots of interesting things and I am quite good at finding that pesky item that one wants but can't find.

I have a Christmas Faire this Sunday and all of next weekend (weather permitting), hence all the angels. That and I am extremely prone to "oh, I have a new pattern to play with" when it comes to bead work.

As it is the holiday season, I will be avoiding the Post Office as much as possible for anything more than a dash in, check PO Box, dash out till after New Years. So if we are trading, I will not be shipping anything out until after the first of the year. This will also help insure that the package doesn't get lost...I have noticed that things tend to either take a dog's age or disappear this time of year too. So, unless you plan on sending something tracked, please also don't send me anything.

So picking up where I left off in my last journal (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5224077/)...

After taking Asurea to the dentist, getting an oil change for my car, picking Asurea up and then taking him home, I took my cats over to my sister's apartment for their safety. She has been quite helpful, taking care of them since I am not sure I wouldn't have lost one of them to the giant fans for the carpet people and/or the hole in the wall behind the toilet...more on that in a moment. Stress makes me have serious and seriously precise food craving, so I went in search of said food between my sister's apartment and work...that was a frustrating little mis-adventure.

After an amazingly un-eventful day at work, I got home to a very strange scene. The carpet in the hallway has been separated from the floor, the carpet pad had been removed (since it was seriously soaked) and a fan had been positioned to blow air underneath it. That was just weird to see, the carpet levitating off the floor and rippling along with the air blowing out of the fan. This is a huge, nasty, loud fan that sucked in anything that got too close. This was particularly noticeable when we moved it to the carpet in front of the master bathroom Thursday morning and the fan sucked in shower curtain. Those fans alone were a good reason to have no felines in the house.

Friday, I get a phone call at entirely too early in the morning from the apartment complex saying that the carpet people will be coming over and I need to go open the door. Oh and I woke up with a thoroughly miserable migraine that wouldn't quit even with my usual methods of treating headaches...Excedrin Migraine is the only thing that knocked it down and that was just barely. On the up side, the carpet people did take the very loud fans and dehumidifier out with them. So I thought we would be able to pick up the cats on Saturday after Asurea got out from his cellphone sales job...sadly the Universe had other ideas.

Saturday, I go into the offending bathroom and discovered water dripping off the paper of the dry wall from the hole behind the toilet. So another call to the apartment answering service. Found out later they sent the maintenance man over and he vacuumed up the water but didn't realize there was another leak...to be fair, it was a very small leak at the time. When we got home, we found that the leak wasn't so small anymore. We called the apartment answering service and they called the maintenance person to come over but then the property manager called and asked if we could contain the leak for the night and then have the maintenance person come over on Sunday, since all he could do that night was turn off the water which wasn't terribly helpful at the moment. So we did our best to contain the leak using towels for the night.

Sunday morning, I walk into the kitchen...and found wet carpet. Not really wet but wet enough to register as wet on my feet. We called again and this time, the maintenance man came out and tried to fix the problem. Turns out the stupid leak was out of reach for the purposed of being fixable. The maintenance man very wisely decided to put a piece of rubber and a clamp over the offending spot to stop the water leaking, then he explained that he would have to go into the apartment that we (sort of...there is actually a dividing wall on the other side of the wall in the bathroom) share a back wall with and fix it from there. He said that he got a call that morning about a little bit of water in the other person's apartment which perplexed him until he heard that we, once again, had a leaky pipe. Haven't heard how this particular step in the process has turned out. The maintenance man then brought in the same big dehumidifier to deal with the wet carpet as it wasn't that wet.

As to why the pipes seem to be so troublesome, the very nice maintenance man explained that the hard water has a nasty habit of eating through copper piping. The apartment complex was built in the early 80s so the hard water has had lots of time to eat though the pipes. All things considered, given how help, nice and prompt the complex management has been about dealing with these problems, I am not going to complain too much. And it still beats paying more for less space at a newer complex.

Can my life stop being "interesting" for just a few days? Please.

For starters, Mondays have been sucking at work...it is like someone opens a can of techno-gremlins and spreads them all over the building every Monday and we spend till Friday getting rid of them.

Last night, before I went to bed, I took two Benadryl since I had a fire ant bite on my left ring finger, at the first joint. A really miserable place to have been bit by a fire ant. This meant that I woke up super loopy this morning.

I woke up some time last night, needing to go to the bathroom. Asurea was in the master bathroom so I went to our second bathroom (why we have a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment). All I did was lift the lid of the toilet and it was like the water line into the toilet exploded. Water went everywhere and kept going everywhere. I howled for Asurea since he had been messing with that toilet earlier in the evening and I didn't know what had happened or where the shut off was.

He got it turned off and (we thought) under control. Meanwhile I went to get towels to at least begin the process of cleaning up the water and we made plans to call the apartment fix it line in the morning.

When Asurea got up this morning for an appointment, he discovered that things had gotten really out of hand. Water had gotten all down the hall way and into the master bathroom and master closet and into the kitchen, all through the walls. So he immediately called the apartment repair line. I, meanwhile, after shaking off the loopiness, called my little sister to cat sit for us as we were imagining that major work will need to be done and I don't want it to cause cat problems. She agreed, thankfully.

The property manager, who lives on property came over ASAP, did a quick evaluation of the situation and helped to stem the flow of water by angling the misbehaving water line into the toilet (making Asurea feel kind of silly). She went off to call carpet people and the on-site maintenance guy arrived to start fixing the problem.

On the up side, at least the flooding is being caused by a busted water line and not an overflowing river (which has been the sword hanging over our heads for the last week...and hangs over our heads still). Wednesday's rain storm has parts of Texas still flooded. Wednesday was a test of my driving skills. Driving through a Texas Gully Washer on the way into work and driving through a very severe thunderstorm on the way home. Wind driven rain, massive lightening (that wrought all sorts of havoc with the computers at work during the evening). For those sorts of storms, its set the cruise control at 40 and touch neither the breaks nor the accelerator, keeps the chances of severe hydroplaning to a minimum.

It is funny, Asurea and I are really good at handling different sorts of crisis situations. House hold problems he deals with well, when I (momentarily) freeze up, where as I can handle things like crazy weather and driving in it, when he is curled up in the passenger seat, barely able to hold a conversation.

I will keep you all posted on how things go.

So it has been an interesting bit of time over the last couple of weeks. A week ago last Thursday, Asurea gets a phone call from my work saying he needs to come back on Monday. This made me happy since it meant that there was a good chance that I would get called back. But I don't hear anything till Friday afternoon, about the time I am getting ready to head out for the Pioneer Farms Haunted Trail event...because I decided to preempt Murphy and get in touch with work. It went from text message to my former department manager to call to the department secretary to call to my new manager. It turned out they had been talking about me and wondering how to get in touch with me. So yes, I also was to report on Monday. The reason I decided to act was that the LAST thing I need was to have them call me in the middle of the Haunted Trail while I was on the back of a horse. The Haunted went well enough, 3 hours on horseback is always a good work out.

That was a week ago Friday, that Saturday, I dropped Asurea off at his cellphone sales job and then I spent at Pioneer Farms, giving pony rides for "lunch money" (pay schedules when one goes back to work are uncooperative to say the least, so $5 a pony ride sounds like a pretty darn good way to make some food money). I did not stick around for the Haunted Trail, it was getting too darn cold and I had to pick Asurea up from his cellphone sales job.

Sunday I dropped Asurea off again and then went out to Pioneer Farms. I got to ride the Frisian stallion, Sjouke, and help a bit with his human, Skye's main stable hand and horse helper, with a bit of training (Sjouke's canter is a bit rough and his human needs to have a capable rider in the saddle to work on those rough spots). That's a big deal to me. I love riding Sjouke and being able to help with his training made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Then my perfect day was ruined by one of the volunteers at Pioneer Farms, a 19 year old male who is currently off his ADHD meds, thought it would be fun to get up on the stallion...and Skye (the horse mistress) let him. Sjouke's human wasn't happy about it. Skye commented that if the 19 year old falls off and gets hurt, it will teach him to not do something outside his skill set...problem is Sjouke is too much the gentleman to put this deserving soul on his ass. So the 19 year old rode Sjouke ragged. When the idiot finally got down off a very tired Sjouke, I went over and cuddled on Sjouke and gave him peppermints (a favored treat). I had just given him 3 peppermints at once and he was playing with the peppermints in his mouth when the idiot walked over and a previously distracted Sjouke decided he didn't want anything to do with the human and started backing away. He doesn't normally do that. You have to have done something uniquely screwed up to get Sjouke backing away from you. After a bit of consideration, Skye said that she would not be allowing anyone to get on Sjouke again unless his human approved and that the 19 year old idiot wouldn't be riding any of her horses again until he was back on his meds.

Skye had a couple of lessons at the end of the day and I was asked to help. I work for my horse time...err...I guess you can call it work. One of the horses we were using, Tally, an Arabian who is well on her way to being quite the nice little lesson horse, was doing her "its the end of the day, I am done" routine. Arabians are very distinct about their "I am done" routines. Tally's involves being a total brat and, if you touch in her in the wrong spot, threatening to bite (which is a hUGE no-no). Skye told me to go walk with the person who is was riding Tally and correct her every time she tried to bite me. This lead to having to explain to the rider why I was striking Tally on the snout (like Skye showed me) every time she showed me teeth. I finally gave up and asked Skye to explain it to her. Skye explained that while she doesn't use "pain, fear and confusion" as training aids, she also doesn't let her horses use it on us. She also explained that biting is horse for declaring war. Meanwhile, I took Tally over and got her untacked and left her to rest tired to the trailer. She promptly cocked her back hoof and closed her eyes, which is a horse's way of relaxing. A little while later I went and picked up Asurea and went home...and passed out a few minutes after I sat down on the couch.

Monday was unmitigated chaos at work...as expected. Tuesday wasn't any better.

Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment before work with a Gastroenterologist, which is the next step on the trail of the iron deficiency. He said he wanted to do the scope down the throat procedure to see if there was anything obvious in my belly and to get biopsies. The next available appointment was the next day, Thursday. I didn't have any problems taking the day off from work since anesthesia has a nasty habit of taking me out for the whole day.

Thursday was mostly spent asleep. After the procedure, the doctor told me to lay off the NSAIDs since there was a tiny blood spot in my stomach...but other than that, everything looked normal. Surprise, surprise. Given that literally nothing else works on either my pain (heat, cold and pain rubs not withstanding...when and where possible) and certainly nothing else is safe for treating my migraines, I will definitely cut back but I can't not take them for the migraines. I can't take any of the prescription migraine medicine because I take Adderall and my primary doesn't want to put that much stress on my heart.

Friday was also good and chaotic at work.

Saturday was the second weekend of the Haunted Trail. I missed Friday at the trail but I was there for Saturday. After helping with tacking up, I got on Levi, Skye's Morgan gelding and spent the night herding cars in the parking lot (or herding cats, depending on how you look at it). What is it about parking lots that make people stupid. I had to park people in a field and then in a second field as the parking filled up. That wasn't the worst of it, The worst of it was when people started leaving. I had a number of very expensive cars, with very stupid drivers ignore me and my horse, and my sword (I finally pulled out my Tuareg sword to use as a pointing implement since clearly the trail whip wasn't obvious enough) and drive out the entrance gate. It was another very physically taxing night but a heck of a lot of fun. It is always nice when (most) people listen to me. And the bulk of people were really nice.

Sunday was a quiet day at Pioneer Farms after dropping Asurea off at his cellphone sales job. And a nice quiet night at home once I picked him up.

Monday I had to go into work early to make some phone calls to people in the EST and with early tour of duties.

So that was my last week or so of chaos and craziness. I thought I would share it with everyone.

Anyone play Dragonvale and want to friend me?

I am so glad not to be at work and thus not in the middle of the Congress's sh#t storm. I went through the last one.

That is all
-Moongara

PS-for anyone who doesn't know, the US government shut down tonight due to Congress's inability to pass a budget.

Things are a bit too tight for my liking this month with rent coming due at the beginning of October so I am opening up commissions and I have lowered my prices on my Etsy store.

Please note me if you are interested in a commission or take a look at my Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/Moongara?ref=si_shop ) It would be a big help.

Since my parents just moved from their house into an apartment, I got a printer/copier/fax/scanner combo devise from my parents since they didn't have a use for it.

I went to try to scan a document today and things just went down hill from there. I have been trying to download a trial of Adobe Acrobat XI Pro from the Adobe website for a good half hour. It has finally decided to stop being cantankerous and decided to let me download the trial. I choose Adobe Acrobat since I know how to get it to scan documents but it is only a 30 trial.

Does anyone know a good, inexpensive and/or free program to get the computer and scanner talking to each other the way Acrobat does? I don't have the $199 + for Acrobat right now and I really don't need most of its capabilities anyway.

Would anyone be interested in an Adoptable version of my Sorki beasties? I would charge in the $5 to $10 range for them.

Edit-I will get more colored ones posted as soon as I can get them scanned (hopefully later today).

A couple of months back I got a bunch of my 2D work scanned...and then the stupidly small jump-drive I had the images scanned onto disappeared. I just found it so I can finally post all the art that was on it.

I am posting both the black and white versions and a colored version (at least of some) of my beasties. Yes, I use a copier once I have the design ironed out so I can play with multiple color combinations.

I love doing these critters even if no one else happens to find them interesting. That being said, I hope you all like them.

...and NO, they are not remotely related to Sparkle Dogs. I have been doing these long before I even knew was a Sparkle Dog is.

While FA is in "Read Only Mode" (and on some off chance it doesn't come back) I can be reached by email, moongara_blackwolf[at]yahoo.com

Yesterday, I did it again. I managed to walk holes in the bottom of my feet. It has been a good couple of years since I have done this but it still is painful. I was helping with a trail ride by walking with the horse and rider. My job was to act as "an emergency break" or, more accurately "anti-munchy assistance" (the horses weren't likely to take off,..stopping dead in their tracks and munching which is a problem for inexperienced riders) and all of a sudden, my feet started to hurt badly. I very carefully keep walking and when I get back, off come the boots and one foot blister had already torn open and my other foot had a much bigger one that needed to be opened in a controlled manner.

What I think happened: wrong socks plus sweaty feet plus foot swelling issues equals blisters.

On to the fun stuff, my kitty is having a lot of fun with the new apartment. And now I have a second kitty. A four month old kitten, who looked remarkably like my cat, came up to Asurea at the beginning of July and mewed at him and, Asurea being Asurea, brought the little beasty home with the intention of having the kitten checked for a chip and either returned to his original owner or taken to a local shelter. After taking the kitten to a veterinarian, he didn't have a chip so no chance of finding if he had an owner or not and finding out that the local shelter is not a no-kill shelter (Austin is a no-kill city, Bastrop isn't, probably due to lack of resources) we decided to keep the kitten. The only place I felt comfortable trying to find a new home for him was work and that was a dead end. We will have to get him neutered in about a month (which is when he will be old enough, according to his vet).

So the new little ball of fur is named Chir'up for the noise he makes (his full name is Chir'up the Chirping Boomerang, for one of his more amusing behavior, he gets booted out of the bed or off Asurea's desk and comes right back like a boomerang). He is an extremely affectionate little ball of fur. He comes up and head butts/nose butts me in the morning, likes to lie down on my arms while i am in bed, sometime lies on my head...purring all the while.

Only complaint I have with him, he likes to steal my food. Doesn't matter how full the food bowl is, doesn't seem to matter if it is wet food or dry food in his bowl, he still prefers mine...including my milk glass. I figure that is it because he is a kitten and needs to be taught boundaries. I am taking a page out of my older cat's book and using my best impression of her "back off" noise and cat hiss and swatting him like another cat would when he gets too close to my food, it is working amazingly well.

Neither Asurea nor I think he was a feral born kitten. The best guess is that either he got out or his behavior got him booted out (people really don't like food thieves) and he was out on his own for a few days before he found my mate. When we took him to the vet, she noticed burns on his feet which would make sense, pavement can get really hot in Texas.

Commissions are still open. With both Asurea and I being furloughed and on unemployment, I could definitely use the income.

“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”


― Joseph Campbell

That sums it up...completely.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4925623/

Why not?

Tuesday I got a text message from my manager, saying there was a meeting she had just found out about that was scheduled to start right when I get to work. Thankfully I was already en route and on course to be to work early so that wasn't a big deal.

The meeting turned out to be to tell me and the other seasonal night clerk that we will be furloughed on the 2nd...ie this coming Friday. This isn't how things are normally done, the rules say they have to give us 5 days notice so the Union is raising all un-holy hell about it. Not sure how that is going to turn out.

My manager (...actually all the managers I work with) was shocked to hear about the clerks being furloughed this Friday. My department manager only found out because I told him yesterday as he had been out till then. He wasn't happy either.

So, barring any change in the mood of our "high command" (up in DC) I will be on furlough starting after work this Friday (but then again, we were already supposed be furloughed on June 28th so gods only knows). I will be able to get unemployment but with the new apartment and Asurea already on furlough and collecting unemployment money will be a bit tight.

I am open for commissions of any sort. Note me if you are interested in a commission.