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A Practical Christmas Wish List: I Need Help 🎄
General | Posted 4 weeks agoBecause of how I’ve felt physically this year, and because I owe my friends art, I haven’t opened commissions to the general public in any significant amount. I think I’ve done maybe 35 drawings all year, which is heartbreaking to me. It’s so very, very little. It includes personal art (basically art I did years ago, that I colored this year). So I’m even counting stuff like that. My output has been terrible.
And I still can’t take more commissions as long as I owe any art, no matter how little. Even if I allowed myself to take a handful in 2025, which I did, a very small amount, I can’t in good conscience continue to take commissions, even to buy things I need for the cats which would improve their quality of life and mine, but isn’t as essential as meds, food, basic enrichment, vet bills, etc.
I’ve already shared a cat Christmas wishlist I have with things for my kitties or related to them, which had just one cat tree, and I didn’t have any luck getting that. 😞 Which I understand as everyone is having a hard time and I have nothing to offer in return. But I’m sharing that again anyway, in lieu of a normal Christmas wishlist, because I’m desperate for these things, honestly.
I’m sharing it now because everything is on a Black Friday deal right now, so if anyone was contemplating perhaps helping me, everything is discounted right now. Some things are very discounted.
Here’s a link to the list: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/.....?ref_=wl_share
It has a couple of cat trees, because we had accidents where Romeo managed to sneak into a part of the house he’s not allowed in and he promptly peed on the old cat trees so they had to be discarded. I really need to replace them as vertical space is a must on a multi-cat household.
You’ll also see several “ssscat” motion-activated compressed air sprays which are vital to keep Romeo away from the gates as well as keep him off the kitchen counters for his safety.
The Ring cameras are also incredibly important to me since more than once he’s snuck into an area where I didn’t have cameras and I spent many hours over a full week, literally crying and sniffing the floor and walls trying to find where he peed. There were rooms where I had the cameras and he did the same, but because I had the cameras, cleanup took me literally 10 minutes. It saves so much of my time and sanity.
Most of these items are quite expensive so I realize this is a long shot, especially offering nothing in exchange. But I have to try. I hope if next year I can feel physically better, my output will improve and I can actually open commissions again properly once my queue has been cleared.
Thank you everyone.
And I still can’t take more commissions as long as I owe any art, no matter how little. Even if I allowed myself to take a handful in 2025, which I did, a very small amount, I can’t in good conscience continue to take commissions, even to buy things I need for the cats which would improve their quality of life and mine, but isn’t as essential as meds, food, basic enrichment, vet bills, etc.
I’ve already shared a cat Christmas wishlist I have with things for my kitties or related to them, which had just one cat tree, and I didn’t have any luck getting that. 😞 Which I understand as everyone is having a hard time and I have nothing to offer in return. But I’m sharing that again anyway, in lieu of a normal Christmas wishlist, because I’m desperate for these things, honestly.
I’m sharing it now because everything is on a Black Friday deal right now, so if anyone was contemplating perhaps helping me, everything is discounted right now. Some things are very discounted.
Here’s a link to the list: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/.....?ref_=wl_share
It has a couple of cat trees, because we had accidents where Romeo managed to sneak into a part of the house he’s not allowed in and he promptly peed on the old cat trees so they had to be discarded. I really need to replace them as vertical space is a must on a multi-cat household.
You’ll also see several “ssscat” motion-activated compressed air sprays which are vital to keep Romeo away from the gates as well as keep him off the kitchen counters for his safety.
The Ring cameras are also incredibly important to me since more than once he’s snuck into an area where I didn’t have cameras and I spent many hours over a full week, literally crying and sniffing the floor and walls trying to find where he peed. There were rooms where I had the cameras and he did the same, but because I had the cameras, cleanup took me literally 10 minutes. It saves so much of my time and sanity.
Most of these items are quite expensive so I realize this is a long shot, especially offering nothing in exchange. But I have to try. I hope if next year I can feel physically better, my output will improve and I can actually open commissions again properly once my queue has been cleared.
Thank you everyone.
Scary Health Stuff But Important To Share 🙁
General | Posted 4 weeks agoHi everyone. So I’ve mentioned before that 2025 feels, in some aspects, like the worst year of my life. Or perhaps I’ve thought it, but didn’t dare say it out loud, because it feels so completely hyperbolic. I don’t remember.
Anyway. I should be happy. I have a happy life, and I am so fortunate in so many ways. I’m just really stressed the hell out. I’ve generally chalked it all up to the cats, or rather, to the havoc Romeo has brought upon our household, which, when so many cats are already in the picture, causes problems with all of them. I won’t get into the details of that right now since I’ve written about it so many times. Even so, it really isn’t the end of the world and it should not be affecting me the way it is. I don’t think it would affect most people this way.
I have art I owe close friends for way too long which I have yet to complete (on that note: right now the couple of Christmas commissions, one for Snow and one for Kenny, and the commission for Wilk, are all on track to be completed on time: I finished several commissions in the last two months but have been too tired to do anything besides send them to the commissioners). My current level of delay would once have been unthinkable for someone with my ethics, and I have chided people, privately and openly, for finding themselves in similar situations. I blamed myself for this, naturally, and continue to do so, even though other circumstances are coming to light now.
All of this year I have not been myself, physically or mentally. I have intense joint and muscle pain, as well as constant tingling in my extremities. I’ve always bruised easily, but this too has gotten worse and longer lasting. My hair, which always fell a little due to my epilepsy medication, is falling much more. Some mild IBS symptoms I’ve had all my life have intensified in the last year. I am always tired, and my hands and feet are always frozen to the touch, even if the rest of me is warm. No amount of socks or blankets help. Sometimes I just start crying randomly, out of the blue, from how tired and stressed I feel. This, as you can imagine, is distressing to my loved ones.
This year I have not read, played video games, blogged, played with my toys, worked on my books or drawn in any significant capacity. My house is dirty, my relationships are neglected. I am always tired, and very sore. It often feels as though I am in a deep brain fog; thinking is difficult. This is the main reason I stopped blogging. I’m sure my friends, online and offline, have noticed that I’ve not been myself. I’ve blamed it all on the stress the cats have caused me, and this is a factor, for sure, but it should have been obvious that it alone would not have caused me to fall apart as I have.
Some of you might remember me mentioning the neuropathy issues way back in 2022 or thereabouts. Tests were done at the time, including one particularly unpleasant one in which small needles were stuck into my muscles and then little electric shocks administered through them. All results showed no apparent issues with me physically. “Drink water”, doctors told me, or “you’re just getting older”.
I’ve had somewhat hypochondriac tendencies since childhood, so I’ve learned to accept such answers and move on with my life. I learned to live with it all: the tingling, the bruising, the cold, the intensifying muscle and joint pain, the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach when I take a clump of hair off my hairbrush in the mornings or evenings, needing to rush into bathrooms at stores (and sometimes, depending on the time of day, even picking where to shop depending on whether I know a bathroom will be available).
Now, one thing I want to point out is that I get twice-yearly blood tests because of my epilepsy medication. These tests, fortuitously as it will turn out, check for things which other routine tests often do not. For several years I’ve asked different doctors about a specific level in my blood test that was always too low, in the “red” zone: alkaline phosphate, or ALP. I have results since 2017 and not a single one has ever been normal. Multiple doctors, including really good ones that I trusted very much, brushed me off. As it turns out, it is common for doctors to disregard low ALP. Because of the hypochondriac tendencies I mentioned, I thought I knew better than to research more into it. Google is most definitely not a low-key hypochondriac’s friend. So I didn’t. Until recently.
It turns out, it is very, very unlikely to ever be “ok” for that level to be low in one’s body for years. It could be my baseline, but it would be quite rare, just as many of the disorders (some genetic and incurable) that cause it are very rare. It should not have ever been brushed off as it was. But if I did not get that regular testing I would not have such a history to bring to a specialist. I’ve been lucky: disorders related to low ALP are hard to diagnose, often misdiagnosed or ignored for years.
Thankfully I did have the data in hand. So I went to see an endocrinologist, a wonderful compassionate man, who told me that had my levels be that low for one year he would have looked into it, let alone several years. He had me do a lot of blood tests. Seven vials! I never had that many taken at once. Tomorrow I have a bone density test as well, but the first blood test results are trickling in and confirming that, indeed, something IS wrong and the kicker is that all of the symptoms are listed above are triggered by these low levels. So I’m not okay. It wasn’t all me just “not coping with life” or “not handling getting old”. Something is wrong. Now we have to figure out exactly what, or more precisely why.
I could have a rare genetic disorder called hypophosphatasia. I could have pernicious anemia. The issues could also be triggered by my epilepsy medication, something I’m crossing my fingers for, since it’s one of the fixable possibilities. How I proceed going forward will depend on results of further testing that is being done at this time, at great cost, right as we had a lot of spending due to the cats as well.
I still carry a lot of guilt for how much I’ve made my friends wait for art. But I also wanted to share this information because this year has been so unlike me. I’ve been getting worse in general, last year was also very hard, I’ve been so slow. But this year was something else altogether. And there may actually be a reason for that. So I wanted you guys to know it may not have been entirely a personal failure, although I know that shouldn’t be anyone’s problem but my own, and I’m still deeply sorry for that.
Kind of a tangent here, but as I’ve come to learn more about this, I have wondered if my difficulties in writing alt text have anything to do with how hard thinking feels for me these last couple of years but especially this year. It’s like a heavy lifting exercise for my brain, hard to put into words. If and when this is fixed (that’s the scary part, there is potential of no fix, and of worsening, as well) I’m curious as to whether such things will slowly become a little easier for me.
I’ll have updates for you guys over the next few weeks and I really appreciate everyone reading this. I make a lot of typos these days/not always write clearly so I may have to revise this in a bit. 💖
Anyway. I should be happy. I have a happy life, and I am so fortunate in so many ways. I’m just really stressed the hell out. I’ve generally chalked it all up to the cats, or rather, to the havoc Romeo has brought upon our household, which, when so many cats are already in the picture, causes problems with all of them. I won’t get into the details of that right now since I’ve written about it so many times. Even so, it really isn’t the end of the world and it should not be affecting me the way it is. I don’t think it would affect most people this way.
I have art I owe close friends for way too long which I have yet to complete (on that note: right now the couple of Christmas commissions, one for Snow and one for Kenny, and the commission for Wilk, are all on track to be completed on time: I finished several commissions in the last two months but have been too tired to do anything besides send them to the commissioners). My current level of delay would once have been unthinkable for someone with my ethics, and I have chided people, privately and openly, for finding themselves in similar situations. I blamed myself for this, naturally, and continue to do so, even though other circumstances are coming to light now.
All of this year I have not been myself, physically or mentally. I have intense joint and muscle pain, as well as constant tingling in my extremities. I’ve always bruised easily, but this too has gotten worse and longer lasting. My hair, which always fell a little due to my epilepsy medication, is falling much more. Some mild IBS symptoms I’ve had all my life have intensified in the last year. I am always tired, and my hands and feet are always frozen to the touch, even if the rest of me is warm. No amount of socks or blankets help. Sometimes I just start crying randomly, out of the blue, from how tired and stressed I feel. This, as you can imagine, is distressing to my loved ones.
This year I have not read, played video games, blogged, played with my toys, worked on my books or drawn in any significant capacity. My house is dirty, my relationships are neglected. I am always tired, and very sore. It often feels as though I am in a deep brain fog; thinking is difficult. This is the main reason I stopped blogging. I’m sure my friends, online and offline, have noticed that I’ve not been myself. I’ve blamed it all on the stress the cats have caused me, and this is a factor, for sure, but it should have been obvious that it alone would not have caused me to fall apart as I have.
Some of you might remember me mentioning the neuropathy issues way back in 2022 or thereabouts. Tests were done at the time, including one particularly unpleasant one in which small needles were stuck into my muscles and then little electric shocks administered through them. All results showed no apparent issues with me physically. “Drink water”, doctors told me, or “you’re just getting older”.
I’ve had somewhat hypochondriac tendencies since childhood, so I’ve learned to accept such answers and move on with my life. I learned to live with it all: the tingling, the bruising, the cold, the intensifying muscle and joint pain, the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach when I take a clump of hair off my hairbrush in the mornings or evenings, needing to rush into bathrooms at stores (and sometimes, depending on the time of day, even picking where to shop depending on whether I know a bathroom will be available).
Now, one thing I want to point out is that I get twice-yearly blood tests because of my epilepsy medication. These tests, fortuitously as it will turn out, check for things which other routine tests often do not. For several years I’ve asked different doctors about a specific level in my blood test that was always too low, in the “red” zone: alkaline phosphate, or ALP. I have results since 2017 and not a single one has ever been normal. Multiple doctors, including really good ones that I trusted very much, brushed me off. As it turns out, it is common for doctors to disregard low ALP. Because of the hypochondriac tendencies I mentioned, I thought I knew better than to research more into it. Google is most definitely not a low-key hypochondriac’s friend. So I didn’t. Until recently.
It turns out, it is very, very unlikely to ever be “ok” for that level to be low in one’s body for years. It could be my baseline, but it would be quite rare, just as many of the disorders (some genetic and incurable) that cause it are very rare. It should not have ever been brushed off as it was. But if I did not get that regular testing I would not have such a history to bring to a specialist. I’ve been lucky: disorders related to low ALP are hard to diagnose, often misdiagnosed or ignored for years.
Thankfully I did have the data in hand. So I went to see an endocrinologist, a wonderful compassionate man, who told me that had my levels be that low for one year he would have looked into it, let alone several years. He had me do a lot of blood tests. Seven vials! I never had that many taken at once. Tomorrow I have a bone density test as well, but the first blood test results are trickling in and confirming that, indeed, something IS wrong and the kicker is that all of the symptoms are listed above are triggered by these low levels. So I’m not okay. It wasn’t all me just “not coping with life” or “not handling getting old”. Something is wrong. Now we have to figure out exactly what, or more precisely why.
I could have a rare genetic disorder called hypophosphatasia. I could have pernicious anemia. The issues could also be triggered by my epilepsy medication, something I’m crossing my fingers for, since it’s one of the fixable possibilities. How I proceed going forward will depend on results of further testing that is being done at this time, at great cost, right as we had a lot of spending due to the cats as well.
I still carry a lot of guilt for how much I’ve made my friends wait for art. But I also wanted to share this information because this year has been so unlike me. I’ve been getting worse in general, last year was also very hard, I’ve been so slow. But this year was something else altogether. And there may actually be a reason for that. So I wanted you guys to know it may not have been entirely a personal failure, although I know that shouldn’t be anyone’s problem but my own, and I’m still deeply sorry for that.
Kind of a tangent here, but as I’ve come to learn more about this, I have wondered if my difficulties in writing alt text have anything to do with how hard thinking feels for me these last couple of years but especially this year. It’s like a heavy lifting exercise for my brain, hard to put into words. If and when this is fixed (that’s the scary part, there is potential of no fix, and of worsening, as well) I’m curious as to whether such things will slowly become a little easier for me.
I’ll have updates for you guys over the next few weeks and I really appreciate everyone reading this. I make a lot of typos these days/not always write clearly so I may have to revise this in a bit. 💖
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