So I decided to upgrade my accounts. I can't believe LJ charges $6 extra for 100 icons. And I can't believe I gave it to them. Because god forbid I don't have 100 ways to express that Sylar is hot and Venture Brothers is funny. Meanwhile, over at journalfen, I get 500 icons included in the paid account price. 500. Anyway, so I've spent all day gathering icons and playing with different lay outs. It's been fun!

Also: I have bunny pictures! I went to the Del Mar fair last weekend with my parents, but we only ended up spending an hour there (after spending an hour and a half finding parking), because my mother remembered a dinner date she had with people she dislikes and could not cancel, for some reason. Oh my mom. But I accomplished my main goal, which was to eat a fried Snickers bar. It tasted okay. And I got to see these cute guys, so it wasn't a total waste.

( Bunnies! And some other things. )

Probably for a while since I'm a little unemployed right now. I've been in stealth lurker mode in various places, so I'm pretty caught up with everything - I've just been too tired to have anything to say. :P

Anyway! I finally have a camera, so I've been sitting around attempting to take pictures of my cat! Which doesn't really count as something to say, but I'm out of practice, so.

( Penelo! (lots and lots of pics) )
( Bonus pug! )

My new computer is very nice. The screen is ENORMOUS, though. It's bigger than my TV! Granted, my TV is the smallest TV I have ever encountered, so that isn't saying much. Windows Vista really sucks though. I hate it. A lot.

So what have you guys been up to? I missed you. : (

( Also: kittens! (Lots o' pics under cut) And a request for kitten-related Photoshop aid. )

So I've decided to start a journal for my fic. It's seraphtrev_fic. All short fics at the moment, but I'm really trying to complete my longer WIPs, including "Pending" and "To Heal the Wound."

So, yay!

I've found a no-kill shelter in my area for the kittens! : D

Brian and I went to Petsmart today to see if we could put up posters there, and by coincidence, an animal rescue place was there trying to adopt out some animals. They aren't in the phonebook, and apparently my googling skills are really sucky, so it was really lucky that we ran into them! It's The Helping Paws Pet Rescue and Adoption. It sounds so perfect - they had a catalog there with a picture of their facilities, and it's so nice, with all these toys and places for the kitties to climb and play around (our kittens are excellent climbers XD). AND they say that they make all adopters sign a contract that says that if for whatever reason they don't want to have the kittens anymore, they will return them to the animal rescue. And that's if it's two weeks from now or ten years from now! AND they are asking for a donation that's much more reasonable - $50, which we can afford.

AND we found a home already for another one of the kittens! As I said before, we are giving Genghis to my husband's friend Luke, even though I have my reservations about how this is going to work out. But we've told them that if it doesn't work out, then we'd be more than happy to take him back, so at least I know they won't dump him somewhere or take him to a shelter. But my sister has a friend at her work who desperately wants a kitten and has only recently been able to afford one, due to her husband getting a better job. So now Patcheye has a home! My sister says this girl and her husband are really sweet, and she's practically beside herself with joy over the prospect of this kitten.

I am so relieved and happy and excited and OMG MY KITTIES WILL BE SAFE AND LOVED!!!!!

And now I'm crying again. Happy tears though! (Yeesh, I've done more crying in the last three days than I have in the last year!)

I'm going out of my mind here about these kittens. I guess I didn't realize how hard this was going to hit me. I want to get them to good homes so badly, but I'm so scared that I won't be able to do that.

I initially thought that I would give them to the shelter. Before Penelo had them, I had called to make an appointment with the vet to determine if she was pregnant, and in the course of our conversation, the lady at the vet said that kittens at shelters go really quickly and almost never have to be euthanized. But when I called the shelter yesterday, they were way less reassuring. So that's out. I don't think I could live with myself if there was even the most remote possibility that one of them would be put down.

So I called my mom, and she has a friend who volunteers at a no-kill shelter in San Diego. They said they would be more than happy to take them. I was really happy, but then when I was talking to the lady there, she added "...of course, we do ask for a small surrender fee." So I asked what that would be, and she kind of hemmed and hawed because it was really more of a "donation," and therefore up to me, but generally, for adult animals, they ask $200. Of course, they wouldn't ask that much for kittens, but... And at that point I knew that wasn't going to be an option, because we are flat broke right now.

And now I've freaked myself out by reading about horrible things that happen to kittens that are given away through the paper. PETA's site said that only one in five pets given away this way go to good homes, but then again, it's fucking PETA and I find it a little hard to believe that the majority of the population likes to torture pets or that the black market for lab animals is really that booming of a business. I'm going to put an ad in our local paper and on craigslist (thanks for the idea Ariel), and there's this petfinder.com. I'm planning on charging for the kittens and screening thoroughly (taking down driver's licenses, etc.), but I'm just so scared. So I've spent the last two days crying and now my mom and Brian are annoyed with me because they think I'm being hysterical.

So yeah. Any advice would be appreciated.

My mom came up to visit and brought her digital camera, so I've finally got some pics that do my babies justice! My mom absolutely fell in love with Spot, so there's an overabundance of Spot shots. She was very nearly ready to take him home, but, as she put it "I can have a kitten or I can have a husband, but not both."



( Tons of pics under the cut )

Good news! I have pics! I finally finished up the disposal camera I bought today. Instead of getting them developed, I got them on a disk, which I completely didn't realize I could do. (I don't take a lot of pictures, OKAY?)

Bad news! They completely suck! D : Disposal camera + me as photographer = FAIL. I had thought that, if anything, they would come out too dark, but I had the opposite problem - many of them were so light you could barely make out what was going on. In addition, the close-up pics of the kittens are completely out of focus. I have very, very basic photoshop skillz, so I did my best to make them at least somewhat viewable. My mom will be coming up to visit next week, so I'll have better pics then, but I thought I might as well post these.



( MOAR )

Hi guys - sorry for the wait, but I come bearing kittens! : D



( Moar pics, plus the story behind the kittens! )

jiefawo;jei;ffeaj PENELO IS HAVING HER KITTIES OMG OMG OMG AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I will update more on this situation soon, but I need some advice ASAP - she just popped out a cute little black kitten, and she's licking it and cleaning it and it's moving around just fine, but - shouldn't the kitten be making noise? Or not? I DON'T KNOW.


ETA: NEVERMIND - IT IS MEOWING NOW AND NURSING. WHY AM I SUCH A SPAZ.

Plz stay tuned - I will be ETA-ing all over the place, I'm sure. It will give me something to do.

ADDITIONAL QUESTION: I have already looked up this info, but out of curiosity, those of you with personal experience - how long between kittens was it for your cat?

ETA2: Well, we have two more kittens, but one didn't make it. I watched Penelo chew the sac, umbilical cord, etc., then lick it for a while, then she suddenly stopped and went back to her other kitten. I pulled it out and it wasn't moving, so I got a towel and rubbed it a lot, but nothing's happening. It doesn't really surprise me too much, since she was on her own for the first few weeks, and I talked to my granddad and he said that even kitties who have the best of care throughout their pregnancy give birth to stillborns.


ETA3: Well, it's 10:00 am and the labor started around 6, so I don't know if there'll be anymore. I felt her tummy and it certainly feels like there's another one in there, but who knows. It's only been an hour since the last one was born, and there was an hour between the onset of labor and the first kittie, then another hour after that for the second. But then the third was born about ten minutes after the second. - I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Thank you for all your support. : )

ETA4: We have another one! : D It's the first one who's the same color as Penelo, and it is the feistiest so far. It tried to nurse on its own placenta. D :

ETA5: Aaaaaand, we have kitten #5 (#4 live)! Another orange one who scared me half to death - I thought we had another stillborn, but it came around and is now nursing! *\o/* This one is really small - I hope it'll be okay.

And I was feeling 'Nelo's belly, and it really feels like there's at least one more in there. O_o They seem to be coming about an hour apart, so I'm thinking we'll know in another hour or hour-and-a-half. Goddamn, with her being young, a first time mom, a former stray, and on the small side, this sure is a lot of kittens. She's as robust as the server!

ETA6: We've got kitten #6! This one's black too.

I'm open to naming suggestions (well, nick-naming, since they will get their real names once they're in a happy home of their own!) So far I've got Ickle Firstie, Spotface, and Ghengis Kitty. (Although, actually, aside from Spotface, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to tell them apart!)

ETA 7: Well, I could have sworn I saw her start on a seventh, but it appears there are just going to be the five live ones. I felt her belly and it doesn't feel like it's got anything left in it.

She decided to give birth under the couch (despite the fact that I had a severe talk with her about how she could have them ANYWHERE BUT THERE), and she seems determined to stay there. I have made our large walk-in closet a nursery, complete with a comfortable box, but when I tried to move the kittens, Penelo grabbed them and moved them right back to under the couch. *sighs* She's fine there for now, but I'm going to need to move her in there at some point. Any advice?

Also, my grandparents can't come over until Monday due to the fact that my great aunt is having a session of chemotherapy and they need to stay with her, so no kitty pics until then. Sorry guys. : ( (Well, and even if I had a camera at this point, I couldn't take pictures anyway due to the whole under-the-couch thing.)

I placed in TWO Hogsmeade contests! XD I got first place in the Essay #3 contest (which, heh, was the rant. >_> I'm going to post it here, since most everyone in H_E on my flist has seen it anyway), and second place in the Fiction #4 (which was the POV of a traitor contest - I actually liked my extremely mushy "Caught in the Rain" Entry, but that is because I'm a giant sap.)

So here are my entries - man, Hogsmeade is fun! XD

( Rant Entry )

( Fiction #4 )

( Non-Winning Fic )