Lexie

You see this adorable ball of brown and white and ginger fluff? She's so sweet. She's cute and cuddly and affectionate and amusing. She also pees everywhere. ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE.

I've had her for around two months now, and for the entire time she's been peeing on my bed. With or without me in it. I changed the type of litter I used, and got her a separate tray in case she didn't want to share with Smudge. And she's litter trained. She'll use the tray. But she also pees on the bed. I brought a nice expensive deodorising pet spray, to remove her scent. And I've used it all up already. I tried squirting her with water when she squats. I tried putting a litter tray in the bedroom. I tried picking her up and plonking her in the tray every time she squats. I recently spent two weeks in the bedroom so that I could watch her every second. All to no avail.

The current plan is keeping her out of the bedroom. All the time. Which sucks, because I like it when my girls sleep with me. And for the past few days I've been letting her in for 10-20 minutes at a time. During those times I don't do anything at all except watch her. And she's only squatted once. I was beginning to optimistically hope that it might be working. And then...

Today I discovered that she's been peeing in the living room. Oh, and I found stains in the bedroom in places other than the bed. She peed on my hand-knitted blanket. She peed on a pile of stuffed toys. She's been peeing on the sofa. She peed on a couple of bags of yarn I had lying around. She peed in every single open box on the living room floor - which is quite a few, cos Smudge likes to sleep in them.

I don't know what to do now. I've googled, and I'm going to buy an orange-scented room spray on Tuesday, because apparently cats don't like orange. I'm also going to take her to the vet to get her checked for a UTI. But I can't do that for two weeks. I need to go to the PDSA to register her on Tuesday, and then make an appointment. And unless they have an appointment free on Tuesday, I can't afford to take her until two Tuesdays after that.

Is it wrong that I hope she has an infection? If she has an infection, we can cure it and she'll stop peeing. If she doesn't have an infection, then I'm all out of ideas. Short of never doing anything ever again aside from follow her around and squirt her when she squats.

Decision re. Project 200

Today has been very rough emotionally, and my decision to move to Basingstoke has changed. Instead, I'm going for a different dream. One that is going to need money. So, I'm moving my focus onto making items in order to start an Etsy store to raise money. I'm also going to selling a lot of non-handmade stuff on Ebay. I'd sell a kidney if I knew how.

I'm never going to complete Project 200 as well as make lots to sell - I'm starting with cross-stitched Christmas cards - but I don't want to give up on it altogether, so I'm turning it into a 2 year project.

I'm going to be creating and testing a lot of patterns in the near future, hopefully. Anyone want to be a pattern tester?

Cheesed Off

Here are just a few reasons why I'm cheesed off right now..

- things in my family have gotten messy and I can't do anything to help
- everybody in my family is annoyed at everyone else for crossed messages and not understanding things and just the stupid situation as it stands
- I have a headache. Not that nice kind of headache you can sleep through, but the evil kind that wakes you up in tears because it's so flipping bad
- One of my friends is too busy with her life to reply to text messages
- My other friend is still awol. Alive, according to the offline MSN message I got, but that's all I've heard from him in over a week
- I'm annoyed at myself that I only have two friends I can hang out with
- An old friend keeps texting to see what I'm up to and asking if he can come over - despite the fact that the last time we spoke he spent two hours insulting me and my life
- I've been chatting to guys online, trying to make friends, and we get on okay until I mention I only want to be friends, then they vanish, or block me
- The one guy who didn't vanish is still persistently being overly flirty, and if I don't respond to a text within ten minutes he sends the exact same text again
- I don't have the energy to get up and do anything
- I can't focus on more than one or two rows of any craft project
- I can't muster the energy to go and sit in the lounge, and I can hear both cats outside the bedroom door meowing because I won't let them in, but I can't let them in because Lexie won't stop peeing on the bloody bed
- I don't have vast amounts of ice cream in the freezer
- I don't have ANY ice cream in the freezer
- I'm in love with someone who is in love with me, but it won't work and I have to deal with that fact, but I really don't want to
- I'm going stir crazy in my house, but I have absolutely no where to go
- Even if I had somewhere to go, I have no money to get there
- I'm lonely as hell
- I'm frustrated, due to certain urges having been awoken
- I'm annoyed because I've woken up hours earlier than intended, but I can't get back to sleep


- I'm not incredibly annoyed because every time I phone my mother, about anything, we end up getting into an argument about Michaela and she yells at me
- I'm annoyed that I actually let myself believe that my relationship with that woman had gotten any better
- I'm annoyed with life in general, and I hate everything

A bit of a rant

More ranting about how crap my life is. Feel free to skip it.

For the past week, one of my friends has been AWOL. Heard from him the evening before we were meant to meet up, then nothing. He never showed up to meeting me, he didn't answer his phone, he wasn't on MSN, he wasn't on Twitter or Facebook, he wasn't responding to texts or emails. Just gone. Very unlike him. And I'm a paranoid person. One of my biggest fears is that a friend will die, and I'll never know because no one will think to tell me. So that's been preying on my mind. I messaged a couple of mutual friends we have, and one got back to me saying she hadn't heard from him either, which didn't help. I was going to look up his parents in the phone book and try calling them, but then he got back to me this morning. When I logged on to MSN this morning he'd left me an online message. He's ill and depressed, but he's alive. So I feel a little better.

Still feel crappy though. BIG BIG BIG family issues, and at the moment there is nothing I can do about it. My mum is having trouble dealing with my teenage sister, and it's causing all kinds of chaos. I've offered to have her live with me, but two hundred miles is too far away. So I made the decision last week to move back to Basingstoke. I hate Basingstoke, but I don't have a lot up here in the Midlands for me anymore. Two friends - one of whom works a lot and has just moved in with her boyfriend. I'll see her as much as I see her now, just with a bit more planning. The other has parents a couple of towns over from Basingstoke, so I'd still see him when he visits. There are a lot of benefits to moving back down south. I'd be closer to my sisters, and my step-brothers and their kids. I'd get to see all my little cousins and neices and nephews grow up. If I get stir-crazy or lonely there are lots of family friends in the town who'd love to have me over for a cup of tea. Generally the south is more expensive, but the weekly bus ticket in Basingstoke is about £6 cheaper, so I could afford to get out and about, and there are lots of societies and clubs I'd like to join. And, most importantly, I'd be able to help mum out with Michaela. If nothing else, I'd be somewhere for Michaela to go when things get too much.

The quickest move is to go private, but to do that I'd need about £800 for a deposit and first month's rent, and I can't afford that at the moment. So I've applied to the Council/Housing Association's Housing Register. I have connections in the area, and my Dr is writing a letter to prove that it'd be good for my depression. So I won't be at the bottom of their list, but it'll still take a while.

Yesterday the situation down there blew up a little bit. I need to get down there as soon as I can, and until I do there's nothing I can do to help the situation, which is killing me. I'm helpless up here. It's aggravating my depression, and I'm currently festering in a pit of episodey-ness, with no outlet.

I've been cooking. I have a peanut butter pie setting in the freezer, and garlic-ginger chicken marinating in the fridge, but once again I have no one to share my delicious goods with, with is depressing.

And I'm tired. Been sleeping odd hours, and I'm tired. My depression makes me tired, my anti-depressants make me tired, my current situation is making me tired, and not sleeping properly is making me tired. I'm fucking tired! I so desperately want to go lie down and sleep for months.

Project 200 - 49/151

Very nearly a quarter of the way through.



49 down
151 to go

and for an extra little bonus...

Remember this?

The Slytherin scarf was a quarter of a Project 200 piece. I still can't mark it as complete yet, but here's the second quarter...

Project 200 - 48/152

Here's another one. Even if I don't manage to complete the May Blitz, at least I'm getting loads done. This is May 15th's piece.



48 down
152 to go

Guess what's special about this post...

Project 200 - 47/153

Here's the next one. I'm a couple of days out, I've been getting over a bit of an emotional blip. Big interesting post coming about that.



Technically he's finished. I've completed the pattern. But I'm going to do a border of purple, and some kind of backing, and add a suction cup to the top so I can stick him on the window come Christmas. There's another little Christmas penguin in the project coming up at some point, too.

47 down
153 to go

Project 200 - 46/154

And another one...



This piece took me 3 months, almost exactly. And it counts as May 13th's piece in the May Blitz.

46 down
154 to go

Project 200 - 45/155

And here's May 12th's bit. This little guy has only 18 rows of knitting, but it took me forever. He was made on DPNs, and I'm incredibly inexperienced with those. The first time I tried, it took me two hours to cast on and figure out how to join the round. I did a few rounds and realised I had a twist, and I had to rip it all back. I was very disheartened with the project, and put it aside for a few days. But today I started him again and got him finished. :-)



45 down
155 to go

Project 200 - 44/156

Ok, there has been a bit of lag in the May Blitz, because I've been having a bit of an episode. But here is May 11th's piece.



44 down
156 to go

Desperate attempt at distraction

Hey there world. Right now I'm fighting those I-want-to-do-Something-Stupid feelings. And those of you who know me know what "Something Stupid" is code for. And since there isn't really anyone I can talk to, I'll tell my blog instead. Not that anybody really reads this. I don't even know why I keep posting. It's a diary, basically, and not even one I can be completely honest in. Sometimes I feel like I should just give it up, and go get a notebook. Go back to being private. At least in a notebook I could scribble down exactly what's bothering me and not be vague and semi-secretive.

For instance, there are some issues with my family. Chaotic, big, messy issues that I can't escape from. But I can't talk about it freely on here. Because I don't know if any of the people involve will ever come on here. Not to mention that it's an issue with a minor, and there are probably lots of legal issues involved. Besides, if I said that I was planning on kidnapping my baby sister, there would be all kinds of uproar. But it's driving me crazy. I moved 200 miles away to get away from family, and I'm still messed up in everything. And I wish so much that I could just forget about it, and pretend it doesn't all exist, but I can't do that. Because it's a big fucking great big mess and I worry too much and can't switch my sodding brain off.

And it's not just the family issues. It's everything. And I mean everything! At all times of the day I have a million things being worried about in my head. I worry that I can't stop Lexie peeing on the damn bed. I worry that someone I care about it is going to get mugged or attacked randomly. I worry about the floods in Memphis - I don't even know anyone in flipping Memphis. I worry about the friends of a friend who live in Japan. I worry about being depressed forever. I worry about having to throw away some milk because it's expired, but I shouldn't be throwing food away cos there are people in the world starving. I worry about my current situation with Neil. I worry about whether or not my friends are still talking to me when I haven't heard from them in a day or two. I worry that Smudge isn't happy anymore. I worry about whether the pain in my chest is a heart attack or angina or something. I worry about whether that headache is a migraine. I worry about whether or not I make too much noise for my downstairs neighbour. I worry about whether that low rumble is thunder, or a truck, or a bomb gearing up to explode somewhere. I worry about EVERYTHING. All the freaking time. And the only thing that stops it is sleep. Except for when the worrying becomes nightmares and I wake up crying, or sweating, or shaking. It sucks. I want a lobotomy.

And I'm just generally feeling crappy at the moment. I've been episodey for a week, and every day some new little thing happens that just makes me feel worse. Like the baking. In the past few days I've made peanut butter muffins, a delicious toad-in-the-hole and an absolutely exquisite apple crumble. And I've had no one to share it with. I'm developing this skill and talent and delight in baking, but I have no one to bake for. So I can make the Butter Pecan cookies I have a recipe for, but there's no one to try them, and eating them all by myself probably isn't good for me either.
I'm so pathetic and lonely I have no one to bake for.

And lonely is definitely the word for it. I have three friends. Three fucking friends! One of them is my ex-boyfriend I shouldn't even be talking to, anyway. One of them is very busy caught up in work and in moving in with her boyfriend and I've barely seen her in months. The other one went home for two weeks and I missed his company like crazy, and was really excited for when he got back, but he's barely spoken to me since and I know he's injured himself and is busy, but I'm crazy and paranoid and insecure and I feel like he's mad at me or is avoiding me. So I worry about that.

And I'm not dealing so well with the Neil thing. I love him. Every single part of me loves him. I love him as much as I did when we first met. My heart still does flippity flops when I look at pictures of him, or when I see a text from him on my phone. And yes, I was unhappy with the situation we were in, but I am so much more unhappy without him. I hate that he's not a part of my life anymore. I hate it. I want to take it back. I want to go back to how we were. And as much as not talking to him would kill me, talking to me is kind of killing me too. I have to be careful about what I say to him, for the first time since before we met. I've never, ever, had to think about holding back before. I've always been able to tell him absolutely anything. And now we talk, and we're friends, but I can't tell him that I miss him like crazy and want so much to be in his arms. I can't tell him that I love him.

I kinda hate life as it is at the moment. I'm rapidly heading out of episodey and right slap bang into Episode. There are several things I know can get me out of it, and I can't get any of them. I can't get compliments or cuddles from Neil. I'm out of ice cream, and the chocolate in the fridge is designated for those cookies. I can either have the three cans of ravioli in the cupboard, or use my grocery money to buy a curry, or more ingredients for ice cream. Or I can do Something Stupid. And right now, Something Stupid is incredibly appealing. Other alternative, curling up and crying myself to sleep. I'm good at that. I do it a lot.

Project 200 - 43/157

Here's May 10th's piece. Had to rip back quite a few times on this one.



43 down
157 to go

Project 200 - 42/158

Here's the piece for today...



42 down
158 to go

Project 200 - 39/161 - 40/160 - 41/159

Here's May 6th's piece...



And May 7th's piece...



And May 8th's piece (tbat's today :-D)...



41 down
159 to go

Project 200 - 38/162

Here's that flower piece I mentioned in my last post, May 5th's piece.



I'm pleased with how I've been going so far this month. Five down in five days :-)

38 down
162 to go

Project 200 - 37/163

Here's May 4th's piece.



Today's (May 5th's) is very nearly done. I just have a couple more petals to do, and I want to sew it to some felt, to flatten out them out. But I'm just far too tired to finish it tonight.

37 down
163 to go

Project 200 - 36/164

And here's May 3rd's project... and his cute little tail.




36 down
164 to go

Project 200 - 35/165

Here's the next one, May 2nd's piece.



May 3rd's is coming up in a few hours, and hopefully May 4th as well. Wish I had a Star Wars themed project.

35 down
165 to go

Project 200 - 34/166

Here's another piece.



A self-designed blackwork Cleo. I'm working on designing a whole alphabet in the same style, which will be available for sale in the Etsy store I'm gonna set up at some undetermined date in the future. I've got lots of plans for the store, but have no idea when it'll be up and running.

Another big undertaking I'm... well, undertaking... is the Big May Blitz. I've said previously that I want to hit 50 projects by the end of May. This morning I decided to up that a little. I want to finish a project a day in May. That's the thoery anyway. This here is May 1st's piece, and I'll be adding May 2nd's piece later. If I can manage it, that'll take me to 64 pieces. They will, quite obviously, all be small pieces.

If I manage to get the numbers that high, the plan for June is not to do any Project 200 pieces until the Mammoth Secret Project is finished. For those not in the know, the Mammoth Secret Project is what I started in April last year for my sister's wedding present. My sister got married in November and the MSP wasn't finished. I've kind of been avoiding it this year, using the Project 200 as an excuse, but I've already made the MSP their Christmas present last year (and didn't deliver), I REALLY don't want it to be a first anniversary present. So new deadline is the start of September. I'll be going down South for another family wedding, and a birthday, and I'll be able to give it to them and see them open it, which I really want. Ummm... I'm rambling. Point is, it needs finishing damn it, and I plan to get it done in June. In theory.