Enormous.

This turned into an unexpected, unintentional, enormous post. However, I have pretty pictures, and that makes it okay.

I should really be working right now, but I'm not. I'm here to say "TWENTY-FIVE (25) VISITORS ON MY BLOG TODAY SO FAR!" Whuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut? Since when did I have anyone looking at my blog besides the 52. (52 Reason I Love You) post!? I'm an internet sensation! Ha. I'm hilarious and you know it.

I also see that I'm getting some visitors via Pinterest to my Legoman. post where I shared this awesome card I made for my brother last year:

It's a Lego!

The visits on my Legoman. post are from a pin with over 70 repins! You know what that means? It means that other people like my work. It means I have something in me somewhere that can come up with good stuff now and then. It means that I'm getting better. It means all of the fails for the past (almost) 28 years have been worth it because I have learned from my mistakes and I have grown from them. It means I'm awesome.

How exciting is that?! This used to be a nothing blog. A place where I put my thoughts down and sometimes a picture. I documented a lot about my crafting failures. NO ONE visited my blog. No one except for a dear interweb friend from Australia (I can never spell Australia), Michelle from Amusing Michelle. She's sincerely nice and personable, and very, very good at what she does.

My real joy and excitement in regards to visitors is my Etsy store. One day in June I got 250 views!!!!!211)%$@*&W$)%!!! I have screenshots to prove it! That's a lot for me! I only have a few items in my store, and they're not very common items that everyone is looking for, y'know? 

I just about died when I saw that number go up and up. As you can see, I stayed up past 1:00 A.M. the following day to see what the final number was for that day.

Not only that, but there's a Pinterest pin out there that has 500 some repins! NO JOKE.

----------

I think I've done enough bragging for today. I think now I'll get back to work.

Today will consist of:

• Mailing out a chalkboard coupon book (maybe I'll tell you about that drama tomorrow), which looks a little something like this on the inside:

(I'm paranoid about other people stealing my work, so I put a huge watermark
over any screenshots I take. Sorry for the annoyance.)

• Cutting white vinyl for a HUGE project, which I'll share later,

• Applying to 4 jobs as required by the State of Wisconsin for those unemployed that are receiving unemployment benefits,

• Taking pictures of 2003974 pieces of paper for a custom order to create a custom sized binder. Yes, yes. I have to take pictures of pieces of paper, edit them, upload them to a photo sharing website, then the customer gets to choose what she likes, and THEN I can make the binder. SO. MUCH. WORK. I didn't charge enough... lol...

• Continuing work on my second order of my new Vintage Pink Love Coupon Book (!!!), which will look something like this:

• Sanding a deck of teal colored cards for a 52 Reasons I Love You order, which will look similar to this: 

• Typing reasons into the computer for a reverse blue deck of cards for a 52 Reasons I Love You order, which will end up looking a little something like this:

• Doing other things that I forgot,
• Kicking Nuke (my cat) out of the Craftination Station a few dozen times. He likes my beads. and to jump in my light box. and pens. and my Silhouette Cameo. and stepping on paper. I may or may not want to strangle him sometimes.
• And hopefully I can do the dishes like I've been meaning to for two days. (DO NOT judge me. I will smite you with a curse if you do.)
• Oh, and hopefully do a load of laundry.
• And fold Adam's laundry that he refuses to put away.
• Maybe a little food in there too. 
• Probably a panic attack or three.

If you were me, what priority would you set these items at!? I DON'T KNOW, EITHER! 

/off to go turn in slow circles a few times, trying to figure out what to do first, and then sitting back down with a feeling of dread and hopelessness. Where to begin?

/sigh

Pissed.

This is my cat.

His name is Nuke.

I just watched him pee on half of my clothes waiting to go into the washer.

I hate this cat. 

So adding these pictures is really pissing me off.

Should I try to wash the clothes?

Or should I throw them away?

Or should I just cry? Because that's what I feel like doing.

It's not that I'm attached to those clothes per se, it's that my effing cat urinated on my clothes. His owner's clothes. MY clothes. Does he pee on my bed, too? On the couch?

He just peed on my HEART. 

/cries

lol

We don't have the money to replace these clothes. 

I hate this cat right now.

Newsletter.

UPDATED: I reposted this with some more photos that I found later HERE.

I have a lot of fun doing little things that end up taking a long, long time:

The Rathsack Family's Second (Not-So-Annual) Christmas Newsletter!

I did a newsletter in 2011, but not one in 2012 (it was a sad year), and decided to do one this year because so much happened!

They were printed on off-white paper so the print on the inside was not a stark difference from the backside.

Did you know that Office Max still charges you $.49 per color copy, even if you use your own paper? RIDICULOUS.

This is how the cover page turned out once printed with some AWESOME lighting... yes. it's awesome. You're jealous. Most of the covers ended up with dirty spots somehow, so I used some iRocks (SHINY!) to cover them up. They turned out pretty random on most, but I don't care. That's how I roll in the first place: Random.

Better Lighting, less bling.

The newsletter was a tri-fold card, and because I like to mix things up to break the monotony, bound either by a ribbon across the folds or by tying the corners together with small ribbon, shiny silver string, or red baker's twine.

I shamelessly stuck my brand stamp that Erin purchased for me a long time ago that I don't really use. I really like the stuff I do, but if someone else doesn't like it, I bet they think "I TOTALLY wouldn't put my name on THAT piece of crap". You know what I have to say about that!? DEAL WITH IT! People are dealing with things now, Ted. (if you know what I'm referring to here, then you just made my day.)

Tri-fold in action.

I forgot to take pictures of the corner-tied cards. I liked these ribbon-on-the-fold cards (as pictured) better, but they were a lot more time consuming, so I didn't do a lot of them.

The first page of the newsletter!

CONGRATS a million times to Adam for his promotion ( and his raise :D )

The second page! 

I posted about this story earlier.
It was like being on an HGTV or TLC show about a poor newlywed couple that got their house made over for free! We are truly blessed.

The third and last page!

It's hard to pick my most favorite part of the newsletter. I think I'm hilarious, so I'd probably have to pick the "© T to the Essa, Inc.", or the "Love, Smooches, Rainbows and Unicorns".

I love the way this project turned out. I had a really fun time making them, even though I stayed up until 2 AM a lot of nights adjusting, re-adjusting, tweaking, moving this or that an eighth of an inch here and there... then they took me hours upon hours upon hours to complete by hand once printed. I only had to make 65 of them.

<.< 

(looks left)

>.> 

(looks right)

So much fun!!

Babies.

No, the post is not about what you think it is.  

Even though I'm about a week late, I'm not pregnant.  Sorry folks!

I found some pictures of my babies and wanted to share, because I'm one of those pet owners.

One bed, two animals...

Coco never lays next to Nuke.  It's always precious when they snuggle!

I am working on editing the pictures I took of the Halloween party.  Unfortunately, I didn't get ANY pictures of the outside, which I'm super bummed about.  It was AWESOME and I kept forgetting and Adam cleaned it all up today!  (not that I'm upset he cleaned it up, that was super nice of him to clean up my mess, but UGH!!  I should've taken pictures!!)  I'll have to check with some friends that came and see if they got any.  I'll have to do the pictures over the course of many posts because I took a ton of pictures.  I spent so much time on the apothecary that I took an picture of each individual bottle, plus a lot of "group" shots.

I've had a very troubling time for the past several months.  The medical bills are finally getting processed (or, rather, denied), so we are starting to get bills in the mail expecting payment.  It's caused a great deal of anxiety of Adam and I.  We've talked about getting second jobs for the bills, but neither of us like that idea.

If anyone is looking to donate money to a charity, I'll set one up for my medical bills, lol!!

In the meantime, I am asking for prayers at this time.  For my physical and mental health, and that we can be more trusting and faithful in God to take care of us.  And all that good stuff.  If you don't pray, can you send some positive waves in the mail for us?  Thanks :)

<3 <3

Heart.

"Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances."

-Dove chocolate wrapper

I've never heard that before. And I love it.

I’ve been meaning to post, but I’ve been able to come up with some awesome excuses. I have an announcement to make:

We adopted a cat! A totally random, unexpected and spontaneous event that happened several Saturdays ago. Adam said he wanted to go to the Humane Society that day to look at dogs for his grandma. Grandma said she wanted a dachshund. She also said she wasn’t ready for a dog. We went anyway. The dogs there do nothing but bark, even though there was an adorable beagle that I wanted to squeeze and a gorgeous husky. No dachshunds.

Our Humane Society has glass rooms full of cats that are waiting to be adopted. You can go into one of the rooms and pet the cats. I went inside once with Jade, my “little sister”, and it was stinky. Adam said he wanted to go into a room but I declined, remembering the stench. He went in and spoke through the glass, saying it wasn’t bad at all. So I took a step inside, and he was right, it wasn’t bad. There was a cat stand directly to the right after entering and a young cat was standing at shoulders height, looking at me. He literally crawled across my shoulders and into my arms and sat there purring at me incessantly. He was so friendly, so trusting. My heart melted. It seemed like a sign that I should take him home, like he knew he wanted to live in MY home and he was ready as ever.

Normally it takes a long time to adopt from the humane society. You have to fill out an application and they have to call references. It must've been nearing the end of his stay because they didn't hesitate, they let us take him home within the hour.

The Humane Society named him Atom because he was found by the nuclear plant, but seeing as it sounds identical to Adam, I had to change it. Nuke seemed to fit. Short, and still keeps the only known part of his history in his name. I got him a black collar with white skull and cross bones.

He acclimated well and instantly in our home. He and Coco haven't had any issues and in fact play all the time together. He knew instantly to use the kitty litter box in the basement. He learned quickly not to jump on the counter tops and kitchen table.

We had to get him declawed, though. He scratched and poked me all the time without even meaning to, even when I was just petting him, his claws would dig into my leg! We were also worried about him scratching Coco since they play so often and so rough.

Nuke has his declaw surgery last Monday (12th). Poor thing has been in so much pain. It breaks my heart. His left front paw was swollen and he won't put any pressure on it. We took him back to the vet and got antibiotics for him. He's eating and drinking, but wasn't using the kitty litter box. He solved that problem yesterday morning when I went to take him out of his kennel and the pillow he was laying on was sopping wet. And he was sopping wet. Poor thing hadn't gone potty for days (yes, I did TRY to make him go, don't think I'm a bad mom!!) I threw his back half into the bath to get some of the stink out of him and he did NOT like that.

He is pretty much 100%, just a slight limp but is running around again and being annoying like before.

We have a little family now. A dog and a cat. Just missing a little human being.