Cujo the Cat

Recently a friend of mine put up yet another photograph on Facebook of his totally adorable kitty, Cujo. When he first got Cujo, he had been taken away from his mama cat too soon and wasn't weaned yet so Matt fed Cujo with a tiny little kitten bottle and some kitten formula. Cujo is now eating real kitty food and has grown quite a lot!

Matt recently painted his place and the painters brought in a ladder. Cujo soon discovered this ladder and decided it was his new favorite spot. More pictures of Cujo started appearing on Facebook again!

I saw one particular picture of Cujo sitting atop the ladder in front of an orange wall and asked Matt if I could steal away the photograph and use it for my own personal gain. He gladly gave me permission. I headed right over to my image altering program and started playing with the photo.

Once I was finished with it, I realized a Cujo the Cat Calendar would be awesome and I knew Matt had tons of photos of the adorable subject!

Cujo the Cat by JessicaInSeattle

So, I soon sent Matt another message..."Hey, could I possibly choose a total of twelve photographs of Cujo?" Of course, Matt told me I could use any of the photos I wanted...and even sent me one he wanted me to incorporate.

It took me about three hours to alter all twelve of the photos and put them into the calendar. But I think it turned out amazingly!

I plan on making another calendar with more Cujo photos Matt has uploaded in the last couple of days. And...I have also used the individual photographs to create some other awesome Cujo the Cat products! Check them out...Cujo is the cutest!

Cujo the Cat by JessicaInSeattle

Jessica In Seattle

CONTEST!!!!!

I have designed an invitation to be the chosen invitation for the Zazzle holiday party that they will be having in January. The unfortunate thing is that Zazzle has decided that all their contests will now be held via a Facebook app. A lot of my friends do not want to download an app just to vote for me. Which I completely understand as I wouldn't want to download one just to vote for them on something either.

Luckily I'm in the top ten still...as the top ten get to be finalists - which will then be sent over to Zazzle for a panel of judges to view and decide on which one they like best based on the number of votes received, the design quality and the creativity. Basically, they just take the top ten and then it's a total toss up from there because it will all come down to what the panel of judges like best.

If you wouldn't mind downloading the app, you can vote for me here: Red Berries In The Snow Invitation

If for some reason that doesn't work try to copy and paste: apps.facebook.com/zazzleparty and vote for your favorite - which I really hope is the one I designed "Red Berries In The Snow".

I find it frustrating that the person who currently has the most votes in this contest only has that many votes because they must have a large list of friends willing to download the app. I do have to admit, I like their design. And I am a friend of theirs on facebook, but that doesn't mean I don't want to win the contest.

The winner of the contest will get two things:

1. 300 of the winning invitations will be ordered by Zazzle and used for their holiday party. Up to $100 in royalties will be paid out to the winner as a result of these 300 invitations.
2. A feature in the Zazzle Blog. This will be HUGE for whoever wins as it will get them noticed. And being noticed among thousands of other Zazzlers is not easy to do!

I could use the prize behind door number one but the prize behind door number two would outweigh the first one tremendously in my book!

I need more visibility!

I need more people to know about Jessica In Seattle!

I need more customers!

Why do I need this so badly? Why am I practically begging you to vote for my design? The short of it is that I'm a single mom who's trying to support her kids on the income she brings in by Zazzle alone. I got laid off six months ago and unemployment has nearly run out. I'm getting to that desperate point.

So, please head on over to facebook. Check out the Holiday Party Invitation app and give me your vote once per day until January 3, 2011 at 11:59pm pacific time. It's easier than pie!

You can also view my page on Facebook!

Thanks, and come again!

What does gay mean?

I was taken all the way back to 3rd grade last night as I was reading a book to my son and the word 'gay' was used in a sentence. He stopped me because to him, the sentence didn't make sense. I cannot recall exactly what the sentence said but that doesn't really matter. Basically, someone described themselves as feeling gay. My son, who is ten, asked me why they said that. I had to tell him that gay used to have another meaning. It still does, in fact, if used the way it used to be and that it pretty much just meant that someone was happy.

He asked me why it changed meaning and I told him some words start being used by someone in a way they weren't used before and if it catches on and enough other people start using it too, then the meaning of the word can change.

He asked me when it changed and I didn't have an answer for him. Then I told him the story of the first time I recall it being used in the current most common meaning.

I was sitting in the lunch room at school and three girls sat down on the other side of the table from me. I played with a couple of girls, but I usually played with the boys and these girls were not the ones I played with. I sat there in my dirt covered sweatshirt and mud splotched jeans with my hair all tangled. The three girls began to giggle. Finally one of them said "Do you like girls?"

I looked up from my tomato soup that was in my little thermos and stared blankly at her. "What?" Two of the girls giggled again. "Do you like girls?" The one in the middle repeated.

"Sure." Hysterical laughter came from across the table. They began pointing at me. "You're GAY!" they shouted repeatedly while laughing and wagging their accusing fingers in my direction.

I had no idea what they meant. I had never heard the word before in any context but whatever it was, I knew they didn't like me because I was gay...whatever that was.

I went home and asked what gay meant. I was told it meant happy. I knew that wasn't right because it didn't make sense. There had to be another meaning. Or maybe I got the word wrong.

I asked my oldest brother instead. He gave me a very different definition than I had received earlier that evening and a light bulb suddenly went off!

The next day and for months following, I would hear "You're gay!" as I ran by any of those three girls to go play tag with the boys or even to walk by their desks in the classroom or pass them in the lunch room or the hallway.

Yes, this is a rather mild form of bullying or what is now referred to as gay bashing since it is bullying of someone who is gay. I never told anyone at home about it. I never told a teacher about it. We lived in a very small religious community. Boys weren't supposed to like boys and girls weren't supposed to like girls and if they did, they had a demon inside them. I wasn't about to let anyone know I had a demon in me.

But, I knew I was gay. I didn't have a definition for it before I started being made fun of for it. But I did like girls in the way they meant it. It just so happened that was the same year that I kissed a girl for the first time. I can't remember that girls name. She was homeschooled, but she lived down the mountain from us and came over a lot since we were the only two girls the same age on the mountain.

I still think about her sometimes. I wonder if she identifies as gay today. I wonder if she remembers me. I know that my little nine year old heart loved her as much as a nine year old can.

"Mom. Mom." I came back from my walk down memory lane.

"Well, I know it was being used in the current context when I was in third grade." I said to my son.

I don't know when it began being used to mean queer. I just know that was my first experience with that definition of the word gay.

My son thinks that was a really long time ago. I can deal with being gay. I don't know about being old though.

LifeBlood

Back in April of 2007 I headed to the hospital certain I was going to meet my daughter for the first time later that day. Contractions picked up and she was born a few hours later. But this story isn't about how she came into the world; it is about how I nearly left it bringing her into it.

You don't often hear of women dying in childbirth these days. It sounds like something that happened a hundred years ago or more, but not today. We have better medicine than that, right? Our technology is advanced far enough that mothers don't leave their children on they day of their birth anymore, right?

My story will tell you that is not always the case. Often, but not always. We have most certainly advanced our technology a great deal, otherwise, I would not be writing this story myself.

I had given birth three times previously and right before my daughter was introduced to the rude lights and sounds of this world in a hospital room full of nurses and doctors, I knew something was not right. I lost the ability to push her into this world. I was not on any pain medication and had all my faculties intact. I was suddenly in pain that was more stunningly gripping than my other unmedicated births and I looked my doctor in the eyes and told her to pull my daughter out immediately because I was unable to push and she needed to get out right away.

I knew something was wrong. And I knew my daughter would be in danger if she did not have help entering this world. My doctor did as I told her and she gently began pulling my daughter from me. After she was born, things seemed to settle down, but I felt myself entering a very strange calm.

Something in me clicked into clarity and when my doctor (I'll call her Barb) whispered the word hemorrhage, I merely looked down at her and said "Yes, I know." The room suddenly tripled in occupancy and fresh material was placed beneath me as two fists were thrust into my lower abdomen and held there with a tremendous weight. Barb apologized to me saying that she knew it hurt. I, again, merely looked at her and told her "It's okay. I understand it is necessary."

I felt another gush of my LifeBlood begin to build and I told Barb "There is more coming." She asked me what I meant as the sheets suddenly turned bright red. Again and again I was drained. I tried nursing my newborn daughter to help stop the hemorrhage, but she was still too early in this life to know how as mere minutes had passed.

That sixty seconds of holding her to my breast was the first and last time I saw her until she was three days old.

They tried placing a shot put on my abdomen to stop my life from rushing from me. They tried to find out what was causing it, by feeling inside my uterus which caused massively excruciating pain to thrash itself through every fiber of my being as I gripped the sides of the bed I was dying in with every last ounce of strength I still employed. That was only followed by a fresh drainage of my LifeBlood.

They walked out of the room and spoke in hushed voices just outside the door. My life began to spill onto the floor. They returned and I was told I would need to go into surgery. That in surgery, they might have to take my uterus. I told Barb, again with calm resolution "That's okay, I don't need it anymore."

She looked at me with deep concern and I said "Don't worry, I will be just fine." She answered only that she would see me in the operating room.

I had never in my life felt more calm, more at peace, than during the approximately thirty minutes before my operations. I had been drained of almost 80% of my LifeBlood but I felt that I had never been more lucid, more aware or more knowing of how peace and harmony can be palpable than in that short passage of time.

Is that the calm people who have had near death experiences speak of? I never saw a white light, but I felt amazing.

Once in the operating room, they explained I would be going under general anesthesia and that my daughter was just fine and a nurse was there taking care of her and her dad while I was being taken care of by these doctors. She was in the middle of telling me she would be by my side when I saw Barb walk in and the general took me under right then.

When I woke up, it was the next day and I was in the trauma center of a different hospital with a tube down my throat, hooked up to a breathing machine and tubes running all across my body connecting me to instruments of all kinds that beeped, hummed, wheezed and murmured.

I had undergone two surgeries. One to pack my uterus with gauze and another to sever and cauterize the artery that was feeding my uterus. I had lost so much of my own blood, I had received 8 units of donated blood via two separate transfusions.

Upon waking, I thought I was choking as I did not yet understand I had a tube in my mouth. I found my call button and my nurse walked in before I had a chance to push it.

The doctor who had done my second surgery walked in after my breathing tube had been removed and she told me who she was and to not worry if I didn't recognize her because I had been under general anesthesia when she walked in to do my surgery. The thing I still to this day do not understand is that I did recognize her. I knew exactly who she was.

I learned that my daughter was completely healthy and had been sent home with her dad where two of my older children and grandma were helping him. I missed her presence as I had carried her for nine months and it was at this point that I broke down and sobbed.

I finally got to see her when she was three days old and now she is three and a half years old. She almost entered this world without a Mother to care for her, but technology stepped in and saved my life.

And to those of you who donate blood. Thank you. You never know who will need it and I would not be here today if it weren't for your donations of your own LifeBlood.

Jessica In Seattle

Getting Organized

Some things in my life I have been way too lackadaisical about lately. My main Zazzle store, JessicaInSeattle, for instance has needed a major facelift for about two years now! Okay, I agree, that can not reasonably be defined as "lately". But I have been meaning to get to it lately and I have been procrastinating worse than I ever have before!

Why I have procrastinated is the million dollar question. I haven't the slightest clue. I have, however received some fantastic motivation from my girlfriend and also from fellow Zazzlers. Yes, we call ourselves "Zazzlers". Geeky isn't it? And I kind of love it. It's just geeky and ridiculous enough that I really enjoy being referred to by the title.

Okay, that was a little bit off topic. I'm channeling my inner a.d.d. child today.

So, I did a little bit of organizational work on my store today and I think it's coming along...SLOWLY!!! Oh. My. God. Has there ever been a more tedious job! Yes, yes, I'm sure you can think of one. But we aren't here chit chatting about you now, are we?

I now have several categories on my page that are entirely (or mostly) empty and will require deletion when I am finished. And I have a whole hoard of new categories that are filling up quite nicely, if I do take a moment to toot my horn here and I believe I have full right to do that. So, there. It has been tooted!

And now, I take my deep breath, shrugging my shoulders with the incredible inhale and letting them fall back to natural with the overly dramatic exhale as I struggle with getting my brain to focus on what the hell it had planned for me to write next. But alas, I have lost it.

So, I shall, instead take this as a sign that I am most definitely in need of some herbal tea, melatonin, a hot bath and the last few pages of my current book.

Good night to you all...and may you dream of gumdrops and sugar plum fairies...just don't get any of them stuck in your hair!

Jess

Home With Sniffles

My daughter woke up at three a.m. the other morning reporting that her forehead hurt. Unfortunately, she also felt warm to the touch. Not a good sign! When she was still warm as we were getting her older brother ready for school, I took her temperature. Yep, she had a low grade fever. A call was made to her daycare to let them know that she would be spending the day with Mom.

We dropped big brother off at school and headed home where we snuggled and watched Miracle On 34th Street on streaming Netflix. Gotta love Netflix (and the new downloadable channel for it on our Wii)!

After the movie, she was feeling warmer again so I put her in the bath with her five rubber duckies and some bubbles. Did you ever hear that song about the five little ducks? You should check it out...it's pretty cute! While she was in the bath, we read several of Aesop's Fables. I still try to teach my kids about life's lessons even while they are sick with the sniffles playing with rubber ducks in a bubble bath!

We rinsed off the bubbles, dried her off and I fed her some chicken and mashed potatoes (her pick) while she was tucked into bed. I think all kids who stay home for the day should get to be fed lunch in bed. Makes not feeling good feel a little bit better.

As she took her nap a couple hours later, I got a chance to finally work on a new product available on Zazzle. Necklaces!!! They are so much fun to work on! In a matter of two days, I have now made over 50 necklaces between my two sites!

Anyway, back to Sniffles McSnuggly who I had to wake up from her nap in order to go pick up her brother from school in time.

She konked back out in the car on the way to the school and stayed asleep on my shoulder while I talked to my sons teachers and we visited his librarian. She got very heavy after a little bit!

We headed back home with Sniffles and her big brother. She's feeling a bit better now...especially after eating a chocolate a day from her advent calendar. I think the Harry Potter series may have it right...chocolate does have healing properties!

Until next time,

Jessica In Seattle