we had a kitty who was FIV+, we lost him almost a year ago (March 1, 2020)... he was almost 18.

Oh no. ;-;

I have two kitties with hyperthyroidism.

i think all our kitties are healthy, as far as we know... and we have a few (7) kitties! XD

Yeah they said he has at least another decade in him (he is 6), but still, sucks. He currently has an upper respiratory infection that we're having to manage closely given his recent diagnosis

Lol. One of my coworkers and I deterred a shoplifter tonight after we got off work by standing by the door and chatting with the cashier and each other and acting like we were waiting for our ride(s). He got increasingly agitated while he paced the aisles looking for a quick escape then put his stuff on the cutting counter, complaining about poor customer service (which was a lie because he was getting better cs than he deserved in my opinion) and also making excuses about how "I'm just trying to pick up fabric for my sick mother" and "I've been over at the bar next door and have had too many drinks, sorry" and walked out (probably) empty handed.
I mean, he's a regular shoplifter, so odds are good he'll probably be back in later tonight or tomorrow, but at least we stopped him once.

That's crazy and atleast u stopped him

Well, we stopped him this time. Apparently he comes in pretty frequently in the evenings and has gotten away with multiple sewing machines, bolts of fabric, etc before so...stopping him one time doesn't do much. Especially since he's just one of dozens of regular shoplifters we get. Most don't go for anything too big and just stuff their purses with jewelry supplies, art pens, and cricut accessories, but big items aren't an uncommon theft.
It's why we don't keep sewing or cricut machines on the shelf anymore. But even that doesn't stop them. A month or so ago, we had a woman go back into the employee only back room, take a sewing machine, and walk out.

erm, Kaderin.... i have a question.
how does one steal a bolt of fabric??

Grab it and walk out the door.
Or, commonly, slide the fabric off the bolt and stuff it into a giant purse.

i mean, i get sliding it off the bolt and stuffing it into a purse. but just walking out with the bolt seems to assume no one is watching *sigh*

They know we're watching. They just also know we can't do anything so they don't care.

yeah *sigh*

we can't do anything about it either, if people manage to get stuff out of the store. if we see someone in the store, we "offer them awesome customer service," and hope that sticking on them like glue will get them to abandon their shoplifting plans and leave. if we do see someone leave, we call and email the closest stores and give them descriptions of the people and the items. that way, if they do try to "return" the item - "I don't have the receipt and i paid cash" or "i got these as a gift, and i already had them" - the nearby stores will know that's wrong. when we get these kinds of returns, and if we haven't had the items in the sale history, we tell them they have to return them to the store they got them from.

but yeah, it's frustrating.

Minus letting other stores know, that's all we can do too. And if they try to return stuff to us, we (a manager) can look up big items in the computer to confirm if it was purchased or not.
But all returns without reciepts also go onto "store credit" cards as well, which the managers can cancel. So if they steal something big and then return it and get it as store credit, we can basically recover the item.
Unfortunately that almost never happens. I suspect they go to either pawn shops or just sell on ebay or facebook marketplace.

yeah, that's probably what happens with a lot of the stuff that gets lifted from us too. *sigh*

Ahhh! One of my fave coffee shops just posted that they're hiring at both locations and now I'm torn. Because idk if I want to jump back into a full schedule again or if I want to continue to relax (with a tight budget) and have time to get Etsy going. Because right now, my schedule allows for almost 3 full days off (tbh, it might as well be 3 days off because one day is just 4 hours of sitting at a desk, monitoring any visitors via the security cameras and basically doing nothing) where I can work on creative endeavors or just relax, whereas my previous schedule only gave me 1 full day off.

But also, they're awesome and I love coffee, so it would be a great fit and I could use the money... >.>
Idk. I mean, I could, in theory, apply, get a job there, and drop the front desk hours at the museum, but I'd need to basically be working 20 hours there to make it significantly better than my only 10-ish hours at the museum currently, which would put me right back up to working nearly full time hours and that is just a lot when you don't have a car.
I'm seriously debating it a lot. Might weigh the pros and cons over the next few days. I have a couple days next week that I'll have time to go and apply if I decide to do it. And if not, they're usually hiring again in the fall (when the college kids who got summer jobs go back to school).
I just kind of want to be a little pickier about where I work and how much I work since I just got out of working myself to death at a job I hate.
XP

People steal bolts of fabric?? Wtf? o_O

You could say they bolt with the fabric.

Oh yeah, they'll take anything that isn't locked up. And depending on the locking mechanism, they'll try taking stuff that is too.

Neighbor's car has had its lights on for the longest time today, and idk if they even know...

Ah that's no good. Their battery might die

*flops onto the floor*
I am frustrated by myself. Just a general frustration. Because I may have goofed and slowed my project progress down by not simply double-checking something. Hopefully, if I remember correctly though, it's only a slight delay, because I think I should have all the supplies I need at home, I just grabbed the wrong shade of purple so I can't work on them while at work. Which sucks because it's dead right now and I could have been close to half done with one of the gloves had it not been for that mistake.
XP

Anyway....don't mind my little rant. I just needed to get it out.

I think it did... because the car was making noises with the lights flashing before it stopped. x_X Idk... then today I noticed it was moved, so maybe they took care of it.

ah that's good.

Hang in there Kad <3 it's okay to make mistakes

Yeah...this project is a lesson in not rushing so much tbh.
Ex: Planned for one scale design, bought scales for that, then came up with a better design, but didn't double check to make sure my scale counts would be accurate, leading to needing to order MORE scales. XP
So I've basically spent almost $35 just in scales on gloves that I'm only getting $65 for. XP
(If I had taken an extra day or two to properly plan things out, I probably only would have had to spend around $15-20 on scales.)

I feel bad for hoping to get a Switch lite for my birthday in March, even though I doubt it'll happen. ;-;

X) No part of my genetic make up, if any at all, is French in origin.

I'm not sure how to feel about that, but I like that I may be around 33% Irish or English.

ou0 Maybe explains why I like Celtic music, and tons of tea?

I mean...celtic music is amazing tbh.

Ahhhh...ever wanted to never feel safe again? Just look up the crime statistics in your area! All I really wanted was to just quickly check up on local news, but when the crime statistics popped up as a related search, I was curious.
Apparently, I have a 1 in 193 chance of being involved in a violent crime and a 1 in 17 chance of being a victim of property crime. XP

:3 Yehh. Very fairy-like and folksy. <3

In other news, I'm taking a class about demons, ghosts and monsters, and it's pretty cool so far. :) Watched a documentary about modern horror cinema and scary movie tropes and elements.
we'll be reading stuff later on in the semester too like The Haunting of Hill House and The Exorcist.

One of our projects will be to quote, "select any scene from chapters from Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” and represent or interpret that particular passage/scene in the story via the creative medium of your own choice."

O3O My favorite class so farrr~

I might have stayed in college if they had offered classes like that! O.o
Sounds fun!

Thinking of selling some Pokemon DS games I don't play anymore. ;-;

After all of the mess of the winter storm disaster here, didn't realize there was a boil water notice even after checking the maps. They only posted signs that you can see when leaving the area, but of course you don't see them if you haven't left the house for more than a week.

and of course, some people didn't even have power or water to boil

<:c Hope those of you in Texas are doing alright and keeping safe and warm.

The worst is over, it's pretty much already warmed up. Just a lot of people are now dealing with burst pipes and other damages. The stores should finally be getting stock in the next couple of days hopefully.

Glad to hear Texas is doing better. I was worried. ;-;

Not in Texas anymore, but our lawn is finally showing again so I think most places affected by the storm have thawed by now

o___O Wha--what is happening why is Tiva sending me so many wonderful items ;-; I-- thank you <3

Shhh just let it happen

Came to the realization that about half of my hair is grey. But then later realized it might actually be even more than that.

My headache medication doesn't work anymore :(