Some of you may know that I've taken off to Arizona to visit my mom, dad, and sisters. So far it has been an eventful and emotionally confusing trip. The emotions aren't good emotions, but they're nothing very bad either, actually just... confused.

Very few of you know my family situation. When I was just a baby, less than a year old, I was adopted by my grandparents. The people I call mom and dad have always been my biological grandparents, but they will always be my parents to me. That means that my biological mother has always been my sister to me.

It's a very strange family situation, as I have aunts and an uncle that are my siblings to me, several cousins who are nieces/nephews to me, a great grandmother that has always been 'gramma' to me, etcetera. To most people, this is very confusing, but this is my life... I'm used to it.

On the subject of adoption and my parents, I have never met my biological father. He and my mother were never married.

Since Dana (the 'sister' that gave birth to me) is here with the rest of my close family, I had a chance to talk to her about it. I never really thought much on the situation, and definitely had not asked about it. Yes, I wondered, but I was afraid and unsure if I even cared about this man, and whether he was alive or dead.

I had never been told, to my knowledge, what happened with him. If I had been told, I'd ignored it and thought up my own story. I had assumed all my life that he had wanted me to be aborted and left Dana alone.

Yesterday, I was told otherwise. Dana explained to me that while his parents wanted her to abort, he didn't, and he wanted us. Dana told me that she ran away from him and his parents because she was afraid. I'd never known this. Now the person I had been afriad to contact because I felt he wouldn't care was forced into a new light.

I had, a few times, looked for information about him online. A while back, I'd looked on Facebook for him, but not found him because I didn't know where he actually lived... and you'd be surprised how many men have the same name as him on Facebook.

Come to find out he lives in Montana. Dana and I did another Facebook search and the one and only man by his name in the Missoula area just so happened to be him.

Thankfully, Dana decided to contact Mike herself. I don't think I could have done it. In a simple note, she basically wrote to him, "I'm just wondering if you remember me. I have something that I'd like to talk to you about. I don't mean to invade your life or privacy in any way." She made no mention of me or whatever their former relationship was.

Rather quickly, Mike responded back with something that shocked Dana and I so much that we turned to each other and hugged and cried. He said something to the extent of, "Yes, of course I remember you. I've thought about our daughter Sydney (he spelled it wrong, which told me that he hadn't somehow looked me up on Facebook before responding; my name is spelled 'Sydni' ) all her life, and I hope someday she decides she would like to get to know me. I hope everything is alright. Please give me a call." He included his phone number.

It was the most surprising, amazing thing that he knew me... that he remembered my name... that he thought of me. I would have never imagined that he even cared, but everything that I thought I'd known for all my life rearranged itself yesterday, why shouldn't that?

We did have plans for the day, so Dana let him know that we would talk to him later. We went to the mall, and tried to relax, even though the subject was hanging in the air and inevitably came out a couple of times.

When we returned home, we found out he had a meeting this evening, and that it would be over at a certain time, so we decided to call him after he was done. Until then, Dana and I had ourselves a bit of liquid courage and tried to relax and have fun. My family and I played Dominos, though it didn't last very long.

Soon enough, Dana called him up. For about thirty minutes she talked to him. I was eating dinner, and mom wouldn't let me eat in there, so I went between scarfing delicious turkey and mashed potatos and stuffing and gravey and walking in to evesdrop. When I was finished, I laid on her bed and listened as she talked.

Then, it was my turn. For thirty minutes I discovered the other part of me I didn't know about. And even now there are several unanswered questions.

I found out that I had a half-sister that I didn't know about named Jennifer (mind you, Dana has two other kids, so I already had two half-siblings to my knowledge, Zachary and Paige). It feels strange to have this new sibling, especially since she's only about six months younger than me. Mike told me that she was in a similar situation as I am, but she contacted him when she was seventeen.

I found out that Mike is mostly of German descent, that there are no major hereditary diseases in his family that he knows of, that he's a dental enameler (I think that's what he said... a lot of the information is still jumbled in my head, even after sleeping), and that he's waited all my life for me to finally decide to contact him. He told me that he's had a photo of me when I was a baby above his mantel, and that he'd considered trying to find me, but he didn't want to invade my privacy.

Those thirty minutes seemed like hours. I couldn't think of anything to really tell him or ask him--even now I still can't--aside from the fact that I'm married, that I've had a decent life, and that I was very afraid of him. I think he understood, but I know that this was as hard on him as it was Dana and I to finally come in contact with me.

While I expected this to happen on this trip, I didn't expect it so soon... and as I had been under the assumption that he didn't want me, when Dana sent him the note, the last thing I expected was what he responded with. Dana had feared he wouldn't respond at all. I had feared that he would respond, but with a resounding, "I don't know who you are and want nothing to do with you" or that if he did know me that he would still shun me.

It took some doing to fall asleep last night. I slept ok, though I had a strange dream about a mechanical man crying. My head is a bit clearer today, but I'm still confused and unsure of what I'd like to say to this man who is practically a stranger. Right now on Facebook there is a note from him, a reply to one I'd sent him first, staring at me and demanding I answer it. But what with, I'm not sure.

Anyhow, I'm sure over the next few days everything will sort itself out. Today, Dana is going home. She'll be leaving about 1:30 this afternoon. Around three, Gary is coming to pick me up to have an early Thanksgiving with his parents. I don't want to stay long, definitely don't want to stay the night... I want to come home and spend as much time with mom and dad and Allesa as possible before we go back to New Mexico.

I don't know what our plans are for the rest of the trip, but I'm glad to be home and, actually, I'm glad that it's gone the way it has so far. I will say this: the mom and dad that I grew up with, the parents that raised me, will always be my mom and dad. No matter what anybody does, they are always going to be the ones that raised me and the ones I love with all my heart. I think Dana and Mike know this, I just hope they're ok with it. But if everything works itself out, I'll be glad to accept this strange new man into my life, knowing that it was because of him that I have one at all.

First matter of business goes to =The-Incinerator, as today he opened his first contest, Daniel's Official Marking Pattern Contest (Daniel's OMP for short).

I want a lot of entries, guys, so please go enter his contest! I made the lineart for the template, it's a simple colouring/character design contest of sorts. All you have to do is make a really cool marking pattern for =The-Incinerator's character, which will be made a permanent part of his design.

To read more about it and enter, go here! Have fun, everybody. Please, consider entering!

Turn back now if you don't want TL;DR sickness, this is going to be a looong, boring, emoish rant of emo doom.

I wanted to get my other journal off my page, since I honestly don't have the time or drive to keep in contact with the new people who meant to RP with me. I can't even seem to get to RPing with the people I've RP'd with for years, ugh. So, I didn't need any more random people dropping by and requesting to RP with me, it's not likely to happen. If any of you who offered to RP before are reading, please don't take offense. I desperately want to RP with people, but as the title suggests, I can't seem to make much happen lately.

For a short time after I posted the last journal, I was quite gung-ho about getting to meet and RP with new people. Several of them disappointed me in some way. And after that, inspiration just seeped right from my soul. All of this was clearly stated in my journal, everybody who took the time to actually read what they were getting into should have known. Between people who didn't understand that I wanted para-RP (considering I'm used to forum RP where I write novel-like posts), the people with horrible grammar and spelling, the people who couldn't take hints about where I wanted things to go, and the people who generally didn't seem enthused in the least at whatever it was they were doing, I just kinda gave up trying.

And of course some I didn't give a chance from the get go. Once I was drained I failed to keep in contact with the people who didn't fail to impress, or that never even got to start anything with me at all. And honestly, I don't know how to fix it. I certainly hope to just get back into the groove of RPing with the people I care about the most, and maybe at some point I'll want to try again.

But aside from the RP garbage, lack of inspiration has struck in other ways as well. I can't seem to stay focused on drawing for more than thirty minutes at a time, and what comes out of it is horrible. Yeah, I know, artists are their own worst critics or however that saying goes but... lately I just hate everything I've tried to draw. Or write, for that matter. My stories are at a stand still.

The only thing I've managed to do to keep myself from going insane is work on sculpting an avatar for Brooke on Second Life. I have most of the head sculpted and ready, and much of it already in SL and functioning, but I have a lot of things left to do on it. In all honesty, I've got the head completely finished in Maya, except for maybe a few final touches, and now I need to upload the sculpts for the four different kinds of teeth, the tongue, both sets of gums, the redone head to accomodate the teeth and gums, the redone nose for the same reason, and the uvula. Yeah, I went all-out, but I plan to really make this avatar something special.

Of course I still have a lot of work left to do on it, and Maya is still a very daunting program to me. I barely understand how to sculpt and export the sculpt maps in Maya after a lot of trial and error. I really need some help with other things, such as maybe a way to link all of the bottom jaw together so that I can preview the way it'll look when it moves with Muzzle Talk in SL, but so far the only thing I've found that does this seems to only be temporary.

The entirety of the avatar is in my drawing style, and it works pretty well so far. I still need to sculpt custom hair for her to fit her head, as her old hair needed a lot of modding and still doesn't look great, some digitigrade hooves, as well as maybe plantigrade if I ever feel like doing it, her tail, maybe some custom paws with movable fingers or some jizz like that, though of course I can't script for anything. And of course I have tons of textures left to do, considering I haven't even textured what's in SL already. Ears, head, jaw, gums, tongue, teeth, uvula, antlers, nose... all need texture. And I'll probably have to remake the eyes that I was using in the previous Brooke avvie, because I want to reuse them but I doubt they'll work very well with the new one.

Well, whatever. This is all getting way ahead of myself. So, let's get back on subject.

I'm sick. Been sick for two days. I have a fever and a sore throat and I'm very cold no matter how much I bundle up. And my gods, I crave some juice all of a damn sudden! *Gets some Sunny D.* Ahhh, much better.

In real life news, me and Gary have been playing Soul Calibur 4 for the PS3 pretty endlessly, mostly because he's trying to beat the ascention thing or whatever. I just kinda jump in every now and then and fail miserably, otherwise I watch and stuff.

Our fourth of July was fun. We had some friends over and had our own fireworks show. But of course, the whole two weeks before they came we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned to get this place non-toxic for mortal company. My office is still off-limits. That's where we stashed what was in the sink. You do not want to go in there. So my computer is out in the living room right now. I don't like it much, my mouse and keyboard have a hard time reaching the wireless thingy for them, and they fall constantly. And my printer/scanner isn't in here, so even if I did manage some art, I couldn't get it onto my computer. But at least the seat is comfy.

We also bought quite a bit of furniture the other day. That's all out in the middle of every-damn-thing in the living room. Two end tables, which we have no damn place for, a coffee table that Gary's dad is taking back with him when he comes in August, and a giant dresser that we have no place/use for. Of course, he got some good stuff too, such as a huge dining room table to replace our crappy old one, and five office chairs, four of which to go at the dining table and the other to go in my office once the biohazard team takes a flamethrower to it. But until then, there's also no place for our old table and our old chairs. Ugh!

Also, I failed to mention it in the previous journal, but =The-Incinerator's visit failed. His parents made him "reschedule" at the last minute and so far we haven't figured out another time for him to come. He knows how I feel about what his parents did, so I won't go into detail here. But... ugh, I was pretty heart broken about it. I hate when plans fail.

Come to think about it, I've been lacking inspiration ever since. I just wish I knew what to do. We need to get our plans straight and get him to visit, because I need my art abilities back! *Sobs!*

Though I really need to upload the crap that I've had done for a while. Got refs for Kat and Adrien (though I'll probably redo his) and a new character for a new story I was working on, and another new character for the Legion, and several other things. I might... *sigh* ...go ahead and start submitting shit in a little while just to get Kitty off my back about it and not have to do it again for a while. And jeeze, I need to work on his and ~xSweetSuex's commissions something awful. Come back to me, inspiration! Pleaaase! *Cry!*

Hrm, was there anything else I meant to say? Uh... I grew my nails out really long with the help of much nail polish. A couple broke recently so I trimmed them all down to match, so they're very short again, but I'll get them grown out another time. And uh... the dogs are doing fine. Khaos is chaotic and Cardea is fat and lazy, like usual.

Anyway, uh... I think I'm done rambling now. Just wanted to update my journal cuz I'm using one of those nifty Journal Skin thingies yay! And had a few more stamps to add too. And to make my previous journal disappear, that was another very good reason. Yes.

*Shuts the hell up now.* Ok I love you buh-bye. <3

For gift art, trades, commissions, whatever, here are the finished and up-to-date references for my (and my husband's) characters.



And up-to-date references I'm working on. If you'd like to see one of them finished feel free to let me know!

CSS made by =BloodPromiser

Alright. I lack inspiration lately. I need inspiration to write and draw. I have commissions to finish, trades to do, people to insult.

Inspiration comes in the form of RP for me. I know a few of you already RP with me long-term. I'd totally continue my RP with you, I just need to figure out where to start. And one of you needs to yell at me to RP again sometime, though I think we're both RP'd out.

But I would also really love some new inspiration, new stories, new things to get into. Here's the catch, I want you to join my continuity as opposed to me joining yours. This can be as simple as meeting you in my storyline and progressing from there or as complex as you making a tilkibitki character of your own following the guidelines here. [link] It doesn't even have to be tilkibitki, it can be human or feral, but it needs to... be interesting and work in the story.

The setting is this: Veritas Xavier and McKaela Kaiyou are in charge of the Xavier Legion, a massive, militaristic government power in control over earth. The year is 2009, current date, or whenever (I've even changed things around to accomodate different characters before, so I can make some adjustments if need be as of year and date, but it's always going to be modern and militaristic). Mostly, you'll be expected to RP with McKaela, as... duh, that's my character, my fursona, my precioussssssssss...

I'll throw in other characters every now and then too, if need be. I don't really care where we RP, my forums, in notes, on MSN/AIM/YIM, on Furcadia... just as long as you've always got new ideas coming. I'll try to do the same of course. I also don't care if you're a villain or an ally, but keep in mind that villains won't last too long. Since it's difficult not to godmode characters who are actually gods, it would probably be best to have an ally character and make temp characters for villains or something.

I like fighting, so you must like fighting also, just don't expect to win against McKaela *smirk* unless it's a contest of intelligence. x.x; I do not yiff. I will flirt, but I will not yiff you (or whatever you wanna call it to get around this rule, the answer is no). I like drama, suspense, big things, obstacles, shit like that. So please feel free to provide me with such things that I may toy with. Drugs and alcohol are often mentioned, so if you're offended, leave the building. And one more very important rule, para RP, good grammar, I'm not RPing with people who think lol is a word. And I curse a fucking shit-ton so just deal with it bitch.

The setting is in and around the fortress of the Xavier Legion in Kahikite, North Carolina (a fictional town about an hour from Charlotte). The town is also usable... there's all sorts of crap there, so like... feel free to mention it. The RP should be bloody, violent, sexual in nature (without any real sex), and action packed if it's done right. But remember, THIS IS FOR INSPIRATION, so don't be surprised if I draw things that we RP about, or include certain ideas in my story (with your permission of course, if you came up with them). Your characters, though, will not be in my story. So sorry, this is RP, that is my life work, and they will not be meeting. <3

Um... *sleepy, can't think*... As I said earlier, I'm willing to change up my RP if you'd rather do something else. This has its limitations, and there are a couple of "settings" I prefer. First, McKaela may be fifteen, in Campbell Preparatory School in Kahikite, NC, in middle school (held back), before she meets Veritas. This will mostly be school setting, obviously... so if you're into that high school shit or whatever, feel free to do something with this. MK'll probably meet Veri later on during this RP.

There's also just after the Legion is established, around 17-18 years old. This is mostly fighting, and me figuring out how certain events happened in the story that I have yet to actually touch on, including meeting Adrien (McKaela's brother), the "accident"... and other cryptic things that you aren't gonna understand just yet.

Then there's the normal RP, involving the Legion having full control over the earth and stuff. MK'll be 22 in this one, and mostly we're fighting against the Rebellion, run by Haiti and Eniba.

'Course, I can and will make MK and the rest of the characters older if need be, whatever you're into... we'll figure it out as we go along.

For more information on the setting, and on McKaela and the other characters that I've actually finished the sites for (nooot many, I think only Adrien, Brooke, Kat, and maybe Megellin have pages ready so far ugh), hop on over to my site ok? [link]

Otherwise, just like... comment here or note me or something if you're interested. Sorry if the links don't work, by the way, dA is being a hoor's melt. I'm going to bed right now, but I'll get back to you in the morning or something. <3 *Pass the fuck out.*

For gift art, trades, commissions, whatever, here are the finished and up-to-date references for my (and my husband's) characters.



And up-to-date references I'm working on. If you'd like to see one of them finished feel free to let me know!

CSS made by =BloodPromiser

Well, figured I'd let everybody know what's been going on since my last update in April.

Let's start with the dogs. Khaos has been neutered. His surgery went fine, and of course he was confused for a couple of days, but he's great now. About a week after his surgery, though, he got an infection where the stitches were because he wouldn't stop licking and biting at them. We got him some antibiotics and it all seemed to work nicely, they only lasted a week.

About a week after he was finished with the antibiotics, he got infected again in the same place. I called the vet to see what I needed to do, he said if it gets worse we should take him in for another round of antibiotics, and that the cause was probably the knot on his stitches.

He had big blisters down there, and one day they were so horrible that I decided I needed to do something. It was the weekend, so no vet of course. I sterilized a needle and popped the two blisters, then put some peroxide on them. The next day, they were a lot better, but a couple of days later, they got worse again.

So, again I popped them, but this time I noticed that one of them had some sort of black... thing inside of it. I thought maybe it was the cause of the infection. I squeezed on them, out came pus and a little bit of blood as expected, and then... out came the knot from the stitches! That was the little black thing I saw.

About a week later, no infection /at all/. The knot really was the problem. Now, you can't even tell he had surgery, save for the lack of balls. x3

As for Cardea, a few weeks ago she had her puppies. She had one on the bed, and licked it clean like a good mom, and then took it to her little dog house. We sat in the room and watched for any movement, didn't take our eyes off of the box.

An hour later we decided to check to see how many pups there were so far. There were none in the box. We started pulling the towels out, none. She hadn't gone anywhere. We figure she ate her puppies. We have no idea how many she had, but there are no puppies.

I was heart broken, of course... and I was so angry at her. But I like to think that she did it for a good reason, that maybe the healthy puppy that we thought we saw wasn't so healthy after all. Whatever the reason, though, what's done is done. After that, we had her spayed immediately, because since Khaos was already neutered, we had no plans nor ability to breed them again.

Cardea healed right up, but the vet didn't remove the tumor. He thought it might have had something to do with her pregnancy, and also having two incisions so close to each other could cause problems. So, if it gets worse in a few months, we'll have him remove it then.

The dogs are fine now, happy and healthy. There've been no further problems aside from the fact that they broke two slats in our blinds because they like to look out the window so often. D:< Ah well, shit happens. Now they don't mess with the blinds because they can see right out without pushing on them! xD

In other news, Gary and I will be together for four years on the 27th. I think he's going to buy me a new DS Lite to replace the one I ruined when I spilled milk on it. >.>; And Pokemon Platinum.

I rented Platinum from Hastings though, been playing it on my old DS. Can you believe I caught a shiny Bidoof within my first few hours? x.x; I was still training on route 201 and Lake Verity, and there it was... shining at me. I named /him/ Glimmer, and he has teh Flaming Faggot ability! Lawl. >.>;

So, I'm actually in a decent mood today, though I've been mental most of the week. And I've also done some arts, but I don't plan to upload anything until I either finish two of these personal pictures I was working on or I finish a commission I'm supposed to be doing for Anika. Been a little busy, though, turning in applications and such.

Yeah, I'm trying to get a job. Mostly cuz... I have to? I don't want to. But I want money to spend on whatever the hell I feel like getting whenever the hell I feel like getting it. So, I'll probably enjoy that at least.

But why am I in a good mood? One of the places that I really thought I would enjoy working, Hastings, called me a few minutes ago... and I have an interview at 4! I needed to come write about something so I didn't start freaking out /too/ early.

I still need to take a shower and get dressed and get my makeup on and crap, but I have plenty of time for that. I'll be getting up to start on that at 2:45. Thank the gods that my interview clothes were already clean... though I might need to press my pants, they're a little ew.

Ummm, and really that's about all I have to say! I miss being online all the time, and RPing... ugh. Ah well, can't always get what'cha want, right? x.x;

I'll talk to you guys later! I need to get ready now. xD; *Irons her slacks.*

For gift art, trades, commissions, whatever, here are the finished and up-to-date references for my (and my husband's) characters.



And up-to-date references I'm working on. If you'd like to see one of them finished feel free to let me know!

CSS made by =BloodPromiser