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In the early morning hours of November 1st, 2025, my world shifted forever. My soul cat, my sweet baby boy Widget, lost his brave battle with GI lymphoma, just two weeks after his diagnosis.

Everything happened so fast that it still feels like a blur. Two weeks isn’t enough time to process, let alone prepare for, a loss of this magnitude. One day you’re navigating a frightening new medical reality, and the next you are facing a quiet house and a devastatingly empty space in your heart.

I cannot keep writing about it. My life is darker and I want to burn this whole damn world down.

Let’s be honest: I think I own four cats. But deep down, I know the truth. I’m just a well-trained, food-dispensing, tent-building minion to a furry feline cabal. Around here, cats rule the house, specifically Widget, Fern, Ash, and Toadie. They run the show, and when they’re not napping in sunbeams, I’m pretty sure they’re plotting global domination.

Widget: The Soft-Pawed Puppet Master

Don’t be fooled by Widget’s wide-eyed innocence or his tendency to hide when he thinks anyone is coming to visit. This brownish tabby is the emotional manipulator of the crew. He’s a certified Mama’s Boy, which means he has mastered the art of guilt-tripping me into getting up early to give him his breakfast. He will cuddle up next to me while I’m sleeping, purr with the loudest motor you’ve ever heard, and then make biscuits on my face.

Despite being scared of knocks at our door, the thought of getting flea meds put on the back of his neck, and the cat carrier, Widget’s influence is mighty. He’s the emotional glue of the operation, the quiet schemer. If there’s a a piece of fabric or laundry to lay on, Widget is on it, strategically maintaining morale (mine) while keeping tabs on the other three.

Fern: Apex Predator, Parkour Enthusiast, Chaos Agent

Fern is sleek, black, and 100% chaos with claws. She is the house panther, the ninja-in-residence, the “hold my crunchies, I’m doing something reckless” kind of girl. While I’m clinging to the arm of the couch watching her scale the living room curtain with Olympic confidence, Fern is silently calculating her next mission: perhaps leaping from the fridge to the pantry in pursuit of a sky raisin.

She’s also ridiculously sweet, until she goes full jungle mode and takes down what’s left of her felt Santa Clause toy like she’s on National Geographic. Honestly, if Fern decided to lead a revolution, I’d probably just step aside and offer her Churus for the cause.

Ash: The Sleepy Enforcer With Kitty Kankles

Ash is our long-haired white and grey cloud of fluff. A daddy’s girl through and through, she pretends to be athletic like Fern but… how do I put this gently… she doesn’t always stick the landing. She aims for “graceful jungle cat” and lands squarely in “pillow-shaped beanbag.” And yet, she tries. We love her for that.

She spends a good 80% of the day napping. And her chubby little kitty ankles are illegal levels of cute. Ash is the velvet-gloved enforcer of the house, quiet and cozy but fully capable of asserting control when needed.

Toadie: Tortitude in a Chunky Package

Toadie came to us under tough circumstances when my mom passed in November 2022. She has what cat people respectfully call tortitude, which means she’s spicy, opinionated, and unafraid to issue a formal hiss for anything she doesn’t like or agree with, which is just about anything and everything.

But here’s the thing Toadie doesn’t want you to know: she loves living with us. No, really. She actually enjoys having cat siblings, at times. She plays with them. She naps with Mike. She maintains her tough exterior, but the moment she curls up for a nap near the others, you know she’s fully integrated into this furry cult of personality.

I’m Just the Staff

You know how every secret organization has a powerless but useful assistant? That’s me. I scoop the litter. I distribute the licky treats. I referee the early morning play fights and late night zoomie Olympics. My phone is full of blurry cat photos I took while whispering “look at your little face” like a complete fool.

These four cats rule the house, quietly, sneakily, with toe beans and whiskers. Widget pulls heartstrings. Fern keeps things spicy. Ash runs on naps, Churus, and Daddy-lovins. Toadie keeps us all humble. And together, they’ve probably already formed a secret government and are just waiting for the lasers to be installed on the Roomba.

Long live the feline regime.

You know you’ve been blogging a long time when your first posts were written on a dial-up connection, you used “guestbooks,” and you thought “web rings” were a legitimate marketing strategy.

Yep. I’ve been blogging for over two decades. That’s longer than most influencers have been alive. Back when I started, blogs were basically online diaries that where complete with glittery GIFs, “mood” statuses, and autoplay music that would scare your soul right out of your body.

So, in honor of my internet longevity (and sheer stubbornness), here are some things I’ve learned along the way. Consider this a nostalgic trip down memory lane with a few hard truths and plenty of sarcasm.

Nobody Reads the First Post, Not Even You

Every blogger’s first post is the same: “Hi! I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m starting a blog! Yay!” It’s awkward, it’s adorable, and it ages like a banana left on the dashboard of a car in July. But it’s a rite of passage. You write it thinking the whole internet is watching. Spoiler: it isn’t.

Your Blog Design Will Never Be “Done”

I have changed my blog layout more times than I’ve changed my hairstyle, which really isn’t saying something because I’ve basically had the same hairstyle since high school. From sparkly sidebars to minimalist black-and-white themes, I’ve been through them all. You think, “This is it. This is the perfect design.” And then two weeks later, you’re scrolling downloadable WordPress themes at 2 a.m. with a new vision and a caffeine-induced need to redo everything.

Stats Are a Blessing and a Curse

Back in the day, I had a little counter at the bottom of my site that ticked up every time anyone visited. Now we have Google Analytics, which lets us overanalyze bounce rates and compare ourselves to people who “just started blogging last week and already have 50,000 followers.” Neat.

Some days you feel like a blogging rockstar. Other days, you swear your only visitor was a Russian bot trying to sell you knockoff Ray-Bans.

Comments Used to Be Gold

There was a time when comments were king. Readers actually left thoughtful replies, sometimes even full-on conversations. Now? You’re lucky if someone throws a “love this!” on Instagram, or better yet, just likes the post without reading it. Ah, the sweet sound of validation… replaced by an echoing void.

You Will Write Some Truly Cringe-Worthy Content

If you’ve been blogging as long as I have, it’s impossible not to have a graveyard of posts that make you wince. Old poetry, questionable opinions, or that post detailing your boring, but you thought it was so cool, daily life.

Blog Friends Are Real Friends

One of the best parts of blogging is the community. Over the years, I’ve “met” people through comment sections, emails, and shared love for cats, horror movies, or weird vintage fonts. Some of these friendships have lasted longer than actual IRL friendships. So yes, internet friends are very real, even if you’ve never seen them outside their blog header.

Trends Will Come and Go, and Come Back Again

Remember when “What’s in My Fridge?” posts were the peak of content? Or the obsession with blog awards and tags? Or when everyone was reviewing beauty boxes like their life depended on it? Everything old is new again, except now it’s on TikTok and I’m too tired to keep up.

Burnout Is Inevitable

There are going to be months (or, let’s be honest, years) when you don’t want to blog. Or you think you’ve outgrown it. Or you just… forget your password. That’s normal. Blogging has always been a slow burn not a sprint. And if you’re still showing up, even sporadically, you’re doing just fine.

Your Voice Matters. Even If It’s Just for You

At some point, you realize that even if nobody reads your posts, your blog is yours. Your space, your stories, your sarcasm. It’s a digital scrapbook of your life, thoughts, and weird obsessions. And that’s something to be proud of. Unfortunately, I lost all my old posts and am starting over.

You’re Basically a Blogging Dinosaur. And That’s Kinda Cool

Twenty-plus years in this ever-changing internet circus? That makes you vintage. You’ve seen trends rise and fall, platforms come and go, and you’re still here, typing away, maybe with a cat on your lap and a half-drunk cup of tea or coffee beside you.

You’re not just a blogger. You’re a relic of the golden blogging era. And if that doesn’t deserve a sparkly “Best Blogger Ever” badge, I don’t know what does.

Here’s to the next twenty years, assuming the world doesn’t implode by then.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to update my blog theme. Priorities.

Artificial intelligence is a touchy subject for many. A.I. art is filling social media platforms, choking out real artists, and many are using it to create propaganda. At first, it was a little funny to see people sharing A.I. images thinking they were real. But it has quickly turned in a major problem, for a multitude of reasons. I’m not even going to touch the subject of how A.I. steals from artists. What I do want to talk, er write about, is the complicated relationship I have with artificial intelligence.

For 20 years, I worked regularly as a freelance content writer for various companies. This career was very lucrative at times, and even acted as our main source of income for many years. I weathered all the bumps that came from freelance writing, like Google changing their search results to push what they considered “content mills” down on the search list. And while there where many instances that had me rethinking my career choice, work was always there and I could still make decent money.

That is until around Spring of 2023 when A.I., specifically ChatGPT and the like, came barreling onto the scene. It didn’t take long for things to spiral downward. Clients and platforms would accuse freelance writers of using artificial intelligence., thanks to bullshit A.I. detectors flagging completely original work as written by artificial intelligence. Then once companies decided that paying for high quality content written by professional writers was no longer worth the cost, the mass exodus of clients began.

I haven’t written anything for a paying client in 6+ months. And I don’t see the abundance of work at I once had pre 2023 coming back anytime soon. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.

So, it’s only natural that I would hate ChatGPT. But I also love it in some ways.

Confusing, right? I know!

The truth is, I utilize ChatGPT for our small business. It has helped us immensely, especially when writing social media posts. I’m not someone who can convey what I want to say in only a few characters. I write in paragraphs. I am long-winded. So it is hard for me to come up with simple messages that convey what I want to say in an interesting and concise way.

This is where ChatGPT comes in handy. I can write my paragraph, no matter how long-winded it is, and tell ChatGPT to create a social media post with it. And with a click of a button… Voila! I am presented with an almost perfect post that I can share on our business social media pages. This saves us a ton of time and energy, both of which we are in short supply of.

The irony of using a tool that has essentially taken away my ability to make a living with the career I have loved for 20 years is not lost on me. I know that corporations are going to use artificial intelligence to make the lives of workers and people who don’t have an abundance of money worse. I mean, look at what the movie industry has tried to do to SAG-AFTRA. Corporations are not our friends and will always value profits over people, but that’s a blog post or another day.

But how can I ignore a tool that can help us with our small business? Is it ethical for me to use ChatGPT to create social media posts for us? Am I just trying to convince myself that it’s okay? Or is it really fine?

I’m not sure if I’ll ever have these questions answered with certainty. What are your thoughts on the use of artificial intelligence?

It’s been a while, a long while, since I last blogged. It’s been well over a year, and in that time I allowed my hosting to lapse, which means all of my past posts, almost two decades worth, were deleted. Thankfully, I kept my domain name paid so I didn’t lose that. But it kinda feels like a fresh start, in the blogging word that is.

Is there even much of a blogging world left?

It really doesn’t matter if there is or isn’t because I am not wanting to revive this blog for others. It’s that old cliche of wanting to do it for myself and not for others. I know how that sounds, but it’s true.

See, I’m a writer by nature. In middle school, I was creating short horror stories, albeit they were rudimentary at best, but I was writing, doing something that I loved. My parents, under the guise of Santa Clause, gifted me my first electric typewriter when I was barely a teen. I even became a content writer for various companies, working freelance since 2004. Although the work could be rather bland since a lot of the writing was more technical and less creative, I still loved it.

Unfortunately, AI has pretty much made the content writing field obsolete. I still get work, but it’s few and far between, and nowhere near as lucrative as it once was.

Oh well. I can’t stop AI, so I’m just going to try to embrace it before they go all Skynet on us.

Anyway, here’s to a fresh start!

• My 35 birthday was on the 11^th of this April. God, I am so freaking old.
• Raven had college orientation on the 18th. We got to tour the school and learned some of the ins and outs of how it works. She is so excited and I am so excited for her.
• Raven’s 18^th birthday was on the 20th.
• Prom was the 25th.
• The awards ceremony for a scholarship that Raven won was held the 26th.

So to say this month has been busy would be an understatement.

Raven at her college orientation.

Raven waiting for her friends to arrive so they can go to prom.

Raven accepting a scholarship.

April was busy and May and June are probably going to be the same way. Bring it on!

This month marks the 1 year anniversary of me giving up Diet Coke (as well as any other diet pop or anything with aspartame in it) and I am so glad I did.

Before I gave it up, I would wake up 3 to 4 times a night not being able to breathe because I was holding my breath while I slept. That went on for many, many years. But I never once associated it with aspartame. And, despite knowing all the horrible side effects of aspartame, I continued to drink Diet Coke. In fact, it was what I drunk 99-percent of the time. It wasn’t until January of of 2014 that I decided enough was enough.

What was the final straw?

Well, for several weeks I was having heart palpitations and shortness of breath. And it wasn’t just happening every once in a while. It was occurring multiple times every minute for several hours, every single day.

And after experiencing for over a week, I knew I had to do something. Now, I’m not too stupid. I know that aspartame is a horrible thing that causes all kinds of unpleasant and potentially deadly side effects. But I was addicted to Diet Coke. No matter what I drank (including water) I still felt completely thirsty, unless I was consuming Diet Coke.

Now, I haven’t been completely Diet Coke free this whole time. In May of 2014, I ordered a Diet Coke with my chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-A. After consuming less than half of the drink, I started to feel dizzy, sick to my stomach and my vision became weird (like when you step into the sunlight after being in the dark for an extended period of time). That experience solidified the fact that I would (God willing) never go back to diet soda again.

I honestly don’t know how I did it. How I mustered up the willpower to give it up cold turkey. I admit, it was extremely hard. But what I miss most is the fizz on my throat. That carbonation felt so good going down, especially when my throat was dry or scratchy.

While I don’t want to make resolutions, since I never seem to stick to them, there are some things I want to try to accomplish in 2015. If I don’t accomplish them, I don’t want to beat myself up over it. But I want to give these goals a real college try this year.

• Lose Weight – This is something that I have been trying to accomplish on and off for the past 2 years. I allowed my weight to creep back up a bit and I am not happy because of it.
• Work more Efficiently – I have a habit of getting sidetrack and/or procrastinating when it comes to my work. Since I work at home, I need to find the perfect balance that allows me to work without becoming distracted.
• Be More Loving – I have a habit of not showing people that I love that I love them on a regular basis. I just get bogged down with the mundane day-to-day tasks that I often overlook the fact that I need to make sure that the people I love know that I love them.
• Shop Smarter – At one point, my husband and I were clipping coupons and becoming a bit more savvy when it came to purchasing groceries and everyday items. But we have lapsed on that and I would love to start it up again. I don’t want to be one of those extreme couponers, I just want to save money.
• Become More Financially Stable – When it comes to finances, we have come a long way from say 4 years ago, but we still have a long way to go. I want to try to make 2015 the year when our whole financially situation becomes even better!
• Build Up A Food Storage – This is something that I just started thinking about but think it’s a really good idea.
• Clean and Reorganize – There are a few rooms in the house (storage/computer room, basement and garage) that I desperately need to clean and reorganize. I keep putting it off but it is something I want to accomplish early in the year.

There you have it. My goals for the New Year. Don’t get me wrong, 2014 wasn’t a bad year. I had some small bouts of depression here and there but nothing serious. There was actually some very good things that happened this past year and I’m hoping 2015 is even better!

Even though I completely failed the BE June Challenge, I’m giving it another go and partaking in the BE July Challenge.

This coming month’s daily prompts are:

1. Goals for this month
2. 3 personality traits you are proud of
3. Piercings and tattoos? If none thoughts on them…
4. Most proud moment
5. Your worst habits.
6. Something or someone you miss
7. A difficult time in your life
8. 5 favourite blogs
9. Last time you cried
10. Favourite comfort food
11. Weird quirk(s) you have
12. 5 things you lust after
13. Something you always think “what if…” about.
14. Your zodiac and if you think it fits your personality
15. What you wore today
16. Views on religion
17. Currently reading
18. Take a selfie today and post the pic!
19. One place in the world you want to visit
20. One thing you achieved today.
21. Why do you blog?
22. Tell us a bit about where you live.
23. What is your favorite fashion accessory right now?
24. Tell us about your favorite organization and why it is important to you.
25. What motivates you?
26. If you were a superhero, what would your powers be?
27. What is your favorite writing tool? Do you only use the computer, or do you still love pen and paper?
28. List five things you can do to brighten up someone’s day
29. How do you balance life, work, family, and fun?
30. What is the best book you read this month?
31. Highs and lows of this month

Let’s see if I can keep this one up…

I failed at the June blog challenge, which is really no surprise to me ‘cause I knew I couldn’t keep it up. Oh well. Besides being a big fat failure at the whole regular blogging thingy, I have been working, working, working. And when I’m not working, I’m constantly looking for work. The content sites I write for are a bit dry at the moment, and I have to keep pushing through just to try to make ends meet. Bills don’t stop just because the work isn’t there.

On the positive side, the work-is-drying-up situation as made me start to think/find other ways to make a little extra money. So, I have been trying out different homemade items that I can sell on my Etsy store. I haven’t listed any of them yet, but I plan to within the next month. While I do love my job, the uncertainty of it is leaving me a bit frazzled and stressed. Being able to fall back on something would be a nice cushion.

Besides all that stuff, nothing else is really going on. Raven came back yesterday from spending the weekend at my Dad’s in Ohio, and our plants are planted in the garden. Oh what an exciting life I lead.