Best posts made by silverfox

Ack. We put an offer in on a townhouse simply because both of us walked out going, "That would be the perfect place to raise kids."

(Money is a HUGE anxiety trigger for me, so I'm like, excuse me, I will just be over here hyperventilating. Thanks.)

Lovely people! I had a super heartwarming story from today and I wanted to hear yours also! It doesn't have to be a thing you got, but maybe a conversation/experience.

My grandfather died before I was born. (Car accident and then hospital negligence.) Dad doesn't talk a lot about Grandpa, but it's always been obvious that he loved his father a lot. When he died there was some problems between the siblings over the estate and I never knew dad had anything of his father beyond the skills he'd taught him.

Much to my surprise when I open my gift from my dad it's a pair of earrings with a little note. (My father has never been fond, for some reason, that all of us girls got pierced ears, so earrings are a weird gift from him!) The note describes that the earrings are made of the coins my grandfather collected all the years. My father wanted each of us girls (and grand girls) to have a piece of his father.

So so many tears. It is honestly up there among the most touching things. Dad didn't have much of his father and what he did have, he gave to us kids.

Kitty loves to cuddle up by my hip when I'm off work. Tiny little bubbly snores too.

Two pretty girls.

Two pretty boys.

This is the new foster baby. I say baby because legit, just one.

See, this family brought her in and surrendered her yesterday.

Then they called back a few hours later sobbing about how they had made a terrible decision and could they PLEASE have her back, swear promise- everything under the sun. The shelter believes them. Super appreciative family shows up and takes her home in a shower of love.

Today a man shows up with her and surrenders her again. Problem is that the foster family she WAS going to go with had just taken in another spur of the moment surrender of five kittens.

So the shelter didn't HAVE a place for her. So as they talked about where they could possibly put her (the best option being a little pop up pen in someone's room), I opened my mouth and volunteered our home and bathroom because we'd moved the bigger kittens to our guest room. (Note, SOs are allowed to get peeved at decisions like this where they aren't included in the decision process...)

So now she is with us. And I want to slap some people silly because she is SO scared and SO sad.

Don't take an animal into your home unless you are ready for the lifetime commitment. They do feel.

I feel like I should make a thread but that also seems super self indulgent so until I change my mind...

Meet our newest fosters. Juno and her 5 week old babies. Not the best pic, but she was stressed out so I snapped it so I could show they were home and safe then got out so she could settle.

I was at the point of tears when it was pointed out to me that my event started without me. (I cannot seem to get the 24 hour clock + time zone differences right for some reason.)

But I logged on and another character who had zero idea why I was holding the event held down the fort for me, and everyone was so nice OOCly about my being 1.5 hours late to my own event.

So much gratitude. So. Much. Gratitude.

Another foster!

His name is Gus. The poor guy has been in a cage for 6 weeks getting daily ringworm treatments. The plan (not liked...) was to get him spayed and then put into the kitten rooms. But I've got our super skittish Arya who ALSO was in a cage for a long time and so I offered to take him now that is ringworm is gone, and see if he and Arya can become friends.

He is so stinking cute. Because of the ringworm he has never really had much interaction, and what he did have was people with gloves on. He is being SUPER brave on my lap despite being very very scared.

I don't divorce myself fully from my characters - if I did that, I'd be flat and completely boring. IT's my own personal experiences and the abiliy to "act" those out that help me to have any depth at all to my characters.

This also keeps me from being able to divorce myself fully from what they are feeling... and I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea? I mean, it does sometimes lead to consequences IRL (not being able to sleep because of excitement, or straight up crying). It means that when I act OOCly I have to check and see "am I acting this way because something ICly happened, or OOCly happened?"

I'm not always successful.

The inverse is also true. If my RIL has gone to pot I just //can't// RP some of the things I usually would. I don't have the emotional bandwidth - and I think that a lot of people in 2020 who participate in this hobby would agree with that.

I don't want to jump around and have a princess cake omg look unicorn tea party when I just learned about a death in the family of someone close to me. It ain't happening.

I'm having the longest conversation I've ever had with one of my uncles. He's my mom's youngest brother and has always been that uncle that rarely came to family events, never contributed to the family newsletter- we didn't even know he was alive most of the time! But he added me on FB and we've been chatting and it is AWESOME.

Then out of the blue he asks, "Do you have venmo? I want to send you money for school supplies. Teachers pay too much out of pocket and I'm sure there will be budget shortfalls this year."

So I'm over here crying.

Today was a GREAT day all around and this was the cherry on top.

When you have an idea and everyone else seems to like an idea and they want to do your idea even though it's actually kind of a boring idea but it's an idea and it seems fine despite on paper being rather boring.

We just got approved to foster kittens. <3. We don't know when we will get a placement but apparently there is A LOT of need right now so fingers crossed!

I don't mind pretty.

I do mind if it is shoved in my face with every entrance pose and/or the character in question attempts to flirt non-stop.

Why?

1. I hate that oocly pretty is used to equal worth. I work with middle school students and that shit is brutal on them. Keep the correlation that being beautiful is somehow more desirable than other traits out of my fun times.

2. I hate when flirting is all a character does. Like, just stop. Please. Intact with me some other way. Show me some kind of range. I'm bored and will run for the hills first chance I get.

If you can play a character with nuance who happens to be pretty? Then idgaf if they are pretty.

Our first foster litter!!

I am going to be spending A LOT of time in this bathroom.

Mama kitty is super loving too.

So. 7 new babies. Saved from a cat hoarding situation. All different sizes. I think there are three different litters here. 3 are tiny (less than 1 pound) two are just over a pound, and two more over a pound and a half.

I don't have enough lap for all the kittens who want lap.

Names:

Hermes is on the left, Castor, Rhea, Persephone, and Pollux is in my arms.

Not pictured, Daedalus (having recovered from his virus how is eating me out of house and home), and Leonidas, who is trying to lap but there is no ROOM.

I'm beyond excited!! This tabby was 100% feral three weeks ago so we called him Ares since he tried to scratch our eyes out any time we came near him. He has been with his current foster for two weeks and just look how far he has come!!!

My full job started this week and I love it. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I always thought I'd be intimidated by middle schoolers but like... no. I LOVE THEM. Their big goofy bodies, their teenage-drama, the ways they hide themselves. Like, I LOVE IT.

Like, I'm a blunt AF person in IRL whenI know I'm right, so when this kid popped up with "It's not that I can't, I just won't," I looked him in the face and went, "You say that because you don't want to be embarrassed that you can't don't you?" and the kid stared at me and went, "Well, yeah." I can look at a kid and be sarcastic with them and they'll duck their head and go "yeah, well, Mrs..."

I'm SURE that the honeymoon period will end eventually, but till it does? I'm going to suck every second out of this. I'm FINALLY being able to meet kids and fill holes I always KNEW existed, but that I couldn't ever GET TO because I had 20+ other kids with other needs. I no longer have to choose which kids I can help. If they come to me, I can help them, period.

It's amazing and unless things change, I dunno if I'm ever going to go back to the classroom. (Which considering mine is a grant funded position will be in 2 years unless we find the money elsewhere in the budget.)

VINDICATION

I came in with a vendetta about our kinder and 1st graders. These two groups have not had a 'normal' year of school EVER. So my push was to NOT pull them for any intervention beyond English as a second language classes until January. Their start data was exactly what we expected, they were behind like woooaaahhh. Did our progress check today and 75% of the kids behind are now directly on or above level.

It worked. The kids just needed to be in school.

Why was this a vendetta? Because it meant we poured all our resources into 2-8 (especially 2) and flooded them with support. All of those kids ALSO made growth.

It worked. We are moving the needle. Maybe the stress is worth it.

I'm not sharing this information with my IRL yet (except my older sister, because I trust her to be zipped up about it), but my husband and I just submitted all the paperwork to start the process to become foster parents.

It's all the PRE paperwork, like background check authorizations, financial disclosures, documents that we understand we need to not be discriminatory (seriously, the number of times we signed "Yes, we won't discriminate against LGBTQ children/youth" is a sad sad commentary on how common it is that these kids ARE discriminated against...) etc.

I'm really nervous about it, especially since hubs and I haven't ever had kids of our own.

I just wanted to tell someone so I told y'all.