I'm still alive...and so is my cat.

I'm FINALLY done with my training for work. I worked alone all week this week! No major incidents, either! Yay!

I'm VERY slowly getting used to working 3rd shift. Of course, things have gone haywire here at home, so sleeping 8 hours in a row hasn't been possible often.
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My mother-in-law is visiting, first of all. She helps keep the kids quiet. But then she does things like YELL UP THE STAIRS for the kids. Uhmmmmm....*thwaps self in head* She's driving Tai nuts. I think, maybe, he finally understands why I started to go insane when *I* was the one home with her all day when she visited before. Teehee!
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Perrin graduated from the intensive 9 week counseling program he was put in after the incident where we took him to the ER because of suicidal ideation. He finished up with that counselor toward the end of last month. Now we have him in a 6 month to a year program with a new counselor. I liked the last counselor, but I think I like this new one more. Yay! He's been doing really quite well over the summer. Haven't heard anything at all about him wanting to get a knife and cut off all of his skin and muscles lately. Always nice. :) This counselor will also come to the house and either do therapy with him here or take him elsewhere...the park, the library, her office, etc. Very, very handy since we're down to one car!
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Tai still hasn't been able to find a job. Totally sucks ass. He's got a good lead on a contract job, though, taking out the words from Japanese comic books and substituting English ones. He'd work from home. It would be perfect, really...and it has the potential to pay as well as his last job or better! Cross your fingers that they decide to go with him...and soon!!

Mike hasn't found a job either.

Since I'm the only one working, and I'm making minimum wage, we finally broke down and applied for food stamps. I don't feel bad about it. Hell, my husband spends hours every day looking for work, and I AM working... And we've been tax-payers for a long while now. We're just getting some of that money back. LOL
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We went grocery shopping this afternoon, and we got over FOUR HUNDRED dollars worth of food. At Aldi. Do you know how much talent it takes to spend over $400 at Aldi?! Quite a bit, lemme tell ya. LOL
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In other news, a little over two weeks ago, Fenris got sick. Really sick. He wasn't able to pee, and when he finally eked out a couple of dribbles, it was bloody. Poor baby! I took him to the emergency vet. He wouldn't give up a urine sample (hadn't been drinking for days, from what we could tell), so they weren't able to see if there were crystals in his urine. They gave him an antibiotic injection and sent us home with 8 days worth of antibiotic tablets.

But they didn't work. So off to the vet he went again a couple of days ago. This vet was apparently (Tai took him...I didn't) MUCH more thorough than the emergency vet was. He was able to get a urine sample out of him and thankfully did NOT find crystals. No crystals. No blockage. Just one HELL of a urinary tract infection. Oy. My poor kitty!!! He injected fluids under the cat's skin and made him look like a hunchback. Muah ha ha ha. Wish I'd seen it! Sent him home with prescription food and two weeks of a different antibiotic. He appears to be feeling better. We've even caught him drinking a couple of times! Yeah!
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Whew! I hate playing catch-up! I think I'm done. No, really, I am.

Except to share this picture, and a link to a CUUUUTE site that I'm sure the rest of the entire world already knows about, but just in case...click on the picture. LOL