Is it possible to be addicted to design? I never knew I’d end up having so much fun designing shirts & stuff when I first started that cafepress shop with my husband and our friend. I’d never done this kind of stuff before, and I’ve been stunned to see how well things have taken off (this month we hit the tier one volume bonus on THE FIRST DAY of December) and how much fun I’ve had with it. I’m getting more proficient with GIMP, although it still confounds me at times. It’s certainly helping me to design better items, even if the design takes longer. For example, the Epic Raiment of Holiday Cheer:

And of course, yet another new writers’ design, “write with curiosity:”

Among others. Yes, among others. Sigh… The Coffee mug of ultra-caffeination has also been selling like crazy, often 2-4 at a time.

Sure, it isn’t enough to live off of. But it supplements my husband’s income a lot better than the AdSense ads do, and it’s easier on my tendonitis than almost anything else I can do. It also dovetails perfectly with my ADD/bipolar/PTSD, because it’s easy to do in short bursts as the mood takes me, and I can apply it to almost any topic or interest–which means that restlessness and an inability to focus don’t keep me from accomplishing quite a bit. I pretty much despaired of ever finding anything that worked this well with my particular disabilities, so I’m going to let myself go nuts with it!

Technorati Tags: cafe press, cafepress.com, meerkats, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, writers, writing

We’re taking our friend to the airport today, so I won’t be posting much. At any rate, two new designs. One for writers, one for cat lovers:

“Write with strength” and “I’m almost as stubborn as my cat.” As you can tell, I’m having fun figuring GIMP out.

The cats seem to be doing pretty well. It’s much easier to get Selene’s pain meds into her than it is to get the antibiotics into either cat–probably because there’s a hell of a lot more volume of antibiotics. She’s quite something after having her–as the vet tech put it–lala juice. VERY purry.

Technorati Tags: cats, writers, writing

I just posted the review of Mary Crownover’s Cheesecake Extraordinaire, despite the drooling cat asleep with her head on my arm.

Speaking of which, the cats are doing surprisingly well. We managed to get all of Selene’s pain meds into her this morning, which shocked us even more than her, I think. I feel guilty for saying this, but I think it’s easier to squirt meds into her mouth now that she has fewer teeth. It’s harder for her to clamp her jaw shut. In happy news, she’s eating like a horse, and oddly I think despite the surgery it looks like she’s more comfortable eating now than she was before, which goes to show how bad her teeth must have been. I wish we’d had any idea, but she’s so good at keeping people out of her mouth that even the vets had a hard time looking at her teeth each year. And until they got the tartar off they couldn’t know how bad things were.

Anyway, today I made what I think is our most gorgeous writing-related cafepress design yet. I call it, “write with grace”:

We didn’t get much sleep last night. For the first half of the night we kept the cats in our room so we wouldn’t have to worry about them trying to jump down off of something while doped and hurting themselves. Cahlash spent the entire time racing around the room, occasionally jumping up near his curled-up sister and getting hissed at. Not much sleep there.

Next we let the cats out and I stayed up for a while watching them to make sure they were handling themselves okay and wouldn’t injure themselves if left alone.

Finally we went to sleep, with some success despite high adrenaline and stress levels.

This morning we get to try to dose Selene up with her pain meds, which ought to be, uh, fun. (Last night’s antibiotics only partially ended up inside of her.) I’ve been pointing out to her that the more she lets us get into her the less she’ll hurt today, but I somehow doubt she’s listening, eh?

At least now Cahlash is capable of sitting still. And both cats are very hungry, which is a good sign. They had about half their dinner last night (the better to not have them puke) after not having had breakfast or lunch, so they’re convinced they’re dying of hunger.

So, yeah. Our tiny little cat has basically her canines left, or something like that. Not much else. After they popped the tartar off they found what was underneath really didn’t resemble teeth all that much any more, and that she’d basically been chewing her food with tartar, not teeth, for some time. Which HAD to hurt. So hopefully she’ll be in a lot less pain once the surgery pain wears off.