#i love being self employed and running a business but its so manic this time of year

[call-me-pup2]

My brain feels so frazzled, all I've been doing for the past week is sleep, walk dogs, work, repeat. Apart from the odd procrastinating on my phone I haven't had any proper chill time and its going to be like that for another week

Roll on next weekend when hopefully all this crazy prep will be worth some more chill time 😴

[brainfoodgp]

The Seeds for Wellness Journal is written by Brain Food Garden Project’s Founder/Executive Director Sean Brennan

The Seeds for Wellness Journal is edited by Kira Labinger

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance” ~Samuel Johnson~

The world has completely changed as we knew it in just a matter of a few short weeks. The once crowded New York City streets are empty, conveying a post apocalyptic feel, as if they were transported into the Will Smith movie Legend, albeit, before Fifth Avenue became overrun with weeds and shrubbery, and zoo animals escaping, reclaimed an abandoned cityscape as their wilderness. The few people out walking in my neighborhood to go to the market, for example, are wearing surgical face masks. This is all extremely reminiscent of the movies we used to pay good money to see at the cinema to have the shit scared out of us, like Contagion. Now, it’s just an everyday reality that we get to witness free of charge.

Not that I have been doing much walking around lately, because 11 days have now passed since I started demonstrating mild symptoms of the COVID-19 virus. Trust me when I say even “mild” symptoms have been no walk in the park. Soar throat, check. Aching body to the point of feeling like I’ve been hit by a bus, check. Low grade fever, check. Tightness in my chest and mild difficulties breathing, check and check.

Speaking with my doctor and finding out from her just how crazy it is out there right now, made the reality of what I’ve been viewing in our Governors televised daily briefings even more real to me. They still don’t have anywhere near enough tests. So, when she told me to stay put, drink plenty of liquids and to keep her posted if my symptoms got worse, I almost felt relieved. I can’t imagine using up a test that could help someone that might really need it. All I can say is that the guilt would have been more overwhelming for me than the virus; trust me.

And yet, through all of this, signs that a majority of the human race is still overwhelmingly kind, generous, compassionate and hopeful, shines forth all around us. And, while our authoritarian, fascist President and Senate majority and collaborating Governors and some other state officials continue to demonstrate their utter cluelessness and ignorance, others have stood out and stood up for ensuring that every life counts, no matter your political party or socioeconomic status. And have stood up for their belief in science, our researchers, medical professionals and first responders. Americans have even embraced our newest heroes: the men and women that stock our grocery stores and the cashiers who check us out. Millions of people who make minimum wage, and who most people look straight through when going about their day checking off their to-do lists, are now wearing masks and risking their own health every day to continue to go to work for us.

Yes, the world has changed. And, while we have no clear idea how long we will have to continue to self-quarantine, self-isolate, and self-distance, the one thing I know and believe to be true during this pandemic is that the Mental Health Peer Advocacy work force will go down as heroes too. We are on the frontlines of this crisis every day, doing what we have always done: providing resources, listening without judgment and using our own lived experience to assist people in putting their fears and anxieties into context and create their own understanding and path to move forward when this is all over. During this great world tragedy arises our moment to shine, like a bright search light cutting through the darkness and bringing hope. When this is all over, no one will ever again be able to doubt the power of our movement, the importance of peer support and the deep and endless well of empathy we supply to our communities all around the world. What I now know for sure is that no one will ever have the right to question our relevance and our place of importance within the psychiatric medical establishment again.

Below you will find the number for the New York State COVID-19 Helpline.

BFGP Feature:

During Difficult Times Finding A Silver Lining Makes The World Seem Less Dark

Living with manic depression is, at the best of times, like riding on a non-stop roller coaster. And, at its worst, like living through a perpetual highway collision. Yet hundreds of thousands of people like myself, all around the world, do live with it and do find paths to manage their symptoms everyday. As a matter of fact, I have written about many of the tools I use personally in quite a few of these Seeds for Wellness Journals.

Whenever my anxiety spikes, so too does the potential for me to tailspin into a depression. One of the wellness tools I’ve come to rely on is looking for a silver lining in whatever is happening in my life, especially those things my mind perceives to be bad or horrific. Applying my “silver lining” rule curtails the perceived threats before they have the chance to pull me down the rabbit hole.

When I started seeing more and more people wearing masks on the train as I traveled each day to meetings for BFGP or to the Baltic Street Community Resource and Wellness Center, I honestly didn’t think much of it. After all, I had lived with suicidal ideation, many suicide attempts, and two long stays in psychiatric hospitals. It wasn’t until more and more of my scheduled work meetings were cancelled and then the call came for me to close the Center until further notice and send all of the participants home, that I started to think, “Oh, this might actually be serious”. However, even then, I thought the world might be held up for a week, two at the most!

After a week in, I knew that I was about to be living in a much different world. My calendar—my lifeline to keeping my incredibly busy life organized—started to look like a blackened, crossed-out mess. It resembled the few attempts I’ve made at filling out the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen! More meetings were cancelled, then Board meetings, then conferences I was scheduled to speak, workshops I was scheduled to facilitate. I found myself staring at an empty calendar, that used to be filled with my well-planned life, and I began to sweat.

When it sunk in that the pilot volunteer garden program, Connect-Garden-Grow, that Brain Food Garden Project was planning to role out in the spring for mental health peers, was not going to come to fruition this spring, with no end in sight for “social distancing”, that nasty, gnarled footed rabbit with talon-like claws for nails and bloodshot red eyes began to stick its head menacingly out of its hole, beckoning me towards it. And I felt myself inching closer and closer.

And then I stopped, I took a deep breath, and asked myself: “What is the silver lining in all of this for me?”, There has to be one, I thought. While taking a long, hot bath, I found it...TIME!!

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said: “I am behind on this project” or said to a friend: “Oh, I can’t meet you for drinks because I’m booked that evening for a committee meeting.”, I’d be a very well-off man. Add a dollar for every time I’ve heard a friend or work colleague say those same types of things to me. And I’d be able to retire now, move to Ireland and buy one of those quaint thatched roofed cottages by the ocean that I love looking at on Facebook!

TIME—we are all always complaining about not having enough of it. Maybe it’s to read that book you’ve been dying to read, or to cook a meal for your family, or to paint that masterpiece. And now, we have nothing but time. So, alright, I can’t meet a friend out for a drink right now. But, before I got sick, I had martinis over the phone with a friend I hadn’t seen in months. And we laughed and gossiped and had the best damned time. Another friend of mine and I, in a similar scenario, talked on the phone for over an hour. I hadn’t been able to dedicate that kind of time to our friendship since I took her out for her birthday in February!

As many of you know, because you’ve commented on it. I haven’t written a Seeds for Wellness Journal since Mental Health Awareness Month last May. I’ve also fallen behind on writing the BFGP cookbook, 33 Delicious Recipes for the Brain. Why? Because other work-related priorities got in the way and I had to employ a process of elimination. New things filled the top of the priorities list while others fell to the bottom and stayed there. And now, I’m catching up on that important work that I enjoyed doing just as well.

I’ve decided that I want to make the most out of this time I’ve been given right now. Because when the pandemic is over, and it will be over, I don’t want to look back on this moment, as the racing speedway we call life zooms back at full throttle, and feel like I squandered it. I refuse to feel like I’ve missed a golden opportunity. Call it being more mindful. Call it making the best out of a terrible situation happening to everyone right now. Or call it my silver lining—an opportunity to turn the sickness, isolation and death into something that makes me feel whole and that provides some sort of meaning to this strange time.

What silver lining have you found during the self- distancing and mandated isolation we are all living through with the COVID-19 outbreak?

Baltic Street Community Resource and Wellness Center: Creating A Virtual Eye In This COVID-19 Storm

As many of you know, that follow any of Brain Food Garden Project’s social media platforms, some time ago, I partnered with Baltic Street’s Community Resource and Wellness Center. Baltic Street AEH, inc. was the first of its kind—an agency, created and managed by peers, to serve peers. It was a shining beacon in the sense that mental health survivors were at the helm of steering the ship of their own recovery and destiny. Today, Baltic Street remains the largest, most respected peer-operated program in the country. Brain Food Garden Project aspires to be a peer run and operated program—for peers, by peers— as well. So, when Baltic Street AEH, Inc.’s CEO, Isaac Brown, and the Center’s Director, Sara Goodwin, and Manager, Laurie Vite, wanted to expand the Center’s nutritional programming and to create an indoor garden space, BFGP and I seemed a natural fit. I had already created a garden space for a housing program in Queens, NY. And I facilitate Feeding Our Mental Health workshops for schools and mental health programs and organizations as part of our programming.

I began to work out of the Center three days a week and, after several months, was invited to be the Center’s Senior Peer Resource Specialist. Having already fallen completely in love with the participants and the resources the Center provides for our community, I felt it was not only an honor but a joy to work side-by-side with Laurie to continue to expand my duties. It didn’t hurt that I would work only three days a week which would allow me to continue working with BFGP’s partners to build our first mental health peer rooftop garden, as well as working on other important programs and projects.

It has been an extraordinary experience! And just when we were starting to plant our indoor greenhouse for spring ( as well as having recently added a hydroponic tent) and preparing to celebrate the Center’s 10 year anniversary of serving NYC’s mental health community. The Coronavirus outbreak closed the Center, like many other organizations and businesses, until further notice.

One of the things I love most about the Center is that, at its core and heart and soul, it operates with a Peer Resource Team who work everyday in this incredibly creative space that inspires us to be at our best, “Always in SERVICE to our community.”

At the time of the “shelter in place” order, our Director, Sara had already been out on medical leave for several weeks, recovering from an arm injury. And Laurie, the Center’s Manager, would be returning from a three month family leave taking care of her 93 year old father. Her official first week back would be our second week working from home in quarantine. In several conference call meetings with Laurie, during that first week as she still took care of her father, I kept coming back to this theme in our conversations: “How can the Center still be of service to our community with our doors closed?”

First, I pitched a “warm line” where the Center’s Peer Resource Specialists could be available for anyone that needed to talk. Isolation, for many of us, can be activating. It can bring on depression and create a cycle of reliving past trauma. As I mentioned earlier, I was quarantined in my apartment for less than a week when I started heading toward falling down the rabbit hole, myself. Having been the first team member from the Center to receive my new work phone, I myself, tested out the idea for the warm line that Thursday and Friday. I realized that our Facebook page would need to become even more of a tool for providing our community resources, so I posted my work number on the Facebook page. I was super excited to hear the voices of several of the Center’s participants that first day that I tested out the idea!

Second, the Center thrives on the groups, clubs, workshops and field trips that we offer to our community. I decided to put together and pitch phone-in workshops and groups that would take place 4 days a week in the afternoons lead by our Peer Resource Team. Now, going on week three, we have expanded to two workshops a day, with both morning and afternoon sessions, starting on Monday April 6, 2020. The morning sessions, are from 11am to 12pm and our afternoon sessions continue to run from 3pm to 4pm.

Laurie loved the ideas, and after getting fast approval from Baltic Street’s Director of Operations and with the assistance of Baltic Streets incredible technical support engineer, we held our first teleconference group the Monday of the second week of the quarantine. The Center found a way to continue to be of service to our community— to literally became the “virtual” eye in the storm of the Coronavirus.

To join the Baltic Street Community Resource and Wellness Center’s Facebook page click here if you would like to donate to Baltic Street AEH, Inc. click here

The Feeding Our Mental Health Workshops are held every Tuesday from 3-4pm Call-in information is provided every Monday on the Brain Food Garden Project social media platforms as well as the morning of the scheduled groups on the Baltic Street Community Resource and Wellness Center Facebook page. And to receive a flyer of the full list of weekly group offerings by email: sbrennan@balticstreet.org

The Baltic Street Community Resource and Wellness Center Warm Line operates five days a week Monday-Friday from 10am-3pm

Warm Line Mon-Fri. From 10am-3pm

Mon. Call Peer Resource Specialist Robert Santiago at extension 917-653-5390

Tue. Call Peer Resource Specialist Christina Correa at extension 917-653-5632

Wed. Call Peer Resource Specialist Paul Wachtel at extension 917-686-9385

Thurs. Call Peer Resource Specialist Sean Brennan at extension 917-982-9747

Fri. Call Peer Resource Specialist Caitlin Haughney at extension 917-653-0408

Notes From the Resistance:

The Coronavirus pandemic has been a reminder to most Americans that our countries little experiment with Authoritarian Fascism has been an utter disaster and failure—destroying countless human lives in its wake. The resistance has been the only thing standing between even more human suffering. And with COVID-19 and the horrifying response of 45 and his collaborators, the resistance continues to be a necessary source to protect the people suffering at this time.

1 in 7 people living in the United States live with not knowing where their next meal is going to come from. Food insecurity is unfortunately a challenge that we have sadly, not been able to overcome. During the pandemic this national crisis will only expand getting worse for millions of Americans. If you have more than you need at this time. You may want to consider donating to God’s Love We Deliver by clicking here. Or another excellent organization doing incredible work is Chef José Andrés World Central Kitchen you can donate by clicking here.

Baltic Street Community Resource and Wellness Center in association with Brain Food Garden Project has created a NYC guide, Resources for Avoiding Food Insecurity During the COVID-19 Crisis. To receive a copy of this resource tool email: sbrennan@balticstreet.org

It is so very important that during this unprecedented crisis we assist our neighbors, friends , and families to avoid unnecessarily experiencing food insecurity during this crisis. The resistance is the perfect organizational tool to move this vital work forward.

Delicious Recipes For the Brain:

I love this simple crockpot recipe! I make it all winter long. I happened to make a big batch right before I got sick and it restored my soul!! First, you can roast your own chicken for this recipe. However, it isn’t a prerequisite. I make a delicious roast chicken, which recipe I’ve posted in a back issue of the Seeds for Wellness Journal click here. However, this time I bought a pre-cooked roaster from the deli section of my local grocery store. This recipe can also be made completely vegetarian by subbing out organic, sodium free vegetable stock and replacing the chicken by adding a package of Shiitake and a package of Cremini mushrooms to the Button mushrooms.

Ingredients: (Cooking time 8 hours)

(1) Whole Roast Chicken

(1) Package large button mushrooms (or a selection of your favorite mushrooms)

(1) Package of Cellery

(2) Lemmons

(3) Red Bell Peppers

(6) Peeled Whole Garlic Cloves

(2) Packages of Zucchini “noodles” (if you have the proper tool and want to shred your own you will need 3 large whole zucchini’s)

(3) Medium red onions ( if you love the flavor of onions but not their texture you could sub out 3 tablespoons of onion powder)

(2) Large containers of sodium free chicken stock (I prefer organic but that is my preference)

(2) Cups of water

(5) Tablespoons of Cayenne pepper

Crushed sea salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

(1)Prepare your vegetables by chopping them to your liking.

(2) Pour both cartons of your chicken stock into the crockpot

(3) Add the two cups of water to the stockpot

(4) Crush and add the garlic cloves, salt and pepper, and cayenne pepper to the stock.

(5) Add your chopped vegetables and two packages of zucchini noodles to the stock.

(6) Add the roasted chicken to the center of the crockpot

Place lid on crockpot and set timer for 8 hrs. After the first 4 hours remove chicken carefully and place on a cutting board let the chicken “rest” for 30 minutes allowing your soup stock and vegetables to continue cooking.

Remove the chicken meat and skin from the carcass adding the chicken meat back into the soup. Allow to continue cooking for the remaing pre-set crockpot time.

Squeeze the juice of your two lemons into finished soup, serve and enjoy!

[collusioncomics]

Nicholas Warner’s Agents of  S.E.A.L.

Nick Warner, [Maxwell Lord/Nick Fury] was an adept businessman specializing in the marketing of superhero identities in mainstream media, and in many cases even engaging as a kind of talent scout and manager for various well established heroes and their teams.  In many ways he serves as the primary adversary keeping the subversive tactics of [G.Gordon Godfrey/Master Pandemonium] in check.  But he is also a megalomaniac, and as his career grows he quickly finds the level of control and amount of credit he’s given unsatisfying.  To quench this thirst for recognition he establishes his own super hero team, under his direct and explicit command, The Great S.E.A.L., which he markets heavily as an “All American” hero team.  His need to control all facets of his team results in manufacturing backstories, personas, drama, and even adversaries and crises for his team.  He scripts their lives and careers like a reality TV show.  Invariably this turns him into as much a benefactor of super villains as heroes, and as such his competing hero team, in their various incarnations, tend to walk the line on being rival heroes and themselves villains.

As pillars of his original team he recruits...

[Manchester Black/USAgent], The Brand: Wielding the team’s titular Great Seal of the United States of America, the original figurehead team leader; [Lord/Fury]’s loyal lackey.  He uses telekinetic powers to control his flying shield as a weapon.  He doesn’t often do much of his own thinking or decision making, but when prompted to offer up his thoughts, he is quick to reveal himself as a fanatical extremist of nearly every description.

After a series of media debacles and a subsequent shuffling of team roster, he is recast as the stoic and silent big brother of the team briefly before being replaced entirely by a second Brand.  The mantle would be passed down through a long line of very short lived successors, all trying to redefine the character in some way that could prove marketable, yet the legacy would be continually marred by scandal.

[Hawk/Cloak] & [Dove/Dagger], The Talons Dexter & Sinister: The Brand’s  wingmen (hurr hurr...) and eagle themed lieutenants.  They were selected for their marketable qualities as a duo, and as thematic accessories to the Great Seal gimmick.  They possess opposed powers of temperament influence, allowing them to either inspire aggression or passivity in the people in their immediate area with focused intent.  Ironically this makes Dexter, with his pacifying powers, the most effective vanguard in battle and Sinister a better support, buffing his teammates with rushes of adrenaline, bursts of confidence, and even temporary invulnerability.

They would eventually be discharged after sustaining debilitating injuries in a tragic defeat that [Fury/Lord] orchestrated to introduce an element of drama and edge to garner public sympathies and retain interest.  The battle however would escalate out of control and go largely off script resulting in the unintended lasting injuries:  Sinister would be blinded and lose the ability to aim his powers at specific individuals (and gain the involuntary ability to use them on himself), and Dexter would develop PTSD and selective mutism.  But surprisingly they prove themselves quite effective as actual heroes after seeking therapy following their departure from S.E.A.L.

[Stargirl/Firestar], Firecracker: A somewhat distressingly young girl unwittingly roped into the superhero persona to fulfill [Lord/Fury]’s perceived need for a token female with sex appeal in order to sell the team’s image.  She is scouted from [Court of Owls/Massachusetts Academy] by the headmistress Li’l Birdie [Penguin/Emma Frost], and outfitted with some rudimentary equipment to amplify her underdeveloped and largely untrained [meta/mutant] powers, but is relegated largely to posing for photo ops.

Not long into the gig she becomes a target of sexual advances by her older male teammates, which she takes up with [Lord/Fury]. He dismisses her concerns and instead advises her to pick a team mate to date publicly, as he thinks it will make for a better team image.  Instead she takes it upon herself to reach out into the hero community outside her team to receive proper training —not willing to accept being both exploited by and then run out of the hero business, she becomes hellbent on making it as a super heroine for real.

She makes her way through several different mentors at Birdie’s recommendation, putting all her effort into tackling her self designed crash course in heroics until she becomes a competent heroine in what all her mentors regard as a shockingly short amount of time.  She returns to the team hardened and with a dramatic make over, and the next time one of her team mates sexually assaults her, she puts him in the hospital.  [Lord/Fury] isn’t especially upset however, and actually tries to leverage the whole incident to make him look like the hero for siding with Firecracker over her assailant.  This hypocrisy proves the final straw, and Firecracker leaves to join [Batman/Prof.X]’s private academy and the [Batman Family/X-Men].

[S.T.R.I.P.E./Blue Streak], Old Glory: A retired Olympian and war veteran recruited for his existing public image and appeal with older demographics.  Well past his prime as an athlete, he’s aided by an exoskeleton and armor facilitating superhuman speeds, but really he mostly keeps to clean up duty, crowd control, and publicity stunts; often just running to create a blur of red and white stripes for effect. (literally just running in circles)  He’s fine with this of course, because he’s mostly in the gig to relieve his glory days in the public limelight, rather than see any real action.  He becomes notoriously lazy and entitled, with a bad attitude even by S.E.A.L.’s notoriously low standards.

His time with the team ends, when he sexually assaults the underage Firecracker after her return from training and she overloads his exoskeleton with her powers, overextending its joints and breaking both his legs.  [Lord/Fury] drops all endorsement of him following the incident.

[Red Tornado/Beta Ray Bill], Red Chief (Later, Red Condor): The product of a private contract with [T.O.Morrow/Baron Mordo], secretly being used to serve his larger machinations.  He was initially presented to [Lord/Fury] as purely robotic and under his full control (a premise which would later prove false when the Native American wind spirit trapped inside him would gain control of his machine prison) and was deployed as an appeal for superficial "diversity points.”

After the eventual dissolution of the first S.E.A.L. team, [Lord/Fury] pushes for a more “authentic” hero team, employing cutting edge research into the study and manipulation of the [Meta/Mutant] gene to create a line of “designer” heroes, catered to his specific marketing needs.

[Major Victory/Citizen V], The Brand II: Initially recruited in a pinch to replace the original Brand, he’s actually the agent of the corrupt Atlantean noble, [Black Manta/Baron Zemo], working to help spur anti-American sentiment in Atlantis through subtle false flag tactics.

[Lady Liberty/Atlas], New Colossus: A female body builder hired after Firecracker left the team.  She was chosen to fill the new found niche appeal factor for a muscular heroine that Firecracker brought to light after her intensive training.

[Silent Majority/Screaming Mimi], Anthem (aka Vox Populi): An unsuccessful opera singer who volunteered for [Lord/Fury]’s designer [meta/mutant] gene project in hopes of attaining fame an fortune.  He has the power to create duplicates of himself (but only up to four, and not capable of autonomous thought) as well as bionic implants to weaponize his voice.

[Mayflower/Amazon], American Beauty: Another of [Lord/Fury]’s designer [meta/mutant] with the ability to control plant-life and a penchant for tormenting men, hero, villain, and civilian alike.  (Honestly I don’t know what to do with her that’s not just Poison Ivy...)

[Skyman/Mach-I], Full-Mast: A kind of informal legacy character to Old Glory.  His flight suit is based on Old Glory’s speedster exoskeleton.  The unfortunate euphemism of a name after the circumstances of his predecessor aside, he earns the nickname Half-Mast, because he frequently makes a point of flying low to make sure his face is seen in public.

[Sparkler/Techno], Hallmark: Tech whiz, boy hero put in charge of the team’s equipment, he’s basically a superhero ball boy.  Marketable as cute and chipper with a kind of old fashioned boy-ish charm.  He’s the first to die when [Lord/Fury] decides his new team needs some drama. (think the iconic death of Bucky, Jason Todd, and Supergirl covers.)

In [Lord/Fury]’s quest for wealth and acclaim he also becomes well acquainted with [Toyman/Norman Osborn] and his son, [Dollmaker/Harry Osborn].  The family of toy manufacturers are at first rivals and later accomplices in [Lord/Fury]’s marketing crusades.  Their compulsive and often manic love of superheroes fuels their stalker-like fanboy tendencies and feel the need to insert themselves into the lives of heroes by any means, even as antagonists.  They become in turn [Lord/Fury]’s crisis engineers when he begins more heavily scripting S.E.A.L.’s adventures.

This was definitely not meant to be as long as it turned out, or involve as many specific character combinations.  This team is such a heinous mess of a concept and got so wildly out of hand before I really noticed.  I can’t help but love coming up with these disastrous characters, though.  I definitely meant for them to be more of a joke than a tragedy at first, but something about the tone of it all had me inadvertently channeling a little bit of Garth Ennis’ The Boys.  I just like the idea of a bunch of delusional wannabes, glory hogs, and narcissists posing as super heroes.

Hey, there newcomer!  If you are in fact new to this blog, I’m sure you’re a little confused.  But if this has been the kind of confused you enjoy, then check out our about page to have maybe less confused and more enjoy?

[thecalicocaptaincatlady-blog]

Saying Farewell To A Pretty Shitty 2018

As 2018 nears its end I can't help but breath a sigh of relief. It’s been a doozy of a year, and I'm finding more and more people are also sharing in a run of bad luck this past twelve months. 2019 is going to be our year readers, I can feel it (I say over and over again while rocking back and forth)! 

I've somehow managed to survive another rough patch, which is one of the main reasons I haven't been able to blog in a while. Struggling with depression and anxiety, while navigating through life's testing periods can make these hard times seem never-ending. Maybe they never will. Maybe it's just a case of becoming stronger, thicker skinned and learning to embrace them, as, without these sort of negative events, we wouldn’t appreciate the good times as much. 

Since my last blog a lot has changed. 

Captain is still my rock and she is still loving being an only cat. She has always been a princess at heart and is loving growing gracefully older and enjoying her moments of lazy solitude while I'm at work and then spending hours playing with her favourite bit of string. 

Not long after my last blog, I was headhunted for an ideal new job role which was to be an exciting and well-paid opportunity I couldn't turn down. It all seemed too good to be true, but with my growing dislike for my old job, I snapped up the chance to be an assistant HR manager with a brand new company. I worked for this company for six weeks and still haven't been paid to this day. It turned out to be a big scam and the director had run this sort of con many times over in the past. He set up a legitimate business model, using a fake name and borrowed thousands off hard-working, self-employed people, with absolutely no intention of repaying his debts. He then fled with all the profits, leaving around fifty of us penniless. 

A week after not going into work because I simply couldn't afford to get there, I started looking for another job. It was a month before Christmas and I was already six weeks into a financial debt hole, I knew I had to give it up and find something else. My Grandparents have been a godsend during this whole catalogue of disasters. They have helped me enormously financially and have been there for me to just cry down the phone and winge. I was very lucky when I started my manic job hunt as I managed to secure another temporary role in a call centre to get me through the next few months. There is an opportunity to be made a permanent member of staff in February, otherwise, I will be back to being unemployed. I know I have been very lucky getting any sort of job to close to Christmas. There are still people I worked with at that company who haven't yet managed to secure employment. The director of the company is still at large, which makes the entire thing all the more frustrating as it seems like he will get away with it again.

My mum and her husband are also in the process of getting divorced. Thank god. He wasn’t quite the recovered alcoholic he lead everyone to believe, but the less said about that whole saga the better. The amount of stress that relationship created in our lives is astounding and I can’t wait for them to have no more ties and be completely out of our lives for good. 

Despite these bumps in the road, I feel as though I have come out fighting. My New Years resolution is to begin blogging regularly again. I've let myself get bogged down by a string of shitty incidents which resulted in me wanting to just curl up in bed all day with Captain. It's made me temporarily lose my sense of fun and doing what I enjoy. My financial struggles have become a real problem in terms of getting the website finished. Now that I have a temporary job, I can begin to finish off paying my new designer to complete the website so this project can be eventually finished and to create a haven for cat ladies and men alike to spoil their fur babies with tried and tested toys.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and have a prosperous, happy New Year readers. Sending love and kisses, as always,

          The Cat Lady

xxx