Kayla Shay - Fanart, Fanfiction & More

:(

One day before the 3rd anniversary of my parents house fire, we've lost Callie, the only of four cats to survive the fire. She would have been 20 years old this fall.

She's been declining in health for the past year after suffering some sort of stroke or something that caused issues with her back and hind legs. Today, she had another worse episode that left her unable to really move.

I got to see her this weekend while I was visiting with my parents. She even managed to make the jump from the floor to my lap twice to curl up and sleep. She will be missed.

I leave you with a picture of her with her brother Abu (my cat) who was lost 3 years ago in the fire.

About a week and half ago, my cousin's husband pedropadrao suffered a massive stroke. Last night he lost the fight and passed away. Although I didn't get to see him much due to living distance, he was an awesome guy and nobody was more perfect for my cousin. In the words of Anne of Green Gables, they were Kindred Spirits.

Over the weekend, my niece (6 years old) was attacked by a dog. She is okay luckily. The dog belongs to a cousin and resides mainly outside roaming a farm where my parents and uncle and aunt live. Prior the attack, my uncle and/or cousin hadn't noticed that the dog's collar had gotten too tight on his neck. That day they did and removed the collar and the dog had a few sores on his neck. Then my niece without knowing not to touch went to pet him and when her hand got near the sores is when he jumped on her. My parents, uncle and sister were all right there when it happened. Once they were sure she was okay, they were more concerned about my uncle having a heart attack. I think he was worse off emotionally than my niece was.

( Cut for Picture... )

As a precaution, they took a trip to the ER and got the wounds checked out and got her some antibiotics just in case. Especially considering that my great-aunt spent a few nights in the hospital a few weeks back from an accidental puncture/bite wound on her hand from her cat.

In other news, my cousin graduated from the Naval Academy over the weekend and a picture of her shaking Obama's hand was used in some of the news articles about it. I deployed a defensive perimeter netting around my garden because something keeps eating my strawberries before I get to.

And I'm woefully behind on writing this month because of battling sinus headaches and not really feeling like writing in the evening with the headaches. Here's hoping the meds I'm taking will help that. I also need to catch up on reviewing some of the fics that have been produced the past week or so.

Well, the sick house is better. Although, my grandma (mom's mom) ended up in the hospital for almost week. She had a stomach bug and last weekend on Saturday, my aunt went in to check on her while she was napping and she wouldn't respond. They got to hospital and responsive again. Her blood sugar (diabetes issues), dehydration, heart and the stomach bug all made for a mess in her system. Then early in the week they realized her heart medicine was staying in her body long enough to be working, so they had to fix that. She finally got to go home Thursday and so far has taken to heart that she needs to watch her food intake better to help with the blood sugar.

In the writing realm, I need to get back to prompts from earlier this year, but first is the Tibbs Yuletide. I'm working on my fic for Thursday. Finally thought of a good direction for something. :)

I also signed up for picfor1000 again. I love that comm.

I'm also toying with some original fic ideas bouncing around. Not sure if they will get far, but if they do, I'll let you guys know.

I also have all my Christmas shopping done and all but two books I ordered on Amazon wrapped. Go me!

I have strep throat. Yay me.

My roomie has an upper respiratory infection. Yay him.

I haven't been around much due to work and then Thanksgiving and now this. At the end of October my boss throws out that he is going to a tradeshow and needs new things and this is the first week of November. So I had to design, order and get a new tradeshow display booth and marketing materials to accompany it. For short notice, I'm happy with how it turned out.

I had a three state Thanksgiving weekend. Went to IL on Thanksgiving morning. Then my cousin texted about going to Best Buy with her on Thanksgiving night. So I headed back to KY and did Best Buy and Kohls before crashing at home around 4am. Then I got up about 8:30am on Black Friday and headed back to IL. Then in the evening I went my mom to MO to take my niece home and hit a few other stores there.

On the up side, I got over half my Christmas shopping done. I even picked up a few presents for myself at Best Buy. Got White Collar seasons 1-3 for $8 each. For my aunt, I found True Blood seasons 2-4 for $17 each. I'm giving her one and then some of the other relatives bought the others off of me to give to her.

Got my dad one of those remote wireless helicopter things. So we should all enjoy that on Christmas Day.

Well, that's all I have for now. Let's see how much spam I can get on this post from Russians about cheap things and sexual enhancements.

Over a year ago, Callie (along with my parents) survived a house fire that claimed the lives of 3 other cats in the house. Including my cat Abu who was Callie's brother.

Callie is now around 18 years old and enjoying her second kitten-hood as you can see from a few videos. :)

In regards to the mouse video, Callie has an army of toy mouse (around 8) and she transports the troops throughout the house to wherever my mom is. And she cries while doing it. My mom will always wake up surrounded by mice. At least they are of the toy variety.

A post/comment session between me and my sister on Facebook. The first post was from a Status Shuffle thing and it snowballed from there:

Sis: You have noticed this notice. You are reading this notice and have now noticed that the notice you've noticed is not worth noticing!!

Me: Did you notice that the notice in this comment about the notice above that wasn't worth noticing isn't worth noticing either?

Sis: I did not notice until I had already noticed and begun reading that the comment was not worth noticing. And noticing that, I notice I should not have continued to notice.

Me: Continuing to notice indicates that there is a problem with noticing. One should stop noticing as soon as they notice that something is not worth noticing. But notice how people never notice that they didn't stop noticing until it's too late to notice the noticing...

Well, the house I grew up in is officially no more. I was there when my dad made attempt one at taking the house down and the thing didn't budge. They built to last back in 1914. One wall beam was made out of 4 2x4's put together and that was an outside wall. They ended up having to take it out a room at a time pretty much.

They left the floor area that covers the basement. Ultimately, he'll build something that connects to that basement and they can use it as a storm shelter since they are in a tornado prone area.

The new house has been delivered. They haven't officially moved in since there were a few issues in moving (ceiling crack, doors messed up, etc.) that the company is working on fixing. Plus, they have to find themselves a bed. They have a kitchen table my found for $100 at a Salvation Army store. It comes with two extra leaves to expand out and four chairs. They have beds for the guest rooms. I gave them a small three drawer dresser I'm not using. They have an entertainment center for one of the bedrooms. And a couch will be delivered on Wednesday. So furniture is coming slowly, but surly.

They still need the check from the insurance on the contents of the house. But they know they are getting the full amount, so that is good. Just have to wait for the paperwork to finalize and the check to mail out.

I'm a bit turned around over there now. Things aren't where they were. It's kind of disorienting. And there's a pecan tree that I remember when it was planted that is taller than I think it should be. It makes me feel old.

Below are some pictures of the new place, as well as some pictures saved from the house.

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( The New House Pictures )

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( Random Pictures Salvaged )

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RIP The House, 1914-2010

*sigh*

The house will be a complete loss. However, they will be able to save a lot of the 'special' things including (but not limited to): family pictures of all shapes sizes (we are up to our ears in those), my dad's gun collection should be fine within his safes (many thousands of dollars there), the computer harddrive might survive, other little family things like a jewelry box my uncle gave me years ago and that uncle has since past away...

It looked like a yard sale as we were hauling stuff out of the house. The fear was that what happened to my great-uncle/aunt a few years back would happen here. The house burned but was still standing. They left everything inside and planned to start on it the next day. That night the fire reignited and the whole house went. So they got everything we could find that could be pulled out that was of importance (and a lot of stuff that wasn't) and got it out of the house. As of right now, the house is still standing.

I'm amazed at how well the floors held up in the place. We were able to walk upstairs and everything. And there's a lot of those weird things you see that just seemed out of place. Like this wicker thing my mom had hanging on a door in the kitchen. The kitchen was hit the hardest, but yet this wicker thing is just hanging on it's nails like it always has without a mark on it. The fridge even kept the contents well.

They at least have a place to stay for the immediate future with my aunt and uncle who is the only house next door (they live on farm land) or with my grandma in town who's house they actually own. They will likely look to maybe renting some place for a bit while they regroup and then set up a new house where the old one was. My dad's already spouting his plans for it and it's steel frame.

Something to note. Ants and brown recluses survive fires. *shudders*

One of the four cats made it. Cali, my mom's cat and Abu's brother survived. She was the smallest of the four. She's having a visit for the weekend with my dad's cousin who's a vet about 15-20 minutes away. He said she should be okay. Her lungs were smoke filled but he thinks she'll do okay. She's around 16-17 years old. She's a survivor.

I think I'm going to take a few days off of work to be hear with my parents and help sort and organize things as well as help track down everywhere they do bills and payments to, etc. Going to try to get them set up with a Verizon phone plan and switch their landline number to it tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed on that.

Several of you have mentioned wanting to help in any way and I as well as my parents are very grateful to you. I will post a paypal button down below. Please only click if you have the money to spare. I'm not asking... I just... Any little thing that can help take some small burdon off my parents would forever be appreciated. Fandom is awesome and I love everyone in it.

Also, here are some links to some initial pictures I took today. I'm linking since I'm not on a computer that has the right programs to resize them to a more user friendly method. So these are large files.

http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02387.JPG
http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02379.JPG
http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02380.JPG
http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02382.JPG
http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02384.JPG
http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02385.JPG
http://www.kaylashay.com/2010-08-21_TheHouse/DSC02386.JPG

Thank you all again and I will keep you posted. Oh, my aunt Cathy who came down from St. Louis to help said she found a buch of pictures that had Cali and Abu in them... :-)

I received a call from my mom just a little bit ago and apparently lighting hit my dad's work shed around 4am and the fire spread to the house. My parents made it out just fine, but the house is pretty much a loss. They won't know until they start going through things. It's the house I grew up in. And they hadn't seen a sign of the four cats yet (including my cat Abu who is really getting up in years around 16-17), or at least my mom hadn't when she left to go to my grandma's house for a bit.

cheerfulchaotic, sister_devora and pedropadrao... I don't know how fast the family grapevine is traveling, but yeah... :-( I said something must have it out for all the old family houses since granny's family house burned a few years back and now this one. It was almost to 100 year mark.

ETA: One cat survived! Cali... she's Abu's sister and my mom said she was a little worse for wear, but made it. Abu and Cookie did not make it. :-( And they hadn't found the other one, Kitty, yet.

The house will be a loss. They are working to save some things now in case the fire starts back up, including my dad's gun safes. She said their clothes should be salvageable after a good wash or two or more as long as the fire doesn't reignite like it did at a relative's house a few years back.

I iz moved

Still have a few little things left at the apartment and some clothes in the closet, but overall, the furniture and boxes of things that I likely don't need but have are all at the house. And I'm using the new internet. Yay.

I set the made the bed first, then hooked up the computer. Although, I still need to tweak the layout of wires and things, but I needed my internet fix.

Now I just have to sort through everything and find a new home for it. My room is completely different from the apartment. It's larger for one. Then I have almost all new furniture. New bed (I didn't buy), new desk (I did buy and I now blame for my dad's trip to the hospital), new dresser (came with the bed), new entertainment stand (really, really cheap from Wal-mart but functional and fits in the room. Only things that came furniture wise from my old room were the two bookcases (one of which was new anyway for about a month and I hadn't used yet) and my nightstand.

So, yeah... I don't know yet what I'll do with everything.

Still using the shower at the apartment for a few, until we get some kind of new fixture put in the bathroom here that makes me and the roomie happy. And just think, all too soon, I'll likely have new bathroom adventure stories.... Wait! I already kinda do. Friday, my dad got stuck in the bathroom because our door was crappy. My dad is like MacGuyver and used his pocket knife to get out. Then he fixed it. :-)

Since my dad wasn't able to help in the move, my brother drove up from a few hours away, two of my cousins and another friend of my cousin who also knows my roomie helped with the heavy lifting (mainly my roomie's bedroom set).

The one cousin that helped was the one that had Swine Flu. So he's doing better. :-)

My dad... They still don't know what caused his spell. They let him leave the hospital tonight. My mom just had him stay until she was able to leave from helping in the move. Then she picked him up on her way home. The hospital was pampering him with pecan pie. I think he would have stayed. He's under a no driving restriction and pretty much a no doing anything restriction, which will be hard for him. That's until they run a few more tests this week to rule out other things. Going to check the carotid arteries and do this tilt test thing on him.

Guess we'll see how that goes. So far, they haven't found anything that they can point a finger at. But that is my dad. When he goes at sick or has something wrong with him, they either never figure it out or it's really out there...

So, that's the update on me. Oh! Once I get the bedroom set up how I like it, I'll take pictures. NCIS lovers with enjoy what is going to hang over my bed.

Thanks for the well wishes...

My dad is doing okay. However, since they don't know 100% what caused his episode, they are keeping him at the hospital tonight and tomorrow to run various heart tests just to ensure everything is good.

He's getting heart monitored today. Then tomorrow they'll do an echocardiogram and stress test.

This has changed things on the moving front. Mainly moving big stuff tomorrow now. And my brother is coming up from Missouri and one, possibly two, of my cousins that live nearby me will be over and between all the muscle we'll hammer it out.

My roommate's mom is a... well... I'll be nice. She's got a vision for her favorite son moving to his first house and she's all... Grrr Arrrghh...

I've just been hiding out in my room packing. Lay low and pray she won't be around tomorrow because she'll just be in the way. His family is 100 times more uptight than my family. Might be the city living versus country living... who knows... I'll be glad when it is done.

My mom just called and she took my dad to the emergency room after he passed out on her at the house and when he came to, he said he had had a sharp pain in his stomach.

So waiting to hear back from her on what is wrong with him...

He apparently said it felt like he did when he had food poisoning. We ate all the same things today except he had a baked potato at lunch and fries at dinner that I didn't have.

::wibbles::

ETA: Well... he's doing okay for now. The initial tests all came back okay. The doctor decided to go ahead and admit him though and then do a stress test on him in the morning. Just to check that everything is okay. The doctor is leaning toward him pinching a nerve that caused his blood pressure to drop. My dad (like myself) has really low blood pressure to begin with, so it doesn't take much to make him passwordout if something triggers it to drop.