My New Etsy Shop !!

Hi, I'm back. I haven't been checking here as much since my last post. I've been busy with other things, such as...

... making my Etsy shop public and making my first few shop listings.

(I did it! Yay! :D)

Here is the link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SpiritixswArt

Please check it out. I am Knowable. I am Known. I Exist. Please look. Thanks so much. 

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Well, I have to leave now. But first, here is the picture I made for my shop profile. I think my handwriting looks decent. I made it using my Copic markers and a Sharpie. 

~ Shan/Shyrah 

<3 <3 <3

Not-Pet Updates

Hi, I’m back with another post. I won’t be talking about my pets this time, I’m too tired to come up with a better name for this post, so it’s this. Eh, it’s fine. Whatever. 

Anyway. 2 things I want to say: 

1. I had a job interview this afternoon. It went well. So, uh, I might have a new job. It’s part-time and only a few days a week. But it’s fine. It’s something. Finally good news. I’m happy about that. Happy about finally having a new job. Yay. :)

2. The stickers and pins I plan on selling online arrived yesterday. I got to see them. I really like them. It’s so cool seeing my art and photography on stickers and pins. Makes them seem more physical and real. (Psst, you can get physical forms of them. They no longer only exist online. heh heh heh 😏)

I just have to finish setting up my Etsy shop. I might also put some stuff up on my Redbubble. Maybe. I don’t know yet. 

I bought lots of things for my Etsy shop. Products for packaging/shipping and products for helping me make other items. Gotta try stuff out. I’ve been hyperfixating on small-sized DIY projects for a few months now, decided I want to try some DIYs with my own stuff (art, photography, writing) and try to earn money off them, so here I am now. My fingers are crossed that all of this is worth it. 

It would be so cool if fans of my blog wanted to buy items from me. That sounds pretty epic. (No need to if you don’t want to buy anything from me or can’t; I totally understand; I’m just dumping my thoughts out here lol … I hope I can do international shipping, hmm…)

I have several button pin designs of photography I took while in France in 2018. I really like some of these photos and feel like sharing them with the world. Hehe, pretty pictures :3 

…… idk what to really say lol 

I also designed stickers saying my favorite story quote. I don’t know why I like it so much. But sometimes I think it’s stupid. Eh, I like it for the most part. I just find it so deep and meaningful. But also simple. It’s one of the few things from my 14 year old self that doesn’t make me cringe. 

The quote: “There’s a part in all of us that wants to be free” 

I made stickers with that quote now. I think my 14 year old self would be freaking out over this. Haha.. yeah. It’s making me feel an emotion or a mix of emotions that I can’t remember the name(s) of. 

I also have other designs on stickers and pins. I’ll probably show pictures and link my shop in my Contact Me page once it’s officially launched. (Then I’ll be Known TM. I’m a Real Life person. omg no way 😳 asdfghjkl)

I’m very excited about all of this. Makes life seem a little more worth it. It’s helping me not drown in my depression. I’m grateful for that. :’) 

Clarification: I ordered my stickers on Sticker App. I bought custom vinyl stickers. I ordered my button pins on Sticker Mule. They’re round button pins. 

(Since idk how to make my own stickers and pins.. yet.)

Excited excited excited aaaaaaaaaa—

Ok bye for now. ✌️ 

~ Shan/Shyrah 

Pet Updates 1 | September 2022

Hi all, I'm here to give an update on my pets. I'm going to make at least one more pet updates post because I said so and don't feel like putting everything I want to say in one post. 

Without further ado, it's time for me to talk about my pets! :3

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Thelma

Thelma is my 10 year old little tuxedo cat. She's mine and I love her. <3

I took these pictures back in March one night. And yes, she's on my bed. She likes to sleep on my bed at night and during the day with me. 

She usually has a judgmental look on her face since she likes to judge the dog. Thelma is also still afraid of her, though she has become a little less scared in recent weeks or months. 

By the way, I scrolled through my old posts where I put pictures of her and talked about her. I can't believe I started this blog when she was only 2! She was such a baby back then (omg my heart,, 🥺). 

Actually, the first time I talked about Thelma on here might have been in 2015. Her birthday is in early February, so she could've been 3 at that point. Dang, 2014 and 2015 were so long ago. It's a little hard for me to believe. Same goes for my baby (Thelma) being a decade old now. :')

-_-_-_-

Lilly

I took these two pictures of Lilly in mid-April, right before going on the car ride back to college (if I remember correctly). 

The legs and feet in the second pic are my sister's. She was driving me back to college, so she was also leaving Lilly at home with our parents. We doubt Lilly knew we were leaving her for a few weeks. 

Oh yeah, here are basic facts about Lilly since I forgot if I properly introduced her on here: Lilly is my family's (well, technically my sister's since she officially owns her or something like that) new dog. We got her on the last day of May 2021 on the drive home from a vacation where we visited our brother in the city he lives in. She was born March 9, 2021, so she's a year old now. 1 year and *pauses to count the months* 6 months; 18 months. She still behaves very much like a puppy. Oh and she's a black cockapoo. The day we picked her up, we also got to see her parents: a black cocker spaniel mom and a golden mini poodle dad. They were also so cute and lovely dogs. 

So yeah, that's Lilly. I like to call her Silly Lilly and Crazy Lilly as well. It sums her up well. XD

-_-_-_-

**Warning: Talking about death for the rest of this post. 

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To those that remember my pets, I used to talk about having another cat. Well, here's the thing (I think you can guess what)...

My family and I call our other cat any of these names: Zoe, Zo, or Mr. Zo. He entered our lives in 2008, so by 2022 he became a very old cat. We never found out his age; we could only guess. He was already an adult cat when he came into our lives (I say that because he was the one who found us; he was found in the garage one day and we kept him ever since). To keep things less messy, I'm going to refer to him as Zoe for the rest of the post. Despite the name, Zoe's male. 

... *takes a deep breath* ... Zoe died in January this year. On January 21, 2022 to be exact. Unlike with Sunshine (my family's old dog) who died while I was in college, I was home when Zoe died. I vividly remember the day and the few days leading up to his death. To this day, I sometimes have my mind reliving the day he died. It was a very rough day for multiple reasons. I might go into more details on why in another post. Maybe, I'm not sure. 

Additionally, shortly before Zoe passed away, my brother told us (the rest of my family) that Yoda (his pet chameleon) died. I liked seeing Yoda; she was so cool. 

Basically, January really sucked. It was a sad month full of pet deaths. :'(

It was also a bad month for other reasons. Let's just say that some days were very cold (single digits Fahrenheit), and the heating system (not the water heater since that was fixed a little earlier) was broken in my house. It was very cold living in the house back then. I don't miss January lmao 

Whatever, I'll explain some of it now. Ok so. The day Zoe died was especially cold. I remember having to keep myself wrapped in my heated blanket and having difficulty moving my hands and fingers since they felt frozen. I was very cold. I also kept Zoe wrapped in blankets and sometimes put the heated blanket on him on the days he was very sick and on his deathbed (he died on one of the couches). This wasn't the only very cold day though; I just remember this particularly day very well. 

On that day, some men came over our house to replace our old furnace (or whatever was broken) with a new one. Anyway, my dad was a little busy taking care of all that stuff. My mom and sister were out of the house that morning for important reasons. *breathes in, breathes out* When Zoe died on the couch, I was alone with him. I was the the only one by his side. 

... I watched him die. One moment I was holding him and he was alive (his dirty paws were becoming really cold, which is one of the first signs of a cat's death; he sometimes let out a soft cry unlike anything he ever said before). Being able to pet him and properly hold him were warnings in themselves since he was known for being touch repulsed (he hated being touched in any way despite how much time he spent time around us up close). Anyway, a little later, I petted him and gently held him again, but this time he let out a different cry than the ones he made for the last few days. This one sounded especially painful and made me begin to feel heartbroken since he was crying out his last cry of pain. The next time I picked him up, his body was limp. A short while later, he died. (I think he went into a coma right before dying; I could still feel his heart beating immediately after finding out his body went limp.)

This happened in the morning. We planned on taking him to the vet to get euthanized later that day, but he didn't make it that long. My sister and I took him to the vet the day before, and he told us that our cat would likely die the next day. Zoe was in a very bad state by that time. Unlike with Sunshine, Zoe became noticeably sick and on his deathbed in the span of a few days (2 or 3 days). 

Despite how rude and obnoxious Zoe was, I really miss him. I cried when he died. I loved him. I think I loved him the most; saw him the least as a burden. He enjoyed spending time on one of the couches (he never noticed the other new couch lmao) and watching TV with us. In the weeks leading up to his death, I have a feeling he spent even more time than usual on the couch with us. I really miss seeing him on the couch during the day and at night. I miss him. </3

This room was also the room that Lilly spent the most time in since we didn't like her going into other rooms without someone supervising her. This resulted in Lilly and Zoe spending lots of time together. Lilly enjoyed bothering him, even trying to hump him quite a few times (😂😭), but I think they became close friends. At this point, Thelma was terrified of Lilly and never hung out with her. 

To end this post, I'll insert pictures of Zoe and Lilly cuddling and sleeping next to each other on the couch in December and January. I love these pictures of them. <3 

*the couch has a cover on it; sometimes Lilly puts her toys on the couch lol

Thanks for reading. 

~ Shan / Shyrah 💖

Starting Something New

Hi all, welcome back to another short and right-to-the-point post from me since I don’t have the energy to write about anything else right now. :’)

So anyway, I have news. I’m starting something new. Well, in the somewhat distant future. Hopefully, not too far in the future. 

I’m planning on starting an online shop soon. Eventually. At some point. I started getting prepared, ordering and buying things I need for my shop. For the things I plan on selling. That kind of thing. Yeah.

I’ll probably link it somewhere on the blog when I have the shop up and ready. I’m thinking of selling on Etsy. I’ve been doing some research on being an Etsy seller. Hmm, lots of thoughts… 

(I am very fatigued and my head feels bad, if it’s somehow not obvious. lol) 

I also bought quite a number of items on Etsy from several Etsy sellers this summer. Got lots of cool and cute stuff. Really nice. Yes. 

So, what do I plan on selling as of now? Well, stickers and pins. Maybe other things; I’m not sure yet. More specifically, stickers and pins of some of my art and photography. I really like some of my photography, so.. yeah, that’s basically all I have to say on that. lol

I think this is a good idea I started having this week. Something productive and to keep me busy. And because money. Because.. money. Yeah. 

Oh! I’m also planning on making purchasable items based on my poetry and story. My quotes and character stuff. Because.. screw it, why not? Funny. Heh, heh, heh.. yeh. >:) 

Hell yeah! 

Ok, that’s it for tonight’s post. Be excited! Hyped! I have ideas! 

Nice. :) 

~ Shan, Shyrah, whatever name you want to call me lol 

Changes: Success!

Hi, I’m just popping in here for a very short post.

So, changes I have made to the blog have been successfully implemented. I’m happy about that. Yay for success! :) 

I changed the blog URL. That one should be noticeable already lol, just saying. I’m satisfied with it now. Feels more.. me and less like I’m deceiving people without really meaning to. Yeah, about that… 

Uh anyway. I also got an ads website thing for publishers (bloggers in my case) to work on my blog. 

This one! Here! It worked! Woo! 

In other words, I got ads to show up on the blog. And they’re not obnoxious, in-your-face kind of ads either. I think that makes my whole ~viewing my blog~ experience less.. obtrusive? intrusive? in the way? eh.. you get what I mean. I think. idk lol, I’m not a mind reader. 

I have more ideas for posts now. Hope they’ll be interesting. I’ve been busy thinking about lots of things. heheheheheheheh yeh 

Be back soon, see ya~ 

Labels, Contact Page, Other Changes (and Feelings)

Hi again. (Wait, why did the font change?) 

idk *shrugs* anyway- 

I've been making changes on this blog for the last few days. You might have moticed them, or you might have not. Well, now you know. I made another page (the tabs toward the top of the blog). This new one is a Contact Me page. I think that's more effective than just keeping all my contact info in a blog post. I also put a reminder to check out that page if any reader wants to know the other ways to contact me towards the bottom of the blog. I also updated my Blogger profile info fairly recently. I think it's better than what it was before.

I made other blog changes but the other one I want to talk about in this post is the addition of labels. I added a list of labels to one of the sides of the blog (the left side, I think). My hope is that having the list of labels avilable on the blog and adding labels to my posts will make it easier for me and everyone else to navigate my posts and scroll through specific types of posts I and anyone else may be interested in at any moment. As of right now, I only finished adding labels to posts from 2019 to the current day. Not all of my posts will be labeled; the only ones that will are those with clear themes (e.g. Picrew, skits, poetry, original art). Depending on the label, I labeled additional posts before 2019. Scrolling through lots of my old posts (including those that aren't even that old at this point, like from 2021) are making me quite emotional. Like, geez, looking over some of these posts have made me close to sobbing. (Yeah, it's that bad. ;-; ...) Oh, I almost forgot to mention. 

The "Cutepups Support" label is for a category of posts I started years ago. For the most part, I switched it to encompass the Support Page pages I have. Basically, posts labeled "Cutepups Support" now include any positive mental health posts. I included some of my poetry under this label as well. So anything mental health and positivity related will go under this label. I hope that clears any possible confusion. 

Anyway, here are the labels that have made me nearly cry: pets and skits. Yes, those two more than any other. Looking at old pictures from my old posts about my pets is making me sad. So much has changed regarding my pets since a few years ago. As for my skits, I spent this afternoon rereading some of my skits from 2018 and later. I forgot I wrote some of them. Reading them over felt quite emotionally painful to me. I think my skit writing was amazing. What the heck, I was that talented as a writer? My own skits have emotionally moved me. That's wild, like, what the heck. My heart ached and I felt like I could cry while reading them. I really did go there in these skits. And to think the skits started as some silly little thing. Ow...

I've also been listening to music on my Duke/Fierdan Spotify playlist while doing all this, which added another level of nostalgia and sadness to the emotions I have been feeling while doing this. I don't want to provide links, but here are the titles of the skit stories that I'm talking about (if you know, you know): 

Explain Yourself at the Help; I Have No Home / Take Me Home; Darkness is Where the Demons Play; another weird starting skit; idk what this post is but enjoy; the second half of Very Very Cursed Post Fool Skit (in a weird, messed up way); Who Are You?; and New Skit: Preview 2.

The skits have content warnings. To prioritize your mental health, I don't suggest reading or rereading them.

 As for everything pets related, I plan on making my pets update posts soon. One last thing: I plan on changing the blog URL very soon and seeing if this ads thing can work for this blog (I'm crossing my fingers that it will). The new URL will be the new title I wrote on the top of the blog. 

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Bye now.

trying …

Yeah. I don’t know. I’m trying. 

Trying to figure this stuff out. Trying to not be too pessimistic. 

I’m not as optimistic as I was earlier about this whole ~putting ads on my blogs~ thing. I’m a pessimistic person. I doubt it’ll actually work. I’m tired. 

Man, this whole process is complicated. I feel like I have some ~violations~ or ~restrictions~ because.. uh.. *gestures to my blog*. And like. Some things about this whole thing confuse me. It says to insert a code, I did that, yadayadayada. Other people talking about the same thing (AdSense) say to not manually insert the code yourself if you’re applying through the Earnings tab on Blogger. I don’t know. I’m dumb and confused. 

I edited the HTML code for this blog when doing that, and it ended up messing up the mobile format of the blog. I don’t know how to change it back. It won’t let me or something. Same thing happened with my other blog. I really don’t like this. It got rid of the background colors and the different colored text, so now it’s just a plain white background and black text in a boring font. Well, at least it didn’t ruin how the blogs look on the website/computer version. *sighs* 

I found another website where ads can potentially be put on blogs. I think I’ll finish that whole signing up process after I change the blog link and all that jazz. I have a lot of work ahead of me. 

Blogging work, I mean. I still don’t have an Official Job TM. I might have gotten a referral from my cousin who works at a job for a company I might want to work for (same career field and all that). So, hopefully good news..? idk, I’m pretty much a pessimist. It’s hard for me to feel optimistic about anything. 

I’m also trying to find my blogging personality again. I know it can’t be the same as before, but.. idk. I’ve been struggling with identity and personality stuff for a while. For different reasons unlike my 15 and 16 year old self this time around. A lot has happened. But also, not much has happened. I don’t know what to think. 

I also came back here because my mind wouldn’t let me leave permanently. Thoughts of blogging again kept plaguing my mind for months. I even had a few dreams about blogging and about my story and characters while on that long break. And so, I’m back. Yay. 

Oh and… I also left for so long because I lost one of my online friends, and that person kinda reminds me of this blog and still does to some extent. So.. blogging feels weird somehow. Friendships end and the memories that keep replaying in my head f— messed me up. A lot. 

Well, it’s been over a year since then. I’d like to think I’m doing much better now than back then in the early days. But alas, I do not know. How about I just insert a shrug emoji and move on? Ok? Ok. 

What even are my plans for this blog? Posting some pictures here, possibly making a photography blog, writing some updates about all the life crap that happened in the past 10 months or so (I lost count and I’m bad at counting), attempting to write poetry and skits again..? I guess. 

Is this good enough? Am I worthy enough? Am I worth anything? Is any of this worth it? I don’t know. 

I just wish I could be me. I wish I could be myself unapologetically. I’m tired of constantly having to hide and suppress myself. I want to be loved and cared for unconditionally. I’m tired of not being listened to and understood by the people in my life who should be the closest to me. I just want to be accepted and feel like I belong in my [family; life]. 

Lots of crap happened this year. So much. Too much. 

It’s been a long day. Thursday was better. 

You all can still call me Shan btw lol

Shyrah is just something a little more personal and meaningful to me. 

Better posts coming soon. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably.