Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Celtic Ferret's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
10:13 am	42 The weather is dreary and I'm feeling under the weather. I skipped a ferret club meeting being help outdoors ar a local part in the rain. Monday I tried to run errands and found some people closed or they didn't have what I wanted. Smooom was talking about invivisible illnesses. This is one I can related to. Fibromyalgia and Bipolar are totally invisible. I've had a lot of muscle pain lately. I get Tylenol 3s and also use ibiprofin because it's not safe to take too much Tylenol. My drugs don't cover up all the effects. Doing prescription drug withdrawl is no fun. I'm also pre diabetic and need to watch my blood sugar. I've been having low blood sugar problems in the morning. I need to eat first thing when I get up before getting a shower or plopping myself in front of my computer. Yesterday I cleaned the the coffee table off of all clutter. Now I've got it sorted into catalongs, ferret and dog magazines and papers to be filed away. The financial planner on my mother's estate screwed up the spelling of my name. My legal name Kathleen Gallagher has no alternative spellings unlike my nickname Kathy. I can't walk in to get a birth certificate. I have to order one and it will take 7 to 10 days. This man continues to do dumb little things with real world consequences. Since I don't hadnle money well and don't have a checking account. I've decided to go out and get a prepaid debit card that can be refilled. I figure it will cut down on the "loss" more like unexplained spending. I can also pay bills by phone or online. I can order things. My dogs committed a minor miracle. All 3 actually listed to me and executed the command I wanted them to obey. I've been working with all three dogs for months. Finally I'm seeing some results. KG (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
7:35 am	My mother My moter died about 3 weeks back. The radiation and the chemo stopped working for her. She was taken off of all medical treatement and sent to a hospice. She died a couple of days later. My brothers arranged a memorial service for her. My mother was cremated and her ashes were put in a vault with my fathers who died about 6 yrs ago. KG (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
9:57 am	Bad news 2 wks ago I learned my mother is suffering from a agressive cancerous tumor. She had approximately a year to live. She is being treated for quality of life with radiation and chemo. Tumor has made it difficult to walk and to remember some words. She's in rehab to improve her quality of life when she goes home. My mother will be in the hospital at least 2 more weeks, but it could be longer. Tasha, my new service dog and I go to the hospital once or twice a week. Visiting is v ery distreful. I go hypomanic from the time I get their til the time I leave. I'm waiting for the total emotional impact to hit. I will go on a long crying jag. I've already been through my father's death. I have a pretty good idea what's going to happen emotionallly to me. KG (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
6:43 am	42 I got a new cell phne and a new number. 614-772-9700. Life's kinda on hold for awile. The fms is flaring and I've been a couch potato. I hate it when I'm in so much pain that I can't breath witout hurting. The weather has been mild enough that the dogs have constantly in or out. We've been talking about getting a dog door. They aren't cheap. We're definately on for Millenicon and Marcon. Until fderal law changs, I'll be taking a service ferret until they say they are illegal. I'm working on training a dog and considering the possiliby to adding a 3rd dog who is trained. I have an old sick ferret named Emmet. I need to take him to the vet and see if its time to let him go or if he can be treated. KG (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
7:59 am	42 Not a lot going on. We left for ConFusion (sci fi con). We got our rooms at the con rate, but bought our memberships at the door. We went through the dealers room and art auction. I bought some jewalry in the dealers room. Didn't really spend anytime talking with anyone. We ate breakfast in the donsuite and Dan got takeout dinner from Chipolte's. After dinner we hit some room parties. Parties weren't all that interesting. I had Shane there as my service ferret. I had forgotten to bring his carry sack. Everyon thoght he was a pet and wanter pet and hold him. I still ache from falling down the steps at my inlaws. I'm practically living on painkillers. NO petsitter showed up to play with the dogs or check on the ferrets. I'm sure I booked her. I'll have to get in touch with and find out what happened. I've been dying my hair for 25 yrs. I generally do it 2 or 3 times per year. I'm surprised at how little gray I have. I decided to let my hair grow out. It's hanging down around my shoulder blades. It takes so long to dry my hair I often get frustrated and cut it off. I've decided to start a yahoo group called service ferrets. There' is no one standard for certifying a ferret as a service animal. I've been using ferrets as service animals for the last year.I'm told there is only one group cerifying ferrets as service animals. KG (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
2:27 pm	42 I servived the holidaze with a minimum of stress. Got my cards out late and and only finishe the week before Xmas. I used mostly gift bags, a bit of wrapping paper for things that wouldn't. I sent a story idaa to Ferrets Magazine. I wrote it and submitted it. Now I"m waiting to hear if its been accepted. I also submitted anotherstory idea and I'm waiting for them to get back together. I've learned Americans with Disabilities Act never created an organization to oversee the certifying of service animals. I've decided to create an organiation to certify ferrets as service aniaals. KG (Comment on this)
Monday, November 24th, 2008
12:09 pm	42 The last couple of weeks have been busy. Dan and I went to OHIO Valley Filk Festival. Normally I go on Fri and Dan stays home. I sat through a few of concerts and wandered down to the bar for a Blue Moon (beer). On his way in, I saw Dan. We sat down at the bar and had another beer. We saw Judy Miller, Vicky Wills, Mary Bertke, Mark Wise, Tom Smith, Howard Scrimgeour, Steve MacDoanld, Ginny and Andy, Pat and her grandson John and many too other names to remember. Sat we had reserved a room. We showed up with a hand truck complete with ferrets. The hotel manager stopped us. I ave him a letter stating I had a service animal with me. He requested we not let the ferrets run loose. At Marcon I had to take them to the dog walk area to go poddy. LOL! (My biggest ferret is 5#. Most of my girls are 2# and boys around 3.5#.) We sat trhough most of the concerts and skipped the banquest. The day went by in a blur. After the banquet we took a ferret and sat down in the main filk room, near the door. RA came in with her service dog, which started whining because the ferret was there. She took and dog and left. Two weeks later I went to the Ferret Symposium being held in Pittsburg. This is as close its been in awhile. The whole purpose to talk to the attendees about ferret health. I rode over and back with SG, T and JF. After the daily programming was over there was a small show put on by the locals. I got roped into holding up half of the Rainbow Bridge (aka animal heaven) I ran when my part was up. I used Shane as my service ferret at the end of the day. He was frequently ferretnabed for folks looking for ferret fixes. T has dropped off the face of the earth again. This time I'm ignoring the urge to get in touch with her. It annoys me to no end when this happens. She's an adult and can call me if she wishes. Caller ID would tell me who's calling. Yes I'd take it. Who's ready for Thanksgiving? I think we have everything for ours. Hapy Turkey Day KG (Comment on this)
Monday, October 20th, 2008
8:38 am	Ferret club Sat was ferret club BOD meeting. They were taking nomibations for the 2009 BOD. I decided I wanted off. I've been education chair for 4 of the last 6 yrs. For the most part I find BOD meeting quite tedious. Sun was the Halloween meeting complete with ferret and even owner costumes. I don't really get dressing up or Halloween, net alone dressing up my ferrets at any other time. I've tried a few times to do it. The ferret didn't like it, and it wasn't fun for him. I've barely tapped te number of ferret items and cages I have for sale. KG (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 16th, 2008
8:18 am	Cars We're a 2 car family. Since I"m the one who doesn't work, I get to take the cars in for servicing. The electric windows on my car would go up or down. Off to the shop to find out that it was something incredibly stupid and I couldn't fixed it myself. I got off without having to pay a diagnositc charge. Dan's car goes in later today to get the last of his free oil changes. NO should be a no charge event. Usually its a $xxx money when car repairs come do. KG (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
10:08 am	42 I've gotten most o the stuff done for Casey the dog. I had her spayed and chipped yesterday. I still need to get her tags on her collar and registar her with the chip company. My "free" $200 dog is now a $400 dog with supplies and vet bills. T's been around. Right now I'm worrying that she has something she thinks she needs to say and hasn't/won't due it. I'm getting o the BOD o the local ferret Feeling decidedly overwhelmed inspite of tha facts I have no huge problems. I finally found the internet and email on my phone. I got the search function for the web working. It wouldn't let me log on to my email accunt. I'm hoping it's just a typo. I bought the stupid phone with email and internet internet on the mind. It also says something about directions. I haven't followed up to see what it gets me. We're conirmed for OVF, Chambanacom and to visit Dan's parents. My hands hurt so I"m not even going to pretend I looked for typos. My F key is acting all weird and doesn't consistanly type even when the key is hit. KG (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
8:34 am	42 There are times that suffering from chronic health problems frustrates me. I have fibomyalga I live with varying levels of pin. This restricts me from doing things. Sometimes I tough it out with minimal painkillers other times I'm just laid up and don't want to do anything. At these times tv is my friend. I've lived with fibro for over 20 yrs and I still haven't gotten toit. The bipolar was the most life changing event. It stole my ability to work and my short term memeory. My organizational skills are gone, I have a hard time managing money. I can't even keep a debit card or check book, and a credit card would simply be a nightmare. The diabetes so far hasn't required a major lifestyle change. Mostly I back diabetic desserts and use them as a substitute for the tempations of store bought desserts. I've been sending a lot of my time on the ferrets and the dog. Quinn the dog is being trained to be a service dog. I've been working with a trainer for months. Recently got him a vest, service dog patch and biz cards explaining how ADA works. An animal, any animal helps when I have problems. I was babystitting a ferret for someone. A biter as usual. Sent him home early. KG There's a rumor going aeound I'm being investigated by either the Board of Health or the Humane Society. It's not true, If someone plans on discussing this further I plan to quit the ferret clubs board, quit doing ferret awarness days and let someone new do the club table. I don't fight with people if I can avoid it. I usally just walk away, refuse to retrn phone calls, send email to spam and get them out of my rolodex, my planners telephone directory and my cell phone. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
12:22 pm	42 A lot of the last coule of weeks I"ve been looking for a service dog. So far, no luck. I used one of my ferrets at Marcon as a service animal, Was able to stya unil 10 pm. T was our housefitter. She was able to feed and water the ferrets and let Quinn in and out, Fri night I ghosted Marcon and picked up a membership for Sat only. I didn't go to much programming. I sat in on a couple of concerts, wandered the dealer room moneyless and befret. Art show was nice, lots of dragons. The ferret was a real icebreaker. I talked to lots of people who would've just passed me in the hall. My son Teddy is buying the house across the street and 2 doors down. They plan on moving in on Thurs. I'll be looking at dogs with Quinn again. KG (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
8:40 am	42 Our wedding anniversary was last week and we finally got around to going out to dinner to celebrate. Just a quiet evening. I've slacking offf serious big time on trying to accomplish anything. I used to be an accountant and some of my former clients still want me to do thier taxes. I had a rather simple return: itemized deductions, moving and sale of house and moving expenses. With the bookkeeping t be done for tracking itemized deductions the whole return should've only taken 4 hrs. I kept have to take breaks. I was stressed my were shaking at a much earlier time in the day, than "normal". I got the return out overnite express mail. It turned up 5 days later. I haven't gotten to the post office to demand a refund on the expense of sending it express and not arriving on time. Quinn washed out as a service dog wannabe. He has too many issues. Now AG is looking for a pedigreed labrador retreiver. I would've been happy to settle for a pound or rescue dog. AG feels the pedigree is necessary to insure the dog has the right temperment. Dan's been after me to downsize the ferretry. I decided to make some serious changes. We moved the remaing ferrets to playpens, I have a "sick" cage, biter cage and education cage. I've down graded our capacit for rescue ferrets from 16 ferrets to 4 ferrets. I can only take in a small number of rescues. Most of the ferrets in the sick cages will be gone by the end of the year. KG (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
8:51 am	42 I've had the absolute worst craving for chocolate. My birthday is Tues (election day) so we went out to celebrate on Sat. I went to Joe's Crab Shack. We beat the dinner rush crowd and had no waiting for a table. Most of the seafood is breaded, which I don't like. I was able to get steamed king crab legs. You could make a meal of appetizers. I left with a pc of 6 layer chocolate cake which I ate later in the evening. Some whack job accused me of pelting my pet mink. I have 3 mink. It takes 67 pelts to make a coat. I don't even come in close. Loki has been decidedly friendly the last few weeks. I didn't nip train him properly so he bites hard enough to break the skin. I use gloves to handle him. He's been in my lap and has let me pet him barehanded without snapping at me. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
4:43 pm	( my valentine postbox ) (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
3:36 pm	"Saving" a friend My friend recently sent out a cryptic email that read like a suicide note. A couple of days after getting it I emailed asking for the backstory behind her email. Cliffnotes version goes something like this. Her first car broke down and she got a second one. She started a new job and got fired from it. Her second car broke down. She's behind on her rent and utilities. She's job hunting. I don't think there's much public transportation where she lives. We're going to give her Dan's old car. We'll drive it over on Sat afternoon. Dan will pay the transfer and licensing fees. We'll give her some gift certificates for time on her borrowed cell phone, a gas ticket and maybe some long distance cards so she can call home on the neighbors phone without running up their bill an probably some cash to spend on how she needs it. Can we say Kathy is codependent? KG (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
4:28 pm	Wildfest 07 Today I spent the afternoon at the Ohio Wildlife Education Center where I normally volunteer to clean cages and feed animals. I arrived a bit after noon. The weather was perfect, lots of sunshine, not to warm. I took pix of the Fort Morrow Long Rifles (probably a local historical recreationist group), a mule ride, several presentations and pix of other organizations promoting themselves. There was food on the property for lunch, your standard cook out food: hot dogs, hamburgers and brats. There were also cookies and brownies. There was no relish for my hotdog, just mustard and catsup, which I don't eat. There were a couple of folk bands who were some what disappointing. I've been listening to filk too long. OWC did some animal presentations with animals from the local animal display they have on the property. If I can get my rescue guys up to standard, they may have homes as program animals. That is for another day. KG (Comment on this)
Friday, September 28th, 2007
2:29 pm	Treats all ferrets all the time The 4 rescue ferrets I took had no idea about treats and at least 2 are uncomfortable about being touched. We got them all used to treats the day T was here. Now its treats and repetition. I give them a treat and if they let me touch them, I'm making progress. They'll come around eventually. The question is how long. At least none are trying to bite me when I touch them. The treat pretty much took care of that. We've actually made progress. I think Fintan the dark eye white is going to be the easiest to turn around. He doesn't love being petted, but he doesn't mind. I would desperately love to give him a bath, clean his ears and see what kind of sweet personality he has. KG (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
7:19 pm	The new boys, all ferrets all the time I got the new boys in their cages. Now they need to used to the sounds and smells of my ferretry. A big change from living in outdoor cages under a shed roof. I took 4 boys, a dark eyed white, a sable (brown), a chocolate (light brown) and a point or fine point sable, a ferret with a V mask. Temperments are a bit hard to judge, 1 bit me, but not T. 2 appear to be absolutely terrified and want to be left alone. The 4rth is deaf and appears to be a happy go lucky kind of kid. I've caught 2 actually playing the way ferrets should and a 3rd buried a toy in his litter box. He must've really liked the toy. None are litter box trained, that whole outdoor cage thing. I need to take time and clean out the poop and leave some of it in the litter box as a hint for what litter boxes are for. We did nails today and introduced the ferrets to treats. They may have ear mites, so I'll have to get some meds from the vet tomorrow. We figured too much trauma to bathe them and clean their ears. If they have mites we'll have to treat all the ferrets and mink in the house for mites. I hate risking it, but it wouldn't be the first time I've had ear mites in the ferretry. I'm sorry to say they new boys don't have names yet. I'll have to hit the Irish and Celtic name lists. I have to watch out for 2 things, I have three ferrets with short I names, Quinn, Quig and Finn. I have 6 ferrets and mink with K names. I have to watch out for that. Dan wants me to avoid "don" names, which basically mean brown. Tomorrow I hit the vet for meds, pick up a couple of cages and get Quig a melatonin implant for adrenal cancer. I'll probably have to get introduced to TM's rescues that came in. I think she took on something like 15. 4 is going to be a lot of work. KG (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
2:05 pm	The last 3 days have been all ferrets all the time Sat and Sun were ferret awareness days at a couple of local pet stores we visit every month. The ferrets from the massive ferret rescue have lived outside in cages set up under a shed roof, with water dishes that came off of hose and food thrown in their cages. They aren't trained to use litter boxes, aren't used to being handled. Their coats are dirty and their nails need to be trimmed. Dan and I agreed to take in some ferrets from the massive rescue. The ferrets came in little travel cages, not suitable for long term care. They need to be fixed, but that is next month's problem. Since I didn't take time to evaluate their temperments, I used gloves to handle them and move 2 of them to their new cages. The others had to wait until I could set up my last remaining cage. That took a couple of hours to get done once the right way. The hope is I can make them adoptable and have them move out and take in some more from the rescue and repeat the process. In the last 24 hrs I've seen 2 use a litter box instead of sleeping in it and 2 playing with some of the toys. A third one had buried his toys in his litter box. Which means he really liked the toys. I found Monday overwhelming. T was supposed to come help but got a call to go help at the wildlife center. She left a message around noon, but I didn't pick it up until 6 pm. I spent the day cleaning litter boxes, running ferret laundry through the washer and dryer and keeping an eye on a corned beef and cabbage I was cooking. The piece of meat was really thick and it needed much longer to cook than the time recommended on the package. Some people were supposed to drop off ferrets, but changed their mind, thank God. We're really at our max right now. I do have more cages I can use, but none of them are cages I like to use for housing ferrets. Today I got the travel cages cleaned up. Ferrets that don't use litter boxes or prefer to sleep in them are a royal pain to clean up after. I ran the litter boxes through the dishwasher and took the cage trays outside and hosed them down with dish soap and left them to dry. I still need to put them back together and drop them off at SG's place. I still need to call TM about picking up a large cage from her. I'll probably arrange to pick it up tomorrow. I originally thought my stressors this week would be to medical appts. I firmly believe that rescue ferrets deserve nice homes too. Unless you're a breeder of specific animals, the rescues should be the ones you adopt from shelters. I do know there are a large number of breed specific rescues that come from people not doing their homework before getting an animal. Many people have come to believe that pets are disposable that is a great sin of our society. KG (Comment on this)