Well this has been a tough month for me

I am going to go a little off topic today, and I hope you don't mind. If you want to skip this, I totally understand.

Many of you know I am a pretty strong introvert. I often joke I am a cat, because I find many of the traits in my cats are ones I have myself. I am also shy and have some social anxiety - I am unsure if that is because of my nature of my experiences in the world.  Probably a bit of both.

Things started going south for me when I took home Lena and Lori. I do not regret taking them in the least, and I would do it again, but dealing with those two weak painfully thin little things clinging to life was draining. I expected to find them dead each time I went into the kitten room for the first few days. I then expected they wouldn't survive despite their improvement.

This brought about the first time I was attacked recently.  Someone on facebook thought it necessary to stomp all over me for my venting a little that these kittens smelled badly.  I don't stand for that and the red headed temper of mine took over and I stood up for myself and my choices. It wasn't necessary because those who had followed me for any length of time knew that her words were all false, but I couldn't help myself and I felt better for it. It did not make the attack on me personally any easier on me though. No matter how much I KNEW this woman was in the wrong, it hurt.

We then moved into the holiday. I tend to feel overwhelmed and like I didn't do enough for everyone. So I went into the holiday with a plan to do a minimal holiday and I felt so weird doing it. There was quite a bit of guilt and discomfort because of the changes, but it did make the whole holiday go a bit smoother and I didn't suffer the post holiday letdown that usually plagues me.  Which brings us to the new year which always depresses me greatly. I have no idea why, it just does. Then my husband developed a cough that he still has not gotten rid of that impacts my ability to get a full night's sleep..

And there was the death of Lori..

I have also recently had issues with Jack that I haven't shared, but we seem to have them under control.  I had some projectile vomiting with Muffin, but I think I understand the reason behind that too, and she appears to be feeling better as well. Eli recently ended up in hospital with urinary issues and I'm watching him like a hawk.. well lets just say it has been stressful and I am sad to admit that I ended up focusing on all that went wrong and not how much has gone right.

Now 11 days into January I was starting to see the end of that tightening the tunnel of stress.  I was hoping I could stop myself from focusing on the carp and start focusing on the good. The kittens were recently tested and came out negative and their trip out of the house really did them some good in terms of their socialization..  I am out of food in the house because it has been so cold neither one of us wanted to go grocery shopping but it is a nicer day today and that is on the agenda.

And then I log into facebook.

*sigh*

just the other day I found someone at Kitten Central of Placer County had taken one of my favorite photos that is 12 years old and used it for their facebook profile pic. I was uncomfortable with this because I work with a stock agency and we deal with "thieving bastards" all the time (words the woman use at work when they find someone who has lifted an image off the internet and used it in their page).  I wanted to believe this rescue did this with the best of intentions, but theft is still theft. I contacted them via the post generated when they uploaded asking for credit.  I was polite and gave myself credit for the image, but I thought it only fair they give credit. Time went by and there was no reply by the rescue but they had a new post to their page.

I sat around considering my options.  I went and visited their page again and saw they actively fundraise through their page and this made me even more uncomfortable. I contacted facebook.

One of my friends on facebook contacted the rescue privately and their reply was less than stellar in my opinion. I was blamed for not watermarking my image. The comments seemed to me were very much CYA that they do that and I never contacted them.. which I did, but apparently only PMs matter.

So I messaged them, and was trying to be kind and helpful and again asked for credit and warned them that there are people like the company I work for who would sue them. I shared with them links, including my own about copyright (on that page I said no one had stolen my images yet which kind of stung)

Since they are a rescue I wanted to help. I wanted them to understand what they are opening themselves up to by taking images off the internet and I wanted to help them understand and avoid that in the future.

well the reply I got was nice, but still CYA. They did nothing wrong and no mention of giving me credit. yeah, well whatever.  The image was down at this point and I figured it was a lost cause and was willing to write it off. Then the morning came.

Which apparently gave them more time to think about my telling them they did something wrong and for that I got a "shame on you" I was told to go away and never contact them again.

Yeah, just what I needed.  I was trying to be helpful and trying to get credit for something that was mine. I wasn't threatening, I didn't ask for anything other than credit.. and now I'm the bad guy. (I posted the entire exchange on my facebook page if you are interested..)

Because really that makes sense doesn't it? Apparently this completely volunteer run rescue doesn't have time for knowing about the law or reading case studies.. (I didn't link case studies, I linked websites that explained the legal issues)

So now I just want to say carp it all and leave the internet. I know that is a shock reaction to a personal attack, but it hit a nerve. So I only really have two options, leave or face it. This is my way of facing this. I know what they did was wrong, I know that I was trying to be helpful and they chose to only see the 'attack' of my pointing out what they did was wrong (maybe that is what they think I should be ashamed of).

Look, we all have our own bad days and our own life messes, and I can only hope their own "life mess" caused these women to react so poorly and my own emotional mess of the past few weeks that is causing me to take it so badly. I know leaving the internet really isn't an option... but right now I think I will go and cuddle some kittens and some cats and then go shopping and spend some time with my husband and my cats and in the mean time focus on what is going right and work on spending less time on focusing on what is wrong..

So basically if you don't see me as much around for a little while, that is probably why..

either that or Muffin had laid down on my head and suffocated me..