I didn't mean to scare everyone. ;) Wearing my Batman-arm brace only impedes me in the TYPING part of my job, aka emails. It in no way, shape or form effects my ability otherwise. Please do not assume I'm dead or have one arm now or exaggerate my brace to mean I can't work. It was the most-painful last week and I had the busiest email week I'd had in a LOOOONG time, so I handled that. I just had to make a semi-loud whine repeatedly because people were asking me for novel-length emails, and that's difficult, even though I'm right handed and its the left wrist which is braced, for me to spend 2 hours per email with a restraint on my wrist. I take it off when I spellcast - I have to. I take it off when I eat, shower, and spellcast. ;) So...no, I am not permanently crippled, and if I was in a lot of pain last week when I typed and it didn't stop anyone from asking me to answer massive amounts of essay questions. I'm a bit better this week. I'd still appreciate if everyone let me keep my email answers brief for the next week or so, but Batman-arm (that's me) is happily spellcasting. :)

So, please get your spell requests in sooner rather than later, especially since I am taking November 25-30 off for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thanks everyone for keeping non-emergency emails minimized. I totally appreciate it. I am feeling better this week and if I contain myself and remain in the brace more often, I expect to recover quickly. I have been trying it brace free, and if my wrist has limited movement while I use the hand I can go an hour or two without it already. :D Seriously, if I broke a leg, the cast would have to be removable or else I'd probably saw it off....the cast, that is, though knowing my clumsiness, perhaps the leg as well. ;)

Big notices this week are to remember I am going to be away for much of Thanksgiving week. Please make your requests this week if at all possible. I will be at home during the Thanksgiving holiday, but I will not be in the office long enough to take on a lot of new work. However, I will be checking in during that time. :)

Just a "warning," for lack of a better term: Some of you are either wholly ignorant of this section, or not ignorant of it but not reading it either. :S So...in an effort to curb this type of behavior, I'm going to start asking you if you'd read it when you start acting in ways that show me you haven't. ;) No, not in a mean way, but, for example, I would have believed that I'd have less "please write a novel in  response to this," types of emails when I let people know I have a wonky wrist and that typing takes a lot of extra effort. Some people were surprised to find out about this, and that tells me that they've not been good doobies and read the page which is for announcements and the like. Also, the confusion on wait times, the questions I get which are covered in my FAQ, etc, etc. If you want to know what's going on, I do recommend you read these pages. It makes everyone's wait on response faster if I don't get questions that are covered in the FAQ, but also if I do not have to repeat important notices, like please DO NOT give the lady with the Batman arm (currently that would be me,) excessive levels of email if at all possible. I know a lot of you are new, so since I've turned many of you on to this section, I'm sure this won't be a huge issue. :)

ALSO, please try to get requests and payments in early today if you can because I don't plan on being at my computer any later than 8pm tonight.

PLEASE NOTE THAT WAIT TIMES FOR EMAIL RESPONSES ARE ONE TO FIVE BUSINESS DAYS, NOT ONE TO FIVE HOURS. :P This is stated on the Wait Times page. ;) Someone was confused on that one today, and I figured I'd clarify. While I often only sleep about six hours a night, that  would still be an hour too long to keep up with that schedule. ;)

Just a quick note today... I wanted to thank those being patient with me as I know my typing is a bit slower. I am trying to get to everyone, but apparently I have a few clients who are too disrespectful to wait for a response like everyone else does - and these are NOT people who are new and unacclimated to how I operate (ie not the above person confused about the wait times, who actually made me smile when they asked that.) Rather than get angry and scary about it (which would be easy since typing with a brace on really really really aggravates me and frustrates me,) I am just going to give the gentle reminder to PLEASE not resort to heckling behaviors. Listen folks, the only bossy person I deal with is myself. If any of you feel its appropriate to be rude, disrespectful, bossy, try to bully me or any in any way feel acting like a jerk towards me is in your best intrest, you are horribly confused. I refuse to work for crazy people or jerks, so please avoid acting crazy or behaving like a big jerk to me...it will only make me decide to discontinue working for you should you decide to degrade your behavior in such a way.

Thankfully, at least 9/10ths of my clientele need not worry that I associate them with the above.  Most of you really never need to worry that I think you are acting crazy or being churlish towards me. :) I am truly blessed to have so many great people to work with, and love working with you. :)

Just a quick note today: Special thanks to everyone for being patient with me now that I have the brace slowing my typing down. Some of you have asked if me calling you is easier, and the honest answer is no, I have a difficult time holding the phone and writing down anything you say, and since I always need a record of the important details of each case (one of the many reasons why this business doesn't have a business number, just a business email,) it would make things ten times harder on me to be forced to use the phone. Also, I actually hold the phone in my left hand, so its especially annoying to even hold the phone...and no, to one of my clients, I don't have a headset for it. I'm so technologically unadvanced, it should be shocking I own a portable phone. ;)

This week has also been a very busy one, so I'd like to welcome all of my new clients! :)

Thanks for everyone for being patient with me. I've been typing slower with my wrist in a brace, but I think I've adjusted nicely - plus I can take this thing off of my wrist in about a week or so while I type. If any of you had seen me get the injury, you'd have laughed... I was trying to be cool, and do a somersault off a bed holding a remote control to hand to someone else...how tough of me, eh? ;) Well, now that I'm adjusting, I'm still a bit slow typing, but I feel I can be working just as fast as before by tonight/tomorrow. I really put a lot of effort into getting as much done as I could today - I didn't get to my Hoodoo for Everyone questions and I didn't get my article finished, but since I'm injured, I'm not going to take off all of tomorrow as originally planned before I hurt myself, and I did work today. :) Thanks all, for being patient. Its nice I'd set aside these 2 days for a bit of vacation time because it means I'm not such a jerk for having to work slower (I'm not even supposed to be working by my own schedule,) and it gives me ample time to adjust to my injury. :D Plus, even with the commitments I'd had planned for these 2 days, I am able to commit some time to work, so I am glad that in a way we are all benefitting.

Clients are asked to remember that for each new email you send me, all emails of yours which are marked unanswered to go to the end of the list in the "newly received" position, lengthening your wait for response. 3 of you have built up quite a few emails and are sitting there at the newly recieved area with...er, a hefty amount for me to respond to. :S Please remember, patience is a virtue which is rewarded with speedier service. ;) I made my email system to work so those who are patient and wait for a response get responded to first... The three people I've mentioned have started to become a bit heckling, so I figured I'd just point out how the email system works before their behaviors exploded into full blown heckling. If you don't know what heckling is, please check the Important Info section on this site.

Everyone is reminded that "having a bad day," and "having nothing postive to report," are not exactly things I'd qualify as situations which are a matter of "life and death," importance, so please expect a regular wait time along with others.  

Everyone is advised that I busticated my left wrist (I'm right-handed, so at least its not the right,) and am going to be a bit slower with my typing thanks to this. :P Its not a break, just a sprain, so I expect to be feeling better soon. I'm too clumsy for my own good sometimes. ;) ...at least I can use the fingers on both hands...its just a matter of having to keep the wrist straight in a brace.

This being said, since I do not have office hours (ie I don't generally answer emails or do desk work on the weekend,) during the weekend, I am going to take the opportunity to rest my wrist. :)

Just a reminder about the schedule changes for November 2008:
Nov 10-11, 2008, OFF
Nov 25-30 OFF

I am having SERIOUS hosting issues with my hosting company. Please EMAIL ME if you have ANY recommendations for a new hosting company to move this site to. I had an hour of NO SERVICE, and NO EMAIL from 4:30-5:30 Eastern today, and then had a rude and flippant person tell me (after a week of brown outs,) that NOTHING HAPPENED with interruptions of service except for that one hour today. UM, really? That's interesting, considering I've had complaints and problems for a month! I was basically told I was IMAGINING all of the problems that I've had (apparently even those they conceeded I'd had the day I had them, which apparently are imaginary now.) I'm sure tomorrow, I'll have "imagined" the service going down for an hour today that the company ADMITTED TO!!! I've had enough, and its time to get a company who is interested in keeping my business. Sorry if the brown out this evening effected anyone. :P

While I'm feeling a bit better today, I would like to remind everyone, I am working as fast as I can to get everyone responded to...but please let me at least get to everyone and keep the emailing to a minimum for the time being. I really want to have a fast turnover rate for responses again. Thanks everyone! 

Also, can I tell all of you, I shut off the voicemail option on my cellphone today after YEARS of begging people not to leave voice mail messages, and not being listened to, and I am the happiest person ever. I recommend others do the same. Voice mail is so obsolete now that we have texts and caller ID. Considering I haven't even had a working password to my voice mail in months, I suspect it was long over due I did this. Wow, November is already a better month than last month! :)

I'd like to say something today, and this is really from the bottom of my heart, so I hope all of you are reading. Its a bit of me on a tangent, but I ask you please read it all of the same.

For 2-3 weeks, I worked tirelessly giving consultations, which, might I add, averaged about 2.5 hours of work each. For my reward for all of this time spent working? Pretty much NOTHING. I don't get paid until the service you are getting a free consultation for is purchased. Furthermore, this drain on my time effected all of my paying clients as this time was spent working with people who "are gonna pay on Nov 3, and get that spell," -- people who could not even be BOTHERED to email me and say they didn't want the work, or so much as apologize for wasting my time. This was terribly insulting. I thank all of you who came to me and ordered a spell and paid on time (despite the financial loss I took thanks to working for nothing consulting over 25 people who didn't purchase what they wasted my time getting a consult for.) I worked over 16 hours a day every day on one week, and didn't get paid for much of that work. With this in mind, I may have to create a consultation fee to weed out those who are apparently not worthy of so much as a nod of my head. To say I am DISGUSTED with these people is an understatement. These people wasted YOUR time as much as they wasted MINE. Why? I could have been using that time to give you more attention. This IS a business and I have to take in new clients to keep this business running and to pay the bills. If you all do the math this means I wasn't paid for over a week's worth of work! That is UNACCEPTABLE. Even better? I went so far as to send several of those people emails asking "are you still interested?" and not one of those time-wasting irresponsible things could be bothered to respond. While its good to know I was saved from taking on people who are most obviously not worthy of my time and never were, I still am infuriated to have spent over 40 hours total working for NOTHING. Their inability to so much as transmit an email to kindly say, "Sorry, I am not interested," or "Sorry, I no longer require this work," is as much an insult to me as it is to my entire active and paying client base. I understand that things happen and that surprise bills come up, that the economy is foul and I offer a luxury service, or something just isn't an interest anymore - all I ask is for someone to tell me this rather than leave me hanging.

With this in mind, I may have to alter how consultations for spells are given to avoid such a complete waste of time and energy in the future. My time should belong only to those who are worth my time, and have proven that much to me on more than one occaision. I apologize to all of those who were negatively affected by the irresponsible and immature behavior of these people, and will make a redoubled effort to weed out those who waste my time and yours in the future. While I don't believe in karma, I truly hope that the Universe kicks all of those people soundly on the bottom and sends them flying off of this plane of existance, so you good clients of mine and myself need never have to deal with people like that ever again in the future. I know it won't happen, and we will all be forced to deal with more people of such a low caliber in our futures, as it is just part of life, but a girl can hope, can't she? ;)

The nice thing is, that despite having about 1/3 of my time in the month of October wasted on people who turned out to be worthless and irresponsible, I still had the majority of my time having the honor of working for WONDERFUL clients who I love. :) Thank you all for listening to my angry tirade. I am now dusting myself off, and hoping for a great Novemeber, as the first week has already been fantastic, despite disappointment some bad eggs may have caused me. :D

Also superb? With most of these losers having been cleansed off of my "need to respond to," list, by the end of this week, the response times for emails should be no longer than 2 business days!! Yes! Wow! We are back to super-speedy service, and I am only working for those who are super-awesome clients, and... Well, there is a silver lining to every cloud, I guess. :)

I've not heard from several of you who proposed a pay date of Nov. 3rd. You have til the end of the day to make good on your promise or make an excuse (if you don't want the work or the situation has changed, all I ask is that you be adult enough to tell me so,) and should I not hear from you, your name is going on my "do not allow to hire list," as this is proof you are too irresponsible to be my client. If you're okay with that, so am I.

Speaking of the "do not allow to hire" list, IF I DECLINE YOUR CASE FOR ANY REASON, IT IS PERMANENTLY DECLINED. Please do not waste your time trying to convince me to change my mind, as I am not apt to do so.

To my American clients - PLEASE REMEMBER TO VOTE TODAY! This is not only your right as an American, but should be considered an OBLIGATION OF DUTY to your country. Also, if you do not vote, you have no right to complain about anything to do with the future Prez or his politics in the future. ;)

Sorry about my entire site having down time this morning - this was the hosting company's error, and apparently ALL of their servers were down. This was wholly out of my control. Given the issues of the last month or so I've experienced with this hosting company, I am strongly considering moving the site off of my hosting company's quite undependable service. I would still have the same URL, but I would have to take a few days to move all of my information to a new company. I will keep everyone alerted as to whether or not this will be happening soon.

Not surprisingly, its 12 noon here and apparently ALL of you who told me you'd be paying for services were yanking my chain? If I don't receive the promised payments by tomorrow at 5pm, or an email telling me why you can't pay, please DO NOT bother emailing me Wednesday or anytime after Tuesday at 5pm eastern, as I will not accept business from those too irresponsible to make their pay date or alert me of their not being able to make said date. I spent hours and hours with all of you, unpaid, working out a spellcasting plan. I do not appreciate wasting my time. Such irresponsible behaviors may make consultations cost money in the future.

Here is an article I recently finished writing (contrary to popular belief, as I start many of these 2 or so months before I finish, pre-emptively, I didn't likely write about you,) which I think may help some of you. Its available by clicking here.

Remember, each new email you send me sends ALL of your unread emails into the "newly recieved" position, and therefore puts you LAST in line. I urge you to remain patient and wait for a response if you do not wish for your response to take even longer. ;) Also, remember, I DO NOT have office hours on the weekend. You can send all the email you want to me over the weekend, but I won't see it until Monday morning. ;)

Thanks to everyone for their patience with me yesterday. I started coming down with a cold and therefore felt tremendously awful and was giving relatively brief answers on the emails I did get to. It wasn't anything personal - I simply had the chills and wanted to sleep, and the nature of this job does not allow me any sick days. I did get everything done which I mandatorily needed to accomplish (such as spells,) and did manage to do about half the desk work I usually do, so I hope I didn't displease anyone - can't help that I do get sick from time to time.

Please read the FAQ before asking a question...its probably answered in the FAQ.

Lastly, please remember, I am not your personal search box for my Cat's Rants site. While I appreciate its annoying that TypePad (the company who hosts my blog,) does not offer this feature on their site, I have placed catagories on the blog, and these generally narrow down the search to what you are looking for. I'm getting a bit irritated (perhaps its the cold,) with the fact that I am expected to go through the archives for several people on a regular basis, and you all KNOW where the blog is and KNOW I have the dang blog already. Were it a case that you were not acquainted with the existance of said blog, I'd understand, but that isn't the case in any way with 99.9% of you. I'd rather you search the blog, and give me questions regarding a spell you might want to try out yourself, rather than expecting me to take 30-60 minutes to choose a few spells...oftentimes which then gets  the response "I don't like that one, it has a candle (or some other item you don't like,)" or "I can't be bothered to get (name of common item,) and its not already in my house, so please choose something for me which has items I already own for ingredients." If you don't like what I choose for you, the easiest thing would be to go bother yourself to take the time to look, rather than wasting my time. I don't know what five ingredients you have (which...five? C'mon, that's near impossible for me to work with,) and if you can't burn candles or have privacy or do anything etc etc, really, you have my sympathy that you CHOSE to live under such strict conditions, but you are the one that needs overcome that problem if you wish to be a successful spellcaster. Pre-emptively, DO NOT send me apologies for doing this to me, just don't do it anymore. I've had my say, and I think we all understand what you were doing was not intentional and won't happen anymore.

Still spots open for spellcasting for this week - thanks everyone for checking. ;) Its next week that's SUPPOSED to be busy..as I said, maybe everyone was yanking my chain about submitting payment at the beginning of next week. ;)

Thanks to everyone (FIVE of you within the first 2 hours of working today!) who shared your happy updates with me. You really made my day!!

And, though she's not a client, I'd like to thank St Martha for coming through for me as she always does. She came through on something big for me today, and I'd like to thank her with some public acknowledgement for doing so. :)

Thank you for everyone's patience while I answer my lost emails from the "server incendent" of the last two weeks...everything is back to normal, including the mile high pile of email. ;)

My schedule-changes for November is as follows:

Nov 7 2008,  9am-3pm instead of the regular 9am-5pm
Nov 10-11, 2008, OFF
Nov 25-30 OFF
Please make a note of these changes. Thank you!

I just stopped into the office (SINCE I DO NOT DO DESK WORK ON THE WEEKENDS,) to bring up a concern I've been having. Several of you have claimed you are going to come pay me for work on the first week of November, usually Monday, Nov 3. While I am certain a few of those people were just yanking my chain and will be permanently declined in the future for the aforementioned yanking of my chain and wasting of my time, the real problem is that if even 2/3 of you come through with payment on that date, I might not have enough room to spellcast for all of you. With this in mind, please know this is a first pay, first serve operation. If you can't pay until late on that Monday, please email me first to see how long the wait is, if any wait. I am hoping there is no problem, though preparing for the possibility.

This week (27-31 Oct) would be the best week to get spellwork. Please keep in mind there are going to be some holidays (some of a personal birthday nature as several important ones for me are coming up, and I'm not just saying my own,) and for that reason, I'm going to be posting a special schedule for November as is. I strongly urge everyone to get spells done this week if that's possible for you. This week is reasonably clear right now as far as the schedule goes, and the week after next (meaning the week of Nov 10th,) is very very busy for me on a personal level, and I'm going to be accepting less requests.

Also, please keep emailing to a MINIMUM. Remember, for each email you send, all unanswered emails go back to the end of the line with the new one which may lengthen your wait, especially with consideration to the fact that I am getting emails from as far back as 2 weeks ago due to the hosting company's move to a new server. Further, I do not need 4 pages daily regarding your emotional state. If your emotional state is really that dire, please seek help from a liscenced therapist. Daily emails are too much email as is even if I wasn't in a place where I'm answering emails which had to be resent to me because of the aforementioned error. I am sorry if you are stressed out, but my usual reaction is to tell you to calm down and relax, so... Calm down and relax, it will be fine. ;)

PLEASE RESEND ANYTHING I'VE NOT ANSWERED WHICH WAS SENT ON OR PRIOR TO OCT 17th! As you all know I was experiencing server issues for over a week. I want to be sure I answer everyone, and to let you know I'm very sorry that my hosting company was not at its best for the last few weeks and made my job all the more difficult. :S If I didn't respond to your email, PLEASE RESEND IT. Thank you!

I am NOT going to be sitting in my office late tonight. Please get ALL of your requests in as soon as possible. I do not plan to be at this desk later than 6pm Eastern time.

A reminder to PLEASE READ THE FAQ before asking a question. It saves everyone time when you read the information I've kept publicly accessable to answer your questions rather than demand I re-write it for you personally so you don't have to make an effort to read the FAQ.

Lastly, hoping everyone has a safe and fun weekend! :D