Month: May 2021

Natural Fibers

Posted on by kmarrs

I’ve kind of wondered why it is some shirts are itchier to sweat in than others. Then I learned in the last 9 months you can be allergic to certain fibers. I started paying attention, and sure enough, I seem to have a mild allergy to polyester.

I finally sat down the other day and pulled out all polyester from my closet and all of it was things I stopped wearing anyway over the years because they made me itch. I had been on the fence about it but they don’t Spark Joy so it all went to Goodwill. I’m now slowly working on bringing more natural fibers into my closet. I’m mostly looking at linen and cotton. Though there will be a bit of spandex in some of the cotton blends as the low amount of spandex doesn’t seem to make me super itchy.

I’ve been thinking about buying a white linen dress as a summer wardrobe staple for a while now. I finally sat down tonight and did some searching online. I looked at hundreds of dresses, most of which just didn’t appeal, but I found this stunner in my size for like 20$ and I couldn’t resist.

I like that it’s white linen but there is still so much color to it! I guess most people when they think white linen aren’t picturing something like this, but I really love it!

You can find it in a multitude of sizes here. Mind the size chart.

I’m having fun finding new pieces for my closet, but it is super frustrating how most clothing is made of synthetics or super expensive. A lot of it is also super boring when it really doesn’t have to be. I think that’s why I like the above dress so much. It’s affordable linen yet has personality.

The Criminals

Posted on by kmarrs

Pretty much the day we decided Ziggy needed to go back, the Marrs Family Kids’ Union met and decided they wanted cats. Specifically two: one for Sammy and one for Thomas since they both have an ESA letter.

I was in a tough spot because we had literally just started the process of taking Ziggy back and I wasn’t sure I wanted to move on that fast, and I had all the stuff needed for a dog. I spent a lot of money on dog stuff and it would cost even more to bring cats into the house. But on the other hand, I was going back to work after being off for 6 weeks, in less than a week, and Sammy was suicidal. I had to do something! And the kids were adamant they did not want another dog.

So I brought out a newly paid-off card, called it a medical (mental health) expense, and ordered everything we’d need off chewy. I’m a pushover and well, the union had made an overall reasonable demand.

I then proceeded to scour Pet Finder and Craig’s List looking for 3 kittens from the same litter. I figured if Thomas and Sammy were getting kittens, I wanted one too and could get my own ESA letter. It took some hunting, but I found three 8-month-old kittens that were up-to-date on shots and already fixed. We brought them home the day before I went back to work.

Meet:

Miss Soot Sprite Spooky Pants the Cyrptid Marrs Esq

Ash

Angel

They are criminals

Ziggy Exits Stage Left

Posted on by kmarrs

I tried so hard. Constant training. Professional help. Rewards. Deterrents. It seemed every time we took a step or two forward, we took twice as many steps back. He was getting more and more aggressive and I was out of options. I gave him the best life I could but he just wasn’t… I don’t want to say he wasn’t what we needed because that makes it sound like he just had too much energy. He was aggressive to the point that he was attacking multiple people every day no matter what we did. We spent a lot of time, effort, and money to try and get him to calm down but he just couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

I have zero doubt he was abused in his first home. It’s obvious when you interact with him. He was taught, through abuse, to be aggressive. I too was taught through abuse to be aggressive. I understood that in Ziggy which is why I tried so hard and didn’t want to give up.

But in the end, I had to put the safety of my kids, some of them still little, first. And he was a serious threat to their safety. I took him back to the shelter in mid-April. They ran some behavior tests on him to determine his fate. I don’t know what they decided. I want to hope that maybe he went to an adult home that could try something I didn’t think of. Though with how aggressive he was I kind of doubt it. But I don’t know.

I tried so hard. I still feel so horrid over this. Sammy, a month later, still cries himself to sleep some nights. I so badly wanted to be Ziggy’s forever home. But he was so hurt and scared and just traumatized. Wherever he is I hope he’s at peace. I gave him the best life I could in the meantime.

Simon

Posted on by kmarrs

This one is a little harder and I wasn’t going to talk about it, but I think I should. Because, as it turns out, it’s really easy to join a cult and not realize it.

I’m pretty active on Tumblr. I follow a few hundred people and have a few thousand people following me. I’m on the site pretty much everyday, and both of my friend groups, with a lot of overlap between the two, are full of people I met on the site.

One of those people is Simon.

Simon is a character. Literally. He is a social experiment run by a woman named Kristina. The idea of the social experiment tied into whether she could get you to believe Simon is a cryptid. I knew most of this going in. I didn’t know the details on who was running the blog, but Simon was very open about it being an experiment. Could he convince you of his claims.

Simon was also very kind and came off as very trustworthy. Many of us became good friends with him and confided in him because generally speaking he offered good advice.

The problem is, Simon has a very cult like personality, and overtime he built up this understanding that he was an authority figure and his word, was not quite law, but not something easily doubted. It was a gradual build over many years. He attracted the vulnerable. Mostly abuse victims. So we were looking for the relief and the safety of having Simon, and each other, in our lives.

Then a couple of months ago, things went south. Simon made a bad decision and didn’t count on us to call him on it. See, where he went wrong is he built a community that didn’t really need him any longer because we’d forged actually really healthy relationships with each other and built each other up with love and support. Suddenly we were getting therapy and had found a sense of self confidence outside of Simon.

So when Simon fucked up, we called him on it. And he went ballistic. The entire persona slipped.

There is no nice and tidy way to sum things up but as we went public that the entire “inner circle” had removed Simon from our midst, those who had left us over the proceeding months, came back to us with tales of horror of things Simon had done. The truth of who Simon really is also came out, with proof. Over the course of weeks of discussion, we all agreed that while it may not 100% fit the criteria of having been a cult, Simon very much had a cult like personality and, well, we all consider ourselves to be cult survivors.

But we’re out. We still have each other. We have no central leader telling us what is what anymore, and we have relationships that are healthy in a way that our therapists are thrilled about.

There are those still swayed by Simon. They won’t listen to reason. They believe the lies he came up with about how his inner circle attacked him. But there is only so much we can do. You can’t save everyone no matter how hard you try.

And in the end, we’re walking away stronger with healthy friendships intact. So in a way, I’m thankful Simon was in my life. But I’m also thankful I was able to remove him from my life and took my found family with me.