Brace Yourselves ... It's the End of the World as We Know It

As the weekend draws to a close, Terry and I noticed things around us that means either the world is coming to an end or some sort of peace treaty has been finalized. We have two cats. One, Kit-Kat, is the Birman kitty in the picture above. While Kit is an adorable beauty, he is often ornery and will attack people and other cats for no rhyme or reason. Esme is our female beauty. We met Esme when she climbed onto our porch one morning, and began rubbing her body around my feet and legs. 

I almost cried when I saw this emaciated little soul. Guessing she only had about a week or two to live if she kept living her life as it was, I went inside and grabbed food. Our love for Esme began that day. With long hair and beautiful large eyes, I could tell she was a diamond in the rough and would be an amazingly gorgeous kitty once she was fed, fattened up, and groomed a bit, and that she has become. In fact, too well fed. 

Our plump girl was picked on by Kit. I believe he wants to play, but his large size and desire to pounce on her terrified our new feline. After months of chasing Kit down with a spray bottle, he has calmed a bit when it comes to "the attack." 

Sitting around the house this weekend, we were able to witness something that is truly amazing in our home and the animal kingdom that exists here. Kit jumped up on the ottoman and snuggled with Esme. 

 

Esme remained in alert mode for a while but eventually calmed down enough to close her eyes. 

That event went well and later that evening, I spotted Kit jumping onto the couch next to Esme, to curl up alongside her. It's a beautiful thing. 

On Friday night, I walked in to see the entire herd of beasts lying beside their daddy. It was an interesting sight. Jasper, our chihuahua, remained in the office where he has a bed and access to the bathroom container of water. Togo and Jasper's little attitude don't mesh well, so we keep them apart. Jasper enjoys spending time in the office with his mom anyway, so it's all good. 

My beautiful boy is 16 years old now, so it's a good thing that he has time to himself and with his mom. Love this little guy. 

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Driving to the store Friday night, I noticed an eerie fog bank rolling in over the hills around Roseburg. I always find this interesting and creepy at the same time. 

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As Saturday rolled around, I realized it was game day! My game day is very important to me, as I love me some Ducks! Today, we are playing USC, with ESPN's Game Day in attendance, as was one of our former quarterbacks who is beloved in Eugene, Marcus Mariota. 

I don't know how many of our readers get into the football games like we do, but wow! Just wow! The USC Trojans are a good team, bringing with them a hint of fear put in me that this game was going to be a nail biter or we would walk away with another loss for the season. 

With amazing plays, including an 85-yard punt return and many outstanding, nail-biting plays, USC walked away with a respectable 27 points, while Oregon spread their wings once more with a whopping 42 on the scoreboard. Excellent game! Not only because the Ducks won, but overall, the plays were exciting. 

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I was messing around with Facebook's Marketplace, as I do everyday, to check my listings on my jewelry. Opening up Marketplace, I ran into a warning that said one of my listings had been removed due to the rules put forth by the powers that be. I checked out the listing, and was told that this was in the adult sexual realm that was not allowed. 

Granted she does have on a low cut dress but I have seen plenty of half-naked to full-on naked women on Instagram and Facebook, both under the Meta company umbrella. I was bombarded by plenty of videos and photos that fall into that category, which I turned in to have them removed. But this photo? At least she is dressed. 

It's amazing to me how real nudes can appear on social media, yet I asked for a model with a shiny purple party dress to enhance the purple in the necklace. Yes, I asked for her. This is an AI project that I conjured up just to model the necklace. Anyway, I digress. I complained and sent in a form requesting this photo be allowed. It came back as a photo that they had no issue with eventually, so the situation was resolved. About a week ago, I had a woman complain about how "revealing" my models were, yet she thought the jewelry was pretty. I'm thinking that is the culprit. 

Speaking of social media and these AI models, I received a message on Marketplace from a male, asking if I would go out with him for $200. I wondered why he would want to go out with an older woman such as myself, until it hit me what was going on. He was looking at this same model, but posing in a different photo. He was asking an AI model out for $200. No embarrassment there, huh?

I returned a message to this hard up individual, telling him it is an AI model. After a bit of time, he replied that I had done a great job on creating her. I laughed at the situation, then blocked him to relieve him from his misery in seeing my fake models. Or, fake so to speak, as some of the AI generated people are replicating real models. 

Terry and I have talked about the benefits and downfalls of the whole AI experience. The good aspects of creating an entire world or an object through AI can be beneficial to those people advertising or planning to build a home or building, just to see what it may look like in the future, and for many other reasons. Awesome to see your idea come to fruition even before taking on the project.

I use AI for advertising, and advertising alone. My business is far too tiny to hire models or purchase a ton of background props to show off jewelry. Besides, I don't have the space to keep all of the props for further use. I can simply go to the computer, design what I want it all to look like, including the model, and then voila! I have an image. 

Bringing about the idea of a crab wearing a crab charm necklace made me laugh. So, why not?

The downside to all of this is that people are using AI generated videos and photos and claiming it is their artwork. Not an issue regularly, but when they are asking for money for that art? Is that fair to the buyer when you lie to them about the process? 

Posts on social media will often have images or videos with an incredible scene or amazing situation or event, without a mention of the entire process being AI generated images and  events. Everyone was screaming, "Fake news!" for images that were either true or could have been fake, but they threw a fit. Rightly so on some of the images coming across our Wi-Fi. But artificial intelligence is often difficult to discern if it's true or not, such as the guy asking the model to go out with him for $200. Is AI a good thing? Or should it be buried out in the desert along with the Tesla's Cybertruck? But, don't get me going on those hideous looking monstrosities. If you own one, don't take it personally. It's just one girl's opinion. 

AI sure does come in handy for advertising for tiny businesses like mine. I could not imagine what a model would cost me to model all of the pieces and sets I have. 

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Our weekend has ended. Now that the papers for the release of the Sportage has been sent off, we still wait. We have no real idea when the release from the loan will be completed, nor do we know when they will send the money set forth in the contract for this all being such a hassle. So, once again, we wait. 

If you follow the blog you know that we are finishing up a lawsuit against Kia for our defunct Sportage under the Lemon Law. Four times the brand new car was returned and four times they kept the vehicle for at least a month. The final straw was the third time, when the vehicle was in Eugene to be fixed for almost three months. We received a call stating they still had no idea what was happening. They could not seem to get the car to reproduce the issues we were having. Good luck to them with that particular car. 

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We are on Sunday, November 23, 2025. My mother celebrated her 95th birthday a couple of days ago, bless her heart. Mom is still in pretty good health and seemed to enjoy her birthday. 

Bless your heart, sweet momma! She raised seven of us in total, plus held down a career at the IRS, kept our three-story home spotless, and cleaned the church on Saturdays too. The woman is a beautiful soul, always giving and putting her own needs to the side to help everyone else. We love and admire you, Mom, and happy, happy birthday!

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Our blog post will end here. Here's hoping each of you have an awesome week, filled with love and light, and a promise for a bright future. Take care of yourselves and thank you so much for reading the blog. Hugs to you all!

Terry & Vicki Macrae

Partners in the enjoyment of life