06.18.2006 - Terrence Marks:

So, what's new this week in ND Unlimited?

Firstly, Spare Parts got a new look to celebrate its big change: Isabel is taking over the writing. I'm tired and had been having trouble keeping up with the schedule. Right now, I'm concentrating on You Say it First (which Isabel is still co-writing).

Secondly, there's a new poll on NamirDeiter.net. If you're a donor, we want your opinion on our latest semi-secret project.

Thirdly, we're finally caught up with donation items from previous months. If you live in the US, you should have everything. If you live elsewhere, it should be on its way. It you're missing anything, let me know.

Fourthly, we're adjusting things so all of our comics share the same news file. Most of our news affects all three comics, and we don't have enough news for three separate files. So if you read this here, you don't need to read the update at the other comics too closely.

Anyhow, we hope you had a happy Father's Day.

06.05.2006 - Isabel Marks:

First off...

Hi, folks. We just finished our visit to Florida and the resulting nine-hour trip back home. It's late and we're tired. We reached the $800 goal for May, barely, but not the $1000 mark. For June, the comics are going to be going back to their original schedules - Namir Deiter will update five days a week and You Say it First will update three days a week. So far we're going really well for this month and we appreciate your support.

Ok, STILL behind on e-mail and a few of last month's thank you buttons. On the plus side I'm about 50% done with "East and West", May's bonus story. I also have a bit of work done on this month's bonus book, but it would be a bit of a spoiler to mention it now... expect to see the cover in a week or more.

This month's wallpapers have yet to be made, the heat slowed me down quite a bit...but at the least I am making lots of progress on the book, but I'm sure it looks like I'm not doing much.

05.30.2006 - Isabel Marks:

Hi all!

First off, we'll be out till the end of the week, so all store orders/ donations will not be processed until next week and neither will my e-mail (which I'm still horribly behind on). Also, we still have a few buttons left to do from last month's donation gift (Terrence is having trouble with the button maker). Also, June's wallpapers will be a little late since I'll be out of town and ran out of time (sorry!).

Please be sure to check out my MySpace page, sometimes my blog contains ND and NDU related items!

05.15.2006 - Terrence Marks:

Hope you had a nice Mother's Day. Isabel's mother pulled a muscle in her back yesterday. Isabel spent all afternoon and most of the night in the hospital with her mom. There are two dozen pharmacies within a five mile radius. We spent the last three hours trying to find the only one that's open late. It's midnight. Isabel's been on her feet all day. The comics are going to be late. We're sorry that the comic is late, but things like this keep happening to us - I'm going to make a big status update chart for those of you keeping score at home. Isabel's mother is back home, at least. I hope you had a good Mother's Day, and I mean that sincerely.

05.10.2006 - Terrence Marks:

Thank you all very much for your support. As a preamble, to answer your questions - it's type II diabetes, caught in its early stages. So far we're dealing with it through diet and exercise. And we have health insurance.

If you play Maple Story, Isabel and I are on the Bera server. Our characters are ElRavager, Buonaparte, Isabel, Isabelm, and iMarks. Generally level 30-55. If you play send us a message in-game or e-mail me. If there's interest, we want to start a ND Unlimited guild.

Isabel got a MySpace account. I may get one too, eventually. Eventually. And I'm usually on AIM as UnlikeMinerva, at least when I'm at work. So you're welcome to add us as friends as appropriate.

We got an automatic litterbox. About a week ago. We returned it today. I like the idea of an automatic litterbox, in theory. We've got a large enclosure for our cats. Large for cats, that is. We both have to duck when we go inside it - we're taller than the cats, you see. And not having to go in and clean up after the cats late at night was appealing.

In practice though, it just didn't work. It was supposed to put things in a disposable container. The cats promptly chewed holes in the top of the containers, letting the stink out. The waste-gathering process squeezes and breaks up the waste. I'm not going to go into details as far as why that's bad, but trust me. The containers usually ended up with about 50% loose litter and had to be emptied every day. Installing the containers required them to be slid under nine different tabs. It was more difficult and time-consuming than just sifting the litter manually. So we're back to just using a regular litterbox.

05.07.2006 - Isabel Marks:

Last Monday while doing laundry my back went out... I could not move... it took many tears and ten minutes to get my phone off the floor to call Terrence. It was horrible. I was crying, afraid that I would need months of rehabilitation... I remembered the time I had to learn to walk again after having my hips straightened as a young girl. I was genuinely afraid. Terrence came home and helped me to the Emergency Room, which took forever. They gave some a Motrin shot and after an X-Ray it was determined that my two lower bones in my spine were too close together. They gave me some really strong pain killers and Ibuprofen to take. Unfortunately the Ibuprofen did absolutely nothing so I had to take the stronger pain killers that week, causing me to be quite woozy most of the time. It's a good thing I had scripts for ND- otherwise it would not have updated because I could not think straight with the meds (as it was, I could barely sit up in my chair for most of the week without being in extreme pain). I tried to keep the comics going, but for the most part I was bed-ridden (If I was on my back, I had to stay there till Terrence got home to help me up) until my doctor's appointment on Thursday.

When Thursday came I got doubly bad news- turns out I have arthritis in my back AND I have diabetes... which means I now have to turn my entire life upside down... I have to learn how to deal with the pain AND eat three meals a day (I have never been the kind of person who can eat a full meal... I eat small meals throughout the day, something that so far my stomach has rejected.

It's a lot to deal with... I ended up in tears at the doctor's office.

Yesterday was my first day off of the pills and off of bed rest. My back still hurts like crazy but I can clean the house again and work on comics.

And that, my friends, is why the updating schedule was so bad last week. Those of you who have been around the site for a while know I HATE not updating on time and it takes something really big (and unplanned) to cause me not to update. Unfortunately my life since I-CON has been running like some cheesy Spanish Novela (the short of it is I have a lot of dying relatives right now and everyone in my family is one tether from snapping more than they are now... it's not pretty and this is only the half of it).

I'm trying my best, people. But I have a lot on my plate, not counting my comics. If I didn't have the comics, I'd still be losing my mind with stress. Add 15 comics a week plus coloring work... and all I can say is, I'm doing the best I can- cut me some slack... don't donate if you don't like it... just please don't e-mail bitching to me about how you don't like it, because I don't like the comic not updating properly either.

And I want to say thank you to everyone who did donate, especially those who donated this month for showing your faith in me, because I need it right now. We're still a little behind schedule with the daily commentary and wallpapers, but I'm trying to make sure that you get extra special things. As I'm sure you noticed, I put a lot of detail into the wallpapers this month, at least for ND and Spare Parts. The intricate YSIF one is coming up.

05.04.2006 - Terrence Marks:

Isabel aggravated an old back injury on Monday. They gave her some painkillers, so she's not feeling up to comics right now. We've got another doctor's appointment early tomorrow so we can get her fixed. And she'll probably insist on making up the comics, even if I try to talk her out of it. And our cat Buttons appears to be doing well. We got her X-rayed and they didn't find anything unusual.