The End

This blog has come to an end. At least for now. Never say never, right? I'll be in to look back as usual but won't be posting here any longer. It's been real!!!

Quick catch up!

And we're off!

I finished The Little Prince. WTH? He's so cute. The book is cute. The story is cute. I know I'm not comprehending the whole thing so I'm going to do some looking around online for some discussion about it. In the meantime, I see something about it on Netflix?????? I will watch this if its coming or has come already.

I read something I'll consider professional development. It was called The 80/20 Manager by Richard Koch. It was helpful, thought provoking, and caused me think about my job from a different perspective.

Another nonfiction book was devoured as well called Beasts in my Belfry by Gerald Purrell. I...laughed...so...hard!!!!!!!! Laughing is one of life's great pleasures. :) I'll be looking to see if this guy has other books because I liked his sense of humor.

During grad school I fell in love with graphic novels and read so many that I had a pretty good handle on the classics and popular selections of the time. I've fallen behind a bit there so I picked up a few the other day and started with Spill Zone by Scott Westerfeld. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet but am in book 2. I can tell its just getting started but that's infuriating since book 3 hasn't even been released? of how many? when? Bah! For now...its...mmm...its just okay. Keeping my eye on this one.

Now I've started a new book called Descent by Tim Johnston. I think it will be really good but the lady who's doing the audio book....ah...her voice makes me have REALLY violent fantasies of hurting her. I may have to try to find another version because I'm not sure I can handle her voice for that many hours if I'm already feeling this way. The wrong narrator in an audiobook can ruin the entire thing and let's just be honest. Some voices grate on the nerves of some people. I'm sure its different for everyone.

Other than reaaaaaaading, here's a quick list of things...

• learned how to install shelves
• have worked a whole month already at the full time job and haven't drowned yet
• have had a nasty little cold all week so have been forced to set projects aside
• doing lots of research on cruises
• peppers are growing
  
  
  
  
• tomatoes are growing
  
• corn is 6 feet tall now and may be getting ready to have "corn sex" ;)
• blueberries, grapes, and a pineapple are growing
  

I have nothing more to say except...

Quotes on quotes on quotes on quotes! :) I've check the validity of none. Some are well known and some are not. I won't add names to any for now but all have played some part for me lately, are favorites that I've lived by for years, or were oldies that came back around for a good reminder. Do with them what you wish.

"If you don't like where you are, move, you are not a tree."

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."

"Always find time for the things that make you feel happy to be alive."

"Love one another as I have loved you."

"At any given moment we have two choices: to step forward into growth or step back into what is comfortable."

"You're not rich until you have something that money can't buy."

"If you were born with the weakness to fall, you were born with the strength to rise."

"I will never regret giving pieces of my heart to someone who ended up hurting me. Because in those moments of bliss my feelings were pure. And you can never tarnish pure intent."

"You weren't placed on this earth to just pay bills and die."

"Courage doesn't mean you don't get afraid. Courage means you don't let fear stop you."

"It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation."

"We can't direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails."

Byyyyyye!!!

Planning plans

My oldest's bed broke (I think I spoke about that awhile back) and has been sleeping with his mattress on the floor. He had fun at first but now has been asking his dear old mom (that's me! lol) to please get him a new bed. I may be crazy to try to tackle this right now but that usually doesn't stop me when I set my mind on something. I'm going to build a damn bed...with a headboard. Rawr! And more, if a twin size bed turns out ok, I'm going to build a new king sized one for the hubs and I, too. This morning I went through the beginner level Ana White plans with him and this is the one he chose. The link to the plan is in the caption.

http://www.ana-white.com/2012/03/plans/kentwood-bed

I already have the slats and found some good brackets online to attach the headboard/footboard so its just a matter of building a couple things, stain, and finish. Soooooo, this will be coming as soon as I muster up my courage. lol

The last few days/weeks I've had that little nagging thing I have sometimes where I want to travel somewhere and see something new. Finally, FINALLY, the time is coming where that may actually become a possibility. It would be insanely less expensive to go by myself but the kids aren't quite old enough for me, or them, to feel comfortable having mom gone for that long. Therefore, the entire family will need to go ($$$$$) and in the end, the kids would hopefully gain some perspective as well. I held a family meeting this morning that went something like this.

Me: Hey, I want to take a trip outside the country and I think it would be good for you guys (kiddos) as well. We've never done this before so we need an easy, starter trip to get our feet wet. (Everyone was down and excited so I continued) To get an idea, if each of you could go anywhere for a trip, where would you pick?
Oldest: The Bahamas! I want to go on a cruise to the Bahamas!!
Youngest: Hmm, Brazil...or Hawaii. Europe? I like Brazil.
Hubs: Oooooh Brazil. I like that! I want to go back to Japan and take you guys (kiddos) so we can all climb Mt. Fuji!

A discussion ensued where we weighed the pros and cons of each as far as an easy, first trip and it was settled upon, at least tentatively, to try a cruise first. After that we could try more intermediate-level spots if desired but the general consensus was that we all had places we wanted to see. The meeting was adjourned and I will now add this to the list of my long-ish, short-ish term goals. Its on my radar baby!!!!

I finished Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and that's it for that. It was GREAT!
via GIPHY

Leaving you today with two songs that I've been having major car concerts with the last couple days. When its warm, music loud, windows down, and singing my heart out, I can feel happy at least for then.





BYYYYEEEEEEE!

Things are beginning to settle

Okay! It feels like I'm settling in at the new job a bit now and I can finally relax some and gather my thoughts. Let's see...what's happened...

Obviously, the bigger, better job has been started. It's AMAZEBALLS and I can't really talk about it here. More on that a little later. Suffice to say that tonight I was walking around the building near closing time I wanted to squeeze my boss and tell her how happy I was to be there, doing all the things! I truly love my job.

Speaking of the job, I finally have a desk again which is mega exciting for me for some reason. Today I took in my little lamp and two little pics of my kids. I've been adding little by little, day by day and its starting to feel more like mine. Awww. Something I seem to be in need of every day is a coaster. I realized pretty quickly from searching for one online that I can easily make my own with a piece of square tile, an image, and some Mod Podge which I have in the garage. Crafting time is definitely going to go down for a customized coaster to go on my desk! Yes!! :) Just have to choose an image.

On to reading!

I finished Richard Matheson's, Hell House, which to my understanding was supposed to be a classic as far as haunted house stories go. Mmm, I dug it enough. Some of the characters annoyed the piss out of me and for as much build up as there was about the house in the beginning, more could have went down. More gore! More killing! More haunting! Lol I give it 3.5 stars.

I also finished the 9th volume in Saga by Brian K. Vaughn. It took me a bit to get back into what was happening in the story and then it was kind of slow but then it really took off at the end, threw out something I wasn't expecting, and left me with a cliffhanger!! Ewwwww! I love it. I'm guessing this volume was kind of a building one and that the 10th one is going to flyyy.

Currently, I'm listening to the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The best way I can describe this is that its like a treat every time I'm in the car. The word play literally makes me smile at times and I'm hearing parts of the story I never got from watching the Disney version. I think if I'd actually read this as a kid or teen it would have been a favorite. It's short, too! Love it, love it.

More, you say? Yes! Lol I finally snatched up a copy of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This book is short and has been translated into sooooo many languages so I had to see what was up. So far its insane and I love it. Here's the Wikipedia page for it if you're curious.

The garden is doing awesome! Here's a couple updated pics of that in case it all goes down the drain soon or something. Lol

Oh! The gate in the back yard rotted and was falling off so I gathered myself up (which was not easy, see last post) and built a new one. It seems to have turned out pretty well. Who knew? Gates are pretty easy to build! What's harder than building a gate you ask? Why, attaching the handle/locking mechanism onto it. That's what! So hard...smh

Last but not least, some new baby plants have been added to the house. Still sticking to the "easy" plants for now since I'm unsure about my abilities but they're happy so far and even growing some! Yay! :) There are two types of english ivy, a spider plant, a hoya and two kind of pothos.

No quotes or anything extra to end tonight. I've been mulling over moving this blog somewhere else though. I'd like to be a little freer with what I can say and would like to talk about my job sometimes as well which I wouldn't want to lead back to me in anyway. Its been a thought for a while now so I'm putting it here. Still not sure though and not in any big hurry.

And that's a wrap shitheads! Night!

A pep talk for my perfectionist side

Will someone please whip me in my ass and tell me to get off the couch and get going this morning? Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghh!!!!!!! Lol I'm sitting here drowning in indecisiveness, a little grief, and a lot of being unsure. UGH!!

Music will need to be loud today. Deep breath in...and...ok...going! Just do the things, right?



Time waits for no one!!!!!!!!!

Prep, movies, shows, goals, and a caterpillar

Yesterday was a unexpectedly crazy day of cooking. More like preparing. It was time to trim back the herbs in the garden so I had a bunch of basil, curly and flat-leaf parsley, and cilantro. To the store I went to gather some things and I ended up creating salsa verde, tomato pesto, and a whole new ton of basil pesto. I'd never made salsa verde or tomato pesto before but it turned out great and by the end I used up everything except for a small bit of parsley and cilantro. Win, win and moving on!!

One of my goals this year was to read at least two professional development books in my field. Gotta stay on top of my game you know! Anyway, quite a few of my textbooks from grad school have now been superseded by newer editions which means I have some updating to do. I've made a list of all the ones I'm interested in at the moment and lucky me, I found one at my public library. It may take a few renew's to get through it but you can't beat getting it for free!

So...movies...yeah, I'm skipping my March theater movie experience. It's ridiculous that I can't get excited about a single movie playing right now but that's the case. I refused to even look at the Bollywood's because I'm determined to stretch my gift cards out by seeing a couple American movies first. Therefore, my coworkers and I had a discussion about movies and things and I was given a bunch of recommendations of wonderfully weird stuff to check out from the comfort of my couch this month instead. Here are some that I've consumed and dug!

The Hateful Eight


Nine


Charlie the Unicorn


Llamas with Hats

Great coworkers they are! :) Here's to hoping that something, or two somethings, will come to theaters in April that'll excite me.

I'll leave you with something random from the week. My oldest and I were grocery shopping the other day and noticed we had a caterpillar on the front of our cart. It absolutely changed our entire shopping experience! LOL He pushed the cart with more care so as not to bump it, I placed things gently into the cart after we noticed it would jump if rattled. We spent a lot of time looking at it and discussing it and it made the whole boring trip go by in a flash. Here's a pic of our passenger.

As soon as we got outside it came to life and was crawling around so we got a stick and left it on a nearby tree. Cute little guy! 

Oh what the heck. Here's a quote, too!

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
-Dolly Parton

Byeeeeeeeee!!!

A sleepy St. Patty's Day Sunday

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm sleepy this morning so let's do a lighting round just to catch up.

• Tried some more new types of alcohol recently of which Bailey's Irish Cream was a favorite.
• Paid off another student loan which means I'm down to one. 
• Starting a new full-time job in April and I'm nervous about time management. Trying to come up with some plans for how to "do it all" without failing. Ha!
• Garden is completely planted and things are still going good. Its already time to make pesto again. Will fertilize today or this week.Here's a quick pic!

• Financial goals took a hard hit this week from learning about a very large, unexpected cost. One of my money goals will have to fall by the wayside this year to make up for it. Trying to decide which that will be. 
• Rode on the fastest go-karts in town yesterday. They were so fast that after three races I was dealing with motion sickness for the next two hours. They were so fast that you could drift around corners! They were so fast that when another racer clipped my back corner at top speed, I "spun out" in the middle of the track creating a eight car "pile up". The smile on my face was HUGE!  
• I haven't been cooking or reading as much though I have started a couple new books since we last spoke. The kids have been home for spring break so there's literally no peace and quiet save for the middle of the night. This may explain why I've been up at 2,3, and 4am each night just basking in the silence and thinking. Its killing my motivation during the daylight hours.

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1. My dad. I have the cutest dad in the world and I learn about and appreciate him more each year. He's semi-retired now and each time I call he's picked up a new hobby or expanded on an old one. After watching him work for the same company for decades, day in and day out, its so fun to call and see what he's up to now. The latest? He bought an old clunker mail service truck and will be the local mailman on Saturday's. How cute is that?!
2. My new job. So grateful for the opportunity to make enough money doing what I love to be able to follow my dreams of which I have many!
3. The internet, for providing the constant flow of information I need to satisfy my unending curiosities, and I do mean they are deep and unending! :)

I'm off to deep condition my hair and put a mask on my face.