Good days sometimes get weird!

Hmm, its been an emotional day. Not very good at those. Good ones. Bad ones, Blah ones. I can't keep up! Maybe I'm just having one of those "girl" days in which case it sucks being a girl sometimes. ;)

It started with a bad dream that, to put it nicely, involved me offering to have some very bad things done to me in order to protect someone or something I loved. I don't always wake up when bad parts of dreams start happening and its sometimes hard to block out those images during the remainder of the day. Today is one of those days.

There's been some really great moments today as well and I'm bursting with gratitude for the good in my life!

As I'm going though the process of leaving one job to start another, people are saying their goodbyes and all sorts of nice things, my desk is slowly becoming as if I was never there, interviews are happening to replace me, and it was announced today that there will be an ice cream party in my name on my last day. Nice people I work with. Its a little sad and change isn't always easy but its a good change. I've noticed I'm hungry all over again to learn more and do more in my field. Maybe more on that another time.

I said some things I wish I hadn't today. I was beating myself up over it but decided to just chalk it up to this little emotional day I'm having, hope no one is paying me any attention anyway, and move on.

This next one threw me over the edge. I was home from a great time at the gym, drinking a protein shake, perfectly fine, and had a few minutes before picking up my kids. My kids have never been to church so I pulled a few up online to see what they were all about so I could maybe take them sometime. About two minutes of research in, I unexpectedly broke down in sobs at the computer. I cried and cried. lol. On one side, there is something in my mind that is rebelling at the thought of taking my kids to church. Or maybe its something about imagining myself in a church again. Maybe both. This isn't the first time this little instantaneous bout of tears has shown up in relation to the thought of church-going. There's something there, it hurts, and its from my time growing up. All I could think looking at the pictures on the church websites was, "Its too nice!" which only made me cry harder. I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I'm just emotional today and church threw me over the emotional edge. I'll think on that another day.

I was excited to get my kids from school so I could hang out with them but I've been cast away in pursuit of other, more exciting endeavors. Lol. They're cute little boogers. Therefore, I'm going to make some food for them and delve into the world of Witcher 3. I doubt I will cry over Witcher or damage any of my relationships by playing. Haha. Its a safe bet to finish out my day! :) Bye!!

Growing pains

You know how sometimes in life we have to do things that are a little (or a lot) scary but also good for us? I had one of those today.

That's all.

How's that for journaling?! Haha. I'm too tired to journal right now.

Actually, ONE of my favorite things about today was this song/video combo. It literally soothed me to listen and watch these two dance together and I loved the simplicity and warm colors of everything. Loved it. Still love it. Will continue to listen tomorrow while I'm in the gym.
Jidenna-Boomerang
Unfortunately, I can't include this particular video in this post but the link is there.

Ok. Bye! ;)

Cleaning today!

Its beautiful out today!! I've opened all the windows and the back door, the birds are singing, there's a breeze blowing through the house, and my sidekick (see below) is playing in the back yard. Ahhhh :)

Here's the sidekick camping out with the kids and I in the backyard one summer night a couple years ago. I may sometimes question who does and does not love me but I NEVER doubt that this dog loves me 100%.

Moving on! I'll be playing domestic goddess/nerd today. Its my day off of work so I'm cleaning the entire house, cooking up a bunch of food, and I've loaded up Witcher 3 to play during breaks. As I walked past my kid's bathroom this morning a slight waft of urine smell hit me in the face. Ewwww!!! How?!!! I really don't understand what happens in a little boy's bathroom. Anyway, I'm going in like this with my cleaning supplies. Hope that I make it out alive. ;)

Halfway through my mystery book and its just as ridiculous and horrible as I predicted so far but its a little like a bad flick on the sci-fi channel. Sometimes they're just so bad that you can't stop watching!

Off to clean!!!
Song of the day today is some Kpop

Updates: feeling tired and blah

Written 04/14/18:

Working today! I'm pretty sleepy so I stealthily took two tiny catnaps at my desk during lunch. I'm pretty sure I don't need to be stealthy about that here but "when in doubt...", and all. Some time was spent reading as well. Unfortunately, I abandoned the mystery book I was reading. Four chapters in and I simply couldn't hang. However, I really want to do this so to make it slightly easier for myself, I traded in that one for Christmas Caramel Murder, same author. In doing so, I've dropped 125 pages off the total to be read and the book is almost half the size of the other which means smaller pages and less words to a page. Win! Chapters are pretty short as well. Where there's a will there's a way! If I was able to finish Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina by reading ten pages at a time over a period of 11 months, then I can make it through 200 pages of Christmas Caramel Murder. Anyway, I just started chapter three and the red velvet cookie recipe from the first chapter is calling my name. Yummm!

I whipped up grilled cheese creation #2 the other night from my cookbook adventure. It was sinful with bacon, cheddar cheese, onions, and tomatoes on sourdough bread. My youngest didn't approve because of the onions but the rest were gobbled up.

As for updates on home projects, I picked up a bunch of paint chips last night in all shades of grey and tan to peruse. As much as I do not feel like tackling a huge painting project right now, it seems  my heart has other plans and the orange in my living room will be coming to an end sooner than later.

Progress has been made in the gardening beds as well, though it might be considered regression. When turning over the dirt to begin prepping the soil, the raised beds I built were chipping away, crumbling under any pressure, and have settled into the earth so far as it would be a stretch to consider them raised beds at this point. I decided to rip everything out and start anew. When I built those beds, roughly five years ago, I didn't have the extra money to make them double height and placed the beds too close together. There were a couple other things that I now know could have been improved as well. For now, the area has been cleared and I'm working on creating a better design this time around. More on this project at a later date!

Feelings getting in my way

Today I feel like the me I know best. Insanely loud music in my ear to drown out the thoughts, a tear in my eye, lonely with a chip on my shoulder and a me-against-the-world attitude from being fucked with one too many times, and enough emotion and adrenilne coursing through my system to do whatever needs to be done, consequences be damned. This, I've learned, is how I deal with sadness and/or hurt if it goes on too long. I was sad over the weekend, deep down where I tend to hide these types of things, and apparently my ass-kicking side had enough and took over this morning to alleviate the problem. This is all well and good except there's no problem to solve. All that's needed is acceptance of the way things are, each day, no matter how it may differ from past days, and with the knowledge that a lot can change from one day to the next, I have no control over other people, and nothing...NOTHING is guaranteed to be here today just because it was yesterday. Daily. Acceptance. Its hard!
So...I'll continue to go back and forth between sadness and anger for awhile until I wear myself out, have a good cry (or a few), and then move on with this life of mine.
I'll leave you with what's been on repeat for me all morning. This one goes back!

I'm out fam...

More cheese, please!

Checking in! Since I completed my butterfly project, I'm off on another. I've always wanted to cook my way through an entire cookbook so...I'm going to! :) This was a bit tricky and so required some forethought. I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew (pun intended) with a cookbook full of 100+ recipes. That would take too long and I would like to complete my little project in less than a year tops. Also, I thought it would be smart to narrow the scope of the recipes. I'm a practical woman at heart and not made of money so it was important that my family actually eat the recipes from whatever cookbook I chose. Therefore, all thoughts of healthy foods promptly flew out the window!

I brought home a few cookbooks from the library that were very focused in their offerings (cookbooks solely dedicated to waffles, dump cakes, muffins, mac n' cheese, etc.) and let my family choose what they would like to eat the most of. In the end, Laura Werlin's Grilled Cheese, Please! was the winner.

I made the first grilled cheese from this book last night featuring spinach, manchego cheese, and eggs and it was a smash hit. Forty-nine more to go! Stay tuned for more cheesiness.

In other news, I finished the Armenian genocide book (a solid 4 stars) and went way out in left field with the next book I chose. The one genre I almost always steer clear of when reading is mystery. Something about it just turns me off. It feels too formulaic or something. However, there is this whole sub-genre of mystery called cozy mysteries and to break it down even further, there is a whole sub-genre of cozy mysteries that include actual recipes throughout their stories. It goes something like this, you curl up with your cozy mystery, maybe read the first chapter about a baker who discovers a dead body while baking some cookies, and after reading about her making the cookies, you're rewarded with the actual recipe for those cookies at the end of the chapter! Now you can make the same cookies from the story! I love it. Lol. I don't like mysteries but my curiosity has gotten the best of me and I decided to try one of these books out. If nothing else, it's short, the content will humor me, and I'll get to do some fun cooking. I chose Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke for this venture and I'm already on chapter 4, so 3 recipes in. 

I'm off to play some Witcher 3!!!❤

Bang, Bang...bucket list

Greeting netizens! I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to get things out of me into this blog post but they're not coming. Feelings are challenging sometimes so I'll just write what I've been up to and hopefully they'll come out that way. :)

I got a new job, and a better one at that, so I rewarded myself with a new PS4!! I've never owned my own game console before and it'll be guarded with my life just like everything else I consider "mine".Lol. I dove headfirst in Witcher 3 for my first game and its just what I was looking for. All good things there!

Four of the caterpillars in my butterfly kit have emerged as butterflies as of today. I released two yesterday, one today, and got to witness two fly away. That was an amazing feeling. One of the four came out with deformed wings and died a while later. The fifth and final caterpillar made a cocoon that didn't look right from the start. It turned black and I'm pretty sure its a dud. Therefore, the butterfly adventure has come to an end. Great experience. Marking it off the list.

Also on the bucket list was to give blood for the first time. An opportunity fell into my lap the other day and I took it. I set up an appointment right away, went in the next day, and got a free t-shirt out of the deal. I absolutely HATE needles but I love free t-shirts! I'm not sure its something I ever want to do again, even though I had a great experience, but I can now say I did it at least once!

Finally, I recently went on an adventure with the fam to the Alligator Farm. That was a pretty good day and we saw a lot of this...lol

That's it for now but I'll leave you with another ridiculous tune. Audio Bully's remix of Nancy Sinatra's Shot You Down unexpectedly came through my Pandora this morning in the gym. Never heard it before but it spent the rest of the day with me on repeat. I have no idea why!