Last weekend's camping, playing chauffeur, Das Stein Haus, shopping, and lunch

Amanda found a cell phone camera lens kit in the check out isle in Wal-mart last night. Fun fact, don't leave the flash on when using them. By the way, that's Narcisa checking out the pickle in my cup.

Okay so last weekend we went camping out at a friend's house. It was a small, invite only gathering and the drive was beautiful. Of course it was a chilly, cloudy, and wet sort of day so of course I loved it. Everyone set up their tents in the rain because if we hadn't, it as decided that it would rain all day and then we would have been trying to set them up in the dark. Of course once all the tents were set up, it stopped raining. 

While we were there we had a Fairies vs. Goblins of theme. Everyone had a grab bag and depending on what was in it a wand or a glass ball, was what you were. The wands were fairies and the balls were goblins. I happened to pick up the bag with the blue ball in it thus I was the King- or because I am a girl- Queen of the Goblins. One of my friend's children was Queen of the Fairies. Everyone else was either fairy or goblin and we played games and did actives outside, tallying up which side was winning. At the end, the Fairy Queen and I had a battle/ sword fight with swimming pool noodles. We ended up calling a truce partly because some meddlesome boys kept trying to get in on it, and also because neither of us were giving up. Honestly, my back was giving me all sorts of grief but there was no way I was letting that little fairy Queen beat me! So for at least a year, the Goblins and Fairies have peace. 

Aside from Goblin and Fairy wars, there was drinking, good food, and we watched Practical Magic outside under the stars, drinking margaritas. Some of the other campers were in inflated swimming pools with pillows and blankets. I had to go to bed early that night because I was in a lot of pain. I also had reading done, which was helpful. All in all, it was a lot of fun and if we hadn't had to worry about Amanda getting to work on Sunday, we would have stayed longer. 

Monday, I took some friends to a doctor's appointment because they are currently car-less, after a fashion. I hung out at their place for as long as I could before I had to head back and get read for Monday night's event.

I headed over to the north side around the 5 mile area of town to go to Joann's crafts and fabric store for a bit. I saw plenty of things I wanted but I didn't buy anything. We still had grocery shopping and bills to pay, and honestly, I was too hot and achy from the weekend to really care too much. I did look at yarn and knitting needles.

Afterward I met Amanda and one of our friends at Das Stein Haus, a German bar and restaurant. 

Our friend ordered her own beer plank and Amanda and I split one. We couldn't decide which one we wanted to try. So why not try several? We also had an appetizer of Kazen Spaetzle, delicious!

These were our choices.

Here is Amanda's dinner a Schnizel dish

And here is mine. I can't remember what it was called but what I can tell you is that I was very bad and ordered pork. It had a yummy pork sauce, mushrooms, and it was atop a bed of Spaetzel. It was fantastic! 

To finish it all up Amanda and our friend had apple strudel and I had one of my favorite kinds of cake in the world, Black Forest!

Which brings us to yesterday. I had some grocery shopping to do and while I wanted to go to the Kiev Market and one of the Asian markets in my area, I didn't quite make it. I did, however, begin at Yoke's Fresh Market. I was looking for something in particular and couldn't find it but picked up some produce. Next I went to Winco and did the bulk of my shopping there. I was hurting, hot, and tired, by the time I finished there and knew my spoons were almost spent. I stopped by another grocery store and while they didn't have exactly what I was looking for at Yoke's, they had a decent substitute. Bonus, they had a nice deal on tea so I got a couple of boxes.

When I got home, I only brought in the groceries that had to come in and left the rest in the car. But I was too tired, hot, and in too much pain to do the usual meal prep. I spent some time on the phone with my Mom, went to the bathroom, and then picked up Amanda and then went to Wal-Mart to finish up shopping. I'd forgotten mayonnaise, needed pads, and shampoo. We grabbed food at Taco Bell, came home, watched a weird anime episode, and went to bed. 

And that brings us to today. I slept in by accident and just up in time to meet a friend and take lunch to Amanda at work. We stayed there a little longer than we intended but Amanda is working late tonight. I know that parking is difficult downtown, especially during lunch, and especially since there is construction, but as helpful as my friend wants to be with helping me lose weight along with helping herself toward that goal, parking two and half blocks from Amanda's work really doesn't help when my back keeps trying to lock up. I had to stop a couple of times to kind of slowly coax it into cooperating with me. Which of course made me feel even worse because my friend had to slow down to begin with and then stop in the heat while I shifted around until I could walk more. I know she doesn't mind, I know she will wait for me, but I still feel bad about it. 

Last bit of news, we might go look at and test drive a car tomorrow afternoon, after Amanda's doctor's appointment.   

Loot from a couple of weeks ago- playing a little catch up.

Not that long ago, Amanda and I went to Hastings Books and Music. I picked up a blast from the past CD for $0.97 and of course it is all scratched to hell, but Amanda is going to work her magic and make it work long enough for me to rip it onto my computer. The Song "Lucky" is on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV series) Soundtrack. 

Amanda thought I should get this book because it "looked like my kind of book". We will see if this book meets my standards for naughty fun reading material. 

She also thought I would like this book. I thought it looked witty and fun. 

Hasting's was doing a great deal on some of their books, it was buy one, get one for $1. I grabbed this one, which I have since learned is the prequel to the Throne of Glass Series. I have the first book, of course, I just haven't gotten to it yet. 

And this one is the second in the series.

Summer/fall bucket list, gaming, Sword Art Online, Selling Sophie

Amanda and I have been watching Sword Art Online lately and we love it! Well, I love it and know she enjoys it. There's this squeeing fangirl squeeing over the romantic elements. I can't go into anything too much because I don't want to spoil it, however, lets just say, I almost cried today over something in the show. 

Watching the show has made me long for the days that I played Guildwars with my Dad. So I actually logged on for a little bit this afternoon, after I got my homework done, and did a little running around. I am currently re-downloading Guildwars 2. I bought it for my old computer and hadn't downloaded it for the new one yet. I would love to get the Heart of Thorns expansion but I'm not even close to that yet. 

This is my Guildwars main character, Heidi Von Nacht, she's the leader of the Kitsune Guard guild. 

Anyway, this weekend we are getting away and going camping. More on that when I get back from the trip.

I am selling my jeep, Sophie (yes, I named my car) to a friend Rachael. I want to sell it to her minus the cost of repairs. One, she is going to tow it to get repaired and also she sunk money into a dud of a truck and since the jeep would be for her business, I would like to help her out a little there as well. After that, Amanda and I are going to trade in her car and we are going to get another vehicle. I am not sure what yet, but hopefully something we don't have to repair every damned time we turn around. 

Lastly, Amanda has been hounding me today about putting up some of my summer/fall bucket list, so with that said, that is what I am going to do now. 

Things that are already scheduled are as follows:

1.Try Das Stein Haus this Sunday for dinner

2. Camp NaNoWriMo all of July

3. Silverwood with Amanda's parents on July 1st

4. Soap Making July 2nd

5. Seeing Lord Chaddum at Le Chateu Galunt (sp?) on July 3rd

6. Lavender Picking Festival on July 9th

7. Get into the SCA- This has begun and will be a continuing work in progress. 

8. Stargaze- I am doing that this weekend.

9. Go to polka dot pottery

10. Do the Zombie Crawl

11. Go to Finch Arboretum in fall to do photos

12. Ride in horse and carriage this fall

13. Visit Greenbluff this fall for pumpkins, photos, and autumn farm fresh goods

14. See the Chinese Lantern Festival in River Front Park

15. Go to Scarrywood

16. Carve pumpkins

17. Make a pumpkin diarama

18 Halloween party

19. Make t-shirt quilt

20. Make gothic quilt

21. Make a crazy quilt

22. Make coffin pot holders

23. Host a proper tea party- might do that soon and join Vanessa's Mad Hatter tea party thing.

24. Learn to make various kinds of candles

25. Start something spiritual

26. Go to the planetarium.

27. Spend the day down town.

This is not including all the books I want to read or any other assorted crafts and or the writing I want to accomplish. 

Saved a Moth, the spider chased me, that explains some things, and pretty pictures

I need pretty things today. I feel worse than I did yesterday, in fact, I have a migraine today. I'm so used to them, and this one is what I would call mild, that I can still function a little. My period slowed down and tapered off enough that I just had some light spotting. You know enough that I still had to wear a pad. Well, today we are back to bleeding so bad my bathroom looks like a crime scene and I am passing big cloths again. I've got most of the bathroom cleaned up, I just need to mop the floor but simply don't have the energy. I took a picture, but I am not going to share it, I'm saving it for the GYN. So for now, it's back to sitting on towels just in case, being generally weak and miserable, and I am taking today off from homework. I'm just going to watch NetFlix. 

I managed to make myself breakfast. Biscuits and Gravy. Only the biscuit was two hamburger buns. It's what we had. I didn't buy bread when I was at the store and haven't felt up to making any. One of these days I will.

I saved the moth I asked Amanda to put outside last night. It had migrated from the lamp shade to the kitchen and since I have had a bad experience with a moth flying into my mouth, I decided to set free into the wilds again. Then, while I was eating my breakfast, I noticed something moving to my left and of course looked. Lo and behold there was a nickle sized tanish-whiteish-ugly mother fucking spider running toward at full spider speed. It freaking chased me while I grabbed a shoe to smack it dead dead dead! I left my shoe sitting atop the squished remains and moved my laptop table and my laptop down the sofa.*shudder* I do not do spiders. It must have gotten in when we had the door open yesterday. I don't know why it thought my house was a good place to hang out when there is a perfectly good ant colony outside along with all the other bugs that fly around my plants. 

Needless to say I lost my appetite. So with that said, I am going to share the rest of the pretty flower pictures that I took from my garden the other day. 

We'll start with the actual flowers, my pot of Pansies. I posted the purple one last night.

For as much as I don't really like orange and yellow, I really like these flowers.

Love the bluish-purple on these.

I like the dark red on this one. 

Blood red? Or blood red velvet?

I don't have a lot of purple pansies, but maybe next year I will. Besides, to go with the Midsummer Solstice theme, we'll call these fire pansies- well the color anyway. 

Here we have our dill and cosmos flowers. 

Some catnip that Narcisa has been enjoying.

In the rectangle tub we have two tomato plants, one is a blueberry tomato plan then other is a lemon boy? I will have to double check with Amanda since I didn't buy them. Beside it in the round tub is our lone pumpkin plant. I would really like to clear out all of the stupid wood chip crap. Apparently spiders like to hang out in that shit. 

Lastly, one of parsley plants. Amanda thinks we are going to need to grow more since I pretty much put it in everything. I love it! I am planning to get a food dehydrator and bring in some of these herbs. I also admit to wanting to get a food dehydrator so I can make beef jerky. 

Lastly, my obligatory kitty pic. Narcisa is enjoying her live cat tv. We have lots of birds, squirrels, other cats, and even a few marmots.  

When you leave Hannah alone for too long...

Just a cool thing I found on Google+

I felt like "Death warmed over" to quote my Mom, this morning. It was one of those, tired, fog-brain-can't-focus-for-shit, hurt all over, feel emotional taxed and uber depressed, blah, blah, blah, kind of days where you just want to stay in bed. Except I was hurting too much to stay in bed and it wouldn't have done any good anyway because Narcisa wouldn't leave me alone. She was out of food, poor kitty. 

I made a valiant attempt at homework today. I only have 12 pages to read about the nature of war, but I couldn't focus. After rereading the same sentence ten times, I laid down to watch a movie, and then tried again. There wasn't much success. My mind wandered too much so I thought perhaps if I printed it out, that might help. 

Well, I printed it all right and since I was doing some printing, I decided to print out some other things too. For instance, I printed some coloring pages, some writing tips, my visual craft project list, and some pretty pictures for my manifestation board. I also made a page of quotes of inspiration that I like to put around my desk or on my manifestation board.  All in all, I think it was about 40 pages. Amanda made a comment to a friend that while we may have a printer, we may not have many more ink. I be to differ, especially since we just put new cartridges in not that long ago. But in my defense, that's what you get when I'm having a yucky day and you leave me alone until 7 pm at night. 

While printing writing tips and quotes out today, I looked at some things on my writing stuff board on pinterest and managed to find MJ Bush's website. I joined her mailing list and generally liked what I read on her site. I linked her over to Amanda and Amanda likes her too. 

Aside from that, I wished my Dad a Happy Father's Day and apologized to my Mom for being snippy with her yesterday on the phone. She called me at a very bad moment. Then I called my Grandpa to wish him a Happy Father's Day. He didn't stay on the phone long so I talked to my Grandma, who oddly enough seemed to be talking me out of Grad school. Why is it my family keeps doing that? I don't get it. When I was in high school all I heard was "YOU WILL GO TO COLLEGE OR ELSE!" now it's congrats, you're almost finished with your BA - no, it's not the degree we wanted you to have, but congrats anyway- and hey, don't you think you ought to try working for awhile and writing before trying to take the next step school wise? How about what I feel is right for me? 

I leave you with a picture from my garden.

This week in modern war and society... trying not to go cross eyed

This is the first week of my last term of college. While I on'y have one class, I feel as though this class has the work of two all rolled into one. It was also the only one that seemed the least bit interesting when I was trying to choose a class for this last term. I also thought it would be helpful in terms of writing, because I generally tend to think of everything as fodder for stories and novels, and seeing how war effects and shapes societies would be pretty damn beneficial. It would also go nicely with the WW2 class I took several terms ago, especially since we will probably be addressing WW2 in this class as well. 

The only draw backs are the fact that I am fighting to stay awake- even after a short power nap-, the colossal head ache, that I can't seem to get comfortable enough for my back to stop hurting (really it's that incessant dull ache that just won't stop), and that I have a discussion board deadline tonight before fighter practice. I actually spent a sleepy half hour trying to decide which resources and web pages were pertinent to this weeks module. I mean really, the school threw in so many extra websites and stuff, that I went cross-eyed for a bit. I got it figured out, I think. At least the ones pertaining to the discussion question due tonight. The rest of it I can muddle through tomorrow. And really it normally wouldn't be such an issue except for being tired, having a head ache, and the back pain. And if I am really being honest, I am still having a bit of a fibro flare. 

But on the positive side, I am reading about the American and French Revolutions. I've already learned a bit more about the American Revolution than I had previously. I'm paying attention to it more than the French Revolution, not because I have a thing against French people, on the contrary, rather it's because one of my ancestors, John Ireland, helped supply the American Revolution. He is how I qualified to join the D.A.R (Daughters of the American Revolution). He was my Grandmother's ancestor and apparently I would have also qualified through my Grandpa's family but Grandma had already done the research for her side and so she pushed to use that to get me in sooner rather than later. I am still part of the Isabella Weldin Chapter of the DAR in August Kansas even though I am not an active member. When I talked about transferring my membership up here, the ladies didn't want me to do that. They like me and wanted to keep me part of their chapter, plus I think my dues had a little something to do with it.  

Anyway, I just needed to take a break. I'd read a fairly dense overview and was shifting gears to my textbook. 

Grandpa

This is my Grandpa. He just turned 88 years old, was a Master Librarian and Teacher, and wrote a book. I know he's been working on some family history off and on for several years now, but last I knew he was working on the same tale over and over again. Alzhimer's will do that to a person.

Well today, I got a call from my Dad, letting me know that Grandpa isn't doing so well. I thought Grandma had all the heart issues but apparently Grandpa does too- not that anyone ever bothered to tell me. So, Grandpa apparently has an irregular heart beat and Vfib and its not good. He was taken off some of his blood pressure meds because his blood pressure has been super low. Also, his doctor instructed Grandma that if Grandpa gets bad or something happens with him, to take him to the ER asap, not to wait. 

My Dad called me to tell me all of this so I wold A) know what was going on and B) would know to call my Grandparents more often so I wouldn't feel like I didn't get to talk to him if something happens to him. 

So, I called Grandma tonight to talk to her and hopefully Grandpa. Grandpa doesn't really talk on the phone much anymore, but I could hear him talking in the background. It was nice. Of course, Grandma told me none of this and if Dad hadn't, I wouldn't know anything. I've chewed family out before for not filling me in when something is wrong, so I don't get blindsided when something does happen. They are the type of people who don't like to worry others and I'm kind of like that too- to as least everyone knows I come by it honestly. Anyway, I didn't mention it to Grandma, I didn't want her to get upset. I will talk to her about it later though. Apparently Aunt M. is heading down for a visit and my Dad is anticipating her talking about putting my Grandparents in a nursing home before they are ready. We are trying to keep them out of one as long as possible because they are expensive, Grandma isn't ready for that, and Grandpa, as an Alzheimer's patient will slip more when his familiar environment changes. So, unless it is dire, she needs to back off. 

I don't want my Grandpa to die, but at the same time, I understand the cycle of life, and he is depressed because he is still with it enough to know that he has Alzhimer's. But there is a lot that he can't remember and knowing what I do know about Alzhimer's, call me selfish, but I don't want him to suffer. I am preparing myself for the worst and hoping for the best. 

Below is a picture of the book he wrote on the history of Butler County Community College, where he taught and was the Head Librarian for years. Of course what he wrote was over 300 pages and it was edited down. He actually autographed it for me.  

You'll pay for it, tired, homework, and something strange is going on...

Picture seems appropriate...

Today, I had planned to move into the office/library to work on homework. The plan failed when I woke up in pain, worn out, and so incredibly stiff, all before I'd even had a chance to do anything. So I am couch bound today and am even considering a nap.

I think part of the reason I hurt so much today is because I decided, since it was a relatively nice day yesterday, to take a walk. I'd wanted to take the Redbox movies Amanda rented to the 711, get a little treat, and have Amanda pick me up there. While I didn't make it to the 711, I made it half way- which is the bus stop, that's 0.4 of a mile. Now for most people, that's not a big deal and in fact is pretty much nothing. However, for me, with my back and the fibro, it can be a lot. Generally speaking I can do more, but that's in the grocery store with a cart in front of me for support. And I am paying for it today. On top of that I am having a pretty big fibro flare. I will be honest, it is so bad today I don't want to wear my clothes and my hair hurts. I kind of want to cry, but I won't because that won't fix anything. 

Moving on. I have decided that for today, I am only going to worry about doing my introductory post of my homework. I will read the text book and make my notes, after dinner. A&B are coming and bringing spaghetti. Which reminds me that I need to schedule time with Birdy again. Our last friend date had to be cancelled and so did our D&D night with them.   

Strange and interesting fact, I think my upstairs neighbor's sink was clogged because suddenly I heard weird things happening in my sink and got a horrible smell in my apartment. I went over to check it out and there were soap suds that I didn't create, in my sink. This does not make me happy. The last time my pipes were connected to a neighbors, my basement was flooded with disgusting crap from their clogged drain. We are talking food bits, egg shells, grease, and just yuck! It took forever to clean it up and worse, it almost got as far as my bed- my bedroom was in my parent's basement. I definitely don't want a repeat of that.

Other than that, I talked to my Mom today. She dislocated her shoulder again. Sigh. 

Inspiring pictures, pickle jars, Pinterest, and bad dreams

I can't remember which wall paper site I found this lovely picture on, but I love it, and more to the point, when I saw it, it screamed Miyuki. Miyuki is the name of a character in a story I have been writing, working on, tinkering with, and and so on for the last several years. I haven't been able to finish it and maybe that's just me being overly critical, or maybe it is that I don't really know where I am going with it, or maybe it just isn't ready to be written just yet. Either way, when I get ready to hunker down and actually work on it again, this will be my desktop background to help keep me inspired.  I typically have something that reminds me or inspires me to keep going when I am working on a specific project. Plus this fulfills a need to go look up pretty pictures every so often. 

Pickle jars. My friend Chris always has pickles available at her house and I like them enough- or rather got hooked on them- that I started buying them in bulk as she does. So now I have pickle jars sitting around. I thought to make them flour and rice containers but that's just a pain in the ass mostly because my hand won't fit in the jar with my measuring cups. I thought, well, I will just pour the stuff out but knowing me, I would just make more of mess and end up wasting stuff. So, I have decided to keep a couple jars to use for craft projects and the rest are going to be recycled. This also cuts down on the amount of glass available for me to break. What can I say, I am clumsy.

Last night I decided I needed some Pinterest time. Only my laptop battery was running out and I was too lazy to get out of bed to fetch the power cord. I was also very tired. So this morning I picked up where I had left off. I have some craft projects I would like to do and am compiling a visual picture list for myself. At the moment most of them are sewing projects. All of the quilts in my house were made by my 3 of my Grandmothers and most of which were hand sewn. They are old and most are older than I am, having been used for at least 2 generations.  Since I treasure them and want to keep them as long as possible, I decided that I need to start quilting myself. This is to carry on the family tradition but also to fill a need to have gothic and witchy quilts fill my house.  Anyway, back to Pinterest, I spent an hour looking at DIY gothic crafts, clothing, some crochet, and coloring pages. I started to doze off, so I decided it was time to move on. 

I had a rather bad dream last night. I dreamt had my boobs removed and reconstructed to prevent cancer. Since my Great Aunt died from breast cancer it's a pretty vivid and valid fear I have. I decided a long time ago to disconnect from my boobs in the event that I turn up with breast cancer and need to have them removed. But the truly upsetting part of my dream was me looking at Grad schools. I went into talk to an adviser about possible schools. Well, I was told that I had to take 20 more credit hours and all at the 200 (sophomore) level to not only graduate with my BA, but also to have any hope of getting into grad school. Okay, this has to be because my history class, the last class I have before I graduate, it a 200 level class and there is a ton of work already. Secondly, I am not happy that I am already starting to have bad dreams and panic attacks within the dreams about Grad school.  I'm not sure what to make of it just yet. I am kind of afraid to think about it. 

Lastly, I am pushing my homework off until this evening. Amanda rented two movies that I need to see before 9 pm tonight. One is Victor Frankenstein with Daniel Radcliffe and the other is Krampus. And given that all I want to do is take a nap, I figure if I watch the movies, take a short nap, and wake up in time to cook dinner before Amanda gets home, I will be doing good. Then I can devote my evening to the bit of homework I'm allocating for myself.   

Adventure Monday and cute things

Wood Splitter Lee

There is a this girl on deviant art who makes these beautiful and amazing, poseable animals and fantasy creatures. The colorful kitty above is just one of many of her wonderful creations. I would love to be able to make something like this but I don't know that I would have the patience to sit for hours and sculpt or mess with the fur. While I will probably own one of her creations one day, that time is not now. So in the mean time, I will simply enjoy her work via pictures and share her page so more people can see her stuff. 

We had a lunch date with Rachael today. She picked me up, we headed downtown to grab some food, and then we took it to Amanda. There are only two draw backs to having lunch with Amanda at her job- well aside from parking being a pain in the ass. They are the sun and bugs. We sit on the 7th floor terrace. There is a nice view and we like to visit the gargoyles. But the sun beating down on me and burning me sucks and sometimes bugs fly around our food. Yuck. I am not one with the bugs. Otherwise having lunch at Amanda's work is pretty fun. 

After having lunch with Amanda Rachael asked me if I wanted to check out a farmer's market place she was thinking about setting up at. Since I only had homework, I figured why not, besides I like road trips. So we went to Medical Lake and then we decided to check out a spot in Cheney, before taking a slightly longer way home. We ended up in a place called Plaza, which is very small, before we got back on the road we needed to be on. But once back in town, we stopped at Grocery Outlet. I only needed to get bobby pins (all of mine disappeared and I am blaming Narcisa because she likes to steal my hair stuff), but ended up walking out with some sparkling water, a little chocolate, some sparkling fruit lemonade, lavender dish soap, and a bag of pizza rolls. Now I really love pizza rolls and try not to get them very often because of how much I love them. Since we don't have a microwave and have been doing very well without one for 6 months, it has actually helped us not buy a lot of crap food, stuff like pizza rolls. But I broke today, because damn it, sometimes I just want pizza rolls. I will have to bake them in the oven, which doesn't bother me, it just takes a little longer. 

After that we had dinner at a friends and came home. I got on to my college's website to see what I needed to do this week since today began the new term. I don't know what the hell is with the 200 level classes but they just seem to have a shit ton of work. I have an annotated bibliography to write, a paper, and two discussion board posts to write as well as all the reading to do. Damn it!  

The good news is that I got my copy of Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury in the mail today. I will start reading it as soon as I finish reading the book I am reading right now. In the mean time, it is time for bed.   

Messes, productivity, and nap time?

Narcisa is turning into a chair thief and a camera tease. 

You know those moments where you're doing some organization- or trying to- and it seems like you just made a bigger mess than the one you had? Yeah, I had that moment yesterday. I decided it was time to get the Monster High Dolls out and put them up for display an learned that I am missing one. I also got all the blind bag My Little Ponies out and put them up. Because I felt so industrious, I decided to try to organize my books. That was stupid! I think I made the office/library messier than it was, I realized that I am missing some series books, and that those books are probably on the shelves I can't get to because we still have a couple of boxes to go through. I then tried to clean off and organize my desk but quickly gave up when I realized that I was just slipping some things into the desk drawer instead of actually dealing with them. Granted, I don't really have anywhere else to put them, but still! 

Here are a few pictures of what I did get accomplished.

Some of my books.I used to have a ton of Dragon Lance novels, but I downsized several years ago and go rid of the ones I didn't think I was going to read. 

Some MLP and Monster High

More MLP and some Monster High

My Grandma just sent me these shelves and this is what I used them for.

Monster High. I am missing my Jinafire Long doll. We also have a lot of Abby because a friend of ours loved her and then she ended up giving us her dolls. 

I picked up and vacuumed the living room yesterday. The maintenance men finally came to replace my bathroom fan. It sounds weird but at least it isn't the rattle that threatened to fly out and eat me. I have the kitchen and cleaning the bathroom left to do today. I will get to that in a little bit. I've been going since 4:30 am. I had to take Amanda to work and then go to the store, which reminds me that I need to go get the groceries out of the car. I left them in the trunk so I could come in and eat breakfast. 

So aside from some cleaning and taking a shower later, I have a lot of food prep to do. I'll have to lean up the kitchen first, of course, then start cutting veggies, fruit, and meat to freeze. That always takes awhile but I figure I will listen to some music and just zone out for awhile. 

I was thinking about taking a nap, but I don't know if I will have time. Maybe, but I need to get the groceries inside first. It might only be 50 degrees F right now, but I still need to get the milk, butter, coffee creamer, and cheese into the fridge.

Lastly, the morning that it rained, I'd forgotten to take my allergy meds and opened the windows to hear the thunderstorms during the day. I did not go outside but company that mows the apartment complex lawns was out and about doing just that. So this is what happens to me, you can't see a lot, but I broke out in hives. It sucks!

What to do next and moments where I still feel like a kid

© Hannah Richardson- Yes, I sometimes do photo shoots with dolls.

The last term, the last eight weeks, of my undergrad college experience begins Monday. When that is up, I will graduate with my BA in English-Creative Writing with a focus in Fiction. I should be ecstatic and I suppose in a lot of ways I am excited, but... I can't help feeling that its really not a big deal. It's just a piece of paper that may or may not open up more job opportunities.  

I think I don't know what to think. On one hand, yes, I am excited to not have homework for awhile. I'm planning to take some time off from because I had some burnout, but also because (assuming I ever get the supposed referral to the specialist gyn) I am hoping to have a hysterectomy and will need time to recuperate and heal. I am excited to have some time to focus on craft projects as well as doing some writing- more than just the here and there bouts I've been subsisting on when I wasn't too afraid to write. Yes, I've had a lot of moments where I've been scared to write and it sucks ass like a Kappa. 

Or maybe I don't feel like it is a big deal because I am not walking or attending the school graduation. I don't know, I just don't see it as that big of a deal. Amanda says it is. She says it is a big milestone. Geeze, I don't know if this is depression and self abasement talking, which are things I struggle with all the time. Or if my worry over finding a grad school that will accept me and is a good fit is clouding all the "you should be dancing in the street" mentality everyone else has. 

On the topic of grad school, I've been looking at some options online. I want to go one that has a good program. However, I want one that is relatively close, meaning that I don't want to spend hours on a plane, flying across the country. Airports stress me out, I hate having to run because invariably my gates are too far apart. I don't particularly like flying and pretty much only do it when I am going home to visit family. 

There are a couple of programs on this side of the country that look kind of promising. I don't really want to do the ones that are at Christian colleges. There is a program up in Anchorage Alaska that could be interesting. Then there is the program at Eastern Washington, a college that is 30 mins away and if my car still isn't working, I could take a bus to. But to get into that program not only do you have to go through the usual, submit writing samples and long ass letter talking about how great you are and blah blah blah, and coming up with references, you have to take the GRE exam. I really suck at test taking. Test anxiety is a constant companion, I used to nearly have panic attacks filling out those stupid tests you take for employment applications. On top of that, I'm not great at math and it has been ages since I have had science classes. 

So, while I was upset, frustrated, and almost weepy, I called my Dad because I wanted his advice. Dad's reply to my mopey disheartened tale of the situation was: "Maybe you should stop worrying about going to school to prepare to write and actually sit down and write." I could hear my Mom in the back ground telling him "No, you're not helping."  She was right, he wasn't helping. I felt like a kid. But at the same time he was right. Except that Amanda talks about how she grew and changed as a writer from grad school, that it really helps, and that she doesn't think she could have ever been published prior to going.  Besides, if I do go to grad school, I could possibly get a job adjunct teaching. 

I've spent so much time trying to do what everyone else thought would be good for me, that I didn't do what I really wanted. So what do I want? 

I want to go to grad school. I want it to be either completely online or low residency and fairly close. As in not too far for travel. I want it to be a good program- as in I don't want to just settle because the program is close by. And I want to do it without feeling guilty or unworthy for a change. (my depression monster is a harsh beast) 

On a happier note, we have some flowers blooming and some tomatoes begging to form out in our garden. Half of our herbs didn't take off but the half that did, look really good.   

Mid Morning Thunderstorm, Rearranging my To Do List, Tent Room

I would really like a tent room like this, in greens, purples, and blues, only in my living room. I would like it to be easily put up and dismantled, and having it today would be wonderful. The thought  of laying stretched out on the blanket on the floor with pillows, Naricsa, and just waiting anime or movies, with a fan blowing air across my skin is heavenly. 

Unfortunately I lack the motivation to make it happen or rather, my stupid period started up again, and not only is that the reason I had such a hard time waking up this morning, but its why I am so lethargic today. I mean, I'm not even having a fibromyaligia issue today. Sigh. 

I didn't end up getting my notes typed up and printed yesterday like I wanted. I also didn't research bucket list stuff. There are things I want to do, but I want to have all the details listed so I can just grab it up and go when I am ready. So, yeah. I was planning to do that stuff today as well as re-shelve my books properly in the office/ library. Amanda just put books up in effort to get them out of boxes and on to the shelves. We just haven't gotten to the point of fixing the disorganization yet. But, I may not do any of that today and save it for tomorrow. 

I don't really feel up to doing much today. I don't want company. I don't want to go anywhere. I just want to watch some things, cuddle with Narcisa, and maybe work on Shi-Chan's afghan. I worked on it a little bit yesterday and since I would like to have it done in time to mail it for her birthday, I kind of need to get on it. 

Oh, we had thunderstorm this morning, which was GREAT! Being from Kansas, I grew up with a lot of thunderstorms and severe weather. While I didn't care for the severe part such as tornadoes and damaging aspects, I did love thunder and seeing the flash of lightning, and hearing heavy rain. I don't get it as much where I live now, so having it this morning was a treat! It looks like it might be gearing up to rain again!   

Well, my lunch is cooking so I should go tend to it.  I can't decide if I a going to make a tiny batch of biscuits and gravy or make what my family calls German Breakfast. I want both. German Breakfast is healthier. At least this version is, it has veggies in it and is sans potatoes.

Upcycling? DIY ahh hell, I was industrious yesterday.

It began with me wanting to make curtains for that window in the background. I loathe our vertical blinds. They are cheap, they are obnoxious, and we keep losing slats because they are cheap pieces of shit. Seriously, they really are. We can't even open the ones in our bedroom because Narcisa played int the window and some how messed the up. But I digress. The point is, I wanted curtains to go with a pretty kitchen theme. 

I went to Joann's Fabric's and Crafts but nothing screamed "kitchen" to me, at least not anything that I wanted. So I decided to make my own. I bought some minty-ish colored fabric and found some die cut wood pieces at Michael's. A little acrylic paint and ta da! Stamps! Amanda was supposed to put up the curtain rod for me last night when the paint dried, but she was tired and dinner was more important for the both of us. 

Here are the wood pieces, which I will hang on the wall. Ignore my counter top, it is horrible. 

 I found a couple of things at the Dollar Tree that went along with my kitchen. No, not all the patterns or colors match up completely, but I don't mind. 

I love these pot holders

Awhile ago, I was looking at wall decals but decided against them because our walls have a really crappy texture thing going on (probably designed to hide when they have to repair or fill in nail holes and such). However, I found this sort of sticker/decal back splash and it couldn't leap into my cart fast enough. We are, of course, having a little trouble with it. The wall is very textured and it was cheap, so we have to keep smoothing it down, but hey, it's keeping water and stuff off the wall, which is great, because when I wash dishes, I tend to splash! 

On to the upcycle  thing, if you can call it that. I had an older pair of black curtains from our last home. I'd had to take them down because they were too narrow to fit our bedroom window. They made it into the fabric tub and Amanda found them the other day. Since I hated how naked our mantle looked, I decided to make a mantle cloth. So, I took apart the black curtains, put in new hems as needed, and used one panel for the mantle and the other for my entertainment center below. 

Yes, there is something on my TV, it is covering up my fuzzy reflection. I took the photo while I was in my night gown, lol. I never managed to get dressed yesterday. I got too wrapped up in what I was doing and by the time I realized that I hadn't, it was after 4 pm and I just figured there was no use getting dressed just to cook dinner and then go to bed in a few hours. 

The plan for today is...

to take those strawberries and rhubarb and make Pink Lady Pie. Technically the pie doesn't call for strawberries, rather strawberry jello, but I am putting them in anyway. I am also making a bit of comfort food for dinner: steak, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. It's sort of healthy. Not like last night's dinner of ground turkey burger, zucchini patties, and corn on cob, but it is so good! 

Back to the plan for today, I am going to watch a few episodes of Penny Dreadful, read a little and maybe finish a book, write up some story notes, and print them out for index cards for my story board. I also want to start brainstorming my new manifestation board. I think it is time for new one. 

Lastly, I am going to research some possible things for a summer/ fall bucket list. This is an idea Rachael heard about on the radio the other day and pitched it to us. We're basically making bucket lists of stuff to do this summer and fall to get us out and moving and all that. Amanda and I were kind of talking about it last night and I wrote some notes down. One of the things on my personal list is to go to the Observatory I saw listed on the Washington Parks page. I'm not one of those people who move to a place and then never go anywhere, I like to go to museums, parks, landmarks, and just generally explore. And some of the most fun can be had on road trips with music and friends. 

This fish is disgusted, her Majesty is happy, house cleaning and the damn dill

Aveline by myworld1

Let's get the nitty gritty out of the way first. My period finally, finally stopped. I can't really celebrate because my body is a bitch and likes to play that "I'll give you 2 or 3 days every few months" game then slam you extra hard to make up for it. But, I did take advantage of this small reprieve and actually went swimming last night with Amanda, Aine, and Rachael. (Some of you may be asking why I don't just use tampons- I do, but mostly there are 3 very good reasons why I don't.) 

Anyway, so I left my glasses at home and I can't decide if that was a good thing or not. When we got to the pool- it is an indoor pool- it smelled weird. At first, I thought maybe it was because someone was smoking outside and one of the windows was open. Then I thought there was a strange kind of paint smell but that wasn't really it either. We decided that it was like an algae smell. I think the paintish smell I was getting was from the chlorine. The hot tub smelled worse, so we went back to the pool and that's when we noticed the hair. There was a big floating clump and when I got out and looked back into the pool, I noticed there was not one but two. *shudder* I know it is just hair, but bleh! Needless to say we rinsed off and came home. Amanda is so sad because she knows how squiked out I get and this was the first time I have been able to really go swimming in months and that was the condition of our pool and hot tub. We pay for that in our rent. Lovely. I think when the office opens, I am going to get dressed and head down there to talk with the manager because that was disgusting and this fish isn't happy.

Her Majesty, Narcisa A. Frog, is a very happy kitty. Her Mommies cleaned a majority of the house this weekend, moved some furniture to vacuum, and found all the toys she'd lost. Of course all those that were found are already hidden and or lost under furniture again, but whatever. We also moved her bed to sit in front of the patio window. I told Amanda that I think Chris doesn't think we spoil her enough because Chris bought her a bag of treats despite the fact that I have two bags in the pantry and some wet food. Amanda was inclined to agree. 

We painted the baker's rack Birdy gave us black to go with everything else in the living room. We also reorganized where we put the craft stuff on it. Everything is easily accessible to me now, Yay! I am tearing apart an old set of black curtains to make a cover for our mantle, a runner for the entertainment center, and two side table runners. I am also going to finally make the damn dining room curtains I've been talking about. I just have to work up the energy and motivation to do it today. Maybe after I take a nap, I got up with Amanda this morning because she made coffee and breakfast and because I wanted to spend some time with her before she went to work.

We have discovered that dill is whimpy, which is strange because for all the years we grew it when I was a kid, I don't remember it ever being so. Then again, I may not have paid too much attention to it in favor of growing my flowers and tending to the various beans, tomato, and other various vegetable plants we had. Anyway, our dill plan can't seem to handle the sun beating down on it. I feel bad for it, I wouldn't be able to withstand the dreaded day star all day long either. So, since it is going to be 97 degrees F, today, I am going to keep an eye on our little garden and keep our stuff watered. I need to be careful though, I don't want to accidentally steam them.  Oh and I need to do some research into what the hell is eating the pumpkin leaves and the sage. I can spray the pumpkin leaves with peppermint oil water but not the sage. So, I need to figure out what I can use on the sage that isn't a pesticide and won't alter the flavor of the sage later on.