Shit heads, kicked out of bed, and good news, finally!

First I'd like to point out that my darling fiance is a bitch. She's happily, loudly, snoring the night away, cozy, and smack dab in the middle of our bed. She got testy with me when I asked her to turn over. Then the next thing I know she's facing me again and gradually pushing me out of the bed. Fine, I'll just go sit on the sofa,, which is where I am. I've only been here since about 3:30 am, wide awake, peckish, and thinking about turning to coffee pot on- since I apparently don't get to sleep. 

Second, the apartment twats strike again. The renovation noise was pretty bad yesterday but I only have to put up with it in the afternoon. They turned off the stair well lights so our entry way is dark, okay no big deal, I guess. But what kind of pissed me off yesterday was the note on my door about cigarette butts littering the stair well that they say clean up or get a 25 dollar fine. The letter was addressed to everyone but only my door received it. 1. Not all of those are mine. 2. I am getting to it but I'm kind of in the middle of moving, because you are kicking me out. 3. Go fuck yourself. They just want more money. They also know that we are pretty tidy with the outdoor stuff, our patio is damned cute. Also, all those cigarette butts at the entrance to our stairwell was from me sweeping them up from the parking lot in the first place. I just got distracted and forgot to grab a bag to put them in for the trash. I've kind of been uber stressed out the last several months, I'm not always on top of everything. The really vindictive side of me wants to sweep up our entire section's parking lot, wait until we move out a couple of weeks and then slip in sometime in November to dump them all on the office door step. However, I won't  because it's not management who will have to clean it up, it the maintenance guys.

There is good news. My friend Rachel bleached and dyed my hair last night. I was going for a darker blue ombre look. The sapphire blue didn't really come out as dark as it was supposed to and I need to do a little touch up for missed spots, I just decided that I am going to take what is left of the sky blue and do an all over application today. I'll catch the missed spots and even out what sort of took and what didn't. I also think that for this ombre effect to really work, with the blue that is, I need get my blues farther apart in color. As in do really dark, a medium, and a really light. I think I got them too close together. No big, it was a learning experience. I'm just happy to have all blue hair again. 

The best piece of good news, and one that makes me feel a large sense of relief, is that we were pre-approved for a home loan yesterday. Our lender is such a nice guy and he is going to send me a list of realtors that his company works with. After talking with some friends who have been through the home buying process, that seems to work the best because both entities know each other's process and can help us fast track when we find a home we like.  

The hair thing happened, so did the tummy plague, and I made a thing.

Here it is, my hair. My phone camera is terrible and seriously dulled the colors.

This shot is a little better. I will be taking one outside, in natural light as soon as I feel up to it. 

At the moment I have a tummy plague. I don't know if it is a stomach flu or bug or just a terrible manifestation of all the running, go go go, and stress and this is my body's way of saying "You dumb bitch, you can't do all of this shit anymore, slow the hell down" or what, but it sucks! Amanda is sick too.

I made a thing for a friend's birthday today. I painted a feather and I am sure it could have looked much better had I actually been able to find my paint brushes, but for what it is, all the finger dabbing, Q-tip dabbing, and cuticle pusher (yes you read that right) dabbing, I got it done. I even finished it off with sharpie to add some more details and a clear glitter to help give the galaxy effect. I also made her a bracelet. Amanda made her cookies. However, if we aren't feeling better she might not get it until after her birthday. Which makes me sad. 

Its a fat owl. 

Oh and Narcisa had to have one of the turkey feathers I bought for this project. 

Hair, Halloween, shopping with friends and oh look, I got another Raccoon

BAM! There it is. I chopped a good 6 or 7 inches off my hair, and got it layered. Then I bleached it again and did three colors in big chunks. I chose Sky Blue, Aqua, and Fuchsia from Ion. I love the colors. The hair is a bit short but when its curled, its really cute. 

We had Halloween at our friend's house. They threw a Halloween/ Welcome to Spokane party. We ate junk food. I mean that's what it is. Pizza, chips, soda, candy. Okay, I had olives and grapes and carrots too, but most it was junk food and I loved every minute of it. I also got to talk to some people I hardly get the chance to talk to. Our hostess friend dyed Amanda's hair with Henna so now it's a really pretty copper-red. 

I didn't really have a lot of time to figure out what I was going to be for Halloween. So I pulled something out of my ass a few days before and decided that I was going to be a Galactic Cat. Yes, I made that up. I basically put on a nice black dress, found some really big cat ears and  did my make up like this...

I think it turned out pretty well and no, my camera isn't doing the colors justice. 

Today, November 1st, I picked up Amanda from work, picked up some friends, and we went shopping. First up was the Goodwill Outlet. Its basically a store where everything that can't get sold from the Goodwill stores is shipped and and put in bins. People go through it and can buy some things by the pound and some things super cheap. I found a couple of books, a Wok, and Amanda found a build a bear dog stuffed animal that was in amazing condition, and a panda wallet. What we learned is that the place is far too busy for us, that it is a place that's more suited for people who have ebay stores to get things to build their lots to sell, and that one of our friends who has that kind of business, is far more patient and able to deal with that than we are. I got overwhelmed pretty quickly. 

Second up on our little shopping trip was to find some place to eat lunch. We went to a hamburger joint called Zips. They had battered-deep fried mushrooms. OMG! I haven't had those in so long! There is a reason too, I would eat them every day if I could. Anyway, we spent some time talking, which was really great. 

After that, we went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore in the mall. Of course I found a ton of books that I wanted to read but what I left with was this little one...

Its a stuffed animal raccoon and it called to me. Did I need it? No. Should I have gotten it? Probably not, but it called to me. I have decided if its a boy or girl or really what the name is but when I looked at it, I thought "Matcha", like matcha green tea. Not sure why, but I don't care. It is cute, it is soft, and you'd better believe that I am cuddling it in bed tonight, which for me is in just a few minutes. My Mom would be so annoyed. Oh, speaking of raccoons and my Mom. I grabbed the ones of my collection that got left down in Kansas when we moved. I also snagged the Smokey the Bear that my Aunt Joan gave me when I was little and a couple of cat stuffed animals. Which, of course, forced me to check a bag. My Mom was pleased that I was taking home some things and loaded me up with some jewelry and semi-precious gem stones. She hasn't been able to make jewelry for money and physical reasons and she wanted to share with me since I do make some things from time to time. And no, I don't have cause for concern, my Mom often gives jewelry away, she's done that all my life. 

Anyway, I'm off to bed you've been caught up on things going on for me lately. The good, the bad, and the crazy. Besides, I'm exhausted, in pain, and Amanda's snores sound awful, so I need to get her to move.   

  

  

Finished for this week, time for myself.

This last week has been eventful. Last post I said Amanda's parents went to Seattle. We had one night to ourselves. It is our fault, of course, and I am not complaining because it was a lot of fun, but afterward, I was really pooped. Still am but I will get to that in a bit. 

We had our neighbor over once or twice more. We never did get to go over and have drinks with her, it just didn't work out. My friend Chris came over for a night. We watched movies and talked, I made Cavatini for her. Fiona was here the whole time and we got to do a lot with her. Unfortunately she had to suffer through mine and Amanda's homework with us. Fiona also bleached and dyed my hair for me again. She missed some spots in the bleaching and some in the dyeing process, but that's okay. I really like it. I sent a picture to my Dad and his reply was that he isn't a fan but go big or go home and if you're going to do it, this is the way to do it. My Mom loves it. My Grandmother thinks its terrible. Meh, she's 86 and has never wanted me to dye my hair any color- never mind that she used to dye her hair all the time- and she's always wanted me to have short bob haircuts. Yuck! The only thing I didn't appreciate when she and I were discussing my hair was the comparison between me and one of my cousins in Nebraska. I love my cousin, but I hate it when Grandma starts in with how cute she looks and how successful she is. I am happy for her, really I am, and I wish her the best. I just wish Grandma would stop using her as a way to poke at me for not being "normal" or what she wanted. Sorry Grandma, I can't help my physical maladies any more than you can help your age. And quite frankly I may not be perfect, but at least I call you. 

Sigh! Moving on. Amanda and I had the main part of the house clean while her parents were gone and we had it clean when they came home. Cathy came home with a lot of stuff from Aunt Barbra, which was cool but she just sort of dumped it everywhere, like she usually does. It didn't bother me until Amanda was talking about how we had the house clean before they came home, she was in the middle of teasing her mom and Cathy pops off with how the "house wasn't that clean". Excuse me? Ungrateful much? I did as much as I was physically able to do and had to have help with a lot of other things. No, the house will never look like a home, it will never look spotless. Nothing matches, furniture is scuffed and scratch and most of it is second hand. But then again this is just another of those instances where I thin Cathy doesn't like to admit that I might actually do something better than she does. Which is fine. But I am done. I'm not going to lift a finger unless it is in Amanda's and my bathroom and bedroom or pertains to us. I've had it with the ungrateful attitude. 

I've had a lot of trouble lately staying awake. I thought that it was just fatigue from fibromyalgia and fatigue from my ridiculous period. It's playing the stop, start, stop, start game with me these last couple of weeks, which is throwing everything out of whack. Anyway, the day after Amanda's parents arrived home, I slept most of the day and woke up for a couple of hours in the evening. Then I slept all night. I have been really tried and have dozed off and on. Yesterday I fell asleep reading my textbook in the library. I was talking to my friend Chris and she said I should get checked or talk to my doctor about chronic fatigue syndrome. I think I will because this is crazy. It's part of the reason why I didn't go to the Out and About Earth Day celebration over in Spokane yesterday. I would have loved to sit out in the fresh air doing crafts with friends and talking to people about the IEPG. They had a booth set up. But I was a little too worried that I would fall asleep and be too tired to drive home. I also had homework to do. 

Speaking of homework, I managed to finish it this week. Some of it was late but my paper was on time. I could start on next week's homework but I really need a break. I am with my neighbor at her college library for the afternoon. I decided that I needed to get out of the house today and at least I am available if she needs help with something. She's going to school for something different but she's doing some things that I know a little bit about and can help her with. 

Lastly, we had to get new curtains. Narcisa pulled our previous set down too many times and when I was trying to put a blanket up to cover the spot that our curtains didn't quite cover, they came down. So we bought two sets of the white ones in the picture below and a new curtain rod. So far so good. However, the pesky little shit of a cat found a rubber band yesterday and ate it before anyone could grab it. Amanda and her Mom even had a hold of her and tried to get it out of her mouth but she swallowed it. We are keeping an eye on her and we've already threatened to bring her back from the dead and kill her again if she dies. 

Things, stuff, cats, depression, and pretty colors.

My pseudo brother, Lucas, posted this picture for me over on Facebook when I was feeling really down several days ago. I love it and I am going to print, frame, and hang it on my wall in front of my desk, right next to my manifestation board. Seeing this picture helps sometimes, in a weird way. 

A lot has happened since we came home from our trip to Seattle and I had to take Galen in to be put to sleep. I have been hurting, but like usual when death comes to visit, I shut down a little bit to take care of business. I was also really swollen after the trip (my legs and feet swell sometimes) and trying to keep up with school work. But then the weekend hit, Ostara came (last weekend), and I threw myself into helping where ever I could, for as long as I could. That day was truly something strange. I felt off and depressed, I desperately wanted to just sit and observe all the wonderful new people, and be a bit antisocial, but when your High Priestess asks you to mingle and socialize, you do it. I know I whined a tiny bit, but I was happy and a little bit tickled and honored that she asked. It's only right to help make people feel as welcome as I felt when I first joined the IEPG and I had a good time. We did have some upsets that day, someone said something to someone else, and our favorite Crone had to be rushed to the hospital because her husband had been taken there. We were all worried about them, especially since said favorite Crone had fallen the week or so before and broken her ankle. Every time I hear about an elderly person falling, I get a little scared. Maybe it's because I care and maybe because I have 86 year old Grandparents myself. 

This last week has been an off one too. My student loans came in so I ordered my books and got some necessities like shampoo, soap, and a hair brush, you know, the toiletries. I also paid some bills and I have some left over to get art supplies should I need them for my drawing class. My school didn't have them listed yet, only a note stating that additional supplies might be needed. 

On the subject of school, I have been very frustrated lately. My degree is Creative Writing with a focus on fiction but the last four terms have been nothing but crappy, get shit out of the way classes. Every time I think I've got an actual writing class, "oops, sorry, its not what you thought". Next term, I made certain that I have a writing class, it's an advanced fiction writing workshop and because I need a bit of a break, I have a drawing class. I just desperately need to stop feeling like I am wasting my time with filler classes. Did I mention that my program says that I am set to graduate in 2018. Are you kidding me? What about all the credits I had that transferred over? I really should have a nice long conversation with my adviser but truth be told, I don't like talking on the phone to people I don't know, and I don't like the idea that my school is recording it. Yes, I am paranoid I grew up with a Corrections Officer for a parent and he's even more paranoid than I am. But more than that, I don't know if I like my adviser. He's nice enough, just really pushy about wanting to talk on the phone all the time when e-mail correspondences would do me just fine. 

Oh and homework last week. I was plain overwhelmed with my English class and blew it off, which really sucks since I have an A in that class. Amanda said she'd help me but we just never got around to it. She has her own homework to do. She did promise to help me out with mine this evening. It's not that I can't do it or don't understand it, it's that there is so much that I need a little help this week breaking it down and smoothing it out.

Really, I've been fluctuating between neutral and depressed and anxious, with little moments of contentment and happiness few and far between. Its due to a lot of different things. We are still living with Amanda's parents and will be for awhile. I get that, there's not much I can do about it. However, I do get frustrated when I spend all day in the bedroom working on homework and want to come out in the evenings to eat dinner and maybe watch a little something or even read or do a craft and I can't. Either her father has control of the TV and thus the volume or her mother does and her mother wants to yack at me all the time. I really do like these people, I even love them, but there are times I really wish they would just go on a freaking date! There have been some other things going on in the house and some more awful developments within Amanda's family. There have been some in mine too. But there have been some good things too. 

For my family, I can't talk about anything Pagan or even relationship related with my Grandma. She's a dyed in the wool Christian and I think it would break her heart if I verbally admitted to being in a relationship with Amanda. I know she suspects, she's not stupid, but its something we just don't talk about. If I told her I was a Witch, she'd probably have a heart attack or die of a broken heart on the spot. Another reason I don't talk about too much with my Grandma anymore is because of Grandpa. He has Alzheimer's and its getting a lot worse. She has so much on her plate with that that I feel it's better to set my problems aside and let her vent as much as she needs and wants to. 

As for my parents, well my Dad found a job at Wal-mart as a security guard. He's been really depressed lately and doesn't want to talk on the phone or talk very much at all. Of course it would help if he had his meds. My Mom has been trying to quit smoking and her twin, my evil aunt, hasn't been helping. In fact, my aunt is making everyone's life around those parts, miserable. So my Mom is angry frustrated, and depressed and is basically telling me that she's being selfish in saying that she wishes I would just move home.  But how can I move home? I don't want to deal with all that crap from my Aunt like she has too. The state is on the verge of bankruptcy, or so I have read, and now they want to pass that stupid religious freedom law that might make it impossible for Amanda and I to live anywhere (if what I have read about that to be true, actually is). Furthermore, Kansas opted out of Obamacare so how will that help me? Going back to Kansas, just won't work for us. And of course, no one will move up here, or even try to come and visit which is really hurtful and upsetting. Especially, when I've offered to pay for it. Actually, you know what, that's another blog post for another time. This one is getting long and I at least want to end on a happy note. 

My hair shortly after it was first dyed

I have said fuck it. Don't get me wrong, I love having black hair, it feels right, and I think it looks nice. But I don't like having flat color all the time. So I bleached my hair and dyed it blue and purple. Of course after dying your hair permanently black for several years, not all the black will lift. And most of the purple very quickly because I apparently didn't leave it on long enough. But it was a  lot of fun and I am going to do it again. My Mom is worried that I am going to fry my hair. I keep telling her that I am okay, that I am taking care of it. I really want to have mermaid hair next and I am going to go for it. So look for those pictures. Also, look for a coming post about our adventures to Seattle and all the fun pictures I took while there.      

Let's play catch up: A little behind and a little caught up.

Art by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

For one, this is me giving myself a few more minutes on the heating pad before I hit the shower. Last night, I don't know what I did but one of the times I got up from my desk I almost couldn't walk. I'm very sick of this herniated disk business. I'm also very sick of fibromyaglia and whatever is going on with my internal female bits. A friend suggested I look into PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and speak with a doctor, well a more specialized doctor. But these are just normal, everyday ailments and complaints about them and I am done, for this post.

Love Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's art work! We just recently and finally bought her Shadowscapes Tarot cards. I am in love with them! The art is simply lovely!

A lot has happened since I last posted. I dyed my hair black again and had a friend put blue streaks in it. That was an adventure in itself. I like it but now that my skin is less smurf- like (rinsed my hair out in the shower having forgotten that manic panic stains like a snarky bitch) some of the blue has faded. It's kind of a dusty teal color in places. If I decide to do this again, I think I will get a better quality bleach and go with Special Effects hair dye. I didn't seem to have as many problems with it when I did the tips of my hair red.

Skoora's parents decided that we needed to switch bedrooms. Part of me wonders "Why now? After all of this time and now that we are working on moving out?" The other part of me isn't going to fuss because now we have so much more room and can actually move. Did I mention that the door has a lock on it? More privacy! We also have an actual closet and because we have it, our clothing is not in the bath tub. We had to hang our clothes up in bath tub area of our old bathroom because we just didn't have closet space in our old room. So now we have two fully functional bathrooms, Skoora's parents have their own shower as do we.

My 30th birthday came and went. No, I'm not upset or ashamed to admit my age. I'm actually quite comfortable with it. I don't really see myself as an "older person". I don't view aging as a bad thing, it doesn't bother me. Besides, I've heard tale that 30 is the new 20. Did I mention that Skoora and her Mom threw me a surprise party? It was really nice!

I'm going back to school online much to annoyance of my parents. All my life both of them, including my Grandparents, harped on me the necessity of having a college degree. I remember telling my Dad as I was getting ready to graduate high school that I didn't want to go to college because I didn't want to be in debt but he made me go anyway. Now, now he and my Mom don't want me to go because I will be in even more debt than I am now. Well, so what. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't care, I do and very much so, but I still don't have my degree (my fault since I've tried to be and study things everyone else wanted and not entirely what I wanted and there were some life things that happened that made me quit going). So I am going back for the degree I want and since I have physical problems that caused me to quit last time I went to school, I'm doing it online. I've decided that I'm just going to do this whether or not my parents like it. It is my life after all and I have to deal with all outcomes positive or negative and I can't keep living it the way everyone else wants. I've felt tugged in so many different directions for so long, it's time to do some things for myself.

I've fallen a little behind with a lot of things since I had a friend visiting for my birthday and shortly after she left, we changed bedrooms. Our bedroom is almost 100% put back together. We have a tiny bit left to move back in (just a few boxes and bags of stuff). I'm behind on blog writing but I've managed to be on top of getting everything into the new college that they needed (for the moment). I know how much it's going to cost to get the cavities in my teeth filled. I have an eye exam today in which I will probably be ordering a new pair of glasses (it will be so nice to not have to squint to see stuff far away) and sun glasses. I was thinking about just getting contacts but I think they will cost more in the long run, especially since I have to have to torric lenses. I like the sun, but I have a love-hate relationship with it. It hurts my eyes and burns my skin within 15 minutes of being out in it. Sometimes I even break out in hives where I've burned. Not fun.

Other things have happened but they are for other posts and I need to get into the shower and dressed in a few minutes since Skoora's Mom just took her shower. Have to wait for the hot water.