Nerves

The title says it all. Sigh.

Monday: Last minute errands before my trip. I'm talking more and more with my brother and friends as we try to cement initial plans. It seems that the weekends are booked solid while the weekdays are wide open to spontaneity and relaxing. If that's ever a thing when I'm there, lol.

Tuesday: I have been rearranging my garden after chatting with a few people online about their gardens. In a video game stream, what a venue. :P

I've gathered the miscellaneous bits and bobs that I plan to bring with me. Those are always the bulk and what gets packed first. My silly priorities.

I'm busy panicking mostly despite not having too much left to do. I got some news today of events that may transpire while I'm away and my heart just dropped into my stomach. I guess it's for good reason that I'm the last to know because of being the raging worrywart, but this was so disheartening that I'm genuinely scared to leave now.

The trip will go as planned, I'll just have to pray really hard that life here will be uneventful and not as crazy as it has gotten every single other time in the past. Okay, I lied earlier. My heart's either been dropped down into my stomach or it's been in my throat.

What will I come home to in three weeks? :(

Wednesday: Gonna finished up packing, but it's all here. I just have to make it look nice and be able to cushion my makeup. I'm dreading the early hours tomorrow and in subsequent days.

For reals, I've not been able to fall asleep until about 6am on average but 2am at the earlier. I'm going to need all of the caffeine tomorrow but it might be nice to pass out on the plane to calm my nerves.

Here's the last garden vlog for a while! I have pictures but those will be saved for the comparison shots when I return. Lol, the epic plant post is pretty much becoming an annual thing!

Flip Flop

I'm rubbing my temples and sinus area as one does when they are exasperated. It's all about how little I've done lately. Worse than before. Not sure what has gotten into me. Maybe I'm procrastinating with cleaning and packing because travel makes me nervous. Wouldn't be the first time.

Photo-a-day project has been a total flop already. The specific assignments have started to shove in my face how stagnant my life has become. On the other hand, I am taking more photos again and with how much scrapbooking I've done this year, I am being more mindful of the purpose and composition. The plan now is to get all of the ideas taken by the end of the month.

Thursday: FMIL and I went to visit a co-worker and her adorable kids. We ended up spending the whole day there. I worked a bit on a scrapbook about the little ones, we picked up and started assembling a grill that she had gotten for her husband as a surprise Father's Day gift, and played video games with her god son. Way too much fun!

Friday: Watering the garden every other day with these high temps now and discovered this little gem:

I think we have the beginnings of melons! The first batch of flowers did not have that bulbous growth, lol. Talking to my baby brother a lot lately and we started planning out a visiting-activity schedule for when I arrive. The weekends are intense but I cannot wait to see him.

Saturday: Finally starting to put stuff away and set aside things that I know I want to bring with me. It doesn't help that I've started playing way too many games again on FB and have started up a new online game with the SO called Scrolls. It's a deck-building game from the same people who made Minecraft. We wanted a fun way to stay connected while I'm away.

We also had out first monsoon storm of the season that even started today! Unexpected but relieving.

Sunday: Got more cleaning, clearing, and planning done today. Kitty has been a silly mood lately, the heat and my irregular activities has set him off. I have to keep him occupied so I don't accidentally step on him as I'm whirling around while he's bolting in and out of the room.

Cue the catnip-scented giraffe mouse and some tissue wrapping paper. At least he spazzes out on the bed where I can see him before zonking out.

 

"Mine. All mine."

Wrap Up Begins

This week has been sub-par so far. My sleeping hours are screwed up beyond reason and my mind's checked out for a few days now. It's gotten ridiculous.

Monday: Photo-a-Day project is all jacked up now. There was supposed to be a picture of me but I was an absolute wreck and not feeling well. I'm sure I could have gotten creative the day of, but I think I want to use a picture I took a few weeks ago instead.

While I cringe at not fulfilling the assignment "properly", it was to help motivate myself into taking pictures again, right? That part has been successful.

I have done nothing of note, it was a pretty pitiful day.

Tuesday: I was determined to get something done today- anything. That would give me more points than I earned yesterday in a game that no one is playing/ counting. Except me. Sometimes. Does anyone else do that?

The normal chores of cleaning up the massive mess I've made on the table, laundry, other errands and chores. I'm trying to force myself into a routine again, especially in the mornings because my auto-pilot functions better than the normal guy. Trying to eat better too. Way too much junk in the past two months. Well, year really. More about that next.

Wednesday: Sheets are washed. Hooray! What a good way to reward myself for getting off of my butt and computer to do stuff. Making more plans for the first weekend of my trip to Florida. It's about a week away now and I'm starting to get anxious. Change of subject- quick!

Needed desperately to switch the hot-cold weather wardrobe since I use about 1.5 foot wide of space in a closet and three narrow drawers to hold all of my current clothes. I can fit so much more in the summer months when the temperatures make me feel like I'm melting.

In doing so, the SO and I rearranged furniture and I cleared a piece of luggage that I typically store clothes in but also often travel with. The rest will go in a bag and back into the garage until I return.

Still in the midst of purging and using up my stuff, so there's a lot of things that are not put away (aka strewn everywhere). Hesitating to just shove it away somewhere because I'm afraid of more "out of sight-out of mind" shenanigans happening. I either have to move+think fast or deal with that fear because either way, it all needs to be not around while I'm gone. As per tradition.

Okay, enough of that! Here's an update from the garden:

Burnt Out

It's hot, there are bugs everywhere, and kitty and I are not having it.

Thursday: I wrote briefly about it during my last post and not much more happened after that. I hung out/ chatted with a few friends and passed out in bed early again. Maybe it's the heat.

Oh! I did find a free pattern to crochet this mug cozy. Super cute, quick, and handy. No pun intended. :P

Friday: FMIL, two of our friends, and I went to visit a former student in the children's hospital a week after the poor thing had major surgery. That's another downside to working in special education, they seem to run a higher risk of having these scary things happening to them.

Fortunately, we were all pleasantly surprised to see the patient up and walking around and drinking for the first time in about a week of being in the ICU. Almost home!

Did some business downtown, helped beta test a chat moderating bot, worked briefly in the garden, and kept playing with polymer clay.

 Holy sprouts, Batman! Right?

Saturday: Laid-back day with the SO. A lot of the same stuff.

Seriously? What am I supposed to do with you guys?

 Monk characters from Diablo 3 game. I burnt the male and am not satisfied with the female at all.

 The SO found this juvenile wolf spider on the back patio. Wicked looking pattern!

Sunday: Started to clean up the aftermath/ supplies of all the "brilliant" ideas that I've had pop into my head for the past two months. The table that I've commandeered is a huge mess and I need to start getting things rearranged and ready for when I leave for Florida in a few weeks. By a few I mean about one and a half weeks. Bah!

Woke up late, worked a little bit more on the scoodie, spilled a mug of soda on my lap, watched Tabletop with Wil Wheaton on Youtube, and have this garden vlog. :D

Early To Bed

I've cut back on my caffeine or when I have it so while I have been enthusiastic about staying up late, the reality has been falling asleep watching shows in an office chair. It's been a few times that I've laid down and joked around about just resting and instead waking up five hours later still in my regular clothes. Yup. Getting older, lol.

That's why this post is a day late. Kitty has taken to waking me up so I can turn on the cooler. That clever little boy. :P

Monday: This day was a blur. I've been working diligently on Project Life 2011, staying up to date with all of the vlogs I watch, and working on a fox scoodie. I'm working on doing a Photo a Day challenge from Fat Mum Slim for June 2013.

It was kind of hard for me to find a list even though I see a bunch of people participating it in the scrapbooking blogs that I follow. Kind of bizarre. Maybe it's because it's seems to mostly be a Flickr group activity-community.

I'm being very lenient on myself on when the photos are taken. I try to do my best to take at least one photo a day and it has already been helping my motivation to keep documenting everyday life again since it has become suffocatingly stagnant. It helps me remember that, "It'll be okay. There's still time to fix everything and make life better."

Here are some that I've taken so far. I won't be sharing the challenge here because Picasa's been a jerk with Google integrating it into its network completely and it would go against my personal policy of not having people's faces on my blog.

 "1. B is for Bandit". I laid out an outfit to go out, left the room to eat breakfast, and came back to this little boy refusing to let me have my clothes back. He had even made a little nest out of it which is all stuff he has not done before. Silly boy.

I was debating using this for "2. A moment" because the SO and I had banded together to make this ramen. We rinsed off the original waxy water, tweaked the broth to our own taste, I tried a new way to make hard boiled eggs (I never liked them growing up so was super rusty), and we used up some leftover shredded pork. It was just a nice experience in a couple-home sorta way.

Ended up using a sweet picture of the SO and his kitty instead.

Tuesday: I was up pretty darn early for a babysitting job that was canceled 30 minutes later. It was way too hot for me to go back to bed (It reached somewhere between 103-107 degrees. Bluck!) Again, I worked hard on Project Life and I'm almost halfway through 2011.

There was not a whole lot of documentation or pictures but I'm making myself okay with that.  Heard a quote in one of my scrapbooking videos that I've been using for motivation: "What you get done is more than you had before."

While I love gathering the photos and kind of making the notes (maybe that's from my love of lists), I really love having a finished project. "It doesn't have to be perfect." Which is great to remember because I am never satisfied with my creative work so its going to get there anyways.

In other news, since I was up so early and had a few "extra" hours to burn, I was checking on the greenery and found this:

It's hot. We're all wilting.

 You can barely see it, but in the bottom third of the picture towards the middle are the tiniest of green sprouts. These are the seeds that I planted last Thursday.

Wednesday: I had plenty of chats with so many people today. I had conversations with my mother, my brother, and three of my dearest friends. All unplanned and I think that's what made them that much more appreciated and special. Miss them all.

There was a lot of rearranging in my Project Life June 2011 pages and it just reaffirms my choice of going purely digital with my scrapbooking. I so desperately love the embellishments of washi tape, enamel dots, wood veneer, and flair buttons that are so big right now, but that's just way out of price point for me.

I'm not giving up on traditional scrapbooking but it's going to be put way back on the burner for now.

Yes, I could always get digitized versions of these bits and bobs, but I miss the feeling of playing with the actual goodies. Plus, my biggest weakness is embellishing to make my pages feel complete. Bah! Silly realistic expectations.

I'll just save that dampered obsession for the next time I make a mini-album. Project Life with its photos, texts, templates, and cards are working very well for me to get these stories done.

Oh yeah! Look at what I found a day after:

 

Those squash seedlings in the upper right are reaching the top of the box lid. Oof.

Filled

What I should have done was posted a bonus blog on Friday because I had enough material to do so. Instead, today's going to be chockful of media.

Thursday: I was a bit frustrated today, so instead of my usual internet shenanigans, bunked down to tackle a couple of budgeting issues now that it's summer time. There were also bits and pieces of important grown-up paperwork to take care of and I had been putting it off long enough. Not the most fun way to start off my day.

Rewarded myself with some work in the garden. Here's a shaky vlog (sorry in advanced) from that day and the promised pictures.

  FMIL had some extra seeds from her classroom so I planted some of them with some extras of my own.

Here is the order that I planted them above. They are living in a box where the original garden corner used to be.

Lucky Bamboo is doing well. The onions are doing really well seeing as how they did not reach the top of the jar originally.

 The strawberry plant on the patio rotated, watered, fed, and surrounded by yet another batch of pea seeds.

Friday: I've finally caught up with two weeks worth of YT subscriptions and started crocheting a fox scoodie. Finally! Really though, click that link. I'm trying to make it the proper size for me and once I figure this out, just watch out for the silly creatures I'll make! 

I started tackling Project Life again and it took me the evening to figure out where I had left off and get back on track. I spent the night hanging out with the SO and going through his old CD collection. Lots of reminiscing on his behalf while we jammed out.

It's times like these that I really wish we had our own place so we could blast music without worrying about waking up anyone else (given that the neighbors are far enough away too) and that we really notice our age difference.

It's funny when he tries to figure out why I didn't know a particular popular hard rock song and then we realize that I was in elementary school. It just wasn't my scene back then.

:P

Saturday: I finally slept in Worked a bit on PL 2011 before getting ready to head to a surprise retirement party for one of our (now former) coworkers. It was throw by her family and I'm glad to have been a part of it.

She taught and helped me so much these past few years. I cannot imagine school without her there and it hit me as FMIL and I put the final touches on her present. We both teared up. She's a great friend.

Time to reveal the pet project that FMIL and I have been working on this past week: a fairy garden kit! We are officially obsessed and are dying to make our own when we come back from traveling this summer. One (well two) less thing for the SO to take care of while the womenfolk are gone.

Our friend and her husband have a extensive succulent garden and it gave me the idea that we could give them the accessories to build one with her new little granddaughters. Here is what we came up with, keeping in mind that we have to save them some of the fun of finding their own treasures to add.

 

 

 

We packed tiny pieces in little mesh pouches and everything in a wide bowl-shaped pot. We included a sheet of fairy garden photos for inspiration and I made a miniature coloring book to go with the gift. She and her granddaughter opened it together and the white bottle was instantly broken, but that's okay.

Today we got text messages from her saying that we've created a monster because they are all very excited to get started and knee-deep in researching beautiful ideas on Pinterest. 

Sunday: It got really hot outside today and I ended up doing another garden vlog for comparison in the future.

I think my brain was melting a little by the end. I promptly went inside and had a drink and lunch.

One More Day

Doing my best to deny the fact that we're nearly halfway through this year. Yup.

Monday: I keep making new friends online and it just feels nice. I feel a bit more normal being my goofy self with people who have similar interests. I know for some this is how socializing has always been, but this is relatively new to me. We're all planning how the rest of the week is going to pan out. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Tuesday: Haven't been sleeping well, so after coming home late, I didn't do a whole lot before heading to bed. Felt lightheaded, made myself some pasta the moment I got home, and took over an hour to eat a single serving. I really hope I don't get sick for school to end.

Wednesday: I wanted to be more productive at home today and got home from work three hours late. Yeah... There goes baking and such. Oh! I did say that I had a vlog to share. One more day with kids!

Slow Sunday

To steal from my FB:  

Happy Mother's Day to anyone who has stepped it up to wipe the noses, hug the tears away, share proud moments, and love unconditionally without being asked.

Not posting a picture from the 80's/90's of my mom because she's not on FB and would just as quickly take me out of this world as she brought me into it. 

I know plenty women who either don't have children of their own or are mothers to children that are not theirs, then there are the dads who have stepped up to the plate and learned to braid a little girl's hair or sing bedtime stories to their kids on their own. They need to be recognized for being the nurturing parent everyone needs.

Thursday: I've had a lazy-mentally stressed out week the moment that I get home from work, so I don't remember doing much this week. Plus, I was feeling well the day before so my to-do list fell by the wayside. I did, however, manage to shoot a garden update!

Things are hanging in there! Right after I took the footage, I went through and snipped off those infected leaves and flower buds. 

Friday: Super not much done besides rest. We ran the usual errands and I am hoping to cook a few things in the next couple of days. I've talked to my brother a lot this past week because he's in between classes right now. He and my dad went on his first cruise this weekend. 

More social media management work, it's been a rough week for them. I did get to Skype for a long time with my best friend! It's been a while and she's about to do some traveling and it may be super hard for us to see each other during that time, so we're cramming it in now.

Saturday: This was pretty much the same besides the fact that I actually managed to sleep in. I'm really lacking the motivation-energy to scrapbook or even catch-up with my YT subscriptions. I wonder what's going on with my head/body. I did get to spend a lot of R&R time with the SO and kitty. It was nice to have all of the cuddles.

Sunday: It's been a quiet and laid back day. I was on Skype dates again and getting ready to go out later. I have a bit more energy today and am tidying/organizing odds and ends. 

Dusting It Off

Guys, I haven't bought anything from Michaels or Joanns in several weeks. I would say months, but I think I needed something for a gift or school project around the holidays. I cannot remember but wouldn't put it past myself.

Let's get to the week's recap.

Thursday: It was a very windy day again and I went to help a friend organize and begin the packing process.

Friday: I found my camera after examining the bed area. That's where I remember seeing it last when I was trying to pass out from exhaustion. It had fallen between it and the wall but is still working fine! Hooray! Ran some errands for the cooler and whatnot.

Saturday: We're trying out Star Trek Online. It's a free MMORPG and we are fans of the franchise. There is so much text to read in the beginning areas, it's borderline ridiculous. I really want to like the game.

Another big thing I tackled today was going through my 2012 Project Life pages and applying a double mat as the background. It's a pretty effect, simple technique with the free template, but tedious as heck. It's done and I learned some tricks about recoloring and resizing elements in Photoshop Elements.

Sunday: Weekends are supposed to be my chance to sleep in/ catch up on sleep and I've done a terrible job of it. It's namely the early morning heat that has been waking me up. We definitely need to set up the evaporative cooler soon.

I just dusted off the ceiling fan in the dining room and turned it on. It's the only working fan in use in the house right now. This is going to be an uncomfortable spring.

With the "extra" time I had, I started tackling a task that has been on my resolutions list but I hadn't worked on yet- sorting through and getting rid of the clutter from my "Miscellaneous" boxes. They are stashed around the house, out of the way, and vary in age from two years to two weeks.

I'll ramble more in a later post.

Here's a garden vlog I filmed this weekend once I got my camera back!

Little Bit Of Color

It's been a long and cranky day, so my normal post will be up tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's a update from the garden!

Being Consistent

I'm trying to get started with garden journaling on MyFolia.com and as many reviews that I've read about it being great (and many about it being user-friendly), I'm struggling.


Monday: It was an extremely windy day and I felt bad for any kid that ventured outside and got blasted in the face with the pollen and dust. It was awful. I got home late that day and decided to plant a green bell pepper and zucchini that I had gotten from a co-worker. I merely chopped them into bit and stuck them into the dirt because I still have little to no idea what I am doing and the internet's answers were not coming quickly enough.

I also re-sowed... well, I'll just show you the vlog. :P

Tuesday: Pretty tired, worked only a tiny bit on Project Life despite thinking about it all day long and mostly zoned out to my YouTube subscriptions and watching the SO play some video games.

Wednesday: Back to what I had mentioned before, here's were the confusion is happening:

There doesn't seem to be a "Getting Started" tutorial, the Help section isn't well organized, and I'm a bit overwhelmed with how to get my plants entered in. I just wanted somewhere else to dump my plant-parenting mild obsession into and I don't have a smart phone that could track progress with a simple app. Oh, the havoc I would wreak.

I wonder where my energy has gone, it hasn't been a particularly rough week at work, but I guess my sleep has been broken.

Have I mentioned that I'm using an old spare keyboard plugged into my laptop right now? It's like we're slowly but surely adding enough stuff to make a different computer. Sigh. I love this thing though. It's nothing special, but I love the feel and even the sound that it makes. I am a pretty big nerd-dork.

Garden Vlog: Springtime

I knew that it had been a while since my last garden vlog. (Holy cow, September!) I took one during the winter but never ended up uploading it, I guess, because it was just all too depressing in the garden. So, here's a "bonus" post because I can never resist posting about my garden once I take pictures or videos of it.

I think once we're in our own place, I'll start more seedlings indoors over the winter. That way, I'll have some sweet little green leaves to bring a smile to our faces during the cold weather, plus they would hopefully have a good head start for when it's time for them to go into their "forever" homes. Just imagining it is calming in its own way.

I took this footage two days ago, when I went to water this morning, the jalapeno plants have been completely devoured as well as the pea plant. Of friggin' course. At least I went through and did the worst wedding job ever in my garden. The ground was dry and hard, was working with one glove, and I was cranky at other stuff and taking it out on those weeds. :P

Newer Arrivals

I'm currently typing this on a USB flexible keyboard that came from a nostalgic shopping spree at Target earlier and it is incredibly difficult, awkward, and confusing. Plus, it smells funny. Lol.

I was forming the latest are package for my bestie and made out like a bandit. Felt cruddy today so it's nice that it me together in the end. Bah! I'm currently am typing this with two fingers (oh yes) and still miss about every tenth letter... ugh. "i'm subitting myself to ths ridiculousness becus f my ssues lately wt y eloed shi and conol ky."

That roughly translates into: "I'm submitting myself to this ridiculousness because of my issues lately with my beloved shift and control keys." Yeah, I think that's one quirky gag-gift-esque item that is going back to the store. My fingers feel like they just ran a three-legged race over a bunch of rocks.

Enough with my herp-derp-ing.

Monday: I barely got any sleep for a number of reasons and when I got home from work, I crawled into bed and didn't get up until the wee hours. In hindsight, I was pretty dehydrated from the weekend's activities and should have set an alarm to wake up and drink more water periodically because I was still dehydrated in the morning. Apparently, I suck at this game.

Tuesday: Still had the headache but took a few measures to be a bit more awake during the day. Caught up with my internet life that I neglected with family in town. I also tried earnestly to delve into an alternative to my Google Reader by trying out Feedly. It was a very frustrating time looking through the various non-comprehensive starter and transitional guides but I think we finally have the settings that will work.

Wednesday: The drastic weather changes and very high pollen are setting off a lot of illnesses and severe breathing issues for all ages lately. I'm still feeling under the weather (ate a can of peaches for dinner if that's any indication of how off-kilter my mental state is) but wanted to share something fun with you today: the garden! It is Spring now, after all.

I know that there's a bunch of famous birthday and stuff going on in the world right now, but I can barely process it all on my own, let alone analyze it and my feelings here right now.

The surviving peas are surrounding the flourishing strawberry plant. The same one that was not much more than a pair of sad half-burnt leaves not too long ago. They are so pretty together! I'm excited about this companion planting.

The cantaloupe's second set of leaves, the true ones, are coming in and I'm anticipating learning about this new foliage as we watch it grow.

 Oh yes, this is the garlic. They are winning at any competition this garden is having right now without even trying. I have a feeling I need to read up on them really soon. This has given me great confidence or at least relieved a lot of apprehension about growing from bulbs.

I'm Here!

I made it and on the right day. BAM!

The Oscars are going on tonight but I'm getting all the news I need from it via the book of faces. I spent the night helping moderate a chat and working on social media networking for a friend instead. However, I bowed out earlier tonight than the past few because of heading back to work tomorrow. It'll be super hard to wake up in the morning after this great long weekend.

Well, that and I'm naturally a night owl. Gonna miss spending time cuddling up to kitty and with the SO. Sigh.

Planning on seriously getting back to Project Life soon, sorting out my piles of paper work, and planning out ideas for things to do when the in-laws get here next month!

Saturday: I found my camera! It was under somewhat shady circumstances (the reappearance, not my methods of looking) but I'll ignore that right now because I am so happy to have it back! That was motivation enough for me to get out and do some gardening.

Here are some pictures that I've missed posting while my camera was MIA.

 

The SO and I helped a friend move around some furniture and I also refilled their cleaned guinea pig cage. Look who came to supervise!

 

The snails in the front office at work got a bouquet of spring flowers. So cute!

 I call them all "Gary", like Spongebob's pet snail because it's easy for me, the kids, and everyone else to remember. Lol.

Then, I lost a bit of mojo after discovering one of my gloves and my favorite hand shovel has been misplaced. Losing things drives me nuts, especially when I have been working so hard to stop that "habit" that's been plaguing me all my life. Grr rabble rabble. I did manage to do some planting.

 Remember when I said I didn't want to do anything but keep Hogwarts alive, as in not try anything new? Yeah, plans changed. :P I planted some seeds from my first harvest of Bird's Eye Chillies and there is garlic, cantouloupe, and peanuts planted on the left side.

 Found two bulbs of garlic that were starting to sprout in the fridge, so I planted those!

  Finally found some raw peanuts, so I planted some of those after my mom's recommendation.

 This is the right side.

This is the surviving pea plant from the seedlings I started a few weeks ago indoors. I planted new pea seeds around it and this was gobbled up by birds early this morning. :(

 

I found what I'm pretty sure are cherry tomato seedlings in the pea pot, so I transplanted each into its own pot with some seeds. I also have coriander with the first, lettuce with the second, and parsley with the last.

I found these from old fruit I had harvested from the Jalapenos (I cut the frozen dead ones and Serranos down too).

 I transplanted them into a pot too but kept them in bunches. They are just too cute and I'll thin them out later on.

 This strawberry plant is hanging in there still and I read that they do well playing with peas, so there are some seeds around it now.

I hope these new little experiments go well. Can't wait to update you on their progress! Guess it's time to add a new "Gardening 2013" tab now. Just when I thought I was going to get away with refraining this year... Lol.