GoT talk with my brother

We added Starz to our cable in January so we could watch their pirate show Black Sails, I also used it to watch The White Queen on demand. After Black Sails was over we decided we would get rid of Starz and pick up HBO for their new show Silicon Valley, which has a few of our favorite funny people in it (Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, T.J. Miller, and Zach Woods) AND is created by Mike Judge.

Late Friday early Saturday morning I was looking for something to watch and was checking out what was available on HBO on demand and what did I see, Game of Thrones. Did I want to jump into this now? Not particularly but all of it was available on demand so.....why not?! Everyone tells me there are plenty of reasons for not doing it, and they are the same for doing it. That night I watched four episodes. On Sunday I watched the rest of season one. While I was watching the second half of the season I texted with my brother about GoT, I choose my brother because we have similar levels of nerdiness and he is used to my ridiculous questions and way of thinking and he HATES spoilers so I know he wouldn't spoil anything, something I do not trust some of my friends with. Also as you will see he has the best responses to my ridiculous questions and has a few of his own. So here are my thoughts on GoT so far and my conversations with my brother about it.

There will be spoilers so DO NOT READ if you don't want SPOILERS.

Speaking of spoilers, I don't know the fate of many characters, been pretty spoiler free but of course I knew the king wasn't going to be around beyond this season and the fate that awaited Ned Stark. I also know Robb Stark dies at some point, season 3 I think, because I listened to Richard Madden on the Nerdist podcast and they mentioned Robb being dead, no specific spoilers with that death. And I knew Drogo died, or something happened because Momoa was no longer on the show, which honestly was one reason I didn't pick up watching after the first season because I like Jason Momoa and why would I watch a show he was no longer part of?! These are the important reasons to decide on watching something. I also already knew about the Lannister twins and Catelyn's sister and her son so I didn't have a reaction to that previous known information.

A few thoughts on the first episode: Pressing play and seeing it start with the creepy white walkers would have been nice to know, I probably wouldn't have started watching at midnight by myself in the dark. I don't like scary movies, I am not too affected by them now but as a kid it was pretty bad. That being said I do still have a problem with dark creepy things in a creepy dark forest, don't know why but I always have, I am afraid of the dark and dark evil things in the dark scares me still to this day. Luckily that scene wasn't too elaborate or long. Keep away the dark creepy evil forest when I'm watching late at night.

Since I stayed up until 4 am watching the first four episodes I was not texting with my brother about those episodes as specifically as I did the later six but we did cover some of that stuff in my texts. My text are in blue with the speech bubble coming from the right side and his are pink with the speech bubble coming from the left side.

Seriously, if during season one someone would have told me Mark Addy was the king I would have given a lot more thought to watching it. As I've heard recently GoT didn't really take off to where it is today until late in the second early in the third season so I guess that's why no one told me about him. If you are a fan of Mark Addy like I am and like fantasy watch the BBC's current show, Atlantis, he plays Hercules, yes THAT Hercules, no he did not lose a lot of weight for the role.

I have never seen anything Terminator related, I do know Sarah Connor is a characters name in that 'verse but I didn't know what connection there was to the GoT 'verse or if he meant the actor to another actor IRL, psh who talks about real life people.

Getting the Chunk reference is one of the reasons I like talking about stuff like this with my brother. 

Yes, yes we did go from Goonies to how a molten gold death would not be bloody to Doctor Who characters. This is EXACTLY why I choose to talk about this with my brother. 

Please excuse the nerding out about Emma Frost writing The White Queen, it's fucking ridiculous! RIDICULOUS!! 

These people get it: A real life Emma Frost writes The White Queen

Oh also, The White Queen isn't about Elizabeth 1 it's about Elizabeth Woodville, so many Elizabeths so little remembering of who is who.

More nerdiness, The Tick reference and WoW playing.

Prepared because of Whedon and Moffat and most importantly, 

YESTERDAY WAS REX MANNING DAY!!!!

So those are pretty much my thoughts on GoT. I clearly think about the important things. 

White carrots

Parsnips look like white carrots.

Calling something a white carrot is HILARIOUS!

This obviously is a story that needs to be told.

Let's rewind about 12 years, Rich and are on a date at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants. While enjoying our food he says how much he likes the food especially all the white carrots in the beef with broccoli (he might have said how there weren't a lot of white carrots in his beef with broccoli, it was a long time ago and small details have escaped me, he commented somehow about the amount of white carrots).
Of course I respond with, "Excuse me what?!"
"The white carrots." I continue to stare at him blankly as he picks up one of the said white carrots to show me.
This begins my almost unstoppable laughter and I attempt to explain that those aren't white carrots they are bamboo shoots. We do not agree on this point, they ARE white carrots, his mom told him so.
After dinner we go back to his place and he asks him mom about white carrots, she says, "Oh yeah, I just told you they were white carrots when you were a kid so you would eat them. I guess I never told you the truth."
Again I start laughing A LOT.

That is the story of how I told my adorable 19 year old boyfriend that he has not been eating white carrots but bamboo shoots.

Now let's go back to this past Saturday (it might have been Sunday, I am bad with details even when they are less than a week old). We are at the grocery store and I need a parsnip for a recipe I'll be making later in the week. We are at the veggies and ask him to get broccoli and a large parsnip for me while I go get mushrooms and garlic. He says he doesn't know what a parsnip is, I respond with it looks like a white carrot and naturally start laughing a lot. He gives me a bit of a death glare and walks away as the people around us are looking at me because I am laughing in a very amused and slightly evil way. I guess most people don't find things to laugh about when shopping for veggies.

And that is the story of white carrots and why it is funny to us. So funny in fact when I told this story to my mom she took a sip of her water right when I got to the part that Rich didn't know what a parsnip was and she knew exactly where this was going and the water almost came out her nose. She had to rush over to the sink and spit her water out.

You do not offend me by being different than me

Listening to CM Punk on WTF with Marc Maron today and he said something along the lines that being straight edge people often take the offensive and assume that because they choose to do the opposite of him he must be offended by them and that they think he thinks he is better than them. Neither of these are true of course because he is not offended by someone being different than he chooses to be. Sure that happens, a lot of people are actually offended by someone being different than them but to assume that is the default way someone will react well I think that may reflect on the true nature of that person making the assumption.

I am tattooed and pierced. I am not offended if you are neither.

I have long hair I grew all by myself. I am not offended if you choose to cut your hair short.

I am not a fan of football. I am not offended if you are.

I am not religious. I am not offended if you are.

I am vegan. You do not offend me if you are not. Eat the food you want to eat, wear the clothing materials you want to wear.

I do not know why being vegan people assume I will be offended by opposite choices. I live my life, you live your life. Why would your personal choices affect me directly? I am not in your face with my veganism because I know it is my choice and not everyone can or wants to make that choice and they shouldn't have to.

I am not offended by someone being different than me, are you?

It's not mine I swear

As I was reading in the bedroom I could hear Rich flipping between Chopped and Cops on the tv in the living room. A cop was asking a guy he pulled over for rolling through a stop sign why his car smells like pot and why he was acting really nervous. He told the guy he should tell him now if there was anything he was hiding because a dope dog was on the way and it would find anything the guy was trying to hide. The guy said he had no idea why his car smelled of pot and wasn't hiding anything. Of course the dog gets there and finds a large bag of pot. They guy says it wasn't his, a friend must have left it in his car.

This reminds me of the time my car smelled like pot and the reason sounds like the WORST EXCUSE EVER, except it is 100% true. It should surprise no one that on occasion I pick up litter and throw it away. One day walking out of the grocery store I see an empty plastic sandwich bag and pick it up and put it in the center cup holder of my car. As I pull out of the parking lot I smell pot, as I drive down the street a bit I realize it's coming from inside my car, from the bag I picked up. Rich was NOT amused by this, I am no longer aloud to pick up trash and hold on to it.

"No officer I am not high. See what happened was I picked up this empty bag in a parking lot to throw away when I get home and I guess at some point it was used for holding pot."

Yup sounds legit. I am really glad I live less than a 5 minute drive from the store.

It's alive

I couldn't let a whole year past without a blog post....actually I could have, I just found something I felt was too wordy for social media.

In honor of throwback Thursday I managed to give myself flashbacks, maybe I should save this for flashback Friday.

I tripped over an extension cord in my apartment today, an extension cord that goes from the outlet behind the tv across the floor to under the coffee table. I use it to plug in my chargers while I watch tv so I can keep my devices within reach. It has been here for months upon months, if not years. It gets tripped on occasionally, never anything major, no one goes down. I didn't even go down this time, I stayed upright so I am calling this a win, but I did draw blood, a minor amount of blood but it's there.

I know toe/foot pictures aren't appreciated by many but I am in serious awe of my ability to injure myself in this way and it has a tie in to a GREAT childhood story.

This takes me back to when I was 10 at the oldest, I know I was still in elementary school. My brother and I used to watch Swiss Family Robinson A LOT. Whatever you think a lot means, go ahead and add to that, not as much as we used to watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks though, we used to rent that tape from Blockbuster CONSTANTLY! That movie has no connection to this story. What do kids who watch Swiss Family Robinson do in their back yard? They set up traps of course. We never set up a good pit trap because the yard had rock hard dirt, it might have actually been rock and not dirt. There were small "pit" traps but nothing beyond half a foot at the deepest I'd guess. What could we do well? TRIP WIRES!! We tied a rope, a thick, strong, well used rope, not string, legitimate rope, near the base of an orange tree on one end and across the sidewalk to the fence on the other end. I'd guess it was a few inches off the ground, we wanted to make sure intruders didn't see it and tripped over it. That was the plan anyway.

What really happened you ask. Well we had a big strong lovable yet easily excitable dalmatian at the time. My brother is 3 and a half years younger than me and literally my little brother at this time, probably close to the last time he was my "little" brother. Brother wanted out of the backyard but overly excitable dog that outweighed him was making this difficult so big sister to the rescue. I go out the side gate run all the way around the front of the house down the other side of the yard to the back with the plan to get the dogs attention so brother could slip out of the backyard without the dog pestering him and making it difficult.

I got the dogs attention but not the way I planned. The dog came running over to me when I started wailing, at least I assume I started wailing, I don't actually remember this happening but I do know trip wires work on people running full out that have no idea, or recollection, that they are there. I do remember having to wear the same sandals for quite a while because I had a fairly thick, and painful, rope burn across the top of each foot and couldn't put any other shoes on. I told you we used legitimate rope not string and I hit this thing at full speed, full speed of a ten year old. I don't remember having any other injuries but I imagine I had scuffed up knees, hands, and perhaps elbows because I was running and subsequently fell on concrete.

So here I sit 24 years later reminded of that incident. Apparently I still can't remember things I string across the ground and if tripping over that rope when I was ten years old and having a very memorable injury from it didn't make me learn I guess I never will.

Nail Polish

I think I am done with nail polish again.
When I was young I was an avid nail polish fan like a lot of girls are. I ALWAYS had my nails painted all sorts of colors. They were constantly painted from probably a pre teen age until I was 19. At 19 I had a job at a place that only allowed natural colors, there was no point for me to paint my nails a natural color. I did still paint them on occasion and then forget to take it off, mostly because I ended up sleeping not at home and not having nail polish remover. I would get written up and so I just stopped painting them. Then I got a job with animals and used my hands A LOT and if I did wear nail polish it just got worn off very quickly. At this point I pretty much gave up painting them regularly. On occasion I would but then I got all concerned about the chemicals in nail polish and completely stopped for quite a few years. In the last few years I found some less chemically nail polish and now I am back to using whatever. I like doing designs and things and using funky colors, like always. I took off my bright blue nail polish a few days ago and my nails are stained bluish, only in the center because the bottoms and tips had worn off, I still have that job with animals. They are also quite yellow from being stained from other dark colors I have used.

I think I am going to stop with the nail polish for a while, at least stop with it constantly and only put it on for special occasions, or holidays, I am thinking candy corn looking nails for Halloween and I will probably do the Christmas lights polish again in December. Also nail polish is expensive and I can't find cheap (even overly chemical laden) crazy colors as easy as I used to and me and online shopping is a bad idea so I don't like to go there. I will miss having painted nails for sure but I have always been bad with up keep and am often walking around with barely painted nails, this will probably be a good look for me anyway. Now to resist, I think I will go put my box of nail polish in the back corner under the sink in the bathroom now.

Standards

Saw this post Workplace Image Standards about should men be held to the same image standards as women?

I don't work in a standard industry, I work by myself, I control pretty much everything with my work. So are you telling me men are not held to the same standards? The posts slant is on getting a job and on makeup making you look your best, personally I do not see makeup as a necessity in that, for men or women. Do places, conventional non model type jobs, actually require women to wear makeup? That is what I am reading into this post because I have no idea how those jobs work. If I had one of these jobs I would assume I would have to dress appropriately and that would be laid out for me. Would I be required to wear makeup? I don't have one of these types of jobs for very very many reasons and I am wondering if I have one more reason to never look into one.

I just don't know how things like this, if true, are the norm. It just seems so wrong to me. Why do people go along with these things? Yes I get that they need the job, money, etc etc but people stop caving! Stand up for yourself! I'm not saying do anything dramatic but if everyone keeps going along with every little thing we'll become nothing more than drones doing what we are told. Yes I am being dramatic and WAY over doing it but this is how I feel. I've always been like this but recently things have really really really been bothering me. I cannot wrap my head around it all.

30 days of thankfulness and other things to do in November (aka rambling)

I love the idea of 30 days of thankfulness. I would love to do it BUT I know there is no way I would keep up with it. NO WAY. I also know I wouldn't be able to think of things I would feel like sharing. I would find most of the things I would come up with as lame and embarrassed isn't the right word but comfortable I guess. I might check in here, facebook, twitter, for random thing I am thankful for but I am not going to try and force myself to keep up with it.

That being said I do have things I want to accomplish in November. Save money. Eat better/get fit. First thing on both those lists is to break my Starbucks addiction. Caffeine is an issue with me. It really keeps me from sleeping well. I don't care to be completely caffeine free, I always start my morning with a green tea blend. Large amounts of caffeine do affect me in different ways, I can totally tell when I have been visiting Starbucks too much. It's not the coffee I am going to miss most, no it's the people. I like the people that work at the Starbucks down the street. They all know my name now, and get the soy out when they see me walk in. It's so nice. In the past I have switched from vanilla lattes to chai lattes. The caffeine is low enough to not bother my sleep patterns as much but they do nothing for my wallet. To help break the habit I am going to make a pumpkin spice syrup, Sara over at From Blah to Ta-Daa posted a recipe (click it) recently and I still have plenty of pumpkin puree left over from making other sweets and see if the syrup added to my hot chocolate mix is any good. I expect it to be delicious. Oh I don't think this is going to help me get fit....

So on that I really need to pull out those exercise dvd's I have and use them. I actually like them, all of them. I wish I could run/use a treadmill but I don't feel safe running alone and I can't afford a gym membership. Even if I could afford, or more like was willing to pay a gym membership it really would be a giant waste of money. I can't use a large quantity of the equipment because I am just too damn small and bruise way too easy. I use the equipment and end up with fully bruised thighs, arms, ass, back, you name it. Even working out at home I get bruises on my tailbone doing pilates/yoga type exercises. I bruise way too easy, WAY too easy.

What else for November, oh I need to research sewing machines. My husband wants to buy me a new one for Christmas. I don't actually own a sewing machine, I have my moms, the same one my mom used to make my Halloween costumes etc when I was a child. It works fine, it is great for most things I do, but I would really like to get one with a few more bells and whistles, perhaps expand what I do. Something new and fancy  is always fun to play with right.

We need new dishes and I found some pretty simple yet stylish ones at Crate &Barrel. We have a Crate and Barrel outlet a few miles away. The dishes we have now are hand me downs, the plates my parents got when they married in 1978, half which have broken and the rest have cracks in them. We also have a set we don't use anymore because I am totally unsure of their safety. They were given to us when we married but are cheap, which is fine, but they used to be purple and they are now pink. Where is all that color going, why does my food sometimes change color, that CAN'T be good right. We also have some great hand me down salad bowls from Rich's grandmother but we need soup bowls and plates. They have some square glass plates and bowls that I really like and they won't go and bleed their color on my food. Hopefully they are still available or I can find something simple but with a bit of an edge, I really liked the squareness, made them less plain.

One more thing I know I want to do in November, Christmas cards. I said I wasn't going to do Christmas cards, I did Halloween cards and sent them to a few people, I ran out of one of supplies and couldn't make as many as I wanted, sorry if you didn't get one, I wanted to send more. I had originally planned on not sending out Christmas cards, it's not really my holiday, Halloween is totally my holiday. But I had a BRILLIANT and totally Nessa idea for Christmas cards so I will be sending them out and I should have plenty of supplies for these so yay friends and family Christmas cards. Or Season Greetings to be pc I guess. I hate seasons greetings because I do not like this season so why would I be all yay cold and rainy and icky weather I don't care about.

One last thing. Don't forget to enter my pumpkin giveaway, pumpkins I made. Who doesn't want a cute little fabric pumpkin? It's my first giveaway by the way, don't you want to be the winner of my first giveaway. Should I say it again GIVEAWAY! (click it)

Accent Video

Dorkyness alert.

Saw Ashley at Our Little Apartment do this (and seen the list elsewhere as well) and then my (twitter) friend Chel has been curious about how I say things and I am bored on a Friday night while my (drunk) husband snores it up in the bedroom, so here you go, a video of me saying random things and being a gigantical dork throughout.

Note: My paternal grandfather was grandpa not granddad. Don't you just love my leopard print PJ's!! :) The largest amount of pink I ever wear (the collar and cuffs, lol).

Unsolicited random advice

Because it is back to school time and I see/hear people talking about college all around me.

• If you don't know what you want to do with your life, go to college, I know that's NOT what a lot of people want to hear. 
• If you know what you want to do, go to college or trade school and work towards that professional goal, either through your schooling, and/or outside school depending on what it is. 
• Unless you are absolutely certain you want to and can do (ie have contacts/experience already) something nontraditional go to college. Even so most fields have some sort of trade/higher education that is helpful, it's very hard to get away from. 
• If you know what you want to do AND already have your hands all up in those pies (technical speak, I'm all about it) stick with the school. 
• If your schooling gets in the way of your hands in pieing (yes that's a term, or it is now at least) find out how much experience vs education mean in that field, and not just in your area, you never know things might have a better/worse outlook away from home, then make your decision of whether to cut back/stop one or the other. 

I did the last bit and came to a point where school was holding me back so I quit school. I have a 2 year degree in Zoology and was another 2 1/2 years into my bachelors. At that point I had almost 4 years of experience with exotic animals, I was extremely, I cannot stress that enough, lucky to have the opportunities I had. This is NOT typical in the exotic animal field. School AND working from the bottom is the normal. For me though if I wanted to continue school I would have had to quit my jobs and lose the experience. With the references and experience I had I was pretty confident in my ability to get a job elsewhere, not locally though. The local zoos are world famous and I had no illusions that I would be able to get a job at one of the local zoos. I was actually pretty confident quitting the jobs and sticking with school would hinder my abilities to get a similar hands on job like I was currently doing. Basically, if I finished school, I would have been starting at the low level of no animal contact jobs and need to work my way up. Not that I would be guaranteed a hands on job with just my experience I had at the time BUT I would not be giving up the experience and I would be adding years of experience to my resume. It's almost 7 years later and I still think I made the right choice for me. I don't work a lot, mostly by choice at this point (whole other story), and I make next to nothing, which I knew was going to be a reality. I work in a nontraditional way in an already nontraditional (as in 9-5 type) job.That being said I am 'stuck' where I am right now because I do not have a degree or experience in any other field. Good news, I do not want to work in any other field (and more of an issue are the tattoos and piercings than the schooling at this point and you know my complete lack of desire to ever have a job like that).


This has been a rambling post of unsolicited advice from me based on my experience. Thank you and goodnight (it's only 6pm I am not going to bed).

I'm still here

For anyone who doesn't keep up with me elsewhere I'm still here and all is good enough that I can't complain much.

What have I been up to? That's a very good question.

• I got another tattoo, the week after the last one. October 1st to be specific.
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• That same day Rich got a tattoo as well. Something he kinda surprised me with, the idea that is. He said that's what he wanted to get about a week or so beforehand.
  
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• Funny story about him choosing the font. He was looking through fonts and found a Star Wars font, which would be especially funny because I was getting a Star Trek tattoo. There was Bladerunner font and other movie and things themed fonts. The next thing he said had us both almost peeing our pants we laughed so hard. "Hey I could get the Crown Royal font that way at least I am incorporating something I love." Yeah he said that about getting my name tattooed on his arm, it was perhaps the funniest thing he has ever said!!!!
• I took a long weekend trip to Disneyland. Spent 2 days at the park, had a dayhopper pass that allowed me to go to Disneyland and California Adventure. Spent most of the time at Disneyland. Rich loves Mr. Toads Wild Ride if you wondering. Went to California Adventure for a bit, didn't do a thing there. Not that it wasn't appealing but we didn't make it there until the middle of the second day and were a bit exhausted. I wasn't in the best of mindsets by then because the first thing we did on day 2 was Splash Mountain and I have never seen someone get more wet than me!!! I had a dry patch on one of my thighs and one on my calf, the rest of me SOAKED. I guess that's what happens when tiny me sits in the front of a full log!! California Adventure has a lot of stuff for younger kids from what I saw but we didn't explore it all that much really.
• 
• I made some yummy Halloween desserts and things. Made them for our Disney trip which was 2 weeks before Halloween and had intentions of sharing pictures and recipes for those who might wanna try them for their own Halloween fun. Obviously I never got to that. I made some pumpkin cookies, a cake, and some blood slide candies. The blood slide candies didn't make it up to Anaheim unfortunately. I also made some peanut butter frosting for the cake and it went well with the cookies as well. Peanut Butter frosting, by the way, was AMAZING!!!!! I used fresh pumpkin for everything. It is beyond simple to make your own cooked pumpkin. Get a pumpkin, cut it in half, cut the stem off, scoop out the insides, save the seeds to roast as well they make a GREAT snack. Put pumpkin halves on a baking sheet, or pan because it gets liquidy sometimes and bake until soft at 350 time will depend on size of pumpkin. Let cool a bit, peel the skin off, and mash/blend it into a consistency that works best for what you are doing. Recipe for pumpkin cookies.
• One of the most fun things I made was blood slide candies. Directions/recipe here. Here are some pictures of the fun I had with them. Boiling up water and sugary stuff.

This is what I ended up with.

It's a good thing I was just making candy blood slides because I had "evidence" left on my hand.

• Recipe for the vanilla cake I made. I haven't perfected vegan cakes yet. They always seem to be a bit gooey still, almost like they aren't quite cooked but the outsides start to burn. It could very easily be my oven or something other than the vegan issue but it really annoys me. I've never been a great baker so it's probably just me. To make the cake more festive I got my inspiration here. Here's what I ended up with.

What made the cake was the peanut butter frosting. Best idea I ever had, and thanks to Condo Blues for agreeing that it was the best idea ever on twitter, otherwise I would have went with the store bought white frosting. Frosting is beyond simple to make, here's the recipe I used. I made the frosting vegan by using vegan butter and rice milk. You would NEVER know it was vegan, probably because of all the sugar, I mean look at all the sugar!

• I still had some left over pumpkin so I made this soup.

• I made the roasted pumpkin seeds (directions for them here) from the pumpkin too. It is beyond simple and you should never throw away pumpkin seeds, they are one of my favorite snacks and they are good for you too! I still have a bit of pumpkin left and am thinking of making some pumpkin bread for Rich, probably this recipe.
• So that's pretty much what I have been up to. The past 2 weeks or so have been pretty uneventful in a just life moving on kinda way. Hopefully I won't be ignoring this blog as much in the future. I will try and make some sort of updates no matter how random. Hope to talk to you all again soon.

Need an adventure

I've been having serious issues with boredom.

I don't want to be a zombie in front of the tv or computer but I don't see the point of sitting on the couch doing nothing. I can't decide on a book to read, I started reading Fever Dream by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child last night but I'm finding it hard to read because I have a signed limited edition copy and feel like I shouldn't read it.

I have plenty that needs or could be done but who wants to do that. My pile of laundry is crazy big, the whole apartment is a mess, all my animals could use a good cage clean, there are 3 different piles of junk that need to be dealt with, but again why would I want to do any of that boring mindless "housework".

Boredom seems to grab a hold of me at night when I feel like I should be calm and do relaxing things and not get caught up in a new sewing project or even making noise with my sewing machine. Night definitely doesn't seem like the time I should take out my drill and other tools and finally get back to work on my beer cap light shade. It would be different if I had a garage to go into.

I've been itching to go on a trip, even just a local day trip. It's been YEARS since I've done anything in nature, since I've walked even a trail and taken in the scenery, since I've paid too much attention to some random critter foot prints or droppings, since I've just sat somewhere and watched the wild lives around me go about their business.

Almost every day I think about my trips to the Sea of Cortez and what it was like to walk where very few have before, to spend my day on a small uninhabitable island full of raw wildlife, to visit the nesting site of Elegant Terns and Hermanns Gulls, to spend a day in the water swimming with Sea Lions, having them tug on your flippers and swim away before you could turn around, to have them get right in your face and blow bubbles at you, tide pooling and finding a place with so many beautiful Nudibranchs you end up doing nothing else for the rest of the day, being on jellyfish watch as my new friends jumped off the top deck of the boat, learning that those weren't a string of some sort of eggs but a string of some sort of ctenophore (luckily their sting wasn't too bad), watching someone cursed the "stingray shuffle" and struggled with jellyfish wrapping around his ankles as he tried to walk ashore and being glad I decided to skip that snorkeling trip, making a small fire on an island in the pitch black and have scorpions come crawling out of the wood and straight for you feet in sandals (ok I don't miss that, I hated that).

I think about my 2 week trip to Belize, walking among Howler Monkeys, walking up and down ancient Mayan ruins, being forbidden from lying down on a sacrificial altar because it was creeping out the people I was with, having your new friends drag you and the guide over to a local at every new town and asking them what slang term they use for a redhead and then having the guide translate it (match head is the only unique one I remember), taunting a tarantula with a long blade of grass so we could get a picture, spending the day snorkeling, trying to follow and keep up with a large Spotted Eagle Ray (failed miserable), realizing that tropical waters are too warm for a wetsuit, having cute little tropical fish nip at my purple bathing suit, always knowing that if you looked over your shoulder you'd see at least 2 Barracuda "stalking" you, diving for conch and making fresh conch fritters on the boat, watching a small child in a tiny row boat smash fish to death as his father was spear fishing some where below and tossing his catch into the boat, seeing Manatee nostrils take a breath, learning that covering yourself with a sheet only up to your head at night results in mosquito bites ALL over your face, waiting to see if the enormous lump/bite on your leg was going to go all sci-fi movie on you and bare some sort of insect out of it (it never did), seeing for the first time and falling in love with Frigate Birds.

There are the family trips I've taken, many Yosemite trips, crossing a large stream via a fallen tree, travelling up and down the California/Oregon coast, summer in Vermont playing in the stream for hours on end making our own rock dams and creating a small pool, walking in the forest, looking for newts and toads, stepping on a garter snake barefoot and wondering why the grass feels like it is moving beneath your foot, being a co-pilot on the search for covered bridges on back dirt roads with no signs, finally finding a bridge getting out and finding ourselves in the thickest swarm of mosquitos, family trips to Baja to see the grey whales, fresh ceviche, giving chocolate chip cookies to the Federales while we change flat tires, being told not to get out of the cars because whenever I did I would hear a slow leak in a tire, petting grey whales that would come to the side of the boat, spending a day on a beach with the bluest water that was knee high for as far as you could see (or go because you knew you had to walk all the way back too), attempting snorkeling in freezing cold waters, always finding and visiting unique and cool places no matter where we were, my honeymoon in Maui snorkeling and watching a small eel among the rocks having everyone ignore me because they were just there for the turtles that I guess were further out, I just stayed at there watching the eel and little invertebrates moving around, walking to a black sand beach.

No wonder I've been so bored lately, I've never spent this long in one place without going on some sort of adventure. Doesn't help that my boss always tells me how great I would be in the field because he's impressed by my ability to spot creatures, being told how I don't seem to bother the animals with my presence, I just walk among them for the most part and they don't feel the need to flee like they do with others. (For the record Kinkajous do not fall under my spell, quite the opposite actually, I've worked with 8 or 9 different individual kinks at 2 different facilities and they ALL hate me, even the one that others could do anything to screamed at me!) Of course of late these creatures are the doves and bunnies that are in the back yard at work.

I would never use the word adventurous to describe myself but I think I might need to change that thinking. It was just normal for me, not adventurous in my eyes.

Where it all went awry

I'm not what society calls "normal", I don't even know what that means or why one would want to be "normal". While at work the other day my mind started to wander as I got to the "routine" part of my day. I thought, "I think I know when things went awry."

I believe it could have been my childhood over identification with Pippi Longstocking. It must have been my 11th birthday if I am doing my math correctly, which I am probably not because me and math are like oil and water. That summer The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking came out and for my birthday I went to the movies with friends and then had a party.

I share her love of animals and like her I don't necessarily conform to preconceived notions. I don't have super strength like of course but also like her I would not, and still do not, hesitate to jump into a body of water fully clothed even in my best clothes, although now I wouldn't jump in with any of my fave shoes on, you don't mess with a girl and her shoes. ;)

As I've gone into here before I am not obsessed with cleanliness and I always thought of Pippi being the same way, we aren't walking around looking like Pigpen from Peanuts but that's because we're girls and it's cute when girls have a bit of mud smeared on their clothes and/or face. I would have given anything to live in a house with a monkey and a horse. Being older and having actually worked with a few different monkeys I've changed my mind on that one, they are just too damn smart and test you, although I do know a monkey (Gepetto) that loves his human mommy (Jess) and would love to have a relationship like that with one.

To this day I still love horses though. My uncle had a horse that wasn't ridden very often but I didn't hesitate to get on it bareback even on a few occasions. On a family trip to Yosemite me and my dad went on a horse back tour. When we got within sight of the stables my horse took off and I just went for a long bumpy ride all the way back to the stables. A guide was quick to follow me to try and get the horse to stop and make sure I didn't panic, I did quite the opposite. He apologized to my dad for the incident and was amazed I took it so well, I didn't just take it well I quite enjoyed it. It was the highlight of the tour for me, only thing I remember about it actually.

After contemplating all this I texted my mom and said I know where you went wrong (poor choice of words) and told her it was because of her allowing me (again poor choice of words) to over identify with Pippi Longstocking. She got back to me and said, "oh nice blame it on me." I really should have worded my text better. I got back to her and said well I guess I could have identified with Stawberry Shortcake, gotten obese and had friends all named after desserts. We had a laugh.

What other characters was a little red headed girl suppose to identify with? I never liked Annie much , think it was the way she was treated and while the story had a happy ending I didn't identify with her at all. I'm glad I chose Pippi. Even to this day I wouldn't mind being Pippi.

What's up...

Been busy and dealing with everyday things and some not so everyday things.....lot's done and lot's had to be done.

-My computer crashed while trying to install a game and was revived by the guys at Rich's friend who works in the I.T. department at his work. Luckily I had transfered all my pictures and the few docs I had the day before it crashed. I did lose some bookmarks but mostly just random things I never got around to looking at. I use google bookmarks for the most part since I was having a monster number of crashed due to crappy Vista.

-Computer was taken back so they could help install game properly and in doing so found that my hard drive was just about to die and that was the stem of the issues I'd been having. Got new hard drive and the game installed.

-Tried to play game with a ten day trial but apparently it doesn't work anymore with the version of the game I have, it only works for the OLD version. Makes no sense.

-Took a pet sitting job that was 25 miles away. I did pet sitting for a while a few years back, it was a stressful time I had 4 jobs back then. Talk about working yourself to the bone. I haven't done much since then but do miss it.

-On the last day of pet sitting the blind dog finally warmed up to me and didn't bark at me on and off the whole time I was there. After the first day he would let me pet him but then remember he doesn't know what's going on and who I am and would bark at me again. ;) We became good friends on the last day though.

-Other dog caught a young squirrel for me. That was gross, it was still moving and then she brought it over to me and I told her to go take it somewhere else and she thought I said leave it alone so she dropped it next to me and then went and looked guilty on the other side of me. Eventually she went back to it and gingerly picked it up and went and buried it.

-Rich's computer also crashed and we had to buy a new motherboard. Then ram wouldn't work and now having issues getting it to update to 7. Technology seems to be more trouble than it's worth sometimes.

-Need to learn to eat dinner before 8 pm. Dinner not ready until 9 tonight and then I was no longer hungry.

-Did some laundry and had the extra pleasure of the cat using the litter box that is in the same room, and we aren't talking about pee here.

-Sewed some more book covers. Having issues making them so they actually fit. Luckily all my small paperback covers fit but my large hardcovers keep coming out too small. I just use them for larger paperback books. Lesson: I really need to get a proper ruler, all I have is one that I had from grade school, really not good for marking and measuring for sewing purposes.

-Finally got around to buying my cat's a new scratching post. Got them a cool little post that has a spinning top too. Their old ones were actually scratching boards, they had two that were wrapped in sisal rope and one was crap, made of rope wrapped around two pieces of cardboard, it fell apart and the other was falling apart because it was very old. The cats couldn't really scratch on them anymore and the fatty took to eating the frayed rope. Now I just have to get some sisal rope and cover the posts of the carpet cat tree we have so the fatty stops eating that.

-Rich finally got the raise he deserves and has been due for years. They did an official wage study on his position and a raise of almost 20% was approved. While we are beyond happy it really drives home how over due this raise is. 20% raise is ridiculous!

-Been having constant battles about what needs to get done on a daily basis yet doesn't get done and still doesn't after battles are brought to a conclusion. It's beyond tiring.

-Just finished eating 4 avocados I bought and then my mom brings me 5 more ripe and ready to eat NOW avos. I love being in an area where avos are so readily available and delicious but don't want to eat them everyday for weeks on end. Not sure what I am going to do with these. I guess I could make and freeze some guacamole.

-Wild fire season has apparently started once again and started with a wild fire in the county no less. I believe there was still a hire fire danger heading into December last year. That's just too long for me, it really makes me think about moving out of the area. I hate fire season and have a panic inducing fear of my home and all my animals being destroyed by a fire, especially when I am gone.

-I am being more of a klutz lately than usual, not that I notice doing most of this stuff but the ridiculous amount of bruising on my legs lets me know I need to learn to avoid something, not sure what exactly, ha. I have always bruised very easily and the bruises go through such a gross progression of color and last for ages.

101...why mudnessa

Hey would you look at that, this is apparently my 101st post. So let's have a bit of a blabbering post letting you get a little more insight into mudnessa, you know a mudnessa 101.

If you come across a mudnessa it is most likely me, I did see a mudnessa registered on a racing/car/motorbike site something or other that wasn't me so it isn't ALWAYS me. Before I was mudnessa, way back when usernames were only used for email and IM, I wasWeeMadNessa. I used WeeMadNessa for years, many many years. It was fitting but the mad part only come out if you really really really piss me off or I love you with all of my heart, yeah major character flaw. I'm pretty sure mudnessa all started with a MUD (multi-user dungeon) game my brother was playing and he wanted me to play. It was the Discworld MUD to be exact, I didn't wanna be weemad and he suggested MudNessa because it was a MUD and that's just cool, right? We decided that all lowercase was good since the game is in caps. Didn't hurt that mud is actually a pretty fitting description of me sometimes, ok most of the time. From then on I was and will probably always be mudnessa. It is just so fitting.

Let's "discuss" why it's so fitting. Well my name is Vanessa so the Nessa part is self-explanatory right....I actually had a friend ask why people call me Nessa, not the brightest guy in the world. Nessa started when my younger, not little, I'm the little one, first started talking and he couldn't say Vanessa and Nessa was easy. I rarely hear my family call me Vanessa and even Rich almost always calls me Nessa or sometimes red. I don't actually get called mudnessa it's just used in print.

A few years back my mom asked me why exactly mudnessa, a friend asked and she said it was because I get and don't mind being dirty and muddy and she wanted to make sure that was why. I told her about the Discworld game and then confirmed that it stuck because I am usually dirty. I told a few stories of me being dirty over the years, one of which she hadn't heard/known about that she loved.

Here are a few childhood dirty Nessa stories. When I was a kid we had a LARGE veggie garden and I really enjoyed planting things and digging in the dirt. We had a BIG pile of manure brought over by my uncle. For weeks on end after school I would go and play IN the manure pile digging around for worms. I literally remember digging myself a big hole in the middle of the pile and having manure surrounding me almost past my head. My parents would just smile and shake their heads at me.

I went to work with my dad, who works in construction, one day and ended up playing with wet cement with my bare hands. If you are familiar with cement you know how miserable I was later that night and the next day. If not, basically it pulled ALL the moisture out of my skin and basically "burnt" my hands. Not a happy day, not a happy day at all, but I sure did have fun playing in the wheelbarrow full of gooey cement.

Here is the story my mom loved. We had a sandbox that me and my brother played in a lot. One day I decided it would be fun to see how much sand we could get in my pants. I put on sweatpants and quickly realized the elastic on the bottom wasn't strong enough to hold in much sand. I ran inside, got some super thick rubber bands, something we had A LOT of, dad got a lot of large plans that were secured with large rubber bands. With a roomy pair of sweatpants on secured at the ankles with rubber bands my brother grabbed a bucket and started dumping sand down my pants. We succeeded and got my pants FULL of sand. They weren't really around my waist anymore but they were brimming with sand, it was like a heavy fat suit and if I remember correctly we were hysterical. Guess my pants didn't end up too sandy because mom was non the wiser while doing my laundry. My brother is currently and has always been the clean freak type, but not OCD like, he obviously had no problem helping me get dirty.

Probably somewhere around my 13th birthday I got a worm growing kit. I LOVED growing worms. Obviously I was the kid who had to be forced to take a shower. Which didn't work, as in as an adult I still don't shower that often. I've mentioned it here before but luckily I am not an overly smelly person and showering daily really isn't necessary. My hair would revolt if it was subjected to water much less washing everyday. As it is now as long as I don't get too visibly dirty or play with a stinky animal at work I only shower twice a week. I know gross right, eh, another character flaw.

However the other day when me and Rich were....um......."talking" my over active mind got working before our "conversation" got too "intense" and I noticed he smelled different, he had bought and used a new shower soap. You know how people have their own smell, whether it be their perfume, soap, or whatever. I don't use a scented soap, I don't use perfume or scented anything really so I just smell like me. I asked him what do I smell like, he sniffed my hair and said, nothing really. I had showered the day before so I probably did have little to no smell. Then I asked well if you had to from memory describe what I smell like what would it be, he just looks at me not wanting to piss me off. I say, "poo?" He smiles and snickers while saying yes. We had a good laugh and I realized why again I love him so, because he loves me despite the fact that he can't say his wife smells like roses, vanilla, or something sweet, he know and still loves that his wife smells like poo. Ah true love isn't it glorious, haha.

Now don't get the wrong idea I don't smell like a nasty sewage bathroom gag inducing walking poo stick or anything. It's more of a dirty, nature, gritty smell, perhaps with a little bit of pet shop/zoo on bad days. In recent years it hasn't been so bad because I no longer clean up and sometimes literally roll around with smelly mammals like monkeys, coatimundis, binturongs, pot bellied pigs, kinkajous, opossums, foxes, porcupines, prairie dogs, among a lot of other smelly things. Some days I use to have to drive home with the windows down or I would gas myself out of my car. Those were times when I would shower daily, if not more since I worked 2 short shifts at one job.

I now exclusively work with reptiles and don't do a lot of hands on with them beyond just my hands, as long as I don't spill/drop things on myself I don't get too smelly at work. I am working in rooms full of reptiles, it can smell like the reptile house at a zoo, it's not too bad. One problem though is that I get pretty immune to my work smells so I don't even notice it anymore. Unless something is dead, death stinks even when it's just a tiny little creature and there is no getting use to that or not noticing it.

Every once in a while I will pick Rich up from work right after I get off work and the first thing he'll say will be something about me smelling, I've heard, "YOU STINK!" "Did you play with the dogs a lot at work today?" Lovely things like that are often his first greetings to me. It is usually more my clothes that smell than actually me so once I change I no longer have dog or stink on me.

That's the story, evolution, and why behind mudnessa and why it has stuck with me. Hope you enjoyed. Let's end it with a picture from a few years ago of true mudnessa just home from work one day.

Wide legged jeans into "skinny" jeans.

I was looking through patterns and sewing ideas and random things I had bookmarked recently. I have no idea where I read this but I read about making a regular pair of jeans into a pair of skinny jeans and it sounded pretty straightforward. I believe it was from a site that offers patterns and things but I can't find it in my bookmarks and I probably got there by clicking link after link after link.

Why would I do this? I hate shopping for clothes I actually have to try on especially pants. The proportions between my waist, ass, and thighs make jeans a REAL pain in the ass to find a good fit. Not to mention I can't afford much and jeans are so f'ing expensive. Price aside if they look like they will fit my waist I can't get them past my ass to even find out if they actually fit my waist. If they fit my ass the waist is WAY too big or has that stupid huge gap at the back. If I find a pair that I can live with the waist and the ass is ok when I walk the tightness of the thighs just starts to work the pants down to below my ass crack because the waist is actually too big and they are basically being held up by my thighs and due to them being a stiff material.

It's all just too much for me, let's not even talk about the fact that I'm five feet tall and I can take about 2 to 3 feet off each pant leg. Ok let's talk about that. It's not such a big deal now that I have a sewing machine but I've only had it for about a year and a half and had given up on buying jeans many years ago. Also it's kinda difficult to self measure pant legs for hemming, I had a bit of issues with the skinny jeans I made and the legs are off a bit but I made them long enough it's unnoticeable especially since they are skinny jeans and just gather at the top of my feet not "dangling" loosely down my heels like wider legged pant would.

Being short makes skinny jeans pretty impossible to shop for because my legs just aren't long enough for the proportions of the pants to work. They taper way too slowly to fit my legs properly. Even now that I can tailor the legs of pants all I want with my sweet sewing skills (holy shit did I really just write sweet sewing skills, LOL!) there is still the fact that I pay WAY too much for a pair of pants to go home and have to deconstruct them to make them actually fit. I feel if I am going to pay that much for a pair of pants they should be able to pretty much be wearable as is. Please tell me that isn't totally unreasonable and I'm not the only one who feels that way.

I gave up shopping for jean quite a few years ago, I don't think I have bought a new pair in close to 3 years. I have a pair of capri jeans that have holes and worn out parts all over the place (ok just mostly the ass area, pants just can't contain my ass, ha!) that I have patched to no end. They look pretty normal while I'm wearing them because apparently I did a pretty good job even though I totally winged it patching them up. That's pretty much how I sew, by picking up things and try them and teaching myself and reading tutorials and blog posts here and there.

I attempted the skinny jeans after just reading the how to once, it was literally just a written guide kinda like this will be, but they are much better than me and just wrote the directions minus all the blabbering. Hey I like to blab deal with it. ;) I am pretty amazed it actually worked and I managed to make them look good and damn proud actually. Here we are finally to the good part, thanks for reading all my blabbering.

I used a pair of pretty wide legged pants that I have had for years and they are quite stretchy, stretchy really is the way to go for making skinny jeans so they give and don't get too tight, especially around the ankles, you want to make sure you can get your feet through them, your feet might need more room than you think.

Turn your desired pair of pants inside out and put them on.

Make sure the outside seam is pretty much on the outside of you leg evenly as you gather them to desired "skinniness" on the inside of your leg and pin them at desired "skinniness" all the way down your leg. Don't make them too tight we aren't going for the liquid latex look here.

You may need some help from a friend to keep the pinning even and get a good straight line. I had a very uneven line once I took the pants off and was pretty much unable to do anything with them at this point. My pins were crooked and well one of them ended up in the side of my calf for a bit as I was trying to get them off. Still not sure how I achieved that great feeling, I hate getting poked with pins. Yea I know I have tattoos how can I hate getting poked with pins, PINS are my problem, not needles. Things that are suppose to poke me are fine by me. (That's what she said! LOL!)

I had to put the pants back on and re-pin them, still didn't do a very good job but I got out a piece of tailors chalk and actually traced a line on the inside of the pin line while I was still wearing them to have a more straight/even line. It still wasn't very straight but it gave me a good starting point.

I took the pants to the sewing machine and sewed OUTSIDE the chalk line, closer to the original inside seam, making them LOOSER than the chalk line since I made the chalk line inside the pins. I didn't want to make them too tight because that just would just ruin them and then I would be minus a pair of pants and would be forced to buy a new pair, I only have 3 pairs of non work pants. I tried to start my seam on top of the already existing one a bit higher than where I marked them so I wouldn't end up with an odd bunch or dart looking thing on my pant leg and continued the seam at an angle using the chalk line as an outside guide.

I tried them back on and they fit nicely. I cut off all the excess material and hemmed the bottoms and I love my "new" pants. Hope this is understandable and will help anyone who may want to give this a try. It's nice to have a pair of jeans that didn't cost me a thing and aren't actually new but sure do feel like a new pair of pants.

Here is a before and after picture of my jeans. Came out pretty good, no? :)

I know I am happy with them and I have worn them multiple times and washed them too and they haven't unraveled on me. I had images in my head of wearing them out and a seam popping and they start unraveling on me. Weezer's Undone The Sweater Song came to mind actually, hehe.

So Just for the fun of it have a listen, cause who doesn't love Weezer? (that's rhetorical, I really don't wanna know if you don't like Weezer, it's great sewing music too so just don't tell me.)

Weezer's Undone The Sweater Song from their official youtube page.

*I'm not so sure skinny jeans are something I should wear all that often, make my thighs look huge, comparatively of course, I realize they aren't actually huge at all.

*Yes I am pigeon toed, always have been and it is so obvious in so many pictures.

*I love the fact that our plastic lizard toy door stop is in the background of the after picture. Had a few people come over and see it and ask if it was real. Yeah I have a live lizard loose in my house and I let it stand right in front of my door! Really people I'm crazy and I'm a reptile freak but that's just irresponsible. No one messes with my animals, NO ONE. Plus the coloring is quite off for an actual lizard.

My name is mudnessa and I'm....

...An inconsistent blogger despite my best intentions.

I wish I blogged more frequently even just about the asinine stuff that goes through my head, like the things I blab on and on about to Rich which make him just look at me and shake his head and say, "You're thinking too much again." Sometimes if it's ultra geeky or just purely asinine I get, "It's a good thing you're hot." If it is very scientific of me and just something WAY too well thought out and my inner scientist comes out I get, "God you're hot."

I wish I would actually blog the many not so asinine things I want to share. I wish I could keep up with the weekly picture posts I wanted to do starting at the beginning of the year. I wish I would get around to writing about the less chemically nail polish Rich got for me for Christmas. (That's one thing stopping me, the inability of my brain to find the right words sometimes, less chemically, really brain, I mean really. Can't you just find the proper word instead of making up or using stupid ones!) I wish I could get around to writing about the sewing things I have accomplished, including one a twitter friend specifically asked me to please blog about doing. (I'm going to get to it Allie I promise I will eventually.)

What is it that is stopping me, that good old thing called procrastination and also that pesky bad time planning that seems to always plague me and many other people. At least I know I'm not the only one that has this time issue.

I have cut out A LOT of time wasters recently but picked up a few more, mostly I waste my time reading twitter. I am SO addicted it's comical but I enjoy it and the friends and acquaintances I have made and the few friends I've had pre-twitter and now keep up with them via twitter are great and I wouldn't trade them and it for anything. It feeds my tennis addiction and allows me to "stalk" celebrities, have I mentioned I'm celeb obsessed, have been as far back as I can remember. I find the whole thing odd but it is what it is.

I have also almost doubled my hours at work recently. That leads to A LOT of time I don't have to do things at home. I'm still only working part time but it makes a big difference. The added hours have lead to me living in quite a sty because nothing gets cleaned anymore, not that it did all that frequently before. I have a cleaning schedule written on my calendar but that hasn't helped and I've been doing that for probably a good 9 months and things previously still didn't get cleaned all that often. My nickname isn't mudnessa just because it's cute, it's appropriate. Picture Pigpen from Peanuts, minus the actual appearance (usually) or smell. I try and not let myself get to smelly.....wait why am I writing this down and putting it out there for anyone to read. Oh because I really don't care, if that wasn't obvious.

Oh time I wish you went slower sometimes, faster others and just didn't exist at others. I wish I had a better handle on you, had you under control and didn't just let you slip away or dictate what I can and can't do because of you.

Hey would you look at that it's now after midnight. I should crawl into my bed right now since I have a lot to do to catch up on this weekend, sadly sleeping is not one of them but that doesn't mean I won't actually catch up on sleep and not on the other stuff. Especially if I don't make myself get into bed soon.

Basically I have time issues. I have priority issues. I have thinking issues, according to Rich. I have cleanliness issues. (Don't know how that got into this post.) These are all the more common and less bizarre issues I have, if only you knew the others. Maybe one day I'll get to feeling like sharing those but people I actual see have been known to read this and that could get awkward, not that they think I'm all normal like but they put up with me...well because they have to.

So here's to me trying to get more blogging in because I want to and I have to do things I really want to when I'm home, it can't all be about cleaning and things I must do, I would go more insane than I already am and that wouldn't be good for anyone.

Why no pictures....

Well it's been a while since I blogged and even longer since I posted what I wanted to be a weekly photo post. Not much has been going on that was photo worthy. I've been mostly dealing with trying to be healthier and all that good stuff.

Mostly I have been really trying to get some good sleep, it was hard to come by for a few weeks, I was pretty miserable from total lack of sleep for almost a whole week at one point. It's partially because I just couldn't sleep and also because my husbands snoring was getting really bad. He added a pillow and that seems to be helping. I stopped drinking caffeine and it was a lot simpler than I thought it was going to be, I usually start my morning with a delicious mug of hot coffee. I downloaded a water sounds for sleep album and listen to that every night and I have been trying to keep the bedroom cooler, which isn't hard since it's on the corner and it is still getting cold at night. I checked out 5 books on sleep from the library, they haven't really helped but I haven't just sat down and read them yet, I've just been browsing them, not very smart on my part. I have been sleeping better but still need to work on it, mostly need to force myself to bed earlier than 1 am and make myself get out of bed before 10 am. I think I might be use to getting my best sleep in the morning basically making the rest of my day hard because I can't get feeling good and functional until 2 pm which is just way too late.

I have also been eating healthier, which hasn't been difficult at all, I've just had to put my foot down and say no to going out to eat. Getting the husband to go along with that has been more difficult but we don't eat the same things anyways. I went vegetarian in November and vegan in January and Rich didn't so he has been cooking for himself and me for myself. Recently I have just had to make the time to actually cook for myself every night and force myself to eat leftovers, don't know why but I have never been a left over eater.

One thing that has happened since this change in diet is my skin, my skin is the skin I have always wanted and dreamed of and knew I should have. Not just my face, but that's the most obvious, I've always had small breakouts around my chin and I haven't had one real pimple/zit/nastiness on my face since January. Even the rest of my skin is less dry and itchy and smoother, softer, and it's just lovely. I'm pretty sure this is due to giving up dairy, I also have not been bloated since giving up dairy. I am pretty sure I have a lactose sensitivity. My brother and my mothers side of the family are lactose intolerant probably mostly due to the fact that we/they are Japanese and Asians have a very high occurrence of lactose intolerance. Not being bloated is a GREAT feeling, a really great feeling. I can always fit into any of my pants at any time no matter what, do you know how awesome that is.

So that's what I have been up to for the past three weeks and beyond. Not a lot of fun but a lot of good. Fun is in my future though, next week I am going to Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Open. WOOHOO!!! I am so excited. Look back a year in my blog and you will understand why I am so excited, teehee.

There are a few pictures of my cat's from the past three weeks. First Harley Quinn is not a fan of beer. I got a package delivered one day and every time Otsego heard the UPS truck in the afternoon she went to the door and waited for him to come up the stairs and leave a box on the patio. Most notably Otsego and Harley Quinn have been sleeping on the same piece of cat furniture, taking turns with the spots, that is notable because they don't particularly like each other. They tolerate each other but don't like being close and this is pretty close for them. (FYI if you click on the picture it should get bigger, I've been struggling with pictures and formatting and all that crap. Another reason I haven't been blogging as much, pictures and me just aren't getting along right now.)

Tomato or cactus fruit?

These pictures are from November, I never got around to doing anything with them. The cactus growing to the right of the garage door at work seemed to be fruiting (is that even a term). When I first saw it though I thought someone had shoved a tomato on the cactus.

That isn't as bizarre as it may seem. We have 2 tortoises that roam the front and back yards at work and we just lay out greens and other things for them to eat. The dogs LOVE to eat the greens. I've never met dogs that love greens, fruit, and vegetables as much as them, and all three of them eat the stuff.

What I thought happened was the tortoises ignored the tomato and to keep the dogs from eating the tomato and to be able give the tomato back to the tortoise at a later point it was placed on the cactus. As the day went a long I decided to take a closer look and get a picture of the tomato on a cactus and when I got closer I realized that it was actually a cactus fruit.

But still looking at it as close as I could get with out getting poked I was not convinced it was actually a part of the cactus and not something stuck on it. This cactus has been here for years and I've never seen anything like this on it. It's just so interesting to me.

Jan 21st to Jan 26th in pictures

I have a hard time remembering what happens day to day, you know all the normal stuff that isn't all that important but still I don't remember what happened last week. I also like to take snapshots of things I see and then I do nothing with them and forget when I took them and for what reason so I am going to try and do weekly updates of what I do in pictures. Let's see how long this lasts. It would be cool to follow my whole 2010 this way. I shall try.

Thursday 21st was still stormy. This is out my deck patio. Palm trees really show the wind and there are plenty of palm trees in San Diego.

Thursday night we got hail. I know it's minor and not that much but I live in San Diego we NEVER get hail, this is a monumental amount of hail so I don't wanna hear, aw that's nothing, IT IS FOR HERE, SO SUCK IT, hehe. I don't really have that attitude. But really this is monumental for here.

Friday was rain (drizzle to almost all other areas) on and off. The sky kept changing, look to the left it would be dark, look to the right there was blue sky. There were probably some nice rainbows but I didn't see them.

The above picture is to my left and below is to the right. That's not a rainbow at the top of the picture it's the change in color/tint of my car window.

A "mushroom" cloud of rain in the distance.

Friday: Part of palm tree that was blown down and collected some water.

Then Friday got all sorts of "bad", this is the bucket of nasty water I dropped my cell phone in. Luckily I got it out real fast dried it off and it fully recovered but it was acting up for 2 days after this and the battery is still acting up a bit. Need to remember to not tweet while working especially when over buckets of water.

Sunday my cats displayed their displeasure for each other in an interesting way. By sleeping "together" but with a bag between them. Harley Quinn loves sleeping under paper bags, she was there first then Otsego came and joined her. I guess they can be close to each other they just don't want to see each other. They are hilarious sometimes.

Monday I was greeted at work by Atticus Rex, I spent a few minutes giving him some attention, I love this dog.

Here is the view from the other side. He is a huge dog, look at the size of his paw, it's as big as my shoulder.

I really love this picture, mostly the trees and sky in the background.

Friday was a lovely day, sunny and warm and because of that Tank the resident Sulcata tortoise was up and roaming the yard. As evening came I noticed my boss and his wife wandering the front yard. Turns out they couldn't find Tank, he sleeps in the warm garage and usually chooses a corner to jam himself into. Well he wasn't in any corner or anywhere else in the garage and they feared he had some how found a way out or made his way out the gate when someone came or went. They were out there for a good hour I think, I got to the point in my day where I had to do some work in the garage. I go out there and my bosses wife starts asking me when I got there so they could try and figure out a time line for Tank escaping. As she is talking to me I look down and there he is, he shoved himself not in a corner of the room but on the bottom shelf of a rack. It was corner enough for him I guess since he was up against some boxes.

He wasn't as visible as the above picture looks. Below is the picture from where I was standing when I looked down and saw him. Pretty good camouflage up against boxes and the particle board shelf on the left side of the picture.

And this is right on a corner so even from the other direction he isn't very visible. You can barely see his shell sticking out on the lower right side of the picture. I'm sure he feels pretty secure here though.

Tuesday: Here is a picture of a pretty typical morning for me, on the couch watching what I DVR'd the night before, taking a look around the net, enjoying some coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. Recently, because of the cold weather my fat cat has been shoving herself onto my lap. So I sit with my legs falling asleep with the fatty on one leg and the lap top on the other. The mornings are cold so I let her stay for a bit and warm me up. She doesn't fit very well on my leg but she insists.

More about my cat. By fat I mean she's down to 22 pounds from close to 30. She is also the one who is on Prozac for what is diagnosed as psychogenic alopecia. She's a very anxious cat for some unknown reason and to cope she would chew the fur off her underside, started at the belly and she got as close to her neck as she could. We had it under control for a few years with flower essences but then I went on a long weekend vacation in March and she could not deal. My husband was home the whole time but guess she just needs me. Anyways the Prozac has been working great and I don't have to worry about her getting hairball blockages. She's had issues with them twice in the past, both passed on their own but one required a few nights stay at the vet. She is also a picky eater who won't eat anything but her food so getting her to eat hairball gel is IMPOSSIBLE and she really doesn't need the extra stress of another overnight vet visit due to a huge hairball.