Positively Painful

Still not doing so hot at the blogging thing but I didn't get any backlash from my last rant, so I guess it's safe enough to come back and do it again. I'm also not doing so hot at being positive but I'm trying. 

Shut up, Yoda...I know there is only do or do not. I don't care. Hahah. 

We got a new dog...just one. She's not Obi and Ahsoka but she's sweet. She's an adult rescue named Rosie and she sheds more than our last two put together! Sheesh. LOL Lucky for me (and her) that KC didn't know she was going to shed that much when we rescued her or he would have never said yes to getting her! Hahaha! Now we're all attached, so she's staying, fur and all. LOL. We also got a black cat...it was supposed to be KC's cat, but it loves the dog, who is glued to me, therefore it has kinda ended up as my cat even though it missed the memo where I'm not the cat person in this house! I've nearly choked him several times...he really likes to climb all over us and meow and wake up the dog at 4am....and I'm pretty fond of sleeping at 4am...which is not the greatest combo. But other than that, he's not too bad. Haha! 

In other news, we got the Rona for my birthday...worst gift ever. Still dragging from that, although the worst part of it was just fatigue...kind of felt like having Mono again. It caused a hiccup in my cleaning job because that job requires a ton of energy and at this point (4 weeks later) I still barely have enough energy to clean my own house! But I've been able to go back to my other part time job that isn't as energy draining as the cleaning. 

The TDQ is driving now. She finally got enough saved to get a little older model car. Hopefully it will not get wrecked but I've rode with her a couple of times so far, and it will be a miracle if it looks as good as it does now by the time she gets done with it. I can't relate to her struggle...she can barely maneuver the car into an angled parking space...I was backing my parent's minivan out of the carport and pulling it up the driveway to the house for them when I was 11....kids these days. *insert eye roll* At least she has worked her butt off and put effort toward getting it. I'm trying to be patient and not freak out or get too annoyed with her latest obsession. LOL 

It is so hard sometimes. Patience is tough. Drat it. Teenagers will suck all the patience and goodness right out of you! I don't know how people do it. Two lousy teenagers and it's killing me...these people with a gazillion kids absolutely amaze me. How do they have that many teenagers and cheerfully survive? I must be doing something wrong. 

Anywho...then I got volun-told into doing the youth activities at one of the campmeetings I'm planning to attend this summer in NC...and then I volunteered to take like 13 of our youth girls from church here to the camp there in NC....evidently I'm just a glutton for punishment. Hah! On that high note, I'm out. 

Might make it back sometime. LOL

Cranky Pants

Blast it. I am in a fine, feathered mood. Clearly, it's not been a mood for blogging...as I have been absent for what feels like decades. 

2020 is getting on my last nerve. This year is so not my favorite. I was working on Christmas cards and I usually put a family update on the back for anyone who cares to know what we've been up to each year. This year I wrote about three sentences and then scratched off the idea of an update. 

No one wants to be depressed like that. Our senior dogs got sick and crossed the rainbow bridge this year. I've cried for months. No way to put a positive spin on that. Stinkin' virus shut-downs and quarantines delivered way too much time stuck at home with the terrible teens. Nope, that doesn't sound very nice. I am now working several part time jobs just to get out of my house and away from previously mentioned beings. Yeah, that's bad...oops. I feel like one of the rare few that disagrees with the logic of mask mandates...for multiple reasons, and yet I'm outnumbered even in my own house....which makes me question my own sanity. Am I really the crazy one? Don't want to talk about that. Politics...well that's really gone bonkers this year. Definitely better leave THAT alone. 

Sufferin' succotash. 

Also...I jumped off the "quit drinking soda" wagon. Three years of separation between me and my beloved Dr. Pepper. No more of that mess...we best buddies again. I'm literally a pepperholic. Hi, my name is Faith...

Anyway, this year's Christmas update consists of our new address and best wishes for a huge improvement of events in 2021. Best I could do. I'm a glowing ray of sunshine these days...NOT. I probably shouldn't blog either, but since the blog has been virtually abandoned and no one will see it, it feels like a fairly safe place to vent a bit of my cranky pant frustration. 

Lord help. I need it. 

Tickin Away

Merciful heavens. 

February to May...my poor habit tracker has had a blank spot in the blog category for wayyyyy too long! In my defense, I have been quite busy. But then again, we've had a stupid stay at home order for a couple of months now so you'd think I'd have had a chance to blog somewhere in there. Poor blog. So neglected. 

Well, I've been very quiet about the junk that's going on in the universe right now. This whole sickness thing has been so overblown, in my opinion, but that doesn't fit the fear narrative and everyone poo-poos on people who don't go along with it, so I've kept my opinions to myself. It's really driving me nuts though...I'm ready to go back to living. 

Well, after my foot goes back to normal that is....I had foot surgery to remove a cyst that decided randomly to show up a few months ago and has been causing pain and making it difficult to wear shoes. It's enough to make me realize I'm not going to be good at getting old. I've been off it for a week and trying to stay off it like I'm supposed to when there's so much to do....totally difficult.

Mom and Dad came up to visit this week, they wanted to help me get some stuff done so I'd stay off my foot but I had a really hard time sitting down and watching them work...it's not my style. LOL. It was really good to have them up though...quarantine made it a really long time in between visits.

One of these days I'll get around to doing before and after pictures of our house, but since everything virtually shut down right about the time we were able to move into our house, we've been unable to get things finished and buy furniture and stuff like we would normally have been able to do. We've been working on what we can though...there are still things to paint (like half the kitchen cabinets), and still things that need to be fixed (like the water damage in the basement from the flood that happened right after we moved in), but we're chipping away little by little.

The inside is coming along, but what I'm really excited about my secret garden...well, it'll stay secret as long as KC doesn't read this....hahahaha. I'm pretty sure he doesn't, so I should be safe. I don't have a garden plot ready for this year, but I really wanted some edible things growing, so I'm using the centers of some of the flower beds for my garden and planting tall flowers around the outsides to hide the garden in the middle. LOL. I also have a not so secret garden area in the back...it was all weeds, and no one sees it, so I weeded it out and planted all edibles in those...I'm so excited. The top section is lily of the valley...they are really pretty and weren't super weedy, so I left them alone!

We have a lot of property to maintain, which is awesome and also a lot of work. I think it will be more manageable after we get all of the years of neglect caught up, but getting there is tough. Especially when you have a gimpy foot that is holding you back from all the things you want to do!

Like An Old Lady

I feel like I can relate a little better to crotchety old people right now. Everything hurts, I can't get enough rest so the bags under my eyes would exceed carry-on restrictions if I were to take them on a plane, and my brain is so tired I'm making weird comparisons. Also, I'm grouchy and impatient. Still.

On the bright side, we have a house now! We still can't move in yet, because we bought a fixer upper and it needs fixered up. Which is also the explanation for my complete exhaustion...I've been painting about 12 hours a day for the last 2 weeks. And THAT could potentially explain the brain. Maybe it's not exhaustion but too many paint fumes. LOL. 

It's 8am, and the only reason I'm not already working is because I actually have a housecleaning job this morning that I have to go do before I can go over to the house. I am totally not making any sense but I had 5 minutes before I needed to leave, so I thought I'd pop in an blog since I've not had a chance to check it off on my bullet journal tracker since the last time I posted almost a month ago. (YIKES...I'm not doing very good with that. LOL) 

So here...a post, rambling, run-on as it is, I'm still alive, but ready to die. Like an old lady. 

It's About Time

Well, it only took three years, but I finally updated the aesthetics of the dear neglected blog. For future reference, here are the before and after images, since they’re not that much different.

This time I got smart. I planned ahead for my problem of staying current. Now it’s the year dash question mark. That means the next time I get around to updating it, it might only be KC and me on there…but who knows…except the question mark makes it all okay! LOL!

Well, now that this is done, it’s time to get back to blogging again. I have so many thoughts running through my head, but most of them won’t make any sense without a little backstory since I’ve been so absent from the blog over the last few years.

I’m not sure how far to go back, since I don’t remember where we were when I lost track of blogging, but I guess I’ll just go with 2018.

We sold our NC house at the end of 2017 (it was like our favorite house ever…*sigh*), and moved to FL for KC’s job in January of 2018. We lived in a rental for 3 months (holy cow is it ever hard to transfer addresses twice in less than a year…I’m still trying to get all of the mail switched over). Anyway, we hated renting just like I knew we would, because we HAVE to be able to paint! LOL. All beige walls with patches showing from previous renters was totally KILLING us. Yeah, it’s a first world problem. I shouldn’t complain. But I was still really happy when we were able to move into our own place and start painting. Haha. I’m a professional at this point.

So that was March. Then we had a ton of visitors from back home (which was AWESOME, because living in a new town without all your old friends is pretty sad). Going to the beach and pool while all your old friends are still wearing hats and scarves is fun and all, but it sure doesn’t make up for all the missing them! =)

Summer was busy, the TDQ turned 14, the K-man turned 13, and just like that, we don’t have any kids in the house anymore. Just loads and loads of hormones. And also, they don’t want me talking about any of it anymore, because it’s so embarrassing, which is another reason it has gotten harder to blog. Teenage kids just don’t do the cute things little kids do, and even if they pull off something cute, they (or their friends at school) can pull it up on the internet and read it and be mad at you for ruining their life! So yeah, at least 60% of the things I like to talk, vent, brag about are gone…just like that.

Total rabbit trail, I did ponder for a few moments last week if I should delete all photos from my blog history, after finding out that the TDQ has someone with stalkerish behaviors that somehow found my blog and sent pictures from here to other kids at her school. Obviously, I’ve never posted anything bad, but I *THINK* I’ve addressed the problem and it shouldn’t happen again. Either way though, I decided to leave the pics alone and just hope that legal action doesn’t ever become necessary. Seriously, the things you never think would become necessary to think about!

Where was I? Oh yes, school! So the TDQ started at a private charter school which has been AWESOME for her! The K-man started back at Classical Conversations again, but about 3 weeks into it, I realized we had reached the end of the point where homeschool was beneficial for him, too. Sadly, we were too late to get him into the same private charter school as TDQ (well, the middle school version of it anyway), but we joined the waiting list and continued homeschooling.

October and November were total blurs on the calendar…I have it all written in my bullet journal (of which I am still totally HOOKED) but that would be the only way I could remember what all happened those months. We were just busy! Thanksgiving, KC and I took an early anniversary cruise while a friend from back in NC flew in to stay with the kids for Thanksgiving. That was awesome on so many levels. Our kids will want a friends-giving every year now. Haha.

December was another insane month! Our family was all over the place at all different times that month…that’s another unexpected side effect of having teenagers. They can sometimes travel without you now, so you have to manage four individual schedules instead of them always being part of yours. Anyway, we had Christmas Eve in Ohio with KC’s family, and Christmas Day in NC with my family. I wish we had had more time in both places so we could have seen ALL the peoples we miss, but time was too short to catch everyone. Hopefully we can catch more in the next trip north, but that will be awhile yet.

Anywho, so now, January! We finally got a call from the private charter middle school, and K-man is finishing out the year there! Hallelujah! I’ve already seen a huge difference! He just needed more of a challenge and something to occupy more of his time. And although he was incredibly nervous the first week, he is doing AWESOME. Hopefully he won’t kill me for saying this much. LOL. He is way more easily embarrassed than the TDQ. I try to be understanding although I’m not sure he appreciates my herculean efforts! LOL!

There it is. Update complete. I’ve now burned an entire morning and the laundry still isn’t finished.
Till next time! =)

Hello? Hello?

Testing….does this thing still work?

LOL. I have been writing everyday, but it’s been in my bullet journal and it’s been boring to-do lists and random notes--nothing anyone would want to read except me, plus it takes up all my writing moments, hence lack of posts.

All is still good here…or at least, we’re all still alive anyway. The world is still spinning, things are changing all around, but God’s still good. I just haven’t had the capacity to get on here and think of great (or at least interesting) things to say. Plus, I haven’t got the energy to politically correct all my thoughts in order to create trouble-free posts.

I have zero energy today and a long to-do list, so I should probably go try to do something about that…but I just wanted to say hello.

So hello. Maybe I’ll return again someday. =)

Total Intimidation

So it’s time for a new blog header…the only problem is that with homeschooling busyness, I’ve not been in Adobe in a few weeks and I’m sure that once I open it, it will all come flooding back to my poor brain, but the thought of creating something in photoshop or illustrator right now is just completely intimidating.

What to do, what to do?

Baby steps. I’m going to go open the program. Not create, just open.

I’ll let you know how it goes. =)

Happy January!

Oh my word, I was going to do so much better at the end of last year…I failed. Miserably.

We had a great Christmas break, spent our 15th anniversary in the hospital with KC’s mom (surgery, but she’s recovering well). We did get a moment to eat at Red Lobster (the one restaurant without a wait) sans kids before going to stay with his mom at the hospital. Gotta get those date moments in while you can, right? =)

I’m just thankful…we are so blessed. Things could always be worse. Like, the gunman who killed 5 in the baggage claim of the Ft. Lauderdale airport…if he had done that two months earlier, when my family of four was in that same baggage claim getting our stuff and preparing to take a cruise, things could have been a whole lot different in my story.

We also just watched the movie, Sully, and it made me realize how many times KC has flown from NYC to CLT in winter weather, safely. So many things we’ve been protected from, we’ll probably never know all of them. So I’ll just be grateful. For everything.

Even the snow that we got today. LOL It was so cold and my hands were in terrible pain at one point, but I’m thankful for a warm house.

And cardboard games. This one is sequence…a card/board game. Sounds funnier to call it a cardboard game though. Haha.

And last, but DEFINITELY not least, my super fun bullet journal…it’s like a journal, sketchbook, AND planner…all in one place. I am REALLY liking it. I’ve got to figure out a way to pare down on the pen collection though…I love colorful pens, but they’re taking up way too much real estate around here.

I’m nowhere near pro at this thing, but pinterest got me interested, and now that I’ve finally tried it, I’m totally hooked. You know all those times you make to-do lists and write things on them that are already done, just so you can check them off? Then you throw the list away? Well, now I have a place to put all those lists and instead of throwing them away, I can have them forever as a record of having done them. LOL. I know…I’m a little crazy. It’s okay.

Know why I’m blogging right now? Because I put it on my list in my bullet journal that I need to do it more often. So now I’m going to go check it off of today! *insert maniacal giggles*

Later!

Angry Birds

So I’m looking for something to practice the Illustrator Pen Tool on….and this bird just fit my mood. This is my rendition of a pixelated little graphic I found on the internets.

Not that I’m angry, exactly…just in a bit of a mood.

The original had a bit more depth of shadow in it, but I mostly wanted to practice the pen and outlines.

As far as mood…sometimes it feels like I take two steps forward and get shoved twelve steps back…sometimes that gets aggravating. S’all right though. Still blessed. *takes a deep breath* Sometimes trying to stay positive gets aggravating, too!

Tomorrow K-man gets to have his first Orthodontist visit. I thought we were going to get by without anybody needing braces…but nope. He’s nervous and not thrilled, but the dentist said his bite is really off, so we gotta do it.

Homeschooling is keeping me hopping like a frog. Maybe that will be my next practice with the pen tool…a froggy clip art. ahahaha. The kids are doing pretty well with it, but it is a LOT of work and takes LOTS of patience. I’m not complaining though, the flexibility and convenience is amazing! =)

Anyways, I’m taking my grouchy little birdy self off the computer now…need to get ready for bed.

Illustrator Class…

I had a little too much fun playing in class….the best kinds of classes are the ones you can play in…lol!

I love that I can now figure out how to create my OWN graphics!! Yippee!!

What’Cha’Ma’Call Crazy

I haven’t even looked to see when the last time I blogged might have been…my life kinda turned nuts.

Maybe I’ll do better.

Maybe I won’t.

At this point, I can’t make any promises.

We spent July in Florida. That was amazing. Also in July, we decided that we would be homeschooling the upcoming school year.

August…I’m not sure where it went. The PTDQ went to Seattle to visit her Aunt for a week. The K-man started playing football with the local optimist club team. We started homeschooling. We went to Wilderness in the Smokies.

September…I blinked and it was no more. K-man turned 11, I kept a bunch of kids several nights because he wanted a birthday sleepover. We are still surviving homeschool…and at home very little thanks to the tons of homeschool group activities that are available…lol. I started selling Thirty-One again…just to get my wish list of stuff….lol.

October is here already and the time for our annual cruise is creeping up fast! I am so excited. But I have so many things to do between now and then. *sigh*

Blog for the first time in ages – Check
Get to the rest of the to-do list – NOT checked!!!!

LOL. Later!

Life Is Good (Part 2)

So on Tuesday at noon, my lovely antagonistic gallbladder was removed from my body. Full of stones and infected, the little bugger.

Guess I can now check “get stitches” off my bucket list.

I went straight from the doctors office to the same day surgery center at the hospital on Tuesday and thankfully, both the doctor office AND the same day surgery center have much more comfortable waiting rooms than the ER. And even more thankfully, I didn’t need to spend as much time in either one of them. I think the amount of time between being seen in the doctor’s office and coming out of surgery minus a gallbladder was about equal to the amount of time we spent in the ER on Sunday morning. I don’t care now though, I’m just glad I don’t hurt now like I was hurting on Sunday morning.

When I checked into same day surgery, they put me right in a room and prepped me for surgery (prepped as in: made me wear a terribly unfashionable yard of fabric with strings that let in WAYYY too much air in the back end, and gave me a nice IV which was probably one of the most painful parts of the whole thing…she was great at putting it in, but I just am not on friendly terms with things that poke me).

So I made sure that the anesthesiologist was aware that I’m a lightweight and my body might get too relaxed and want to stop breathing but I would very much like to make sure I wake up at the end of the surgery. He made a note and said not to worry, he’d make sure of it, and they really liked to have all of their patients wake up at the end. LOL. The note was probably just for my reassurance, but it worked. LOL.

It finally got to noon and they rolled me back. He said he was going to give me a little test shot of anesthesia in my IV while we were going down the hall. About 2 minutes later my blinks resembled something more like 30 second cat naps. Like I said, lightweight. I remember rolling into the OR and thinking…hmmm…this doesn’t really look like Grey’s Anatomy. LOL. Then they asked me to slide over onto the table and I bobbled my way over like a little drunk lady. They put my arm out to the side and then I was waking up in the recovery room. Only, I didn’t really know it was the recovery room and I wasn’t really awake. I was just rolling around in the bed trying to get away from this awful pain in my stomach. They got the pain under control and FINALLY I was able to get some ice chips for the awful dry mouth. Those were the best ice chips ever. Then they took me back to a room where I could get real clothes on again, and off I went.

Okay, it wasn’t that simple. I had to sign a bunch of papers, I had to move at the speed of molasses in Alaska to get dressed, and then I got a lovely wheelchair ride to the door.

But I finally got home. Everything was good…except for all the gas. HOLY cow! That part hurt almost as much as the gallstones.

But even that went away by today. Today was much better. Except for the part where I took a shower and almost passed out because I looked at my stitches. Wooh.

I’m slowly feeling better. I can’t wait for the soreness to go away so I can get back to doing stuff. Being sick is not for me. LOL. It has been SO nice how everyone has jumped in to take care of me though…I feel VERY loved. People have brought in food, treats, flowers, and dropped by to visit or stay with me. I’ve gotten a ton of texts and emails and facebook messages and phone calls…it’s been amazing. I’ve been told to enjoy the rest. I’m trying. It’s so hard when I’m so used to DOING. Being busy. Not sitting in a chair all day. LOL. So I’ve colored a few pages, slept a LOT, read a book brought to me by a lovely friend, nibbled at some food, and that’s pretty much it. Very UN-busy…but I’m still so tired.

But life is still good and it’s getting better. I’m just glad that little bugger is out and I’m on the recovery side. Whew. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and I think this is one that’s safe to go to…lol. 

Life Is Good

Even though I’ve been horrible at blogging it. LOL. So, since last post over a month ago, I’ve worked on the house, worked on photographing events and people, decided to homeschool our kids next year, taken a continuing education class on InDesign, read a few books, cooked a few meals, proctored end of grade testing at three different middle schools, and generally stayed extremely busy. Looking at my calendar just makes me a little dizzy.

Or maybe that’s the medication. Oh. Did I mention that yesterday, after like 8 years of mostly peaceful co-existence with my gallstones, they decided to stop the cease-fire and attack with a vengeance? They did. Woke me up at 1am and sent me to the bathroom puking. I thought it was just really bad heartburn at first, but the antacids didn’t even touch the pain. After about the third episode of getting way too friendly with the porcelain throne, I decided it might be a good idea to just go on to the ER. (Okay, it wasn’t exactly decided on my own, KC was pretty insistent, because we were both pretty sure it was those dratted gallstones acting up.)

And after I quit Dr. Pepper completely, too! SMH

Anywho, we got to the ER around 4am. After sitting in the miserably uncomfortable ER waiting room for 2.5 hours, during which I was forced into becoming uncomfortably and intimately acquainted with THEIR porcelain throne, and was reduced to silent tears at least twice, we were finally taken back to a room.

The doctor said it looked like my gallbladder and they would do an ultrasound to see what was happening. Then they ran the typical rounds of tests, and put an IV in my wrist for meds. Kudos to the nurses for hitting my poor dehydrated veins on the first try without having to dig around to find them. That’s happened to me before when I WAS hydrated prior to the sticks. Fun times.

Then they gave me some meds. Funner times. One for nausea…yay…no more hugging up on strange toilets! After that one, came an antibiotic and a pain-killer. I remember very little after that. I remember hearing voices talking, someone telling me to breathe, people saying I was sleeping (in which I wanted to say,no, I’m not, I can still hear you!…although I have no idea what else they said, just that they were talking a lot, so maybe I WAS sleeping), then I opened my eyes and KC wasn’t sitting beside me anymore and I had no idea how I got there, when I opened my eyes again, some nurse said she was going to do the ultrasound, then she told me to breathe a couple of times, then I opened my eyes and KC was next to me again and he was laughing.

Anyway, another day has passed since I started this post. It takes me multiple days to blog now…I have to pause for nap breaks every five minutes.

I never did find out what KC was laughing at when I woke up in the ER in my last paragraph. He says he didn’t take embarrassing pictures but we’ll see. LOL. The nurse or doc or somebody came back in right as I was trying to wake up enough to find out what was so funny, and they were telling me that apparently, me being such a lightweight when it comes to pain meds, I went out super fast and relaxed so much that I stopped breathing and my oxygen dropped. Woops. And that explained why I woke up with the oxygen on my face and why people kept squeezing my feet and telling me to breathe.

So anyway, they wouldn’t do anything Sunday because it was Sunday. They said to call first thing on Monday morning, so we did. They first said I could come in for an appointment on Thursday morning to see if I needed surgery. I was like whoa there…I am stuck in zombie land because if I don’t take the pain meds it hurts like the devil, and I can’t be stuck in zombie land until THURSDAY just to be seen, much less waiting even longer for the surgery. Of course, I said it nicely. But anyway, they called back a few minutes later and said, Tuesday morning you’ll see the doc. Much better! Then this morning the doc checked me out and said we could do it anytime in the next couple of days. Naturally, KC and I were both like…today? We didn’t really think he’d say okay, but he did.

Anyways, I’ll have to come back again later. Meds are zombify-ing me again and I can’t think clearly.

Life is good!

Last Minute

Oh my stars. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even had the time to drop in and say how busy. Haha. I’m down to the very last minute of getting ready for my portfolio show at the art museum tomorrow morning. It’s 10:39, I’m the only person awake in the house, and I’m printing the paperwork for tomorrow (which I worked all evening on re-creating because I decided I didn’t like what I had already created). I know, more work for myself.

It looks fantastic now though…I’m so much happier with it. I’m also gathering together all my stuff for tomorrow, and painting my nails…my luck, I’m going to mess them up typing this. LOL. The printer is so slow though that I’ve written this whole post while carefully keeping the nails from hitting anything in the same amount of time as the printer has printed one more sheet. Yikes. I may never get to bed.

Anyway, I just have to get through tomorrow, and then I have to get back to all the other things that have been neglected during my last minute getting ready frenzy. =)

Fun stuff. =) I’m so ready to graduate! =)

Throwdown Time

Wow. I have been burning the candle on every end, it seems. I posted this on photography blog (which is actually where I’ve been lately, and boy, is it ever hard to be in two places at once…lol), but anyways, I went with some friends and classmates to the Light Factory in Charlotte today for a portfolio throwdown, aka critiquing session for students. It was an all day event, so I’m exhausted now, but totally jazzed about the feedback I received. I took my work in progress for this portfolio and the critiques they gave were totally enlightening. I have some things I’m going to tweak a little and I think it will make my final project amazing. It was very cool.

So because I’ve been so busy with trying to finish school and life in general, I have once again neglected the personal blog temporarily. I’m trying to do better, but in the meantime, check the photography blog for the updates I’ve posted this past month.                                     –>

My portfolio show is coming up in just a few weeks. I’ll be posting more details about it on the photography blog in the near future. It’s been an interesting project this semester, and I’m having a lot of fun with it.

I had a great time with my first portfolio project of the purses, and this one has been interesting in it’s own way. I’m very excited about sharing some of the stories that are told in people’s faces and hands. I’m not ready to move on from this project yet, even though I’m already getting excited for my next one. LOL. Fun times!

Work, work, work…lotta hard work, but we’re getting there!

Till next time…

Friday Frustrations

Oh my word. It is so annoying to sit in class and hear people chatting while the teacher is teaching. I care not if people aren’t paying attention, but it’s just annoying to listen to people talking out loud (even though it’s quietly) in addition to the instructor’s voice.

I do pretty well with the “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” policy, I haven’t said anything…or even made any faces, but sometimes I just need to vent out my Friday Frustrations.

Mondays used to be my one dreaded day of the week, but this semester, it’s definitely Fridays. Class seems to be much more focused today, which is great. But it’s still business of photography, which is all slightly less interesting to me than the art of photography.

So this past Sunday, we hiked up a local mountain. It was a lot of fun…around 6 something miles of fun. And the view from the top was cool!

But a couple of days later, I have some kind of contact dermatitis. On both arms. And I don’t think I touched anything at all while we were hiking. The trail was pretty wide, so it wasn’t like branches were hitting my as I passed or anything.

Frustrating. So now, I’m having to find a family doctor who can see me and give me something for it. I’ve evidently not been to the family doctor in 3 years, so I’m off their records. Sheesh.

Then, the PTDQ tossed her cookies at school, so my sweet hubby picked her up. Thank heavens for my fantastic hubby being home working this week so I don’t get an absent from class.

And I’ve also apparently developed seasonal allergies. OH MY STARS.

Last night we moved the bed and removed one giant pile of allergens (also known as the rug that kept my tootsies warm when that dreadful time of morning arrived and I was forced out of my bed). I’m pretty sure all that dust and dander flying around when we cleaned up the area made my allergies much worse because today the coughing and sinus drainage are killer. Blech.

So there’s my Friday Frustrations for this week. Now I need to go edit some pictures and do some work on my photo sites. This semester is whooping my tail. Can’t wait for graduation!

Hope your Friday is more of a Friday and less of a Monday!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily….

Is today Monday? It feels like Monday. I’m all mixed up on my days. I woke up with one of the worst headaches I’ve had in a long while…the kind that makes you want to yank your hair out, throw up, or both. Then, faced with an 8 am class, I had no choice but to get ready in spite of the nausea.

Nausea, from the headache, not nausea from the prospect of class….although there are certain people in there that have holes in their face that never stop moving which is actually a bit nauseating at times.

THEN, my darling child, whose chore it is to walk the dogs in the morning, and who has a frequent tendency to rush the dog’s potty time because their own self dawdled and is now running out of time, brought one of the aforementioned dogs into the house, where it proceeded to finish its business. Because of this frequent tendency, despite being asked NOT to rush the dogs, this darling child gets to clean up business done in the house when it is directly due to rushing the morning walk. Consequence fits the crime and all that. Today it was straightforward and simple, not messy or anything. Just a simple tissue pick-up and flush. Easy peasy.

So my lovely, sweet, totally undramatic, child decided to make gagging sounds while flushing this 1 minute consequence of rushing doggy potty time. Ya’ll know that if you fake gag enough times, you hurl, right? Yep. It’s a fact. Mostly hit the toilet.

That didn’t help MY nausea any at all, but I swallowed down my gags so I wouldn’t follow suit.

Joys of parenting.

My headache finally went away, about halfway through class. Then I sat at the desk and it caught and ripped my favorite pair of totally broke in jeans.

Life is but a dream, people….

Sometimes it mildly resembles a nightmare. Happy Fri-Monday  

When It Rains

Yeah yeah. It rained today. And poured. And left some lovely raindrops…and branches all over the yard. LOL. It’s all good.

It worked out well for the first day of the nature photo challenge from Facebook, where I got tagged yesterday. LOL. I used the other shot I took for that, but I really liked this one, too.

Anyway, I was going to work on shooting some portfolio work today, but the rain dampened my enthusiasm. Haha. Now the sun is back out, but I’m just not in the mood to do anything now.

I hate it when that happens. Motivation is such a persnickity critter. Rain isn’t healthy for mine.

Arm Twisting Time

So I’ve been extremely busy….blogging has been the last thing on my mind. And honestly, it still is. I got through Christmas and every busy part of that, then I got through break, which I crammed as full as I could before school started back. Then school started back, five days a week this semester (which is why I crammed as much as I could into my break, because I knew I would have literally no time the rest of the semester).

Anyhow, I got through all that. Now I just have to get through this semester. One of my classes is requiring active social media presence so I’ve had to start back on my photography page and by extension, here I am again on the blog.

It helps that I have a few hours to look like I’m taking notes and work on my social media presence instead. LOL.

As a side note, not only is my arm being twisted in the social media department, I’m also sorta halfway in the kids taikwando classes as of the last two months and last night we were learning wrist grabs and take-downs, so the arm twisting has also been quite literal. LOL. I really like that kind of arm twisting though.

Back to the figurative arm twisting aspect of social media for school, I had entrepreneurship last semester and this year I have to have business of photography, which is a lot of the same stuff (and I dislike it just as much as last semester), but this semester I have to work more in detail on branding and advertising, etc. So I’ll probably be around quite a bit more out of sheer necessity. Sometimes it’s great to have my arm twisted a bit….gets my rear in gear.

Business class is blah though. I'm so not into this side of things....but I will do what must be done. So on we go.

That Feeling

I feel like I’m really on top of things right now. Like I’m getting everything done, and oh, so productive. Like that busy little bee over there -->

But then I get that feeling.

You know the one. The one that says maybe you’re not that awesome. The one that says you’re probably forgetting something REALLLLLLLY important and you won’t remember it until it’s too late--and THEN you’re not only going to feel NOT awesome, you’re gonna feel like that squishy stuff that the dogs leave in the yard.

THAT feeling. 

I don’t know what to do about that feeling. I’ve made lists. I’ve checked them twice (even though they’re not naughty lists and I’m not Santa). I’ve even checked my calendar.

Hi, I’m Dory! What’s your name?

Okay, anyway. I finished my Entrepreneurship class today (a week early…hallelujah!). I now know how to spell “entrepreneurship.” I also know I hate writing business plans. And I’m 95% sure I will be finishing that dreadful class with a beautiful A. All’s well that ends well. I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting an A in Commercial Photography also, but Photojournalism has thrown me for a loop. I have my fingers crossed for an A in that class. I’m hovering just inside the A field right now, but there are a couple of upcoming assignments left that might kick my rear and that would make me really sad. I’ve learned from photojournalism class that I admire photojournalists greatly and I don’t think I is one. lol

Hi, I’m Perfectionist Dory. *goofy face*

I have so many things still on my to-do list, but I’m making great progress on---

Poo. I just accidently keystroke deleted a whole piece of post. And I don’t feel like rewriting. Also, I don’t remember exactly what I was blabbering about when I accidentally hit the wrong button.

Hi, I’m Dory.

Otay….so I’m going to get back to work on that list now. I have exactly one hour before church and I need to get about 5 hours worth of work done in that hour so…..I’ll probably open Facebook and forget that I was working on that list.

Yeah.

Dory…over and out.