Day Eighty-Nine -- Saturday In The Park

Today was pretty nice. Rob and I have started a new tradition of having Saturday breakfast in the park. It’s usually soup (or chili) and bread and orange juice. Also, it’s usually after 12 pm when we do it. All the prep and getting ready and shopping for the food takes up much of the morning. Rob usually brings along his tablet and his shinai. I usually bring a big purse filled with at least one book, at least one notebook, pens and a beading project so I have plenty of activity to choose from.

After spending an hour or two at the park, we then go to either Starbucks or The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for coffee, or as I had today, tea. There I usually do beadwork and Rob plays games or reads on his tablet. There might be an errand or two run, but we usually stay at the coffeehouse for the rest of the afternoon. Today, we went home a bit earlier than usual because we wanted to catch the earlier, east coast feed showing of Doctor Who.

We’ve been so excited waiting for this episode! Unfortunately, I calculated wrong and we got home in time to see that the early feed was already half way through. We decided not to watch it because we wanted to see the whole thing in sequence. Luckily, on the west coast feed, they were playing the last few episodes from before the break. We watched the last half of one then had to change the channel because I couldn’t bear to watch the final Amy and Rory episode. It was so sad and I loved those characters. During that time, I decided to check out Orphan Black. It was pretty suspenseful but I’m not too sure I really vibed with it. I might give it one more episode before deciding whether I’ll keep watching it or not.

Afterwards, we started watching the Christmas special which was terrific and the second episode that had the new companion in it, before actually being a companion, and towards the end, the channel started getting all wonky. It was glitching up mad like and we were hoping that it would right itself before the new episode. It didn’t. ARGGGGGHHHHH! Luckily, they were replaying it again on the eastern feed channel so we were able to see it unglitched. Of course, it was after I cursed the TV like you wouldn’t believe.

Tonight’s episode was SO fantastic and I was very right about a few things including the identity of the villain. That didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the episode one bit because there was still a whole load of the unexpected! That’s all I’ll say about the episode since it’s possible that this will be read by people who haven’t seen it yet. 

Day Thirty-Three -- Everything In It's Right Place

Today was pretty cool. We went to have lunch at Coco’s with some of the clients that Rob works with, and then we went to Harbor Freight! There, I bought 5 storage containers. Four of them are for at home bead storage and one for travel. I am very excited to start organizing my beads with them. The boxes each have 24 smaller boxes inside that hold the same amount, plus a little more, as a bead tube that I’ve been having problems with. Now that I’ve pretty much filled them up, I want to get some more. They are so neat, and I mean that both ways. They’re cool and they’re tidy! If I were just to get more for my seed beads, I’d say I need 2 more, 3 at the most. But I’m seriously considering them for most of my other beads as well, except for the ones where the quantities are just so low. Now I feel like I’m going to actually have a nice organized stash that will make it easier for me to use my supplies.

After a quick trip to Joann’s, we went to Starbucks where they were playing old Ozzy-led Black Sabbath. It was awesome. It also makes me want to go buy some. Rob said he’ll probably just get it off the Play Store on his tablet. Once we got back home, I’ve spent the rest of the night putting beads in my new containers as well as watching some old, and I mean OLD, Doctor Who episodes and  also some Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes. Tomorrow is going to be a work day, or at least most of it will be if I decide to go back to Harbor Freight tomorrow for more storage boxes. That place is really neat! Geez, I use “neat” a lot. Maybe one day I’ll do a blog with pictures once I have everything organized. I can’t wait for that day. I’m gonna be SOOOO productive!

Day Twenty-Eight -- Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String

Okay so, very cool day today. So far at least, I’ve decided to try typing a bit through the day and then putting it all together and editing it for the blog in the evening.  So back to the cool day… first thing this morning, I wake up with this idea in my head for a scarf pin made of wire and bead. It was cool because I remember waking up in the very early morning with the image/idea in my head but I fell back asleep but when I woke up again, it was still there. Hours later, after cleaning the turtle tank and doing other things through the day, I still had it so I just drew it on paper. Looking at it, I realize that it could also adapt it as a hair um, thingy. I don’t remember what they call those things where you twist your hair, put this cover thing on it and then push a stick through two holes to hold it to your hair. If anyone can remember the name of it, or even if you just have your own name for it, please tell me in the comments below. Until then, it’s “hair thingy”.

There have been things that I’ve been waiting to get in the mail. A few prescription refills, some beads I ordered over TWO weeks ago, and something I forgot all about even though I ordered it less than 5 days ago. That is the thing that came in the mail today and I’m very excited about it! My Seche products came! Seche means dry in French. The first product of theirs I bought was their Seche Vite top coat. It makes nail polish dry fast… super-fast! It works WAY better than Out The Door, but then, I think that OTD changed their formula or something because I remember it working better last time I had some, and now… meh. Anyway, back to my Seche stuff. One of the things I got was Seche Restore, it is a “thinner” for Seche Vite. SV dries quickly so Restore just adds the ingredients to it that evaporates out of it. I tried to use it on my old bottle of SV but the bottle top of it was a bit loose and I noticed that it had a lot less in it than the last time I tried to use it. I tried putting some Restore in it but I fear it’s too late for my old bottle. This is not a problem though because I also just got a Seche Vite Professional Kit.

This has a regular size bottle of SV, 0.5 oz., as well as a 4oz. refill bottle! So basically I have the equivalent of 9 bottles of SV for the cost of two regular 0.5 oz. bottles if I were to get them at Sally’s or another beauty supply store. I’m not running out of this stuff for quite a long time! I will, unless I get a wild hair and decide to change my nail color every other day. Even then, I’ll probably have this stuff a couple of years before needing more.  The last treat in this package is a bottle of Seche Rebuild. Hopefully this stuff will help build my nail strength so that they won’t break or tear so easily anymore. I read a LOT of reviews for this stuff and I have great hopes for it. There really isn’t any reason you can’t get plenty of reviews when buying things today for an informed decision.

I got a letter in the mail saying that it’s been a year since I got my glasses. Has it really? Wow. This time when I go to get my eyes checked, I’m going to tell them that I often have to take my glasses off when I work on my beadwork and does that mean I need bifocals. But maybe I should just try some magnifying lenses. I hope my prescription hasn't changed all that much because then I can get another pair of really cool glasses and switch it up depending on my mood. I know a woman who has a pair of glasses to go with almost every outfit. I’m not going to go that crazy though. Though I suppose I would if I could…

Tonight was also rather productive. We went to Starbucks where I tried the Blonde Roast coffee and I liked it very much. I even drank some of it after it had cooled down quite a bit without gagging. That NEVER happens with most coffee. I got two bracelets finished faster than usual, I think because my base beads were 6s instead of 8s. I have to remember that for the future. Oh, and just now, I came up with another design for hair thingies! Still don't know what to call them...

Day Twenty-two -- Purple Haze All In My Brain... Well, Close Enough.

So, I did it. I have purple hair. Unfortunately, I waited too late to take pictures, so I don’t have any nice pictures to share right now. I will describe it though. It’s a little dark (hell, it’s seriously dark!) for my taste but as the day went on and I played with it a bit, I decided that I like it. I wonder what it will look like when it fades a bit. I also wonder how it would look if I had lightened my hair more first. I might try that one day.

At this point, I would like Kanye West to interrupt my blog by saying, “I’m happy for you and your purple hair and I’mma let you finish, but I have to say that if I hear one more news story or comment about Beyoncé lip-syncing the National Anthem, well, I’m just gonna flip the fuck out!” And to him I would say, “Preach on brotha!” I mean, who cares and why is this news or a big deal to anyone (except maybe Ashlee Simpson lol)?

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system (kinda, sorta), I decided that I have to get out of here tomorrow. I think I’m going to take some work to Starbucks to do some work there, or maybe the library. I need to air out my brain a bit and the walk there should do that and I definitely need a change of scenery. I also have to get into Valentine’s Day mode and also work on those spring Pantone colors. I’m pretty excited about those. Though now I realize that I haven’t spoken about that on this particular blog. For those who don’t know, Pantone puts out a color forecast for Spring and Fall of the colors that are going to be prominent in fashion and such. Each season, I try to make jewelry using all of the colors of the forecast for that season. This time, I want to try to get them done before the season actually starts. I have just about 2 months before spring starts so that should give me plenty of time.

Day Fifteen -- A Bowl Full of "Goulash" Then Back To Work

This is tonight’s dinner.

Rob, upon seeing the picture: I remember that one! 

Me: No you don't.

Rob: Yes I do, it was good.

Me: I made it just now.

Rob: Oh... Well, it looks like something you made before.

Me: ::facepalm::

I show this picture because it was freaking awesome. And even though at this point, I haven't eaten any of it, I know this because I had it the night before, well, minus one thing…

It looks like some kind of Indian dish but it’s not. One ingredient I guess you could say is Indian. What I did was boil some chicken tenderloins with this Mediterranean style vegetable mix from Ralphs. Once done, I put it on a bed of Basmati rice (the Indian ingredient, also, the ingredient missing from the night before). Then I heated up some Tomato Basil Bisque from Vons (also awesome over potatoes) and poured some of it over all, just enough to coat it well but not to be too soupy. My sister would call it “Goulash”. She called everything I ever made that was remotely stew-like, “Goulash”. She also called my Barley Casserole, “Oatmeal stew” which is funny because it wasn’t particularly stew-like at all… but that’s a recipe for a different night.

So I got myself a cup of coffee tonight, sorry, Rob got it for me. I plan on staying up pretty late and actually getting some work done since I’ve been so dysfunctional the past several days. Really though, it’s just been too cold for my brain to work right… and the pharmaceuticals of course. I decided to try to tough out any pain today and just stick with the muscle relaxer but forego the Norco. Hopefully that’s going to help quite a bit. The sad thing is that it’s already 9:30 as I type this and I haven’t gotten anything done today. Hell, I don’t know what the fuck I did today. Yes, I cursed. It’s been that damn frustrating. Though I must admit that that is nowhere near the entirety of the tip of the iceberg that represents the amount of foul language I use on a daily basis :-D …but I digress.

 I think I was foolish enough to think that I’d just have a bit of pain for a couple of days and then be just fine. On top of that, when I haven’t been too sleepy to do anything, we've been on errands or going off on another trip to urgent care, or in the case of today, going for follow-up blood tests and shopping for bland food for Rob, including the previously mentioned Basmati rice. I actually got up early, like WAY early, today, after a night of having a hard time getting to sleep. After going to the bathroom at 6 in the morning and feeling wide awake after I got back in bed, I said screw it, I’m going to get up and do stuff.  My desk chair is right next to a window so I was sitting there and even though the window is closed, cold oozed out and engulfed me like creeping death. I stayed alert enough to make some future business purchases decisions, but next thing I knew, it was already 9. The time seemed to have gone by so fast and I felt like I got nothing done. I was also freezing my butt off. So I crawled back into bed and blasted a hair dryer under the covers for a bit. Then I hastily fell asleep to wake back up at 11.

So, tonight, I’m going to foolishly try to make up for the past week of deficit in the productivity department.  I know, I’ll probably only put a small dent into it. But if I get anything at all done, I’ll be happy. 

Day Three: I'm a Crochet Goddess!

Tonight’s Blog is delayed, but only about an hour and a half because I couldn't get my pictures on the computer because my phone wasn't connecting (I love that I can wirelessly send things from my phone to my computer!) and then I discovered that they were blurry so I had to take new pictures.  Anyway, they're done so now I get to share some cool pictures.

So, most of today was uneventful, which was cool. I discovered that going to bed at 1 am wasn't much better than going to bed at 3. Either that, or my bed is evil. I’m kinda leaning towards the latter these days, especially because of how I feel when I get up in the morning. If you are wondering if I got to my to-do list today, I haven’t even looked at it. I did meditate longer today, just because the first guided meditation I decided to try didn't help one bit. It got a bit weird and I kept zoning out at the exact same moment and rewinding to try to make it through. I had to give up on it after a bit. It kinda reminded me of the time I rode the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland. I went into some weird trance and didn't remember most of the ride by the time I snapped out of it. Hmm, that ride might have to go on the “evil” list… but I digress. After a short search, I found this one thing where it’s just weird noises and is supposed to subliminally, or something, work on your pineal gland, whatever that’s for. It was 15 minutes long and I came out of it feeling very relaxed which is a good thing. It wasn't guided so I didn't feel so bad about my mind wandering. Wow, epiphany: maybe I should forget about the guided meditations and just do stuff like the weird noise stuff.  Gee, this blog is being helpful already!

Around 3 today, I texted Rob, asking if he wanted to go to Starbucks after he got off work. I got a resounding “Hell yes!” So that’s what we did. I thought about bringing some beading to work on, but instead opted to finish the belt that I was crocheting for my mom.  Well, I finished it and it turned out AWESOME! It’s probably the first non-scarf/blanket-like thing I've ever made. I know my mom is going to love it!

Full Belt

Lacing detail

 Now with more confidence in my crocheting skills, I started a hat before we left Starbucks. It’s a pattern that I found online.  I think I might be finished with it in a day or so, depending on how much time I devote to it tomorrow. Whether finished or not, I’ll show pics of my progress tomorrow night.