I drove today

My husband is in a 6 week course in San Antonio. It's a little over 200 miles from home, so not bad, unless you have a stomach bug. I visited a couple weeks ago, and it was fun. We went to the zoo and saw a lot of animals. I had been there a few years ago and stuff was under construction then.  It was nice to see it finished. Pics incoming, please excuse the phone camera pics.

My face when I hit traffic

Cats are all weird

Mean horses

I like turtles! (yes, it's a tortoise, hush) 

This week I had some sort of stomach issue.  Kept me up late last night and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to drive 200 miles with wonky guts.  A couple imodium and leaving and hour and a half late, and off I went.  It's still a new a car.  I don't even have the real plates yet.  It's my first ever NEW car.  I've always had used cars with more than 20,000 miles on them when I start driving them (my last car was at 28k and I drove to 232k).  So, yes, the odometer was at 15 when we got it.  I missed a few milestones (like when it hit 100), but today I got two.  Okay, neither are that important, but I am amused by them.

Too bad the trip mileage wasn't 56.7...

I missed 123, so I was excited when I hit 1200.  Those last 34 miles took forever!  Ha!

So nerdy!

Yes, I went with 1337.  Why not?  It's a new car so I can do whatever I want!  :)

I'm not sure if we'll do anything tomorrow.  I still feel iffy and husband is super tired.  Hopefully we can find something fun that doesn't require us to do too much.

Spearmint Flowers!!

When I was little my parents had a garden in the backyard.  I remember my dad showing me the ripe strawberries and eating them fresh.  I also remember my mom making me hold the giant sunflower for a picture and I hated it because it was very prickly.  When I moved to Texas, my first few times at just having flowers was a horrible failure.  I did have a peppermint plant that held on for most of a summer, but it was overrun by spider mites and it was a loss.  I now live in an apartment and I can't have a garden.  I tried strawberries last year, but that didn't work out, neither did the tomatoes.  Yes, everything is in a pot.  I did manage to keep a snapdragon alive for an entire year, but it died the second autumn.

Early 2014 I had a small peppermint plant, a petunia, and the snapdragon.  Sorry, no pics.  Snapdragon and petunia didn't make it until winter, but peppermint was hanging in there.  It spent most of the winter indoors since it was actually quite cold and I'm not sure how a potted plant would hold up in below freezing weather.

Spring 2015, peppermint is doing quite well, and I got a few more flowers and a spearmint.  Good thing I have a lot of pots around.

Spearmint on the left, peppermint on the right, various flower in the middle

My happy little garden.  Yes, my porch-thing is dirty.  There is a live oak right there and of course ALL the leaves wind up on my porch.  I hate that, but do enjoy the bit of shade it provides.  The spearmint is tall, with only a few shoots? stalks? uh? and the peppermint is short and more of a small bush.  I had to cut out part of the spearmint in the center since it was all dead/dying.  I guess that didn't hurt it because it started to flower.

Oh! It's starting!

Almost!

Almost!

Getting there!

Nice rain!

Uh? Ants?!

All 3 of the current flowers!

The whole plant!

I really don't know what I'm doing, but I find this exciting.  The plant seems to be doing well since there is a lot of new growth popping up.  Also....

MORE FLOWERS!!!

I really hope it continues growing.  I will call this my first container garden success if it doesn't die.  I do love the smell of both mints.  So nice and refreshing.

So tired...

Tuesday was my birthday.  Wednesday morning I got to babysit my favorite little girl and we made a nice blanket fort.  Wednesday afternoon I went to my mom's.  Thought I'd try to get another sunflower pic since there were some nice storm clouds around.  Yeah, uh, that didn't work out very well.  Bees flying around and then I get into position to snap a couple photos when my left foot started burning.  Ants.  I don't know what kind, but they are super tiny and they are horrible.  I last encountered them when I first moved to Texas 15 years ago and got away with nearly 30 bites/stings/whichever.  As a true photographer (cough) I did get a pic...

Oh look! A bee!  And the earth is suddenly slanted...

It would have been a nice pic if the horizon line had been straight.  If only I could get things lined up super fast, then I'd have a better pic and maybe less ant bites/stings/whatever (I'll spare the internet a pic of my poor foot).

A fancy shot that was taken before the ant attack at the sunflowers.

I really didn't get any good pics of the clouds.  Tropical Storm Bill actually provided us with a tiny amount of rain, and some really nice clouds.  I am a poor photographer.  I don't care though, I have fun snapping pics.

Thursday I drove mom around to her appointments and errands.  Foot felt a million times worse, and overall I felt horrible.  Friday (was that actually yesterday?!) I took mom home, wanted to try again for the sunflowers, but decided against it.  As I was leaving I realized how green everything looked.  I don't remember it ever looking so green.  I do remember it all being dead/brown back in 2011 when it never rained and we had 100 days over 100 degrees.  This year has been great.  Until this month it's been cooler and wetter than normal.  It wish it would at least be cooler again.

Pardon the car, I was too lazy to move it. Look at all the green!!

Oh! Almost forgot my late birthday present from mom.  A crap-ton of knitting supplies!  I really should knit something that isn't a potholder...

My first set of interchangeable needles!

Today I was supposed to go to San Antonio, but I'm just so worn out.  Add in generic Benadryl to help with my allergies, and I'm in condition to drive that 200 miles.  Hopefully next weekend I can go.  Right now I'm just too tired.

Oh, right... Cat tax!  It's Caturday after all.

Startled Pixel

It's my birthday!

For the second year in a row I'm all alone on my birthday.  To some that would be horrible, but to me it's nice.  I can stay home in my comfy clothes and not worry about anything.  I would like to be with my husband, but his work has him a few hundred miles from me.  So far Facebook friends have wished me happy birthday, and the cats haven't fought, so I'm considering this a good day!

I thought I'd do my nails with some birthday stamping.  Oh.  I haven't stamped in forever.  I can't remember which polishes work best (I should make a notebook), so I was guessing.  I wanted purple nails, but of all the purples, none really jumped out at me.  I selected an untried for my base, Zoya Suri, and put Emerald & Ash Terrible Twos over it.  It looks really nice, but then I stamped over it.  Meh.  Oh well. it's like a small dysfunctional party on my nails.  lol  I used Zoya Snow White and Bundle Monster plates bm-h19 and bm-h20.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.  So. Many. Bubbles.  Ugh!

I accidentally used a satin top coat over the stamping instead of a matte top coat, so they are slightly shiny.  I'm not about to put another layer on. The pretty purple I made is slightly lost with the stamping and top coat, so a pic of my unaltered right hand, to show the pretty purpleness.

Oh the horror!  Clean up is a nightmare using my non-dominant hand.

Poor right hand.  Does all the work, but doesn't always get the same pretty treatment.  At least I paint the nails!  I'm horrified to know that some people only do their non-dominant hand, and sometime not even the thumb.  Uh?  No, I do leave the house with my nails done.  All nails, not just the ones to get photographed.

I really should stamp more.  I need to be not so lazy also!

Caturday!

My cats are turds.  Apparently now Pixel likes catnip.  Really likes cat nip.  Tries to get into the container of nip, but luckily it has a super screw on lid.

1000 yard stare after some nip

And Pixel still likes to harass poor Anya.  At least he's not attacking her as much.

Anya trying to ignore Pixel

You're Not the Boss of Me

So, I chipped up two nails last night and left them that way since I wasn't planning on leaving the house anytime soon.  Of course I get asked to help a friend tomorrow.  Eep!  Okay, nothing fancy, may as well use another of the Terrible Twos polishes I have.

Emerald and Ash is my first indie nail polish.  So far I have nothing but love for these polishes.  I was not sure about this one, since it has pink flakes in it and I hate pink.  Sure, I loved pink when I was 10 years old, but not anymore.  You're Not the Boss of Me is a green matte polish with pink flakes and it applies wonderfully.  The other two I've used have also applied wonderfully.  I'm just not sure how to use them all at once.

You're Not the Boss of Me over Willa by Zoya

I seriously wish I could get a picture of how awesome this looks in person.  Yes the pic is nice, but it's all sorts of vibrant in person.  I'm not sure how to get a pic in dim lighting, since it looks like a rich earth brown in dim lighting.  Oh well.

Throwback Thursday

I thought I'd show my first ever attempt at nail art.  I've painted my nails over the years, buying new polishes here and there, then throwing them out after a few years when the dried out.  As I got older they didn't dry out as often, so they collected dust for years.  First attempt was using scotch tape to do a simple diagonal line.

Finger Paints Autumn Moonlight (blue) with Finger Paints Easel Come, Easel Go! (silver) - May 3, 2013

Oh the horror!  Clean up?  What's that??  I had no clue.  Also, super short nails, well, they were actually a bit long.  I worked retail for 5 and a half years and kept my nails quite short because if there were longer (not long, but not nubs) I'd wind up with a break.  Usually a nasty break.  Almost lost my right thumbnail when moving some coloring books.  It hurt (and bled) and I nearly said a few bad words in front of a mother and her child.  I don't miss those days.  My last break was also my right thumb nail.  Somehow bent/snapped it when trying to pop the handle open on a 12 pack of Coke.  Now I use my knuckles.

Lately I've been lazy when it comes to nail art.  I have enough supplies, so it's not that.  I just am lacking creativity.  I'm also overstimulated by all the awesome art online.  Since I can't leave the house with bare nails I do simple colors or something easy like my first try.

Dark blue-green base Calypso by Sinful Colors with Why? Why? WHY? by Emerald & Ash - May 30,  2015

Black base Zoya Willa, with Hold On by Emerald &Ash - June 5,2015

Clean up has improved, but dark colors sometime will not clean up easily.  I won't call myself an expert, but I do enjoy nail polish and nail art.  I've also tried to improve my hand pose and background.  Right now my peppermint is growing nicely, so it's nice background (I think. Hopefully).  The rock I found in front of my apartment.  Yup, I stole a rock from the apartment complex.

Random Cat things

I have two cats.  Anya is my baby.  She'll be 16 in August and is a fat lazy bum.  Oh wait, that's almost all cats.  I say she's food based.  Normal cats are carbon based, but Anya is special.  If she detects any molecule of food she's all sorts of alert and wanting your attention (and crumbs).  She's also a nip addict.  I guess I didn't get the lid on the catnip jar all the way and she managed to knock it on the floor and then roll around in all of it.  It was one of the large nip jars and it was 3/4 full when she knocked it down.

My Anya enjoying a sunbeam.

Pixel is technically my husband's cat.  Husband got the evil furball after not looking at any other kittens, only saying he wanted that one because he was scratching at the door to get out.  Pixel is a special kind of special.  Running around like his tail is on fire, farting clouds of death, and licking odd things.  Evil furball adopted me.  He won't leave me alone, but he hates to be pet.  What??  I normally go for calm cats that like to be near people, and Pixel is the opposite.

Pixel being Pixel.

First!

Okay, I really don't know what I'm doing.  Ever.  When asked what I want to do, or even what I want for dinner, I always answer with "I don't know" or throw out some random non-answer.

A bit about me - I'm almost 36, happily married, and the mother of two cats.  I have hobbies sometimes, but I always seem to switch.  Knitting and painting I've done for the longest.  For a while I was making lampworked beads, but when I moved out of my mom's house I stopped doing that.  Somehow her house was open enough that I could work with fire indoors and not feel like I'd burn the place down.  I'm sure an open flame is a lease violation for apartments, so that hobby is done for a while.  Lately I've been into doing my nails.  I went from 15 bottles of polish two years ago, to around 300 currently.  Oh, and photography.  My husband is a part-time photographer, and he pushed me to get a real camera.  I still get better pics with my phone, but I do try to use the real camera.

Oh, I ramble.  Sometimes a lot.  In person I don't actually talk much.  I'm very quiet, especially so around strangers.  I probably have some sort of social anxiety thing, but whatever, I try to just stay at home.  I do ramble when typing out things, but I swear I don't know how to put words together in the correct order, or even how to use words properly.  Hurr durr.

What will I be posting here?  Probably pictures of my nails, my cats, random flowers/bugs/animals, clouds, weird fruits I find at the grocery store, or any random thing I find interesting.  Maybe a the occasional rant about something, or maybe some praise for something else.

A sunflower at my mom's place.  Buzzard tried to photobomb.