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Life Lately
I did a birthday hike with my mom at the beginning of September (pics on my Instagram here). The rain gave us a lovely fog over the river (the photos don’t do it justice). And it also gave me a lovely wipeout. So we stopped at Target for an outfit before heading out to eat. And then I had my first facial with dermaplaning and an eyebrow wax. Highly recommend!
And that was the highlight, lol. My web development course rather took it out of me. And I didn’t study extra like I needed, so this semester looked glum. Then I decided to be stupid and get on dating apps. And then did some other “research” on my looks and such involved with that. All of which served to make me crazy (and tended to get the “men are pigs” sentiment going quite nicely). Then as I was winding that catastrophic experiment down, I got covid (the week of our huge company walking challenge, which would have normally put me right in 4th or 5th place!). I got enough better according to the current policies to do training (downtown) most of this past week and half of next. All the while trying to get a seasonal weekend job.
I’ve been exhausted, but I’m mostly relaxing this Sunday, and trying to plan for a fun fall. I want to enjoy my favorite season!
I’m looking to see if I can get a spot in the next semester for web dev and spend this semester studying. I’ve got a part-time weekend job that should start this month. I’m almost done with training, which should give me about 2 hours a day back and make it easier to pick my exercising back up. I’ve got my race with my mom at the middle/end of this month (with hopefully a bit of exploring after), and then the last week I’ve got a staycation (hallelujah!). I think I’ll try and start that off with another facial!
I’m hoping I can get some fall decor and goodies next paycheck since, you know, it’s actually still fall! Hopefully it isn’t sold out since every season and holiday starts about two months earlier lately!!!!!
My mom dropped off apples, apple cider, and an apple cider doughnut this week, and my sister and I had our seemingly annual fall get-together with some childhood friends complete with plenty of pumpkin treats. I also managed to snag a couple jars of pumpkin (I still had plenty of molasses, it took me so long to find last year I made sure to grab several, but I think I might still grab some more this year). I’m also thinking of the cozy savory fall foods to have like saurkraut, potatoes, and sausages, yum!
I’m going to plan some more stuff for fall today, so to sign off, a video from the Autumnal expert herself.
Here’s to Autumn and all things Autumnal!!!!!!!
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My (Somewhat) Dramatic Autumn Thus Far
October = Castlemania. This time I started from the beginning (so good) and watched into season 6 thinking that maybe I’d be able to watch the whole show. Then 7 happened, and there is the sour note (and I’ve plenty to saw, so prepared to be bored by a few more Castle posts coming up).
I enjoyed the banter (the early seasons are especially good) and the relationships. I was getting SUPER jumpy and freaked out at night, plus didn’t want see some of the stuff (because it has a happen of flashing into my mind at night, awesome), so I started skipping the actual murders and murder scenes more aggressively.
Also, I do not like Halloween. I’m not as terrified as a kid, but between Castle and a (mild to most people) spooky day Youtube video, I got the most graphic nightmare, still remember it.
I actually started out watching Only Murders in the Building and then got caught up. So I tried Castle and like I said, Castlemania. I mean, I didn’t want to read or watch anything else.
Some professional ATM robbers hit a bank near where I live (stealing my neighbor’s truck to do so), meaning they were in MY complex!). Then they hit one of my bank’s locations here in town. So that was interesting.
Not going to lie, not sure that really scared me. I’m not sure how much it would have bothered me. Castle was SO in my head, that (plus every news story I’ve ever read) was what was making me paranoid.
Then I called the police on someone for the first time ever. One morning after I’d literally just ordered some extra door jamming protection (!), I saw someone walking behind my apartment, in what is essentially like a private backyard for my line of buildings with a tree line separating us from the back of Kroger. It seemed that this person possibly may have slept a few yards from my bedroom (I’m second floor, but the ground sweeps up to a higher level). Um, that is going to be an absolute NO from me.
Anyway, apparently they’d gotten calls before about this person. Someone at work said the cops wouldn’t do anything out here as they were all 70 years old. They aren’t. A really cute young policeman* came when my car was hit in my work parking lot while I was working. Yeah, that happened too.
Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned, early one morning in September, I headed next door to Kroger, feeling productive . . . and busted my wheel on a curb, so that was I think $500 (I had some regular stuff done, so I don’t remember the exact breakdown). Awesome.
The kid backed into my car on that side. Again, awesome. I don’t think he did any major damage, but you can tell it’s been hit well. So it matches the other side, when last year I ran over a curb (notice a pattern?) and messed up the bottom edge a bit. Still haven’t had that fixed since it wasn’t necessary to function and it wouldn’t be someone else’s insurance paying . . .
Oh, and I tried to poison Bjorn. Apparently grapes are poisonous to dogs?! I knew in the back of my mind I should check before giving them to him, but I was lazy and didn’t. He had some potty issues, nothing major, I thought I’d been giving him too many treats, then when I was eating breakfast and he was begging for grapes, that got me to check. Yep, poisonous. Poor baby. He did get treats then because Mommy tried to kill him. So I’m going to be much more careful.
Speaking of Bjornling, I got some photos of him in his bat wings which I shared on Instagram. Since he’s not a fan of being still, especially when I have treats and because I stupidly didn’t get a video you can’t see the full effect, but it was cute and hilarious.
In less dramatic news, I sewed 4 skirts thus far (and put in all 4 zippers on the first try very well, yay me!), knitted most of a baby blanket, reorganized my craft stuff and apartment (huge project, not quite done and will always tweak), and tried another mystery author (Josephine Tey) that I enjoyed and another fluff romance author (Berta Ruck). I’ve also made several fall-ish soups, pumpkin bread, and butterscotch chip cookies. I also reread North and South.
Oh, also as part of Darling Desi’s fall list, I read by candlelight a few times (the actual reading is great with a kindle with its own light, not so great with a normal book), which was so much fun and atmospheric and pretty (for proof, see pretty photo that I’m proud of on Instagram). I’m hoping to do a several more of her ideas this month as well.
*He’s probably married, should have checked for a ring, I think I saw one. Guys around here even younger much less my age either are already married with kids or have several baby mamas.
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August and Life Lately
I can’t remember much of what I accomplished if anything in August. I know I didn’t watch much besides a little more Community and YouTube. I think I’ve done more in these first two weeks of September than I did in all of August. I also forgot a lot of what I did, I’m still working on keeping notes for my abysmal memory.
I did go peach and blackberry picking with my mom, brother and niece. And then I came home and made blackberry lemonade (twice, I love it SO much). I froze some peaches. I bought more frozen blackberries from a local grower. This month I bought some nectarines from a local farm.
We did our family birthdays.
I bought Bjorn some grooming stuff (still haven’t gotten around to dealing with his little felted self, he’s in the sort of molting/growing in his grownup fur stage which could last another year). And a gate, very helpful.
I got Triple A in time to bust a tire. My parents helped me, I was panicking and needed to get to work. But next time I’ll use Triple A. Also big car purchases unfortunately in my future.
I’m working temp work at my previous job (the one that got bought) to digitize paperwork that the parent company needs before they can officially close everything. So that has been helpful financially. I’m not sure how much more time I’ll get there, so I went ahead and applied for a waitressing job that is about 5 minutes from my house for Saturdays.
Oh, and my current employer also got bought, except we in Retail are mostly all promised our jobs, but we find out for sure this month. I’m hoping I can be full-time before that, but we shall see.