Happy Halloween!

I’m baaaack! ❤ And just in time for Halloween, no less. I know things are a hot mess this year, but I hope everyone is finding some way to have a fun (and safe) time this Halloween. Mr. Moth and I are celebrating the 5th Anniversary since we became a couple in a low-key “Quarantine & Chill” sort of way. 😛 We got curbside pickup from one of the local breweries for lunch and we’re going to continue our month-long horror movie binge. I’m especially excited to check out the movie The Mortuary Collection on Shudder.

I think it looks like a lot of fun and a perfect viewing treat for Halloween! 😀

Mr. Moth also surprised me with these lovely and delightfully spooky flowers and bats for our anniversary. The boy knows my dark little heart so well. ❤

The past 2 months have been a real whirlwind, with the highlight of it all being that Mr. Moth and I officially tied the knot! We kept it small due to the pandemic but everything was absolutely perfect and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. ❤ The lovely Cupcakes & Machetes was my Maid of Honor and her hubby and my Brother-from-another-Mother was our Officiant. (I’ll do a post with more info and some photos soon!) ❤

We had planned a honeymoon, bought our plane tickets, got our hotel, and got a city pass for a trip to Boston and Salem, a trip we had always talked about going on together since we first began dating, but ended up postponing the trip due to the pandemic. It was a hard decision to make, especially since (like most other people we know) we’ve had to cancel so many big and exciting plans during the ongoing dumpster fire that is 2020. Still, we know it was the right thing to do and we’ll make the trip one day when it is safer to do so. So, instead of exploring new cities together we just did what we’ve done for most of 2020 and stayed in for a little Stay-cation.

In other news: I returned to work in September after 6 months of us being closed due to the pandemic. It’s been really different due to all of the new safety measures we must take. Cold and Flu Season is always a rough time of year at my work, but now with the Coronavirus cases increasing in our state and it being a constant threat in the back of everyone’s mind, it’s been especially stressful and exhausting. We’ve been trying to make the most of things though, and keep everyone safe and happy. My room also hosts weekly Zoom skill-building lessons with some of our participants who prefer to join in virtually rather than in-person, so that has been an interesting learning experience as we try to find our groove presenting fun activities online.

Honestly, I’ve been too busy and exhausted to do much of anything related to my usual hobbies, unless you want to count power naps as a hobby. I’m hoping to ease my way back into the things I enjoy now, though. 🙂 It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do any writing and, for a while there, I really had my doubts that I would have the energy or sanity to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo, but I’m going to give it a go. 😀

What are your Halloween plans this year? How have you been the past 2 months? I’m gonna try my best to catch up on some blog posts around here but if you have anything specific you wanna share PLEASE tell me or even hit me up with a link. I’ve missed my Blogging Buds so I’d love to know how you’ve all been doing. Have a frightfully fun Halloween, everyone!! ❤ ❤ ❤ Looking forward to catching up with all I’ve missed and getting back to a more normal posting schedule. 😛

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June Wrap-Up: A Month in Photos

Can you guys believe it’s already almost July?? It feels like June came and went in the blink of an eye somehow. I decided to do something a little different with this month’s wrap-up post, and showcase what I’ve been up to through mostly photos. 🙂

LAZY DAYS: As has been the case for much of the past few months, there’s been a lot of time at home. Here’s a pic of Bailey curled up for a little catnap in a pile of blankets. ❤ Rest assured, if there is a comfy spot she WILL find it and she WILL nap on it.

GARDENING: Hostas, Rhododendron, Columbine, Peonies, Poppies, Oh My! It was a good month for gardening and learning. We planted more lilies, new bushes, moved some stuff around, and did a lot of other outdoor projects.

BAKING: I finally slowed down my baking spree I had been on. 😛 I did, however, make a really yummy peanut butter ice cream pie (graham cracker crust, thin layer of hot fudge, Reese’s peanut butter ice cream with thin sheets of chocolate, whipped cream, Reese’s peanut butter sauce drizzle, and chopped up Reese’s cups as pictured above). I also baked another loaf of Garlic Cheddar Beer Bread (soooo good!) ❤

DRAWING: I’ve been on a drawing binge lately that you can check out on my Instagram if you’re interested, but here’s a little sample of what I’ve been up to this month. 🙂

WORK: I got to go to work a couple times (staff only) to start setting up for all of the social distancing/PPE changes we will have to put into effect upon our return. Also got to redecorate a little. Pictured above is the head start I got on one of my room’s bulletin boards. We’re supposed to return to work July 6th, but with COVID cases back on the rise, we’ll see what happens. We can’t open back up until our state enters Phase 5 of our reopening plan, and thankfully our Governor has been taking this very seriously since day 1 so I don’t think she’ll rush us into that until it is actually safe to do so.

LOSS OF A LOVED ONE: The pic above isn’t from this June, it’s actually from last year when we celebrated my parents’ pug BeeBee’s birthday party for her Sweet 16. ❤ She was such a sweet and adorable little dog and was so loved by our entire family, but unfortunately we were forced to say goodbye to her this June. It is sad not having her around anymore, but she lived such a good life while she was with us. She was adopted by my family a decade ago, and by that point she had already lived through a lot. BeeBee was a puppy mill survivor who didn’t even get to feel the grass beneath her paws for the first 3 years of her life. She was rescued from that awful situation and found a home for some time with a woman who loved her, but eventually her owner became too sick to be able to take care of her any longer. My mom was in contact with a woman from a pug rescue league and she told my mom about BeeBee and that was that. She came to us blind, but this was nothing daunting for our family. We’ve taken in several animals with special needs over the years and her inability to see was no big deal. She was sassy and fun, and my dad especially spoiled her with so much love and affection. She had a new brother and constant companion in my parent’s other pug, Brutis. They were attached at the hip and formed an instant bond with one another. ❤

She had the cutest little “bubble bark” that sounded more like “Borp Borp Borp” than the normal kind of bark you hear, loved being held, liked to adventure forward without a care in the world like she could see where she was going even if she was always bumping into things or barking in the wrong direction while trying to be “tough” like her brother. She preferred to be inside the house and wasn’t shy about making sure you knew it by finding her way back to the door and doing her little bubble bark to announce when she was “over this outdoors bullshit”. Haha

Her vet sent a very sweet card and a package of Forget-Me-Not seeds for my parents to plant and grow in BeeBee’s memory. ❤ I thought that was such a touching and thoughtful thing for the vet’s office to do.

That’s it for my own personal June Wrap-Up. How was your June?? Can you believe the year is already halfway over? With how 2020 has been going I’m sure we’re all hoping for a better second half of the year. As always, take care and be safe, guys! ❤

Binge-Watching, Baking and Back to Blogging

Anyone else feel like they’ve lost their grasp of time lately? It’s been just over two months since my other half and I last had regular Monday through Friday schedules, and almost just as long since my last blog post as well. Quarantine has my brain all over the place, even more than usual these days. I can’t tell you how many times this month I’ve still thought we were in April. lol

I’d like to say I’ve been using my time wisely and kicking the shit out of my new year’s resolutions, but this is NOT the 2020 I signed up for, so that’s a big NOPE for me. 😉 What I have mostly been doing is just been binge-watching shows and movies with my fiance and kitty, and doing things that make me happy and keep me focused on one thing at a time instead of a thousand things and worries all at once. Gotta keep that mental health in check! ❤

I used to bake all the time and eventually got kind of sick of it a while back. (I was always the person who was in charge of baking for every single event, be it in my personal, work, or school life and baking big batches of stuff time and time again just kind of got old after a while.) Well, with all this free time on my hands, I’ve been on quite the Quarantine Baking Spree. Some recipes made include:

• Pumpkin Toffee Bread
• Peanut Butter Cookies
• Rainbow Chip Cake Cookies with Whipped Frosting
• Strawberry Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
• Banana Bread
• Butterscotch Mousse
• Dark Chocolate Oreo Mousse
• Banana Cream Mousse

As for creative things, it’s been touch and go. I have been drawing a fair amount, which has been nice. I’ve been posting the art over on my Instagram account which I use far more regularly. I really like Instagram for more frequent use, but I do miss the wonderful community and friends I’ve found here on WP. Like Imperial Rebel Ork has pointed out before, I think the blogosphere allows us to get more connected and have more of an actual dialogue with one another. 🙂

I’ve also been trying to learn new tricks and techniques to get back into digital art. I got a fancy new art tablet for my birthday back in January and there is sooo much to learn but I am really loving all the options and artistic freedom it allows. Hopefully in the near future I can start actually making pieces with it once I feel I’ve learned how to best utilize it.

Writing has been a real “when it rains it pours” kind of situation. Some days I’m really productive, and others I’m like “What the hell am I even doing??” My attention span has been all over the place during this so my reading has been a lot less frequent as well. I’ve started reading multiple books (interesting ones, too) and then my brain goes “Nah, bitch, not today!” and they return to the TBR pile from whence they came.

On days that the weather has been kind, we’ve gone walking, but it’s mostly been snowing and raining or just too cold, so there hasn’t been as much of that as we would have liked. I think one of the major things I miss doing is going to the gym. Hitting the treadmill with my earbuds in and listening to music or an audiobook was something I really enjoyed doing before or after work. I’m not cool enough to pretend I haven’t put my gym shoes on and done laps in my dining room/kitchen while listening to an audiobook. 😛

Mr. Moth returns to work tomorrow, so I’m guessing that will bring some normalcy back into our routine, but I’m also anxious about him going back too. Michigan is one of the states that has been hit really hard with COVID-19, and one of the parts of Michigan that has been a hot spot for the virus is the place we call home. I know good people who have lost their life to the virus, and it breaks my heart thinking about them and their families. Luckily most of the people I know who have gotten it have since fully recovered. ❤ A lot of the major people in my life that I care about are essential workers and have been working through the whole thing and I’m so glad that they’re okay. I hope you guys and your loved ones are doing well, too. ❤ I’m looking forward to catching up on some of the blog posts I’ve been missing. Please feel free to link me some exciting posts of yours I may have missed in the comments! I can’t say for sure how frequently I’ll be posting, but I’ll try not to make it another 2 months of radio silence between posts. 😉