Utterly Pooped.

Sometimes I look at my cat and think to myself, “What a life.” She has no kitty bills, doesn’t have to spend 40 hours a week or more at a cat job, she gets constant praise and care for nothing more than being adorable, and the most anyone expects out of her is to poop in the appropriate box and not to scratch up the furniture. I can do those things, too, damnit. Ugh. Being a human is absolute butts.

None of these drawings are mine, FYI. I’m far too lazy to be drawing right now. I did do a couple pieces for that Haunted Garden Art Challenge, but I’ll post those another time. For now I just lament about my non-kitty existence. (If you can’t tell, work has been completely kicking my ass lately.)

This post is mostly just a “Hey, there, Stranger. Yeah, I didn’t drop off the face of the earth despite what my blogging activity this past month might imply” sort of post. Oh, and an excuse to post cats, too, of course.

I’ve got a 5 day holiday weekend coming up and I am SO ready! I hope June has been a kind month to all of you. ❤

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August Wrap-Up

I don’t know about you guys, but my August was nuts. It really was a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. My dad just had his 60th birthday and started his sixth decade right in the hospital. He’s doing a lot better now thankfully and was able to return home after one overnight stay, but I know it wasn’t how he planned to celebrate the big 6-0.

Thankfully, the month wasn’t all bad. In fact, I’d say it was mostly pretty damn good, just very busy. Mr. Moth and I started pre-gaming for the Halloween season by going to the ticket launch party for Theatre Bizarre and going to the inaugural Carniville of Madness, a 1920’s themed event where you dress up, watch aerialists, burlesque performances, sideshow acts, play carnival games, check out vendors selling various oddities and crafts, etc.

Ticket Launch Party for Theatre Bizarre at Leon & Lulu

I also got to go stay a very fun weekend out of town with Mrs. and Mr. Cupcakes & Machetes and my fur nieces and nephew, as well as hang out with most of my book club ladies, so that was fun too. There was also a big work party, 2 birthday parties, and other shenanigans so this month didn’t leave me with much free time for reading, writing, or drawing. Fall is on its way though, and that is always a creative season for me, so hopefully I can make up for the lost time asap and get working on some of my projects I have going.

This weekend I’m ending the month by doing a LOT of yard work. By the time September officially begins, our backyard should be looking vastly different. This labor day weekend is pretty much all work and no play even though I’m off from work, but that’s okay. Happy Labor Day to those of you who celebrate it, and wishes for a happy weekend to everyone! ❤

Blue Ocean Floats: Shark Week Recipe

Today was cooking day at work so of course we had to make some shark themed deliciousness to enjoy. I was so happy with how these cute drinks we made turned out. Much like your classic Root Beer Float or Boston Cooler, this Blue Ocean Float involves soda pop and vanilla ice cream. The blue soda was a berry flavored soda we found at one of our local grocery stores, but any blue soda will work, so feel free to get creative if you try this at home! And who needs a cherry on top when you can put a candy shark on top instead?? 😛 My participants loved these! ❤

We also ended up making some “shark week crunch” which is essentially muddy buddies but made with Bugles instead of Chex so that each piece resembles a shark tooth when coated with the powdered sugar mixture. 🙂 Anyway, this week has been utterly exhausting so I think I’m going to leave off there for the night, curl up with the kitty and go relax and watch some Shark Week. ❤

2018 Wrap-Up

2018 has been a crazy year full of big and exciting new adventures. Mr. Moth and I went home hunting and moved into our first house together, we both applied for/received promotions at our jobs, and we did a lot of work around the house/yard in our first year of home-ownership. During this time I also worked on my resolutions for 2018 and I’m pleased to report that I didn’t do too shabby. 😉

Concerning my READING GOALS for 2018: I completed my GR reading challenge goal of 50, and I explored reading more poetry like I hoped to do as well. My only reading goal I messed up on was that I still didn’t read all the neglected, unread books already sitting on my shelves. Sigh . . . I suppose that’s the curse of any lover of books, though, isn’t it? We always wanna obtain more books even before we’ve finished all the ones we already have at home.

Some of my reading highlights of the year included discovering a new author I really enjoyed in V.E. Schwab. I’ve only read her book A Darker Shade of Magic so far, but I will definitely be checking out more of her work in the future. 🙂 I’d say all in all, my top 2 favorite novels I read this year were Strange the Dreamer and The Great Alone.

Concerning my CREATIVE GOALS for 2018: I had sort of an iffy year in the creative department. I did more writing and drawing like I intended to do, but with everything going on I just never seemed to make it as far as I wanted to with my creative goals this year.

I participated in Inktober and Women’s History Month by producing multiple new ink drawings, as well as experimented with some new watercolor pens during Shark Week to produce a new whale shark illustration.

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

As for writing, I did more of that and am really excited about my current writing project. I recently shared the currently-private details with my BFF, the lovely Cupcakes & Machetes and she shared in this excitement, making me that much more motivated to not be the notorious project hopper that I am and see this one through. I participated in NaNoWriMo and although I didn’t make the full 50,000 word count I’d hoped for that month, I didn’t give up and got some good writing in which I’m pleased about. 🙂

I did try a new creative thing this year that I hadn’t even been planning on, and that was face painting. Mr. Moth and I both required skull makeup for the Halloween event we attended this year, so I gave it a shot and was totally thrilled with the results.

Concerning my HEALTH/FITNESS GOALS for 2018: This was another set of goals that I worked on but would have liked to have been able to push myself further with. I did make a few gym buddies, I took some different classes at the gym and tried lots of new things there, pushing myself out of my comfort zone quite a bit. Me being my very introverted self, I’ve always preferred working out at home to going to an actual gym, but I think that really changed this year. I wanted to try hitting the trampoline park again and finding new active hobbies like that, but the gym was pretty much my go-to in that department this year. Maybe next year?

All in all, it was a pretty damn good year for me as far as milestones and working on goals. Any growth and development one can make to oneself is always a plus, right? I know I have lots of exciting new things I want to work on in 2019, but we’ll save all that for my upcoming New Year’s Resolution post. 😉

TOP MOVIES I WATCHED IN 2018:

Deadpool 2

Black Panther

Avengers: Infinity War

Fantastic Beasts 2

The Incredibles 2

Game Night

Coco

TOP SHOWS I WATCHED IN 2018:

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Attack on Titan

American Ninja Warrior (and it’s other counterparts)

Channel Zero (I didn’t really care for this show previously, but this season was much better!)

The Jim Jefferies Show

American Horror Story

Insatiable (this show got a lot of hate for not being PC but it’s a dark comedy. The characters are supposed to be flawed, messed up people with flawed, messed up views. I binge-watched the hell out of this.)

Riverdale (Okay, first of all, WTF is going on with the writing this season, also I can’t pull myself away.)

Anywhoooooo, I hope you guys had a productive year working on your goals and that you made lots of amazing memories in 2018. Here’s to everyone having a fantastic New Year! ❤ Best of luck to all of you with your New Year’s Resolutions and let’s make 2019 the best it can be! 😀

And, just for funsies, here’s a picture of Bailey taking a nap. Something I’m sure we’ve all been ready to participate in after all the recent holiday chaos. 😛

 

Science & Nature Days: Geode Project!

Have you ever had one of those days at work where you just wanna take a hammer and SMASH things?? Well, I got to do just that recently. 😛 I found this cool geode project in a catalogue that I thought would be fun for a science and nature day project. I thought we could get the job done with the tools pictured above, grossly underestimating just how hard we had to smack the hammer against these geodes, so it was time to up our game and get a bigger hammer!

With the proper tools for the job, we busted these little bad boys open, sending sparks flying multiple times in the process, and were delighted to see what we could find inside. 🙂 Some were duds, but some were quite pretty. My photos unfortunately don’t quite do them justice, but I wanted to share them just the same.

We get to do some pretty snazzy things at work, but my favorite days are usually the ones we do fun nature projects. For our next science and nature adventure we’re going to be hanging out with rescued sea turtles and other cool marine critters at the aquarium. Needless to say, I cannot wait! 😀

Have a great weekend, everyone! ❤

June Update Time!

Wow, it’s still hard to believe we’re already SIX MONTHS into the year. Luckily, 2018 has been a great ride so far, so I really can’t complain. (Although, to be fair, there is some occasional whining before/after work.) 😛

My spirit animal

The biggest change for me so far in 2018 has been moving in with my boyfriend to our very first house. It was a big, scary leap, but it’s been great. We make a good team and he always inspires me to push myself toward bigger and better things, so I’ve got some fun projects/ideas I plan to really get going on in the days to come. Next month my little blog will be turning 2 years old, and I’m planning some fun stuff as this Ignited Moth begins her terrible twos. Mwahaha!

I’m having some friends over this upcoming weekend (my first non-family visitors since I moved in) for my book club’s June meeting. I can’t wait for them to come see the new house and hang out. 🙂 Aaaand, speaking of books . . .

Here are the books I’ve bought so far in June:

The City of Lost Fortunes

Currently reading this one for book club. I’m enjoying it so far, I just wish I had more time to really dig into it. I was struggling to stay away the other night while reading this and wound up succumbing to sleep, thus letting my kindle slip from my grasp and bash me in the face. Not the nicest way to wake up. Profanities ensued.

A Plague of Giants

I cannot wait to get to read this one! I’ve been enjoying The Iron Druid Chronicles, so I can’t wait to read Kevin Hearne’s first big epic fantasy. He’s been great in the urban fantasy department, but I am looking forward to seeing how he really turns his brain loose for this one.

Godblind

Like the book above, this was a recent buy due to a fantastic deal pointed out to me by Cupcakes and Machetes. Not only does she make killer book suggestions, but she also points out great deals when she finds them. She’s like a fairy godmother of all things literature, waving her magic wand around and making good books appear on your TBR list. 😛 I’d heard good things about this one, and with such a great deal how could I possibly pass it up?

In other news, I bought some fantastic watercolor markers just recently. I’ve gotten to tinker around with them a little bit, but I’m really looking forward to going wild and getting the hang of them soon. With some encouragement from the always-awesome Imperial Rebel Ork, I’ve decided to post more of my scribbles, doodles, and artsy stuff on the blog. Which, of course, made me want to get some new tools of the trade to make it happen. 🙂

I feel like there are a thousand other things I could babble on about right now, but I’ll keep this brief. Just know: all is well, I’m feeling inspired, and there is plenty of fun new stuff coming to the blog in about a month. In the meantime, it’s business as per usual (AKA: random, unfiltered chaos.) 😀

I hope everyone had a great weekend! ❤ What’s been going on in your little corner of the world lately? Feel free to let me know what recent excitement you’ve had going on or what neat stuff you’ve been working on lately.

 

It’s Raining Spiders and We’re Eating Butterflies

Weird, messed-up dreams are nothing new to me. In fact, they’re kind of my specialty. Still, I’m going to assume sheer exhaustion resulted in this particularly bizarre dream, and not some subconscious desire to eat bugs because, well, no thank you.

I rarely nap, but today I did and man, did my brain go bonkers. First of all, it started off like those dreams you see in horror movies where the character wakes up thinking it was all just a dream and then the killer pops up and gets them. Except in my case, I “woke up” in bed from what Dream Me thought was a nap (so a dream within a dream if you will) to see what looked like long white hairs gently falling down from the ceiling above me. Turned out those long white silky hairs were connected to baby spiders falling down from the ceiling by the hundreds. Needless to say, I lost my shit.

 

Untangling myself from the blankets, I sprung out of bed and ran out the door into some creepy dungeon that was covered in spider webs, egg sacs, etc. I mean, it was everywhere, to the point that I had to crawl and rip my way through it with spiders crawling all over the place. It was disgusting.

While trying to make my way through the dungeon I saw my cat was there, too, and that she was batting at something in one of the matted spider webs: a gorgeous golden yellow butterfly. I can’t remember what Dream Me thought my mom would want with this particular butterfly, I just know that Dream Me knew she just had to have it. So I made my way through the spider-nastiness of the dungeon only to discover that in that time my cat had turned into my parents’ blind pug (not that Dream Me thought this was weird in any way, shape or form mind you.) Also, said pug was standing on a washing machine and promptly started eating the butterfly I felt my mom so desperately needed.

After wrestling the butterfly free from the mouth of a hungry pug, I had my prize: one mangled butterfly covered in pug drool. Suddenly, looking down at the butterfly, Dream Me realizes the pug had the right idea, and I promptly begin eating what’s left of it, pug spit and all.

Then, like we’re in an episode of Pokemon, this butterfly begins to change into a bigger, badass butterfly / Japanese Hornet hybrid (if you don’t know already what a Japanese Hornet is, feel free to google it, just don’t hit the ‘Y’ key instead of the ‘T’ key while typing ‘hornet’ and wind up with a google image spread of porn. Typo fail true story.)

So, yeah, while Dream Me was choking and trying to pull some insect monstrosity out of my mouth, bit by bit (because of course it’s falling apart and simultaneously trying to crawl down my throat all at once) I finally wake up from this dream. Worst. Nap. EVER.

Anywhoooo, April’s been kind of a crazy month so far. This is only my second post of the month, and It’s been hard for me to find time to hop onto WP, but I’m hoping life will regain some normalcy in May. Apologies in advance if I’m sort of flaky this month with posting and commenting. Life is hectic at the moment with the new job/new house situation. Tell me how you’re doing, though! 😀 I miss getting to chat with all you awesome people more, so I’d love to hear how you’re doing and if you’ve got anything exciting going on. Feel free to leave a link below to any cool posts of yours you feel I may have missed recently. ❤

I’m Alive! Spring Updates

Hey, guys! ❤ It’s been a while, but I’m still kicking. Despite what my recent absence in the blogosphere would suggest, I was not eaten by a pack of rogue land sharks. (Just slightly mauled is all.)

I’ve had a lot of stuff going on lately and even less free time than usual because of it, but it’s paying off, so I’m not complaining. Merely explaining why I’ve been such a no-show around here lately. I’ve missed chatting with you guys, though, and I’m really looking forward to catching up on everyone’s blogs. 🙂

So, let’s get to the good stuff and let the updates commence! 😀

BLAH #1: I’ve just been promoted at work and will be getting my own classroom and team. The position recently opened up and I decided to go for it. I was so excited when I heard I’d gotten the position, and I can’t wait to begin planning my room’s weekly activities and outings. I start in my new role as team leader in a week. 🙂

BLAH #2: I’ve mentioned house hunting and moving in the blog recently, and tomorrow is the signing for the house, so I am beyond thrilled about that. So, new job AND new house. My boyfriend was recently promoted at work, too, so although things have been busy as hell and a bit stressful at times, it feels good having all these exciting new changes in our lives.

BLAH #3: Haven’t had much time for reading lately, but I did read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (I’ve been reading some of the old books my grandma owned for nostalgia reasons.) I’m also currently reading The Great Alone and am hoping to finally start Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues pretty soon. (Assuming I’m not too busy with working on the house/painting this week after work.) April is going to be another extremely hectic month, so we’ll see how much reading I actually get done.

BLAH #4: Easter with the fam was nice and relaxing. This weekend was packed full of doing stuff to get ready for the house, so Easter was a nice chance to just relax and nom on some delicious food. I was in charge of mashed potatoes (my grandma’s recipe and a holiday staple.) My dad and I had a mini Ash vs. Evil Dead marathon, which was all sorts of gory and hilarious fun.

So, those are my recent updates. How about you? Got any exciting news? I hope everyone’s been doing well and had a great weekend. ❤

Getting Festive

Happy Holidayyyys! ❤ Today is Christmas Eve and with all the recent and upcoming festivities I wanted to squeeze some time in to pop in and say Merry Christmas since I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to tomorrow. 🙂

Last night we met up with my boyfriend’s family’s for their annual bake-a-thon, where we baked and decorated an arsenal of Christmas cookies. Shapes ranged from reindeer to unicorns and everything in between. Seriously, I mean everything in between. We also had an armadillo-shaped cookie and a penis-shaped cookie because inappropriate baked goods are funny. His mom also made these delicious pastries called Rugelach.

We’re celebrating tonight’s Christmas Eve at my boyfriend’s parents’ house, and Christmas over with my family so I’m pretty excited. I feel like I did a lot of holiday stuff this year. More than I think I usually do, so while all the running around can be stressful and tiring at times, it did make for a particularly festive holiday season so far. 🙂

Some of the holiday highlights included:

Visiting a historical village’s Holiday Nights event. It was really cool walking around after dark, learning some interesting stuff and seeing the rambunctious “murmurers” in action. I didn’t know anything about this old “murmuring” holiday tradition, but apparently it involves revelers of the season dressing up in disguises to go house-to-house for food and drink and partying it up. So, it’s kind of like Halloween at Christmas for adults, except you get booze instead of candy. Not too shabby, in my opinion. Why the heck did we do away with this awesome tradition?

Goings to an outdoor Kringle Market and shopping around for lots of goodies, including my new favorite dessert, The Christmas Kronut. This was my second year going, and although the crowd can be a bit much, I plan on going again next year. It was a lot of fun. 🙂

Christmas shopping for my loved ones is always a fun thing to do. I love when you find someone the perfect gift and then seeing the look on their face when they open it. I will say, though: I normally quite dislike wrapping the presents. It’s just tedious. lol My attention span has never been in it. I moaned and groaned the whole way through it, but I think I actually did a decent job wrapping gifts this year. I’m not known for my wrapping skills, in fact, I’m known for purposely wrapping the gifts in a manner that makes it look like a toddler did it. Or a drunk uncle. One or the other.

The work holiday party was also a lot of fun. I’ve mentioned before that I work as a program instructor at a day program for adults with special needs. I love my job every day, but seeing all their faces light up when they got to meet Santa Clause and taking our room caroling around the entire building was just so nice. We sang fun, upbeat songs like Jingle Bell Rock, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, etc. and had a bunch of fun instruments for everyone to play. We did a big potluck and since I baked a bunch of stuff for the last couple work parties I decided to take it easy on myself for this one and brought in rolls and made a some delicious Garlic Parmesan Butter to go with them.

Minus some stressful family medical issues that have luckily since been improving, the last month of 2017 has been a pretty good one. 🙂 I’m excited to see what the new year will bring. I hope you guys all enjoy what’s left of the holiday season and have plenty of festivities of your own! ❤

December Updates

Hello, everybody! It seems I fell off the map there for a bit, but it’s only because things have been extremely busy and especially chaotic this month. Things are slowly, ever so slowly, getting back to normal just as the year comes to a close. Between my personal life and work life I’ve pretty much been in caregiver mode 24/7 and have been feeling burnt out by it, but luckily I have a nice little vacation coming up to hopefully squeeze some rest in and enjoy the holidays. 🙂

That said, here are just some random updates of what’s been going on as of late.

Update #1: Due to the previously mentioned craziness, I missed out on my book club’s Christmas party this year which was a total bummer. We always wear ugly Christmas sweaters and I had been so pumped to show off my new R2-D2 one. All is not lost, though, since I’m planning on wearing Christmas sweaters to work the rest of this week, so I can proudly display that one, my Deadpool one, and my “Bah Hum-Pug” one. One day I hope to have amassed enough ugly Christmas sweaters to be able to wear one each day of December leading up to Christmas. Mwahaha!

Update #2: I recently reached my goal of 45 books read for the year, though I’ll admit a lot of them were graphic novels. 😛 This was quite the busy year. I’m upping my goal for next year though and aiming for 50 this time. I’ve even made a list of some of the priority titles I’m looking to read in 2018. Some are new, some old, some are novels, graphic novels, and there are even a few poetry collections in there, too. It should be a pretty interesting year in reading for me. 🙂

Update #3: I’m seriously thinking about pampering myself during this time off by going to get my hair done. Planning on getting it chopped and colored. Thinking of throwing some purple and/or blue in the mix. It’s been too long since I’ve put any fun colors in it and I’m feeling like it’s a good way to kick off the new year!

Update #4: Started doodling again. Planning on doodling more in the new year. These are just 2 rough sketches with some highlighter and sharpie thrown in, but I’m hoping to really get back into it in 2018. Maybe even hook up my art tablet again. It’s been a while.

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

Update #5: I recently got awarded Employee of the Quarter (quarter of the year) at my job. I was really surprised since I’ve only been there a little over 6 months. Woo!

So, that’s it for my little updates. Hope you guys have all been well. I’ll be catching up on your posts to see what all has been going on. Feel free to fill me in on any exciting updates of your own. I’d love to hear about them. 🙂