Blogger Eats Posts

Let me begin by explaining the lack of a post for yesterday. When I woke up and went to start a draft, I noticed that part of Wednesday’s post was missing. I went in to editor to check it out and sure enough, part of the post had been deleted. So I filled it back in (disappointed with Blogger the whole time), only for me to re-publish it and more of the text and photos to disappear.

I searched and scoured and questioned wherever I could to get answers and sadly, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing about all the glitches I am experiencing (font changes in Thursday’s post did not take, but I cannot go back and edit for fear that that day’s post will begin to disappear, too) and of course, as far as my searching turned up, there is no way to contact the wo/men behind the curtain, except through the forum, wherein my post has remained un-commented on and really, the Blogger monkeys really aren’t necessarily going to be on there, helping people.

It’s a load of dirty dishwater and if by next week there is no improvement, I am going to have to move my blog to a place that is being reliable (so far, I have experienced no problems with using Wordpress, although Weebly’s blogging system has given me fits before—eating my drafts, for example). If all else fails, of course, I can always create my own site over at my old Webs’ account and host my blog there--it’d be a nice tribute to the undertaking that started it all, my first blog back in 2005.

Anyway, that’s all things I am going to have to consider over the weekend as I try to wrestle with Blogspot and get it to do its job.

 

 ***

As we were pulling out yesterday, on our way to our 4H meeting (the last for me, the last of the year for my younger siblings), I was told we had to go to Tractor Supply and the grocery store after the meeting. I was unaware of these stipulations and so I was unable to get to very much of my to-do list due to being away from the house for most of the day.

• go to 4H, bring camera, show my project leader the broken screen, since I keep telling her I will;
• school (consumer math, music, and history particularly);
• clean up the mess known as the desk in the dining room;
• vacuum the dirt rowdy cat spilled on the floor when she knocked over our plant;
• vacuum stairs; and
• work on the jewelry project
• write, write, write* (Preferably write some to The Lion Seeker, consider Note to Self a little more, pester Tira about Conversations and/or MC Insanity Meets Middle-earth, and LJ’s 365 writing is a given.)

• update Against the Tide and MyWritersCredo;
• check Pages From My Notebook (Official);
• rewrite my author profile on Fanfiction.net; and
• post Days 1-4 of the work for that branch of Project 365 on FictionPress

The ones with the highlighted backgrounds are what I actually did do yesterday, the lighter green is as such because it was only partially done—I got Days 1-3 posted.

I planned on tackling more of that list today, only for my mom to have a list of things for me to do instead. So instead, all I've gotten done from my list was

• vacuum the dirt rowdy cat spilled on the floor when she knocked over our plant

 About all that I would have the possibility of getting to tonight would be something with writing and/or school, but I’ll just have to see what comes. If I don’t spend time with my parents or work on essays for scholarships, that is.

Sadly, I haven’t taken any pictures today; I’ve been too busy with research, cleaning, cooking, etc., to look for some inspiration. However, the power went out last night (another reason I missed a post yesterday) and I got a lot of pictures of candles. Here are a few:

Before we left, I took a few pictures of one of our outdoor kitties. (She'd taken up residence on top of the car.) Later in the day, we made an unexpected stop at Lowes and I took advantage of it to get a few shots of the flowers. The lighting, mostly, as fantastic. Below are a few highlights.

I wish I had  more to say, but once again, I don’t. Blogger eating my post content really took the wind out of my sails the past two days.

Back to the Ordinary—Already

I wasn’t up as early as I had hoped to be, due to a certain rowdy cat named Tempest and another kitty named Tegan, who both tore at the door and the carpet from inside and outside the room, respectively. Plus, despite the fact that I did not spend a lot of time out in the sun, I got burned yesterday (I am thinking the heavy winds whipping across the lake did it) and I could not get comfortable, even though I turned the temperature in the room down.

Oh, well.

Up at a quarter to 8:00 is actually pretty good when you consider the fact that I felt awful when I got up. Seriously, when I looked in the mirror, it was not pretty. Even my eyes were all red. Ew.

But I moved forward with the plans for the start of my day, even though I changed how I was going to do my hair at the last second (so not ridiculous of me to mention that, eh?). Originally, I was planning on doing youtube’s Loepsie’s Interlaced Braids, but I went with an impromptu, messy bun; I like how it turned out, all crazy.

Special thanks to my sister for taking the two back shots (there is one more below the explanation), because getting a shot in the downstairs’ bathroom mirrors just was not working out.

See?

This is my up-and-out-of-my-face-I’m-busy-being-domestic hair, as I have lots of cleaning to do today and it is meant to reflect that, sort of.

I started off with a pony tail base at the crown of my head, as close to the top as I could get it. (I had already twisted back my bangs and bobby-pinned them in place.) Then, I half-did a regular sock-bun with a thick hair band (you know the ones with a circle of cloth around the elastic?).  After the hair was secured around the sock, I took the remaining hair and split it into two strands, wrapping one around the bun in one direction and bobby-pinning it to the bun and the rest of my hair in any way I could; the other strand I wrapped in the opposite direction and bobby-pinned down as I could.

This is all done in a loose, messy, and even poofy manner.

 

Then I slid on a head band (just because I can, no other reason) and called it done.

When you’re busy around the house, what do you do with your hair?

***

After that I hopped in the shower for a quick, cold rinse, to take the sting out of my burns, and I had a flashback to the house we used to live in before we moved to the country. The house didn’t have good air conditioning and in the summers, I’d sometimes take cold showers in the middle of the day to cool off.

Weird little note, I know. But it’s something I haven’t thought about in a long time.

What do you do to cool off in the hot summers?

***

And then, when I was done with all my business in the bathroom, I was ready for breakfast!

First, I made my water. A few slices of lemon, a few slices of lime, and a few slices of cucumber for that refreshing, healthy taste. Then I warmed up my leftover soy-milk grits (soy-milk substituted for the water) I had made the other day that had a handful of sautéed almonds in it. I mixed a handful of cranberries and a 1/2 tsp. of truvia in plain Greek yogurt. After that, I whipped up a couple scrambled eggs with a few spoonfuls of plain Greek yogurt in it (instead of milk) and some parsley and a pinch of cheese on top.

All in all, it was delicious. I especially liked the eggs.

I told myself I wouldn’t be one of those people who takes pictures of their food and shares them with people, but then I thought, ah, why not?...

...nah. Just kidding.

But you can see my water.

A note about it not being centered—my camera has a busted screen and everything from about mid-point down is all black. A lot of guessing and trust goes into these pictures.

Fine. You can see it in colour.

Doesn’t that just look refreshing? It is.

***

Laundry’s a bummer. Who enjoys doing it...?

Nicky, so worn out after folding some towels.

...certainly not my little sister.

Still, I think laundry is better than dishes. Particularly when a certain little brother cooks egg in a regular skillet, instead of the non-stick one, and the residue scrambled eggs leave behind does not want to come off.

Really, though, I don’t mind doing dishes, but for some reasons, the rub for me is emptying the dishwasher. I guess I just don’t like to put away the dishes. Isn’t that silly? Even I can think so.

***

I actually managed to practice my piano today, but somehow I only managed to do so for 15 minutes. It’s so hard to keep it up for at least 30 minutes, though, because everyone is listening and I’m going over the same major scales—the repetition is bound to get old. My mom promised to show me how to play some actual songs, so I hope that’ll help.

I just need to be better at actually, you know, doing what I am supposed to be doing.

And on that note, I have a list of goals for tomorrow:

• go to 4H, bring camera, show my project leader the broken screen, since I keep telling her I will;
• school (consumer math, music, and history particularly);
• clean up the mess known as the desk in the dining room;
• vacuum the dirt rowdy cat spilled on the floor when she knocked over our plant;
• vacuum stairs; and
• work on the jewelry project

Yeah, that’s a nice list of goals. Hopefully I can conquer it all tomorrow, but I think that really depends on how long school takes and how long 4H keeps me away from the house.

Oh! You know what I forgot on that list?

• write, write, write*

It’s so important, I wrote it three times. Yup. (*Preferably write some to The Lion Seeker, consider Note to Self a little more, pester Tira about Conversations and/or MC Insanity Meets Middle-earth, and LJ’s 365 writing is a given.)

I also forgot:

• update Against the Tide and MyWritersCredo;
• check Pages From My Notebook (Official);
• rewrite my author profile on Fanfiction.net; and
• post Days 1-4 of the work for that branch of Project 365 on FictionPress

I seem to have a full day. I wonder how much I will be able to accomplish. At least with this, I have the goals written down and the visual should help me see how far I got and what my overall plan had been by the end of the day.

Somewhere in all that, I’ve got to take a few pictures, just to keep up the momentum, even with a broken-screen camera.

***

This post seems rather empty of interesting tidbits, but I was so busy today, then I spent time watching Leverage with my parents, that I did not have enough time to finish filling this post in. Here’s to better days!

A Little Sister’s Birthday

Today was my little sister’s birthday. All things considered, I think today turned out exceptionally better than she expected.

In order to explain, let me back up. The story begins with disappointing past birthdays, and the saga continues with the difficult year we all went through last year. The emotional scars of some realities have taken their toll. When we've been hurt, we all throw up walls to protect ourselves from being hurt again. More often than not, though, those walls prove to be counterproductive—the only difference being that we are the ones hurting ourselves now, instead of outside forces inflicting wounds upon our tender hearts.

This year, Chris decided she did not want anything to be done for her birthday—she didn’t want presents and she didn’t want to celebrate. She said she wanted it to be treated like any other day.

Right, well. Easier said than done, particularly when there are people around who want to celebrate the day you were born, who want to celebrate you. 

My parents, my younger siblings (and some of my older siblings a two or time)—we’re all talking to her,  trying to get to the root cause of her refusal to do anything for her birthday (why don’t you want to?), something more than her because I just don’t reason.

She listed a few reasons to me, we talked through them a little a time or two, even as recent as 12am today.

So...my mom had eventually gone forward with some plans to go to the lake today, despite Chris’s statements of not wanting to do anything. I think Mom did it more in hopes of Chris changing her mind more than anything, hoping that if someone else made the plans, it might deal with one issue of Chris’s reluctance--that is, the hope that comes with making plans and the crushing disappointment when people don’t make the expectation hold up.

This morning, my mom comes in and asks me if I think Chris will be game for the idea of going to the lake; I told her I honestly did not know. However, when she presented the idea and discussed it with Chris while I tried not to be a Zombie in the background, Chris agreed.

So we rush to pull everything together...eventually make it out of here at 12:00. We did not eat lunch until 3:00, but who cares about that when the food was absolutely delicious? Mom’s special, family-recipe potato salad (so yummy!) and grilled chicken, with fruit and beverage choice of soda, juice packs, or cold water.

(I won’t tease you with pictures.)

Due to certain health issues, I forewent sodas and juice packs in favour of water with slices of lemon, lime, and cucumber. Healthier for me, anyway.

Enough about food, though, because really, how interesting is that? I should talk about what a blast we had today.

*** 

The lake, my lovelies, was beautiful.

The dog didn’t seem to think so, though...

We had a few neighbours throughout the day...

One of our human ones caught a bass (his friend let us take pictures)...

[If fish make you squeamish, you will probably want to skip these.] 

 Look at how you can see the bones in the fins...

 

So that is what the inside of their mouths look like...

The pooch really wanted the tasty fish...

Hope the cuteness makes up for the fish photos!

The guy who was there fishing with his friend and let us take pictures of their fish said he’d been having a good day fishing until someone shot out the windows on his car. I thought that was pretty sad. What is wrong with people?

***

All that aside, everyone had fun playing in the water...

...but I was content with the camera, obviously. Here are a few examples of the beautiful and interesting things I saw today!

The poor pooch is tired...

The pooch is awake...

Obviously, there’s something interesting going on. Obviously.

Isn’t he a pretty dog?

***

Later on, around about 6:00, this older guy shows up and starts feeding the ducks that had been waddling around our area all day. We had tried to feed them some fruit (pieces of apple, some watermelon), but apparently they don’t or can’t eat that (?). Anyway, this guy brought moldy whole wheat bread and the ducks came right up to him—he even petted one!

I snatched up the camera, I did a bold thing—I went over there, I asked if I could get pictures, and he offered to share his bread with me, so that I could feed the ducks and let them come right up to me. Suffice to say, I got better pictures. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get to pet one...)