Another Photo Dump

My mom sent me this picture from her wedding day in 1967.  There is a better picture of this exact grouping of people, all looking at the camera. This must have been taken a minute or so before that one. My mom was only 22 when she got married. What would you say if a 22 year old got married today? 

We bought my mom a lawn mower for Christmas so that we can do her lawn. The people she calls and pays to do it have become unreliable. This will pay for itself in less than ten mowings. She did take a picture of me mowing, but it’s awful. I’m making a face in the picture like I’m constipated. The good thing is that I’m thinner in the pic than I thought I’d look. But I’m not posting it! 

All the buttons I got off of clothing from 25 cent Wednesday's to cut up for sewing projects. 

Perspective

My daughter sent me this, insinuating that I do this. It’s not an age thing, it’s a schedule thing. I really do get up that early. 

 

 

Photo Dump

I have a lot of stuff to write about, but I don’t even know where to start. Instead, here’s a photo dump. 

Kevin bought this hat at a store we did inventory at. I love it. He looks like an aviator.  

This poor person tried so hard to deactivate their facebook account that they accidentally created a new one. And ended up with two friends. 

I was wondering where my hair ties went- Kevin used them to hang ornaments. 

I made my step goal of 10K on my day off. It was my only day off since new years. Had to do it on the treadmill at the gym. The goal for workdays is 7500. 

I swear people will just say anything about perimenopause. They’ll say the most random thing is a sign of perimenopause, and then they’ll say the complete opposite of that is also a sign. (What I’m saying it that this pic claims things that are the exact opposite of what I have heard before). 

Throwback to a “quilt” my daughter made at age 3. 

My mom gave us a paper towel holder that looks like Mitchell. Now every time I walk into the kitchen, I think he’s on the counter. 

 

46 Year Old Nepo Baby

 A few weeks ago, my ex boyfriend, who lives in Arizona, texted me out of the blue and asked what were the names of the six apps I do retail audits on as a side job. He said his former girlfriend M was now living in her car and he wanted to tell her about them so she could improve her situation. I gave him the names of all the apps with my referral links *even though* there was always kind of an understanding among people who do this to not be handing the referral links out so much. In the online spaces for these apps, we all seemed to understand that would cause over saturation. But I did it this one time anyway. I haven’t done any of those jobs in about three months honestly. 

Then I asked my ex boyfriend why M can’t move in with him. I made it ABUNDANTLY clear that I was encouraging him getting back with her. Don’t wait for me to be single again, because I don’t plan on it. He said because his mother would take his house away if he ever had a live in girlfriend or got remarried. I knew his parents owned his house, but I didn’t know they were so against him having a second marriage or second family to the point that they’d take his house away. He never told me that. He just always made sure that they never knew I was visiting, and everyone else in my life thought that he was hiding me from another woman. He also works at his parents’ company, and the downside to that is they have convinced him that literally no one would ever hire him ever. So he HAS to work for them. My ex boyfriend has his own side business as a stagehand, and he’s done some pretty amazing shows. He also used to be a surgical technician, assisting surgeons by handing them instruments and sometimes even closing people up. I started to realize just how hard it must be for him. It made me glad that my parents weren’t business owners. If they were, I’d be in the same situation. 

A few weeks later, one of the apps informed me that I received a $25 referral bonus. I texted him to let him know. He then lied and said that she shit all over the idea and wasn’t doing any of the jobs. I said actually, I wouldn’t have gotten the referral bonus unless she’d done at least 200 or 250 audits just on that one app alone. He didn’t respond, and I don’t really want to speak to him again other than to get updates on his kids. I’m so glad I moved on, and I hope he and M do as well.  Apparently she’s been working at the Amazon warehouse AND doing the apps. If he went back to working in a hospital and kept up with the stagehand side business, they could do really well even if he did lose his house. Some people's parents really suck, and sometimes I wonder if the previous generation actually set us up to fail so they could have a good laugh. I’ll always care about him, but I’m no longer in love with him. And I’ll always love his kids.  

Step Count and Creative Endeavor Goals

 

Yup I achieved my step goal for the 2nd day of 2025!  It’s 7,500 for work days and 10,000 for days off. It took a bit of pacing around the house, but I got some house chores done as I paced!  

We worked today on the Bolivar Peninsula. I took this video and this video. Actually two years ago today was the first day I ever met Kevin, and we did the exact same jobs on the peninsula. I had done this job 17-20 years prior. It was my old boyfriend that gave me the idea to go back. We weren’t a “real couple” because of being long distance, but he and I had been best friends since age 15. It’s a long story. He’s about to move on to someone else too- if his mom lets him. Isn’t that sad, a 46 year old needs to do what his mom tells him?  But she owns his house and he’s a Nepo Baby, so a lot is at stake. I’m glad I moved on. I’m glad all that happened in the last two years happened. Things have a way of working out. I work the next three days at least, so the step count goal will also be 7500 steps each day. 

When I mentioned my new year goals, I mentioned health and fitness and finances. I also forgot to mention creative endeavors. I would like to open an Etsy shop with denim chenille quilts and upcycled jewelry. 

With my writing, I want to take five days off when inventory slows down and just check into a motel by myself and do nothing but write. Whether or not that ever happens I still set the goal to set aside 30 minutes a day to my writing. To prepare for that, I cleaned my desk and wiped the whole area down with grapefruit smelling wipes. 

Vegetarian Poppers 🍆 🫑

 This was my not so lame attempt to make vegetarian poppers. A lot of vegetarians make “bacon” out of eggplant slices, liquid smoke, and W sauce. I mixed those two sauces into the cream cheese before stuffing the peppers. Then I blanched the eggplant slices before wrapping. Then baked until I felt it was ready. They don’t look good in the pic, but they were awesome! 

End of Year Reflections

 It’s been extremely busy at work. Kevin and I work for an inventory service, and everyone is doing year end inventories. The workload does seem to have lightened up a little- we are still working every single day, but we are getting home earlier than we were before Christmas. My last two checks were really nice!  Yesterday, we did inventories at warehouses that are wholesale companies that supply convenient stores. It was kind of intense. The last warehouse we went to had a manager that says he does sell to the public, but doesn’t “broadcast that.”  He says he sells to the public if it’s someone he knows, and he only charges a 5% markup. I wonder if he considers us “people he knows.”  I’d love to go in there and buy large quantities of stuff I like at wholesale prices. But I don’t want to rock the boat. 

I am setting goals for 2025. I haven’t set New Year goals since before I graduated college and started having panic attacks in 2014. I divided the goals into categories.  I may actually blog each category at the end of each week or month in 2025. Here are the categories:

Health and Fitness: I decided to set a goal of 10,000 steps a day for days that I am not working inventory. This is because a day off gives me time to go to the park and energy to do 10,000 steps. On days that I am working inventory, the step goal is only 7,500. This is because I would likely be too tired or not have time to go to the park. By the time I get home from inventory, my step count will already be between 2,000-5,000 steps depending on what I’m doing that day. I would just walk around the house or outside on the property I live on. 

I should also be more serious about tracking calories. I lost 20 pounds in 2024, and I used a calorie tracking app called “lose it” to do so. I learned that the only thing that “works” for weight loss is a calorie deficit. This can look like a million different things based on the individual, what that person likes and dislikes and does and doesn’t do. If a person says “that didn’t work for me” when it comes to losing weight, it’s because they did something else to make up for the calorie deficit. Tracking my calories on that app was more of a learning experience too- there are a lot of things that give the impression of being healthy that have a lot of calories, and vice versa. 

Financial: I would like to pay off my car in 2025, and this is definitely doable. I don’t know how much I owe on it exactly, but I’ll check my payoff quote in March or April after I make a few more payments. My car is a hybrid, and I am still on the original battery even though I’m 40,000 miles past what Google says the battery will last until. If I have to replace the battery this year, that will damper the plan to pay it off, but I could probably still do it in 2025 even if that’s the case. I have the place picked out that I want to purchase a battery from, even though I’ve never been there. They only let people come by appointment, and they won’t make an appointment unless your battery light is on. The guy I talked to said he drives the same car as me, but with 50,000 more miles on it than I have now- and he’s still on the same battery. Since I almost never drive to work anymore (I just ride with Kevin), I may not even have to replace it until 2030. 

The biggest event of 2025 will be my daughter’s graduation from high school and her 18th birthday on June 11!  I’m really looking forward to her being a legal adult so I can get rid of the custody order I have now with her dad and stepmom. When she’s 18, she can come and go as she pleases. That’s going to be so nice !  

And last but not least, the main goal of 2025 will be to keep unlearning and relearning. I have discovered in many ways lately how so many things I was taught about the world in general were simply wrong. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing. The education in calories that the lose it app gave me is just one minor example, even though that in and of itself was huge. Maybe later I’ll make a blog post about the unlearning. 

Hot Tamales

 Today I saw Hot Tamale candies on the shelf, and I was reminded of when I was in the first grade. I had to go to the hospital to have my appendix removed. The day after my surgery, the doctor that did the surgery came to see me in my hospital room. He told me that my appendix looked like a Hot Tamale. I didn’t know what he was talking about, as I had never seen those candies. Fast forward a few weeks or months, and another kid at school had them on the playground. At that point it clicked. “Oh!” I thought to myself.  “That must be what my appendix looked like.”