Wolf Sanctuary Day 🐺🫶🏼

Kevin, Anna, and I really enjoyed taking a tour of the St. Francis wolf sanctuary in Navasota, Texas. This was our last outing before Anna leaves for Texas State University. She just left on a road trip with her friends, and Kevin and I just left for a work trip to Corpus Christi. Her dad and stepmom are moving her in this Friday, and I’m driving out there this Saturday. 

Anna’s major is going to be wildlife biology, and ever since she started showing interest in that, I’ve had my eye on animal sanctuaries that offer cheap educational tours. About a year ago, I took her to Texas Gaushala here in Waller that allows you to cuddle with Brahman cows. In February of 2023, I took her to an alligator sanctuary in Beaumont. But this was the one I personally looked forward to the most.  I’m not the biggest fan of gators, wasn’t interested in cuddling cows, but I do like wolves. 

This tour started with some basic education about wolves and wolf dogs. There were 11 animals in residence at this sanctuary, and all of them came from people who ended up with them as pets and could no longer care for them. Now, I always have said that I feel like I’m Scientifically illiterate. However, even I know that there’s a difference between a wolf and a dog, and that you shouldn’t have a pet wolf. 

We shopping the gift shop before the tour, and got a few things including a Christmas ornament and a t shirt. 

Anna was in her element. The tour guide (pictured here) briefly described some phenotype differences between wolves and wolf dogs, and as we passed by each resident he had us answer if we thought which it was. Anna got it right every time. When she was about 9-10 years old, she went through a phase where she drew her own fantasy wolf and dog characters, and she even made elaborate family trees for them. I still have some of her drawings, and it wasn’t surprising that she could get it right with just having been briefed on the differences. 

Someone asked our tour guide if he was a volunteer or paid. He said he was retired from the oil and gas industry, and was going to be paid staff, but it wouldn’t have worked out with how many hours they wanted and his retirement income. So he’s a volunteer. As we walked out, Anna proudly exclaimed that she’s going to do something like that someday. I told her, “I know you are, that’s why I brought you here.”  I have more to expand on that, but I will later. For now here’s some pictures. 

 

Old Memories and Fixed Car 🔋 🦙 🚗

 

I spent yesterday with debilitating anxiety and took three gabapentins. It caused me to have a nice mid afternoon nap, but then I couldn’t sleep at night. When the clock hit midnight, I realized it was what would have been my first boyfriend’s 47th birthday and also the six month anniversary of his death. It made me think of this day back in 1997.  My father was worried that I was 18 years old and dating someone who was in his mind not 18 yet. He thought I would “go to prison”, but actually, I was 19. (And Matt was turning 19, not 18). I remember feeling a little disappointed that my dad didn’t know how old I was. Now that I look back on it, I’m even more disappointed that he thought you could actually go to prison for dating someone who was younger than you by three weeks. I can understand missing your own kid’s age by a year!  The other thing should have been common sense. 

I got my car back. It runs amazing!  I love it!  The mechanic seemed like he was impressed with my car. He actually seemed like he wanted a hybrid himself, but was more of a pick up truck kind of guy. He reminded me a little bit of a real live version of the animated main character on King of the Hill. He said his Toyota truck has 375K miles on it. 

I’m kind of hoping that Kevin will decide to take my car to Corpus Christi on Monday. His runs great, but with the new battery on mine, it basically runs like new. He said it’s possible, but he’s driving so it’s ultimately up to him. 

My daughter is on her way here now in her little Prelude- tomorrow we are going to the wolf sanctuary in Navasota. Then she’s doing a road trip to Brenham with her friends as a last outing before school starts. They’re going to visit an alpaca farm and the blue bell ice cream factory. When she moves into the dorms next weekend, I’m going out there the day after. 

That’s Ironic!

 I’m a huge fan of the old Unsolved Mysteries from the 90’s, with Robert Stack. I was recently reminded of this segment that I very vaguely remembered. A woman who weighed about 300 pounds was hired as a bookkeeper for a department store and ran off with thousands of dollars. It also turns out she was assuming a stolen identity. The segment was brought up because of all of the extreme shade thrown.  The point was how ruthless they were in the 80’s and 90’s just talking shit. 

I did some research on if she was ever caught or not. It turns out she was. Her real name was Doramae Peterman, and she passed away at age 74 in 2019. 

BUT, five years before her passing in 2014, and before she was found out, she was featured in this article which talks about fraud in home caregiving companies, one of which she was a client of.

“Doramae Peterman, a former Diversity client, said she’s not surprised that the agency ran afoul of the state. “Hardly anyone there knew what was going on,” she said.”

How ironic!!!!  I posted this in my favorite true crime facebook group, as they are mostly all fans of Robert Stack’s Unsolved Mysteries in there, but no comments yet. And yes that really is her. The same woman that did the department store heist in 1986 is the same woman pictured and quoted in that article. 

The One Day Week

 We had a four day weekend. Then we worked today. Now we have another four day weekend. Then Monday, we work all next week in Corpus Christi. The following Saturday will be my daughter’s first day in the dorms and I’m going to San Marcos to bring her dorm warming presents. 

The store we worked at today was in Fairfield, Texas. It wasn’t a gift shop, but it had gifts. They had little stones with encouraging words on them and I got one for my daughter’s dorm room that says “Joy”. It’s because Joy is her middle name. 

I’m not sure why I was so tired and drained today. It was literally a one day week. But we got overtime last week, the week before, and will probably get it next week. 

When we got home, I had a package delivered.  It was a gallon of 99% alcohol isopropyl that I ordered on amazon the day I got my big paycheck. During the pandemic, my ex boyfriend used to give me those gallons for free. I attribute not getting Covid to spraying that around everything including my hands. My hands didn’t even get dry.  That is, I didn’t get Covid until I started collecting cans in 2022. Going from store to store to store to store in nine states during the height of lockdown didn’t give me Covid but collecting cans did. 

Here’s Alex welcoming us home from our one day week. 

Alex and Mitchell also wish all the kids happy back to school. 

Thoughts on Life

 I have been a little fascinated with This story. This couple just had a baby that was a frozen embryo that had been frozen over 30 years. Births resulting from frozen embryos fascinate me. I always think that the person will spend their life thinking that they “should have been” X amount of years older than they are. I followed a mommy blogger who had a baby that was an embryo frozen for 7 years. When he was born, I thought this exact thing. I said to myself, when he’s in 5th grade, he’s going to think he should be graduating from high school, and so on with every other age. 

30 years is like wow. It brings new meaning to the saying, “I was born in the wrong generation.”  The embryo was frozen in November of 1994.  If it had been done in the natural way, 9 months after November of 1994 would have been August of 1995. So he should be celebrating his 30th birthday this month, but he’s a newborn.  

It’s almost like Limbo on Earth.  What if they get to the end of life, say about 90 years old, and think, “I would be 120 now so I wouldn’t even be here right this moment if I hadn’t been frozen.”  It’s daunting.  

However, if I could. I really would “adopt” one.  I regret not having more kids.  I don’t think my husband is fertile.  But I’m too old to be pregnant.  I know some women have done it successfully, but I’m not sure I could handle it at this age.  Ten years of panic attacks did a lot of damage to my body, and I don’t think I could carry a baby to term.  It would be amazing though, to have another child.  I would retire the same year they graduate from high school.  And my husband would be nearly 80.

When I was in high school, I had a classmate whose father was 80.  We were in our junior year, and he was 80 years old and having a lot of health problems and most likely put on hospice.  Her father was a Mormon polygamist and had five wives and 25 children. My classmate was the youngest of 25 children.  I remember his health problems as a result of aging were really stressing her out.  No one knew what to tell her though, because no one else at the age of 16 had 80 year old parents.  She had two half sisters that were older than her mom.  I remember asking her how many nieces and nephews she had total, but she didn’t know.  She knew how many she had from her mom’s kids, but not the others- except she did know that one of the half sisters older than her mom had 15 kids.  Stories like that fascinate me.  Her father must have spent considerable time with her despite having so much responsibility.  I know he must have had a decent relationship with her because of how distressed she was with his normal aging process.  I wouldn’t want a kid to go through that.  My mom is 80 now- it wouldn’t be good for a teenager to deal with that.  

I am still panged with regret over not having more kids.  My one daughter is amazing, and I know if she had younger siblings from my side, they’d be just as awesome.  But, I have to accept that it happened for a reason.  Depression runs in my family. Perhaps my hypothetical second or third children would have struggled their whole lives more than I could imagine.  I don’t know.  I did know a woman once whose son took his own life. She said if someone had told her he would struggle so much, she would have had an abortion.  That’s not a nice story, but it really happened  The Bible says this in Ecclesiastes:

"So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun" 

It’s worth considering. I like to imagine that if I had more kids, they’d all be as happy and amazing as Anna, but that also may not have been the case and the universe or God knew what they were doing. 

What do you think about frozen embryos?  Is that ethical?  Do they have souls?  If they grow up, will they ponder what age they would have been?  Do you know any children who were frozen embryos? Would you adopt one if you could handle a pregnancy?  

The time has come! (Refurbished hybrid battery)

I’ve been anticipating replacing my hybrid battery for the last 60K miles.  Well finally the time has come. Yesterday when I was driving down highway 290, the “check hybrid system” warning started flashing on my dashboard and several other dashboard lights lit up. That’s always a real oh shit moment. It lit up like a Christmas tree.  There also seemed to be a buzzing sound. So I put my hazard lights on and got onto the shoulder. I did 30 mph until I was off the freeway and in a convenience store parking lot. I hung out there while I waited on a tow truck and my husband. My husband and I followed them to a shop and dropped the key off and went home 

This morning, the mechanic called and said yes it’s the battery. He gave us three options with quotes. And I’m getting a refurbished battery. 

I’m so relieved. I can’t wait, because my car is going to run like butter now. 

Car repairs have always been a source of anxiety for me. When I was 19, my car broke down and I remember being at the mechanic when my dad showed up. The mechanic asked my dad, “This car has never had an oil change, has it?”  I was standing right there and said, “What’s an oil change?”  So I guess he got his answer. My father was PISSED. I used to think he was pissed that I didn’t know what an oil change but now that I’m older, I realize that he was actually humiliated. He should have been teaching me what an oil change was, and probably looked like a bad father when I said that right in front of the mechanic. 

My parents and several of my aunts and even older cousins would always kind of threaten me “What are you going to do if your car breaks down?” But never taught me facts of what could actually happen and how much it would cost. I was always presented with scenarios of catastrophic break downs that I couldn’t afford and then would have no way to get to work so I would have to quit and then have no way to pay my rent so I would have to move back in with my parents. It was said by people in my family who were pissed that I wanted independence. My ex husband was a mechanic when I married him in 2004, and that was the start of slowly learning the basics. When Google became a staple, I started googling everything, and when I bought my hybrid I started googling things specific to hybrids. I started small sinking funds just for the inevitable. Sinking funds were also something I was never taught about when I was my daughter’s age and older. It means you’re saving money for a specific inevitable thing, like a car repair or a root canal (or whatever). They can also be for some kind of expense you have annually that you can’t do on a monthly basis for whatever reason. It’s possible. I was just never taught these things. Just yelled at and questioned like they were the cops about what I would do in certain situations and then being threatened with the worst scenario imaginable. 

I’m so glad that now, 25-30 years later, I can go through the inevitable snafus with knowledge and ability to take care of it without it being catastrophic. I’ve been through a lot in this car. It’s taken me all over 9 states for work. (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee)- but not all over Tennessee, just Memphis. I slept in it a lot, too!  I just can’t give it up yet. Plus I just paid it off so 

My Productive Day

 This morning, I got an enormous paycheck. I’ve gotten paychecks this size before, but they were before I paid the car off, so I would use them to make a car payment, or two, or even three.  This time, I paid my health insurance premium, which was due yesterday but I had forgotten about it. I paid a car insurance payment, even though I didn’t have to until August 30th.  I paid enough into my student loans to bring the balance down by $100.  (This means I brought the balance down to $100 less than I brought the balance down to last time I logged in and made a payment).  Then I just got in the car and headed to Walmart. I dropped my car off in automotive for an oil change and then went to the hair salon up front and got a cut and color. My hair looks almost black now, which I prefer. My grays are gone, and I picked the darkest brown they had. After she blow dried my hair, she got out one of those heated round brushes and did a bunch of curvy strokes. My hair ended up looking perfectly wavy in the back. It looked so nice that I didn’t even put it up. 

I went back to automotive because my car was ready and moved it to the parking lot and then just did a ton of shopping. I just threw things in the cart that I needed and wanted.  That was nice!  Tomorrow I’m taking Anna to the Chinese buffet next to my favorite thrift store and then we are going thrifting. I have to work Wednesday, so I can’t go to 25 cent day. Sunday is either $1 day or $1.50 day. Still a steal!  In fact Wednesday is the next time we work. We have a four day weekend. It’s a nice break, as I got overtime this week too- just not as much as last week in Louisiana. 

“Thigh Bongos” 🪘

 My mother and I have always been big fans of any type of ethnic dance from anywhere in the world. Occasionally, I’ll send her YouTube links to ethnic dance performances just to lift her spirits. Tonight, I sent her this. If you don’t open the link, what it is is a Hawaiian Mele with chanting, and the whole thing is done seated on the ground. All the ladies walk on stage and begin by strapping small drums to their thighs. Hitting the drums on their thighs becomes part of the choreography. 

My mother responded, “That was sweet!  Thanks!  Now I want to go out and get myself some thigh bongos!” 

I burst out laughing. Kevin did too. Then he watched that number with me. I love when YouTube suggests videos from the Merri Monarch festival. 

Cheddar Bay Biscuit Mix

Update edit with better baked batch. Must have gotten butter on my lens. 

 

The store chain in Louisiana that we take inventory at every three months has an amazing selection. Especially of baking mixes. They have baking mixes for everything. One of these days, I’m going to go out there and just start baking random stuff. It will have to be when it’s cooler outside though, because no one likes to run the oven in July in Texas. 

But Kevin and I wanted to pick up a few things on the way out of the last store in Mauriceville, so I decided one baking mix was ok. I got the red lobster cheddar bay biscuit mix. It required cheese and butter, and we didn’t want to drive all the way home from there with cold items. I bought the mix anyway. Then Kevin announced on the way home that he wanted to stop at our local grocery store for beer, and that we could get cheddar and butter there. Then when we got home, he started hinting that he wanted me to make the biscuits today. So here they are. The first batch is a little underbaked but still good. The second batch is in now, will bake longer. They’re amazing. 

Finally Going Home 🏠

 On the way home from Louisiana. Although last night, we moved hotels and stayed in Orange, Texas. This is because the last store was in a nearby town called Mauriceville. Orange and Mauriceville are right on the state line with Louisiana. I was absolutely exhausted and starving by the time we got back to the motel. For this reason, we decided to order food on Uber Eats. I entered the motel we stayed in and the room number. When you order on uber eats, and someone picks up your order, you see a picture of that person. The woman picking up our food had all the facial features of someone who’s done meth. If you’ve ever seen the shocking “before and after” pictures of meth users, you know what I’m talking about. Orange, Texas is kind of known for this. I shrugged it off and thought well maybe she’s trying to put her life back together. Then she marked it as delivered, and there was no food. I was so pissed. I should have known the tweaker would steal my food. Uber eats only gives you the option to call the driver so I did. She sounded strung out and said “Well I left it by the door of room 218.” I told her, “Well it’s not here.”  There was nothing to be done. I didn’t get too angry with her on the phone, because people who do meth can be violent, and now she knew where I was staying. So I submitted all kinds of complaints on the app and eventually got all the money back including the tip. But then Kevin and I had to get dressed again and frickin go back out for food, and we were exhausted. 😩 

Kevin said, “Let’s not order delivery anymore.”  

I responded, “Well let’s do it once more because now I have a credit.”  

1 and a half more days

 Today is the last day of the trip to Louisiana where we have to do two grocery stores in one day. Tomorrow, we only do one store and then drive home. We have Tuesday off and then small local stuff the rest of the week. I’ve been suffering from achy muscles the whole trip, but I believe that the more I do physically, the better that will get over time. When my mother was my age, she had a desk job and weighed about 60 pounds more than I do now.  If I start to get tired and miserable, I just remember that.  

Kevin and I went to a local Walmart Supercenter yesterday evening and got me two pairs of black pants in the next size down. He also got a new pair of work pants, and we got frozen meals for the room. The new pants were on clearance for only $9. They fit great! 

My daughter is coming by Tuesday while we are off. She said she misses me. I miss her too. I think she’s getting nervous about going to college. Honestly, I’m looking forward to her going. She has spent the entire summer just hanging out with friends.  She was working, but her last day was July 1. I have a lot of anxiety about her just gallivanting around with her friends, and when she goes to the dorm, it will be a more secure environment. Luckily, her friends are all good kids and so is she. I don’t have to worry about them purposely getting in trouble. But there’s still anxiety. I couldn’t wait for her to be a legal adult, but now that she is, I totally get the anxiety that empty nesters feel. 

Hibachi Night

 Yesterday was a much easier day- the Austin crew was a huge help. We got off about 3 hours earlier than we did other days here, and Kevin took me out for hibachi. There’s place was really nice. We need to go there every time we come here now. 

Yesterday, Kevin and I were helping each other on an aisle of baking supplies and spices. I lifted up a 25 pound bag of sugar to scan it, and I realized that I’ve lost at least that much weight since January of 2024. I’ve actually lost closer to 30 pounds. But that bag of sugar was enormous and heavy and I was like jeez-  I’ve lost at least this much, most likely more. That’s daunting. No wonder I feel better these days. 

Speaking of that, I need smaller size work pants. They aren’t just “a little” too big anymore- I’m almost in danger of mooning people. I mean not really- we wear the scanners around our waist, so I just adjust the belt on that and use it to hold my pants up. No I don’t have a belt, I don’t like them. Kevin offered to take me to Walmart here in Louisiana for new pants, but I didn’t feel like it. I still have one clean pair. So maybe tonight we can go to Walmart. 

There’s an orange cat wandering around our motel. I told Kevin, “She looks like she wants a home with two brothers.”  He isn’t convinced. I miss my old orange cat and really have been itching for another orange cat, but Kevin has been in situations before where he had too many cats. He says, “Two is a respectable number.”  

I’m only semi looking forward to going home. I mean I’m stuck here until Monday so I might as well make the best of it. I’m not sick of that store chain yet. By Monday I might be. 

Louisiana Snafus

 We are short staffed on this trip, and I’m annoyed about it. I have a lot of muscle stiffness, TMJ, and sciatica that’s making me miserable. But yesterday I took 600 mg of ibuprofen with an entire Red Bull and felt a lot better. Plus, the grocery store chain that we do here has an amazing selection, so it makes it more fun to “pretend shop” while I do inventory. It’s only Friday morning, and I believe I’ll be in overtime after only a few hours. Both today and tomorrow are likely to be 10 hour days, so that’s approximately 16-18 hours of overtime. I haven’t been keeping track though, and I’m not sure if my guess is guessing high or guessing low. 

One of my coworkers on the Dallas crew came back from medical leave after having cancer, and she has announced that she’s cancer free. This was good news. When she showed up to work the first day of the trip, she had one of these. It’s a kneeling pad on wheels from Temu. I was instantly jealous. I actually think I might get one. I have a kneeling pad, but it doesn’t have wheels. Kevin wears knee pads, but I hate wearing them for sensory reasons. As I was counting the school supplies section, I wondered to myself, did anyone come across that item on Temu and think, who would buy this?  Under what circumstances would one need to roll around on their knees?  But we do!  It comes in handy if you do inventory in stores! 

My company gives meal allowance money for out of town trips.  Most of the time, the boss gives us a cash envelope on the first day of the trip, but sometimes he doesn’t and it’s just added to the next check. I asked the boss if we would get it in cash this time, and he said “he had to ask” but it seemed promising, and then I think he just didn’t feel like going to the bank for it. Or he didn’t want to ask. Because of this, I took all the cash out of my 100 envelope challenge and brought it with me. That’s a set back. But since my next paycheck will be enormous, I can start over with that. Plus, I’m able to bum off of my husband. 

Today is likely to be an easier day, because our Austin crew has arrived. We’ll have a lot more people today. We might get back to the motel earlier, and I may do some coin laundry since this is such a long trip. 

Perspective

 This evening, I had a nice thought. 

When I look back on all of my memories from my entire life, it totals approximately 40 years. Now that I’m middle aged, I get to do approximately that same amount of time, 40 years, all over again. But this time, with wisdom. 

Tidbits

I have been watching all the latest documentaries about the Idaho murders. There have been quite a few of them now that the killer took a plea deal. It’s interesting to me how differently all four of the families tend to feel about the case. It seems like one family wants him to have the death penalty, one doesn’t, one doesn’t care as long as he’s away from society, and one isn’t really interviewed much. I could be wrong. I disagree that he purposely committed “femicide” obviously, because one of the victims is male. Some people might say something like, it’s still femicide because the male victim was the boyfriend of one of them, but I am just not buying it. He’s a serial killer, plain and simple. He has probably killed before. 

One of the moms (the one that I said isn’t interviewed much) was actually interviewed briefly, and she said she forgives the killer because she found Jesus. 20 years ago, that may have been inspirational, but now that I’m older I realize that even Jesus requires repentance. Brian Kohberger hasn’t repented. He only pled guilty to save himself. Now I just think that mom should not have been interviewed. 

Right after the murders happened and before he was caught, I wondered out loud, in front of my mother, “I wonder if it was a criminology student trying to get away with murder as part of their thesis.”  I didn’t realize how right on I was in my prediction. My mom often brings that up now, and I wish I hadn’t said it in front of her. She calls it a joke. (“Remember the joke you made about how it’s probably a criminology student?” she’ll say). I tried to explain that it was more of an intrusive thought than a joke and she started scoffing at me for being aware of mental health terminology. 

At work, for the time being, we are still a crew of five. Me, my husband, the boss, his wife, and their nephew. The boss’s wife ranted to me today about the fact that her nephew isn’t going to Louisiana with us and how pissed people are about this. He said he was “going on vacation” but she told me that actually his wife isn’t letting him go and doesn’t believe it’s really a work trip. She told me that his wife is really jealous. I said, “maybe he cheated on her before.”  She said, “No he didn’t!  Her first husband did and she hasn’t gotten over it!” 

She proceeded to tell me that his wife is jealous of ME and the women on the crews in the other cities. I said, “ME?!?!  Tell her she has nothing to worry about.”  

Bosses wife said, “Yup, you’re married.” 

I said, “Even if I wasn’t. Trust me she has nothing to worry about.”  

Then I asked, “Is she jealous of you?” 

She replied, “Well no because I’m his aunt.” 

Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. I said it again. “He must have cheated in the past.” And she insisted, no no, not her nephew, that woman is just paranoid!  

Siiiigh. I told Kevin about it all the way home, and we had good laughs. 

We are going to get a lot of hours and most likely overtime in Louisiana this week and next week.  I still sometimes can’t believe that I have been married to Kevin for four months, started dating him two years ago, and that I’m still working at the company where I met him. I also cannot believe that no one is demanding I give them my back up plan for in case “he leaves you and you get fired all at once”. I was raised to constantly think this way. Does no one ask me this because I’m older now or because they already know I’m just going to take off and do the merchandising apps until I figure something else out?  Or maybe it’s because I know from experience that the advice they’d give anyway is generally bad advice and I didn’t know that when I was younger?  Or maybe it’s because the majority of all my old abusive and domineering family members are senile and locked away in nursing homes. Perhaps some of them died and I wasn’t told. I don’t know, but it’s sure nice to be married and not have all these women over my head saying “What are you going to do if he dies or leaves you?”  That gets old. 

Weekend Highlights

 When we got paid on Saturday, I brought my student loan balance to $17K even. The balance was $17,222.46, and I made a payment of $222.46. When the pandemic happened and interest rates were frozen for almost three years, it was at $20K even. I started making payments to decrease the balance when interest resumed 22 months ago. I only cared to make enough payments so that the balance would decrease. Now that my car is paid off, I want to do more. I’m extremely lucky. I still browse the subreddits for student loans, and it seems like so many people are completely screwed over for life. They make significant payments each month, and the balances increase. 

I’m also saving money into a retirement account on Robinhood and doing the 100 envelope challenge. I have been on Robinhood for years, but now can add more to it. The envelope challenge booklet was sitting empty in my car (tucked into the back passenger seat pocket) but now has some smaller amounts filled. 

I made plans to take my husband and daughter to the St. Francis Wolf Sanctuary next month. My daughter moves into the dorm on 8/15, and this will be our last major outing before she goes. I’m looking forward to seeing the wolves. You can also camp there, but my husband isn’t a camping fan. 

We are about to leave for Louisiana for about 8 days. We were off today, and I finished making everything from the last fabric shopping hauls into squares. I also finished laundry and packed. We didn’t want to go shopping due to being out of town next week, so we just went out to eat. 

Funny News

The latest viral sensation- the couple who ducked and hid their faces after being exposed on the big screen at a Coldplay concert- is hilarious to me. If you aren’t familiar with it, here it is.  I’ve been to some televised things before, and I’ve seen a camera person walking around getting audience footage. I saw one person put their hands up as if to say “no” and the camera man respected it and didn’t take their picture. This cameraman person, however, was like: 

No one would have noticed if they didn’t make it so super obvious. Also no one would care if he wasn’t a billionaire. 

Two years ago, I may have acted similarly to being caught in a romantic embrace on a camera like that. Not because I was being unfaithful to anyone, but because I had spend my entire life with a lot of people who always had a problem with the idea of me in any relationship. HOWEVER I would not have acted THAT ashamed. I probably would have just pulled away and that’s it. I would not have done all the humiliation ducking and face covering. That made it extra obvious that they were in an affair. If it had just been me and someone, two years ago, before I really came to realize that I’d reached the age where no one really wants to tell me what to do anymore, I probably would have pulled away, turned red. And applaud embarrassingly. 

Then the guy issued a statement where he blamed the band! 

 

My Birthday!!

About a week ago, Kevin was talking about how I “saved him from his townhouse”. 

If you don’t know the story, to make a long story short, he had inherited a townhouse from his grandmother. It was the second from the right in a row or five in a complex full of townhomes. The building had a bad foundation, and Kevin was dealing with a bad HOA as well. 

In 2023, I took a real estate class for fun. Almost as soon as Kevin allowed me to see the damage in his house, I asked him why he didn’t call an investor. He said “Because obviously they wouldn’t want this place.”  

Feeling unsure of that, I called an investor and described the situation without giving the actual address.   Once this investor convinced me to get Kevin to call him, I told Kevin what I did, fully expecting him to be mad at me for “overstepping.”  (I mean, I was overstepping, but I only called for my own curiosity and wasn’t going to tell Kevin until this dude convinced he wanted the townhouse and could deal with the HOA.) 

At the end of that week, Kevin met the investor, and the investor paid him for the townhouse about the same amount Kevin would have paid someone to take it off his hands. Since then, Kevin has said that “I saved him.” We had just become “official” about 2-3 month before. We then moved into the guest house on his parent’s property, where we still are to this day. 

I got this awful feeling that if god forbid something happened to Kevin and I was in severe grief talking about how “he always said I saved him” that others might just think that’s BS. Or, they might think that I just wish a man had said that about me. So I asked Kevin to write it all down, in his own handwriting, and sign his name. I said “don’t type it out, because that’s not proof.”  

I don’t know why I had that intrusive thought about some hypothetical future scenario in which I’m grieving my husband and no one around me believes what I’m saying he always told me. That was 1-2 weeks ago, and we forgot about it. Then I woke up on my birthday, and this note was with my card. I also got a $100 gift card, and we took my daughter to eat after work. 

Today I turn 47. Every year since I turned 36, I’ve googled on my birthday what celebrities died at the age I’m turning. This is the first time in 11 years that I didn’t do that. I knew offhand that Judy Garland did. I wasn’t interested in the rest. Maybe that anxiety is going away. 

 

Regular Week

 

I’m so glad to be back into a regular, local work schedule this week. We had a few days off in which I had no motivation at all. I took my daughter to get her first tattoo, and while she did describe it to me beforehand, I wasn’t expecting it to be as big as it was. First tattoos are painful. I only have a teeny weeny one on my hand, and even that hurt. She’s only 18, and I was 38 when I got mine. It was a little intense. She was squeezing my hand and almost breaking my fingers. I haven’t really seen her in pain since she was little and received her vaccines. 

But at lease that’s over, and she’s feeling a lot better. 

It did drain me though. I guess I could have spent the rest of my days off turning my big 25 cent day haul from a couple weeks ago into 6 inch squares, but there was no motivation to do even that. All I did was rot in bed and doom scroll. I constantly tried to raise my own awareness about why this tragedy in central Texas happened, and I became too aware. Sade Perkins was living in my head rent free until I saw a comment saying, “This is a psy op, and she’s a fed!”  I wondered what a psy op was and came across this video explanation. He explains what it is and then describes literally everything the mass media and social media do all day every day. Some in those comments were like, “is this video a psy op?”  If you go around repeating the things this guy says, imo that’s a great way to end up in a padded room. 

Luckily by the time I gave it up, it was time to go to work. 

One of the reasons why I like my job is because it’s constant movement, all numbers, all facts, and channels all this pent up energy out of me. 

Saturday Unplanned.

 

While I didn’t physically attend the protest I was going to attend, I did watch the live stream. There were a lot of people in the live stream, but not a lot in attendance. I guess my perception of what was going to actually happen was off. They were just standing outside the church, there was some honking, but that was it. I was driving while listening to it, so I didn’t see “handing out bibles” like they said they were doing. Then they all agreed that “they didn’t want people driving by to think they were associated with that church”, lol, so they got in a couple cars and decided to find the farmers market owned by Sade Perkins. This was the first I was hearing about a farmers market, and I think if I was actually there, this is the point where I would have left. If anyone was inside the church, I don’t think a church person would have gotten “non-peaceful” with them. But I imagined someone at the farmers market would have. I’m not sure why I pictured it to be like a nice Whole Foods market with employees and everything. In reality, they went to the address listed and it was at a dead end of a residential street in third ward with a bunch of run down houses. They look around and say, “I don’t see any farmers.” 

lol, nope!  Not in the hood! No farmers! 

They find a man who was possibly homeless just kind of hanging outside a small grocery store and asked him where the farmers market was. The man replied, “People keep asking me that!  I don’t know anything about a farmers market.”  (Lol) 

Then another man walked by and said it was in a Methodist church parking lot. This was only a block away, so they walked. They found the Methodist but no farmers market. They then went back to the church and I turned off my live stream. 

Periodically throughout, they would mention unmarked police cars and say things like “There’s another cop!  But we love and support the cops!” Etc etc.  it was as if they thought the cops were after them, but I don’t think they were specifically.  They were just there to keep peace.  

Sade then proceeded to make another TikTok video where she’s acting super scared and saying “These people are trying to find me and unalive me!”  She then at the end of the video clicks a gun in an obvious threat against the people who did the protest.  A couple hours later, a video was made by the guy who organized the protest with his receipt from HPD showing that he pressed charges for the threat. She got three charges pressed against her- the threat, being a felon in possession of a firearm and stolen valor. 

What a shit show indeed. 

But what was this originally about in the first place?  It had to do with a tragedy that happened in central Texas on the Fourth of July. There was catastrophic flooding, and several people died including children who were at sleep away camp. The children were 8-10 years old, and their counselors were no older than 20 years old. Sade, in an attempt to blame the political right, said all kinds of heinous offensive things including calling the child victims “cunts” and “dead white bitches”. She’s definitely it the only one, there are a lot of leftists doing the same thing, just not with such inflammatory language. 

I live in Houston, which is at least 300 miles from where this happened. I don’t live anywhere near Kerr County, but I’ve passed through often. If anything happened in their local politics to have caused this, I wouldn’t know about it. Finally, someone decided to educate- apparently, in 2021, they were supposed to get $10.5 million from the Biden administration and they refused it because basically they didn’t like Biden. And whatever they would have done with that money would have prevented this. Someone finally posted hours and hours of meeting videos from 2021, but luckily Someone made a condensed version. 

This is exactly what I mean when I say the extremism and the hate is on both sides. What the hell are they talking about? I thought the feds gave the states money for shit like that all the time?  What stipulations?  What were the stipulations?  I don’t know, but what I do know from experience living in Texas for 23 years is that it may have been stipulations for mandatory evacuation. Texans don’t like to evacuate. They like to ride it out. I’m the opposite. Maybe if I’m bored I can watch these entire meetings, but I’m going to be busy for the next couple weeks. By the end of the month, this will all blow over. 

Edited to add: I just learned that this money that they were saying would be a “pact with the devil” if they accepted, they really did accept and used 70% to give themselves raises.  Can you make this up? Who’s the devil now?  

I really do appreciate being shown the meetings where they (I was going to say refused funding, but didn’t refuse funding and pocketed this demonic money anyway).  And since they did end up accepting the money, were all the regulations put in place that they were so scared of?  But it would have been really nice if this more grown up, fact-based educating was done first, before blaming dead children. Everyone grow the hell up. 

Oh, and my sourdough starter failed. But I’m going to make a new one. 

Chickening Out

 I’ve been up all night long, and I’m absolutely chickening out about going to the protest. I went to the corner store, filled my tank and then came right back home, got back into my pajamas and back in bed. 

1. There might be a drive by shooting at the protest, organized by the person being protested.

2. The media might show up, accidentally get a picture of me there, that picture might get into the hands of the wrong person or people, and I will be perceived a certain way that I don’t want to be perceived as. 

3. I suspect that she either wants the negative attention, or she’s trolling. She set up a go fund me for herself (because of course she did).  And people are donating $5 to leave her negative comments!  😂 

People actually have to tell people to not do that because you are directly supporting her and can leave her negative comments for free literally anywhere else. Getting $5 in your account every time someone wants to leave you a negative comment is the ultimate Uno reverse card. 

But enough about her, here are some things Kevin and I have been laughing at. 

He had a bad case of the hiccups last night, and I’ve never seen him with hiccups. They’re frickin hilarious with him. I don’t know why he seems to overdo each hiccup. Then to make matters even more hilarious, his cat Mitchell decided to mock him with “ekekek” every time he hiccuped. The weird part was that we didn’t even know where Mitchell was. He wasn’t on the bed with us, but we could hear him from wherever he was doing “ekekek” every time Kevin hiccupped. Finally he took a shower and they went away. 

Then I don’t really know why, but old videos of Riverdance from the 90’s were coming up in my YouTube suggestions. Riverdance was a live show in the 90’s of Irish dancing starring Michael Flatley. I asked Kevin if he remembered it, and he didn’t. I told him they were pretty popular back then. I started playing one of the videos, and he immediately started laughing!  I said, “Are you laughing at Riverdance???” He laughed even more and tried to undo it by saying, “I’m sure they worked very hard.”  

I continued to watch some and was like, actually this is kind of funny from a 30 years later perspective. But back then, I was hooked!  

My Saturday Plans

 Tomorrow I’m attending a protest at the First UU Church of Houston that’s taking place between 10-4. I’m not staying the entire time, because I have plans with my daughter. My daughter doesn’t want to go to the protest with me, and I actually am glad.  If you are curious as to what we are protesting, see my below post. Or better yet, google Sade Perkins and go down the rabbit hole. 

I’m going to be wearing black jeans, a black top, black walking shoes, and my Texas drivers license and health insurance card will be in my back pocket just in case she shows up and starts shooting up. Do I think she’ll do that?   I think there’s a 10-20% chance. But nah. 

I am learning that not everyone in the world has the mentality that children are innocent. The mentality does exist that if a child is the child of your enemy, they will grow up to be “the same way” as your enemy. Sade doesn’t have that many supporters, but the few that she does have are giving examples of racist white people from way back in the day and saying the flood victims would have grown up to be just like that. 

….. No they wouldn’t. I have seen so many positive mindset shifts with “Gen Z”, and even more with “Gen Alpha”, that I’ve come to believe that their collective growth and their collective breaking of generational curses is actually the start of world peace. That’s actually the happy ending of my book, The Child Advocate. Spoiler alert! I start noticing how the young people are and realizing not only how much better they have it than us, but how much better they’re doing than we did. I do believe they will “start the process” of world peace. Don’t get me wrong, my kid has come across some shithead classmates, but absolutely nothing like when I was in school.  

But that mentality does exist, that the child of your enemy will “just grow up to be that way”. I saw this being talked about regarding the war between Israel and Palestine. Neither side sees the children of the other side as innocent. That’s partly why it’s so frickin ugly over there. Some guy explained it to me, and it just left me feeling a little bit of the ick. He said something like, they gotta make sure they get them all (including the kids), “or else it will turn into some kind of green goblin situation.” 

He eluded me for a second. Was that a Spiderman reference?  Wasn’t the green goblin the enemy of spiderman who yelled at his kid, “AVENGE ME!” Just as he was dying, and then eventually his kid became the next green goblin?  Yes that’s actually what this guy said. He said that. Out loud, he actually said that.  

If I remember correctly, though, the green goblin didn’t succeed and Harry died. So just don’t blame kids, hurt kids, unalive kids, or rejoice when bad things s happen to them. Just leave the kids out of it. 

I feel like this country is so divided and I honestly don’t want any part of either side. It makes me wish Trump was deporting second generation Americans as well, because my morals don’t line up with the BS of either side of the far left or far right anymore. Maybe in 20 years when the candidates are going to be more and more Gen Z, I’ll take more interest. 

The good news is, there’s some much lighter drama on TikTok that has me absolutely laughing my bitt off and laughing away all the pain of the Sade drama. It’s the “antipastogate” situation. A woman who appears to be in her 30’s (too old to be doing this) posted A video of herself crying, explaining that someone invited her to Fourth of July but forgot to tell their husband. He came in not knowing who she was and was rude to her and she left. Not only that, but she brought an antipasto salad that looked amazing and shared a brief picture of it in the crying video. The rude husband made a video in response saying that he thought she was casing the place out. The most hilarious response was This guy. So was This guy

I’ve been laughing hysterically, but is it really that funny?  Yes I think so. So are the memes: 

Sade’s World- my last thoughts on the flooding

 Going viral on TikTok right now is a woman named Sadè (pronounced Shah-Day) who has been extremely nasty in her descriptions of the children who lost their lives at Camp Mystic. She has claimed that their deaths are deserving all the way to actually calling the 8-10 year old deceased kids “cunts”. 

Some people are saying she’s a preacher’s wife. They actually aren’t married. Her partner is the pastor of The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, which is located on Fannin St. near downtown and the museum district. I went to this church a handful of times. My ex husband used to make fun of it and call it “The come and believe your own shit church”, because there’s no creed. He wasn’t wrong though, that’s exactly what UU is. It’s a congregation of people with varying religious beliefs. Two of the times I visited this church, I also visited the Houston Women’s Group, which is a weekly gathering to discuss feminist politics. The first time I went, I was visibly pregnant, about 7-8 months along. I just sat and said nothing that first time. The reason I’m writing this here is not so I can be educated in the comments about how “feminism is all about choice.”  Trust me, I already know. I respect that that has been some people’s experience, but as for me I was heavily pressured to just be all about career and not a family. When I was about to have a baby, I heard of them and just wanted to go sit in the back. I just went and sat near the door in case I needed to escape. They were generally welcoming, but said nothing about me being obviously pregnant. 

The next time I went to the Houston Women’s Group was almost two years later. I let my daughter go to the nursery while attended the service and then went to the women’s group. They didn’t remember me. There was a guest speaker that day. She was talking about an email list about political advocacy, and she kept using the word “pro abortion”.  Someone cringed at like the third or fourth time she said it and reminded her something like, “When you write the emails though, please don’t use the term pro abortion please use pro choice.  I know it’s how we really feel, but it might get some people riled up.” And then mentioned that the right likes to misinterpret “pro abortion” so they’re “forced to” use the term “pro choice” and act like they really believe in choice. 

Haha, what?  I spoke up at that point and said it was always drilled into me that there was no such thing as pro abortion and that the correct term was pro choice. One of them explained it to me that the inherent act of having children was oppressive to women. Women were the first oppressed group in human history, and it was directly due to childbearing.  It was still oppressive even if a woman “chose” it, and in fact, if she chose it she was bringing all women down. I’m paraphrasing here, but they also explained that if a woman is choosing to have children, she’s not actually making an informed choice, she’s just doing it out of pressure. I clammed up at that point. What a weird thing to say, especially since all pressure I ever felt surrounding the issue was to not have any kids. I couldn’t leave, because I didn’t want them thinking I disagreed with them and having them get mad. I thought to myself holy shit and I showed up here when I was 8 months pregnant?  Eventually I did slip out the door and ran to the nursery to get Anna. Hilariously, the nursery volunteers convinced us to stay for mommy and me song time, and I did. It was completely different women there, of course, because they were all moms who had put their kids in the church nursery. I spent the next little while sitting in this circle with my toddler in my lap singing “Cumbaya” type songs.  It helped me forget about the weird “just use pro choice so you don’t upset the moms” comment in women’s group. 

The opinion that having children is in and of itself a negative- oppression of women literally caused by it- in my opinion is a seed that could manifest in child abuse. 

It manifested in this. This woman whose “partner” is a “pastor” there said those little girls deserved to die. She even called these dead little girls cunts. Go to TikTok and search “Sade’s World”. There are thousands calling her out on how evil she is. 

A lot of people are discovering Unitarian Universalism for the first time because of her too, and are like “Oh my goodness that’s why!  Because SHES NOT A CHRISSTIANNN!”  

Well that’s not why, and that’s why I shared my personal experience with that church. There is a hatred of children that manifests from the idea that having them is inherently wrong. I don’t think it’s all of those people though. Of course, there was a nursery with mommy and me song time following the service. 

One thing I will say I agree with Sade on though- and it’s the only thing because she’s an evil cunt whore bitch- is that “missing white woman syndrome” or “Gabby Petito syndrome” is real. It means that when a child of color goes missing, they don’t get as much attention as when a white child goes missing, in particular if it’s a little girl who’s blonde. It’s a thing  

Lord knows I’ve devoted so much time to trying to write about missing people who could still be alive and even tried to blog about them until I just kept finding out about more and more of them and it got too much. I would like to challenge Sade to go look for Asha Degree, Diamond and Tionda Bradley, Anthonette Cayedito, Relisha Rudd, Vinyette Teague, Manuela Orlandi and I could srsly go on and on. I would love to see any of them found. But the truth is probably doesn’t know who any of them are. She’s just a demon spewing hate. She doesn’t want to learn who any of them are. 

She also made a TikTok basically threatening to kill anyone who talks about her online. It’s not deterring me from this blog post. 

 Day two of my sourdough starter was just “give it a stir”. I don’t have to “remove half and add more” until tomorrow. 

Today Kevin and I are riding in the back of the boss’s car for five hours to “Louisiana”. He has no idea where, but the five hour timeframe suggests Alexandria. Tomorrow we do a job there and then come back in the evening. 

There’s a lot of drama on social media about the children who lost their lives in Kerrville. A lot of people saying Texas deserves it due to the politics here. Both sides of the political bird gloat when disasters happen in states that vote the opposite of them. I literally just really hate both sides. 

This is the most educational and factual take I’ve heard.  This woman is a meteorologist and gives a solution at the end of the video. 

To lighten the mood, here’s Alex. Yes I know he’s fat. 

Sourdough Starter; No July 4th

 Today, I made a sourdough starter. It will be ready in about a week. I got this container at Dollar Tree, and I’m following these instructions:

If anyone has any tips, let me know. 

Many times, I find people online to follow that I end up loving, and the whole reason I found them in the first place was because I had listened to their haters complaining about them. One of those is Nara Smith. Nara Smith likes to get dressed up for the kitchen and make things from scratch- so of course she has haters. But I watch some of her stuff and I’m just like, you can do that?  Here she is making a regular loaf of sourdough and a chocolate one. I’m totally going to do both as well. Chocolate sourdough sounds amazing. 

We didn’t hear fireworks on the fourth. Many people online aren’t celebrating because of Trump. I’m not a Trump supporter, nor am I really big on Fourth of July, but I couldn’t help noticing that the same people who aren’t celebrating the fourth out of the belief that he’s a dictator, also wanted to dictate my every move for several years of my life. In my old apartment, thanks to my mom leaking my address, I had cops occasionally knocking on my door for welfare checks because family members called and said I was suicidal. I’m not. One cop kept asking me if I had a gun. I don’t. He kept pressing. I said, you’re welcome to search. He said, “I just want to go home.”  Then go home!  The goal of these family members was to have me locked up, because they didn’t like several things, including my long distance relationship at the time, my 1099 job that wasn’t a W2 job etc. one of my best friends thought it was my ex husband and his wife doing this (Anna’s dad and stepmom), but I didn’t think so, because I was required to give them my new address as soon as I moved in. My mother didn’t leak it until a few months later, and that’s when the knocks at the door started happening. 

I’ve also seen a handful of comments online poking fun at recent tragedies in my home state of Texas. We lost several 8-10 year old girls at a summer camp due to flooding. The owner of the camp also died trying to save them. This is devastating, as a mom, as someone whose best childhood memories were at camp, and as someone close by. These were kids. Don’t do that. They were little girls. Our country is truly divided if people can stoop that low. 

The plus side of no fireworks is that my daughter reported that her father’s chiwawa-pug didn’t have anxiety and didn’t need meds. 

4th of July- Can’t Move Numbers Online

 As of this evening, Saturday the fifth, I still haven’t received my paycheck. So I sent this meme to my boss. He loves the movie Office Space, and if you haven’t seen it and/or don’t get the meme, here is the explanation. 

I have a bad case of the irritation. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have waited another week on paying the whole car loan off. 

Conversation With Gastroenterologist

 Back in April, I had a Fibroscan of my liver in a gastroenterologist’s office. At the time, they had told me that if they found anything serious, the doctor would call me. If not, then I could discuss my results at my follow up on June 17th. Only, I canceled the appointment on June 17th due to anxiety. I found out that I have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease back in November of 2021. It was discovered when I went to the emergency room for panic attacks that caused cardio symptoms. 

But with so many things going well in my life, I’m afraid I’ll die. So back on Monday, I called the GI office and was like look, is there any way the Dr can just call me. She was extremely rude, “Your insurance doesn’t cover that.” She snapped. I replied, “I will pay for it. I will pay 100% if he just calls me about this.”  I explained that I have severe anxiety over the issue and do no want to have to handle talking about it in the office. It would not only be humiliating for me, but they don’t want to deal with that, I don’t want to deal with that, and I would have to drive upset. She snapped again, “But your insurance doesn’t allow for a phone consult.”  And that’s true with Obamacare- if you have it and something is not covered and you are able/willing to pay out of pocket anyway, they won’t let you. But I started getting attitude back and said, “It lets me go on the teledoc app, that’s who referred me to y’all in the first place.”  She said hang on for her manager and then came back saying the manager wasn’t answering and then gave me her direct line. I called the direct line, and it was a non working number. That bitch! So I called back, got a completely different operator and started over. She put me on hold for the manager. I told the office manager everything and she asked, “Would you like me to run your insurance to see if it covers telehealth or would you like me to leave the doctor a message?” I said, “Can you do both?”  

So I was on kind of a long hold, she came back and said that yes my insurance covers telemedicine, she left my message for my doctor, and he’d call me Thursday the 3rd at 5:00 pm. 

He called a little before then. Immediately I started having panic attacks, but I did mention to him that this liver condition is an extremely serious cause of anxiety for me and that I wasn’t really interested in knowing what my liver looked like, I just had five questions- 1. Is there any medication he wants me to take? 2. Is there any medication he doesn’t want me to take? 3. Is there any specific food I should eat? 4. Is there any specific foods I should not eat and 5. How often do I have to keep coming back for this test? 

He told me first of all, to calm my fears, that everything on the test looks “promising”. He said a few more vague positive things before answering my five questions- there isn’t really a pill to take; my atorvastatin and metformin as long as they work controlling pre diabetes and cholesterol do fine. There is not anything to “not take”, he said, just don’t overdose on anything. As far as foods he described “The Mediterranean Diet” which is what they  all say, but there are more strict guidelines online. And that I should repeat the test about once a year. 

I then stepped back a little and said, “ok since it looks promising then I guess you can tell me what my liver looks like.” He seemed glad and said “Ok well your fatty liver disease is currently at a stage 0, which is the best it can be.”

I know from reading online that stage 4 would be cirrhosis.  Didn’t mention that though, was just glad to hear the number zero. He said the fibroscan was to check for hardening, and other bad things, of which I had none. 

I thanked him and before he hung up. He tried to convince me to get a colonoscopy again. I said, “Let me psych myself up for it for a couple months.”  He said that was fine. 

I told my mom, and she said, “I never had a colonoscopy, and I’m fine.”  

🤦🏻‍♀️ 

I’ve explained survivor bias to her before, but you can’t teach an old dog. 

I believe I know what causes this in me. It wasn’t the panic attacks. As a young woman, I was too skinny. I didn’t even reach 100 pounds until I was 22. Because of that, I constantly had older people telling me I had to gain weight and eat a burger and eat a pizza and I mean it was constantly skinny shaming. This seems counterintuitive to people, because only fat shaming is talked about. I was 220-something at my heaviest, and no one ever said anything about me being fat to my face. They kept it to themselves. Skinny shaming, though, is literally always 100% of the time, said to a person’s face. Because of that I spent many years making myself eat fatty unhealthy things, and that’s what I believe caused this. I feel like I’m not ever allowed to say that out loud though. People don’t like to hear about skinny shaming because they want to believe “society” wants women to be thin. But who exactly is “society”?  I’ve been working hard the last few years trying to reverse the habits and learn more about food. Combined with people who “wanted more for me than to just be in the kitchen” it has taken a lot of work and resisting. But I’m doing it. This morning I weighed 192.2, so some kind of plateau is happening. 

A Fruitful Wednesday Off

I started yesterday with a trip to 25 cent day at my favorite thrift store. I spent $13.25 plus tax, which means i got 53 pairs of jeans.  This is my second full ziplock bag of buttons harvested from 25 cent jeans. I cannot and do not remove buttons that were attached with grommets. I think it’s time for some button art. I was in a button art facebook group for a while, and I think the easiest thing to do would be a tree.  Some of the white buttons may have to be painted green. 

Also while cutting the waists off below the pockets, I thought to myself- if I was more careful in my cutting of these, did then more straight and intentionally, I could add flowy fabrics to them and make skirts. What are y’all’s opinions on that? 

I then took my daughter to Niko Niko’s for lunch and afterwards, we went to the metaphysical gift shop which is right next door. I needed scented votive candles, because I did receive nice votive size candle holders as a wedding gift. Anna bought little heart shaped stones to give to her friends. Her last day at her job is tomorrow. I’m actually kind of glad because I want her to spend more time up here with me. That’s one of the reasons she’s quitting. She wants to spend more time with me and with her friends before she leaves for San Marcos on 8/15.  

I then went to Walmart and not only got what seems like the perfect glass container for my own sourdough starter, but in the sewing department, three yard packs of solid 100% quilting fabrics were on sale for $5.94. They’re usually over $8.