Summer is officially over at this house.

School is starting tomorrow. In some ways I am happy but this year is going to be supper sad for me. My last little one is going into the school system. I think it is going to be harder on me as a mother than it will be for him to go and do it.

But with the kids out of the house for a bit I will be able to work on so many things. Art, organization, youtube videos, and having a little me time for once in my life.

I'm kinda looking forward to that part of it all. But the silence in the house is going to be insane for a little while. But I guess I will just have to get used to it all.

Look forward to many posts, updates, videos, art, and showing off that I actually can clean when I'm not being stopped every 15 minutes to break up fights, help get snacks or drinks, and the many other things that kids request.

Sure I will still have to run the zoo, but the chickens, rabbits, dog, and cats don't normally stop me in the middle of something for a cuddle to watch a 2 hour movie.

Hey mom.....But mom.....

I think summer vacation is starting to wear on me. "Hey mom....." and "But mom......" are starting to seriously drive me crazy. All my kids are doing it too, no matter how many times I tell them just call me mom.

But mom seems to get me the most really. I have no idea why but every time I hear but mom it's like a part of me just wants to explode. I don't. But it's there.

So last night while putting away the chickens I had an idea, born out of the but moms I had heard all day.

My kids are star and moon crazy. You have to see where this is going by now. So I came inside and asked all three of my boys if they would like to see a full moon. The looks of excitement on their faces were just what I was hoping for. My youngest started to come forward in what I could only imagine was his rush to be the first to see the full moon outside.

Only there was no full moon outside.

So I gave them my version of a full moon. Meet with jeers and "I can't believe you did that".

I have a feeling I'm going to be known as Butt mom for a little while.

Dogs

I need to lead off by saying that I DO have a dog that I love dearly. However in April I was attacked by a dog, a blue healer in fact and other than my dog right now I hate them all.

Mainly because it is July and my leg still isn't 100% better. On antibodies now in order to see if somehow an infection has formed inside my healed leg. Or if that doesn't work in ten days I get to figure out if I have muscle damage. YAY!

On the left is how most people see dogs. Cute, cuddle monsters that would never hurt anyone. On the right is how I see dog right now. Angry, hostile teeth mashing machines. Will I get to a middle ground? Only my therapist knows!

Until then, I've just decided that all dogs suck and I always knew I was a cat person.

Shooting Alpine

I live in a very small town in Texas but even as I say that I find beauty here and there. So I'm going to post pictures from time to time and tag it with #shooting Alpine.  I hope that you can enjoy them.

Back to sketching

Trying to draw at least a sketch a day, sometimes it works out and sometimes I've just got too many other commitments like last night. Boy scouts takes up a lot of my time, but my boys really do seem to enjoy it. Have to research some ways to make invisible ink for our next meeting, and show some sign language.

The next tour I want to do is the animal shelter as we have been working on that loop and pin set. Border Patrol tour should be next as it will fall into place with a government tour. After that thankfully more summer activities will take over. But those are out there and shouldn't make me too manic! But the last few months of the school year always seems to go a lot faster than I want it to anyway.

 

This was done on Monday, I want to draw some more skulls as this was actually very calming and made me feel pretty good about my drawing skills for once. And that doesn't happen very often. Should be able to sketch out something new tonight after I get some cleaning done. Its amazing how quickly this house gets torn apart but I am cleaning up after 5 people. Myself and 4 boys. I live in a freaking frat house I tell ya.

This is how we share in the house!

 

 

Kids went to the fair last night, or at least the older ones did. I kinda regret not taking them myself, a more than kind neighbor lent a hand and took my older kids. She always seems to help me out. I think my new goal is to start inviting myself along to do these things. I get less regret and if I do have a panic attack I have faith that the medicine will hold me.

 

 

Finally got my shoes in from Wal-Mart so I am going to start tracking my weight loss goals on this blog as well. Just need to get some things set up and then figure out when I want to post these things. Also if you want to cheer me along leave a comment, or if your willing maybe we could become over the internet buds in losing weight? That sounds desperate but hey what can you do.

 

 

I'm starting to draw again, the colored page was just something that I was doodling while watching someone play the video game Silent Hill downpour online. Yes I do enjoy watching other people play games because lets face it there are tons of games, but not enough money so watching is sometimes a nice option when I don't just have to have it. The other side is a sketch or the start of a sketch really of a possum. I think they are totally cute. Going to keep flexing that art muscle, also have an art channel in mind for my youtube. Just have to get some better equipment or make what I have work.

 

Not sure if I am going to do VEDA because I am very shy, but I really want to. VEDA is Vlog everyday in April. It could get my used to it and would push forward my goals of putting my kids on vlogs more often. We will see. So that is all for me right now, hope everything is cool where you are.



The things about it all is

Adjusting and trying to get over and get used to being treated by a mental disorder is as hard or sometimes even harder than having the problem. I say that because sometimes the dose isn't right and you have to play around with that, sometimes the medicine does nothing for you, or does so much it makes what was going on before look like a cakewalk.

So I've been in a weird transition period with my life, and really as odd as it sounds I'm having to learn how to live once again. That is what I've been doing or at least pondering doing while I've been away. But really it hasn't gotten me anywhere fast. I only say this because I'm not accountable to anyone but myself right now. I've just been sitting here trying to figure it out.

I have done a lot. I took my kids to the park together as a family and we had a blast.

I've been organizing my house, like with bins and purging a lot of clutter. I'm from a long line of hoarders and its embarrassing but I think I was using that as a coping skill? Either way my dumpster hasn't been empty for a few weeks.

I've helped my husband build up his leatherworking business, well still in the process of that.

I've also been working on my taxidermy. But I'm not sharing it with anyone or anything. So while at first I though this blog was going to be about myself and being a mom. I'm thinking it's going to be more about me and this struggle to learn to live after being alive for so long and suffering in silence with a disease that I still don't fully understand or don't have full control over.

I have good days, I have great days, and then I have days where I want to hide under the covers and not come out from them. But in the end I've got to learn that even with everything that is going on I do have some people that understand I just need to branch out from what I normally do and learn a few more things. Time is short, it is for everyone really, but if I don't use it to the fullest I'm going to be the one to lose out in the end.

So ya know....let's do this!

King games - Pepper Panic

Dear King games,

Yes you got me for a while with candy crush, but somewhere around level 100 or so I got trapped, frustrated and gave up. Sorry I just don't have what it takes to be an amazing candy crusher. So my family started playing other games and I moved on too, its not you King games it was totally me.

Then I see this game, Pepper panic, cute little graphics and I had some boredom that needed to be alleviated so I thought why not.

Pepper panic has got to be the most addictive game I've played since candy crush, it's like a damn drug I cannot wait to have my lives recharge and play again. I curse the stupid pepper stealing cat and love it when the dog gives me a little wiggle with every pepper panic I manage.

I don't however think I will be able to look at cat statues the same way for a while now, not without wanting to explode them anyway.

I'm not sure the formula you use for addictive games, I'm sure you have one though. It works! And I'm not even being paid to write this I just love this damn game that much.

Though if you would like to pay me I'll take unlimited lives please.

Thanks for giving me something to do when I'm bored,
Nikki

365 photo project

So I've been sad sack sleeping in my bed all depressed for a bit, never a fun place to be let me tell you. Have my meds upped so hopefully that will help me out with something, but in the meantime I decided that I needed something to motivate me to get up and do things.

So my tumblr, http://mesmerical.tumblr.com/ , is turning into that with the picture a day for a year or 365 days.

Some people just take pics of themselves and I might do that as well, but I kinda want it to be like a mini diary into my life. Like something that you can look at with very few words and maybe get something out of.

At the very least it is a reason for me to get up and out of bed to do something everyday instead of wasting away alone and depressed.

I'm done with that life and I need to get better at just being better.

Long overdue update

So like a year ago, just a few entries down actually I made mention of taking on the epic pokemon cross stitch. I am still at it! In fact I post a new pic about every month on my deviantart account.

This is my current progress as of a few seconds ago. I know it doesn't look like much compared to how big this actually thing is going to get. But I did actually take a rather long break on it during the summer and when the kids went back to school I became more focused on doing it.

http://jpnmaynard.deviantart.com/

That is the link to my page, it has some better if not dated photos of this journey of mine. So you can check that out plus other arts that I like to do in my spare time. I'm sure you'll see them pop up on my blog from time to time anyway.

Tonight is a weird night, winter vacation is over so it's the night of kids not wanting to go to bed and back to me having to wake up at seven in the morning. I hate that! I hated it as a kid, and I hate it as an adult because when I wake up I'm up. There is no just go get back into bed. Probably better for me anyway.

One of those scary adult things

So I've always had a lot of moles on my body, never really gave it a thought to tell you the truth. They were just there, but as you get older people start telling you all these scary things that your moles can do. Grow hair, change shape, change color. And then they tell you that if those things are happening that you probably have cancer.

I'm a firm believer that pretty much any and everything is going to end up giving me cancer anymore so I never really worried about it. That is until this.

Excuse the quality it is just a webcam photo but the mark that I am pointing at has been itching like crazy for month and won't go away. Seriously I have no idea if it even is a mole that is how many I have on my body too many to really keep tack of. Am I supposed to get like a mole journal now?

I don't know, I just know that I'm getting a doctors opinion on it because frankly having cancer scares the shit out of me. They say if you catch it early it's better for you and all that. But really I'm just hoping they laugh at me and say its like a spider egg or something like that.

Guess we will see!

Chicken post

I raise a small flock of backyard chickens so from time to time I will post about them. I only have 7 at the moment down from 10. We had 2 die from sickness and one from a dog attack. Others were attacked as well but they didn't get hurt as badly and were able to live on.

I've had a broody hen for about 2 months now that I just can't break so I decided to just let her hatch out a few eggs. Only way I can figure to break her of it. A broody hen for those that don't know is a hen that will sit on an egg until it hatches, it doesn't even have to be eggs really. I'm not sure why this one isn't coming out of it really. She should have, and I had given her a clutch of eggs but one night I wasn't feeling well so I had the mister go out and put them away for the night and he didn't know to check the nest. Sometimes she either gets it wrong or another hen will push her out and she will just go to another nest.

That nigh she did not sit on her nest. So when I candled the eggs, which is basically putting a light source on the eggs in order to do a type of ultrasound I found that the eggs had died. They had gotten too cold.

I tried to give them another test in an old farmer method where you float the egg in warm water, an egg that has an alive fetus inside will wiggle. Those eggs all fell straight to the bottom which is a really bad sign.

So I opened them up and found 2 fully formed fetus' that probably would have hatched in the week and a few that were not as formed and either died early or were at different stage in development as some hens were laying in her nest when she would get out for water.

It was very sad, but I plan to buy some baby food jars and get some denatured alcohol to make wet specimen jars to display them in my house. I will post pictures when I have completed that task. Might sound odd, but you will find that I'm not your average woman and I never really want to be.