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.

No offense if you are a great cook and have the bucks to shell out

The one object that will change my life!!!!

 

 

 

So okay it's not a Kitchenaid fancy mixer, but it is a stand mixer that I can take off the stand. I'm not even sure that other one can do that. I also have multiple attachments the normal 2 that you always beg mom to lick after the whatever is mixed together. A whisk attachment for whisking I am sure. And I also have some weird looking hook things which I have been told are used to make dough or something. Personally the only reason I got this is because I keep reading all over the internet how the Kitchenaid mixer changed girls lives when they bought one. So I figure since I'm not a good cook or one that really even likes cooking this should be more than enough. But just like losing my virginity I don't feel amazing or like I am suddenly super mom or cook. In fact other than cake or like normal things I 'm not even sure what I am going to use these for. But I guess I will end up doing something, I'm sure I'll find something.

 

 

So these are all the things that I got with the mixer. Guess I'll have to cook up some things and show you guys if this actually makes a difference or if I am going to curl up in a ball wishing I had bought a 200 dollar mixer instead of a 20 dollar one. I figure since I've just been using my own mixers God gave me since I was little I'm going to appreciate this 20 dollar upgrade. 

 

Life gets away from you sometimes, you either just go with it or you let it take you on a spin around. I took the long way around but I am getting help for those things and hope that my journey will become less of me watching everyone around me live a wonderful life and will start with me taking those baby steps and living the life I have wanted to for so long.

I'm going to stumble as I go along and that is okay. The first step is this blog really because I am going to use it to basically document a year of treatment and trying to live the life I need and want to live. Maybe we will all learn something in the end. I'm not really sure.

The basics are I have 3 kids - all boys.
A husband who has to work more than any of us would like.
And I have been having panic attacks so badly they were taking over every part of my life. In fact they for the past year have almost taken it away.

I went to a psychiatrist at the beginning of this month. It was after I had pulled my husband aside in the yard with tears in my eyes saying "I need help." Those three little words have led me here.

I have GAD - Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Panic Disorder with agoraphobia
Major Depression

I always thought depression meant that you were just sad all the time, or at least I guess that is what I always gathered from the commercials for all the different medications that you see on television. Turns out it is just the total lack of interest in anything, I'm guessing I have been so into my own head about this that I didn't notice that I was sad because I really didn't care that I was sad.

Depression is really a horrid thing, and I'm trying to work through this and an irrational fear of basically everything. This should be an interesting year. I'm going to go slow at first, I was told that was wise, but there is so much living out their that I want to do and that I hope that I am able to do.

Thank you for anyone that ever reads this, hopefully you gain something from it.

A lot can happen in a week…..

 

Especially when most of that week you are too sick to do anything anyway. Which is where I have been for a week. A nasty wind blew in and took me out with it. I was actually not aware that the human body was capable of holding and then expelling so much snot. I also sounded like I had smoked my whole life, and could hardly breath when the head cold decided that the real party was in my chest.

I probably would have gotten better sooner but on the second night of the head cold part a raccoon attacked my chicken coop and took out a good portion of my flock. So in cold night air I ran out with my husband to try and save them. Well I have two left of the original five that I started with. Thankfully they weren’t all killed as one of my girls, Nymeria, did not go into the night quietly by any means. If I am not mistaken I do believe some neighbors were out talking about the sound and trying to figure it out. Sadly I can tell you now that a chicken can scream. I never thought I would like a bird so much but chickens have something that others seem to lack. Or at least mine did, I loved feeding them in the morning and listening to the little clucks and squawks I would get in turn. I had tamed these girls to the point that they would let us handle them without too much of a fuss. So needless to say I was a little sad to lose so many.

I did go and buy a live trap the next day, we saw the raccoon and decided that we were setting a live trap in case he were to come back. He hasn’t yet but if he does we are ready this time around. I also am adding onto and fixing my coop so it is even harder for such a creature to get in there again.

The good news? When I was buying the trap, I got to tell the story of what happened as we live in a very small town and we still like to chat before we buy anything. Sometimes those conversations are probably the highlight of the particular workers day. So he tells me that on Monday they would be getting some chicks in and I should come by. Of course I have to, because I just lost a good chunk of my egg layers and after eating eggs from chickens that free roam my backyard I can tell you now that store bought eggs just won’t do.

Long story short? I have new chickens! So along with crafts this blog will be getting updates of my new baby chicks. It’s exciting around here!

 

Wind Be Gone

 

So living in a valley with mountains all around us has some advantages and some disadvantages. One of the constant things we have to deal with is the wind, it can get down right insane at times. I’m talking it is beautiful outside but if you tried to walk you would be knocked over because you dared to stand on one foot. It doesn’t happen like that often, but enough that it is really annoying and when you have things you wanted to do outside pretty much always know that is the day the heavens will split and wind will ruin everything you wanted to do.

Today was one of those windy days, my husband is outside working or at least attempting to work on this little greenhouse that we had bought and it isn’t going well. This is in some ways why I let him do these things I have a shorter fuse than he does when it comes to building things. I hide in the kitchen cooking food and he gets to figure out the hard stuff in the backyard.

So I had to go and pick up some items for dinner and yell out to him that I was going to the store, in case he needed me to pick something up for him. I’m awesome like that and always make sure to ask when I go somewhere. Sure I might roll my eyes about it, but at least I asked! So he glares at me, the full frustration from working in the wind in full effect, and asks for some wind be gone.

Cue me driving in the car madly trying to figure out what would be funny to alter into Wind Be Gone. My first thought was to buy a 6 pack of Bud and alter it to say Wind Be Gone because really if you are drunk you wouldn’t care about the wind. But he had already bought a 6 pack and I’m trying NOT to encourage alcoholism in my house.

I’m at a lose really, and it’s annoying. Then it hits me, what is another way to say fart? BREAKING WIND!

In case you didn’t know already I have 3 sons, and a husband who at times is no better than my sons. So four boys and just me, the only woman, there is a lot of farting in my house.

I have to give credit to Beano, that little tagline “and there will BE NO gas” really sticks with you as that is what I slipped into my basket along with the cooking oil and steak sauce for my little joke. I thought it was downright clever.  I enjoy being clever you see.

Boys are on the couch and I hop over to Jarred with a huge grin and pass him the Beano and proclaim, “There is your Wind Be Gone.”

You could have heard crickets chirp, I don’t even get a grin. “You wasted money on this?”

WHY YES I DID! It’s not like gas doesn’t happen in this house so someone can take it and we could see if this stuff really works or not. I mean where is the gratitude? My joke made me laugh and after a few drinks he could see the humor as well, that greenhouse really got him angry.

I do have to say, if Beano works, I’m totally slipping it in the Kool-aid from now on.

Epic Pokémon cross stitch of epicness

 

So this is the start of the Gen. III Pokémon cross stitch that can be found on spritestitch.com by the ever so talented user Servotron. The only one that I know of that has been completed would be the Gen. I version. However I do want to do that one as well as my love of Pokémon is great but sadly my room and ability to collect them is low. So crafting something this epic that can be framed and put up for all to enjoy satisfies my needs greatly in the nerdy thing of the week category.

I will try to take photos daily, or when I work on it as I cannot claim that I will work on it every single day. I do have to tell you that while I know how to cross stitch I have never really done anything past a simple sampler here or there. This is epic, this is crazy, and this might be a little big of madness mixed in. I am having fun with it though, and it is nice to sit and do something like this in my down time instead of watching my kids fight about who is breathing loudest. So wish me luck! I think I might need it this time.

While we are on the subject of how nerdy I am I should let you know that my checkbook is more awesome than yours. My husband, and sometimes me, are taking up leatherwork. I say sometimes me because I don’t do it really as often as he does, and my work speaks volumes about that. This is something he made for me, and I love it to bits. It’s Book from Hocus Pocus in case you couldn’t figure it out. I hope you’ve seen the movie and if you haven’t you really need to!

I’m just going to leave this as a craft update, and get you up to date with the family in my next post. Maybe I’ll do crafting Sundays…..maybe I won’t. We will see.

Why I should never bake.

So last night I wanted a cake, like really wanted a cake. It was one of those desires that you could taste as I thought about having some cake. Problem was I had no cake mix and really didn't want to go to the store for just cake mix. I go to the store for just cake mix and end up coming home with bags of things and no cake mix.

I've got flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder and arms. Let's do this!

So I looked up some recipes for cake online. Let me tell you there is a lot of cake recipes out there! White, yellow, chocolate, strawberry and I'm sure millions more but that was about when my brain was spinning and I knew I had made a yellow cake mix before (from the box) so I could totally do this!

So now I knew the color/flavor, time to read and mix. The first line is "Cream sugar and shortening". Seriously who comes up with baking terms? Mash, mix, put together these things I understand. I'm not sure really how one creams anything, unless it a violent type of creaming. Kinda like "Hey buddy I'm going to cream you after school today!"

So cream, mix together until it looks mixed I figured what was the difference so that is what I did. The rest was pretty simple, mix eggs first then add flour and the rest. Put in oven and get cake! That is what I am talking about.

It's at about this time that things started to go wrong, now I'm probably going to die of salmonella at some point I'm sure because I am a batter taster. Tasting is an objective term that I am so using objectively because if the truth were to be known if someone wouldn't stop me I might just make batter and eat it without cooking it one day. Chocolate chip cookies and brownie batter being the worst offenders in the batter categories. 

So it passed the batter test, not as sweet as I am used to but still pretty good. But something was happening while I was cooking. The center of the cake was getting smaller and the outer layer looked like normal cake. Maybe it is just a slow riser? I mean I know I don't like to be all up and perky in the morning so I am just sure this cake and I were destined to be friends, or at least until I ate it. But it wouldn't rise.

So I take out the cake, so it will be thin I think. I can handle eating thin cake, just means I get to eat more right? So it was frosting time, my frosting comes out of a can so no need to put any energy into that right? Only maybe next time I might flip it over and look for an expiration date. You see it expired a year ago, I didn't see this until after we had eaten some though and as this all happened almost 24hrs ago I think we are safe. 

Frosting? Check! Cake? Check! Sprinkles? Oh why the hell not you only live once am I right!

I was excited and nervous for my first taste, this being the first non mix cake I had ever cooked I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then it did, it had a cake texture of that I can be sure but as far as flavor went there was none. No cake sweetness, just freaking cake bread. The frosting and sprinkles weren't helping either because it was at this time I found that it was passed its Best By date and it wasn't helping matters on the making my cake amazing front.

And this is why I shouldn't be allowed to bake, EVER!

Mom interrupted

So this is me, well my face actually what is below my face I like to keep to myself thank you very much. But it and various other things are going to be a part of this blog or as I want to see it my journey. I want very much for people to join me along the way, but if it is just me at first I am okay with that to. After all this is a journey that I am pretty much doing in reverse. I'm going to turn the big 30 this year, I know not really a big deal to most people but at this time most are starting a family or at least trying to. I have three kids already the oldest one being 8 going on 16. So instead of trying to find my true self I've been a mother. Would I change the way things were/are? Never. I have become a better person because of my kids, and it is because of them that I have started on my journey.

A big part coming up is going to be weight loss. I'm carrying around about 50 extra or so pounds that I would very much like to drop. I need to be able to be in shape, not rail thing skinny, just in shape and feeling better about myself. This will help me be a better mother.

My house is a clutter disaster, it needs to be said that I hail from 2 generations of hoarders that I am aware of and I can so easily follow in that path. I really don't want to, so I need to get rid of the junk that does nothing to improve my mind or my focus. This will help me be a better mother.

I also have Panic Disorder with agoraphobia on top because the panic disorder clearly wasn't enough right? I am taking medications more regularly and going to see someone about coping strategies. This will help me be a better mother.

Do you see a theme developing here? This blog will at times be funny, sad, or really anything that happens in my journey. You will see why I have the Otaku title, and it doesn't just apply to anime either? When I fan over something I fan over it hard, it's just how I roll. So yes, hello to you if you are reading lets start this journey together!

I pitty the fool that doesn't dream about the A-team

Now I have weird dreams from time to time, however most of them I forget before I wake up in the morning and I just have the feeling that they were weird. Sometimes I hate that, but after having total recall of my last dream it might actually be a good thing that I only get to have knowledge of bits and pieces of what is going on in my head. So let me tell you my dream.

So it started out with myself and a bunch of strangers in a classroom setting, in fact it kinda reminded me of my Jr. High school in some ways. But for some reason we were under attack by 6 year old Asian kids with machine guns dressed in military garb. It needs to be said I have nothing against Asian people or kids for that matter, but these guys had freaking guns! So I did the only logical thing that I could think to do and hid under a desk while the rest of the people I was in school with were taken out and shot in the hallway. Now it needs to be said that not everyone was shot just most of us. The rest I could see being lined up, I'm sure we were hostages of some sort. But then my dream gets all kinds of awesome!

You see I find myself being saved by Mr. T and the A-team! However we aren't talking about the old school A-team aside from Mr. T himself. The guys from the newest movie filled the rest of the team. I knew I was safe as the gold chained master himself came in there and pulled the blanket I was hiding under away. It was time to rescue everyone else and I got to be part of the team at this point. But for some reason we thought it would be a good idea to sneak out the back window and rush the front of the building. 

 But I couldn't do it, I was drawn to this mausoleum in the back of the school that was covered in moss and has a glowing stone in the center. Now the chief yelled at me not to touch it, but I'm sure we can all agree that this stone just had to be touched! Of course anytime there is something that we shouldn't touch as soon as we do stuff gets real. Suddenly we are surrounded by skeletons that have raised out of the ground and a huge skeletal overlord is coming at me. Then a rooster starts crowing. 

We all stop. The rooster keeps crowing and things start to fade as we are scanning the area for what I am sure is a giant rooster monster and then I wake up. My husband had his alarm set and it's a rooster crow. I'll never know if the A-team and I made it, and that kinda makes me sad.

I can only wish that all my dream were this weird and awesome.