Sad News

My friends baby mini horse didn't make it. He colicked - this can be for a variety of reasons, but it turns out that his intestines were twisted.
He was only about 5 months old.
So sad.

Orientation, but not the kind you might think

Quick update: Yes, still losing weight. s l o w l y. Did I mention SLOW? S L O W. But it is happening. S L O W L Y.

Now onto bigger and better things:

Do you read http://crappypictures.com? It is freaking hysterical, written by someone I actually know. She used to make wooden toys, I have several of them. Her name is Amber. Now she has a book deal.
ANYWAY
She wrote this very funny post recently about McDonalds, but that has nothing to do with this story. During her anecdote, she mentioned toilet paper orientation. I was curious, as I'm not particulary concerned with toilet paper orientation.
Ah Ha! It has to do with the toilet paper appearing at the top, or at the bottom of the roll. Something that is very important to my husband. I couldn't care less.
But - did you know that there is also Paper Towel Orientation?? Our paper towel holder stands on the counter. So the paper towel stands up. If that makes sense.
(I hate paper towels, and use them rarely. I prefer to use cotton towels, which are truly rags, because Buster (big dog) pulls them off the counter and munches on them, until I discover him. Then I wash it and put the ragged towels to good use, again. Until he eats them again. But I digress.
I was recently chastised by my husband, for putting the paper towel roll on backwards. I'm still not sure which way it is supposed to go. So, if it is empty, I leave it standing there. Naked.

Just saying.

Losing

Weight, that is.

I've done it before, but it didn't last. Now I'm doing it again, and it has to last.
 I started having some health issues - possibly brought on by the extra pounds - maybe.
 And I felt like crap. I felt fat.
I've been committed since June 16th. I've lost 9 pounds, as of last Saturday. This isn't a fast thing.
It is a slow, life-long commitment type of thing. It's a changing of the habits type of thing.
 So, I'm hoping, it is a slow but steady kind of thing.
Clothes are starting to feel a little bit loose. Hunger feelings have changed.
I just read an article on a favorite blog about pie-making. I cannot make pies, just now. I love to bake. I will bake again....just not right now, not today. And when I do bake again, I will savor that deliciousness, but differently. I will not eat 4 brownies (I have the very best brownie recipe ever).
We will see.
It's funny - putting this out there on my blog makes my commitment public. Makes my commitment more - committed.
Wish me luck, and strength.
Feel free to share any tips, or yummy (low-fat) recipes!
Thanks!
(I am not going to post any fat pictures. Sorry...)

Summer Break

We escaped for a little while, from the Tucson heat. From the furnace that is the long long summer here.
We go to the ocean - the Pacific. And bask in the ocean breezes, the endless crash of the waves, the salty air.

We visit the sea lions, and watch the dophins feed in the ocean, just off-shore.
Glorious. Can't wait to go back.

Desert Dwellers

Meet Dos, the desert tortoise. You can read about him here. I am so excited to see him eating. We planted sod, we also planted seed, which hasn't started to come up yet. SO happy he is eating!!!!!

We cover our hay for our horses with a tarp, maybe one day we will have a big hay-shed. It's monsoon season, and looked like it might rain the other afternoon. I went out to make sure the hay was covered. Nope, the tarp had blown off. So I flipped it back over the hay, and found a little furry friend! Meet a tarantula! He was gigantic, bigger than my hand. :)

Monsoon in Tucson

Utterly fabulous rains, floods, storm. I love this. Our horse arena flooded, our street flooded, utterly wonderful.

New Family Member

If you read my blog, you might recall that a desert tortoise came to live with us, last October. October is when desert tortoises go into hibernation. We built a fabulous habitat for our tortoise, complete with den. Sure enough, she hibernated. However, before she fell asleep, she had me very worried. She didn't seem to be eating. She seemed agitated. I called the experts at the Sonoran Desert Museum - they gave me some tips. I watered her well.
Sadly, she didn't make it through the winter.
So, her habitat has remained rather dead. All the plants we planted for her, died too.
Should we adopt another? Should we give up on this idea?
The decision came rather abruptly last night. I got a phone call from a friend. Someone desperately needed a home for their tortoise. They were moving far away, couldn't bring him. They were moving in a matter of days.
What do you think I said?

Meet Dos. (Spanish for #2)

He's resting in his den - way in the back where it's got to be cooler than it is out in his habitat, where I think it is 110 degrees today...

Here's a view of his home. We planted sod, hibiscus and other plants that he will eat (I hope), and more to plant tonight.
He seems ok.
Wish us luck!!

Monsoon!

The toad (see previous post!) knew what he was doing.
Today, we had our first monsoon storm.

Glorious clouds, thunder and lightning. Wind. For a long long time, the smell of rain. The tease of rain. A couple drops here and there. I went back inside. Then out again to sniff and enjoy. Then in again to knit. Then out again. Then I realized I was sitting inside in the dark, knitting. It was only about 330 in the afternoon. I looked out - the rain was here. Ecstasy!

I took the dogs outside. Boo, our littlest one, doesn't like rain. Silly girl. Sugar, the smartest one, ran into the yarn wagging her tail and loving it.

The rain has stopped now, but the sky is still gray.

Rain. For the first time in six months. The wonderful wet smell of it. The mesquite trees and creosote bushes letting off their happy rain smell.

Ahhhh. :))

Desert Toads

In Tucson, we have monsoon season during the summer. These are amazing thunder and lightning storms, dropping tremendous amounts of rain in very short periods of time. I adore the monsoons. Today is officially the start of monsoon season.

Except, no rain in sight.

However, last night, my husband announced the arrival of a desert toad. They only come out in monsoon season. They hang around on our patio and eat bugs. Then they poop on the patio. They are huge - often bigger than your hand. So their poop is huge too. Gross.

Did I mention that they are poisonous? If you dog licks one (we have four dogs), they will start hallucinating, and frothing at the mouth, and other very bad things. So now we begin the summer fun of letting the dogs out to go potty, and making them leave the toads alone.

So, I hope the toad knows more than the weather forecasters on TV.

Yesterday, and Today too

Warning: This Is A Rant.

Yesterday. I had let my friend Cathy talk me into working at the election polls. Civic duty and all that. Besides, she said I could bring my knitting and knit all day. Yay!
 I am unemployed. So it seemed like a good idea.
Not so much.
I had to get up at 430am. I had to be there at 5am. I worked until 8pm. It was the longest day of my F***ing life.
In about 2 weeks I will get a check for $140. oooeeeee.
Today I called Cathy, chatted about yesterday. I said, "How did I do?". She said, well, it was pretty unprofessional of you to knit while there was a voter there.

What?

When I got home at 8pm last night, beyond exhausted, I took a shower. Then went to check my website stuff. My husband was talking to me. I said, wait, I can't even concentrate on what you are saying, because all of a sudden, all I hear is this GIANT THUDDING BASS OF "MUSIC".  All doors and windows are shut (it's 100 degrees outside people). The central AC is on. And still my house is shaking. It went on and on. I went outside to try to determine cause of said "music".

Neighbors.

What????

They've done it before. I called the cops. I've never been bombarded by anything that loud, from someone that lives more than 1/2 very very long block away.

Are they serious?

Cops came. It was quiet for 5 minutes. Then started again. I called again. They came again. This time, one of my kids encountered said cop on our street, and got out to talk to them. There had been a short lull in the thudding. Cop was saying, gee, it's not so loud. Then they cranked it again. Cop said, what do they think this is a fucking RAVE?

Then it got quieter.

I was able to collapse in bed around 10pm.

Other kid came home at midnight. This morning he told me that when he got home, music was back on, and went on til around 1am. I was having nightmares, I kid you not. In one of the nightmares, there was thudding.

It must have been the "music".

I hate everyone in the world.

Mostly.

Sorry no pictures. This blog might just become my journal into psycho-world. I think I'm losing it. Nobody will want to buy my loveable Woolies because their creator has lost her mind.

Sigh.

Itty Bitty Tiny

I love pigs. A long time ago, in a place far away, I worked at a corporate job. I used to have toys in my office. Pig-type toys. It caught on. People used to give me piggy toys. Then I had a lot of them. One day one of my piggy toys was missing. Then I got a ransom note. The games went on and on.

Fast forward - I still love piggies. Especially little ones.

Check out this itty bitty one!

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2012%2F06%2F06%2Fhamlet-mini-pig-goes-down-stairs-oatmeal_n_1574841.html%3Ffb_source%3Dtimeline_news%26fb_action_ids%3D10150983987861195%26fb_action_types%3Dnews.reads&h=AAQFgFcJl

I want one!!!

Forecast

7 Day Forecast. June in the Sonoran Desert. And this is mild! I can *almost* (no, not really), deal with this kind of hot. It's when it gets up to 105 and above that it is totally intolerable. It's like a furnace. and yes, it's really dry. I think the humidity is about 7%. My eyes, nose, throat, skin - dry. Beyond dry. Pedicures are a medical necessity, because something happens to the skin on the bottom of your feet when you live in the desert. It gets like leather, and then cracks. Which hurts like crazy.
There are fire alerts everywhere. No fireworks for the 4th of July, 2nd year in a row.
So I limit my outside time to early morning and after dinner. Because the heat makes me not feel good. I don't know if it's my auto-immune disease, or what. But I'm sapped of energy.

Did I tell you how much I love my air-conditioning? We had to buy an entire new central AC unit; we did it in December. It works great. Glorious. My husband and I have little mini-wars about what to set it on. He likes 75. I think that's a little extreme.

What's it like where you live??

17

Do you remember what you were doing the summer you were 17 ? For me, it was the summer after I graduated from high school. I worked a lot - I had lots of regular babysitting jobs. I was in demand.
I didn't have a boyfriend, having recently broken up with Dan Newhall. And I wasn't even sad about it.
I was going away to college in the fall - 6 hours away from home - and I couldn't wait. My parents drove me crazy. Especially my mother. I had a lot of great friends, and we hung out together all the time, listening to music and doing other stuff that you don't want to hear about. (It was the 70's people).

Today, my youngest child turns 17. He is the greatest kid. He is so kind and loving. He adores our animals, and almost always takes the time to play with them - especially the cats. He is soft-hearted. He's always been an animal-lover.
He has recently acquired a girl friend. No, we haven't met her , it's early days yet. Is it the one he really likes? Or is the one he really likes going to finally make up her mind and then the new girl will have her heart broken? Or will the one that couldn't make up her mind have her heart broken in the end?
The best part about this whole scenario, is that he talks to me about it. He trusts me. He knows I won't make judgements, and will just try to help him figure it out. He knows I'll give him some good advice. One day a couple weeks ago, he was stressed. He told me that he was avoiding the new girl, that she'd been texting him all day. He was avoiding because he didn't know how to handle it. I suggested that he text her back right away, that she was probably upset that she hadn't heard back from him all day. So he did. And then he felt better. And I'm sure she did too. And it progressed from there.

He is job hunting. He took the SAT's on Saturday, although - with this kid - we're not sure that he is University-bound. He might end up going to the local community college for a year or two, then transferring to the University. We'd save a ton of $$, and with my being unemployed...
We will have to see. He'll be a senior in high school in just a few months.

So today he turns 17. I always ask my kids on their birthdays if they want to hear the story of their birth. It's become a joke. They've all heard it 1000 times. The joy, the excitement, the blessings of their births.

He's a young man now. I feel that these were good years for him. I think he'll look back on his younger years and feel happy. And he looks forward to moving ahead with joy.

Happy Birthday to my son!

Neglectful

I neglect my blog. Can I tell you why?

I think it's because for a long time now, I can't decide what I want my blog to be about.

I think I want to write about more personal things.

But then I think that might be too personal.

I want to write about what I'm working on, my "art". But how totally self-involved is that?

For a long time I've written about where we live. Because it is truly amazing.

I could write about the fact that my husband was stung by a scorpion just the other day. He had to go to Urgent Care. I almost asked him if I could take a picture of the bite. But then I thought, ugh, how disgusting is that??

I almost wrote about kissing bugs. But you don't really want to hear about that, do you?

Do you want to hear about my boys, growing up? What they are up to? They are teenagers, and the oldest is almost no longer a teenager. My youngest turns 17 tomorrow. I don't know if they want me to write about them. Or post pictures of them. Although, to be honest, their stories are pretty fascinating. You could learn a lot about kids from hearing about them.

Do you want to hear about my unemployment struggles? I was laid off last November. The longest time I ever went without working was 2 weeks about 30+ years ago. This is difficult. I might start to write about that. You never know, it might get me a job offer?? (A girl can dream...)

So anyway, I don't want to ignore my blog. I rather like my blog. Even if only 1-2 people read it.

So, I'll be back soon.

Wow I don't have any pictures to post? I must have a picture to post.....

Happy Mothers Day - to Mommies of all sorts!

Happy Mothers Day!

To Mommies of all species!

This is my friend Cathy's mini-horse - who surprised her yesterday with a new foal.

Precious.

Night

Sometimes it takes my breath away. Soft wind, night sounds of crickets and other night creatures, it's dark outside. And I'm waiting.

 So it happens...the big super moon rises over the mountains. Majestic. Magic.
It lights that side of the sky as it rises.

Over on the other side ....still dark.

And the night waits.

Bunnies

We feed the bunnies. Not on purpose. But the horses are messy eaters, and there is hay all over the place. The bunnies try to clean it up for us.

It's hard to get a good picture of them, they are very good at camoflage.

This is Belle, our mustang. She is wearing a fly mask to protect her eyes from the flies. We buy 'fly predators', they are little bugs that eat fly larvae. We also have goldfish in the water troughs. They eat fly and mosquitoe larvae. It's supposed to help a lot.

We still have flies.

And bunnies too.

Horse Love

Yes, it's true. I've been addicted to horses since the age of 2. Where our backyard ended, a stable began.

Do you know how good horses smell? Their breath is the sweetest thing in the world.

This time of year, my horses take naps in the sun. It is too cute - these big huge animals lying down in the dirt, all happy and drugged by the warm sun after the cool nighttime.

Belle, our mustang is in the front of the picture. If you look towards the back of the arena, you'll see Dozer, our quarterhorse. :)

OMIGOSH

I abandoned my blog for the past month! That is because I have been crazy knitting lots of these:

And even more of these:

Due to a feature on Crappy Pictures, which you have to go read. If you're a parent, ever been a parent, thinking of being a parent, you will totally enjoy. GO!

Etsy Front Page!

So exciting to see your work featured on Etsy's front page! :)

Winter in Tucson

It SNOWED one day last week. I was running around with nothing but a sweatshirt on (well, I think I must have had jeans on too...), bringing my horses up to their covered stalls so they wouldn't get snowed on (not that they care....and once I brought them up to their covered stalls they stood in the open....) with FREEZING hands and then was running around with my camera SO excited that it was snowing, and then I was so proud because I texted the picture to lots of people!

Wow is that the longest sentence EVER?

I love winter here. :)

How fast a month flies....

With all the best intentions, I deserted my blog for the past month! That is because I am crazy busy.

Being unemployed does not give you more time, it gives you less.

Or, that's how it works for me, anyway.

I'm doing some part time sales work.

I'm doing some freelance media work.

I'm working on ramping up my websites.

I'm looking for wholesale/consignment shops. Know of any that like handmade work?

I'm trying to keep laundry clean, kitchen clean (and bits and pieces of the rest of the house)...

Trying to organize my yarn/office/closet......

My husband is now working evenings, so it is up to me and my son to figure out dinner for ourselves. I cook dinner most nights. He goes to get the ingredients for me. We are totally unorganized on this. It's driving me crazy.

I just finished a wholesale order for 12 Earth ponies.

I'm still working on Woolies custom orders - luckily, they keep coming in.

I package all the Buster and boo orders everyday. Luckily, they keep coming in, although at a slower pace. I need to advertise. I'm redoing my banner and all my materials.

I'm doing craft fairs. I'm preparing for craft fairs. I have a big one next month - Tucson Museum of Art.

I'm job searching. Everyday.

Insanity.

Water Obstacles

I've kept it up for a week now. I'm hoping that I don't have to confess, in a month or so, that I've stopped going.

Walking, that is. Or, more like, hiking. Lots of steep climbs.

This is the Sonoran Desert. It is dry here. Lots of dry washes and old riverbeds. I've read that the Ho-Ho'kam Native Americans that lived here, had access to more water here than we do.

So it is my joy to come across water. The other day I hiked the Canyon Loop Trail in Catalina State Park. I had to cross 4 water obstacles. They are too wide to jump, too deep to dry to step through. Other hikers, or the park rangers, have placed rocks. I use them to get across. It's slippery, and I try not to imagine slipping and breaking an ankle and having to be helicopter rescued.

The water is from the snow melt in the Catalina mountains. I'm sure it's good enough to drink.

I love it!!

(hmm, pictures are sort of 'washed out', no pun intended. It was a really sunny morning!)

Taking a Walk

New Years Resolution: Exercise. Lose Weight.

But, this year, I have a different strategy. In the past, (like last year), with the same resolution, it fizzled after a while. Walking in my neighborhood isn't very exciting. It feels like work.

Walking - here - doesn't feel like work.

This is Catalina State Park. Those are the Santa Catalina mountains. This trail is really steep (as are many of them), and has me huffing and puffing.
Hopefully in a month or so, I won't be huffing so hard.

Come walk with me!

Gotta make Lists!

Gotta get organized! My little home office, where I have worked for the past 5 years, was my little sanctuary. I prided myself on my organizational abilities.

What has happened??

I'm still in the middle of two worlds - my old one of media (note the standard broadcast calendar on my bulletin board - my old world ran by a different calendar).

My filing cabinets still have some old files in them. After 2 months of being laid off - do I ship them back or just toss 'em??

So - and I don't imagine this will all happen in one day - time to get ORGANIZED!!! But I'm still working on some Woolies custom orders, and I need to go to the grocery store, and I'm in the middle of laundry...........

ARGH!!!!!!!!

2012 - A Year of Possibility

Happy 2012!

I cannot remember ever before being faced with a year as wide-open as this. Or should I say - welcomed.

A year of possibility.........

The old job is gone. Do I want to continue in that field?
Unemployment brings with it a clean slate. What do I want to do? What can I do? What do I want to be when I grow up? :)

One son is gone, mostly. Moving forward in his life.
One son is also moving forward, changing day by day.

It's time to make plans. Make lists. Organize.

I'm ready.

Best wishes for YOUR new year!