All The Things

 Good morning Blog World. 

I am so excited right now...about what you might ask? Everything. 

Things are coming together in such a positive way for me. I am actually so grateful to be home right now with Alice. I am learning new things about her every day. I am also loving all this time to be creative and productive. 

I have a lot of things going on that I am trying to accomplish. 

Most of these things are attempts to grow my channel and grow my income lol. 

I think I might start selling on Amazon. Mostly Books or video games. 

I have become an amazon associate which basically means I can get links to share with you and then I can make a very tiny commission if someone were to buy anything from amazon. 

so far... I have made 20 cents...dont worry everyone I will remember you when I am rich and famous. HAHA

We have been working hard to get the house looking nice and organized... its been challenging but we are doing it. Little at a time. Its going to be so fricken epic when we are done. 

Something that made me chuckle... My husband hasnt had most of his stuff out on display for a long time. My house was just too small for all the things we collectively have so most of it was in storage. So A lot of this stuff I am seeing for the first time. Well he tells me to find homes for the things. So I careful unpack the things and try to decide where it would fit. 

Most of the things in this particular box were dragons. I love dragons...I usually lean more towards the cute quirky looking ones and he leans more towards the badass scary looking ones. But either way. I am happy with finding a home for dragons. Naturally everything in the house has to be somewhat baby proof but I decided our bedroom was going to be more where we can display things that we dont have to worry about Alice getting into. 

On my shelf I have some handsome gargoyles that I have had for many years. Well I was putting the dragons next to them and of course they look a little random because the dragons are smaller. So it looks funny. but my thought process went to "Omg the dragons dont go with the gargoyles how can I ever find a home for them!" But honestly it doesnt look bad... It could be worse...I could be trying to put baseball figures or some other sport thing next to my gargoyles...That would look...well I am thankful for dragons.

There was only one thing I couldnt find a home for yet...that was the Halo thing... the video game...I dont know. Apparently its important we have this thing so I will find a home. But right now...its just in the catch all room which will some day (hopefully soon) will be the Nerd Cave. 

A place for Chris to display all of his nerdy memorabilia without it getting knocked over by cats or grabbed by Alice. 

He is being nice and sharing some of the space so I can have a badass computer set up so I can start really becoming a youtuber! Ha.

Lots of cool things are happening and its just so great to be able to have the time with not only Alice but with him to be able to set up our new home. 

Stay tuned! AND be sure to check out my channel!

 

Cant sleep

 Good evening internet world. 

I cant sleep. I have way to much going on in my mind. Mostly...my new adventure. 

I seem to have a lot of adventures huh. 

Well you see I decided that the blog thing wasnt working out the way I wanted...dont worry I will still come on here and ramble my thoughts to no one to read. But i decided it was time to try a new creative venture. 

YouTube. 

I have always wanted to start a YouTube Channel. I even got a camera and a tripod. 

It never went anywhere. Mostly because I put one video up of some random pictures of Bruce. 

But this time. I really want to be motivated to do it, I really want to get somewhere. 

I dont expect to strike it rich. Although that would be awesome. 

But it would be nice to be able to not worry about getting a job so I can stay home with Alice. 

See I was fired a few weeks ago from a job. It wasnt meant to be my forever job but the fact that I didnt leave on my own choice really bothers me. A lot. To the point I am having nightmares about it. 

I dont have the best self esteem. I often beat myself up over little things that I feel like most people just shrug off. 

The fact that I was told that I make too many mistakes...It really stuck with me. 

The job wasnt difficult. But the training was...well...I was told I had to train myself. I am pretty good at learning things pretty quickly on my own. But I do need some guidance sometimes...and at least a starting point. 

I am also not the best at spelling or numbers...which is ironic since I was a banker for 8 1/2 years and I also call myself a writer. 

But I dont think the mistakes I made were really worth being fired over. And yes they could have been avoidable...if someone would have helped me. 

It really hurt to hear that I wasnt good enough...for this simple job. I keep replaying the whole situation in my mind. But what really really hurt the most. When my boss was telling me my strengths...of what I would be good at in the future...Answering the phones and talking to people...just as long as I didnt have to figure something out. 

I dont know if I can type how I felt in that moment. To know that for the few months I had been there, that was my strength. And the really ironic thing about that is I hate talking on the phone. You have no idea that amount of self talk I have to give myself to just make my normal "adult" calls. Sometimes it takes days. 

So I really dont know what to do with this information. 

But I decided to give myself an impossible goal... One that I really hope I can accomplish. 

Doing more research I am constantly altering my goal but for now... 

I would like to be able to make some sort of income on Youtube by this time next year. 

I asked my husband if he thought I could do it. He kindly said...its not going to be easy. 

And I am aware that it wont be easy. But I can do this. 

I think I can be a great story teller. I just need to get out of my own way. I need to move past what people say to me and just do what I think is right. 

I will probably have to find a real job soon... But for now... 

I need to enjoy this time I can spend with my daughter and enjoy the time that I can build an audience for the channel. 

Its just hard for me to do that. 

So Internet. I need you to work your magic. I need you to help me get to 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of public view time so I can start having ads on my channel. 

Please gods and goddess of the internet world hear my plea. I dont want fame and fortune. I just want to be able to be...me and be entertaining enough to get paid. 

I hope you all...which is no one reading this...understand what I am trying to do and make it a reality. I am going to need everyones help getting this goal achieved. 

Lets Get Random

Random Story #5

 Would you believe that I am typing these all on the same day? I am just scheduling them to come out later. 

BOOM magic ruined. 

I should be doing more productive things like getting paper work together for our house purchase but I cant do all of the things I need to do for that so I am just going to wait until I can. 

I am sort of using this as a distraction because lately I keep getting sad. 

But we are not here to talk about the sad things we are here to talk about the random story I am going to tell you. Which is...

hold on I am trying t think of one. 

Oh I have a scar that has an interesting story. 

I mean its kind of interesting because well I think it is so...I am going to tell you about it. 

I have a scar on my knuckles because I was in a fight. 

Ok I wasnt in a fight

I was trying to stop a fight...

Not a people fight...

A dog fight...vicous killer dog fight...ok it wasnt exactly a dog fight it was a puppy fight. 

My childhood dog Molly had puppies. They were Chow/Lab mix. So basically they were tiny grizzly bears. 

I want to say the fight happened just before they were 8 weeks old because we still had all of them and we werent planning on keeping any (My parents were famous for saying that by the way) 

I dont remember which puppy started the fight but I knew I had to save my favorite puppy who before this still wasnt named. My smart brain thought it was a good idea to try to stop this fight by grabbing the puppies by the mouth. One of them bit me and hurt my hand...fingers specifically pretty bad. So bad that I still have the battle scares. 

Its really not that big of a scar actually but you cant hardly see it unless you look at it in the right lighting. BUT I KNOW ITS THERE. 

The puppy I saved was the puppy we ended up keeping and because he fought so bravely we decided to name him Killer. 

He was the coolest dog in the world. I was the only kid he liked. Any of my nieces and nephews, when they came over he would just hide from them. But not like in I am scared of you kind of way more like a "you tick me off so i am going to avoid you so I dont kill you" kind of way. Which is something I can really relate to as an adult. 

He was so big and fluffy he was the best dog to hug. 

He got sick one time and didnt really do much but he still would walk around the yard with me just to hang out. I remember I kept a box of the neat things we found on our yard adventures. I buried it next to his grave when he died a year later. 

He was well known around the neighborhood. Killer had puppies all over the place. 

(By the way I do not support outside dogs and I do not support not getting your dogs spayed /neutered this was just how things were when I was a kid. )

 And my favorite story about this dog was, we were coming home and we still had Molly to (His mom) and our yard was fenced in so we had this big gate we had to open each time we left/came home. It was usually my job to go open the gate and close it after my parents got the car in. I took my job seriously. 

Well my mom and I were coming home and I started to get out of the car to get the gate like I always did but then my mom noticed that one of our neighbors dogs were out. They were not friendly dogs. My mom was getting ready to start honking the horn or something to get our neighbors attention so they could get the dogs inside. but Instead out come Killer and Molly to the rescue. Killer was the muscle naturally and he pinned the dog up against his fence holding him there while Molly stood guard. It seriously looked like something out of a cartoon. My mom told me to go get the gate quickly while the dogs were distracted (I swear I am not making this up this is an actual story lol) So i went and got the gate, my mom pulled in and I closed the gate. Just as I closed it Killer released the neighbor dog and Molly walked away like nothing happened. 

It was the greatest thing ever. 

Random Story #4

 This one is a collective randomness of when my niece and I were kids. 

My niece is a year younger than me so we grew up together. 

Back in the days where we had to play outside. No matter what the weather was like. If it was sunny (in Florida) We played in the yard. If it was raining we played in the screened in porch. If it was dinner time we ate outside of the screened in porch while our parents ate in there. 

I am starting to realize our parents just didnt want us around them. HA. 

Anyways... My niece and I had crazy imaginations. We always invented these weird games to play. Almost all of them invovled us getting into an argument because we would get stuck on who had more powers, or who was stronger...faster...smarter...prettier...blah blah blah you get the point. 

Well one night we were convinced the sky was brains. It was a cloudy day and the clouds just looked like a giant brain to us. It didn't help the spooky factor that it was also summer which "heat" lighting was apparently a thing. We had ourselves so freaked out that we begged...literally begged our parents if we could come inside because we were scared. 

The reluctantly let us in. 

Another time we scared ourselves stupid was, during one night we were outside playing, we wandered into the front yard...this is weird because we werent allowed to play by the cars so I am not sure how we managed that but we were there. Well by one of the cars was a pile of blankets (maybe?) and we were convinced it was a dead body. We kept daring each other to go look closer. Neither one of us would move. We stood frozen there in the driveway for hours (Ok maybe it was more like five minutes) Crying for someone to save us when eventually my brother moved the blankets and told us we were dumb. 

We also used to ride our bikes a lot. We would go around the block and go inside tell our moms we were ok and go ride around again...go inside tell our moms we were all right and go out again...you get the idea. well  as we were riding we saw a snake crossing the road. I lived out in a swampy area so this wasnt an unusual thing. Well we didnt want to get bitten obviously so we turned around to go back.... but we got a little ways down the road and there was another snake... except it was bigger... We stood in the middle of the road because we thought we were going to die. We finally got the courage to try to go back the other way because we figured the snake would be gone, and it was but man it was still scary. We went right back into my yard and stayed there. It was a while before we went back on our bikes again. 

The last scary story was when we were riding our bikes again and the house behind mine had three big dogs. They were always outside behind the fence so we never really had to worry about them. Until one day one of them decided he wanted to chase us. He jumped on his dog house jumped over his fence and started going after us. We peddled so hard that day. I was of course slower because I didnt get the banana seat bike which was obviously the faster bike so I basically almost died that day (Not really.) I screamed at the dogs to go away and apparently I speak dog because he listened. Or just got tired of chasing us. EIther way we tried to avoid going past that house after that....

Random Story #3

 Once Upon a Time

I wanted to be a country music singer. 

I swore I was going to be the next Leanne Rimes. 

You will be shocked to know that this didnt happen. But I am ok with it. 

I wanted so badly to learn how to play the guitar because what kind of country music singer would I be if I didnt play guitar? 

My mom bought me my first guitar. It was blue and I was so excited about it. She even signed me up for lessons. Score! I was on my way to becoming famous. 

Oh I also wrote songs. Some of them...most of them were terrible. But I did it a lot. Any time something would inspire me I wrote a song. Most of them didnt' make sense. I think if I remember correctly I had one called Boomerang love. I don't know... I was like ten. ANYWAYS. 

But before I could write my own music to go with my songs, I had to learn to play other songs first. Thats when the lessons came into play. Friends of my parents had a side business where they did all sorts of music lessons. It worked out. 

However... not only did I not put in the time I also had no musical abilities to begin with. I still cant carry a tune in a bucket. 

OF course no one would tell me this they all encouraged me and told me I'd be the next Dolly Parton. I wish I came to the realization that i couldn't sing before I embarrassed myself. 

The music teacher would hold a concert type thing at the end of the year to show the parents everyone's progress. 

People with ACTUAL talent and who actually put in the work....and me. 

I had to perform two songs. I was supposed to sing these songs. I sang part of the first one before I lost what little nerve I had. 

Would you believe that I was once a person who had confidence? 

The song I sang part of...was Jingle Bells. 

Easy song. Should have been no problem. I remember hearing my voice like it was the first time and hearing my terrible guitar playing. I am not even exaggerating. I saw a video of it later and started crying again. (I was in my 20's when I saw the video) 

I dont even think I finished the second song. I think I just stopped playing and walked off stage. I wanted to run away. 

No one was mean to me about. Everyone again told me I did great. 

Liars. 

One of the girls who performed ended up being a camp counselor that summer. I remembered her immediately and told her that I thought she did a great job on piano. She remembered me to... I told her I did an awful job and didnt' put in the work. She smiled and said but you still tried. It still took a lot of courage to stand up there and try. 

Which she was right. It did. I still never got my confidence back... Not sure if I ever will. But I did play a guitar and sing in front of a bunch of people when i was 12 years old. Maybe not a famous country singer...but I did try HA. 

 

Random Story 2

 So this story is kind of relevant to what is going on in the world. 

Masks.

I know... I know... Apparently its a touchy subject. So much hate over a piece of cloth. BUT ANY WHO

I have an irrational fear of mask...not the cloth kind specifically. Just mostly Halloween masks. 

Weird since I LOVE Halloween. 

This fear started after I watched "The Man in the Iron Mask" 

Older movie. I dont remember much of the movie other than its a story of twin brothers who were born of royalty and apparently they weren't supposed to have twins so they hid one of the brothers away and the one that was allowed to be prince was kind of a jerk so he locked his brother away and made him wear an iron mask for his whole life. And it was a scary looking mask and the process of putting it on him was... well.. I still have nightmares. 

But I remember watching this movie at around 13 and I am such a wimp anyways that it stuck with me. I remember exactly why I watched this movie. 

My dog was having puppies and I couldn't go in my room until she was done. So I stayed up watching movies and apparently that one was on and it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

I watched scooby doo after it because I was so scared. 

But ever since then the thought of putting a mask over my face has freaked me out. Even stupid cleansing masks. 

HOWEVER because I am a kind and considerate person who wants this Covid crap to go away I wear a mask when I go out in public. Which thankfully isnt very often because well I panic when I put the mask on. It has helped me get over my fear a little bit because I was able to use one of those face cleansing masks and it didnt completely freak me out. 

So I am going to call that a win. 

Hope you enjoyed this random story!

Random Story

I made a promise to myself I would blog more this year.

SO... I guess I am going to do some random blogs like I used to back in the day. 

Doesn't matter no one reads them anyways. 

So today I thought I would share some random story with you that you might not know. 

One of my favorite Pokemon is Squirtle. Pokemon was pretty popular when I was a kid. My nieces and nephews (who are around the same age as me) All collected the cards. 

I wish I still had those cards but there is one card I wish I kept just because of the story. 

You see when I was a kid I wasnt allowed to listen to the popular music that everyone else my age was listening to. I had to listen to what my parents listened to. Which wasnt a bad thing I didnt mind back then. 

There was one tape my parents used to play a lot. It was a Hank WIlliams Jr Tape that I had every single song memorized. 

The point of telling you about the tape was for this part of the story...

My nephew won a Squirtle card in a crane game. A game I kept trying to play and win this specific card but I didn't. He did... And he only kept it because he knew I wanted it....Isn't family great? Anyways. So I kept asking him for this card over and over and he said look I will make a bet with you. If you win you can have the card. 

I dont remember who's idea it was for the bet to be for me to sing every song on the tape but that was the bet and i CRUSHED IT. We didnt even get to side two before he just handed me the card and said "Here just stop singing" 

But did i stop? OF COURSE NOT! I was so happy to have my squirtle card I had to sing more!

I didn't keep that card unfortunately. It was probably with all my other cards I sold. 

But fast forward to my life as an "Adult" where I told my husband this story and he set out to find me that card. It was really nothing special...but do you think he could find a squirtle card in his travels? Nope... So instead he got me a Squirtle Stuffed animal. 

I forgot I told him that story and when he surprised me with the stuffed animal I was all teary eyed and surprised that I called it a squishy. Now... we call Pokemon squishys 

And now I have shared this random story I have to do some more boring adult things. 

I swear buying a house has to be one of the most stressful things I have dealt with...

Hope everyone is having a great day. I will see you tomorrow with another random story