Monthly Archives: January 2016

Little Bit About Me Challenge.

Posted on January 31, 2016 | 10 comments

My friend @rusty2rusty posted a challenge on her Creative Writing blog.  (See Taking the Little Bit About Me Challenge).  She said she got the challenge from Blogjob member @thelme55 called (see A Bit About Myself Challenge.)

There are 5 questions asked, and you fill in your answers!

Keep reading to learn a little bit more about me, and then copy the questions and answer them on your own blog.

1. What is your favorite TV show?

wwddhatWell, my favorite show, hands down, is The Walking Dead.  I have watched it since the first season, and rarely (if ever) miss an episode.

I like zombie movies, and zombie fiction.  I’m invested in these characters.  I will laugh out loud.  I will cry.  I will scream, “That didn’t really just happen, did it?” at the TV.

And, of course, I have a Daryl Dixon Addiction.

I got this Daryl Dixon baseball cap for Christmas.  You can get your own from Amazon if you’re a Daryl addict too.

 

2. What is your preferred cuisine

I like plain old ‘Merican cooking.

Which is to say, I grew up dirt poor.  I didn’t get to eat a lot of fancy things.  I lived on eggs and bread sometimes.

Fix me a pot of pink eyed peas and fry up some cornbread, and I’m a happy girl. I’m a meat and potatoes kind of person.  Fried chicken.  Pork chops.  A cheap roast cooked in a slow cooker with some ‘taters on the side, and I’m happy.

I’m also a very picky eater.  I don’t like onions, and peppers, and lots of veggies.  Most cuisine cooks with all of the above, and it makes me not like it.

3. What is your worst household chores

Folding laundry.  I HATE IT.  I will do a load of my laundry and it will set in the basket until the next time I need to do a load of laundry.

This is in part because I have nowhere to PUT my laundry.  I don’t have closet space, and my dresser drawers are crammed.  If I fold them I don’t have anywhere to put them and the just get moved from one flat surface to another anyway.

Growing up we never folded clothes.  We had one big table and all the clean clothes got dumped out on it and we dug through the pile when we wanted clean clothes.

4. What is your playlist

I like 90s alternative and rock music.  Yeah, I’m stuck in the 90s.  I do branch out a little, but not far.

If you want to see what I’ve listened to last you can check out my Pandora Radio profile.

5. If you could travel anywhere, where would it be

Well, I recently asked my husband, “How much would it cost to take a trip to England?”  And he laughed at me.

I’m honestly not much of a traveler, but I would like to see the UK.  Maybe.

OR, Loch Ness.  I’d love to go and maybe actually see Nessie in person.  lol

Now, its your turn!  Let me know if you answer the quesions on your blog, I’d love to go read them!

—-

The Questions (for easy copy and paste)

1. What is your favorite TV show?
2. What is your preferred cuisine
3. What is your worst household chores
4. What is your playlist
5. If you could travel anywhere, where would it be

10 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged ,

Trying to be Backyard Happy

Posted on January 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

Today was a good (mental) day.

I sat at my desk and I cleaned out 2 of the drawers.  I threw out a lot of stuff.

Of course I threw a lot of stuff into a bucket too, leaving it to be sorted further later.  But at least I didnt’ just jam that stuff into the two drawers that were not cleaned.

Then I somehow found myself watching videos about growing potatoes in Potato Towers.  Which seems like something that would be totally doable.

So I found myself looking into what I would need to get the supplies to build a potato tower, and get some seed potatoes.

See, I’ve had homesteading on my mind since my last post here( see Lacking Chickens).

Sadly I have not been able to make any headway on my husband to maybe, just MAYBE, think about trying to sell our house in this crappy city and move to the country.  He has nightmares about being more than 15 minutes away from a movie theater, and I want to live a simpler, safer and SANER life than I currently do.

I mean, it would be nice to live somewhere I could go in my yard and NOT hear steady streams of traffic.  Or somewhere I could go to sleep and night and NOT hear sirens as a background noise.  Somewhere I could look out the window and NOT see drug deals going down on the corner.

*sigh*

Well, its not like we could just move onto a 2 acre plot tomorrow anyway.  We’re broke after all.  So I started thinking of ways to make the best of my own back yard.

Apparently back yard homesteading is a thing.  Then again, these people all seem to have bigger and brighter back yards than mine.  (mine is mostly in the shade and too small for much of a garden)

So I’m trying to find ways to use the space I have.

Now, if we could just afford to put up a privacy fence I’d be much, much happier.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Lacking Chickens, Longing for Semi-Self Sufficiency

Posted on January 21, 2016 | 8 comments

This morning as I was cooking breakfast for myself and my youngest son, I found myself wishing again, certainly not for the first time, that I lived somewhere that I could own chickens.

chickens

These are actually young roosters, not egg laying hens.

See, they frown on “livestock” inside the city limits.  I guess all that clucking and crowing might wake the neighbors.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that we had chickens when I was growing up.  They spent their days wandering the property, eating bugs and sometimes wandering into the garden and eating the tomatos.  They scratched and pecked the place good fashioned, then retired into their coop at the end of the day.

Sometimes times would get tough for our family, and groceries might have gotten tight, but there were ALWAYS eggs.

Now I have to pay $2 or $3 for a dozen and that doesn’t feed our growing family for very long.

I keep finding myself thinking of @andriaperry and her Learning to Live Free blog here on blogjob.  While I’m pretty sure our family will never be able to go completely off the grid or live free, it would be nice to be a little more self sufficient.

This is hindered by my lack of the ability to keep green things alive.  And also by where I live.  Not a lot of room for growing things.  Not a lot of room for storing things.

Then I have no idea how to do important things,  like canning my own foods.

I remember childhood summers spent with my Granny.  I remember shelling peas and beans.  I remember her stewing tomatoes by the potful.  She never canned (that I remember) but she did freeze A LOT of food.

Once upon a time people HAD to be self-sufficient.  That time may come again.  If it does I am admittedly going to be in a fix.  Because I’m not self-sufficient.  I’m very, very, VERY dependent.

Maybe I should make it a goal this year to become less dependent.  Somehow.

But I would still really like to have some chickens, and some fresh eggs.

(image attribute: https://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/987030)

8 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Inspiration, Crafting, and Fear of Failure

Posted on January 10, 2016 | 2 comments

What are you inspired to do in this new year?

The  name of my little blog here is called the ART of living.

I love art.  I love creativity  I love color and crafts.

I create too little though.  It has been that way for a while  At work and at home I am surrounded by art and craft supplies, but I hardly do anything dealing with it.

At this point I’m not sure if its depression, exhaustion or procrastination.  Pretty much any word with an -ion at the end of it could be blamed for my lack of creativity.

Two days ago I was off work and I pulled out some things to make some stamped paper tags.  They are still laying on the table in the baby’s room that is my craft surface.

I was off today and I thought, “I really need to go in there and make those tags.”

It didn’t happen though.  The tags and stamp are still laying on the table.

See, late last year and in the early days of this one, I was inspired to put some items in my etsy shop.

I’m still on the cusp of losing my job (I’ve got one week left in a 2 week period I had to make it all better) and I need the income.  And in the event that I save my job, I could still use the extra cash, because we are making ends meet but have very little fun money.

Anyway, I have an etsy store, and I need to get some product in it.  I was also thinking of opening a second store at shophandmade.

But….I keep not making things to put in either store.

And I think I know why.

I think I am afraid.

I have a huge fear of failure.  I’m afraid that no matter what I try to sell, it wont sell.  Or it will sell, and the person on the other end will HATE it.

So instead of making and listing those hand stamped paper tags, I started playing a new game on facebook.

That’s not going to make anything better.

And now, 10 days into the new year, I’ve kind of lost my inspiration.

How does one find that again without waiting for 2017 to roll around and get that “New Year” vibe going again.

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized