Hi Hi! Happy Mother’s Day to ya, should that be a thing that applies. My children woke me up with a breakfast taco at 9am from my favorite breakfast taco restaurant in town and a cup of coffee- and the coordination that took from teenagers that normally sleep past noon made me soooo happy. Almost as happy as the breakfast taco. It’s raining now, and we’re all lazing about (me still recovering from a cold) so I figured I’d do a little blogging.

Aha, I’m back! Unbeknownst to you, reading this, I just spent 10 minutes struggling with a Macbook as it suddenly decided to read every trackpad click as a right click. Turn off and back on before Googling next time, future me.

So let’s see… oh yeah- this happened.

Poor John McCain.

So I was cleaning out the bottom shelf of the pantry, sitting on the floor, and went to grab a can of tomatoes from the pile next to me (as one does) and had a sliver of our splintery floor JAM itself under my nail. And when I say sliver I mean about a 1/16′ wide piece. And when I say JAM itself I mean: the ENTIRE length of my nail down to the quick.

God bless adrenaline, because I immediately knew WAS BAD, but it didn’t hurt at all, not even for an instant. (Hell of a lead off to a post, apologies to the squeamish.) I tried pulling it out. Then my husband tried. And then the adrenaline started wearing off and the pain started in.

So there I am at the minor emergency clinic soon after and they made me take off my wedding rings (thankfully as my finger was starting to swell and I didn’t even know) and then they injected this numbing gel that hurt LIKE HELL. Can I get numbing gel for the numbing gel, next time?! At that point I told them to just go ahead and cut the finger off, but no dice on that one.

The doctor was very chatty (please God no) and was surprised to tell me (once the gel kicked in and she was digging around in my nail) that she saved the nail and that she was surprised she got it all out in just 2 pieces. As she was chatting away I asked her what the ratio was: sickness to trauma, that they saw in the clinic and she said it was about 80% illness, 20% trauma (stiches, broken bones, Chinese torture methods of splinters under nails, etc.) so that was interesting.

I had to wear a compression bandage for 24 hours afterwards as it was, as she described it “a bit of a gusher.” The feeling came back spottily over the next 24 hours in my hand. My dominant hand. So kill me and I’m never cleaning the pantry again. Also, while she saved the nail, it’s now flaking off where it got pushed up from the sliver of wood, so… I may lose it after all.

Main takeaway is how close we each are, in every second of every day, to disaster and trauma and pain. Try not to think about THAT at 11pm!

How about something else. Something else, hmmm?

Another pumpkin and don’t mind the broken skirting- the pumpkin leaves will soon block it.

So every year I get a cinderella pumpkin for Halloween when the girls get regular pumpkins to carve. After the jack-o-lanterns are removed it is the only pumpkin that stay on the front porch through Thanksgiving, and then gets removed in early December. Let it be known, it’s still perfectly intact at this point- they last forever and got many of our ancestor through some lean times.

I’d put said pumpkin to the chicken coop for what I call “manual composting” except every chicken we’ve ever had has hated pumpkins, regardless of all those articles saying they should love them. So it gets placed in the garden in this one spot, to slowly compost over time on it’s own. At some point it splits and attracts a few flies, and then I decide that’s been enough and toss it in the garbage around March. And then, a couple of months later- a Cinderella pumpkin vine pops up!

Could I harvest seeds and plant them somewhere else? I’m sure, but did you read how easy THIS process is? Imma sticking with this one.

I love it. It dies once the squash borers move in later in the season but I’m here for those leaves while they last. It’s covered the whole bed and gone halfway down the driveway before and remains one of my favorite things to see pop up in spring.

Another something else: I got a new betta. His name is Charlemagne and he’s super active and feisty. I in fact got TWO bettas because Charlemagne 1 died after a week. I was sad. I then went back to the store, they had his exact twin, and so now I have another spitfire of a betta who is named Charlemagne too. And not like: “Charlemagne 2” or “Charlemagne II” or “Charlemagne Too”… I’m basically just pretending he’s the same fish and didn’t like, die and get replaced.

Something else and I probably should have led with that:

We’re a one dog house with 3 dogs now, somehow?

So this is our oldest’s new corgi puppy Mac (Short for Maquinita, or Little Machine). It’s a long story but was a re-homing/rescue scenario- precipitated by our amazing neighbor- and now the oldest has a dog to take off to college next year. I’m here for it because I like the idea of a whip smart and protective little big dog (corgis are the smallest big dog… protective little bastards too) going with her, out into the great beyond. But god damn we’re back to puppy pads everywhere around here and struggling to block off the gate she can wiggle under. It’s better than it happening in a college apartment though, so we’re doing it gladly/begrudgingly. The cats are thrilled, by the way.

In other, other news I was watching a couple of Youtube videos about style (you’d never much know by looking at me and isn’t something I do often, actually) and I realized why I never seem to have the right thing to wear. I like buying things a formality above what I spend the majority of my life in, basically.

I walk my youngest to school and just toss something on early in the morning to do that. And then I work from home and often don’t change. Then even if I did change I would change BACK into really casual clothes to walk to pick her up… and then I don’t cook in nice clothes either. So like… the majority of my life requires really casual things, but it wasn’t what the majority of my clothes were. Huh.

And then the videos I watched talked about the practical matters to consider as well. Like: I’m a sweaty person, so I really should just stick to natural fibers. I don’t iron clothes so they need to look good out of the dryer. I don’t like uncomfortable shoes. I like slip on shoes in summer, but they can’t be leather. These are things I knew… but I wasn’t applying any of that.

(The two videos was here and here, if anyone was interested- she hit points I hadn’t thought about like that before.)

One of the first things I did was to get rid of many of the things that didn’t work for me… and lo and behold some of that stuff has some serious resale value to it. And I’m talking like Boden button downs I resold for $30 and 2 Zuri dresses that had gotten too short (I’m buying them in the long length now.) And talking about resale value those dresses are like Toyota trucks: I bought them for $140 TWO YEARS AGO and sold them for $105 and $120.

I also got rid of a pair of super uncomfortable boots from a thrift store 4 years ago, long before I started this whole reselling thing. Those damn things looked cool but they were SO heavy they hurt my knees… and that was even before I turned 40!

These bastards.

I found a new pair (in the gallery of stuff I bought below) at an estate sale recently for $38 (I tell people I took them off a dead woman) and they are like walking on a CLOUD, they are. The most perfect, perfect boots. (By Bed/Stu, should anyone wonder.)

But back to the old AWFUL ONES! I ALMOST tossed them in a donate bag to take back to Goodwill but decided to Google Lens them out of curiosity more than anything else.

WHHHHHAAAAAT. I’ve never HEARD of Donald J Pliner, but he makes a dogshit $400 boot. It’s my champagne taste even when I don’t know… I swear to god. They’re now listed on Ebay. I’ve already sold $280 in clothes I wasn’t wearing, and have $240 still listed. That’s $520.

Once I got rid of what didn’t work, things I didn’t like, things that didn’t fit, and more things than I’d like to admit that were just tatty and worn out… I could finally get a clear view of what was left and what I needed.

And so I FINALLY figured out I needed:

1 pair of better shorts, some better jeans, a new pair of slip on but breathable, shoes, and about 5-6 new cotton casual t-shirts. And now I FINALLY feel like I’m getting somewhere. Also: I spent $345 on this all, so will give me clothes to actually wear and still be in the black by $175 once everything listed actually sells. (I bought almost everything on Ebay aside from the pink Zuri dress)

Oh and I’m also playing into the natural wave of my hair.

All of which is to say… I right this second have messy hair, cutoff shorts, and am in a Marx Brothers t-shirt and talking about “fashion,” so LITERALLY who the hell am I to speak on it.

Some new purchases:

And I’m pretty damn pleased with all of it.

I also FINALLY have resolved my closet issue, because for the first time in my 43 year life I packed away my jackets and sweaters and wedding dress and german dresses, and everything that was too small but that I wanted to keep and therefore left out ONLY the actual clothes that would fit and be in season and it’s a damn revelation. Like… I am not a person who wants to dig or can navigate my closet by memory, and yet here I was having to do that every time I went in there!

So, it’s better.

Till next time!