Wednesday, August 8, 2012

I'm Changing My Blog

I'm changing blogs, I will now be posting on The Betty Way Of Things. I hope to see you there!
Here's the link: http://thebettywayofthings.blogspot.com/

Monday, August 6, 2012

A neat pic of a scorpion!

I don't know how I failed to include it in the last post but here's a scorpion under black light!

A Great Trip to the Desert Museum

On Saturday after work my husband and I went to the Desert museum. I love going there and seeing all the animals and displays. I always learn alot whenever we go, and now that they are offering reduced rates on Saturday evenings we are going a lot more.
   This time they were offering education on bats. I love bats so much I even have a tattoo of one on the back of my neck so you know I had to be there. Z wanted to go for the photo class they were offering and that made it a no brainer. Z is a great photographer, and like any great he tries to learn as much as he can anywhere he can. He brought his camera and I brought my magic stick and off we went.
   The photos are from my phone so please excuse the quality.
    The first place we stopped at was the hummingbirds, they move so fast I had trouble getting any good shots. Finally one of them took pity on me and perched on a branch two feet away. Then we wandered around while we waited for our respective classes to start. I love when the cactus is in bloom, and even though we got there a little late in the year there were still some beautiful flowers left for us.
    I learned a lot from Dr. Karen who was teaching the lesson on bats. Did you know that less that .5% of bats have rabies? Your dog or cat is more likely to give it to you than they are. Also one tiny little bat can eat 60 gnats in 30 minutes. That's a lot of bugs. Now I just need to figure out how to make a bat house that the cats in the neighborhood can't get into.
It let me snap several before it got bored and left.

Then we went to the butterfly area and I got really lucky again!

Who says the desert is boring?


Just a couple of the beautiful birds in the aviary. The duck didn't move even when I got close enough to touch. Not that I was going to touch it really, uh huh.

This is Leta, She's the bat ambassador of peace. She's really cute, but I wasn't allowed to pet her. That's the only problem with this place. I can't touch anything.


Here's a few beautiful flowers. I really like the spiral cactus.

Birds of paradise grow wild here. 

A storm that fizzled before its time. 


Saturday, August 4, 2012

A day for thinking.

You'll probably have days like today yourself. I got up excited to go to the salon and do some hair. I was happy to be going to work. Then I get to work and my first client is late. She calls and I tell her it's ok, because it is really. I don't mind waiting the five minutes it takes her to get here.
   The cut goes great and she loves it. That makes me happy, as does the fact that she gets to go start her new job today. It's an exciting time in her life and I'm grateful to be a part of it. She gives me a hug as she leaves. I turn to clean the studio in preparation for the next client.
    This client is also late, but seeing as she's the only other one I have today I give her a while. I'm still in a good mood from the other lady. Finally I call her. Even though she had been sent a reminder by text and by email she had forgotten and couldn't make it anyway. I felt my day sliding downhill from its great start and grabbed hold to keep it on track. I rescheduled this lady for next week and hung up shaking my head.
     Sometimes people confuse me, maybe the second lady really had forgotten. I thought about it for a while then realized that it doesn't matter. In the grand scheme of things her missed appointment didn't matter. I got a lot of things done that I wouldn't have had time for if she came in and still managed to make what I would have made if she had come in by selling a necklace. It all worked out in the end.
   It made me think about how often I let another persons actions affect my mood. I have no control over her so why did I let it bother me? I need to not let others affect my mood and get back to enjoying my ride.
 I suggest you do the same.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Feed by Mira Grant is a great book!

I just finished the best book I've read in a while. It's "Feed" by Mira Grant, and it is definitely a book to get. Not very many books can have me laughing and crying, but this one does. It was so good I read the 2 novellas she has out in one go right afterward. They also rock.
"Feed" is a story about what happens after the Zombie Apocalypse and follows a group of bloggers around. The group gets the chance of a lifetime and hit the road to make their dreams come true. They run into trouble almost from the start and end up solving a mystery that has life changing results for everyone involved. The moral that I found in it is stay loyal to those who love and believe in you no matter what. Otherwise the results will be tragic.  
It's actually what got me back to blogging after such a long absence. Yes the book is that good. It also made me want to fortify my house and stock up on staples like toilet paper. It's a book that really makes you think about what we are doing here and where we are heading.
   The question is can we really change the future before it's to late? Do we want to?

Thursday, August 2, 2012

A shortish history of the past year.

This is a sample of what has been going on since I last posted. It may be a bit boring, but hopefully it makes someone laugh. Instead of names I'll use initials to keep everyone guessing.
   July-Dec 2011: Mom found out she had throat cancer. She was worried, but tried to live her life like it was no big deal.She's always been a handful and had to have things her way. My siblings and I took turns getting her to and from treatments and help her out.  She was in and out of hospitals a lot and it sucked. In Nov. I took her cat to my house and J found a nice nursing facility for her to stay in. It sucked, but it was working out.
    Jan-Mar 2012: Mom got herself tossed from the care facility. Her less savory friends had a bad habit of bringing her things she shouldn't have. She wound up in the hospital again, under isolation for a while until they could get her reasonably healthy again. This hospital seriously sucked and her pcp didn't even know where she was. needless to say her cancer treatment was on hold. finally she was moved into a new nursing facility and all seemed better. I even reconnected with an old friend who was one of her nurses.  
   Meanwhile in Feb. my boss pissed me off and I put in my notice at the CC salon I was working for. I went off to open my own salon studio Slivers Salon. I opened on March 7 and it's been hard, but worth it. My former boss didn't even let me finish my notice and I had to wait over three weeks for my last check. Totally worth it though. E didn't even last two months before she was fired for being lazy and rude. Without me there to pick up the slack she was totally screwed. I do hope she's found someplace more suited to her work ethic though.
   Owning my own business has been great, I live week to week scraping just enough together to pay my bills, but its starting to pick up now. My advice to all those who want it: Save at least a little money before you go off on your own. This starting out with $1500 is not smart! It would have been better if the place had been opened on time, but the building wasn't even finished when I quit my job.
    April 2012: My business was taking off and Mom was improving. I went to see her on the 4th and she was so happy that she had runny eggs for breakfast and how good they tasted, and the egg salad she had for lunch was the best ever. Mom always did love her eggs and would eat them every chance she got. She kept going over insurance paperwork while I was there, but all she talked about was how good the food tasted. It was great to see her looking so much better. The treatments were working and she just looked so great. I told her I would see her that Sunday for Easter gave her a hug and left.
   April 6 2012 was the best day my salon had seen yet. I made almost enough to cover the rent for the week on that day alone. I met some of the nicest clients ever and I finished off the day with one of my favorite clients. My phone rang while I was finishing the cut, but I ignored it when I didn't recognize the number. It's rude to answer the phone when your doing someone's hair after all.
   I had just walked them out and was smoking with a friend before I went in to clean up for the day when the stupid phone rings again. When I answered it my whole world changed.
   My sister was on the phone in a panic Mom had been found unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital. That is one call no one ever wants to get. I told her to come get me and gave her directions then ran inside to get my things together. Then I said screw it and left it all where it was, locked the door and went to wait. Waiting is not something I'm good at so I called my brother J and made sure he was on the way to the hospital too.
   My sister T drives like a crazy person, but she got us there in one piece. We were all ushered into a little waiting room while they worked to save Mom. A sad looking nurse came and talked to us for a while, but she had no idea what had happened and then Mom's brother UM and his wife AC came in. T was a wreck and so was I but damned if I would let anyone see it. My husband Z had left his phone at home that morning so I couldn't reach him and I was alone.
   A doctor came in finally and explained that Mom was totally non-responsive and unlikely to ever wake up. That it was only the machines keeping her alive. T wanted to keep her on the machines in a vain attempt to save her. I took a while but we finally agreed that the right thing to do was to let her go. We went in and saw the husk that just two days ago had been my happy and excited mother, who had been looking forward to Easter and seeing my new salon studio. She really was a husk and looked like she was already gone.
   I gave the order to pull the plug myself. When I gave the order I thought I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye. It took twelve minutes for her heart to stop beating after she was unplugged. It was the hardest and the easiest thing I have ever done.
   I finally got a hold of Z through his boss and he came over as fast as he could. That was nice of him. T made a scene as we left the hospital, it's a habit of hers so I ignored it. I found out later that she went to the nursing facility and was going through Mom's things before to police kicked her out. J swears she got money out of it. I personally don't care.
   I learned from J that Mom had snuck out of the nursing home with one of her less savory friends and emptied her bank account. The bank had called him while she was there to verify and he said no, but they gave her the money anyway. J called the home and they didn't even know she had been out, if they had she would have been kicked out of another place because she wasn't supposed to leave except with family.
   Mom had problems all her life with drugs and the official cause of death is methamphetamine overdose accidental. It hurts me to type that and pisses me off. That is what is on her official Death Certificate. Sucks!
   At least she got to pull one over on The Man one last time; I hope she's happy.
   In May we took her ashes up to Mt. Lemon and placed her there. We couldn't even afford a funeral, luckily UM was able to pay for cremation. It was a beautiful day. Afterwards we all went to Chili's for dinner.
    I hope whoever took Mom out that day knows what they did. I hope it makes them look at their life differently. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they didn't force her and I know that, but they killed her just the same. I guess the moral of this story is: Drugs are bad!
   April-July 2012: Life goes on. I'm still living week to week hoping to make rent. I really wish it was charged monthly, but I haven't failed yet. I don't intend to fail ever.

 Like I said: It's been a Wild Year and it's not over yet!

It's been a while! it's been Wild!

A lot has happened since I last logged on. life has been Wild! It's been over a year and this will be my first post in a new vein. I may even end up changing the name of this blog to something else, although it still fits nicely.
    I can't guarantee that I'll be on here with any true frequency, but I will try to make it interesting for anyone who reads this.
    Keep in mind that this is just my little rant and file place and if it bothers you there are plenty of other things to read/do in this world so move along.
    I am not always politically correct and I do have a tendency to be overly blunt, but i due try not to be rude. Please do the same.
   Enjoy life, because there's no guarantee of tomorrow!