little hopes

I don't know why I do this every year, because my success rate is not great, but I do enjoy the prospect.

In those cups are seeds. Basil, thyme, lavender, oregano, and ginger.

Let's see what sprouts!
And then, let's see what stays alive!

sweet home

I had a dream that it was time to move.
And I woke up and thought, "Okay."

I always knew I would not stay in this house for a long time. It was great for what I needed it to be when I needed a house fast and it was available, but this is not my ideal house. It's bigger than what I want, the location in the neighborhood is too busy, and it's expensive.

Every year the property taxes go up, and it's already at the top of my budget, so I don't see how this can be sustainable for much longer.

I think a realistic timeline will be to put it on the market and start the process of looking for a new house early next year. The 2-year mark of living in this house is in June, but I'm not sure I'll be ready to move then.

My realtor will probably think I'm crazy. I don't foresee making much of a profit on this house, but even if I break even, when I move into smaller house, my monthly expenses will be less and in the long run it will be better for me.

The good news is, since I just moved, there's not much to purge. I plan to get rid of some of the furniture that I don't love, instead of paying to move it into a smaller place where I may not have room for it.

Also, I will not be on a strict deadline like last time, so I can take my time to find a place I really love.

I discussed this with FG, since the topic of us moving in together has come up a few times. Neither of us are ready for that step, but it may happen at some point in the next few years.

Taking that into consideration, my plan is to buy a house that I love, but that would also make a good rental property in the event that we do decide to live together. He already has 2 rental properties, and that's a pretty decent little financial cushion.

Again, all of these plans are preliminary and I'm still in the process of wrapping my head around moving again, but... here we are.

eye makeup

Ok so I've been really into eye makeup the last week or so. Yeah, mascara and a little eyeliner are good but eyeshadow is where the fun is at. Since I tossed all of my old eyeshadows years ago, I actually had to go buy some.

I picked up this assortment because it had lots of colors and it was on clearance.

While I'm learning what I like, I'm not going to spend a ton of money on high-end stuff so this was perfect.

The cool part was, when I turned it over, it had instructions!

I have only tried the "Day look" because it's simple and only has three shades. I don't love the #2 color because it's kinda orangey, but the diagram has helped with the intimidation factor for sure.

Not really convinced that the "night look" requires all those different colors in all those different places... it seems like overkill but maybe it's necessary and I'm just uneducated?

Other notes:
-I need to get an eyelid primer or something because my skin is so oily and by the end of the day, the eyeshadow is all creased and trying to slide off.
-I thought I would be all about the sparkle, but I'm not sure I love the shimmery colors. I think I might prefer the more matte shades.

this week

I am so tired.

We got home from Vegas Tuesday night and I have been working on a project that requires normal 8-5 hours and damn, it's hard to wake up early and go sit in traffic. I forgot how much that sucks. I've gotten spoiled with my relaxed work schedule, for sure.

I get to work with my mentor, though, and I'm happy about that, and this forced early-bird schedule might actually be good for me. Plus I get to stay in Houston for the next few weeks and get a travel break. Very happy about that. So is Pumpkin.

hang on. *puts in eye drops*
(still doing that every hour)

Vegas was great. We didn't even make it to the strip. We stayed at the Palms off the strip and we mostly played outside. Snow, hiking, the weather was cold and fantastic and we took advantage of it. We hung out with Luke and got to see his favorite spots, and we only gambled one night. (The highlight of the trip, besides seeing Luke, might have been the bathrobes and room service.)

I gotta get back into a better food habit groove, but that requires meal planning and a trip to the grocery store. I'm thinking I'll have time for that this weekend. Currently surviving on travel snacks and freezer food.

Oh, Oh! I never bothered to wear eye makeup other than mascara because you couldn't see it under my glasses. Now that my eyes are more visible, I figure it's time to 1. Buy eye makeup and 2. Learn how to use it.

Should be fun.

dry eye annoyed

I'm out of wine and it's not bedtime yet and I'm not drunk. This is bullshit.
Well, it's my own doing. I purposely didn't buy any wine tonight because I'm trying to cut back but lack the willpower.

Been sleeping crappy lately. The eye dr. told me not to take benadryl because it dries out the eyes and moist eyes = healing eyes. Literally my vision depends on it. Too bad I dump a ton of drops in them before going to sleep, only to wake up with dry eyes and fumble around for the eye drops several times a night.

And this stupid hotel room. The air conditioner might as well be a fan blowing right into my eyes. Even when I turn it off, it emits a dry heat (why?? it's supposed to be OFF!) plus it makes a weird clicking noise. I tried to unplug it, but that's not a thing. So I had to find a rain/white noise youtube video on my phone last night just to get to sleep, then I woke up sweating and parched several times. I swear.

Ok, enough bitching.

But... now I'm annoyed that the hotel room we booked in Vegas doesn't have a mini fridge or a microwave so how the hell am I going to eat?
Very creatively, I guess.

I guess I'll go to bed early instead of continuing to bitch.

balancing act

Today was all over the place. Most notably, the install I was supposed to be starting got delayed, so I had nothing better to do than say yes when my boss asked if I could go out of town for the rest of the week. 

 

I anticipated a busy week regardless, so I'm glad I picked out my outfits for the week last night. Now all I have to do is pack them. I'm also glad that I waited to go to the grocery store, because if I had a fridge full of food right now, I'd be pissed.

On another note, I'm really excited that I can start wearing eye makeup again tomorrow! Yay! I had the lasik follow up today and although the left eye is a little fuzzy, overall I have 20/15 vision and the fuzziness should clear up as my eyes continue to heal (eye drops, eye drops, eye drops). I'm also excited to be able to shower normally. It's the little things.

Yesterday was such a gorgeous day that I wanted to go on a hike.

See how pretty it was? We took a wrong turn on one of the trails and ended up having to pull up our location on GPS to find our way out of the woods. (I was wondering if we would end up on prison grounds, Suze.) Gotta love modern technology. Also, they've really cleaned up that little park.

Lasik

So Lasik was... interesting. After getting it done, I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do it again, but I'm so happy I did it.

Here's how it went.

Dad picked me up early and we got to the clinic. There were a bunch of people there. We waited in the waiting room for a couple of hours. You check in, you sign the paperwork, you pay, you get your eyes checked again, they put drops in your eyes, they put a hairnet on you, you take the xanax, you let it kick in... all with periods of waiting in-between.
Plenty of time for Dad to make jokes about them getting the laser warmed up and, you know, going blind.

Then, in the span of about 10 minutes, things got exciting.

First of all, the doctor was a character and he was pumped. You can tell he's done about 10 million of these things and he was ready to rock and roll... literally.

I handed Dad my glasses and my purse, and he watched the whole thing through a window. I was led to lay down and I got some more drops in my eyes. The doctor had rock and roll music playing, which I found highly amusing.

Something was placed on my eye, all around, inside the eyelids. I could feel pressure but no pain and I couldn't really see it. I guess the device is a one-size fits all type of thing, because they commented on how small my eyes were and seemed to struggle slightly to get it to fit. Then I think some sort of vacuum was applied and my vision slowly went black. How fun! The process was repeated on the left eye, but halfway during the process, I heard a noise like air being released and my vision suddenly came back. They said the vacuum was lost and they had to try it again.
Overall, it took less than 5 minutes.

Then I was led to another room, through a short hallway that had disco lights. Pretty sure that was purely for aesthetic.

Then I laid down on another table, and again, something was put on my eye to keep it open, and then the weird part was... I could see the scalpel coming towards my eye. I couldn't feel anything, but I could SEE him cutting all around my eye, and I could SEE him opening the flap. SUPER WEIRD.
Then once my eye was open, the laser did its thing. A few seconds of looking at green and red lights, the smell of burning, and then he closed the flap and started on the second eye.
Same crazy thing, I could SEE it all, but this time I knew it was coming so I felt very uncomfortable. Thank God for the drugs because it was very unnerving.

Again, the whole process took less than 5 minutes. My dad said the doctor was so skilled and smooth, he might as well have been spinning the scalpel and doing tricks. They gave me sunglasses, I took a picture with the doctor, and then Dad and I headed out the door. It was that quick.

There was some burning, watering, and stinging on the drive home, and you're supposed to nap for about 4 hours afterwards. I fell asleep for about an hour. I woke up with really bad stinging and pain, and my eyes were watering so bad I couldn't open them. So I took another xanax and went back to sleep. I woke up and it took a while to get my eyes to open. I could see but things were blurry and I was still a little loopy from the xanax. I also had a terrible headache so I took a pain pill and a bath, then went back to sleep.

The next morning, I opened my eyes and I could -almost- make out the time on the clock across the room. If I looked at it with one eye at a time, I could tell that my right eye was much clearer than my left, and my left eye was a little sore. Probably because they had a hard time putting that device on it. But... I could see the time on the clock, which I couldn't do without glasses before.

I was even able to drive just fine, although sunglasses were absolutely necessary because everything seemed extra bright.

I spent most of the next day putting drops in my eyes. They told me to put drops in every hour, but they felt dry and sore so I was putting them in much more frequently. I went through an entire box of drops, but when I woke up the next day, I could see much clearer and my left eye wasn't sore anymore.

At night, lights had a little halo around them, and sometimes during the day I looked at something and it would have a little halo. Mostly light-colored things. Made them look ghostly. That's slowly getting better.

There are a bunch of restrictions, like no makeup, no rubbing your eyes, no getting water in them, etc. But the biggest thing is the drops. Constant drops. I guess your eyes can't heal right if they're dry so I'm dumping drops in them like crazy. It's either the steroid drops or the antibiotic drops, but one of them tastes terrible. Weird how you can taste eye drops.

There are also big red splotches on the whites of my eyes, in a nice little circle around the colored part. I guess that's where the cuts were made. They don't hurt, but they look bad. I plan to tell people I got in a bar fight.

Anyway, I have my follow-up appointment tomorrow but I know I see way better and it's so awesome.

cozy and vision correction

There are few things that I love more in this world than my heated mattress pad.

Seriously, climbing into a chilly bed is so... ugh. But climbing into a warm bed is so wonderful. This must be why Pumpkin never leaves her heated cat bed.

Dude, I bought a 2-pack of this toothpaste and it turns out, it looks like the kind I like, but it's the wrong kind. I don't like it at all. And now I have two expensive tubes of it. Merp. Anyone want some toothpaste?

I had an office day today and ran a few errands. I stopped at Garden Ridge and wound up spending 2 hours there, and only bought 2 rugs for $20. That must be some kind of record.

I want to start this new book Ashley lent me but I don't want to start it the day before I'm forced to rest my eyes...

Tomorrow is Lasik day! Woo! To be honest, I'm not nervous at all. The thing I'm dreading the most is not being able to drink coffee in the morning. I'm at a point in my life where I'm cool with it. Unwanted hair, eyes, spots on my face... laser them all. Take my money.

Watching that Dr. Who marathon on New Year's Eve has given me the bug again. Chris still hasn't taken me off of his Amazon Prime account, so I get to watch it there. Except I can't watch it tomorrow, because of having to nap all day.

Sigh, life is hard sometimes.

The first day of 2020

Hi! There is a cat on my lap and a glass of wine next to me and a fire going in the fireplace. I'm pretty happy about all that.

It's January first and I spent most of the day in my fluffy pink bathrobe lounging around FG's house. We did go to the NYE party, and I'm so glad we did because one of the couples there got engaged! It was so cute, he worked the proposal into the (rigged) White Elephant game. Then around 11:20pm, FG looked at me and said he wanted to go home, so I drove us home and it turned midnight while we were in his laundry room, after cleaning up dog pee because Rosco was terrified of the fireworks.

We soaked in the hot tub and were asleep before all the drunks were on the roads. Solid night.

The last few weeks have been fairly indulgent; I happily and consciously consumed chips, sweets, and alcohol with abandon. As a result, I have noticed that my stomach is a lot more grumbly than normal. Can I blame it?

I've also noticed that when I eat dairy, even when I take those lactose pills, my stomach seems to get upset. I think it's time to cut it out completely, because I'm tired of feeling sick. It's not really an issue unless I'm staring at cheese dip or my mom's pecan nut cups, and those are not daily things so I should be okay.

I considered doing another Whole 30 to re-set my eating habits, but I'm going to Vegas in 10 days and... let's be realistic.

Instead I am going to attempt a very loose version of it. I'm not buying any more chips, the cookies in the freezer are gone, and I have prepped a beautiful salad and froze some chili, so that I have quick, healthy meal options. Also going to make a point to drink more water, since that's never a bad thing.

There ya go, I've outlined a few short-term goals. Go me.