Today was our sorta-weekly Adventure Day! We went to Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park. I liked this park a lot more than I expected from the photos I saw online. And it was really empty, which was lovely and peaceful.
Parks generally make me feel very small, so I tend to wear my kiddy outfits when I go. I took my froggy backpack and wore one of my favorite shortalls, and an ODU print that I like a lot.
I brought one of my stuffies today too, Gumdrop. I managed to make him a bandana before we left the house. Sometime next week I’ll get him some pins for it so it’s not so plain.
We got Starbucks on the way, since it was quite a long ride to the sandwich place where we would have lunch in Downtown Miami. And I had one of my cute snack holders with strawberry and cream gummies that I bought at The Fresh Market.
I had a breakfast sandwich for lunch. It had chorizo and cilantro and lots of cheese. I couldn’t finish it, but it was great!
I was actually a bit upset when I realized where we’d be having lunch. The last time I ate at this place was some three years ago, during one of the worst times of my life, and the experience of that entire day, and the meal itself, was a really bad memory. I felt like I just did not want to be again at a place where I had been so deeply unhappy and trying not to cry through my meal back on that awful day.
But in the end, I’m glad we did eat here, because now the bad memory is pushed away by a much happier one, and I’m looking forward to eating there again. It’s a nice place other than the music being super loud all the time.
🌳 At The Park 🌳
Cars couldn’t go into this part at all. You just parked in the little available area at the entrance. There was a place to pay for entrance, you just left the money there, as there was no one to monitor who came or went.
There were a couple of bodies of water which were very pretty and calm.
Gumdrop had fun exploring some rock formations. He even did some cave exploring!
Just some random pretty pictures…
CW: SPIDER
We didn’t see much wildlife, other than lots of tiny lizards, a random snake, some orb weavers, a beautiful big butterfly, and a tree snail. Oh, and a wild chicken. I guess we did see some stuff. Here’s one of the spiders:
I was out of my mind excited to finally see a Florida tree snail in the wild!
Oh and wasps. WASPS EVERYWHERE. I’d never seen so many in one single park. It was a little scary. I spotted three nests I believe.
I tended to walk a bit ahead or behind, just taking pictures of things. Christopher had my umbrella to shield himself from the sun, and it made things extra colorful.
All the other random photos of Gumdrop enjoying nature:
This is a trail that we really wanted to explore. But it was closed due to debris, so we just stared from a distance… 😞
I will now take a brief intermission to show you Tomoyo’s attempt to contribute while I work on this post:
Moving on…
On the other side of the park there was a stone wall that looked like something out of a fairy tale. Like it would lead you to some secret garden. In the end I only took this couple of pictures.
It was very cool looking! After a couple of hours we headed home, passing first by Wawa for snacks and drinks. Then it was a lovely evening at home, just relaxing after our fun day out. I can’t wait for next time. I’ll never get tired of park outings!
Hello everyone! Happy Friday! I’ve had a very productive day and really looking forward to the weekend. I have a nice picture of the owls today, a little closer than usual:
Today during my walk I spotted a duck walking SO slowly right into traffic. So I rushed ahead and scared him back onto the grass. He was so displeased, and flapped his wings and glared and honked, but he never stopped walking away and soon rejoined his friends a ways off the road. Then I let him be.
After I got home from my walk I changed into my proper outfit for today. I hadn’t worn these shortalls in a while, but thanks to all the exercise and weight loss recently, I’ve been feeling more comfortable with them again:
After my lunch I had my last Jelly banana pudding. I couldn’t resist these when I spotted them, because the container is so reminiscent of the ones I used to eat as a little girl. Thankfully, it was also delicious!
I took pictures of the cute art all around the cup:
Got a little more of Tarzan read, as well. My god is this book racist, lol. Definitely a product of its era. But it’s a classic I want to be able to have under my belt.
Anyway that’s all for now, I’m gonna try to get a little more art in before I stop for the day!
Hi everyone! 👋 I’m still working hard on final LAN party prep. Today I went to the craft store and to do some last minute grocery shopping. I wore one of my most outlandishly kiddiest outfits:
I also got a good walk in, so that was nice. 😊
Here’s some video and such of Tomoyo being her good old destructive little self:
She seemed satisfied when she was done.
Some postcards I ordered for scrapbooking arrived yesterday!
The packaging was so delightful that I honestly feel tempted to get back into Postcrossing. I was big into it a long time ago!
The store I bought this from, as you can see, is geared towards Postcrossers. So yeah. Might do that again.
They even included a tiny envelope with bonus stamps! 📮
I can’t get enough of collecting more scrapbooking stuff… 👉 👈💧 So, uuuh, here’s some more I guess…
I also made a new necklace today with some stuff I got at the craft store. I’m really happy with how it turned out!
Not much else to say because I’m so busy… I’m sure I’ll have a lot to post about next week, though!
Hello, everyone, how are you? Today my mom and I had an appointment with our immigration lawyer. It went very well. We are working on her case now which looks to be quite easy (hopefully –apparently.)
I’ve been enjoying dressing “fun” again, this was my outfit for today:
I’m really over the moon about this new bag that I got on Teepublic, it goes with a lot of my outfits:
After the lawyer we had a little late lunch. I can’t wait to have my mom here so on some days we can take a leisurely walk to a cafe like this one and have brunch together, and with all she’s done for me, to always be the one treating her. I want to see her smile more, and more easily, and be less tired.
We parted ways at Don Pan. She took a car home, while I walked the two miles to my home:
I got a whole bunch of things at Dollar Tree for the citizenship party on the way. It was hot outside but bearable since I walked in the shade. I happened upon a feisty crow who was probably guarding their nest:
When I got home my friend Al (once my boss, who along with his wife officiated our wedding) was already there. He’s been staying at our house often due to work. Christopher was home early since he’d been to take his second Covid shot, and feeling the first side effects.
After this I just worked on art all day. It was a good day. 😊
Hello, everyone! I haven’t been terrible active on the blog (art aside) because I’ve just been working tons. I’m going to try to catch up on a few things so this post will be all over the place.
This is unrelated to everything else I’ll discuss on this post, so here is a Little outfit I wore the other day:
I have a few new skirtalls coming, so I’m pretty excited to create new outfits with these:
I finally paid off my PayPal Credit account and closed it (I may already have mentioned that) and a few days ago my last Amazon Card payment cleared so that account is zeroed again –well, until next Christmas. It was a big one, over $400, so I am very pleased.
I also set a little money aside and redecorated the kitchen with it:
This may not look like much, but in seven years I never really did put work into the kitchen, so it was important to me. The most significant things are the new trash can (which is motion activated) and the Instant Pot.
In addition to that, I’ve made good strides on my next goal of paying an old debt. It’s the last thing I have to pay before I can begin the fund to move my mom in with us. I wanted something to encourage me, so I put this neat lightbox on the studio wall:
It’s still a big number (but less as of writing this post, actually $3,950) but I paid a big chunk in just over a few days, so my expectation is that as long as I make this my primary goal, I might be done by June. And then I can begin saving the $10,000 I need to move my mom with us (not counting the money I’ll have to save to renovate the room for her, but I expect that to be under $1,000.)
So, about all that. Recently, I’ve been contemplating the entirety of last year, how much closer I’ve grown to my mom during our long Zoom calls, which regularly lead us into conversations deeper than we’d have when we were living together. How I’ve changed, and how she’s come to accept those changes in me. And other things… like how tired she looks —more and more every day. How even on her days off, she gets constant stressful calls even during the couple of hours we set aside to talk. It’s been so long since my mom had free time for any fun. I don’t even remember when it last happened, Christmas aside.
Then there’s the pandemic, the utter helplessness I’ve felt as she continues to manage a gas station in this situation at her age… her landlord continually bringing people to see the apartment which he has been trying to sell for years (so we never know when he’s kicking her out once each contract ends. Every yearly contract could be the last he gives her, and every time he raises her rent.)
But I think it was having her for Christmas, just her and I, that really cemented it for me. It was the first such Christmas in many years, and I realized just how much my assumed role has changed. How I want to cook for her and care for her, keep her safe, comfortable and happy. I enjoy my life so much, literally every day of my life is a dream, and were it not for all she sacrificed so we could be here, Christopher and I never would have met.
There’s something that has been eating at me more and more. I think Grandpa’s recent passing reinforced it too. When my mom and I left Argentina, we always hoped that if only we were patient, and worked hard, someday we would see my Grandma again. Actually, the goal was for her to move with us. But time passed without any possibility of this happening, let alone seeing her at all. Same with my dad. Patience, patience. The day would surely come.
But it didn’t. My Grandma died of leukemia in her 70s. My dad died of emphysema in his early 80s. I was 18 years old when I last got to see them.
And now my mom is in her late 60s. In four years, she will be 70 years old. How much time do I have with her? Hopefully, a good number of years still –but how much time I am okay losing until I can enjoy days with her while she still has her health?
I want to have breakfast in the morning with her, and to have dinner the three of us in the evening, and maybe play games the three of us together once her brain remembers how to do something other than work and stress 24/7. I want to go on walks together and have mate in the afternoons.
But most of all, more than anything in the world, I want her to wake up and not dread the day. I want her to think “I have nothing to do today. Nothing to clean. Nothing to cook. No stressful, dangerous job to go to.” I don’t think my mom has ever felt that since she was little. I want her to enjoy her life. And I want to learn to drive so I can take her places. I want to take her to dinner once in a while, something that used to be a once-a-year luxury for us… I want to binge watch tv shows with her, or go to a movie and not have her fall asleep halfway because her body and mind are so utterly and constantly exhausted.
I want her to be able to pick the colors for her room, to furnish it with new furniture that she actually likes and isn’t used or the cheapest thing she could afford.
And I know I may not always manage it with my art, and taking some “real” work may be necessary, but all that I can manage to do with the money my artwork brings is an extra source of pride. Of course I couldn’t do that without Christopher. He takes care of me after all. But if I can, in turn, use my art to take care of her and of my business expenses, I’ll feel like I am succeeding.
I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I have a great desire to be reliable, even if it takes me time and effort to become someone that can be described as such. Because of this, cooking is becoming more important to me, as well, and I’m trying really hard to learn. Paying my debts feels important. Looking after our house and after my husband, properly, feels even more important than before. Asking for help less and less becomes more important too.
I want them both to feel proud of me, to feel lucky to have me as a wife and daughter, rather than a “well, it could be worse.” But above all I want to believe that they are —lucky, that is— as I am to have them. So, I’m trying as hard as I can.
I know, deep inside, that part of what planted the seed for this was seeing my own reprehensible behavior and lack of responsibility to others reflected in someone else. In being disgusted by seeing that reflection, I also became angry with myself. It’s all well and good to look down on someone for being irresponsible and self-centered, but incredibly hypocritical when you are better than that only by some small measure. I knew I didn’t want to be that way, not anymore and not ever again.
So, now, my debt is my priority. And I want the people who love me and look after me to be my priority, rather than always my own self-centered ass. I want to be a source of comfort, not worry.
Anyway, are you all getting ready for Valentine’s Day? I’m working on a small surprise for Christopher but it’s terribly hard and I truly do not know if it will be ruined before I am done. For all the effort put into it, it looks more than a little clumsy (so far.) I’m hoping it will come together once it’s done. I’m working a little bit on it every day, because it’s really tiring.
That aside, believe it or not I’ve been writing (I’d say the next chapter of Meganeea is 80% done, illustrations included, and the chapter after that has the same level of progress in both aspects.) And somehow, in between hours and hours of illustration work, I’ve managed to sneak in a little gaming and reading. But I’ll save that for future posts. It may take a while… this blog is hugely important to me and that will not change. I’m just trying to be as responsible as possible and get my work done.
I guess I’ll end this here, go do the laundry, and then draw some more before it’s time to make dinner. I hope things are going great with everyone!
Today’s outfit! I can dress very colorfully since I’m not really going anywhere, not like that ever really stops me 🙃 Really love this look because the yellow of the shortalls mark the trim of my top, and of course, duckies!! 🐥 I’m wearing an onesie by Onesies Downunder in this photo, which I designed for them.
Morning everyone! I think I’ve caught with old posts…
Ok, what’s new… had date night yesterday and it was wonderful. Animal Crossing is kinda winding down for me now that I got my basement. I wish we could have bigger houses or a bigger island to do stuff in. What else. Apparently all South Florida Metro Diners have closed permanently. We had an amazing location run by great people and it’s so heartbreaking for the employees, honestly. That’s all I have to share for now.
Outfit for today! I think I have a new ultimate favorite LL pattern! Omg, this onesie. This onesie!!! This is the most beautiful pattern I have ever seen! I’m not even that big on jellyfish but my husband adores them, so I got this in part because it made me think of him.
Well, he actually liked my whole outfit this morning which is really rare… most days I dress for myself, not to look sexy or anything. He knows and supports this but for that reason it’s rare that he considers any of my outfits his brand of “cute”, so it’s a rare compliment. I was really happy!
Hi everyone! I hope your day is going well. Mine is a little better than yesterday.
It was nice to get to go out for groceries today to a different store. Tomorrow I have my breast exam follow up, so I hope I’ll get good results… and that nothing has changed… it’s always scary. Usually they have hot chocolate and stuff available but I bet that won’t be the case in light of the pandemic. 😩 I just want it to be over…
