Weekly iPhone Roundup {12.4 - 12.9}

 It's been a pretty eventful week to say the least. There's been lots of traveling, gift wrapping and tacking stuff at home. I literally went somewhere every day this week and I hate it. I would literally be happy staying home all the time, which is usually the way it is when we're not Christmas shopping.

Drove home from work/Perryville Monday, made it halfway to Poplar Bluff Tuesday, all the way to Poplar Bluff Wednesday, had to go to Annapolis super late Thursday for wrapping paper and nametags, then back to Annapolis today. Yikes! I mean, I could've had to drive to Cape twice this week, so honestly I'm pretty lucky, but it makes the weeks fly by when you're always doing something or on the go.

Other than the horrible ordeal Tuesday night, earlier that day I set up our new Brightspeed internet. It was supposed to be good to go last week, but after talking to tech support for over an hour, they finally told me to wait until Tuesday. Luckily things went well Tuesday and it only took me like 5 minutes to get set up. So far so good, fingers crossed. It's only 3MB download speeds, but that's better than the .3 that we were getting from HughesNet. At least this is consistent and we're finally able to actually watch some of our streaming services!

With HughesNet we used to be able to watch YouTube with no issues. I mean, we had to pause a lot, but it still worked. We also used to be able to stream Netflix and sometimes Shudder, on the very rare occasion Hulu, but not often. I literally logged into all our streaming services and every one of them played, thank God! Here lately Netflix wouldn't even load up all the way - Hulu wouldn't even open! It's unreal to get to watch stuff now, I love it. 

Wednesday when we went shopping we hit up Five Below, Dollar Tree, Petsmart, Marshall's and Walmart. I wouldn't say it was super successful, but we did get a few more things. We're SO far behind this year and it's killing me. Like I'm literally getting so stressed out over it all. We're wanting to come home through Cape Monday and then go to Farmington later next week and hopefully wrap up our Christmas shopping. I'm hoping and praying that's the case.

Christmas present wrapping is like killing my back this year. Like, it legit makes me feel like an old lady, lol. It's probably because I sit like a shrimp all day when I'm watching tv or playing a game. It's really my own fault. Plus I prefer to sit on the floor all day every day, lol.

Anyways, I think that about sums up the week. Hope everyone had a great week!

Saw these guys Sunday in Perryville. They had this interesting truck that appears to be very heavily customized and modified. At least they're in the Christmas spirit with their little hats, lol.

A lighted Christmas ornament lantern my mom made.

Bath & Body Works order that arrived Monday. These are gifts for 4 different people. They had an awesome sale and all their full size scents were like $4.25!

First Christmas present that got wrapped this season!

A Bud Light mug that arrived Monday for my step dad.

All the presents we wrapped Monday.

This picture of the gloomy highway is from our failed trip Tuesday.

You can see how eerie everything looks.

Cloudy, rainy and foggy by the old drive-in.

The fog got considerably worse by the time we went home.

This is the Patterson Church we were broke down next to.

This was from the drive home Wednesday night after got done Christmas shopping. It was super rainy!

Butterbeer barrel with flavored candies inside. This was very much an impulse purchase because LaVaughn and I are both HUGH Potter fans. The candies kinda sucked, but I love the barrel. This was from Five Below, btw.

Still can't believe I found this HUGE bottle of Torani sugar free salted caramel syrup at Marshall's for $6.99! The tiny bottles from Walmart are $5, this is like 4 times as much and Walmart doesn't carry this flavor. Definitely my favorite purchase.

Facebook Messenger video chat with my mom (top left) and LaVaughn (bottom) Wednesday night. I'm obviously the top right.

Max pretending he doesn't see the security camera, lol. It's an easy way to tell he wants inside without hearing him bark first.

Christmas Tree with presents under it, which I adore.

I still wish I had the lights on around the door, dammit.

I love tree pics, but John Redcorn really throws the pictures off, lol. I still love him, though.

Christmas present wrapping Thursday evening.

My travel buddy. Max loves going for rides.

He had his face plastered next to mine just before I snapped this pic, jerk. Sorry for the no makeup face.

Midterms 2022 {Not What This Post Is About}

 Hey all. I thought I would post really quick while there was nothing going on. I'm actually just waiting on the glider food to get done, so not really much else to do. Anyways, just got back from voting at the local community building. It's so funny to me because the "community building" in my area is an old school. Like old, old - I'm talking been around for probably 80 year or more. It's super tiny and they have the voting station set up in the basement. One of the many perks of living in a tiny little area.

On the upside, it was literally just me and my sister. The poll workers were there, of course, and probably one or two extras that were either friends or family. So that part is a huge bonus! 

Anyways, enough talk about Midterms, lets talk about yesterday! Since LaVaughn and I were coming off of a full work weekend (daylight savings too), we decided that it would be better to go to Cape Girardeau on our way home, as opposed to just driving to Cape in the middle of the week. We wanted to hit up both Dollar Trees and Aldi, then maybe Five Below and Target, ending the trip with Walmart for a few things and groceries.

We ended up leaving a little later than anticipated because I had to meet a lady at 3 with some Christmas Village houses and items that I wanted to get for my aunt. The original plan was to leave around 1, but that obviously didn't happen. We still made it to Cape around 4 and went to the Dollar Tree in the sketchier part of cape. Found quite a few cute Christmas decorations, then some rando snacks (way too much peppermint included). Headed to Aldi next to try and find a couple gifts that we saw on YouTube. Luckily we found one of them, then a bonus gift. The most exciting part was FINALLY finding the coconut wine that only Aldi has!! It. Was. Delicious!

After we left there, we hit the other Dollar Tree. Exhaustion was starting to set in at this point and we nixed the idea of both Five Below and Target. I would like to inject really quick that I woke up at like 10:45, so I was SUPER tired with only 5ish hours of sleep. After that we headed to Walmart where we found like 4 gifts. We did find the CUTEST Harry Potter cauldron mugs that we had coffee out of today. Oh my gosh, they're the best ever!! Unfortunately it wasn't a very good day for Christmas shopping, but we did get a lot of food. Like we were starving at this point, so we got like a stupid amount of pita chips and juice.

Cape stores have a lot more vegan/vegetarian meat than our local stores, so we went kinda crazy. Not only there, but I ran in the Walmart Marketplace and found like 4 other things. I've missed veggie meat so much. My sister and I were trying this meal planning app that we did for close to a month, maybe even a little longer. The only downside is like 3 days a week the meal called for ground beef. We got the 93/7, but it still wasn't the best. When you go from eating real meat like maybe 2-3 times a week to like 6-t times a week it makes a HUGE difference. 

I honestly don't think I ever want beef and Napa cabbage for as long as I live. We had that roughly twice a week... every week. Bruh, I'm so over it.

Anyways, back to yesterday. After we finished shopping, the plan was to get Panda Express. Specifically their Beyond Orange Chicken. Like we both want to try that SO bad, but guess what... they were sold out. Oh how exciting that was, it really tied up the day for us. After that we decided on the veggie burgers from White Castle. By the time I had everything in the cart and went to check out, it was $32!! Like wtf!?!? We nixed that and decided to go to Culvers since we literally never eat there.

Still spend too much money, IMO.

We didn't get home until like 11:20 or something like that. By the time we got everything sanitized and put away it was after midnight. Still didn't go to bed until like 4am, but I could barely keep my eyes open at that point. 

My takeaway from this: 

1) Never travel and shop immediately after a 32 hour work weekend on 5 hours sleep.

2) Never grocery shop while you're hungry... obviously.

3) Never bank on one place for a meal and then get mad and cranky when they're out of said food.

4) Buy every bottle of coconut wine from Aldi when they have it in stock. Lesson learned.

Here's the masterpiece that is coconut wine from Aldi. SO good!!

The Harry Potter cauldron mug!

The cauldron mug with coffee in it. I'm dead, I love it.

My I Voted sticker for proof!

Here are some of the Christmas Village houses I got for my aunt:

The snowy log cabin - my favorite! 

Idk why this is sideways, but these are the extras that came with them.

Here are three of the little Christmas village houses.

Three more. I think there were 8 houses total, but come to think of it I think there's one missing.

Falling into place...

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE fall? It's my all time favorite season and favorite time of the year. Everything is perfecting, the lighting, weather, festivities, everything! Today was a little glimpse into the coming months of fall, I was in heaven!

Since it was oh so beautiful outside today, we decided to head to Fredericktown to do some much needed shopping! Ironically enough I was just complaining about cabinet space today, figures. I have to completely reorganize the cabinets Wednesday, that's a whole other post! Anyways, the drive there was perfect, shopping was okay, and the drive back was great! It didn't hurt that we had Dairy Bar fries -- the best fries on earth! -- and a lemonade to comfort us. 

The girl that was planing on getting Pietro and Jeremy ended up backing our of both of them earlier this evening. I'm kind of relieved, now I don't have to worry about whether she's a sketchy home or not. It's a little concerning, though, considering I've only had nibbles on Pietro and absolutely NO interest in Jeremy. I know Jeremy is only a few weeks old, but it still worries me. When joeys don't sell fast it makes me want to stop breeding. Especially considering Pietro is over 6 weeks old and still hasn't found a home!

That's another day, though. Hopefully my next blog I'll be able to share the excitement of finding them a home!

So, watched Fear The Walking Dead yesterday. It was pretty awesome, I have to admit. They didn't try to outdo The Walking Dead in their pilot episode, which I had lot of respect for. And I still can't get over the fact that Frank Dillane is in it. I've love him ever since I saw him on Harry Potter, not to mention his dad is awesome (in real life). Team Baratheon all the way!

I hate when I have SO much to say during a blog, then break for a minute and come back to complete nothing. I guess this is when I should end it, right?

Love & Peace

-Megan

A preview of joey pictures from Sunday:

And now random pictures from today:

They come in SINGLE SERVE! These are great for work, I love veggie straws.

Between love and madness lies...

Obsession!

After months of not buying nail polish I finally got my hands on some new colors! Or brands in the case of black. ;)

Throwback Thursday...

I really, REALLY haven't been in the blogging mood for the past few days. Monday was my only day off between Friday and Tuesday and I spent it doing other things. Things like tending to guests, taking care of the critters, and putting together the rats' new cage!!

The cage arrived Saturday while I was at work -- like I knew it would -- so we didn't get around to actually putting it together until Monday evening/night. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough fabric to do the liners with, so we had to postpone putting them in it yet again. We ended up getting some scrap material from my aunt yesterday and finishing everything up then. And since the liners aren't sewn and only tucked, the ratties have already balled it up off to the side of the cage... like dicks. They've also destroyed a tab on one of their long hammocks. Sigh... They do love the cage, though, but I don't think they love it as much as I do.

It was so weird, because yesterday was the first time I had sewn in months! It felt weird, but it also felt normal. I ended up sewing almost 3 hammocks/bridges in 10 minutes... it was awesome.

LaVaughn and I got to go swimming for the first time this year (minus one other time a couple weeks ago that we dare not speak about), which was awesome! We tried out this one place that a co-worker of mine recommended, but it was a snake infested no-go, so we ended up going to old faithful.

A lot of the river has washed way, which covered up much of the deep section that was used for swimming. Probably 90% of the water -- and this is a BIG place -- is only waist deep, leaving a small section that's actually closer to your shoulders. Of course, that's where we chose. It wasn't as fun as it used to be, but it served the purpose.

Now if only I could talk my lake-fearing sister into swimming out at Bluff View.

My sister and I both had to call SO many places yesterday. I had to deal with calling people in regards to work, she had to call her insurance company and argue with them, then I had to fax well over 10 different documents to 2 different places. That was a nightmare! I'm just happy we have a fax machine at home, I couldn't imagine dealing with that in public.

Speaking of dealing with people, I've had to deal with kitten people twice now. Someone wanted Hannah and Matt Saturday. Since they were coming from the other side of Farmington, I decided to meet them in Ironton before work. It was horrible. They had a car filled with kids, a couple that sounded like high pitched demons, all of which terrified the kittens. Luckily, one of the girls seems to have some wits about her and told them to calm down. They're going to be indoor cats, which makes me happy. It didn't help that day, though. As soon as they left, the waterworks started. I had to stop myself quickly, because I had to start work in less than 30 minutes.

Then yesterday, a girl drove all the way from Piedmont and took Cora. She seemed really nice, though. She's also going to be an indoor car, which is awesome! We just have 3 left, the other little calico girl, Eloise, our black boy, Mason, and our little sweetie, Jasper. Still not sure what to do with him.

Kili leaves us next Saturday. We're meeting Lynsie in Festus, which is awesome -- I hate going to STL. I'm going to miss him, but it'll also be nice to give Kira and Logan a break from their joeys. A couple weeks after that, Fili will be shipped to Tracy via Taylor. We'll also be shipping Lucian that same week, or day. Then all we have left is Lestat. After we get him neutered, we'll meet his new mama in Illinois somewhere.

We'll have joeys again in no time, though, Charli has 1 IP and Kira has 2. Chloe will probably have a couple IP a couple weeks after her boys leave. We've noticed that she likes to wait until her joeys are weaned before she has more. She's nothing like her parents -- they have them back to back!

LaVaughn and I have been contemplating what to do with Neal, Violet, Cas, Declan, and Fiona. We were going to put Violet and Cas back together and leave the other three together, but we're not sure if we want to pair up Declan and/or Fiona yet. Neal is getting neutered no matter what, so he might end up moving back in with mom and dad if Cas will have him. That's IF we can get Cas and Violet back together. If not, we may end up letting Cas go to Kalie. I've also been contemplating letting Declan go live with a friend of ours up in Saint Louis, Cindy. She's like this really awesome, really sweet girl that loves her gliders to death, so I know he would be in good hands. I just don't know that I can part with him yet...

Speaking of gliders, I just made Pip another vet appointment for Monday. There's something up with his teeth, he has tartar or calcium build up, or something. I'm praying that he doesn't have Periodontal disease. We'll know more Monday when she sedates him to get a better look.

Oh, do you remember that big mess with the Harry Potter coins last week? Well after I showed the guy all of the pictures I took, he acknowledged how bad they were and said he would give us a full refund, all the while keeping all of the crappy coins. He hasn't yet, so I'm not sure that he will, but he might.

Alright, well I guess I better get off of here for a while. I was doing good and being extremely productive before I started blogging. I managed to clean out the old rat cage, clean the kittens littler box, feed them, start laundry, AND let the chickens out all in under 30 minutes... I was on a roll.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Assembling the Critter Nation cage:

Fili & Kili:

Lucian & Lestat: 

The Critter Nation rat cage all decked out: