2023 Is almost over!

 Well, again I totally forgot about this blog. Tumblr I'm forgetting as well from time to time, but that one still has more up-to-date stuff than this blog does. Good luck finding my Tumblr haha!

Weather:

So this has changed drastically since the last 2 years. We had 2 ice storms and one the whole city of Austin was at a halt. Roads were icy and not able to drive through to them. We had a weeks worth of not able to go anywhere and a couple of days of our power going in and out. We made it, obviously, but we are fearing it might happen this coming winter. We literally had to make or warm up some food by candlelight and stay wrapped up in blankets. Most of us couldn't even work since the power kept going out every 5 minutes or more. After this happened, well the weather went back to normal for Texas... which means heat. Then we had another somewhat ice storm the year after, but not as bad as the last one. Texas has or still is working on "fixing" the power grids since we're only are attached to our state alone and not with another near us. Back home, we never had to go through those type of issues when a blizzard hit, so I found it kind of strange going through it here. Then 2023 summer here was extreme. We're always extreme with our summers or just weather in general, being in the heat. We hit records of consecutive days straight in a row of being over 100 degrees, sometimes even 110 degrees, but that's humidity for you in the mix. My husband is worried we might get another harsh winter and so we have prepared as much as we can.

Work 

Not sure how far back you guys know of this subject with my husband and I. So was working for a call center and in 2019, we got laid off, my whole department. Been there for 5 years and it was a pretty easy job, but it became boring and no calls were coming through from time to time, speaking from my experience though only. Was treated like crap by my supervisor and she kept an eye on me and one time even placed me to sit right next to hers. Talk about very supervised and under the microscope. I think she did it to use me of the information I knew in how to run the team, since she was new to that type and any aspect of it and what we dealt with. Got written up several times for stupid things and I fought for it. When we got the news of laid off, I was happy and yet sad at the same time. Most of the people there were just there for me, not really friends and others were friends. At that point I decided to take some time off and not work for however long it took me to find another job. Took about 6 months honestly and during those 6 months, it was relaxing, but at other times hell since I had to find things to do and keep up with a list of jobs I applied for. Yes, I went into unemployment. 

Currently I work for the same company that let me go, but direct with them. They bought or joined with another pharmaceutical company and became one. I have been with them now for 3 years and under 2 different departments by now. I was happy when I got hired since the pay was way more than I was being given in the last one and yet almost quit this one. There was so many different things to learn and retain that, till today, I am surprised my brain can keep everything in and remember it all. After things were changing in that department and I kept being dismissed with other tasks, I decided that I didn't want to stay there for another year in that same department and my skills and talents being overlooked and so I applied for a different department. A department that I knew of and knew that they took more responsibilities for the company and yet I told myself that I didn't want to go to another department that handled calls. I wanted to be offline and taking emails; there's too many people out there that think they are privileged and should have everything then and there. That's not the case and not how the real world works by the way. So I took a risk, applied, and got the position. I was stunned, but happy. I told myself I will try my best to not snap at people on a call when it came time to do that or how the call went. I got my training and when training was close to the first end of the week of it I got good news. I was going to be in the offline team; I was ecstatic yet again. After training was over and I was handling cases, even more good news, the whole department was going offline. No matter if I got moved to a different team or what I was going to do, it was going to be offline and purely answering email requests. I have been doing this since February of this year and hopefully I will stay here for another 2 years or more.

Projects/Photography

My photography has been steady, if you would like to call it that. With this new position at work and bonuses they were giving us while we were catching up on tons of emails, there were tons of incentives that they were giving us and so I treated myself with a new camera and a drone. I grow nervous when working with the drone, but my husband will be the one using it more since it feels and looks like he can handle it more than I can. Since I bought myself this new DSLR camera I decided to make a project which includes photos of bridges. This project is almost complete and why bridges you may ask, well the first photo of a bridge that I took got me more into photography. Yes, this project includes that first bridge I took in it. I will possibly announce the completion of this project in my Facebook Digital Blu page. Another upgrade I did was that I bought a domain and created a website with GoDaddy. The last provider I was using for that started to become more restricting, lack of storage and I was unable to add more content without removing and buying a plan of theirs. I know I have a blog dedicated to my Digital Blu page and website here in Blogger, but I'm not sure anyone else in the world really keeps up with updating those type of things and I don't think others bother to read/see mine honestly. If you would like to see my new website, go here. I may try to find a 30 challenge that consists of using my drone, but there's very few to none of those type for drones currently. Currently I am only focusing on landscape and automotive photography, but I might dive back into Product photography and my other project I was starting with my The X-Files items I have collected throughout the years, but we shall see when and if I have time for these. Plus I need to figure out how to use a new program my husband bought me to edit my photos with.

Slice of Life

Well, besides the obvious from what I already mentioned above, there's been tons of new things in our lives. We moved out of our first home we bought and are renting it out currently. We moved in with my mother-in-law and then they moved out into another home. I believe we lived with them for 2 years after moving out of our home. The taxes and them fluctuating and the city growing rapidly with meaningless stores just killed it for us to live there any longer. I miss my first home, that's all I can say that. Yes, I did cry when we had the last of our things out of it and into a storage unit, but we do visit it from time to time to check on it and if there's anything of repairs wise to do to it, from the outside of course. I got a new job, liked the department I was in, but rapidly grew to hate it due to seeing others that make mistakes or don't look into the finer details and them getting more tasks or responsibilities that come with being observant and looking into details getting these tasks. I was being overlooked in my opinion and didn't think it was fair and just and so, I decided that I needed to get away from it all and onto another department. That happened and I'm glad I am offline and working from home remotely ever since I got hired by this company.

During that time I finally decided to visit a doctor to check on my health due to a time period, while unemployed and before I got let go, that I wasn't myself and I do believe depression hit me very hard. The hardest it has ever hit me and the last time I felt close to the same way was when I was in high school, but this one wins a trophy. I never want to get back to that moment and feeling the way I did and I haven't since then. Yet due to this episode I decided to visit the Doctor for regular checkup and was told crappy news. This is why I never wanted to visit them by the way; barrels of bad news at times. I have fibroids. I got recommended several doctors which lead me with more recommendations of others and finally, I had the time and guts to do something about it all. I am scheduled for surgery on Oct 13th. There are so many rules and restrictions I need to follow for it prior to the surgery day that I understand why they are in place, but my goodness there's a lot. I fear the surgery since I've never had any general surgery and me being put to sleep, but it has to happen. I need to feel better from it all. Hopefully all goes well that day, for me. I'm just glad my parents will be visiting the week after my surgery to help us since I will not want to be walking around, full of pain.

So, we took over my mother-in-laws house and they moved out. Basically we like to look at it as we kicked them out; just kidding! We bought the house that one of my sister-in-laws was living at and they decided to move back to another state. That did not work out well for them at all and they had to move back home. They moved in with us with the children having their own rooms and their parents in an RV next door to us. That lasted about half a year and well, not well. My husband mainly has PTSD from this experience now and has lost the relationship he had with his nieces. Before that happened, the husband and son decided to go to another state and figure out if living there will be best for the whole family. I think that lasted less than a year and everyone, besides the son, moved back here, but with my mother-in-law this time. The son decided to get his life together by getting an education and degree in Job Corps. At this point, I know the parents both have jobs (miraculously for the mother) and the kids just stay put most of the time. Our relationship with them has been severed and we just don't speak with them cause they don't with us. I just wish this didn't happen for my husband's sake mainly, but it's all we can do, nothing.

During these times living with my in-laws and then gaining their home we added to our family, with furry children. We first found 3 kittens in our property next door during some rainy weather and decided to keep them. Then about a year or 2 later, we gained two more little kittens. They both were in bad shape and with colds and so we decided to keep them as well. The momma now has had 2 litters and this most recent one, she had 4 and they are all running and living around our property. Their older siblings, the first litter, the ones that we rescued from batch, are still coming around as well. At that time she had 5 kittens in that litter. We had other adult cats come and go and some we got enjoy their company with, but we haven't seen anymore and may have passed. We do have a tom cat that comes daily and let's us pet him, we named him Tom. Get it? No, well we're sometimes not clever with names haha. We also seen some racoons and opossums come by; sometimes they are a nuisance since they eat all the cat food we provide. I'm not sure what else has been new to add here besides the obvious, if you have me on Facebook, but I'm just nervous for my surgery and hopefully it goes well. See ya all!

2021 say whaaaat?

Well I just would like to say, welcome to 2021 everyone who still reads this. I do apologize that I haven't updated it in such a looooong time. Quite honestly, I forgot about it and well decided to place more personal stuff that I am going through in my tumblr. So if you have one of those or were following me there before, then you have been up to date with my life than in this blog. I will keep the format the same in this blog and no I will not be linking my tumblr here. So if you it or know me and can find a way to get to it, then I bid you good luck on it. A lot has changed since my last post here and no I'm not saying because its a new year, but honestly a lot has changed and happened.

Weather

Since my last post, the weather was decent after. Your typical Texas weather of being hot and dusty were into play. Once we hit close to the New Year, we got the cold weather. Literally a day or two before the new year hit we got rain and cold winds. After the new year, we did get tons of mixed weather. We did get one Snow day here during a weekend and then it left. We accumulated about 6 inches of snow and that hasn't occurred since 2014 or so. I can't recall what the weather channel said, but it was coming down non-stop. Everyone had fun that weekend and making snowmen and snow angels and your typical snowball fights. The next round of snow came in February and it was nothing anyone was expecting, honestly. All of Texas was in a severe Snow Storm warnings and what came first was the sleet with rain. That made all of our roads be very dangerous and almost inaccessible. Then came the snow, a whole bunch of it on top of the already icy snow and sleet. In all technicality, Texas was shut down due to this weather. Everyone's power went out or flickered, to possibly return 3-4 days after or a whole week after, then on top of that many people's water was frozen and inaccessible and under a boiling water notice.

For our household we only experienced was our lights flickering in and out and being gone for more than 5+ hours and increasing that number every time it went out. We never experienced the water issues and we found ways to cook our food and now are trying to prepare in case it happens again by buying supplies and thinking outside the box for these types of situations. I believe that Ercot, the main company for our light source in all of Texas, is going to go through some changes. I believe some people were already fired due to this negligence we all experienced. I know for a fact when I was living in Illinois, we never had this issue occur. Maybe through thunderstorms we did, but that's a whole different story and situation. Alas, it only took us 4 days total to get "back to normal" regarding with this storm. Others weren't so lucky in a short time frame. Even after the storm was over, they had no electricity and no running water. This time I will we will be prepared since my husband hate not being prepared for situations like these. As of right now, we're in a Spring type weather and a couple of rain clouds here and there, but nothing to major like this we had. 

Photography

I definitely put this on pause since last year. I wasn't able to go anywhere nor take any other portrait sessions of anyone. I believe I did have one last year. It was for a family member wanting to have a Senior graduation session. Other than that I haven't been to any conventions or any other events due to Covid still on the rise with numbers. I'm not sure if I will pick this up again or if it'll simply be a hobby for me. I did wanted to expand my business with this hobby or at least my small business with this, but Covid just threw that out the window literally for me. I'll take some of small events or trips my husband and his family might do, but that might be all.

The Corner

So in my last post, I did mention that my husband and I moved into his mother's house. We were able to clean up the house with help, we were able to find a realtor to put our house in the marketplace for leasing and we did find tenants we liked. We did fire our first realtors we were with, company wise, due to fact that they weren't listening to a single word we were saying. So we found another company, got our house fixed and cleaned to their standards for leasing and got a family in there already since October or November. Somewhere in between those months; they moved in a day or so earlier than planned. They signed the lease for 2 years and we've been back in the neighborhood a couple of times to check in on it. Been through bumps on the road with it, but made it through and I miss it so. I did cry most of the times we stepped in it before they moved in, but it will not be sold... ever and that is a guarantee my husband gave me. I did mention that I was going through a depression of sorts in my last post and taking over the counter medicine that I found online. I do believe in fact that I do have PMDD from time to time and the pills that I was taking for it, I stopped taking them. I stopped due to the fact of not seeing any difference with being on them or not. I did start taking Brillia pills that help with anxiety and stress. I believe those pills worked better than the others, but I also did start taking my multivitamin pills daily along with vitamin d3. I figured out a dosage for the vitamin d3 that is working out for me and did start in the highest recommended dosage for Brillia, but then cut back on it as well within time. 

If you know me I don't like visiting doctors and such, but I told myself that this year, the new year, that I will be better with that and I have been. I went to see the dentist first and took care of some cavities I had. Then came the OBGYN for the yearly checkups there and all came fine, except of having Fibroids. I have decided to hold off on having any type of surgery for this until after July of this year - for personal reasons. I also got my eyes checked and all is good and went back to the prescription that I had when I first started wearing contacts, which threw me off completely with that, but its good news. I also got hired for a company I used to work for before and have been with them since August and its already been 6 months. I almost felt like quitting due to my anxiety being on the high rise and holidays coming up, but I didn't. I was doing all of my checkups purely because I was thinking of quitting my current job. It gave me anxiety due to so many rules and lines of businesses I still deal with currently, but I have learned to manage it all without my head exploding and my husband being on my side on whatever decision I made, to stay or quit. 

I decided to stay and in the department I'm currently in for a year. I thought to move departments as fast as I could once I hit my 6 month mark and find another department that's more fitting for me and asked to shadow other departments. They were informative, but I decided to stay where I'm at for a year and see how it goes. My supervisor always tells me that I'm doing a good job and I recently got a raise with a bonus. I learn new things every day with this company and department. I'm also taking classes my job offers me regarding with excel and any other program like it and I dont need to pay for them. The company pays for them. I need to figure out what other class I need to take while they're offering them. 

As for the property or land we bought, next to my mother-in-law's house, we have done a bunch of things to it. So far we have cut down a bunch of trees already and there was a storage building that was made and we knocked down most of it as well. We still need to haul a bunch of stuff that was inside the storage, so that's another project in itself. We still have more trees to knock down and deciding to buy a storage building to add to our land and move our items into it to save more money. We currently have our items in a storage place already. My husband wants that to happen soon, like in 2 months, but we need to clear out the land and time to do so. Maybe we can do that this coming weekend or so, who knows. I think so far I have updated this as much as I can here. Hopefully I don't forget to update this one and bring back some more interesting news.