How is it June?

Nope, no more stitching has been done in my world. I still consider myself a stitcher, but I think the bug has left me, at least for now.

I did have all my credit cards paid off, but I ended up on a Harry Potter spending spree that ended up with at least one card charged up a bit too high. I'm working on that now. Bad me. I have NO CLUE what started the Harry Potter kick and I'm still fighting the spending urge. I bought the expensive illustrated editions, wands, movie props...it was just ridiculous (and yes, I say "the voice" whenever I say ridiculous...if you get it, you get it!). I'm also going to have to buy a new shelf to put it all on. I bought one mid-purchasing spree, but it's already too small (and I never got around to taking it out of the box anyway).

I still bramble to work everyday, rush home as quickly as possible, turn on the TV and zone out completely until bedtime. I'm not sure when that will end, although (hopefully), I will see an end to it eventually. For now, it's just been my life for so long, I'm used to it. Motivation is not my friend.

I'm also still waiting on a new roof. The roofer is supposedly waiting on a new skylight, but he said it's backordered (apparently for two months, but what can I do)!. Apparently, motivation isn't his friend either. Now my deck is falling apart and I'm going to have to do something about that too before someone gets hurt. I don't even begin to know how to get a deck repaired! My step-dad built it, but getting him to fix it is not an option now.

I'm planning a big fall roadtrip around my birthday this year. First road trip since my failed disaster of a 2021 trip to Disney World. I'm going to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and maybe even up to New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont (and, of course, everywhere from Arkansas in-between). Partially to visit family graves and family historical sites, but also partially to get a feel for certain places to see where I'd like to move to in the future (and partially just because). A co-worker/friend from work wants to go as well, but I've kind of learned not to rely on other people, so only time will tell if she does actually go with me or not. As of now, I'm still planning a solo trip. I tend to lose friends on road trips, and this one will be huge, especially for someone who hasn't even been on a day trip with me before. I keep saying she needs to at least take a day trip with me, but I've made no effort to do that. Again, motivation isn't my strong suit lately. At least I am actually planning (although very little else).

Pups are still good. Bam is now 100% blind, but he gets around great. We play Marco-Polo when he doesn't know where I am. He barks, so I just say "POLO" and he keeps barking (and I keep "POLO'ing") until he finds me! It's kind of cute, but makes me sad at the same time. It doesn't bother him much though and he's healthy otherwise, so as long as he's happy, we will soldier on. And Bug, well, Bug is just Bug.

Other than all of the above though, my life has calmed down quite a bit though. It might be because I've stopped going almost everywhere, or I don't have any family drama anymore, or simply because I've accepted my fate at work (at least for now), but life is, dare I say, good? Yep, I'm screwed now, shouldn't have said it out loud! I'm just kind of waiting until the housing market calms down and I've got enough money saved so I can move elsewhere, however long that takes. I'm sure the grass won't be greener, but I'd like the chance to find out.

Part of me still debates selling everything and switching to vanlife, but I panic when I think about things like healthcare and a steady paycheck. I wish I could live that free, but I don't think I'm built for it, as much as I know I would be EXCELLENT at traveling all over the country in solitude, observing the world from a car window. A van-lifer is my spirit animal! But I also need structure and stability that, unfortunately, requires, the ever-tortuous social interaction of a 9 to 5 job, at least at my education level. Plus, I just like my stuff too much, I would always need a home to come back to to store my stuff, no matter what. But I'd like to get to a point where I could do both...a couple of weeks on the road and a couple of weeks at home. One thing at a time though, home first.

I also thought about maybe doing a blog series about people I found out I'm related to, but I thought it might sound too book report-y or too "look who I'm related to"-y. I've added over 23,000 people on Ancestry, most of them someone historical (once I hit that "one" person, I just started using history books and Wikipedia to do my research and I've been doing that for well over a year now, so it's easy to keep the list growing, but I don't want to sound to uppedy. If you're European, and you can trace your ancestry to Charlemagne, then you're related to everyone, rich and pauper alike. It's not hard to find royalty, celebrities, and average joes all up and down everyone's family tree, so I'm nothing special (we're all related, I'm tellin' ya), but I do find it fun and interesting, especially when you didn't really know who some of these people where. I mean, I've always been a history buff, but I wasn't too familiar with American History (believe it or not) and especially the colonists, but I actually have relatives that came over on the Mayflower (which I find interesting since I thought all my ancestors were originally from Scotland, SO not true by the way), relatives that fought in the War for Independence and even Civil War veterans! It's weird! Queen Elizabeth II is my 15th cousin 3x removed (as of now, it's constantly changing as I connect dots), but I also can't trace my maternal grandmother's parents, so there is that. Geneology is cool (and really difficult)!

It's a sad update, but it's all I've got! Hope everyone is well and just wanted to let you know I'm still out here.