Here's to 2014

2015 is upon us and now is the time to review the year. For me the year has been terrible. I still live at home with my parents, I still work a minimum wage job, and my financials are like ghosts in the wind. I was in my first car accident where I received a ticket and made my car insurance double. I have lived without air conditioning for an entire southern summer and I've lived without running water for the longest period of my life over a silly little water well pump. I have attempted dating through various websites and only found responses from weird and creepy guys or guys simply looking for a good shag. My high school and college friends are doing well with getting married, having babies, and losing a spectacular amount of weight. For some people they would get discouraged and fall into a deep depression. I won't lie that I don't have depressing moments where I lie awake at night racking my brain or crying myself to sleep but I have the uncanny ability to distract myself. My willpower to not think about my problems has allowed me to not become so depressed and focus on the good parts of my year.

The good of 2014 included finally getting my motorcycle license, getting a new puppy from the local shelter, and my brother got married. As you can see from the list, the bad outweighs the good but as I am writing this I continue to distract myself by having a slit screen  and watching a television show. I think my dependence on television and video games has come from my need to distract myself from becoming depressed. I read books before I go to work so I can calm myself and take my mind off of my home problems. Luckily at work there are other people who have problems who also like to talk about their problems... extensively and in detail. Their problems also help me keep my mind off of my own home issues but sometimes I feel a little judgmental towards their problems like a cheating boyfriend and a suddenly out-of-the-closet lesbian best friend are not real problems compared to being a 26 year old living with parents and working a minimum wage job with $80,000 in student loan debt from an unused bachelor degree.

Every new year I make plans for the coming months. My goals for 2015 include getting a more financially stabilizing job, a motorcycle, and once again to move out of my parents house preferably out of the area that I currently live in. For now I will settle with getting through Christmas and waiting for the birth of my nephew.

Movie of the day:

Rise of the Guardians

Song of the day:

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas by A Great Big World

Spring means Gardening!

      Now that Spring is officially here, I am excited for one of my favorite hobbies which is gardening. To begin with I have found some tips for composting and what you can compost around the house. Composting is the process where you gather unwanted garbage that you would otherwise send to the dump and let it decompose so that you can use it as fertilizer in your garden. The link to the page is 100-things-you-can-compost. I honestly did not know that tampons, latex condoms, latex balloons, or the contents of your vacuum cleaner can all be composted. If you are an avid gardener or are just starting out, this article is a must read for anyone interested in composting - if nothing else, this how much money you will save on fertilizer simply from throwing your garbage into a separate bin.

      Something else to consider if you live in a limited area is container gardening. Something like this:

This is perfect if you don't have a big yard/garden.

      The verticle or hanging garden can be built out of pvc gutters and this site hanging-gutter-garden shows you how along with everything you will need to build it. Wooden pallets can be used to build raised garden beds as well as cinder blocks. A perk of raised garden beds is that weeds are less likely to overtake your garden which has been my downfall the past couple of years. This site 20-creative-ways-pallets-in-your-garden/ shows your some really awesome ways to use pallets in your garden and for cinder block gardening, have a look at this:

      If you would rather, you can always stick with potted plants for your garden but you can also go DIY with that and use old containers as pots. Coffee cans, milk jugs, juice containers, yogurt cups, and pretty much everything else that holds a liquid substance can be used to grow plants (just remember to poke a couple holes for water). 

• Another tip is to use hay underneath pumpkins, squash, and melons to keep them from rotting when they touch the soil. 
• Pine needles can be used as mulch in a garden as nothing can grow through it. 
• Pine cones and/or packing peanuts can be used to fill the bottom of large pots to cut the weight and improve drainage.
• Baking soda can be placed around the outside of your garden because nothing will grow in it which allows you to keep weeds and grass from invading your garden.
• A simple cheap laundry basket can be used to grow potatoes.
• A plastic tote can be used as a compost bin.
• Milk jugs, water bottles, and soda bottles can be used to irrigate plants in your garden if you cut off the bottom and place it upside down in the ground/pot next to your plants so that it drains like a funnel.
• You can plant the top of a pineapple in a pot and another pineapple will grow from it.
• Tomato plants can be grown in garbage bags.
• Vinegar can be used to kill your weeds on walkways and around the edge of gardens but don't use it near your plants (and it is better for the environment than Roundup). For in the garden, smother weeds with newspaper.

      The best part about gardening is that you have the fruits of your labor, no pun intended, that you can eat later as part of a healthy diet. Strawberries, melons, tomatoes, and so many others are fairly easy to grow in your own backyard so get out there and play in the dirt for a while. At the very least you can say you spent some time outside.

Song of the day: Doctor Who Theme metal version

Movie of the day: The King's Speech

Another Job Down

      When I first started this blog, I described myself as an unsuccessful college student because although I have a bachelor degree I have yet to use it. When I moved to North Carolina, I was excited because there was supposed to be a lot more jobs. My first job down here was as a waitress and I left that because I didn't like working all night long, only getting paid $2.15/hr and earning tips that only amounted to $15-$20 a night. I went to work as a pizza delivery driver and that was when I broke my pink car.
      Some of you might know that when I first went to college, my parents bought me a Dodge Neon and painted it pink for me. This was my dream car as a teenager and I always wanted my first car to be hot pink so that was what my dad painted it for me. I've had that car for the past 8 years but while I was out on a delivery one night, I took off from an intersection and heard a very loud grinding noise by my rear tire. As it turns out, the frame of the pink car had broke. This was the first time I had ever heard of this happening and I was completely lost because I don't know a lot about cars but I know that the frame is like a skeleton but when it brakes it cannot be put back together. I was able to use my parent's vehicle for work until I was able to save up enough to buy another neon. This neon was fun because it was a manual so I was having a blast driving around all the time for work and I finally had enough power to spin the tires.
      Last weekend I was working and it was raining really hard. I was on my way back from a delivery when I hit a pool of water in the parking lot. The car instantly started rattling in the engine. I couldn't see the water at first because it was raining so hard but it must have been at least knee deep because when the car hit the water, the main splash was up over the hood and the spray was over top of the car.
      Now I am working with my brother to remove the engine from the pink car to put in the blue car and I have spent my entire savings on car parts. I haven't worked since the night I broke the car but now I have been job searching again to no avail. I've applied to a security firm and taken the security guard training class so now I am waiting for that but I've also started working towards setting up my own photography business. With photography, I am pretty good at light painting, landscapes, and adult portraits but I suck at kids and baby portrait.

movie of the day: Frozen

song of the day: Pollyanna Rose by Billy Burke