Gardens, Yards, and Landscaping NOT MANscaping

Man Landscaping. A wondrous event with many beautiful possible outcomes. But man is it expensive. So we just bought our first home in September 2018, and it's the perfect starter house. But the front yard and sides are just missing some greenery to really make it pop. So I drew you a nice, completely-to-scale, model of our house and yard.

#accurate

As you can see, the only shrubbery is on the crazy slope. It's not good shrubbery either. I'm removing those fuckers as soon I can. They are those stupid ground covers that look like melted pine trees.

seriously, this shit is the worst

They are pokey and they creep, and add no joy to my yard. Who thought this shit was a good idea? "let's plant something ugly but easy" So instead, I plan on planting butterfly bushes and lilacs. IN ALL THE COLORS

butterfly bushes still cover uneven ground but add color and BUTTERFLIES

Lilac bushes smell AMAZING and remind me of my childhood

I really really REALLY want to pay someone to make the retaining walls on the slope better, but I don't think I can convince Devin to do that. If I was able to have that, it would look so much cleaner, and I could really go to town on smaller plants in the middle and bottom on the crazy slope and have smaller ground cover drape over pretty bricks or rocks. NOT MELTED PINE TREES. 

The backyard, however, I'm pretty okay with not a lot of plantlife other tht what's in my garden boxes (the brown squares on the map) I do want 2 trees in the backyard, one Almond tree in the corner of grass land, and one cherry tree in the corner of chicken land. That way, leftover cherries are eaten by the berbs, and no one freaking touches my precious nuts DEEZ NUTZ ARE MINE.

Here's what I imagine:

ahhh what a cute exterior! 

So now, it's up to my financial advisor (Devin) to see if we can make this yard a reality. I know this is just a drawing, but I think it has a lot of potential to be really amazing.

I am a High Functioning Nightmare-Person

Well hello there. If this is your first time here, you might want to turn back. This blog is for people who want to point and stare at a person(?) who is barely functional, clapping her along.  My name is Kat, and unlike most people, I cannot for whatever reason live in my own head.

What the frick does that even mean? Well, unlike most people, who can sit and reason and dig deep down to figure out hard emotional problems, I cannot. it's like a super thick fog is surrounding the deep thoughts and only the easy, light floating thoughts are accessible.

No wonder why math is so difficult

It prevents me from being reasonable most of the time and I end up in pieces over the smallest arguments. My SO, Devin, may he forever be blessed, is so tolerant of my mental/emotional bullshit. He's the tree that bends in the wind, while I'm the fucking Whomping Willow.

Devin is enjoying his time as a tree

I wish I was more stable and able to bend and roll with the punches and what not, but it's really fucking HARRRRRD. *cue whining* Fighting with Devin almost always leads to me shutting down or me and him fighting even harder which gets him worked up and then I end up having a panic attack and he has to get me out of it, or it'll go on forever. Which I realize is totally not fair to Devin. He has to argue and then comfort the other side as they cut off oxygen to their stupid lungs cause they can't mentally handle confrontation. Go team.

It's such a common occurrence in our house that I have made him a book on what to do when panic attacks strike. I'll share it one day when I can find where he keeps it.

Not being able to handle deep thoughts is a real bummer. I often find myself trying to sort things out and my brain just diverts me away to easier, less difficult thoughts. "why am I always being mean to Devin..." "oh! a new episode of my favorite anime is out" "lets go pet a cat" "remember how Devin didn't do the dishes? let's get real mad" It's hard for me to stay focused enough to try to dig down and figure it out and the more I try, the faster I get tired. I'm hoping that with more therapy and being kinder to myself mentally and emotionally, I'll be able to eventually get down to the meat of the problem and float around all the parts of my noggin'.

This brings me to my depression/anxiety. Not only do I struggle in the connect-with-myself area of my life, I also struggle with extreme depression and anxiety.

The extreme sports of depression

"Sure, sure," "I have that too," you say, but I really really REALLY have it, like really.  I struggle with everything. I now have more pjs than real clothes cause I cannot be bothered to get properly dressed. At first it was "comfy clothes are softer, why would I ever wear anything else?" but in reality it's more like "comfy clothes are all I want to wear cause they are easy and I most likely slept in them" I struggle with my weight because exercise is overwhelming to think about and I can't get Devin to go with me cause he also hates exercise.  Plus a gym membership is expensive and I don't want to run outside or around strangers. Such is life.  I sleep as much as possible because it's way better than being alive. Like seriously, sleep your life away, it's the greatest. Where was I going with this? I lost this train didn't I?

Anxiety is like the younger brother to depression who wants to grow up to be an asshole just like his big brother. He makes you sit there hours after a conversation, picking apart each detail making you feel like you have no control when you talk to people. (which tbh, I don't) He also helps make up scenarios that didn't happen that sound like something that would happen so you can get mad and frustrated over shit that didn't even happen.

Such assholes

As you can see, hanging out in the ole' noggin' is a friggin' nightmare. Don't come in here.

I guess it's not all bad. I've switched medications last week, so I'm hoping it will make a difference in a few...months (it takes a while for this kind of medication to work). I've started to see a therapist once a week. She's not bad, living in Utah I was afraid she would try to slyly make mormon references, but she does her job right (thank god?) and it's pleasant taking with her. I don't feel like the conversation drags or isn't beneficial. She suggested a breathing technique and my apple watch has the technique and I can have it remind me and change the duration of the breaths and the overall time I do the breathing. So far I am really bad at remembering to do it, even with the taps to do it, but I actually have the desire to do it, so that is better than nothing.

I think this post is mostly me just letting my thoughts find a home on paper, so I'm really sorry if you are still here wondering what the hell this post was for.  I will definitely be touching back on these subjects later on in my blogs but this will have to suffice for poor groundwork for later stories. Sorry.  Granted, I warned you in the very beginning. This blog will never be popular, will never see more than friends and family who have nothing better to do than read the nonsense that goes on in my head.  Well, thanks for sticking with me, I'll see ya when I see ya.

Recent Watercolors

Work has become stressful for me, so I've taken it upon myself to do something that helps me ignore the stresses of work. It's also helpful because it's one of my favorite hobbies. Watercolor may be the hardest of the paints to get into for beginners, but for me, it's the medium that teaches me to draw lightly and think ahead in order to make the most of the pieces.

Watercolor is different from other mediums because it requires knowing where and what the water will do to your canvas. Unlike acrylic and oil, you have to leave white spots for highlights, white paint will not cut it. You also have to layer the paints for darker regions and if you don't completely erase your pencil marks, they are going to be seen. All these little tidbits are great at helping me remember to keep a light hand while painting and to think ahead at the end game instead of just rushing in and painting wherever I please. Here are some of the things I've done at work. I'm hesitant to share because I don't like criticism, so be kind to me please!

This page was my first attempts back into watercolor in YEARS

Here are the close ups for each one

I did not like how the black disintegrated when dry. 

 It got so patchy when that black dried, it was a good thing that I was just testing out the new paints

Mixed media test. 

I did NOT like how I couldn't get tiny splashes of silver to come out of the damn pen. But this was a tester page, so I feel comfortable showing you my initial failures

I liked this one the most!

 I used tape to mark off the edges and I REALLY love rainbows. I looked up a mountain picture to get the shading and shapes right and I feel this one was great! ...until I went back and retouched it and make that big water mark on the left side T.T wahhhh

Once I felt comfortable enough, I thought it was time to make a big picture and practice background skills that I so desperately needed to practice, so behold a tree.

it's not too bad, but it's just a tree NBD

I liked it as I was painting it, but going back, it looks so generic an cliche. Everyone paints trees. So then I decided to ask coworkers what their favorite animals were. 

And here is the results

Queenie loves chow chows 

Kia loves lions and bright flashy colors

Braden lovees sea turtles and for good reason! They are so cute!!

In between some of their paintings I did some for me! Here are those doodles

A fox for Debbin

This is a painting of my son Graybeard. I call him beardo for short.

This is a snail I took a picture of at an old job. I put him on a cherry cause he needed a snack!

I have an outline of a butterfly, but I'm not loving it. So no one gets to see it yet. Suck on that. Also, there are a few more paintings I did, but I gave them to coworkers, so maybe if they text me a photo, I'll put them in here. 

Any new paintings I do I'll showcase them one by one as I get them done.

Also, no requests unless I ask. This is a therapeutic outlet for me, not a commission site. Unless you want to pay me big bucks for novice work.

I'M BACK, BITCHES!

As you can see, I'm trying my hand at blogging again.  I solemnly swear I will not make you read a whole background story before recipes or be offended if no one reads my stuff. I will however let you know right now, there will be swear words, and adult content if I so choose. I'm not the old me of past. I'm a new, crasser me with shit to talk about and bad drawings to share.

As stated my in previous post, there is a list of things I want to talk about. It's still pretty much the same, but I'm adding a pet section and an "art im proud of section" so there's new content! WHOAAA! lol

Stay tuned for tweaks to the layout, I'm no longer in that old chapter in my life and am now happily engaged to a new love of my life so I'll introduce Devin later!

Alright! Looks like I have work to do! See ya suckers!

Justine Brieber... My (OLD) roommate

THIS IS UNFINISHED. I KNOW. BUT IT WAS TOO FAR NOT TO POST LOL



Ok, so I know I'm going to lose half of my little audience because of the title, but those who see it to the end, will be rewarded hopefully with my witty writing.  This is about my not so socially inclined, leads-me-to-believe-she's-challenged roommate, Brieber. Brieber moved into my awesome house this January. She has been the longest 4th roommate to live here and I'm about to kill myself.  This girl has some serious problems.  From apparent (but denied) anorexia, to pica, to some "disorder"  that makes her cold all the time, this girl grinds my gears and rubs my fur the wrong way. (Metaphorically speaking, considering I'm not a robot cat.)

Anywhoodles, this girl is so annoying I have decided to dedicate this post to her.  So what I am going to do is tell you with pictures and words what she likes to do. But first, let's make an imaginary picture of her so you can see what I see everyday.  Observe:

Ok. Ok. This is still a little too hard to redraw everytime, but this is how I see her. So from now on, you, the reader, can just picture my version everytime you see this:

Note the flimsy arms, the ratty hair, and the freaky mismatched eyes.

That's much easier to redraw every time! And it still looks like her! Now on with what she does best!




1. The Music.
             This girl is excellent at picking the worst music and then replaying that music over and over again. Take the Friday song for instance, she knew that it had the world record for most thumbs down, but she continued to play it over and over again. Even worse is when she takes a good song and plays it enough times that your future children will have it stuck in their heads. Imagine sitting on the couch enjoying your day, when you hear Black And Yellow, coming from her room, then her phone, THEN her car, THEN everywhere.
           Her name Brieber, comes from her real name, brie, and her love for Justin Bieber.  Not only making her a pedophile, but a girl-voice boy-child obsessed one.

2. The Mess.
          Brieber is so messy that I'm pretty sure she was trying to grow mold cultures to kill me.