I really like AC.

It's been a while everyone. I always seem to start a blog post, but just push it away into the annex of "drafts" and never look at it ever again.

The reason Shelby and I started this blog was to push our communication borders and be able to share our individual and unique thoughts on situations. But I enjoy creating my posts on Lawn Care, and Cat Care too much. And I think I need to do more of them, so expect some random ramblings about air conditioning in the future.

I think Shelby and I will update this more once we live together and get bored of each other...

Lawn Updates:
I killed my lawn at the beginning of the summer. Remember all that lawn care info? Psh, neither did I. Sooooo... I decided to not water my lawn a lot, and all of a sudden I had a barren wasteland for a backyard, complete with sand dunes and a bull skull. I finally brought it back to life just recently. But there are patches to remind my of my wild and crazy days of water conservation.

Water conservation is an odd thing. The drought that's been occurring in California over the past few years has really made me think about it. When we planted our garden in the spring, it rained a lot for a good month, and I was always gathering the rain off my roof in buckets to use to water the plants. It worked for a while, even with my terrible watering can that I had, and until I bought a longer hose and spray attachment, I felt very accomplished as a water conservationist. Once it started getting hot, I figured I wouldn't have to water my lawn much because I let it grow long and didn't want to waste gallons of water keeping it looking nice.

I was wrong... After a few weeks of not watering, the dead patches started taking over. My neighbor even asked Shelby if everything was all right, since a dead lawn apparently means something. So I started watering it every 2 days, and it's back to its former glory. So why did I switch? I think it's because of the thought that always cuts through any water conserving argument. The amount of water residents use in the state, is nothing compared to amount of water the agriculture in my state uses. Me watering my small lawn is not even a literal drop in the bucket compared to the other numbers being thrown around. So in my little brain, I consider watering my lawn 3 times a week just to maintain an semblance of health, is worth it. I don't have the time or money to turn my yard into a Utah Desert landscaped yard, nor do I want to!

I guess I'm a part of the problem with water usage, even if I'm conscious of my problem. But until I'm able to live in my own house, and set up automated moisture sensors in my lawn, and rain delays to conserve and only water when the lawn needs it. I'm just going to have to water my lawn, make it look nice, and conserve water in other ways.

Cat Updates:
Atticus is huge. No doubt about that. I just saw my blog from last year of when we got him, just about a year ago. He still gets poopy-foot, which is a blast, but he's the laziest and cutest cat in the world.

July 2015

September 2014

July 2015 He is really cute though..

I also built a patio for Shelby while she went on a work trip.

And that's the latest on the fan's of air conditioning.

Cat Care for the Mentally Stressed

Welcome to today's lesson on caring for your cat that you got from the Humane Society. I'm glad you could all be here, in whatever mental state you're decided on today. I've prepared a few brief notes on how life will be with your very own brand new kitten!

Kittens are a dream. They are cute, energetic, cute, unbalanced, crazy and cute. But they're not always cute...

Remember a full nights sleep? Falling asleep, dreaming of the brewing coffee in the morning? Remember being awoken by the soft chatter of birds mauling worms in the morning? Forget it. You've just got a two month old kitten who's never been alone before. He's going to need to be within line of sight of your face the entire night, cause if he isn't, he will cry. He's clingy, and wants to push his nose up inside your nose as far as possible. Yep, that's right. at 4am. I even prepared a selfie of him in the act.

Plus, this perfectly innocent and cute cuddles at 6am may include the poor kittens back feet being covered in cat poop and kitty litter, resulting in the quick and unceremonious changing of the sheets at 4am. (I was asked, while I relayed the story to Shelby, as to why I didn't go sleep on the couch. Honestly, I have no idea)

Having grown up with cats, I claim that I thought I was prepared for one. I thought I knew how to raise a cute little kitten from 2 months, to the old and tender age of my parents cat who's running on 18 years right now. Nope. I have been in for plenty of nights of intense clawed cuddling, cleaning up cat poop off kitten paws, and cat jerk tendencies.

The first few nights of having little Atticus was pure hell. A lot of emotions were running around my mind; I had just left a job that I loved everyone I worked with, but wasn't getting the motivational push to pursue anything, I was dealing with those motivational lackings, and poor Atticus looked just like a cat I had with my parents that had passed away suddenly a few months prior. So we're all just going to look over the fact that I was already emotionally unstable and mentally stressed.

Then I got a little thing that breathed and I had to take care of it.

He cried and mewed so much. If I wasn't in constant view of him day or night he cried. If he somehow wandered to the foot of my bed, or god forbid, the FLOOR, he would cry and cry, searching for me, waiting until I called for him. As soon as he got to within pouncing range of my face, he would go quiet, and... pounce. Then he would dig his nose into my neck, finding the warmest spot, and cuddle there for a bit, then cry, then sleep. All night I had to deal with that, until 5 or 6am when he would finally wake up for good. Queue that for 3-4 nights before I politely asked and forced Shelby to spend the night on the futon with him, while I locked my bedroom door and cranked the fans onto high.

It's still be a while since I've woken up later than 6:30-7am, which I guess is good. Early to bed... early to rise.....

Atticus Poopy-Foot Crosby. His middle name is obvious once you realize that he had some stress poop, up until almost he was 3 months old. A ton of antibiotics and a good kitten biscuit diet fixed that. But man, the fear of him jumping onto the bed, or you with that foot covered in you know what was just too much. I'm so glad he's gotten over whatever was going on. That poor guy. He knew it was a problem, and when it happened he'd either rush to you or just cry until I came over to wipe his foot off. I think thats why he is so attached to me. We have the unbreakable bond of poopy-foot cleaning. Though Shelby's had her time cleaning his foot too, Addy and I remember that first time, 3am, washing off his foot in the sink. He didn't even try to get away from the water, he just let out his little kitten mew, and I washed that little foot.

This one always makes me laugh "Nappers"

This is his "I heard you come home but I was napping" look

Where was I?

Oh yeah, enjoy your new cat... though you'll yell at them, chuck them off you when you're mad, and accidentally scare them. They will love you and find whatever whey they know to show you love. It might be as little as not biting you as hard as everyone else, or being the biggest cuddler in the world.

Cape to the Cod

So basically I had forgotten my camera exists until about an hour ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few pictures I took while Zachary and I visited Cape Cod this summer. So here is our trip to Cape Cod in no particular order.

Cape Cod is pretty.

-S

Baconless Vacations.

It took me until the flight home to realize we hadn't had any bacon on our little trip to Cape Cod, and another 12 hours to realize that we, in fact, had had bacon during this trip.

Anyways, I love the title, so I'm going to work with it. Not having bacon on a vacation would be the worst thing ever. It'd be like going on vacation on Cape Cod and not going on the beach, which could have happened. Bacon is just the treat you want with your pancakes and coffee in the morning, while overlooking a garden, or waves crashing on the beach. Bacon brings people together, even if just for a moment. I think you could forge treaties over a pile of bacon.

Let's step back. Shelby and I went to my homeland, Cape Cod. It's the little arm shaped peninsula, in Massachusetts, that juts out into the atlantic grasping on to the only warm water north of Virginia. I spent 20 years of my life there until I up and moved to Utah for no reason. But that's a different tale. Shelby and I piled into a jet and flew to Boston and got to sleep the first day at 3am, which was AWESOME.

Then it rained. For 2 days. So we sat, on the couch, staring out the window, tears streaming down our faces as we imagined a sunny day at the beach. We did a few trips out to see the sights, and do some shopping in the rain.

The rest of the week was mostly sunny and included boat rides, beach days, farmers markets, lobster, chowdah and relaxing. For the most part.

Shelby is such a trooper. I hadn't been home in 7 months and people constantly wanted to see me, meet the strange blonde girl I had by my side (Though they all knew who she was through instagram and facebook). I was used to seeing so many people whenever I'm on the cape, I never stopped to think about a stranger in a strange land meeting so many strange people. I think it all came to a crescendo on Friday night, when a huge batch of the family came over for a cookout, and Shelby got to see first hand how "crazy" my family is. But she powered through it, which made it see to me that she had no problem jumping in the pack. It wasn't til about noon on Sunday when I realized how exhausted she was from meeting 20 million people. It was really hard to see her dealing with that, so we took the last night off, went and had a date night.

So always have bacon on your vacation, don't worry about diets and veganism, just eat Bacon.


- Z


More Pictures.

Mary liked grass.

The Parental Units on the boat.

My Brother and I with Ice Cream.

The Amigos met again, sans one Amigo.

The Long Flight Home.

Milcreek Shenanigans

Once upon a time my family plus Zachary went up Milcreek canyon to roast marshmallows. It was a perfect summer evening where we skipped rocks and sang campfire songs (I lied about the campfire songs). The adventure was coming to an end when my mother and Zachary decided it would be a good idea to play Chubby Bunny. Like the good citizen I am I immediately pulled out my camera, and what I captured was pure gold. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy!

Hahaha! Your welcome.

-S

One Year

So in case you all were wondering (which I am sure you were) Zachary and I have been dating for a whole entire year now. A YEAR PEOPLE! Since we have been dating for such a long amount of time I would say we are pretty much experts on relationships now, so I decided it would only be fair to give you all some words of wisdom on dating, and how to make a relationship last.

#1: Find a human you like that also likes you back. It would be even better if you guys had stuff in common. You know, so you have stuff to talk about and such.

#2: If you like each other and get along, stay together. If you don't, find someone that you actually do like and start over.

Really, it is as simple as that. One of those times it will just stick, and you will just know. Be patient. It will happen sooner or later. Just let life work itself out. You will be glad you let it.

So yeah, there you go. The wonderful wisdom of Shelby at its finest. I hope you all can find someone as wonderful as my Zac, because he truly is something else. Mostly because he let us celebrate our "anniversary" wandering around the farmers market, eating food, giving me candy bars, and watching movies together. Does life get better than that? I don't think so.

Proof that we went to the farmers market, and ate food. Also, this was the best piece of toast I have ever put inside my body. It needs to be a staple! Rye bread, goat cheese, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, and honey. Yes please!

-S

Too many chargers..

I'm always on the phone, even at work...

It's been a while since our last post. But it's been for a good reason, Shelby decided to leave me behind and go on a super sweet adventure in Costa Rica, where she river rafted, ziplined, parasailed, watched soccer games, saw foggy volcanos, and all this other jazz while I stared at the creases in my palm hoping to determine when I'd get another job.

But today is not about her, or me, or even my odd body build. Today is about the influx of data intruding on my brain each and every day.

To get to this point today, where I am sitting calmly writing this post, I have probably spent over an hour wasting time since I woke up. I've been checking social media, doing factual internet searches, browsing reddit, and checking up on people that live worlds away. Heck, even my morning ritual is to grumble and claw for my phone to turn off the alarm, check facebook, instagram and reddit, then get up and get my coffee ready. While coffee is brewing, more internet, more information, more useless knowledge... more more more more more.

I have chargers for all my devices all over my house. I could probably take 4 steps in any direction around my house and end up in range of a plug for my phone. I am wasting so much time on my phone that I need to plug it in and recharge it, but all the while not letting me recharge. I'm still glued to the screen, checking to see what new movie fact is real or not, new pictures of batman from the next movie, what kind of money I wish I had to buy cool things. I never stop, even when my phone it like, "Dude, I need a second to breathe." But I don't listen to it, or remember I should step outside and just lay in the grass.

I've come to this realization a few times, the enlightening thought that I am taking in so much information, that the majority of it falls out the other ear. I forget dates, I forget why I'm driving a half hour across the valley, I forget what Shelby's favorite color is (Hint: It's sea foam, I do actually remember that). And I'd like to blame the fact that I'm constantly skimming articles, facts, details about my life and others, and not taking anything in. I'm just reading the words of the article, and not really taking it in but the facts, I form no opinions of what I read. Nor do I give anything back. I never share my thoughts, my feelings, my worries, in life or online, except in small bouts of when I get "real" with twitter. I bottle it all up except for the occasional vent session with Shelby. So here is this blog, my outlet, of humor, stories, and maybe sometime in like 40 years, I'll share some emotion. Here, I'm forced to talk, forced to at least write about SOMETHING, even if I never post it.

So while I've been cutting back on my social media intake, and reddit surfing, this blog will never be a problem, this is the outlet. The tap to my brain. And I can't wait to actually remember an idea I want to blog about, before it fades away to the abyss of my mind.


Shelby's so cute... Just thought you should know. So had a bad sunburn from the beach day, but she has so many more freckles now!!!

- Z