…and Blue Sky

 

1. A recommendation for one of this guy’s Ted Talks came up in my YouTube feed, and after watching that I fell down a huge rabbit hole of watching all of his stuff. Most videos are about his replies to spam emails and the hilarious exchanges that ensue, but this one about his exchange with a roommate is my favorite so far:

 

2. I’m super weird about paying someone else to do a task I’m capable of doing myself, so learning how to do something new makes me happy. This week, the light bulb for my car’s rear turn signal went out. I stopped by WalMart to look at replacement bulbs and asked how much they’d charge to install one. It’s $5.50, so I almost had them go ahead and do it, but I decided to YouTube it first and I’m glad I did!

It was literally 1) Open Trunk 2) Unscrew a little twisty thing. 3) Twist the piece that holds the bulb to remove it. 4) Pull bulb out and stick new one in. 5) Put everything back into place. It’s totally something you can do in one minute. Um, unless you’re like me and don’t smush the bulb far enough into the socket the first time and you have to figure out how to recover from this:

(I put sticky tack on a pen to get it out. VICTORY.)

Anyway, I highly recommend doing a quick YouTube search before paying someone to do simple repairs! I’ve learned how to replace fuses, windshield wipers, and now bulbs. Sure, it’s only like $6 saved, but even if you do end up paying someone else to do it, it’s nice to know you can do it yourself if you want to.

 

3. I usually choose wet food to review for the #ChewyInfluencer program, but this month the Purina Beyond dry food caught my eye because it had freeze dried chicken pieces in it, and I knew my cats would be allllll over that!

 

 

We got the Wild Turkey & Lentil recipe, and Captain Kitten earned his keep for another month with this adorable tongue out photo. He really is my most talented model. (Yes, he got a new collar and yes, he will have it utterly destroyed within weeks. Again.)

 

As expected, the cats loved it! (Except Tennyson, who will almost NEVER eat dry food. Tiny weirdo.)

It’s made in the USA and the info says the turkey is farm-raised, but I do wonder if that actually means free-range or the usual poultry farm cages. It’s grain-free, and has no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, though, so thumbs up for that!

 

 

4. I found these on clearance at WalMart for 50 cents, and they’re SO GOOD. Finding foods rich in Omega-3’s is hard when you don’t eat fish. Of course, now I’m annoyed that the little packages are gone and all they have available are big $14 tubs of them. Still – yum!

 

5. The infamous “This is not a mailbox” at my local post office made a friend:

 

Hope your weekend is lovely!

 

 

Sure, it’s been a billion degrees for over a month, but now it is officially summer! It’s a season of big changes for me, which has life feeling pretty chaotic at the moment, but I know it’s for the better in the long run. (Sorry to vague blog, but more on all of that soon!)

Here’s what I’ve been loving lately!

 

1. The new season of “Real Talk Radio with Nicole Antoinette” (one of my fav podcasts) came out last Friday and it’s been so hard not to just binge listen to the whole season. (She releases 8 episodes every 2 months.) This season’s episodes touch on topics including writing, courage, grief, and more. It’s so good, you guys! (I never know how to link to podcasts since everyone uses different apps to listen, but you guys are smart, I trust your ability to find it!)

 

2. I just found this artist on Instagram and I’m really loving her work.

Still standing. It’s been a pretty rough year for me and I’m so happy that at the end of it, I’m still standing strong! (Thank you @dorientju for reminding me!) #dailysketch

A post shared by Yaoyao Ma Van As (@yaoyaomva) on Dec 27, 2017 at 8:32am PST

“It’s going to be ok, mama!” #sketch #sketchoftheday #itsgoingtobeokay

A post shared by Yaoyao Ma Van As (@yaoyaomva) on Apr 9, 2017 at 1:33am PDT

 

3. I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed lately, to this week I decided to try to figure out one thing each day that will make my life a little easier. I SO suggest doing this. Take a look at the things you do all the time and see if there’s any way to either semi-automate them or just make them 10% more convenient. One of the best examples of this is when I finally gave in and bought an extra phone cable to just keep in my car so I didn’t have to grab mine anytime I left the house. (and then grumble about having to go get it from my car at midnight because I left it in there and my phone is dying.) I can’t even imagine how many hours of frustration I saved myself with that $5 purchase.

Along the same lines – I have kitty litter boxes at both ends of the house, and I spent YEARS filling a little bucket with litter to take to the other box each time I cleaned it before it *finally* occurred to me to just buy containers of litter to keep at both boxes. Also? Stick a trash can right inside your front door so you can dump junk mail as soon as you walk in the house.

 

4. Speaking of cat care supplies, it’s time for this week’s review of something awesome that Chewy sent us for their #chewyinfluencer program! This week it’s Instinct by Nature’s Variety Grain-Free Wet Cat Food Cups in the Tuna flavor.

Here’s how that went:

 

Thought I’d change things up and do a video for this month’s #chewyinfluencer review! The boys were sent a package of these @instinctpetfood cat food cups, and as you can tell, they’re a hit! 👍 (BTW, I know Captain Kitten’s collar looks awful. He’s a master of turning a night new collar to trash in a matter of weeks!) #catlady #catfood #catfoodreview #petfood

A post shared by And Blue Sky (@straightontillmorningblog) on Jun 22, 2018 at 8:12pm PDT

 

5. I am serious need of a quick getaway, so I’m planning to head back down to Northwest Arkansas sometime in the next few weeks. There’s a new Georgia O’Keefe exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum, and I still have a museum membership that I received when I worked with the museum last year to cover the amazing Chihuly exhibition. (You can find that post here. I LOVED those stunning outdoor pieces!)  Funny enough, I was checking out a list of the top articles of 2017 on GoNomad, and I was excited to see that an article about Crystal Bridges made the list! Definitey a sign that I need to revisit it. (The GoNomad article is here – Crystal Bridges, The Great Museum You’ve Never Heard Of) I think I’m going to see if GoNomad would be interested in an article about Eureka Springs; You can’t cover Bentonville and not discuss its super-quirky neighbor! (My upcoming plans involve quite a bit of travel writing, btw, so prepare for lots of updates to that “Destinations” tab up at the top of the page!)

 

Tomorrow is my one day a week job at the thrift store, so I’m preparing to curl up with a book soon and attempt an early night! (I’ve gone in on less than 3 hours of sleep the past few weeks. I’m not good at mornings!) Will this be the week I finally get some decent rest? Let’s hope! (I’m considering sharing some of the weird things that show up at the store in my Instastories on my personal Instagram, so be sure to follow if you aren’t already!)

Happy Weekend! 

 

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Happy Friday, and happy June!

I started this post last week and it had an intro about how hot it’s been and how much I’ve sucked at blogging and blah blah blah, but then I decided to go run errands and finish it up Friday evening, but then… Sam. (See my last post if you missed it.) It was weird to re-open this post to finish it and see those petty complaints from Friday morning. It’s hard to take your previous concerns seriously after something like that.

I also mentioned that I’m working on a big thing, something I’m hoping to accomplish by this fall. Keep your fingers crossed!

(Friday morning post script: Well, shit, Anthony Bourdain. I’m going to miss your moody music-hotel room instastories. Thanks for making travel writers look cool.)

 

Here’s what I’ve been loving lately!

 

1. I found this tote bag at Dollar Tree of all places:

When I leave the house, I usually have several things besides my purse, like a notebook, bottle of water, etc, so I’ve been loving tossing my purse plus all of the extras in here when I go. Plus, I then have a reusable grocery bag handy, as long as I’m not buying anything too heavy. (I mean, it was $1, it’s not super sturdy.) They also had some super cute anchor and pineapple-print bags, so if you live near a Dollar Tree I’d suggest stopping in to check them out!

 

2. I got to hang out with my tiny perfect pony friend last week:

 

 

The down side of being freelance is that I’ll occasionally have a REALLY slow work week, and that throws my budget off. I had one of those last month and thus had to cut some non-essential spending, which meant no riding for a whole month. I missed it so much! While I was away, someone else rode Folklore in a local show and he was awesome. Such a good boy!

I moved my lesson to 10 a.m. instead of my usual noon in hopes of escaping the super hot heat, but it was still HOT. I took a few breaks to walk but I didn’t want to “waste” lesson time just walking, so I tried to keep them short. I was SO HOT by the end, though, that I only let Folklore graze for a few minutes and then untacked him and groomed him as fast as humanly possible so I could go drink water and blast the AC in my car. I didn’t have as much water as I wanted, so I drove straight to Walgreens (about 10 minutes) and stopped in the bathroom there to splash some water on my face, but was surprised to see that it was still BEET red. At first I thought it was sunburn, but nope, just flushed from the heat. Bought a liter bottle of water and drained it in record time, considered going back in for another one.

So basically, I need to come up with a better plan for riding this summer! My trainer said I could start coming at 9 or earlier instead, so hopefully that will work? I might also look into getting my own riding helmet – I use one that belongs to the barn and it’s the black velvet kind, which is obviously NOT the coolest thing to have on your head in the summer sun.

I’m not a fan of how the white ones look, but I guess not passing out would be worth it?

 

3. My cats’ favorite day of the month is always when we get a big box from Chewy.com that’s full of kitty food or treats for us to review for their #ChewyInfluencer program. This month, we got a 24-pack of Purina Pro Plan cat food, which Captain Kitten was kind enough to model for me:

 

 

We got the Seafood Variety Pack, which had salmon, a seafood stew, and tuna.

 

I don’t usually buy small cans like this since I have several cats to feed, so it’s a huge treat for the cats when Chewy sends some over! The variety pack had three different flavors, and they all seemed equally popular. These are finely diced meat, which my cats seem to prefer over pate or big chunks. Definitely kitty-approved!

 

 

4. I always stop and look at the chameleons when I’m in a pet store (If I wasn’t convinced the cats would find a way to eat them, I would TOTALLY have a pair of chameleons.) but last night I was treated to the following surprise:

 

This might be the single greatest thing I’ve ever captured on video- both the tongue and the way he tries to play it cool once he notices me. #Ifreakinglovechameleons

A post shared by Crystal Ward (@crystalward11) on Jun 7, 2018 at 4:26pm PDT

 

5. The Show Us Your Books link-up is coming up on Tuesday, but I had to go ahead and share a note now! I’m listening to the audiobook of Mary Roach’s “Gulp”, and in the chapter on pet food I learned that outdoor cats are usually either birders or mousers – rarely both. I don’t know why, but that struck me as so fascinating! I always assumed they just saw prey as prey and were equal opportunity hunters. What else do I not know about the tiny weirdos who live with me?

 

May your weekend be lovely and summery and full of beautiful things!

 

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