…and Blue Sky

How is it already Friday? I’m so far behind on ALL THE THINGS that I need at least six more days in this week to catch up. I had an early alarm set this morning because I have like 4,000 words to write for a work project plus a billion other things to do, but tornado sirens woke me up before 1 am and I didn’t get back  to sleep until around 3, so I’m basically the zzzz-face emoji today! 

I didn’t do a Friday Favs post last week because by Friday I was really sad and nothing seemed worth celebrating as a “favorite” that week. My 14 year old kitty had a tumor removed from her mouth last year, and at the beginning of the week she started kind of smacking her mouth and not wanting to eat again. I took her to the vet on Weds and they ran tests then had me bring her back to on Friday to stay overnight and get IV fluids. By the time I got her home on Saturday, I was pretty sure I knew what was about to happen, so I tried to keep her as comfortable and happy as possible until Sunday afternoon, when she was gone. She went from being as spry and playful as a kitten to weak and not really “there” so fast it was head-spinning. In a way I’m glad it was only a week and not months of gradual decline but man is it weird not to have her asleep next to me at night.

It’s weird to follow that depressing news with a list of good things but that’s kind of how life goes isn’t it? Ups and downs and the occasional weird  kaleidoscope-y spiral.

Things that have made this week a little bit brighter include…

1. On Tuesday,  had been at the library all of half an hour (I sometimes go there to write so I can focus – not in this case) when I decided that I was so freaking hungry that I had to take a break. Just as I was packing up to leave, a notification popped up from the McDonalds app (because I’m a fancy person and have both that AND the Taco Bell app. This blog is super aspirational.) with a coupon for a free McCafe “beverage” with any purchase. Free coffee-ish things? DONE. (I put beverage in quotes because let’s be honest, most of them are actually desserts, not drinks. Especially what I got.)

I ordered a Happy Meal because I am a responsible adult, waited a few minutes for my order, and then headed out to the car. As soon a I got there I realized they hadn’t given me my frappe! GIMMIE MY SUGAR IN A CUP!

So I went back in and told the girl at the counter, and she made me a large instead of a medium to make up for it. It was such a small act of kindness, but after the weekend I’d just had, it meant a lot more than it normally would.

2. I kept hearing about the Great British Baking Show and finally gave in and Netflixed it up. It’ now my favorite thing to have on in the background while I work! It’s so diferent from American reality shows – no crazy made-up drama and the contestants are nice to each other! (Looks like you can also watch full episodes on the PBS website if you don’t have Netflix!)

3. I feel like I really need a palm print dress in my life this summer. I came across these two on Old Navy and am seriously considering. The one on the left is $32, and the one on the right is $25, but you can get an extra $30% off if you sign up for their email newsletter, so that comes out to basically free, right? (Math is not my thing. This is why I’m a writer. And don’t have an awesome credit score.)

4. Great tweet or the very best tweet?

Remember when we had Obama’s scandals to deal with? pic.twitter.com/P5aA8lGniA

— Jay Kuo (@nycjayjay) May 17, 2017

5. Y’all know I love planning any kind of travel, and I’m pretty happy right now because I have 3 or 4 upcoming mini trips in just the next couple of weeks! I’m planning to finally fit in a quick trip down to Eureka Springs, Arkansas early next week, the lake resort I wrote about a couple of months ago has invited me to come back, I have a media trip to the art museum in Bentonville, AR the first week of June, and I just discovered last night that there’s a Pow Wow coming up in Jefferson City the end of this month, and I really want to go. (I’ve been wanting to visit the capitol building again, too, so it can be a dual purpose trip!) Unfortunately, my bank account is in the single digits after the crazy vet bills of last week, so I may have to skip the last one unless I can pic up an extra writing gig before then. Cross your fingers that I can figure out a way to go! The dude who played Cloud Dancing on Dr. Quinn is going to be there, and as a human who was a teen in the 90s, that is very important.

Hope your upcoming weekend is awesome! I’m about to dive into a very long work day, but it will be worth it when payday comes!

Happy Friday! This week’s post is going up pretty late in the day, but better late than never, right? I had the headache of doom yesterday, so I spent today just struggling to catch up. I have a crazy weekend full of work ahead now, but such is life when you’re self employed. Sure, take all the sick days you need! And then enjoy your 32 hour work weekend!

Anyway here’s what I’m loving this week!

1. It looks like the crazy rain might finally be (mostly) over! It’s sunny and almost 70 today, and I can’t wait to get outside to soak it up. I finally looked up the actual rainfall, and it looks like we got over 15 inches in the past month. Our usual annual rainfall is 45 inches so that’s a LOT!

I’m mostly excited that I should be able to resume my walks by the lake soon! I tried to go check out how flooded it was a few days ago and actually got kicked out because the marina was bringing in heavy construction equipment to get the dock ramps out from under the water. (They did at least kick me out nicely, with suggestions that I head over to the campground to take pics instead.)

The photo above was taken from a parking spot along the road that’s part o my usual walk. So yeah, the entire two lane road s underwater, plus the parking, plus whats usually a pretty good sized chunk of land between the water and the road. I’ve often said that my afternoon/evening walks by the lake are the only thing that keep me sane, so as you can imagine I’m dying to get back to normal after an entire week away!

(Note- I wrote the above on Friday morning and stopped by the lake around 7pm Friday evening, and everything was closed off with security blocking the entrances. Still no lake for me! But hopefully soon!)

2. Making my own corn cakes makes me feel badass.

I’m a pretty decent cook, but I pretty much never do it because I live alone and I’ve never understood spending an hour making a meal that I’ll eat in like 15 minutes. I wanted to try out some recipes from One Part Plant before I write about it for the book review link-up next week, and decided to try the one pictured above first. I didn’t have corn on hand, so I decided to experiment mixing other stuff with the masa harina (a kind of corn-based flour… I’d never heard of it, either.)  and then became obsessed with mixing ALL THE THINGS with it to make different kinds of corn cakes. My current favorite is to mix it with the black bean and red quinoa flavor of Well Yes soup.

I still haven’t gotten around to actually making the recipe the way it’s intended to be made. I keep putting black beans in to soak and then forgetting about them.

So yeah masa harina gets my 2nd favorite spot this week. I bought a one pound bag and have made at least a dozen different experiment recipes, and I’ve only used maybe 1/4 of the bag. You can get it from Amazon for way cheaper than I found it in any grocery store here.

3. I’m planning to write up a whole post about it, but I just became an ambassador for Maven and if you use the code CRYSTALWVIP, you can get $25 off your first video medical appointment! Consultations with nutritionists and physical therapists are $25, so you could get either of those totally free, and I’ve seen some such as consulting with a midwife for as little as $18. You don’t even have to enter payment info unless you’re booking a more expensive appointment. (Most general doctors and nurse practitioners are $35, and mental health specialists are generally $70. Some other specialists include career and pediatric sleep coaches, which are $50 each for a half hour appointment.)

I’ll be sharing more info in the full post soon, but so far I LOVE that Maven provides access to great practitioners that can otherwise be hard to access if you live in a rural area or work hours that make it tough to make an appointment during regular office hours. And sometimes you just plain want to talk to a doctor without having to like, put on pants and leave the house, you know?

4. A little PSA about befriending the clerks at whatever store you visit most often. (This probably won’t work in major cities, but definitely in small towns!)

I stopped by the Dollar General by my house today because I knew their clearance stuff was an extra 50% off and I wanted really cheap Easter candy. One of the ladies that works there informed me that although the sign said half off, the clearance clothes were ringing up as 13 cents. I was able to get a cute floral top for my mom, and a plaid tunic (above – it’s supposed to be a short dress, but I’m tall) and charcoal grey hoodie for me, all for a total of 39 cents including tax. Whaaaa?

5. This is a thing that recently happened to me: (I know, I know, I shouldn’t give him food. But he does the little washing motion thing with his paws before he eats each one! And I really need to get out more!)

This is how we party at Casa Crystal at 4 am. I’ve really been in Missouri too long.

A post shared by Crystal Ward (@crystalward11) on May 2, 2017 at 2:37am PDT

ICYMI, I have a Target/Amazon/Walmart/BN gift card giveaway going on – Enter here!

Are we friends on Instagram yet? Come follow my adventures! ➡️ 

1. I don’t know how it took me this long to find the Mortified podcast, but I’m totally hooked. I’ve only listened to about a dozen episodes so far, but they’re freaking hilarious. I literally got choked laughing at a guy’s diary entry that began, “Hey, I’m worried. I owe so much to so many tape clubs.” (RIP, Columbia House.) You can start with any episode, no need to go in any order.

2. If you are not yet following Dr. Evan Antin on Instagram… you’re welcome.

#localkitties You know I can’t help myself! I love meeting local cats and dogs when I travel 😻 My Willy-man is a big monster compared to these dainty little Southeast Asian kitties, lol. This cat was the sweetest girl and just wanted to rub her head on everything haha. #cat #kitteh #southeastasia #philippines #tropics #oldworld #inmyelement #mycatsnameiswillybtw

A post shared by Evan Antin 🐊🐣🐒🐱🐶🐢🐖🐍🐅🐿🐇 (@dr.evanantin) on Nov 18, 2016 at 6:33pm PST

A post shared by Evan Antin 🐊🐣🐒🐱🐶🐢🐖🐍🐅🐿🐇 (@dr.evanantin) on Mar 28, 2017 at 10:12pm PDT

3.  As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been trying to visit all of the hiking and nature trails in my local area so I can compile a guide. (Bloggers have weird hobbies.) Over the weekend, I checked out some trails at the Springfield Nature Center while I was in town for my monthly grocery pilgrimage. (Yes, I have to drive 50 miles to find real food. The Ozarks struggle is real.)

I stared on the paved Boardwalk Trail, which was filled with families and way too loud and crowded, but when it split and I could escape to the hilly, unpaved Bluff Trail where I only saw a couple of other people, I was much happier. I guess I really don’t like sharing my woods?

4. Speaking of my grocery trip, this month I set off with a giant shopping list of tasty ingredients I’d need to try some recipes from the One Part Plant cookbook that I mentioned last Friday. (Fun fact: it is literally impossible to find tahini in southwest MO. I have to order it from walmart.com and get it shipped to my local store. I miss you, Orlando.)

I’ve never bought (or even tried) nutritional yeast before, but it kept showing up in the ingredients list of recipes I liked, so onto my shopping list it went.  Since then, I’ve been adding it to pretty much every meal in an attempt to get actual nutrients into my body. There’s not much taste to it, a teaspoon has about a bazillion percent of your daily B vitamins and such, and that big shaker was like $6. I’m digging it.

5. I was going to put a real #5 here, but  after just waking up to the five thousandth rainy day this month (totally mathematically possible) I am making my fifth fav this week he simple fact that April is finally almost over, so those May flowers should be along any day now. I can not with this dreariness anymore. Gimmie sun.

BTW, Cat Ladies, don’t miss the giveaway I have for eco-friendly cat litter! It ends 4/30!

Let’s be friends on Instagram! ➡️  

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Happy Friday, friends!

Has anyone else just been feeling weird this week? Is there some funky planetary alignment thing throwing everyone off balance, or is it me? I had way less work than usual this week (for example, 7 otel descriptions to write instead of the 40-50 I’ve gotten used to) and yet I’ve still been amazingly unproductive. All that sounds good is reading and logic puzzles on my phone. (Wow, subtract the phone part of that and I’m also describing 7th grade me! Maybe I should give in and get some Saddle Club books and early 90s mom jeans?)

Speaking of books, let’s get into this week’s first favorite thing…

A post shared by And Blue Sky (@straightontillmorningblog) on Apr 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

1. One Part Plant by Jessica Murnane showed up in my mailbox yesterday (“showed up” = I begged the publisher for a review copy) and I’m already obsessed. I’ll write about it for real for May’s Show Us Your Books post, but I fully intend to spend a good chunk of today flipping through the recipes and making a grocery list for the shopping trip I have planned this weekend. (Living in Middle of Nowhere, MO means I make a monthly 50-ish mile pilgrimage to Springfield because there’s basically just Walmart and two small overpriced grocery stores where I live. I have to drive an hour just get to a freaking Super Target where I can buy the basics I like. Have I ever mentioned how much I miss Orlando???)

Wow, that was a tangent. ANYWAY – I’ve pretty much always identified a a person who dislikes vegetables, but I also really don’t lie feeling terrible all of the time, so I’m going to try as many of the book’s plant-based recipes as possible over the next couple of weeks and see how it goes.  I’ll share what I try when I do the boo review!

Now, kindly disregard what I just said about healthy eating and let’s move on to #2…

2. Discounted Easter candy = yay! Walgreens somehow had both the Cadbury Caramel Eggs and the mini cream eggs for 50% off when I went, so I’ve been a very happy woman.

3. Not a great pic, but I found the perfect denim shorts for this summer at Target. I was playing around with ideas for a post about music festival fashion and just grabbed them to try on with the tops I was checking out, but ended up liking the shorts more than anything else! They’re mid-rise with a 4″ inseam and super comfy. Also, they’re only 20 bucks.  (The tank top is here and kimono is here, if you dig either.)

4. TRIP PLANNING. I have incurable wanderlust, and while I can’t get away for a “real” vacation rght now, I decided that a night or two away somewhere near by would be perfect, so I started planning a trip to the quirky old town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which is about an hour away. There are so many cool B&B’s and historic hotels there that it makes my little hotel nerd head spin. The one I’d most like to stay at is a former bordello with a totally phallic neon sign:

Nothing suggestive here…

A lot of the local hotels claim to be haunted (Especially the Crescent, which was formerly a boarding school, cancer hospital run by a total quack doctor, and mental asylum. I’m not 100% on whether ghosts are real or not, but I do know that my camera broke the last time I visited, and my then 3 year old niece kept asking to go back up to the 3rd floor”where all those people were”. There was nobody else there.) but the Palace’s resident ghost is said to have died “in the throes of passion”, so  think we’d be buds.

I also REALLY want to revisit this gorgeous place:

You can read about my last visit to Blue Spring Heritage Center here!

So there I was, a million browser tabs deep into planning a little getaway when I found out that I get to attend a media event at the Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville, Arkansas the beginning of June! So now instead of planning one NW Arkansas trip, I’m planning two! It makes my former concierge heart very happy.

5. Tomorrow is Earth Day (be sure to check out the Google Doodle!) so as a totally seasonally appropriate favorite, my #5 is the awesome eco-friendly cat litter made from walnuts that I’ve been using the past couple of weeks. A light nutty scent when you walk past the litter box instead of the usually chemical-y fragrance? Big thumbs up. I have a giveaway going on where you can win a bag to try out, so go enter, fellow cat ladies!

Let’s be friends on Instagram! –> 

Friday Link-Up Fun: