mistressofmuses

This morning.

It was 80° in February. :/

(Yes, yes, ~we need the moisture~, but I'd be perfectly happy never seeing another snowflake, and this winter where we had barely any snow at all was the happiest winter I've ever had. Could it not have had the decency to fall as RAIN? The number of broken branches in the surrounding neighborhoods makes me so sad.)

Bella would like to know who allowed such a thing.

(To be fair, if I must be: the moisture in the mountains was extremely needed (31 inches in Estes, allegedly!), the roads never got bad down here, by the later afternoon the roads were basically dry, and while we're supposed to have a hard freeze overnight, we're supposed to be back to 70° tomorrow.)

Speaking of Bella wondering who allows things, she had her annual vet visit yesterday! (We'd had to reschedule from a couple weeks ago, after a construction mishap on the building led to flooding.) We saw a different vet than usual, the daughter of our long-term family vet. I remain relieved that she's likely going to take over the practice once Dr. Kim retires completely.
(There are so few options for non-chain vets around here. :/ VCA/Sploot/Chewy have devoured most of them.)

Everything looks good! She got her lepto shot, we got six months of heartworm prevention, she got her physical, the vet looked at her eye freckle and agrees that it does not look concerning. She's good for another year! <3

Bella, just blending in with the plushies.

A couple more pictures of Bella:

Sometimes she knocks a plushie out of the basket, but then she just snuggles it, ha.

Bendy Bella and her bendy s-curve spine. (But I thought the little heart on the mushroom plush next to her was cute.)

And then some random pictures:

On one of my walks at work, late last month, a really cool hawk! (There were actually two of them, and I got to watch them for a little while. It was a very windy day, so they were just coasting pretty close by. For a short time they were even right at eye-level, since the path hugs the top of a hill, and they were below the drop-off. Unfortunately I wasn't quite fast enough with the camera to catch them there!)

Two more pictures:

This is just a weird camera glitch, but it ended up looking cool! ~Spooky ghost hawks~ (And a background Red Rocks.)

A ladybug!

And one totally random image from grocery shopping:

Ah yes, the devil's meat.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Yesterday was Alex's birthday!

It was fairly low-key.

We went to the aquarium on Tuesday as an early celebration, which was very fun. (I need to sort through the pictures.)

Last night we got Indian food takeout for dinner, which was delicious.

(Now to figure out what to do for my birthday next week, haha.

Maybe the zoo and more Indian food.)

Today we got our first real snow in... quite a while. 30-some days. This is only the third or fourth time it's snowed at all this season, and this is definitely the most we've gotten.

I hate-hate-hate the cold and snow, and have loved having almost every day remain warm and sunny. However... yes, the lack of moisture is Deeply Concerning, so this is good. I'm hoping that we wind up with more rain this spring, to help stave off the drought.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

Another major wind event today.

Power was shut off to my office around 5am, with no definite ETA on when it will be back on. (I went in to work yesterday and it was still out from the planned Wednesday outage, but came back on around 10:45, so we had a chance to at least get some things caught up, and I proactively tried to print out as much of the schedule as I could for today through Sunday... but of course, we won't be aware of anything that changes.)

We're still conducting lessons as normal during the day today, but cancelling everything for after dark. Still have to have someone there, so I'm going in for a half day: 12-4:30ish. There is some wind, but it's not horrible... yet. The warnings are for gusts up to 105mph, which is pretty hideously bad.

My manager told me to bring something to keep me busy, and a blanket because it's real cold with no heat, ha.

So, blanket and a book it is, I suppose.

Tomorrow is going to be nightmarish. We most likely won't have power back yet, but our winter break class series is starting, so we do have 30ish kids scheduled to be there for class. Which... oof. My manager was planning to try some battery-powered lights of hers in the classroom to see if we can get enough light in there, and some instructors from other centers were considering the same, and maybe going to try to get us some better batteries and lights on the company dime. Either way, sucks to not have any of the usual class material (which is all electronic, of course.)

Tomorrow is also supposed to be our biannual center meeting after work, so we might be eating pizza in the dark while we give our center updates and reminders, too.

(Crossing my fingers we do get power back at least sometime tomorrow, rather than it lingering through the weekend...)

Again, I'm really glad that they're proactively shutting the power down to prevent disaster. The Marshall Fire was devastating, and was a winter fire at least partially started by downed power lines. Of course, they're getting an absolute deluge of rage from people who are pissed about the power being out. And it does suck! I'm super lucky that our power at home has stayed on except for a few little blips. It is making my job basically undoable. But... I also remember getting the alert that entire towns were being evacuated for the Marshall Fire, and thinking it had to be a typo. Surely not the entire towns of Superior and Longmont! Surely that's supposed to be just certain areas! (It was entire towns. I had coworkers who lost homes. I had coworkers who didn't lose their homes, but their neighbors did. Horrible.)

-

Unrelated, but I still have so much to do before Christmas. I don't know how I wind up with so much to do, because it's not an all-out holiday for me... but I've still got to wrap all my gifts, and then do all the baking I plan to.

I at least got all the baking supplies I should need. I also finally dropped cards in the mail yesterday, so I'm terribly sorry if they arrive late. ;_;

I am also EXCRUCIATINGLY behind on everything here: at least a week behind on reading and replying. I will do my best to at least start chipping away at that!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

(A phrase attached permanently to my hindbrain.)

It is, indeed, fuckin wimdy right now. (Current peak gusts have been over 100mph!)

Our local power company enacted some preventive power cuts (Public Safety Power Shutoff) to help minimize the potential for downed lines sparking wildfires. I am in favor of this, as much as it sucks, because we have had some extraordinarily awful and destructive wildfires. (No one wants another Marshall Fire.)

While (*knock wood*) so far we haven't had more than the briefest of power flickers at home, my office was within the PSPS area. These areas were announced yesterday, originally slated to start at noon, and later moved up to 10am. While yesterday it was still couched as them "maybe" cutting power, by later yesterday and certainly by this morning, it was definite: they would be cutting power at 10am for the announced areas.

A mildly annoying timeline:

- On Tuesday afternoon, the power company announces the *potential* for a PSPS on Wednesday in light of wind and fire risk forecasts, probably around 12.

- Many local schools and county government offices announce schedule adjustments, planning for early closures.

- My manager called me in the afternoon: my company had made the decision to cancel all appointments on Wednesday afternoon in preparation for the wind, and office staff would be going home at noon Wednesday in order to beat the wind and since we anticipated losing power.

- Into late afternoon, the PSPS announcements are tending more toward this IS a planned action, no longer just a potential.

- Government offices declare they will close for the entire day.

- My manager texts me in the evening, saying that despite the warnings only growing MORE emphatic, the company had decided that we will only close early IF the power went out; otherwise, we should plan to stay for the entire day, even though all appointments had been cancelled. Gotta answer phones.

- Relatively late into the night, county schools decided to close for the entire day on Wednesday (which is a pain at least for the high schools, since it's finals week!)

- By this morning, the PSPS announcement is a definite warning; power to the planned areas will shut off at 10:00.

- I go to work, starting at 9:30. No one else seems aware that the 10:00 time was a definite time; everyone is still operating on "maybe around 12:00."

- It is not yet windy.

- There is one group of appointments that was missed in the rescheduling flurry from yesterday, so we call them and ask them to move up to before 12:00.

- At exactly 10:00 the power goes out. Shock. Amaze.

- We are told by upper management to "wait and see." (FOR WHAT? THE POWER IS OUT AND NOT SLATED TO EVEN POSSIBLY COME ON UNTIL AFTER 6PM. WE CAN DO NOTHING.)

- Some of those students we called do come in; we do our best to handle their tests in the lobby, since that's the only room with windows, and to enter their results on our phones.

- My manager asks again how long we should stay. It's still not windy, but the power is, crucially, still out. No computers. No phones. No students. WE ARE JUST SITTING. In an increasingly hot office, because we have no fans or central air, and the sun comes directly in the windows. The answer is "Stay as long as you feel safe! :)" Which... no, it isn't unsafe right now, but THERE IS NOTHING TO DO.

- Finally around 12:30 my manager did let me leave, because we really had nothing else to do. I think it was mostly because she was annoyed that Alex was waiting in the parking lot (because he knew the power was out, and didn't want to go home just to have to come back to pick me up), but whatever.

- The wind really did not start in our area until later afternoon, and even then wasn't terribly severe. It was far worse earlier to the north, and by now it is very windy here, too.

No idea yet if we'll have power at the office tomorrow. There is apparently a risk that they'll do another PSPS on Friday for forecast winds, with the warning that some areas where those warnings overlap could be without power for 3+ days, as they may not restore power just to cut it again. If our power is NOT on, I don't know what the plan will be... I don't know if they'll ask me to go to a different office (hope not, since those are all pretty far from me and I don't have any of my stuff, so I don't want to do that...) or if I'll have the choice to use a PTO day, or if I'll have to just sit in a dark, empty office..?

We will see.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

It snowed!

This year has been bizarrely light on snow for our area. The weather stayed warm well into November, and our first snow only came last Saturday, as barely a dusting. I'm not complaining - I've joked that I find snow acceptable between Thanksgiving and New Year's only - but as usual ~we need the moisture~. I don't think I ever expected our snow to *actually* hold off until after Thanksgiving, and it's true that I also don't want things to be on fire all next year. (That can and does coexist with the fact that I would be happy to literally never see another snowflake.)

But at least if it is going to snow, this particular storm was very aesthetic!

Yesterday, Alex and I went over to my mom's house for a while to help her sort through some old stuff of hers. A while back, she expressed to me the desire to try and sell off a lot of the "stuff" she has accumulated. I think a combination of her mom passing away, and then trying to help her sister with her hoarded house in preparation for moving, and her own 70th birthday, made her really want to make sure that she doesn't wind up with a lot of junk. A lot of what she has isn't really junk: she has antique tools of her grandfather's, some china, some other genuinely antique things. But she'd rather get rid of it now - and maybe get some money for it - rather than leave it to be dealt with after she's gone.

We did look at a lot of the tools, so many of which are really cool! It's amazing how well some of them were made. Nicely carved hardwood handles, a few with carved decoration, things like that. A few it makes me sad to think of getting rid of, because they are such an example of "they don't make 'em like they used to!" but I also understand my mom's desire to part with things that she doesn't actually use.

Bella and Jaspurr had an accidental face-to-face meeting. I went to the bathroom, and came back to Jaspurr hiding under a chair, and Bella sniffing him. Alex and my mom thought he was upstairs and that Bella was just sniffing around more generally, or they would have intervened. While Jaspurr wasn't loving it, the meeting actually went really well! He didn't hiss or swipe at her, and she was just happily interested. She was easy to call away (though then wanted to go back) and was just mildly excited. He did growl at her the second time she returned, and she left him alone. They later also had a quick meeting in my mom's room, while he was up on a table and Bella was on the floor.

Jaspurr didn't love Bella being there, and ended up spending the whole night in my mom's room after, but it really did go about as well as I could have hoped! We've never gotten to truly test Bella around cats (beyond seeing them at more of a distance), and Jaspurr hasn't gotten to interact with other animals since being with my mom and Taylor. I'm actually quite pleased.

I had a dentist appointment this morning, and since my dentist is only about five minutes from my mom's house, in light of the forecast snow overnight, I spent the night at my mom's.

The birds were happy to have the feeders today in the snow. A towhee and several house finches!

These couple pictures are a little blurry, but of my favorite random bird at my mom's:

This little girl on the right does not have snow on her head - she has a white patch on the top of her head! She's also not a white-crowned sparrow or anything like that, she's just a house finch with a leucistic patch.

You can see more of the patch here, though it blends in a bit with the snow. She's been coming to my mom's feeders for about three years now, she thinks. I'm always happy to see her. :)

My dentist appointment went well! I'd been dreading it a little bit, because I had to have *such* extensive dental work done back around 2020-2021. A decade+ of no dental care, and many years of really precarious living situations, plus probably some general mental health garbage really took their toll.

I missed my last cleaning over the summer because of my grandmother's memorial, and so it'd been closer to a year than six months, and while I hadn't noticed any issues, I was very afraid it'd be worse than expected.

It wasn't! No cavities, which always feels like a big win, haha.

The weird hole in my jaw (where I had an extra baby tooth removed when I was young) has not gotten any worse. It's always exciting when every dentist and hygienist that sees my x-rays has an instinctive, horrified gasp. They assumed this was a crisis that would require bone and tissue grafts... and somehow, it's all very stable. The teeth around the gap aren't unstable or in pain, the jaw itself is not deteriorating. This was my five-year x-ray appointment, and my hygienist was delighted when she said that it looks the same as it did five years ago. "Science would disagree with me, but it really does look like it's just... not causing problems." I love that science can't explain my jaw.

Jaspurr, having returned to the main floor this morning, ha. So regal.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Last Sunday, after hitting the halfway point of my time off, Alex and I went to Roxborough State Park.

The rock formations are beautiful.

Absolutely huge bumblebee (appropriately) on a bee plant! I love these bees. They're at least an inch long, maybe a little bigger.

17 more pictures:

Small stripey lizard behind the grass! This must have been a young one, as it was very little.

Neat longhorn beetle on the milkweed in the garden by the ranger station.

We'd been a little afraid that it would be more crowded than usual, since we were going on a weekend day. I'd say we saw maybe a few more groups than usual, but it really wasn't too bad. It was a pretty hot day, and that probably kept some people away.

A little birds nest up on one of the historic house's outbuildings.

The historic house.

The back side of the house.

Down in the trees behind the house there were wrens nesting! They were very cute.

One of the parent wrens. Both were coming and going.

The nest, in the hole in the tree. You can barely see one of the adults' tails.

The wrens were very impressive hunters! We sat and watched for quite a while, so got to see them come back very frequently, with all manner of insects for their very loud little babies.

Lovely red rocks.

A cute little moth. ...I think this type camouflages itself as bird poop, ha.

Looking up the cliffs.

I never got to see it, but we heard a frog while we were on this part of the trail! It was a chirpier sound than the typical bullfrogs, so maybe a chorus frog?

Stormclouds moving in...

We were a bit worried about the storm, but aside from a bit of thunder and a few spits of wind-blown rain, it didn't do anything.

There were so many of the big bumblebees!

I always love the pollen saddlebags.

I like the trees growing on top of the rocks. Scale is really hard to convey, but those are full-sized pine trees up top.

As we were heading back, the stormclouds looked pretty cool.

And then two pictures from the same day, but not from Roxborough:

I'm pretty sure this itty bitty thing on my mom's geranium is a katydid nymph! So tiny!

And then a bit later, even more dramatic storm clouds from our apartment.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Last Tuesday, we headed back up to the plains again. There was a pretty good thunderstorm chance, so we wanted to see if we could get a good view of any of them.

Eh... mixed results. We did get to see a little bit of nice lightning, but the storms lost most of their oomph by the time they reached us up there. Except for the rain. There was a LOT of water in those clouds! Somehow we managed not to get any hail, which was surprising. The storm eventually reintensified a bit farther north, and while we followed it for a while (through the absolutely wild quantities of rain), we eventually gave up on it. Partially because we didn't want to go much farther, and partially because the rain was so heavy you couldn't see much else, so even if it had done something cool, it would have been hard to see.

Before following it north, we sat in the rain in a parking lot for a bit. This is a screenshot from a video I took of the rain. I'm not sure this even really shows just how intense it was!

Down one of the county roads we were on, we did see a neat old structure. We were able to pull over to grab a couple pictures on the way back, once the rain had stopped.

A couple pictures of clouds, some of swallow nests:

Stormclouds!

More clouds!

We've taken this exit off the highway before, but there's a really extensive colony of cliff swallows:

I love their nests; they look like little clay pots.

Not the most amazingly successful day, but still nice to get out and do things. The old house? church? other? was neat.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Continuing with the trip through the Denver Botanic Gardens from last week!

A very nice clematis, hiding away a bit.

A Persian jewel, extra bejeweled by the rain.

Another really nice columbine. This color makes me think of strawberry lemonade.

Fourteen more pictures:

We headed up the paths behind the Ellipse, toward the "romance gardens" and the "fragrance gardens."

A more classic, blue and white Colorado columbine.

I believe this is elderflower.

Spiderwort.

Looking back towards the Ellipse and the house, with the irises, roses, pines...

The picture does not quite do justice to just how big this iris was. It was huge, and smelled wonderful.

These poppies were really neat, with the sort of ruffled edges.

Itty bitty tadpoles! I think these are toad tadpoles.

Happy Pride from these larkspurs!

More irises with water droplets!

A ladybug larva! They look like little gila monsters.

Over in the "woodland mosaic":

Young squirrel.

Extra spotty ladybug!

And then in "June's PlantAsia":

I love this art piece.

A very pretty fern. :)

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

On Tuesday, in part for late Mother's day and in part for early birthday, we wanted to take my mom to the Denver Botanic Gardens. We planned ahead for a day when she would be back from her New Mexico trip, and that she and Taylor could both take the day off from work.

Unfortunately, this wound up being the *one* day that was forecast to be chilly and rainy all day. (We've had rain basically every day for a bit now, but most days it's only for a little while. Tuesday was going to be overcast and drizzly basically the whole time!)

Mom still wanted to go for it, and was glad for the cooler temperatures, rather than walking around on a hot day. (And I was glad for that, especially for Taylor; last year we went and they wound up overheated and miserable, and had to head back to the car early.) Even so, I was a little apprehensive, because I loathe being cold, and I was afraid the cold rain would make it hard to appreciate anything about the day.

I was pleasantly surprised! It wound up being lovely. It did get uncomfortably cold a couple of times, but for the most part it was nice enough with a jacket. The initial drizzle let up within maybe half an hour, and minus another quick rain shower, it was just cloudy. While I prefer sun, the clouds did mean I didn't get sunburn. It was also nice for pictures - easier to get fairly accurate colors without direct sunlight.

And I took way too many pictures, lol. Even when I was trying to narrow it down very significantly, I think I kept... 70? So this will be split into several posts! Sometimes I try to split the posts into "themes" or something, but this time I think I'll just go for chronological through the gardens.

Hope you like pictures of ~water droplets on flowers~ lol.

One of the most dramatic in terms of water droplets!

Kind of an odd one, but I loved the way the water had collected on the seedpod inside this poppy.

This rose is so perfectly classic it looks fake. :)

Fourteen more pictures:

We waited at the entrance for a bit while we figured out our plan for the day.

There are some wonderfully tall yucca. There was also a very loud sparrow! I'm guessing they have nests within the yucca, which is probably the safest imaginable place.

Water droplets on poppy leaves.

In some of the gardens at the front:

I do like the way the water droplets look like little glass beads.

Then the "perennial walk" and a plaza:

Delightfully goth irises.

A ladybug pupa on a rose.

So ruffly!

Very classic rose!

A hummingbird, perched up high.

On the other side of the plaza is The Ellipse, the gardens around the Chihuly sculpture and in front of one of their admin buildings.

The columbines were having an absolute banner year this year! I don't know that I've ever seen quite so many doing so well.

Nice irises.

I like the burnt orange color.

And some lovely lupines!

And some two-toned ones! Plus the admin building (a beautiful converted house) in the background.

(Today was mom's actual birthday! I did stop by to see her briefly after work. I gifted her Overgrowth and the last six months of short stories from Seanan McGuire's patreon. I'm planning on getting some garden plants for her once I have a chance!)

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Lights Out (Ready to Go) - Aesthetic Perfection

Well, we aren't getting as much snow as was threatened... so far. It has been so warm it's not that much of a surprise that it's not sticking much, despite having snowed all day, starting overnight last night. Then again, it is still going, so I could wake up to a terrible surprise for my morning commute!

I know this is technically ~seasonally appropriate~ but I am so. damn. tired. of the snow!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Within the Wires - Season 1, Episode 4

I was aided in managing to avoid most of... that thing happening today... by having an absolutely horrendous headache. I slept for most of the day, but it didn't help. Alex finally had me take some of The Better Drugs, and that *did* help.

What news I have unfortunately had trickle through to me has all seemed worse and worse.

So have some pictures of sleeping dogs.

Bella doing a kangaroo impression.

Cy and Bella being cuddly! Something of a rarity; Bella typically annoys Cy into moving, haha.

Not a pet picture, but it made me smile when I set my boba tea down and it looked like mothman was drinking it.

It has in fact gotten *very* cold here. The cold front moved through on Friday night and has not let up. Today barely got above zero, and the overnight temps are anticipated to be several degrees below zero (not even accounting for windchill.) The spot up in the mountains that I did my archeology dig a billion years ago will have air temps close to 30 below zero, with windchills of between 45 and 50 below zero! Yikes!

I'm extremely glad our heat is working!

But at least the dogs got to stay cozy, despite it all:

(That's my pillow above them, and moth plush that Cy is laying on. These pictures came from Alex while I was at work, haha.)

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: my apartment

I am NOT looking forward to the "arctic blast" we're supposed to get tomorrow. ;-; Sounds like we may have a couple of days where the high temperatures could be below zero. I hate it already! At least the heat is fixed, and we still have the forbidden space heater from my mom. Dreading having to get out to go to work, and dreading the night-time dog outings. Ugh.

Cy was sick for a couple days early in the week, which wasn't fun. Somehow, for better or worse, he seems to time it for my exact weekend - he's done it a couple times now! At least that means it's not the worst hardship when I have to get up with him several times overnight and end up with only a few hours of sleep, but it sucks that it means I spend a chunk of my weekend napping.

This time was just some sort of stomach trouble. Couldn't keep food down, obviously uncomfortable, wanted to go out more often than usual. It started with an emergency bathroom trip at 5:00 on Monday morning, and then it was pretty clear when it finally stopped for him around 4:00 on Tuesday morning when he stopped grumbling and fell asleep. Glad it ran its course pretty quickly, but man is it not my favorite to stay up all night for it. (Alex sleeps through everything. I always get up a couple times a night to tuck Cy back into his bed, because he's a spoiled monster who wants to be under a blanket and still doesn't like having to sleep on his own bed. Usually I fall right back asleep within ten or so minutes, but if I have to take him outside, I'll be all the way awake, and it's usually a couple hours at least before I can get back to sleep.)
I'm also just always worried that any illness or injury could be The One. He's old, and doesn't bounce back like he used to. (Plus he had the big mystery illness that nearly killed him many years ago, so I'm always afraid the instant there's a Symptom, heh.)

On a more positive side, writing and reading have been going really well this week! I've actually now finished three books and am working on a fourth! Granted, one of those was one of the ones that was incomplete from last year, and one was a novella, but I'm actually on pace-ish for a much more ambitious total than the original goal of 25. I don't know that I will manage to stay at that pace, but I'm riding the enthusiasm as far as I can.

I already mentioned a tentative plan to alternate novels and Wayward Children novellas, at least until I get through a few of the books that were "high priority" for various reasons. After completing those "high priority" books (Somewhere Beyond the Sea, Never Say You Can't Survive, and Trouble and Her Friends), then my plan is to alternate novel - Wayward Children novella - ebook, all from the TBR list. For the ebooks, I'm starting with the humble bundle of horror books. We'll see how I do once I'm trying to read more serious ebooks, since ebooks have historically been a struggle for me. (I've done well enough with the lighter romancey ebooks, but partially because it's not terribly hard to reorient myself in the story/remember where I left off, and I'm less concerned about forgetting minor details that could be super important. With some of the denser novels, I'm a little more concerned about missing details, but hopeful that I'll maintain my focus!)

While the goal I set at the start of the year was to get through 25 books, mixing my TBRs with fluffier ebook fare, that would barely put a dent in the TBR list, so I've set a "stretch" goal of sorts. I'd really like to get through 44 of my TBRs. 40 that I already have, plus the four new releases that I'm most excited for this year (which will jump the line as soon as I get them.) That's just under a book a week, which is not historically a pace I'm good at maintaining by any stretch. Though some are novellas which may go much quicker, others are longer and denser. That also isn't counting any of the fluffier ebooks that I still intend to use as time-fillers, or any of the books I read with Alex or Taylor, which wouldn't be part of that 44 book goal.

I've also written almost every day for the last week, and while I don't think I'll finish the rough draft of the current WIP, I also can't be mad that I'm moving along at a steady clip.

I'm trying to decide about participating in NaMoPaiMo next month. (National Model Painting Month.) The woman who organizes it has had a really rough year, and the last couple months have been especially terrible. Her horse died just a few weeks ago, and her family home is in Altadena. While it's still standing for now, she's watched a lot of familiar places burn down. She's still planning on running the event, though. That makes me want to participate, because I want it to feel worth it to her, and it's often a big fun social thing for the hobby, but... I also know that historically, putting my energy toward that means that it is the ONLY creative thing I end up doing. I'm doing so well on my reading and writing goals that I don't want to put those on hold for a month (also knowing that such a long break means I often struggle to reestablish the routine.)

My project from last year - the art deco/stained glass peacock horse - has also done well at a couple of shows (including getting first place in his class from a really well-known artist), which is super flattering, and makes me want to do another. (Alex suggested I do something in reds, since I have blues/greens with the peacock and purple with the wisteria one... maybe roses? I could try and put together a stained glass-ish rose pattern... It's a little tempting to do something really dramatic like a dragon, but it's also relatively common for people to do dramatic resculpts of horses into dragons, and so I'm afraid one that just has a dragon painted on it will look quite basic in comparison, haha.)

I should decide soon, since ideally I'd get whatever I need to prepped before the challenge starts on February 01.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

Today was at least less of a miserable slog. Still overly busy with too much to do, and no ability to anything extra, but I did get caught up with the things that I had to punt from yesterday.

Still no news of the instructor who didn't come in this week. It feels just really unlike him, so I'm more worried as time goes by, but also don't know how I'd find out anything.

-

I think my original plan today was to figure out my TBR list for this year, because... well, rather than shrinking, it's definitely grown! But I don't think I have quite the brain power for that tonight. Though maybe I can at least start to read something.

I also need to sit down and look at my writing plan again. December was sort of a wash on that front, but we were busy enough with other things that it doesn't bother me too much.

-

For the first time in a while it actually feels like winter, and was snowing as I left work. (Though about a mile or so away from my office, there was a very stark line between where it had snowed and where it had not.)

We have a lot of fog, which is a nicely spooky atmospheric setting... ~~~just like Silent Hill~ I promise to not say every single time~~ but unfortunately it is very cold and it sucks.

They STILL have not fixed our heat. I don't think Alex followed up with them when he was supposed to. Understandable when he was sick. My mom loaned us a space heater, so now I'm afraid he just feels like it isn't urgent because the space heater is nicely efficient. I can call them, but it'll have to wait until Monday. The space heater, plus the fact that we're on an upper floor and heat rises, has kept it from getting too cold, but dammit, they still need to get it fixed!

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

Last Thursday we had a pretty spectacular rainbow:

A double rainbow, even! ~~what does it mean?~~

It was so bright!

It was a complete rainbow, all the way from end to end. Most impressive was just how long it lasted! It was there when I left my office, and I took the first picture while I was waiting for Alex to pick me up. The second picture was a few minutes into the commute home. It was still visible when we made the last turn toward our apartment, so it lasted at least 30 minutes or so, just that we saw. Plus however long it was out before I left my office, and however long it lasted after we were home.

( One spider and one caterpillar in my mom's garden: )

I think I've mentioned before that Bella is the first dog I've had that really cares to watch TV. Cy and other dogs I've had will look at the TV in response to sound or something (Cy in particular, before going deaf, was extremely interested in and excited by kitten sounds), but they've never cared to watch it.

Bella... does. It's very funny. She will watch for several minutes at a stretch sometimes, very clearly tracking things across the screen, ears up, completely focused. She especially loves wildlife rehab shows. (Her absolute favorites seem to be foxes and deer, as well as horses, which she is also very excited by in real life.)

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

Like much of the rest of the northern hemisphere, last night was forecast to be one of the best chances to see the northern lights/aurora borealis in our area. Colorado is definitely too far south under most circumstances. There have been a handful of them within the last several years visible in parts of CO, though they tend to be minimal. Regardless, I'd never seen them!

We had some cloud cover early in the day, but it was supposed to lighten up overnight. The forecast suggested going north and east for the best chance to see them. So we headed out toward Fort Morgan right around sunset, hoping to get out past the light pollution of the metro area(s), and see what we could see!

The auroras weren't very visible to the naked eye where we were at; it mostly looked like a strange, silvery cloud that looked a bit like fog. However, Alex's phone camera picked them up quite well! (Tragically, mine did not register it even slightly. Not the foggy look, not even a hint of color, just black.)

But Alex got some very nice pictures!

This is my favorite of Alex's pictures. All the colors!

( Five more pictures: )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

We made it through the wind storm! It was pretty nasty overnight on Saturday, but no damage to our building. My mom had minimal damage at her house - the fence between her neighbor's and her patio came down and will need replacing, and she had some collateral damage to a few planters. A little decorative fountain fell over but doesn't appear to have broken. No downed trees or structural damage.

The worst for us was that the elevators were out on Sunday morning! Our power had gone out a few times, but always came back very quickly, but apparently one of the outages kicked the elevators offline. It was tough to have to help Cy down the six flights of stairs, but fortunately we only had to do it once before they were fixed.

-

Cy had his followup with the vet/his annual shots today, plus we brought Bella in at the same time to get her shots for the year.

He's doing well! We think the anti-inflammatory was making a difference (he's been out for about three days, and has seemed a bit stiffer without it.) In order to keep him on it, he does need a blood test to make sure it's safe for him long-term. He got a new px for it, but we'll find out after the blood test results come back whether he gets to stay on it. I hope so.

Both of them did really well with their shots. Cy was a bit lethargic right after, and just wanted to take an immediate nap. Bella was hyped up right after, but I think started to get a bit sore a few hours later.

We'll go back in another three weeks for Cy's lepto booster shot (Bella had hers last year, so she only needed one dose) and I really hope that's the last vet trip for a while.

-

Our vet appointment was at 11:20. The solar eclipse started at... 11:28, lol.

Here we only maxed out at somewhere between 60 and 70% coverage for the eclipse, so it was a noticeable change in the light quality, but not extremely obvious. (I would love to actually experience a total solar eclipse... maybe in 21 years!)

The vet office did have a few pairs of eclipse glasses, so when we were done at around 12:00 they shared them around so we could go take a look at it. Even if it wasn't nearly the experience of totality, it's still a cool thing.

I did the thing you aren't supposed to do and took a picture with my phone again. I still love that it captures the little tiny eclipse lens flare, ha.

And while it would have been more dramatic with the trees leafed out (we aren't there yet), even the scrubby branch shadows got some crescent shapes in them.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Love that. Love that "some threat of 100mph winds" part especially.

It IS extremely windy. I am not extremely comforted as we watch the windows shake. The power has gone out a handful of times, though always come right back on. (As has the internet, this time!) So fingers crossed it stays that way. Fingers double crossed that the windows don't do anything worse than rattle.

-

Got my second ever migraine aura yesterday night, around 11:00 or so. Can't say I'm a fan! It doesn't hurt, but it is a bizarre feeling to just have a growing blind spot surrounded by bright zigzags drift across your vision. Fucking weird.

I'm choosing to blame a combination of the weather/extreme pressure change with this wind + work stress.

Our online course has been down for three days now, and it's apparently a platform issue, so our developers are limited in what they can do. I fielded 30-some calls about it today, and am feeling salty about how the manager who was doing them yesterday got passive-aggressive about needing assistance (which meant me. And as soon as I offered to help, she did no more.) I would have loved to call in some sort of assistance to help me today, but I'm literally the only one available, so.

Also annoyed because my manager is telling me it is expected that I attend a new phone system training on my day off. I'll get paid for the time, but I don't want to have to structure my day around being home to do it.
(My manager's manager said in the training invite that no, no one has to attend on a day off, because it'll be recorded, but my manager got snarly about it, and I know it'll be easier if I just do the damn thing. I did tell her I might be at the vet at the time for Cy's followup, and she got snarky about "well, it's an inconvenient time for me when I have to pick up my kids, but I still have to figure it out, so you just have to make it work.")

-

ETA: as of about 10:00, the highest confirmed gust has been 96mph in one of the canyons. There's an unconfirmed gust of 114mph in a town a bit farther up into the mountains.

Too many wind!

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: my apartment

Had a pretty busy string of days over the last week:

( Wednesday I had my dentist appointment )

( Thursday: snow + organizing project )

( Friday was the model show )

( Saturday: recovery day + swap meet )

( Sunday I came over to Taylor's to hang out )

( Monday was mostly more gaming )

Mostly good days (minus Friday being a letdown), but pretty busy. I feel like I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on, and we'll see how well I manage it as I head into my workweek. This is likely the longest string of days off I'll have for a very long while (six days!) but it feels like they were over in a flash, and like I'm very not ready to go back to work.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my mom's house

Today did not include as much catching up on everything as I had hoped, but it wasn't nothing, either.

The vast majority of the day was devoted to doing laundry, which means going to the laundromat. (There is a laundry room in our building, but the machines don't work well, half of them are usually out of order, people steal things, you have to use a proprietary card that you pay for through their website... it's just not worth it.)

We actually did... ALL the laundry this time. There's been a bag of sheets and towels that have been put off for months and months at this point, and they're finally washed!

Even more impressively, I put all my damn laundry away immediately when we got home!

We also got some stuff sorted for the show we're going to on Friday, and I played cheer section for Alex getting a couple of painting projects close to complete.

We also got both Cy's and Bella's nails trimmed. They tend to be quite good about it, but it's still a process that they don't love.

-

Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, and then am going in for half a day at work. I have Friday-Sunday off, because we have a model show on Friday, and I took Sat-Sun off both for a recovery day, and because the horse expo is happening all weekend and we may want to go back.

Dreading the dentist appointment, because I feel like I'm stuck still dealing with the long stretch of bad (nonexistent) dental care that I had. I think there's some wear at the edge of an old filling, and almost every time I seem to have some new thing that needs addressing.

Even more, I'm dreading our impending weather. We are supposed to get a snow storm that is likely to be measured in FEET coming in tomorrow and lasting through Thursday. That is NOT great for getting to and from work on Thurs, which is my only full work day this week. It is also not great for having to get around early on Friday morning, which is when the model show starts. This is one of those "destination" shows, so there are people from all over the US flying in, and a lot of them are worried about flights being cancelled and such. We live near enough, but if the roads are bad, that's still going to be a struggle.

I'm really hoping we get less snow than is being threatened, but every time a new forecast comes out it's with higher totals!

(And I can very much feel it moving in. All my joints hurt!)

Current Mood: achey
Current Location: my apartment

Well, that weather change happened fast!

The forecast had been for snow - and possibly quite a lot of it - yesterday, though the timing was a little vague. The morning started off with just rain, and it was easy to get to work and everything. Then late morning, somewhere between 11 and 11:30 it went to shit and it went to shit fast. The rain turned to snow, which iced up on the roads immediately, literally within five or ten minutes. We basically cancelled our entire afternoon, as the roads were not safe to be on. Lots of people got caught already out, and struggled to get home. And then it just kept getting worse. The official measurement nearest my office was 11 inches in about 10 hours, I think?

I wound up having to take a Lyft home, because Alex couldn't make it in the truck. I hate spending $50 just to leave work, but I got home safe. (Thanks, Perry!) I bailed an hour early at 4:00, which was the earliest I got permission to leave. Glad I did, because things didn't improve after that.

The snow tapered off overnight, and the main roads were all basically fine today, though the side streets were still a mess. Had a lot of instructors call out saying they were unable to get out of their respective neighborhoods.

It made for some picturesque trees this morning, before it started to melt off.

( Three more pics of trees + two of dogs )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

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mistressofmuses

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Page generated May. 21st, 2026 07:57 pm

Entries tagged with weather

Snow, Bella, and Miscellany:

Happy belated birthday to Alex!

Let it blow, I guess.

It's fuckin' wimdy

Winter is a season!

Sunday, July 06: Roxborough State Park

June 24th: Plains and storms, cool old house

Last Tuesday: Denver Botanic Gardens (Part 2)

Tuesday: Denver Botanic Gardens (Part 1)

Can it just be spring?

The world feels like a disaster, so... pet pics.

Misc stuff:

Misc stuff:

Miscellaneous pictures:

Auroras!

Vet Followup + Partial Eclipse

It's fucken wimdy

Busy handful of days!

(no subject)

Snowstorm