I found a POKEMON!

Jex and I have a Ford Fusion. We liked it a lot at first but then it started falling apart. The car isn't even 5 years old.
That however is not the point.
While I had the car up at Tony's shop to have him help me replace the door handle I found this little guy hanging out on the hubcap. I have no idea where he came from or how he got there, or what he'll turn into, but I thought he was pretty out of this world. Sort of literally.

I might have more posts later... but right now I'm working on a short story for a contest on the writing forums of which I am a member. 

Anywho, I'll see ya when I see ya. 

The light heart lives long!

Today I learned...

Today I learned three very important things.
Well one of them I re-learned but that's not the point.

1. Don't stand on your gears.
When going up a hill made of lost hope and death sit your butt back down on that bike seat before shifting into baby gears. If you don't the jarring impact of the bike angrily slamming into gear beneath you will throw your leg right off the pedal and into a nearby tree.

2. You can do anything you put your mind to. Really you can! Just don't expect it to happen at the speed you want it to. It will take as long as it takes and very few things will make it take less time.

3. Barbecue (BBQ) sauce is basically incredibly fancied up Ketchup.

Till later my lovelies!!!
The light heart lives long.

Scenes from a Marriage # I've lost track

Jex and I have been spring cleaning recently. Trying to really get rid of crap that has started to accumulate in our lives.
While on this road crawling with dustbunnies and surprise spiders Jex decided he would take on our little reading nook. All by himself. For a long while all was well, then he called me over to organize my books the way I wanted them.

This is what I was greeted by.

The Book Tower; Architect: Jex. Built in commemoration of Ashes' excellent taste in literature.

The light heart lives long, my friends.

Sunshine 2013

Jex and I had to go to the Sunshine State for some stupid military stuff. So we decided to make a trip of it and visit our super rad friends who we miss so dang much!
You remember the posts I did about a year ago about the long ass trip we took from one coast of the U.S. to the other right? Riiiight? Yeah them.
This time we got to fly. Yay! So it took 1 rather than 4 days. Well it would, if we could ever get out tickets squared away.
There's this funny thing the military likes to do: completely forget about the dependent. Doesn't matter if you're the spouse, child, or mother who lives with ya'll because of extenuating circumstances, if you are not the military member they sometimes forget that you exist. After weeks of talking to every person we got handed off to and promised that the tickets would be taken care of the day we were supposed to leave I still had no ticket, as far as we knew. We decided to just go to the airport anyways, maybe things would work out for the best.
We walked up to the ticketing counter and to the person behind the weird castle wall they've got going on. Lo and Behold, I had a ticket! YES! But Jex's ticket had been refunded. The travel office opened 30 min before our flight was supposed to leave. So we waited and called and waited and called again and prayed and waited and someone picked up the phone! After about 10 minutes the super rad chick at the travel office had Jex a new ticket and we were off. That chick is so getting cookies.

We got to Sunshine, not many problems later and waited for Cait not to DIE driving through the scariest city on the west coast. Then we drove 5 hours north to where she and her lovely little fam have made home for a little under a year now.
It was soooo good to see them again. God knows how much we've missed their distinct and shiny presence in our lives. Cait is the only one who can take my complaining for what it is, venting. Then turn around and give me super radtastic advice. It also helps that we're kinda married to the same person.
Whoa, whoa now. We're not actually married to the same person. Our husbands just tend to be semi-clones of one another on the personality level a lot of the time.

Pterodactyl and Kitten have gotten so BIG! They're still the most adorable things ever. Pterodactyl is talking now and she's super astute. Kitten is in danger of being sold from time to time, but he's still the sweetest snuggle bug. Two is a hard age.

Then we drove back to where we had to do our thing. Bought armloads of Japanese goodies from the super cool Japanese mall we found. Melon Cream Soda how I've missed you!

Now we're home, cleaning everything, trying to downsize and get rid of unnecessaries.

Picture time!

Everyone loved these silly disguise glasses

Remember these magical toys?

Best Picture Ever

Uncle Jex and the Pterodactyl

The Gaggle Rock

Helping

Kitten was tired. He is also made of lead.

Look!

Underwater shot with the super rad Olympus Tough. I love that thing.

Kitten and he's pretty mama.

Jex looking all thoughtful and stuff

Pretty

Pterodactyl's favorite things right now are sharks. She's so awesome.

This Jellyfish reminded me of a wedding gown

Sea Lion 

Hurry take a picture, we're passing the Dreamworks Studios!!! Oh we were so lost. 

What? Me addicted to Japanese junk food? You must be confusing me with another dashingly handsome fellow with an armload of goodies.

Taiyaki Pan! It was so hard not to buy this

And this guy. 

I would've gotten a better picture but we literally ran from one flight to the connector and barely made it

Have a lovely week all of you.
The light heart lives long~ <3 p="">

What I've Neglected

I should have named my blog "the Lazy Blogger" rather than its current (slightly awesome) title.
I thought about it actually, but there's probably some one else out there who already snatched up the title and blogs way more often than I.

I finally got around to downloading the pictures I took at Storm Con! Three cheers and all that for it only taking me right around a month to hook up my camera and external to LOR. (LOR is what I named my super rad tower computer... I did tell you that I built my own computer right? RIGHT?!)

Jex and I just got back from a totally awesome Sunshine trip. Which I will type up a post for before we leave day after tomorrow for SandLand again. I feel kinda lucky, I get to take 3 whole deep breaths before leaving this time.

Oh, and our car is on the fritz. Yeah. I'm not happy about that. It's a 2010, it shouldn't be falling apart yet! Today while in the middle of driving home the gas pedal just stopped working. Then I thought I could make it to the butcher, nope. About halfway there the engine just stopped. Thank GOD I was able to coast the car to a good out of the way spot. Silly me, I decided to try again, I was nearly to the butcher anyways. A third time the car simply forgot how to run properly, luckily, a few hundred feet uphill from a church parking lot.
I apparently need my meat, because I kept going to the butcher, made it there, and home again with no further incident.

This does not exactly bode well for the 300+ mile trip we have to take the day after tomorrow. At least we have roadside assistance, so if it really does die we won't be stranded for 8 hours or more in the middle of nowhere. *Knock on Wood*

Anyways, you came here for pictures or something.
There shall me more next time!!!

This is the StarTreck Battles game we played. Jex and I were Klingons and totally won by the skin of our teeth. It was pretty cool, I won a mug.

I just liked this image. Didn't play the game or anything.

 This is called a benny. A battle for Oz benny, you get to buy second chances and other cool stuff with it. 

Here's the game board we played on; really really fancy stuff. 

And photobombed. But that's me and Pheonix being pals and some loud young RPer. 

Pheonix and her character cards. 

One of the vendors decided to cosplay the last day

She's a fluttershy.

God is good, but don't dance in a small boat. 

Till next time my lovlies!

Lazy

So I have pictures from Storm Con!
But haven't loaded them to my computer yet. Because I'm lazy!
No not really, because I'm busy. Between the garden trying to completely die on me, wifey house hold stuff for the most messy dude ever (I love you hunny), and only being home 9 days out of any given month (this is probably why the garden is trying to die so hard) getting the pictures off the camera and into my tower isn't really high on my priority list.

Actually, I'm probably just lazy.

Storm Con was AWESOME. We played so many games. For three days we played as many table tops and board games as we could shove into 17 hours the first two days. We lost a little steam on the last day, but it was great!

Shadow Run, Savage Worlds, Iron Kingdoms, Myskatonic School for Girls, Garden Dice, Star Trek Battles, so many games. This is probably only half of what we played on the first day. I lost count pretty quickly.
Not only that but we met some super rad people. I'm really glad my first Con was a first year Con. I'm super stoked for next year.

Now this was a gaming Con, nothing to do with Comics and/or Anime. Though I would absolutely love to go to AWA (anime weekend Atlanta) at some point. I really admire people who can make really good costumes. And, lets face it, I've loved the anime style since I watched Sailor Moon a million years ago.

I even drew a couple of pictures of the adventures we were part of during Storm Con. However, I find that without a scanner I really don't like uploading my art. Maybe I'll get brave and finally post some of my comics to the blog that was supposed to house all my comics. *laughs*

Oh yes, the fleas. I told you I'd tell you how that was going.
Well the almighty internet sage known as the Google helped me find a lot of really interesting ideas on how to combat the fleas. I mixed baking soda and salt and brushed it into the carpet. It's supposed to dehydrate the fleas. Then you set up a cookie sheet with very soapy water, no bubbles *sadface*, beneath a night light and the fleas jump to the warmth and wet and drown screaming. So far it's worked pretty well. I've only gotten one new flea bite; they love my ankles. I'd have 6 or so new bites every day. Oh yeah, my ankles look baaaad. Anyways, we also gave in and bought Trifexis for the dog, so now she's a fluffy flea trap. The cat just got the regular stuff that keeps them off her.
So far, I'm winning!!!

Anyway, it's late and I'm rambling.

More random pictures!!! Bet'cha can't find me in this one.

Remember my lovlies, The light heart lives long.

I'm finally DONE!

I finished the Quilt Yo! Today!
*runs around whooping and hollering like a sugar infested toddler*
But no pictures yet. The recipient of said wondermus item reads my blog from time to time, and I want her and the babies to pull it out of the box with abject curious excitement. As soon as I get the 'yay I got your box' text I'll put up pictures of the little thing that took nearly 9 months to make.
Hand quilting is hard, yo.

That being said: I've decided to take a little break from quilting. I'm going to work on a steam punk jacket for a little bit instead. When I do start another quilt it will be for my little brother who just graduated highschool. *sniff* I can't believe he's 18! Where's my annoying 8 year old brother who broke all my shiz?

So... I just overheard a tiny bit of what my husband is watching on youtube (how do I know it's youtube? Because it's coming from his laptop.) and I'm pretty sure he's watching a zombie survival tutorial. *laughs* I love that man.

Oh. So our house is infested with fleas. They just showed up. Which sucks because we've been good about keeping flea stuff on the dog. I'm setting up traps and learning all kinds of things about how to get rid of the little vampiric pixies without chemicals (because my pets are stupid and will eat whatever I stick on the floor). I'll write about that adventure as it happens.

The next thing you'll probably hear about is StormCon. This weekend peoples! Wooooh!

And I leave you with a random picture.

God is good, but don't dance in a small boat. (^_^)

Me and my sister, half a lifetime ago.

Wedding Bells and River Tales

My friends just got married! Yaaaay!
I just got back for the festivities, sort of. We ended up staying the night with my brother in law because we decided not to drive an hour home after 10 pm. It's nice being able to make that decision, and just sleep. We don't get a lot of that in our lives.

Upcoming attractions in the life of Ashes and Jex include a trip to our first Con ever! Storm Con!
We figured if our first Con was also a First Year Con then it'd be doubly special. Right? Haha, no not really. It just turned out that way.
I'm thinking about going to Anime Weekend Atlanta at some point. But I really want to make a ridiculously awesome/silly costume and soak up the entire experience. Haven't had time for the costume thing this year.

Kinda convinced that my baby quilt will never be done. I keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and then having to go back and do a bazillion more stitches.

Oh and my pumpkin plants have EXPLODED! Really, they're taking up almost the entire garden now. I had to redirect them away from my herbs and lettuce. I'm so excited for Fall. I'm going to have a dozen pumpkins easily this year. YAAAAY!!!

Also I have pictures from the Kayaking trip a really cool elder couple took us on not too long ago.
Enjoy.

Jex in all his muscled glory

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily

Merrily

Merrily

not so merrily

Life is but a dream.

Then Jex decided to play with the filters on the camera, they're pretty awesome.

The Swinging Bridge

A tree root thing

The river just beyond the Swinging Bridge where everyone got tipped over

River!

Ashes on the Bridge with Kim and Mike

Jex deigning to let me take a picture with him

Mike on the Bridge

Oh hey... there are people...

The tree root thing again, this time with us

And this is us bailing out or kayaks so we can keep going

And me in a borrowed red hat