My sweet cousin introduced me to Closet Candy Boutique a couple years ago, and I loved my new clothes so much that I joined as an independent stylist nearly a year ago. I have had so much fun as a stylist, and I have enjoyed sharing these fabulous boutique items with my friends, but I have not mentioned this on my blog before now. I promise not to overwhelm you with CCB, but I do want to share one item tonight.
I posted this photo in my Facebook group, and they loved the dress, so I thought I should share it here as well. This dress is really cute and comfortable, perfect for spring, summer, and fall! I have worn it with sandals and with booties. The fit is relaxed and allows room for my hips. This See You Again Button Dress is available in olive and navy in sizes small to 1XL here. Let me know if you have questions about sizing.
Yesterday afternoon, I went outside to water the plants on our front porch and noticed blue butterflies. I have not seen these often, so I grabbed my camera to try to photograph them. They move very quickly! It is difficult to see the blue on the Pipevine Swallowtail from this angle, but there is a better shot further down.
Pipevine Swallowtail
I took over 70 photos and ended up with about 7 that were clear. It was extremely difficult to take a shot when a butterfly was still because they were constantly fluttering their wings and flitting from plant to plant.
Giant Swallowtail
The butterflies love this lantana. I have heard that lantana can be considered an invasive species, but we have three plants—one each of three varieties. We keep them trimmed and have not had problems with them propagating elsewhere.
Gulf Frittilary
The Gulf Frittilary does not move nearly as much or as quickly as the swallowtails, so it was easier to photograph.
Gulf Frittilary
Butterfly wings fascinate me. They are so thin that they are almost translucent, yet the top has a completely different pattern and coloring than the underside.
Pipevine Swallowtail
You can finally see the amazing blue color on the wings and tail of this butterfly. I hope to see more of these beautiful Pipevine Swallowtails.
Two Giant Swallowtails
Today, I just looked out the window and noticed several butterflies all over the lantana, so I took my good camera out again. There were at least five Giant Swallowtails at one point.
Giant Swallowtail
Again, I am amazed by the different colors and patterns on the opposite sides of their wings. These have some blue markings as well.
Three Giant Swallowtails
The butterfly in the foreground is a female. The black spot on the third yellow oval from the wingtip is an identifying characteristic.
Giant Swallowtail
Can we also appreciate the variety in these lantana blooms? This is all one plant, but some of the flowers are only red while others are red and yellow-orange.
Female Giant Swallowtail
Another black spot on the third yellow oval from the wingtip means this is another female, or it could be the same one. They were moving around so quickly that I have no way of knowing which ones I photographed multiple times.
Giant Swallowtail
This is probably my favorite shot. It is one of the clearest and shows so much detail.
Female Giant Swallowtail
See the orange and black eyespots on the inner edges of the hindwings? I wonder if they scare away predators. These butterflies move so quickly that I have a hard time believing anything could catch them.
I was watering the plants on our front porch this morning when I noticed an orange butterfly fluttering around the flower beds.
I usually snap photos with my phone, but this particular butterfly was moving around too quickly to get a clear photo, so I grabbed my Canon. I really should use it more often.
At first, I thought this was a monarch, but then I realized the markings were different.
A little research online led me to the correct identification of this Gulf Fritillary.
I love all the details—the white dots on the underside of the wings, the white stripes on the underside of the body, the black outlines on the wings.
It amazes me how so many Gulf Fritillaries can look so much alike, but I suppose most insects look like all the others of their species.
I am thankful that God did not choose to make all humans look the same. Even within families, we are each unique.
I am sure if I looked closely enough, I could find differences between two butterflies in the same species. Even so, I am grateful that God created many different species of butterflies.
Late spring two years ago, I purchased a small aloe vera plant at Home Depot. Since my kids and I spend a lot of time outdoors, I thought it would be a good idea to have a plant on hand that could provide natural relief for sunburned skin. I ensure that my kids and I use sunscreen, but it does not always hold up to prolonged swimming or sweating while working in the yard.
It was such a tiny plant when I bought it in 2019!
I put the plant on my back patio that first summer and was surprised how quickly it grew. I did not think to take any photos of it because I was not expecting it to grow so much. We had a mild winter that year, and I think I left the plant outside. I might have placed it in my garage to keep it a little warmer, but I did not bring it in the house. By springtime, it had grown enough to need a larger pot, so I transplanted it to a pot that was actually too big. I read after the fact that aloe vera plants like to be crowded in their pots. My plant survived though and began to flourish.
May 2020 (to the right of the stone column)
I placed the aloe vera on my front porch where it could get plenty of sun. During the hottest and driest part of the summer, I had to strategically place the plant where it would get sun but not get scorched by the Texas heat in the late afternoon/evening. My aloe vera had a couple of pups or offshoots, which I dug out of the big pot and planted in small pots.
May 2020 (bottom left corner)
One of the pups did well, but the other turned red and did not look like it was going to survive. After that, I let the soil get completely dry between waterings and watered sparingly, and both pups survived although one is considerably smaller. I planted the larger pup in the same pot the original plant came in. It is now about the same size as the original plant was when I bought it. The smaller pup is in a tiny pot I received from a student many years ago.
February 2021February 2021
I brought all three pots inside my house once the temperatures were dropping below 55 degrees at night and have kept them inside all winter. The two smaller ones have soaked up artificial light and some indirect sunlight while sitting on my kitchen counter all winter. The original plant is now so large it had to be placed on the floor in my dining room.
February 2021
I have had it sitting near the window all winter, but I moved it a couple feet away from the window when we had freezing temperatures. It only gets late afternoon sunlight in this room, but that has not hindered its growth. I am amazed at how quickly this plant has grown and reproduced over the last nine months.
I think this plant is beautiful. I love how the leaves grow in an alternate arrangement. I need to cut some of the old leaves off, but we have not had any burns lately, and I would hate to waste the gel. I have done some research on other uses for the gel. While I am not ready to ingest the juice, I may try using the gel as a moisturizer for my face and/or body, but I seem to recall it feeling sticky. One website said to drain off the juice before harvesting the gel, so I will try that soon.
My plant has several new pups that need to be transplanted to their own pots soon. I read online that the pups should be removed and left out to dry for at least 24 hours before repotting and then not watered for a few days. Last summer, I removed the pups, potted them, and watered them in the same day, so that may explain why one did poorly. I will try the correct method soon. Once they are established, they will need new homes. Obviously, we do not need more than one plant for our family. If you are local, let me know if you would like a free aloe vera plant in a few months.
I noticed while looking at these photos that all of the pups have spotted leaves while the mature plant leaves have no spots. I wondered why this would be because I had read about Aloe vera var. chinensis having spots even as a mature plant. Further research leads me to believe my plant is the Aloe vera barbadensis var. miller, whose leaves have spots as baby plants but lose their spots as they mature. This type of aloe is edible, and its leaves are much thicker and provide more gel than the non-edible variety. I doubt I will ever drink aloe juice, but I am glad to know I have plenty of gel for any skin irritations that may arise this summer. I read today that the gel may help clear up acne and can be used to soothe bug bites in addition to sunburns. If you are local and want a mature leaf, you are welcome to it.
Maybe I am a little crazy, but I love running in the snow. I own a treadmill, so I could have run inside this morning, but I had to go for one last run in the snow before it completely melts. I even wore my snowy polar bear headband on this beautiful, sunny morning.
The roads in my small neighborhood are still mostly covered in packed snow. There are a few areas that are clear and many areas that are slushy. I do not like running where the slushy snow is so wet that it splashes cold water on my ankles, so I move all over the road to run on the frozen areas. Thankfully, there were no vehicles on the roads this morning.
I only ran one mile this morning because of the wet slush. I could feel my shoes soaking up water and did not want my socks to get wet. Wet socks usually result in blisters, and they make my feet cold too.
I enjoyed a quick sunset run yesterday evening. The roads were very slushy, so it was a bit wet for my liking, but I wanted to see if the highways were clear. Only the neighborhood roads were still covered in snow and slush.
I always stop to look at the creek, especially the last few days. It was covered in ice a few days ago. Now it is milky white. Does anyone know why that is?
I could not run in the snow confidently without my YakTrax. I am so glad that I purchased these a few months ago for our trip to Illinois. I still can not believe I was able to wear them in Texas for a few runs.
I have continued my run streak through all the craziness of the last week. I have now completed 210 days of consecutive running. My goal was to complete a year, but a woman in one of my online running groups recently had to end her streak on day 999 due to an injury, so now I would like to reach 1,000 days. I will have to stay injury-free, but my new Bondi Band sums up my attitude towards running.
Do you enjoy getting out in the snow? If you run, what is your favorite running weather?
It has been a crazy week here in Texas, but I am counting my blessings today. I am thankful for a warm home with running water. I am thankful that I was already working remotely before winter weather kept my kids home for a week. I am thankful that we had a fully-stocked pantry and two refrigerators, since our roads are still too treacherous for me to venture out. I am thankful for peace and relative quiet in my home. I am thankful for puzzles. I am thankful for a fireplace and a supply of firewood. There are so many things I am thankful for today. So much could have gone wrong this week, but God protected this single mama from having to do much more than use a blow dryer to heat some frozen hot water pipes and shovel some snow. I do need to go out and clear an ice dam when I finish this though.
I can not remember ever seeing our entire roof covered in snow. The girls helped me shovel snow away from the gate, so it would open all the way. I made large batches of juice this week to avoid washing the juicer multiple times. I am running low on fresh produce. My little people keep eating the fruit. I have enough vegetables left for one more juice tomorrow. The roads should be clear by Saturday to try to find more fresh produce. Stores are running low on groceries around here. We received this puzzle in a Christmas gift exchange, and Sissy helped me put it together this week. What a beautiful view from my front porch!The fire provided a lot of warmth for the living room, so we were able to lower the thermostats in the house. I set up an air mattress for these two, and they hung out by the fire all day and slept on it for a few nights. They thought we were just having a never-ending slumber party. I am so thankful that they get along well most of the time. I told Little Sister to throw some snow in the air for a photo. I did not notice until I looked at the photo later that she had jumped. Sissy loves the powdery snow. So much fun to play in! It is not so good for building snowmen or packing snowballs though. The creek in our neighborhood is mostly frozen. Crazy people have been walking on the ice. So dangerous!I went for a run in the snow today. It was amazing! The roads in our neighborhood are completely covered in snow, but it is packed pretty well. I refuse to drive on them though. This is where one of our neighborhood roads meets a highway. Whatever we need can wait until that melts. I can run on this thanks to my YakTrax, but I will not try to drive on it. My Zyia leggings kept me warm, and my YakTrax helped me keep my footing. I never thought I would be using these in Texas. I ran two miles and had to remove my jacket halfway through my run. I always dress in layers when running in the cold.
Yesterday morning, I drank the last of my fruit juice from Monday, so I decided to make some more today. I used all the romaine yesterday, so I added a couple of small cucumbers and a few carrots. I also noticed the mangos were ripe, so I threw those in as well.
This combination was a little less sweet than the last fruit juice, probably because Big Sister ate half of the pineapple, so I had less to use for the juice. It still tasted delicious, and the younger girls approved. They drank quite a bit out of their new cups that were a birthday/Valentine’s gift from their special friend.
I know Sissy is taller than her twin sister, but I think this photo exaggerates the height difference. Little Sister is not standing up straight and is slightly further away from the camera. After seeing this photo, I measured all of my kids because July was the last time I had marked their heights on our growth chart board. I usually measure all my kids around Big Sister’s birthday in the summer and around the other three birthdays in the winter. Sometimes, I remember to measure at the beginning and end of their school year, but I am not as consistent with that.
The twins are actually less than 2.5 inches apart in height, with each of them having grown just over an inch since July. Big Sister has had a huge growth spurt, growing nearly four inches since this time last year and over two inches since July! Big Brother has finally slowed down on his growth (just over a half inch since July), but he has almost reached the six-foot mark. They are all getting so big!
I received this USA scratch off map two years ago for Christmas or my birthday, but I was not sure what I wanted to do with it. I am in my early forties, so I had visited half of the states prior to receiving this gift. I could not decide if I should A) scratch off all the states I had already visited, B) scratch off only the states I visited after receiving the map, C) make it a family map and scratch off only the states I visited with my kids, or D) make it a couple’s map and scratch off only the states my soon-to-be-husband and I visit.
This map has been hanging above my desk, where I have been working remotely for months, so I see it all day every day. Yesterday, I finally decided to go with option A and make it my map and scratch off all the places I had visited. I had no idea what I was getting myself into!
This was much more work than I thought it would be when I started. If you have ever used a coin to scratch off a small area, this may seem like a simple task, but the gold layer was very thick and took a lot of elbow grease to remove. I started on the west coast and then moved to the east coast because those states are smaller. Then I scratched off an outline of all the states in the middle of the map. I worked on this in spurts throughout the day, but it took a few hours for me to finish. My index finger is still sore today from using the small, metal scratch-off tool for so long. Maybe I should have chosen one of my other options, which would have required much less scratching!
I saved the best state for last. Just kidding, but you have to admit that Texas has a pretty cool shape. I mean what other state has waffle makers in the shape of their state in hotels across their state? Honestly, I saved Texas for last because it was so large. I think it took me 30 minutes just to scratch off this one state.
I am not completely happy with how it turned out. The first states I worked on look better than that middle section. My hand was tired and achy, and I was ready to be done, so I scratched too quickly and tore the paper in a few places. I also made indentations that prevented me from removing all of the gold in some places. I should have been more patient and taken several days to work on this, but it is not easy for me to reach the map above my desk, and I did not want to leave it down where it could get damaged.
I love this visual reminder of where I have traveled. I also enjoy being able to see areas of the country that I have neglected. There are so many places I want to visit, and I hope to scratch off all 50 states in my lifetime (bucket list). I would also love to run a race in every state, but I may be getting a late start on that. I would settle for just running in each state, but that would still require a lot of traveling. I have only run in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Texas so far.
The majority of my bucket list items involve visiting or running in locations I have yet to visit. What is on your bucket list?
When I told my fiancé that I had started juicing again, he said the word “juice” as a multi-syllable word as spoken in Encino Man. I am fairly certain I watched the movie as a child, but I did not remember that scene, so I just found it on YouTube and laughed out loud. Click on the link if you want to view a little cheesy 90’s humor.
Last week, I posted about juicing for the first time in years. I have enjoyed fresh juice almost every day since then. I skipped Saturday because I was only home for a short time. I rediscovered some old juice recipes yesterday and bought more fresh produce. I also decided to make extra each time I juice instead of juicing twice a day. I know it is best to drink fresh juice right away, but I really dislike hand-washing anything, and juicers have so many parts to clean.
When I juiced Thursday evening, I made enough for me to drink Friday morning before we headed out of town for a funeral. I had some cucumbers and strawberries that needed to be used before they went bad. I had never tried this particular combination, but it turned out well. I loved the hint of strawberries in the juice.
Sunday – vegetable juice (tomato, carrot, celery, ginger, parsley, spinach)
The vegetable crisper in my extra refrigerator was too cold for vegetables. My carrots had ice on them, and the celery went limp. I have adjusted the temperature settings, but I also made room in my kitchen refrigerator for all my fresh produce. I wanted to use all of the half-frozen carrots and celery, so I made vegetable juice yesterday. It was not pretty—very thick and dark green—but it tasted fine. If I make it again, I will use less parsley and spinach and more carrots. This amount of produce made a lot of juice. I was able to drink 16 ounces early in the afternoon and another 16 ounces with dinner.
This morning, I made a delicious blend of juices and have already enjoyed two 12-16 ounce servings. I still have 32 ounces left! I am trying not to drink it all in one day because this juice has to contain a lot of calories with all of those sweet fruits. I may need to hide this juice from my kids if I hope to save any for tomorrow.
This has to be the prettiest juice I have made thus far. I like to store extra juice in glass jars because they have lids that seal nicely. That makes it easy to shake the juice to mix it up before drinking later.
Several years ago, I heard about the benefits of juicing and bought a centrifugal juicer. I made juice almost every morning. My twins loved trying my juice creations as long as the juice contained a little sweetness from an apple. We live within walking distance of my kids’ grandparents, and I would make extra to give to their grandmother. She was more adventurous and would try all the juices regardless of color or flavor.
When I wanted to start adding spinach and romaine to my juice, I realized a centrifugal juicer would not extract much if anything from the leaves. After much research, I decided on a new masticating juicer and waited on my family to buy it for me for Mother’s Day because masticating juicers are expensive. However, they are worth the price because they extract much more juice from the produce, and I no longer had to chop and peel everything.
Breakfast: 2 carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1 orange, 2 small apples, 1 cucumber, some spinach leaves
A few months after I received the new juicer, I started working outside the home and had no time to make juice, so my poor juicer has been sitting in a cabinet for a few years, only making an appearance every now and then for special occasions. Since I work remotely now, I decided last week that I would start juicing again today, and I purchased fresh produce over the weekend. I had to rinse the dust off the juicer this morning, but it worked like a champ, and I had fresh juice in less than 15 minutes.
I had forgotten how different fresh juice tastes, and I love being able to change the flavor by mixing up the ingredients. I am planning to drink at least one glass of fresh juice a day for the next month to see if it helps with weight loss and skin tone.
What is your favorite juice recipe? Why do you juice? What new fruits and veggies should I try?
Chronicling Chaos 