New Addictions! Lampworking & Programming!!

Everyday I get home from work I have only 2 things on my mind. Lampworking and programming. 

I love programming. I have very logical mind and I love to work out problems and solve all kinds of issues. All day I am just thinking on how I can improve my apps and what new features I can add. I really wish that I had more time to just dedicate myself to it. I am close to being done with a new version of THD. I said before that I would have a new version out a few months ago, however I ended up going into a completely different direction than I originally was. This new version is going to be so much better in so many ways and I just cant wait to complete and release it!

I also have other ideas for other apps as well that I am currently working on. In due time...

More so Lampworking... I absolutely love it!! I have been making so many things and really just trying to find my place in the world. I have been mostly making beads and implosion marbles. I am trying to perfect my flowers on both. I made some murinni as well and attempted some sculptures.

The murrini and the sculptures I do need a little more practice as well as my dot stacking techniques. Other than that I am having so much fun with all of this! There are so many possibilities with glass and it is really exciting to sit down in front of a torch and create something you would never think you would be able to make!!

 My very 1st Goddesss bead!! She is so hot!! I never really liked goddess beads. Why make a naked lady out of glass?? But I decided to go ahead and make her to practice some sculpting skills and wow!! I am in love!! I want to make more!!

 This Pansy turned out pretty great! I wish there were brighter shades of purple and pink available!! It needs a little more work and sparkle, so I will try again! I also need to work on not boiling my glass as I melt it.

Just a few of the flower marbles I have made. 

Made a little wrap bracelet out of a bunch of the beads I am happy with.

Blue and white flower marble. :) 

One of my favorites!

 A little tree bead!

A handful of marbles! 

Blue flower! Blue mushroom! 

A pair of hearts! One for me and one for my little lady! :) 

My Malcolm's first time on the torch! 

 Making a wave bead!

And last but not least here is some of the glass I have bought. Once you start... You will never want to stop! I love lampworking and jewelry making!

Container Garden 2016 - Seedlings & Things

Here are 2 quick videos of what I have growing (and what is not growing) so far this year. I started container gardening 2 years ago. Started with just herbs the 1st year and added a few veggies the 2nd. This year I want to do much more!

Majority of what I have planted have come up beautifully!!! The only thing that I have had a real problem with is the Cilantro. My cilantro I cant get to germinate and I cant get it to grow beyond seedlings when I can! I bought a plant but that will only last for so long before it bolts and goes to seed.

Other than that I had an issue with Aphids and white flies. Because of that I will be keeping the plants inside. I have been spraying with soapy water to combat them and I pruned the crap out of my mint just to get rid of the leaves that were infested with the white fly eggs. I ended up tossing out the brussel sprouts that I had been growing since last year because the aphids  that attacked it! It was disgusting!!

I think I have a handle on it now and I am checking everyday to make sure there are no new eggs. This year I am keeping a spray bottle of soapy water and baking soda on hand at all times to combat the bugs and powdery mildew. Hopefully it will not become an issue like last year.

So far I will be keeping everything indoors as well this year. I am debating on if I want to set up a raised bed in the backyard, but I don't want to deal with the bugs!! lol

I will be updating my worm bin situation soon. I have definitely overfilled it and it is smelling and the worms are eating the food slower than I think they should. I need to redo the environment and I have been stuffing more and more shredded paper in the bin to help it dry out more and more. I would like to do the flow through bin again but have yet to really master it. Last year I ended up with kind of a gnat infestation.... Eww!

I am also going to be making grow bags out of landscape fabric. I think grow bags will be a better option for me since I am doing all containers so far. I don't want my plants to not do well and get root bound from being in the hard plastic pots.

I also bought a few new seeds. I typically avoid determinate tomato plants because I don't like the idea that once they set the fruit they are done. I want them to continuously produce!! But I saw the Red Robin tomatoes that stay really small but produce a shit ton of tomatoes!!! The grow within 30-45 days!! So fast!!

I am really excited about growing those in particular!! I have so many other seeds that I haven't even tried and some that would do best outside. My sun room has turned into a major grow room and I am thinking of adding a lot more with grow lights as well to help them along just in case they are not getting enough sun.

My lettuce and peppermint are doing great so far and I am looking forward to seeing what I can get to grow this year. The seedlings that came up look promising so far and I am pretty excited for a productive season in the container garden!

So whats new??

Just a little update on my life and most of the things that I have going on at any point in time. :)

So many things, so little time!!

Its Earth Day!!!

Winter or lack of

I live in NY and the weather here has been crazy!! Warm and sunny one day, then cold and snowing the next!(LITERALLY!!) This year more than any other I feel like our effect on the environment has really displayed itself.

It would be great if people as a whole worked together to save the environment! But alas, human nature...

Gardening

My container garden is starting back up! Some of them survived the winter and as soon as it got warm the damn aphids that were hibernating came out and infested almost everything!!! I got rid of a few things because of that and planted some new seeds.

No computer

I have been using and fixing my Macbook Pro for 7 years now and she has finally had it!! She wouldn't turn on for weeks at a time and when she did, she would give me a really hard time. Due to this I was really frustrated. I couldn't do YouTube. I couldn't update The Hair Diary app. I couldn't do anything!

Work

Working full time and recently all I have been doing is going to work and coming home and binge watching quite a few shows that I have become a little addicted to.

To name a few: Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Blindspot, Grimm, Quanitco, The Walking Dead, Fear TWD, The Family, Gotham, and many more. Ok my addiction might be a little bigger than I thought.

Kids

The kids are doing great! Aside from attempting to motivate them to keep the house clean(and mostly failing) they are keeping up with the things they should be and being much more responsible than expected. Malcolm is a hot mess as usual.

Life

I always have a million and one things going on at once. As well as a million and one things running through my mind at any given time!!! I do feel like recently I have just wanted to slow it down a little..,. Although I have slowed down on a lot of the things I do online, my life has not slowed down what so ever!!

I have been adding some new things to my life recently so I doubt I will be slowing down any time soon!

Lampworking

I have been interested in this for years since I started making jewelry. I wanted to be able to make my own beads and things of that nature because the place I was buying from sold them in bulk in much lesser quality than I would have liked.

I took a class just to I guess wrap my head around it until I had the money for it and bought all of the equipment that I needed to get started a few months after and have been melting away ever since!

I also let my kids take a class to make beads themselves and they love it!

Art

I am an artist at heart. I love to draw, paint, and pretty much do anything that has to do with being creative!

Jewelry

With all of the beads I have been making recently I pulled out most of my jewelry making stuff and will definitely be making some new stuff as time goes on! :)

Vegetarian

I'm vegetarian!!! and I am trying to get my kids to follow suit!! I made a conscious effort to stop eating meat for several reasons. Mostly do to how the meat and food production industry is run. Those people are barbaric!!!!

Wannabe Vegan

Sometimes I eat vegan. Sometime I don't. What's the difference? No dairy(I love cheese!), no honey(yum!), no eggs(nom nom), no nothing that is produced from an animal. Period!

One day.... I am taking one step at a time!

Home Studio

I have been spending a lot of time setting up a work / jewelry / art studio at home. I have tons of equipment and tools that I have accumulated and am constantly gaining more. At the moment I do think I have more than enough and that I need to slow down on getting new stuff and start producing some things. In time....

New Computer Build

Since having no computer had set me back so far I saved up all my pennies and bought parts to put together my very own Hackintosh!! With help from TonyMac and a few YouTubers I was successful in building an awesome and powerful computer that I can do everything I need on! I just need a more comfortable chair!

Youtube

My YouTube channel hasn't been updated since I chopped off all my hair last year. It will be a full year next month and I will definitely be doing an update. I filmed my Hackintosh build and will be posting that on my BeautyandtheBabies channel.

I really want to start doing daily vlogs, but my kids are nuts! They are interested in doing them so maybe the next generation will be better at keeping up than I was.... LOL

The Hair Diary

Right now I am working on an entire revamp of the app!!! I am starting everything over from the ground up!! I let my apple developer account lapse so THD is not available for iPhone at the moment. It will be available once again as soon as I am done with the app. :)

Bringing it all back together

I have been working to bring it all back together once again! The app especially is the most important thing to me with everything that I am doing online and I have some other things that I am working on for the future as well.

Again, one step at a time!!

Getting work done (or not)

I have gotten a lot of distractions out of my life and am much more sane because of it. My focus right now is getting as much work done as I can!! I really want my mobile apps to help as many people as possible!!



So whats going on in your life??? :)

Container Garden Update 9/19/15 - Cucumber Demise

So the cucumbers are completely dead...
I ripped them out and gave the waste to the worms.

I thinned out the Basil really well. It needed to be thinned long time ago. Hopefully they will give me more growth.

I have a bunch of tomatoes growing which I am super excited about!

The lettuce is definitely on its way out. Not doing much of anything except dying... LoL

The red okra is hanging on... Leaves keep dropping... I pulled the other one because I am not sure if 2 in a pot will do very well, but we will see.

Everything else is doing pretty well. I added more soil to some of the pots to give the plants more stability. I need to add soil to the tomatoes but have not because of the basil in the pot. It is pretty low so I will have to pull those up to add the soil and then place them back.

I have sprouts popping up everywhere from the pots I added seeds to last week!!

And finally.. I added Sage and Everbearing Cucumbers to the pots I removed the dead cucumbers from. Interested in seeing how these cucumbers grow! The last did very well in putting out its first batch but the ones that came after were very lacking.

Starting Seeds - Cilantro & Tomatoes

I really want to grow cilantro in our container garden. I have had so much trouble with growing this among a few others. They always die or just never sprout. I read up and learned that it is best practice for better germination to soak and split the seeds. I definitely didn't know about this before, but lets see how well it works!

Even though I have 5 tomato plants growing I do want a different variety of tomato in our container garden. I decided to plant some Black Krim tomatoes, which are a dark brown/burgundy/purple color.

After the camera went off I decided to go ahead and plant some Red Cherry tomatoes as well. We eat them a lot and I think it will be great to have them readily available for salads an cooking.

I do also want to plant some Sage and just might do that in the container that has the tired cucumber in it. I do think that may need to come out... Soon.

The next day I decided that I really wanted some peppers as well. The ones I put in the sprouting tray didn't do anything. I wanted to try again. This time I used styrofoam cups so they will have a better germination rate and will transplant easily once they get big enough.

I'm going to cross my fingers and hope I get some or all to sprout!!

That will make me super happy!

I'm totally obsessing over gardening right now and I love it! I even started a compost pile in my Geobin for next year. Sage will probably be planted later tonight...