She Makes the Best of What's Around

Took a Big 5 Personality inventory yesterday. So apparently I am a pretty balanced person. I agree with what it assesses as my most marked personality qualities: agreeableness, stability, & intellect. I think probably I should score even slightly lower on conscientiousness, though. I really am very disorganized, but perhaps the fact that I’m not out-of-control impulsive really made the difference there. I was talking to my friend Tashina about it (oh she of the DNP in mental health) and told her I think that I am NATURALLY quite disorganized & fairly impulsive, but because of the way these inventories work, they often ask about your BEHAVIOR. I have trained myself quite rigorously to avoid the disorganized/impulsive behaviors because they make my career much more difficult, so there is a difference now between my nature & the way I actually behave.

Much fun yesterday shopping & generally being out & about! We all went out to eat at a “new burger place” that neither of my in-laws could remember the name of. They knew the general location & described it to me, so I went on Google Maps and found that it was...Shake Shack!! I was so excited. I’ve seen so many rave reviews of it online and I’d wanted to try it for a while, but of course nothing ever comes to Arkansas until it’s well & truly mainstream. It was actually very delicious; best fast casual burger I’ve ever had for sure. I did not try an eponymous shake. I did get some raspberry ginger lemonade which was A+++. Kick you RIGHT in the face lemon flavor!


On our way out, we saw a cupcake ATM! We did not get a cupcake. We did get a cookie.

After this I went shopping with my mom-in-law & got some clothes! Four new spaghetti strap camisoles & cardigans to mix & match (which have been a mainstay of my wardrobe since the early 2000s), 2 pairs of crop jeans a bit longer than capri length, and a very cool t-shirt I wish they’d had in a wider range of colors because it was SO COMFY. I went with the gray one but maybe should’ve gotten the black one too. I gave the red with cream stripes some thought, but ultimately didn’t go for it. I did notice that other than the gray t-shirt, everything I got yesterday was either red or blue! I guess I have a theme this summer.

Bryan & I went out for sushi for supper, then to LUSH, where I can spend WAY TOO MUCH MONEY. I kept it reasonable though. We got Bryan’s favorite shampoo bar (New! Is the actual name of it), Ocean Salt skin scrub, Mask of Magnaminty (my favorite mask of all time), a tea tree face treatment, and Imperialis moisturizer. I’ve also got a whole bag of Origins skin care for my birthday from my delightful in-laws. I LOOOVE skin care.

This morning Ganon & I were watching the garbage truck pick up the trash outside the house. The arm lifted up the first bin, emptied it, & put it back down. No problems. The 2nd bin, though...at the apex of the arm’s movement—fell right out of the arm into the garbage truck! Luckily it’s one of those garbage trucks that empties into a front container, then when it gets full, dumps the front container into the back container. So the worker was able to hop out & rescue the bin from the front compartment.

Well, after an unexpected but welcome extended stay in Frisco, we are home! We decided to stay through Father's Day. It's usually complicated to try & get to Dallas on those weekends so we took advantage.

We had a fabulous time on Saturday when we went to the Perot Museum of Nature & Science. Gotta remember in the future that they have reciprocal membership with the ATSC museums. If we'd had our Little Rock MoD cards, we could've gotten me, Ganon & Bryan in for free!

It was a VERY worthwhile museum trip. They had an entire hall dedicated to birds, much to Ganon's delight. When he found out about the bird hall, he barely had patience for anything else until we went to see it. He designed his own bird, flew around as an eagle, learned about different types of beaks being for different types of food, etc. My favorite part was the hall of minerals, where a zillion different minerals & gemstones were on display. It was ruined only by a presentation on the wonders, beneficial properties, & complete safety of fracking for natural gas. -_- After we left that presentation I pulled Ganon aside & gave him the 7 year old appropriate talk about how people will only tell you the GOOD things about something if they stand to make a great deal of money from it. Please note, this is a museum in Texas, specifically in the area of one of the largest natural gas shales in the US, and in a state that's quite used to oil money. *sigh* It's okay, though. It's an opportunity to teach Ganon to think critically. Parenting moment!



Skyline of Dallas, Texas from the museum itself.


My boys at a museum photo opportunity spot!


Two girls playing with an art installation. A tiny camera filmed you as you stood in front of it. It rendered you extremely low resolution so you'd be pixelated, and then the wooden tiles tilted to be more or less shadowed to create the image. Very intriguing.


Chompysaurus


Aquasaurus!


Amolite


The dark green mineral at top center is my favorite of the entire hall. It looks like green fire.


Galena? Or fossilized Borg cube?


I like the way they light many of these, leaving you with the sense that they glow from the interior.

Drove home on Monday. Bryan went to the doctor yesterday for his completely stopped up ears; he can't hear anything & has a huge problem in white noise situations. Turns out he has a middle ear infection, which is uncommon for adults. Poor guy. I think when his allergies went completely insane at Wakarusa, he ended up with a sinus infection which ended up as an ear infection. Yet another strike against camping if we do a festival next year. He's got antibiotics & steroids now.

We are now chilling out at home, doing laundry & things like that. We had been planning a trip to New Orleans, but given our extended stay in Dallas, I think we'd rather have a very chill, low-key vacation. Now we're considering staying up at our cabin in Hardy for a few days & making it a jumping off point for some other adventures, like exploring Mountain Home & seeing Blanchard Springs caverns & stuff like that. There will be LOTS of photos of that!