Author: Sharell

If I won $1,000,000:

Pay off all of my family’s and my own debts and loans
Buy everyone in my family new cars and computers
Remodel my parent’s kitchen and finally get them a dishwasher!
Give enough money to my parents so they can retire
Get my dad a new Jacuzzi
Get Kori a sweet camera and lens, and money for school
Get the best health insurance for me, my family, and pets
Have Penny get another eye surgery
Let Robby build his dream fish aquarium
Random acts of kindness (giving care packages out to the homeless, donate to animal shelters)
Save a dog from a high kill shelter
Go on a shopping trip with my mom and sister
Go on a great vacation with my family
Go on a vacation with my friends
Buy the best painting supplies
Put some aside to have an awesome wedding someday
Get some new fun toys like a telescope, kayaks, cameras, and skis
Invest the rest for future fun and retirement

If I won $10,000,000:

All items from $1M and (or instead of if applicable)
Buy a house and decorate it, complete with an art studio with an awesome view
Let Robby, Kori, and my mom and dad pick out houses wherever they want
Set money aside for Casey’s medical school
Remodel my parent’s house in SB
Let my grandparents retire
Buy the house below Casey’s grandparent’s house in Lee Vining and let his grandfather knock it down!
Let my mom build her own dog park
Eat only the best, organic, healthy food
Donate to Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation, cancer research, sponsor children in Africa, donate supplies to fight malaria, do anything I can to raise the water level of Mono Lake.
Give presents to favorite past teachers
Go to a bunch of concerts and fancy dates with Casey
Save for my children’s education
Travel the world and do a lot of things on my bucket list

If I won $50,000,000:

All items from $10M and (or instead of if applicable)
Donate to wildlife conservation organizations
Buy a bunch of land and create a wildlife preserve
Donate to UC Davis and pay to remodel their Arboretum
Buy vacation homes all over the world
Give close family friends a large surprise gift

If I won $100,000,000:

All items from $50M and (or instead of if applicable)
Have my family buy vacation houses
Donate to animal shelters, medical research programs, and herpetology centers all over the world

Robby, Casey, and I came up with 3 blog post ideas and decided to each take a turn doing them. I am starting with posting a creative picture. It can be a neat picture you took, a unique self portrait, a picture you stylize in Photoshop-anything! I took this picture of myself holding Penny and had a bit of editing fun. It is overlaid with what else than the text from one of the final drafts of my turtle manuscript that is soon to be submitted to a scientific journal for publication!

Over the past few weeks, we have taken some senior pictures of Kori. We had a lot of fun running around town during the ‘golden hour’ before sunset to get these shots 🙂 Casey took the first 5 and I took the last 4. I can’t believe she is a senior already! How did that happen?! ♥ You Kori!

Do you guys have a favorite?!

We hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween!

Where did these 3 black cats come from?!

Robby made up his own set of 20 fill in the blank questions so I am going to do those as well! Head on over and check out Robby’s blog post to see his answers.

1. If I didn’t live in California, I would live in Oregon, Colorado, or Costa Rica.

2. I can’t swallow pills and I wish I could.

3. It amazes me how wasteful we are compared to other countries.

4. I don’t understand why people would poison pets on halloween.

5. I want to compete in an art show.

6. Shaycarl always makes me laugh.

7. Commercials with sick children make me super sad.

8. (One of) My favorite artists is Amy Giacomelli.

9. I lie to myself about the fact that I will get things checked off my to-do list TODAY.

10. The world needs more lizards.

11. The world needs less mosquitoes.

12. I would make a horrible physicist.

13. The most daring thing I’ve done recently was walk up a mountain trying to avoid poison oak.

14. My laptop could be greatly improved.

15. I learned this week about how important it is to have insurance.

16. Monkeys are divided into the New World and Old World monkeys; each of which is a monophyletic group, but their combination is not, since it excludes hominoids.

17. I like that my friends are crafty, mellow, and funny.

18. If I went back to 1700 I would teach people about nutrition.

19. Cats and coffee are overrated.

20. Crocs are underrated.

1. Whole milk and cheese are always in my grocery cart.

2. Mondays are CASTLE nights!

3. I will not run out of doggy potty bags for a long time.

4. Today at 11am I was training a cute dog to the DogWatch system.

5. My favorite band of the moment is Foster the People.

6. In the past week, the grossest thing that has happened to me is getting covered in baby puke.

7. I wish art supplies were less expensive.

8. This weekend I am going to be pulling a lot of wire through conduit.

9. The sound of water always relaxes me.

10. I haven’t been skiing in a long time.

11. I can’t wait for my turtle paper to finally be published in a scientific journal.

12. Someday I will have a kayak.

13. Taking off kneepads is a great feeling.

14. The last dinner I ate was tri tip, mashed potatoes, and corn!

15. One of my favorite fast food guilty pleasures is Jack n the Box curly fries.

16. I am wearing a blue dogwatch shirt.

17. The last things I bought were canned pumpkin, cream cheese, and dirt cake supplies.

18. Two things that made me smile today were the baby lizard I caught and this

19. I didn’t think I would have time to give penny a bath today, but I did!

20. Now it is time to go eat dinner!

What are your answers?!

1. Fitocracy

This is our newest favorite site. It turns fitness workouts into an online game. You can complete quests, get achievements, level up, and compete against your friends. You can even join groups and encourage fellow sweaty men and women. The idea is to get you addicted to fitness, and so far-it has been working! Everyday we log our activities and check to see who has more points. It is great for everyone-even if you do not go to a gym, you can get points for doing almost every physical activity you can think of! It is available right now through invite only, so let us know if you want one.

2. Swagbucks

I have been using this site for well over a year, it is completely legit, and I have earned over $400. On this site, you earn points for searching through the “Swagbucks” search engine instead of using one like google. Some other ways you can get points is for playing games, taking surveys, and watching short videos. Once you accumulate points, you can cash them in for prizes. They have many prize categories to choose from such as electronics, video games, and gift cards. One of the most popular prizes is the $5 Amazon gift card for only 450 swagbucks. I love getting gift cards for amazon and for paypal (who doesn’t like extra cash?). And the best part? It is all FREE, so why not?! If you want to try it out, you can sign up through my referral link here: Sharell’s Referral

3. Woot

This site puts up a new item for sale every single day at 12am central time at a special reduced price. The product can be anything-household items, toys, gadgets, electronics, the list goes on and on. We have purchased several times and love checking to see what the deal of the day is. It is a great place to get gifts as well!

4. Pinterest

Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. It lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. You can browse pinboards created by other people which is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. Pinterest is also invite only right now so let us know if you want in! Here are our profiles: Sharell’s Pinterest & Casey’s Pinterest

5. Etsy

Etsy is an e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items as well as art and craft supplies. These items cover a wide range including art, photography, clothing, jewelry, edibles, and bath & beauty products. Anyone can open an etsy shop and sell their handmade items. I can spend hours browsing this site and I even have my own painting shop: Sharell’s Etsy Shop

6. Google Maps

One of my favorite things to do while I’m perusing the internet is to travel the world. Unfortunately, I haven’t the funds to go in person–but with detailed terrain maps, street maps, and 360 degree street view in much of the US, I can at least get a taste for places I might like to visit in the future. And it’s also nice to be able to find where I am going (even when I am driving across the country [again]).

7. Wikipedia

In conjunction with my habitual Google Maps usage, the city-data website and forums contain a wealth of information about many of the interesting places I happen upon. With an impressive amount of statistics in the site’s main section, and personal anecdotes available via the written experiences of the forum’s members, you can begin to form an impression of even some of the smallest U.S. communities.

9. PubMed

Why bother relying wholly on the interpretations of so-called experts when you can just read the findings of studies of all things medically-related yourself, for free (not all articles may actually be free). However, it does take a certain amount of knowledge of the concepts and lingo to get meaningful answers for yourself. But this stuff is the real deal–ground zero, I suppose, for the dissemination of new discoveries wrought by the minds of our smartest researchers.

A sorry excuse for an internet forum. But somehow a truckload of hilarious and sometimes shockingly insightful discussion occurs there anyways.

(1-5 for Sharell, 6-10 for Casey)

What are your favorite websites?

I am going to give these guys a bite to eat before letting them go again. How cute are they?! My dad named the snake Barney and the lizard Dexter 🙂

Today we hiked through More Mesa for the first time. Penny loved running around on the bluffs and sticking her head down the holes. It was a beautiful sunny day and I even found a little gopher snake! It was a very fun trip 🙂

♥