An author's collection of thoughts and stories
It takes a lot of energy to maneuver five kids through various Halloween activities, so I decided to break up our celebrations into multiple days.
We made and decorated donuts, carved pumpkins, went trick-or-treating, played Animal Crossing, and ate way too much sugar.
I’m exhausted.
But it’s a good way to start the dark half of the year.
I’m married to a man who helps me wash vomit out of my hair.
❤ ❤ ❤
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I do this, morning sickness doesn’t get any easier to deal with.
I managed to stay active with exercising 2-3 times a week (yay!), but I also felt absolutely awful in the evenings (morning sickness is such a misnomer). You know, after the kids were in bed, during the time I usually spend on my stuff. So instead of doing my thing, I focused on not throwing up while feeling tired.
I’ve also been very existentially moody about the direction society has gone.
The other day I looked at a line of moms sitting with their faces glued to their phones, and I wished that they would look up to see the world in front of them. They could have watched what their kids were learning and chatted with each other, then left for home feeling happy and fulfilled, but instead they chose to be checked out and miss everything.
Just fricken’ look up already.
One day you are going to die, and the only memories you’ll have will be of staring at a screen. What a waste.
Anyway, I didn’t really feel like publicly complaining while I was dealing with morning sickness.
Of course, feeling better also means that I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with the housework, because even though my family has been very helpful, they aren’t an expecting mother full of nesting instincts, lol.
Not to mention, Halloween is coming up fast.
Three-year-old: Put fire on the candle.
Husband: That’s called lighting the candle.
Three-year-old, screaming: NOOOO! PUT FIRE ON THE CANDLE!!!
Just no changing some people’s minds.
XD
I like to think that he’s keeping my feet warm for me, and not just asking for food.
I sat down and read an entire book in two days.
It’s something that I haven’t done in years, but I like that I still have it in me to pull it off. I usually bounce from activity to activity, fulfilling an obligation here, stealing ten minutes there, trying to make the most of my day. I haven’t spent so much time on one activity in ages.
The funny thing is, as soon as I finished, I launched into an analysis of the author’s psychological problems. I couldn’t resist — the romance was so badly tacked on, it just screamed to be probed and dissected.
At some point, I decided to experience novels beyond what was written on the page. I try to see the authors behind the words, and can get a pretty good idea of what they’re like before I go searching for the bio. Unsurprisingly, the above author turned out to be divorced, and currently lives alone with two cats — which is probably why she failed at portraying romance effectively.
But otherwise, the story was very enjoyable. After all, I finished the book in two days.
That’s also why it can be so hard to share my writing with others, because it feels like I’m exposing huge portions of my insides to anyone who bothers to look. Guess why there’s a reoccurring theme about social outcasts? Obviously it’s because I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by a group of BFFs who love and support me. /sarcasm
As serious as I am about the craft of writing, I’m a flake about marketing. Big time flake. Heck, I worry that developing that part of my brain would hurt my artistic integrity, so it’s easy to shrug it off. My goal isn’t to become an entrepreneur.
Actually, there isn’t any real point to this post. I’m rambling.
Before 2020, I had been planning on some real-world marketing strategies to get my name out there as an author. Obviously when people started wearing gloves and hitting the hand sanitizer hard, I put those plans on the back burner. It still doesn’t feel like the time is right to engage with the real world yet, and I don’t want to fuss over stats on social media.
I don’t mind biding my time.
It’s nice to take a couple of days off for an indulgence, just because I felt like it.
I’ve been such a slacker lately.
I actually do have a reason for it, which I am keeping personal for the time being. I will say that the echoes between this year and 2011 are rather eerie.
When I decide I’ve had enough of being a hermit, I plan on re-releasing The Black Magus on Smashwords. I’m also undecided about whether I should put The Scion Suit on the back burner for awhile, or push ahead with finishing it. Though come to think of it, I’ve never put a project on hold before, so that probably answers that question. Besides, writing Hartmann should be fun, with him being so cavalier.
Once that’s finished, I’m going to start the sequel for BOTH The Black Magus and Alice and the Warden. A series of cheesy and highly contrived events cause Hackett and Ainmire to cross paths, and they form an everlasting friendship based on their mutual proclivity for younger women. LMAO.
Or something like that.
I never take myself too seriously.
Anyway, I also need to finish transcribing the Miranda and the Convict letters, which I have been procrastinating on horribly. Stuff to do, and all that jazz.
Not to mention, it’s that time of year for baking apple rolls and pumpkin cookies.
The family caught a cold this week. Just a regular, common cold, and I’m still chasing the one-year-old around the living room with a tissue.
I set up an air mattress in the living room and turned it into a camp out, which the kids thought was great. We watched a lot of movies, played a lot of video games, and drank an enormous amount of juice. My husband and I switched off who was in charge, based on who needed a nap the most desperately.
I like my life.
I like throwing a sick party with my children. I like wiping up little noses. I like having a husband I can rely on.
We live in a world where very few people can understand that. There’s a constant push for more more more. I’ve gotten so much criticism for not joining in the rat race, to the point where I don’t bother trying to talk to most others. What I have right now, is good enough to live for no matter what else the world throws at me.
And I don’t want to live in the sort of world where one-year-olds have no one to look after them when they’re sick.
I marked today on my calendar for personal reasons, knowing full well that nothing memorable was going to happen. Still, it had to be done.
Yesterday, another appliance died.
I’m in territory where I can’t just do a google search and find the answers. One of my biggest gripes about modern paganism is that all the sharp edges have been taken off — there’s no such thing as a bad omen anymore.
But in the real world, buildings burn, people die, fortunes are lost, love is broken, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
We’ve had four appliances die this year. Numerous signs revolving around blood. Both of my horse shoes fell from their door frames (where they had sat for a few years). All of my bundles of sage somehow ended up disintegrating where they were hung to dry. If you ask me, it all adds up to a boatload of shit speeding towards us from the horizon.
Last night I dreamed about a raven, but I highly doubt that it symbolizes getting a job interview.
For now, I make it through today, and the reason why I marked it as special.
I’ve decided that I need to stop keeping an eye on trends, considering the increasing number of things that are physically painful to know about. Honestly, the sort of terminology that is popular on the internet makes me want to say, “Uh huh. And did you come up with that before or after you ate Tide pods?”
No one with any intelligence or dignity would apply those sorts of words to themselves as a label. Ever.
Then again, I think that quite frequently when I go to the grocery store and see what people are wearing these days. A main characteristic of modern life is how far are you willing to degrade yourself to fit in. I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of people don’t have any limits.
And I don’t want to know about it.
I’ve also decided that there are some IRL people that I need to cut out of my life entirely. The situation is getting too fucked up and exploitative, so it needs to end. Not to mention, after a year and a half of no contact, I found myself simultaneously thinking, “Were they always this bad?” and, “I did not miss this!” So I have to work my way through the guilt of being a cold-hearted bitch, simply because I don’t want to be treated unfairly anymore.
In other recent events, there’s nothing quite like watching a building burn down to remember how meaningless and insubstantial materialism is. Everything can be lost in under an hour. Everything. So instead of wasting my time on empty pursuits, I’ve been playing Jingle Bells on the piano while the children dance and sing.
Memories last longer.
