Category: About Me

About Me

Personal Note

Autumn

This is the time of year when I typically slack off from writing and put more energy into holiday activities, but there’s a good chance that this year is going to be completely different. For starters, I have no interest in taking the kids out Christmas shopping.

I might get more into holiday baking, since I’ve always wanted to make one of those chocolate yule log cakes, but have always been too intimidated to try. Might as well give it a shot.

It’s hard to say what the next two months are going to look like, honestly.

Writing is my selfish activity. I love children — my kindergarten dream was to be a mom — but they scream a lot and make big messes. Writing is how I maintain my internal balance so I can deal. With the way the kids have been acting of late, I’m going to be doing a lot of dealing this winter. I’m gonna need as much balance as I can get.

And cake.

I have no clue if I’m going to be slacking off or not.

About Me

Piano Therapy

Autumn

Through happenstance, we ended up with a free piano.

My husband and I have been jokingly referring to it as the ‘biggest mistake of our adult lives’, since the children have been excitedly pounding on the keys every chance they get. My husband taught our 8-year-old how to play ‘Mary had a little lamb,’ I taught her ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, and we’ve been listening to her adorable little recitals several times a day ever since.

I can still slowly plink my way through simple songs, even though it’s been close to 20 years since I took lessons. At least I still remember how to read sheet music.

I’m wondering how feasible it is to fit in practice sessions every day when I have five children, a bunch of other hobbies and responsibilities, and the holidays are quickly approaching. But, at the same time, it feels wonderfully good to have my fingers dancing with the music.

Piano therapy.

Because it’s 2020.

(Seriously, things are getting weird around here).

So, this year I’ll be learning how to play Christmas carols.

About Me

Personal Note

Autumn

I got a million things to do.

At the end of the day, I consider myself to be an author and not a blogger. So when something’s gotta take a hit, it’s going to be my blogging instead of my fiction writing. I like to fantasize that all of my visitors are here to enjoy the fruits of my imagination rather than my incoherent babbling, and would prefer that I maintain my fiction updates.

Side note: I didn’t sleep last night.

Anyway, the gist is that I’m tired and busy and I don’t feel like blogging — I’d much rather spend my free time working on Alice and the Warden. And napping. I’m also having anxiety about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but we don’t need to get into that.

So, Alice and the Warden will continue to be updated every Monday.

But I’ll only check in when I feel like it.

About Me, Uncategorized

Natural Disaster

Autumn

This week, my family was blessed with the opportunity to participate in our local natural disaster! WOW!

Sarcasm!

The weather report issued a high wind warning, which we tend to take pretty seriously around here. Monday night I checked the warning to get an idea of what we were looking at, then we swept around the yard to get it ready before calling it a night.

After a few hours of fitful sleep and nightmares about the wind, I decided to get up at 5 AM (confession: strong winds terrify me). The windstorm had been as expected by that point, so I settled down on the couch to doze until the kids woke up.

At 6 AM, the wind suddenly picked up. A lot.

There were loud cracks and snaps as large branches broke. Out the window, I watched our picnic table flip onto its side and get pushed towards the fence. Then the power went out.

As I listened to the wind gusts, I got so scared that I woke the kids up and brought them down to the living room where it was safer, even though I knew the disruption would have them behaving like little monsters for the rest of the day.

At 7AM, it slowed down enough that we dared venture outside to look at the damage.

And we saw this:

The large pine tree in our front yard.

Thankfully, it fell straight along the fence line. Any other angle would have caused serious damage to either us or our neighbor. Eerily, it made hardly any sound when it fell.

Our power was out for two days.

I’d whine about it, but meh, we’re weirdos and it didn’t actually bother us that much. I liked the quiet, and it was nice to use the oil lamps and candles. We have a vintage gas oven, so I was even able to bake brownies while the power was out.

All told, it was considerably worse than the earthquake back in March.

More random destruction:

About Me

The Little Things

Autumn

My husband and I finally took a trip into the mountains for a ‘micro-cation’ last weekend. It lasted for about two hours grand total, but I got to feel a little chilly when the sun began to set, which was a wonderful break from dying in the heat.

Thankfully August doesn’t carry the same intensity as July. With luck, I’ll be back to feeling normal (whatever that is) in no time. Might even start braining again.

Though apparently I’m never going to get around to actually finishing this post, since its been sitting here for a few days now. Go figure.

So.

In news that absolutely no one cares about, I am nearly finished with knitting a skirt. This skirt. I started it two years ago, then put it down for a good long while (yarn burnout, lol) until I picked it back up as something to do while nursing the baby. It always amazes me how working a row or two every day really adds up, and I’m looking forward to having this skirt forever.

I came across the toddler’s swimsuit the other day. We bought it at the end of summer last year, because it was super cute and on clearance, and we were absolutely certain that we were going to have TONS of summer fun this year.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I felt bad, so a browsed online a bit for swimming pools, but I couldn’t bring myself to commit to any. I settled on getting a splash pad — a big one that can accommodate four kids screaming at each other. I’m half expecting it to be destroyed before next week is up.

My husband also got the battery in my laptop replaced, so now it doesn’t randomly die on me. Yay!

Plenty of mundane stuff going on. Nothing terribly philosophical, but it’s keeping me busy enough.

About Me

School Lunch

Autumn

We were part of the free lunch program with our school district this summer. Normally it’s not something I participate in since we’re homeschooling, but this year I figured it would help ease the burden of feeding the horde of monsters that fill my life, with having a new baby and all.

Honestly, we won’t be participating again.

While I appreciate the idea of nutritionally balanced, it functionally doesn’t mean much when the kids refuse to eat their whole grain oatmeal raisin bars. I mean, that’s really asking a lot of them.

ANYway, my main complaint is actually the fact that absolutely everything is ‘fat free’. Like, hey I really don’t approve of the assumptions that you’re making.

I, for one, do not believe that,”eating fat makes you fat,” I do not think that drinking 8 ounces of whole milk a day is going to cause childhood obesity. Maybe the insane amount of juice and soda pop that I’ve seen parents give to their kids, but not things like milk, ranch dressing, and mayonnaise.

I do, however, believe that fat is essential for physical development. I don’t appreciate feeling like I need to supplement meals that are supposed to be nutritionally balanced, because they go out of their way to eliminate such an important element.

And seriously, what sort of person actually thinks that children are going to wash down their whole grain oatmeal raisin bars with skim milk?

The end result has me feeling guilty about the amount of food we’ve thrown away, and I’m grateful that homeschooling is an option for us so my children aren’t stuck eating like that all year round.

 

About Me

Thistle

Autumn

Even my 6-foot tall thistle got et by bugs.

I know this probably makes me a weirdo (I totally am anyway), but thistles are one of my favorite plants. They look so mean, yet the purple flowers are exotic, and they get monstrously huge.

And even that wasn’t enough to save it.

Curse you, grasshoppers, curse you.