Tag: journal

About Me

Happy New Year

Autumn

Phew, still alive.

The kids recently watched The Emperor’s New Groove, so my husband and I decided that it would be fun to make spinach puffs for our New Years Eve party. I thought they were scrumptious, but the kids ate off the pastry and left the spinach mixture in the middle. *eyeroll* They really liked the cheese ball, at least.

Then ’round about 9pm, I started wondering if the kids really needed to stay up until midnight, or if I could get away with sending them to bed, lol. In the end, the one-year-old was the only one who fell asleep early.

And, of course, we kicked off 2022 with our traditional special breakfast.

For the moment, I’m in recovery mode. I’ve spent most of today lounging with yarn and knitting needles while the kids play video games and watch movies, and boy-oh-boy do I need the break.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that you enjoyed the holidays, and that the next twelve month bring plenty of amazing new adventures. 🙂

I need more wool socks. My feet are freezing.

About Me

Apocalypse

Autumn

Today I came across someone talking about their “pre post-apocalypse” hobbies.

It made me laugh, because I’ve talked about how useful my skills with sewing and knitting will be after the collapse of civilization.

How blase we’ve all become about the end of the world.

About Me

Life

Autumn

I’ve dun-gone killed my stats by not updating enough. XD

I suppose you can blame eccentricities, since I lost all interest in the world outside of my home, and busied myself with my own business. But creative sorts are supposed to be inexplicably weird and moody.

At this moment, Christmas is rapidly approaching, and I never really feel 100% ready for it; there’s always something on my to-do list that I never get around to. The kids are getting more ecstatic with every passing day, and managing the chaos gets more and more impossible.

I’m relieved that I don’t have to see any relatives this year either. It still bothers me that one of them declared my Christmas tree “ugly” after I laughingly described some of the homemade ornaments the kids have done — not because I think that there’s anything wrong with my decorations, but because she didn’t even have the decency to feign politeness. Or enough of a soul to realize that the point is for the memories, not narcissism.

Nope. Don’t miss it.

In other news, I have officially decided to put The Scion Suit on the back burner. I’m not emotionally on the same page anymore, so I’m giving it some time to simmer before I come back to it, rather than mechanically type out everything I had planned.

But don’t worry.

I’m not going to abandon it.

After all, if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s to finish what I start.

About Me

The Forbidden Chronicles – Christmas

Autumn

The year I left Christianity was the year I began to love Christmas.

Let’s face it, sitting around my grandma’s living room listening to someone read out of the Bible was the low point of Christmas Eve, especially when I was a child and wanted to run around playing with cousins that I hadn’t seen in awhile. When I was freed from the admonition to “keep Christ in Christmas,” the burden of guilt went with it. I no longer had to chastise myself for feeling empty every time I heard the nativity story.

You see, I never experienced Christianity the way everyone around me always said they did. There was no sense of love or comfort, no still small voices, and no answered prayers. Oh how hard I tried, and all I ever felt was a growing sense of hollowness.

That year, I began to enjoy Christmas for what it was, instead of feeling guilty for what I wasn’t.

Santa Claus and presents, homemade desserts galore, decorating a tree … It’s all wonderful fun, and makes for a fantastic celebration with loved ones during the darkest days of the year. It’s one of the best holidays we have, and I adore dedicating an entire month to it.

It reminds us how beautiful life can be.

Unfortunately, I never feel like I’m allowed to explain why I celebrate Christmas despite not being a Christian. I’m far too accustomed to receiving catty criticism every time I try to explain how I see the world, so I’ve learned keep the magic to myself.

But maybe if I share just a little bit, someone else will learn to see this holiday in the same way I do.

Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com
art

Christmas Stockings

Autumn

You ever have those moments where you type up an introductory paragraph, then decide that it sounds too formulated and generic?

Probably just me.

I’ve been wanting to make personalized Christmas stockings for my babies for *awhile*, but never got around to it. I realized that this is the last Christmas that all of my children are going to have single-digit ages, so I decided that this year is THE year.

And yes, I am aware that I’m not using Christmas-themed fabric.

Highlights include: using batting for the first time ever.

For some weird reason, most people are oblivious to the fact that not all sewing is equal. I specialize in making everyday dresses for women and girls, which has completely different criteria from, say, evening wear or lingerie. I have never done quilting before … and I’m not feeling remotely converted, lol.

Piecing the fabric together is simple enough (with squares, anyway), but OMG THAT BATTING. I purchased the “low loft” stuff, but it still seemed excessively thick, and it wanted to stick instead of letting me position it neatly.

At least I knew enough to use the walking foot that came with my sewing machine, which probably saved me a lot of grief with getting the layers sewn into place. I get the feeling that otherwise the batting would have instantly stretched out of shape, and turned the whole thing into a mess.

Next, the cuff, which is the personalized bit, so no sharing online.

About Me

Romance

Autumn

This month, my husband and I celebrate 12 years together.

It was one of those “love-at-first-sight” whirlwind romances that everyone insists is unrealistic and guaranteed to fail. Yet here we still are, and there’s no one else I’d rather go through the fall of civilization with. 😉

So…

Don’t let the critics and naysayers stop you from making your own destiny.

Video Games

Animal Crossing

Autumn

I know, I can be an epic nerd …

Modeling my custom designed dress
HEWO!
Spooooooky
AC introduced cooking, which is both fun and unnerving. This is the first critter I have ever killed in the game.

In other news, I’m tired. Ha ha.

About Me

Piano

Autumn

It’s been a little over a year since we got our piano, and I’m pleased to say that I have played it nearly every day since.

I like teaching myself a lot more than the structured lessons that I took as a kid. For starters, if I want to dedicate an entire month to classics like “Jingle Bells” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, I am completely at liberty to do so. I learn new songs when I want to, and replay my favorites when I’m in the mood for something familiar. Being completely free from any outside pressure has made it much easier to practice every day.

I think that’s one of those things that makes me weird — I CANNOT handle external pressure. Most everyone else that I’ve broached the topic with always says that they work better with a deadline, but I very much don’t.

I’m also much more patient with slowly plinking my way through new songs, and repeating them over (and over) until I’m more comfortable playing them. When I was young, I expected myself to start good and get better without much effort, and it was frustrating when that didn’t happen.

Not to mention, these days I have a couple of dancing toddlers accompanying me. What’s not to love about that?

About Writing

Embracing Romance: Breaking the Stigma Around Love Stories

Autumn

A few months ago I wondered if I should pull back on the romance label to help broaden the appeal of my writing, but recently I saw a youtube comment (on this year’s overtly capitalist re-imagining of Cinderella of all things) about how women are constantly attacked and shamed for liking romance.

I thought about my own personal experiences, how I was treated like I was too stupid to appreciate more sophisticated story lines, and how I was told repeatedly through my childhood and teenage years that I needed to settle on a career because no one was going to find me lovable. Not to mention, the frequent accusations of romance novels being nothing more than porn …

So I decided that the world needs to change. What I went through is messed up, and society needs to stop inflicting that on women and girls.

And I can’t change the world if I don’t own the fact that I write romance novels.

I love romance. I love deep emotional connections. I love happily ever afters.

This is a subject that I have researched and lived, and despite romance being considered a “stupid” genre, it takes an enormous amount of knowledge and skill to write emotionally engaging relationships that don’t fall flat.

A good romance novel is inspirational.

I’m not going to downplay the nature of the novels I write. I’ve already endured an enormous amount of criticism for being who I am, so there’s no reason to back down now.