Tag: life

About Me

AWOL

Autumn

This is the worst pregnancy brain I’ve ever experienced. I can’t remember being so forgetful before … har har.

To give me some credit, this is also the most children I’ve ever had, and between waking up early with the kids, trying to get quality time with my husband in the evening, and spending the night being pregnant, I’m probably not getting as much sleep as I need. Trust me, I’m trying, but for some reason everyone in my family loves me and wants to be with me. LOL.

So I’ve become horrendously absentminded with everything.

ANYway, as I’ve stated before, I’ve been planning on going AWOL while I prepare for my new baby, and with everything that’s happening ‘n all, it’s especially important for me to retreat right now. The last thing I need is to absorb all the stress and anxiety that’s going around right before I go into labor.

So, I won’t be on the internet for awhile.

I have a stash of yarn, a recipe book full of desserts, and a lawn chair with my name on it.

If only I could remember where I put the sunscreen.

About Me

Vacuums

Autumn

Long story short, there were some sparks and part of my vacuum melted. Uh oh.

With 4.8 kids, vacuuming is very much a daily chore, so I decided to meh it and buy a cheap one at Walmart to tie us over while we figure out what to do about repairs. At this point, I’m pretty certain I have some sort of curse in regards to vacuums, so I didn’t care enough to be picky when the darned thing is probably going to explode anyway.

I never go anywhere during the busy times, so it was life as usual when we set out at ten in the morning. We walked past a masked employee on our way into the store. I think she was counting people, but she didn’t say anything and hid off to the side. No awkward Walmart greetings.

It took some meandering to find the vacuum section. No one stopped us to interview us about our TV watching habits (or rather, lack thereof in our case).

I spent a moment wondering if I cared about the length of the power cord. Everyone who walked past gave us a wide berth, probably because of our horde of virus vectors freely releasing germs into the air with every breath. It was beautiful.

My husband and I came to a decision without having to constantly remind the kids to be considerate of others. I’m starting to wonder if a number of people were deliberately going out of their way to passive-aggressively treat my children like they were an inconvenience. It wouldn’t surprise me — I’ve gotten some pretty nasty criticisms over having kids, but I’m not at all sorry that I have single-handedly set women back 5000 years by choosing to give birth. I like these little people of mine, and it’s my life.

We picked up a couple more odds-n-ends, since we were already there and we had some space to think of them.

Self-checkout. I couldn’t tell the employees from the people who are just wearing masks, but no one came close anyway. Didn’t bag anything, because plastic bags are yucky.

Left without a single person asking to check our receipt.

Almost makes me want to go to Walmart more often. Almost. But I’m still bitter over Shopko closing.

And I’m back to vacuuming every day. It hasn’t exploded yet, but the curse still has plenty of time to kick in.

About Me

Easter, et al

Autumn

We survived Easter.

There’s about a million things happening this Spring, and throwing chocolate rabbits and jelly beans into the mix resulted in absolute pandemonium with the children. O. M. G.

But we miraculously survived.

Phew.

Naturally, the kids immediately started counting down the days until the NEXT EVENT, and I couldn’t help but groan inside. Better than sitting around bored, but I wouldn’t mind slowing down the pace somewhat. Just give me enough time to catch up on the dishes? I can’t move very fast anymore.

Honestly, I’m rather enjoying lockdown. We got bored of movie theaters and the mall years ago, restaurants lost their appeal because the quality was going downhill, and public celebrations were unpleasant with all the people pushing my children out of the way to get a better shot on their phones. Not to mention, we discovered that ‘social distancing’ is a fantastic way of avoiding certain personality types without coming across as overtly rude.

It’s nice being able to breathe without everyone getting up in my business — and the grocery store is still only a few minutes away. Win-win!

I don’t expect the lockdown to end any time soon, so I might as well be open-minded and adaptable; it’s probably better to have the children climbing trees instead of playgrounds anyway.

I miss being the sort of person who straps a newborn to my chest then hikes up a mountain.

About Me

Personal Update

Autumn

I’m at the point in pregnancy where I want to sit on the couch all day, eating buttery brownies while watching the first season of ‘Call the Midwife’. But I’ve got, like, four other kids to take care of, and they’re always hungry. And heck, I’ve never been any good at sitting around to begin with.

I just wish I could get my back muscles to be more cooperative.

Since my energy is waning and I’m losing my ability to focus, I’ll be blogging even less. I’m planning on taking the months of May and June off entirely, and schedule up whatever I have written of Alice and the Warden during that time, which will hopefully see me through. While it thoroughly impresses me that some women can have a baby without missing a beat, I am definitely not one of them.

And honestly,

I know I don’t see the world the same way most people do. In a way it kind of hurts to watch everyone else share in a collective experience, while being the outsider with a totally different perspective. But that’s how it’s always been.

So really, the timing is working out perfectly for me.

About Me

Quarantine Life

Autumn

After a weekend of rampant indulgence, it’s back to the grindstone . . .

So, the world is what it is. Duh.

When the internet started throwing around the phrase, ‘Social Distancing,’ I was the sort who said, “Lol, what’s the difference?” I’m pretty much a certified homebody, I avoid crowds, and it’s not like I have any friends that I hang out with anyway. I’ve been practicing “social distancing” for the last ten years, though I prefer call it things like, “introversion,” “homesteading,” and “homeschooling.”

As it would turn out, there is a difference.

My plans to pickle beets were totally dashed when all the nearby grocery stores sold out of white vinegar. Bummer.

And I take a great deal of comfort in the fact that we have a healthy supply of fabric diaper wipes, in case our package of toilet paper runs out before the stores get restocked. Not that we’ve been fanatically checking, but should the need arise . . .

Positively speaking, I actually do appreciate that it’s gotten harder to slip into laziness — I feel obligated to make my own brownies, instead of using the “Meh, I’m tired,” excuse to buy chemically-laden, GMO-ridden, food substitutes that are vaguely chocolate flavored. I tend to do that too much.

Anyway.

I felt an irrational sense of umbrage when I saw a news article talking about how the latest Animal Crossing game is making a good distraction during the quarantine. I’ve been a huge fan of the series ever since the game first came out on the N64 clear back in 2001, and I’ve spent ages and ages counting down to the release date of New Horizons. Heck, I pre-ordered the game before this whole pandemic thing began. I am not some simple boredom buster — I AM A HARDCORE FAN.

And I feel like my nerdiness is going to get lost underneath the masses of people who can’t figure out how to have hobbies on their own.

Seriously.

About Me

Animal Crossing

Autumn

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released today.

So you’ll probably never hear from me again.

.

.

.

LOL JK!

But dang, I sure could use some time relaxing after how this last week turned out.

About Me

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Autumn

It’s my tradition to make an authentic Irish dinner every year for St. Patrick’s Day, but this year I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to find essential ingredients (like potatoes) with that whole, “the world has gone completely insane” thing.

To which my husband wittily replied, “Starvation is also very Irish.”

Ha ha ha.

But, through sheer heroism, my husband came through and managed to find everything on my list … except for barley.

I didn’t know people ate barley. I thought they were all gluten-free.

However, there wasn’t a single barley grain to be found anywhere.

So we’re substituting with farro. We’ll have to see how it turns out, but considering that it goes in the stew, I’m fairly certain it will be fine. Stew is forgiving. The kids will be too traumatized by the corned beef to notice anyway.

And St. Patty’s Day is still ON at our house! Oro!

No one’s invited. Social distancing, and all that. Can’t risk getting close enough to anyone to pinch them for not wearing green. LOL.

About Me

Spring Fever

Autumn

It’s that time of year when I have to take full advantage of every sunny day.

One of the perks of being a stay-at-home mom is that I no longer have to spend these days wistfully looking out of windows as Spring blossoms on the world; I just tell the kids to put their shoes on, and out we go. Sunshine is an essential nutrient for everyone, and we need to catch up after months of clouds. It’s a matter of health.

Of course, the streams and puddles of melting snow means that there’s mud everywhere, and the children are having a hay day.

I love opening the windows and cleaning out the stuffiness of winter.

I love listening to chirping birds, watching the tulips start to pop up from the ground, and the way the world returns to green.

Ah, Spring. So marvelous.

And endlessly beckoning me with a voice too strong to resist.

About Me

Even Moms

Autumn

I sat down to work on writing my story.

I had the 1.5-year-old solidly in my lap, flailing a balloon around and giggling.

The 8-year-old was listening to her favorite song on repeat.

The 4-year-old and 6-year-old were running around the darkened living room with a flashlight.

When all of a sudden it hit me that I was actually pulling it off.

Oh sure, my story wasn’t exactly progressing quickly, considering that I had to periodically move a balloon out of my face and all, but it was progressing. Despite all the chaos, I was actually getting some writing done.

And all I can feel is an awestruck sense of, “Wow.”

Once upon a time, I used to pray for the planets to align with nap times and quiet hours, then struggled with frustration when day after day refused to turn out the way I wanted it to. Finally, while my third was still a baby, I decided that I had enough and set my mind on writing Light Eternal, rain or shine.

That was late 2016. I finished the second draft a year later, then hung on to it for awhile out of indecision before officially publishing it in 2019. Phew.

In 2018 I had my fourth baby, and shortly afterwards started telling The Black Magus to myself during all the hours and hours and hours that I spent nursing. It wasn’t long before I figured out how to keep baby propped up on the pillow so I could write it down while the other children played video games. I am currently finishing the final proofread.

Some days, I have a harder time tuning out the noise and distractions, and having all the kids around probably isn’t helping me produce the highest quality of writing, but I have become a strong believer in persistence (and editing). It may take me forever to finish a novel, but progress is progress.

I’m blogging about this because I want other moms with small children to know that they can still have hobbies, without hiring a nanny or enlisting an army of babysitters. Guess what? You can still feel like a person with hopes and dreams, even with all the vacuuming and diaper changes.

You just need to find your zen, so to speak. Honestly evaluate what you’ve got to work with, and let go of the perfect scenarios that just aren’t going to happen. Find the spare time in between activities, and utilize it instead of killing it.

And I know: it’s hard. It took me eight years to get to this point, but I did it. Don’t ever give up.

Alice and the Warden

Alice and the Warden – 3

Autumn

Alice had met Damon when she was sixteen-years-old, and he had talked her into bed with him that night. Shortly afterwards, she dropped out of school to run away with him on his motorcycle, and somewhere along the road she lost her sense of self.

When Damon asked her to have sex with a friend to repay a favor, she did it. When he wanted leverage over someone, she became a seductress on his behalf. He taught her to steal, chose her clothing for her, and pushed her into drugs and alcohol. After four years, Alice had disappeared completely underneath Damon, to the point that when he asked her to confess to murder, she did it without hesitation.

Until the moment Alice found herself alone in the stall of a public restroom, staring down at the two lines of a nicked pregnancy test, too numb to feel her heart beat. It was then that the word ‘dignity’ had risen up sharply in her mind, spoken by that stupid, impotent warden she had vowed to hate just three weeks prior.

Dignity.

She still didn’t know what it meant, but she knew that if she told Damon he would insist on an abortion, and she wouldn’t argue against him. That wasn’t what she wanted, and she knew that it wasn’t dignified to be so blindly obedient to someone like Damon. There was no doubt that he was the father, but she couldn’t trust him with her baby.

She never told him.

A couple weeks later, they checked into a motel where Damon began to undress her as usual, but Alice didn’t have it in her to go through with it. She was more tired than she had thought possible, slightly nauseated from the pregnancy, and angry at Damon for using her too much. For the first time ever, she snapped at him to ‘fuck off,’ then for a terrifying second afterward thought that he was going to hit her in response.

Instead, he grabbed his bag and left.

When dawn broke in the morning, Alice awoke with the realization that he hadn’t returned. She waited, staring at the clock until the motel staff chased her out to prepare the room for the next guest, and she drifted to a nearby diner to continue her wait, knowing full well that he wasn’t coming back for her.

She had a $20 hidden in her bra, so she ordered blueberry pancakes with whipped cream to help make up for skimping on dinner the night before, and she ate slowly as she wondered about what she was going to do. Her mom wasn’t going to want her back in the state she was in – especially after four years of estrangement – and everyone she knew was exactly like Damon. She didn’t have any resources, but she couldn’t live in the gutter with a baby growing inside of her.

By chance, the small TV in the corner of the diner showed a mugshot of her with the words, “Wanted for questioning.” Alice stared, seeing herself for the first time. That girl, glowering at the camera with flamingo pink hair and far too much eyeliner really looked like the sort of person who would be involved in murder, even though Alice had never felt that way on the inside – she didn’t want to hurt anyone.

She dialed the phone number provided on the screen with her cellphone, then put her $20 on the table before slipping outside.

With nowhere to go, Alice turned herself in.

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