Tag: life

About Me

January 2024

Autumn

I’ve referenced this before, but the reason I was all but absent for most of 2023 was because there was a lot going on. I got my kids started on a new online school program, and while we’ve been very happy with it, we still had to adjust and figure out what the heck we were doing. It’s taken up an enormous amount of mental energy.

There was also a big 5000-mile road trip across the US with all of our kids. It went pretty well for the most part, with only one heart-stopping moment of our van dying at a gas station near the SC/NC border — but it turned out that the battery terminal had wiggled lose, so it was a quick and easy fix. Phew.

And my 16-year-old cat died. Two days afterwards I came down with one of the worst sinus infections that I’ve ever had in my entire life, and my sinuses still aren’t 100% recovered from it.

The cherry on top was that with everything going on, I forgot to hydrate adequately and got a small kidney stone. Such adventures!

Anyway, that’s enough of that. I could say a lot more, but I don’t want to sound all complain-y and negative. Let’s just say that if one of my future novels includes a wasp attack, it is 100% based on real life.

On the brighter side, I have put in a lot of effort to expand my culinary experiences, and have even tried my hand at sous vide!

I suppose that one of the perks about being a writer is that I tend to view the events of my life with a sort of detached amusement after all is said and done. Don’t get me wrong, I struggle through like any other person would, but eventually it comes to an end and I think to myself, “I could put that in a story.”

Unfortunately, I seem to be quite rusty with creating graphics for my blog. Like, wow, I used to do this all the time, and now it’s a little weird and confusing. Heck, I even looked at Canva to see if I could simplify the process (I currently use GIMP), but that site wanted me to pay to use anything remotely appealing, and I’m WAY too cheap for that. I’ll stick with open source, thank-you-very-much!

With so much of my energy going into my kids’ online school, I’m not anticipating being able to update more than once a week. However, I will announce that I currently have 25,000 words written for a new novel, so pretty soon here I’ll start posting that. You know, when I get my graphics figured out, lol.

Always let something petty stop you from following through! It’s called procrastination. 🤣

About Me

Journal

Autumn

In terms of my personal life, we’ve been stuck in a streak of bad luck for awhile. The water heater broke and had to be replaced, we went on a hike and got attacked by wasps, car trouble to spare … plenty of big stuff mixed in with tiny tragedies. Enough that there hasn’t been a moment to stop and breathe.

This year I decided to sign my kids up for an online charter school, and we’re making the adjustment. It’s got more structure than what we were doing with our homeschooling before, but it’s still self-paced and interest-driven, and shouldn’t be confused with “school at home” that a number of parents participated in during the pandemic (hur hur).

My five-year-old’s kindergarten class is basically playing on an app for 30 minutes a day to learn reading, math, and science. It’s pretty easy.

Anyway, my biggest reason for making the change is that it opened up a lot of resources to us for no cost; for example, my 7-year-old received a STEM circuitry kit for one of his classes, and so far it’s his absolute favorite subject.

And apparently, there’s a Minecraft Education Edition.

Hopefully once we get settled into our new routine, we won’t have any more time to deal with bad luck. Right? HA HA!

At the very least, a lot of the plumbing was updated, the cars have been given an enormous amount of TLC, and we know to stay away from logs while out in nature. It’s been a season of personal growth, that’s for sure.

Stable Diffusion XL
About Me

Snow and more snow

Autumn

This is the winter than never ends …

So, I’ve become even more of a space cadet now that I’ve taken to spending each day waiting for the snow to stop falling. Is there such a thing as sunlight and warmth? I don’t know. Maybe it was all a dream …

Returning to seriousness, I’m beginning to suffer from a sense of guilt. I enjoy my Spring Cleaning routine of opening windows and chasing the stuffy winter air out of the house, yet here we are in April and I have yet to scrub down anything. The rugs need to be shampooed. The car could use a thorough vacuuming. I feel so lazy.

But I can’t exactly drag the shopvac out into the snow, now can I.

Don’t mind me while I wilt over here. I’m sure that Spring will come eventually.

Or the world is in for a lot of trouble.

XD

About Me

Online

Autumn

Technical difficulties left us without internet for a few days. Naturally the kids complained, and I was all, “When I was your age, we didn’t have the internet at all.”

Cue feeling old.

I think my family got online around ’98 when I was 10, with dial up over the phone lines so no one could make or receive any calls while it was connected, which severely limited how much time we spent on the internet. Kind of crazy thinking back to how much the world has changed since then.

Anyway, it was kind of a spontaneous vacation. Got pancakes at IHOP, went to a craft store in person, spent time at our local indoor swimming pool, and roasted coffee beans over charcoal briquettes to see how it would taste, despite there still being snow on the ground.

Now here I am, not doing anything particularly useful because the internet is back. I question everything.

Sorry about not updating The Scions on Monday, but I didn’t get it set up before the technical difficulties started. With everything as it is, I figure that I can resume next week.

About Me

Cat update

Autumn

The 16-year-old dying cat is peeing on everything.

I’m resigned to simply dealing with it until the inevitable. I’ve told the children many times over that they need to keep the doors to their bedrooms shut to prevent the cat from peeing on their things as well. Naturally, they didn’t listen, and I’ve had to do some extra laundry loads as a result.

I’ve been keeping old towels on the floor in the kitchen, to encourage the cat to pee on them instead of anything else. Easier to manage. Somewhat works. We already have an easily accessible low-profile litter box for the three-legged cat, and at least he’s doing his other business in there.

Death is such a tricky subject, particularly with these slow moving conditions. We know the cat’s kidneys are failing, he occasionally throws up uric acid, but he’s on a (ridiculously expensive) specialized low-protein diet, and he does seem to be holding steady. I could be cleaning up cat pee and vomit for awhile.

Better than ‘died suddenly’. Please excuse the smell, we’re all coping with something over here. It’s still too wintery to bust out the spring cleaning supplies. Heavy snowstorms and all that. Maybe in March.

art

Turtles

Autumn

After I inflamed the tendons in my foot with sloppy treadling, I decided that I should mix up my yarn spinning by using a drop spindle every now and then. Eventually, I got a turkish drop spindle set.

Naturally I made a quick reference of video tutorials to ensure that I was winding the yarn on correctly to create a center-pull ball. I very quickly noticed that everyone was neatly lining up their yarn to make very neat “turtles” that visually look very neat. (Turtles are what they call the yarn balls that are woven around the cross sticks)

Context:

I’m an INTP. When I saw this video by Frank James about how the different personality types kill their relationships, my initial reaction was, “I would never go out in public wearing pajamas … but yeah, he’s spot on.” I’m not all that big on social presentation. I can’t remember the last time I wore makeup, and while I do clean house every day, I’m terrible at organization. I figure that I don’t have any room in my life for people who are going to be pissy about my house being full of children. There are toys everywhere. Deal with it.

So, when it comes to spending extra time making a temporary ball of yarn look pretty, I’m skeptical.

If there’s some other purpose, then I’m open to the idea. Does it tangle less when being unwound? Fits more yarn? I’m genuinely curious. I don’t mind spending the extra time if it somehow benefits me later — I’m just not going to do it purely for aesthetic. I’m waaay too INTP for that.

I almost asked about possible other benefits on one of the youtube tutorials, but was overcome with anxiety instead. Would my question be taken as an insult, and get me attacked and ridiculed? I daren’t say anything.

Which paints a depressing picture of how I’ve experienced socializing with other women.

Personality wise, I strongly prefer spinning wheels anyway. I’m only doing this to avoid aggravating the tendons in my foot again.

So I’ll just quietly do my own thing, and stay far away from those pretty little “turtles”.

About Me

Christmas Culture

Autumn

I grew up in the sort of community where the entire month of December was dedicated to giving and receiving Christmas goodies with the neighbors. Sometimes I miss the connection of having lots of people to share with, but these days I daren’t risk offending anyone by putting both gluten and sugar in the center of their awareness — I’d never hear the end of it.

Besides, the Mormons already dislike (hate?) me enormously, and giving out treats would only make it worse. I hold the honored distinction of having been lectured by them for being too old fashioned, and that was before I discovered the joys of spinning and weaving. It’s one of those situations where there’s no possible way of winning, so it’s better to pretend they don’t exist.

The culture I grew up in is dead.

Everyone was quick to trade it in for social media dieting trends, so it wasn’t worth that much to begin with.

I’m the sort that lives life on my own terms, so I don’t sit around feeling helpless over small things. I make plenty of Christmas desserts for ourselves, full of gluten, sugar, and fat — all of those naughty things people tut-tut over. We’re happy, and that’s what matters. (We’re also healthier and more energetic than those on restrictive diets, but we don’t talk about that)

I hope that my children grow up into a better world, but in the off-chance that it doesn’t improve, we’ll still have each other.

About Me

Winter Solstice

Autumn

Happy solstice everyone!

Yule is in full swing around here, and shall continue through January 1st. And, just like every other year, there’s a list of activities that I wanted to do, but didn’t have enough time to get around to, ha ha. Such is life.

Maybe I’ll be able to sneak in making some hazelnut brittle and fudge somewhere. After all, that liminal week between Christmas and New Year is perfect for a variety of activities, especially for people like me who prefer to avoid crowds.

It always makes me a little sad when the festivities are over.

For now I’m cruising on coffee and sugar, going a little bit crazy, and having the time of my life.

I love holidays.

Photo by Jay Fauntleroy on Pexels.com

Byautumnrain.com

About Me

Countdown

Autumn

Here we are, inside the final countdown to Christmas.

And I am up to my eyeballs in sugar and hyperactive children.

I’ve been seeing an increasing number of blog posts and Christmas letters summarizing how the year has gone for others, so I asked myself, do I want to write about my own experiences?

No. No I don’t.

I will say that last night I watched a movie with my husband, snuggled under a soft blanket, with sleeping children, and a three-legged cat, so things could be worse.

I wish it would snow more. Watching big flakes drift lazily down outside the window is so cozy.

I might have enough time to try my hand at making fudge this year. How’s that for optimism?

byautumnrain.com

About Writing

Zombies

Autumn

I don’t lurk around the internet as much as I used to.

Truth is, I don’t think that the internet inherently brings out the worst in people. I think that it’s being used to manipulate people into awful behavior.

But anyway, I used to really love blogs and read a fair number of them. As a writer, I’m a bit of a voyeur when it comes to other people’s minds, and blogs were the perfect way to peer into a wide range of thoughts and lifestyles. My reading list ranged from the-Mormon-next-door to BDSM sex blogs … Maybe I shouldn’t admit to that, lol.

Several years ago, a woman I followed had a miscarriage. In the ensuing emotional fallout, she broke up with her boyfriend because he reminded her of their lost baby, wrote about how she was drifting aimlessly, and frequently referenced how unexpected and painful it had been.

Last year, someone else I followed also had a miscarriage. However, this time it was referenced as a short note explaining why they were taking time off, and they were back to their usual posts literally three days later. The miscarriage was never mentioned again.

Philosophically, I’m a vitalist. Our existence as living beings matters.

The woman, who’s entire world was shattered over the loss of her baby, was fundamentally alive. She experienced and expressed her pain in a way that made sense and was relatable as a human being. While I didn’t agree with all of her choices (her boyfriend sounded like one of those wonderful supportive sorts, and breaking up with him when he was similarly hurting seemed pointlessly destructive), I could at least understand why she made those choices.

But, the person last year who had a miscarriage came across more like a bot. Okay, so they didn’t want to air their private life on the internet, but … only three days offline? Since when is that an appropriate mourning period for a tragic loss?

Heck, when I had my own miscarriage, I dedicated an entire month to mourning, wallowing, and tantruming, and even that felt like I was putting my emotional recovery on the fast track. Heaven knows how long it would have taken if I hadn’t so singularly focused on it.

Three days is just sociopathic.

I don’t like the comparisons between then and now. I don’t like knowing that the virus for zombification is electronically transmitted through the internet.

I don’t like peeking into other people’s minds anymore.