I am settling more and more into learning about local nature, native plants and animal species, and sustainability. Always been interested in the outdoors around me – but now, now it seems imperative that I DO something about this love. Is this what 48 looks like? I like it. I have lived in this neighborhood for 20 years, and see many of my neighbors that moved here the same time – meaning they are probably my age – still indulging in fast cars, loud parties, blaring music…I wonder if they are still caught up in trying to stay 21? I wonder what personal fulfillment means for other people. This neighborhood is one of those “starter” neighborhoods. An old trailer park was sold, dissembled, and turned into a new neighborhood. We were newlyweds searching for our new home. We had our children here. Some of the families moved on to other places. But most of us are still here. In the
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I bought a car yesterday
I am TERRIFIED of it. I started out looking at used cars on local sites like NextDoor, Craigslist, etc. Then I went looking at certified pre-owned. Then end of the season 2019 models. After 4 weeks of this madness. I drove over to a Kia dealership, found the PERFECT car for me. It is a model that works for my family, exact color I wanted, all the extra little bells and whistles that make a new car nice. It is the first NEW new car I have ever owned. Here is the list of cars I have owned: Cadillac Cimarron (lemon), Chevrolet Celebrity, Dodge Colt (lawsy, I HATED that one), Mazda B2200 pickup truck, Chevrolet Lumina, and my last beloved car – 2004 Honda Odyssey. It is so scary to own this new car. Why can’t I just enjoy my first new car? Because so many things can go wrong! I can wreck it. Some other idiot can run into
Discovery!
I am reading about “Health Promotion Model” in one of my RN-BSN classes. Idly, after reading this quote: “Research indicates that often the best predictor of behavior is the frequency of the same or a similar behavior in the past.”, I started co-relating it to my own habits. It made me think. I used to run 5K, 3x a week. What do I do now? Absolutely nothing. How long have I been out of the running? <—–yes, pun intended. About 4 years. 4 years. That is how long I have been a single mom. And the realization that I have gone from healthy, cardiovascular training to sitting on my butt in a leather recliner just hit me like the roll of belly fat I have been whining about for a year now. I have given up part of what I used to thoroughly enjoy as my “thing” in order to become both mom and dad for my children in this
Don’t wanna go to work tomorrow
I guess most of us are wishing we could stay home and write – or stay home and goof off. It’s 2240 and I’m binge watching The Office. My dog is lying here in front of the fire. I took a test tonight and passed with 95%. I would like to sit here in complete relaxation for at least two more hours…but the alarm clock will go off at 0540. The biggest yuck factor is that I work the next 3 days. For those that work 5 days a week that sounds so…. nice, right? Nah, I work 12 hour shifts at a hospital that is a 30 minute drive from the house. I am gone from 0600 to 2000, and usually spend at least one day off after a 3-in-a-row shift block sleeping. I know very few nurses that do not do the same. Bah. I need more money somehow. Let me go stick another 500 words onto my
Recipe bloggers
In 2006, when Ree Drummond started her Pioneer Woman blog, I was all gaga over the pics of every step, with comments and little stories thrown in. It was enchanting, and it worked well for her. She’s a bazillionaire now. For the rest of you, please stop. It is a new decade and there are a million copy-cat blogs – quite frankly, I now find it tedious looking for the recipe I am searching for. I want one recipe and one pic. I don’t want to scroll through pic after pic, and read story after story of why the brown sugar didn’t work but the toasted coconut sugar did. Stop. Just stop. The next time I google “star anise, green peas, rice”, I better get a dang recipe and not a soliloquy about your latest trip to India and a recipe down at the bottom of the page that doesn’t match what I want. Thank you. But that makes me
Dreams
I have considered myself a writer since I was very young. Yes, the dream was stifled in my teen years by the thoughtless student-teacher, but I have kept numerous journals and story starts here in my home. My children are all teenagers. I am a full-time nurse, single mother, with minimal assistance from the other party (who lives 900 miles away). I want to do so many things. So many dreams to explore. So far, I have managed to take the children on yearly beach vacations, and for the past 2 years, we have done smaller three-day weekends in the mountain range of our state. As the children get older and the support from the estranged gets smaller, I am finding it harder and harder to arrange for these trips. Yet these trips are the very thing we all look forward to – our THING. Therefore, my writing is now a public thing. This is my practice space, a way
Another writing assignment
First, let us analyze the assignment itself. For privacy, I will not actually post the actual assignment, but tell its requirements. We are required to interview an RN with MSN or higher degree with a preset list of questions. We are to take those questions and turn them into a 2-page, 500 word APA format essay. Under the “assignments” tab, we are given the rubric for the assignment. I used this same assignment instruction information for my last essay (the one I failed, remember?). Until I read the instructor’s comments in my failed paper, I used the posted assignment instructional document and the included rubric attached to that assignment. NOPE. The comment section of my failed paper informed me what the assignment requirements were, and that I should have read those in the announcements for that class, along with a sample paper that was a good representation for the assignment. So, I go the announcements page listed on my class
Just like stores all across America
My Christmas cactus has skipped Thanksgiving.
Successful day
So, I am participating in NaNoWriMo. It was actually a slow start, but the novel that has been living in my head is really starting to take off. This is the furthest a compulsive writing project has gone. Those characters in my head, how I love them! My hero, however, is still a grey smudge that hasn’t evolved yet. Who is he? I want him to be so many things: calm, steady, strong, solid, warm, fun, educated, open, chivalrous. Actually, I want him to be all of those things yet, I cannot seem to MAKE him be that. Where are his flaws? Currently, he still exists as a faceless entity in the book. Perhaps he will reveal himself when I bring him into the next chapter. He was at his wife’s funeral when the heroine arrived at his home. His wife died in childbirth, giving birth to twins. He will welcome her into his home as an employee taking care
Criticism
By golly, my ego has taken such a blast from this unseen professor who resides somewhere in this world. I have no idea from where she comes, where she goes, nor have I known any of her writings other than the assignments listed on the college website. I have never gotten such negative feedback on any of my writing – ever. I am 50/50 over this feedback. Half of it is helpful and the other half – does she smoke crack? Push on. Push on. All I could think of tonight as I was driving, was that one day, one day I will be a published author. Hopefully in multiples. And why on earth do I put so much store in what ONE person thinks? Won’t I get plenty of negative feedback in the form of publisher rejections and reader reviews? This is just my baby step.
