Gratitude List 20190702

Gratitude List:
1. dried mango
2. while decluttering I found a butterfly charm and elastic cord, so now I have an elastic book strap

3. my hair has grown back in - no more scalp superhighway when I part my hair
4. ostomy supply samples
5. using the Scunci brand jelly hair ties as a pen grip - so soft!
6. baked salmon for lunch...
7. fixed by a roommate
8. Beethoven while I work, thanks to the ...
9. CD drive on my computer at work, that's never used for anything else
10. My car's AC working quickly and well

Gratitude list 20190701

Gratitude List:
1. did a lot of tidying up and de-cluttering this weekend
2. peripheral neuoropathy is (slowly) getting better
3. I drank a lot of good tea in June
4. enjoying my short hair even while looking forward to it growing out again.
5. colostomy pouches with filters
6. Wake Co public library - IRL and download libraries :)
7. provolone cheese
8. having fun costume jewelry to wear
9. finding my copy of Gother Than Thou :)
10. feeling pretty decent after my first day back to work full time.

Gratitude List 20180827

Gratitude List:

1. finding the rest of my pretty, lightweight scarves
2. using last halloween's yarn spider web to hang/display the aforementioned scarves
3. writing in my bullet journal/commonplace book with brightly colored gel pens
4. picking up a huge pump bottle of really good body lotion for not a lot of money
5. working on my ideal knit washcloth (prototype 1 is done, prototype 2 in progress)


6. I made an earring holder from a large index card


7. ending my braid with a rag roller bow


8. Fancy lotion that makes me smell delicious
9. Lightspeed sf/f magazine
10. downloadable audiobooks from the library*

*If for some strange reason you don't have a library card, go get one! If you're in Wake county in NC, Click Here to get started

Five Things Make a Blog Post

Wow - it's been 6 months since I posted here? Welp, here's a list post :)

1. I am tickled about giving myself a cute, sparkly manicure.



About a month ago, I went to brunch and a nail salon with my belly-dance buddies. I got a gorgeous purple gel manicure, which has lasted beautifully. Other than my nails growing out, the polish looked great! The grow-out, not so much. I filled in the grow out with blue polish, covered it all in silver glitter, and used Seche Vite top coat. Not only does it look good (assuming you're into glitter, which I totally am), the Seche Vite dried all the polish in record time. I love it just for that! I plan to report back on how well the touch-up mani lasts.

2. I have all my lunches for next week cooked and ready to go - I can't remember the last time that's happened. No picture for this, because box lunches, while wonderful, are not photogenic.

3. My current La Croix flavored sparkling water obsession has nearly supplanted my Dr. Pepper obsession. It's certainly kept me hydrated while I've been totally uninterested in drinking water.

4. My sodium intake has stayed within goal most of the time. I continue to loathe keeping strict track of everything I eat, although the low sodium practice is getting easier otherwise. While Spark People does have the best nutrition tracker, I'm taking a break from using it. The site is very weight-loss focused, which is re-awakening every food and eating issue I have ever had.

5. I've been reading Body Respect by Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor. Is it, as the kids say these days, giving me life. This book is helping me re-evaluate my eating plan to something at least less hateful, and maybe even something enjoyable :)

Bonus Gratitude List:

1. Apricot La Croix!
2. sparkly fingernails
3. roommates who do the grocery shopping and cook dinners
4. todoist - when I actually use it, it's a huge help to keeping on top of things
5. that medications exist to keep my cardiovascular system from killing me
6. having a washing machine in my house. It's a common thing, but such a wonderful convenience!

Gratitude List

Today I am Grateful for:

~The wise,sweet offerings at Journal Wild
~colby jack cheese
~Being lent a really good ice scraper
~Curvy Yoga
~carrying a small purse again
~clear roads between my neighborhood and my workplace
~my workplace opening 2 hours late today

Bellydance Day!

ARG! Today it was discovered that we need to replace the entire heating/cooling system at home. As you can imagine, I'm stressed about this. It's not horribly surprising, as the indoor part of the system was installed when the townhouse was built. I need to ask them company why they didn't notice the coils rusting/leaking when they did maintenance - I thought that was part of the point of having them maintain it. Regardless, we'll be opening windows and running fans while we research the HVAC options. That persistent painful whimpering you hear over the weekend - that'll be my wallet.

In better news, tonight I return to bellydance class! I will probably do a lot of the class sitting down, since my back still gets to hurting so easily, and I'm okay with that. This is where my body is right now; I'll keep gently stretching, and strengthening and enjoy whatever level of movement feels good. Heck, that was the case when I was in good shape a few years ago :)

Gratitude List:
~switching to a phone handset with a shoulder prop
~Bellydance class tonight!
~cooler weather for the next few days
~living in a place that's well shaded
~Seriously, check out the trees near my place:

Question of the Day: Any suggestions or helpful hints on replacing the HVAC in my townhouse?

Back to Blogging!

This whole not-writing-regularly thing is making my brain itch. So, since I have this handy-dandy blog, I'm going to use it for low-pressure writing :) I still haven't decided if I'm going to blog on a particular schedule or not. I'll probably post book reviews from time to time, pictures I happen to take, and whatever fiction and/or poetry I manage to move from idea to text, along with gratitude lists, Questions of the Days, and burbling about my elderly doggie :)

Gratitude List:
~doing back-pain relieving stretches more days than I don't
~waking up feeling rested (this will never get old!)
~having an automatic CPAP machine, which adjusts to what I need as my needs change
~remembering to treat myself at least as well as my CPAP machine does :)
~rooting spider plants from cuttings (these three didn't so much set roots as zoom them! I only put them in water on Friday)

~My doggie is in great shape for being at least 17 years old

Question of the Day: What blogs do you read?

Monday gratitude

Gratitude List:

~new headphones for my nephew
~finding a laser pointer/flashlight combo at the dollar store
~buying a new and excellent color of lipstick
~ginger tea, especially with honey and lime juice
~new quotation in my email signature: "You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you." - Robert Anton Wilson
~creating awesome stories with smart, creative, wonderful friends (if you think I might mean you, I probably do)

Every little bit counts

Gratitude:

~The blogger iOS app lets me edit posts off-line, then post when I have wifi
~finding a pack of plain hair combs for $0.50! The decorated one are always blah to look at and rather spendy
~trying new hair toys (or hair toys I've not used since I was a very little girl
~getting some writing done
~playing a home-brew RPG w/Kiddo

My inner critic is a total meany-head

My inner critic is a total meany-head. That particular part of my psyche tried really, really hard to get me to put off writing until I had an idea or plan that would be worthwhile, since, according to my inner critic, my current plan sucks like the vacuum of space. Even if my inner critic is correct (which is isn't), crap writing is better than no writing at all. You can revise a blank page. My plan is pretty good; my inner critic is factually incorrect.


Gratitude:

~sitting down and writing despite the persistent thought that everything I write is utter crap
~cool morning walkies
~Thrift shops

Independance Day

Happy July 4th!

I didn't end up doing any actual writing today; I hope to make up for it tomorrow :)

Gratitude:

~having the day off work
~Thrift stores, both for good prices and for fun window shopping
~good sausage cooked on a grill
~catching up with friends
~being home to comfort my doggie before the fireworks start
~listening to a beautiful novel beautifully read

Voice!

On Saturday afternoons I create stories with a group of friends. Every other week we play a New World of Darkness game. Of the player characters, 3 are Bound and 1 is a Hunter. My character, Brian Jamison, is one of the Bound.

World of Darkness is a table-top role playing game. The Bound are people who, at the moment of their death, make a Bargain with a spirit. The newly dead person comes back to life, as if waking from a near-death experience, and the spirit tags along. The two are Bound together, sharing psychical space. The spirit is called a Geist, and the revived person the Bound.

In this game I play Brian Jamison. His Geist calls herself Mother Medea and resembles every perfect 50's TV housewife. The irony of having that Geist riding in the psyche of a gay teenaged boy has not been lost :) Make no mistake - Brian died. If he had declined the Bargain, his friends and family would have lost him, he never would have gotten that almost certain football scholarship, and he would never have gotten out of his little home town. The World of Darkness does earn it's name.

When I can, I like to have my characters tell their own story. Being a talkative person, I tend to play talkers :) Brian, though, isn't much of a story teller. He wouldn't write about his experiences for himself nor for posterity. But, he would talk to his girlfriend, Jessica. She's more of a BFF than a romantic interest, of course. They get to hang out, his manly rep is bolstered and she doesn't have to fend off suitors. Brian wouldn't keep a journal - but she would. He's her best friend, confidant, and brother-by-another-mother so she would never share his secrets. But it's hard to know really weird shit is happening and not talk about it - so she talks to her diary. Her voice will let me show you who Brian is in her eyes, which are both caring and realistic. She's not blinded by young romance. She knows Brian better than anyone - probably even Brian himself. Even his parents, who do love him, see him through a filter of their own expectations. Jessica sees the Brian who really exists. If I write well, you'll get to see him, too.

Gratitude:

~finally figured out the right voice for writing Brian's story! I'd been stuck on this for ages
~all the screw-ups at the workplace are either resolved, or well on their way to being resolved - work was much more interesting than I prefer today
~fresh cherries
~I didn't fall out of my chair when I turned to find a crane right outside my office window, although I did spit water down my shirt when the crane dropped the pallet of roofing supplies directly over my office.
~My doggie is the bestest!
~planning crochet projects with Kiddo
~taking nature pictures when the whim strikes

Ending June, Planning July

I seem to be really, really bad at this whole "writing daily" thing. In June I appear to have written actual narrative non-fiction all of 8 times. Still, some writing is better than nothing, and I've learned something from each month's challenge.

In June I (re)learned that writing what's on my mind does good things for my mental/emotional health - Sometimes I need reminders of things I ought to know by now :)

For July I'm work on Game Fiction - writing stuff for and about role playing games :) I've wanted to write about my RPG characters for a while; it's high time I focused on that. Instead of writing a complete thing each day, I'll pick one thing to work on each week, posting my progress daily. Ideally I'll have something readable to post for each week in July :)

My tentative writing plan:

This week: character background for Brian Jamison (nWoD game)
Week of 7/6: character background for Lisbeth Walker (Unisystem Morningstar game)
Week of 7/13: nWoD campaign log/story
Week of 7/20: Morningstar campaign log/story
Week of 7/27: tentative superhero background

Here's the first line for Brian's background:

Telling my father, the minister, that I'm gay just isn't as impressive as telling him I came back from the dead.

~~~
Gratitude List

~bellydance class!
~Nia!
~the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
~excellent customer service at the Apple store
~Seafloor Explorer lets me do a bit of marine biology without changing career :)
~electronics breaking while still under warranty
~My fingernails look good with very little effort
~July's writing plan

Writing Break

I started to write to today's prompt, and found it getting just too darn depressing. Between circumstances and stuff and things, I never got anywhere close to my childhood career aspirations. I don't have it in me today to share another disappointment.

~~~
Gratitude:

~fresh cherries
~watching plants flourish
~working with an excellent team at the day-job
~lovely, comfortable work clothes

~~~
Tomorrow's Prompt: Nia? Bellydance? What's the big deal?

7-1-14 Edited to add: I never did write to this prompt - I'm sure I'll write about it some other time :)

Missing my mom

Prompt: What is one moment from your life that you would like to relive if you had the chance? Would you change anything?

I went to a residential magnet school for my Junior and Senior years of high school. Periodically, all the students were sent home for extended weekends with their families. If I had the chance, I would totally relive my very first extended weekend home. As I recall, I spent much of that weekend desperately wanting to go back to school. If I could, I would encourage younger-me to really pay attention to my family, especially my mom. That weekend was both a first and a last - it was my first weekend home from a school I loved, and it was the last time I spent time with my mom. She died later that fall.

Mom's death rearranged the possible paths for my life; I really can't say who I would be today if she had lived longer. I would like to think we would be friends were she still alive. I know without a doubt that she would love me, regardless of whether she understood or even liked the woman I grew into. Even if she totally disapproved of my decisions, she would still love me, and try to build a positive relationship. To my mind, that's what it means to love a child.

~~~
Gratitude List:

~Waking up feeling rested
~getting every last bit out of the peanut butter jar without getting any on my hands
~Using a wrist blood pressure monitor at home
~playing some Planescape: Torment
~slightly cooler evening walkies

~~~
Tomorrow's prompt: When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? How has that aspiration changed over the years?

A Little Writing is Better Than None

Gratitude:
~being treated to lunch at work
~using the public library
~laughing with my nephew (the goober called my mobile phone from the house phone while we were both at home, trying to convince me his father was on the line. It was the worst impersonation! We about laughed ourselves sick)
~doing today's USA today crossword puzzle in less than 12 minutes
~Words with Friends with awesome friends

~~~
I picked a prompt at random today: Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? How does this effect your life?

Hahahahahaha! Have we met? I am such a massive extrovert :) People are endlessly fascinating to me. I don't stay entirely well if I don't spend at least some time with other people. Being an extrovert is part of why I do well at my job - I supervise a small medical billing call center. So, I talk to people about talking to people :)

~~~
This whole "get to the end of the day and still not know what to write about" thing sucks. Tomorrow I'll use this prompt: Are there any dreams that you've had that have been pushed aside for some reason? Would you like to focus on them and achieve them now?

12 somethings

I make up a list prompt for yesterday, but didn't finish it until today:

1 - 12 things about me

~I have 1 living parent. Mom died in 1988
~I remember 2 of the states I've lived in. I was born in Maryland, and lived in Florida for a little while. We moved to California when I was three, so I only remember California and North Carolina.
~I have 3 siblings, all younger. One brother (my nephew's dad) lives in WV, my sister lives near the southern coast of NC, and the younger of my two brothers lives on his boat.
~4 is my favorite number and always has been. Sixteen is awesome, too, because it's 4 squared. I have no idea why this is the case, but there it is.
~Today's gratitude list has 5 items
I have 6 distinct accounts at four banks: checking and savings at one, credit union deposit account and joint household account at another, car loan, and mortgage.
~I've lived in 7 cities in NC: Havelock, Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Greensboro, Reidsville, and Raleigh
~There are 8 regular doors in my townhouse: front, back, three bedrooms, three bathrooms
~I have been with my employer for 9 years.
~I've lived in Raleigh for almost 10 years
~I supervise 11 people at my day job
~My dear, sweet, wonderful newphew is 12 years old. He can be a handful, but that's okay - 12 is a difficult age. I intend to enjoy his childhood while I can, be there for him however much he needs through the teen years, and look forward to the friendship of the man he grows up to be.

Gratitude List
~two new employees getting off to a good start at the day job
~watching a surprisingly good TF2/Mulan mashup video with Kiddo - we both cried at the end
~chat conversations with smart, thoughtful friends
~central AC
~comfortable, professional clothes

Gratitide 20131227

♦ Love, love, love positive feedback on things I've baked!
♦ Dude! People are actually looking at my blog! Totally. Cool. :)
♦ There is a whole website just for NC strawberry farmers! www.ncstrawberry.com
♦ Friday!
♦ remembering to eat enough of all the food groups
♦ dried apricots
♦ planning to celebrate something every month in 2014
♦ including the birth of Elvis in January!
♦ ibuprofen
♦ Hot tea on a cold day

Gratitude 20140421

~putting my hair in a pretty up-do today

~driving Kiddo to school
~No-Nonsense size 9 - 12 trouser socks
~using my bluetooth headset w/my iPod Touch
~discount Easter candy
~finding a couple air plants at a really good price
~playing Magic: The Gathering with the Kiddo
~Choice Of games!!!

Gratitude 20140418

~sunny spring days
~cold Dr. Pepper
~lots of fruit with my breakfast
~wearing jeans to work on Friday
~taking pictures while I walk my doggie
~Gardenia perfume
~ending the workweek without needing to bring work home
~chatting online with faraway friends