This morning, in the rush to get kids ready for school, the 15-year-old came to me in a panic because today is picture day and she needed a shirt ironed. It hit me (yeah, sometimes, I’m kind of slow) that I’m the only person in the house who knows how to iron clothes.
It gets worse. My daughter doesn’t buy clothing that has to be ironed. If she sees something she likes, a shirt, for example, she won’t buy it if she thinks she can’t wash and dry and then immediately hang it to avoid ironing it.
I remember being ten and being given a huge garbage bag filled with clothing, sheets (even T-shirts) that had been sprayed with water and rolled into tight balls, which I would take out one at a time and iron. I hated ironing, but the skill came in handy when I was in the Army, because at the time, you had to iron your fatigues or pay to have them laundered for you.
Today, there’s not a person in our 6-person household, other than me, who knows that to create steam you have to add water to the hole on the top of the iron. I feel like a failure as a mother and grandmother. It’s a survival skill just like learning to cook, which thankfully, the kids have learned to do.
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you have an ironing board and iron that you use. Or is there another “lost art” that today’s generation has forgotten?
Before I get started with the end of month rundown,
Happy Easter to all who celebrate!
March
Work-related:
I completed work on What Happens in Bozeman (Book #3 of We Are Dead Horse, MT) and published it!
I began work on Tyson’s Mission, my next Brotherhood Protectors book!
I continued to read short stories for inclusion in my upcoming Secret Identities: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.
I completed 3 editing projects for other authors in March.
Health-related:
I haven’t done well taking care of myself this month. I ate too many salty, fatty foods and didn’t monitor my blood pressure!
My sleep suffered this month, likely because of diet and lack of exercise.
The only good thing I did was drinking one cup of Turmeric tea a day.
Happiness-related:Â
I continued working on the #the100dayproject art challenge.
Here are some examples of art projects I completed in March.
April
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For work-related, I plan:
To complete writing Tyson’s Mission, my next Brotherhood Protectors, book, which releases on April 23rd!
To complete 4 editing projects in March!
To finish reading and selecting stories from among the submissions for the upcoming collection—Secret Identities: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology!
For health related, I plan:
To start back on my Weight Watchers diet, because it’s time to get serious! I HAVE to get back in the saddle!
To reduce salt and processed food, and incorporate foods good for blood pressure (spinach, broccoli, bananas) and my liver (apple cider vinegar, flax seeds, sunflower seeds).
To begin daily workouts using my recumbent bike and some chair yoga exercises.
To take my BP every day and log it!
For happiness-related, I plan:Â
To continue #the100daychallenge where I’ll be painting something every single day!
To spend time with extended family during the ECLIPSE!
Contest
Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier, or tell me what you plan to read in April…
Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
I’m one of those people who doesn’t understand depression. I’m sure I’ve felt it. Perhaps after the one time I was fired from a job. Maybe when I was diagnosed for Graves disease and had my thyroid fried with a radioactive pill, then spent a month in bed so I wouldn’t have a heart attack. Talk about fatigue. Lordy.
However, both times, I gave myself a day to feel some self-pity then I sat in front of my PC or pulled my Alphasmart out of my bag, lay it across my lap in bed, and typed for just a minute at a time. When I was in bed for that month, I literally could only write in very short spurts then I’d crash. But I wasn’t depressed. I pushed forward.
Maybe it’s a physiological thing? Maybe it’s brain chemistry? I don’t know, but I am a naturally happy person. If I feel a little “flat”—I sit outside and watch the deer at the pond. Or, I pull out pictures of things that make me happy.
Or, I pull out the paint like I did last night…
For a chance to win your choice of a download from among my backlist of books, tell me what makes you happy.
In honor of National Barbie Day, I’m sharing my Barbie experience, and I’d love to hear about yours!
My parents didn’t have much, but we kids never knew it. I had a couple of Barbies, and my mom made me a Barbie case full of Barbie clothes to play with. Not that Barbie was huge for me for very long. I preferred the library and learning about plate tectonics, dinosaurs, quasars, and ancient civilizations. Yes, I was a science book nerd. I even kept my own personal set of encyclopedias—notebooks with handwritten book reports about the topics I loved. I mean, what kid doesn’t write an article about volcanoes and tar pits and the like? But there were still Barbies. My mom even used to make Barbie Birthday Cakes with a Barbie stuck in the middle with a skirt of frosting!
Now, I’m lucky I still have a child in the house. A girl-child, at that. She’s ten now, and caught between loving biographical and historical books (she loves WWII stories) and her love of Squishmallows and Barbies. In fact, the one gift she wanted from Santa this past year was a Barbie Dream House. Thankfully, he brought her one. 🙂
She has a huge collection of dolls–some gifted new, and some “treasures” she’s found at flea markets, a trunk full of Barbie clothes, and a rolling plastic cart that holds accessories. She’s not spoiled at all.
So, you know, this past summer, the Barbie movie was high on our list of movies to see in the theater. We did the whole “Barbenheimer thing” (I even have the T-shirt!)—the adults seeing Oppenheimer on a Thursday afternoon, and then all the girls, my daughter, the 19-year-old, the 15-year-old, the 10-year-old, and I saw Barbie on Saturday. We loved it! And to a person, our favorite scene in the movie was the “I’m Just Ken” musical number. If you haven’t seen it, take a look here. Ryan Gosling was truly born for the role.
I hope you all have a wonderful Saturday! Do something that gives you joy!
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me about your “Barbie” experience.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing letters—and I think it’s a damn shame. Worse, I think it’s very sad that penmanship and letter-writing are no longer taught in school. Did you have a teacher who helped you find a pen pal somewhere in the world for you to exchange letters with?
It’s such a civilized thing to do, I think. A tangible way of connecting. I think the last time I exchanged letters with someone on a regular basis was with my grandmother. She enjoyed getting letters and saved them. I have letters of hers that I saved. They were never of anything very important, just notes to catch her up on what was happening in my life. There was real joy seeing a letter from her waiting in my mailbox. She shared little tidbits of her daily life, and I could hear her voice when I read them. Again, that tangible proof of love.
My question to you today, for a chance to win a FREE download of one of my books, is… Do you write letters? Not emails. Physical letters? Do you receive them? And do you miss them, too?
I compiled all three Triplehorn Brand books into a single volume and published the box set on November 20th! Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy!
I completed writing my standalone small-town/sci-fi/romantic comedy, Little Green Dreams (follow the link to pre-order!)! Something I’ve been thinking about writing for years. And I finally have a cover!
I began work on Malcolm (Book #10 of Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT).
I completed 4 editing projects for other authors in November.
I completed NaNoWriMo 2023!
Health-related:
I have not been exercising enough. I’ve gained weight—not saying how much! (Thanksgiving is a blessing and curse!)
Through medicines and some diet tweaking, I’ve managed to keep my blood pressure down to 135-155.
Happiness-related:Â
I worked on making items to sell alongside my daughter at the local Christmas craft fair!
Despite the heavy writing workload, I have managed to do some painting. Here are some examples…
December
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For work-related, I plan:
To make one more pass through Little Green Dreams to find any errors I may have missed, then release it on December 12th!
To write, and hopefully publish, my next Stepbrothers Stepping Out short story—With His Fire Crew.
To complete writing Malcolm, my next Montana Bounty Hunters book!
To complete 4 editing projects in December!
For health related, I plan:
To not make promises about counting points for my Weight Watchers diet, because it’s that time of year and I know I’d be setting myself up for failure. However, I will try to make healthier choices—emphasizing no late-night snacking!
To continue to reduce salt, processed food, and incorporate foods good for blood pressure (spinach, broccoli, bananas).
To pay attention to my daily steps, trips up and down the stairs, and to incorporate some chair exercises.
To do more housework because my art room isn’t finished! Cleaning is exercise, too.
For happiness-related, I plan:Â
To participate in a local arts and crafts event December 2nd!
To make some last pieces of jewelry and cards for Christmas gifts!
Contest
Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier, or tell me what you plan to read in December… Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
It’s Sunday. The day I play with my work plans to figure out how to get everything done that has to be done this week. But first, I pull a card…
This is one I’ve never pulled before in any spread. Let’s have a look at the Queen of Swords.
When I look at the card, I shiver. The setting is barren, with snow-covered mountains in the background, so you know it’s cold. She wears a crown, so she’s some queen or privileged princess. Her expression is hard and cold. She holds a silver sword in one hand and a silver urn in the other, from which she’s letting water spill on the ground.
I’m not sure who she represents, but I’ll take a quick peek inside The Mythic Tarot to find out.
I remember her. Not her name, but the story! This Atalanta. She’s the daughter of a king who was so disappointed she was a girl, he set her out in the cold wilderness to die. However, the goddess Artemis took pity and sent a she-bear to the rescue. The bear suckled her and kept her warm. She then grew up surrounded by a group of hunters who taught her to hunt and fight. When she grew into adulthood, she met her father. Only after she’d proven her worth as a warrior did he warm up to her, but of course, he still wanted a male heir, so he decided he’d find a prince to marry her. Atalanta wasn’t so keen on the idea, so she told her father she’d marry a prince if he could beat her in a foot race. If the prince lost, he would be killed. Many princes died trying to win her hand, until one prince met her and fell in love with her and asked the goddess of love, Aphrodite, for some help. She gave him three golden apples and instructions to drop them one at a time during the race to distract her. He won. They were married, but alas, they were doomed. Melanion, her husband, chose to lie with her in a place Zeus considered his own. Zeus turned them both into lions, which was awful, because Greeks believed lions only mated with leopards, so they were forever kept apart.
So, a haughty princess spilling her water on barren land… What does it mean? I think the water represents something squandered—like time or love. She’s holding the sword to assert her independence and protect it. What does that mean to me? The book says I may be expecting perfection in myself, and while I do that, I may lose something. (I’m thinking time or some emotional gift). Ha! I get it. This week, maybe today, I’ll finish Little Green Dreams. I may be tempted to go over and over it to make it perfect, while I have my family here at home, enjoying the holiday. I’m guessing I should put it aside and enjoy being with them.