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Very excited to announce that I was elected to the office of Secretary at our county’s Democratic Party Convention this week. I’m nervous because the position is a lot of work, but now that I’m retired, I have the time. All the officers are women, and two of them are under age 50. Our new Chair is young and motivated, so that is very encouraging.

I wasn’t sure how many people would come, but we were all pleasantly surprised to see 31 of us plus folks from the state party and even a few from a neighboring county who came to show support. I will say that it is very daunting to know that in a county with 11,000 + voters only 31 showed up, but you have to start somewhere.

I hope I haven’t taken too much on and that it won’t interfere with my writing, but I can’t stand on the sidelines any longer. All the chaos and criming being done by this administration has made it very clear that I have to do something if I’m going to be able to stop being so anxious and angry.  It has also been very difficult to be in the right headspace to be creative.

I found a couple of garden-related craft projects we’re going to try out the next time Tennessee’s BFF visits, so that’ll be one way to get the creative juices flowing. If you are on FB, here are the links to the really cool projects.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/196LRXFRwM

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19bWPTdiNG

Also, I have my Christmas gift project that I started, but haven’t made any progress yet. There are three book club books I haven’t finished, and reading others’ creative output helps sometimes, too.

Honestly, though, I think my inability to start anything new or work on editing my first now is because I know that said novel is currently in the hands of a fellow writer (a published writer) and I’m so nervous about her opinion. So I’ll work in the garden, read, do arts and crafts, be politically active, and write blog entries.

I just read this great Substack piece by Naomi Kanakia called “The future of fiction”, where she writes about the many contributors who are publishing their fictional short stories on Substack and how it’s getting noticed by critics.

https://open.substack.com/pub/post/p/the-future-of-fiction?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2b79i0

I have a few poems posted here, but I don’t have any short fiction, nor do I have an active account on Substack. I have talked about starting a newsletter under my pen name, so maybe I’ll do that through Substack and link it to my author website. It does seem a bit premature to be talking about an author’s newsletter linked to an author site, though… cart before the horse and all that.

If I can’t get any writing done, how can I call myself an author? As I look around my office, I think another problem might be too much chaos. A little chaos is needed, as a sterile environment makes writing hard, too, but my office is a disaster. Laundry piles that need to go in the wash, empty boxes that need to be broken down and taken to the recycling place, stacks of papers that need to be filed in a filing cabinet that is still in the box and needs to be assembled.

It’s almost summer, and I haven’t done any spring cleaning. Now, to be fair and not so hard on myself, I have been busy outside the house, and by the time I have time to clean, I’m too tired. I enjoy working with Tennessee in the garden, but it’s really hard work. So I’m going to cut myself a break. We’ll be done with the hard, physically demanding building of the garden soon. Once we go into maintenance mode, I should have more energy to spare, which is good because I have some politicking to do as well as writing.

This is going to be a fun summer. Time to go move more dirt from our pile to the last two raised beds so Tennessee can plant her most recent purchases.

 Take care my friends.

Before I start, there are a couple of new subscribers to the blog, and I want to say—Welcome. I would love to say you’ll find world-shattering content here, but that would be fake news. I write about what I’m doing and what’s on my mind, or sometimes I just shout out into the void. You’re joining a small but loyal group, and I’m happy you’re here.

It’s been an interesting week. It almost feels like I might actually get the hang of being retired. Not holding my breath just yet, though. Still feeling antsy about the money, or rather, the lack of knowing when I’ll get paid again. But many of my wise friends have reminded me that you manifest what you focus on, so I’m trying not to worry about that.

Instead, I’ve been working with my wife out in the garden and focusing on my writing.

The garden will likely be a work in progress for several weeks. We’ve managed to get all the tomato plants and most of the herbs planted. We have a lot more work to do, but it’s been good to be out there with my wife. Between my bum knee and Tennessee’s bad back, it’s been slow going, but we are feeling positive that the fruits of our labor will pay off. Can’t wait to taste those first tomatoes off the vine.

My writing hasn’t been very productive, but I’ve been fairly consistent in showing up for my morning writing sprints, so that’s something. I finished a poem and submitted it to a magazine for a poetry contest.

I’ve been following along with a journaling prompt calendar for May. It’s been fun, though my consistency has been more miss than hit.

I’ve also picked up my novel again. As I’ve been rereading it for the first time in a while, I once again realize that there will have to be some major rewrites, but they don’t feel quite as daunting as they did when I was working full-time.

I’m making a few tweaks before I send it to a friend for feedback. I will be alpha reading her next novel, and she has kindly agreed to do that for me. As for my friend, I’m not going to lie. I’m more than a little envious. I read her first published novel and a fan fiction piece she wrote, which I’m hoping she’ll convert to a novel, and they were both so good! It’s a bit intimidating to have her read my stuff, but if I want to get published, I’m going to need all the help I can get.

The next big leave-the-house event is going to be the local Democratic Party reorganization convention next week. I’m about to get fully involved in partisan politics, and I’m super stoked. It cracks me up, though, that they are calling it a reorganization. There hasn’t been an organized Democratic party of any sort in this county for years. The State Party has decided to try and get one into each county instead of only focusing on the big cities. Better late than never, I guess. So far, only twelve people have said they are going to attend, and two of those are me and Tennessee. We’ll see what happens.

Time to get back out into the garden. Hope you all have an excellent weekend.

Take care, my friends.

I am a couple of weeks into retirement now, and I think I’m finally settling in. The key was to remind myself that, technically, I am still on paid leave and goofing off is allowed when on leave. My paid leave ends April 30th, and my life as an official retiree starts on what would have been my dad’s 84th birthday.

I have been thinking about him a lot. What would he have thought of me? Of this life I have chosen? The decision to be me as authentically as I can? It’s going to be 10 years since he passed this October, and I miss him but I’m fairly certain he would have been a MAGAT and that might have broken me.

All that is to say that I have no idea if he would have approved, but I think I’m going to like being retired. If I could just figure out the budget. I/we should have had a handle on this before I retired, but there wasn’t enough time, so we’re winging it. Not a status I’ve ever been comfortable with but there you go.

Last week, my son visited for the first time, and it was great seeing him. I’ve missed him. We weren’t sure how he would like it here and we were setting the bar low…hoping it just didn’t suck. Seems we did at least that, so I’m grateful.

After he left, Lil J Dawg came to spend the night. He’s not so little anymore, and he’s so smart and curious and easily bored, which isn’t always the easiest combo for a couple of old ladies, especially since it was rainy, and the swing set is not set up, so no time outdoors to wear him out.

Since we don’t see him every day, the changes in how he’s grown are quite dramatic and amazing. Tennessee loved having him here, as did I, though watching her with him is what makes me most happy. The only real hiccup is Lil J is afraid of both the dog and the cat so they both ended up locked up a lot which neither liked very much.

Needless to say, I did not get much writing done, and today is the first day I’ve written anything of significance in a while, and it feels pretty good. I’ve been thinking, and I may have mentioned this before, but I think I’m going to start a newsletter dedicated to my new “profession” as an author, like what I’m learning and projects I’m doing, my struggles and successes.

I have a bare-bones web page for my author site at www.angelbeldam.net with a link to subscribe to the newsletter, but I don’t have anything else done yet.  It feels good to get a basic site up and running. It would be good if I could actually get something ready to publish, so there would be something to sell on there, but whatever… baby steps.

I will continue to write this blog as it’s a place for me to share and vent and in theory, I’ll be able to post more often, but how often will depend on what other projects I’m working on.

Take care my friends.

It’s only been a couple of days since I retired, but I’m struggling with my Protestant, capitalistic upbringing, which says I should be busy because I have an enormous to-do list. This large list, accompanied by the shoulda/woulda/coulda mentality, is causing a paradoxical, unproductive, and uncreative paralysis.

So today you’ll be getting a bit of a hodge-podge of content.

I finished my new friend Charlie Geoffrey’s debut novel, Boss Undercover, and here’s the review I left her on Amazon:

~~~

Boss Undercover was a delightful, well-written respite.

The author describes her books as sappy Sapphic romances, but I didn’t find anything in this book cloying or overly sentimental. The main characters had depth with realistic histories and failings we could all easily recognize in ourselves and loved ones.  And I am more than a little in love with Ben.

Spending time with Ashley and Chloe as they fell in love whilst overcoming the inevitable obstacles was a splendid escape and I highly recommend.

~~~

This is Silas, who seems to like me lounging on the couch in the middle of the day. Well, he did until he didn’t. Cats!

I have been very active on FB. I’ve already had an interaction with a Ken who tried to belittle me…nah, not having that. I also received many supportive and uplifting responses to the below post:

~~~

I just finished my last day of work today. As you might imagine, I have mixed emotions.

I am angry. I loved my job and would not be leaving if it weren’t for the chaos and nonsense happening in our nation’s capital.

I feel pride. I have been a public servant for over 30 years, and I have given my very best.

I am sad. I said goodbye to so many people and wished them well as they navigate the insanity still to come.

I am relieved. I have already been through three RIFs, and I am so glad that I won’t have to go through another one.

I feel guilty. This one is probably irrational, but I’m feeling it anyway. I worked hard to be in a position where I can walk away with my pension, benefits, and TSP, but I still feel like I’m abandoning them.

I’m excited. I get to spend time with my wife in the garden, read when I want, finish my novel (and maybe a few more), or just be lazy.

I am scared. Fear has always been my bully, and while years of therapy have blunted its power, just being me puts me in danger from the bigots and misogynists that have been emboldened. Also, today’s tanking stock market is making me worry I’ll be eating ramen when I’m 80 years old.

Despite everything, though, mostly I am grateful…for my beautiful wife, for my amazing family (both birth and found), and for my supportive and delightfully weird friends.

~~~

Also on FB, this ridiculous but sadly applicable meme:

There needs to be an additional response emoji on FB: the eyeroll.

~~~

The two eaglets we’ve been watching on YouTube, Sunny and Gizmo, are in their awkward adolescent phase. Their feathers are starting to grow in, and their feet are huge!

Best I can do on this rainy day. Hopefully, this creative paralysis breaks soon.

Take care of yourselves my friends.

Okay, that’s very dramatic, but so much has happened and is happening.

Last weekend, I got so busy that I did not have time or energy to put together a blog. I have several bits and pieces that I started, so I’ll be cobbling a mix of stuff to post. Apologies if it feels chaotic, but it is very representative of my life right now.

Mapuche DNA

I finally got around to sending in my 23 & Me spit, and I got the results last Saturday. So many interesting and cool things I learned about me and my ancestors…including a bit of a scandal. I will not share any of those details here, but send me a message if you want me to spill the tea.

What I will say is that most of my DNA is very boring. The half from my dad’s side is Northern European mutt, as suspected. On my mom’s side, half of me is Southern European–Spanish from my mom’s dad, if her info is correct. Which leaves all the very interesting bits coming from my grandmother, who was apparently from sailor stock. And it is quite the historical record.

They were able to trace my mitochondrial DNA back 150,000 years to what is now the Sudan. My clan began moving north, where we picked up North African Arabic, Ashkenazi Jewish, and some neanderthal DNA along the way until reaching South America, where, sometime in the very recent past, one of my ancestors was a Mapuche Indian.

I am 16% Mapuche, and that thrills me, though it would horrify some of my relatives.

For those who don’t know, the Mapuche are famous for their defiance against colonization. They were the only tribe to fight off both the Inca and the Spaniards and have managed to maintain their cultural heritage despite concerted efforts by the Chilean government.

End of a Chapter…

April is going to be a busy month. My birthday, our first wedding anniversary, my son is coming for a visit, we’ll start planting our garden, and my career as a civil servant will be over.

I know I’ve already announced that I’m retiring, but we were offered an incentive bonus to leave quickly, so I took it. My last day of work is this Friday, and my new retirement date is now the end of April.

I keep waiting for that feeling that I’ve made a mistake to come but so far it hasn’t. I think that’s mostly due to the fact that I have had plenty of time to process that this is happening, whether I want it to or not, and now I’m just ready to get on with it.

Spring is Here

The big trees are budding, the apple and cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and Tennessee has had to start up the John Deere twice already to mow our yard.  

We’ve been watching an eagle family in California on YouTube. Two little eaglets are getting big really fast. There were three of them, but one didn’t make it through a really bad snowstorm.  It’s fascinating to watch and way healthier for my psyche than some of the other stuff I’ve been watching.

I have also been watching one of The Great Courses on gardening.  We ordered additional galvanized steel beds to go with the pair we already have, and I’ve been researching companion gardening to see what might best grow here together.

I also bought a few seed packets because I was going to try and grow some lettuce and beans. I’ve had great success with the microgreens, so I wanted to try this next. Sadly the seeds have not arrived, and now it’s too late to try and start anything from seed.  They’ll keep until next year, assuming they ever arrive, so not a big deal.

I have no idea if I’ll be a successful gardener, but my mom has a very green thumb, so maybe there’s some of that in my genes I can tap into?  Fortunately for me, Tennessee is also good with plants, so there is hope for a productive garden.

I’m looking forward to having lots of time to try being a gardener, assuming we can afford to live with me fully retired. I am hopeful we’ll be able to pull it off.

…Start of the Next

I am also looking forward to being full-throated in my condemnation about what’s happening to our country. I was so scared about losing my job at first that I pulled all the way back, but it didn’t last long, as I just couldn’t not speak up. I was still somewhat circumspect for a while in my protestations, but now that I’m only a month away, the gloves are coming off.

As a civil servant, I was very limited in how politically active I could be. Now I will fight where and when I can, fundraise, campaign, and even protest if I can get healthy enough to be out there. I’m fairly certain this will cause Tennessee some angst, but I cannot be silent anymore. I hope she’ll forgive me.

My biggest bucket list item is to get a book published and this will be my penultimate act of defiance…a book with queer characters that ‘they’ would want banned. I will finally have time to finish it and get it out there. Wish me luck.

Take care of yourselves my friends.

We got devastating news this week about our little Buddy,

He has an aggressive form of cancer (Stage 2) and the vet says we will likely only have him with us for about six months.

We knew he was slowing down, as he is no longer a young pup, but this still came as a total shock. He is still full of energy and orneriness. He does not seem to be in any pain and we will work with the vet to ensure he stays that way for as long as possible.

He is such a good dog.

We love you so much Buddy.

My first attempt at writing this week’s blog had a lot of swear words. Once again I moved it into journal mode to discuss with my therapist. Suffice it to say that the gist of my rant was that I could not decide if our government is now a kleptocracy or a kakistocracy. Two words I had never even heard of until recently.

Now y’all know I’m a word nerd and usually love learning new words and where they came from, but I wish I had never heard either word. In case you don’t know them yet and don’t want to look them up, here they are:  

Kleptocracy – government by people who use their power to steal their country’s resources (first known usage: 1819)

Kakistocracy – government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state (first known usage: 1644)

I’ve heard this last one compared to the word ‘idiocracy’ which was coined in 1967 and is also the name of a sci-fi dystopian movie made in 2006. I’ve heard many people make comparisons to our current political environment as being foretold in this movie. I have not watched it, but I might just have to since the great Maya Rudolph is in it.  

Anyway, the amount of space I keep letting these idiots and criminals have in my head is ridiculous. Earlier this week, I told Tennessee I was ready to call it a night. She went off to get ready for bed and instead of turning off the TV I thought I’d just pop over to see what Rachel was saying. My wife comes back into the room and says, “You just can’t help yourself can you?”

The answer is, apparently not. Every day I say I’m not going to let it get to me and I’m going to focus on other things, but then, inevitably I’m sucked back in. It so easily triggers my executive dysfunction. I start doom-scrolling while I’m listening to a Jen Psaki podcast or, if I’m honest, any TV show I may start watching, and despite my brain screaming at me that I have so much to do I can’t seem to get my butt up and go do anything.

My therapist gave me some suggestions to try and push through, so I’m going to try and break out of that cycle this week. Something needs to work because I’m hardly even reading let alone writing. And me not reading or writing? That’s just wrong.

I’ll give myself a little grace because the to-do list of things that need to get done before I retire is massive and daunting. There’s little wonder why my brain is saying ‘nope, no-way, I don’t wanna’.

I realize that I just said I’m not reading or writing, but to be more precise I am still doing those things, but not at levels I’m used to. For instance, I just finished one of my book club books: “Home is Where the Bodies Are” by Jeneva Rose.

https://www.jenevarose.com/home-is-where-the-bodies-are

It’s a murder mystery told through the points of view of very dysfunctional family members. I’m not sure I can say that I liked the book, but I will say that I was compelled to keep listening so that I would find out if the killer was who I suspected it was.

My discomfort with the book had to do with how the mother’s love for her children and her desire to protect them was so very skewed. It made me reflect on the ways I enabled some of my son’s bad decisions that I later resented him for. Talk about uncomfortable! I think we’re both in a better place now though. Time will tell.

I wish I could say I’m ready for this upcoming week, but I can’t. With the possibility of another government shutdown coming this Friday, I am once again filled with uncertainty. Depending on the length, it could interfere with my retirement paperwork getting processed which would cause all kinds of downstream delays. I am so weary.

I did manage to get everybody’s taxes done. Hopefully, all of you have done yours by now. Also, our new batch of microgreens will be harvested today. I have yummy Dagwood sandwiches planned. So there is that.

Take care of yourselves, my friends. Oh and drop me a like or a comment if you know who Dagwood was. :)

This made me and my author friends laugh out loud. It’s good to find the humor in such truly awful times. My ability to find or recognize goodness, kindness, empathy, and joy is being sorely tested but I have done a pretty good job of surrounding myself with people who embody those qualities, and I am so grateful to all of them.

However, no matter how good we are at finding the positives around us, many of us are experiencing justifiable anger or even outright rage right now. When my son was younger he used to get so upset by anything he deemed unfair. I used to say that he had an overdeveloped sense of justice. He still struggles with it, but he comes by it naturally, sorry kiddo.

I still don’t know how to not get mad when I see something unjust. The funny thing is that I have a much harder time summoning the rage for myself, but it so easily manifests for those I care about.

For instance, I have a friend who was recently elected to his state legislature. He is a blue dot in a red sea, a black man surrounded by white hoods. When a colleague of his wrote a column for his local paper saying DEI stood for division, exclusion, and ineptitude and then claimed that Biden appointed a man for the FAA who was unqualified but had “a high amount of melanin in his skin” my friend took to the floor.

With quiet righteous dignity, he said, “As I look around at each one of you, I want to tell you that I hold you with the highest regard and the greatest of respect, but in reading that particular article, I found out that my melanin put me in a category where I might not be respected.”

He then quoted a bible verse: “Know those who labor among you.” Or in other words, “I see you and I know you”.

I am so proud to be this man’s friend and grateful that he trusted me enough to call me and share his story as he was on his way home from that session. I was outraged on his behalf. I added this to the list, the exponentially expanding list, of indignities and atrocities being committed by these Maggits.

Speaking of Maggit atrocities, what happened Friday in the Oval Office was despicable, reprehensible, and loathsome…there aren’t strong enough synonyms for it or them. It was like watching the WWE perform “How Can We Prove We Are Even Worse than You Thought.”

In many ways, I wish I was retiring sooner so I wouldn’t have to be in his chain of command one more day. However, I am already experiencing enough guilty relief around my upcoming retirement. In addition to the latest news of likely RIFs my coworkers are about to endure, it seems one of our agency’s field offices is on the DOGE/GSA chopping block making the RIFS even more likely.  

I’m worried about my coworkers and friends. I’m also worried for myself and my family with this forced retirement but I’m so grateful I will not have to go through what they are about to and it makes me feel guilty.

I’ve been dealing with even more guilt as my mother is going through some medical issues and I’m here and she’s there. She’s scared so she sometimes lashes out. I know she doesn’t actively mean to hurt me, but it doesn’t stop it from hurting.

I canceled my last appointment with my therapist because I was worried about the expense. She’s out of network so it’s all out of pocket. My wife and I decided this past week that it would be best if I got back on my therapist’s schedule. (Yes you can laugh out loud at that.)

In that vein, I decided yesterday to do some self-care. I started a new batch of microgreens. I made bacon egg and cheese muffins to feed us breakfast this week. I worked on the hat I’m making for our kind neighbor who takes our trash can to the road when we forget. I helped my wife make our date-night dinner and then we watched HGTV. It was a much-needed down day.

 The other thing I did was finally spit into the 23 and Me tube that I got for Christmas. Don’t ask me why I’ve been putting it off. There’s no specific reason. It just wasn’t a priority with all the other things happening right now.

Anyway, the reason I did it now was because I have been doing some research for one of the characters in my new project. She is a practicing witch descended from the granny witches of Appalachia. The book I bought for research, “Appalachian Witchcraft for Beginners” by Auburn Lily, talks about finding out about your own ancestors (as opposed to trying to use the Appalachian ancestors) to tap into their energy and protection.

Probably I will not be invoking the protection of my ancestors in a spell, but you never know. I’ve always been fascinated by genetics and I’m curious about what the results will say about me.

Today I will try to finish my weekend to-do list and prepare for another week of this circus. Wish me luck and please take care of yourselves and each other my friends.

So it’s official I am retiring after 33 years of federal service. I want to be able to announce this with joy but I’m sad and angry.

Before I met Tennessee I had plans that started with me retiring right about now and I couldn’t wait. But meeting the love of my life changed everything and we were building a life together and decided that working a few more years would help make retirement much better for us both.

Now thanks to the chaos happening in D. C. I will have no choice but to retire.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful that I have the option as many of my compatriots do not. I could fight this but one of the silver linings is that by retiring I am saving the job of one of my co-workers.

Another positive is that I have enough leave so that I can have about a month off before my pay significantly drops. I will use some of that time to secure some form of income but I’m going to spend most of it with my wife out in the garden since the growing season starts just after Easter here and start on getting the house ready for when my mom comes to live with us.

I am trying to see this as a good thing but in truth, I am grieving the loss. I’ve done enough therapy to know that I have to let myself feel these feelings, to process them, but it sucks.

That being said I decided to take a break while writing this entry and do a Tarot reading.  So I did a six-card spread (inverted pyramid) where the top cards are where I came from, the middle cards are where I’m at now, and the bottom one is where I am going.  

I asked the universe, “What I should focus on post-retirement?”

The three cards for the Past read that I was generous, practical, sensible, reliable, etc. but that there was a lack of reward for who I was. This rang true for me.

The two cards for the Present read as me being guarded, materially unstable, recklessly spending, as well as scatterbrained, cynical, insulting, and rude.

Harsh.

I thought about denying it and drawing new cards. However, there was something in those cards. I am angry. I am swearing a lot. I am totally super judgmental about the idiots in D.C. and those who voted for that joker. As for scatterbrained, I am very much struggling to focus on anything. We will not be addressing the reckless spending at this time.

Anyway, the Future card was an inverted Eight of Pentacles which basically said my future was leading to mediocrity, lack of motivation, laziness, and a low-skill dead-end job.

Yikes!

Granted I will need additional income, and I have only been looking at “easy, low-skilled options” but being mediocre and unmotivated sounds dreadful.

So I reshuffled the cards and asked another question. “How do I change my present to change that future?” I pulled the Six of Pentacles for the “new” present which indicates that I need to be generous, community-minded, supportive, full of gratitude, and willing to both give and receive.  

According to the cards, if I create this present, my new future will be (as represented by the Ace of Cups I pulled) filled with love, creativity, intuition, and spirituality.

I said earlier that I was grateful that I could retire and that by retiring I was saving someone else’s job, but I wasn’t truly feeling that. I have been resentful. I have been getting angrier every day with each new hit this administration keeps throwing at us and it wasn’t until just now that I realized how bitter I had become.

I do not think I have the gift of divination, nor will I ever be a fortune teller. Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how spot-on the cards can be. And it doesn’t take a genius to understand cause and effect. If I don’t let go of this resentment and anger my future can’t be creative or spiritual or loving.

If I want this future I need to rekindle my generosity of spirit and gratitude and start embracing joy once again. At one point in my life, I fully lived this and it manifested the love of my life. I want and need to find this again.

Who knows, maybe this brighter outlook might lead me to actually publish something. Maybe I might even make some money doing it. Wouldn’t that be splendid? Even if it’s not in the cards for me to be a published author, I still want a creative, intuitive, spiritual, and loving future.

I can still be angry because what is happening is wrong and unjust, but I need to focus my outrage correctly. Let it impel me to live defiantly as my authentic self and to protest against this fascism in all the ways that I am capable. I can do that without becoming bitter or losing my compassion or my joy.

So my friends, let’s embrace joy, be grateful for all we have, be generous in spirit and deed, and fight like hell.

As the hits keep coming, I’m finding myself slowly slipping into insanity. Ok, that’s very dramatic and not exactly literal, but would I actually be aware of losing my sanity?

I struggle to know what to write here because I hate that it all feels so negative all the time. So I’ll try and focus on the things that are going well.

Microgreens

My first batch of microgreens is ready for harvest. I broke one off last night and it was tangy and fresh. Can’t wait to add them to the salad we’re making for dinner tonight.

Writing

For a while, I struggled with being creative, but this week has been very productive. I’ve begun three new projects. One will be a ‘reader bonus’ for when my novel finally gets published. It’s a small piece about two of the characters from the novel.

Another project will be a ‘reader magnet’. A reader magnet is the freebie you get when you sign up for an author’s newsletter. This will take place in the alternate universe I created for my novel, but with different characters in a different part of the country.

The third project kind of just fell into my lap. If it pans out it will be a collaboration with a young local artist on a kid’s illustrated book or possibly a young adult graphic novel, depending on how much the artist wants to put into it. We’ve been in touch, and she seemed just as excited as I was.

I was inspired to suggest a possible story about several different characters she’s drawn. I spent my writing sprints yesterday on some dialogue between the characters to see if it felt right to her based on how she pictured them.

I haven’t heard back from her yet, but she’s 22 and it was Friday night and Valentine’s Day yesterday so it might be a bit before I hear from her. I hope she stays as excited as I am about this project, but I’m glad I have the other projects in case it doesn’t work out.

Valentine’s Day

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, Tennessee gave me such a wonderful gift.

It is so soft and the perfect size for a lap blanket at my desk while I’m writing or working. It was hard to get a good picture of the whole thing. What you can’t see is at the top and at the bottom it says:

Love it so much!

Tonight is our date night where I’m in charge of dinner and afterward, we’ll try to paint each other’s portraits. She is actually a very good painter/visual artist, but I suck so the comparison of the two will be hilarious no doubt. Maybe I’ll post pictures.

Take care of yourselves my friends.