My meanderings through life and writing . . .
Just a quick post to say thank you! I got a very pleasant surprise in the mail today!
Thanks to Wednesday Books and St. Martin’s Press for hosting this giveaway! And thanks to Rants and Raves of a Bibliophile for hosting during the blog tour – I entered through the link on your post! 🙂
But I don’t wanna.
Today is really cold. Really, really cold. We had some sleet over the weekend, but not enough to cause any sort of problems on the roads. Which is good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still really cold.
And by “really cold,” I mean in the 30s Fahrenheit. Which to some people may not be that bad, but I’m a weakling.
On top of that, because some folks lost power, the schools were on a two-hour delay, which completely messes up my schedule. You would think that I would be grateful to sleep in a bit, but you would be wrong. I am a creature of habit, and anything that disrupts my routine annoys me. I got to work an hour late because of it and everything just feels out of sync.
This is a very complain-y Monday post, y’all. Sorry about that.
My goals for this week are:
Hope things are better wherever you are. More bookish shenanigans will be upcoming this week, as always!
Ugh, I so don’t want to wake up this Monday! My bed was so comfortable!
I’ve been really down over the past few days, and I’m not sure why. I was able to keep up with more of my goals last week, but this week is starting out a bit wonky. I really don’t know why. Oh well.
I also decided that I am signing up for a new challenge, which should dovetail into my current challenges quite nicely: the Beat the Backlist challenge, hosted by NovelKnight.
I have decided that I will read 20 books towards this particular challenge – 20 books off of my current TBR that I already own. I might actually pre-select them, but that will be in a separate post. I don’t know if I will be able to take part in the other mini-challenges they have, but I’ll do my best. 🙂
Have a good week everyone!
Edited to say: I will be representing Ravenclaw! Where my fellow Ravenclaws at?
It’s nearly 3:00 PM as I’m writing this, so I assume that most people are up by now, although I suppose that could be up for debate. I am up and at work, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m 100% awake! The past month or so has been brutal in that regard. Part of it has to do with some upheaval in my day job (which has thankfully led to a slight raise, a promotion, and increased job stability for me at least), part is due to being in another community theater show, and part is due to my kiddo having some issues that has definitely made me lose some sleep.
And now it’s almost Christmas. How the heck did that happen?
I am spending my time now trying to figure out presents for two teenagers (how the heck did THAT happen???) who really don’t need anything, as well as presents for two adults (my husband and my mom) who mean the world to me in ways that no gift wrapped box can express. Both will tell me that they don’t need anything, but that’s not the point of Christmas presents! I have something for the hubby, so he’s taken care of, and I know he will like it because ever since he found boardgaming as a hobby, he is ridiculously easy to shop for.
My last show is Wednesday, so after that sleeping should be a bit easier, or at least, I won’t be out quite so late. And after this week, I will have some time off of work the week of Christmas, so that will also be helpful.
In other news, I am working on a new blog/web project that will hopefully kick off sometime in the New Year. So keep an eye out for that. It should be fun, but I’m also a little nervous about it. We’ll see how it goes!
But I don’t want to.
Seriously, sleeping in would have felt sooooooo good this morning! Alas, it’s not meant to be.
In this random post, I want to talk about a dream that I had. This post might get a bit personal. The dream has made me think a lot this past week about a lot of things, in that random way dreams do. I’ll explain.
In the dream, I was waking up from a nap, but I was not in my house or any other home I’ve ever lived in. I was sleeping on a couch, curled up at the end, using an arm rest as a pillow. The couch was not in a house or an apartment – it was in a library. The library didn’t seem to be open – the lights were mostly off except for a few. It took me a few minutes, but I soon realized that I recognized the library as the one that I worked at when I was in college. I didn’t remember a couch being in that spot, but I did remember the room I was in.
I look over and notice that I’m not alone sleeping on this couch. This is the weird part. My ex-husband was sleeping on the other side of the couch, slouched down, his head resting on the back of it, snoring lightly. That’s when I should have known it was a dream – he never snored that quiet! Before I could even process this, I hear someone running towards me. I look up and see my daughter, arms outstretched, a big smile on her face. Only it’s not her now, as a teenager. She looks like she’s maybe seven or eight years old. I ask her what she’s doing there and she throws her arms around me, tells me she missed me, and that grandma “brought her early.” I look up and see my mom walking behind her. She waves at me. My ex wakes up. And then I wake up, for real.
So, a lot to unpack here.
While I’m not necessarily a person who believes that ever dream is meaningful, I haven’t been able to get this one out of my mind, so I’ve been trying to process it. The only thing I can come up with so far is that I am feeling very nostalgic for a particular part of my life, which the location of this dream would point to. I loved being in college. I loved everything about the environment, which is part of why I had originally never wanted to leave. I wanted to either be a professor once I got my Master’s degree, or to come back and work at the library as a regular employee. Neither of those things ever happened for me, and I’m starting to realize that they most likely never will. It’s next to impossible for me to ever get my Master’s and I would need one for either one of those scenarios.
This also fits with seeing my daughter as a happy little girl. As much as I was stressed as a parent back then, it is so much harder now! I worry constantly about her mental health, her safety, her school, not to mention the fact that the world is getting to be a much more negative place. I do miss when she was little, but mostly I miss how easy it was to make her happy. This has been an ongoing thing with me. I see a cute little outfit in a store and literally start crying. I would give anything to go back to that time and spend more time with her.
The only thing that doesn’t quite fit here is my ex-husband (yeah, he didn’t quite fit in my life either). I don’t miss him or miss being married to him. At all. Those eight years were some of the hardest of my life. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I miss him living closer because of our shared kid. He lives several states away and it has put a mental toll on our daughter and, as such, put a toll on me as well. I don’t miss him as a husband, but maybe I miss him as a father since he is missing out on so much.
I don’t think my mom in the background represents much other than the fact that she is always there in my life. With everything I have been through, she has been my constant, my rock.
So maybe this dream is just a way of acknowledging things that have been and finding a way to say goodbye to them. Saying goodbye is always hard, but maybe it’s just time. Time to accept that this is where life has taken me and, even though it’s not where I thought I would end up, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good place.
“Wake up, it’s Monday!” posts are pretty much just the ramblings of an under-caffeinated mind that I post. If you want to skip my ramblings, that’s totally fine. I cannot guarantee that the following post makes any sense at all.
Holy Moses, can you believe it’s October already? I sure can’t. Luckily, it’s starting to feel a bit more like autumn outside. It’s not quite so hot and humid, which is a good thing for us, because our air conditioner decided now was a good time to just stop working. Our house is HOT right now, and not in a good way. We can’t keep most of the windows open because our cats are crazy and will make a bid for escape (they don’t know how good they got it, honestly). It has made me more than a bit cranky, which I am trying to control. This is a totally First World problem and I get that. I should be thankful that I have a roof over my head at all, especially given what all has happened out on the coast with Hurricane Florence. I still can’t help myself when I am sprawled out on the couch, begging for any hint of a breeze through the front screen door.
I. Get. CRANKY!
On top of that, yesterday we had my kiddo’s birthday party. Wait, I have been told that she “doesn’t have birthday parties anymore,” so this was just a group of friends coming over to hang out, and coincidentally there was pizza and a cake with candles. But it was NOT a birthday party! That should be clear. So our already hot and humid house now had 3-5 additional teenagers in it, depending on when various people came in and out of it. They did spend a lot of time hanging out on the back deck (it was cooler there), but still. It felt completely chaotic and crazy and I was very glad they came, but also very glad when everyone finally went home.
It was nice though, seeing the kiddo smiling and having fun. I don’t see that as often as I wish. Depression and anxiety have taken some of that away from her, which is sad, but she has been getting better and has been working through it. I’m proud of her that she’s made it this far. I honestly can’t believe she is fourteen years old.
So I spent a good part of yesterday feeling awful but trying to be upbeat and fun so her friends will like me. I have been dubbed “the cool mom” because I don’t sweat the small stuff and have always talked to kids the same way I talk to adults for the most part. And now, I will try really hard to be upbeat and professional at work, even though all I want to do is curl up and sleep in my air conditioned car. I feel bad complaining. My husband hasn’t complained at all, but he’s a much more patient, rational person. I envy that. But he is handling getting a repair person out to our house (soon?? please??) so hopefully that issue will be resolved soon. Then I can focus on all my other issues, of which there are plenty.
Hope everyone else out there has a good week!
The last time I posted on here was during my July Blogging challenge, which unfortunately went belly up during our family vacation. I tried to keep it going, but things just got too busy. Which is, ultimately, the reason I always give when I stop blogging: I just don’t have the time. This reason is hardly ever true. Blogging isn’t what you would call a major time commitment, but it is easier to say that it is than to sit down and actually think about what I want to say.
Life has been a bit crazy and unpredictable. You might even say that I was living up to my blog’s title – I have no planned plot, and no idea what I’m doing. Flying by the seat of my pants, mostly, and it was most evident in the events of last month. Let’s list them, shall we?
Those last two items both happened at the same time and both were just last week. The new job was a bit of a whirlwind. Interview Wednesday, second interview Friday, start Monday. So far, I think it’s going well. I like my co-workers and the office is very nice. Still learning all of my duties, so there’s some downtime right now, which feels strange since I’m used to running full speed. I’m also used to knowing my job inside and out, so this is all a bit new.
I’m hoping things will work out better this time. I’m hoping I can find some things to help my body work better. I’m going to use this blog to track some of my progress, in addition to the book reviews and other shenanigans. Going into September, I am setting a new blogging goal, not with prompts, but to try and find more positive things to write about, whether they are books or other things going on in my life.
I’ve been mired in negativity for too long.
It’s time to really change that.
