It’s been a whirlwind of a week since I got home. Well, kind of a week. It’s actually not quite been seven days yet. It’s wonderful, and it stinks all at the same time.

Doug picked me up at the airport with flowers and Arora was waiting (asleep on a table). Poor thing was sick. Doug brought me home and made me an apple brandy Sazerac and we giggled for the rest of the night.

I’ve gotten to visit with Leonard and Arora, but not Aaron yet. I wish I could figure out a way to be closer to that kid. I love him so much, but I know my personality is a bit too loud for him. I get it. I try to restrain myself. Aaron and I are both emotional people. I just wish I could communicate with him better.

This might all be brought out by the stress of being home and experiencing Dorian’s birthday for the first time without her. Maybe I should have marked the day differently, but I went rock climbing for the first time at Leonard’s rock wall (the one he manages at UNO). Leonard taught me about bouldering, Unfortunately, I fell and hit my head pretty hard on the mat. To be fair, I was trying to learn how to fall—I didn’t do very well with that lesson. Kinda swished my brain around and I had a headache behind. My eye for the rest of the day. No concussion, but I just didn’t feel right after the blow (slightly nauseated, brain hurt when I looked too quickly at stuff.).

After sitting in the hot tub for a while, I felt ready to go to Mexican with the babies (except for Aaron who was working—such a great human). I felt icky so I didn’t get a Margarita, but I did get my carnitas. With full tummies, Doug took us for a shopping trip to Shadow Lake. He wouldn’t tell us where we were going, but he had prepaid for our new phones (me, Arora, and Len—Aaron’s comes up for renewal in a few months and then we’ll do his).

It is super nice to have a new iPhone. It’s also super nice to have food and a roof over my head when I’m not working to support myself. I feel so lucky and so blessed by this life. I miss my sister. I did not want her to die so young, but she did and I couldn’t stop it. I am still blessed beyond belief to be able to mourn her in my own time and space and way. My family has done that. From helping with car payments to feeding me and providing me regular treats and loans of cash. I can’t express how wrong it feels to take it. I know Dorian must be laughing her butt off at me being in the same destitute place she was in. I wish she were in it with me and we were in it together.

I wrote this morning that every single breath feels like it’s a step away from her and her memory some days. I need to reframe that thought because every breath I take is actually one step closer to seeing her again. Which, honestly, I don’t know or even really feel that everlasting life/or and after life will be possible for me.

Even if this is all I have and I end at death, I will find peace in the fact I will no longer miss her or my son anymore. That will be enough. It has to be.

I have truly missed Spring in the deep South. The 80 degree temperatures, the wind, and the sunshine are not universal standards in the US for Spring weather. I figure I’ve been gone a bit too long because it’s all just so beautiful right now.

Daddy and I worked in the garden with Jim. We’ve planed potatoes (fingerling), onions (white, yellow, shallots, garlic), and turnip seeds.

Mr. Mike was nice enough to help me dig up the herb garden. I’m super excited to plant this year since I can help design the layout and everything.

I’ve sorted the plants that I want by height and by space needed to grow. My plan is to put the new mint on top of the old mint, and then go from there. I would absolutely love it if the elephant ears will cover some of the cilantro. That stuff bolts so fast, I’m hoping the the shade will slow it down, but who knows.

This doesn’t show any of the Witches’ garden that I want to plant. I’m envisioning Hyssop, Mugwhort, and maybe chamamile. The Mugwhort is invasive, so I’m going to put some pots near the mint on the back and grow it there and use the beds in the back of the house to grow the Hyssop and Chamimile. I’ve read that I should grwo chamamile with peppers, so I’m definately going to try that this year.

The Olli class is winding down. We might have a party next week, so I’m excited about that. They have all been such an absolute joy, and I hope they all had a good time. I’m not sure what to offer during the Summer or if I should provide in the summer, but I’m sure it will be Apple related!! Ohhh, what about “Special Topics”—the class where the students create the curriculum. Imma think about it. :-)

Last night was the Super Bowl. It’s the first time in many years I’ve missed my yearly party with friends. I went with different friends this year, but it’s never the same.

All is good with family and friends. The farm is chugging along, I’m trying to stay fit and write and make enough money to live. As Three Six is so found of saying, “It ain’t easy being…,” well, a working person.

I’m also remided of my best friend and her saying. “We’re poor people. This is what poor people do; they get up every morning and go to work.” I feel like I’m still getting up every morning and going to work, but the work is for zero money and respect. And please don’t get me wrong. I feel respected in almost every aspect of my life, I’m just really really conscious of the fact I’m working all day and not making significant money. The recent medical bills to fix me don’t help either.

Speaking of significant money, the side writing is still paying in dollars a day (and not cents like it was last September). I’ve got two more books to wrap up a series just in time for Dorian’s MacBook Pro to die. As a person of limited means, I’m not sure how I’m going to fix that one.

Right now, I’m using the iPad and getting pretty fab at pubishing on it. I’ll probably push to finish and bundle that series for sale in my back cateloge.

The next question is what to work on next project wise. I’ve got two stories in the hopper —one in a lucritive genere and the other in a “write for me fun” genre. Because of the money issues, I’m seriously considering devloping the lucritive one first—which is sad, but it’s the state of things. Why am I not subbing you ask? That’s a great question I do not have an answer for. If I were truthful, I’d say its a combination of appathy and being gunshy from the last experience (which is one me—I chose it) and a severe case of apathy for the world in general. I’ve been watching for middle school and elementary, but have not pulled the trigger on any of it due to…meh

Truth is truth. However, complaining never helped anything, so I’ll stop that and talk reality.

I’m learning so much working at Olli with the folks on the My Apple Device curriculum. I’m super proud that the class is “built in flight” as the students help me decide what areas of knowledge they are going to cover and at what pace. I’ve spent, mmmnn, probably ten to fifteen hours designing the slide deck for this week. It’s a lot of time for this job, but I feel like I have a place building these types of self-paced curriculums for learning devices.

So, I drink coffee, pray for my friends and their families, and thank the heavens I’m here in Mississippi taking care of Momma. She’s been feeling poorly lately, so it kind of exaserbates everything.

I have to say that the old addage proved true. Students all over the world are exactly the same.

‘I got to sub at a local high school and I have to say, I had quite the good time. I worked with the basketball team and met some amazing scholars!

Will I go back? Probably not. On the recommendation of a family friend, I’m going to center my efforts on elementary. I’m honestly not sure about that as anyone who has had me in class knows I’m not as experienced with that age group.

On a personal note: I miss my husband and my kids. Staying at the farm is nice because the weather is so balmy and nice, but I miss them desperately. Momma and Daddy are doing really well on the hill. We had a great Sunday together with the Men’s Breakfast at Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church. There were lots of waffles and bacon, so it was actually a pretty awesome spread.

Daddy and I made quice. They were amazing.

This has been one of the hardest things as a teacher. One of my former students was a cop in Memphis; he is responsible for Tyre’s death.

No. I could not watch the video. My sister Twyla (who taught him for 7th grade) did and she told me not to. I always heed her advice.

I feel like one of the folks on the “IamtheMainCharacter” subreddit. This event has absolutelyl nothing to do with me and no one should pay attention to me at this time. I am emotionally involved and nothing good can come from discussion.

What I can tell everyone on this planet is that he was a good kid when I taught hin in the 8th grade. He was my class clown, but he was also one of those kids that if you give them a job, they will rise and perform. If memory serves me, he was my “emergency” line leader. Every month at the middle school, we would have a fire drill. They planned them so that every period and every time slot was covered (since kids are all throughout the school during the day, they need to know for each location they go).

My emergency bag was HEAVY. It had a gallon of water, puzzles, clipboards, pens, games, and rolls. Each period had a designatied “emergency” line leader. That person’s job was to get the emergency bag and then get to the head of the line and lead everyone in class to our safe zone in the parking lot.

He was that kind of kid; he was a helper. He also made me smile and laugh. I have not been able to watch the nightly news since I discovered he was involved as one of the cops. My only question is what happened to change him?

I have a funny feeling Memphis happened. Memphis is a rough place to live, and without the right resources, I can see how Memphis would actually be hell on Earth for a lot of folks. It is one of the most violent places I have ever worked and lived (well, next to Newport News).

I’m sorry, former student; I failed you. You were a good kid, but that city took it out of you and made you hard. It was the only way for you to survive; I get it. I still love you for that beautiful child that was in my classroom and who I know is still living deep down inside. Make peace, baby. Make your peace.
​

Last week is going to stay in the books as weird.  

The writing business is starting to take off.  I'm seeing some twenty-dollar days, and it's a terrifying ball of excitement and trepidation.  I want to be a writer and do my writing thing full time.  Right now, it won't pay the bills so I'm still building my business and my business model. 

I reached out to some folks who specialize in short story publication and they have told me that with this recent success (two number-one books in a sub-genre) I should:

• Start a newsletter
• Keep up the weekly publication of stories
• Redesign my covers
• Redesign my blurbs
• Advertise more (social media links and all)

That's a heck of a list.  It's so massive work-wise, I'm seriously wondering when I will fit in these changes, but I can really tell that all of them need to get done.  My covers are pretty crappy and my blurbs are inexperienced.  I'm smart enough to see the advice is correct.  

Now to figure out if I'm smart enough to execute the advice and continue to grow this business.  Since I'm booked for the Spring with Olli, I will have time this spring to hopefully work on writing and publishing a dark sub-genre romance.  That's the big leagues and I wanna be there.  

I wanted to have a number one story in my subgenre by the end of the year.  Looks like that goal will was attained last Saturday around 10 am.  

The other main goal was to make 100 dollars before July.  I'm on track to fulfill that in January as well.  

The main question is what to do next?  I feel like I did what I said I would do and all, but I also feel like 100 dollars a month is nothing to sneeze at in terms of being unemployed right now.  

I'm not sure what is beyond the goals I made earlier, so I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best. ​

ITime again for resolutions and goals.  

I usually do these in August along with my job cycle.  This August was so vastly different, I never got around to it.  I did, however, embark on a journey last year and am ready to continue that journey to whatever end I might find.  Like Douglas Adams famously claimed: "I may not have gone where I intended, but I think I ended up where I needed to be."
​
The publishing is going well.  
My most recent efforts ended the day at number #32.  It started dropping again after that, but I'm hoping that this means my story may have some staying power.  I'm also super happy I'm getting reviewed now.  No one has left any comments, but I really like the stars, especially since the other series was only evaluated twice and one was at 3 stars and the other was 1 star.

I’m averaging about a dollar a day, but hey, that’s money I didn’t have before.  I actually was able to withdraw 20 dollars from my publishing account and buy myself some breakfast while in New Orleans. Weird that I ran into a collared submissive while at the cafe.  O_o.

As far as professional work, I am looking toward to teaching again at the University of Southern Mississippi with their OLLI program.  It should be a hoot to work in a conventional classroom setting again.  I’ll be posting those lesson plans as I create them here.  It’s an exciting layout because I was able to convince the leadership to give us one hour of lecture and follow it with one hour of lab.  

The idea being, folks can come to class and get some basic information lecture style, and then for the next hour we can work together to solve any issues they are specifically having all the while using the time as a springboard for discussion topics and future lessons.  It’s a big idea, and one that will require me to organize lessons on the fly, but I’m hoping it can give us a better “service” nature to the classes.  

I’d love to start teaching remotely (or on campus) for the University, but I know they have a list of applicants a mile long.  To that end, I have my Mississippi teaching license in hand now, so hopefully some more lucrative work will be coming up in the near future.  

The old body is hanging tough.  Still experiencing some pain from the surgery.  And I was lucky enough to avoid Covid during the holiday travels, but exchanged all that luck for a head cold that is sapping my strength for the moment.  The good news is that if I keep the fluids up, this thing is just a head cold.  I should be able to kick it by this weekend (famous last words). 

Doug has been doing okay.  We are still wrestling with his diagnosis.  Had super big struggles this holiday with moods and regulation.  I really need to focus on meditation and nutrition to keep myself strong for when the family needs me. 

That brings me to my goals for this year!  

Writing: 2K a day.  That’s it.  Hell or high water.  2K a day
Money: Sub at least five days before June—stomp the next OLLI class with the best curriculum they've ever seen. 
Love: Work to strengthen my marriage by framing Doug’s mood swings in his diagnosis and giving myself the space I need to find my caregiving balance with him.
Publishing: At least one short a week for Kindle Unlimited.  Gotta get those page reads!

​Until next time :-)

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I officially consider myself a writer now.

After publishing on September the 7th, I've made a whopping total of $41.75 as of this morning. I'm sure it's not as impressive as it feels, but here's the thing. I can see how to scale all this. I can feel how to control the stories and motivate the characters.

When I write, I feel alive, like nothing can stop me. It's causing me to spend many hours of my days writing and researching and outlining. I'm exhausted and I'm soooooo happy.

For those who are close to me and checking the blog, I'm getting ready to have major surgery tomorrow. I'm super nervous because I have to have my pelvic floor reconstructed and a sling put in. I promise you I never thought my body would be a wrought with such issues. The doctor says the reason for all this is the fact I carried my children. That's it.

Those pro-life folks, (yeah, I mean it--No, I'm not taking it back--times are too difficult for silence) never think about stuff like this either. Carrying children is freaking dangerous and not just when folks are pregnant.

Anyway, I'm going to be drunk on pills for a few weeks while I recover. I hope to be back and publishing again on the 9th of December--when I have my bundle go wide.