There is still more to do but at least I got those shelves from hell assembled and put them where I wanted them.  I finally abandoned (tore them into little pieces) the pictographs that were more confusing than helpful.  I just pulled up the picture on Amazon of the assembled shelves and figured it out that way.  So much easier!  Then I got the table cleared off and wrestled the shelves on top of it.  It’s about 90% full now and I think I’m going to call it done for today.  It opened up a lot of space in other areas of the room but there’s more that I want to get moved so I’ll either work on it during the evenings or get back on it next weekend.  The thing that’s causing the biggest issue if the small flat screen TV that I had previously used for my PS4 and Xbox360.  I moved it in here to use as a monitor for my Chromebook.  Actually, ASUS came out with a very small computer…I’m talking about 5″ long and 2″ wide.  It plugs into a TV and it becomes a Chrome computer.  It has quite a bit of memory, 1 USB port, and Bluetooth so you can use a wireless keyboard and mouse and a speaker.  But I’m going to have to figure out where I can stash it when it’s not in use because it’s sitting on the area when I write in my notebooks and color.  But I am exhausted because I didn’t go to sleep until around 3:00am and got up at 8:30am.  I fed my ferals and jumped right on finishing the shelves.  I stopped for about 30 minutes to eat lunch then came right back in here.  I had thought about taking a nap but decided that I wanted to get this project finished.  So, I’m pretty pleased with it and very tired.  I think I’m going to go out and feed my critters, take a shower, do a little more organizing in here, then go to bed early.  Mondays are bad enough but without sleep, they are miserable.  So, I’m off to feed and water my little colony.  Out of all of them, only 2 will come to me…Blackie and Miss Grey.  They are very sweet.  I’m glad that the weather is warming up because I worried about all of them when it was really cold.  Miss Grey might be related to our Smurf.  Poor thing, he’s still a little dopey because of the pain pills they sent home with him after he was neutered on Friday.  He seems to be doing pretty well, thankfully.  He’s a sweetheart.  Well, kitty time.  And I’m working toward my bedtime!    

I have napped today, played on my computer, watched movies, had a wonderful lunch that Rick prepared, and loved on my sweet kitty Smurf who was neutered yesterday. It’s been a rainy warm day so it was perfect for taking it easy. I have done laundry, sorted my medications for the next 2 weeks, called in refills, and I’m in the process of putting together a set of shelves for my Magical Writing Haven. The shelves seem to be taking forever because they’re a bit complicated…not difficult, just a lot of pieces and you have to do this before you do that and if you don’t, you have to take some of it apart and the pictographs are not that helpful. I thought IKEA’s were bad but they don’t hold a candle to these. But I’ve got it figured out now so I’m just dealing with all the pieces. I want to finish them tonight but it’s 10:30 and I don’t wasn’t to stay up too late because it will throw off my bedtime tomorrow night and stay up too late, which will make Monday miserable. So I’m going to get back to the shelves and get as much done as I can before I crash. They’re a pain but I’ll be so glad when they’re finished because I have plans for them. See you tomorrow.

The majority of the things that we know about life, we learned the hard way.  Some people learn these things early and some learn slowly over time.  But we all learn it at some point in our lives.  Even though my home life was somewhat chaotic when I was growing up, I was still somewhat sheltered from the world.  Church every Sunday, big family gatherings on a regular basis, small town, small neighborhood, etc…  We were exposed to some things…all 4 of my uncles on my mom’s side were functional alcoholics, 1 of my aunt’s husbands was very cruel, another’s had a nervous breakdown and had fits of rage, another uncle was killed in an accident right after he returned from Vietnam, and so on and so forth.  I guess family craziness was okay but not outside craziness.  Even when I was old enough to raise…18…I didn’t.  The people that I went out with were all friends from.  Having a couple of drinks with dinner was as much hell as we usually raised.  Same thing when I went away to college except I was with people that I didn’t go to church with but were still fairly low key.  We drank a little more but that was about it.  I married for the 1st time when I was just shy of my 24th birthday.  And my education began in full shortly thereafter.  Suddenly, I was a married adult with adult responsibilities, bill, problems, and a husband that became more irrationally angry and violent with each day that passed.  I had a secret to keep…I was a victim of domestic abuse.  Every single day I learned a little more.  Finally, I left and went out on my own for the very 1st time.  There was more learning and I morphed into a very different person because of everything that I had learned the hard way.  I wasn’t finished learning either.  I’ll never be finished.  Hopefully, however, the lessons will become a bit easier but every time I think that I have learned all that I need to know, another lesson comes along…some easy, some more difficult.  It never stops so you just have to learn to roll with each new lesson.  There is always a reason for each 1.  That’s just how life works.   

A friend on Facebook posted a question asking what our word for 2019 was and how we were making it happen and what progress we’d made.  I had never thought about a word for the year but stopped to do so.  The first word that came to mind was “completion” because that is not my strong suit.  I procrastinate or ignore or forget or change my mind or head off in a new direction or get frustrated or get bored, etc…  I get so excited when I begin a project and I make all of these elaborate plans and tell myself that this is the project I’ve been dreaming of…the one that I will bring to fruition.  And that rarely happens.  My ADHD and OCD don’t aid in my quest for completion.  So, now that I’ve identified my word for 2019, I need to figure out my game plan and how to avoid falling into old patterns.  And that will take some work!  I guess it’s time to pull out a new Micromovements wheel and start filling in the blanks and build my process from the ground up.  And finishing that will be my first act of completion.  Hopefully, it will be the first of many things I complete.    

IT’S SPRING!  Even though we had a mild winter, I am thrilled that it’s over.  As I’ve said before, the biggest problem with winter here in Texas is the fact that it can be 20° one day and the next it will be 60° and the day after that, it will be 80°.  But, hold on, a day later, or less, the temperature will drop 50°.  Seriously, you come to work wearing clothing for a warm spring-like day and when 5:00pm rolls around, the wind is blowing 30mph from the north and it’s winter again.  I don’t mind the cold but it’s difficult to get acclimated to it when it’s not consistently cold.  You’ve probably heard the joke about if you don’t like the weather in Texas, just wait a minute.  Only, it’s not a joke and it’s not funny.  Personally, my very favorite season is fall.  It usually starts off hot but within a couple of weeks, it’s not too bad.  The evenings and mornings are usually cool and the daytime temperatures are warmer but still a relief from the summer temperatures that we suffered through and survived.  Again.  I love the leaves changing and the way the sunlight angle has changed.  We still have storms but they don’t usually include the tornado warnings and watches that we have during spring and summer.  But, because it is Texas, they can.  We have violent storms during the spring and summer even when there’s no tornado involved.  The watches and warnings used to terrify me but one year, during August, every night for almost two weeks, there would be warning sirens going off after 10:00pm.  I lived alone in my little house with all my dogs and my cat, Fred, and at first, I’d stay up until things calmed down.  Eventually, I realized that there was nothing I could do about a tornado even if it did hit, so I’d just go to sleep listening to the wind, thunder, rain, hail, and sirens blasting away.  During that two week period, we had 1 major tornado that destroyed a large portion of one neighborhood, skipped over my parents’ house and then destroyed another neighborhood.  There was major flooding and a lot of wind damage.  On the day that happened, I was at work…listening to sirens and watching the sky turn green, which means hail and tornadoes are likely…when I noticed that there were things blowing west on one side of the street and east on the other side.  Not good.  And in Texas, if a storm approaches from the east…get ready for some nasty weather.  It’s never good when storms come from that direction.  I got caught in rush hour traffic 3 different times when there were tornadoes on the ground and I’ve never been more afraid than I was then.  One time I was on an overpass in my little Honda Accord Hatchback and the wind was insane and, I realized, it was actually pushing my car sideways toward the edge of the overpass.  That was fun.  Another time, I was stuck in traffic and the hail was huge and pounding my car.  I couldn’t even hear the radio where they had been talking about multiple tornadoes being on the ground.  I was freaking out and even crying.  I had one of the old Motorola box cell phones that actually had a cord going from the box to a regular sized handset and I called my boyfriend, my now husband, and tried to talk to him but because of the hail, neither of us could hear.  Once again, I survived but my car looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.  It’s spring so it’s time to start thinking about storms again.  Yea!  Our house is down in a little valley and it’s survived for 63 years so I feel pretty safe there.  We have a lot of huge old trees though and their roots run shallow because 2″ down you hit clay and we’ve lost a couple during storms so I worry about one crashing through the roof.  But, what can you do?  Work is a different story…we have absolutely nowhere to go if a tornado hits.  So, I freak out a little when the weather gets really bad while I’m here.  I’m going next door to the RaceTrac service station and get in their freezer.  That’s the only plan I have so it will have to do.  Well, that’s enough fun for now.  I’m going home to either create or veg.  Either way, there are no storms predicted for tonight so I’m good.            

At my place of employment, my official titles are Branch Operations Manager and Safety Coordinator, both of which are demanding jobs at a branch that averages around $4.5 million in gross sales per month with only 12 onsite employees…there are also quite a few outside salespeople and estimators.  I am also the person that usually does all of the more complicated credits and price adjustments in our system and help others when they run into a problem.  I do receiving.  I help prepare quotes for city bids, fill out and notarize all of the required documents and then submit them.  I print out bid documents and plans for salesmen.  I am the branch I.T. and phone systems person.  I handle the mail and make sure that any vendor invoices that we receive here make it to the correct person at our corporate office.  I handle the freight billings.  I order office, warehouse, and safety supplies and equipment.  I deal with contractors that are doing work here at our branch.  I monitor the cameras that are EVERYWHERE.  If there is an accident and/or injury, I fill out all of the forms and take the person involved down for a drug and alcohol screening.  I help answer phones.  I deal with people that are applying for jobs.  I do branch payroll and keep track of vacations, sick days, bereavement days, jury duty, etc…  Basically, I am a jill of all trades.  I will have been here for 16 years in November.  It is a crazy, sometimes infuriating and frustrating, insanity-inducing, soul and spirit sucking job.  I would rather be doing accounting…which is what I was educated and trained to do and did for over 26 years before I ended up here.  I have been A/R, A/P, full-charge, accounting services manager, assistant to the CFO, assistant controller and controller for manufacturing, wholesale, I.T. start-ups, utilities construction, hospitality management, hotel construction, and retail companies.  I love accounting.  But, I will be 59 at the end of the month.  I honestly don’t want to lose my almost decent salary and insurance, 3 weeks of vacation, 5 days of sick time, and 1 personal holiday in addition to the actual holidays that I’m paid for.  I have a lot of autonomy and I can come and go pretty much as I please.  It’s a 10-minute drive from my house on back roads, and I get to wear jeans and tennis shoes.  But I go home completely drained every single evening.  So, it’s a catch-22…I’m not happy here but I don’t want to go somewhere for less pay, start at the bottom, etc…  So I feel completely stuck and I hate it.  That is why I have to really make myself work on my writing/publishing dream.  I can’t live like this.  I have already given up any hope of retiring and that was before the age of Trump…don’t get me started!  Well, I have to get out of here before I scream and/or hurt someone.  Sorry for the pity party but sometimes you just have to let it out.  I know I’m not the only person in this position so maybe we can commiserate.  *HUGS*     

Some days, we are flooded with inspiration.  Everything we see, hear, or read gives us an idea for our next writing project.  Other days, we can’t even buy an ounce of inspiration.  Everything feels like it’s been done before, written to death, or is just plain stupid.  Sometimes the things that inspire us just come out of the blue.  For example, the other day I saw a news tidbit flash on my EchoShow and it sent my brain into overdrive with ideas for a new project.  The article was about the fact that they had found dinosaur tracks in a Civil War battleground.  My mind started fashioning a story about the Confederacy and the Union joining forces to battle, you guessed it, dinosaurs.  Then, I thought, what about dragons that were awakened by the blood that had been spilled on this particular battlefield?  Then today, as I was heading to a doctor’s appointment, I noticed a curb that had been damaged and it looked like giant claw marks…you know, like a dragon would make.  So, maybe there’s a dragon story or book in my future.  Right now, it’s just percolating and becoming whatever it wants to be.  Maybe it will become something great or it will continue to morph into something a little or a lot different than what it is now.  I’ll just have to wait to see where it leads me.  Ideas like these get me all fired up and excited about creating.  It might lead absolutely nowhere but even if that’s true, it got me excited and got my brain working overtime.  It gave it some exercise which can only bulk up my creative muscles.  And we all need that as often as we can get it.  My best advice to foster creative muscle flexing is to pay attention to everything…your surroundings, the news, magazine articles, overheard conversations, etc…  You might just be surprised at what grabs hold of you and becomes your next project.      

Yesterday I wrote about knowing so today I’m writing about not knowing.  Not knowing can be frightening or exciting…it all depends upon your point of view and how you look at life.  I am one of those people that doesn’t like being in the dark…literally or figuratively.  I have too vivid of an imagination to be alone in a completely dark room.  I imagine the worst things in the darkness and am filled with an overwhelming sense of dread.  It’s not that different for me when there are things that I don’t know but want to know.  Need to know.  I don’t even like surprises.  I am a need to know person.  I am also very empathetic so I can usually sense when someone is holding something back from me or is being less than truthful.  When I sense that, it makes me a bit anxious and sometimes angry.  I have a very bad habit of checking to see what’s been purchased from my Amazon wishlist when my birthday or Christmas is near…like now.  I love learning which is also a way of knowing.  I want to know everything about everything.  That, however, is not possible but I will continue to try.  Sometimes it’s better not to know.  Knowing certain things can hurt us, destroy us, screw with us, break us.  But, sometimes knowing is best.  It can uplift us, amaze us, inspire us, intrigue us, prepare us.  Not knowing makes us curious.  Sometimes that’s good and other times not so much.  The difficult thing is that we have to make the choice between knowing and not knowing without being aware of the repercussions of our choice.  We won’t find those out until after our choice is made.  Like most things in life, it’s a crapshoot…one big gamble.  But we have to take a leap of faith and live with our choices because that’s life which is just one big unknown.   

We all know so many things…intellectually, emotionally, and even physically…but there are more things that we don’t know and most of them, we never will.  My genre, currently, is urban fantasy and there are vampires, witches, and various other fantastical creatures.  Aside from the fact that I enjoy the genre, I like the fact that I can make the majority of the book up.  We all know the lore surrounding vampires but over the years the characteristics and abilities of vampires have changed drastically.  They sparkle, they can go out into the sunlight, they are more human-like, they can reproduce, they can love, etc…  So, for a writer, it’s like a blank canvas that has an almost invisible silhouette drawn on it and I have a full palette of paint to use on it.  I can create entire worlds or take our current world and shape it any way that I want.  I can take everyday ordinary objects and make them magical.  I can do the same with animals or I can create my own.  In my book, Rapture, I took present-day Dallas and gave it a magical underground.  It’s fun.  It’s cathartic.  It gives me freedom when I write.  I wander around that world as I write it and I feel like an explorer because I’m actually seeing it for the first time as I go along.  Somewhere in Rapture, I took a wrong turn and I am not in the place I’d like to be.  That’s why I’m editing and rewriting it…retracing my steps and going off in new directions.  This trip is a bit more difficult than the original one but it’s still an adventure.  So, I am going to eat lunch and then jump back into my adventure.  I’ll see you later when I get back.           

This has been an extraordinarily long week.  I’m still dealing with the aftermath of the cold and because we’ve had flashes of spring here and there, a lot of things are blooming and budding and releasing the devil’s dust…aka pollen…so I’m also fighting allergies.  I’m either coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose, or struggling to breathe.  Sometimes they happen in succession or at the same time.  But the main thing is that I am just sooooo tired.  I am looking forward to some extra sleep this weekend and some creative time between naps.  I am also going to start working on the plans for a virtual birthday party for my dear friend Lauren.  In Succulent Wild World, we occasionally have virtual birthday parties in our Facebook group and even though it might sound a little lame, they are actually a lot of fun.  I want to make this a very special party for her because she deserves it.  She is kind and caring and we have so much in common.  I just want it to be special.  It’s going to be so much fun!  I love to plan for things…parties, trips, creative things…just anything that you can plan.  And I love making lists.  So, I’m going to be having fun from beginning to end.  So, I am closing for now and I will catch with you tomorrow.