This has been a thoroughly weird week overall. With lots of wait-and-see in regards to the weather and way to many hours spent studying on my part. I’m currently coming out of one of those study sessions and my brain feels a little like jelly right now. Hopefully that will pay off eventually though and the reason for that studying will wind up on this blog. Anyway, enough of the grousing, this week I’m thankful for:

Above-freezing Temperatures
We did NOT get hit by an ice storm. I think that’s the top of my list this week, considering the news coming out of Texas. I spent a good portion of the weekend planning in case we did, so we’ve got some preps going forward now, but I’m happy we didn’t have to use them. It was a bit of a near miss- the freeze cut-off being just about two counties northwest, but the most we had to contend with really were some slick roads in the morning and cram-packed grocery stories on the day in-between storms.

The Blessing of the Thrifting Gods
Cookbooks! and AG clothes patterns! And a pretty new Barbie, with her clothes still on and (mostly) not dirty! I’ve had suck good luck the couple of times I ventures out this week.

Valentine’s Day Candy
More specifically here, the existence of sugar free Valentine’s Day candy.
Well… sugar free candy that’s given to me for Valentine’s Day, but its the same thing. Chocolates are chocolates, whether in a red or normal box.

More Music for My Brain to Binge On
As I said before, I’ve been doing some hard-core brain work, and when that happens I really need brain-candy. Typically in the form of a new song or two to play on repeat for a few hours. These have really done the tricks this week.

New Fanfic
Not my own. My creative brain is stuttering a little at the moment. Thankfully though, my fave fic author ever has been posting stuff again and it’s just left me in a warm happy place, even when there’s angst.

All in all, this week was fairly easy to put together. And how about you? What are you thankful for this week?

So this has been a ‘I’m not blogging right now’ week, evidently. It’s been a weird one all around, with a massive amount of quarantines at school, and subsequently distance learning going back into affect, and needless to say my mental energy has been elsewhere. More on that in a minute. I really did want to do this at least however, even if it was a little off, timing-wise. So, here we go with my thankful list for this weird-ass week.

Cabbage Patch Girl
I haven’t been out all that lately (going back to the whole covid ramping up thing), but I did take one trip out this past weekend and had a bit of luck. I was prowling around a venders mall and found a cute little cabby in pretty good shape. The elastic on her dress is worn out and I’ll have to fix her toes on one foot, but she’s adorable, with a brown yarn ponytail (yes, she’s a Coleco) and brown eyes. I’ve got her all cleaned up now, drying in my bathroom and waiting to be named.

Weird Little Cookbook
At the same place that I got the little cabby girl I found a really weird cookbook- so of course I got it. Weird cookbooks are totally my thing. It was printed by an army/navy wives organization called Jango and almost all of the recipes were originally hand-written by their contributors before being printed.

Of course, this makes a few of the recipes rather difficult to decipher, but I’ve never seen another recipe book quite like it so it’s worth it.

Another Completed Draft!
Yeah, this is the reason for my blog going quiet this week. My brain decided to latch onto the last rough patches of my book and just ram the final edits in- draining all my creative energy and keeping me up at insane hours at the same time. All of this took place over the period of a couple of days in, essentially, three marathon sessions, and I think I’m only just now recovered mentally. It was a rush, that’s for sure.

New Music
This is probably in no way surprising to see here. Finding new music always makes me happy. I’ve found, through the years, that the right song sets my writing off like nothing else. Sure enough, “Meet me in the Wood” by Lord Huron fueled a lot of the creative surge this weekend.

Of course, I’m still drifting around in the Good Omens fandom at the moment, and I found a song inspired by the show and it’s so absolutely pretty and sweet and the writer/performer is so talented and great. Come With Me by Chxlotte is turning into one of my faves and the other stuff I can find by her is is wonderfully good too. I just wish she had more out there.

Old Gods of Appalachia
Of course, that’s not all I’m listening to. It’s not every day one finds an Appalachian cosmic horror audio drama, but I ran along Old Gods of Appalachia and holy cow is it good. It’s created by Appalachians so it has this weird verisimilitude- it feels Appalachian, which, let me tell you, isn’t always something you find when it comes to stories set here. I’m not very far in at the moment, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of what I’ve listened to.

Hot Tea
It’s late fall, and my classroom has been like an iceblock this week because the heat doesn’t work for some reason, so a hot cup of tea has been a welcome warm-up at home. It was never as much a thing in my family. Iced sweet tea was almost always in the fridge during the summer, but we never had an abundance of earl gray or such sitting around at home. I found out, this week, though, that my Mamaw was a hot tea fan- though she didn’t usually drink it since everyone else was drinking coffee. Now, every time I brew up a cup of tea I feel a bit of connection to her.