Doll-repair success Actually had good luck with the benzoyl peroxide treatment this time around, and got highlighter off of a poor cabbie’s face. Last time I used it it didn’t make as much of a dent, but I tried something a little different this time and the highlighter marks came right off. So I’m gonna have to go back once I have some time during Christmas, and tackle a few stains once again.
Oh Christmas Tree My favorite part about Christmas has always been the lights- specifically at home that means turning the main lights off in the living room and just letting the glow from the tree softly light everything. It’s so wonderfully warm, and I feel like it soothes me more than just about anything.
No Quarantine Knock on wood…. we’ve had a few close calls, but even as the cases increase in our area we’ve been lucky enough to avoid being in a quarantine situation again.
Well, I kind of lost track of time again this week. Getting caught up on grading and such. But better late than never.
A Quiet Thanksgiving I must admit, I feel a little odd about having taken a week off from Thankful Thursday on the countries official Thankful Thursday, but I figured ’twas better to just relax. And relax I did. Normally I have family from Ohio that comes in, and, well… Covid. So that didn’t happen. It was a lot quieter than I’ve gotten used to. Just me and the hubby, and Mom and Dad. It was still nice though, just different.
My First Pumpkin Pie Normally, said family-from-Ohio brings in desert for Thanksgiving Dinner, including the pie. So, it fell to me to make one since my mom avoids pumpkin pie if at all possible. This way, I got to make it sugar-free, so I didn’t have to worry about a blood-sugar spike. And I think it turned out well. Between me and Dad, we certainly didn’t have any trouble with finishing them off this year, so I’ll count it as a success.
The Tree is Up A lot of times putting the tree up gets pushed off to the side, in favor of getting school work done. But this year we managed to get it put up and decorated this past week. I think I got holiday spirit kicked into gear by…
The first Snow of the Season As weird (and as warm) as this year has been, I was halfway expecting to not see snow until January, but we got a nice couple of inches. Not enough to be really dangerous, since it melted off the roads pretty quick, but enough to make everything nice and pretty and white for a day or so.
Success With my Phone I’ve been struggling to load my mp3s onto this sucker for the past few months. For some reason it just wouldn’t make a solid connection with my computer. I finally figured it out though, just in time to be able to put on my holiday music. Hopefully it wasn’t a one-time thing.
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.
So, it’s been a week, in that it has literally been a week since the last Thankful Thursday post, and the fact that this week has been one of those weeks, if you get my drift. Not gonna sound quite so cheery today, but it is what it is. Some weeks are easier, or harder, than others, but there’ll always be silver linings and little spots of sun- it’s just sometimes more difficult to find them. Regardless…
It’s Thursday- Week’s almost done. Despite what I just said it’s honestly not been a bad week. Not great, but not bad. There honestly hasn’t been much, outside of my own head, to complain about for the majority of the time; mostly just a bunch of bad brain days pushed on top of each other. That hasn’t made that time any easier. I’m very happy to have the weekend within reach.
Fanfic Authors- Lately, I haven’t had the energy to do much by the time I get home- reading being the exception. And I’m not going to spend that valuable resource by pushing my way through Dune. I need the written equivalent of comfort food. Thank god for fanfic writers because I swear there have been a few fics this week that have saved my sanity.
McDonalds- Say what you will about the place, its an easy dinner, that let’s me not think. Decision fatigue’s been bad this week, so it’s nice to just pull through, order a chicken sandwich and be done with it.
The Election is Over! – With the exception of the inevitable recounts, the hellishness that was waiting for the results to be declared is finished and we can move on with our lives.
Library time- We’ve been doing research in the library this week. I love research days. They’re chaotic and a lot of times I feel like I’m running all over the place and it’s exhausting, but I love helping students find their info and put order to their thoughts.
Writing progress! I’m one chapter (and a bit) away from finishing this draft of my book, and I’m so much happier with it now, but I’m happy to be able to hand it back over to my beta readers. I’m really looking forward to seeing what they make of my changes.
New EP from Bring me the Horizon Post Human: Survival Horror– what a name for an EP. I found it on election day and it’s felt rather fitting- synced right up with my headspace. Sometimes you just feel like screaming.
The Penumbra Podcast I’m up to date on The Magnus Archives and Nightvale, but I had The Penumbra Podcast lined up- still warming up to their style of standalone eps (I’m more of a connected narrative person) but I’m really enjoying Juno Steel so far.
The bared outlines of mountains As much as I miss the color of summer, there’s something cool about the hidden shapes being revealed once the leaves start coming down. Exposed curves and lines and structures coming into view for the first time in almost six months.
Crisp air There’s something special about those first cold breaths you take in autumn- cold enough to still be jacket-comfortable but chill enough to wake you up a little. The first time your breath appears in white puffs, imagined dragon smoke racing from between your lips.
Familiar stories I’m still creeping through Good Omens at the moment. I’m enjoying it more this time around than I have in a while. Perhaps more so than when I first blazed through it.
Still not quite over the bug from last week, but I’m still trucking- or at doing me best to at least. Here’s the things that have made life doable since last Thursday.
No Covid I officially got tested before letting myself out in the public again and the bug I had last week was just that. A nasty bug. Probably a head-cold gone bad. I’ve been a little tired this week, but it’s most loosened its grips on me. The cough’ll hang on until the middle of next month, but that’s cough-variant asthma for you sometimes.
Jack-O-Lanterns Finally got the chance to carve jack-o-lanterns. I never did get to decorate properly for Halloween due to coming down with a bug right at the beginning of Fall Break, But I’m fairly happy with the jack-o-lanterns me and the hubby carved this year. And at least this way they’ll look fresh for Halloween proper- rather than nearly falling into on themselves like they’ve done in some years in the past when it was an overly warm October.
My Ballot is Cast Voting was easy, and I was able to get it done without much fuss. Even in a small rural area, I at least have to stand in line for a few minutes, but that wasn’t an issue. I was in and out within ten minutes all said.
Back into the Swing of Things I think I’m slowly finding my groove again, with the whole long-term sub thing. The first week was rocky, for several reasons, but I’m starting to feel like I’ve got my feet under me again, at least some of the time.
Fast FoodFrench Fries Granted, as previously said, I’m still tired. Especially with the whole recovering from the crud thing. So grabbing something through the drive-thru for dinner tonight was a relief. I swear, fast food fries never taste so good as when you’ve given up on having any maintainable level of energy.
So, you may have noticed (probably not, but hey I can hope) that I kind of dropped off the face of the earth these last few weeks. First from the thankful Thursday updates and then from everything else. And considering why I made this blog to begin with you may be able to guess who or rather what the culprit is. Yeah, that whole making sure I don’t drive myself into the ground with work hasn’t exactly panned out, because evidently, I’m even more of a perfectionist then I would’ve thought. Also evidently a lot easier to become a workaholic than you might think. But hey, life or fate or what-have-you decided to step in and kick my butt so that’s no longer an issue, because my winter exhaustion finally kicked in and it’s walloped me. I’ve spent the last week and a half kind of feeling like I’m two steps from falling physically on my face.
So the overworking was a thing that is hopefully no longer a thing.
Let’s try this again.
This week I am very very thankful for:
No School So, going along with this whole theme, I can say that I am very thankful for the fact that I have a five day weekend. Because the flu has hit my school so hard we’re having to call in substitute bus drivers. on top of that there’s flooding, so even if we had had the numbers to have school a lot of people would not have been able to get there anyway. Yay for a break! Couldn’t have had better timing.
New clothes? Kinda? I discovered this week that I can finally wear a few sweaters and shirts that have been sitting in my bottom drawer for the last year or so. This one’s a little double sided since the reason they now fit is that my metabolism is out of whack, but hey I’ll take the positives where I can get them. This way I can still wear them while the temperatures are cool enough and if my system has to be on the fritz at least I can be cozy.
Hello Mr. Blue We’re dealing with an awful lot of rain now, but we did have a really pretty day on Saturday. Blue sky, nice temperatures- just an awesomely beautiful day. We’ve been dealing with the winter blahs, everything gray and sunless, so seeing a clear sky was like getting a breath of fresh air. I hadn’t even realized how much I needed it until I stepped outside. It was like a twenty pound weight being lifted off of me.
A Nice Case of the Lazies Last weekend was just really nice overall, since I spent it being utterly lazy. I did so little it’s not even funny and it was marvelous. The fact that I got to be lazy with my parents was just an added plus. I hadn’t seen them in awhile so i made an extended visit. Movie marathon on Saturday (and hey, who knew I’d enjoy the hallmark mystery series that much?), sunny outing on Sunday, and NO STRESS.
Bye Bye boring windows Lastly, and this may seem like an odd one, I finally figured out how to hang up curtains in my classroom. Not done yet, but I’ve finally got a plan. I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last month and my kids spent just as much time before that complaining about the glaring sun in the mornings. Now I can avoid that issue and it’ll hopefully add to the environment score during my observations. Plus, it’ll just look nice.
So that’s that. Hopefully, I can keep up the time and energy to make more posts because the weeks that I couldn’t were absolute heck. I’ve missed doing my weekly updates hello and sharing these bright spots in my life. Hello I know very few people read these, at least in comparison to some of my other posts but I like them all the same and it’s good to just think of yourself sometimes. And now to flip this around- to the few people who do stop in, how was your week? Good, bad, somewhere in between? Feel free to drop a comment and let me know.
So, today being the first day back from Christmas vacation I’m not exactly feeling very thankful… what can I say, breaks are never long enough. Be that as it may, it does a brain good to try to focus on the positives sometimes, especially on those days where the negatives seem to abound.
It’s a short week, at least I may have had to go back after what feels like way to short of a time, but at least I only have to deal with two days before I get a break. I’m through one day already, so the weekend is just within reach.
I haven’t gotten the flu Considering I dealt with the aftermath of a stomach virus for a good portion of Christmas break, this seems a bit of an odd thing to be thankful for, but I found out today that the current strain of the flu is particularly bad, and considering how my body normally handles anything like that, I think I’ll stick with having had the stomach stuff… crossing fingers.
I haven’t had to cook dinner the past few days Parents and in-laws wanting to eat out for New Years eve and day, and then hubby bringing home dinner tonight… sounds just fine to me.
Critical Role On my last day or so of break I starting watching campaign one of the series, and I’m finding it just as entertaining as campaign two- at least now that I’ve skipped into the series a bit instead of starting out right at the beginning and have discovered…
Closed Captioning My hearing is pretty good, but combine a very slight delay in my own auditory processing speeds with at times less than stellar audio quality and you’ve got a frustrated listener. The captioning is helping out a lot with the earlier episodes.
Well, when I posted last Thursday’s thankful post talking about how the end of the semester was within sight I didn’t realize just how close to the end I was.
Okay, that sounds pretty ominous.
Don’t worry, nothing catastrophic- but I did end up stuck in bed for a few days due to the stomach bug that hit the school shortly before Christmas break. Thus, this week I was so thankful for…
Ice chips Weird thing to be thankful for I know, but when you have difficulty dealing with much going on your stomach ice chips can be such a help. For about a day this was all I consumed, and I will forever be grateful for the fact that we had a full bad in the freezer.
Almost-decent Timing The bug hit me and possibly the best time, comparatively- I was mostly recovered in time to do a bit of something for Yule, though not as much as usual, and I haven’t had much issue with Christmas food either. The hubby is another story, but at least he got to enjoy himself on Christmas Eve before it got him.
Coloring Books With hubby spending most of the day asleep, Christmas Day was pretty quiet this year. Thankfully, I had some coloring books to take up the time, and get my mind off of plans going by the wayside.
Family We haven’t been able to spend much time with the hubby’s side of the family this year, since Christmas Day is when we meet up with them, but we got a relaxing Christmas Eve with my folks at least. It’s taken a while to get used to the flip-flop routine of spending time with both families, but it’s nice when it works out. This year, of course, things were a little different. Hubby’s family, though, took it in stride. This just means Christmas isn’t completely over yet.
So, this weeks list might be a little short… well, shorter than it was last week at least. Not to say that this week’s been bad. It hasn’t. Not at all. It has, however, been stressful, and I vaguely feel like my brain is made of swiss cheese at the moment. My mental energy is lacking, to say the least.
Fuzzy Socks It’s finally chilly enough to pull out the fuzzy socks I got for myself a month or so ago. Well, technically it’s been chilly enough for the for a while now, but I’d kind of lost them in my rocking chair/dumping ground. However, I finally dug them out and got some use out of them, and they are as wonderfully fluffy and soft as I had hoped. Now if I can just remember to actually use them, instead of just curling my feet up underneath my legs like usual.
Diane Birch I’ve been listening to Speak a Little Louder on repeat this week. Not sure what it is about that album right now, whether it’s that nice mix of up and down tempo, or the soft rock meshing with soul, but it’s scratching a particular itch- letting my brain loosen just a bit.
Christmas Tree So I know last week I listed holiday decorations, so this is kind of repetitive, but I really like them, and we finally managed to get the tree decorated this week. It’d been sitting in the living room for the past couple of weeks- lit, but pretty bare, save a tiny stuffed Santa sitting on one of the branches and the a gold star on the top. Now though, it’s decked out in all its glittery glory, like it should be.
And finally…
The End’s Within Sight Thank God the semester’s almost over. Not a moment too soon in my opinion… well, aside from the whole not having time enough to get everything done… but my brain’s screaming for a break. And for a fresh start. Just one more day and I’ll be free ’til January.
Hanging by a Plot Thread 