Today’s forecast shows an 85% chance of swearing, and as usual, a 100% chance of sarcasm. Be sure to dress accordingly folks, it's going to be a scorcher!
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.
Please note: this work contains language and themes that may not be appropriate for young readers.
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.
Please note: this work contains language and themes that may not be appropriate for young readers.
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.
Please note: this work contains language and themes that may not be appropriate for young readers.
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.
Please note: this work contains language and themes that may not be appropriate for young readers.
Seriously, the only good thing that came out of this mess was the election results and even that was somewhat depressing. Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% here for Biden and our first female Vice President – of color, at that – but the fact that so many people still voted for the other choice, and the absolute ridiculous amount of people calling for him to run again in 2024 is heartbreaking. One of my roommates had her brother here for Thanksgiving week and I got to listen to a tin foil hat level conspiracy about how Biden’s going to put a chip in everyone by the end of the first year and they’re going to take everyone’s guns. By the time that guy left, I had a headache from the sheer…I don’t want to say stupidity, but wow.
In other news, I haven’t even touched “Don’t Feed the Trolls.” As predicted, my hours at work almost doubled, and the increase in hours lined up perfect with my Thanksgiving break from watching the kids, so when I wasn’t working, I was recovering from working. There was drama at work on Thanksgiving, so that was really fun. A co-worker came to work with COVID symptoms. We had to send him home until he got tested and cleaned as much of the store as possible. Because of the possible exposure, I got to wear an N95 mask (3/10. Effective but hell on the nose) on top of my regular mask for the rest of the night. The coworker’s test came back negative, but we’re both having to have two temperature checks per work shift, just to be safe.
I’ll have a two week break around Christmas, but I highly doubt I’ll get to write then, either. I’ll probably be working more, for one thing, and also ramping up on my packing. My future roommate signed the lease on our apartment just yesterday, and I’m supposed to be having a weekend off soon to finish organizing the family storage unit. Right now, everyone’s crap is all mixed in together, and I am not taking a bunch of toys the kids outgrew to my new place. Not happening, folks. I will be taking a washer and dryer (which may or may not work) and other assorted pieces of furniture, but that’s part of the organizing fun I get to have.
I’m getting more and more excited, people. My future residential area has already had snow and it’s barely reaching freezing, here in DFW. I’m not going to have much of a winter this year, but it’ll still be more of one than I’ve had for the past twelve years, and I am so ready for it.
TL;DR
No writing done, no writing probably until after the move. COVID still sucks. WEAR A DAMN MASK. Hell yeah, Biden/Harris, 2020!
In case you missed it:
“Say ‘No!’ to Zombies” is available on Amazon kindle! (Still working on the paperback copy.)
Every single time I thought to sit down last month and write a blog post, something else happened. Some good, some bad, some…undecided. I’m just glad I was able to finish that last chapter in time. It was a very near thing.
Just a heads up everyone, the next couple of months are going to be spotty. I finally got my moving stuff sorted out, and will be moving from Fort Worth, Texas to the Louisville, Kentucky area at the beginning of 2021. For the next two months, I’ll be going through an entire storage unit full of crap, sorting it out, figuring out what I want to keep and – in a lot of cases – repacking a ton of boxes. This, by the way, is on top of working an increasing amount of hours (yay, holidays!) and homeschooling the kids.
I had really hoped to have “Don’t Feed the Trolls” done before the end of the year, but with everything going on, I don’t know if it’s going to be possible. I plan on working on it as much as possible, but I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. Due to this, I can’t promise a chapter in November. If I am able to post a chapter in November, I can’t promise one for December, and so on, and so on.
I can’t even promise Music Mondays anymore, and those are my favorite posts to do. I have a replacement idea in mind, but I haven’t decided if I like it yet, or how actionable it is, considering how busy I’m about to be.
Stay safe everyone. Whether the Idiot-In-Chief wins the election or not, the next couple of months are going to be interesting.
In case you missed it:
“Say ‘No!’ to Zombies” is available on Amazon kindle! (Still working on the paperback copy.)
Okay, so, how are you all? Personally, I’ve been going just a bit crazy, but not in a bad way. Still not pressed about being cooped up at home or having to wear a mask. I did fall off my yoga train, though, so this month is going to be focusing on getting myself back into a good routine again (which also includes writing, yay!).
This is also the month of one of my favorite holidays, ever. (Yes, I am one of those people who get a bit craz(ier) around Halloween. You won’t ever see me with a PSL, but pour me a cold glass of apple cider and we’re good.) I’ve already talked my future roommate into setting up a Halloween Tree when we get all moved in and settled. No trick or treating for us, we’re “too old” (bah!), but we can still have a tree full of treats just for us, and I am living for it.
Enough about that, Let’s get onto this month’s lineup.
Writing:
As I am writing this, I am mostly done with Chapter 17 of “Don’t Feed the Trolls” and am hoping to post it on October 15th. There is a lot going on however, so it might be pushed back to the 22nd. Either way, you will see it this month. I’m also still working on the “Blood Runs Black” rewrite, but that’s gonna take a bit longer.
Music
This month is going to be dedicated to Halloween related videos. Zombies, witches, etc.. I haven’t decided which order I’ll post them in yet, but I plan on having fun this month.
In general
I’m trying to work on posting more regularly on here, but much of what’s going on is one hot button or another, so these are tricky times. I’m also trying to decide what to post here, because most writers get told to write about “writing stuff”, but there’s so much of that already out there. I’ll figure it out, but until then, you’re probably going to end up with random slices of life. (Sorry.)
TL;DR
Halloween is awesome and there’s a new chapter coming.
Sorry, I know some of you are like, “This is the longest January ever!” but I am more than happy to finally have most of summer behind me. I’ve spent the past two months (at least) grumbling about the heat (it’s almost 9pm when I’m writing this, and it’s still “Feels like 101°F” outside), so the fact that this week, we might be seeing temps in the 80°s is major cause for celebration. I told Nikki the other day that it feels like this year has flown by, what with it being one thing after another. I just can’t wait ‘til everything is over. I’m past done with customers being pissy about wearing a mask and Uber drivers trying to tell me that everything is a hoax.
Of course, the downside is that with it being September already, the kids are back in school. I mentioned before that we were sticking with remote learning, and let me tell you. It’s been a doozy. The eldest kiddo is doing fine. She gets up and gets to work, no problem. The youngest though, is fighting tooth and nail. He’s taken to waking up at 1am and staying up half the night, which means he’s cranky AF when 6:30am rolls around. He’s getting in trouble with his teachers and his classmates. It’s just a mess. A whole mess. (Before anyone starts on me: it’s not the teacher’s fault for this being a mess. The other students seem to be doing just fine. This is solely on the kiddo.) I don’t have to take over with him until about 9:15am, but from them until he’s done with his assignments for the day, it’s all out war. I’m quite eager to be moving out ASAP. (Too bad ASAP is still a good 6+months away.)
No real updates this month, besides the release of “Say ‘No!’ to Zombies.” I do have some time off from kids and work, so I’ll be writing as much as I can then. Sept. 7th will see the return of the #MusicMondays, so that’s something to look for, and I’ll try getting a new chapter of “Don’t Feed the Trolls” out later this month.
In the meantime, everyone stay safe and take care of yourself. It’s been a rough year, but we’ll make it through. If you’re taking part in any of the protests, double up on the staying safe and don’t forget your mask.
Last month…was an oops month. You probably noticed the first couple posts of the month stopped suddenly. This is what happens when you slap together a plan without actually stopping to prepare for it, first. I’ll be stepping that plan back and revising the whole idea. I want to do something, but I want to do it right.
In other news, this month is back to writing. I was thinking I’d have something for you by August 16th, but then I remembered I have another (minor) surgery coming up on the 15th, so I don’t want to make any promises. I’m going to try to have something, but life is starting to get busy again, so wish me luck?
Either the 17th or the 20th, school starts up again for the kids. Here, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, schools are giving the parents a choice on whether to send their kids to in person classes or online. We have two kiddos in this house. Both of them did very well with the remote learning, so we would prefer they continue with the remote lessons. The only problem is that I’m working outside of the house now, and I might be getting a lot more hours soon, because I’ve been approved to start cross training for a position in the pharmacy. When the remote learning first started, I had no outside job, so I just took care of everything on my own. Now though, all three of us “adults” are going to be working on (at times) conflicting schedules, so there’s no one of us who will be able to do all of the schooling for the kids.
Right now, we’re trying planners. We’ve got two of them, one for each kid. Their lessons and such will be filled out in them each week, and whichever one of us is “on duty” will mark off what they’ve completed so far. Whenever the person “on duty” has to go, they’ll pass off the planner to whoever comes home next. We’re hoping, between the three of us, we’ll be able to stay on track. It also helps that the mom now gets a day off during the week, so she’ll be taking the load on that day instead of me. It also helps that the school day will be starting early in the morning, so their mom will get them started, and I’ll get them finished.
Nothing more to add for the monthly round up, but I’m sure I’ll end up posting about masks and COVID throughout the month, especially since my sister and mother are both waiting for their test results to come back.
Still hoping to have you all a buy link by the end of the month.
Hope you all are staying safe and sane, and your governors are being smarter than ours. If any of you are taking part in the protests, remember to keep your eyes open and look out for each other.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone else feel like we’re living in SimCity and the player walked away from the computer? Does anyone even remember SimCity? Oof. Showing my age.
Anyway. I have a special request of anyone/everyone reading this: if you ever see/hear me say “I love moving!”, “Packing is fun!”, or anything else along those lines – smack me. Really hard.
I’m not actually moving (yet), my relocating plans have been put on hold until this stupid death plague is under control, but, I have so much stuff to go through, I figured I should start early. I’ve already condensed four totes into one box, and reorganized about 10 random boxes of crap I had around my room into…okay, 4 boxes, but they’re small! I should actually put them together into one bigger box, but I’m trying to keep them organized, so. We’ll see. I still have a bookcase to go through and a couple things to toss into storage so they’re out of the way. Some massive rearranging is about to happen with my space, so that’s something fun to look forward to.
In other news, I have a big chapter for “Don’t Feed the Trolls” to write, and I haven’t even touched it. On that same note, I did get around to looking into self-publishing for “Say ‘No!’ to Zombies.” It would be easy enough to do, through KDP. The e-book price would have to be set to at least $2.99 USD, but I’m not sure what the print price would be, because apparently it depends on quite a few things. I will be working all that out, and I might actually have a sales link for you near the end of August. In the meantime, I’m hoping to have some fun little pieces to drop on you here in the next couple weeks. Nothing big, but something I hope you’ll enjoy.
This month is going to be a busy one for me. I finally have dental and vision insurance again, so I have a bunch of appointments set up. My glasses are scratched to hell and back, so I need new ones, and the dentist has scheduled me for a follow up surgery to finish the process we started last year. Today is my first day of yoga (haven’t done it yet, but I’m already feeling the oof), and…just…so much. So much planned.
That’s it for the big news though. I live in Texas, so – for those of you who don’t already know – the virus thing is a definite concern right now. Early May, our idiot governor decided it would be a good idea to reopen the state, and our mayors followed suit. The number of people I had come in to my work, buying things like kids’ snorkels, sunscreen, and beach towels, talking about how they’re going to spend the weekend at the lake…oof. The bars across the state opened at far more capacity than they were supposed to, and absolutely no one was staying home (from what I saw, anyway).
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
Now, the hospitals are running out of beds, our numbers are rising at a ridiculous rate, and the idiot is only pausing the reopening of the state. June 25th, we finally got a mask mandate put in place, but there’s still no stay at home order. The governor told people they should stay home, but he’s not enforcing it. Our schools sent out a notice the other day saying that students will be given the option of how to attend school – in person or online (but that might change). It’s like the people in charge here are doing nothing to really help stop the spread. It’s a mess.
Even the weather seems to realize things are bad enough as it is. It hasn’t even hit 100 yet, and only a handful of tornadoes so far. Please note: this is not a complaint.
Hope you all are staying safe and sane, and your governors are being smarter than ours. If any of you are taking part in the protests, remember to keep your eyes open and look out for each other.
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Tiffany Crystal's Forecast for the day: 