The Hailey Chronicles: Saying Goodbye

Get ready to cry, y’all, because this story is a sad one. 🙁 (TW: pet death) One week ago, we had to say goodbye to our sweet furbaby Hailey. I’ve talked about her before. She had kidney disease. We were taking her to the vet three times a week for fluids and had her on a regimen of medication to keep her comfortable and functioning well, as she was nearing nineteen and a half. We knew her time was coming to an end — but by the beginning of this year, she was still mostly stable. Her bloodwork looked okay — not fantastic, because kidney disease, but not horrendous, either — and she still had fight in her. She’d still play, get on my mother’s lap, eat, drink, get on our kitchen table when we cooked to try to get scraps (or, spend time with her favorite humans), and hung out with me when I worked at night, often battling me to be allowed to walk on my keyboard. Damn, she loved it. It’s backlit in a rainbow of colors, which I think was the attraction. I have several Google Sheets that she’d completely bork if she did her little stroll across it, so there was always this panicked, “No, Hailey, no!” thing with me grabbing her gently and placing her next to my computer, encouraging her to just sit there and let me pet her instead. Sometimes it worked, and I’d work one handed, petting her with my free…

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Writer’s Block Sucks

Man, I haven’t been this blocked in years. Usually, it’s when I’ve taken a bad turn in the plot somewhere, and I need to start over from that point and figure out what happened and how to fix it. Usually, I’ll use a few different methods such as Tarot cards, freewriting, brainstorming, and even playing various writerly “games” to get at my subconscious and the answer—or, at least the beginning of the answer and over the hump so I can start writing again and in the right direction. (The writerly “games” are courtesy of Holly Lisle’s Create a Plot Clinic – an amazing book that I highly recommend — and I do not make any money from this; I am just a huge fan of her fiction and nonfiction). However, I’ve had a fair amount of upheaval in the past few years. We’ve got the pandemic, of course. My ongoing sleep issues, which are getting better, but aren’t perfect yet. We’ve got my usual chronic illness stuff. My business, which is thriving, but also takes a lot of time and energy. I’m still working on that part. I think a lot of this is effecting my creativity. I wrote 6,000 words in 2021. Abysmal, but things were crap that year. Last year was much better at 20,000 words. Yay! I’d said at least double 6,000, and I’d made that and a bit more. This year? I’m at about 2,000. Granted, we’re only into April, so there’s time. And I’ve been…

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Happy birthday to me…in 6 days.

Technically five, actually, since it’s almost 2am on Wednesday as I am writing this, but let’s just pretend it’s still Tuesday, okay? I actually remembered to do this, then got busy with work, then looked up at the clock and realized that a whole two hours had gone by and…oops? So here we are. Almost 2am on Wednesday-pretend-it’s-Tuesday. Sooooo my birthday is March 27th (in case the math didn’t make that clear enough). Smack between winter and spring. the weather is usually crappy, but the one year it was nice, I was unable to walk due to the Great Surgery Adventure of 2019. Hoping for good weather this year! I will be forty-seven years old. Three years away from a half a century on this lovely planet. Seventeen thousand one hundred fifty five days old, not quite exactly, because I don’t feel like figuring for leap years. I just looked it up, actually. It’s 17, 165 days, just ten more. Wow. And 564 months. There are a bunch of other figures, which I won’t bore you with, but I liked this one: 15.7 years sleeping (approximately). Seriously? Wow. That’s seriously mind-blowing. So I was thinking back to my childhood. I’m sure you’re all aware that my generation is the last that never had cell phones, or internet, or any of the technology that we enjoy today. Cell phones came around — well, technically in the 80s because I remembered a friend of mine in middle school, her dad had one…

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It’s Alive!!

…And no, I’m not talking about Frankenstein. Although I could draw some very interesting parallels — stay with me, here. Okay, so let me start from the beginning. Every January (or in the case of this year, February because reasons), I pick a languishing novel out of my pile to start the new year off with. I don’t actually continue working on it, but I give it a bit of time, just to keep it in the background of my mind, refill the well, remind myself that it still exists, and experience the magic again. It’s tradition. Currently, I have three such novels. So I wanted to work on a different one from last year, so I chose Survivor, my oldest work to date. For those of you just joining the madness, Survivor is a psychological thriller/horror novel I started way back in 2004 for a two-year novel writing class I was taking at the time. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It ended up being one of the best books I’ve ever written — and the most maddening, for a variety of reasons. But I love it, believe in it, and this book haunts me. YES. So the goal is to get it published, naturally…except…um…it needs a major rewrite because 2004!Erin just wasn’t as good a writer as 2023!Erin. And well, the book’s in pieces, and — (Frankenstein reference, anyone?) well, it’s been majorly intimidating me for years, but…in 2019 or so, I decided that…

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What are you manifesting?

So, if you’ve been around for awhile, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Law of Attraction. Well, I’m not talking about that. Not exactly. See, a year ago, I took a “bootcamp” in a manifestation technique through author Heather Hildenbrand that is similar, but is quite different, too. Actually, I have yet to totally finish it, as I got super busy during that period. She is running the bootcamp for a second time, and I am an alumna, so I get to take it again (and again and again…) if I want to. So I will probably do that. But the parts I did take were extremely helpful. But I’m not really talking about that, either. It’s the backstory. See, I’ve always been curious about it. Can you really manifest anything your heart desires? The one thing they say is that you have to put the work into it — you can’t just say, okay, I’m going to be a millionaire by next week and wait for the dollar bills to fall from the sky. We and the universe are co-creators — we work together. You gotta do something to help that come together. The universe does its part; you do yours. So in my Lenormand class, we touched on a manifestation technique with the cards that I tried recently with a duplicate deck I kept just for this purpose. It’s basically waiting for the right moon phase (for setting intentions and manifestation – the new moon) and laying out…

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Christmas is in…how many days?!

Is it time to panic? I think it’s time to panic. To be fair, my family’s been hit pretty hard with some challenges this year. My husband just tested positive for COVID, despite all efforts toward being safe. Three years he dodged it. Only to be hit with it five days before Christmas. What terrible luck! The good news is that it seems to be a mild case, and he’s already feeling a bit better, so we may have a chance of having our holiday celebration on Sunday. However — and here’s the tough part — we’re worried about anyone else coming down with it in between. We are quarantining, distancing, masking, and doing everything we can to avoid catching it, but you know how that works — sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw. If anyone does get it, then it’s game over. We are already having a second celebration the Wednesday afterward to accomodate my sister, who can’t be with us for Christmas due to having to work, so we could, theoretically, have the whole thing that day — if everyone’s okay. But prep-wise, which my mom and I are doing (as usual, and in some considerable pain as we both have a genetic hip/back issue that’s acting up), we don’t know what to do yet. Do we make the food as if we’re having it Sunday? Or do we wait a bit? I already cleaned the bathroom (my usual job) because regardless, that needed doing. But…having…

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Gratitude

Sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of daily life, we forget to stop and give thanks for our blessings. I know I do. Frequently. It’s easy to take for granted that we’re healthy, or that we’ve got food to eat, or a roof over our heads. We forget that there are people out there who don’t have those things. And then it’s like, whoa, I am so lucky. I need to thank God/the Universe/whomever for this. Every Thanksgiving I try my best to practice gratitude. At our table, we list our blessings and what we are thankful for. It’s a small but very powerful thing. It reminds us that we should never take anything for granted. As you know, my health has never been perfect. But I am very lucky in that I’ve never had cancer or any other serious or life-threatening illness. I’ve never had to think about what happens after I’m gone in a very real way (versus abstractly right now) or actually make preparations for that possibility or say goodbyes or be faced with options that will either give me three great months or seven horrible ones. I thank God for that all the time. Yeah, I get frustrated with things — the severe fatigue, the sleep issues, the little stuff that pops up…but nothing’s killing me. I’m lucky. So damn lucky. I’m also grateful for my business, my job, which allows me to work from home and not jeopardize my health worse by having to work…

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Birthday Celebrations: Yay or Nay?

Today — well, yesterday, as it’s now midnight — was my husband’s birthday. I once wrote a blog about how awesome he is, so I won’t repeat that — although he is still awesome, and he just gets more awesome by the year. 🙂 We’ll be having a family party in a few weeks, but today we had a nice dinner (take out, of course, because of COVID. We do this every year for the birthday person as per tradition). Then his parents surprised us by stopping by, which is always nice. All in all, it was a great day. And he was very happy. But recently, I was shocked to learn that some people don’t celebrate birthdays. I understand the idea of an adult not having a party — maybe he or she feels like that’s more of a thing for when you’re younger — and when you’re older, it’s not really a big deal. But in my family? We make a big deal out of birthdays and holidays. For life. The family parties have it all — the dinner, the gifts, the cake (or desserts, in some cases), and ice cream. (Now some are gluten free to accommodate my diet, which is awesome). Is that childish? I dunno, to be honest. It’s always been this way. We’re firm believers in celebrating every year. I believe that you should celebrate each trip around the sun. Especially in these times, with COVID, because let’s face it — we’re never guaranteed…

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Lessons from The Tarot: Empress

So, if you’ve been hanging around here awhile, you know that I’ve been reading Tarot since I was sixteen (thirty years!) and Lenormand for the past two years. And while I originally, as a kid, used it “to tell my future” LOL, I now use it mostly for guidance. And writing, but that’s another post. Today I’d like to talk about the Empress card and the lessons it has taught me. First of all, the Empress is Key 3 (of 21) – Major Arcana (major life themes/karma/big things) and she represents creativity, abundance, nurturing, motherhood, a mother figure, home and hearth, and, in some contexts, pregnancy. (She’s actually HUGE for pregnancy if the question is about that). The interesting thing about the Empress is that she is my personal significator card. See, the Tarot selects a card for you when you start reading. And that card will show up in a lot of your readings. And the Empress is totally interesting as my card because, well, I’m not really maternal, and I’m not a mother (except to a cat), but I am creative and I am all about home and hearth and I can be very nurturing. So it’s kinda like an inside joke. Here’s me, the woman the least likely to pop out kids, and I’m the Empress. Ha, ha. But there’s another aspect to her. She’s also the Divine Feminine, counterpart to The Emperor, Key 4, the Divine Masculine. The Divine Feminine what, you say? Well…that’s all about…

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Why Perfectionism Sucks

About a week ago, I read an awesome poem on Instagram. I follow a lot of poets on there, and I collect prompts and post my own stuff and generally try to participate in the poetry community when I can. Anyway, this poem inspired me, and I commented to the poet that I “might write an after poem inspired by it.” (An “after poem” is basically that — a poem inspired by another poem, or a response to it). The poet was obviously excited and happy to read that because she said, “Please, please do!” So I did. The poem was on “All the Places I’ve Lost Myself.” But my version didn’t quite hit the mark; in fact, I believe I veered completely off course. As one does. Oops? I wasn’t happy with it. Well, it wasn’t bad per se. It just wasn’t what I was hoping for as an after poem. If you recall, these Instagram poems are part of my Bad Poetry Project, so they don’t have to be perfect. But all of a sudden, the perfectionism monster reared its ugly head. One revision, I told myself. Just to get it right. I had some better ideas. I was sure I could nail it. And…I almost did? But not quite. Not quite. Now, here’s the problem. I am a total perfectionist. I know this about myself. I’m not allowed to make mistakes, not allowed to be anything less than 100% perfect. Why? I suspect trauma — being bullied,…

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