I hated you
the first time we met.
You had replaced my old love
before I had the chance
to even say goodbye.
You dared to appear
right as he vanished –
and for that
you had to take the blame.
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love
Star Trek Exhibit Highlights at Indianapolis Children’s Museum
Over the weekend my husband and I visited Indianapolis to see the Star Trek exhibit at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. My husband was in heaven lol. I was there. I did find a few fun things to concentrate on though.
I annoyed my husband by sitting in the captain’s chair like this:
My personal favorite in the exhibit was this painting of Data’s cat from The Next Generation, I would hang this in my house:
My husband got assimilated and beamed up (along with a little friend):
I did get to ride the museum’s carousel (one of my favorite things to do at any museum, zoo, or park). Unfortunately, I threw my hip out climbing onto it. I think from now on I may need to sit on the little benches on the carousel like all the other old, broken down bodies:
I also got a photo op at Candyland:
Now I am back home, exhausted, sore, and will probably need a few days to recuperate.
CFS/ME Flare Up and Park Outing
It’s been a rough week physically. I had a CFS/ME flare-up, which feels a lot like mono if you’ve ever had that, or the worse flu you can imagine. During these flare-ups, I run a fever, my body aches horribly, I feel too exhausted to move, too exhausted to breathe, and if I sit up or stand up long, I feel faint. Trying to do the simplest tasks is overwhelming and can make me feel like passing out, even just putting up my dishes or trying to take care of my personal hygiene.
Yesterday I was finally feeling well enough to get out and since the weather was warm, my husband and I went for a picnic at a local park. We got subs and then after eating, walked the short distance to the lake edge. As you can see, it was pretty darn muddy:
I’m glad we went, because I needed the mental distraction, but now I am really sore and exhausted from even that short bit of activity. Trudging through the mud really wore me out because the mud sticking to my shoes made my feet feel like they gained 10 pounds, and I almost slipped and fell a couple times. It probably wasn’t the brightest idea to go, but mentally I needed to feel alive again, even if just for a little while.
Valentine’s Day 2019 Gifts – Lots of Unicorns!
I had a good Valentine’s Day yesterday!
My husband and I went to Fazoli’s for a casual dinner because we just don’t find it worth it to go to nice restaurants on Valentine’s Day when it is so ridiculously busy and packed. We will go to a nice dinner in a few days when it is calmer lol.
I loved all the gifts I got! As you can tell, there was a unicorn theme! Lots of stuffed unicorns, a unicorn & mermaid coloring book, adorable sloth and donut socks, chocolate covered strawberries, and and awesome gudetama notebook and bananya (cats in bananas) pen.
Valentine Sticker ACEO Trading Card Collages
Happy Valentine’s Day! I bought some Valentine stickers at Dollar Tree recently and decided to make some ACEO collages with them. Here are the finished results:
My favorites are the food themed ones. I thought those were really unusual for Valentine’s themed stickers. I always like to find the weird, different stuff!
You can find these and more for sale on my Ebay store!
Twittering Tales Fun
I came across these “Twittering Tales” writing prompts yesterday and thought it looked like a lot of fun. The challenge is to take a photo prompt and write a short story, poem, or whatever comes to mind, but you have to keep it under 280 characters, just like a tweet on Twitter. I decided to go ahead and write a twittering tale for last week’s prompt as well as this week’s prompt.
Here is the one I came up with for last week’s prompt (photo from Pixabay):
Hearts and stars. Hearts and stars. Simple shapes that any preschool child could identify, but symbolic of so much more.
The heart…love, obsession, passion, heartwarming, heartbreaking, blood pumping.
The star…cosmic, mysticism, alchemy, popularity, holidays, holy days.
And here is the second prompt (photo also from Pixabay). This one took a bit of a dark turn, but it was what came to mind for some reason:
It starts with one word:
Helium. A harmless word? Parties. Balloons floating around the room. Rough, gruff voices becoming chipmunk squeaks.
Or do you picture tragedy? Helium tanks hooked up to hoses. Bodies lying still with bags over their heads. Voluntary euthanasia. The end.
Let me know if you guys enjoyed these. Maybe I’ll do more!
Baby, It’s Cold Outside! Cute Penguin ACEO Collages
It is pretty darn cold here and only getting colder, so thought I would share a couple ACEO artist trading card collages with a wintry theme, so enjoy some cuddly, cozy penguins:
You can find these artworks and more for sale on my Ebay store!
Kindle Direct Publishing’s New Reporting System and Some Author Updates!
Yesterday I logged into my Kindle Direct Publishing account on Amazon and while looking at the reports, noticed there is a new “beta” reporting program they are working on that I could test (the picture above shows the new graphing, with part of the book breakdown below). I checked it out and it is WAY better than their old reporting program! It uses color coded graphs to plainly show which books you are selling, when you are selling them, and also easily separates books sold from “free” promotions vs. paid sales.
I am thrilled they are updating their system, because what they have had the last few years sucks in my opinion. It was hard to even tell which books sold! In other good news, while checking out the new system, I looked at my overall numbers from the last quarter and was pleasantly surprised to see that all together I’ve sold more than 230 ebooks (including promotions) during the last 90 days! Not bad for an indie author!!! It makes my heart happy to know that many people are reading my books!
If you use KDP publishing, I would recommend checking out the new program if you are able to under your own reports! By the way, if you want to check out my Amazon Author Page and maybe give it a follow, that would be awesome! I also have a FREE ebook promotion running today through Monday for my art ebook, “Stories Behind My Art” (if you like it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon!)
Lastly, a few years back, I published a little short story/spiritual ebook called “Jesus, Mohammed, and Abraham – A Parable about Love and Peace” under the name M.N. Russell ($0.99, FREE for Kindle Unlimited) . I decided to add that to my Amazon author bibliography, so you can check that out if you think it sounds interesting!
Christmas and Family Forgiveness
Yesterday my husband and I traveled over to Indiana to meet my mom and her husband for Christmas dinner. We all decided to meet at a truckstop that is about halfway between us, so that neither of us would have to cook, clean up, or drive too far:
I genuinely had a good time and am glad I’ve been able to spend more time with them recently. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while, may remember that there has been a lot of water under the bridge between my mother and myself over things that happened when I was growing up. She made some huge mistakes, and as is often the case, my sister and I had to pay for many of those choices just as much as she did…maybe more in some cases.
She genuinely seems to be regretful and is trying to make things better between us, so although I am always going to be cautious and protective of myself, it feels good to be able to embrace forgiveness for my own peace of mind and well-being. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what we went through was ok, or that the damage wasn’t done, but it does mean that it doesn’t have control of my life, my mind, or my heart anymore. I can move on.
I am somewhat a believer in the saying “When we know better, we do better”. Some of us take a long, long time to “know better”, but healing and wisdom are ours once we finally do face the truth.
