New Years

Bye bye 2025

The countdown to a new year happens tonight. Tomorrow, our New Year’s Day breakfast table is likely to resemble this, our Christmas morning one, where soon after this picture was taken, we feasted on pancakes with local maple syrup, sausages and mockmosas.

This December was another of mass-producing sweets and sharing them with people. The “try” recipe was an utter mess to make, but the taste! The texture! Salted Caramels were a delight to eat, but too sticky to send so few people tasted them. I streamlined a few processes and maybe next year – if there is still chocolate and I can afford it – I’ll be faster and more precise. That is, if there is another Christmas. I heard someone on social media cancelled it, but who knows what reality is anymore when widows take to stages with pyrotechnics to grieve?

Our puppy went to have a picture taken with Santa, but all she wanted was her trainer.

Besides this past year, I’m shedding a lot of once cherished dreams to embark on something a lot of people may hate me for doing, but I feel compelled. I’m working through the anxiety and fear, but change is daunting. And even though I’m pulling away from writing, I will be spending my last hours working on a story. My saint of a beta reader read a rough version and deemed it clever. I’m hoping to send it off as the last submission of the year, but I must hurry, so I’m wishing you all the best and hoping 2026 is gentle with us all.

Thank you for stopping by and for the read! Cheers!

A Merry Good Time to Exhale

Christmas was the day I felt some of the pressure leave my shoulders. There was nothing I could do about packages not making it on time, I’d locally delivered all the holiday treats, I even let Husband make the bed with the sheets wrong and let it go instead of redoing it. Cards were sent, food prepped, and vaccine shots were starting for emergency personnel. Letting go of this year is a physical relief.

Not having anyone over this year meant I could put off any deep cleaning that otherwise would have gotten done. Before Christmas, I pulled all of the books from the L in the library with the bigger fiction and the physical/societal/spiritual/financial books. Those shelves were cleaned and readjusted. Nothing is where I can find it and I found a different TBR pile to mirror the one I have in other stacks upstairs.

Christmas morning was scrumptious with sausages, pancakes, and mimosas. Thank you again to Gina’s husband for his syrup. We finally finished the syrup our neighbor gave us and opened yours!

I want to give a shout out to everyone who sent us cards; they do mean a lot to receive. This is the door we place them on to admire. Once we take them down, I’ll be putting a poster I got for Christmas on there. Thank you Michael!

Husband made me this:

See, when I do Zoom, I had a stack of books to set the tablet on for the correct height. Now, I have this platform with a place for the keyboard, making it such an upgrade in ease – and let, face it, beauty.

I’m not a “New Year’s resolution” type of person, never have been, but this year is hitting differently.  Had she lived, my mom would have turned 71 today. It’s weird to consider this since she passed away in 1997 at 47. I’ve outlived her by a few years. So has my sister. I didn’t get as much written, edited, or published this year and I’m kind of pissed at myself about that. I don’t need assurances, this isn’t a plea for pity, it’s a public acknowledgement of my personal feelings. Next year, I may publish less. Or more. I don’t know, but I’m cobbling together a list of goals I would like accomplish but I can’t make myself call them resolutions…not yet.

I do want to express gratitude to everyone at SMOLDR, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Blink Ink, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, HAD, and Milk Candy Review for believing in my work and publishing me this year. Thank you. You all helped me survive this insane year. So did the amazing friendships I have with Nina Fosati, Chyo, my Husband, well, I could spend all day making this list and then nothing else would get done but yes, you are on the list…you know you are.

Thank you for stopping by and for the read. And on a deeply personal note, I doubt there are birthdays in the afterwards, but I hope my mom is having a happy day wherever she is. I miss her.

It’s just a coincidence: new year/new blog post.

Can you believe it’s been 15 years since the Y2K scare?

1.1.2000TBTa

Remember the excitement?

1.1.2000TBTb

And then the let down when nothing happened.
1.1.2000TBTc
*Sigh*

This year marks a personally significant one; I will soon be the same age as my mom when she died. If it’s genetics, I guess my death is nigh, and if not I will probably end up working on a few messy, emotional essays about this topic. Some of those thoughts and ideas may end up in future blog posts. You have been warned.

Yesterday, I spent time in my office’s loft finishing up the organization of the things that were allowed to remain. I’m donating/dumping so much “stuff” that I’ve been holding onto for no good reason. It was just time for it to go–not so much because of the time of the year as much as being ticked off that I couldn’t easily get to the box I needed.

The correspondence stays.

I came across letters and cards with notes–I wasn’t able to read them all, but each was touching. And this morning I received an email from someone whom I encouraged, which brightened my day–and the beginning of this new year. (Thank you Sidney Thompson!)

No resolutions, no new me, just the same goals I’ve always had: continue to read, to write and improve with each piece.

Sadly, with the amount of reading for r.kv.r.y. and Literary Orphans, my time for novel length books feels diminished. Instead of dwelling on that, I’ve added a book a week to my calendar–whether I get to reviewing them or not is a different topic. Once I get through Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist again, I might have that sort of courage and determination. She writes honestly about everything; that is the truest form of freedom and bravery.

There is snow on the ground and I followed a stray cat’s paw prints out to get the Buffalo News. I haven’t seen this cat, but I’ve known of its existence for months. Husband has another long weekend and I have a new story to work on. After a vivid dream that involved a lot of inappropriate kissing, I wrote down the details, and that somehow unlocked the plot to a long story/novella I wrote years ago that did not work. (It is from so long ago I may have to track down a 3.5 floppy disc reader.) Now, I see where several other bits fit together and I’m excited to see how well they will work together.

Anything to avoid writing messy essays and starting–in earnest–on the new novel.
So for now, I bid you adieu and send you wishes for a very good new year.

Thank you for stopping by!

(*These are my creekside reflections. Your experiences may vary.)