Tuesday, April 25, 2017

I Let You Go by Clare MacKintosh

I just finished reading a book that I want to recommend to anyone who likes twists.  I Let You Go by Clare MacKintosh has a great one, and you will not see it coming!
Lucy recommends I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
Because of the twist, I can't really even tell you what the book is about.  Because it twists the plot line that much.  What you think the book is about changes, about mid-way through the book.

Although I use to read a ton of books in the "Suspense/Thriller" genre, I don't read them nearly as often now.  Sometimes they just seem so disturbing.  And I realized finally, I don't want to spend my time with them so much anymore. This book doesn't necessarily fall into that category, but when I picked it up, something made me think that. It's well written with good character development and explores one theme in several different ways.  It's not just throwing in disturbing things, and plot twists for shock value.  It seems very well thought out. 

Sorry I'm being so vague and telling you so little about this one, but I don't want to spoil anything.  So just get your hands on this book and read it.  And then, we'll talk! :)  

I think this is the author's first book, but she already has a second out and guess what?  It's on hold for me at the library.  I have a few other books to read first, but I will get to it soon.  I can't wait to see how she follows up a book like this!  Such an impressive debut.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

I'm Having a Sale In My Etsy Shop






Friday, April 14, 2017

Afraid of the Dark

I used to be afraid of the dark.  Well, it wasn't actually darkness that I was afraid of, it was bad guys.  Bad guys out in the dark of night, that might be made aware of me, because I was awake and moving around, breathing and being scared.  This is obviously how bad guys find little kids to kidnap.  That's what I believed back then anyway. I know this doesn't make rational sense.  I was a little kid.  And when you're a kid it's okay to have irrational fears at night.  Up to a point.

I grew into the nightly habit of waking, in a fright, anywhere between about midnight and 4am.   If I thought I could make a mad dash quickly enough to my parents bedroom before I was caught by those bad guys, I'd make a run for it.  But the more I thought about it, the more the run from my room upstairs to their room downstairs seemed too far and far too risky.
So I began yelling from underneath the covers of my bed, "MOM!"

And once my voice got loud enough, I could hear Mom rolling her eyes as she would say, "Ok, Kerri.  I'm coming." This habit I got into was not cool with Mom.  Because like a normal person, she wanted to sleep at night.  Not only was I screaming, but now rather than me come to her, she was having to walk up the stairs to get to me.  And then she felt obligated to stay with me until I fell back asleep.

Now that I'm an adult and have dogs that occasionally need me to let them out in the middle of the night to pee, I am well aware that being awakened, even by your own sweet child, is not fun.

Eventually, when I was 7 or 8 years old, Mom had had enough of my nighttime antics and said something that I heard like this, "Ok, Kerri.  You're going to have to cut this shit out and fast.  If you don't, your dad and I will be taking you to see a psychiatrist.  This is not normal.  And you're killing me."

I don't know how or what I did, but Mom's threat somehow scared me even worse than my middle-of-the-night fears had. So I stopped yelling for her. Cold turkey. I wish I remembered childhood things like these better.  I just have fragments of the story.  How did I cope?  Did I start sleeping through the night, or did I lay awake, heart racing in fear until I finally would doze off again?

Although the screaming, and the habit of waking every single night subsided, I never really got over having a wild imagination filled with fear once darkness would fall upon me. Even to this day, when Fermin is traveling and I'm in the house with just my dogs, Lucy and Ricky, at night, I get spooked easily.  If I hear a noise, my first thought is, "Uh oh. Bad guys."

Last night, around 3am, I don't know what noise we heard (because I was asleep, so although it woke me up, I can't really remember what the noise actually was) but the fact that Lucy and Ricky also looked a little edgy did nothing to calm my nerves.  They had wide eyed looks, Lucy said some jargled words (because yes, occasionally my girl talks, but I don't know what she's saying because I don't speak Dog), and they both sat up and looked at me like, "Ok, are you going to do something?"

And that's the question, right there.  Am I going to do something? At what point is it not humiliating to call 9-1-1 and say, "Hey, me and my dogs just heard something that woke us up and now we're scared. Can you please send someone over?"

My tactic last night was what it always is in moments like that. I just thought to myself, "What are the chances that a burglar, murderer or rapist is really going to chose our house.  We're in a safe neighborhood.  We have a gate.  We lock our doors.  My dogs can sound scary and mean. Why would anyone pick our house?  Seriously, what are the chances?"  And that self talk usually calms me down.  Eventually, my heart stops beating out of my chest. At some point, I get brave enough to turn the TV on just settle down.  And finally, within an hour or two... I'm back to sleep.

I think I ended up only getting 3 or 4 hours of sleep last night.  But I got caught up on some Nightline's I had DVRed. This afternoon though, that lack of sleep was really catching up with me.  So, I went and took a little nap while getting a foot massage at one of those cheap Chinese foot massage places that I love so very much.  I am not afraid of the dark, in the daytime, while my feet are being rubbed. EVER.

Anyway, this is how my adult self handles the dark.  My fears are still with me.  But I've learned better coping skills.

Monday, April 10, 2017

What I'm Reading

This weekend, the weather was just perfect for lounging in the hammock.  It's that magical (and very brief) season here in Dallas when it's about 70-80 degrees AND the mosquitoes haven't yet taken over the place.

Fermin had a lot of golf watching to do with the Masters on, and I have zero interest in that.  So he watched tv inside, while I read for a couple hours outside both Saturday and Sunday.  And of course, I had two little friends outside to keep me company. Although Lucy and Ricky laid in the hammock with me most of the time, they'd take little play breaks to play ball together. And by "play ball" that usually means just laying around near the ball, and occasionally rolling around grunting and wrestling.
play ball!
I finished the last few chapters of a book called Guy by Jowita Bydlowska.  Wow.  What a weird protagonist. Not just weird- but a pretty disgusting person.  It was interesting though and I read the whole thing in just a few days. I recommend it only to people who enjoy reading about narcissistic misogynists.

Then, I started The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, who also wrote Room, which I loved.  I remember reading about The Wonder when it first came out, but for some reason, I didn't rush out to buy it.  I came across it at the library on Friday afternoon though and brought it home.  I started it during hammock time on Saturday.  I only just started it, but I think it's going to be interesting.

I'm also reading a couple of non-fiction books right now.  One is Dr. Wayne Dyer's Manifest Your Destiny.  My friend, Elaine, recommended it to me.  And yes!  This one is right up my alley because I love all books about manifesting!  For me, it's always so inspiring to read on this topic.  This book looks short, but it's DEEP.  I can only read a little at a time, and then I just have to think about it and let my brain chew on the words for a while before moving on.  So this one will take some time to finish.  And then I'll probably re-read it again.  I actually bought the audible version first, which I like, BUT it was just moving too fast for me.  I love that I have both versions now.  Listen a little, read a little.  I highly recommend you check into this one out if you want to create what you want in your life.  That's sorta a no-brainer, right?  Who doesn't want to create what they want?!

I'm also reading a new-ish book on writing called Wired For Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron. (Good Lord that's a long title, I just realized.  Let's just called it Wired For Story from here on out so no one gets too exhausted.)  It's pretty fascinating so far.  As this book says, biologically, our brains are wired for stories.  So it's about the brain (always fascinating to me) and about writing- two topics I can never get enough of, and I can never learn enough about.  Sort of like the Wayne Dyer book, this one is very "meaty"- so, a little at a time seems to be the best way for me to digest it.

So that's what I'm reading, and plan to be reading for a while.
The Wonder, Manifest Your Destiny, and Wire for Story

How 'bout YOU?  What are you reading?

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Stage Hynosis





I'm in the army green jacket.  Looking UP.








Saturday, April 1, 2017

10 Quick Things

Ten Quick Things.

Have you ever gone a longer than normal time without talking to a friend you WANT to call, but because all that time has passed... well, there just seems so much to catch up on that it feels overwhelming. And so more time passes.  But the overwhelm only gets worse.

Well, it's not that so much has happened since I've last written a post here- and I think it's just been a couple of weeks.  Still, I don't quite know where to start.  So I'm just going to jot down ten quick things.  Because that just seems like a non-intimidating way to get back to blogging, and I don't have much time right now.  But I don't want to put it off for one more day.  Seriously.  Not one.  So here's the 10 things...

1. I just finished listening to the incredibly riveting podcast "S- Town".  Whoa.  There are only 7 episodes so it's an easy one to binge in a few days.  And I highly recommend that you do just that.

2. We cleaned out our garage today.  Gross.  But that kind of stuff sure feels good when you're (just about) finished.

3.  I've been refamiliarizing myself with tarot cards lately.  Just drawing one from my deck each day.  Man oh man is it weird how I seem to draw THE most meaningful and on point card each day.  Like they have magical powers.  For realz. Loving that.

4. My mom died a dozen years ago March 29th.  That is TWELVE years.  Time is a tricky beast.  Fast and slow, all at once.  On that anniversary day, Fermin happened to call me from work and asked me to go outside and look up at one of our trees in the front yard.  He wanted to see if this loose hanging branch had been blown down during the storm from the previous night.  As I looked up, there was a cardinal.  Of course.  Cardinals have always been the signal I think Mom is sending to me to say "Hi!"  She definitely gave me a nod.  Thanks to Fermin asking me to look up.  (And no.  The branch had not yet fallen.  But we got it down later that day so that it wouldn't end up falling and hurting someone.)

5. I said 10 quick things, but it's only going to be 5.  Sorry.  I'm not as quick as I had planned to be.  There are so many things I want to mention, but we are about to go to dinner and bowling with our friends Allyson and Kevin.  And no.  Bowling is not a regular thing for us.  It was a random idea we thought of last night after everyone had a good meal and a little wine in there stomachs.  Bowling the next night made perfect sense at the time, so we made a reservation.  And now... We're OFF!