Valentine’s Day

I remember being single. It was a few years back, but I was single for much of my adult life. Valentine’s Day was rough back then, because it was just a reminder that I did not have a romantic relationship.

I have been in a bad marriage. Valentine’s Day was a reminder that other people were in a better situation than I was.

I don’t like Valentine’s Day. It seems to exist so that women in relationships can show off what they received as presents, while men spend money on these gifts. At the same time, I enjoy getting the flowers and going out to eat with my husband. I’m a hypocrite in this regard.

I feel for the people who are looking for someone and failing. I feel for the ones who don’t feel secure in their relationships. And I admire the hell out of those people who make the holiday their own — valentines to friends, Galentine’s Day, random sticky notes with hearts across campus. I have nothing against spreading the love.

Can we just get rid of meetings?

Daily writing prompt

What bores you?

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Meetings bore me. I think I’m not alone in this; I’m not sure that anyone is enamored of meetings, including the people holding them.

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

Meetings seem like an inefficient way of giving out information. The joke “Can’t this be done in an email?” applies here. Email can do most of it. My brain outpaces the meeting, and I find myself using the spaces between words to try to escape.

People repeat themselves in meetings. I just sat through a meeting where we spent ten minutes listening to two parties make the same point over and over, in almost the same words. It was like sitting through an avant-garde play, only I would have enjoyed the absurdity of the play.

I am fortunate that my immediate superiors keep their meetings as short as possible, and cover many items by email. They have even been known to cancel meetings if not enough business has accumulated by then. One of my standing committee meetings has a lot of work involved, so it’s not usually boring. I find myself relieved of a lot of meeting tedium, for which I’m thankful.

Ode to Coffee

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite drink?

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It will come as no surprise to my regular readers that my favorite drink is coffee.

My Seedlings

I might have mentioned before that I have a grow room in my basement to coax seeds into seedlings for the garden. I planted some early seeds on the second of February, and most of them have shown at least a little growth. I have cardoon (a relative of artichoke, except you eat the leaf stalks), mountain mint, yarrow, hyssop, lovage, lavender, and rosemary in a 72-cell seedling tray.

The lavender and rosemary are going very slowly, but both have at least one seedling up. The cardoon might need to be transplanted sooner rather than later because it’s big. I didn’t think the cardoon would come up so soon because I’ve had such bad luck with it before, but no, it popped up like the alarm clock had just gone off.

Growing seedlings helps me through a cold winter. Whether it’s the thrill of growing green things, the brightness of a room full of fluorescent grow bulbs, or the reminder that Spring will eventually arrive, it’s one of the best things for the winter blahs I’ve done.

One thing that worries me, though, is that I’m not writing. I’m burned out on writing, and have a lot of doubt about how good my writing is. But at least I have a hobby to sustain me.

My Dream Home

Daily writing prompt

Write about your dream home.

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My original dream home was the home I grew up in. I grew up in an older, architect-designed (as opposed to kit home) place with big bedrooms and plenty of project space in the basement. It was full of beautiful wooden trim and old metal heating registers and high ceilings. My parents did a lot of things with it I wouldn’t have, like torn out butler’s cabinets and bookcases built into the walls, but it was a beautiful house when we finally refinished it.

The house I currently live in is an echo of that house, a newer house (built 1919 rather than 1906), with simpler trim and a dining room set off from the living room by glass-paned French doors. The build is similar, although there are only three bedrooms instead of four.

My dream home has changed over the years, as I have gotten older and look forward to getting older still. My current dream home would be all on one level to help with mobility issues. It would be universal design, where the design would facilitate living independently without looking institutional. No stairs, accessible bathrooms, open floorplan, lever-style door knobs, and the like. It would also be energy efficient, perhaps built into the side of a hill or with passive solar heating design. A dream home would have a rocket mass stove in the living room to heat up the area and provide a focal point for the room (they’re very pretty pieces of masonry). And it would have a greenhouse where I could start seeds for the year, and a yard I could landscape.

I dream big. I’m not going to find a house like this, especially if I stay in Maryville. I could build one, but it wouldn’t sell well if I ever had to leave it. Plus I’m not rich, and this would be an expensive build. So my dream house is best left to dreaming about.

Daily writing prompt

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

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In the US, the right-wing has laid claim to the word “patriotic”. It has become associated with a culture obsessed with guns and taking away others’ rights. I have a knee-jerk reaction to the word now.

But America has had a long history of civil rights, and until this administration has been making steady progress on civil rights. Not fast enough, but in its absence definitely missed. If I am willing to fight for the days of civil rights, does this make me patriotic?

I think so. I think I can call myself a patriot wanting to bring back America’s days of being that shining light on the hill rather than the shitscape it currently is.

The Boring Story of How I Broke the Law

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

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This will not be an exciting story. I haven’t broken any major laws accidentally (or on purpose), but I did once leave my vehicle registration for too long, and I was driving on expired stickers. I didn’t get stopped by the cops, so no drama. I discovered the problem some two months after they expired, however, so I could have gotten stopped by the cops at any given time.

I realized I was waiting for a postcard reminding me that my registration was due, and I had never gotten one. This is not an excuse, according to the license bureau.

Fixing it was as simple as going to the license facility and standing in line, all the time hoping that a cop wouldn’t find my car parked out front with an expired sticker. They did not, but I had to pay a fine for waiting too long to get the sticker. I found out that someone had transcribed my license number wrong on a form and that was why I didn’t get a postcard.

This is definitely not one of my more exciting stories.

A Plug for My Books

I haven’t talked about my books in a bit.

Yes, I am an author. I have two series, one of which is a seasonal romance series. There is a society of secret Santas who recruit people who show the spirit of giving. Couples get caught in the Christmas spirit and fall in love. When the inevitable tribulations come along, they have to battle circumstances — and mostly themselves — to find their happily ever after.

The second series is called Hidden in Plain Sight, and involves an agricultural collective whose land has been taken over by a demigod and whose history involves preternatural beings and a battle that almost doomed humanity. Its people are a people of secrets, and their concerns are both otherworldly and very, very human.

Here is where you can find my books.

Daily writing prompt

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

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I can’t imagine why anyone would want to write a biography about me, much less buy one. I live an ordinary life, one where too many things came easily to me, and one in which I found my niche and settled there. All the adversity was in my childhood (and there was enough there for one lifetime). All the interesting times in my life were in my twenties, and they weren’t that interesting. I suppose one could write about how I’ve managed to live with bipolar disorder. Even that has been easy for me; my medications for the most part have been effective. I live a blessed life, one which does not lend itself well to biography. I like it this way; I’m much too old for drama these days.

Given that, the only name I can think of for my biography would be “An Ordinary Life”, a title that’s as boring as my life.

Toffee

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite candy?

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My favorite candy is toffee, chocolate covered or not. I like the caramelized sugar and butter flavor and the brittle texture (although I like soft toffee, I prefer the hard kind). I find it hard to resist toffee, and I have to be careful not to eat the whole tin.

I can remember the last time I had toffee. It was a Heath Bar blizzard from Dairy Queen some weeks ago. Heath bars aren’t even the best toffee, but it satisfied my urges. I prefer homemade toffee, but I get that so seldom.

This post is making me hungry for toffee, especially the toffee in the picture above, which looks homemade. There’s no place to get it around here, so I will have to imagine it.