fiction Me Time... fiction The sun wouldn't be up for another hour. If she got out of bed right now she would have at least that hour to herself. Maybe. She would have a shot at it at least. But as soon as the house started to fill with morning light
rambling Again... There was an opinion piece yesterday about why Gen Z isn't mourning Charlie Kirk. Which is a nonsense take. A lot of Gen Z is completely distraught over it. He was if not the main reason at least one of the largest motivating forces behind getting Gen Z
rambling Unexpected Nostalgia... I've been listening to Levar Burton Reads while I work out. I used to listen on the treadmill at the gym. When we stopped going to the gym in March of 2020 I stopped listening. And when we got the home treadmill it has a program with it
rambling Pop Culture... I'm going to talk about a couple of movies and a couple of books so if you haven't seen the new Superman or Thunderbolts* or read the books Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle or Tantrum by Rachel Eve Moulton and want to spoiler free you need
rambling But at what Cost? I've been thinking a lot about Gen Z. Specifically the kids that graduated high school in 2020 and 2021. They lost their junior and senior years to COVID. Had to homeschool missing out on all of that end of high school stuff. Homecomings and proms and year book
fiction Disbelief... fiction She watched herself in the mirror as she pulled her hair into its familiar twist. She could do it without watching by this point but out of habit more than anything else she did it in front of a mirror. After securing it with a few discreetly placed pins
rambling That's the Difference... When I was a teenager our high school got a recognition from The White House for our diversity. Yes, diversity was a good thing. Under the Reagan administration. Which was at one point in time the pinnacle of republicanhood. Man, it was a simpler world back then. (It wasn'
rambling Here We Go Again... COVID has once again come to the Mastenbrook house. Uninvited. Unwanted. What a pain in the ass. Intel in all its wisdom decided that everyone should come back to the office full time. As we live 5 minutes away from the campus where Brent works he's been easing
rambling No Intentions... I'm flying blind today. Or two thirds blind anyway. Okay, maybe not. Normally on the last day of the month I set my intentions for the next month. I know, it sounds sort of self help bookshelf 101 but I still do it. I actually set them in
rambling The Fall of August... We made it! Another August in the books! As far as Augusts go it wasn't the worst August to ever August so I'll take it. Reading...I picked up the pace a bit after reading that massive King tome last month. Eight books total, two nonfiction.
fiction Ghost Stories... fiction To borrow from Charles Dickens, I was dead to begin with. I read A Christmas Carol when I was in school and my teacher told us that he started it that way, "Marley was dead to begin with," to make sure people knew it was a ghost
rambling The Loss of Time... I wish I could remember where I saw it so I could give credit but... A year or so ago there was a "What did no one warn you about getting older that you wish they had?" posts. The answers ranged from funny to deep to just really
rambling Distr...Ummm... Okay, so I have no idea what the title of this piece was going to be. See I sat down to write because I really need to write somethings to close out the month but I got a notice about our Google storage that's maxing out so I
rambling Resend of Previous Post... (I'm trying to change the title to see if that corrects the error, sorry for the multiple copies!) I do a lot of my shopping online. I also don't use Amazon if I can help it so it's all done by individual companies. Which
rambling The Adult in the Room... Yesterday I kept repeating to myself, I'm 57. All day long. I'm 57. I'd look in the mirror. Fifty. Seven. For whatever reason this age is a hard one to wrap my head around. It's not like I'm horrified that
rambling Oh Good Heavens... The girl is 57... This is what I wrote in last year's birthday blog: "What do I want from the coming year? I want to be healthy. I want to be happy. I want to stay centered and calm during the coming political storm. I want my
rambling Terms and Definitions... Not quite terms and conditions, but sort of? So it's been just over a year since I got my ADD diagnosis. As most of you know I didn't do anything with it. I decided against medication for a few reasons. One, at the time, it was
rambling What Do You See... I remember that when I was taking anatomy in school and I learned about the blind spot in our eyes. I was blown away. We all have a section of our vision that is just being filled in by our brains (I guess technically it all is, but that'
rambling You'll Fall for Anything... I saw one of those ridiculous takes the other day, the ones that you see all the time now that basically boil down to "somebody was mean to me so I had no choice but to vote for Trump." The snowflake, candy assed, protect me daddy, weaklings. This
fiction Superpowers... fiction She was trying very hard not to lose her shit. She knew it wouldn't be fair to the two people in front of her in line, they weren't really the problem. Okay, they were part of the problem, but they were just the latest manifestation
rambling Context Matters... It's been really hot here the past few days. I'd say unseasonably hot, or unusually hot, but it's not really all that unusual anymore. We get a few stretches like this every year now. The fact that it took until August to reach 100
rambling Oh Sweet Child... This morning I was doing some eyebrow maintenance and as I tried to pluck out an errant hair I realized that it wasn't a hair, it was a very fine wrinkle. Which then started..."Every time when I look in the mirror, all these lines on my
rambling Digital Tidying I just went through and cleared out a bunch of library books from my Kindle library. Or ghost books I guess. The books themselves weren't really there. Or I mean, is anything really there when you are talking about an electronic book? ANYWAY... Even though I had finished
rambling Heel Heal...Heal Heel? Went to the other doctor about my ankle today. Dr. Bettencourt had mentioned back at my first appointment with him about my chronic achilles' issues that if what he was going to try didn't work there was another procedure I could try next. Shock wave therapy. I
rambling Scars... When I was a teenager I went to summer camp every year at El Porvenir Christian Camp. First as a camper then as a cook's assistant. Puppet Music camp was my favorite. For those of you that don't know there was a time in my life
