Back in the Saddle ... again.

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 So I'm attempting to start 2022 on a positive note and get back in touch with my creative side.  I've spent far too long telling myself that I'm 'too busy' or just flat-out being lazy and not wanting to deal with my lack of inspiration or motivation... and I just need to stop.  Stop making excuses.  Stop lying to myself.  Stop allowing the laziness and actually embrace my talents.  Just STOP!

And I know most of it is just me being caught up in gaming, not because I have an addiction or anything but I think it's more of the fact that I set too many goals for what I want to do with my characters and then let myself get in too deep.  I have this bad habit of creating entirely too many characters, because I'll see or think of a name that I really like... and I'll have a different purpose for each of them... (I'm such a dork and actually have Excel spreadsheets to document this kind of stuff)

Anyway... but yes, enough is enough.  I wanna create again.  I want to feel that sense of pride and accomplishment in looking at what I just made and really enjoying the process.  I usually don't make resolutions at the new year, because I don't want to disappoint myself, which let's face it, is inevitable.  But I kind of did make those 'resolutions' this year.  I'm committed to actually using the writing prompts that I've been saving up for years (with a little support).  Maybe even write more here as well.  I'm going to open Photoshop more often.  I'm going to make time to exercise and get my heart rate up at least for 30 minutes of my day.  But I'm not going to think of these as resolutions.  They are just things that I'm going to do. 😊

Something New

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So let's just ignore the fact that I did not get off to the kind of start I wanted to this year, regarding that clean slate.  That being said, I've been thinking lately that I really need to get back into some type of writing every day, or at least as close to every day as I can possibly accomplish.  So to make it a little easier as far as what to write about, I thought I'd put together a list of journaling prompts to help me.  And I'll use one of those prompts every day (or time) that I write an entry here.  So we'll see how this goes.

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Something got me thinking about the online journals I used to maintain in the past, first on Angelfire, which actually led to the origin of my forum's title, which is kinda neat to remember.  I called it "Life, In a Nutshell" and I thought of each entry as a sort of 'nut' in my life that I explored (cracked) when opening the shell it hid behind.  Hence, "Crack Your Nuts."  Yeah, I know how corny that sounds.

After that, I used MySpace's journal feature, back when the site was hugely popular.  I miss those days sometimes.  Facebook was only available for eligible college students, at that time, and while I was in college then, I liked MySpace better.  Oh and I'm forgetting Xanga, that had to be my absolute favorite online journal option, mainly for their customization options.  There was a brief stint with LiveJournal as well, but I mainly just created an account there so that I could comment on other friends' journals.  I ended up using Facebook's journal feature also, as their popularity increased.

Anyway... I better get started on those prompts so I can hopefully start tomorrow at the beginning of a new month. 😉

Keep Queuing the Nerves...

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Well.... I just found out that it is going to be yet another full week before I find out the results from the story contest, as I thought it was every week, but it's actually every two weeks.  I guess because the entries are longer than poems, they take longer to judge.  Ugh!  Now I'm going to be anxious for a whole week longer than I thought.  Maybe I'll use that time to psych myself down, so that if (knock on wood) I get good news, it'll be that much more exciting and rewarding. 😆 I'm sure I'll have plenty of cleaning and working to keep my mind off of it also.

Finding that out just kind of ruins my night though.  Haha.  We had a spontaneous change of plans today.  We were going to head up to Sacramento to participate in a march they're having at the capitol building, but opted to stay home instead and work on getting the office cleaned a bit.  We succeeded for a few hours, but then had to break for lunch and got into watching more of The Santa Clarita Diet and haven't resumed since then.  We still have plenty of time, so I'm not worrying too much about it at this point.

We lost track of time and before we knew it, it's 5:30pm and too late to do anything with the pork roast, and he forgot to marinate it anyway... so yeah, another abrupt dinner change tonight.  We had a late lunch, so I figured we'd just have a late dinner, but it's just getting too late to do any prep now.  Still not sure what we're doing but I suppose we'll figure it out soon!  Other than that, not much else to report for today.  😊  Happy Saturday!

A Forgotten Birthday... On Purpose!

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First off, this is another special day in my family, this time because it is my brother's birthday.  I called him first thing this morning, and he claimed to have forgotten that today was his birthday, because he said at his age, he just wanted to let the day go by.  (He's 3 years older than me.)  Haha.  I wished him a happy birthday anyway, and found out that he is at least being taken out to dinner for his birthday, but that is the extent of the "celebration."  Anyway, so happy birthday to him! 🎈🎂😊  Hopefully, he will have some cake and ice cream, or some kind of similar dessert.

In other news... today has been a very laid-back kind of day.  My mom called with some computer problems this morning, and I spent some time getting MalwareBytes installed on her computer remotely (via TeamViewer) and it turned out that she had 748 'threats.' 😧  So I made sure to quarantine all of those bad boys and advised her to do a scan at least every two weeks, unless the computer starts acting funky again.  Whew, crisis averted.

We seriously have not done anything else today.  And I don't really have anything else to talk about.  Haha.  So I guess I'll see you all tomorrow. 😉

Laziness & Lake Tahoe

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So March has just turned into not-so-much of a good month for me, regarding this blog and also reading.  I've hit a bit of a snag, because one of my current books is just so difficult to come back to every day... I'm having trouble with how the dialogue is written and it's annoying me, but I'm really trying to overlook it in favor of the actual storyline.  I'm not one to give up on a book so easily though, so I'm just attempting to give it all the chances I can.

As for writing blog posts... I'm sure you noticed that I missed another few days again... ugh.  Some of that is because my pinky & ring fingers on my left hand is in a state of near-constant numbness and it makes it difficult to actually type at times.  The rest of it is simple laziness and being spontaneously busy.

For example, we took a somewhat spontaneous road trip over to Lake Tahoe on Monday, as a belated way to celebrate our one-year anniversary last Friday.  [Head over to my Instagram feed to view a few of the photos that I took while there, since that laziness has kicked in again and it will be a fair amount of time before I can put together a photoblog post] I was bummed that we didn't get to go to Seattle, but I still had a great time being in the presence of all that beautiful snow!  I definitely got my 'snow fix,' but I didn't wanna leave, and I wish we could have spent much more time there.  But alas, the hubby isn't as much a fan of playing in the snow as I am, and he wanted to go to Cabela's in Reno, which is the closest location to us.  And also to a few gun stores, so that was his portion of the trip.  Haha.

Anyway... that's all I've got for today so until tomorrow... (Maybe!) 😼