Tag: King cakes

Tulsa Time

Well, it’s the Day After Christmas, aka the second day of Christmas as we head into the arrival of Twelfth Night and the start of Carnival, which means I can start getting cream cheese filled King cakes again. Yay for king cakes! I feel good this morning, and am up earlier than I rose on the actual holidays. There’s a lot for me to do today: the kitchen is a mess yet again because I didn’t clean up after making dinner; today is also wash the bedding day; we’re going to Costco; and I have other errands as well–the mail, a prescription. I also want to continue my organizing–all that running around probably isn’t conducive to doing much writing, so it’s going to be a reading/cleaning/organizing day mostly. And I need to get the cleaning done before we go to Costco.

But turning my mind off for two days was lovely. We finished watching Down Cemetery Road, which we enjoyed, and started Welcome to Derry, which didn’t really grab me, but we’ll keep watching. I also want to watch Frankenstein this weekend, and possibly get started on my The Mummy rewatching. Sounds pretty ambitious, doesn’t it? We only have New Year’s Day off this coming week, so it won’t be as lovely as this week has been, but it’s still kind of nice to have an extra day off in the week. But it’s back to reality now, and I can’t pretend I don’t have anything I need to get done anymore. Heavy heaving sigh. But I actually enjoy getting things done–it’s making myself do them that’s the problem. Once I am underway with everything, though, I don’t mind it. I even find cleaning enormously satisfying. Yes, I know, it’s not normal. I’ve proudly never been normal!

Well, I am back; I took a breakfast, coffee, and news break. Sparky had also parked himself in my chair while I was doing something and I wasn’t in the mood to start fighting him for my chair. But just as I was about to connect the laptop to the television, I noticed he wasn’t in my chair anymore and must have gone upstairs without me noticing. I’ve already started clearing everything out of the sink and tumbled another load of laundry in the dryer. So, ambition is firing on all cylinders thus far, although we’ll have to see how long motivation lasts and I can get things going and finished and so forth. I do want to get some writing done today, even if it isn’t very much; anything is a start, after all, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, doesn’t it?

How very zen of me this morning! It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore! But as 2025 slowly slides into 2026–hard to believe there’s only five days left in this year–I find myself becoming ever more introspective and reflective. It has been a dreadful decade for me (pretty much everyone else, too; it seems like everyone I know has had it rough for quite some time), and I did a lot of turning inward, as well as letting things go and learning how to say no and mean it; and stop worrying that people will think less of me for saying no. If I disappoint people, so be it; I’ve been disappointing people my entire life thus far so why should it change for the last few decades I hopefully have left? Worrying about disappointing people doesn’t make me not disappoint them, and the worrying, that horrific mind spiral, is exhausting.

And let’s face it–it’s not like other people worry about disappointing me, you know?

It’s seventy nine degrees this morning in New Orleans, with a bright sun and a clear blue sky; simply gorgeous. We’re also supposed to get a cold front next week, but it won’t be as horrible as it is everywhere north of here. Paul is also leaving to go see his mom and family on Tuesday (New Year’s Eve Eve) so I’ll be here alone on New Year’s, but that’s fine. Maybe that’s the day I’ll do my Mummy marathon rewatch?

Sounds like a good idea.

Also, Mississippi River Mischief is on sale for a mere $4.95 at the Bold Strokes website! In print! There’s also a lot of other great titles from BSB as well, for the same low price, through December 31! What are you waiting for! Follow that link!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines and running my first errands of the day! But never fear, I shall be back tomorrow morning with a full report on my day!

I love the lighting in this, and how the out of picture streetlight fades into shadow…

Funkytown

Monday morning and it’s another work week staring us all in the face.

I didn’t get any writing or editing done yesterday; but that’s okay, really. Maybe not in the over-all scheme of things, but I do need to take some down time periodically, to rest and recharge the batteries. I cleaned and organized and cooked and read The Shining, mostly, which I am enjoying a lot more than I did when I read it when I was seventeen (?). I also think I know why I disliked it–well, that’s a bit strong; let’s just say I now understand why it wasn’t one of my favorites of his earlier work, and why I stayed away from rereading it for so long: I hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of caring so much about characters who die in the end. King had already done this to me with Carrie and ‘salem’s Lot, but because The Shining had so few characters the stakes for me as a reader were higher. There’s no question the book had to take the path it took, as well as why it had to end the way it did. I’ve just finished the section that ends with the snow starting…the three standing on the veranda of the grand old hotel, watching their true isolation begin. It’s a terrifically written scene.

I also didn’t sleep well last night–hardly at all. I don’t feel tired this morning, or wrung out the way I usually do when I didn’t sleep, although I imagine I’ll hit that wall soon enough, and will be praying for death by the end of my long day today. This week returns my work schedule back to normal, which is sort of lovely and nice; trying to get used to my new work schedule while adapting my writing schedule around it got rather derailed due to the holidays….which kind of sucks because now it’ll be like starting over again, which isn’t precisely optimal. We’ll see how today turns out, won’t we?

One of the things I realized I need to do is gather all my notes on this Scotty, to make sure I am getting everything included and wrapping up all loose ends by the end of the book. As I edit, I am also outlining, trying to make sure I’ve eliminated all inconsistencies. There’s probably going to be some rewriting that’s going to need to be done–last night as I watched the Golden Globes, it occurred to me that there’s one scene in particular that either needs to be completely rewritten, eliminated, or has to be set up in a completely different way. I am going to have to put the WIP aside until I get this revision finished; it’s simply far too easy to get caught up in it rather than doing what I need to be doing.

Which is counter-productive, and more than a little annoying.

Heavy heaving sigh.

We watched the Golden Globes last  night rather than finishing Homecoming, which we will probably either finish tonight, or stretch over tonight and tomorrow. As the new year progresses, shows we regularly watch will be returning, which solves the problem of what do we watch tonight, at least for a little while. Schitt’s Creek will be returning for another season, and so is Futureman on Hulu, and How to Get Away with Murder should be coming back relatively soon; it’s gone way over the top and is completely ridiculous, but it’s still so much fun to watch.

So, onward and upward with this week. I am going to finish rereading The Shining if it kills me (I don’t think it will) and I need to start gathering all my notes on the Scotty to ensure it’s the best it can be so I can get back to work on the WIP, and make it the best it can be.

Did I mention it’s king cake season officially? I believe I shall have a piece with my coffee this morning.

And now,  back to the spice mines.

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