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Flash Fiction Challenge: It Was All Just a Dream

For Chuck’s Flash Fiction Challenge, the writer is challenged to write about something that scares them. While I have a couple fears that could easily be fun to write about, I’ve decided on one I know really is a part of my character: not being able to protect those I love from harm. 

It was midnight once again when I found myself still struggling to go to sleep. I thought I’d be able to go to bed now, but my eyes refused to close. I know I’m tired and need this sleep so I can get up for work in the morning, but I just can’t seem to close my eyes. No matter what I do, my body refuses to rest. I feel hyper, like I’ve taken a sip from an energy drink I never bought. Almost as if I could stay awake for the rest of the night. 

Finally after what seemed like many hours later, I felt my eyelids droop. I could hear the sounds of my restful breathing as I inhaled and exhaled the air around me. It was peaceful and comfortable in my bed to the point where I could hear my mother snore from her room downstairs. 

I drifted into a dreamless sleep for the next hour. Then all of a sudden, I was having a nightmare. In this horrible nightmare, those I love were being harmed in some way or another. And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. I felt helpless as I found out my best friend was dead and watched my mom and sister being hurt right before my eyes. I tried reaching out to my loves ones in this dark nightmare, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

Then all of a sudden, I’m lurched awake from these terrible visions. I wake up, tears streaming down my face with no recollection of what just occurred. All I know is that my dreams were of the people I love being taken away from me, but can’t remember anything other than feeling completely helpless and hopeless. I feel like I’m being punched in the gut, yet can’t find the cause of this type of violence against me. 

It takes quite awhile for me to realize what I just saw in my sleep was all just a dream because it all felt so real. So real, like it actually happened. 

So real that even when I’ve finally calmed myself enough to go back to sleep, the tears are still streaming down my face with no sign of stopping. Because while it was all just a dream, it’s something I truly feel could happen and it scares me. 

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If We Were Having Coffee: Life Lessons at 24

Welcome to my first coffee post of 2017! My birthday was this weekend so I figured it’d only be fitting to use a coffee cake image for this post. I hope you all are enjoying 2017 so far. 

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I officially started back to work this past week. So far, it’s been okay. It’s actually been pretty slow there so most of our hours are being cut. I don’t mind too much though because I’ll be working from 8:30 to 5:30 instead of my usual 10:30 to 7:00. So I’ll actually be getting done earlier, exactly like I wanted. I also haven’t been stressing out too much about the problems at work since I’ve been back, which has probably helped me significantly. It’s almost as if the storm has already passed and we are simply just drifting out to sea. I know having Monday off will definitely help. 

I think what’s helped though was I had time off away from work. Speaking of which (if I haven’t already), Christmas break went well. My grandmother was down through all of it so I spent my days with her doing whatever she wanted, whether it be baking cookies or decorating the Christmas tree. It was nice seeing her, even when she was getting on my nerves like she sometimes tends to do. The only disappointment with Christmas break has been my laptop. First my Internet connection wasn’t fully functional, now my charger doesn’t work anymore. So that’ll need to be taken care of at some point. Hopefully, I’ll just need to get a new charger and not have to replace it completely. But for now, I’ve been using my tablet for all my Internet needs, including my blog posts. And it’ll continue to be that way until the laptop situation is handled. 

Speaking of writing, I have some news for the new year. The platform I’ve been using for some of my video game posts and other posts, Creators is creating another platform. It’s going to be for Indie gaming and is going to be a great way for gamers and developers to interact with each other. If you want to know what I’m talking about, here you go. Anyway, I received an email after I signed up about that they are looking for writers and people to interact in the community, to email back if your interested. So I emailed back letting them know I’m definitely interested. So I’ll be doing that now too, which is really cool and exciting to me. This platform is supposed to launch this month so I can’t wait to see how this’ll work out for me. I think it’ll be an amazing opportunity to be able to write about one of my passions and hopefully make good connections within the video gaming industry. If you want to see some of my posts already on the Creators platform (some of which aren’t on my blog because I’m taking their Creators Academy course to become a Verified Creator), here is the link. 

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I feel like I’m doing well with writing more this year. I’ve already written so much and we’ve just gotten halfway through January. And this is just the beginning. I saw a Flash Fiction Challenge the other day I’m very interested in doing. I’m not going to spoil you with the details because I want you to read it. All I’ll say is it’s probably going to be super personal. Either way, expect that to come as soon as I publish this coffee post because that’s what I want to write about next. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continue writing at this magnitude, but only time will tell. 

I’d like to also tell you that I think I’ll reach my reading goal for this year. Already, I’ve finished reading Lair of Dreams and The Book Jumper and am getting started with Crown of Midnight, the second book in the Throne of Glass series. I’ve also recently been playing The World Ends With You and just recently finished watching A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix. I plan on continuing to play this game and watch Criminal Minds whenever the mood sets me. 

I know I’ve already mentioned my birthday, but with getting older, I usually like to quickly reflect on what I think I’ve learned. What I can currently say about being 23 is that there were quite a bit of ups and downs. I know a part of my problem was that I was stressing out about work too much. To the point where it affected me emotionally both on and off the job. I also had a new friendship begin to form that’s continuing to grow in completely unexpected ways. At the age of 23, I was also struggling to continue to let my broken heart heal, to let go of the past and embrace the future and just not worry about things too much. In essence, I was somewhat emotionally unbalanced and reaching to my breaking point. 

But after some much needed thinking, I’ve been looking at things with a different perspective. And I’ve come to realize that there are only so many things that I can control. What other people do or say is beyond my control. How I react to situations is what matters. So what I’m hoping to do now that I’m 24 is not let things easily get to me. To try and stop the unneeded drama at work from  causing me stress and continue to realize I can’t please everybody. 

I’ve also come to realize I’m much stronger than I think. That I’m going to be alright even when things seem dark in the world. That my dreams are possible as long as I continue working towards them. I know I’m already healing and am proud of what I’ve accomplished this year alone, both with my writing on my blog and taking care of myself. I hope that with turning 24, life will continue to bless me in unexpected ways and I’ll be able to accomplish my dreams to the fullest. 

With this in mind, I wish you all a good weekend. I hope 2017 hasn’t been too bad for you so far and hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

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Book Review: The Book Jumper

                                       Rating: 2 stars

Amy Lennox doesn’t know quite what to expect when she and her mother pick up and leave Germany for Scotland, heading to her mother’s childhood home of Lennox House on the island of Stormsay.

Amy’s grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House—but not in the usual way. It turns out that Amy is a book jumper, able to leap into a story and interact with the world inside. As thrilling as Amy’s new power is, it also brings danger: someone is stealing from the books she visits, and that person may be after her life. Teaming up with fellow book jumper Will, Amy vows to get to the bottom of the thefts—at whatever cost.

This book wasn’t quite what I expected. Told from the perspective of Amy Lennox, a girl whose family has the ability to jump into books, I was hoping this would be a much better read. 

But before I get into what was bad, let me quickly tell you what I enjoyed about The Book Jumper. I found the story itself to be interesting. Even though I’ve read a book similar to this one (Inkheart), I find the idea of being able to immerse yourself into your favorite stories and meet some of your favorite characters to be very exciting. As someone who hopes to one day publish a story of my own, books like this remind me why I love reading and writing so much. They bring out the love in storytelling for me and make me interested in reading books I haven’t enjoyed in a really long time. 

I also liked the characters. Despite any of them having any sort of development, I found the characters to be relatable. I also loved finding out how they were connected to each other in Stormsay. Each of the characters had an important role to play and it was interesting to see how everything turned out in the end. I liked getting to meet some of the literary characters because it was nice to see how they interacted with each other. 

One of my favorite aspects of this book was seeing Amy’s ability in action. I was curious about how the author was going to incorporate book jumping into the story and wasn’t disappointed. It was interesting to see that book jumping had zero affect of the original plot of the books unless jumpers themselves decided to interfere with the story. 

I also like the book cover and the little paragraphs before each chapter. It looks really beautiful, like the story came out of a fairy tale.  I found the little paragraphs before each chapter to be very captivating. After reading this story, you understand their purpose and see how they connect to the overall plot.

Sad to say but there were so many things with this book that made it hard to enjoy it as much as I’d have liked. I found the writing to be too dense, almost as if the author was trying to pack everything in at once. And it showed. The reader can see it in the story when it comes to the plot. It’s all rushed, like the author had no time to continue writing this story. 

There’s also a lack of character development and morals in this book that bothers me. I find that even though the characters can be relatable, they don’t really learn from what happens in this story. They don’t change or progress in any way that shows that what happened in the story affected their lives. The only exception to this is Amy since she didn’t know about her abilities until she and Alexis came to Stormsay. What also bothers me with The Book Jumper is the way protecting the stories is portrayed. Throughout the book, Amy again and again is telling everyone that something is going on in the literary world. But nobody believes her or listens to her, except for Will. Instead, they get mad she’s using her abilities to go to other literary world’s when she’s been assigned to watch over one of them. Even when a literary character loses their life in the real world, nobody bats an eye. They continue moving on as if nothing happened. In many ways, it’s as if the events in this book happened in a small vacuum because nobody else in the real world is affected by the outcome. 

Even though I enjoyed reading The Book Jumper, I’m sad because it’s not as good as it could be. It had so much potential, but the author didn’t manage to pull it off. 

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Bringing Hope Into the New Year

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“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” -Neil Gaiman

Since the end of 2016 is here, I want to use this time to reflect on what this year has brought for me. While I know a lot of people say this year has been a terrible one, it really hasn’t been quite as awful to me. Yes, it hasn’t been a very great year either, but I’ve had a lot worse happen in my life in comparison to what I’ve had from this one year alone.

In this year, I feel proud of what I’ve managed to do. Now, I didn’t do a whole lot to really be proud of, but I’m proud of myself for my continuous effort to blog on here even at times where I didn’t think any writing would get done. I know I didn’t keep up my promise to write multiple blog posts in one week. I know that was something I genuinely wanted to do. But I understand now with my writing that I’d rather it not be rushed and that I’ll always be looking to improve myself like this with each new year to come. I’m proud that I kept up my blog during the year, despite all of the different things that happened during this time and that I haven’t lost any followers since I’ve been here on WordPress. My goal for this new year is to continue putting up work on my blog that people will continue to enjoy. And if there’s anything I can do at all to make sure that continues to happen, don’t hesitate to leave a comment in this post below with ideas or suggestions of things you’d like to see here. I’m always open for new ideas, new topics to be explored and want to do the best I can to make sure that happens.

Besides continuing to improve my blog, I hope in the new year to continue improving in my writing as well as continue working on improving myself. While I know most of the writing I do ends up here on Vook: Books + Video Games, I still want my writing to get better. I want my writing to improve each year in some small way or another, even if there’s nothing wrong with the way I write. I also want to write more too. I know there’s never any guarantee of that happening, but I always want to hope for the best whenever I can. I also want to work on improving myself too because there’s always room for self-reflection in life.

I know how critical I can be of myself. I know it’s mostly because of the troubles I’ve been dealt in life. I haven’t always had things as easy as I do now and know how fortunate I am to still be here. I think about my past, about what I’ve been through in such a short amount of time and am proud of how strong of a person I am. I know at times I blame myself for the things that have already happened, as if I had control of those situations and could stop them from happening. But I know now that there wasn’t anything I could do and that I’m the person I am today because of it. So with this new year, what I want from myself is to continue letting go. To stop criticizing myself every time I make a mistake. To stop saying “I’m sorry” to people when you haven’t really done anything wrong. To stop thinking of the troubles of the past and continue embracing what is to come in the future. To live like every moment will be your last breath. To stop letting the past break you down and leave you with scars that will never heal. To never forget, but remember that there is more to life than what you were once dealt. To stop letting your emotions get to you and realize that you are surrounded by people who love you. To continue giving chances even when you get hurt because you know you are strong enough to pick yourself back up again. I hope in this new year to come, I’ll be able to do these things and feel confident enough to share stories of my past without breaking down into tears.

While 2016 is ending, I’d like to bring hope into the new year. I know 2016 has been a rough year for a lot of people, either because they lost someone they loved or because of other personal traumas they might’ve experienced that they are still coping with. While I know this year didn’t turn out the way people wanted, know that you will be okay. Things might seem rough and difficult now, but know there are people that if you let them will be there for you when you need them. I say this, both to everyone following my blog or not. For those who are struggling, I am here. To listen, to learn, to understand—to be here when you need someone close by.

What I’m trying to say but realize now I’m not doing such a good job is that I hope things get better for you in 2017. Look at this new year as a fresh start. If you see certain things in your life aren’t working out and you know what you can do to change them, then do so. Make those changes, make things a little easier for yourself. And if you make mistakes along the way, that’s okay too. Embrace those mistakes and learn something from them so that you can continue on your way.

Happy 2017 everyone. I hope this year you are able to get accomplished everything you want and more. That all of your dreams come true and have a fabulous year.

 

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Book Review: Thirteen Reasons Why

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Rating: 3 stars

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

I remember being introduced to this book by an old friend of mine when I was in high school. At the time, I remember reading it, becoming so engrossed with Hannah’s character. She was a mysterious girl because when reading, you didn’t really know too much about her. She told you about the things that happened to her during her freshman year of high school and that she wasn’t the type of girl the rumors portrayed her to be. But I also felt a connection to her, having been in high school at the time and understanding the struggles she was going through.

I felt that I could relate to her. Even though I never had rumors like that about me flying around school, I was bullied during my early years of education. So I completely understood where she was coming from and could see how the events that transpired turned her whole world upside down. Even though I’m no longer in high school, reading Thirteen Reasons Why a second time around didn’t change that perception for me.

Hannah Baker is a very sympathetic character. She attends a new high school, trying the best she can to fit in only to find her peers never taking the time to get to know her as a person. They are so busy believing the rumors about her to realize how alone she was and to see that their actions unintentionally lead to her death.

Another reason this story pulls at my heart is because it’s a very sensitive topic. Suicide isn’t something a lot of people feel comfortable talking about, due to people not understanding how the smallest things can have a big impact on a person’s life. Like mental illness, people don’t know how to talk about suicide and don’t understand it as well as people who’ve felt that pain before. Despite how hard suicide as a topic is to discuss about, these discussions need to be had and I appreciate Jay Asher, the author of Thirteen Reasons Why, for writing about it. It makes me hopeful that one day, suicide won’t be such a big stigma.  This book also brought up a lot of other key issues, such as rape and drunk driving, which aren’t heavily talked about either and are just as important to discuss.

I also enjoyed this book because of the way the story is told. The novel is from the perspective of Clay Jensen, who receives cassette tapes one day after school with Hannah’s voice on them explaining why she killed herself, saying the responsibility lies with those who receive the tapes. The people involved also receive a map of their town, marked with stars of locations where the events Hannah mentions take place. I enjoyed reading this book through Clay’s thoughts and actions and Hannah’s voice. It made it seem more in depth and personal. I also liked that Asher used cassette tapes for Hannah’s death note. As a 90s child, I grew up using cassette tapes and a Walkman whenever I wanted to listen to something on the go. It made the story a little nostalgic with those elements, considering how far technology has advanced in today’s day and age.

However, I do have a couple criticisms for Thirteen Reasons Why. While I enjoyed the way this story was told, I felt like Asher had Hannah more telling the story than Clay. Yes, he’s the one who had the tapes and his thoughts about what transpired where pretty clear, but I felt like there was more telling in the story than showing. I also didn’t really see a whole lot of character development in any of the characters in this story. I think part of that is because of hearing from Hannah her thoughts about the people who affected her life made it hard for us to really get a good understanding of the other characters. We knew Hannah didn’t really like them, but I wish we could’ve learned more about them and why they were such terrible people.

I also just didn’t really get how Clay is supposedly a nice guy. He’s included in the tapes and the story is told from his perspective, but you don’t really get to know him as a person outside of him listening to those tapes. Throughout the book, he only interacts with a couple people and even those few interactions didn’t give us a real glimpse of his character. Yes, he did some nice things, helped people out, but that isn’t enough for me to truly believe someone is a nice person. I also didn’t see how this whole thing really changed his life either. I get he had a better understanding of what Hannah was going through after the tapes, but he didn’t seem all that different to me than before. But I did sympathize with him because it was evident in the story how much he cared about Hannah and wanted to help her in any way he could.

I felt like I knew more about where Hannah and the rest of her classmates lived than the characters in this story. Part of that was because of Clay going to some of the locations Hannah mentioned in the tapes and Asher describing those places in perfect detail. While I don’t mind knowing more about the world characters live in, it’s a little frustrating with this story because I wanted to know the characters better other than knowing all the terrible things they did to Hannah.

While I sympathize with Hannah, I sometimes find her character to be very weak. I understand how depression works on a person’s mind, making them feel completely helpless, but I just didn’t always understand some of her actions. For example, the incident with the sign I felt like she could’ve very easily done something about. I know she had called the police, but I felt like she should’ve told them who knocked the stop sign down. I felt this way with some of the other incidents that happened in the book too because they were things she could’ve very easily done something about. Especially all of the things that happened towards the end where she’s still struggling to make up her mind about whether to take her own life. Despite these issues with her character, I understand that she was probably already too far gone at these moments in the story to really do anything about these situations. I feel like that is probably why she didn’t stop certain things from happening and why I feel myself questioning some of her actions.

While I have all of these criticisms for Thirteen Reasons Why, I still enjoyed reading it again. It left me sad knowing the story was over and remembering Hannah being dead, but I still found it as good of a read as the last time I read it. I hope others read it with an open mind and find themselves understanding suicide being a much more complicated issue than it seems. Because even though the reasons Hannah gave seem very small and insignificant, together they created a snowball effect that resulted in her not able to get any help until it was too late.

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If We Were Having Coffee: Prepare for Christmas Break

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I’d like to wish you all Happy Holidays. I know not everyone celebrates Christmas, so I want to wish everyone a good holiday, no matter what you are doing this year.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve just completed my last week of work for the year. My job doesn’t start back up until January 2017 so I’ll be off for the next couple weeks. Unless I’m able to find something else close to home or a job using my degree, I’m hoping to spend the next couple weeks enjoying my time off and look for another job. But these last couple weeks went okay. My crew did a secret Santa of our own, which was very enjoyable. I like exchanging gifts with people because I enjoy seeing the look on a person’s face when they open their gift. I also like the act of giving gifts because I like getting things for people that they want or need. Yes, getting gifts is just as exciting too, but I really enjoy giving gifts to people more. Just the idea of making someone’s day with a simple sign showing I care fills me with so much joy.

But I’m also glad this semester is done because it’s been a very trying one. A lot of things happened at work this school year that really tried my patience, made me realize I need to get a job elsewhere as soon as possible. While I’m extremely thankful that they’ve kept me on, it’s my time to move on. I need to start my career now. I need to work somewhere I enjoy, around people with similar passions and interests. Somewhere I know my hard work will be appreciated instead of taken advantage of. I know I’m not happy with this job anymore so it’s time for me to say goodbye as soon as possible. I just need to get a job somewhere else first, which is something I sincerely hope I’ll be able to do during this short break. So I’m hoping to really buckle down on job applications these next couple weeks while I’m at home so I can leave for good. Fingers crossed I’m able to find places hiring and get scheduled for an interview soon.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve continued watching Criminal Minds and playing Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. I’d also like to tell you I finished reading Fell this afternoon and plan on writing my review once I’ve completed this post to publish on my blog.

I’d also like to apologize for not writing as much too. I know I’ve probably already apologized so many times for this, but I just haven’t been writing a lot lately. There are times where the flow of words come out of me very quickly. During these moments, I’ll have something to write about and you’ll notice more posts on my blog. But when I’m not writing as much, you’ll see my writing schedule is all over the place. I’ll post every couple weeks, sometimes go two or three weeks without any writing being done, or just stop posting altogether except for whenever I have a review ready.

I know my blog is mostly for book and video game reviews, but I really want to branch out with my writing a little on here too. Maybe even do more Flash Fiction Challenges or poetry, when the time feels right. Or short stories too. I don’t know. But either way, I want to have more content to publish on my blog. Because I feel like I just haven’t been posting quite as much. I don’t know. I think I could just be very critical of the way I’m blogging right now, which is also possible because I know how hard I can be on myself at times. Regardless, I want you all to continue following my blog because you enjoy the content I post. So I want to do more on my blog whenever I can. But until I figure out what that is, I hope you all stay here a little while yet. Even during the moments when I don’t have much to write about because my mind is moving all over the place.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you we are getting ready for Christmas here. I sent out my Christmas list a little while ago and Mom and I have started Christmas shopping for our family Friday night. We continued doing some of our shopping today too and will probably be doing some more in the next couple days as we prepare for my sister and grandmother to be here with us. We have yet to put up any Christmas decorations though so I’m sure we’ll be doing that too soon enough.

This will probably be the last coffee post for 2016, since next weekend will be Christmas and the one after we’ll be entering into the new year. So I would also quickly like to say too that I hope you’ve all had a wonderful 2016 and wish you all good luck in 2017 and what’s to come! I also hope this weekend and next will be a good one and I promise to be writing more on my blog again soon.

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If We Were Having Coffee: Be Thankful For the Things You Are Given

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Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week and that your weekend is everything you want it to be right now.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you about your Thanksgiving. I’d want you to tell me how it went, would want to know about your Thanksgiving traditions. Then, I’d tell you how mine went. I’d tell you my sister came from Nashville to spend time with Mom and I and that we invited one of Mom’s friends over to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.

I’d say we have a lot to be thankful for. Because that’s what Thanksgiving is about: being thankful for the things you are given. At least, that’s how I choose to celebrate it. I choose to be thankful that I have a life and that I have clean water, food and a place to sleep. Because not everyone has these same comforts in life. I might at times complain a lot about the way things in my life are going. Life is hard and everyone has their own struggles they have to deal with. But I’m lucky because not everyone has things as easy as I do.

Yes, I’ve had my own struggles. But that doesn’t mean I can’t sit back and reflect on the things I’m grateful to have. I might sometimes hate my job and definitely wish I worked elsewhere, but I’m glad I have one even during the roughest of times. I’m grateful for my family. Because while we might be a small bunch, we are really close and there isn’t anyone else I’d want to spend my holidays with. I’m grateful for the friends I do have because while we might not talk as much, they are important to me and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without them.

I’m thankful for this blog. I love it so much because I can express my feelings and emotions in my writing to others in a welcoming community of people. I might not know every single person who reads my blog, but I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read my posts. I’m thankful for my blog most of all because I can express myself. I can be my own person here and talk to others who share the same passions as me.

So if you’re reading this post right now, thank you. I appreciate you and hope you are having a wonderful day because you deserve it. Know that you are loved and don’t stop believing in yourself.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you what all else I’ve been up to. Besides spending time with my wonderful family, I’ve also made some time for myself too. Maybe not as much time as I’d have liked, but I was with family so it was okay. I was able to write a post about one of my favorite video games Kingdom Hearts for Chapter Six of the online course I’m currently taking, which can be found here if you’re interested in checking it out. I’ve been thinking about this post a lot so I figured I’d go ahead and write it so I can continue this class and become a Creator on the site.

Along with finally writing another post, I’ve also started playing one of the games in the series mentioned Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. I’ve felt the itch to play this series games in their true order to try the best I can to actually beat all of the games. We’ll see if I’ll be able to accomplish this or not, but I’m definitely thinking about writing a post about all of the games once I do.

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Characters from Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep.

I’ve also continued watching Criminal Minds whenever I’ve had the chance and just recently started rereading a book I haven’t read in a long time. Criminal Minds is still very enjoyable for me, probably one of my favorite crime shows today. And the book I’m currently reading is still as enjoyable to me as when I last read it, which I plan on telling you all about on my next book review.

But other than this, I haven’t been up to much. When I go back to work tomorrow, I only have two more weeks until we have our Christmas break, which roughly lasts a month. So with that, I plan on thoroughly searching for a job in my field or trying to get a job closer to home.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the rest of what’s left of this weekend.

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If We Were Having Coffee: Cleaning Up House

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If we were having coffee, I’d tell you with the arrival of my grandmother coming down, things have been quite busy at home. She came to visit us a couple weeks ago to see progress being made on restoring our house back to normal. While she was here, things were initially moving slowly because they had just started getting to work. So she stayed a couple days longer so Mom wouldn’t have to take time off work.

While she was here, my grandmother Meme and I spent the first couple days around the house in case they had any questions for us. I helped Meme wash her car, and we went on walks while the guys were working on what needed to be done in order to get our house back to normal. I spent a lot of time with Meme the first couple days before I had to go back to work. But even when I was at work, I’d spend time with her when I’d get off until she left to head back home. It was a lot of fun having her for a week even if it was because of the stuff going on at our house.

But it wasn’t until she was back home in Pennsylvania that the progress picked up significantly. The popcorn ceiling where the water leaked through was replaced with more popcorn ceiling, the new bathroom flooring was put down, and plywood was placed on the living room floor until the flooring Mom wanted was eventually put down too. But with all the progress that’s been made came dirt. Lots and lots of dirt that needed to be picked up. Because of the amount of walking back and forth the guys who were fixing everything did and from tearing stuff up to put new down, dirt was getting in our house.

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So we had to do some major cleaning of the house before they continued work last weekend and this weekend too. Things like wiping the kitchen cabinets and table down, wiping the walls clean, and getting rid of all the dirt on the stairs from their use. Doing this stuff on the weekend helped keep the house clean and left us with little less dirt for the next cleaning.  I also did some cleaning while Mom wasn’t at home so she could work on what she wanted to get done.

While I know we’ll be doing some more cleaning again soon, I know there’s very little left to do before they are finished. This makes me happy because we have nice new flooring that looks really nice and our house will finally be back to normal, which means I’ll get my bathroom back soon.

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Our new living room floor. It’s cherry flooring and looks really nice in our space.

I also won’t have to deal with the way Mom is stressing out anymore. Ever since we discovered this leak, Mom has been so stressed out about all of it. So stressed that I sometimes feel like I can’t handle it. I’ve become so used to our current living situation that it’s not bothering me anymore. But for Mom, her house isn’t in order, which is something that stresses her out quite a bit. Sometimes I can handle it because it’s not too bad and because she’s okay after a little while. But I feel like with this, she’s stressed out about things that are out of her control. Things like the progress they are making on getting things restored to normal, and the way they are working on it. I want to tell her things are going to be okay, that these things take time and that our house will be back to normal before she knows it.

But she’s also stressed because she’s not always happy with their work. She makes a decision on something, then ends up not being happy with the way its implemented or they haven’t completely finished working on something and start working on something else, etc. She’s fine with their work, then isn’t. She’s not happy though because her house isn’t in order right now. So even if they are doing a good job, she’s going to find something wrong with their work or complain about how long it’s taking. She says what they’ve done is nice, but isn’t yet ready to appreciate it because her house isn’t back to normal. This is her whenever she’s stressed out about things. Especially when her house isn’t in order, which it hasn’t been for the past couple weeks.

But they are close to being done now. And we are doing things now until they’ve completed their job. Things like painting the bathroom, refreshing the bathroom doors, and painting the living room so as to make it look fresh as well as continuing the upkeep of our house. This stuff allows Mom to stay busy and not worry as much about when things will be completed. And so far, it’s been going really well. Everything looks really nice and I can’t wait for everything to be done.

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Our bathroom renovations. We’ve repainted the walls to freshen them up and replaced our toilet and counter top space, but have kept our vanity cabinets. Lighting is also new because the old lights just didn’t work well with our new bathroom style. All I need is the mirror and the look will be complete.

Besides cleaning up house, I haven’t really been up to too much else. Doing these renovations have kept me so busy that I haven’t really been able to do anything else when I’m not at work. Speaking of work, things there are pretty much the same. It continues to be a stressful and tiring work environment to me. Every day there’s always some new drama that attempts to darken my mood. But I’m doing the best I can to work around it because that’s all I can do until I can get a job elsewhere.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you I’m still continuing to do a good job on laying off the caffeine. Now, I won’t lie and say I haven’t been drinking any soda at all. But if I do have any soda on any given day, I usually manage to do a good job of sticking to my intake of one soda a day, except every once in a while where I’ll indulge in drinking one more soda at the most. I think this is good for me because I remember how much soda I used to indulge in and am happy to see I can cut it off cold turkey.

In other news, this week has been a very interesting one. The election came up and I was able to go out and vote. But despite my vote, Donald Trump has been picked to be the President of the United States. While I was upset because he’s not the man I’d like in power of our country, I’ve come to terms that I can’t change what’s happened. He might not be the President I want, but we are stuck with him now for the next four years. Hopefully he won’t be as bad as I think he’s going to be, but we won’t know for sure until he’s inaugurated into the White House next year.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I haven’t done too much writing lately. With the way things have been at work and home, I just haven’t felt as up to it as I’d like. Meaning, I haven’t been working on my novel as much either like I was planning on doing. Hopefully, that’ll change this week but we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’d also like to say before I’m done I’ve started reading a different book. The last book I was reading wasn’t catching my interest anymore so I decided to reread a book I enjoyed while I was in college. So far, I’m enjoying The Diviners as much as I did when I first read it for a Young Adult Literature class I took at Columbia College.

For now, that’s really all I have to say. I’ve had so much going on in my life, both at home and work that’s been keeping me so busy that I’m sorry I haven’t gotten the chance to post as much here on my blog. I hope with this week I’ll be able to change that, or at least get some sort of writing done. But regardless, I hope you’ve all been having a wonderful weekend and I’ll catch up with you on coffee again soon!

 

 

 

 

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No NaNoWriMo This Year: Working on A Different Sort of Writing Project

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Remember how last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo and wrote about my experience? Well, I’ve decided to change things up this year.

I’m not going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Instead, I’m going to be working on a different sort of writing project. Something I’ve been meaning/wanting to work on for some time now, but have kept putting it off time and time again.

There’s this story I’ve been working on since I was in 7th grade. I’ve had this story stuck in my head repeatedly, picturing how it’ll all turn out and what it’ll look like completed. I’ve made various drafts of the first couple chapters, both handwritten and typed trying to decide how to continue moving it forward.

The problem is I’ve always gotten stuck at some point with it. I just couldn’t find the right words to continue the story, couldn’t decide what I wanted to happen to my characters next. So I’d stop, telling myself I’d continue with it on a later day. But I’d end up not going back to it at all despite its continued presence in my mind.

This is the story I want to write instead of participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I want to write this story because I feel like its calling to me. It passes through my mind on a daily basis, asking to be written.

So I want to take up the grueling, difficult task of completing this story. I don’t know yet how long this’ll take me to finish. But it’s something I want to do because I hope to one day have it published. I want to be an author one of these days and I think this story could possibly be my way down that path.

Unlike with my story The Swan & the Crow, however, I won’t be publishing any of this story on my blog for you to read. I don’t want to do that because I don’t want the story itself online before I can get it published.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t hear anything about it from me as I continue working on it. I’ll try the best I can to continuously update you all on how it’s going, and whenever I finally finish it, I’ll be letting you know that too.

Right now, I can also tell you what it’s about in the hopes you’ll be interested in reading it if I’m able to get it published. I’m still working on a few kinks with the title and all so my synopsis will be pretty brief.

When Derek, a young high school boy goes to get his younger sister a birthday present, he gets more than what he bargained for. When he notices a mysterious necklace that not even the store owners were aware they had, he’s curious about it and buys it to wear later. Once he puts the necklace on, however, Derek begins to transform into a being he only thought existed in fairy tales. Having to adapt to the transformation, Derek makes friends with an unlikely ally who helps him adjust to the changes in his body just in time for them to have to work together to defeat an unexpected enemy.

I hope this story sounds like something you’d read and I can’t wait to continue working on it to see where it’ll take me.  

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