Author: Karen

Hi! My day job is a CMA in the Precertificiation Department (I work with insurance companies). I'm a mom to two young men. I've been married to the same man for 34 years. I have a lot to say about nothing. Lucky you.
Politics

Analyzing Racism – What is Happening?

Karen

“Police officers have become the targets of violent activists who are seeking to upend America as we know it. Heather Mac Donald, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The War on Cops, is in the studio this week to break down the myths behind “systemic racism” and “police brutality.”

By the way, I have a serious girl crush on Candace Owens. Just sayin’.

We HAVE to stop this violence. We HAVE to stop this narrative that is tearing our country apart. There is talk of another Civil War. And for what? Do YOU even know the whole story? Take a listen and decide for yourself. There is ALWAYS two sides to a story. Always.

Fiction Fix

Fiction Fix Friday: Vindicated

Karen

September 25th: You toss your phone into a public garbage can.  

Victoria casually tossed her cell phone into a passing dumpster.

The resounding clatter echoed off the brick walls on either side of the alley.

She paused, turned around, and strode the few steps back to the dumpster. She carefully popped out her blue-colored contact lenses and flicked them into the garbage as well. She impatiently wiped an errant tear off her cheek left behind by the irritant lens. She wiped the reddish-brown lipstick off her lips with disgust as she continued to walk toward the street.

She stepped into the circle of light cast by a street lamp when a car came to a screeching halt in front of her.

She smirked and grabbed the handle.

“You’re late,” she spat as she slammed the door closed.

“So, it’s done?” Her driver asked.

Victoria reached up and carefully peeled off the auburn wig. She paused a moment to comb her fingers through her short, black, spiky hair.

“It’s done.” she replied, her voice emotionless.

“How do you feel?”

“Vindicated,” she barked. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Three hours earlier …..

“Allison! Hey Allison!”

She twisted around to see who was stupid enough to call her by her real name here, of all places.

The person swept past her and gathered a middle-aged woman with bleach-blonde hair into a hug.

“Who was that?” her fiance asked beside her.

She turned back to give Jacob a sweet smile. “I have no idea.”

“You turned around like you knew him.”

She swallowed and lifted her head confidently. “We’re at our engagement party. Don’t we pretty much know everyone?”

She wanted to smash his cocky grin with her knuckles.

Jacob laughed and slipped an arm around her waist. “Of course. Though I’ll be honest. I don’t know half of these people.”

“It’s because half of these people come from my world,” she said while trying to keep her voice from betraying how annoyed she was with him.

Just one more hour, she thought to herself.

“So. When is this thing over with? I’m anxious to get you to myself,” he said while nuzzling her neck.

“Hey now. You two will have the rest of your lives to do that. I want to dance with my future daughter-in-law!”

“Dad,” Jacob ground out between clenched teeth. “You’ve had too much to drink. The band is not even …”

The band picked that precise moment to start their next set.

Jacob’s father laughed while tugging on Victoria’s hand. “Let’s go, kiddo. Let’s show them how it’s done.”

Victoria allowed herself to be pulled out onto the dance floor while shooting Jacob an apologetic smile over her shoulder.

She didn’t exactly like Jacob’s father, but she could have hugged him at that moment for getting her out of that public display of nauseating affection.

“You know, Jacob can be a dick sometimes.”

She sputtered a laugh in surprise, though she definitely wasn’t planning on disputing him on that fact.

“But he means well. He really does have a heart of gold. And I can tell he’s hopelessly in love with you. You’re good for him, Victoria.”

She squashed the white hot thread of anger that wrapped itself around her throat and forced a smile. “Thanks Ralph. We all have our moments.”

“Not you,” he said with a smile while twirling her around the dance floor and grinning like a fool to those they passed. “You are smart, beautiful, even tempered and the perfect complement to Jacob’s hot temper.”

“Well thank you, Ralph. I appreciate you saying that.”

“Call me dad. After all, we’ll be family in one more week!”

“Okay dad, you’ve hogged my future wife long enough, my turn!” Jacob cut in and virtually yanked her out of his father’s grasp.

She slammed into Jacob’s chest and let out a puff of air. She felt a headache coming on and she suddenly wanted to be any where but there. She just wanted it to be over.

“Jacob,” she forced a soft tone of voice, “I need to sit down for a bit. Why don’t you mingle?”

He nuzzled her neck and she had to swallow a lump of disgust at the smell of his sour sweat.

“Sure. We have the rest of our lives to dance,” he chuckled before slapping her ass and strutting over to his group of friends.

She fought the urge to roll her eyes and walked over to the open bar. “Whiskey sour,” she said. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes. She turned to look over the room at the pretentious assholes she had no intention of ever seeing again. She watched Jacob punch one of his friends in the chest, hard, and laugh at his buddy’s red face. So infantile. She watched Jacob’s parents hobnob with their snobby friends. She watched a group of stuck up teenagers try and act cool. And she watched the elders gesture and turn up their noses while spewing heated opinions about current events.

“What a bunch of losers.”

She heard laughter behind her and stiffened.

“Here’s your drink, miss.” The bartender handed over her drink. “That’s sort of harsh to say about your future family, isn’t it?”

She studied him over her glass. “Where does it say I have to like the family I’m marrying into?”

He laughed again and shrugged. “I guess you have a point there. I can’t stand my girlfriend’s parents. Is your family here tonight?”

She shook her head. “No. They couldn’t make it. But they will be here for the wedding next week.” She took a large swallow of liquor, effectively swallowing the huge lie. “Excuse me,” she said. He nodded and turned to help a young girl who couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

“Open bar, right?” The girl giggled while twisting a curl around a finger.

“Uh,” the bartender looked across the room hoping for an adult to intervene.

Victoria walked off with a smirk.

She reached their table and sat down, She kicked off her high heels, pulled her purse over to her then reached inside and tugged out her phone.

“I’m in hell. Shoot me.” She text. She took another large swallow of liquor and welcomed the sting as it traveled down her esophagus. She watched Jacob grab one of his buddies, put him in a headlock and give him a noogie. “Idiot,” she muttered under her breath.

Her phone dinged. Continue reading “Fiction Fix Friday: Vindicated” →

Can We Talk?

September 24th Thursday Thought

Karen

Today’s questions are …

What does it mean to live a good life?

To me, living a good life means being kind to people. To be satisfied with my life choices and if I’m not satisfied, then changing things in my life to MAKE it satisfying. Living a good life means being comfortable in my skin. To finally be happy with who and what I am. And to also be satisfied with my physical appearance. We are all uniquely different and that makes us uniquely special. It takes a long time to acknowledge and accept that fact and sadly, some people never accept that, but once you have made peace with yourself, it’s easier to make peace with other people. Living a good life means being patient and empathetic to others. Everyone has their own problems, their own history, which in turn shapes who they are as people. Recognizing and accepting that goes a long way to understanding, and tolerating, people around you. Living a good life means having faith in something bigger than yourself. To have hope. To have dreams. To accomplish goals. To HAVE goals. Living a good life is working hard, saving most of what you make and spending wisely leaving plenty left over to enjoy in your twilight years. Living a good life means being responsible for one’s actions, to thinking before acting. Living a good life means searching for, and finding, YOUR happiness, however that looks for you personally.

Why do we dream?

My explanation is: it’s your subconscious trying to get your attention. However, a better explanation comes from Psychology Today:

  • A component and form of memory processing, aiding in the consolidation of learning and short-term memory to long-term memory storage.
  • An extension of waking consciousness, reflecting the experiences of waking life.
  • A means by which the mind works through difficult, complicated, unsettling thoughts, emotions, and experiences, to achieve psychological and emotional balance.
  • The brain responding to biochemical changes and electrical impulses that occur during sleep.
  • A form of consciousness that unites past, present and future in processing information from the first two, and preparing for the third.
  • A protective act by the brain to prepare itself to face threats, dangers, and challenges

I know it’s fun to discuss, and try to interpret, Kevin’s dreams. He has some doozies. ha!

Where does your self-worth come from?

Most likely from your family. Your parents are an integral part of shaping who you are. If your family doesn’t have good morals, compassion, empathy, kindness and ethics, chances are, you won’t either. Hence the reason the nuclear family is SO IMPORTANT. I think surrounding one’s self with positive and uplifting people feeds a healthy self-worth. Unfortunately, many people do not recognize toxic people until their self-worth has been chipped away to virtually nothing. If do not feel good after spending time with someone, then it’s time to cut that person out of your life and move on to people who motivate and offer honest, positive feedback. It’s also important to recognize one’s own flaws and to actively work on correcting those flaws. Why are you impatient? Why do you lose your temper so easily? Why does it matter to you so much that someone like you? Why do you need praise? Why are you a perfectionist? Once you have those honest conversations with yourself, then you are in a better place to be honest to those around you.

Here is an excellent comment on a thread about self-worth:

“Self-worth is something that you can never derive from external surroundings, it is something you derive from within. It does not have any measuring scale. It is a position which one holds for oneself. Self-worth is an internal state of being that comes from self-understanding, self-love, and self-acceptance. Self-worth is steady and unflinching, and therefore, holds power to radically transform your life for the better.

Having a high degree of self-worth means feeling worthy of good things. It means feeling deserving of happiness, health, wealth, success, and love — irrespective of the difficulties you face, the disappointments you experience, or of people’s opinions.”

Writing Mechanics

How To Solve Writing a Mystery

Karen

A bug bit me.

And I’m not mad about it.

Have you noticed I’ve been blogging more? I think I’ve blogged more this past month than I have in the past two years.

I’m blogging more because I’m exercising my writing muscles. I want to start writing more fiction and to do that, I need to write SOMETHING.

I’ve been wanting to write a mystery. I love mysteries and have been really enjoying the mysteries I’ve been reading lately. (Pst – follow me on Goodreads). But the question is, how the HECK do I write a mystery?

I mean, I can WRITE the story, but how do I structure it? How do I write a story that the reader doesn’t see through in the first ten pages?

I’ve been watching a lot of writing vlogs lately. This one from Alexa Donne caught my eye.

Video summary:

1. What is a (bonkers) reason for someone to kill someone?
A. Motivation / Reason

2. Come up with alternates / additional reasons for someone to kill your victim
A. Red herrings / Misdirects

3. Third-Act / Climax (about 70/80% into the story)

4. Brainstorm of good victims – archetypes – list characters around the archetype

5. Who is the killer?

6. Who is the main character?
A. Outsider or an Expert

7. Construct the setting

8. How to approach law enforcement involvement
A. Local cops vs. FBI
B. How does legal authority play in your story?

9. How is the body discovered?

10. How does your main character get involved / find the body?

I have to say, this is helpful information. I’m a pantser, meaning, I write by the seat of my pants. I don’t outline. However, I’m working on changing that because though I can furiously write a story and it’s thrilling to see where it takes me, I inevitably get stuck, then frustrated, then disgusted and I end up tossing my story. I want a more hybrid approach. Where I’m outlining to a point, but then giving myself the freedom to see where it takes me. I think they call it the headlight method.

“Writing by your headlights simply means that you plan the first part of your story then write it. When you get that section written, you’ll be able to see what happens next and can plot out the next few scenes or chapters.”

Learning about the art of writing motivates me!

TueSLAY

TueSLAY – September 22nd

Karen

Listened to an excerpt on the Glenn Beck radio show (I know – I rarely listen to Glenn because he’s just so DRAMATIC) and he had a gym owner from San Francisco on his radio show. She was expressing her outrage over the fact that San Francisco is STILL shut down, save for government jobs and out door restaurants. She said her gym had been closed down for SIX MONTHS and how she owed her landlord tens of thousands of dollars in rent. It’s California ya’ll – everything in California is expensive. I can’t imagine trying to run a business. Her voice was wobbly, she could barely get her words out with tossing around a curse word here and there. She was upset. She talked about finding out state-funded gyms were not only open, but had been open since JULY. She talked about how she spent the money to make her gym extend outside just so she would be allowed to have some money coming in. She hated having to do that given that San Franciscoians have to step shit in the streets and how the air quality if poor from so much smog. But she didn’t have a choice – either do that or shut down completely. She found out the state-funded gyms were open from a police officer friend of hers. She approached him one day and asked him where he was working out. And that’s when she found out. She was furious! She went to a lawyer friend of hers to see if she had any legal recourse. She then admitted, and to me, this was the most telling part of the interview, that she hadn’t really paid attention to politics up to that point, but she would from now on. Now, San Francisco just announced that hair salons and gyms would be allowed to re-open on Monday. I”m sure some of this stemmed from Nancy Pelosi forcing a hair salon to open up so she could get her hair done. Screw the rest of you little people.

People. WE HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHO IS GETTING VOTED INTO OFFICE. These people are counting on you NOT to pay attention so they can do whatever they please and we, as sheeple, just bleat and meekly go along to get along. This. Has. Got. To. Stop.

Have any of you listened/watched Kayleigh McEnany, President Trump’s, press secretary, speak? SHE’S FIERCE. I have a girl crush. She is absolutely killing the press conferences. It’s so obvious that the reporters are trying their hardest to get her to slip up, or to push an agenda, or try and make Trump look bad, that I almost feel sorry for them when Kayleigh comes back with scathing comebacks. She is always prepared. She always carries a notebook full of things she’s predicting the media will ask her, and when she starts flipping through her notebook and prepares her comeback, it’s one of the most satisfying things I’ve seen in a very long time. And it’s so blatantly obvious the media has no interest in telling the truth, in getting the truth, or publishing the truth. They are so fixated on making the “Orange” man look bad that they don’t even ask the important questions. Like, why the Democrat governors and mayors refuse, REFUSE, to ask for help to run out the domestic terrorists, aka Black Lives Matters, out of their cities. Did you know that the riots in Portland have been going on for OVER 100 days? I feel sorry for the regular people in Portland who just want to go about their lives but can’t because their government is more concerned about their hatred for Donald Trump than they are for the safety of their constituents. Wow.

By the way, the man in the above video, Brandon Tatum, is a conservative YouTuber who I’ve been a bit obsessed with lately. It’s SO REFRESHING to see African Americans finally speaking out against the abuse against them from the Democrats. Black Americans have been hoodwinked for decades and it’s time to wake up and follow a team who will actually help them. Anyway, Brandon started “The Tatum Report” largely in response to the fact that The Drudge Report has started leaning to the left and no longer links to articles about the TRUTH. If you’re interested in reading stories about what REALLY happened, stories that you won’t hear/see/read on main stream media, this is the website for you.

I woke up to this today:

Not bad after 30 years of marriage!

I put one scoop, ONE SCOOP, of caffeinated coffee in my coffee maker the other day, along with two scoops of de-caffeinated coffee, and I had heart palpitations for most of the night. COME ON, NOW! It annoys me to no end that my heart can’t handle caffeine anymore. I really miss the days of drinking energy drinks and then a thermos full of coffee – I got so much done! I was so focused!

But let’s be honest, that’s probably the biggest reason why I have heart palpitations now – because I used to drink energy drinks and a thermos full of coffee every day.

*sigh*

I’m still fasting. I fast every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. I stop eating at 6:00 the night before and then I will eat a small dinner at 6:00 the next night. I try and avoid breads as much as I can and stick to more protein. I’ve also been drinking V8 juice, which isn’t my favorite but it does make me feel better. In fact, I convinced Brandon to start doing the same. I worry about his health as he hates fruits and vegetables. But he says he’s been drinking V8 juice and eating Welch’s fruit gummies, which isn’t ideal, but better than nothing, I suppose. Have I lost weight? Well, my clothes are definitely looser and I’ve lost about twenty pounds, but I seem to have hit a wall. I could amp my fasting up a bit but honestly, I don’t want to. My goal was to always get to a stage where I feel comfortable in my skin and I do. I have been using the treadmill more but I have to be careful with how much I do that because it makes my hunger pangs FIERCE, so I tend to space my walking sessions out a bit more. When I do walk, I carry hand weights, too, so that I can build a little muscle. I worry about osteoporosis because I work with a doctor that addresses that, has models to show patients and it when you have osteoporosis, your bones literally look like swiss cheese. No thank you. I have no idea when I will stop fasting. It’s become a fact of life now and I’m used to it. It has definitely re-wired my brain when it comes to eating when I’m hungry or eating when I’m bored. Most of the time, I’m truly not hungry so I don’t eat. Even on feeding days. Though I COULD eat, if I’m not hungry for breakfast, then I don’t eat breakfast. Now, that’s not to say that there are days I’m so ravenous I would push a 90-year old lady over to get to some food, but those days don’t happen very often. (And for the record, I wouldn’t actually push a 90-year old lady over, though I would be tempted. ha!)

Baby is no longer in the corner. Kevin and I realized the other day that we have a bedroom that we never use. Blake’s old bedroom. So I talked him into painting it a pretty mint green, hung some white curtains up, ordered a corner desk and chair, and shelf from Amazon and I now have a new office!!

The white curtains were free (thank you Tiffany!) and I’m thinking of taking them to get them altered so the length comes to just under the window and not onto the floor. The boxes on the shelves are my bullet journal supplies. I used to have them in the Merry Christmas box on the top shelf but I quickly outgrew it. The white box on the shelf has my eyeglass cleaner and is a space for other stuff is that currently cluttering up my desk. But I LOVE having my own space and I’m hoping it will motivate me to actually start writing. (*snort* How many times have you heard THAT one??)

That’s all for now. Time to go SLAY the rest of the week!

Podcast

Podcast: Ethical Questions Answered

Karen

 

Episode description:

How would you respond? Join us as we ask each other ethical questions. We like to challenge ourselves to look at all sides of the issue as one answer really doesn’t answer all.

Example: You’re getting married and you receive a present in the mail from your favorite uncle. He lives abroad and always sends one-of-a-kind gifts. When you open the present, it’s broken. Do you tell your uncle?

Tune in to weigh in on this question and more!