Daily Prompts

My Life: Day Six

Karen

I’m attempting to force myself to write in my blog every day. I’ve gotten SO BAD at keeping up these past several years and someday I’ll be dead and then what?

I’ll be gone but hopefully not forgotten. (Feel free to use these prompts for your own writing).

Today’s prompt(s):

Do you believe in soul mates?

Yes.

But first, let’s define what a soulmate is. I feel like many people have a misconception of soulmate:

Merriam Webster defines soulmate as:

1 : a person who is perfectly suited to another in temperament
2 : a person who strongly resembles another in attitudes or beliefs

I feel like that is a bit misleading. A soulmate is not PERFECT, I feel a soulmate is a missing piece to your soul. Someone who completes you, someone who GETS you.

I also don’t feel like a soulmate is necessarily a romantic interest, it could be a friend as well.

Here’s a cute little video that explains soulmate better than I can.

I’m pretty sure this video forgot #5, ha!

Anyway, I felt that way with Kevin. It’s hard to explain but the minute we met, we felt comfortable with each other. It felt “right.” Even though I was cautious given his recent breakup, I just … knew. I wish I could break it down even further, it frustrates me that I can’t find words to describe the feeling, but it’s a gut feeling, you just … know.

So. Do I believe there is a soulmate for every person? Yes. Do I think people recognize a soulmate when they come along? Not always.

Daily Prompts

My Life: Day Five

Karen

I’m attempting to force myself to write in my blog every day. I’ve gotten SO BAD at keeping up these past several years and someday I’ll be dead and then what?

I’ll be gone but hopefully not forgotten. (Feel free to use these prompts for your own writing).

Today’s prompt(s):

What scares you?

The usual: snakes, spiders, large dogs, distracted drivers, icy roads.

But really, my biggest fear? Dying. Either me, the boys, my parents, Kevin.

I’m a Christian and I know that dying is not the end for me, or my family, but dying and just … missing out on stuff. Missing out on the boys growing old, missing the people I love, missing out on the little things, a beautiful sunrise/sunset, not seeing more of the world, the day-to-day of life itself.

Every year, the number of years I’ve been alive on this Earth gets higher and higher. Which, I know, duh, it happens for everyone. But my number is starting to concern me. I don’t FEEL as old as my number. I feel like I’m just getting started, not winding down.

True. I’m not THAT old, but I’m not THAT young, either. I guess I feel like I have some unfinished business ahead of me. And maybe that’s why I’m no longer watching TV but reading more (so many books, so little time!) and itching to get back to my writing, whether it’s on this journal or leaving a little bit of my creative writing behind. When we’re gone, WE’RE GONE, until Christ comes back to get us.

And then, will we know our families? Kevin and I plan on being buried side-by-side. When we rise from the dead, will we know each other? I don’t really know if the Bible says anything about recognizing each other in our new life. Kevin doesn’t think so, and that SCARES me.

And makes me incredibly sad.

It also scares me that not all of the people I care about will be around in the new life. Some people I care about are not believers and they won’t be around AT ALL.

Christ coming back and leading us into a new, much better life is exciting, but what scares me is … what then??

If you would like to know more about Christ and possibly accepting him as your Lord and Savior, please check this out.

Let’s plan on seeing each other in the new life, shall we?

Work Stuff

Pick Your Battles

Karen

I work with a lot of alpha females. In fact, other than our doctors/PA’s, we have ONE guy that works in our whole clinic.

The females that I work with are smart, fierce and work hard to get the job done and to do it to the best of their ability. We have to all have strong personalities in order to handle our very strong, very smart neurosurgeons. (Who have NO patience for stupidity, to be honest). I don’t mind it, in fact, I sort of enjoy it.

However …

Since we all have very strong personalities, we also have to learn to accommodate and adjust to those personalities.

I have definitely chilled out over the years. I wish I was this “calm” and “zen” when the boys were little – I put impossible expectations on them for which I regret today.

But I have a ways to go. My mantra for this new year, “PICK MY BATTLES.”

I have a tendency to be high strung anyway, especially when I’m at work. I want everything to go smoothly so I’m both nowhere and everywhere at once. I’m hyper-aware of my surroundings and who is where at all times. this helps me to plan the clinic day, keep the flow going, and it works, but it’s also exhausting.

By the end of the day, all of my mental energy has been sapped and I just want to sit, absorb the quiet, not talk and stare at the wall.

I go into zombie mode.

And that works for me.

However …

There is drama at work. How can there NOT be when we have so many women with strong personalities. There are days that we don’t get along, or we perceive a slight when in fact, it’s really not that big of a deal. People snap and are snarky and bitch and moan about situations that in the big scheme of things, are simply not that big of a deal.

At least, in retrospect.

This is apparent whenever we are all in “bitch” mode, blowing off steam and our male doctor simply shrugs and puts things into perspective. Suddenly, is it REALLY that big of a deal?

A little testosterone goes a long way.

I have to work hard to shove my ego into the corner at times. Do I get worked up along with everyone else? Of course, but I also try and look at all sides because it’s not all about me. Is it easy? Oh hell no.

It’s not about being the loudest, but the smartest when it comes to conflict.

If I’m going to get involved in a problem, I want to make sure I’m heard and taken seriously.

I can take this stance because I’m older. The majority of people I work are much younger so I feel like I have an advantage from that standpoint. Sometimes I’m the voice of reason, sometimes I’m the irrational one I need someone to bring me back to earth.

I could care less what someone says about me or if they like me. I truly don’t care. Take it or leave it. Sure, it’s more fun to have fun but ultimately, we’re there to do a job, do it and we’ll get along just fine.

But I do get worked up over injustices. People taking advantage of others. People making excuses for piss-poor work performances because they’re too lazy to learn and do it right. People being holed away from the watchful eyes of management to spend their time on their phones the entire day and making their team partner do all the work.

I’m a hot head and I tend to mouth off when I’m really annoyed or worked up. But I’m going to work on doing a better of job curbing that response and looking at all sides of the issue before flying off the handle.

  1. It’s a more mature approach
  2. My blood pressure will thank me

So. My 2019 mantra?

PICK. MY. BATTLES.

 

 

Daily Prompts

My Life: Day Four

Karen

I’m attempting to force myself to write in my blog every day. I’ve gotten SO BAD at keeping up these past several years and someday I’ll be dead and then what?

I’ll be gone but hopefully not forgotten. (Feel free to use these prompts for your own writing).

Today’s prompt(s):

Sleep: What things help you sleep at night? Or, are you a night owl? Do you get enough sleep or wish you could sleep more?

Out of curiosity, I searched “sleep” on YouTube and to my surprise, there were three different “live” videos playing relaxing music and videos of peaceful, beautiful landscapes to help you relax enough to fall asleep, I guess.

Random to tell you that, but interesting – a lot of people have trouble with sleep.

I wonder why, truly. Is it because people’s stress levels are too high? Unresolved life issues? Health problems? Busy brains that can’t shut off? All of the above?

I love to sleep and getting to sleep is not my problem, staying asleep is.

I’m a fish when I sleep. I flop around and change positions multiple times every night. It’s so disruptive, in fact, that Kevin and I don’t sleep together. We can’t. We just don’t sleep that well together. I flop around and snore, he sleeps with a Cpap (a sleep apnea machine because he actually stops breathing at times and the machine kicks in and makes him breathe again) and he sounds like Darth Vader.

Sexy.

But it works for us. We actually sleep. And Kevin, who has never been a good sleeper, is finally able to sleep.

The thing that helps me sleep at night – mindless activities. Whether that’s watching YouTube videos (though it’s not recommended that you stare at electronics before sleep), playing the Sims, (because I LOVE me some Sims), or reading, it works. I still my mind and my body follows shortly thereafter. I fall asleep fast, but since I’m so restless and have to get up and pee three times a night, I’m up, a lot. But again, I can fall back to sleep rather quickly, so that helps.

I wear a Garmin, which keeps track of my sleep patterns, (whether it’s accurate or not is still debatable) and if I can get four hours of deep sleep, it’s a good night for me. I think my record of deep sleep was six hours and that was largely because I took a Benedryl before bed.

I used to be a night owl, but now I guess you would call me a reluctant early bird. I trained myself to get up early shortly after marrying Kevin, who gets up at the ass crack of dawn every morning (though he’s not as bad as he used to be). Then we had children, so I had to get up with them. And now I’m up with the roosters every morning to get ready for work so I’m lucky if I stay up past 9:00 PM most nights.

I don’t necessarily wish I got MORE sleep, I just wish I got BETTER sleep. More deep sleep. I’m a very light sleeper so anything and everything wakes me up. I sleep with a fan on every night, even in the dead of winter, just for the consistent noise. Because anything other than absolute quiet will wake me up.

It’s so annoying.

I’m annoying.

Book Corner

Book Review: Phantom Evil by Heather Graham

Karen

A secret government unit, a group of renegade paranormal investigators… and a murder no one else can crack.

Though haunted by the recent deaths of two teammates, Jackson Crow knows that the living commit the most heinous crimes.

A police officer utilizing her paranormal intuition, Angela Hawkins already has her hands full of mystery and bloodshed.

But one assignment calls to them too strongly to resist. In a historic mansion in New Orleans’s French Quarter, a senator’s wife falls to her death. Most think she jumped; some say she was pushed. And yet others believe she was beckoned by the ghostly spirits inhabiting the house — once the site of a serial killer’s grisly work.

In this seemingly unsolvable case, only one thing is certain: whether supernatural or all too human, crimes of passion will cast Jackson and Angela into danger of losing their lives… and their immortal souls.

 

 

So, I finished this book at about 11:30 last night. (Hence the reason I was a zombie at work today), so that should tell you something. I was interested enough to continue reading well past the time I knew I should be reading.

I haven’t read anything from Ms. Graham, though I’ve seen her name everywhere and have been meaning to. So when I saw her name on Kindle Unlimited, I thought “why not?”

I’m not typically into “horror” books or like any stories dealing with the supernatural – it just spooks me. Not the content itself but because I believe in demon spirits and the possibility of these spirits manifesting  and making its presence known in my life.

No thank you.

But my curiosity got the better of me and I read it.

The writing itself is not bad. It flowed easily and I wasn’t jerked out of the story by awkward phrasing or stilted conversation on the characters’ part. Though I was personally not bothered by the sheer number of “main characters,” the author did a good job keeping them straight, I can see that being confusing for a lot of readers.

There are a lot of characters and there is a lot going on at a given time.

But again, Ms. Graham does a good job keeping Jackson in our sights and the character himself divvies out responsibilities/tasks to the characters so the reader knows who is doing what, where.

The book opens with the prologue, which in essence, is the crime. The rest of the book works on solving “who dun it.”

A group of misfit characters are assigned to the job by one FBI agent who appears at the beginning of the book but then just becomes a character in the background. All of these characters who form the team have some “special” talent. Though it’s not entirely clear yet who can do what, Ms. Graham does a good job of giving us hints so we have a general idea of what roles these characters play in this task force.

The crime itself is … interesting. It’s an interesting premise, I will give her that. And the way the characters go about investigating is organized and makes sense.

However, the premise behind the story, of ghosts that can be seen, and sometimes even physically felt, just felt contrived to me.

Again, I tend to roll my eyes at paranormal stories. On one hand, they are creepy as shit, and on the other hand, they are almost ridiculous, which I would think would be a writer’s challenge for this type of genre, the sheer challenge of “selling” this premise to the reader without making it look over-the-top or just plain silly.

Most of the characters in the group can see dead people.

It’s hard to write that sentence without smirking. I feel like there was an idea for this story and then the author just decided to throw in some supernatural element to make it more interesting. It was definitely more interesting but for me, it just didn’t work.

Not to mention, Jackson and his love interest, Angela. The amount of time that these two started a physical relationship really turned me off. They knew each for what, TWO DAYS before it started getting steamy. And the fact that the rest of the team, again, all strangers and all just meeting, were perfectly fine with it did not appeal to me.

String me along!

I think, for me, if Ms. Graham is going to make this team a series, and it looks like she does, then let’s slow things down a bit. Let’s see the relationship grow, let’s see the characters tease each other and get to know each other before doing the nasty.

That completely turned me off.

In addition, the brainwashing church cult aspect of this story stuck out like a sore thumb, too.

I felt like the author took some story ideas, threw them against the wall and kept the ones that stuck. It felt hodge-podged and disjointed. Not to mention the “bad guy’s” reason for bringing the team in in the first place was sort of a weird, thin reason, in my opinion.

Overall, I’m still on the fence if I want to read any more in this series. Granted, the paranormal story lines are not my thing but I don’t think I’m ready to completely write this series off yet. I downloaded books two and three from Kindle Unlimited – let’s see if I like them enough to continue reading the series.

 

Daily Prompts

My Life: Day Three

Karen

I’m attempting to force myself to write in my blog every day. I’ve gotten SO BAD at keeping up these past several years and someday I’ll be dead and then what?

I’ll be gone but hopefully not forgotten. (Feel free to use these prompts for your own writing).

Today’s prompt(s):

The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back?

I haven’t really been in very many relationships in my life. My first boyfriend just wasn’t that into me and it broke my heart. I gave him ALL of me and he discarded me like yesterday’s socks. To make matters worse, he started dating someone while he was still with me. I immediately broke up with him when I found out, which in hindsight, was what he wanted, I suppose. Then he wasn’t put in the awkward position of breaking it off with me.

Pussy.

But that experience taught me to harden my heart. It broke something in me. I remember holing myself off from civilization, for days, and analyzing every aspect of that relationship and coming to the conclusion, the only person I can ever truly count on, is me. I never again allowed anyone to get as close to me or to give myself as fully. It was just too painful. I’ve given all that I’m capable of giving to Kevin and no one else.

Ever.

I wish I could give more to Kevin, but there is a wall that no matter how hard I try to break down, remains to this day.

In some ways, I feel like that experience damaged me. It made me cold, uncaring in a lot of ways. I truly don’t care. I mean I care, but only to a point. It scares me sometimes how cold I can be.

But in other ways, I’m sort of glad it did happen. I don’t get that upset when someone pulls out of my life. I just shrug and  go on with my life. I’m not exactly proud of this trait, but it’s definitely protected me from getting hurt. And if people don’t want to make that much effort to be part of my life, I’m certainly not going to chase them down and MAKE them. Meh. Life goes on.

I had another “relationship” right before Kevin. I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend because I wasn’t naive enough to think it was going anywhere, he was separated from his wife. They were on the crux of getting divorced. He was someone I went to high school with and had a huge crush on, though he didn’t give me the time of day in high school because contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t part of the “cool” kids – I was one of those kids that was on the outskirts of many different groups of kids – I was friends with everyone and no one at the same time.

(Remember the cold heart trait?)

But it was an intense relationship. We had fun together. It was lighthearted and never serious. But I did like him. The night before his divorce was final, his wife called him and wanted to talk. He was torn. I didn’t want to let him go but I knew if he didn’t, he would always wonder “what if.” So, I encouraged him to go.

He never came back.

It was hard, and I cried for hours afterward. I remember my roommate stayed up with me and tried to console me. But that piece of walled heart? Protected me and though I was sad, I wasn’t devastated. It didn’t break me, I simply went on with life.

Six months later, I met Kevin.

But I was cautious. I tread very carefully because when I met Kevin, he was newly divorced (six months) and I didn’t want to become the “rebound girl.” (I feel like this blog post just took a turn into deep emotional territory, grab hold of something).

So, I kept him at arm’s distance, though we did move in together and lived together for two years until I thought, “Okay, I think it’s safe to say I’m more than a rebound girl” and pretty much forced him to propose because tick/tock! Life is too short for you to make up your mind, either we get married or we move on.

Yeah, I’m such a romantic.

And here we are, almost 29 years married.

But that’s my romantic story in a nutshell. Sure, there were other guys sprinkled throughout that history, but none lasted very long because I wasn’t interested in anything long term – we had fun, we moved on. So other than my first boyfriend, I’ve never felt love for someone that didn’t return it.

I don’t know if that is something to be proud or to feel sad about. I’ll let you decide.

 

At the Moment

Obsessed with These Daily Vlogs

Karen

I’ve mentioned the past that I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore. Nothing really interests me. Though I’m wondering if that changes once I get back on the treadmill and start watching shows to distract me from the fact THAT I’M DYING.

Still. I’ll make a vow right now – I will only watch TV on the treadmill.

There. Hold me accountable.

No. Instead of TV and reading, I’ve been OBSESSED with family vlogs. These two specifically:

And …

Ellie and Jared are the perfect parents. They are gentle, quiet, kind, patient and very loving to their boys. When I watched the Christmas Special, Part 2, I actually cried because the boys are just so sweet! I think it reminds me of when our boys were little and I MISS those days. I really do.

KKandBabyJ is a vlog I love because it’s a young, modern family that are simply DOING IT RIGHT. They are hip but they are clearly teaching their boys to be good  human beings. They have a great sense of humor and their boys are SO SWEET!! They are fun to watch and I pray if our boys ever get married, they live this kind of life.

I also feel envy when I watch these videos. Not for the family dynamics, though I do wish I had Ellie’s patience when the kids were little, but what a GREAT video diary of their lives to look back on when they get older. I WISH I had done something like this, either video, or blog format, just to look back on and reflect and appreciate those times. I have pictures, which is better than nothing, but there are no stories to go with those pictures and as time goes by, I am forgetting the little things surrounding those snapshots and that makes me sad.

I like to watch clean, wholesome videos like this because it just sort of “cleanses” my whole day. It makes me happy and I walk away feeling hopeful about people in general.