I must thank you all again!! I have the greatest readers and subscribers in the world. I just hit the 500 mark on subscribers/followers. This is day 65 of blogging in a row since I started.
I’ve been trying so hard to build up an audience and ultimately get published which is my dream. I thank you all for being part of that and for being so kind to me.
I hope you’ll be around as I continue to do my best to challenge myself and channel my creativity into something beautiful. Thank you all again. I love you all and thank you for reading.
A slightly heavier me in January 2015, in the storm I’m talking about.
I’d like today’s question I think I prefer cooler seasons because I run kind of hot, but I do have a little story about a winter in Texas and how high to use my wits to avoid disaster.
Anybody who’s lived in north Texas knows the weather there can be quite schizophrenic. The few years I lived in Texas the weather was exceptionally insane, even in the winters.
In 2015 the winter in North Texas near Dallas (Irving) was pretty bad. At the time I was working in Farmers Branch off Midway (if anybody knows where that is). We had a pretty major snowstorm and got close to 8 inches of snow one Friday morning.
It’s not unheard of in Texas, but not terribly common for sure to get snow or ice (I guess I was lucky to get to witness both). They let us out of work early on account of the weather was pretty bad and my Jeep Cherokee had a bad heating core in it. so as a result, I had no heat and no way to defrost the snow and ice that was accumulating on my windshield.
I was on the turnpike and was so far getting along OK luckily, only a few miles from my exit when the car in front of me kicked up a puddle and the puddle hit my windshield and ice instantly. I could not see a thing out of my windshield at this point the windshield wipers were frozen. So I slow down, I didn’t hit the brakes and looked (as best I could) out the side window. I managed to do this for a mile and a half until I arrived at my exit and just as I was getting off the turnpike my windshield wipers became thawed. And they cleared the ice off the windshield and I was able to see again. I safely made it home and counted myself lucky.
Not long after the event, I did get my heating core replaced, but I ended up getting a new car at that point which wasn’t a bad idea as I think that Jeep Cherokee was possessed anyway….
I haven’t broken any bones that I know of. Let me further explain that. I am a klutz first class that second not third I went for the gusto with first class. The ground and I we have a very close personal relationship. I’ve taken so many spills and falls in my life. It’s not funny. Who am I kidding? It is funny. I’ve had some spectacular spill, sprained feet, and ankles numerous times and possibly broke one and never knew it. As a result, they hurt nowadays from time to time.
But I’ll tell you something I’m proud of, every time I took a spill I always stuck my crash landing. 🤣
Some of you might be seeing a lot of responses from yours truly, to comments over the past 5 weeks or so. This is happened for some reason your comments got stuck in Word Press comment purgatory for lack of a better word.
I want to make sure I always try to reply and thank everybody because you all took the time to write something, and I want to make sure I reply as well.
For some reason, some got flagged as spam and some got flagged as pending, so I went in and responded to them and made sure that they got through. So if any of you are noticing and thinking “wow I said this a long time ago and now you’re responding” that is why.
Thank you all again for your positive words and reflections and sharing your emotional responses to my writing. It’s truly a writer’s ‘life blood’ and I thank you for reading.
P.S. you may want to check the comment settings in your own and Jetpack client or whatever you’re using for blogging and you may find a bunch of comments in there you didn’t realize you received.
A little tip for blogging that I just learned today, if somebody if anybody makes condescending inflammatory judgments about your character based on your writing, thank them. Don’t respond don’t react don’t argue just thank them. 😊
Now I’m a bit new and green on the blogging front so at first I did give into the comment that was made, and I responded and defended myself vehemently and then the person responded again with even more inflammatory comments. I realized this was all a game. I chose not to play. I went back to edit my original response and thanked them. 😊
They’re gonna be trolls out there and you just have to let them say what they wanna say. They don’t define you you do they don’t define your writing you do and they certainly haven’t lived in your shoes and you remember that consider the source… 😊
Any response to your poetry or your stories or essays is a good response. The goal of the writer is to emote emotion to the reader. It could be agreement with what we’re writing or could be harsh judgment on the writer. It doesn’t matter just don’t react just them. Thank them for taking the time to write any response. 😊
Thank you for reading and putting up with my soapbox rant. Please return to your regularly scheduled programmes… 😊
This is actually a pretty good question. At least this one doesn’t sound like a marketing research question, lol, but you never know. 🙄
It’s quite easy for me to balance home and work life as I live alone and I work from home. By day, I’m a tech writer for the gas company. By night, I’m a blogger that’s the challenge.
It’s like working two jobs, having two muses, and trying to keep them both happy and still have a life in between it all.
I just find that I’m pretty much constantly writing all the time right now. I’m approaching new poetic styles and forms on here challenging myself every day. And I’m also working at my tech job gathering requirements for information systems we’re replacing using all of my information technology experience from the past 28 years.
In between everything I clean I cook I keep my apartment immaculate because I see it is an extension of myself. This falls under self-care we all need to not forget self-care, no matter how busy we are with our writing, our efforts, our jobs.
The only time I really relax and rest is on the weekends and even then if I get a lot of ideas, I’ll do a lot of writing still. 
Truly challenging all of it and I like it. I like having to push myself and my creativity as far as I can.
Each day, a new challenge, but I like it. And I hope I do all my muses justice…
Well, there are sacrifices that are worth it and there are ones that are foolish. Honestly, I think the return you get on your sacrifice, will determine whether it was worth it or not. For instance, sacrificing your time, money and health for someone you loved that doesn’t love you back isn’t worth it. This is a very hard lesson that I have had to spend about 30 years with three women learning. And as I am divorced yet again I’m learning it again.
Sacrificing who you are and what you like in exchange to be more accessible to other people isn’t worth it. You need to attract people that resonate at the same frequency that you do. That like the same things that you do, and that are worth all that you are willing to sacrifice for them.
Sacrificing your passions in exchange for a paycheck or an income or financial security truly isn’t worth it either. You need to find a career that is aligned with what you love to do and your passion I don’t care what it is too many of us have compromised what we truly love to do in exchange for monetary security. I’m now doing what I love and I’m making the most money I’ve ever made and it’s very fulfilling and satisfying to do that every day. And writing every day is truly bliss. I regret not doing this from the get-go.
I’ve learned these things The Hard Way, the hardest way of all. I’m 52 years old now, I’m not young anymore. I know I’m not old or ancient, but I gave up a lot for people that didn’t give a solitary care about me and that was because I didn’t love myself.
I had to learn the hard way that everything starts and ends with us so you need to love yourself and create boundaries and know you’re worth or your sacrifices in life will all be waste. And all you’ll have for all those years and difficulty is a bunch of bills and lessons to teach to people so they don’t make your mistakes in life. And also, you won’t be sitting there with your head between your hands, in, wondering what happened and how it all went by so fast.
Know you’re worth before you make any sacrifices for other people in this life. Because, many people aren’t worth your talents, your love, your money, or most of all your time…
Anthony’s Crazy Love and Life Lessons in Empathy 