History!

 Hi there!

As you probably know by now, I love history; and for that reason, I predominantly write historical fiction. But do you know how interesting history itself can be?

I’ve read more historical articles, books, and watched more documentaries than I can count. But there are still a few things that stand out in my thoughts. Did you know That Victorian ladies regularly carried pins with them, to keep their napkins from slipping onto the floor? Pretty savvy right? That a murder case was once partially solved by a ghost? Look up the Greenbrier ghost. For a twist greater then any drama you’ll see on TV, Napoleon divorced his wife because she couldn’t have kids, but left her with a house, huge garden, and a very healthy allowance for the rest of her life. And Woodrow Willson, president during WWI, predicted (more or less) WWII.

All of this is to say that history is an interesting place to take a walk through, I’ve given you a few jumping-off points here, but it’s up to you to dive in!

Thanks for the read!

What’s your favorite historical fact/event/person?

Jewelry making, a hobby and business

 Hi there! 

Did you know that I’ve been making jewelry longer then I could read? My mom started me on necklaces, (with large wooden beads, cross-stitch needles, and yarn,) when I was 2 or 3, as a way to build hand-eye-coordination... but I took to it like a fish to water.

Wooden beads became plastic, and plastic beads became glass, yarn turned to stretch-cord, and then thread, but I didn’t stop beading. My patterns started to develop from random collections of color to overly complicated many-beaded overly-colorful bracelets and necklaces. I gave almost every female member of my family at least one piece of jewelry for Christmas or their birthday... (not to mention one or two men) and most of them were kind enough to wear them, regardless of the child-like designs.

Despite my love of jewelry making, I didn’t start to learn any complicated tricks, or branch out until I was in my teens… and I also started to master colors and simplify my designs to the point where they were artful, rather than distracting.

Believe it or not, I still actively enjoy making necklaces, it’s fun to assemble patterns, but more than that, I find it incredibly cathartic to string the beads onto the thread… there’s something mindless, and yet incredibly fulfilling about putting together something physical from beginning to end, all within an afternoon.

I keep a large collection of beads just for playing around with, making seasonal necklaces and earring dangles for my clip-on-transformers… only to take them apart them and remake them later. Most people take up crocheting, knitting, embroidering, or something of that sort… but I can’t manage to get the knack of any of those (except for counted cross-stitch, and that drives me to distraction.) 

There is one problem with this hobby, however, I’ve run out of people to give jewelry to! Seriously, I could make a pile of necklaces, but no one is buying the ones I have on Etsy, and I don’t know who I could make anything for, it’s a funny issue, but it could be worse… I could be knitting a sweater large enough for an elephant!

Thanks for the read!

Balancing plates

Have you ever seen someone practice plate spinning? The juggler seems almost to defy gravity as they maintain the plates’ precarious balance with a combination of skill, speed, and occasional trickery. That’s almost how my life feels at times.

I’ve talked about my “social media Monday’s” before… well, they got much worse after I published my book, and now I’m working on creating a slightly more sustainable system. Rather than packing all of my social media prep into one mega day, I’m going to try to stay a single day ahead of the game, IE, every Monday I prep for my blog, and nothing else, and so on. 

How many plates do I need to balance on a daily basis? I need to split my time between the living room, (my wall desk collapsed rather dramatically onto me a few weeks ago) and “kitten central” (my brother’s room) as we’re not quite ready to let him roam freely with the dog yet, and we can’t leave him alone for more than 2 hours lest he start crying for attention. This may seem random but it’s a little harder to work when you have a kitten doing gymnastics off of your leg, then when you can just sit and write; I can write around him (most of the time) but only if I flip the laptop over to tablet mode, (loud buttons are far too tempting to a little kitten) and I’m not quite used to using a digital keyboard for working on my book yet.

Obviously, I have to do all those little things that keep me healthy, as we all do, such as brushing my teeth, doing my exercises, and trying to consume a healthy amount of water. And I do have a few things in my regular calendar as well, such as small group; but I’m only going to talk about repeating things, that you may not automatically assume. My daily task list includes: writing 2-3 pages in my book, writing/prepping for the next day’s social media promotion, a devotional, a Bible study, monitoring my seller accounts on Etsy and Amazon, playing with/snuggling Berlioz, trying to make sure Spirit doesn’t feel left out and cleaning at least one thing (sometimes this is sweeping the floors, sometimes it’s putting away stray items around the house). And soon, I’ll be adding daily voice work practice (recording and editing audio) to this list, and if I ever make any sales, I’ll need to add making more jewelry to keep my Etsy stock up as well. 

This list could definitely be longer… but it’s daunting to even look at first thing in the morning, especially when I add all the little daily things that come up, from a walk outside to bathing the dog. Right now, I’m just tired; tired of working to seemingly no avail, my Etsy shop has been open since February, and I have yet to make a single sale, and my book has been out for nearly a month now, and I’ve sold all of 4 copies. It feels like I’m breaking my back for no purpose, promoting products that no one wants, and writing books that few will ever see. I haven’t talked about this much, but it took a lot of time and effort to design and make all of those necklaces and earrings… to learn how to set up a business, and I’m now afraid that I wasted most of that time.

Sorry for the downer, but this is life, not perfectly shiny all the time… and sometimes it’s hard. Tomorrow will likely be better, but today I’m tired and sick of waiting for a result.

Thanks for the read.

Writing with a cat

Have you ever noticed how many authors have pets? Seriously, almost every author I know anything about has at least one pet (probably a cat)... and I am no exception to the rule, with one rescue kitten, and one elderly dog of my own to love. 

Why do so many authors have pets? I’m not certain, but I think it has something to do with the fact that many authors struggle with social isolation, (even on a normal year!) and pets can help to alleviate that. It’s also fairly common for authors to struggle with poor self-image, and having a little (or not so little,) fluffy friend who wants nothing more than to show you that you are loved can really help.  

Now, having pets is incredible, but sometimes there are a few struggles that come with actually writing with pets around; and I thought it’d be fun to take a light-hearted look at some of the pluses and minuses today. Specifically, I’ll be talking about cats, today, as I think dogs deserve a post of their own.

1. They demand attention of their own. As I write this, I’m struggling through a game of keyboard wrestling with Berlioz, and my backspace key means certain death for my fingers. That said, this also keeps me from bogging down in cyberspace for the whole day, as I’m sitting with him every couple of hours.

2. They are very “helpful.” Berlioz is quite a writer, just check out his blog https://berliozkitteh.blogspot.com but unfortunately, we have many stylistic clashes, as I don’t believe that “iJJJJJJJJJJJJJ” is a proper term… plus he is far more tech-savvy than myself, as he just got the computer stuck in full screen… and I kid you not, somehow managed to pull up his own blog, leaving me stuck on his page until I figured out how to reset the browser to a normal screen. He is now sleeping smugly on a pillow at me.                                                            

3. They are adorable… and distracting. Even when Berlioz isn’t competing for the noisy buttons, he’s sitting across the room watching me, or in my lap purring, and demanding pets… and I can’t quite turn him down.

Despite all of that, however, I still truly believe that the world would be a better place if everyone had a pet… even writers.

Thanks for the read!

Rescuing a friend

Hi there!

Meet Berlioz; our new kitten, he’s about 8 and ½ weeks old and he first started living with us a week and a half ago. “But wait, don’t you already have a dog? Like an old dog?” Yes, we do, Spirit is 12 and ½ years old, and was only about 1 when we first got her. But to be fair to us, we didn’t mean to adopt a kitten at all. “You accidentally adopted a kitten?” Yes… yes, we did, and that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

On the 9th, my brother came in from taking the dog out to report that he saw “the cutest little kitten” in the yard. So, like the fully grown, mature woman that I am, I darted outside to see the cutie, with my mom trailing behind me. Now, there are probably thousands of stray cats in my neighborhood, so kittens aren’t the rarest sight in the world, but typically their mama’s keep them hidden until their mostly grown, such that actually seeing a tiny one during the day is a bit of a treat.

My mom actually asked if I wanted to try to rescue him, which, of course, I did. We chased that kitten, and staked him out, waiting for him to come out where we could reach him for over an hour, but he retreated under the house, and all seemed lost. We gave up and went back inside with little hope of catching him. I headed back outside and decided to see if I could see him, only about 20 minutes later… and I could, he was under the house still, but he was staring at me, from under the house.

My mom hurried to pick up a can of cat food, while I sat out with my brother to play the long game of waiting for the tiny one to calm down. Once we had a can of tuna cat food, I was able to lure him out, and ultimately catch him, with a little help from my mom. 

It took him a couple of hours to calm down, but he was climbing into our arms, laps, and hearts within 2 days.

When we found him he was starving, and we’re pretty sure he was abandoned by his mom; so he’s got a pretty bad case of separation anxiety. If he’s alone for more then an hour or two, he starts calling for someone to come sit with him. 

We tried to get him a good home for about a week, but no one would take the little one; and I was far too smitten with the tiny kitten to bring him to a shelter, so we kept him.

Now, he’s had a vet check, and other then a raging case of ear mites, he’s quite healthy, if a little small. 

We’re pretty sure that he thinks I’m his mama, and it’s pretty darn cute when he purrs in my arms, (he’s got the cutest little squeak of a meow.) He’s cuddly, playful, and a bit of a nut… but he’s about the sweetest ball of fur that you’ve ever seen. 

He and Spirit haven’t met yet, we’re waiting until he finishes a 2-week quarantine before we do that, and the process is likely to be quite slow… but we’re hopeful. And all the early signs have been good, they like to sniff each other under the door, (we’ve got truly massive door gaps), and he’s very non-aggressive. 

I won’t lie, and pretend that I don’t have a thousand little (and not so little) playful kitten scratches on my hands and arms. And I won’t pretend that I didn’t have a kitten doing the cha cha on the keyboard as I tried to write this… but I wouldn’t trade any of that for the little ball of fluff who’s currently trying to play with his kibble right next to me.

Everyone needs a hero.

Thanks for the read!

Photo marketing

Hello again!

Today I thought I’d talk about one of the stranger types of marketing I do; photo-based marketing via Instagram.

Now I’m predominantly tabling about Etsy marketing today, but 

I do also market my book(s) and author brand on Instagram.

The pluses of using a photo-based platform for marketing jewelry are obvious, it’s a good opportunity to get my product into the eye of potential customers, and a chance to practice my photography. However, it’s a little tricky to come up with good original ideas for backgrounds every week. 

So where do I get my ideas for backgrounds/photos? It varies. Sometimes I take ideas from the internet;

Sometimes I’ll have a vague concept;

Sometimes I’ll have a very specific idea of what I want and how to get it; 

And sometimes I don’t have any ideas at all, so I do something quick and easy;

Despite the trouble and annoyance of retaking photos due to shadows, (I take my photos by sunlight,) it’s incredibly rewarding when I finally get a good, clear, shadow-free shot.

Thanks for the read!

Zebra life

Hi there!

I thought I’d come back around to my “zebra” roots for this week.

There are a lot of things about having a rare disease, or chronic illness, that may be a bit hard for most people to understand but are just another part of life for us; so I thought I’d talk about some of those things.

Having EDS means;

1. Having my practically life-long dream of being a ballerina taken from me at 9.

2. Learning my physical boundaries by age 10, better then most people know them by 25.

3. Going into an appointment for an ear infection and coming out with scoliosis.

4. Understanding my condition better than some doctors.

5. Watching doctors pretend to know about my condition to my face, even saying things like my bad genes were caused by not flossing, (a hygienist, although I paraphrased it a bit.) or that I’d outgrow my genetic condition, or even just mispronouncing the condition name entirely. 

6. Waking up with my wrist swollen to twice it’s normal size, for no reason. 

7. Smiling and nodding at a PT as she tells me things I’ve known for years.

8. Having to sit down because my knees just wouldn’t behave.

9. Learning how a storm feels in the bones, as a teen.

10.  Not being able to sleep for 2 weeks after a dislocation because I can’t get that *snap* out of my head.

Now, with that said, it’s pretty hard to think that everything sucks when you have a chronic issue, and sometimes that feels pretty true. But there’s more to being a zebra then I can easily write down, I am a fighter because I needed to learn to fight before I turned 10. I can deal with disappointments because I’ve lived through more than you can imagine. These are hard truths, but they have also helped mold me into who I am.

My whole life, I’ve tried to keep my condition from defining me, but it would be folly to claim that I haven’t been changed by being a zebra. I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t have EDS, but I also don’t feel like I need to know. I am who God made me to be, stripes and all.

Thanks for the read!