Of Bad Years and Rough Times by Konnie Enos

 

It’s official. The 2020s have been beating my family up.

Okay, so maybe this started in 2019 because it was October of 2019 when our air conditioner went out and required major repairs and or replacement. Since we were broke, this necessitated acquiring another debt. But that just seems to be the tip of the iceberg. Since then, about a year later, we had to replace our dryer. Then in December of 2021 both our washer and one of our toilets needed to be replaced. Then in November of 2022, our heater died, caput, no repairs possible, it is down for the count. Our only option is to replace it and central heating systems aren’t cheap. We are making do with space heaters. And somewhere in this time frame, our water heater and microwave needed to be replaced too.

By my count, only the fridge and stove have not died or needed major repairs in the three years. Also, we have only had to replace one toilet and none of our sinks. Though we have discovered why we haven’t been able to use the tub in our hall bathroom. Guess what? Major repairs, and probably replacing the tub too. Yeah, we don’t have the money for that.

Now, what about our car? Yes, that too. We’ve had four separate incidents in the last three years of major repair bills. All just to keep the thing drivable as our only car.

Then there was the incident in July of 2021 when our internet went down and we could not get our provider to come out and fix it. I mean they said they would. They even scheduled it but never showed. With three people in the house doing college courses online, we couldn’t wait forever and Cox was much more responsive. Not to mention less the half the cost for better internet. So maybe that one was a good thing.

Health-wise we can start with COVID, which had me in the hospital twice and in isolation for most of both June and July back in 2020. Then replacing the toilet in 2021 coincided with Jerry having major surgery. Then after he’d recovered from that, he ended up in the hospital again because of an infection. I also spent most of 2020 with blurry vision and ended up having to have cataract surgery on both eyes. Then there is Melinda being sick from costochondritis at the same time Royce banged up his knee. Or me ending up in boot because I’d done something to my foot. Then there was Tony breaking his hand from hitting a wall and being off work completely until he was cleared by a doctor, at least for six weeks. Or the fact that Royce is currently off work because of a banged-up knee, again.

And that’s more than plenty for just three years but it doesn’t end there.

There have been several deaths among our family members too. My dad’s older brother, a favorite uncle of mine, Uncle Rodney, died days before his 83^rd birthday, in 2021. I was later told it was from COVID at the same time I was told about my other favorite uncle, my mom’s youngest brother, Uncle Royce, and his wife Aunt Rita, both passed on the same day, also in 2021, and also from COVID. Then the oldest of my brothers, Bryon, passed nearly a year after Uncle Rodney. No, Bryon didn’t have COVID, but his health had been declining for nearly a decade. Still, that’s four loved ones within one year.

But it doesn’t end there. Melinda lost a beloved, though older pet in 2020, and Tony lost a puppy in 2021 and a guinea pig in 2022. But I think the biggest blow was this month. Specifically the 15^th and 16^th.

In my last post, I mentioned our dog, affectionately known as Fluffball, was ill and we were treating it. I also mentioned that my husband was focusing on the worst-case scenario. Unfortunately, he was right. Our beloved Fluffball, Reeses, passed over the Rainbow Bridge on Sunday the 15^th.

However, during the week he was so sick Melinda noticed her cat, Tiger, was not feeling well. She watched him carefully and finally took him in on Monday morning. Within hours they told her that he would not survive the night because he was in severe Congestive Heart Failure. So he too passed over the Rainbow Bridge, on Monday the 16^th. We had so little time to absorb that he was even sick that his passing floored us. Tears are always near the surface as we attempt to return to some normalcy.

Reeses, our Fluffball, and our dear tabby, Tiger, are sorely missed.

Please send prayers and smiles to my family. We could use them.

I’m going to go wipe my eyes now.

Lack of Focus And Pets

 

Sometimes getting my mind to focus on what I need to be doing, instead of what I want to be doing is dang hard.

Like last night, I needed to fix my lunch for today and work on this post, what I did do is continue rereading an older version of one of my manuscripts. I really want to get that one in working order.

Then again, I have several I want to get in working order and finish! Just not getting far. Maybe I could use some brainstorming, but the thing is, Konnie has been trying to finish one of her manuscripts and has been asking me for brainstorming time. She contacted me when I was at work yesterday asking for just that and I told her, “Not today, I get off at 5 and I still need to write my post.”

I really wanted to get to bed on time, but when I opened my computer, I still had my manuscript open which I read until bedtime Monday night, and I started reading again. For some reason, I thought I was near the end of what I’d written, without checking how many pages I have left to read.

Big mistake. I am a slow reader.

So, it was past bedtime when I closed all that out and started trying to write my post.

And that’s starting to sound a lot like Konnie, who often stays up to the wee hours of the morning writing, but Konnie has to write at night! There are far too many people and pets to interrupt her if she tried writing during the day.

I have visited her place, and I can not write while I’m there. There’s too much going on, too many people, and too many dogs. The dogs bark a lot, and they are loud.

The thing is Konnie has visited my place, and she had trouble writing at my home. Why?

Because it was too quiet!

The person who hardly ever watches TV put a video in, just for the noise, so she could write.

Okay, yeah, sometimes I turn on the TV just for the noise, but never when I’m writing!

I should also point out that when Konnie visited me, her phone was going off rather regularly, as in several times a day, and at least once, several times in a matter of minutes. When I visited her, she was interrupted way more often than that by her family, so they were clearly holding back.

I obviously, don’t have that issue.

I rarely get calls and it's even rarer when I’m with Konnie since some of the calls I do get come from her. And when I’m visiting Konnie, my sister-in-law isn’t calling me for rides or to come to dinner, because I’m too far away for that. And it’s not like she calls me that much anyhow. Two or three times a week at most, just not when I’m in Vegas.

I can go whole days without my phone ringing and when I’m visiting Konnie, I generally don’t get any calls. Konnie’s phone doesn’t ring almost non-stop when she’s home, but it certainly rings a few times a day.

Then again, Konnie is the mother of five and her husband is still alive add in all those pets, and she’s way busier than I am.

I live with Patches and only Patches. And he can’t call me at work or ever. Plus, my sister-in-law tries very hard not to call me at work.

Konnie works at home.

Then again, if I worked at home, I’d still not be getting interrupted too much. Though sometimes Patches does try to walk on my keyboard. At least it's not every time I’m on my computer, just when he wants attention from me. He is a cat after all.

Konnie has more than one dog near her most of the time she’s trying to write. And by near, I mean on the bed up against her, near her.

Patches is on my bed right now, at the moment, but he isn’t sleeping, so who knows how long that will last, and he isn’t cuddled against me. He is in fact at the foot of the bed, right where I can barely reach him if I was laying down, which I clearly am not.

And speaking of pets, I want to express my condolences to Konnie and her family, this last week they lost two of their fur babies. Tiger and Reeses will be sorely missed. Though I’m not going to miss one less dog barking when I call. I am going to miss Konnie’s consternation when Tiger will go to me but not her.

Cats are funny that way sometimes. 😊

Anyway, happy writing everyone.

Of Disruptions and Distractions by Konnie Enos

 It is now Wednesday morning and I not only haven’t written a word for my blog post, but I haven’t gotten a clue what to write about. I’m sure it’s because I’ve been completely distracted by, well, my life. I think the last several months have been one disaster or distressing experience after another.

When our heating system died as a family we figured we had a chance to fix it IF my sons, who both had jobs at the time, could contribute a significant amount of money toward the cause. On paper, it looked doable.

Until one kept having to take unpaid leave because he kept getting sick (and passing it to me, by the way). Meanwhile, the other son was working massive overtime at first but moved to a different position and somehow wasn’t even doing 40 hours a week anymore. Thus making it difficult to cover his own bills. Plus the new position came with some stressors, in the form of other employees, that he hadn’t anticipated. Then the company started doing things that caused at least half their staff to jump ship, my son included. (Don’t ask me the name of the company because I never quite figured it out.)

And if that wasn’t bad enough we’ve been racking up vet bills. Nothing new with Mabel, but we’ve had to take Fluffball to the vet a couple of times in the last month or so. Both required several medications. This last time the vet said it was most likely this one simple thing we could treat with medications but they are running lab work to be sure. In the meantime, we’re treating the simple issue hoping it helps.

The issue is pessimist Jerry was in the room when the vet detailed the other issues it could be. So now he’s thinking we’re going to lose Fluffball sooner rather than later and behaving accordingly, which is driving the kids, and me nuts.

All of this leads to the kids, especially Royce, but also Melinda, having confrontations with Jerry because he’s driving them up the wall. Royce has come to me at least four times in the last three days telling me to make Jerry back off.

The problem is I think Jerry likes annoying people. Case in point, Jerry was given a useless box for Christmas. Jerry takes great delight in repeatedly flipping the switch.

For any that don’t know, a useless box is one set up with a switch to activate it, but the action it causes is for the mechanism in the box to immediately shut it off. And while it is not super noisy, it does make some noise when it is in action. Once no big deal. Ten times in immediate secession is going toward the annoying side.

 But even with all this going on, I’ve repeatedly attempted to generate any ideas for writing, be it a story or my post, and whenever I do sit down with my computer not one idea flows. I stopped working on one story because I know it needs help but I can’t figure out what to change to fix it. Then there is one story that I had thought was looking good but got some honest critiques and realized I’m far from having a compelling story. But fixing it just brought up new problems with no ideas on how to fix them. And they are not the only stories that I’m stalemated on.

Then yesterday, knowing my post was due, I tried for several hours to germinate just one idea. Nothing.

It was the middle of the night before I gave up and got some sleep hoping rest would help me. Not so much. Still no idea.

When that happens my next best course of action is to just write. Stream of thought. In the past, I’ve managed to hit upon an idea that actually worked to stimulate a workable idea. A few times it didn’t.

This is clearly one of them.

And, of course, any attempts to write when other family members are up means disruptions. This is probably why writers tend to do so at night or at least when the fewest people are around to be an issue.

Lucky me, not only are other people home 24/7 but someone is always up 24 hours a day thanks to my sons who are clear night owls. Of course, when they think I’m sleeping they leave me alone, but it’s hard to convince them I’m asleep when my bedroom door is open and they can see the light even if it is just from my screen.

So that is my life, writing life, right now. And I was hoping 2023 would be better.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

My Scattered Brain by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I was getting ready for bed last night when I remembered that today is Wednesday and it’s my turn to write a post. I don’t usually remember this late at night, and I really have no excuse because after work yesterday I took my sister-in-law shopping, and at the end of the evening, she asked me, “Tomorrow is Wednesday, isn’t it? Are we going to our knitting group tomorrow?”

“Yeah, it's Wednesday, and yes I’m planning on it,” I said, and yet it didn’t sink in that I also had to write my post until hours later when I was getting ready for bed.

Had I remembered I needed to write a post earlier this wouldn’t be an issue. And here I wanted to try and be more organized this year.

So much for that.

And what makes it worse, last week, on Tuesday evening as I was getting ready for bed, I messaged Konnie and said, “Please tell me it’s your turn to post.”

Too bad, that wouldn’t get the same results this week.

Actually, I’m surprised I haven’t received a message from Konnie reminding me, she usually does. Though of course, she isn’t feeling well right now.

Something I wouldn’t know except the other night I couldn’t sleep, so I started reading one of her manuscripts on our shared drive. It is an unfinished manuscript and I wanted to be assured that the two main characters did not end up being biologically related, from the clues given there was a possibility there, since the heroine's mother had no memory of her life before meeting the heroine’s father and uncle, and she shared some features with his cousin.

So, Monday I called Konnie to ask her about it. She couldn’t talk right then because she was in the ER. She called me when they were on the way home. I did beg her to tell me they were not biologically related. She assured me they weren’t, though they share some relations, they are related on different sides of the family tree. Good news there.

Bad news, she’s sick so she hasn’t noticed I haven’t posted yet. She usually does. I promise. She usually reminds me like on Tuesday morning, or at least well before my usual bedtime that it's my turn. She knows I can be scatterbrained. After all, she’s lived with me for a couple of decades.

As hard as I try to stay organized, what my house looks more like is orderly chaos. I can generally find what I’m looking for unless Patches managed to move it to someplace else.

I have little nests here and there piled with things, and I know what things are in what nests. I know where they are, but it's still a mess. I’m working on it.

But again, I’ve always been like this. I try to be neat and orderly, but I have piles of papers and notebooks, and sometimes books all over the place. Some of the mess is also mail I really should be dealing with.

Once, many years ago, my husband asked where a certain paper was. My answer was something like this, “Oh, in that pile on my desk. It should be somewhere between the yellow paper and the pink paper.”

He just stared at me in shock. There was a rainbow of color in that pile, and it was pretty tall for a pile of papers. I walked over and pulled what he needed out of the middle of that mess, somewhere between the two colors I had mentioned. He was still in shock when I handed it to him.

Give me a break. I try to be organized, but at least I can remember where I put things.

In contrast, my husband was always misplacing things.

Once when we returned home, he unlocked and entered the house ahead of me, as I entered, I heard metal hitting wood, which had to be his keys landing somewhere, only logical.

A few hours later, he had to go somewhere, and couldn’t find his keys. He panicked. I considered how far ahead of me he was when I heard the keys land on wood and looked toward the nearest piece of wooden furniture to that location. And there they were, right on top in plain sight. I could see them from across the room.

He could never figure out how I could stay so calm when he was panicking. I used my head instead of zigzagging around the house searching every hiding place he could think of. The man was literally looking under and between the couch cushions!

Let’s see, it hit wood. Oh! There it is!

So, I guess I’m a "logical scatterbrain." How about you?

Happy writing everyone!