On Writing, Reading, and Other Things by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Here I sit in front of my computer, staring at a blank screen.

You can’t fix a blank screen, but what do I write?

If you are curious about how last week went for me, I was on antibiotics, again. The third time this year! At least this time it wasn’t sepsis. This time it was bronchitis, so not much better. My paycheck is suffering horribly because of all this sick time, and I was having trouble making ends meet without missing work!

I’d write about my writing, but all I’ve managed to do is reread one of my old unfinished stories. This isn’t helpful because it’s so old, most of the characters don’t have cell phones, and all have a landline. Yeah, updating that one isn’t going to be easy. There were other issues besides the phones that made it outdated. Ergo, it may never be finished.

And I had wanted to get to the end of the edits for book one of my sci-fi before the end of October, I’m running out of time here plus rereading the Harry Potter series isn’t helping, but when I was sick this last time, I couldn’t think very clearly, nor did I have the energy to do anything. I mostly stayed in bed and read or called my neighbors for help a couple of times.

I needed my humidifier but didn’t have the energy to fill that up.

And of course, I’m a slow reader, but I also skipped between HP and my own stuff, so right now I am just past the halfway point on Goblet of Fire. I have three and a half books to go, but they’re the biggest books of the series!

Of course, I have no trouble finding time to read, or write. After all my house is always quiet, for the most part. I do watch TV sometimes and Patches likes to meow occasionally, but on the whole, my place is quiet.

Which I have mentioned before. Most particularly, the time Konnie was visiting me, and she put in a video just for the noise. She couldn’t write without it! I, on the other hand, can’t write at her house, there is too much going on. And I can’t tell you how many times I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of paws tapping across the wood floors while visiting her.

But then at home these days, I occasionally get woken up by a cat landing on top of me. Dogs are noisy; cats are quiet, ergo, I get scared a couple of nights a week. Patches likes waking me in the middle of the night.

You would think Konnie and I would be more alike, but when it comes to noise or the lack thereof, it is what we are used to. I live with a cat; Konnie still has kids at home and a menagerie of animals, primarily dogs.

I hate being at Konnie’s place when those dogs start barking. Actually, I hate being on the phone with her when those dogs start barking. Cats do meow, but they are not that loud!

Though sometimes, it would be nice to have a distraction around here. Just as long as it’s not me being ill again. I swear, if I have to take antibiotics again this year, I’m going to scream! Come on, enough already, isn’t three times more than sufficient?

At any rate, I’m not getting much done around here, and I still don’t know how I’m going to make my bills this next month.

However, I can at least report my water heater and tub are now in working order again, thankfully. Now all I need is for my current landlord to actually sell this place, so I don’t have to deal with him anymore.

At any rate, I have a lot to do and not enough time to do it, so I’m going to cut this post short.

Happy writing everyone!

Of Not Quite Empty Nests and Quiet by Konnie Enos

My full house tends to be quiet about as often as it’s unoccupied. Which is to say never. Even at 2 a.m. I can still hear someone moving about, or snoring, even if it’s a dog.

In other words, our house is never completely quiet. Partly because we do have dogs but mostly because we have night owls living here.

My days end with me being able to hear something in our house, or yard. Someone snoring. Royce in the backyard. A dog’s tags jingling as they wander through the house. Once in a while, it’s a dog, or two, barking.

My days begin with Jerry moving about our room and being able to hear Melinda moving about the house, opening curtains, letting dogs in and out, doing chores, and fixing her breakfast.

Now being as old as I am, I generally have to go to the bathroom at least once during the night. Yesterday was no different. When I woke up the first thing I noticed was Jerry wasn’t in our bed anymore. The second was that he wasn’t in our room either.

I knew he wasn’t in the bathroom, so there were only two other places he could be. In the backyard with his dog or not at home. He’s not home on Tuesday and Thursday mornings because he has a job doing some yard care for a friend of his. Since our car is in the shop he has to catch the bus, which necessitates leaving extra early.

Being Tuesday, I figured he was headed to work.

I curled back into bed until my alarm, and Xavier, let me know it was time to feed him. I stayed awake just long enough to fill his bowl and put it down for him.

Now Melinda does feed the other two dogs, Gunner and Ivan are hers. Plus the sun is up, so of course she is too. I could expect her doing her chores would be enough noise to prevent me from doing more than resting, but I was still tired enough to try.

Sometime later I startled awake with the realization that I could not hear any noises.

I know Jerry has climbed into bed in the middle of the night without waking me but as I was sprawled over his side of the bed, I’m positive he would have woken me up.

But Melinda doesn’t seem to be moving about either. I assume she is back in her room and I slept through her chores. Both of which have happened before.

However, I could use some assistance because somehow our fitted sheet had dislodged during the night and was now about half off the bed.

I went to find Melinda.

Her bedroom was empty unless you count Ivan still lying on her bed.

The bathroom was empty too, so I headed for the front room.

Nope.

The only other person I remotely saw was Royce. And all I saw was his obvious lump still curled up under his blanket, in his bed. Well, Gunner and Ivan wandering around the hall. Though they were more standing there because they weren’t clinking their tags around.

So obviously Melinda was not inside. No car, so she’s either on foot or not far. I’m not sure which one it is. I saw no point in looking for her. If she was just out front she’d come in soon enough. Otherwise, she wasn’t home anyway.

So I went back to my bed intently listening for any sounds indicating Jerry and Melinda were back, or Royce awake, while picking up my tablet.

As I work to turn it on, Melinda walks in the front door. Then before I have my app open Jerry returns. While Jerry was occupied elsewhere, I had Melinda help me make the bed.

Now things are back to normal with the normal quiet noises that usually prevail in our house.

Now I’m remembering when my house was not so quiet.

The noise from whatever tech device was on before everyone in the house had headphones, particularly the Bluetooth variety that allows Melinda to listen to music while skipping up and down the hall without letting everyone hear it.

Or someone watching the TV or playing a video game.

Or just kids playing. Or talking. More likely fighting.

So even though I don’t quite have an empty nest, I still have a much quieter one and I’m still used to the noise. I may have to resort to playing some instrumentals because if there are lyrics, I’ll pay attention to the words instead of concentrating on my writing.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Stress and Me by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Here I sit at my computer trying to think about something to write for my post, but the overriding problem is I have another headache, or maybe it’s still the same one. It could well be the same cause.

You see I have been getting lack of sleep headaches, and when I don’t have those, I occasionally end up with a stress-induced migraine.

Lack of sleep may well be mostly caused by my sleep apnea. I am getting retested to see if that is the problem. But well, it could also be other problems. I have been having a lot of trouble lately even getting to sleep because my legs, “aren’t comfortable.” When I mentioned it to my doctor, he said that it sounded like restless leg syndrome.

But I also have a cat who seems to think he needs to wake me up several times a night at least a couple nights a week, except that could be my snoring making him do that. All in all, I’m not sleeping well.

On top of that, I get migraines.

I have two known triggers. Certain foods, which I can easily avoid (I just miss the strawberries), and stress.

The only problem is, as hard as I try to avoid stress, or at least remain calm, I don’t always succeed. Lately, that’s been more often than not since my landlord has become a significant point of stress for me.

Now try combining those types of headaches.

Yeah, I am not having fun over here.

On top of that, my carpal tunnel is acting up in my right hand. I haven’t been able to go without my brace on that hand for a couple of weeks now which wouldn’t be a problem if I were Konnie, who can use either hand equally well. I’m a solid righty.

There are some things that I can do with both hands, you know like typing, knitting, crocheting, sewing, they do require both hands though.

And I have been trying to write, however, all I’ve done is reread some old unfinished manuscripts. I’ve fixed some typos and reworded a few things, nothing more. And I haven’t even touched my sci-fi in weeks.

I keep hoping I can get the first book of my sci-fi done before November 1st, so I can start on the second book. Maybe that’s stressing me out too. It is already September. Where has the summer gone?

My sister-in-law and I had so many plans for the summer, mainly to have regular picnics, but me ending up in the hospital again, and all the headaches I’ve been getting ruined all that. We managed one picnic in all that time.

Of course, winter hasn’t quite set in yet, though it is getting cooler out and it has started raining frequently, sure sign of a stormy fall and early winter. Though Konnie isn’t saying the same thing. The other day we were talking, and she mentioned it was still hot out down in Vegas.

I’ve also seen some predictions that say this winter is going to be harsher than last winter, which only gets me wondering how the big boss at work is feeling about that. The California-raised fellow had a rough winter, and several people in the office witnessed his spills on the ice in the parking lot, let alone all that shoveling which he had to at least do at his home.

In fact, the only ones at the office who took all that snow in stride last winter were the few of us who are homegrown or from areas that at least get snow sometimes (one coworker is from Michigan which gets more snow than here). The rest were asking when winter would end by February. We were still getting snow in April. They were moaning by then. The one from Michigan was the only one shrugging off that late snow.

I mean April! Come on! The flowers are blooming, and the robins are back! Why are we still getting snow?

And maybe I should write a story about characters used to different climates trying to get used to temperatures extremely different from what they considered normal.

Though to be honest, I have a scene already written for my sci-fi where the heroine experiences some claustrophobia being in a spaceship rather than out in the open on the planet. Her biggest complaint is the lack of a breeze, so I can see her having trouble even on the hero’s home planet because he lives in a domed city, again, no breeze, and the wildlife preserve is domed too. Yeah, she’s going to have issues living on a primarily climate-controlled planet.

Now to just get it written.

And get rid of this headache!

Anyway, happy writing everyone.

ADHD and Follow Through by C.E. Plagmann

C.E. Plagman is a neurodivergent writer, wife, mother, and lover of reading, singing, and all things home. She's on a journey of self-discovery, and discovering her writing. You can find her at The Neurodivergent Homemaker. She is also Konnie's oldest daughter.

One thing I’ve always struggled with is following through on my goals, dreams, promises, chores and anything else you could think of that I could fail at following through on.

Society would call this irresponsible or flakey. Someone who can’t follow through is someone you can’t trust. But here’s the thing: I’ve always wanted to follow through. If I don’t follow through it’s not because I’m lazy or just don’t care. In fact, I probably beat myself up worse than anyone else could. And yet, growing up I heard all the time that I was lazy, irresponsible, and untrustworthy.

I learned to internalize all these words people used to describe me and believed I was all these things, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t change. So, I believed there was nothing I could do. I would just always be lazy and irresponsible.

And then I was diagnosed with ADD at the age of 20, while in college. At the time I didn’t bother researching ADD, but in the last year or two I’ve really begun to follow ADHD YouTubers and instagrammers and I’ve connected with other moms who also have ADHD. I learned that ADD is no longer the correct term and that we’re all just ADHD, but there are three types of ADHD. I’ve learned that I’m probably ADHD combined type (the other two types being ADHD inattentive type and ADHD hyperactive type.

As I’ve been learning more about my brain, I’ve learned ways of combatting the way my brain works so that I can function in our society. I’ve learned about setting up my environment to help rather than hinder me. I’ve learned that I do best with open storage that allows me to see everything (because my mind is very much an out of sight out of mind type of mind).

And most importantly I’ve learned that my inability to follow through is likely because my brain craves dopamine and new experiences and ideas. If something bores me, I won’t do it, and it’s very hard to force myself to do it. None of this makes me lazy or irresponsible. It just means that my brain thinks differently so I have to do things differently than most people.

These days, now that I’m medicated, and learning about myself, and learning strategies I’m doing much better, but there are still days where I’m lucky if the kids are fed on time and I’ve brushed my teeth once that day. You win some, you lose some. But each day, week, month, and year at least I can say I’m getting better, slowly but surely. And I can remind myself that I’m not lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy… my brain just thinks differently.

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