Christmas Shopping and Me

 

Last week Konnie wrote about finally starting her Christmas shopping and how she was four months behind. I would like to let you know that I am not that organized. You are lucky if I get my Christmas shopping done before Christmas Eve and I do most of it online because the stores are a madhouse in December, especially for those who need a mobility chart. Those are in short supply during peak shopping time right before Christmas which only goes to show I really should at least try to follow Konnie’s example.

She usually has all her shopping done by Thanksgiving! I on the other hand do my best to avoid any brick-and-mortar store on Black Friday and the day after Christmas because those two days are the ones most likely to be a madhouse.

And yes, I honestly avoid Black Friday sales. I always have. Just the idea of trying to shop when the store is that crowded makes me shiver. And I grew up in, and currently live in, a town most folks would call small. And I admit compared to places like Salt Lake, Tacoma Washington, or Norfolk Virginia, Pocatello is barely a spot on the map.

For the state of Idaho, it is one of our larger cities and a county seat.

Konnie has more cause to avoid the stores between Thanksgiving and New Years than I do because the crowds are considerably larger in Las Vegas than they are here.

That isn’t to say I haven’t lived in some of our larger cities. I have in fact lived in Tacoma Washington, Salt Lake City, and Norfolk Virginia. I have also visited Las Vegas at Christmas time. So, I can tell you the stores were more crowded than you could ever find here.

Though I have to admit, I never had a problem with Christmas crowds until I lived in Tacoma Washington. Nowhere in Idaho that I have ever lived could ever produce that volume of patrons for such an extended period. Boise maybe, but I’ve never lived there, and I really doubt it because Boise doesn’t even have near the population that these larger cities have.

And as I get older, I find large crowds disconcerting, mostly because the store may be out of mobility carts, and the potential of running into people trying to maneuver one of those carts in the crowded aisles.

It generally works to avoid shopping at peak hours. Around here that is around nine at night. I’m not always up to shopping that late. And not all the stores I shop at are open that late.

Then again, the one store I know for sure isn’t open that late, is also small, and rarely has more than one or two customers at a time when I go in. They also don’t have mobility carts, not that they need them, their store is pretty small.

Now in places like Walmart, Winco, and Fred Myers, it is infinitely easier to shop after nine at night. You won’t have to wait for a mobility cart.

However, if I were truly organized, I would make all my gifts. The only problem with that is I need to start in January to be able to manage that feat. Yeah, not happening.

I have managed to make a few of the gifts I’ve given. Others I found at the local Deseret Industries. They were nice things too! But, as much as I say I’m going to, I don’t manage to get my Christmas shopping, or making, done until the last minute. I should have my one of my characters do something instead of being super organized and always getting it done early like Konnie.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Slacking Off and Getting Gifts by Konnie Enos

I admit that I’ve been slacking. I have this one task I have been avoiding like you wouldn’t believe.

How am I avoiding it?

There are so many excuses.

Like that long list of handcrafts that I intended to make this year that are sitting beside me mostly untouched. The couple of projects I had attempted to start don’t even look like I’ve tried. If I finish any of them it’ll be a miracle.

Or I could get lost in reading a good book. After all, I did get a pile of brand-new books for Christmas. I also purchased a few others in the last few months of last year. I was excited to get all of them and have been looking forward to reading them. But my new physical books are stored with the rest of my books, untouched. I see my Kindle app every day, but I have not opened it. Not to read my new books or to finish reading the two or three other books I’ve started, but not finished.  

Of course, there is the rabbit hole known as Facebook, which has successfully sucked me in most days. But I’ve also figured out how to watch movies on Netflix, Paramount, and Disney+. I’ve finally seen Brave, Encanto, and Hidden Figures. I’ve also watched some old favorites such as Moana and both Princess Diaries movies. I’ve been disappointed to find that none of these sites offer movies older than about the late 80s unless it’s a remake. I wanted to watch Cheaper by the Dozen, Yours, Mine, and Ours, and The Parent Trap but had to jump through hoops to find the original versions. Because of this, it astounded me to find that the original version of The Absent-Minded Professor was available. I’m still hoping to find Cocoon, The Last Starfighter, Batteries Not Included, or even Follow Me Boys (I have this on DVD but don’t have the means to play it currently.)

I didn’t just watch movies. I’ve watched TV shows as well since Paramount has all the CBS shows, including old favorites that were off the air before I entered high school. (No, I have not watched them all, but they are available if I want to.)

There are also all the things I’ve been putting off as long as possible. Like the shredding that’s piling so high it’s about to spill all over the place. Yet, I have not shredded anything in months. Or the fact I didn’t update my checkbook register for over a month. Okay, so I neglected only one register, but it was the account we use the most. Yes, I’ve caught up now.

Of course, tax season is upon us, and I always take care of that as soon as I get the W-2s or 1099s, so early February at the latest. The fact that I didn’t even attempt to do taxes until the end of February and only submitted them a couple of weeks ago is telling.

Then there is my writing. You know, the one thing I usually avoid. I have been tweaking my fantasy for the last couple of months. Generally, by rewriting a scene or two until I get stuck on exactly how I want to fix it. I’ve made some nice changes and have been stuck on a scene for a week or so. Hopefully, I’ll figure it out soon.

My point is that I have been trying seriously hard to avoid one very unavoidable task. I know it needs done and that there is a time limit that is running out, but I have had no desire to deal with it. I’m not too far off. I usually start in late February or early March. But April is cutting it entirely too close.

My brain is stumbling over all the very real reasons delaying has the potential to make things difficult if there are any issues. And having been through all the mess and delays from the COVID shutdowns, they seem all that more real and possible.

What is this majorly important task that I have been avoiding?

Gift shopping.

Specifically, getting my son’s birthday gift, but also starting my Christmas shopping. How can I ever expect to finish by Halloween if I don’t get started on it by Valentine’s Day? I tell you. I’ll be lucky if I get it all done by Thanksgiving at this rate.

I have to get it done early so I can get them all wrapped by Thanksgiving. Partly because I don’t want to stress out through December, but mostly because I like being surprised. If I wrap them soon enough, I’ve completely forgotten what I got people until they open them.

Ah well, it’s started now.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Of Migraines and Pets

 

I just spent the last three days with a massive migraine, so this is the first time I’ve been on my computer in a few days. Maybe I should have written my post last week while I was working on my inventory of my Barbies and my books.

I finished the inventory of my Barbies, but not my books. That list isn’t complete yet. I also plan to do an inventory of my Nativities and other knickknacks, which will probably have to be done with pictures since there is such a large variety of them. Then again, I have a whole slew of pictures of my Barbies as well. I just haven’t put them in my inventory. Maybe I should.

Anyway, I am not working on all cylinders this morning thanks to being so out of it the last few days. And I should have spent some time writing or editing this last week, but I haven’t done that either.

Don’t ask me how Konnie is doing, about all know is Jerry got a new dog this last week. That isn’t big news considering how many animals Konnie and her family lost this past year. The number of animals in their house right now is less than in the past. I am just going to stick with Patches. I can’t afford to take care of more than just him. Pets can be expensive.

Though I admit to having fun putting pets in my stories. I have one scene where the hero’s dogs keep him from entering the room occupied by who he thought was a male, but he’d just learned was a female. Fun scene.

I do have dogs in another story but the only scene I have with them is the lead female discovering her stepchildren are afraid of dogs, something their father had never considered.

Animals can add a fun element to a story. I just wonder why I keep using dogs when I’m a cat person. I really should have a character with a cat or two, or more. I like the stories I’ve read with cats in them, I’ve just read more with dogs.

There are other pets a character could have too.

I have one where the hero’s family has a whole menagerie, but no cats. A dog, a parrot, a couple of parakeets, a couple of pygmy goats, and three Giant Welsh rabbits.

Well, they do have neighbors with a large variety of animals including cats, dogs, goats, and chickens, which does play into the story because they all have to evacuate because of a wildfire. And even still most of the animals I have in that story are dogs.

The lead female has a dog, and her best friend's brother has a dog. The hero's aunts and grandparents all have at least one dog each, and the family friends have a dog. That’s quite a few dogs and only a couple of cats.

I do have another story where the hero has a dog and during the story, they rescue a kitten from a storm drain. The lead female wants to keep the cat, which causes quite a scene because of his dog.

Those are the only two pets in that story, but I have a few nice scenes with them.

I have no idea why I have so few cats in my stories. I just use dogs more often. I know the first story I had any pets in, and I had it be dogs because they were guard dogs for the hero’s business. Cats wouldn’t have worked for that; I just don’t know why I haven’t had pets in other stories. Well, I do know for one of my stories. I didn’t give the title character a pet because she was too busy and had too much on her plate as it was.

Sometimes not having pets in the story is a good thing, other times they add an element of fun to the story. Though in the one with the wildfire, the pets haven’t added much of an element of fun so far, just mayhem.

Do you have pets? If so what kind? And do you put pets in your stories? Why or why not?

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Late Nights and Big Frights by Konnie Enos

Recently something happened that resulted from a combination of things.

I think I’ve mentioned before that Melinda adheres to the old saying “early to bed, early to rise”. She is also extremely sensitive to noise and cannot sleep with lights on. I understand that last one because I found it difficult to sleep with lights on too.

Nobody else in the family goes to bed before ten so when she does, we shut off as many lights as possible, shut our doors, and limit the noise we make. We don’t do this merely to be nice to her. We do it to not “poke the bear”. She doesn’t hit, but she can completely chastise you if you wake her up. Let me tell you, you know you’ve been chewed out even if all she does and glare and slam a door.

Also, because of her noise sensitivity and household arguments about what people were watching/listening to, we mandated that everyone must listen with headphones unless everyone else in hearing range agreed with whatever was being played, be it a song, show, or game. With Melinda, hearing range includes anywhere within our house, even with the doors closed.

These two traits are indications of her neurodiversity.

Royce is not nearly as sensitive to sound, and he prefers to be awake at night. At night, he will generally run in the backyard. He also insists on long-sleeved shirts and long pants. His favorite color is black.

These are indications of his neurodiversity.

One thing about me is I cannot sleep with the light on. If Jerry is still awake when I go to bed, I put on my sleep mask. I also cannot have lights suddenly turned on, even if I am awake at the time. It’ll give me a headache. Yes, I have yelled at more than one family member because they flipped on a light without warning me. Usually Jerry.

I should also add that if Jerry goes to sleep before I do, I generally turn out any lights I don’t need so the room is dark enough to sleep. If I go to bed first, I wear my sleep mask.

So now the event of a few days ago.

It was later in the evening. Melinda was long since in bed. I couldn’t hear Royce running in the backyard or moving about in the front room. I assumed he was at least on his tech, if not asleep too. Jerry was snoring beside me. Not being tired yet, I decided to watch an episode of a show I like online.

With that in mind, I logged onto my computer and the necessary site. I then made sure the lights were all out and I had my headphones on.

My nice over-the-ear headphones that make it somewhere between difficult and impossible for me to hear outside noises. Headphones that I often have off of one ear during the day if I’m listening to something, so I don’t miss anything.

Now, the show I chose to watch sitting in a dark room with all other sounds cut off was a crime drama. I can feel Jerry sleeping beside me, know Melinda’s asleep, and cannot hear if Royce is even awake. Though, since I hadn’t heard Royce before I put them on, I assume I’m the only one up.

Just as I get to a rather tense scene. You know the ones where the music lets you know something scary is going to happen. Someone touched my left hand.

I kid you not. I jumped. Jerry is on my right. I look up and cannot see anyone in the dark room. I know from experience throwing my headphones off will take my glasses with it and I was positive I didn’t want to be blind at that moment. With one hand I shoved my headphones off an ear while with the other I reached for my reading light.

Taking the headphones off allowed me to hear Royce calling me. Turning on my light helped me to see him in all his dark clothes.

And yes, he did tell me he tried a couple of times to get my attention before he touched me. But he did not yell so as not to incur Melinda’s wrath and he did not turn on the light not wanting me to yell at him. Probably because my yelling would have invoked Melinda’s ire. She’d also be intelligent enough to figure out he was the one who started it. In other words, he would have gotten it twice.

I’d tell you why he needed my attention at that hour but as I said it was a few days ago and I honestly can’t remember.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

St. Patrick's Day and Other Holidays by Bonnie Le Hamilton

In four days, it will be St. Patrick’s Day. I’m also informed, thanks to social media, that the holy periods of Lent and Ramadan are going on right now, with Palm Sunday on the 24^th and Easter on the 31^st.

All of this got me thinking about holiday traditions and which ones we, or our characters, follow. I know I have touched on traditions concerning big holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but what about the others?

I don’t know about schools today, but when I was a kid, St. Patrick’s Day was a big deal, mostly because of pinching anyone not wearing green. I have previously mentioned my cousin who was vicious with his pinches back then.

Anyway, on St. Patrick’s Day, I always try to remember to wear green.

In my husband’s family, their tradition was to have corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day, which is something my family never did, but now I do it every year. This year as usual you will find me at my sister-in-law’s place having corned beef and cabbage.

When it comes to Ramadan, of course, we don’t celebrate that, but we also never celebrated Lent. Growing up, Lent was just lighting a candle on each of the four Sundays before Easter, and the one we lit on Easter was white while the rest were green.

I was an adult before I learned some people give up stuff during Lent, but that is as far as it goes for me. Now Easter is a big deal. It's as big as Christmas really. But even still, it isn’t like it was when we were kids and everyone showed up at church in their new spring outfits complete with hats, gloves, and little purses. I hated those hats.

We still dress up for Easter, but then we try to dress up for every Sabbath day. Easter is on Sunday.

Other Easter traditions are the Easter egg hunt and Easter baskets, and way too much candy!

In our church, it is more about reading about the Resurrection of Christ than all those treats, just like we try to make Christmas more about the birth of Christ. However, I admit it is harder to find décor about the Resurrection of Christ than it is to find décor depicting the birth of Christ. Explaining why I have so many Nativities and only one “He is Risen” knickknack. I wish I had more. Though I do have a couple Gethsemane statues. Gethsemane had to happen before the tomb could be found empty! That’s important too.

But what about in our stories? Do we ever use some of these holidays in them?

I know I have used April Fool’s Day at least once, which is the day after Easter this year, but I don’t think I’ve ever done much about St. Patrick’s Day. Have you?

As far as stories go, I know Blue Bloods usually does something about St. Patrick’s Day, but that is a bigger deal in New York or Chicago. Wasn’t it the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade that The Fugitive got lost in?

But how about in small-town America? What kind of things would they do?

I know we never had a parade on St. Patrick’s Day, but it is usually still pretty cold on St. Patrick’s Day, I’m surprised New York and Chicago have parades for it, then again, New York has their big parade on Thanksgiving every year, which is pretty darn cold.

Around here, it is normally a white Thanksgiving.

Though if you are making up a town, or using a small town that never did much for the holiday, what would that be?

Or would it be mentioned at all?

I’m sure in Sci-Fi the likelihood of them celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is pretty slim, the same in Fantasy, but what holidays would they celebrate? What would that look like? What is the tradition for it? Is the tradition different for separate groups?

I should consider this for my Sci-Fi because what sort of culture doesn’t have holidays? For my speculative fiction, I don’t think any of our holidays are mentioned specifically, but it does occur in late spring, right before high school graduation for some of the characters. And that is in the story.

But most of what I write is romance, and I have no idea why I don’t mention St. Patrick’s Day in any of them. I clearly could have in the one where I mention April Fool’s Day because the female lead’s little brothers would make a big deal out of that too! And I do not know why I didn’t at least mention it in passing.

Anyway, happy writing everyone! And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Of Weather and Differences by Konnie Enos

Time is flying this year. Here it is already March and like the old saying it came in like a lion, roaring. This past weekend we got what the weather reports were calling a Winter storm. But around here, that doesn’t mean snow.

What we got was intense winds, blowing things around and downing some trees, or at least taking some branches off them. My daughter said she thought the wind had blown a branch off of our tree because there was one lying under it. Though it’s not something you’d notice on our massive tree. I wasn’t concerned about it. It was planted nineteen years ago, and it’s supposed to have roots that go extra deep and long. I think it’d take tornado-strength winds to pull it out of the ground.

The power company warned us about power outages but all we got was one short one on Saturday morning. Long enough for us to notice the power went off, but not long enough to start worrying about issues from its loss. I don’t think it was out for five minutes.

By Monday, things had calmed down around here. We still have some wind, but it’s quieter. The sun’s out, we have blue skies. The weather report predicts temperatures hitting the low 70s this week.

Monday is also the day I read headlines about the major blizzard hitting Northern California and into Northern Nevada. Specifically, around the Tahoe and Reno areas. They got socked in.

My son, Tony, is working in Northern Nevada so I was happy when he called. I asked him how the weather was up there and how he was faring.

He mentioned that his bosses had shut down his job site on Saturday because of the weather and the fact they had more snow and ice. He didn’t mention any power outages or other issues with the weather though his call was about him needing a ride to come to Las Vegas today. Jerry, of course, willingly drove up to get him last night, though Tony had some warnings about the road conditions up there.

Now, having grown up in Idaho, I’m a bit familiar with the weather there and I knew that by March the snow is at least starting to melt, if not mostly gone. And while there might still be snow around, the roads are clear. But March tends to roar in like a lion so lots of wind. Prime weather for some kite flying, as I remember.

I didn’t see Idaho’s weather reports, so I assumed they were just seeing typical March winds and maybe some rain. Then learning about the blizzard, I thought they may have gotten some snow from it. Though being March already, and not seeing any headlines about them getting a storm too, I assumed it wasn’t more than a light snow, something that could melt off in a day.

Since this was Monday, and I had plans for the evening, I was contemplating if I’d even need a jacket and the possibility of digging my sandals out rather than wearing my tennis shoes for the evening when Bonnie surprised me by calling.

I very nearly panicked.

It was the middle of the workday! And unlike me, she has a job. Plus, she never calls in the middle of the day.

So, my first response when I picked up the phone was, “What’s wrong?”

 Her first sentence was bemoaning the fact that the snow was up to the bumper of her car, which is an SUV! Apparently, because of the slope of her driveway and the depth of the newly fallen snow, she couldn’t get out.

I’m thinking about the nice spring weather, and she’s snowed in! Not only that, but her anticipated company wouldn’t be able to get to her place because of it. (The slope of her driveway is at least half the problem.)

Talk about March coming in like a lion.

Then, after we’d hung up, I had to laugh about the differences in our lives. From the extreme differences in our weather to the differences in our living conditions. Her only companion is her cat while I live with most of my kids, my husband, and some dogs.

Of course, she also had tons of friends, not to mention family nearby, and she lives in the small town we grew up in. I live in a huge city with no family nearby and, as usual, I don’t have as many friends.

Though we still have our similarities. Saturday, Melinda was French braiding my hair and commented on my extreme lack of gray hair. Yes, I have some, as does Bonnie, but at nearly 62 years old, it’s not much.

And, as of yesterday, Dictionary (as we affectionately call her) is 63.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

A Rose By Any Other Name by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

 

I recently skimmed an article on a study about children with unusual or unpopular names. And it got me thinking about a lot of things.

My first thought was the fight we had with Dad when our youngest brother was born. I can’t remember the name he wanted to give Dan, but I do remember telling Dad, “He’s going to get teased enough as it is because of our last name!”

By the way, our maiden name is Westover. We got teased a lot for that.

That may be the only time teenagers have ever backed up their stepmother, but I’m sure Dan is glad we prevailed!

The article I scanned also mentioned the more recent penchant for parents to “creatively” spell their children’s names, which got me thinking about the “creative” spelling of our names.

I know that our mother got our oldest sister’s full first name off the headlines when she was born. Dictionary, otherwise known as Jacki, was born in March of ’61. Guess who was in the headlines back then. Our big sister always preferred Jackie over the longer version, but eventually, she dropped that “e,” making her name Jacki.

As kids, she was Jackie, and that is a common spelling. She never had problems with her name. I also never really had any problems when I stuck with Bonnie, but there were clear issues with my middle name, and that blasted “e” our father decided to exclude from my birth certificate.

Konnie and Bryon had significant issues.

As you can see from all our posts, her name is Konnie, not Connie. But while people sometimes misspelled her name, no one ever tried to tell her she was spelling it wrong; at least not that I can remember.

Bryon on the other hand did experience an issue with the spelling of his name. When he was in fifth grade and Konnie and I were in sixth grade we went to a school where the fifth and sixth grades were combined in the mornings and split in the afternoon, and well the fifth-grade teacher kept insisting on calling him “Byron.” When we told her that his name is pronounced Brian, she told us he was spelling his name wrong.

We tried to tell her he wasn’t, but she wouldn’t listen, if his name is Brian, it should be spelled B-r-i-a-n not B-r-y-o-n. Please note that the “r” is before the “y” in his name, so she mispronounced his name, but she wouldn’t listen to that argument either.

We gave up until we had a chance to tell our mother what was going on.

She resorted to taking all three of our birth certificates to the school the first chance she got and cussing the principal and that teacher out.

By the way, none of our names are spelled wrong. All three of us were named after family friends. Our first names are spelled just like who we were named after. The only “creative” spelling is when Dad dropped that dang “e” from both mine and Konnie’s middle names.

Nowadays, the creative spelling you come across can be so bad, that it is sometimes hard to figure out how it is supposed to be pronounced.

Not too long ago I embraced this trend by giving a character in one of my WIPs a creatively spelled name, but I also gave her a simple, conventionally spelled, nickname.

I do have a point in my story where the hero wonders what her full first name is because on the first day of school that year (her first in that district), all the teachers stumbled over her name and then asked her how to pronounce it. In each instance, she responded, “Just call me Wren.”

Anyway, what I got from my cursory glance at the article was that kids with unusual or unpopular names are less likely to be successful and more likely to be teased and or shunned.

And yes, I can see anyone named something like Adolf being shunned, but mostly kids just teased, and I don’t see how that teasing adversely affected me.

Though I assure you, I will always insist that parents think of their children, and how they may get teased when naming them.

Anyway, have you used “creative” spelling in your character names, or given your characters unpopular names?

What are some of your strategies for naming characters? Do you set different rules for different stories?

In one of mine, all the girls in the female lead’s family are named after flowers, so I had to give them flower names. In another story, I set up rules about the last names of a colony of aliens.

Happy writing everyone.