I’m sure I could go on forever in here this go around, but I’ll try to keep it brief. So much is going on. My health is still in decline, I’ve got procedures and doctor’s appointments out the wazoo trying to find out what’s wrong. It’s a circus. A circus that is mentally trying on top of a country that feels like it’s falling apart.

I tell myself every day I can only control what’s right in front of me. I can’t control what’s happening down the block or across town or the rest of the nation. I can only control me, my surroundings, my reactions. And still, that’s difficult some days.

Last month was my birthday month and I celebrated it at home with my husband. Made myself a cake and my neighbors wee so kind and dropped off some grilling they did on my porch (no contact and they wore gloves and masks to prep the food even!). I’m surrounded by kindness. Kind friends, kind husband, kind neighbors. Even if the world outside of that is growing five extra dragon heads, it’s okay. Even if every day feels like a struggle to keep going, at least I’m doing it in the folds of people who care. I think that’s how I need to be looking at it, now I just need to do it every day.

My grandfather of 97 passed near the end of October and my dad had to travel back to TN in all of this as he’s the only one left to deal with it. I’m far too high of risk to have gone, so it is what it is. I just keep hoping for his safety. I’m sure it’s not easy on him being away while I’m sick either, I can only imagine the place he’s in right now.

So… election day. Posting all this on election day here in the US of A. We won’t know tonight who won, I’m sure. Too many absentee ballots and states that allow counting after the fact. I fear the outcome, but I’ve done all I could to make a difference. I voted, I told my friends to vote, I held the difficult discussions, I blogged everything in the country trying to urge people to vote. Normally speaking, if this weren’t a COVID year and my immune system wasn’t trying to murder me, I’d have also worked the polls or volunteered for somewhere to try to help as well. 2020 is just not the year.

I read somewhere that the hindsight is 2020 was actually someone from the future trying to warn us and I died laughing. Like, I know where it comes from, but this is funnier, so I’ll take it.

Okay, onward to more fun things and less dreary shit!

My dad got me a used Mac for my birthday to assist me in creating my ebook as Scrivener was driving me up the wall with how complex it was making something that should have been incredibly simple. I then bought Vellum and let me tell you, worth every penny of my time. Vellum is so much easier. What took me nearly a day and a half on Scrivener I completed on Vellum in under 2 hours (and that was just 2 old ebooks, reformatted and reuploaded to Kindle).

I also started using ProWritingAid Plus as NaNoWriMo is offering a lifetim subscription for $200 off right now for participants. It’s actually a wonderful program and I spent all of last Sunday going over edits with it and intend to continue today.

So, off I go, back to my all liquid diet in prep for a hospital procedure I dread. Here’s hoping it gives me some answers and I can get to be more upbeat in the future on here.

Also… Ice Wolves are back, though only on TV screens. Still GO ICE WOLVES!