Thoughts from meandering through my day today...

Hi, Reader!

I live near a shopping mall, and a few years ago, Shawn (RIP) and I went to look around at the final days of SEARS’ brick-and-mortar store. When we walked into the store, what was left of it, all we could do was just stand there and look around, and then at each other, just speechless. We’re both in our late-40s, so we remember growing up with SEARS being an ever-constant presence throughout our childhood and adolescence. So, to see the shelves basically empty, and even the shelving units, themselves, as well as the display cases, the shopping carts also had price tags on them, no lie, I felt like another piece of my childhood was disappearing. It’s no secret I don’t have many good memories of my childhood, but one of the few good childhood experiences I had, I was able to go with my Grandpa (RIP) to SEARS every once in a while when he needed to buy tools, or if we went for clothing/shoes, etc. Sigh.

When God Steps Back - What does this mean?

I subscribe to a rather neat newsletter, Friends of the Little Portion Hermitage. I like reading these so much, I save each one. Today’s title caught my eye and it gave me pause when I read it. ‘The Discipline of Darkness.’...

Earworms - Frustrations of the human brain!

Let’s talk about earworms. You know what earworms are, right? If not, let me sum it up for you:

Earworms are those little fragments of a song (sometimes just irritating theme music from bad telly programming) that get stuck in your head, seemingly on a never-ending loop. No matter HOW HARD you try, you can’t seem to shake it. Like right now, I’ve got that annoying song, ‘Shake it off’ in my head, just because I said ‘shake it’ in the previous sentence. See how easily they can be triggered? Yeah, I know you get it. I see that look in your eyes, that look that says, ‘Oh, yeah, I getcha, girl. I am right there with you!’

Origins of a Word Nerd: My Story

Hello out there, readers!  I'm going to try a little something different for the next few weeks.  A lady whose blog I follow, DIY MFA, has started this really neat book club thing, and I'm going to use the prompts she shares as a jumping off point for blog posts (who knows what will evolve after that, am I right?).

The first one is how I got started writing.

Makeovers - internal, external, and occupationally. Say WHAT?!

Hello, my lovelies!

It's taken a couple weeks to get this slammed out on the keyboard, but here I am.  I attended a couple webinars put together by Shelby over at Little Coffee Fox

, and there's SO MUCH valuable information that was given, it was like drinking from a really tasty fire hose.  I thoroughly enjoyed both workshops, and now I'm here, at my keyboard, ready to rock.

Let's talk habits.

I was looking around for some inspiration this morning before I finally decided to call it a night and go get some sleep.  I mean, it was almost 5.30 in the morning, after all!

One thing that caught my eye, though, was something about habits.  Specifically about a habit I wish I didn't have.

Let's talk about gratitude.

With Thanksgiving 2016 on the horizon (already), I'm sitting here thinking about the events of recent things, and my life overall up to this point.

Gratitude is such a strange word, isn't it? We don't really take time to think, “I'm grateful for x” and stopping to appreciate throughout the year what we're grateful for. I'm guilty of doing this, myself. I know other people who aren't, who take time each time something good happens, they take time to appreciate where they were up to that point, who they were as people before that moment happened. In the bigger things, yes, I do that when it's happened, or in the moment, but the littler things, not as often. Those who know me in person, and those close to me who happen to be far away that we only have the means of e-mail to chat up and check in with each other, you know what kind of year this has been for my household. Especially since September this year. This entire year, up to this point, has been strange. Sometimes intense, sometimes outright terrifying, sometimes amazing, but overall, if I were to sum up 2016 in one word, I'd definitely use “strange” for sure.

My eyes are open, and now my heart can heal.

Generally, I don't talk much about my LDS days. It's…. too traumatizing, if I'm to be honest…

Don't get me wrong. I come not to blast the Mormons, I come to share my… perspective.  Experience.

Take this as you wish, but please take it only for how it is intended, and not for how it sounds, because what I am about to say is going to make me sound like a raging jerk. And again, I don't mean to come off that way.

Memories of Times Long Gone (x-posted on Scriggler under "T Rea")

I'm not going to talk about my earliest memory, that's too personal to share with just anyone. HOWEVER, I am willing to share a couple of my happier memories from childhood.

Tobias (fiction)

My name is Tobias. I'm 14 years old, and I don't like to talk much, because my Mom hit me in the face when I was 10 with a baseball bat and it left me with a serious speech impediment that I get bullied for constantly. It sucks, but what can you do, right?