Jenni's Page

It's been a trying couple of months for a variety of reasons. Dealing with a loved one suffering from dementia has its ups and downs (yes, there are ups as long as one retains one's sense of humour), but I won't dwell on the downs. That doesn't do anyone any good.

For the most part, hubby is still very active and loves to go for his long walks, especially along the nearby trail, where there is a lovely coffee shop attached to a brewery at the end of it. It's nice to stop there for a coffee and pastry before heading homewards.

Lately though, as we've discovered, it is bear season. Our nearby creek is usually full of salmon but this year because of the prolonged drought in the later part of summer, it is all but dry and contains no fish at all.

However, that has not stopped a huge black bear from visiting several times and availing him/herself of all the fruit along the pathway. In fact, my next-door neighbour ran into him a week ago. She said he was behind a bush when she saw his massive head, his beady eyes staring at her. She turned around and walked swiftly back the way she had come.

Hubby has been insisting on trail walking, so it's been a bit difficult for me to convince him to take walks around the neighborhood instead, but so far I've managed.

The last time we walked on the trail we came across an elderly man who was carrying some potted plants in a large garbage bag. We stopped to chat and he told us he was originally from Saskatchewan, but he and his wife had recently moved to Kelowna. He said she was now in a nursing home here, but this year he had lost both his sister and his brother, at separate times. One in the spring and the other in summer. He bought two trees to plant on the trail in their memories.

Once he planted them, a little balsam fir and another deciduous one (I don't know what it is), I took photos and told him I'd keep an eye on them every time I passed by. I was quite touched by his story.

He said he hoped he wasn't breaking the law by planting the two trees, but I said it's most likely that he'd be breaking it by digging out trees, not planting a couple more.




https://albums.memento.com/get81286/p/653291289222d7d2ad598ddb

https://albums.memento.com/get81286/p/653291283e1c4b32efe4871b

Isn't it true that the older one gets, the faster time seems to fly by? It's been so long since I last posted that my LJ subscription ran out and I decided to let it go and continue with the basic skin and 15 icons. Why would I need over 60 like I had up until now? I pared them down to 4, then added 4 more based on The Untamed, made by user chaotic_beautiful.

Yes, after more than a year I am still hooked on this Chinese wuxia drama, have watched several others of the same genre, bought related merchandise and recently ordered (and received) the English translations of the 3 MXTX (author's name) novels: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (the novel The Untamed was based on) and her latest, Heaven Official's Blessing.

All 3 novels are being printed in multiple volumes. Scum Villain has two, Grandmaster has 3 and Heaven Official has 4. I believe the next volume of Scum Villain (or SVSSS) is the last, but Grandmaster has 3 altogether and Heaven Official has 4.

I just finished SVSSS's first volume last night, so must wait until March for the second and final installment. I will, however, start Grandmaster today. I did read an online translation of this last year so it will be interesting to see what differences there are (if any) in the official translation, which was done by a different person.

It's a good time of year to have a lot to read. I also received another book for Christmas which I have yet to delve into.

We had a huge snowfall last Monday of over 55 cm, with more expected today I believe. Nobody could get out of their driveways and onto the roads in the subdivisions for 2 days. My husband had run out of one of his prescriptions which I could have picked up the day before the snowfall but alas, left until it was too late, but I did manage to walk to the drugstore along with a friend to pick it up and buy a few grocery items. We had to navigate some huge snowbanks, one of which I had to drop to my knees (at my age!) and crawl over.
In some places the snow wasn't shoveled so it was touch & go sliding over the ice patches.
Ah, the pleasures of winter in Canada!

I'd post some photos but I've forgotten how. Perhaps I'll try to learn again and then post some.

It's raining today, but gently and the sky is trying to choose between light and clouds. Its colour is white in some places and very pale blue in others. I feel odd today as if I am coming down with something so I decided to relax and listen to music, mainly Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

Their songs take me back to when my sister and I were in our late teens - about 16 and 17 - and spending the summer in the country where my parents had rented a cottage. We were smitten with the popular music of the time but there was nowhere we could listen to it at that cottage so we sang the songs we could remember the words to to each other.

I remember that because we were bored we wrote a song parody based on Dylan's "The House of the Rising Sun" and we called it "The Outhouse of the Falling Spiders" because the cottage wasn't fitted with a toilet so we had to go and do our business outside with the help of a flashlight. We were fascinated by the large number of spiders (some of them very large themselves) who chose to hang out in that dark little building. I remember it was painted dark green but a lot of the paint was peeling off.

I wish I could remember the words to that parody! We would sing it while taking the rowboat the cottage owners had provided us out on the lake. We sang our parody, of course, and never sang the real words ever again.

I have no idea what I'm writing about but I think I'm getting a bit feverish.

Years later in the 80's I bought the DVD of "Woodstock", that amazing film of the event. I liked Joan Baez' performance the best and every year I listen to that DVD which is getting very old now but I love it and can't part with it.

Edit: I decided to come back and add this song from Joan Baez. It's sad, I know, but it's kind of fitting for these times, isn't it?

We considered ourselves to be fairly lucky so far during this epidemic. My husband and I are both retired, on pensions, and are not at all concerned about being in self-isolation for the duration. Our grandson/ward Sean, who lives with us, is taking it in stride. He's 17 but a fairly quiet kid. He's not into girls or romance yet (thank goodness), loves playing video games of the sports variety, and adores watching and playing basketball. He's in great physical condition and he has a very mild - so mild you don't notice it - case of autism. He has been keeping to a schedule of sorts, which includes going out every other early evening to play basketball at the local elementary school. When he first started going there last week he was the only kid at the basketball nets, but gradually more and more kids started joining him. Yesterday he and one of his friends got together to play, both of them wearing masks and gloves. I'm not sure it's a good idea, but until yesterday there were no cases of COVID-19 in our town, and then a McDonald's employee came down with it, but it's not near us at least.

Sean's mother, my daughter Olivia and her family decided to leave Vancouver a few weeks ago. It's a long story which I won't go into, but she had wanted Sean to go live with them only he didn't want to because he's used to living with us. She was hurt by his decision and I kind of wish he had gone with her because we are not going to be around forever for him, but I've learned that he has always responded the best to routines and doesn't take too well to change. Maybe that will be different when he is older.

Anyway, Olivia was looking forward very much to coming home. They left Vancouver on the weekend of March 14th. We were keeping in touch via e-mail and we were so excited that they'd be home soon! On March 21st she declared that they were going through Manitoba and I anticipated it would be only a few more days before they'd be here!

Then the axe fell. When they crossed from Manitoba into Ontario (our Province) they found that all of the washrooms in the rest stops were closed and all of the restaurants too. I don't know about the motels/hotels. She e-mailed me that they had an awful time! Her little kids, my other two grandchildren, are 9 and 6 years old so they're not babies, but it must have been very difficult for them. They would have had to use the side of the highway for a toilet! (Been there, done that, don't recommend it!)

Anyway, they had no choice, she said, but to turn around and go back! Oh my god, they were so close to coming home and yet so far! They went all the way back to Calgary and have found accommodation there. I know they liked Calgary when they passed through on their way west, but it's closer to B.C. than it is to here! I'm devastated and she is too. She said the kids are holding up well and enjoying the adventure. Bless them, at least they are OK.

Our Premier here in Ontario has been compared to Trump and I've never liked him, but even I will admit that he has been doing a really great job managing our Province during this virus outbreak and has now closed the borders to everyone trying to get into Ontario. He has managed to keep our cases very low compared to other places, and one hopes that we won't have a sudden outbreak like what has happened elsewhere.

In the entire Province of Ontario the latest number of confirmed coronavirus cases has reached 967, with 18 deaths, but they are investigating over 10,000 cases. In our region, Durham, 52 cases have been confirmed. I don't know how many deaths total but I know a grocery store worker just died yesterday, age 48. And here in Whitby, as I wrote above, our first case has been confirmed.

My brother and his wife were lucky. They have a condo in Florida which they were going to stay in until the end of April. They've been down there since after Christmas. When the shit hit the fan last week they packed up the car and drove home, clocking 11-1/2 hours in one day alone! I know it takes 2-1/2 days to drive to Florida from here normally, so they did well. They said the border was practically empty when they came back across and there weren't as many cars on the road as usual.

They were damn lucky because Premier Ford decided to close the provincial borders a couple of days ago, so it was good they made it back in time. Now we have to wait for Olivia, Greg and the kids. At least they are somewhat happy where they are. I know Calgary is a hell of a nice place to be and the kids will have fun there. It's a lot cheaper to live there as well, compared to Vancouver and Toronto.

We'll just have to get used to waiting this damn thing out. I shouldn't complain when others have had it much worse than me. I can't get any toilet paper, but that's nothing!

I am getting my monthly post done in time seeing that it's still February, the shortest month that seems sometimes like the longest.

Hard to believe that when I first got on LJ and various Yahoo groups back in the early 2000's that I was able to post more than I do now! Yes, I wasn't working for a couple of years back then but I have been retired since 2016! Why is it that I have NO TIME at all these days?

I'm sure that if I looked hard for the answer I'd find it. I'm spending more time on other online activities for one. Various games, Twitter and other sites are claiming large parts of my days.

Lots has been going on around here. My daughter wants to move back to Ontario again. Vancouver is too wet, raining for days on end and dark all the time. Because she suffers from depression (although she's been handling it really well the past few years) she needs the sun to come out once in awhile and it's not happening there. Perhaps it's the rainy Vancouver winters, but it's too much.

They'd like to purchase a house somewhere in this province where homes are cheap. The cheapest seem to be in Eastern Ontario, i.e. Brockville, Napanee or Cornwall, all near Lake Ontario. Farther north good-priced homes can be found in smaller towns around Ottawa, i.e. Pembroke or Perth. If they can, they'd like to pay full price and be able to move in as soon as they return. I sent her a link to Purple Bricks, an easy-to-use real estate website that isn't too annoying and has detailed information and photos of available houses.

As for my son, he has had two stressful things to deal with lately which makes me worry about him a lot because I'm such a bleeding heart mom.

First, for the last two years he's been taking extra courses in his field - heating and air conditioning - with a view to getting into the union, which is one of the most difficult ones to join. I'm happy to say that he wrote his final exam two weeks ago and has passed! This will guarantee him a $5 per hour raise and will allow him to apply at the Toronto District School Board where he worked at a summer job the entire time he was in college. He earned almost $30 per hour as a student and now, if he gets hired as a unionized technician, he can make upwards of $50 per hour.

Also, his girlfriend wanted him to go back to university to study engineering, if he can keep his job and study at the same time. I don't know if he'll do that though, at least not at this time.

But his girlfriend is another source of stress for him. She suffers from bipolar disorder and was fine while on medication, but because she had this idea that her meds (including birth control) were somehow bad for her (she said the birth control was making her too sleepy which wrecked her back from lying down too much) she decided to go off of them last month, cold turkey!

As a result she went into a manic phase and decided to go down south to Palm Springs where her two sisters were vacationing. My son told her not to go but she insisted and wanted him to go too, but he tried to explain he couldn't because he took holidays already at Christmastime so they could go to New York and also he was studying for this upcoming exam.

So she went by herself and promptly fell out with her sisters and then got herself in a lot of trouble. She picked a fight at her hotel with the staff, claiming they tried to bill her for something she didn't use, and was therefore blacklisted from all hotels in the area. She told me that she had to sleep outside on a pile of garbage bags because she couldn't book a room anywhere.

My son got a call from the police saying that she was causing problems in an iPhone store and that they were going to take her to a hospital because they were worried about her. They took her kicking and screaming and now she is suing them and the hospital for the bruises they left on her arms and elsewhere.

There's a litany of things: she dropped her Google phone into a puddle so it wasn't working for a few days. Nobody could contact her for a few days and she ended up buying herself a new iPhone. She got into a fist fight with one of her sisters who tried to take her dog.

She has a little chihuahua/terrier cross who is a designated service animal and she subjected the poor little mite to all kinds of hardships while she was down there. People kept telling her to come home but she kept resisting and eventually had to get her mother, who is a doctor, to call the hospital and make them release her.

She's still mad at my son for not going down there with her. He's had to put up with a lot from her. She's still manic too. At least he got her to go to the hospital here to get some help but she is adamant about not going back on medication.

She's currently on medical leave from work, where she's a financial advisor. She had managed to save up $50,000 and was so proud of it, but has blown at least $10,000 of it in Palm Springs and thereabouts. This will kill her when she comes to her senses.

Everyone feels badly for her but it's an exasperating set of circumstances to have to deal with. I have my hands full here with my husband whose short-term memory loss is so severe that several times each day I have to repeat things to him because he can't remember what happened up to a month ago. Trying to pay the bills, which I had to do today, is a nightmare because he can't remember buying anything and I have to explain it to him over and over again.

Okay, I've stressed myself out enough so I'll stop here.

Hey! Next month (in a little less than a week) the final B2MEM will start! I can't believe it will be for the last time, at least in the same way it has been for the past ten+ years.

I will be helping out this year again by doing the tagging along with Indy1776. Can't wait! Maybe this year I can manage to put my writing hat on again and get something done! I haven't written anything for ages outside of grocery lists and the like.

Onwards and upwards, eh?

To paraphrase some of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth":

"There is something happening here
What it is isn't exactly clear..."

"I think it's time we stop, people, what's that sound?
Everybody look at what's going down..."

"There are partisan lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
But so much resistance from behind"

"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your lives it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid..."

I've never written about politics; in fact, until about ten years ago I rarely gave the subject any thought. For years since the "Sixties Revolution," there has seemed to be a sameness in politics and governance in North America, no matter what party was in power. Things always seemed to be done the same way.

But not anymore!

I've just ordered two books: one, James Comey's 'A Higher Loyalty' and Madeleine Albright's 'Fascism'. They have yet to arrive.

My reason for wanting to read Comey's is less for the salacious details regarding Donald Trump than for what I can glean from a Republican's views on what is going down in the country these days. Yes, I am Canadian but with American relatives and deep connection to the USA.

It's been approximately 50 years since Buffalo Springfield's iconic song, and I am very afraid that the freedom of spirit we enjoyed in the 1960s has given way to the current fear of a growing fascist society.

I saw Madeleine Albright giving a brief interview recently about her latest book. She said she was afraid that fascism was "creeping back". She echoed my own feelings in saying that her father (as did mine) fought for our freedom from fascism in the second world war. She sees things in today's world that she thinks are clues that fascism may be making its way back into many societies throughout the world. Sometimes it happens in insidious ways, and not necessarily by way of an overt coup or something so obvious.

I want to read her book to get her Democratic view of the situation. I feel hers will be the more enlightening of the two; however, Comey has written his book partly because he was afraid of Trump and what he was asking him to do. It crossed a certain line and I want to discern for myself what that's all about.

In the meantime, I will continue to be very, very afraid of what is happening here.

I have to go to the hospital this morning to have some moles removed from my face. About six months ago I had three removed from my neck, with very good results. I'm hoping that today's result will also be good. Fingers crossed.

I'll be back later in the day to catch up on tagging for B2MEM.

Speaking of this, I've sadly been too busy with other things this year to participate except for commenting on a couple of stories. I love B2MEM but I'm still working on my entry for the Matryoshka Challenge on SWG, which was many months ago.

Anyway, please wish me luck on the surgery and 'see' you soon!

I'll post some post-op photos later along with a photo I found of myself from 30-odd years ago, where you can see that I don't have any moles on my face or neck! I have quite a lot of mole-y things and age spots that have crept up on me over the years. How I hate them!

My daughter, husband and kids have moved out! I have mixed feelings about this. While I feel it was too soon for them to move into their own place I don't deny that I'm glad to have my free time back. And I'll miss my grandkids even though looking after such young children was becoming a bit too much for me. I'd forgotten how energetic they are and how much work they cause.

But I will miss them.

What I WON'T miss is having absolutely NO TIME over the past few weeks to get online very much and missing out on my two favourite websites, LJ and here!

There's so much to catch up on I don't even know where to start. Guess I'll just wade back in.

It's going to be great discovering what you all have been up to. :)

Yeah!!! Finished my Slashy Santa story and posted it. Had to change a lot of things. figured out what was making it seem flat, rewrote some bits and posted the sucker.

And not before I finished the beta I was doing on another story and sent it back to the writer. Depending on how she feels about the suggestions I made, I may not have anymore work to do on this exchange!

Feels good, I tell ya.

And I signed on for another challenge which is due SOON, so gotta start it. It's for the Silmarillion 40, to celebrate 40 years since The Silmarillion was published. I have more than a month to write a story based on a prompt that I chose from a list, so I should be able to get this done without stressing too much.

I'm also behind on 3 SWG challenges that I really, really wanted to do. One I've almost finished though.

In real life, what else happens but family drama? I must be getting used to it because the latest round didn't faze me anymore.

The thing that bothered me the most was Sean losing his glasses in the lake up at the cottage. It's his other grandmother's place in Coboconk, Ontario (yes, pronounced just like it's spelled-LOL), on the shores of Balsam Lake in the Kawarthas (that's a holiday region where there are a lot of cottages and resorts. It's very pretty.)

At least the poor kid had a spare pair of glasses at home (which his great-grandmother ran up to him amid much drama and I felt was unfair that it had to fall to her to do it-she's 80 ffs and didn't need the stress) and although they're older ones they still fit him and he can see out of them.

When school starts in 3 more weeks I'm going to apply for some of the school insurance which is really cheap (about $6.00 per year if I remember correctly but it's been a few years since I've purchased it). That will cover him for a new pair because our family insurance plan only covers new glasses every four years and he'll have to wait until January 2019 before I can get him some from that plan.

What else? My daughter is having issues. She suffers from clinical depression and it's hit her again hard because of a recent road rage incident that happened to her. I think she might move back here for awhile to calm down and bring little Jessica with her. Jess has to start kindergarten in September too, but she can go to the school Sean used to down the street from here.

Haven't heard from my son Jamie for awhile but I think that's because he owes both his dad and myself money! LOL. Whatevs.

OK gotta go. As you see, I didn't write anything exciting but that's because I'm all burned out from writing exciting fic! (LOL - no, just kidding - sort of.)

Don't bust my ladyballs. I just wanted to get back on here and write something!

When I retired on June 30th last year (almost a whole year now!) I knew that it might be tough adjusting to a new lifestyle. After all, I had continued working after having my two children and that was back in the day when working mothers were given only three months' paid maternity leave and fathers none! (Now it's a year for both, I believe. Such a huge difference that would have made in my day. But on reflection I think my experience made me a tougher person and able to deal with anything that came my way.)

Anyway, I've discovered that retirement isn't easy! It requires a huge adjustment from living a life of organization to one of a freewheeling mess that I am not used to and don't particularly enjoy!

A year ago I couldn't wait for my last day of work to come. I felt quite impatient waiting for it and slacked off something terrible because I was suddenly sick and tired of our patients and what I perceived as all their whining. Obviously, that was a terrible attitude to have when dealing with sick people but I wouldn't let anyone see it and basically left my co-workers to handle these patients. And when my last day finally came I was ecstatic. One of my co-workers drove me home with all the gifts I received from patients and colleagues alike - I felt quite loved when I saw the stuff that she dumped out all over my front lawn but also relieved that the past 50 years of working were finally over.

My boss asked me what I was going to do first and I told him "Sleep for a week and then get up and figure things out!" I did accomplish the first part, sleeping for a week, waking in the summer mornings with the sunlight streaming through my windows, stretching like a cat before turning over and falling back to sleep again, wearing my pyjamas all day long and not doing a single thing that required any mental or physical effort. It was a week of heaven.

Then my daughter arrived to spend a month with us. She took me shopping for plants and gardening supplies because the first thing I wanted to do was plant a beautiful garden and keep it nice. The best thing about that month was that I got to spend all that quality time with her. We went on a few hikes despite the hideously hot weather last summer and we spent a lot of time sitting on the patio sipping cold drinks while watching the flowers grow. Or else we'd go shopping, for clothes, gardening stuff, pretty things for the house that we didn't need. My boss had given me $5,000 as a parting gift that I just blew.

At the same time my husband and I decided that we were going to pay off the rest of our mortgage from our savings (there wasn't that much mortgage left) since I wouldn't be having anymore employment income. We also had our swimming pool closed and filled in and covered up with new sod to create a beautiful grassy backyard that everyone could enjoy. It had been years since anyone used the pool and it needed a new lining that would have cost as much as the fill-in, plus the extra expense on our monthly hydro bill for running the pool heater.

All that made me think I was on the right track. I began organizing the huge clutter bomb that our basement had become and pulled out a few items that we could put up for our garage sale that we held last July. But we didn't sell very much stuff and after a good start on the basement mess I haven't really made any inroads since. Once in awhile I will get off my ass and go downstairs to tackle it again. But what usually happens is that I'll come across something I want to use again and I'll drag it back upstairs. This happened with a bunch of cookbooks that I hadn't used in years but they gave me the idea that I'd like to start making dishes again from scratch and that became my new hobby for awhile. Now there are piles of cookbooks scattered over the family room and it's a cluttered mess right now. In fact, the whole house is a cluttered mess and needs a good clearout.

I'm sensing a pattern here. I go down to the basement to clear out the clutter, find something that piques my interest (heaven help me if I come across my old scrapbooking stuff), drag it upstairs where it piles up, clear the clutter from upstairs and take it down to the basement again where it piles up. I'm facepalming right now just thinking about it.

What I need to do is what used to be called a good spring cleaning. I want to begin with the kitchen cupboards, take out everything that we haven't used for years, dispose of it in the garbage and retain one or two cupboards for storing the cookbooks that I brought up from the basement. Then I'll move on from there and clear out every room in the house, one at a time, leaving the basement for last. It could take years and it's still in the stage where I'm just thinking about doing it but haven't done anything yet.

What I really hate is this feeing of indecisiveness and ennui (laziness) that has taken me over! I wasn't like this when I was still working!

Real life has gotten in the way too, and has made me sad and a bit anxiety-ridden, which hasn't helped me become more efficient around the house. My husband suffered two cerebral hemorrhages in January, spending a week in hospital to recover, and while he was very, very lucky to not have too much lasting damage in a physical sense, he has definitely experienced cognitive changes that are sometimes quite challenging to deal with. Besides increased anxiety on his part, he forgets things very easily and requires much repetition before sometimes understanding what I'm saying to him. It appears as if he is not listening to anything I'm saying but it's really that he's not comprehending. He will sometimes use the wrong word to describe something, or he is incapable of description altogether. I worry about him driving - once on our way to the library he went to make a left turn into the path of a car coming toward us. It was as if he didn't see the other car at all. That scared the shit out of me. It was only one time but nobody can afford to make one major mistake on the road.

Then our son who had borrowed our 'good' car had a minor accident on the way to work not long ago that left the car with a crumpled front end, two broken headlights and a damaged air conditioner. My husband was so mad at him he made Jamie take his own car back out of our garage where he had stored it and drive it in the winter (which was something he didn't want to do and was why he borrowed our car in the first place). He then bought two new headlights for the car and hammered out the dents in the front so it looks passable and we've been driving it. It just doesn't have air conditioning but we've been lucky so far that it's been such a cool spring that we haven't needed it.

Just now I've heard from my daughter who was supposed to come for the long weekend next Saturday, but last night her car died and she had to have it towed home! She lives about an hour and a half away from us by car. She was at the mall and had to take a bus home. It was the last bus and she didn't get home until 1:00 a.m. She and her husband have an appointment on Friday at a dealership to buy or lease a new car but she can't come over to see us now. Sean hasn't seen her for awhile and is disappointed. She is his real mother although we are his legal guardians as well as his grandparents and he lives with us. A long story best left for another time.

It just seems as if the family drama is all happening right now and I feel jittery and not able to concentrate on anything else. Plus I am heartsick about having to cancel a trip I was planning to take next month to Vermont for a special event. I would have been meeting some online friends that I've had for years and was looking forward to with much pleasant anticipation. I thought it would be possible to go but when I told my husband about it (I purposely kept it from him until very recently because of his tendency to forget things) he freaked out and said he didn't want to be separated from me for even two-three days because if something happened to him (another cerebral hemorrhage or something worse) then nobody would be around to discover his body lying on the floor. He was so full of anxiety that I had to cancel my plans. I'm devastated about it but I understand his feelings as well. He would be alone for those few days. Our son Jamie was going to drive me to Vermont and stay with me of course, and Sean won't be here because he's going to the cottage that week with his other grandma. Olivia probably wouldn't be available to come over because her two little kids would be off school and her husband needs to work. She could bring the kids with her but doesn't want to because my husband (her father) told her that he needs his peace and quiet and doesn't want noisy little kids around. (Believe me, they are very noisy! But I love them.)

Anyway, I feel very bad right now. I've been trying to write some stories that are overdue for challenges I entered but my mind is so scattered that I cannot concentrate. I think I left out some things I wanted to add to this post too, but it's long enough as is so I'll just end it here for now.

Peace out, everybody. Don't feel bad for me, I always want to keep a positive view and I'm sure everything will get better sooner rather than later.