My Lemons My Lemonade

To Put a Book Down or to Push Through?

Currently reading: Just started Stephen King’s Later and I’m in!

Last week, as you may recall, I had started reading a book that I wasn’t sure I had read yet – Johnathon Bellairs The Best of Bellairs 2, The Johnny Dixon Mysteries (3 stories – one book). And I had plenty of time to finish before this week’s new releases that I had been anxiously awaiting to pick up yesterday. But I just couldn’t get into it, so I put it down (it was quite a lovely ceremony – the other juvenile section books attended 🤪). I have always loved The House with a Clock in It’s Walls and have read the first four in that series several times over the years (I like to reread some of my favorite books/authors from my childhood from time to time 😊). This series just isn’t doing it for me at the moment, so into the packing box it will go.

However, I began to wonder how other bibliophiles felt about the idea of putting a book aside to either try again later or, in some cases, get rid of it all together instead of pushing through. I will say there have probably been between 10-15 books in my life that I have just set aside when I wasn’t in the mood to read it. Some I’ve gone back to, some I’ve returned to the library that I (thankfully) got it from, some I got rid of and one or two I debate trying again (the first on this pile is Stephen King’s Eyes of the Dragon).

I have come to a point in my loooooonnnnnggggg years of reading that if the story isn’t begging me to read it, I won’t. There are too many other books out there to waste my time on something I’m not enjoying. Now I do consider factors in my that may be tainting my reading experience and if it’s a case of “it’s me not you” I will likely come back to it in the future. However, if it’s “You, totally you” then that book is toast.

Sound off – I really want to know where fellow readers stand on this issue because I have known some people that will power through no matter what. If that’s your preference, could you please explain the logic?

Until next time – happy 📖!

Let Me Tell You About A Dream I Had

Note 1: Well dear readers, it didn’t get any better with the new owners over the weekend, but when you choose an amazing realtor who goes the distance for her clients, you will never regret it. Just a little public service announcement from me to you 😁!

Note 2: This is my 52^ndpost – just thought you’d like to know 😊.

I’m know I’m late this week but yesterday I struggled with the post I was working on as it wasn’t coming out the way I liked. Then I remembered that last week I said I would regale you the details of one of my dreams so you can really see how exhausting my mind is (wow I just typed half of that last sentence while looking out the window and I didn’t make any mistakes – 🐿). So, let’s talk dreams today.

I first started this at the urging of my therapist, and she was stunned by the incredible detail I recalled from my dreams. While I haven’t done it in a while, I really should go back to it because there is probably a lot to mine there. Plus, it would give you endless entertainment, score one for the reader 😆😆😆.

So here we go, one dream. Feel free to play amateur therapist, I’m curious about your take on it.

I tried to keep it as close to how it was written at whatever time of night I began to journal about it, so please excuse the lack of punctuation. [ ] are used for clarification, ( ) are actual notations in the long hand version.

3-19-18: Walking through a building with someone (sometimes feel as if I’m the person’s shadow). Building [is] a school or med ctr. Looking for people who are hiding. When I find someone and the person I’m with isn’t paying attention I signal them [person hiding] to leave – one person hiding under desk. Flash to a bathroom – other person [original character I was walking with] and I are in the bathroom – Other person becomes clear that he is male. I look under the stall door, find someone standing in the toilet – hiding try to distract male I’m with – dream shifts to hallway lots of movement. Dream shifts to me walking down a street in a neighborhood I see a group of three or four kids playing (ages 10-12 ish). One calls out and waves a candy/protein bar at me – he is saying something I cannot understand so I say thinks I’m good. He tries to yell at me 2-3 times but I still can’t hear him. One of the other kids says he’ll make me stop and shoots at me with a sling shot. Misses me but I storm up to him grab him by his shirt and yell that he will not do that again to anyone. Dream shifts – Not sure where I am – feels like MGM Valet in Vegas [I have memories of it from when I lived there]. A fancy car pulls up and Robert Downey Jr and Chris evens get out – I greet them like I know them and ask where they’ve been (side note – RDJ has the hairstyle from Weird Science). Robert hands me tickets that say “Stark” on them and I laugh because he went to watch himself.

And then I wake up.

I can figure out the RDJ and Chris Evans piece – obviously I had been watching one of the Avengers movies at some point and who doesn’t want to dream about Chris Evans 😍. The rest is a mystery to me 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Now for the interactive portion of this post – what interpretations do you have for some or all of it? I look forward to the analysis…

Fates Be Damned

Friday 11:30 am

Right now, I am about 2 hours away from closing on my current house, so I thought I would finally bring you all up to speed now that it is finally happening. Of course, I’m not posting until the “ink is dry” because if I do, inevitably something will go wrong. It has been that kind of journey.

So, let’s start back when the other shoe dropped at the beginning of February. The first signs of trouble occurred around 2-8 when I was informed that my new home closing would not be happening at the end of February as hoped due to a Covid outbreak among the workers and the endless days of rain (which have continued since then). Now I had a brilliant realtor wisely wrote into the second contract (same buyers) that I will stay in the house, rent free, until my new place was finished. Not too big of a deal, but when you’re ready to move, you’re ready.

If only that was it.

The next sign of trouble was the closing was not going to occur by the new date of 2-15 because second appraisal hadn’t been completed (new lender required a new appraisal). And there were concerns by both realtors about the appraiser. Those concerns turned out to be valid when the appraisal came back significantly lower than it should have (the original appraisal came back 90K more – which covered asking and then some). There are a lot of details to long to get into that may have wrongly affected the decision of the appraiser. And while an appeal was filed before we re-worked the contracts, the appeal had to go back to the original appraiser to reconsider, at his leisure, and neither I nor the new owners had time on our side to wait. So back to the drawing board for a third time to sort out a new contract. And here we are today, finally ready to close, 6 weeks later.

On a side note: did I mention the second appraiser is married to the closing attorney who is privy to all that had gone before him? Seems a recusal should have been considered by said appraiser.

As for my new home, I’m scheduled to close until the end of March (the new owners don’t know that yet 🤫) so I am back where I started in January. Only I get to stay in my house until then, despite the push to get out from the new owners even before the sale is complete. The irony is that they closed on their old house 12-15-20 and had a move-out date of 2-15-21. And they want me out a.s.a.p. Like I’ve said before, I could make this up if I tried.

This is just the bare essentials of this never-ending saga, which included countless times I was inconvenienced trying to accommodate the needs of lenders and appraisers and surveyors to signing, resigning and signing the contracts for the third time. And the fact that I moved my horse into boarding earlier than necessary, etc., etc., etc. I am exhausted living it and you’re probably spent reading about it! 😆😆😆

My realtor, Jeanene, and I have learned more than we care to during this process. But in learning, I was able to provide insight to a few of my friends looking to purchase or have purchased large acres of land – things to consider, investigate and understand before they buy or sell.

I also learned that I am a suburbs girl through and through. I will be quite content to have neighbors I can see from my front porch and a less than ten-minute drive to groceries and restaurants (which I still have a problem spelling despite the many I have worked in 🤦‍♀️).

“New year, new space, new energy, new me” – can I get an AMEN?

Saturday, 12 pm

I should have known my luck wouldn’t hold out. What should have been a half hour process took a more than an hour, most of it with me being beat up by the new owners on when they can move in, despite what they agreed to in the offer paperwork. I seriously curse my ex for all of this. And myself for titling this post before I went to the closing 🙄. I’m actually laughing at myself for thinking things would go differently.

Let me recap – these are the folks that pushed the closing 3 times, that I went through negotiations/signings 3 times to accommodate their challenges, that I allowed to store their stuff on my property for 2 weeks before the closing because they had to get out of their previous home (that they stayed in for 2 months past the closing), that apparently didn’t plan appropriately for their 2 plus week homeless stint (well at this point it had been 11 days). All of this and we weren’t confirmed for closing until Thursday and they want me to decide in 5 minutes how soon I can get out. I asked for 14 days but they wanted it stated that I will try to be out in 10. Then there was the fact that I was holding mail for them that was coming to my house before the closing. And somehow, they are the victims in all of this. Oh, and the lawyer tried to say we all had blame in this situation. Say it with me now – “What the hell?”

So, I waited until today to finish because this would have come out a lot uglier if I hadn’t. I know that in the end, I will have a long laugh at the ridiculousness of this all – not right now mind you – but give me a few months and we will revisit my feelings on the matter 😊. I also know that the next time I move, I’m selling almost everything and moving into a smallish, easy to maintain property. No more of this nonsense. Who’s with me? 🙋‍♀️

Thank you all for listening to me blather on about my misadventures in house selling (by far I’ve the hardest sell I’ve ever had in my entire house buying career – 7 houses in all). I hope you found the humor in it that I did and if you learned something along the way, all the better.

Overly Obsessed with Books or Just Right? You Decide.

Currently reading: I’m about to start The Best of Bellairs 2, The Johnny Dixon Mysteries (3 stories – one book) because I bought it years ago and can’t remember if I’ve read it 🤦‍♀️. And yes, I checked my book list but under the “Read” column there is a question mark, so double 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️.

I think by now you all know that I am anal about my books and my book lists (all done in excel and everything 😁). It’s about the only thing I’m really anal about – I usually operate in organized chaos. I have my original book list with four pages: 1. Books by author (which includes books I haven’t read by my favorite authors for tracking purposes), 2. by publisher, 3. books removed and 4. King in other books and magazines (that I own), which we will come back to in a moment. Next, I have my book release list, my books I want to read eventually list, novels read by year and finally my Stephen King short stories list, which was born out of the King in other books and mags list.

As a lifelong fan of SK (I started reading him around 13) I have tried to read and collect as much as his material as possible. But when I started to track the books in my library, I realized I had short story collections that had a SK story included (so far, I have 7 collections with 9 SK stories). This led me down a rabbit whole of epic proportions one day last spring – about the third month of quarantine. I started searching for more of his short stories and found a few in on-line publications that I printed to read later. Then I decided to check his website (I know, I know I should have started there first). And did I hit the motherlode! Over 100 short stories listed – some from his collections and many first printings of his stories published in other sources. My mind was blown at the sheer volume of stories I could add to my collection! I must have spent hours poring over that page, seeing what I had read, what I needed to read, wondering if I could collect them all and knowing that I will give it good shot. Wow, just talking about it makes me light-headed with excitement.

That is the story of how, yet another book related list came into existence – the day the SK short stories list was born. That is also the day I realized how truly obsessive (probably borderline crazy) I might be about books.

As an aside, taking that particular trip down the rabbit hole that day staved off a huge anxiety attack that was building inside. Sometimes something seemingly odd may yield unexpected, yet beneficial, results.

So that is my tale for today, now it’s time for your verdict – overly obsessed or, just right? Sound off in the comments and as always happy reading!

Note: While research and writing on this piece, Amazon decided to favor me with an email of SK suggestions, many of which I have or already plan to get. 🤬 🤬 cookies!

Also – Happy birthday my sweet Monkey!

Stream Meet My Consciousness

When all synapses are firing
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal

Note: I had to look up consciousness because it looked wrong. I hate when a word looks wrong even though it’s right 😠. And now it sounds wrong in my head 😆. Lord I have problems 🤦‍♀️)

I’ve have been sitting here all day trying to write about the constant monologue in my head. Some days it’s a soft hum, others a loud roar with thoughts spinning this way and that, struggling to settle on one complete idea before spiraling in another direction.

The loud roar is happening today, making it hard to write. Somedays I am so aware of my thoughts that it can affect my ability to focus. And as much as I wish meditation would work for me, the harder I try to quiet my mind, the louder the thoughts get. This idea that man’s inability sit quietly causes humanity’s problems isn’t quite accurate. I think it’s the inability to quiet one’s thoughts is one cause of humanity’s problems. Because if I’m in a room alone, my brain is most definitely not sitting quietly, and it can take me to some strange places.

It’s a wonder I haven’t lost my mind completely 🤪🤪🤪. This last year alone in almost complete isolation (thanks pandemic) has tested my ability to manage my sanity.

But, by being hyperaware of my thoughts I have inadvertently created a fun little party trick or two. You see, every so often someone will be telling a story and say a word or phrase that sends my brain whirling, and I will blurt out a completely irrelevant, unrelated thought within seconds. Now, this is where the trick comes in – I can actually track every thought that flitted through my head that lead me to my random outburst. It’s like a pinball machine with my thoughts bouncing around until it scores.

Let me give you an example – I might be talking to someone about paint colors, and they will mention the word blue then I will say “The Acropolis”. After a confused (and sometimes annoyed) look, I explain what the hell I’m talking about. My thoughts went like this, blue – ocean – sea – Poseidon – Athena – Parthenon – The Acropolis, ta da. Why? I don’t know, that’s just how my brain works. Neat trick, right? When I’ve done this in real life, people are amazed that I can track it so well. It’s a really weird sensation when it happens because I actually see the synapses firing in my head while it’s happening. If only I could only get my brain to fire like that all of the time… 🤔

However, with the pandemic, my skills are a little rusty since I can spend many days with just Reese (my dog) for company and her conversational skills are lacking at times. Again, damn this pandemic.

Thus ends my stream of consciousness blathering for today. At least the voice in my head is at a soft hum. Stream of consciousness 1, meditation 0.

Tune in next week when I talk about how my brain bombards me with incredibly intense, comprehensive dreams (I have occasionally written down my dreams and the amount of detailed imagery if freaky 😳😳).

Love, hugs and peaceful thoughts to you all.

Change Is Coming

Happy Friday peeps (yes, I know I’m dating myself and I don’t care 😁)!

Usually, I reserve Fridays for my Lemonade of the Week, but I’m finding it less satisfying than I had hoped for and it receives the least (almost no) views. I have also found that most people seemed to resonate more with my raw, “this is me” posts more.

Therefore, in the next few months I will be making some changes to the format and posting in the other categories. I’m waiting for the eventual move so that I have better internet and not trying to work off of two different mi-fi cards – something I don’t recommend. I’m also hoping to find someone local who can help me make the changes, as well as teach me some tricks of the platform.

Oh, and the book posts are staying because books – reading, collecting, and talking about them – is life for me. And I enjoy the back and forth with people who read those posts.

Next, I thought I would talk a little about my previous post, I Did A Thing, and the great response it generated. The support I received was amazing and I hope it showed people they are not alone. It also opened up some great dialogue, especially between myself and one of my closest friends (and confident) during my separation and divorce. She was one of the voices that asked me to take the high road and at the time she said it, she was completely in the right. I wasn’t in a good head space/emotional state when I was plotting my initial revenge. The ideas that I was coming up with would have violated one or more of my own three rules (i.e. finding someone he didn’t know go to his house/workplace and punch him in the face and walk away, massively key his car, troll his mistress online etc). So, her advice was solid. When cooler heads prevailed, I made a calculated decision, and I was ok with it. And she understood why. I am grateful that she pulled me back from the edge when I need it.

And if you’re wondering, I have not had a response. I can’t be sure he’s received it yet but honestly it doesn’t matter. If he should choose to respond – calls/texts can be ignored or blocked, email can be deleted, and post mail thrown out. This was always about my need to have an ending with him that was satisfying for me and now it is done. I have spoken my piece and whatever the universe decides should be done about it, I can accept that.

To end the week on a high note – here is a polar bear playing in the recent snowfall, just in case you missed it 😍😍😍.

The “Nobody Can Solve It But Me” Trope

Currently reading: I am debating between starting a trilogy or holding out until March 2, when two books I’m waiting on are released – Stephen King’s Later and Cassandra Clare’s Chains of Iron (second book in the Lost Hours Trilogy)

Over the weekend, I finished up the latest Preston and Child release, The Scorpion’s Tail, part of a new series known as the Nora Kelly series. I find it odd because it really has two female leads so I don’t understand why it’s not called the Corrie Swenson and Nora Kelly series. And it bugs me for no good reason at all. It’s not like the characters are going to complain about billing, but I guess I feel a weird need to stick up for the second character as she is just as important in both books. And yes, I realize that I am weird (and obsessive) about my books and characters. I know, I have a problem 🤪!

As much as I enjoyed the story – a thrilling novel following archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson as they work together to solve a twisted crime that reaches far beyond any of their worst fears – it fell into a trope that has become more and more obvious in books, movies and tv shows. The trope? That the protagonist, in this case Corrie, believes they are the only ones capable of solving the crime. That and they don’t play well with others because of said belief. It’s like all writers don’t even try to hide it anymore.

And what also comes along with that trope? The protagonist (and sometimes others too) usually ends up in the clutches of the bad guy because of their ego and has to find a way out of trouble.

I guess what really bothers me about that trope (as well as many others) is the predictability of it all. I just want to be surprised by their actions once in a while. Something along the lines of “I might be walking into a trap by myself, maybe I should call/text my supervisor where I’m going when I get a call in the middle of the night and it’s related to the crime”. Just do something unexpected!

I will give the authors props because they had two separate stories with two different bad guys but connected by the inciting incident. The one bad guy was obvious, or at least obvious to someone who has read way too many crime novels (well that and it was strongly hinted at – like bat over the head hinted at). But the other bad guy hid in plain sight, and I can respect that.

In the end, I will continue to read this series because it’s usually about the characters first and story second in my world. And I do like their characters, when they’re not being annoying 🤣🤣🤣.