Free Write Friday: Brain Dump

Rules: Write for 5 straight minutes without stopping to think. Let everything go.

I am sick and tired of being sick. This cough seems to originate from the pits of hell and will not go away. It was my intention to stay at work for a full day to take less PTO; however, I made it four hours before I tapped out.

Tackling Yoga and Meditation while being sleepy was more challenging than my work. But I did it. So that counts for something. I napped for two hours. I don't know what I loved more: the sleep or cuddling with my dog, Kaylee. I am sure it was a little of both; however, she is so adorable.

I had a super fun phone call with my friend Janice as I tried to apply the make up she had gifted me last year. It started off okay and ended up with me on the floor applying too much foundation that made me look like I was trying to become a character on Cats. Or an oompa loompa. Need I say more? You'd probably like me to... it was really funny. Let's just say we needed to start over. Ultimately, at the end, I was happy with the result. Just enough for me to be happily glowing and no longer turning into a feline.

We drove across town and met up with some friends at a sports bar to celebrate our friend Kristen. We had several amazing conversations, laughed, and even ended the night making plans for a get together in the near future. Sometimes I hate admitting this, but I think I'm starting to like people again.

Weird, I know.

January 2020 TBR

Good Evening, lovelies! I hope everyone is holding strong on their new years resolutions/goals. Day two is nearly in the books and I am happy to report despite my everlasting cold and my ten hour work day that I've read some in all three of my first books of the year (because I can't be normal and just read one at a time).

"Better than Before" by Gretchen Rubin is my least captivating book so far; however, that is mainly due to the fact that I am only reading for ten minutes a day. Which means, I am on page 15. Yup, I'm really rocking my 2020 reading schedule. Of the four tendencies theory Rubin proposes, I am most certainly an obliger. I focus on making others happy before myself. I will help the outside before I help myself. This is something that I need to work to balance better, and I am hoping that as I progress through this book, it will open my eyes to opportunities.

Y'all, "Becoming" by Michelle Obama is incredible. I'm borrowing this audio book through the Nashville Public Library's app, "Libby." Becoming is read by the author, and let me tell you... it is something very special. Michelle Obama is an amazing story teller, and the story she has to tell is important. I am excited to learn from and be inspired by one of the strongest and most intelligent women on the planet. As of this post, I'm nearly a third of the way into the book.

The slow burn of these three books has been "Daughter of the Blood" by Anne Bishop. It's a dark fantasy set across many realms of light and darkness. The blood magic is nothing like I have ever read before. It is dark and mysterious and intriguing. This is not for the feint of heart. I came across a passage this evening that really took me from serious interest to "I don't want to put this down" kind of reading. Here is the passage that was a game changer for me:

"You cannot prevent the ssmall sspiralss, the flashess of anger. You cannot prevent her from sspiraling down to her core. All the Blood needs to desscend from time to time. But the maelsstrom..." Draca slipped her hands into the sleeves of her robe. "Sshield her, Ssaetan. Sshield her with your sstrength and your love and perhapss it will never happen." "And if it does?" Saetan asked hoarsely.
"It will be the end of the Blood."

I absolutely know that this won't be as impactful to those who haven't read this book before. But let me tell you. Shit is getting real and I cannot wait to find out what happens next.

Well, now that my current reads update is out of the way, let's talk about why we are really here: My January 2020 TBR list. If you don't know, TBR means "To Be Read". This list is mostly my wish list of novels that I would like to read. The list may change depending on my mood, and sometimes life happens and the ten books you wanted to read turns into two.

You obviously know my first three; however, for completion's sake, I will include them all (in no particular order):

1) Becoming by Michelle Obama (audio book borrowed from the Libby app)

2) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin (husband picked this one up when we were in Bath, England last month).

3) Daughter of the Blood (Book one of the Black Jewels trilogy) by Anne Bishop (birthday gift from Alice)

4) The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (Christmas 2019 gift from Steve)

5) Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (Christmas 2019 gift from Steve)

6) The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (Christmas 2019 gift from Steve)

7) The Elite by Kiera Cass (Amazon)

8) The One by Kiera Cass (Amazon)

9) The Heir by Kiera Cass (Amazon)

10) The Crown by Kiera Cass (Amazon

11) Wildflower by Drew Barrymore (audio book borrowed from the Libby app)

12) The Strange and Beautiful Sorrow of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton (Birthday 2019 gift from Steve)

13) Heir to the Shadows (Book two of the Black Jewels trilogy) by Anne Bishop (Birthday 2019 gift from Alice)

14) Queen of the Darkness (Book three of the Black Jewels trilogy) by Anne Bishop (Birthday 2019 gift from Alice)

That's all I have planned for now. Its day two and I already feel a little behind. I'm looking forward to creating a reading schedule this weekend. Structure and I work really well together. When I set these micro-goals, it motivates me to not only achieve them, but find ways to blow the goals out of the water.




What is on your January TBR list? What is one book you read last year that you think everyone should read? Looking forward to your lists and your recommendations!

I Can See Clearly Now That I Have 2020 Vision

A new year, a new attempt with this whole writing thing. I rang in the new year with sheer perfection: I was in bed by 10pm and I was sick as a dog. I'm completely convinced that my cough is from hell itself. Deep and torturous. I wish I was kidding. Before get on with the new, let's take a look at what you've missed (because I neglected to blog about it) in 2019.

1) We got out of debt. That's right, if you haven't heard, $98,000 paid off in one year and 10 days. We both worked two full time jobs, we sold just about everything, and ate a lot of very, very cheap eggs. We accomplished this on May 15, 2019. We continued with our second jobs until the end of June.

2) At the beginning of July, both Steve and I decided we wanted to take our jobs and turn them into careers so we both started independently studying. Steve focused on Real Estate and I focused on getting my CPC (certified professional coder) license. Three long months later, in October, we both sat for our exams and passed. As of yesterday Steve is officially a full time realtor with Keller Williams here in Franklin, Tennessee. I am looking to move up in the company that I have been with for the past five years. I am hoping to make my transition no later than March 2020.

View of London from Greenwich Park 10 November 2019

3) We cash flowed a three week vacation to England and Scotland. If you know me, you know it has been my DREAM to not only travel, but specifically to travel to the United Kingdom. I have two pen pals that I've been writing (or facebooking) for six years. We toured London, Bath, Oxford, York, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. I met both my friends. I had an amazing time traveling the country. If I have time later, I will go more into detail about all the fun that was had, what I loved, what I didn't, and my overall impression of my very first vacation (that didn't involve visiting family) of my adult life.

Steve and I, "The Circus", Bath, England 12 November 2019

4) The last massive thing that I accomplished has to do with reading. As you know, in 2018 I joined Good Reads (thanks Alice!) and made a goal of reading 24 books. To some that may not seem like a lot; however, for me, and my reading habits of prior years, it was massive. At the end of 2018, even with taking a four month reading hiatus, I managed to read 65 books. Even though I was excited, I absolutely thought that was a fluke. There's no way I can repeat that. Even so, I got bold and set my goal for 2019 to 52 books. That's one book a week, and that scared me! It scared me, and then lit a fire under me. Despite working two jobs, studying for my CPC exam, and traveling Europe for nearly a month, I managed to finish off 2019 with not only reaching my goal, but exceeding it. And my friends, I exceeded it by A LOT. Instead of 52 books, I managed to finish 146. Yes, you saw that right, I read one hundred and forty six books in 2019. I had always had a lofty dream of reading 100 books in a year someday, but didn't think I could ever do it. I cannot say that any longer.

Crazy hard exam 70% + to pass.

That pretty much brings us to current day. It's 9:30pm on January 01, 2020. I've set my goals for 2020 and here they are:

1) Read 100 books.

2) Write 100 book reviews on this blog. They're not going to go into a ton of detail regarding plot and story, but I will definitely share my impressions and how I ranked the book. I can be a bit persnickety, so just be warned, and remember, it's okay to disagree. We can both be right (and wrong) at the same time.

3) Write my novel's manuscript. Something you may not know about me. I've written and published a book of poetry. I've written (by hand mind you) two very long novels. One got lost over the years and the other was burned in a wood stove in a fit of anger one dark dark day in Rhododendron, Oregon. I've got some great guidelines and planning tools available to me to brainstorm and outline for a couple of months and then I have work count goals of 10,000 monthly from March through October. November I will participate in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) which will be 50,000 words. December I will focus on research regarding getting an agent, an editor, and a publisher.

4) I always like to have some health and fitness goals set up, and this year is no different. I started 75 hard today. You should look it up. One day down, seventy-four to go. :)

5) Plant flowers. This concept is about positive self talk. I have struggled with self-hate for most of my life and it has really damaged me both physically and mentally. It's not going to be a perfect method, because breaking a 30 year habit doesn't happen over night, but the concept of "planting flowers" is how I will work to change. Every morning I will only say positive things about myself. If I cannot think of anything, I will say "I like myself" until I start believing it. We only have one guaranteed life, and I don't want to waste it being miserable. The self-hate (weeds) will grow anyway, so I will be actively planting flowers. I hope to not only do this with myself, but also to those I interact with this coming year.

Something that has really struck me recently is that when you have goals in your head, you're only accountable to yourself, and you are less likely to accomplish them. I've written them in my 2020 planner, I've spoken them to my friends, and I am posting them here. Funny enough, I've never been more excited to change my life than right now. And remember, you don't need to wait for the new year to change either. It's just an easy marker and I was near it when I started to get serious about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

This "short" message has gone on longer than I expected, so I will wrap things up now. I would love to hear your resolutions/goals. I would love to hear about the best (and worst) books your read in 2019. I would also love to hear what you are most excited about for this coming year.

Current reads as of today:

I am reading the Black Jewels Trilogy as a buddy read with my friend Alice for our Badassery Book Club (BBC). This club was founded in 2018. It has two members. I actually started reading this one a couple of days ago. I'm about halfway through book one and am absolutely fascinated. There are elements of fantasy used here that I never knew existed. I need to know what happens next, and fast!






Better than Before is my self development book I am reading in association with the 75 hard challenge. I'm barely 10 pages into this book; however, the way Gretchen Rubin looks at habits is right up my alley!



I am listening to this audio book during my walking adventures. This was on my to be read list last year but I didn't get to it. I'm less than 10% in and absolutely love Ms. Obama's story telling. I am fascinated.

An Origin Story

I started writing my first novel in 1996. I was 15 years old. This was before the massive popularity of computers (at least in my household... I mean, my dad had one... with dial up... and AOL (AOL was so new that I did not even know that it stood for America Online.) All I knew about the internet back then was that I was not allowed on it. AKA, I could never figure out his password, which is really surprising because he is a very simple man.

It began, it ALL began because of a music video that I saw on my little brother's television. (How was it fair that he, the younger sibling, not only got a television but he got the password to log onto whatever Direct TV satellite system we had... but I digress...) Either way, one day before he came home from middle school, I was watching MTV (for you youngin's, MTV used to play music videos).

I don't think there is a way to tell this where it isn't embarrassing, so I'm just going to spit it out. The music video that caught my attention was 'Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)' by the Backstreet Boys.



How I got my neighbor involved with this boy band, I do not fully recall. She lived next door, and it didn't take long for our youthful obsession to take root.

Aside from writing lines when I was seven or eight after getting caught playing in rain puddles (it was Oregon after all) without my rain gear on, I don't remember writing a lot outside of school; however, I knew that I loved it and it was something that I wanted to continue.

As a teenager, the very first thing I remember writing was with her. It was in a five subject spiral notebook, and it was fan fiction. To be fair, I didn't really learn what fan fiction was until recent years. We wrote by hand, on the front and back pages of this notebook, and we kept writing until it was full and we needed another. Any spare moment we had we had spent writing and creating this fantastical story that involved knowing the Backstreet Boys in real life.

Before long, we were breaking the household rules of teenagers. My neighbor would go to sleep at her place, and I would stay awake at mine until my drunk father passed out in the living room. The volume of the television there was on the high side, so it was quiet easy for me to stuff pillows under my blanket, turn off the light, and quietly sneak out of my room. As soon I was out of my room I would take a sharp left and walk through the laundry room to the door that opened up to our back deck. From there, I would sneak over with a flashlight to my neighbor's house where she would leave the front door open. She had both parents and three brothers in the house asleep and I would sneak from the front door to her bedroom to wake her up.

After we were ready to go, we snuck back out her front door with blankets and would walk the mile or so down to the river. We climbed down the boulders and settled beneath the bridge next to the water and would take turns writing by flashlight for hours. There was one time we went from there back to a tree house in her back yard and wrote until it began to get light again.

I can't recall how long it took, but we wrote well over 600 hand written pages. There was plenty of cheese, and the limited knowledge of romance that two young teens knew, throughout the book. Once finished, we had grown and matured and decided that we liked the core story, but we could do better. We grabbed a ridiculous amount of single subject spiral notebooks and started our first rewrite/edit. I didn't know that's what it was at the time. I just knew that I could write better, with less cheese. Seven notebooks later, we were done again and it felt good.

That story, at least some iteration of it has always stuck with me. Names have changed over the years, and there's no longer a band attached to the story in my heart, but I will probably carry it with me forever. I don't know if that's a sign that I need to write it again (I think I burned the original copies (one of the few things I completely regret in my youth) or if it is just meant to live in my heart forever.

I have grown so much over the past twenty plus years. I wrote and published a book of poetry, and I love writing poetry. I find it fun and a great way to work through my emotions (I used to be a bottler), but, I can feel it deep in my soul. A yearning to put the time and effort into writing a novel. Maybe not fan fiction. Maybe not the stories that I have started and stopped over the past decade, but the desire is still very much alive.

Dog Days Are Over

"Kirby," I yelled from the deck into the seemingly endless mountainside of trees. "Come 'ere girl!" I jiggled a box of milk bones and then listened to the forest. The creek down the path was flowing strongly even though it only took two rocks to get to the other side. Birds were chirping as if the end of days was coming; however, they kept out of sight.

I sucked in my breath and paused. The bushes further up the mountain began rustling. I stood immovable. "Kirby?" I whispered quizzically. The shrubbery froze and then blue jays scattered into the air as my yellow Labrador cam bounding out of the brush. Her tongue lollied out of the right side of her panting mouth. She was smiling at me and I was the happiest I had ever been.

Two seconds too late did I realize that she was barreling at me, full speed. I toppled over in laughter as she threw her entire weight into rubbing against me. I laughed even harder as she gave me kisses on my knees and elbows, and face. I scratched her behind her ears and her hind leg started kicking uncontrollably. "Want a treat?"

With those words, Kirby because all business. I could see her trying to anticipate what I would have her do. She was already sitting pretty, but then would start to lay down if I shifted my eyes. I would raise my right hand and she would follow and then I would quickly switch it to the left. She saw my trickery coming though and beat me to the punch ready to shake like the best girl. I gave her the milk bone and she decimated it.

"Are they really that tasty?" I asked Kirby fully expecting a response. I lifted a biscuit to my nose and inhaled. "Doesn't smell great." I stuck out my tongue and squinted my eyes as I struggled to press the treat to my mouth. I licked it, icked, and then passed it to Kirby. "You're weird." I smiled as she took her second reward.

There were many times I was jealous of Kirby. She didn't need to ask permission to go outside. She was allowed to explore on her own. It didn't matter the weather, she was allowed to play in the creek and sun bathe on the deck. She was always being given free treats (even if I didn't see the appeal) and could lounge around all day. Needless to say, all I wanted to be when I grew up was a dog.

Kirby, our precious food vacuum cleaner has been gone for more than twenty years but I still miss her. She was a wonderful dog. She will forever be miss, but she will also forever be mine.

Haiku Clues

Since I started April on a serious note instead of embracing the tom foolery of the day, I figured that I can compensate for it by writing a few Haiku's. Although I keep with the five-seven-five format, I don't fully follow tradition by focusing on nature or emotion. I enjoy bringing my quirky personality into my writing.

I was probably in the third or fourth grade when I first learned about Haiku's. Being my mother's daughter, I enjoyed making toilet humor poetry as a kid. I can almost guarantee that as an adult I have given my mother at least one mother's day poem that involved farting. (I love you mom!)

I truly grasped the idea of poetry in my junior year of high school for an American Literature assignment. After that, I wrote hundreds. I make no claim that any of them were good, but it gave me a creative way to release all of the feelings I would bottle up. Once I met my husband I got so much happier than I had ever been and I really struggled to write poetry. It wasn't until this past year where I learned to take emotions from shows that I would watch or from other people's experience that I could still write with angst and that I could write about emotions or situations that were outside of what I was currently feeling. This became freeing to me. I still can't claim that any of my poetry is good, but it feels amazing to be creating again.

And now, for the Haiku's... They have a story to tell. They probably too easily express an announcement that I am excited to make. If you figure it out, send me a direct message on Facebook or Twitter @Shethinks23! Here are your four Haiku clues:

I have a secret.

This bridge is not falling down.

November is near.

Autumn is the best.

Take a stroll through a new park.

I will ride a bus.

Old architecture

We will take time to explore

See all from the eye.

History abounds

My dreams are reality

Seven month count down.

Always The Fool

Many moons ago, when I was a mere lass in the 7th and 8th grade (we don't need to talk about what the year was) I had a friend named Lisa. I had known Lisa for a couple of years and she was one of a few people that spoke to me kindly in middle school. We did a science project together one year. We made a volcano. Neither one of us were very artistic or creative. We didn't win. That's not what this story is about though.

This is about when I first started to realize that she was lying to me. This was the first time someone took the secrets I had told them and then told other girls those very personal things. This was one of the hardest times of my youth. My instincts were right about her all along, but my desperation for a friend outweighed the lies that were told to my face.

It all ended on the very last day of 8th grade. As I was heading toward my final bus ride home before beginning high school the next year Lisa and her small group of friends approached me and handed me a note. "Read it on the bus! I cannot wait for this summer, right girls?" They nodded and smiled at me. I felt loved. I really had friends, and I couldn't wait for the bus to get going to read my note. I excitedly climbed onto the bus, found a seat, and waved at Lisa and the girls with a giant smile on my face. They were smiling too, but for very different reasons.

As the bus rolled out of the school parking long that day in June, I leaned my head against the cool window and slowly unfolded the note, dreaming up all of the fun things we were going to do over the summer together. I don't recall the exact verbiage anymore, and that's probably a good thing, but it was a friendship break up letter. It was written in Lisa's bubbly handwriting with colored markers and signed by all of the girls. In tiny letters (I actually thought the page was just marked up), they called me a stupid fat bitch and that they had never been friends with me.

I ended 8th grade and started high school with no friends. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Even now. Because even after all these years, it still hurts a little and that hurt annoys me more than anything. This wasn't the start of me being bullied as a kid, but this is the first time I let it really get to me. I haven't talked to Lisa since that day even though we spent four years in high school together. My only hope for her now is that she grew out of that phase of her life and that she treats people with respect.

Always The Fool
ⓒ Kay Marie

Fingers tapping on the linoleum counter.
One, two, three. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Her eyes darted to the door and then back at me.
She was waiting to see which lie I would believe.

She opened her mouth, words crackled, garbled
as if she placed her excuses into the blender.
Broken down, molded into a mess.
Without warning, silence and clarity.
Her silvery charm danced across her tongue.
The sun that once shined into the kitchen faded into night.

A fight is brewing.
She speaks to me, but her body tells a different story.
Her poker face is starting to crumble,
and in a fraction of a moment she second guessed herself.
I have caught her, but I don't say a word.
Her friendship was more important than the lies spilling from her soul.

I could see both sides of her now.
The silent sister and the raging storm.
No matter which one I chose back then,
I would always be the fool.