Ch-ch-ch-changes

Changing things up two months later

Can you say, “Squirrel?!”

Shiny syndrome is real, you guys. It’s been fun, Substack, and you’re a really cool platform, but I’m finally verbalizing what I want and jumping off the bandwagon.

Still want to follow along? Have no fear! Sign-up here to read my email newsletter Postcards.

You can expect:

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What I Read This Summer // 2022

You guys, this summer was an adventurous reading season!

I spontaneously joined Stephen King Summer hosted by Laura Tremaine. It was a blast! I read two Stephen King novels I didn’t know I actually would haha–IT and Dolores Claiborne. I also watched three Stephen King movies.

I read 14 books this season between the months of June, July, and August 2022.

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The Darling Files // Behind the Scenes of my First-ever Inktober

I love social media challenges. 30-day Instagram prompts or one-word prompts, Meet The Author prompts, etc. Inktober is no exception. Especially since I love art, looking at it and buying it and adding it my wish list.

Every year for the past few years now a Writetober challenge has been released. The idea is to write one 50-word story a day and include the word from that prompt.

This year I am (finally?) combing the two. My default is to say that I’m an overachiever. I mean, I decided this last minute. I didn’t write either of the prompts down ahead of time. Or plan anything out before. My time could better be spent prepping for NanNoWriMo. I did just start a new part-time job last week, and Ant and I are finally feeling better and settling back into a new routine of home life.

But really, I’m tired of overthinking what to post on my social media accounts.

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Fare Thee Well, Ogres*

I have said “goodbye” and “see you later” and hugged many people tight many times in the past eight months, with more that happened this month. I’ve been mentally preparing to goodbye to some favorite humans officially since last fall, all of us thinking we’d have a year left—I started thinking of lasts and presents and then it sped way up and then mid-March came and we cried and loved the husband-half of this family who is moving across the country. As this goes live, it will have been nine days since we hugged the wife-half and babies a little harder and longer, saying to them, “See you soon.”

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My One Wild and Precious Life

“That’s wild.”

This phrase has been added to Urban Dictionary and is defined as: “another way of saying ‘that’s crazy’, but with more emphasis.”

Sitting in the coffee shop trying to write about wild in my life, through my perspective, the famous phrase—”one wild and mrmrmememr life”—digs through my brain.

I google the phrase and up pops Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer Day.”

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What I Read This Winter

Where I share the books I’ve read from December 2021 through February 2022.

I’ve been doing much better reading the books Ant and I own during these past three months. I also started creating an Excel spreadsheet to catalogue our library. It’s a slow project, but I’m excited to see it through.

My reading goal was to complete 54 books. Thanks to my month off in December I came very close to achieving my goal, but due to our Bermuda Triangle week and spending more time with Monica, watching Netflix movies (Love Hard and tick tick…BOOM), Survivor, and playing board games, I fell just three books short—but I think it was the better option 🙂

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Finding Cozy

Tuesday, 10 days before the link is due //

Upon writing this, Ant and I took a walk today in 60-something-degree weather. We wore t-shirts (and not even a light jacket!) and opened our windows before we left. We watered our past Christmas trees—Bruce (doing okay) and Bart (if he doesn’t make it this spring, we may have to call it)—and then we headed to the park to take a walk.

Upon returning home from our walk, the windows remained open and I walked around the house barefoot for the rest of the afternoon.

When I first read through this month’s inspiration for the theme, I had images of Ant and I playing in the snow (during our Bermuda Triangle week*), the Christmas light glow, and wearing slippers and favorite pajama pants.

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