It’s Friday and I’m done with tax season. My accountant has the goods, I have copies of everything, and now I wait on a refund (no, I don’t do the refund anticipation loans). I should be over the moon that all that needed to be done has been done, but the abrupt completion of one task and the pending three have me out of sorts.
I could post another guest author for you, or a cocktail recipe, or maybe even one of my favorite cupcake recipes, but I’m going to share my crazy instead. When I get in a rut, I find that movement is the best thing that works. The dogs have been walked and fed treats, so there are a few other ways I can get back to my happy endorphin crazed existence. Any guesses?
If you have a dirty mind, that works too, but tonight while my bows soak up a beeswax and oil conditioning treatment to keep them supple, I am charging my sabers and preparing for glorious battle. The bow shooting will wait until my bows are ready, it’s too cold to make mistakes with natural wood (osage orange and coffee wood).
I have amassed quite the collection of lightsabers from several different small businesses. I try and keep everyone in business 😉 but I do have my favorites.
I have more shopping to do! LOL
I have a few doubles and a half a dozen different single sabers, so the imps and I can practice sword(saber) fighting techniques. Do you know what position number three is? I was fortunate to enroll my children in a school that trained for the Olympics, so I learned techniques including footwork by watching them and helping them practice. To that point, I’ll bet there are a lot of moms and dads out there that could have a black belt in Karate or other martial arts because they had to learn everything to make sure the children were practicing their kata correctly.
My doubles come apart, so you have options.
The hum of electronic sabers is calling, so off I go. I hope you have something fun planned for the weekend. I hope to go back and visit with some NJ vampires soon and regale you with stories of their exploits.
Let me know what fun things you have planned! Have fun!
We are dangerously close to some major holidays and even my puppies are feeling the strain. My human boys are busy with Highschool and college exams, and my daughter is feeling the pre-holiday shopping frenzy at her job as orders get filled, possibly some for Santa himself. This leaves the two crazy canines starved for attention.
They bring me piles of toys to play with and prefer rough play to fetch. Every room has some of their toys and I’ve taken to using a grabber stick to pick them up instead of spending my day bending(clever girl).
It’s not hard to love them even though they act like toddlers, constantly needy for attention while awake. I brush them out, go through their treat fueled tricks (while trying to add new ones), and we enjoy playing and long walks together. What more could a girl want?
Butler has fully adjusted to having a little brother, and lets the tyke get away with a lot. He will drop a toy Mooshu wants, and play with another rather than fight for a toy. He is a wise and benevolent teacher and Mooshu has learned some tricks quickly, by watching Butler.
Butler’s grey hairs can’t stop his inner puppy and he outruns Mooshu and other dogs at the park, but pauses long enough to let them catch up.
Mooshu(left) Butler(right)
Mooshu is still recovering from his medical mishap. We are still sans diagnosis, but everything you can imagine has been ruled out which leaves me with the prospect that his bleeding is autoimmune. Before I subject him to another battery of tests, I’ll conduct some research. Unarmed with information as I was last time he had an emergency, I blindly agreed to do everything necessary and we were lucky to make it out of there.
With my autoimmune illness it took 14 years for a diagnosis, and every now and again I have my doubts that we hit the right one. I’m not a textbook case. The medication should have gotten me into remission in 6 months, but I’m still on it some fourteen years or so later.
We have already gotten one surprise on 23&me, and found genetic markers for a second autoimmune disease, which may be why my treatment is not having the desired results after hella more than 6 months.
Mooshu has similarly been tested. Every big genetic disease has been ruled out, but maybe he’s like me and not a textbook case for anything despite his frightening lab results and the spontaneous symptoms.
For now, I’m content to just support him and love him until we find out more or don’t find out anything at all- someone supported me through 14 years of medical failures, so it’s fair I do the same. I don’t see the need to run another battery of tests as we have ruled out all the colon stuff and would be looking for a needle in a haystack, with whatever is causing his issues. I’m not going to devote 14 years of his life to a diagnosis when he may not have that long, so here we are, ready to treat each event but no closer to knowing what the problem is.
Mooshu enjoying the outdoors
This situation brings me back to preparation for my wedding. Our church ran some pre-marriage classes and they asked us what was most important. We both said “love” and have stuck with that with everything we approach.
Embarking on writing, running three businesses, five children, and dealing with these two crazy pooches has been lessons in love everyday. I may lack a little practicality, free time, and money, but if all dogs go to Heaven I know I have two beautiful souls willing to sneak me in.
Butler smiling at me-
In the meantime, there are dog treats to bake, presents to wrap, and maybe even some pictures with Santa for the canids.
I’ll have some human and canid cookie recipes up next week, so stock up on goodies and check back.
What are your holidays plans? How do you manage having pets and people in a shared space for the holidays?
I think most of us began as fearless children, the ones that wanted to jump the highest on the trampoline, swing highest, build a ramp and take it at top speed, sit on the edge of a cliff and looked down, rode the Cyclone as many times as they’d let us in a row(trust me it was a lot)… we set the bar high.
What separated us from the rest of the pack wasn’t a lack of imagination of the bad things that could happen with our stunts. To the contrary, we probably had the best imaginations of the horrors that could occur, we just didn’t let fear stop us. We didn’t let anything stop us. We ate that fear like it was sugar coated cereal on a Saturday morning.
While our friends cringed and covered their eyes, ours were wide open. We waited for that little terror to make us giggle and make us feel alive. We were the first to tell spooky stories by the campfire and approached Halloween with religious reverence. (Still the best day of the year)
We played out Horror movies in backyards and parks and got into character, complete with black trash bag capes and weird smelling leftover plastic Halloween masks. The thrill was everything.
And with classic horror movies like Nosferatu, The thing With Two Heads, Mars Needs Women, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Black Cat, Fall of the House of Usher, the Phantom of the Opera… we got hooked on the terror and the monster themselves. In the 1908’s we saw so many great monster movie remakes. They were brilliant and we were so ready for them.
Then came slasher movies like the Nightmare on Elm Street, Sleepaway Camp, Halloween. Puppet Master… How many of us bought that Freddy Krueger glove and sat in the movie theater for the third or fourth time scaring the wits out of unsuspecting people? Okay, I did but it was all in fun.
We’ve watch so many great vampire films like Near Dark, the Hunger, the Lost Boys, Fright Night… and laughed at so many cheesy ones like Modern Vampires, Vampire’s Kiss, Subspecies, My Best Friend is A Vampire, Vamp… while we were reading incredible books like Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (we’ll chat about that movie later).
And we ate up movies with jump scares like Poltergeist, the Evil Dead, Pet Sematary, the Exorcist, IT, Cujo, the Descent, Hell House and others because we couldn’t get enough. It’s in our blood.
Highschool ended and I packed up my things (movie posters included) to take with me to college. The first day I went room to room knocking on every door trying to find all the horror film fans I could and I brought out my shoebox of vhs horror films and we sat and giggled our asses off watching them. They were also the same group that went to comic book conventions and got the very best vampire/monster/horror comics, some wrapped in brown paper for mature audiences only-but they got them all the same in vinyl bags with backboards or cruised the mall for the bookstores and read every scary word they could find. You know your people and where to find them.
Now we are streaming horror films and playing the audio in our cars or as ringtones on our phones and why not? It’s all in fun, right? Break out the popcorn for viewers in the back while we drive to the latest horror film, horror book signing, vampire convention, book store hunt, or other dark broody adventure.
If your the choosy connoisseur and prefer a signed copy, those will be available directly from me at Vampires of New Jersey Convention on November 18, 2023 from 2p to 8p at QXT’s Night Club, 248 Mulberry St, Newark, NJ.
I’m going to be there and we’re going to have some fun, talk about horror films, books, comics… Promise I’ll keep the Freddy Krueger glove at home, so the scares will have to come from someone else this time (maybe).
Claire will be vending jewelry to die for and I’m going to have some kooky things like filled coffins, goodies, give aways, and we’ll also have Deserie Kelly’s Zodiac Shifters books.
I’m of the mind that safe holiday fun should be enjoyed by any and all that want to participate. Whether your Halloween is spent pursuing haunts or going door to door to the neighbors for guilty pleasures (those Butterfinger bars and dark chocolates are too tempting), have safe fun.
This is where I get a little preachy, and with good reason. We get a lot of teens and even adults that come by for treats. That’s just fine by me. Unless it’s raining, I’ll put out my table, dress up myself and put the Perpetual Puppy in a fun costume, and have enough treats (candy and toys) to satisfy all ages. Not all children-adults can have sweets, nuts… so I try and put some other fun things out in keeping with the holiday until the curfew sends me back inside for a nightcap.
If you choose not to participate, a little sign in the window or on the door helps the eager children, teens, and adults know to keep going to the next house. It’s a small world and though I celebrate as many holidays as I can, I get that Halloween is not everyone’s idea of fun.
Be safe either way, and watch for children crossing against lights and in between cars on the roads. If you are trick or treating stay where it is light and with a group. Don’t enter houses, no matter how tempting, and be careful of capes, long robes, and face masks when walking. Have a grown up check your candy, especially important if you have allergies.
I can’t wait to see everyone in costume. Have fun!
Dubonnet and Gin, one a little stronger than the other
As a young girl my thoughts were on knights, princesses, castles, and unicorns. With news of the Royal wedding, it seemed everyone was buzzing about Prince Charles III and Lady Diane. There have been more weddings since then and one can’t help but admire how her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II managed to handle all the excitement.
As a mother myself, I strive to be part of all my children’s celebrations but I have to admit they can be exhausting. I don’t ever recall seeing the late queen waiver. Though her duties were always many, she seldom was seen without a welcoming smile.
When I sit this evening I’ll have one her of her favorite aperitifs(a cocktail meant to stimulate the appetite), a Dubonnet and Gin, and think fond thoughts.
For ages 21 and over- Dubonnet and Gin recipe:
1 part gin
2 parts Dubonnet
Mix well and we’ve in a wine glass. Drink safely and responsibly.
Medicine health care contraception and birth control.
For my readers, I had to take a moment to say my peace. We will resume our normally gleeful book and cocktail/mocktail banter on later posts. As a woman, a rape survivor, PTSD lifer, and mother of five children that used reproductive technologies(yes, I had some help staying pregnant after pregnancy loss, my rainbow babies), and former nurse I feel it important to take a moment to pursue the matter of women’s reproductive health with you.
Roe vs. Wade has hit the media again via a leaked memo. SCOTUS may be considering a reversal of that landmark decision in 1973. What does it mean for the women you know?
First and foremost, a reversal of Roe vs. Wade would put the decision about whether to offer a safe medical abortion, up to the fetal age of viability, completely in the hands of the individual states, though some states have already been electing to limit access to those services, so some will argue that nothing will change. Phooey! Read on.
Let’s consider this all the way down the ridiculous. Various forms of contraception including ‘the pill’ and IUDs, hormone replacement, even certain chemotherapeutic agents and medications may be withheld or denied to women that are of childbearing age as they can affect fetal growth or hasten demise of fetal tissue. I’m using the word fetus, for several reason, the first being that if a woman and her unborn child are killed you’re not looking at a double homicide but homicide and feticide(if they can manage that), so let’s go with fetus for now.
The Physician’s Desk Reference lists drugs as various categories for pregnancy from basically no known risk to severe risk for the fetus, I’m simplifying it here but stay with me. I’m not going to quote them, you can verify all of this for yourself. There are conditions where a drug may be used to save the life of the mother that may carry risks to the fetus. When those medications are used, it is with the foresight of what could happen but deemed medically necessary. Similarly, let’s consider what happens when a fetus jeopardizes the health of the mother. Should we impose a medical risk on a women that may be carrying a fetus that is or isn’t viable? Where do we draw the line to make that decision?
If a state bans all medical abortions, then any medication that could potentially effect the fetus in a negative way or potentially have a negative outcome could be taken away or withheld until such time as the fetus is delivered. We are looking at everything from antifungal medications used to treat yeast infections, common in pregnancy due to hormone changes, all the way over to anti-seizure medications. and this isn’t even pushing the envelope, but simply following a bad decision to its inevitable conclusion.
By limiting access to lifesaving medications, we are essentially dooming women that have gotten pregnant whether they wanted to carry the fetus to term and send it off to college or not. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, right?
But wait, there’s more. Remember how I said I was going to push the envelope to the ridiculous… well, notwithstanding that a woman that has been raped could potentially have to carry the fetus to term, talk about PTSD, not only did she lack control over her own body at the moment she was raped but lost control of it for the next nine months while she’d be forced to carry a rapist’s progeny, but let’s think about her basic medical needs. She may have been on medication for a pre-existing medical condition that she would have to forgo because she was inseminated against her will that may put her life at risk because an injustice was done to her not only on the part of the rapists but the state courts. Not seeming so ridiculous, right?
Wait, it gets better. If she died and the fetus made it to the age of viability it could, theoretically, be saved to grow up in foster care (a ward of the state) one day finding out that it’s mother was essentially medically terminated for the greater good and its father was a rapist. Lovely family tree.
But we’re not done yet. That’s just one ridiculous, seemingly farfetched scenario, or is it? We are putting the fate of every female in the country, born or unborn, into the hands of states that may agree or disagree with how fetal tissue of any kind may be treated and what restrictions are placed upon the individual in direct possession of such fetal tissue, essentially making the female uterus property of the state and subject to abide by it’s terms. Think about how this will also extend to medical technologies that use fetal stem cells, sorry, off on a tangent.
Now, let’s go back to medication for a second, because how many post menopausal females are on hormone replacement to avoid osteoporosis and other changes associated with low estrogen? Well, that number is probably higher than you’d think. From my recollection, it was over forty percent. Say goodbye to strong bones and an active lifestyle if states decide to take away estrogen because it doesn’t fit into the plan and could prevent pregnancies. Add cancer survivors that have used some chemotherapeutic agents to that number and need hormone replacement, even if they used them as children for conditions like leukemia or non hodgkin’s lymphoma.
How many transwomen are on hormone replacement? Should we venture a guess? Well, what do you think would happen to their access to hormone replacement if states are unchecked? Should we talk big-pharma and health plans, too? The entire shit show teeters down the mountain of imprisonment, depersonalization, and oppression, and we’re not just talking about uteruses here.
Shouldn’t we also bring into this women’s reproductive health and their access to doctors, midwives, medical care and more. What will happen to a doctor or midwife if a fetus dies in utero or during delivery? What will happen to the woman carrying the aforementioned fetus? How many more women are going to be jailed for having a miscarriage? ’cause it’s happened before. Given that around twenty percent of pregnancies can end in miscarriage, I think we’ll see a lot more women incarcerated and probably everyone in the hospital or birthing facility from the janitor up to the board sued at the very least for their involvement however trivial(that’s how it works).
This is just the tip of the iceberg, because we haven’t even traversed down to what lies under the water and how those changes will affect everything else. What about the right to decide you don’t want to have any children and make permanent changes to the body? Are we going to stop tubal ligations and vasectomies next? We’re not just looking at a potential return to back alley abortions, but depriving citizens of their Constitutional rights, something SCOTUS is expected to upheld.
Not trying to sound paranoid here, but in a system that vilifies women for exercising authority over their own bodies and transwomen for doing the same, how can we not act to ensure their safety when the threat of oppression and servitude is so real and so close? Can we sit idly by while women are stripped of their Constitutional right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I’m not even taking sides about whether this is right or wrong, just stating the obvious. Having choices means you have the freedom to decide for yourself what is right and wrong and live your life accordingly. Taking away someone else’s choices, could be disastrous for everyone.
Before anything else gets leaked from SCOTUS, be ready for the next election. You have power, vote to protect those you love.
Some days Autoimmune Disease can make life unbearable. You make and change social plans and find yourself unmotivated to do anything else. Changes in weather, fluctuating hormones, stress(even excitement), and so many other factors can be a game changer before you have time to realize what happened.
Fortunately for me, a cute doggie comes and looks at me with a pair of soulful eyes. He brings me a squeaky toy or his favorite toy, knotted rope, and changes my day for the better. On the days I can’t do much more than sit on the couch, he’ll curl around my back keeping my lumbar region warmer than a heating pad.
Sometimes I think I waited too long to bring a dog home to live with me and my family, but most of the time I think I was just waiting for Butler.
For tonight, Butler will be drinking spring water and so will I. Work on the bod and the mind whenever you can.
This is the tree we have affectionally dubbed the witch’s tree becuase it seems a magical blessing to the animals that visit it
Since we moved to our cozy apartment, conveniently located only a couple blocks from an expansive park with a vast off-limits area to humans (deer, birds, foxes, and cats are fine) we’ve been watching the growth and decay of flora and fauna alike.
This particular specimen was more robust at one time, but has always been one of my favorites. Over the years the center has hollowed out. I’ve seen squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks take refuge in the opening at the bottom and there are always chirping warblers cavorting in its branches. During the fall, mushrooms near the base made a tasty snack for deer.
In the spring there may be nests with blue robin eggs or blackbird eggs. There will be small flowers growing around and green leaves either of its own or the creeping vines that climb up the expanse. Ants will make paths back and forth passing it by on their way. Saplings and grass shoots will try to claim their space in its shadow. Sometimes what we think of as decay is simply an abundance of life. Live fully.
Trading my candy for puppy snuggles this year, and with gorgeous chocolate brown eyes like Butler’s, who could blame me?
Butler looking extra spiffy!
We have been working on writing books together. Since I’m the one with opposable thumbs, I get the bulk of the work and Butler, the Perpetual Puppy, snuggles or reminds me to take a break and move around. He’s a great motivator!
We have a new novel and some shorts out, as well as some of our older works with brand new covers, all available on Amazon.
edenfreed.com 