Lazy Cashier

 At the store we did inventory at yesterday, I helped Kevin scan some of the items behind the register, so I was able to hear some interactions between the cashier and customers. This was also a truck stop, so most of them were truckers. This place had another register by the main entrance, but this particular register was by the diesel pumps. One trucker asked if they had Altoid mints. She immediately said, “No.” I thought that was weird. All those places have Altoid mints. Then another trucker asked for cool ranch Doritos. She immediately said, “No.”  In my mind, I’m like WHAT.  I looked up from what I was doing and conspicuously strained my head to look over at the frito lay area. I didn’t see any right away, but once I was done helping Kevin, I looked for both Altoid and cool ranch Doritos, and they were both easily findable. 

When I was in my teens and worked at a store, it was an absolute ABOMINATION to tell a customer “no” or “I don’t know”. The rule is, you find out. You look, you ask. This bitch wasn’t even trying. 

A couple hours later, I was counting on the aisles near the cooler doors and a man asked me if the store had the 99 cent cans of Arizona tea in 12 packs. They didn’t have it at that store- I would have noticed it if they did. My daughter loves Arizona tea, so if the 99 cent cans came in 12 packs for a total of even less than 99 cents, I would have always noticed. I gave a much more detailed answer and expended much more emotional labor into my response to this man than the cashier. I had also mentioned that I didn’t actually work for the store, so I overheard him asking that woman at the diesel register. Then I heard him say, “Oh No Sè? No Comprende?”  I rolled my eyes. That lady knew how to speak English, she just didn’t want to be bothered answering questions. That was my irritation of the day. She was not a young person, either, she had gray strands of hair and was around the same age as me. I would expect such behavior from a teenager, even though I was expected to move mountains for people when I was a teen myself. 

Little Visitor

 

Yesterday while doing inventory in Victoria, Texas, a little toddler girl just ran up to me and announced, “Hi, Danielle!”  Except with her just learning to talk, she pronounced my name “Don-Elle”. I was startled. I didn’t know who she was. How on earth did she know my name? She was barefoot and didn’t have adults around. I looked up and around for her parents and immediately saw a man and a woman walking towards her. I smiled and they started talking. I also asked how old she was, and they said 20 month old. (In other words, she’s turning two in four months).  I didn’t tell them she mysteriously knew my name. I mostly believe in reincarnation, and immediately thought to myself, well who are you the reincarnation of?  

Her parents had accents, and I asked where they were from. They said New Zealand. I said, What brings you to Texas?  They said touring the USA in an RV.  I told them she was cute, and to have fun and safe travels. 

Then I got to thinking, being 20 months old makes her born in March of 2024. The last elderly person I worked with as a home caregiver actually died in March of 2024. Coincidence?  Like I said, I only “mostly” believe in reincarnation, but that’s because it can’t be proven. It’s what makes the most sense to me. 

My mother doesn’t believe in it but still insisted it was a “divine visitor”. She has a story she tells often of walking with me in an umbrella stroller along the beach in Tijuana when I was about two years old. An elderly unkempt man walked past us from the opposite direction, reached his hand out to me in the stroller and exclaimed, “Danielitaaaa!” Then walked behind my mom, but when she looked over her shoulder he was gone. My mom said my father was walking about 10-12 feet away closer to the shore and she called out to him, “How did he know her name?”  My dad just shrugged. My mom always thought it was a divine visitor as well. Just wondering if this ever happened to anyone else. 

My kid helped the archaeology club dig a hole. She said they were going to then use the hole for a fire pit to cook food. 

We are on our way home from Victoria, Texas where we did inventory of several truck stop/gift shops. I am exhausted. The motel we checked into last night had a booger on the wall of the bath/shower. Kevin said he didn’t see it, but he took a shower and I took a bath. They also didn’t clean out the fridge from the last guest. I wondered if it was the same person that ordered that food that blew snot in the shower. 

I’m ready for my only day off, tomorrow. 

 

Fun Inventory

 Well, not that much fun. Because, on my payday trip to Walmart I purchased Pilates bands for arm workouts. It came with an exercise guide, and three bands- easy, medium and hard. I gave my daughter the hard one, because she does Pilates regularly. However, only 25 morning reps and 25 evening reps with the easy band threw my back out in one single strip down the left of my back. I do so well with leg, core, and aerobic exercises, but arm workouts kill my back. And even though I’m 47, I still don’t have bingo wings- I could work my arms to a good level if I could just get over the pain afterwards. 

The store chain we’re doing inventory at this week is very fun. I don’t let on to Kevin how much I love this chain, because he calls them “Buccees wannabes”. I mean in a way they are. They sell great gift items. I just received about $220 from the Merchandiser app from the toilet paper and paper towels aisles pictures. I plan on walking out today with some Christmas presents for Anna. They had weighted stuffed animals. She has a couple of weighted stuffed animals, but could probably use one more. She uses my weighted blanket for anxiety, as I personally have a love/hate relationship with it. It does help when you’re trying to fall asleep, but then when you wake up out of a deep sleep to turn over, it almost feels like you’re stuck. 

We are working very long days which makes up for the fact that we didn’t work much last week (which is why I had time to do stuff for the merchandiser app).  I’ve completely fallen off the creativity bandwagon for both writing and sewing. Maybe during thanksgiving I can get back on that. 

I feel extremely accomplished for “getting” a therapist to tell me I have PTSD. Not sure why this feels so satisfying. I do wonder what it would say if my mom was somehow involved in the therapy. If I was a minor or a very young adult, and she was the one paying for the sessions, I’m not sure the therapist would give me a diagnosis that is as respected as PTSD. I do have two cousins with BPD, or “borderline personality disorder” which actually sounds insulting to me. I believe that I was spared from a BPD diagnosis in the past 5-10 years or so, because I made it clear that while being with a man was what I preferred, that I could still be happy with myself single. One of my cousins who got a BPD diagnosis years ago pretty much always made sure she was with a man. Recently, she went to another provider who dropped the BPD diagnosis and diagnosed her on the autism spectrum. She has an autistic grandchild now. So it checks out with the genetics. With my current therapist, I also made it abundantly clear that even though I m happily married, I would still be happy single if I suddenly become single again. I think maybe “always needing a partner” contributes to that. I have another cousin who I know has a diagnosis of bipolar, but whenever she’s manic, she’s extremely productive. She’s an artist and fashion designer as well as working a main job, and she’s created entire lines in her manic phases that have sold very well. I also told my therapist that I read Holy Disruptor and how it helped. 

Feeling Like Theo Huxtable

 Well I had therapy this afternoon, and beforehand, I looked on my billing document. I was surprised to see two diagnoses. The first was GAD, or generalized anxiety disorder. That was a given. The next one was chronic PTSD. I had heard before that I had “complex” PTSD, but when I asked for a clarification, she explained that complex PTSD isn’t an official diagnosis in the DSM 5.  I asked, if it becomes an official diagnosis in the DSM 6, will I get the diagnosis?  She said yes, barring any weird wording that only restricts it to a certain age group or . She then said, she doesn’t know what they’ll do with the DSM 6.  I thought to myself (but didn’t say this out loud) that as long as they don’t rewrite autism to make it look like Trump cured it, I’m good. 

Having PTSD in writing for me feels so validating that I feel like Theo Huxtable When he announced to his parents that he had dyslexia and they burst out cheering. Who would have thought that someone whose parents stayed married could still have their traumatic experiences so validated like that?  

Anyway, time for another work busy spurt. 

This is so scary to me

It’s terrifying to me that a woman in her 40’s can be confirmed alive and well by law enforcement, have her missing person case closed by law enforcement, but still have her immediate family members insist she’s a missing person because she doesn’t want anything to do with them. If it was a male romantic partner she was trying to get away from, the world would have her back. Anyone can claim that anyone else has “mental health issues” as a tool to control them. Mental health issues cannot be physically proven or disproven with any sort of bloodwork or imaging. And if any of us has ever been on any antidepressants, we also “have mental health issues.”  Does that mean we have to be forced contact with toxic family members?  This can happen to any of us. If she’s as crazy as her mom claims, then she will be arrested soon anyway and her mom would have nothing to worry about. What a nightmare for Kimberly. 

 

Book cover

These are AI images I had made to incorporate into my book cover. Please keep in mind that I’m not doing an AI generated book cover. I have a couple of friends that are artists that I can pay to take these suggestions and make some sort of dual image. I think AI makes the main character look Navajo. My hair used to actually be that long. I only braided it when I worked at the child crisis center. While testifying in court as a CASA volunteer, I didn’t. I ended up cutting it all off right after 9/11 due to contracting lice from the kids. The only time I ever testified on a stand like that was in my first case, which was in Arizona. Once I moved to Texas, I just stood off to the side with a microphone while different attorneys asked me questions. Hence the Arizona flag in the back. 

In some of the writings groups I’m in, they’re using AI covers, and it’s painfully obvious. 

 

Kid Home for Weekend

Anna drove herself from San Marcos to my house for the weekend. After greeting us and the cats, she crapped out in her room for a long nap. It’s blurry, but here’s Mitchell wondering who’s in that room with the door closed. 

I got an enormous paycheck today with a lot of overtime. I did something I’ve never been able to do, which is make a $500 payment towards student loans. I also sent Anna money on cash app, shopped, and paid the phone bill. And contributed to my retirement account. Whew!!

 

Book Review: Holy Disruptor

 Yesterday and this morning, I have been traveling around making money per location taking pictures of toilet paper and paper towel aisles for the Merchandiser app. It’s my side hustle. Over the last couple of weeks, pay on the merchandiser app has been abysmal. It recently skyrocketed for this particular assignment, (they must be sorry they tried to pay so low) so I went all over rural areas, enjoying the lovely weather and scenery, and quickly submitted pictures of those aisles. 

While driving, I listened to the audiobook version of Holy Disruptor by Amy Duggar King. If you remember the reality show “19 Kids and Counting”, you might remember Amy. She was the first cousin of the 19 siblings. Her mom was Jim Bob Duggar’s only sibling. 

I have also mentioned here before that I was in a live stream of Amy’s not too long ago and mentioned that I want to write a book called The Child Advocate. She picked my comment out of many and raved about how I should, and how much she loved that title. I then not only felt an obligation to buy her book, but I wanted to. 

Amy and I have a lot of similarities. We are both “an only child who only had one child”. And we both grew up with 19 cousins. It’s ironic. My 19 cousins aren’t all siblings, though. They are the children of my dad’s two brothers and my mom’s six much older sisters. My 20th first cousin (not chronologically) was an adoptee born in the 1950’s that we discovered when a handful of us did ancestry DNA tests. However, I grew up knowing 19. 

So many similarities with the numbers, but I could also relate to the complexities of being an only child in an extended family that large and trying to understand the difficulties of abuse and generational trauma. Like Amy, I struggled to witness my cousins endure horrific things that we all had to sweep under the rug, and I witnessed different individuals among the 19 deal with the abuse in so many different ways. I really appreciated witnessing that enigma in someone else. 

Amy did in her book what I seek to do in mine: She told a story and educated at the same time.  I seek to obey the “show don’t tell” rule of writing more than Amy did, but by the time I really got into the story, the amount of telling versus showing no longer mattered.  I didn’t think it was possible to make Jim Bob Duggar look like more of an ass than he already does, but she did.

I also admire that Amy did this despite some of the negativity she gets online. One of my fears about writing The Child Advocate is that I’ll get some negativity.  It’s actually pretty much bound to happen if you are published, in the public eye, and/or have any sort of following.  She handles this with grace.  It’s addressed in the book, and she simply responds with how Jesus was persecuted too!  I’m not “as” Christian as she is, but I can respond this way if I ever get religious critics.  Non religious critics wouldn’t be phased by this response, so I’d have to think of something else for them.  I would give Holy Disruptor 4.875 stars.  I know that’s terribly specific, but the .125 dock comes from the fact that she could have “shown” and not “told” a teeny bit more.  Of course, she had a ghostwriter, so it may be a moot point.

Before the last couple days of toilet paper aisle picture jobs at rural stores, I have been remembering certain memories in which it seems obvious that my mother was trying to bring me down and even set me up to fail.  More on that later, but she knows that Kevin and I have a four day weekend currently from our main job, the inventory service.  I told her at least twice.  So when I told her that I was out doing the side jobs, I said, “The pay went way down lately, but it increased a lot now so I’m out doing them.”  She then proceeded to ask me if I had gotten a pay decrease at my main job, the inventory service, and then a raise.  I said no…. Why would they do that?  My main job is W-2 and paid hourly.  1099 side hustles are different, and she knows the difference.  She then responded, “Oh I thought you must have really screwed up some inventory so they docked your pay.”  She laughed at herself.  I didn’t find it funny and told her I had to go. Have not called her this morning, but she texted me so I know she’s still around.  There have been so many instances over my 47 years that she’s wanted to see me as a failure for her amusement. Speaking of generational curses, now that I am a mother to a young lady, I just can not imagine feeling that way at all. Ever. 

Blue Rows

The blue rows I did didn’t fit into one picture. Yes one has “blue and green” and one has “blue and purple”.  I guess my yellow row in the “rainbow” below is technically “blue and yellow.”  Perhaps I can switch out the all green and all purple rows in the rainbow with the ones below to make it more scrappy and “fair”. I just have to keep reminding myself that the point of no scrap November was not to get perfect color schemes. 

The purple and blue row pictured here has a heart on the denim back side. When I wash and dry the final product for the fuzzy chenille effect, the heart will be fuzzy as well. I thought I threw away all the hearts I cut thinking it would be a bad idea, but still found one in the heap.

 

No Scrap November Potential Rainbow Quilt

“No Scrap November” isn’t an official thing outside of my house. I’m doing it to use up my scraps and see what I can do. I have another potential rainbow denim chenille quilt, but I’m not sure it’s “good enough”. I have 11 blue rows, so this quilt would be made with one of them right where blue should be. The top picture below is the front of the quilt. The second picture is the back.  The back is denim and will be clipped and washed and dried so it has a fuzzy chenille effect. The main thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is that three of the blocks on the yellow row are actually blue because I didn’t have enough yellow denim. Fabric stores don’t carry yellow denim, and I don’t have time for the thrift store. Most of what you see here is taken from denim items from 25 cent day at the thrift store. What I’m thinking is adding blue blocks to the left and right of each. Idk. This is what I mean by no color scheme or pattern. It’s also why whenever I do open my Etsy shop, rainbow quilts are going to be more expensive. They take more thought, and people comment on them more. We’ll see. It can very well also be a Xmas gift. 

 

Lots of Rows

 Work has slowed down. Thank goodness!  We had a long day yesterday. Kevin and I helped our Austin coworkers in New Braunfels. I texted my daughter that we were in New Braunfels (only a 15 minute drive away from Texas State) and that if she wanted to come by and visit at the convenient stores we were doing inventory at, I’d get her $20-30 worth of snacks. She said she would, but Mondays are her most busy days with classes. I know that, since I saw her schedule. It just would have been nice to see her. 

My psychic prediction is that we will have to help them out there a lot in the near future. They seem to need a lot of help, and Kevin and I make the most sense to send out since we live in Hempstead, which is “on the way” from Houston to Austin. I don’t mind the traveling, in fact I often prefer it. Today and tomorrow are short days and then we likely have a four day weekend. I am going to enjoy that greatly!!! It’s payday, too!

I have been trying to lower my fabric square stash by arranging the squares I have into rows of seven blocks. Each block is about a foot long. I made two more blue rows and actually a pink row!  With pink denim on the back and everything. I remember going to 25 cent day at the fabric store and getting a pair of size 26 pink jeans. They were very long, too. I got a lot of squares out of it. Those went on the back of the pink blocks and pink row. On the front of the pink row is different shades of solid pink and a little bit of pink floral print. I’ll take pics when I feel like I’m done making random rows. 

The idea with making random rows is that I will arrange them into random quilts, and since the quilts “have no color scheme or pattern that makes sense” then they would just be free gifts to people I could ship them to for practice shipping. But I’m starting to think that with what I have, I can actually make a couple more quilts with good enough color schemes/patterns to actually sell. We’ll see!  

Time Change What?

 I did not even realize that the time changed for daylight savings time. I do have a funny story, though. This happened exactly five years ago, when we “fell back” one hour in November of 2020.  

I have to back up and explain that Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time. During the summer, Arizona is in pacific standard time, and during the winter, it’s in mountain standard time. Where I live in Houston is central standard time. In 2020, my side hustles paid extremely well, because not many people did them. I took the opportunity to travel around and do them, and this included going to Phoenix where my on again/off again boyfriend lived. He and I had gone to high school together and reconnected on social media. I lived in Arizona for nine years. 

It’s pretty standard to take I-10 all the way from Houston to Phoenix and back. Sometimes, if I did most of the jobs all the way there, I’d take I-40 back home and cut through Midland and Odessa, Texas. But this time, I was on I-10. 

The time changes from central to mountain standard when you reach the town of Van Horn, Texas. Then, if it’s the summertime, it will change again to pacific time at the Arizona state line. If it’s winter, it will just stay mountain. When the time “fell back” in November of 2020, I was on the road going either to or from Phoenix. I made the mistake of sleeping at the Arizona/New Mexico State line. I woke up the next morning and didn’t know what time it was. I couldn’t remember if fall was when we went forward or backwards with the time. I didn’t know what time zone I was in, I was confused about the change, and some stores I was going to do audits at opened at different times. Standard opening times were either 6:00 or 7:00 am, but since it was Sunday, some had later times. My phone was even confused, probably because I was on the state line. It quite literally could have been 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, or 7:00 am. There was no point in trying to work, because I figured a lot of employees might also forget the time change and be late. So I just sat at the rest area and watched the sunrise. In that part of the country, the sunrises are breathtaking. 

Restful Weekend of Creativity

 Yesterday was a good day. I gathered all of my 6 and 1/2 inch squares that were either denim or not and worked on arranging them into blocks and rows. I really do have a ton of them, but not enough to make one quilt with a good enough color scheme or pattern that makes sense. Making hodgepodge denim chenille quilts to ship to my closest friends out of town for Christmas will be a good way to learn how shipping these will work and get rid of my scraps so I have a cleaner area to start over with. I do have six quilts ready to list for sale, but I’m not sure if 6 is good enough for an Etsy shop. I had a 7th one that my mom gave me $50 for and donated to the church raffle. So I did sell a quilt, but the customer was my mom. The woman who won it is reported to love it. 

Yesterday, I made several blue rows, two blue and gray rows, a red row, and an orange row. The mountain of squares in my daughter’s room is already less. She’ll love that when she comes home for Thanksgiving. 

Kevin voluntarily gave my car an interior detail. I wasn’t expecting that!  He even went to auto zone and got me new floor mats and seat covers. It looks so nice!  Since his car hasn’t been running well, we’ve been using mine. We just got around Friday to taking his to the shop. 

I’m also glad my thumb feels better enough to have done some sewing. I want to be creative in my free time, but my writing is too heavy for the headspace I’m in at the moment. 

There was another instance of a missing grown adult woman who made contact with law enforcement to confirm she’s safe, but her family members keep posting in missing person groups that she’s mentally ill and needs to come home. To me, that’s just infuriating. Since I have this weird fascination with finding missing persons, I follow a lot of their cases on social media. This comes up often. This woman’s family is acting like law enforcement is these big meanies because they closed the case. Well, I’m sorry but that’s what they do if the person was confirmed to be safe. A lot of people are learning that they can cut off their toxic and abusive family members, and the toxic family members end up doing this crap. It takes away from people who are truly missing and in harm’s way, with the idea being, if someone is looking for your grown child who doesn’t want to speak to you because you’re a piece of shit, they might miss someone who’s actually being trafficked.  I took this screenshot from

Charley Project:

Adults who do not wish to be found by certain people have the right to. Although I believe many may not be aware of this, and the people they’re trying to stay away from might claim mental health reasons why you should be controlled, it’s still true that you can walk into a police station and clear your missing person status and not have contact with whomever you ran away from- even if you were a minor when you did so.

With that being said, I have stayed away from social media due to some disturbing news in the Houston area as well. Sometimes the comments are worse than what happened. I still care about missing people, it’s just that all the cases in which the above happens are a little disappointing. 

Halloween Present and Tidbits

Anna sent me a selfie she took getting ready in her dorm for a Texas State University Halloween party on Friday night. I got this picture right after I published the post below with her past Halloween costumes over the years. 

I’m glad my daughter is there. She’s living her best life. I’m a little worried about her mental health when she graduates in 2029 or 2030 when she realizes that her degree isn’t really going to get her the career she believes it will. Hopefully, she’ll be right and I’ll be wrong, but it’s still a concern that I have not shared with her and don’t plan to share with her for at least another year. 

Secondly, I got an idea that will get rid of my fabric scraps, help me learn to ship things I make for when I open an Etsy shop, and give some Christmas gifts. 

My denim chenille quilt scraps are in squares, blocks, and rows as shown below:

 I don’t have enough of each color scheme to make entire quilts nice enough to sell. So I’ll just make really patchy looking ones, ship them to people very close to me out of town who won’t mind getting free quilts that don’t have a good color scheme, and it may be a Christmas gift. I’m working on this all day today, and my thumb injury feels a lot better.  So, I can!  

This also solves the issue of all the scraps I have taking up space in Anna’s room. I ordered these big mailers for shipping practice. 

Wreath Fix

 

This is the fall wreath I made a month or so ago. It's been hanging by my door like this, and has been bothering me. 

It wasn't symmetrical. The lower left of the wreath wasn't as full as the rest of it. So I got out my glue gun and just added two leaves. Much better!  Sorry for the before pic being shown twice. 

Halloween Past

 These were all in my Facebook memories. I don't remember exactly what year each one was. I really miss having a little one! 

Thoughts on Writing and the Next Step

 I know I had a setback over the last couple of weeks, but I'm ready to delve back into writing. I need to start racking my brains in order to remember a small lesson a woman from church gave me once called “Advocates in the Bible”.  She wrote the lesson herself years before she showed it to me, and taught it to me briefly when I was staying at her home between apartments. I was about 23 years old then, and she was a mom figure to me. I often referred to her as my “foster mom”, even though I was grown and not a foster child. To make a long story short, she was a spirit-filled Christian and was diagnosed with bone cancer. Her denomination believed in miraculous healings, and she prayed for one. She believed she would receive one, but didn't. Her passing was what made me sort of “give in” to dating my first husband, Anna’s father. I didn't believe that I really could ever have a partner, but grieving her just made me give up and be like “ok I'll go out with you.”  

Before her tragic passing, though, she did write this lesson called Advocates in the Bible, and perhaps she taught it to others in the past. She and I spent a few days at her table going through the lesson. She went through all these biblical characters and explained how they were advocates of a certain cause. I hope that makes sense. I was a little lost in life, because I really wanted to know what advocacy was, but was constantly told it meant I had to go to law school. An advocate can mean a lawyer, but it means many other things too. 

I no longer rely on the Bible for inspiration, but I did then. Over the past 20-something years since she passed, my faith has evolved. I deconstructed before deconstructing was popular. 

However, in the last couple of years, I honestly hate to say it, but the war in Israel has really caused a totally unexpected wave of deconstruction. Some people say this war started on 10-7-2023, some say it was 1945, but honestly, it started when Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. 

As I watched the news over the last couple of years, I realized that the stories in the Bible that used to bring me so much inspiration are actually stories of this same war that's been happening for thousands of years. The Queen Esther story was part of this war. When David killed Goliath, we are also taught that it was an inspiration for if you are facing an insurmountable problem.  When Moses went before Pharaoh (as an advocate) and said, “Let my people go”, it laid the groundwork for the following battles.  “The promised land” is used as a euphemism for either the end goal of something positive or maybe going to heaven, but it didn't start out meaning those things.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking a side in a war in a part of the world I've never been to. I've struggled enough taking sides in my own country. I've spent the last year or two listening to the advocacy of Ms. Rachel, the education from Miriam (and the subsequent antisemitism against even her 1-year-old baby girl), and I can't stomach the hate against the innocents on both sides. That's all. 

Going back to those biblical stories and remembering my inspiration when it's now two decades later and I'm learning to associate those stories with current events is going to be really hard. There's no room in my book to talk about the war in Israel since 10/7/2023. I do talk about the crisis of faith in other ways. 

To sort of get back into the spirit of who I was when Mary sat me down at her table and essentially gave me what I wanted by teaching me what an advocate actually was, I've started listening to some songs that I stopped listening to. The main one is Jericho by Andrew Ripp.  It's supposed to be an inspirational song, and it is. The chorus goes, “All of my fears like Jericho walls gotta come down, come down, come down.”  No one is actually talking about what happened in Jericho- we just want our fears and anxiety to come down like Jericho walls. The song is about us, not them. I'm trying to get back into the innocent t headspace I was in when I was 23 or 24 and sitting at Mary’s table. 

Once, right after the October 7th attacks in Israel, I was venting to my mom that this has been going on since Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. Now my mom is very religious, but has never read the Bible. I think that's pretty common for her generation. When I said that, she told me, “I don't know the story of Joshua, but I do know the song.”  I thought she meant the Andrew Ripp song that I mentioned above. No, actually she meant when Mahalia Jackson sang it to MLK.  The fact that we have drawn so much inspiration over the millennia from the battles and wars that led to the events of today is wild to me now. 

In order to write about this effectively, I have to temporarily let go of all the ways in which the current events have clouded my view of the biblical stories in the actual lesson Mary had. Mary lived from the 1950’s until then early 2000’s, so probably never had the opportunity to watch the ongoing conflict live like we do now in 2025. RIP Mary C,

I'll do my best. 

“Ive Been Everywhere”

 Today, my manager introduced me to a song I've never heard before- I've Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash

I liked it, and it reminded me of that time in 2020 when I took off and did these side hustles on the apps and made a lot of money. I went all over nine states plus Memphis, Tennessee (but not into the rest of Tennessee).  I often say I may do it again someday and visit the entire lower 48. We'll see. I thought about copy pasting the lyrics here and answering yes or no to each location Johnny Cash names in the song- did I go there or not during the time period that the apps were my only job?  Here are my answers: 

My answers are in ALL CAPS. I went all over Oklahoma too, and some of these town names sound like Oklahoma. 

I've been everywhere, man

I've been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man (YES)
I've breathed the mountain air, man YES
Of travel I've had my share, man NOT YET
I've been everywhere

I've been to Reno NO, Chicago NO, Fargo NO, Minnesota NO
Buffalo NO Toronto NO Winslow WINSLOW, ARIZONA YES

Sarasota NO
Wichita  NO Tulsa YES Ottawa NO Oklahoma YES
Tampa NO Panama NO Mattawa NO La Paloma NO 
Bangor NO  Baltimore NO Salvador NO Amarillo YES
Tocapillo NO, Baranquilla NO, and Perdilla NO, I'm a killer NO

I've been to Boston NO , Charleston NO , Dayton, THERE WERE A COUPLE DAYTONS YES

Louisiana YES
 Washington NEITHER, Houston I LIVE HERE, Kingston, NO Texarkana YES

Monterey NO, Faraday NO , Santa Fe, YES Tallapoosa NO 
Glen Rock NO Black Rock NO  Little Rock YES Oskaloosa NO
Tennessee to Tennesse Chicopee YES, Spirit Lake NO
Grand LakeNO , Devils Lake, NO

I've been to Louisville NO, Nashville NO Knoxville, NO Ombabika NO 
Schefferville NO , Jacksonville NO, Waterville, NO Costa Rica NO
Pittsfield NO Springfield YES, Bakersfield NO , Shreveport YES
Hackensack NO , Cadillac, NO Fond du Lac, NO Davenport THERE WAS ONE DAVENPORT NOT IN IOWA
Idaho NO, Jellico, NO Argentina, NO Diamantina, NO 
Pasadena YES

I've been to Pittsburgh NO, Parkersburg, MAYBE Gravelburg, NO Colorado TOO SCARED OF THE MOUNTAINS
Ellensburg NO, Rexburg NO , Vicksburg, YES THERE AAS A VICKSBURG SOMEWHERE El Dorado YES

Lattimore NO , Atmore NO , Haverstraw NO , Chatanika NO 
Chaska NO , Nebraska NO, Alaska NO , Opeli NO 
BarabooNO , Waterloo NO , Kalamazoo, NO Kansas City YES
Sioux City, YES  Cedar City, YES  Dodge City NO , what a pityNAH IT WAS FUN

Tidbits

This was in my Facebook memories- the picture of my daughter's first Halloween in 2007 dressed as a banana, that I posted below, side by side with the one of me holding her. 

Her expression in the pic of me holding her is like “Get me out of this thing” lol. Baby side eye. 

I did a lot today. We went to a town called Schulenberg and did inventory there at one little quickie store. When we got home, I went out alone and did my own shopping. I went to Walmart and HEB.  I also got an oil change. I bought a bunch of groceries to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon. 

I also somehow injured my thumb. I don't know how it happened, and I do not want to see a doctor. I mean, ideally I would like to see a doctor. But my PCP is a nightmare to deal with. I really can't wait to start over somewhere where no one knows I was ever prescribed gabapentin. I called my insurance to find an urgent care with Xray capabilities. They gave me several locations contact info, but I called each one, and none had X-ray. That process is so fucking maddening. It's the same situation with finding a new PCP. A bunch of listings are given to you but when you call each one, they are not open, or they're really a pediatric dentist, or they're in Arkansas, or always some wild thing why I can't go to them as a PCP like my insurance said. When I tell my insurance company this, they just say “Oh I’m sorry to hear that.”  

And who has time for a million dead end calls like that?  Not me, not this time of year!  So what I did is I bought a box of two finger splints with metal, put the bigger metal splint over my right thumb that hurts at the base. Then wrap it with bandages that self stick around my hand and wrist. And I’m going to work like that!  Yup!  But I do such a good job immobilizing my thumb that the pain is subsiding. A couple days ago, I was alternating Tylenol and Motrin but don’t need to anymore. I take it off in the evenings at home, but I sleep with it and I also wore it while shopping today. 

I have no idea how this happened. I’m afraid that someone will think I punched someone. I swear I didn’t!  The pain is at the base of my thumb- I think when you punch people, you hurt your four other knuckles. But I wouldn’t know because I’ve never punched anyone, and definitely not with the base of my thumb. I also hate it lately when they ask you to rate the pain from 1-10. I’ve seen ER nurses on TikTok making fun of ppl for rating their pain high. They think you’re a drug seeker if you rate it high, but honestly why would you go to the ER if your pain level was like a two?  The rating it from 1-10 doesn’t prove anything, but an X-ray will. Unfortunately, you have to go through the triage nurses before you can get an X-ray. I just don’t want to be entertaining that question with anyone associated with the pcp. Honestly, on a scale of 1-10, my pain has been about a five the last week or so, but is now probably only a 2-3. Immobilizing helps. And why pay $80 for a doc to tell me that when I already know? 

I did some google image searching for Queen Esther, ever since entertaining the name Hadassah (Dassy) as a pen name. Years and years ago, I struggled to learn what an advocate really was. It’s easy nowadays to learn what an advocate is, but things were different back then.  I got an entire lesson from someone called “Advocates in the Bible”. I’ll talk about it on here someday. The person who wrote this lesson has passed away, and I have to really rake my brains to remember all of it. I need to incorporate it into my book called The Child Advocate. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to do without rereading the stories. Since there’s really not a snowball’s chance in hell that I’m going to have time to sit down and read the Bible any time soon, (not cover to cover like I used to anyway), I’ll just list the biblical figures and then watch cartoons about them. It’s easier. 

At the time, Daniel (from the lions den in the Old Testament) was listed as one of the “advocates in the Bible” and the person who wrote this lesson mentioned that he was my “patron saint”. He actually wasn’t, but I appreciated the idea. I printed a picture of Daniel in the lions den for above my desk for inspiration. At the time, I would have liked to believe that no harm would come to me either. I’m realizing now that harm did come to me, because I have vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma sucks, but I still have almost no regrets when it comes to working with kids. 

If my main character is named Dassy, then that little anecdote about my “patron saint” becomes much more interesting. (I wouldn’t call it a patron saint though, I’d probably just use the word namesake). Queen Esther actually was an advocate, that's why it's more interesting. She actually did go before the king and plead for a cause. If I recall correctly, Daniel didn't do that much. He just stood his ground. That's important too. But the latter story is more inspirational as it relates to what I'm writing. 

I looked on google images for Queen Esther. I found this one, and I thought- what is she wearing?  If you've seen The Handmaid’s Tale, I mean it looks like she has on the dress of a commander’s wife and a handmade’s robe over it. I like the picture below it better- her hair is longer, her mauve dress doesn't remind me of The Handmaids Tale, and she's “pleading” more. 

 

Big Love Binge Watching

 Over the last couple of weeks, I've spent a total of about $60 on YouTube to purchase and binge-watch the entire 5-season series of an HBO original called Big Love. I know I have struggled immensely the last couple of weeks with my own writing “career”, but I've been totally inspired by how well written this series is. 

The main character is Bill Henrickson, played by Bill Paxton, a Mormon polygamist with three wives and nine children (three per wife). His first wife Barb was born and raised in the mainstream LDS church. His second wife Nikki was born and raised in a polygamist compound on which her father was the prophet. (Her sect of Mormonism was fundamentalist and separate from the mainstream LDS).  Bill’s third wife Margie was raised by an alcoholic single mother who was a non-practicing catholic. Margie was 25 years younger than Bill and didn't become Mormon until after she married Bill (and essentially Barb and Nikki).  

In the first four seasons, only Barb is Bill’s legal wife. Then in the last season, they obtained a divorce on paper only so Nikki could be the legal one. 

Bill is the owner of a chain of home improvement stores. He then buys into a casino and ultimately runs for state senator. During the election, he hides that he's a polygamist, wins the election, and reveals that he's a polygamist while accepting the nomination. Kind of sneaky!  

I've never been Mormon, but I lived in Arizona for exactly nine years. I had a lot of Mormon friends, a lot of ex-Mormon friends, and a little bit of a fascination with the LDS church, even though I do not believe in it. Nowadays, one of my side jobs (which I haven't done in several months ) is to take pictures of the landscaping around LDS churches. Kevin asked me why a fascination if I don't believe in it. I said mostly because of their extreme niceness when you first meet them, their emphasis on having large, loving families (which my first boyfriend Matt and I wanted), and just the sheer number of friends I had as a teenager who were born and raised in it.  In my high school on the south side of Phoenix, LDS kids could skip one class period per quarter to go across the street and attend seminary. When I used to visit Arizona back when my side hustles paid a lot better, I often made about $60 per hour on the landscaping jobs because of so many LDS churches in the greater Phoenix area. 

I have one funny memory of when I was in high school, and they were going to have a hypnotist in either an assembly or a senior event (don't remember exactly).  Several LDS kids were getting religious exemptions from participating in the hypnosis. My mother, a devout Greek Orthodox, also went with me to get a religious exemption from the hypnosis. The school administrator commented to my mother like, “If you have a note from your Bishop, you can submit it, but it's not necessary.”  I burst out laughing. In Mormonism, every single church location has a bishop. In the Eastern Orthodox church, there's only one bishop over an entire area including several states. Living in Phoenix, we were actually in the diocese of Denver, whereas the local LDS churches with one bishop each were everywhere. My mom looked confused and said, “The bishop?  Why would I ask the bishop????”  It was just a funny side memory, because my mom didn't realize the disconnect in the meaning of that title across denominations. 

But back to the show Big Love. It took a lot of mental gymnastics to watch that show!  A marriage with four people instead of only two really gets convoluted. The three women all slept with Bill and considered themselves married to Bill, even though only one was legal, but they weren't lesbians and didn't sleep with each other. There were never three ways or four ways. They had a schedule for “who gets Bill” when. But the three women all talked to each other and used lingo with each other as if they were married to each other.  In their eyes, they were. 

Bill grew up on the polygamist compound where his second wife Nikki came from, and his parents were also polygamists. However, he was exiled as a teenager by his father. This is very common in polygamist groups. It's referred to as “polygamy’s lost boys”.  It's because in any society/group of people, it's likely to always be roughly half male and half female. Any time you get pregnant, it's literally always a 50/50 chance of having a boy or a girl. So what happens is that polygamists have a ton of kids, and the next generation is roughly half male and half female like the rest of planet earth. But the men are only considered worthy to go to heaven if they have at least three wives. The more the better.  This results in teenage boys being seen as competition for the younger girls. The men want to keep taking wives, and as the young people get old enough to marry, the older men don't want the younger men marrying the younger women, so they exile them in very horrible, abusive ways. Most of the time, when you hear about abuses on polygamist compounds, you only hear about the abuses towards girls and women.  The lost boys aren't talked about. But they're pretty much a mathematical inevitability. In the show, when Bill was exiled by his father, he went out into the world and made something of himself, joined the mainstream LDS, met Barb, and then after years of marriage to her, he realized he wanted to be a polygamist too, and married Nikki and later Margie. 

The show has all viewers asking how they would feel about sharing their spouses. No, I wouldn't want to share Kevin. When I was married to Anna’s father, I wouldn't have wanted to share him either. If I had married Matt, I wouldn't have wanted to share him. But when I was on again/off again with my long-distance boyfriend in Arizona, I suspected he saw someone else, but didn't care. I didn't care, because I knew that it was expected of me to be single, independent, and not need/want a man. But going to see him was still fun. People who knew about it were mad that he was a single parent (even though I was too- make it make sense).  People were angry and said I “needed to get her side of the story.” One time I said, if she sends her kids a birthday card with five bucks, I might care about her side of the story. My daughter’s stepmother never cared about my side of the story. I even got yelled at once as if I didn't know how to add one plus two. “Do you realize that if you marry him, YOU WILL HAVE THREE KIDS?”  Yes. I know that his two kids plus mine would make three. 

With all of this outside influence, I didn't consider him a real relationship and knew I wasn't supposed to want one anyway. So the possibility of him seeing someone else was moot.. 

Women who grow up and are in polygamist spaces are actually taught that they are supposed to share their husbands as a part of God’s will. I understand being ok with something due to your surroundings, due to my complicated feelings about my long-distance relationship. I was born and raised and still live in a society where polygamy isn't the norm, so of course it makes sense that I wouldn't “want to share my husband”.  I wonder how I'd feel about it if I were raised in that world, though. Your surroundings shape your beliefs more than you know!!  

At the end of the show, as a senator, Bill initiated legislation to legalize plural marriage. It was an extremely emotional scene. He made a lot of good points. 

I do believe that there isn't anything wrong with polygamy and polyamory. Yes, there are good points for making it legal. The problematic part is when you start bringing salvation and God’s will into it. If God really wanted every man to have three wives, then babies would be born at a rate of 75% female and 25% male (at least).  And this goes for everything else in life- what's right for some will never be right for “everyone”  

That's just the way it is. 

In the last two seasons, Bill has become a major asshole. In the first three seasons, he's only a little bit asshole. The ass-holiness grows exponentially when he runs for office. At the end, I believe he redeems himself greatly before he gets shot and killed by one of his many enemies. 

I really really admired the writing in this series. It was so good at capturing many elements around a specific topic, and this is what I strive to do when I write. 

The epilogue sucked- I wish there could be a season six with just the wives. It could happen. Bill the character and Bill the actor both are dead, but all three main actresses are alive and could pull it off. Eh maybe they will someday. 

Funny from rural teens

 Yesterday I was in a pretty rural part of the country near the Texas/Louisiana border. I was doing inventory of all the merchandise sold at the checkout lines, and the two teenagers working there as cashiers were cracking me up. (A boy and a girl). They were clearly flirting with each other, and they were arguing about who should be homecoming royalty. 

Then, a customer came in who they knew on a first name basis. This customer looked like he had done some methamphetamines in his life. He was bald and had no teeth, and just looked worn. They conversed with him quite a bit actually and obviously knew him. Then, he paid for his stuff and left. The boy cashier said jealously to the girl cashier, “I think he likes you. I think he was flirting with you.”  The girl cashier said, “ew! I don’t want that old man! He’s like 32!” 

I had not been talking to these kids at all, just eavesdropping, but I laughed out loud. 

Was that man actually 32, because the features he had from apparent past drug use made him look about 60. Or, was the number “32” just, in the girl’s mind, this extremely old age?  Of course it’s too old to be flirting with her, but the way she said “That old man is like 32” made me think that either she just thinks 32 is really old- or he really was 32 and meth really is that much of a hell of a drug. I told Kevin and he said, “Maybe he was really 39.”  I bust out laughing again. 

Another Snafu

One more thing about my writing that might garner negative attention. The main character decides on a career helping children, because she herself feels pressure not to ever have a family. This is definitely based on my own experience. With my first boyfriend Matthew, one of the areas where we felt pressured to not go through with our marriage was at church. Nowadays, churches seem to push getting married and having kids. I’m not sure if this change came about with the passage of time, or that our pastor himself was very unhappy in his own marriage and projected it onto all of us. The entire concept was not that it was wrong in and of itself to get married/have kids, but that God didn’t want what you wanted and God’s will wasn’t your will. Once I tried explaining this in therapy, years ago (not with my current therapist) and she started correcting me saying, “Actually, women are pressured TO get married and have kids.”  She literally sat there and told me my experience was wrong, because of what her own interpretation of “pressure on women” entailed. I come across this from time to time, sometimes people will say that churches pressure you TO do this, they don’t pressure you NOT to do this. BUT, “God’s will isn’t your will” can apply to literally anything. The emphasis that I want to put on the pressure we felt to go our separate ways was not the church saying that it was wrong to start a family, but that it was wrong to do what we wanted in general. It can apply to the exact opposite as well. You can want to remain single and childfree your entire life, but if God doesn’t want what you want, then that means get married and birth a basketball team. If you want to be an artist, God doesn't want that. If you want an alpaca farm, God doesn’t want that. One of my fears is that I’ll get negative reactions to the idea that a church was one of the sources from which I felt pressure to never have a family of my own. I want to make it very clear that it was a will of God thing. Here’s a copy paste from my 30K+ word document with Bible verses explaining what I mean. I thought I had more Bible verses. I know there are more that I can use, I just need to dig them up. (A hilarious side note- Grammarly was correcting and even trying to rewrite exact quotes from the Bible. Kevin said, “But I thought the Bible was perfect!”)

As far as last names for a pen name, I was remembering my first boyfriend who has now been deceased for almost 9 months. I would like to use his real last name as my pen last name in order to honor him, but it’s not a common name at all- so if anyone in his family got wind that it was me, it might be problematic. I am not claiming this to be a “memoir”, because some of my memories are shaky. It’s based on me, but it’s not me. So, since his first name was Matthew, I think a good pen last name would be Matthews. It would be the name of the character as well. In the copy paste below of the Bible verses from my main document, when I say Caleb Wills, that’s what I call him in the book (his pen name, so to speak). And for funsies, I added the AI image created of him and I with our hypothetical 7 kids we wanted. I like that pic. My commentary on the Bible verses is paraphrased. It’s not going to look like that in the book, it’s going to be worked into the actual story. 

At the same time as our engagement, the pastor of the college age ministries was preaching a sermon series on the will of God not being your will.  We in that group were all at the age where we were figuring out what to do with our lives.  We were picking majors and  working while attending college.  About half of us were paired into relationships.  One thing was for certain though, as I listened to the sermon series on the will of God- I knew that marrying Caleb and having children was “my will”.  It’s what I wanted more than anything else aside from my faith in God.  I ended my relationship with Caleb after I heard the following concepts in church:

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but in the end it leads to death.”  (Marrying Caleb and having kids seemed right to me, did that mean it would lead to death?)

Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”  (My plan being to marry Caleb and have a family was something that God would have to prevail over?)

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding.”  (My own understanding was that I wanted to marry Caleb and have kids, was trusting the Lord the opposite of this?  As in, I couldn’t do both?)

I remember our pastor Jacob saying “Doing what makes you happy is so bad for Christians.  We aren’t called to do what makes us happy, we are called to glorify God.