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November 1-3
My Dearest Karolus – I hated leaving while you were away, but portents are portents, and reading the flight paths of the crows, I knew we had to begin our journey now, or the time might never come again. The truth is, we got very little warning. It had been all geese flying overhead for weeks, just a normal fall. And then one morning, in between the flocks, I saw the crows. At first, there were only a couple of them, and I hoped it was an anomaly. But by the afternoon, it was obvious, I knew that was not the case. The crows were leaving, and that meant it…
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NaNoWriMo, the Short Story Version
I have not been writing the way I should be. But I am trying to get back in the habit, and NaNoWriMo is great inspiration for that. But I am not going to write 1667 words per day. I am not, and trying to do so would just be setting myself up for failure. So I am going to do what I did two years ago. Instead of writing a novel in a month, my goal is to write a short story in a month. In general, I will be looking to write 100 words/day. Some days I’ll write a little more, but my minimum will be 100 words per…
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Tell Me Where To Stand
I do not wear a safety pin. I never put a green dot on my hand. The best way I know to show you I am a “safe person” is to be a safe person. To say “good morning” on the bus. To smile as we pass on the sidewalk. To compliment that really awesome sweater you are wearing, even though we have never seen each other before and will not again. To say something if I see something. To my family and friends who do not have the same privileges as me. To the people I have never met but may need that friendship. Tell me where to stand.…
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Can We Take a Stand Against Murder?
I don’t have a whole lot of emotional energy to spare right now, so if this seems blunt, well, that’s because it is. A civilian killing a cop is not an inherently worse crime than a cop killing a civilian. A white man killing a black man is not inherently worse than a black man killing a white man. And those are not worse than a black person killing another black person, or a white person killing another white person, or a straight person killing an LGBTQ person, or an LGBTQ person killing a straight person, or a man killing a woman, or a woman killing a man, or…
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The Imaginary Family
How do you get a child to talk about what is upsetting them when they probably do not even realize what is upsetting them – that the issue is so deep into their subconscious that they cannot see it, even if you point it out? Pop Tart has a best friend. That best friend lives just a few houses down the street. She is a good kid. We like her. But the friendship we do not like that much. Toxic is not the right word. Intense. Intense is the right word. If we let them, the girls will hang out with each other to the exclusion of all others. The…
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I Hate Sleep Overs
There is nothing Pop Tart loves more than a sleep over. I would say candy comes close, but if I were to give her the choice between having a sleep over and having candy, she would choose the sleep over every time. And while a sleep over at our house is good, the best thing ever is to sleep over at someone else’s house. To sleep over somewhere where they do not enforce a bed time, where they can watch scary movies and eat junk food all night. It is the 12 year old version of heaven. I get that. I was the same way at 12. Staying up late…
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Book Review: Dead Man’s Debt by Elliot Kay
I just finished my second read through of Dead Man’s Debt by Elliot Kay. For the sake of full disclosure, I know the author, and the first time I read the book, it was as one of his beta readers before he published. That said, I can honestly say I enjoyed the book. This should not come as a huge surprise. It is the third book in the series, and I would not have volunteered to be a beta reader if I had not enjoyed the first two books. Dead Man’s Debt is the continuing adventures of Tanner Malone and the end of his time in the Archangel Navy. While…
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Blast from the Past: A Budget is NOT the First Thing You Need
Originally published April 14, 2011 on The Dog Ate My Wallet. Edited and updated on May 25, 2016. Let us start with the very basics. Everyone always says you need a budget, and you need to stick to it. Which is generally good advice, but not if you do not have the tools to create a realistic budget. Without the right information, people end up creating budgets that will not get them where they want to go or that they cannot stick to. And that is if they even create a budget in the first place. So what do you need before you create a budget? Information. For an entire…
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My Husband, the Bum
If you ask C what he does, he will tell you he is a bum. If he is a bum, I do not care. It does not bother me that he spends a good part of every day sleeping or playing video games. Because here is the thing – he deserves it. He EARNS it. I love Pop Tart. I love her more than just about anything, but there is a reason I am the breadwinner in our family and C is the stay at home parent. I get home right around 5pm. That means that by the time I walk through the door, he has been dealing with whatever…
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Blast from the Past: My Money Philosophy
This was my first post on The Dog Ate My Wallet. Similar posts had appeared on my earlier (and since deleted) blog Baking the Budget, and a LiveJournal account also called Baking the Budget. This has been my general money philosophy for a long time. Oddly enough, it mirrors my philosophy about a lot of things (and kind of explains why I am a blogger) – which is that the world would be an easier place for us to navigate if people were more willing to talk about the difficult and taboo subjects. And I am in a very different (and better) place financially in 2016 than I was in…
