I'm Going On A Writer's Retreat to Retreat From My Life by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

      I'm back! Ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay! And if you were anywhere near Canada last month, you may have heard--or experienced--the giant internet outage that raged throughout the country. The chaos it caused! I'm talking mass hysteria! Riots in the streets! 

Okay, not really. Though it happened while I was coming home from PEI and leaving the province without access to a debit card was a bit wonky. If you've read my previous post about the Island of Prince Edward, you may know that in order to leave you need to pay money. And in a world increasingly reliant on an invisible cyber universe, not having access to your bank account can make things difficult. 

 But I escaped! And the internet is back, so I can blissfully immerse myself in stupid cat memes, tik toks and other general nonsense that keeps me from doing anything remotely worthwhile during the course of my day to day life! 

Which may be the reason I thought it was a good idea to sign up for a writer's retreat! 

Whenever I write it's always a retreat... from the crushing reality of my own inadequacies...  
*not really*.... cries

So what is a writer's retreat? Well, I suppose that depends... For me, it's offering a chance to escape the mania of my household for a weekend and browse facebook somewhere that is devoid of familial distraction and responsibilities...

For the sake of my sanity. 

But really? It's a chance to write and I'm REALLY FREAKING excited! Not because I'm going to constantly worry about wasting time, but because it's been almost three years that I've had an opportunity to focus on my writing. My husband has graciously been supportive in my decision to go, and it's only a weekend! So I mean, definitely not enough time for them to destroy the house or summon Cthulhu accidently, right? 

Nah... it will be okay. That's a problem for future me. I ain't gonna worry about it until I get back. Present me is excited! Thrilled! Already prepping my current work in progress for all the productivity I am going to encompass!

*True dat*

Maybe I'll leave the computer at home... or buy one of those fancy, old style typewriters to keep me from becoming distracted... What would you do? I suppose I could hire someone to come along and slap me across the face whenever I start browsing the toks! But that kinda defeats the purpose of being by myself for the weekend... and...

...is there such a service? 

  What if I invented one!? What if there's a catalogue of hires you can choose from. They come with you, tell you that you're a great writer and will read all your crummy drafts, SMASH that writers block. 

I think I'd need a tall dark and handsome one... who likes to walk around with his shirt off...

Maybe less Zoidberg and more Mamoa...

Maybe George R. R. Martin should go on a writer's retreat. Maybe if it works for me, I'll suggest it on his social media platform! 

 

At least it's an ending... *Cries again*

Also, how the H-E-double hockey stick does Winds of Winter already have OVER 9000 reviews on Goodreads!? IT'S NOT EVEN OUT YET PEOPLE!!!

Why am I always crying? 

Life Must Go On

 We've often heard the show must go on, and I guess it's true, Although many shows have been canceled for various reasons, sickness, weather, death. etc. 

Life is never canceled. I recently experienced the death of my brother-in-law, one of my husband's and my best friends. But our loss is nothing compared to the loss of his children, but especially his wife. Our lives will go on with the day-to-day events, shopping doctor's appointments, etc. And their kids will return to work, caring for their families, etc. But his wife, how does her life go on? She's alone, doesn't work, and has nothing to take her mind off him. Nothing to look forward to. Her loss is so much greater than ours. 

Right now, everyone keeps in contact, her kids stop in every day, but how long will that last? Eventually, their lives will return to normal, Their kids demand attention, sports, school activities, interfere, and she's left to fend for herself. 

How does one recover from such a loss? She's never worked, her husband didn't want her to, and at her age what kind of job could she get anyway? Does she even want to work? She's never had a hobby, never made friends outside of her family, she didn't need to she had him. He was her life. Since he retired, every waking moment was spent with him. Everything they did, they did together. He didn't have outside friends either, They had friends as a couple. Their life revolved around each other. 

We did so much together, cookouts, card games, just hanging out. We will miss that. But she will miss it more. I pray she finds some friends, some outlet to help her cope. a hobby, some interest that will help ease the pain as time goes on. Because, yes, life must go on. 

You can find all of my books at BWL 

Life Is Good

 

Of course everyone knows that  life is a constant change. We age, lose our job, or quit, or finally retire Ah, retirement - the Golden Years.  Our children are raised, married, and on their own. Maybe we have grandchildren - and maybe, as in my case, you've been blessed with great grandchildren.

You finally have time for yourself, to travel, to enjoy life. At least that's the plan.
Sometimes life doesn't go as planned. Sometimes health issues arise and you have to set plans aside.
Recently the doctor put my husband on oxygen at night. He has COPD - emphysema to be exact. Comes from years of smoking. He was doing pretty well, or so we thought. He's gone through three pulmonary doctors - they keep leaving the practice and moving on to better things I guess. The first two kept telling him the longer he could stay off oxygen the better.
The first visit with the third doctor, he asked if hubby used oxygen at night.  He seemed quite surprised when we said no. So he scheduled a test that would monitor his blood oxygen level while he slept.
Next thing I knew, Medical Supplier called to set up a time to drop off the oxygen. It would

have been nice if the doctor's office would have called and told him that. He had an appointment later that month to learn the results. Seems to me the results were obvious and I almost cancelled the appointment. Glad I didn't. After several nights using the oxygen, hubby started snoring - he hasn't snored in like forever - and he became very restless. I swore if he hit me in the back one more time I was going to take the oxygen tube and wrap it around his neck. No, I really wouldn't have done it, but it was tempting.
 Thing is, I have enough trouble sleeping without someone punching me in the back and waking me . Needless to say, I spent many sleepless nights. Sleeping on the couch wasn't an option - it's only a love seat, and there aren't any other beds in the house. I was stuck with him. You'd think with a queen-size bed he'd have enough room to stay on his own side. But, no, he'd lay on his back and fling his arm out and bam, right in the middle of my back.
Turns out when they brought the oxygen they neglected to hook up the water bottle for humidity.  Of course the doctor immediately wanted to do a sleep study, as he wrote out the prescription for the water bottle. We declined. Hubby doesn't have sleep apena. They brought the water that afternoon and walla, he's been sleeping peacefully ever since.

But... on a lighter note, life isn't always bad. My son recently got engaged and one of my granddaughters whose been trying to have a child is now getting one to adopt . The baby is due Nov.10th.  Of course everyone is excited and my daughter had a shower for her in October.
A new baby girl is expected soon. And...we found out earlier this year, my grandson is expecting his second child Dec. 16th.  Another girl. How exciting is all that?
So, life is good. Our church got a new pastor in September, we've been without one for two years. We had him, his wife, mother, and son for dinner a couple weeks ago.
They're from Colorado and never heard of perogi. I was more than happy to make some for them.  We enjoyed the evening and they said they enjoyed the perogi, especially their little boy.  In fact,  we had them over again for cabbage and noodle and the little guy asked if I made perogi again. I said no and he said, "make them next time we come over, okay."  Well of course i said yes. Next plan is chicken paprikash. Yes, I'm making them traditional Slovak dishes. Pastor's wife is Indonesian, but she seems to enjoy the food.
So, all in all, life is good.

"Rockin' Robin" & the Derecho

Derecho! It’s a terrific new scary weather word, just entering our vocabulary, thanks to Climate Change and our meteorologists. It’s a straight line thunderstorm, the kind they speak of as showing a radar “bow echo.” The eastern seaboard recently experienced a knock-out punch from a big one. We here in south central PA took a sideswipe from the big storm, the same one which disappeared the electricity from millions of people, in a swath which ran from the Alleghenies onto the coastal plain of Virginia.

I woke in the night to hear it coming. At first, I thought it was just Norfolk Southern, whose trains power up and down our valley all night, but I grew up in western Ohio, near Xenia, in fact, which blew away in the great tornado outbreak of 1974, so that kind of noise makes me anxious. When I got up, wind was roaring through the open windows, and the night sky looked thick, like a rushing wall of dirty water. Lightning came blasting in, then pouring rain—time to stop staring and run to see if Bob was at the door, looking for sanctuary. Next, run to close windows. Then it was time to get the heck away from those windows, because, along with the lightning and roaring wind, limbs were crashing down, things were striking the siding and there was a series of huge cracks and house-shaking thuds. Someone’s trees—maybe mine—were going over.  

Now, I’ll walk back a step. All summer we’ve been serenaded from the neighbor’s fine tall Norwegian maple by a catbird. IMHO the catbird is the true subject of the old song—sure, you know the one. “He rocks in the tree tops all the day long, huffin’ and puffin’ and a singin’ his song…” All members of the mockingbird family are genius jazz musicians, riffing on their own—and everybody else’s songs. I’ve even heard them do crows, as a sort of end of set caw-da-boom. They take the “catbird seat” to best show off their talents, which is the highest tree or pole or, in days of yore, TV antenna on the tallest house they can find. 

Our storm came hard and fast and left the same way. At 5:30 a.m., the light was just coming up and the sky was clearing. The neighbors, I could tell, were out walking around.  When I came out to join them, I was shocked by the damage. Three large, beautiful maples on the street were ripped apart, looking as if a big hand had come down and yanked the limbs off. Only shattered trunks remained. Enormous branches, leaves, dead wood, siding and kid toys were everywhere. Across the street from me, where the shapely old Norwegian maple had been, was only the shattered stub of trunk. All the branches now lay on the roof of their house.

On the broken tip of the tree sat the cat bird, as he’d done since spring. He kept moving around on the raw wood, gazing at the leafy paradise in which he’d once lived, now on the ground below. He tried to sing once or twice, just a few grace notes, but his heart wasn’t in it. The green shade world in which he’d lived, loved and rejoiced was gone forever.

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