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  With the nightmare that is Trump 2.0 I ask myself on a daily basis whether to stay or go.  Honestly, for reasons I've never known, I've just always assumed I would end my life in a different country than the one in which I was born.  Maybe it's a Sagittarius thing.  Maybe it was the faint shadow of fascism on the horizon I detected back in the Dubbya admin.  Maybe it was the fact my mother was in need of a caregiver for the last 25 years of her life and moving to a country where help could be better-afforded looked appealing.  Maybe it was the fact I fell in love with a European.  Maybe it was the fact I love teaching ESL.  Maybe it was all of that. Maybe it was none of it. I don't know. But considering leaving your country, even wanting to leave it, and feeling forced out are very different things.  As anyone who knows me will tell you, I have never (and will never) respond well to being told what to do (particularly by men).  I'm not...

    My word for 2025 is: Connect.  In the last couple years I've let all my human connections wither, and I should really change that!

  I can barely remember a time when I didn't have a planner, but I know I haven't been without one since I went back to school in 2012. I have one of those brains that spins into overdrive if I don't write down the things I need to do. For several years I've debated buying a Hobonichi Weeks. This year ... I gave in. Despite the 'Hobonichi Day Debacle', I got exactly what I wanted. Having never ordered from Hobonichi before I didn't even realize the chaos wasn't typical. Long story short, I ended up ordering from JetPens the next day. Since I was only getting a few things to try, the $28 shipping from Japan would have made it more expensive than the JetPens' mark-up anyway.  But the point is, all's well that ends well and I'm looking forward to moving into my Weeks asap (come on, November!).

In my search for the proverbial/mythical planner peace, I thought I might like a Hobonichi Weeks. Since it was Feb/Mar at the time, and I already had three other planners I was trying out, I decided to get an undated Fauxbonichi from Amazon for like $8.  Disliking the look of it, I bought a plastic cover and printed off the following insert based on a free dashboard design from Plan With Bee.  Click below to download/print my cover insert - just print it off, trim it down a bit, and insert in the plastic cover. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WnMe2wjLSlKTwuqtW9KL5CDTNRfd1TGZ/view?usp=sharing

So, probably in order to try to tame the chaos of my life, I have been diving deep into the planning world lately. I've been planning for years, eons even, but it used to be strictly functional (which is a polite way of saying my planners were ugly - not that all functional planning is ugly, but MINE WAS).  I would quickly scribble down stuff to be done, with any implement I had on hand, and cross things out and move them around to the point of being indecipherable by anyone but (hopefully) me. All with the no nonsense goal to get it down, get it done, and move on. I never decorated any of them, nor did I keep them for any reason - at the end of the year they went in the trash. But I never found the perfect planner - one that could accommodate every area of my life. And I still have not, so far. Though I am starting to decorate it, journal in it, and plan to keep them from now on. I would love to have a gorgeous BuJo, but I cannot manage to force myself to keep one due to the time ...

 In honor of National Tell a Fairy Tale Day I thought I'd share something I wrote awhile ago. It is a very familiar fairy tale, but told from a different character's point of view. Enjoy ;-) The Myth of The Englishman The fire was crackling, and the rain was tapping its usual song on the roof, but she heard the knock at the door. She’d been waiting and listening for it. She had sent for them hours ago when she had first become concerned. Finally, the two of them stood at her door – soaked to the bone. They removed their coats, and their otherwise crisp uniforms were now soggily hanging from their conspicuous frames. She was beside herself with worry, but manners dictated she offer the men some tea and cake.       “So, you say your husband is missing Ma’am?” one of the officers asked, as she poured the first cup of tea.       “Yes, sir.” she warbled. “And it’s not like him. Not like him at all. He never misses a meal! Breakfast, brunch, ...

  2020 was hard, 2021 was immeasurably worse, but 2022 nearly killed me (literally). A house fire, the deaths of my fur-babies, health problems forcing me to dropout of the MFA program I desperately wanted to do, and then, last but not least on the list of the universe beating the crap out of me, my mom passing away this past November.  I now find myself back in an MA program I hate while I look for a different one AND consider not getting an MA at all, and trying to sort out just about every aspect of my life. To reflect this, my word for 2023 is: EVOLVE And in as much as I am going through changes, so too will this blog evolve. I'd like to focus less on school and more on things I enjoy (like writing in general, including blogging). So, I would like to get more active on here (I know, I know - like I don't write that every other post). I would like to write more about writing and reading, but also expand to planning and productivity.  Deep breath ... fingers crossed .....