A D.S. Williams Book Review

Her Dear and Loving Husband by Meredith Allard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one just didn’t do it for me, I’m afraid. I got to about 30 percent through and just didn’t feel like it was going anywhere in a hurry. I definitely got the message that the main male protagonist was handsome – very handsome – he’s handsome – so handsome, because that description got repeated numerous times. And while I enjoy a good scene setting, this one reads more like a Google maps app, with multiple references to walking in Salem and giving a rundown of each street name and what street it leads into, and what tourist attractions are on which street. Just not for me, I’m afraid.



View all my reviews

Sneaky Preview Day

I’m nearing the end of my current Work-in-Progress, and I thought now might be a good time to share a sneak peak of what’s coming. This novel is written under my pseudonym, Leah Dempster, so it’s a little bit racier than my D.S. Williams novels. Keep in mind that this is the first draft – there’s likely to be lots of changes before publishing 😉

Prologue:

“There’s a new girl in town.”

Jeb McMasters looked up from his laptop, eyeing his brother suspiciously.  “Now, why the hell would that be interesting to me?” he growled.

Grey’s blue eyes twinkled with mischief as he regarded his oh-so-serious older brother.  He had a feeling this news would be enough to shake up Jeb’s ordered and safe little world, a world he’d isolated himself in for nearly six months, ever since he returned from rehab.  Battered and broken, Jeb had closed in on himself, a situation exacerbated when his fiancée broke off their engagement, just weeks after his return.  Hell, he hadn’t even been transferred from the hospital to the rehab facility before Crystal stuck the knife in, announcing she wouldn’t marry a cripple.

Grey’s blood still boiled whenever he thought about how badly she’d hurt Jeb. He’d put on a brave front, a tough exterior for the outside world, but Grey knew he was hurting.

“You gonna tell me why you interrupted me?  I’ve got to get back to work,” Jeb announced.  He made a show of ignoring his brother, turning his attention back to the computer screen.

Grey strolled further into the room, his gaze flicking over the neat desk, the paperwork lined up with strategic precision.  He looked down at his older brother, ignoring the chilly stare from eyes as blue as his own.  He wanted to be close enough to enjoy the reaction his news was about to create.  “Mikayla Odell is back in Rock Ridge Hollow.  Word is, she’s here to stay.”

Grey had the satisfaction of seeing the color drain from Jeb’s face.

Chapter One:

Jeb was sitting out on the porch, drinking a beer and watching the night sky.  Usually, he found some sense of peace in these quiet hours of the early evening.  Cicadas chirruped their evening song, and the horses could be heard out in the pasture, whinnying softly to one another as they made their way from one tasty patch of grass to the next.

Tonight, Jeb was finding peace elusive.

Mikayla Odell.  Hell.  He hadn’t heard that name in… what?  It must be ten years.  She was the last woman he and—

Jeb lifted the beer to his lips, taking a long swig and mentally shaking himself.  No point dredging up the past.  It was all water under the bridge now.  Mikayla was part of his history – ancient history.  He’d lived a lifetime since, his choices bringing him to this point.  Unwillingly, his gaze was drawn to his denim-clad legs.  He preferred this time of the day, when his useless legs were gradually hidden by the darkening shadows.  For what must have been the thousandth time since his return from Kabul eight months ago, he focused on his thighs… his calves… his ankles… his toes.  Desperate to feel something – anything, which might suggest he would regain the use of his legs.

Nothing.  There was nothing.  Not a twinge, not a spasm – nothing that resembled what the doctors had said would happen if he was going to get sensation back.  The memory of Crystal breaking up with him, the way she’d avoided his gaze – even now, after seven long months it cut him to the core.

“Need another beer?”  Grey pushed open the screen door, two longnecks dangling between his fingers.

Jeb nodded, draining the last of his beer and placing the empty bottle down beside the wheelchair.

Grey handed him a beer before he leaned up against the porch.  They both sipped their drinks, Jeb focused on the blaze of stars appearing across the horizon, Grey watching the flickering television screen visible through the living room window.

“Anything in particular need doing tomorrow?” Grey questioned.

“We need to get ahold of Newt Thornton, have a chat about borrowing his stallion.  Those mares will be ready in another couple of weeks, and you know what Newt’s like about negotiating deals.”

Grey grinned and nodded.  “I’m guessing you’re going to handle that phone call?”

Jeb nodded, slugging back a mouthful of beer.  “About the only useful thing I can do nowadays.”  He tried, and failed, to hide the bitterness in his tone.

Grey straightened up, placing his bottle on the railing.  “Y’know, I’ve still got the details for those saddles and the—”

Jeb shook his head.  “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Grey inhaled sharply, letting the air whoosh out slowly between his lips.  “Jeb, don’t you think it’s time to start whittling away at that chip on your shoulder?”

Jeb remained stubbornly silent.  Yeah, he was struggling with what he’d lost, but hell, who wouldn’t?  He’d had all the therapy he could stomach, lost hope of living his life like a normal man.  He was surviving from day to day, doing what he could, trying not to think about what he couldn’t.

Except sometimes, he couldn’t stop the yearning, the desire to regain what he’d lost.  Hell, he’d love nothing better than to get up into the saddle, get up on Gandry’s back and ride across the land as he’d used to, before he’d gone overseas with the army.  Before the IED had taken the lives of four of his team, and the use of his legs.

Shit.  He’d been lucky, all things considered, and he tried to remember that.  He’d come home.  He was sitting on his ranch in Montana, enjoying a beer at the end of the day.  He hadn’t died out there in that hot, dry hellhole.  He was alive.

His attention was drawn back to Grey, who had leaned forward and was waving his hand in front of Jeb’s face.  “What?” he snapped.

“You were miles away, man,” Grey remarked.

“I was tuning out your lecture,” Jeb muttered.  “Unless you wanna talk about what needs doing tomorrow, you might as well go watch TV.”

Grey drained his beer, taking his time before he responded.  Jeb didn’t like it – usually it meant Grey had something on his mind, something he wanted to talk about, but he was hesitating because he didn’t know how Jeb would react.

Jeb couldn’t blame him. He knew he’d been surly and difficult to live with since he’d come home, but it didn’t make him any more comfortable, waiting for Grey to break the protracted silence.  “Spit it out,” he finally demanded.  “You’ve obviously got something on your mind.”

“Mikayla.  I’m thinkin’ about heading into town to see her.  Thought I’d be neighborly, welcome her back to Rock Ridge.”

Jeb was stunned, taking nearly a full minute to respond.  When he did, he couldn’t keep disbelief from coloring his response.  “You’re kidding, right?  You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea?”

Grey shrugged, seeming unaffected by Jeb’s derision.  “A decade’s a long time, Jeb.”

“Don’t you remember?  She left, Grey!  Skipped town like a bat out of hell,” Jeb protested angrily.  “What makes you think she’ll have anything to say to you? To me?”

“Aren’t you at least curious?” Grey asked, tapping his thumb against his empty beer bottle.  “Wouldn’t you like to see her again, discover what brings her home?”

Jeb unlocked the brake on his wheelchair, knocking the empty beer bottle over in his haste, but he was too agitated to worry about it as it rolled noisily across the wooden porch.  “No, Grey, I don’t want to see her, and I’m not fucking interested in why she’s come back.  Mikayla Odell means nothing to me.  Goodnight.”  Jeb yanked open the screen door, guiding his wheelchair inside in a smooth, well-practiced maneuver and the screen door slammed soundly behind him.

And Just When I Thought It Was Safe…

I started of 2023 with all good intentions, and thought we had a reasonably good chance of this year – 2023 – being a little less stressful than the last one.

If you’ll recall, 2022 was filled with a couple of big issues, and some little ones – all of which totalled up to mean the year didn’t go the way we planned. Planned renovations got pushed to the backburner, things didn’t work out quite the way we’d hoped, and for the most part, we stumbled through the year lurching from one catastrophe to the next.

And don’t get me wrong, I am eternally grateful that our catastrophes were painful, and awkward, and frustrating, but we were still much luckier than most.

Consequently, as I talked about in my last post, we started off 2023 hoping for a better, less stressful year. Which lasted for approximately five minutes before things started to get pear-shaped. First of all, my dearest SIL’s Mum passed away on New Years Day, not an auspicious start.

Then, there was that pesky hamstring tear in early December – the one I got when I went off adventuring on my own for the first time in ages. With one thing and another (Christmas, SIL’s Mum, a dose of COVID for the DH and the Bonza Babe and my beloved GP heading off on holidays) I didn’t go back for my follow-up appointment to discover the results of my scans until last Thursday.

Now keep in mind here, that while it’s still causing me some grief, it’s not particularly painful. I’m still relying on a crutch a lot of the time, but that’s more because I’m a bit nervous about giving it another yank because I never – ever – want to feel that sort of pain again and the grounds around our house, Wilyerup are notoriously treacherous to walk on. And to top off all that, the DH’s physio had told him that generally, they don’t both do surgery for hamstring injuries in people of ‘our age’.

Imagine my surprise when I rocked up at the beloved GP’s office, and lo and behold, she wants me to have an MRI, because the tear in my hamstring is nearly 5cm x 4cm x 1cm… and is unlikely to heal on it’s own. So color me delighted, because now I’m off to the Orthopaedic Surgeon to discuss what will be required to fix my hamstring and the recovery time will likely be counted in months, rather than days.

And that’s only the beginning of things which could go wrong in 2023. Because the DH, who was medically discharged from the Air Force back in 2020 had his own results to get from the beloved GP. Turns out that he is looking at the possibility of up to THREE surgeries this year. The two definites are his shoulders, to fix degradation resulting from years of pushing open hangar doors and lifting heavy stuff at work. The other, more serious one will be decided once he’s had some treatment next week – he has a lot of degradation in his upper cervical spine that in all probability will need surgery, but we’re going to try cortisone injections first.

Which means a couple of things going forward. For starters, we were off up to Perth this coming weekend for a 48 hour trip to celebrate the birthdays of the Bonza Babe, Son #1 and Son #2. Living in the country, its sometimes quicker to get medical issues dealt with in the big smoke, so our 48 hour trip has been extended out to nearly a fortnight so that the scans and the injections can get done in a timely manner.

And the DH and I are in negotiations regarding just what renovations will get done at Wilyerup this year – because our original plans have most definitely fallen by the wayside. But I’m hoping against hope that the shed (which we’ve had since mid 2020) might be the one plan that comes to fruition this year!

And moving forward, my New Years Resolution for 2024 is going to be that there will be no New Years Resolutions!

Some Thoughts on the way to a New Year

Like many people, my 2022 was less than stellar. Fortunately, it wasn’t major, life-altering events, although my son’s two reasonably serious accidents were enough to add a few grey hairs to my head. (Didn’t have the same effect on my DH, who is practically bald anyway, but he certainly experienced plenty of stress.)

We certainly experienced our fair share of financial issues, although unlike many we were fortunate to get through them relatively debt-free. The renovations to our grand old dame of a house, ‘Wilyerup’ have certainly needed to be put on the backburner however.

As I said, we were among the lucky ones. Rather than life altering disasters on an epic scale, we were hit with regular and constant issues which drain the bank balance and had a detrimental effect on my mental health. We lost a treasured pet, the car shat itself to the tune of an almost $4000 bill, as mentioned Son #3 had a serious workplace accident, followed up six months later with a serious home-based accident, which saw him miss work for nearly the entirety of 2022. Son # 2 had some issues of his own, including a brush with the Black Dog, and some ups and downs with his workplace due to other health issues.

With one thing and another (and I’m not going to get into them all here) every month of 2022 held some new disaster, some new mess to sort out, some new issue which needed addressing. It meant that there wasn’t a time during our year when we weren’t under some sort of strain, some mental or physical issue which needed addressing.

To put it bluntly, it sucked.

But it didn’t suck anywhere near as much as many other people’s experiences in the past twelve months and for that, I’m grateful.

So now we face a new year, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a wee bit anxious about what it might entail, but one of the things I’m going to try to leave behind me is guilt, and worry about other people’s opinions of me. I’ve carried that shit along for far too long, and it weighs me down in so many ways that I need to find a way to offload it.

Relationships with my family are fractured, and I suspect now that they always will be. I can’t fix the relationships, not alone, and without help from those who feel I’ve somehow wronged them, there’s no way to heal the rifts. I made choices in my life regarding my mother which were the right decisions for me. They were very clearly the wrong decisions in the eyes of some of my family members, but I’m trying to accept that this is okay. This is their truth. Not mine.

I can’t fix what they see as wrong. I can’t be what they want me to be. I am who I am, and while that’s not always something I’m proud of, I’m learning to accept the truth of who I am, and I’m (almost) okay with that. I don’t need negativity in my life, I don’t need to carry the weight of other people’s opinions of me.

I am enough.

And in 2023, I hope to reaffirm this truth and spend less time fretting over those that would cut me from their lives without discussion or the opportunity to give and take. Those that would refuse to talk about things, but use passive aggressive wording to confirm they blame me for past events.

I won’t try and fight against the flow of the water any longer. I’m going to face each new challenge with hope in my heart and reminding myself that others have had it worse.

And with any luck, I’ll find some time in there for my passion, and write a few new books along the way.

Thoughts on a Movie…

This afternoon, for the first time in my life I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ – a movie which has been on my radar for many years, but somehow I’d never gotten around to watching it.

By Designed by Macario Gómez Quibus. “© Shamley Productions, Inc.”

Filmed in 1960, some five years before my arrival on the planet, I’d gotten it built up into a huge horror/fright film – that music was what always got me, made me think I’d never sleep again if I watched it.

Turns out I was wrong.

While the movie is suspenseful, and the scene in the shower was well thought out and did have a little bit of a fear factor, sixty-odd years later it’s more ‘boo’ than ‘BOO’.

I think the movie did have factors which made it quite modern for the era, not least of which was the visual of a flushing toilet. I read somewhere that this was the first time a toilet had ever been seen in a feature film or television program. In this day and age, that sort of record seems to beggar belief as we all know and use toilets every single day and there’s no sense of it being impolite or in any way disgraceful to talk about them, see them, or mention them. But in 1960, it was.

There are other things in the movie which struck me as quite forward-thinking for the era, not least of which showing Janet Leigh not just once but twice, in her bra and slip (does anyone even wear a ‘slip’ now?) seemed a little risqué for the times. Add to that the motel bedroom scene with Janet Leigh and her hardware store owning boyfriend (played by John Gavin) which must also have been seen as fairly risqué as the world entered the sixties and you have a movie which I think was probably well before its time in breaking some barriers.

Was it scary? No. Not even the slash/slash/slash bathroom scene with that music which is so indoctrinated into our psyches could make the scene scary on a comparison scale between 1960 and 2022. We’re used to bigger scares, larger thrills, and I think overall we’re less easily freaked out by things.

But was the movie worth watching? Oh, absolutely. Just to see the nuances of the actors, the fashions, the vehicles, the behaviour of the characters and how they interrelated with one another – the morals, the manners, the trip back in time to six decades ago – even watching it all in black and white was an experience in itself and one I am glad I did. I’ll probably never watch it again ( I think, much like The Sixth Sense, once you’ve seen it, you’re spoiled for ever watching it again), but I’m certainly the better for having ticked it off my list.

Dropping By To Say Hi…

I’m the first to admit. I’m a terrible blogger. It seems the older I get, the worse I am at this promotion malarkey.

2022 has been particularly tricky, because straight out of the blocks in January, Son #3 had a workplace accident, cutting straight through a nerve in his calf and losing all function in his right foot. Cue his parents heading up to Perth for umpteen weeks to provide nursing while he recovered, and making sure he got to all the appointments he had to attend for medical treatment, assessments, physio and whatever else needed to happen. Fortunately, six months down the track he is almost (almost!!) ready to return to work.

Son #3 and his sister, The Bonza Babe

To add insult to injury, being in Perth meant absolutely nothing was getting done down here in Bridgetown – remember how we bought that old house (built in 1904) which had bucketloads of work to be done to it, and we took it on as a project now that the DH has retired from the Air Force? Yep, that’s the one. And it’s now nearly two years since we moved in and we are yet to get the new shed up that we bought just before we moved in. Bridgetown is a lovely place to live, but the weather in winter is not particularly helpful for working on outside projects (it’s actually known as ‘Fridgetown’ during the winter months).

And then, not too long after we got back to Bridgetown, we were devastated to lose Angus McFangus, who crossed Rainbow Bridge at the grand old age of 13. He was such a character, and we were so sad to say goodbye to him.

Angus McFangus

Now the thing about losing Angus, was that up until his death, we had never NOT had a dog in 32 years. We’ve always tended to have a puppy and a middle aged dog, so that as the years pass we always have a younger dog bringing up the rearguard and are never completely dog-free. After McFangus left us, both the DH, the Bonza Babe and myself were like lost souls and we quickly found ourselves two new furry friends, a rescue Cane Corso X who has been named Mollie, and a sixteen week old American Staffy X who belongs to the Bonza Babe and is named Stanley.

Mollie

Stanley

These two have been our saviours since McFangus’s death, and they’re both beginning to reveal particularly entertaining personalities as they settle in here at Wilyerup. Mollie especially is proving to be a joy, because she has quite a vivacious personality now that she’s comfortable enough to reveal it and it’s delightful because she’s a rescue who has a very sketchy background and suffered a lot of abuse. She loves cuddles and kisses, and is quite OCD about the way things should ‘be’ in her life, but that’s okay and we’re learning to work around her little habits. Stanley (AKA ‘The Fluffy Muppet’) is growing like a weed, absolutely loves chewing and digging, and generally runs amok for quite a bit of the day. It’s a good thing cuteness makes up for his behaviour sometimes.

So that’s the first six months of the year done and dusted, with hardly any progress at all – but I did (finally, finally, FINALLY) finish ‘The Seven Sentinels of Camelot – Carnell’ – the first book in a new series. It’s currently with my editing SIL and my good friend Ange, who are giving it a thorough go-over before I hand it in to my publisher. It took a long time to get this one written, but as always there are hiccups with mental health and sometimes, life just gets in the way no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

So that’s a rundown of the first half of 2022. I’m hoping that the second half will have less drama, and much more writing. And maybe even a few more posts over here…

Book Review – Soulbound by Bethany Adams

Synopsis:

A deathbed promise

Arlyn’s quest is simple: Find her father and let him know her mother is dead. After all, Arlyn had promised her mother she’d go. The problem? Her father’s people are myths and legends, and he doesn’t even live on Earth. But despite a long journey through the mysterious mists of the Veil, finding him turns out to be the easy part.

A dream long-buried

After five hundred years, Kai has given up on finding his soulbonded. So when he stumbles across Arlyn after returning from his latest mission and recognizes her as his mate, Kai starts their bond in haste. But he never could have imagined that his bonded is his best friend’s newfound daughter. Whoops.

A hidden conspiracy sparked to life

Though the sight of Kai makes Arlyn’s heart pound, she isn’t sure she can forgive him for starting their bond without her permission. But her love life is the least of her problems. Her father is an elf lord, and his sudden acknowledgment of a half-human heir reignites the same conspiracy that took him away from her mother in the first place. Now Arlyn and her family must face iron wielding assassins, bigotry, and her newly awakened magical abilities if they hope to come through in one piece.

Arlyn thought she would return to Earth after meeting her father. Now she must fight to save the family she never knew she wanted.

D.S. Williams Review:

This was a well written, well thought out book, the characters were extremely likeable and the author has brought a world to life in an imaginative way.

The good – the nice characters were well written, and there was enough color in the telling to allow the reader to see their foibles, and what made them who they were.

The bad – in my opinion, the ‘bad guy’ was a little too contrived, and the back story as to why he was bad and what had caused his behaviour seemed a little forced and perhaps made him somewhat hollow. The reasoning for why his son had not done anything to stop him, despite knowing what he was planning, rang a little hollow for me and I found myself thinking that it wasn’t making sense.

Overall, a good read, and one that ultimately I would recommend. Will I read the rest of the series? I think I’m hooked enough to want to give the second book a try, but I’ll probably judge each book on merit for the above reasons. For me, there has to be sense in the antagonist’s actions, and I’m not quite certain that sense is there at the end of book one for me.

Book Review – The Arrangements Boxed Set 1-3

Synopsis:

Book 1: The Final Arrangement

The Vulture is dead. The body of Quincy McKay’s nemesis and biggest competitor in the floral business has just been discovered in a casket at the mortuary, complete with flowers on the lid. Armed with only her Zombie delivery van, good intentions, and the business card of a handsome cop named Alex, she must find the killer, save the flower shop, and keep from ending up in the next casket. If she can dodge burning bushes, the plague of a polygamist ex, and her mother’s Mormon Mafia Spy Network, her life with Alex and her shop could become the perfect arrangement.

Book 2: Deadly Arrangements

All florist Quincy McKay wants is success in business, a happy family and the perfect romance with Alex Cooper, the hottest cop in the state. Not necessarily in that order, of course. Is that so much to ask? The trouble is, between Alex’s job and planning weddings, it’s getting harder and harder for Quincy and Alex to find any time to themselves. Every time the flames of passion ignite between them, someone or something shows up to fizzle the fire, including her meddling mother, her formerly absent father and even Elma, the handsiest waitress in the West. Wedded bliss is contagious in small town Hillside. Should be great news for Quincy, except that one groom is missing and another is the prime suspect. Hard for a florist to make a living that way, and even harder for her to stay out of the investigation, especially when the suspect is her sidekick, K.C.’s fiancé. Just when she thinks nothing else could go wrong, a ghost from Alex’s past comes back to haunt them both, which could keep them apart forever, if someone doesn’t kill Quincy first. She’s stumbled into the clues to solve the case of the missing groom and finds a corpse as well, proving that planning a wedding can literally be murder.

A Christmas Arrangement

It’s Christmastime in Hillside, but there’s a lack of holiday spirit for flower shop owner Quincy McKay. She’s in charge of the town festival and her shop’s open house, but her Santa’s a no-show and her flower cooler is on the fritz. To make matters worse, she’s learned her ex-husband isn’t as ex as she’d thought. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, her boyfriend, hot cop Alex Cooper announces his parents are coming to town. Alex Cooper is the perfect man in Quincy’s book, but unfortunately his mother thinks so too. And no woman is perfect enough for her perfect son, but especially not the weird flower shop girl who works too much, can’t cook and who she catches kissing another man in the department store. And what’s this she hears about Quincy being married? Eleanor Cooper must help her son dodge a bullet (and not the kind from his job) during the romantic holiday season to prevent him from being ensnared in a regrettable relationship. Quincy’s dignity (of which lately she’s in short supply), her reputation, and every business in town are riding upon the success of the city’s Christmas celebration. If she can figure out a way to make it work despite failing equipment, helpers dropping out of the picture as fast as snowflakes in a blizzard, a troubling and inappropriate Secret Santa, and the possibility of arrest, she might win the respect of everyone in the town, but more importantly, Alex’s parents

D.S. Williams Review:

This boxed set by Annie Adams was entertaining, although in some places it did feel as if the ‘quirkiness’ of the characters was being hammered home a little to hard. I liked the main character, Quincy, but there were some times when I wanted to smack her around a little bit because she became overly frustrating. This boxed set includes three books, with the third one, centered around Christmas, being the weakest in regard to storyline.
The characters were numerous, and in that regard it was sometimes a little hard to keep up with who was who, especially in the first book when we’re meeting the characters all at the same time. I found by the third book it was less difficult to keep up with.
Overall, an enjoyable read, although certainly not something which will stretch the little gray cells overtly. There are some typos in the third book, but I didn’t see much wrong in the first two. I would consider reading more from this author.

It All Started with a House…

Early in 2019, about five minutes after the Department of Defence sent my Air Force hubby and myself over to the other side of the country on a posting, they decided (in their wisdom) that the DH had reached his use-by date and he needed to be medically discharged after thirty years of service.

Now this wasn’t necessarily bad news – the Department of Defence look after their members and in the DH’s case, that meant he would be retiring… just a decade earlier than we had envisaged.

And in other great news, it meant we were moving back across the country to where seventy-five percent of the Gang of Four were still living. (And I had missed them, so very much while we were away!)

Moving back to Western Australia at the beginning of the COVID juggernaut meant we had to hang around for six months figuring out our next move. We had plans to move down south of Perth, to an area we had come to love during our visits with BIL and SIL in Nyamup. Along the way, we kept driving through a little town called Bridgetown, and the drive through the main street always had me thinking about moving there. With six months to fill in, we had plenty of time to consider our options and after mulling over things, we started to study properties.

It was round about then, that I saw this little place – built in 1904, it was quirky enough to amuse me and with half an acre of land and a jumble of sheds and gardens in need of work/restoration, not to mention an interior which was renovated in a half-hearted manner by its current owners – it meant there was plenty of little jobs to keep the DH gainfully employed for quite a while. (And if you knew my darling husband, you’d realize how important it is to have some jobs for him to do – despite his medical discharge, he’s not the kind of guy who sits around.)

What has followed has been nearly nine months of busy-ness – and is one of the reasons I haven’t been writing much. For starters, the vast majority of the interior was painted in colors I hated (particularly the sky-blue which was everywhere). Secondly, there wasn’t a single matching door knob in the house – not good for an obsessive compulsive loon like me.

It’s also meant that while already struggling with writer’s block brought on by all the upheaval of the past couple of years, that block has been further compounded by the upheaval of moving in and commencing the restoration of our ‘grand old dame’.

Somehow though, despite the writer’s block I’m dealing with – the characters who roam around the superhighways in my mind haven’t got the message that we’re on a hiatus. So at any given minute of the day, I have characters popping up and giving me a heads up on their plans for their stories to be heard, and they keep on bombarding me with little ‘bites’ of information. Not enough to nudge the writer’s block out of the way, but enough that I’m considering it a positive start.

Now if I can just get rid of the sky blue paint around the place, I might be on the road to writing something useful…

Hallelujah! we’ve kissed goodbye to 2020.

Oh my goodness, I’m glad to see the back of 2020. This was a year that wasn’t particularly kind to any of us, although we here in Australia have gotten off lightly in regard to COVID-19 – certainly when compared to our fellow humans in the United States and many other countries around the world.

Sadly, at this early stage of the year, it seems as if 2021 is not going to be much better, and I’ve been keeping up with the news regarding the terrible situation currently playing itself out in Washington and finding in myself a sense of disbelief over what I’m seeing and hearing.

But I digress. I’m not a lover of resolutions – don’t get me wrong, over the years I’ve made dozens of them, and in some cases, I’ve actually managed keep them, at least until near the end of January.

In recent years though, I’ve started being a bit kinder to myself, and I no longer commit to ridiculous promises to myself to behave in a certain way, or suddenly turn over a new leaf in regards to things I will or won’t do in the upcoming year. In fact, this is my current pegboard, which went up a couple of days ago.

So in the spirit of ‘casual promises to myself that I’m under no obligation to fulfil’ – here’s this years non-resolutions.

1. Be kind to myself. Don’t focus on the negatives. Look for positives that will lead me to liking myself, if only just a little bit more.
2. Write – for myself. Don’t worry about whether it’s good or not, or whether anyone would be interested in reading it. Write the story, enjoy the process and to hell with whether it meets anyone’s expectations. The only expectations which matter are mine.
3. Try new things. I realized late last year (in that hideous 365 days known as 2020) that I tend to avoid things edible and otherwise, because I’m under the assumption I won’t like them. This year I’m going to choose the item on the menu I haven’t tried before, taste the flavors I’ve only assumed I won’t like. I’m going to use the items I’ve been ‘saving’ and write in the notebooks I’ve been hoarding. I’m going to visit places I’ve been too anxiety-prone to go and I’m going to try and focus on the positive and push away the negatives.

And hopefully, there’s some room for improvement in the remainder of this new year…