Happy Valentines Day...I mean Happy Thursday

Ahh, Valentines Day. That one day of the year that people rush to the local retailers to spend way too much money on flowers, candy, teddy bears and jewelry. That biggest day of the year for reservation-only restaurants. Touristy monuments like the Eifel tower and the Empire State Building - anywhere that someone can get a nice view and sweet memories- are visited in droves in hopes of a romantic gesture. The one day of the year in which I can take a walk and see men on bended knees, proffering jewel-encrusted rings, on every other corner. Because there is no other day of the year in which love and devotion and romance can be expressed...right?

Can you tell I don't buy into it?

Valentine's Day is not a 'holiday' that makes its way onto my radar as an adult. I hesitate to even use the word holiday to describe it. It's nothing more than a made-up holiday created for commercialization. With or without a SO, I never cared all that much about this most monetized of all US holidays.

That doesn't mean I don't have good memories of Valentines Day though. It means something completely different to me.

Notice that I did mention at one point that I don't care for it as an adult.

My siblings and I didn't have the healthiest childhoods. The quote Cherry Valance form S.E Hinton's book The Outsiders, 'Things are tough all over'. That's nothing new and neither here nor there. It's almost trendy these days to have had a 'hard childhood', even if for some that meant they didn't get the newest model of Iphone for Christmas when they were sixteen.

My point with this is that even when things are rough there are usually good things. Some of my favorite memories growing up was Valentine's Day is of my father coming home from work, either in the late evening or early morning depending on which point in time it was and which job/shift he was working, with small gifts for his five kids. Usually heart-shaped boxes with candy and a small stuffed animal. Sometimes he switched it up but the theme was always the same.

My various friends through the years didn't have fathers who did this. It felt special. Meaningful. It wasn't about getting the gifts so much as the gesture behind it. My father was not the type to hand out endearments and affection willy-nilly so the small gestures were what meant something. To this very day, Valentines Day remains a special day of the year that my dad thought about us when most men, on that day, are scrambling to meet a SO's gestures of romanticism.

The last Valentines Day I got that fatherly gesture was when I was fifteen.

I've heard it said, and believe, that not everyone who is in your life is meant to stay.

Fathers are.

My dad is not dead but he is lost to me. Not everyone makes a good parent or even wants to be one; some want to be to the point that they become almost a collector of families, in a sense, or feel that when they've screwed up badly enough with one they can scrap it like a failed experiment and try again with new subjects.

People aren't perfect and neither are lives.

But even when there is nothing else to hold onto, those types of memories are what can make me smile and remember fondly the years that had very little to be fond of.

These days, as a grown woman in my middle ages, my mom is still presenting her grown adult kids with little velvet flowers, tiny teddy bears and a handful of chocolate symbols of her love on Valentines Day, but it is just the garnish on her daily 'I love you' and frequent gestures.

Valentines Day is meaningless to me as the romanticized commercial holiday but that doesn't mean it has no meaning for me at all.

Stuck in a mystery

August 31, 2010 (originally posted on LiveJournal)



http://halfcent.livejournal.com/3843.html


Okay, for this post I had to just leave a link to the original on LiveJournal, because apparentl it's too big to 'load' onto blogger, and for some reason, blogger won't let me c&p.

Here's the overview- it's about a series of books I've been reading by Janet Evonovich. It's the Stephanie Plum numbers series.

A Nothing Day

August 27, 2010 (originally posted on LiveJournal)


Today has been a day of nothing. Slept late, sat around, didn't even write. Watched reruns of House and NCIS. Still need to do the laundry, but I'm catching myself wondering if I have just one more set of clothes hidden somewhere that can be scrounged up so I can put laundry off until tomorrow- again.
The answer to that question is depressing. Prognosis: I'd better do laundry TODAY.

I'm actually starting to get into a writing mood (after all, the perfect substitution for doing laundry, right?). Most likely I'll be getting to work soon, and will also work on it into the night, minus the laundry break in a couple of hours. I'm still inclined to concentrate on Little Boy Blue and it's going well, but I also need to get back to His Sister's Keeper. That one is actually posted, and I know I have readers waiting for it. I got a review just today, in fact.

Well, time to turn this nothing day into at least a little bit of something.

Now to go see if I can accomplish something so the day is not a total waste!

Meeting my goal for the week

August 26, 2010 (originally posted on LiveJournal)



Having fits with the internet connection but it's working for the time being. I'm meeting the writing goal I set for myself this week. Been concentrating on one story instead of altrnating, but I'm almost finished with my fifth chapter of this week.....the second since I posted last about wanting to finish at least two more chapters. In the last two days I've topped 4068 words on the two chapters, one of which I'm not actually finished with. Not totally impressive, but a good run for me since part of the time was taken up with working, then a few hours sleep, then an overnight clean fest. I feel like I've accomplished something with that total.

It sure beats the weeks I don't do any writing!

But beyond the past two days writing, my total for the week and all the cahps I've written this week: 9,015.

Still not an extremely impressive number for almost five chapters, but I'm satisfied with it. Some of the time was taken up with re-reading and editing the work, and the time and effort that takes can't be measured in numbers, yet it's completely necessary.

Here's to hoping the internet continues to hold out! I think I'll start posting some of the chapters Of Little Boy Blue on my Halfcent's site, maybe tonight or tomorrow. It's kind of a test to determine the traffic and readership to the site, which I'm sure is nothing, but maybe posting my fics there before the ff sites will draw some of my readers there.

We shall see, I suppose!"

Today's Productivity

August 23, 2010 (Originally posted on LiveJournal)


Unfortunately I haven't been very productive today, writing-wise (or anything else-wise!). I actually got no writing done today at all, and that was after churning out three consecutive chapters yesterday on Little Boy Blue, one of the Moonlight fics in progress. I'm in the process of chapter five, but didn't get to it today. Since I've got to work tomorrow, it's likely I might not then either, but who knows. I tend to do most of my writing late in the evening, at night, and the wee hours of the morning. The later hours tomorrow might still hold some suprises for me.

I've decided that if I get a couple more chapters written this week (and it looks promising because this is only Tuesday), then I will post a teaser chapter here and on my writing site www.halfcentsplace.weebly.com

Maybe on the fiction sites, as well, but I really don't want to start posting there until I'm ready to do it regularly, and that will be after I've finished completely. That said, I really do need to be working on His Sister's Keeper, the NCIS fic I've had in progress for way too long and not posting on anywhere near often enough.

Today

Unfortunately I haven't been very productive today, writing-wise (or anything else-wise!). I actually got no writing done today at all, and that was after churning out three consecutive chapters yesterday on Little Boy Blue, one of the Moonlight fics in progress. I'm in the process of chapter five, but didn't get to it today. Since I've got to work tomorrow, it's likely I might not then either, but who knows. I tend to do most of my writing late in the evening, at night, and the wee hours of the morning. The later hours tomorrow might still hold some suprises for me.

I've decided that if I get a couple more chapters written this week (and it looks promising because this is only Tuesday), then I will post a teaser chapter here and on my writing site www.halfcentsplace.weebly.com

Maybe on the fiction sites, as well, but I really don't want to start posting there until I'm ready to do it regularly, and that will be after I've finished completely. That said, I really do need to be working on His Sister's Keeper, the NCIS fic I've had in progress for way too long and not posting on anywhere near often enough.

Uh Oh!

Okay, here's the thing......It's been a long time since I posted on my blogs! Too long, I guess. I've recently re-started regular posting on my LiveJournal, but the blogs have been slipping my mind. Sooooo.......

I'm gonna do something crazy. Since I just go back to regular posting on LiveJournal recenty, I don't have that many. I'm going to post all of them on my blogs right now to catch up. I'll put the date above them (so ignore the automated date on those that have another one in the subject line and heading) to indicate the day it was originally posted (on LiveJournal). I have no idea why I'm doing this, since I'm fairly confident that no one is reading this, but it will make me feel like I've done something. Not every blog I write is in LiveJournal, because my LiveJournl account is predominantly about writing and such, but I have no problem putting the LiveJournal stuff in my blogs, since I don't always have something to blog about.