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Another week of unexpected online learning complete! Hopefully next week is the final online week, and then back to in-person to close out the year. That all depends on if the general population can get this current spike under control... and so far people in our province haven't shown that overall level of social consciousness. (Most people here really are trying to mind the needed restrictions. Unfortunately, "most" isn't enough lately.)
Springtime is super hard to stay focused on school under the best conditions, and at home with a backyard beckoning and the sun pouring through the windows is definitely not best conditions lol. It'll likely be harder next week once the kids are free of quarantine restrictions from being close contacts and we're able to go for walks and bike rides again. Friends, I am not strong enough to resist skipping an afternoon class session in favor of taking a bag of spinach over to the duck pond to bribe fuzzy ducklings closer. I remember Springtime in elementary school and, if I'd had the choice, the duck pond would have been my choice, too. No writing this week for me, but I did get to edit a little bit of the writing my kids are doing. It's very cool to see voice so strongly developed in my 9-year-old's writing, especially because her style is very consistent across her research projects and creative writing. She knows what she wants to say and the presentation is lovely to read. (Yes, of course there's parental bias, but her teachers praise her as well so I'm going to mom-brag a little.)
3-5
“Oh, hey, look at this,” Trevor called, grinning at Leo and pointing at the panel she’d just turned on. He came over for a quick glance on his way back to the handheld and stopped to stare.
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No writing for me this week, but lots of bleach-filled house cleaning planned for my today lol. With an added hope of making time for my physio exercises... I have no idea if my arms are going to hold out for the cleaning I need to do or if I'll have to break it out piecemeal over the weekend. (Because scrubbing bathrooms and extra laundry are super-fun day off activities, said no-one ever lol.)
I hope your week was less hectic and tiring than mine, and that you get to have a very lovely May weekend. :) 3-4
“I’m just making sure you remember,” Captain said, a grin pulling up the corner of her mouth.
“Oh please, Tallishen.” The image of the reports flicked away and Public Face’s holo was again standing in Captain’s private. “Do you really think it was a coincidence Dockland, with its antiquated and incorruptible connections to functioning pre-InsterStel satellites, was included in the exploration group for Daion worlds?”
Is "TGIF" still a thing? Am I carbon dating myself? Do I need to be worried about it, really, if I am? You all know at this point I'm not young, so I guess I'm good with self carbon dating lol. Happy Friday! And thank goodness it is!
It was a fairly good week. Testing out writing and editing sessions on short stories or in time-limited windows has been working okay this week. Frustrating, but working. I was able to inch ahead on some editing, draft up a short story, and then inch ahead on a bit more editing. At this point I really need a USB connection in my temple so I can plug in and think directly into my manuscripts and stories. Outside of writing, the kids finally broke me. My six-year-old was playing a Roblox game that was simply... happy. That's it. It's just a happy game. There's zero competition, players can go as fast or slow as they want, the levels are all fun and/or pretty to look at, and the controls are so easy that even my dinosaur-level brain could understand them. I'd been on the fence about making an account for a few games, but Be A Bee is the one that put me over. I have a Roblox account, now, and I'm not even sorry lol.
3-3
Captain was either still in the bridgeside or had gone back in there when she’d received their short report. Trevor and Leo waited impatiently, working hard to keep the sweep results from showing all over their faces as they were side-eyed by the rest of the bridge crew members on Captain’s shift. It wasn’t odd for people to come in to talk to Captain when they were off shift, but it wasn’t normal for them to come twice, not be requested as present by Captain and yet arriving at a run the second time, and then wait despite being told by lead crew members they wouldn’t be seen because Captain was having an important vid.
It's another Friday! We're here at the end of another week! Yay us! We all deserve our favorite cookies and most comfortable weekend clothes.
Not much new writing from me this week. I found a notebook from ten years ago which contained a few short stories I thought I'd typed up and then lost during multiple computer changes, but they were written longhand and waiting to be re-discovered. They're all typed up now! One needs polishing, another can be rewritten as a perfect intro for adding to a short story series I have going, and a different one is a fun idea I'll likely throw out into the wild for someone else to write. The last was a really abstract and pretty poem brimming with melancholy nostalgia, and I don't know what to do with it other than keep it to read every now and then. Probably it'll end up on my Wattpad lol. My big manuscript is suffering from too much story and not enough body-functional time to write it. My arms and hands simply will not allow extended keyboarding sessions right now, and dictation software doesn't work well for me (it fizzles my writing to speak because my voice takes me out of the story; I don't sound like my narrator). I'll have to figure out something, but until I do it looks like pain meds and short stories and sporadic editing sessions will be the way of writing for me.
3-2
“I never went to Academy, I’m not in any class, and shipside is its own caste.” Trevor’s voice was small. Leo scoffed a laugh and sat in the hard seat next to hers.
3-1
“Here we go,” Trevor said. She already had the system tuned to the satellites in Daion space and was keying in the final code needed to start the sweep.
“Oh, wow. You’re really good at this,” Leo complimented. He watched her fingers ticking quickly on the controls.
2-5
The hallway at the base of the wide ladder up to the bridge was lined with brightly lit privates, single work stations available for anyone to use, the broad windows into each giving the hall an illusion of being wider. Leo and Trevor stepped behind the thin transglass of the first empty one and rolled the hanging door closed. It was a neutral space to work in. Otherwise they’d have to go to one of their cabins and…
2-4
Leo looked at the screen in his hand, supposedly showing the latest scan he and Trevor had completed. He scrolled to the top of the report. It had the first date and time of being submitted to Captain, and the second date and time of having been submitted to Coalition Oversight.
There were a few happenings this week that seem – in hindsight – to have been Universe-given wake-up slaps to take care and provide self care. Not in a bad way, and thankfully not that hard, but still. Definitely a couple of brain dustings.
Last weekend was good. No big, extra chores and no extra outings. And that arm stretch I'd found was still helping reduce nerve pain in my left elbow to an amount letting me almost function normally, too. Then on Monday morning, only about an hour after drop-off, the school called and asked me to come pick up my 6 year old. She'd told her teacher she felt like throwing up, and the sweet lady who runs our school's front desk said my little one was pale and shaking. My youngest has been dealing with anxiety since the pandemic started (her teacher has been so amazing and understanding with the kids in her class), and Monday morning her anxiety monster got a hold of her and gave her a stomach-turning, heart-racing, tear-inducing attack in the middle of class. She was fine once we got home, and over the rest of the day we brain stormed some new coping skills which got teacher approval for becoming part of class. Things have been going pretty well for her for the rest of this week, and my youngest now has key word sentences and a comfort fidget. Total win! On Tuesday I was talking on the phone with my uncle, who also has chronic pain, and I realized (through a bit of nudging from him) that I don't have to "earn" feeling better. We have benefits right now through my husband's work and I can go for a physio treatment when my arms aren't working. I can also go for an extra chiropractor appointment to deal with the new issues my neck has given me during the past few months. I currently feel like I was beat up, due to going to both a physio and a chiro appointment one day apart, but feeling post-treatment "bruised" (because of muscle tension release) is a lot better than the nerve and muscle spasm pain.
So, because the Universe decided I needed these three reminders, please take this blog post as your reminder that self care isn't some big, grand thing. It can be discovering you have fifteen minutes of unexpected time to enjoy the first sips of your morning coffee and actually using those fifteen minutes to enjoy your coffee. It can be creating a free day by not filling up a day off with chores, or taking an extra day away from your regular duties to get all the chores done that have been piling up.
Self care can be giving yourself new coping strategies, remembering you can ask for help if you need to, reaching out to an understanding ear when there isn't help available, or binging your favorite shows or books for however many hours are needed until you can engage reality again. For me, whatever I can do across a moment to recharge my battery, accomplish in a day to refill my spoon count, and/or use in a heartbeat to balance out the dark monsters in my mind with some light, those are my best self care... as long as I remember to use them. (Reminder to self: use them!) I hope you have a good weekend! :) 2-3
Leo pushed back from his desk. He needed some air and his personal cabin had gotten very small during the research he’d been doing. The bland walls surrounding his desk and bed broke for the closed door to the main hall and then for the open door giving a view into his clean, the mirror above the sink taps reflecting clearly the nausea he was feeling. His name and Trevor’s were announced on the intercom before he had a chance to stand up, and the ship-wide message requested both of them to the bridgeside immediately.
It's going to be a short personal blurb today. The first reason is because writing is going well, but I can't share any of the things I want to gush about due to it all being in first draft condition and I refuse to subject you to anything before it's edited. And edited. And edited again. And that process repeated multiple times. Lol.
The second reason is because I've had eczema my entire life and currently the skin on a few of my fingertips is dry and cracked and typing hurts more that it should. I'll keep using my cortisone cream and have better fingers in a few days. Today, however, there is ouch and I don't want to suffer.
2-2
Content Warning: I know I said I'd do warnings for the big terror attack and the violence / injuries in this story, and those are still at a distance from now, but I feel there needs to be a warning here for the history of the Daions because of the plague and then mistreatment the survivors went through. These happenings are not presented as detailed accountings and this summary of the history in this story's universe forms part of its current politics. This warning is here so you know the flavor of this chapter.
Leo shut off his personal comp hours later. He’d been good at history, but the refresher he’d just given himself left a queasier feeling than he could attribute solely to the quickly eaten galley meal.
The last two worlds with signs of habitation Dockland had scanned were Daion worlds. The first was one of their historical First Landing Colonies, and this one Dockland was scanning right now – planet sixty-eight – had been a home world. Planet seventy-four had also been a Daion home world but, more than that, it had been their Central World.
It's Friday again! This week seems to have flown past, and been productive in spite of hours flipping by at what feels like an accelerated rate.
I finished the first draft of my sci-fi side story, picked at a few edits in my big manuscript, and not much else because my left elbow is still whingy and doesn't like too much typing. Thankfully a few of my physio exercises are specifically for releasing the nerves throughout the whole arm and I no longer have the extra stabby-stab of nerve pain now that the elbow is moving properly again. I've still been able to do my small cardio workouts despite the whingy elbow (with appropriate icing and stretches / physio exercises after). I do a half hour of Just Dance three times a week because, although I'm happy with my body shape and weight, the amount of loose jiggle I experience while doing basic activities is getting out of hand. For those of you confused that I have good self body image and knowing I have an eating disorder, my E.D. is (luckily) not tied to body image. Mine is tied to anxiety and control, which makes exercising a part of it. This means working out – for me – is pretty dangerous to my mental and physical health if I don't constantly monitor and check my activities (which personal history has proven becomes the mental load of a full time job). Activities I enjoy will auto-trigger an E.D. compulsion which spirals really fast into an unhealthy mental state and self-harm. (I have chronic injuries. Overdoing any activity can hurt me a lot, but controlling pain = control, and my E.D. is a control thing so... I hate my brain sometimes.)
I'm actually working out! The control trigger in my brain to DO MORE hasn't switched on automatically because I don't like the activity I'm doing for workouts. My fight against this part of my E.D. is rigged for me to succeed instead of it having the upper hand. It's a struggle, of course, but one I've set up so I can win in mentally and physically healthy ways. Plus, once I get bored in the game with one version's songs, there are so many more to get for new songs, and oodles of videos free on YouTube. (I do think the game needs to be rebranded as Just Tried to Kill Me through Musical Cardio, but only because I'm kinda old and kinda fat :D...). Working out is fun and I hate it. This is perfect for me!
Speaking of Friday cardio sessions, it's time for me to get to it. Today the kids don't have school so they'll likely sit on the couch and heckle me like the old men in the balcony on The Muppet Show. That's what they've done previously when they didn't have school and I did my Just Dance workouts. It's hilarious! Half my core workout today will come from laughing about their "critiques" while attempting to fling my limbs and groove my torso in a coordinated manner. I hope you're staying safe and well! Have a good weekend :) 2-1
Leo smiled at his smart. <I will definitely get back to you when I have a solid answer> he wrote, and then smirked as he deleted the last part to edit the message so it said <I will definitely get back to you when I have a hard answer> before sending it to Trevor.
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AManda FLIEDERA weekly blog updating on Fridays with quick personal blurbs about me, as in what's going on during my life as an Author and mom, and that doles out my short stories and novellas in bite-sized parts for everyone to read for free! Archives
July 2021
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