Tag: observations

Posted on by — Leave a comment

trusting the universe to deliver

Sometimes, just when you think you have it all figured out, life comes along and delivers a solid punch right to the gut.  That was my life this week.  I’d just gotten a nice raise.  I had my budget for the next six months sorted, giving me all the spending money I would need for my planned vacations.

Then, out of nowhere, my company was hit with a financial blow and in order to survive it, they needed to make some hard decisions.  I was one of quite a number of people who were let go…laid off.  Unfortunately, the technical writer is always one of the first positions on the chopping block.

I’ve been here before.  In fact, I’ve been laid off of every job I’ve had since I left El Paso, Texas in 1999.  Of course, I get asked at times like these why I don’t pursue any of my other skill sets, since writers get the brunt.

I do have other skill sets.  I’m a good manager, of both projects and people.  I could brush up my rusty data analysis skills.  I could upgrade any of a number of skills.  But, writing and editing makes me the happiest me I can be.  Writing and editing is where my heart beats, and it always will be.

So, I’m on to the next opportunity, with a hope that it is at least half as great as the last one.  It’s a pretty good market right now, so I’m not overly worried.  I fielded a ridiculous number of recruiter calls yesterday, though most of them were for contract jobs in locations that I can not, in good conscience, commute to.  Driving anywhere during rush hour here in the San Francisco Bay Area is nuts, let alone to a job on the other side of the bay and south of me.

Today I am not going to worry.  I’m going to focus on the editing work I have in front of me, and maybe indulge in some Star Wars movies.  My next thing is out there.  I trust the universe to deliver it.

Happy Saturday, Readers!

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Beltane blessings

Today is the first day of May.  May Day.  Beltane.  It is a holy day of promise for the future, a day of planting seeds for the harvest to come.

This is a day that celebrates spring, when the youngest flowers bloom and the air is filled with the light fragrance that whispers of the summer that is just around the corner.

And yes, it is a day closely associated with fertility.  In some Pagan traditions it is celebrated with bawdy tales of trysts in the woods between willing partners, or with drinking and feasting and ritualized representation of the sex act.

All of that is to remind us that this is the time when Mother Earth is her most fertile, when she is waiting for us to run our plow into her and deposit our seed into her soil, so that she may nurture and grow it to provide for our sustenance in the long months of winter.

So, blessings you, Readers, if you celebrate…and if you don’t.  Happy Wednesday either way!  May your planting find fertile ground so that the harvest is plentiful!

Want more from me? Visit me!

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

 

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

kindness matters

I was reminded this morning that kindness changes people.  I was already in a pretty good mood as I set out for work this morning…it’s warm enough to not need a jacket, the sun was starting to rise, and I took some time to make myself feel pretty this morning (I put on makeup).

As I reached the BART station, a woman stopped me to tell me how she liked the color of my hair.  I thanked her, and said something nice about her gorgeous red hair and she called me pretty.

It’s been a long time since someone called me pretty.  It felt so nice!  I was grinning as I got on the escalator and headed up to the platform.  As the regulars showed up, I got more compliments, on my jewelry, on my dress…and by the time the train showed up, I was practically glowing.

I didn’t even mind that my feet were bothering me or that my back and knees were complaining.  As I sit here at my desk at work with my first cup of coffee and a to do list 3 miles long, I’m still feeling all warm inside.

It’s the little things, a heartfelt compliment can make a person’s day, change hearts, I’d go so far as to say it saves lives, but I don’t want to be overly dramatic.  Just remember, Readers, kindness matters.  Every day, every hour, every minute.  In all things, be kind.

We can’t know what someone else is going through, what burdens they carry, what hell they’re walking through…take the moment to be kind, because it costs you nothing and as the image above says, kindness is magic.

Wave that wand around, sprinkle that magic over everyone and everything.  Think of it was glitter for the soul.

 

Want more from me? Visit me!

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

 

Photo by Robert Baker on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

to boldly go…

Among my earliest memories, there is Star Trek, you know, the original series that started the phenomenon.  I couldn’t tell you how old I was, but I can tell you about the ugly brown couch with the weird texture that we sat on to watch it, and that I watched it with my father.

I know it came before Star Wars, which came along when I was nine, and I know that it started my love of sci-fi, and more than that, my love of space.

The only thing that kept me from pursuing a life in the sciences was my extreme hatred of math, and the more advanced the math, the more I disliked it. So, I opted toward the science fiction side of space.

But, things like this…this image of a black hole a ridiculous distance from earth…a beautiful, amazing image that took a team of scientists working together for years…things like this make me dream of a different life a little bit.

katie-boumanAnd then there’s this picture of Katie Bouman, one of the scientists on the project as she sees all of that work coming to fruition.  Look at the joy and wonder on her face.  That is the face of someone who loves her work, who has passion for her work and is genuinely in awe of the universe at her fingertips.

Of course there are trolls out there set to destroy the legacy Katie’s accomplishments for little more than the fact that she is a woman, but forget them.  They can’t take that joy, that sense of wonder from this picture.  They can’t hold a candle to the work that she’s done in her young life.  Forget them and let their legacy be one of the silence that comes when one is ignored.

Look instead to this beautiful image, and recognize the scientists, all of them including women and gay men and straight men,  who made it possible.  Imagine what else they can show us!

And, while I’m here, Readers, a quick reminder that Where Shadows Fall is available for your Kindle for free today and tomorrow, so get yours now!

Want more from me? Visit me!

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

Posted on by — Leave a comment

writing time

It’s early on a Saturday morning and I am up, showered and dressed (for some value of dressed anyway).  There is coffee sending up steam and the aroma of goodness on the desk next to me, most of my house is clean and I have a weekend stretched out in front of me.

Today I am going back to the short story I recently finished, having received feedback from my beta reader.  I have a much firmer idea of what happens before the story than I did when I began, and the characters are much more real to me than they were 5000 words ago, so it’s time to readdress and rewrite.

That’s the task for this weekend, to get that story up on its feet, so to speak, so that I can focus on editorial duties as we start to approach the deadline for submission.  I have to admit, I love playing editor for projects like this one.  I get to read a diverse set of stories, from a diverse set of female writers about a diverse group of characters.

I am also expecting my mother at some point today, she’s driving out to spend some time with me and we plan on hitting up the local nursery, and possibly some other fun places.

If you want to read more of my blog ramblings, I have two other blogs that I am actively attempting to maintain, one of them is chronicling my weight loss journey post-surgery, the other is mostly my take on current events, being fat in a world that rewards skinny, as well as philosophical ramblings on politics and religion, as seen from a point of view outside the mainstream. There is poetry blog too, if you’re into that sort of thing.  I also have a Patreon, if you’re interested in seeing some content from me before others, some exclusive content, etc.

You can find these here:

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

I should get to that whole writing thing.  Happy Saturday, Readers!  May it be filled with fun, silliness and a whole lot of love!

 

Posted on by — Leave a comment

spring is springing…I think

We have had one of the wettest winters I can remember since I moved to California in 2001.  I love the rain, and I often miss the big booming thunderstorms of my childhood.  Along with the rain, we’ve had a colder winter than I remember having in all that time…and for longer than I can remember.

Here we are, 3 days into April and it is finally, finally starting to warm up.  The wind is still cold in the mornings waiting for the train, but soon I should be able to shed my jacket and I really long for that.

Flowers are starting to bloom all around me, and my succulents are going bonkers.  I really need some new containers so that I can spread them out a bit.  The only thing I dislike about spring is the allergies.  I anticipate a miserable allergy season because of how wet our winter was.

I’m itching (no pun intended) to get out there with a camera, but I have a number of deadlines looming over my head preventing me from a long drive in the country to photograph flowers, so I’ll have to make do with the pictures taken by others.

Those first blooms of spring; the daffodils and tulips and such, have always given me hope.  Back when I was a kid, those first flowers would come up when there was still snow on the ground.  It was like nature letting us know that spring was on it’s way, the winter wouldn’t last forever.

I guess I still feel that when I see them.  It almost makes me wish I had a garden….almost.

Well, the coffee is done and the day job is calling.  I should get to that.  Happy Wednesday, Readers.

Remember, I’m running a special for new patrons over on Patreon.  Come join me!

PS:  Today through April 7th, my book Forever is available for Kindle for FREE!  Grab your copy!

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

the road through 15 years

I have a confession to make, I love the television show Supernatural.  Sure, it has its faults.  Yes, it’s had some less than stellar story lines.  Or course, some of it is over the top outlandish.  Yep, the characters are all deeply flawed.  I think maybe that’s part of why I love it.  For all that it’s about the supernatural, it’s about the very human family at the center of it. And not just blood family.  It’s about that, but it’s also got a very strong understand of made family, the family you chose.

I’ve just finished a rewatch of the show from the beginning through the end of season 13.  When I started my rewatch, I didn’t know that they would soon be announcing that season 15 would be the end of it, but it made me glad I had decided to go back to the very beginning.

I can remember when we waited, heads bowed and praying for them to announce that we’d get another season…back before it became the juggernaut of fan-conventions, before the fandom rose up to perform some truly amazing acts of charity (despite all of ITS flaws and backbiting and judgement).

Marathoning through 13 seasons in the last few months gave me some insights I probably wouldn’t have gotten any other way.  It made me appreciate those flawed characters and the amazing actors that bring them to life even more.

I’ve never been to a Supernatural convention due to my agoraphobia and the cost it would involve to get me what I need to cope, but there’s a part of me that wishes I could.  I’ve come to love, not just the boys Jared and Jensen, but the entire family of actors who inhabit the Supernatural universe.

I’m glad they get to go into the final season knowing that it’s the final season, and I hope that it provides them to give us a fitting end to 15 years of hunting trips.  And if they wanted to give us another episode with Jeffery Dean Morgan popping by, I wouldn’t complain.

I’ve been mulling over what I might like that ending to be, and I have a few ideas, but I think I’ll keep them to myself for now.  Feel free to drop your ideas in the comments.  I’d love to know!

Now, the coffee is getting cold, so I best get to the drinking of it, and start putting some words to the page.

Photo lovingly borrowed from Entertainment Weekly.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

running against the clock

A bit of oatmeal, some coffee and we ease into the day.  Well, not so much.  By the time I got to the oatmeal and coffee, I had already walked 1.2 miles, with a train ride in the middle, plus the whole getting out of bed and getting dressed and all of that, including makeup and jewelry.

It’s a whole thing.

I have a Samsung Galaxy watch, and one of the programs on it allows me to set a “must wake up by” time, which is set to 4:30 am, and then it monitors my sleep cycle and wakes me at the end of an REM cycle closest to that time, provided that there isn’t time for another complete cycle.

For the last 3 days, it’s gone off at 4am.  It’s amazing to me how much better my mornings have been.  I’m up and out of bed, dressed and answering emails before my 4:30 alarm goes off.  If I had gone that extra half hour, I would have gotten up groggy and cranky and slow.

Time is a funny thing, really.  A human construct that lets us function within a society, a measurement of when rather than what.  At one point in my life, I was so addicted to knowing what time it was, that I looked at my watch about 20 million times a day (an estimate, of course, probably slightly overstated).  I had to stop wearing a watch to get past it.

In fact, I went without a watch for close to 8 years before I got my first fitbit.  I’d broken the addiction, and didn’t fall back into it, but I came to love having that fitbit.  I’ve only recently upgraded to the Galaxy watch as my Fitbit Charge HR 2 was on its last legs.  I love the versatility of it, I only wish the associated Samsung Health app was a little more robust, like the Fitbit app.

Speaking of time, it looks like I should get myself back to my work.  Emails to respond to, pages to write…you know, the usual.  And I don’t want my coffee to get cold.

Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I hope time is on your side today!

 

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

making up with makeup

I’ve always had something of a love/hate relationship with the concept of cosmetics.  On the one hand, I love how they can help me present an image of myself, on the other, I hate the work involved.

In my teens, I never left the house without the minimum of foundation, mascara and eyeshadow.  As I got older I added lipstick and eyeliner.  Then I hit a period of not wearing anything.  I think that came as I was working on how to love the face in the mirror.

I had to drop the pretense, I guess.  And that took a long time.  I only did my makeup if I was going “out” or getting my picture taken.  Suddenly, however, almost immediately after my surgery, I started putting makeup on to go to work, and if I was leaving the house for the doctor’s office and such.  Not everyday, mind you, but often.

This week I cleaned out my admittedly very old collection of makeup, trashed a whole lot of it.  I need to clean my brushes and what nots, but yeah, it was time to drop the old stuff.  I broke my own no buy rule recently and splurged on some higher end cosmetics than I would normally buy and they arrived yesterday.

I’m excited for Monday morning when I get to try it all out for the first time.  Silly as that sounds.

Well, my coffee is waiting for me and there are words to capture, so I’m off.  Tell me, Readers, what is your morning routine like?

Don’t forget, I’m running a special offer over on my Patreon:  join me know at the $3 per month or up level and you will get a postcard from my personal collection covering 50 years of my life, chosen just for you with a nice note from me.

 

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

happy spring?

It’s another rainy, rainy day here in San Francisco.  Just walking from BART to the office has my legs soaked from the knees down.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain, and gods know we needed it, but after a solid month of the stuff, I find myself craving the sun.  My cats are also completely over the rain.  This morning, instead of getting up with me, they sat on the bed staring at the pet door.

The streets are turning into rivers and the ground everywhere is just saturated.  I am sure all of the plants are thrilled that we have escaped drought status, but I think I am quite over the rain at this point.

Enough of that, however.  Today is Ostara on the Pagan calendar, the spring equinox.  Today is the tipping point that dumps us out of winter and onward toward summer.  From here out the days start to get longer, at least until midsummer.

It is a time to plant intentions, to begin new things.  Get those seeds in some dirt and let’s grow something profound!

Of course, it’s also Wednesday, so here I am in the office like a good worker drone.  Lots to do, coffee to consume, etc, etc…

How about you, Readers?  What are you looking to grow this season?