Tag: life

NaNoWriMo Fail

On By MaryIn 2025, Art, NaNoWriMo 2025, Random, WritingLeave a comment

Welp. Whoops? There were extra appointments and ER visits than planned for the month so that quickly fell through. I think it’s safe to say everything for 2025 has just been a complete fail on my part.

But, next year will be another chance to try, try again! I’m in the process of setting up a new challenge on even months for 2026. I’m going to try to alternate between an art and a writing challenge. I will start fairly easy in February with one painting a week. Since April is Poetry Month, I will attempt to write daily or mostly daily poems – maybe at least 5 a week. For June, I will complete a sketch every other day (15 total) of original characters, and in August I will write one short story every other day involving those 15 sketches.

Most of that shouldn’t be awful. The months where I know I have a lot of plans get skipped with the every other month idea, except for February, which should be relatively light work. It’s later in the year that things might fall through. October is known by some people as Inktober. I don’t know if I will do a full Inktober, or 30 days minus my birthday, or every other day yet. But the goal is to complete a drawing and then ink it. And I will shift the novel writing to December, but with the holidays and everything else going on, it seems very likely that will fail too, so I don’t know if I want to make an extra short novella or shorten the daily word allotment or do that every other day also… So for those last two months, I might alter the plans… or just fall through completely!

But, the fails happen! And that’s okay. We’ll see how next year goes.

(Hopefully better. I mean, it can’t be worse, right?) (Isn’t that the magic phrase to make it worse though?) (…fuck)

Week 9 Post 3: Dear 100-year-old Me

On By MaryIn 2025, Prompts, WritingLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.
View all responses

I turned 40 last year. I never really felt old at 30, although it was the age that most young people resented approaching, viewing it as “old.” It helped to some degree that my mom had me in her late 30s. I was still a kid when she hit 50, and that was the decade she spent my teen years in. So it was 50 that I viewed as old when I was a kid, and 30 didn’t really bother me at all. In fact, I quite enjoyed my 30s. I didn’t feel rushed or left behind. 30 still seemed quite comfortably capable of brewing and turning into something.

I’m starting to feel a little old at 40 – or at least, too old for things to begin. It feels like I should be in a stage of life where what I have has already been built firm under my feet and certain. In truth, I’ve made very few big strides in my life up until now. It seems I’ve spent the past two decades coasting, and I’m not certain how much will actually change in the next decade, because time seems to slip by, faster now, uncontrollable grains of sand running their course. It seems just as likely that the following decades can be full of the same empty hope as the previous decades.

When you’re young, you think about being the youngest to accomplish a thing. And then you hear about someone young (or your age) who did the thing, and you think you’ll be just on their heals (Eragon released when I was a teenager). And then you think you’re accomplishing things at a normal rate, other people have done the thing by your age. And then you reach an age where you reassure yourself with the tales of people that didn’t accomplish the thing until later in life (Tolkien didn’t write LoTR until he was in his 40s!). I seem to be hitting that age now. Reminding myself that things can still be done.

So I sometimes morosely feel like 40 is old. But there is also a part of me that feels like it’s not quite yet. Especially when I contemplate it from another angle. How much more life would I have to live to reach 100? 60 more years. That’s an entire life! It’s more than I’ve lived to date. My mom had me at 38, and my brother at 40, and she has been around to watch us grow into adults. There is yet a full life to live, even if I only build it starting today.

And if I build it today… 60 years down the line, when I’m 100, what has it become?

There could still be an entire life in that time. A full life.

I wonder what you do with it?

(although writing a letter to your 100 year old self seems silly, most of us won’t live that long, could get hit by a car tomorrow, which is usually my go to example but maybe a bit dark considering my boyfriend got hit by a car last year. he’s fine though.)

Week 6 Post 1: axiomatic

On By MaryIn 2025, WritingLeave a comment

It seems that dreams grow duller with age, or maybe that is more the case of a common mind over an uncommon one (because I would never presume to be special in any way at this point in my life – not middle-aged I). So many of my dreams are little things, average things, work related and slice of life, so different than the vividness of past dreams. When I was younger, my dreams always had a sense of adventure (skeletons, giant spiders), or a desire to escape. Faceless pursuer dreams. They never run, like straight out of an 80s slasher flick. They never have to run, do they? They always know they’ll catch up, and somehow, they always do. In one instance, I turned and shot one such until it was nothing but a rainbow goop, and as I watched it reformed, liquid terminator style.

It makes me hanker for a good nightmare – the kind that jolts you awake, leaves your heart pounding. Makes you question your safety, even in a place where you’re as safe as you can expect to be. (but are we ever really safe?)

I have only ever had one sleep paralysis nightmare.

I once had a bedroom that had windows down most of one wall, and a large counter-like ledge lining them. My bed was pushed into the corner beneath them. I am laying in bed, waking – it is bright light out, but strange dark in the room. Something comes down from the upper far corner of the room, a shadow, spindly, clawed. It creeps, moving on all fours, somehow unnaturally, down the wall and across the corner desk and onto the extended window ledge. It approaches slowly. I try to move, but can’t – terror exalts. It climbs from the window ledge onto the bed, until it is hovering over me. I want to scream, or cry for help, or run away, but I am completely paralyzed, unable to move. It leans down towards me, and suddenly the terror is accompanied hand-in-hand with pure outrage. Nothing pisses me off more than helplessness. I strain, lifting my head to put my face into its face, and express myself in the only way I am able. I hiss. Like a goddamn cat.

When I wake up it’s early – the light quality of the room is completely different – the dark grey of barely dawn. Nothing is there.

It would be nice to say that the dream is a reflection of my awesomely brave self, but I’ve also had dreams of me cowering in buildings while a giant monster (Godzilla, it was pretty much Godzilla) threatened to kill people I loved if I didn’t come out to face it. And I didn’t because I was a coward.  

We’re all a little like that, I think.

Anyhow, axiomatic is mind because of a short story I just finished reading that pokes at the desire to be successful at the thing (the writing, the painting, the music playing) but the success can’t be granted, the core of it has to actually be there. Depressing? Uplifting? A bit of both?

Sidequests for Dec. Part 1

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

Looking through the remaining Sidequests, I pulled out some of the ones I likely won’t do at all. Those include dancing like no one is watching (I don’t dance period), making the lighting warm and ambient in my space (unless lighting a candle counts, which I do on occasion – I already use curtains that let in plenty of natural light because I love natural light, and I have no plans to switch out lightbulbs), and building a blanket fort (which sounds like loads of fun, but a little less so when my partner in crime has a broken arm). I also have a card saying to prep a few healthy meals, but my boyfriend keeps cooking. He usually does make plenty that I can eat for a few days, so I guess that counts? It’s maybe not healthy? But better than eating out all the time?

I wasn’t super intent on picking up trash around my neighborhood, but I’ve had a friend that’s been on a mission to pick up a bag of trash a week for a year, and she’s been way ahead on her goal for that and still going. I asked her if she would do a bag for me as well, and she obliged.

Some of the easier ones have also been done. I baked something from scratch quite a few times this month. Last week I made cinnamon rolls as part of a holiday thing for work, and made 3 trays of it. I also said the ABCs backwards, probably very incorrectly, and I splurged on some spendier chocolates to snack on as well.

One was unintentionally completed the other day. My boyfriend usually leaves some of his stuff on the front porch when he goes out to sit and smoke, and someone stole his brand new earbuds he got as a gift. The app showed them at a neighbor’s house, but I thought that was strange because the neighbors in question are an older lady and her wheelchair bound father, and I doubted they’d be roaming the neighborhood snatching things off porches. We asked nicely and she let us walk around her property, and then we climbed into the concrete ditch to walk up and down it a bit and check. I think that counts as somewhere nearby I’ve never been before, because I’ve never walked along any of the ditches here.

The other two easy ones included getting a new plant for my space (the third and final one) and going to a local coffee shop. Since it’s Christmas, the available plants included poinsettias or mini living Christmas trees, so I got one of the trees. Both options are poisonous for cats, but the tree might actually be able to survive outside. We’ll see. There’s also a local coffee shop on my way to work that opened up just this year, and I enjoy having an excuse to visit them.

I don’t know for sure if I will complete all of the remaining sidequests, but they’re fairly simple ones that I have the means to do. I’ll do another update closer to the end of the year with the remaining cards.

As for the reasoning on why they got derailed – my boyfriend got hit by a car when he was coming home from work on November 24th. He was on a scooter. The driver was a 19 year old boy with no driver’s license AND no car insurance. He has a separated shoulder joint and a broken arm, and had loads of bruises that have mostly healed up. He also possibly had some broken ribs because he hasn’t been able to get comfortable/is very sore all through his chest and back, and a mild concussion that they didn’t think required a neurologist. Because it involved a vehicle, his insurance initially pushed back saying the car insurance should pay, which is problematic when the only person in the accident that should have had car insurance didn’t. He’s been out of work (thankfully his job is safe, they already told him they’d take him back as soon as he was well), and very miserable, but we’re getting it figured out.

Sidequests Week 18

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

My sidequests for this week included doing a puzzle, warming up a blanket in the dryer and getting cozy, and evading responsibilities to have a self care day. I will admit to a little shuffling because the weather was quite rainy and cool this weekend, and I originally pulled a cold shower challenge. I didn’t shuffle it too far back though – it’ll be next week. So spoiler alert? I guess?

The warm blanket was easy enough. I have a smaller throw blanket I recently bought and have been keeping on my bed, and I decided to go ahead and wash it. Then as soon as it was out of the dryer, I curled up in it. Of course, the warmth got zapped out pretty quickly, but it was nice and relaxing while it lasted.

The evading responsibilties card wasn’t too bad either – I had asked for this entire weekend off owing to nerdiness (Star Wars day, have to have your nerd holidays off). This week was a little bit of a bummer, owing to a variety of reasons. I had found a baby bird outside and was keeping an eye on it (I left it outside so the parents could watch it) but it still died. Also I had originally planned to drive to a Ren Faire, but the weather got very rainy and overcast, and I didn’t want to spend the day soggy. The weather also messed with my lawncare plans, and Dinnerly’s delivery messed up and didn’t arrive. On top of a couple of other more personal things, spending an entire day moping and indulging in escapism via books seemed in order.

So on Star Wars day, I had a good sleep in, spent most of the day curled up in bed or on the couch reading, and ordered out instead of cooking. It was relaxing, and I do feel recuperated and ready to tackle the next week thanks to it.

The last one was to do a puzzle. I ordered one of the Unidragon wooden puzzles, since they have really fun designs and the pieces are made of wood and have different shapes than a typical puzzle. I’m not really a puzzle person – they actually frustrate me to some degree. I kind of lack the patience to work on them. But I persisted, and managed to finish it! This doesn’t happen a lot, so I’m kind of proud of myself.

I belatedly also ordered an adhesive mat that they make specifically for their puzzles so that they can be hung. That should come in a few days. The adhesive portion can get cut down to size, and from the description of it, there is enough material to fit a few of their puzzles, so if I have a lot left over I might order one more. Because frustration is fun? Or because the designs are really neat? Hmm.