I’m dealing with a bad migraine today, and it’s the worst. Add terrible ringing in one ear, and I’ve been pretty much out of commission all day. My new pain meds are helping, but are making me feel like I’m experiencing life through a layer of cotton.

To distract myself, I’ve been watching old movies on Netflix and cross stitching. My current project is a wedding gift for a friend. I’m maybe halfway done.

I’ll put up some more pictures once I’m finished.

Oof, has it been a while. I’m still alive, contrary to how it looks from the lack of writing. My husband and I have been in the process of adopting a child, so the last year and half has been an exciting/nerve-wracking stream of paperwork, meetings, inspections, and waiting around for stuff to happen. But, we’re finally getting close to having everything finalized and actually getting to bring our son home.

The good side of this is that now I actually feel like I want to write again, and actually have things to say. So, once again, I’m going to try to be a little more present around here, even if it’s just to post silly nonsense.

I have no idea if this story is actually true, as I heard it second hand about a friend of my mom’s.  That being said, the story has always been presented to me as though it is true, and it always makes me smile, true or not.  Take it with a grain of salt, perhaps, but enjoy.

One of my mom’s friends was living in Italy several years ago.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s call her “Teresa”.  Teresa was close friends with a local family, and often attended dinner at their house.  For anyone who doesn’t know, a formal family dinner in an Italy can take hours, as there are a ton of different courses.  One evening, during one of these long dinners, Teresa noticed that the matriarch of the family, the old grandmother she was sitting next to, kept leaving the table.  She’d get up, go to the kitchen, bring out a course of food and, once she’d made sure everyone was served, she would leave the table while everyone else was eating.  After about fifteen minutes, the grandmother would come back and eat her own food.  This process repeated for several courses, and finally, Teresa asked the woman what was going on.

“I noticed you keep getting up from the table,” said Teresa.  “Is everything okay?”

“My husband,” the grandmother replied.  “The old man… he is sick.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Teresa said, and she let the subject drop.

And dinner continued.  After several more courses, the grandmother stopped leaving the table.  Teresa leaned over to the grandmother again.

“You’re staying at the table,” Teresa said to her.  “Is your husband feeling better?”

“No,” the grandmother said.  She made a slashing gesture with her hand across her throat, and replied “Morto.”

That translates to “he is dead”.  Teresa was distraught.

“Oh my God!” she said, “we have to do something!”

The grandmother, without missing a beat, replied.

“The old man… he was sick.  Now he is dead.  What can you do?  Just keep eating!”

And every time I feel like the world is overwhelming me, I just think of that Italian grandmother, and repeat her words like a mantra.

What can you do?  Just keep eating.

Welp, this year has sucked so far.

Hold on, let me try that again.

This year has really sucked so far.

I’ve been in a bad way for about the last eight months, letting the awful monsters in my own head run amok. Due to… circumstances I don’t plan to go into… I’ve spent most of 2017 stuck in one of the worst depressions I’ve ever dealt with. And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself, and feeling like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. There definitely is, I just can’t quite see it yet.

So, since I feel like I need something (anything) positive to hold onto, I’m going to start using this blog to post things that make me happy. I’m mostly doing this for myself, just as a reminder that there’s always joy in life if you can see through the crap to remember to look for it. But if anyone else finds joy here too, all the better.

For today, my happy thought is that I’ve finally figured out something I can do with this blog, aside from fretting over not having anything interesting to say on it. I’m no longer going to worry about whether or not I’m interesting, and second guess every post before I write it. I’m just going to post fun, silly stuff and hope for the best.

On that note, have an adorable picture of my pets, trying to learn to share the furniture. 🙂

 But Mom, I wanted the chair.

And, yet again, I’ve been awful at keeping up here.  Time for another new start.

2017 is going to be a big year, I think, if only for the fact that there’s going to be a lot of milestones for me.  This year, I’ll turn thirty five, and have my ten year anniversary with my husband, which is all pretty cool.  If I’m lucky (read: if I keep working really hard on it), I’ll finish writing my first novel this year too.

2016 wasn’t all that good, but I’m going to stay cautiously optimistic for 2017.

My blog’s anniversary is March 14, a milestone which I missed completely this year.  That being said, I missed a bunch of nerd milestones last year, including Future Day (the day Marty McFly travels forward to in Back to the Future, Part II) and, according to some random internet sources, Third Impact (the strange, maybe world-ending close to Neon Genesis Evangelion).  Although, missing out on potential giant robot apocalypse is probably not a bad thing.

All the same, I am a bit sad I missed Pi Day this year, as it is my blog’s anniversary.  So even though I’m about two weeks late, I figured to celebrate I’d post a picture of the pie I made last year for Pi Day.  

And of course, I added a Pi to the pie, because you can never have too much Pi…er… pie.  
Okay, I’ll stop saying pie now, before Dean Winchester materializes as my desk.  

Well, that was fun.  So my site was hacked.  It was really a bit… surprising, seeing as how I only had up four posts at the time.  Oh well.  What can you do, I guess?  I think I’ve managed to fix the damage, although the old site is gone for good.  C’est la vie.

All the same, we’re going to give this another shot.  Maybe I can manage to keep a slightly better update schedule this time around.  Or, at the very least, maintain control of my own website.  I’ll at least shoot for that, as it seems like a reasonable goal.  😛

Anyhow, welcome to my blog!