Did anyone else see Valerie Bertinelli’s post about a comment telling her she’s fat?  If you haven’t, hopefully this is the correct link to it. Now I’ll state the obvious–people can be jerks. And when they are hiding behind a computer and posting on social media, some turn into pure puss-spewing, waste of skin trolls who cause damaging emotional pain.

Sure, I know the old sayings, “Sticks and stone will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

That’s a lie. Words do hurt. As writers, we know this better than most, I think. Sometimes, we need to just shut up. In Valerie Bertinelli’s case, the commenter didn’t need to say anything. There was no reason to say that Valerie is fat. It was mean. It was meant to be mean.

I really think we all needed to learn that sometimes Silence Is Golden. Not everyone needs to know our opinion. We need to stop and think before we blurt out every danged thought that crosses our mind. And we don’t need to tear others down to make ourselves look stronger, smarter and/or more popular. Twitter wars are a great example of that.

I’m betting every single one of us has a story about someone saying something to us that hurt. That dug in so deep, it’s a wound that won’t heal. I’ve had it happen to me. No matter how mentally strong we are, words still can and do hurt.

Okay that’s my rant. Feel free to add your thoughts.

Wow my electric bill is going be brutal with all this heat. On the other hand, my pool is nice and warm

Saturday was a lot of fun with my sister and her husband. Youngest Son and his wife stopped by too. After the long Covid lockdown, Youngest really wanted to see his aunt and uncle, and it was great to have them all here.

But the happiest of all was Maggie, LOL! She is fully aware everyone only comes to our house to see her. When everyone left, she crashed and didn’t move until time for bed.

And for me, I have to say that I’m very grateful for my sister. Saturday just reminded me how much. Just because she’s a great sister

Sunday was quieter, with just normal stuff. Wizard was off racing, I’ve been thinking about what I’m doing…why I’m struggling when I love the book so much. I mean I know why…but what am I going to do about it? That’s the dilemma, I don’t have an answer for yet.

So that’s my weekend, how was yours?

TGIF! Let’s jump right into sharing five random things about our week.

1. Wizard asked me, “Witch, what did you impulse buy from Amazon? FYI, I actually wrote “impulse buy” in the check register. Why? Well…as I answered Wizard, “I don’t want to tell you.” He laughed, “Spit it out.” I gave in with, “Fine I bought another swim suit.” I heard a snort, and nothing else as he went back to reading the news. Let’s all take a moment to appreciate his restrain in NOT pointing out that no swimsuit is going to remove 20 years and 15 pounds (Just a note–he doesn’t really care what I buy, he was just curious.)
2. Yesterday I got a call that Turbo was running a very slight (under 100) temp, and couldn’t go to preschool. And one of the three dogs hurt her leg. Could I come babysit? Of course I did. Turbo was sooo good. My poor daughter-in-law had to sit in the parking lot at the emergency vets for over 4 hours. The vet believes the dog’s leg is sprained not broken. Unfortunately, this little dog is older and, they just found out a couple days ago, definitely going blind. It’s been a rough week for them. They have two other dogs, including one that is paralyzed and on wheels. Turbo seemed fine by the end of the day.
3. Turbo just started preschool last week. He’s not a fan, LOL. But he’ll adjust. He told me he loves the big playground but not the little playground. Sounds reasonable to me, why would anyone want a little playground when they can play on a big one??? That’s like asking me if I want a little chocolate or a lot of chocolate.
4. Some writing happened, but definitely not yesterday. While taking care of Turbo is pretty easy, fighting traffic is not. I was way more tired from that than playing trucks on the floor and digging in dirt outside for five hours
5. My sister, Biker Witch and her Biker Hubby are coming over Saturday. I’m making some easy fajitas and the key lime pie, because key lime pie sounds a good hot day dessert. I’m looking forward to that. I’d planned to clean and run to the store on Thursday, but since I spent the day at Turbo’s, I’ll go to the store today, then on Saturday, we’ll all ignore the dirt and eat pie Life is too short to worry about not having a perfect house.

That’s my five now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend.

So I’m not much for TV anymore. I mean I watch stuff like vet shows, baking or cooking, House Hunter or flip shows, or some kind of crime drama or real crime show. But mostly, I leave the remote in Wizard’s hands and do something else.

My free time obsessions right now:

1. Maggie. both Maggie and I love staring our day with a walk. Even a short ten-twenty minute walk stars my day off right.
2.  Yoga. I can’t do much weight lifting and morning, and Yoga is working for me at this time in my life. I’m shocked how much I’m enjoying it now, but wait a month and that could change. In addition to the carefully-spaced practices I do, I love watching Yoga instruction videos, I guess hope that I’ll improve more by osmosis?
3. Cake decorating. Love it. I did some very armature decorating many years ago when the kids were small, but now I’m watching endless video tutorials on more modern cakes, and mentally designing them. I’m going to do a Nutella chocolate cake for my daughter in late for her birthday in August. That will give me an idea if I can physically do it (it’s more work than one might think). I may do a lactose free Oreo cake for my youngest son just because it will be fun. (Did you know regular Oreos are lactose free????) I kind of want to learn fondant but have been hesitating because it’s a skill that’s going to require a lot of practice, and possibly, my hands and shoulder won’t be able to hand the kneading and rolling required. Plus I need a lot of new stuff, LOL.
4. Women’s Elite Gymnastics. I love it, and I’m excited for the Olympics. I like the whole women’s team (Simone Biles is utterly amazing!) and am really rooting for MyKala Skinner since I’ve been following her YouTube channel for a while now. She’s sort of a very experienced and skilled underdog, so I’m hoping she can come one awesome medals.
5. General baking; cookies are my go-to as making cookies relaxes me and they are much faster than doing cakes decorating, which requires many steps with chilling or setting time in between. I can obsess about finding recipes or redesigning them.
6. Right now, Eli and Savi’s story in Primal Magic is my writing obsession, and I’m trying to keep all the other wing slayer hunters and other types of books I want to write quiet. Plus I have to limit my time on the computer–I refuse to resent that, and instead, embrace a chance to have other free-time hobbies.
7. I want to say reading, but reading have most been frustrating lately. It’s a phase that will pass, and I’ll be obsessed again

I think those are the things I generally get the most obsessed about right now. How about you?

Is laziness an excuse to be late? Just asking…  Last night, I remembered I needed to do a blog, but instead I ate ice cream and watched a movie with Wizard By then the fireworks had transformed out neighborhood in the sound effects for a war movie and Maggie was scared. I couldn’t even get her outside to potty. Well I got her out by dragging her on a leash, but when I told her to “potty” her response was to flattered her body into the grass like she was the star of the war movie and trying to evade gunfire. By 11pm fireworks were still going off, but she willingly went in her kennel. It’s tucked in a corner, so she felt relatively safe. I went to bed and tried not to do anything silly like sleep and miss a single minute of all the geniuses setting off as many illegal fireworks as humanly possible in a drought-ridden tinderbox area in the name of patriotism.

Otherwise, we had a very good weekend. Saturday was like a day that happened. Then Sunday I ran out to Kohls and found white jeans that fit. I’ve missed having those in my closet enough to fork out full price. Yep, Cheap Jen paid full price! I know…we’re all trying to deal with the shock.

Poor Cheap Jen is even more upset because I’ve been telling Wizard I want a boat. We’re not getting a boat, but if I were going to pick a recreational type of craft, it’d be a boat. You’d never get me off the lake. I’d looked like a crinkly old wizard with frizzy hair and a beer belly in a bikini. It doesn’t even matter that I hate beer. But a boat is just a fun dream–along with my beach cottage with white sand for a front yard.

Um…did I get off topic? So back to Sunday…we went to a BBQ place for dinner, came home and I did pretzel yoga–that is not a real thing, but I did this yoga  online class that tried to twist me into a pretzel shape. Friends, I learned something; you cannot twist a pear shape into a pretzel   I keep hoping I will turn into taffy that can handle any shape, but I suspect that, like my boat and beach cottage–my taffy dream is not going to happen.

I also tussled with the book. This weekend I lost more battles than I won. My pride is bruised, but I’m going back in this week to kick butt.

Today we’re off to Youngest’s for a pool party and hamburgers. He said he was making the burgers out of cauliflower with lettuce buns. I think he was kidding?

So that was my weird version of a weekend roundup, now I’d love to hear yours!

TGIF! But seriously, how are we in July already? 2021 is a half over!

Okay time to jump into sharing 5 random things about our week.

1) I want to brag about something silly I’ve moved up from pure beginner yoga, to an intermediate practice. I’m honestly so proud of myself for not rushing, not hurting myself (yet) and staying focused on strength and flexibility (not dieting or thinness, I eat mostly healthy but plenty of food). I’m at the low to middle end of intermediate, but I can do more than I thought I would be capable of, so yay me! Like I said, it’s a little silly.

2) This week I did some excellent plotting while floating on a raft in my pool. I was able to weave some plot threads in a good way. I have a lot more to go, but doing that plot thread weaving is something I absolutely love.

3) The condo collapse in Florida has been on my mind. My heart aches for all the families and friends waiting for news, and for those who’ve gotten the worst news possible about their loved ones. As always, I’m grateful for our first responders and all those working to find those missing that rubble.

4) I’m getting my hair cut and colored by a new stylist today.

5) It’s the 4th of July on Sunday. To celebrate, youngest is having a family pool party at his house on Monday (a holiday since the 4th fell on a Sunday). I’m so excited! It’s his first family party at their house. Covid stopped them from doing it sooner. I’m really excited. I’m always happy when the family gets together. Maggie is sulking through because, as we all know, she LOVES her brothers, especially youngest.

That’s my five now I’d love to hear yours! I hope all the US residents have a great 4th and all of you have a great weekend!