August 27, 2021 Theme: A silly fear you have

Hey there, everyone! How are you all doing? Well, I hope!

I’m here today with another theme for this week! I had taken a look at my theme list, but all of them looked too serious, and I just don’t feel like doing serious this week, so I’ll just do a little question:

What is a silly fear that you have? Something that has never happened to you and probably never will?

Mine is the idea that my bed will collapse while I’m asleep. Why? Who knows. It’s a pretty sturdy bed, it’s not wonky or anything, and no bed of mine has ever collapsed – with or without me. But it’s one of those little things I find to worry about when I can’t fall asleep.

What about you? What’s your silly fear? Share it with me, I promise I won’t laugh!

See you on the next!

August 20, 2021 Theme: The Narcissist’s Prayer

Hey there, everyone! How are you all doing? Well, I hope!

I’m back today with another theme for this week! I was going to talk about narcissistic mothers, from my own experience, but I ended up thinking of something more general and more curious – the narcissist’s prayer. I’ll also add a few very short comments to every line.

I couldn’t find an author for it, but here it goes (I’ll add one if I ever find the name), with some short notes on the side. I found it on this site. (https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer)

That didn’t happen. (Denial/Gaslighting/Rewriting reality)
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. (Minimizing the events)
And if it was, that’s not a big deal. (Minimizing the effects of said events)
And if it is, that’s not my fault. (Refusing to take responsibility for their actions)
And if it was, I didn’t mean it. (Sort of taking ownership, but still dodging responsibility)
And if I did, you deserved it. (Blame shifting/Blaming the victim)

Have you ever had someone try that one on you? Or dealt with a narcissist in any other way? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments, as well as any ideas for future themes you have!

Thank you for dropping by, and I’ll see you on the next post!

August 13, 2021 Theme: TERFs

Hey there, everyone! How are you all doing? Well, I hope!

After some thinking, I’ve decided to cut the personal updates and only touch on them when something important happens – my life is hardly that exciting, after all -, and stick to the weekly themes.

Today’s themes is TERFs. For those not in the know, that stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists. The tl;dr is: they defend that trans women are men. Must I say I have no love at all for them?

Instead of sharing my opinion, though (that might involve some expletives), I’d like to ask yours. Whether you agree with them or disagree, please keep your comment constructive and free of slurs. Thank you.

If you have an idea for a future theme (and I plan on expanding upon them much more than I did this one) feel free to share it in the comments! I’ll be happy to add it to my list!

See you on the next!

Life update – August 6th, 2021

Hello, my pretties! How are you all? Doing well, I hope! I’m still alive and kicking, even though I haven’t been posting nearly as much as I’d like. I had, as you know, planned on posting once a week, but then things got in the way, blah blah blah. You know. Same old stuff. I really need to stop making promises.

On the life side: finally got my first COVID shot this Monday. My arm was sore for even less time than the flu shot, and I had no reactions whatsoever. Took the Pfizer shot, and should take the second one in October – our vaccination schedule is a bit delayed, still. Nothing to do other than wait. Other than that… I guess that’s it. Despite having been busy and running around like a headless chicken, nothing really new and exciting has happened. Oh, wait. Yes, something did happen. Just last weekend, my dad decided to fix the water filter without closing the water register. Guess who took the brunt of the water jets when the pipe slipped off the wall and had to run to drag the fridge away to close the register while soaking wet and yelling at dad to put his hand over the wall? Yours truly, of course. My life sometimes resembles a comedy sketch. No animals were harmed during the production. Unless I count as an animal. Hmmm…

The theme today: Writer’s block. God knows I’ve looked into its face every day for a while already. With doing my work, learning stuff about the new work we’re going to start doing and helping everyone else from other departments do their work, plus spending time with family, plus just being tired… the well seems to be dry. I’ve been working on a story bit by bit by bit – almost sentence by sentence. It’s going to take a long time, but I feel that I can’t not write, otherwise the block may become permanent. If anyone has any tips to offer, I’d be extremely grateful! Any resources, links, anything you do to combat it… anything helps, really! Help a girl out! :)

I guess that’s it for today! I’ll try not to let too long go by before coming back here! Have a nice day and see you on the next post! If you have any suggestions for future themes, I’d love to hear them!

Life update – 16-07-2021

Hello, my pretties! How are you all? Doing well, I hope! I’m still alive and kicking, even though I haven’t been posting nearly as much as I’d like. To combat that, I’m putting in the effort to post a life update every Friday or Saturday, and touch on some random theme while I’m at it, since who wants to just hear me talk about my boring life? :) I must share my boring opinion as well!

On the life side: managed to get my flu shot (it’s winter here) yesterday. No reactions, except for a really sore arm, so I’ve got that going for me. Covid vaccines here in my city are still 42 years old and up, so it’s going to take a while until I can get it. I have to wait two weeks in between vaccines anyway, so nothing left to do. Still feeling really burned out with work and everything, and needing to get a vacation – or staycation – some time soon. Maybe that’ll get the creative juices flowing again, or so one would hope.

The theme today: the sacralization of the act of giving birth. Notice that I’m not talking about motherhood, which is a very involved and life-long process of raising a child and still providing emotional support and friendship as the child morphs into an adult. I’m talking about simply having given birth to a child they may or may not be raising and acting as though that makes such person a special being worthy of all reverence. In my opinion, excuse my French, this is a steaming pile of bullshit. The situation that made me think of this was a thread on Reddit (which I won’t link here) where a lady who had given up her biological son for adoption was proclaiming her right to disregard the adoptive parents’ request that she did not take pictures of the child and post them on social media during the visits they allowed her to have with the boy. Her answer as to why she felt that she had this right was “I am his mother”. And the overwhelming answer was “no, you are not. The person who adopted him, is raising him, living with him and paying for his every expense is his mother”. I tend to agree with that. I’m not going to demonize people who give up their biological child for adoption. I believe that, in a place where abortions are illegal or very hard to get (such as my country) or if the person has moral objections to abortions but feels that she can’t raise the child, adopting the child out to someone who can is a very responsible decision. But… you are no longer the mother after the child is adopted.

I would love to hear your opinions on the matter.

Have a nice day and see you on the next post!

Random picture for the day – July 09, 2021

Hello, everyone! I should write a longer post at some point, but today was a long day and I’m dead tired, so I’ll just share a picture and a little bit of context. Today is a holiday for me, so the parents and I took a drive out of town for some fresh air and a change of scenery. We stopped at a town called Praia do Forte (Fort Beach), and I decided to snap a picture of the fishing boats. I hope you like it! I’ve been working on getting a blog in Portuguese off the ground (again), so if you notice I’ve been posting just a little less, that’s why! I’ll do my best to keep up with both blogs!

See you on the next!

Fandango’s Provocative Question #124 – Death

Hello, my pretties! How are you all doing? Well, I hope!

I’m doing just fine, though life’s been busy and I haven’t really had the time to post as often as I wish to!

Still, I’m here today because a post on another blog inspired me to write a little!

Fandango’s Provocative Question #124 asks:

Would you want to know before hand the date, time, and circumstances of your death, or would you rather not know when and how it will happen?

And I answer:

I would like to know when it will happen, so I could sort out my affairs before that. Instead of having to leave an inheritance (though I don’t own much), I could just give away whatever I want other people to have before dying and they wouldn’t have to worry about a will, lawyers and all that mess that happens when someone passes away unexpectedly.

As for how… I’m actually torn on that. I believe death is as inevitable as birth, and I don’t think constantly worrying about knowing what will end my days on Earth would be very productive. So yes, I guess that’s my answer:

I would like to know when, but not how. What about you?

See you on the next post!

How do you support other bloggers?

Hey, everyone! How are you all doing? Well, I hope!

I’m… alive. Life has been chaotic this year, more and more work piled on me, and I’ve been feeling sort of burned out, but such is life. I think everyone’s struggling at the moment.

Speaking of struggles, I thought I’d talk about those in a more general way.

This weird and wonderful group of people called bloggers, you know – like me, and probably you reading this post – has been struggling as well. We’re tired, we’re isolated (if not physically locked at home, we’re probably still struggling with socialization), we’re scared – just like everyone else. Some of us – I’m definitely guilty of that – haven’t been posting or interacting as much as we used to.

So, here’s what I’m here for – to ask a question: how can I support you? I have to admit my energy has been limited lately, but I want to support my fellow bloggers in any way I can. So, share it with me in the comments, and I’ll do my best to help!

Love you all, take care!

PSA: Check your followed blogs

Hello, everyone! How are you all doing? I’m alright, and I hope you all are too!

I just stopped by for a really quick PSA: please check if your followed blogs are still showing on your Reader!

Earlier today, I was wondering why Tony, from The Tony Burgess Blog, hadn’t been posting lately. Lo and behold, not only was I not following his blog anymore, I also couldn’t follow it from the “Follow” button at the bottom right (on desktop). I had to go to the WordPress Reader, find Tony’s blog there and follow it this way.

So, if one of your favorite regular posting bloggers has been strangely quiet, please check if you’re still following them!

See you all soon!

If you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life… Bullshit!

Hello, my pretties! How are you all doing? Well, I hope! I’m doing well enough… a little ashamed of how long I have left the blog without a post, but I’ll try to do better! Nothing really happened! I’ve just been stuck with some writer’s block and also got sidetracked starting a new project, but now that the foundations are set, I should have the time to show up here more often!

Work has been keeping me pretty busy as well, and that’s why I ended up thinking of the theme for this post!

How many times have you read or heard someone say “if you love your job, you won’t work a day in your life”? I have to admit I feel that I have heard it way too many times. More than enough that I hope I’ll never hear it for the rest of my days.

Why? Because this is such bullshit. Work is work. You may love to work, you may love the things said work allows you to have – money, stability, something to do -, but it’s still work. You still have to do it whether or not you want to (provided you work for someone else, self-employment is a different beast most of the time). You can still be fired and unable to provide for yourself if you don’t do it to (insert person paying you here)’s satisfaction.

Why am I saying this today? Who knows, maybe I’m just tired of another meeting in which nothing really changed. Or I’m tired because it’s Friday. Or I’m jealous of people who don’t need to work anymore (I totally am). There’s no single reason for it. It’s just a random rant.

I think I’ve spoken too much already, so it’s your turn now. What do you think when you hear the words that motivated me to waste your time with this drivel? Share your thoughts in the comments!

See you on the next post! (Hopefully in a shorter interval than between the last one and this one!)