Category: Random Thoughts

The junk that pops into my brain

Dare I Say it? Bah HumBug

~ JodiLea

Let me explain.

Every year I worked my butt off to make the holidays happy for all. Everyone loves Christmas, yet nobody wants to help decorate the tree, make food, go shopping, clean the house, prepare the bedrooms for visitors, or write Christmas cards.
It is exhausting, thankless, and stress-ridden. I started to dread the holidays. I have enough to do without getting on the holiday hamster wheel. I felt guilty and Scrouge-like. Christmas is in your face starting in October. Even if you don’t go into retail stores, radio stations play Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving. Some of them play holiday tunes ONLY for the remainder of the year. You see Christmas displays, sale signs, elves, Santa, and toys everywhere you look.

Television advertising is annoying enough without the jolly jingles and mini-stories geared to tug at your heartstrings and your wallet. Hallmark once produced emotion-provoking ads that entertained. These seemed to have gone to the place where clever Super Bowl ads went.

While studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I learned why they do not celebrate Christmas. I won’t go into details here, but there is a good article on JW.org that does *. That year was the best holiday season ever. Why? I was free to not get involved with the holidays at all. No one expected me to do anything. My family still celebrates Christmas, but I don’t have to.

Click HERE to learn why Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas*.








Ready, Set, Write!

~ JodiLea
NaNoWriMo Shield blue and brown logo
2023

Today is November 1st. It marks the start of the National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo). I have 30 days to write a draft of my next novel. The idea is to just write and write and spew out your story. Any research or editing can be done later.

Divided up evenly over 30 days, to get a novel of 50,000 words, you must write 1700 words per day. Brutal.

I have heard of authors who can dream about their novels and wake up to write chapter after chapter with ease. I would love to be one of those authors. Maybe tonight? It could happen – I will keep you posted.

If you don’t see posts from me very much this month, now you know why. The same goes for emails and phone calls. So, please don’t feel ignored or forgotten.

It’s just November.

TTFN



Things I’ve Learned after 10 years of Mountain Living

~ JodiLea
Oh My!
  • You cannot escape the 100+ degree temperatures, even surrounded by trees at 4,000 feet elevation.
  • Do your grocery shopping on Thursdays or early Friday mornings. Before the weekenders (a.k.a. flatlanders) start arriving. Don’t go into town until Monday.
  • Just when you think winter is coming to an end, a massive blizzard hits and dumps 5 1/2 feet of snow, breaking trees and tearing down power lines. We did not have power for 2 weeks. It was worse than camping!
  • Dawn and dusk are the times to avoid being on the road or in the forest.
  • When you overhear people in the grocery store or the Post Office discussing cats, they are not talking about kitty cats. They are talking about cougars & mountain lions.
  • Everyone has an opinion on how bad the winter is going to be. They often contradict each other. Believe no one. Wait for winter and see for yourself.

TTFN

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com