Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Fire Away!

 Blessings Darlings!

Ever have a time/times in your life when you have . . . not visions, but recurring thoughts about things happening?  I've had one of those times lately.

The last time this happened was just pre-covid, when the thoughts were of lockdowns, closings, and the need to build community.

This time, it was about being shot, coding out, being shocked back to life, and re-building my life to focus on different things.

Welp.  To get shot, a gun gets fired.

Today I got fired.  The job was giving me panic attacks, so I'm really good with this.  As is the Chubby Hubby, who realized the level of stress I've been under.  And since I'd already been spending lots of time considering how I'd like to change my life (including some Quality Time with An Mórrigan) I know that it's time for me to do more writing and educating (myself and others).  I've got a lot of reading to do.  I've got a few books to write.  I've got this blog, to post on more often.  I've got a boatload of letters to the editor to get out on a regular basis.  And I should learn to play an instrument. 
 

I had already bought a guitar and subscribed to to more newspapers to try to read daily.  Now I'm going to actually have the time to read them.  The garden will be more important too, of course, since there will be some need to re-do finances and producing more of my own food will be part of that.  And I've already started going to go out to hear live music, a pleasure that Covid had stopped.

Alas, so will be quitting my beloved Marlboro Gold cigarettes.  Unlike tea, that's an unnecessary expense.  Oddly enough, I have been drying a lot of flowers and herbs for tea this year.  This is unusual for me.

I guess the 'action items' part of the message HAD gotten thru' in advance, even if the exact circumstances hadn't.

Frondly, Fern

Homeless Shelter Education

Blessings, Darlings!

I've spent a lot of time in homeless shelters, having worked in several of them over the years.  The women (the shelters I worked in were for women, especially those dealing with domestic violence) taught me lots of things over the year.

First, we shared recipes.  Which means they taught me to make noodles using the egg mix left over from breading chicken to be fried.  This is dinner here tonight, BTW.

They taught me how to re-use oil for frying.  Which involved repeatedly banging into my thick head that frying shouldn't be at the HIGHEST TEMPERATURE THE STOVE CAN GET TO.  I admit I was a slow student here.  And I still don't save oil that is used to fry fish to fry more fish with later.  The smell is not a family favorite!

They prepared me for motherhood in many ways.  Early on, they taught me to not be fooled by the scent of pine cleaner - just because you smell it doesn't mean they cleaned the place.  Really, the issue here was ownership:  I learned that no one takes responsibility if they don't feel ownership of the problem or the solution. 

Practically, when I was pregnant, they taught me how to extend the use of my pre-pregnancy clothes by use of adaptations like using strong rubber bands from the button on my jeans ... thru' the button hole .... back to the button.  And what brands of sweat pants were most likely to fit thru' the entire pregnancy.

They taught me that there are no people more important in your life than friends, both from the friendship that they provided to me, and from the fact that most of them, when they moved out, moved in with friends themselves.

I also learned that I can't even be in the same building if someone is cooking chitlins, and that some people really CAN burn either spaghetti sauce or macaroni and cheese to the point that they are inedible.  But I'm sure I could have learned that by simply having more roommates over the years, too.

Frondly, Fern

Frondly, Fern