Mini Mind Splat #6: Colored Eggs

MINI MIND SPLAT WARNING: Nothing I comment on is meant to offend. It's simply my opinion and how I feel about certain things (mostly inconsequential things). I'd love to see thoughts from others in the comments. Just remember, have fun with it. This isn't meant to be super serious.

Yesterday was Ostara, the spring equinox, the first day of spring. And I dyed eggs with my kids! (We do it on Ostara in our house instead of Easter, since we don't celebrate the latter.).

The kids definitely had fun, and Hubbie allowed them to get a glitter kit. One that claimed "Less Mess". Yeah, right. I'll be finding glitter around the house for the next year. =/

Anyway, one of the more fun things about coloring eggs is mixing the colors. Dipping an egg in one color to then follow it up by another color and then see what comes out of it. Of course, you need to be careful what order you do this in, plus some colors just don't mix.

Hubbie and I got some pretty nifty resulting colors from that practice this year.

See, one of the things we do every year when dying eggs is make Wish Eggs. We blow out the insides of an egg for each of us. Then as we decorate the egg, we think of a wish for the year ahead and share it with each other. We keep these eggs on a shelf in our dining room so we can remember our wishes, until next Ostara.

This year Youngest wished that a chick would hatch out of her egg (remember these are emptied out). We all laughed, but she plans to check on her egg every day to see if a chicken comes out of it - lol.

My wish this year is for more balance in my life, with a side of inner peace - that inner peace goes hand-in-hand with the balance, of course. I just want to feel like I'm paying the proper amount of attention to each thing in my life.

Yes, I'm talking about that long list from my Balance post. What, you thought I was off the whole time theme? Nope, still going. Time to chase down that Balance Unicorn, with a pitchfork if I have to.

Now that spring has sprung, what's your wish for the year?

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #31 through #35

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25

~ #26 through #30

❦

31. Spring is finally here! Wait, it is spring isn't it? Mother Nature is laughing again because we kind of skipped over spring and went straight into summer. Anyway, winter is finally done, and you want to enjoy the lack of snow on the ground and warmth in the air.

32. You walked two hours today because you needed to ferry your preschooler back-and-forth to school (no, I don't drive and I have my reasons, we'll leave it at that). Exhaustion doesn't begin to define how you feel.

33. You walked two hours yesterday, and somehow you feel worse than you did the day before. You're getting too old for this shit (or you're just more out of shape than you're willing to admit).

34. You'd rather go for a walk with the family to see if you can spot any ducklings by the river.

35. Instead of quickly and easily snagging the pictures you need for your blog post, you waste an hour trying to figure out why your pictures aren't downloading properly to your computer, only to find out that Apple has switched all of its pictures to a new format (that since you've only recently upgraded to a phone that uses iOS 11, you had no clue about said switch until now). Eventually you find the converted JPEG files peppered in the downloads -- because even if something looks like it's done downloading, it rarely ever is. Hey, you were supposed to be cleaning during that wasted hour (or maybe you weren't and are just using the photo issues as an excuse not to clean...).

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #26 through #30

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25

❦

26. It's Ostara/Spring Equinox (first official day of spring!) and you have eggs to dye with your kids. Maybe this year my Wish Egg should be to wish away having to clean ever again.

27. Since it's the first day of spring, and you're the kind of person who goes against the grain, you don't want it to appear that you're doing any Spring Cleaning.

28. Well, it's spring! And wouldn't you rather go for a walk and enjoy a nice spring day instead of cleaning? Wait, it's cold outside because you're dumb enough to live too far north for spring to actually start on the first day of spring. But it's much nicer to imagine there's lovely weather and you're walking outside in it instead of cleaning. (Also refer back to #17.)

29. When you actually try to clean, a cat declares your file box as his. And he's too cute to move, which makes it easier to give up on cleaning. Even when he jumps out, the disruption has solidified your decision to throw your hands up in surrender.

30. You'd rather play Summoner's War. (How many games am I up to now?)

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #16 through #20

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15

❦

16. It's winter. Yes, you'd think you'd have less excuses in winter because you spend more time in the house, but the truth is the cold and gray sap your motivation and you get less cleaning done than you do during the warmer months.

17. Winter doesn't want to let go. It's fending spring off with its icy fingers. And this depresses you too much to even think about cleaning.

18. The house is too cold, so you'd rather stay in bed under your warm covers.

19. Your kids are sick. Not just sick, but plague-ridden. If you clean anything, it's just going to be smeared in germs shortly after, so why bother?

20. Your kids got you sick. OK, yes, #9 is "You're sick." But this is a different kind of sick. This is the kind of sick where not only are you trying to keep yourself alive, but you're still dealing with sick kids at the same time. And then you keep passing the sick back and forth until you kind of think being dead might be a better option than being sick all the time. Cleaning is obviously the furthest thing from your mind at this point.

Spring Fever

I'm sitting here at my computer looking outside. What is it that I see? Snow. Yup. It's March 24, and it's snowing outside. Several parts of the state I live in got nearly a foot or more of snow in the last two days. It's not that bad here, but the snow is starting to pick up, and I can't see the brownish-greenish grass anymore.

I so desperately want spring.

We had a few days of tempting sun and warmth earlier in the month. You know, Mother Nature taunting us. I'm sure I'm not the only one with cabin fever. Heck, I've also managed to catch a pretty nasty crud that one of my kids likely dragged into the house. The crud plummets my productivity.

I so desperately need spring.

Not only does the crud destroy productivity, but winter does as well. It effects me in a bad way. I'm sure I've mentioned this before.

I long for warmer days to invigorate me, to give me extra energy to stay up a bit later and get a scene written or a chapter revised. I yearn for the sun to infuse me with its heat -- after all, I am a Leo, and Leos need their sun!

The last three months have been pretty dismal. While I haven't stalled out completely (which is great), and I'm not behind on my publication schedule (thank the gods), I haven't gotten done as much as I wanted to.

Now, again, I know I'm not the only one who wants spring to finally arrive. So, I think we all need to band together and use our collective brain power to wish it into being. Let's all ask Mother Nature to be kinder to us, to pack winter away for a few months and let the sun run free!

Who's with me? Come on, now. If you want spring to show up as badly as I do, you have to be ready to try anything. So, think hard, make your will be heard, and maybe we can all make a little magic and Mother Nature will finally unleash spring upon us.

Crazy Necro Antics, Third Edition - Springtime!

The necromancer is a playable character class in Everquest, also called necro for short. Necros have an ability called feign death--some nicknames for this ability are FD and flopping. This series will highlight some funny instances of feign death. You do not need to be an Everquest player or even a gamer to laugh at these antics. Happy giggles!

The bees (and bixies) are buzzing about, flowers are in bloom, and the necros make sure to enjoy spring as only necros can! Morrigann decides that this time, fun amongst the flowers would be best had with a friend. So, Eteron joins her! As you can see, the heady scent of the flowers immediately puts them in a haze. They just can't stay on their feet, it's so intoxicating! Careful, Morrigann and Eteron, a bixie is lurking below--you may be dreaming spring dreams on her flower.

Sure enough, the bixies are after Eteron! Oh, no. Play dead before they sting you. Where is Morrigann? She needs to come to her friend's rescue.

Yikes! Guess she's in a pickle of her own. The sporelings and flowers must not have liked the way she smelled them. Seems the necros just can't stay out of trouble. Can they escape without feign death becoming real death?

Necro revenge! Both Eteron and Morrigann manage to smite the creatures camping them. And then they raise the dead for their own little army! Don't go threatening this pair of necros, or they'll put your corpse to work--no peace even in death!

And if you can't beat them, join them. Morrigann and Eteron don bixie illusions so they won't be bothered by the locals anymore. Oh, dear, guess the water lilies have them floating face down. They must not know bixies shouldn't go near the water.

DON'T EAT THE MUSHROOMS! Oops. I guess it's too late. What are we going to do with these careless necros? I bet they're hallucinating now. Because you really shouldn't eat the mushrooms. Everyone knows that. Well, everyone except Morrigann and Eteron.

The day winds down, and the necro friends are exhausted from all of their spring frolicking. So exhausted, as a matter of fact, that they can't find their way out of the hedge maze. Oh, well. They'll just take a nap and worry about it later.

Morrigann wants to remember the fun time she had with Eteron, so she brings some flowers back to the guild hall. However, she had to fight several bixies off to be able to pick the flowers, so she's a little worse for wear. It was worth it, though! She can't wait until next spring.

If you have any suggestions and silly antics you'd like to see, please post in the comments! It's possible your chosen antic(s) may be used in an upcoming post. All requests will be attributed in the post with a link back to the requester's blog (so include your blog link as well if I don't know it).

NEXT UP: Monthly Update!

Is Winter Over Yet?

The post title pretty much sums up my thoughts over the last month, and likely for the next month or two ahead. I HATE winter. Not only is it cold and painful to trudge through snow that people feel they shouldn't have to shovel (grrr - shovel your sidewalks!), but I have zero motivation, for anything. This unfortunately includes writing.

I have made some progress. Chapters 5 and 6 of Dead As Dreams are now revised. However, that's not a lot of progress. My to do list for writing and home grows longer and longer, and I can't keep my head above water because all I want to do is hibernate. I need spring! It has to return quickly. The stupid groundhog better be right about spring coming early, or I might make it so he can't predict anything next year.

Oy. Was that a vent? Yes, that was a vent. My apologies. *straightens head out*

But yes, I've revised a couple chapters of Dead As Dreams, but didn't do much else in January, aside from transferring all of my manuscript submissions tracking to spreadsheets (I mean, that did take a while, but it was busy work in the end). I also found out about Duotrope going to a pay model, and I'm a bit sad about that--that was the best place to search for markets to submit my short stories. I picked through a little of my study, but that just means the books I had piled in there are now cluttering the rest of the house, and the box of papers I started to chip away at has a new home on the loveseat in the living room. Sigh. It needs to warm up, so the the heat can put a fire under my behind.

This month, I hope to at least get something done, a little progress. But until it warms up, I don't think I'll move above a snail's pace, not unless I have an actual deadline that I don't assign myself (it's amazing how imposed deadlines from other people, like when I was in school, get me going even in winter--if only I could trick myself with my own deadlines).

In other news, my 4-year-old is now writing books of her own. =D She writes squiggly lines on several pieces of paper, draws some pictures along with the lines once in a while, then has her teachers staple the papers together. She then reads me the books when she gets home. Her first series is The Five Cats of Christmas. What do you think, will she have a book published before I do? Lol.

Oh, yes, don't forget to join us at Writing Quest - February, if you're interested! How is everyone else dealing with the winter weather? Having any motivation issues? Just want to pull the covers over your head and sleep until it's warmer out? If so, I sympathize!

NEXT UP: Lavender Legacy--Chapter 2 (Will likely be posted on the 20th...sorry for skipping a week!) - The Best Laid Plans....