It’s been a while. I had my youngest in March 2020 and 2 weeks later everything was in lock down. It was a very hard time. We moved to Canada for almost 2 years and while that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons, it was a great adventure. Then, last August, we moved to Michigan.  It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, if I’m being honest. And while I never stopped writing, I’ll admit that I did lose my stride.

Now that we’re finally settled and my youngest is in part time preschool, I can finally dig back in to the writing that I love. I’ve been working on a side project, a food blog. Food is a huge passion of mine. Recipe collecting, cooking, finding and creating recipes from scratch, finding ways to make recipes healthier and just as delicious, trying out new types of produce and interesting cuts or types of meats.  Bread fruit. Oxtail. Jackfruit. Dried shiitake mushrooms. Makhana. Moth beans. Horse Gram. Cow tongue. Goat bones. Diverse recipe books with dishes I’ve never heard of. These are a few of my favorite things. They light me up.

For the YUM, if you’re interested in checking it out.

I’m also back at “Marigold and Nox”. And I’m so very excited about that. I just love these characters so much!

“Marigold and Nox” is my middle grade adventure series about a 10 year old girl and her cat and the magical adventures they go on together. The first book is called “The Wishing Well” and the manuscript is complete, but I’m working on some edits and getting it going again. I’m in the process of beginning the next book as well, which may or may not have some unicorns. There’s a hurdle with “Marigold and Nox” that I didn’t have with Super Me. Illustrations. There won’t be a ton (like in my picture book, “Berries for Bruno”, which is still on pause for that very reason–more on that another time), but “Marigold and Nox” will definitely have some pictures. My husband and I are playing with the idea of working with AI to collaborate something. So exciting!!

I’ve also been back at prompt writing. I was invited to rejoin the Longmont Writers’ Club, virtually, and I’m thrilled to reacquaint myself with writing 500 word stories. The prompts for last month were “Worst Purchase” or “Slice of Life” with a 500 word limit. Loving challenges as I do, especially a good word challenge, I went for a story that is exactly 500 words.

Below is my 500 word piece.

Bananas

So, I am supposed to be working. And I am working. But I had to look up something for work that led me to a random question that couldn’t wait and now I’m on Pinterest. Somehow. And there’s a link here to a list of THINGS ON AMAZON THAT YOU WON’T REGRET PURCHASING that pops up and that I had to click on because the first thing is that dumb banana slicer that was around years ago, you know the one that’s shaped like a banana and is ridiculous and how can that be on the list of things that you need to buy? This has to be a joke list. Right?

Obviously, I have to click it to see what this list is all about– that is definitely a list of joke purchases– even though I have pile of work to do and all of the deadlines and whatever.

I click the link and I see the list– that I’m still trying to decide if it’s a joke or real, because almost everything is ridiculous. But some of these things seem possibly legit like this toilet timer. So dumb. But maybe someone would need that? And this shark blanket adult onesie that’s odd but maybe cozy?

But then there’s that dang banana slicer which is clearly not something anyone would buy in their right mind. Surely. And I need to click the banana slicer link to see if this is something that most people think is a joke but maybe some people actually buy it for real. To get to the bottom of that.  I click this link to Amazon even though I know I’ve looked at this before but I have to look again because it’s been a while and do people really buy this or what.

And I scroll down to the comments and most of the comments are clearly sarcastic but there are other comments that make me wonder if they’re maybe being for real. And I just don’t know.

Then I go back to the list of THINGS ON AMAZON THAT YOU WON’T REGRET PURCHASING and there are some things on there that are actually kind of interesting. Some things that might even be useful. Like the egg scrambler or the screaming goat book that could make a funny gift or something. So maybe this isn’t a joke list?  I mean, it’s nothing that I would ever purchase, but still.

So, I go back to the banana slicer and I’m looking at it again and maybe it’s useful in some way? I mean, I don’t have a banana slicer.

Long story short, I’m now the owner of a banana slicer and I’m not sure what to think about that. I guess I just thought you’d like to see what a slice of my life looks like now that I’m working from home. And also, maybe don’t buy a banana slicer because it is useless. It’s actually the worst purchase ever. I don’t even like bananas.

Please rest assured that this is a work of fiction. While I do not, in fact, own a banana slicer, I’m pleased to say that I do own BANANAGRAMS, thanks to my good friend who knows me so well.

Have you played bananagrams? So. Fun.