Thoughts on Hoarding and Other Things

Calico cat named Jessie

It's Thursday afternoon and I'm in my office trying to ignore the television in the living room, just on the other side of the wall. Kid #3 is home from college and is watching Hoarders with kid #4. I've told them my grandmother might have had hoarding tendencies, but there was a very distinct reason. 

I grew up visiting my Nana in El Paso every summer and Christmas break. I clearly remember her saving food scraps to feed the neighbor's livestock. I remember her making every meal from scratch. So many memories of pennies pinched and things that I didn't understand at the time are much clearer now. Nana grew up during the Great Depression. She became the single mother of four children when my mom was eleven, and worked as a nurse at a hospital near her home for as long as I can remember. 

There are so many things we take for granted when we're children. My kids want for nothing that my husband and I can provide and I've always told them so long as there is breath in my body they will never be homeless and never go hungry. In these uncertain times there are so many people without that family safety net that my kids have always known. It's something I was blessed with myself, and I don't know what I would've done without it. So, I'm sitting here thinking about that and how such things, lack of family and security and/or growing up as a child during a depression, might have effected the hoarders on the show.

I'm not a TV watcher myself. I leave that for my husband and drown myself in books instead. This year I've been more determined than ever to record every book I read in order to keep track. I use Goodreads and am always happy to add a friend to my roll if you're interested. Unfortunately, I haven't been adding to any bookstores myself. I'm almost halfway to my desired word-count for the third installment of my Gargoyle Masters series. Kid #2 (a great artist in my opinion) is working on a new cover for Day Shift. I want it to have more of a comicbook feel to it this time. The sequel is done but needs to be edited and covered as well. Hopefully, by the summer I'll have at least one new release. 

On June 15th I will turn 45. My goal is to release Born of the Forbidden: Gargoyle Masters Book III by that week. Technically it will be my twenty-third manuscript to be published since I started this journey in 2008. The first couple of years were very productive, but the knocks from a thieving publisher, the closing of my favorite publisher, and then be completely ignored by my final publisher, really took its toll on my muse. I'm trying to find it again one sentence at a time. So you may be seeing more blog posts as I work out my writing muscles over the next few weeks. I hope you'll join me on this leg of my journey.