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 |  is paved with good intentions... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
| I was thinking about you all this morning, and feeling a little maudlin I guess. I miss you guys, but I don't know if I'll be back. I am sure there are people out there who are sick of hearing me talk about my ADHD. My own mother-in-law (who also has ADHD) said to me, "You can't blame everything on your ADHD." Except, I kinda can. It's a neurological disorder that affects my brain and therefore affects EVERYTHING I do. It affects my ability to focus, my impulse control, my ability to switch from one task to another, my organisation skills, my motivation, my memory, my emotions, my timekeeping, and my energy levels. Those things, in turn, affect my sleep, the foods I eat, how much (and what) I drink, my finances, the tidiness of my house, car and desk, my education, my work, the exercise I do, my relationships with people (especially friends in my case), my parenting skills, and, relevant to this particular post, my hobbies and interests. ADHD literally affects every moment of my life, in both negative and positive ways. It is a large part of why I was such a big part of this community for so long. It's also a large part of why so many people on here found me unreliable (sorry!). I don't have many constants in my life. Reading and my family are probably the only two things that have been constant in my whole life, and even those have undergone changes. Most of my hobbies and interests come and go. I wish I could dive back into Writing.com, but I can't. I have no inspiration or motivation for writing prose or poetry, and without those, it is purely a social site for me. And I miss the social aspect of Writing.com, I miss my friends here, I miss YOU. But for the first time in my adult life, I have a real life friend that I see regularly. And I'm making new friends...in real life. It started with a quiz night on Tuesdays, and then morphed into journaling sessions once a month (or was it the other way around?), and now there's a group of four of us who do the journaling, and the quiz nights are anywhere from 1-3 times a week, and sometimes the husbands and kids join in, and sometimes we meet up with new people. Steve and I have joined the local RSA, which we've been meaning to do for ages. I don't know if America has anything like an RSA. Australia does, and calls it RSL. It was originally for military and veterans, and they got cheap meals, cheap drinks, and regular entertainment. Then membership died down so much they opened it up to everyone. The memberships that regular people pay help keep it cheap for veterans. Anyway....if you belong to one, you belong to all of them, and they put on good entertainment evenings often enough to make it worthwhile. Our local one has a quiz night every Thursday and one of Caitie's old school friends goes with his parents, and we had met them before when the kids were much younger, but have reconnected, and that's nice, because we all live reasonably close and are similar ages. I don't know what the point of this post is. I was originally going to do some sort of an explanation as to why I wasn't here and likely wasn't going to be back for a while, then reminisce about the good old days and tag people who I missed.... But maybe I'll just give you an update on me and leave it at that. I'm intermittently training to walk 51 flights of stairs up the Sky Tower on 4 August. I say intermittently because right when my training should have ramped up (this month), it has petered out. Ugh. So predictable. But I'll do it, and get a medal to say I did it, and raise some money for leukemia and blood cancers at the same time, which is a worthwhile cause. I often think about The StoryMaster  and The StoryMistress  and their family while doing my fundraising. I also have a cousin who has had leukemia twice.I have a few walks booked in: - 10km in Rotorua - 10 August - 10km at the Auckland Botanic Gardens - 5 October - 14km in Rotorua - 19 October And a couple more on my wishlist for when the weather fines up (it's winter here at the moment). Quiz nights once a month on Mondays - we've won the last two times. Yay! Quiz nights every week on Tuesdays - the best we've managed is third place, but we come second-to-last often enough, and there's a prize for second-to-last (as well as first and second places) so we're saving up our vouchers we get (for the restaurant it's held in) and we'll do a Christmas lunch or dinner with them. Quiz nights every week on Thursdays - we've only been once so far and came last, but we play with different people there and so it's a good way to create new connections, new friendships, so we're definitely going back. We're currently on a major decluttering mission and packing up our house in preparation for putting the house on the market later this year. We want to move somewhere semi-rural if possible, but that might not be doable considering I work in the CBD. We might have to compromise on being in suburbia, but we're definitely keen to move. Caitie has qualified as a chef finally, which is very exciting. She has a part-time job at a local restaurant, and has picked up a casual job at one of the restaurants she did work experience at, but needs to find a full time job now that she's not studying. Jayden is doing well at uni, which is awesome. He's studying social work. He's also become a gym bunny, and goes to the gym at least five days a week. Steve is still running his business, and he's also studying for his masters in health and safety, so he's got a lot on his plate at the moment. I've signed up for a crazy year-long (July 2024 to June 2025) reading challenge, just because I can. - Read a book with more than 500 pages in a single day; - Read a book for each letter of the alphabet (using either the title or author name); - Read a book that has a quote from at least three authors on the cover, and then read a book by each of those three authors; - Buy three books at a garage sale (or similar where you're buying direct from another reader) and read those; - Read five books from five different 'authortubers' - Start and finish a book series with at least four books in it; - Read five books recommended by five different 'booktubers' who have less than 5k followers each; - Read five books set in or by an author from countries other than USA, UK and Canada (without repeating countries); - Read a book with a lesbian protagonist; - Read a book with a gay protagonist; - Read a book with a protagonist who is trans; - Read a book with a protagonist who is bi or pan; - Read a book with a protagonist who is questioning their sexuality; - Read a book with an intersex protagonist; - Read a book with an asexual protagonist; - Read the five lowest rated books on your TBR; - Buy a book direct from an independent author and read it; - Buy a book by a local author from a local bookstore and read it; - Read a book for each letter of your first, middle and last names (using either the title or author name); - Read five books that were nominated for the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Competition but which didn't win or place as a finalist; - Read a completed webcomic; - Read a new release in the month it was released, for each of the twelve months that the challenge runs; - Read a book that was in the top 10 books in the year you were born; - Read 3 books in 24 hours; - Read a book that has a recipe in it that you've never made before (can't be a cookbook) and make the recipe; - Read a fantasy book; - Read a science fiction book; - Read a mystery/thriller book; - Read a horror book; - Read a romance book; - Read an historical book; - Read a nonfiction book; - Read a literary book; - Help crowdfund a book and read it; - Read a book with a predominantly red cover; - Read a book with a predominantly orange cover; - Read a book with a predominantly yellow cover; - Read a book with a predominantly green cover; - Read a book with a predominantly blue cover; - Read a book with a predominantly purple cover; - Read a book with a predominantly pink cover; - Read a book with a predominantly white cover; - Read a book with a predominantly black cover; - Read a book with a predominantly brown cover; - Read a classic you've never read before, then read a modern adaptation of that classic; - Read three books featuring protagonists with names of people you know in real life (without repeating names); - In winter, read a book set in winter; - In spring, read a book set in spring; - In summer, read a book set in summer; - In autumn, read a book set in autumn. At least I have a year to do it. Not sure how I'll go, because some of those things are well outside my comfort zone (ugh, classics!), but I'm going to give it a shot. I might pop this list over in "Invalid Item"  and keep track of my progress there if you're interested.And I need to get on with all the other things I'm supposed to be doing right now. Was nice talking to you! I miss you! |
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