Goodness knows why cucumber can’t be my go-to when I must munch. Or an apple. They crunch, and I crave crunch, so why do I find myself up to my eyeballs in a popular brand of breakfast cereal that has those freeze-dried strawberry pieces?

It’s 2021 and I still have to go through the drive through for my matcha, and smile at people by squinting. I admit, I’ve been searching properties in Florida. Why Florida? Why not Florida?! Although I’m sure I would miss the 363 days of clouds, wind, and rain here in the Pacific Northwest, I have family in Florida I haven’t seen in years, and I’d love to walk outside in my pajamas and pick an orange. Okay, I’m exaggerating – it’s only 362 days of clouds, wind, and rain, but the property is cheaper in the area of the West Florida coastline we’ve been daydreaming over. I wonder how the Matcha is there.

So, as my husband and I drooled over property 3,421 miles away, I let my teenagers make dinner. “Use things from the freezer,” was my only instruction. Our freezer needs to be reduced. So, dinner consisted of fish sticks and quesadillas. Which is why I had a grilled cheese sandwich and an abnormally large bowl of breakfast cereal. I promise this is a non-standard meal in our house, where I generally make everything from scratch and snub those who crack open a can for their dinner. I once told a neighbor kid who suggested I make pancakes from a bag mix to, “Get out of my house!” I was kidding, of course. You do know I was kidding, Josiah? Right? In Colorado? Inside joke… Anyway, I couldn’t cook because I was busy drooling over property and moping about the continued lockdown and how it affects teaching, students, and clients. I don’t mind the lockdown for myself – I’m a bit of a recluse and I still don’t mind spending time locked in my office alone.

I originally titled this post, ‘Nothing’, because I really had nothing viable to contribute to the virtual world this evening. You can see, that fact didn’t stop me from posting. It usually does. I have colleagues that post regularly and it aids in building a fan base. I, on the other hand, sit and stare at a blank blog post page with nothing to say. I can blast the page with words if it’s a book – I rarely get writer’s block with that. I have about ten books going at the same time, and if one plot gets stale, I skip tracks to a different book and keep right on going. But blogging cracks open my nothing box and I’m a giant dial tone. Remember dial tones?

I have been writing, though not as much as I’d like. I’m almost done with the rough draft of book two of the Sword series. And book three is well under way as well so I don’t have a repeat of the book 1 unveiling that nearly got me lynched. I’m thrilled it was so enjoyed by all, but I regretted book two was not closer to completion when the first book hit the market.

So, to those who made it all the way to the end of my nothing post, Happy New Year! Thank you for ‘listening’. Would you like a fish stick?