I Don't Do Resolutions...

However, I have a few goals I'd like to try and accomplish this year.  I don't make resolutions because I usually end up breaking them and then I feel guilty.  I think it would be better to try to work towards a few goals that are reachable.

1.   Lose the weight I've gained due to meds and junk food (joining Weight Watchers Friday).

2.   Increase and improve my writing output.

3.   Try to participate in the January Blog Dare.

4.   Wii Fit at least twice a week.
 
5.   Get out of the house more during the week with friends.  I feel like I'm becoming a hermit.




I think those are doable goals.  Not too overwhelming (well, maybe the weight thing) and no hurry or stress.


Wish me luck!


Also, I recently had a story accepted to the online zine "Support the Little Guy.  I've also got a review going up on the site.  Link to follow when published!

Meet Me on Monday, 12/27/10

Once again, it's been a week since I posted.  But the craziness is finally done and so is the holiday stress.  Of course, I'm sure I'll find something else to stress about soon, but for now I'm in "aaaahhhhhhhhhhhh" mode.

I haven't gotten a lot of writing done, but hopefully it'll pick up now that the holidays are over.  I did write a review for a movie called Frozen, which was an edge-of-your-seat suspense movie.  I highly recommend this movie if you love being white-knuckled during a movie.  And make sure you're nice and warm when you watch it.

Here is the link for the review I wrote:  Frozen, Reviewed by Sheri White.

Onto the Monday questions:

1.  What are your New Year's Eve plans?

We're just staying in; ordering Chinese food and watching TV and hanging out.  Heaven!

2.  How tall are you?

I think I'm about 5'4"-1/2, which is why I'm starting Weight Watchers again on Friday; this extra weight (some from meds, some from junk food) shows too well.

3.  What is your favorite pudding flavor?

Any kind of chocolate!

4.  What room of the house do you blog the most in?

The living room - in my recliner with my heated blanket and the TV on.  Bliss.

5.  What is your best physical feature?

Right now my hair; I've grown to love my natural curls and they usually look pretty good!

Meet Me on Monday, 12/20/10

Been a while since I posted - the closer Christmas gets, the more overwhelmed and stressed I get.  I did get a book review done in case anybody is interested:

In The Mean Time by Paul Tremblay.

I enjoy Christmas when it's happening, but the days leading up to it leave me tired and stressed.  On Christmas night, after everyone has gone and the cleaning has been done, I love to sit in my recliner, watch TV and go "Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh."  Looking forward to that!

1.  What will your Christmas dinner consist of?

Turkey and stuffing are the main attractions; sides still to be decided.

2.  Do you watch commercials or flip through the channels?

I usually watch commercials because I mostly watch live TV.  Most I don't mind, but I will immediately mute the TV or change the channel when the Sarah MacLachlan animal shelter PSAs come on!

3.  How long will you leave your Christmas decorations up?

I'm Grinchy - if I weren't so tired Christmas night, they'd come down then!  It usually the day or two after Christmas if nobody protests.

4.  What movie makes you cry every time you watch it?

Steel Magnolia's, the funeral scene.  Every damn time.  I hate it (hate crying).

5.  Do you have a Facebook?

I admit, I'm addicted to Facebook!  You can find me here:  Sheri Jenkins White.

Meet Me on Monday, 12/13/10 + Other Stuff

First the other stuff:

Thanks to the newest followers who have left comments that I have been lazy about and haven't returned!  I do like comments; it's like getting mail that isn't bills.  I will also follow back.

My writing stuff is going great!  I had my second article published in our local paper last Thursday; Chris and I covered our town's annual tree lighting.  I thought it would be just the lighting ceremony, but it was actually services at the town's three churches then the lighting.  Quite an assignment for a couple of non-religious people!

My story "Morning" placed Honorable Mention in Necon E-Books November flash fiction contest.  You can read the story here.

You can read my review of the weird 80s movie "Liquid Sky" at ForgottenFlix.  I'm quite proud of it.

And my review of the 2007 horror movie "House of Fears" can be read at Xomba's horror channel.

I hope to hear more about other submissions soon.

1.  How do you order your steak?

Here's a picture of a steak I had a Longhorn a few months ago:

 

2.  Are you superstitious about anything?

I won't swear on the life of anybody I love, especially my kids.

3.  Who is your best friend (not including your spouse)?

Michelle!

4.  When is the last time your wore a dress (for the guys...a suit)?

I wear sundresses during the summer a lot, so not long ago.

5.  Do you have any trips scheduled?

My sister-in-law Holly and I are going to NYC on Friday to see this guy in concert:

Can't wait!

Sunday Stealing, 12/5/10

I was hoping to have some writing news to brag blog about, but I'm still waiting.  In the meantime, a picturesque Sunday Stealing.

1. The latest book or movie that made you cry?

2. The fictional character most like you?

3. The greatest album, ever?

4. Star Trek or Star Wars? Why?

5. Your ideal brain food?

6. Everyone is proud of a certain accomplishment, which one for you??

7. You want to be remembered for ...?

(A good mom)

8. Let's talk about recording artists. Who do you find the most inspirational?

9. The creative masterpiece you wish bore your signature?

10. Your hidden talents . . .?

11. The best piece of advice you actually followed?

Actually blanking on this one!

12. The best thing you ever bought, stole, or borrowed?

13. What is the most comfortable clothes that you wear?

14. Your dinner guest at the Ritz would be?

15. Time travel: where, when and why?

16. Stress management: hit man, spa vacation or Prozac?

17. Essential to life: coffee, vodka, cigarettes, chocolate, or . . .?

18. Environment of choice: city or country, and where on the map?

My own back yard.

19. What do you want to say to the leader of your country?

20. Last but certainly not least, what are you working on, now?

K and Me

Another one of MamaKat's weekly writing prompts inspired me today:

1.) Have you ever had a fight with a long time best friend and never made up? Do you think about her from time to time and think about contacting her? What would you say? What if it didn’t work out? What if it did?


Oh boy, do I have a story for that.  This is about a friend I'll just refer to as K.


K and I had been friends since freshman year of high school.  We weren't best friends during the high school years, but gradually grew closer in the years after graduation.  There was a group of us girls that hung out in high school (we went to an all-girls' Catholic school), but K was besties with M and my best friends were MB and J.  We had a lot of fun together, though, with slumber parties, dances and all the other stuff teen girls do.


All of us kept in touch after graduation, and most of us are still friends almost 30 years later.  K and I became best friends after my first marriage ended up divorce; since she was single and most of my other friends were married, we naturally gravitated towards each other.  She also became close to my parents and adored my little girl.


But then I met Chris and remarried.  Things seemed to change then.  K still wasn't married and didn't have any children.  The relationships she did have were disastrous, and one of them made me extremely uncomfortable.  There was one time we met her and her boyfriend at a baseball game, and she told him some personal stuff I had done in high school right in front of Chris and me.  I couldn't believe it.


I started feeling uncomfortable with K and sometimes betrayed by her.  By this time she had become very close to not only my parents, but my extended family as well.  She practically considered herself a member of my family, to the point of my feeling left out at times.  One year she had a Christmas party and invited everybody in my family - except me.  I found out later when she "accidentally" let it drop.  She at least had the decency to act embarrassed, as did my mom.  But I was hurt.


There are many more examples, but the final nail in the coffin of our relationship was five years ago.  Our mutual friend J, my best friend back in high school, was in town with her newly-adopted daughter.  I hadn't seen J in years - she lived in California and missed and still miss her terribly - and I didn't know she was coming to town.  No, I didn't find out until once again, K "accidentally" mentioned that she had seen J and her beautiful daughter and had a wonderful time together.  I still don't know why J didn't let me know herself, but K knew for a while this was coming and purposely excluded me from this rare opportunity. 


The night K let this information slip, we were at my parents' for dinner, so I couldn't really say or do anything about it without making everyone else uncomfortable.  I called her on it a few days later, and her comment was "Why shouldn't I let you know I had seen a friend?" No remorse.  No acknowledgement that maybe I could've been hurt by this. But I was absolutely devastated.  K actually broke my heart.  Not even my divorce had hurt as much.


So to answer the prompt, do I think about her?  Not really.  I did for a while; I obsessed over what I say to her about how badly she hurt me, but I never got the opportunity.  I had told her in an email never to call me again, and I certainly wasn't going to call her.  So that answers the second question in the prompt, would I contact her?  No.  She treated me shabbily for a long time, but since I didn't have very many friends at the time, I just took it.  Now I have many friends, and a best friend I love and trust very much.  


I imagine K and I will run into each other at some point; we share too many friends not to.  Plus she's still friends with my parents, which, I admit, bothers me a lot.  My mom knows how badly I was hurt; why stay friends with K after that?  But it's none of my business.  My mom can pick her own friends.


If I do run into K, I will be polite, but I will not be friendly.  She crossed a major line and unfortunately, I'm the type of person who can and will hold a grudge for a very long time.  I still can't forgive her for that last straw, and I doubt I ever will.

Christmas Shopping, Part 1

I've gotten some shopping done, mostly online.  I have finished one group of gifts, and that was for the pets.  This was important.

The pets (Sandy, Jack and Magic) get a gift on Christmas morning.  This is how it has been since we first got Magic.  After Sandy came along, she got one also, of course.  She caught on pretty quickly after her first Christmas with us.  Jack still doesn't get it, but enjoys the excitement of the day.

Then we started having Christmas Eve at our house once we moved into a single-family home.  My parents come, Chris's parents come and so do my brother and his family.  Sometime Sarah will have a friend or two come.  So gifts are exchanged.

The year we started this new tradition, I didn't even think about Sandy.  She had her gift, of course, but it was in our closet.  This was when we didn't put gifts under the tree until after the girls had gone to bed because they still believed in Santa.  So the girls are getting gifts from grandparents, nieces and nephews from uncles and aunts, and so on.  

Then I notice Sandy.  She is desperately looking around, and I knew she was waiting on a gift.  Oh, god.  I didn't get a picture of her, but this is close enough:



Jack didn't care, but Sandy was absolutely crushed.  I had no idea a dog could actually be disappointed.  She got a treat, but it wasn't the same.

So now I make sure she has a gift to open on Christmas Eve.  Jack does, too, but he doesn't know the difference.  Never again will my little Sandy Girl have a sad Christmas Eve.

Thanksgiving 2010 + Some Cool News

Not that I expected differently, but Thanksgiving was very nice.  Usually we go first to my in-laws for a noon feast, then to my parents' for dinner.  We're all pretty roly-poly by the time the day is over.  Unfortunately, my mother-in-law isn't feeling well and wasn't up to making her yearly feast.  So we just went to my mom's for dinner.

While I missed my in-laws and my mom-in-law's incredible stuffing, my mom put out a delicious spread.  And I must say, my pumpkin pie was pretty yummy, as was the fudge I made.  So a nice day was had by all of us, even the dogs.  They were pretty excited about going bye-bye in the car and my mom even cooked the giblets for them, so they made out like bandits.

Pictures?  OK:

My girls:





Becca and me:





And, of course, Sandy and Jack hoping for turkey to drop (it did):





And now for some cool news - I had my first article published in our local newspaper today (The Brunswick Citizen)!!  I wasn't sure my article would be good enough, so I was so excited when I checked the paper today.  Here's hoping there will be more to come!




 

That Time I Fell Down

MamaKat gives weekly writing prompts, and while I haven't done one in a while, I decided to tackle one today.  Here are the writing prompts to choose from:

The Prompts:

It’s Thanksgiving time and the show will go on!

1.) Interview your kids…what do they think Thanksgiving is for? What are they thankful for? etc.
2.) Share a photo of what Thanksgiving looks like in your neck of the woods.
3.) Write a poem about the things you are thankful for.
4.) Describe a memorable Thanksgiving.
5.) Forget Thanksgiving, write about that time you fell down.

We established with my last post that I'm not a count-my-blessings-out-loud kinda girl.  So I chose prompt #5.

It was vacation time 2009 and we had rented a cabin in the Smokey Mountains.  But we spent a lot of time in Gatlinburg doing touristy stuff.  This included eating at great restaurants, which in turn included margaritas from time to time.

Before I took the fall I'm writing about, I first need to set the tone for how my whole vacation went for me.  We (my in-laws, Chris, Lauren and Becca) went to Bubba Gump Shrimp for dinner.  Of course, I had my margarita.  After my first drink and before my second, Becca needed to go to the ladies' room.  I took her up and we both took care of business.  I came out of the stall and saw Becca washing her hands.  I gave her a whack on the butt, and this woman turned around in complete shock.  I thought I was going to DIE.  Becca was on the other side of the bathroom, drying her hands and laughing like a loon.  

This kind of thing happens to me a lot.  My kids love to play the "remember when you did..." game and start laughing at me.

So after yet another dinner at Bubba Gump's (plus the aforementioned margaritas), my mom-in-law and I decided we needed to shop for souvenirs.  We tried one place in a strip mall that turned out to have just crap.  We left the store to go back to the van when apparently there was a small rip in space and time that dropped the street a little ways below where I thought it was.  This caused me to fall hard on my knees, scraping the hell out of one of them.  God, it was painful.  Chris jumped out of the van to help, but I could see my loving children trying not to laugh.

But after seeing the damage to my knee, I got a lot of sympathy.  We had to stop at CVS and get some first aid stuff because it was pretty bad.  Check it out:

That area of my knee is now a weird pink color and will probably be that way the rest of my life.

So that's just one of my stories about a time I fell down.

Thursday Thirteen - Thanksgiving Edition

OK, so there are millions of blogs out there with lists of what they are thankful for.  I could go that route, but that's really not me.  I hated so much as a kid when we had Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt Joann's and we all had to stand in a circle and say something we were thankful for before we could eat.  It was the same every year!  We pretty much all said family, friends, etc. so we could dig in to my aunt's beautiful feast.

So my Thanksgiving Thursday Thirteen is going to be an anti-thankful post.



Thirteen Things I Am NOT Thankful For:

1.  Depression
2.  Anxiety
3.  Illness
4.  Winter
5.  Cold/Wind/Snow
6.  Seasonal Affective Disorder
7.  Mean people
8.  Writer's block
9.  Jack's farts waking me up at night
10. Household chores
11. Running out of Diet Coke
12. Dog hair tumbleweeds
13. Stress

Meet Me on Monday, 11/22/10

Becca and I didn't get to NYC; she woke up with her sinuses bothering her and wasn't up to going.  She felt better after a Sudafed and a shower, but by then it was too late to drive that far.  We'll try again in the spring.

Questions:

1.  How many pillows do you sleep with?

Just one and it's very comfortable.

 

2.  Where will you eat on Thanksgiving?

We eat at my in-laws around noon, then head to my mom's around five or six.  We are STUFFED by the end of the day!  But I love it.

 

3.  Would you rather go to a party or host a party?

Go to a party.  My social anxiety keeps me from having people over as I would like.

 

4.  How many purses (for the guys..wallets) do you own?

Just one.  I'm not a purse girl.  I get one and use it until it's worn out.  

 

5.  What is your favorite kind of seafood?

Crab legs from Joe's Crab Shack!  Or any shrimp dishes I prepare, like Shrimp Creole.

 

Sunday Stealing, 11/21/10

This is just a filler post for today since I haven't blogged in several days.  Busy week.  But Becca and I are heading to NYC tomorrow for the day, so I should have a fun post after that.

What was the last thing you put in your mouth?

Water.

How late did you stay up last night and why?

Stayed up until 1:00 because it was a Friday night, but fell asleep in my recliner and woke up about 2:00 to go up to bed.

If you could move somewhere else, would you?

Not right now because I wouldn't want to move the kids out of their schools and away from their friends.  But someday I'll live where it's warm all the time!

Have you ever been kissed under fireworks?

I can't remember!

Do you believe ex’s can be friends?

It really depends on the circumstances.

When was the last time you cried really hard?

When my cousin's little boy died.

What items could you not go without during the day?

Computer, Droid, water, Diet Coke, coffee.

Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?

It must've been my grandmother; that was a long time ago.

How do you feel about your life right now?

I'm pretty happy, and I don't think it's just the anti-depressants talking!

If we were to look in your facebook inbox, what would we find?

A lot of messages about marching band transportation!

Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?

Yup.

Has anyone ever called you perfect before?

My husband says I'm perfect for him.

Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m.: who do you want it to be?

My bedroom is on the second floor; I don't want ANYBODY knocking!

Do you think too much or too little?

Too much.

Do you believe in fairy tales?

Not really.

Have you ever licked the back of a CD to try to get it to work?

Who DOES that?

What’s the largest age difference between yourself and someone you’ve dated?

Four years.

Have you ever been on a blind date?

No.

Do you have any friends that you’ve known for 10 years or more?

Still friends with several of my high school friend, and one of my friends I've known since I was 12 (I'm 44).

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?

Yes, fourth grade!

What song do you want played at your funeral?

"Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles; the Beatles Love version.

Would you tell your parents if you were gay?

Not when I was a teen, but I would now if I were.

What would your last meal be before getting executed?

Steak!

Do you walk around the house naked?

I can't even keep warm in my clothes.

What do you do as soon as you walk in the house?

Wash my hands and greet the dogs who are jumping on me.

Who is the person you can count on the most?

Chris.

What is your favorite Holiday?

Halloween - love the atmosphere all the horror stuff on TV.

Would you ever get plastic surgery?

I'd consider a tummy tuck if I were guaranteed nothing would go wrong.

Have you ever caught a fish?

Yes, I went on a fishing trip when I was 17 and caught flounder.

What is the first thing you notice about people?

If they are well-groomed.

What is the farthest you’ve been from home?

Okinawa, Japan.

How did you meet your spouse or significant other (or most recent one)?

At a bar called Kangaroo Katies!

Where was the last place you drove (other than home/school/work)?

Picked up Becca from a slumber party today, then stopped at Wawa for a fountain soda and newspaper.

**********

I went to get my hair highlighted on Wednesday, and in the middle of my appointment, the salon dryer caught on fire!  They had to move everybody outside while the fire department made sure everything was OK.  After about 30 minutes, they just let in the beauticians who had clients with color or perms to rinse them out.  So I got rinsed, then sent home for free!  Weird day, but I made out pretty good.