Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 45

The Power of Story (my opinion!)

The audiobook I’m listening too had a major curveball that was interesting. The female murder victim turned out to be transgender which very few people knew. That twist came during the trial, and could provide the missing motive to why her boyfriend could have murdered her in the book’s plot. That’s all fine and didn’t bother me.

What does bug me is when the character exposition turned into blatant lecturing. I’m not even sensitive on these topics. If I don’t like something, I just move onto something else. There’s plenty of choices out there. But this twist worked for me in this story since it upped the stakes, and the author had laid down some clues that suddenly made sense. But I got jerked hard out of the story by the blatant lecturing in the murder victims exposition (the timeline switches between the present and the past, and that parts skillfully done). It makes me sad. Sometimes as authors, we forget the story itself is powerful enough, and we are actually weaking the power of the story when we insert our own voice, beliefs and or agendas. Let the characters tell their story and trust their story is enough.

Then step off and let readers choose if they want to go along for the story’s ride or not. Some will, some won’t. That’s how it works. And that’s how it should work in my view. Readers get to choose what they want to read. But if we write a powerful enough story without that lecturing, maybe we will give our characters a chance to add something to the conversation of life, and give readers an opportunity to see something from another point of view. It’s happened to me many times.

For sure, the method in this book doesn’t work for me. It seriously irritates me.

I’m finishing the story because I’m still hooked by the story question of did the well like, nice guy high school hocky star kill his girlfriend or not? Plus the author is developing interesting characters and her writing is engaging except for this one thing that slips through in the exposition/lecturing.

A couple decades ago, I was reading a fiction and was too far in when I realized it involved showing the opposite side of something I believed. By then I was hooked and devoured the entire book. There was no lecturing. Rather, this was a powerful story that helped me see that issue in a broader way. I don’t remember the title, but I’ve remembered the story and the two main characters for more than two decades.  That’s pretty danged impressive. That fictional book had an impact on my views and has stayed with me for a very long time. It didn’t necessarily change my opinion but it’s helped me understand how the issue affects all people, not just me.

That’s powerful. And yet not once did the author disguised as the character lecture. She was living her life in the timeline of that book, and I was experiencing it with her. For those few hours, it felt like I had a friend who lived a different life than mine, and I was learning from her without even realizing it.

That is the power of story! Let’s keep our author voice’s out of it and let the characters’ voices do their job!

Happy Wednesday!

The post The Power of Story (my opinion!) first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

It was a good but busy weekend.

Saturday, youngest came over, and he and Wizard rented a truck to bring home wood for Wizard to build a workbench, cabinets and pegboard to hang tools. Hopefully they got all the bigger pieces. While they were gone, I finally had a little time just to clean and do a few things. Once they came home, Youngest hung out for a while. Then Wizard and I headed out to an outlet furniture stores we’d discovered. It was another longish drive, but we finally found couches! We’d spent enough time, energy and gas ($$) to know it was probably the best deal we were going to get. The hardest thing for me is balancing what I love with what is practical. My practical (and cheap!) side won out. It almost always does, LOL. But I think we’ll be happy. Once we have those, I just need two smaller chairs to get all the seating we’d like to have in the great room, but those should be easier (and less expensive!) to find.

Saturday it rained! We had quite a downpour for about twenty minutes. And a lot of heavier drizzle on and off. We can use every drop!

Sunday Wizard finally was able to go racing and I had a quiet, productive and very much appreciated day at home. Most of it was boring to talk about stuff like yoga, vacuuming, ordering “we’ve moved” cards and going to pick them up, and other assorted things. Then I debated between working on my pantry since I got some storage containers and going for an afternoon walk with Maggie. I chose the walk. Sunday was cooler and overcast, while the rest of the week is going to get hot again so we took advantage of the cloudy day and explored. That was fun and good for both of us! Maggie’s sleeping now after quite a long walk on dirt and mud trails.

‘This afternoon, our blinds are supposed to be installed. That is going to be nice! We have been using sheets that we hold back with chip bag clips during the day. I’m sure the neighbors will miss our class once boring blinds are installed

How was your weekend?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! I can’t believe it’s Friday again! But here we are, and it’s time to share 5 random things about our week. Here’s mine:

Monday I got my ultrasound done at 7:30 in the morning. I left early thinking there’d be traffic because I forgot it was Columbus Day.  Let’s just say that I got there early, LOL. That’s okay, I was done by 8, went to Starbucks to grab a coffee and had the rest of my day to come home to a new trail of ants Evidently they don’t get Columbus Day off.Tuesday the exterminator came out. The day before we’d put out bait traps that seemed to stop the newest trail of ants. But since we are living in new construction we decided to go the extermination route for the first time ever. Our house is “wired” in the walls for a method of injecting a powder that is supposed to kill a lot of bugs. Plus they treated the outside and garage with the traditional method. I have no idea of this newfangled method (the wall wiring thing) works, but we should find out. If it does, we will keep the service for a while. So far, we’ve had zero new ants.Yesterday I spent a chunk of time designing “We’ve Moved” cards that I could order and have delivered to a local store. I’ve used this store at least a half dozen times for things like ordering custom Christmas cards. But when I went to order, they website refused to acknowledge our local store.  I’m guessing it’s some glitch, but it’s weird. Especially since we not that physical store is definitely still open as Wizard just went there to buy some items one week ago. I’ll see if it works tomorrow, if not, then I’ll have to go somewhere else and redo the cards.Monday we’re scheduled to finally get the blinds installed. I’m really happy about that.This weekend, Wizard is going to try to go racing on Sunday. Saturday he and youngest son are picking up some wood and supplies to build a workbench and cabinets in the garage, and somewhere in there, we are trying to fit in a little furniture shopping. We are mainly looking at couches because the budget is a real thing. Sunday, I’d love to do something a little fun but who knows.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

House Klutz

Me, I’m the House Klutz!

So the other night, I turned the light off, and went to get into bed. But I somehow tripped into the nightstand and now have a pretty awesome bruise on my knee. Normally I leave the bathroom light on and turn that off last since it’s two steps from my bed. That night I did it in opposite order. I wasn’t thinking, I guess. Or more likely, I was thinking about something else and not paying attention. Even so, I still have no idea how I so badly miscalculated where I was in the room and walked straight into the nightstand instead of stopping at my bed. I spent the next twenty minutes icing my knee before re-attempting the tricky feat of getting into bed

I can pretty much guarantee I won’t do that again, LOL!

Then yesterday I was washing the floors, and slammed my right hand into the granite countertop. It felt like punching stone! But at least for that klutzy move, I can use the excuse that I’m haven’t developed a mental map in my head of how far the countertop overhang is. My hand is fine, just one joint and my wrist are mildly sore, but not bad enough to slow me down any

Those are just the two bigger ones. I’ve been bumping into stuff here and there as I’m getting used to the new house (plus unpacking and moving stuff around). My legs are so marked up, I wore pants when I went out to lunch over the weekend with my sister I’m now referring to myself as the House Klutz!

Anyone else injury prone in new spaces, or is it just me???

The post House Klutz first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

The last four days were nonstop! I couldn’t even get to answering Friday’s blog comments until Sunday.  So here’s my roundup:

Friday: We woke up to ants. That ended up being an all day chore but I think we battled them back for a while. I was REALLY mad at the stupid ants as I had plans with Biker Witch. But I called her and asked if she’d mind switching her birthday lunch to Sunday, and she was so gracious about it. That made me feel better. Finally, I was able to make Special K’s red velvet cupcakes Friday night. My oven has a convection bake, and it seemed to work great! I didn’t eat the cupcakes, but my official taste testers — Wizard and Turbo — assured me they were fine. By 9pm I was one aching zombie.

Saturday: I had to run to the store, make cream cheese frosting (easy) and ice the cupcakes. Then CPA Boy, Special K and Turbo arrived! Turbo liked the house, but mentioned that he likes stairs and pools. I reminded him that Uncle Youngest has a pool, and then I showed him all the dirt in the backyard. Turbo and Grandpa when spent an hour digging for dinosaur bones and he forgot about stairs and pools Later in the day, I took Turbo and his parents on a hike up a dirt road into the hills. Turbo was convinced we would find a crashed monster truck (he loves monster trucks!). We climbed a long way looking! He loved it, and it was cool for me and Maggie as we got to show off some of the places we like to walk or hike. By the time we got home, CPA boy turned to me and said “You walk like this everyday?” I loved that comment. But I don’t do that specific hike everyday as their are coyotes and critters. Early in the morning, I stay on the streets where it’s safer. I say those hikes for mid day in the cooler months. Still, it was nice that he noticed I try to stay as health as I can. I have to give props to CPA Boy, though, he carried Turbo on his shoulders for part of that hike!

And I think Special K had a good birthday. I’d like to have done more but the second half of this last week was a non-stop bullet train that we couldn’t seem to slow down. And Special is so understanding.

Youngest son and his amazing wife came by too.

Sunday, Biker Witch and I went to lunch. It was great! She’s really going through a home repair challenge and I was just tired from the whirlwind, so it was nice for both of us to get out. I ignored the diet for that one meal and had some chocolate cake too.

Today I have to battle through hellacious traffic to get to a 7:30 appointment for a abdominal ultra sound. But scheduling it early means getting out of the way first thing and have the rest of the day to do other stuff. Struggling through 25 or 30 miles of stop-move 7 inches-and stop again morning commuter traffic is worth that! And then it’s off to the closer coffee dealer to get my fix of morning joy!

How was your weekend?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week, here’s mine:

Yesterday was a frustrating day. Before I whine, we are getting way more done than not, so this is just griping about little things. But yesterday was dealing with the last services getting set up, and the two things giving us headaches are TV and the landline (Wizard wants it with our old landline number because his aging mom knows that number– that’s a danged good reason). But the day just brimmed with frustration and ended with me on hold for an hour and a half and the useless old phone company that never answered. We just want to import the old number, not buy a human heart on the black market. However,  we can live full and complete lives without the landline plus specific phone number so it’s minor but annoying.Maggie loves all the people coming to the house! It’s a party for her. We find her in the office staring out the window looking for more new friends. I love that for her. She also wants Wizard to take her to the mailbox every night after dinner. I soon learned why. Wizard was busy the other night, so I took her. I passed a guy who said, “Hi Maggie.” It figures, Maggie’s making friends in the neighborhood before me It turns out she’d met the new neighbor on one of the nights Wizard had taken her to the mailbox. He was very nice, and I was impressed that he remembered Maggie’s name!In case anyone here has a wheat allergy and needs gluten free food items, let me just say you have my full sympathy! They aren’t that easy to find and very expensive! I only need to do this for a few weeks so it’s not too big a deal. But for those who live with a wheat allergy, hugs!Today, Biker Witch and I are going to lunch to celebrate her birthday. I’m so looking forward to that! We’re going to Cheesecake Factory, and I’ll make the best choices I can with the low fodmat diet but one meal isn’t going to hurt me. I usually can’t eat much anyway lately (but sometimes I can!). Wizard is encouraging me to get dessert, eat a few bites and bring home the rest and he’ll eat it. He’s helpful like that!!Turbo is coming about to see our house! Oldest son (his dad) told me I should have the movers on standby in case Turbo doesn’t approve and we have to move back. Ha! Not even for Turbo would I move again! But I’m really looking forward to having Turbo and his parents out. It’s Turbo’s mom’s birthday this weekend too, and Oldest son said she wanted red velvet cupcakes. I have a good recipe, now we’ll see if my oven is up to the job!

That’s my five, but I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has the best weekend ever!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Maggie’s New Favorite Spot

Maggie has a new favorite spot!

This is her chair in the office. Ignore the clipped back sheet we’re using to cover the window — we’ve ordered window blinds and we should get them sometime before the month is over I hope. I’ll get around to organizing the bookshelves to the right of her soon (or not, LOLOL!) As soon as we cleared a space to put her chair in front of the window to the whole wide world, she was thrilled.

Well, at least she was until last night when she she saw a dog staring back at her and growled. I laughed so hard, she glared at me, got down and stalked into the other room just like a cat would. That only made me laugh harder (my kids are right, I am mean!) Um, Maggie, that’s YOU WERE GROWLING AT YOUR REFECTION IN THE WINDOW!!! What makes it even funnier is so far, she’s not barking or growling at anyone going by the window. Apparently she only barks at her own reflection.

Which I guess I kind of understand after all: Sometimes first thing in the morning, I growl at my reflection in the mirror too

Maggie got into some trouble when she found a bag of trash one night. We don’t have the trash cans yet, so we foolishly set the bagged trash by the front gate. Seriously, Maggie rarely gets into anything she’s not supposed to, so we didn’t think about it as we should have. Anyhow, Maggie discovered it and was having a blast licking discarded meat packaging. UGH! Fortunately I realized really quickly that she’d been out of my sight too long, went out to check and caught her in the act. She saw me, ran half way to me then rolled over on her back in surrender. She’s so hard to be mad at! But I wasn’t really that upset about the mess, I was way more worried she’d get sick. Almost anything off her diet makes her sick. But somehow, raw meat juice that had been in the trash for a day didn’t bother her. Go figure.

So that’s Maggie’s adventures so far.

How’s your week going?

P.S. Happy Birthday to my favorite sister, Biker Witch! 

The post Maggie’s New Favorite Spot first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

**I’m posting this on Sunday afternoon because it’s easier for me  

It was a good weekend. Wizard is getting ready to start working on his garage, and I sorted boxes left to unpack into two closets: One for stuff that will need to be unpacked at some point, and the other for stuff we are storing like old photos and books. Of course there’s still lots to do, but it feels like the moving chaos has been tamed somewhat Here’s a couple house pics:

This is the new house when we got the keys. It looks smaller from the front.

The kitchen before we moved in, with the dinning room on the left. We have a view of hills all around us.

The door on the right side of this shot leads to a large walk in pantry. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a walk in! We love it.

 

Wizard took this the first time I was getting ready to cook in there. I think I was looking up a recipe before I started.

That’s enough pics for now

So other stuff that happened: Somehow we managed to go to Wizard’s reunion last weekend. It was fun, and I enjoyed seeing and meeting a lot of people. We were tired, but I was determined that we go. Wizard had talked about seeing old friends for months, and I really wanted him to go. I think the break was good for us too.

Then in the “caught by surprise” category, I went to the specialist for my stomach the day after we moved in. I have a bunch of tests which I expected, and then…I found out I have to go on a low FODMAT diet for a whole. I did NOT see that coming! I knew what it was, but it just hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have do the diet.  **Sigh.** If you don’t know what this diet is, it eliminate foods high in FODMATS which is anything good like wheat, dairy (I limit dairy now),  a lot of fruits and vegetables I really like, for six weeks. After than, you begin adding the foods back in to see what is a trigger.

Sound like fun???? NOT.

I pretty much ignored the diet last week, and will start thinking about it this week when I go grocery shopping. It really is important that I do all they are asking me so do so I can manage this condition better.

So that’s my weekend, how was yours?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five!

TGIF!! I hope all our Florida friends are safe after the powerful hurricane and storm surges. We don’t have TV right now where I’d see more images, but I did see news feeds on my phone. That hurricane was scary, and the aftermath is horrendous.

Now to totally shift gears, let’s dive into sharing five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

Maggie is adjusting to her new home. The first couple days she was exploring, running around and thrilled to see people coming and going. But during the nights, she was scared and barked in her kennel. The first night I let her out to sleep in her bed next to me. The second night, we made her tough it out, the third night she was such a good girl. I’m proud of her! Really! When we first got her, she barked ten long nights. Just so everyone knows we’re not being cruel, we have real reasons why we want her to sleep in a kennel, the two main ones being 1) she is so attached to me, we want to give her places to feel safe without me next to her, and 2) fire or other emergencies in the middle of the night — in her kennel we always know where she is and can quickly load her in the car to escape.We love it in the new house so far! Although Wizard took a picture of me trying to cook dinner in my new kitchen and posted it to our family message  board saying, “Mom is lost trying to cook in the new kitchen!” He’s not wrong!!The day after we moved in, we had a plumbing issue that happened when Wizard was gone and I was just leaving for a long awaited specialist (gastroenterologist) appointment. Suddenly I heard a weird bubbling. At first, I thought it was the washing machine where I was washing towels, but it looked fine. I heard the noise again, and found the toilet in the bathroom next to the laundry room was bubbling. Like almost boiling. I looked for a shut off valve, when it stopped. I HAD to leave. I shut off the washer and called Wizard. He answered, and said the exact words I needed to hear: “I’m pulling in the driveway now, come outside, take the car and go, I’ve got this.” It turned out the housing track superintendent was right outside our house (even more luck!) and knew what it was. There’s a cleanout drain outside, and some worked had put paper towels down there. They cleaned out a wad and all is well. Crises averted!We’ve had lots of help! I want to give a shout out to middle son, youngest son, my youngest daughter in law AND her mom! They have all done so much! My sister’s been here twice too while dealing with her own home owner problems (water leak) because she’s my rock! Oldest son and his wife, as well as middle’s wife all have offered, but they are on call for later projects :-). So many people have called, texted and emailed, knowing what this move meant to us (there’s a lot of reasons it needed to happen) and we are so grateful for that support. And you all know we loved our old house too, but life and needs change.Fun story; two sons were here helping to install ceiling fans. Wizard was involved too, and being a “dad” telling the two boys what to do. The two boys have installed more ceiling fans than Wizard, so that was fun. Youngest DIL and I were sealing the granite and doing a ton of other stuff, but we saw all this, including the boys endless patience with dad’s constant advice. All the boys were in the master bedroom trying to figure out how the housing track color-coded the wiring in the ceiling fan prewire, and the two boys kept telling wizard they know what they’re doing. Finally the fan was in and they told Wizard to turn it on. He did…and sparks flew everywhere! I was walking through and ducked in panic. There was a stunned silenced afterward, then youngest announced, “It’s okay, everyone calm down.” No one screamed or said much, so yeah, we’ll do that youngest Anyhow, Wizard recovered from teh shock, looked at the two boys, “Told you it was wrong.” LOLOLOL!!! But all was fine. Middle (who has the most experience with all wiring, he really does know what he’s doing) replaced the wall switch, then they all redid the ceiling fan connections and it works great. They installed the next two without incident. Two morals to this story: 1) Our new house didn’t burn down and 2) Wizard is sure he was right! (For me, the best thing ever is that our kids wanted to be here to help!)

I know everyone will tire of hearing about the house. I totally understand. And we will soon learn the problems and challenges this house will have, but for the moment, we are enjoying it! I’ll try to post pictures on Monday (I hope — we keep getting sidetracked form goals by multiple ongoing projects).

So that’s my five and now I’d love to hear yours! I really do love hearing about your lives! Have a great weekend!

The post Friday Five! first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

We Made It

Hi everyone! I missed you all, but man, the days are a blur. We are in the new house, and this morning we spent a few hours cleaning the old house. Tomorrow we will turn over the keys. We loved that house, but now we will love this one We are so exhausted and sore, but we are here!

I tried to post a picture of my kitchen, and the blog site refuse for “security reasons.”  So weird! I’ve never seen that before. I’ll figure it out, but not tonight (which is last night when I wrote this). I barely slept at all last night and fatigue is making me loopy and blank even though the days have been jammed packed with things happening.

Overall, everything has gone well. We hired movers, and we are so glad we did! It was over a 100 degrees. The poor movers, I don’t know how they work in the heat like that. We did all our past moves ourselves, but this time we just couldn’t. As it is, we’ve been working from the time we get up until 8ish at night for four days straight. Anyway, the movers did great, and now we’ll be unpacking and organizing until 2030

How was your weekend and the beginning of the week? I really want to know!

I really hope I feel more coherent by Friday, LOL!

The post We Made It first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.