Julia Benally's Blog, page 2

Beautiful Dresses

I've tried to sew before. I even posted my failures on this blog. There was a hideous blue skirt that turned into a duster, and then I busted my sewing machine. I put my sewing machine away, but after a while, the words came into my mind: "Try again." This time, I went onto YouTube channels in search of tutorials and found some really easy ones.

I learned to steal the patterns from my own clothes. I had one skirt that made me look elegant. Guess what, it was a straight skirt. Sew up two rectangles and you're ready to go.

With my first skirt completed, I took my broke hide to Walmart and dug around in the clearance rack for decent fabric between 2 and 8 bucks. I hunted through my closet and found this gorgeous fabric that had been used for a Halloween costume when I was little. I dismantled it with a thread cutter.

Pretty soon, I had tons of pretty fabric to make the dresses I wanted, and not what the stores or perverts in high places dictated. I could own dresses both beautiful and modest.

I got to work and now I have lots of pretty skirts. It looks like I'm spending all my money on skirts and new clothes, but I'm not. For about ten bucks I can have five skirts and five shirts. As long as I stay picky about what I pull out of the clearance racks, I don't have to look scary.

I'm so thankful that I listened to the promptings of the Spirit to try sewing again, to go to the YouTube channels for instruction, and to get my sewing machine back in order.

Heavenly Father helps me in all ways big and small.

My new spidery little friend, Little Frank

I have a pet jumping spider named Little Frank. I discovered him in my window. Flies kept coming in, but as soon as they got to the window, they vanished. Beetles, moths, flies, every one who went to the window never came back out again.

That's when I found Little Frank. He hunts around in my room, jumping anything that comes in. I spotted him yesterday, and now he's Little "Fat" Frank.

I have yet to get a picture of Little "Fat" Frank. He's quite tiny.
I'm thankful Heavenly Father sent him to me.

How to take the bitter out of a cucumber

An acquaintance of mine said she didn't like cucumbers because she never knew which ones were bitter. She said it was chance to find a good one. If you're having that problem, you've come to the right place. You will be able to pick up any cucumber without fear.

Step one: you can buy any cucumber you want, even from Walmart and it'll taste good.

Step two: cut off the ends of the cucumbers, but keep them.

Step three: take these ends and rub them in circular motions on the ends you just cut them from.

Some cucumbers are more bitter than others. If you get a really bitter one, white gunk will start oozing out after a few seconds. It could be so bad that it'll look like foam. Rinse the goo off and rub it again until nothing comes out.

Step four: rub the other side with the other piece you sliced off.

The same gunk will come out. Just repeat step three until no more bitter oozes out.

If you get a good cucumber, hardly anything or nothing will come out after like thirty seconds.

Do these steps and no matter what cucumber you get, it'll taste really nice.

I do it all the time.

The Blair Witch Bush Forest

We headed out to our destination 4,987,687,968,940 miles away.

I drove first and nearly died of a heart attack when passing those massive trucks. Why weren't they still on strike? Couldn't they have kept it up until AFTER my road trip? I tried to look into their windows to see if they had to wear masks or not, but then I almost crashed, so I stopped.

We headed into a weird-looking forest full of bushes. People hunt mule deer in their often, but it looked more like a place to hide a body. If you got lost in there, nobody would find you. You could walk in circles forever and never get out. The Blair Witch had nothing on that bush forest. Everything looked the same. All the bushes were twins.

On top of that, a sign was up telling me that I was leaving the city that I was trying to get to. What? Where did I miss the turn-off? There was no turn-off in the Blair Witch bush forest.

One day I got out of there and reached some town twenty miles from my destination. The GPS repeated ten times how to get through ten roundabouts that ended up going in a straight line. Why didn't it tell me how to get out of the Blair Witch forest? In some straightaway with no turns, it announced I had reached my destination. What? Where? Who? What Safeway? Ended up that I had to go further than what the GPS said.

We had to call the guy to ask where he was. He told us to go past the Safeway and up to a big blue building. A few minutes later I pulled up to a small gray building with a blue roof.

Things were all right after that, but then I had to drive through the Blair Witch bush forest on the way home. Wouldn't you know it, the cops were investigating an area by the road. I knew it. Body. The sign telling me that I was leaving the city when I was coming in now announced that I was entering a national forest. It was lying both times. It should have said Entering National Bush Convention.

I got out of there faster that time.

When I fell asleep on the road, it was time to switch drivers. So I got in the back, blinked, and I was home. You know, it's always faster getting home than getting somewhere else.

Gonna go on another road trip...

I just found out that I'll be going on another road trip to a place I've never been before. If I have, I was probably still in diapers with dependable people around me who could read maps. Now I have a GPS that can screw up to the point where it'll help me get from one end of a town half a mile long to the other in three hours.

Notebooks and Pens--use the writing utensils

When I was on facebook, a writer posted quite proudly that he bypassed all the notebooks and pens at the store and didn't buy a single one. He said in that pompous way of his that he actually survived and went on about his business. I wanted to smack him with all my notebooks and pens, but even if I could, I wouldn't want the writing filling their pages to be smeared by his generous pate.
In my dark days on Twitter, a pretend writer posted that you are a writer when you collect notebooks and pens, but use none of them.
APPALLING.
I collect notebooks and pens, BUT I write in all of them. I use them up to their last pages. In my extensive search for the perfect pen, I've found that those pens that come in packs, are transparent, and have no writing grip on them are the best pens. They don't freeze, they don't glob up, they write smooth, and best of all, you get to see the ink sink into nothing as the days go by.
BAH! Collecting pens and notebooks, but not writing in them. Whoever heard of a writer not using their writing utensils? Are they not reading, either? They might as well say,
"Books are awfully decorative, don't you think?"
"I collect bath soap, but I never bathe."
"I have so many hairbrushes, but not one bristle has ever touched my mane."
"I collect toothpaste, but never brush my teeth."
"You know you're an athlete if you never get off the couch."
"You know you're a reader if you buy up every book and never read them."
"Being an editor is the best job in the world, because you just get to read books all day."
"Writing a book is so simple. I only have to write one draft and hit 'publish.'"
"You know you're a clean freak if you track mud all over your house and don't care."
So you see, a writer not writing on purpose makes zero sense. A non-writer not writing is typical.

Elk, coyotes, deer, and Dragon Ball Z

The other week, I went on a road trip. I was with people whom nothing happens to, so I thought it would be fine.

We had to go to the airport to pick up my uncle.

He missed his flight and came in late. I was getting woozy. Sitting in the airport, waiting for his flight to come in, the alarms went off in total emergency. The gates to one of the terminals grated down and locked everyone away. It never opened again. All the aliens got them, I guess.

When we finally got out of there, we headed home--about four hours away. It was dark. It was close to ten, and every construction crew was out. We got redirected into downtown Tempe. Nobody knew where to go. We just followed the traffic while my uncle tried to get his GPS to work.

Soon, we ended up in front of this building with an outside covered in plastic, faceted to look like a shoddy diamond. There were all these pictures of models on the front of it and it had no windows. I was totally confused.

I was like, "What is that?"

My uncle said, "It's a nudey joint!"

All I could think was, "People can get Forensic Filed here!"

Never my never mind that all the cars went straight there. Where were we supposed to go now?

The GPS started working and we finally got out of there. We almost smashed into a herd of elk, two coyotes, and a bunch of deer having a party in the road.

Next thing I knew, I was having a Dragon Ball Z conversation with my sister about Piccolo, Goku, and King Kai.

Now whoever thought THAT would ever happen?

A new story is up at the new website. Come read.

A  new story has just arrived at the website that none of you have seen before. So go over there, like, comment, and subscribe. That place is better than this one.
If you're too lazy to go over there by hitting the ONLINE STORIES tab, just click here: https://maraduryea.wordpress.com/2022/04/01/the-princess-rose/
Now you have no excuses.
I wanted to write something. Like "Beautiful Dream," I just started writing, but this time, nothing weird came out. You get to meet one of my monsters in a new genre. He enjoyed himself very much.
Happy reading.

Stories up on the new website and more to come

There are more stories up on the new website. You can find them all here. https://maraduryea.wordpress.com/blog/

Some of the stories you know, and others are brand new. Here is the list:

Tiger

Headlights

Blue Moon (new)

Red Knob (new)

Little Berry

64 Dresses

Love Notes

Kittylyn

I am posting one story a month. I'm also moving away from the horror genre. I'll be focusing more on fantasy, adventure, stick in a little more romance, and aliens. Yup, I like aliens.

April and May will both be fantasies. The one coming in April is a whole new fantasy. You may have read the one going live in May, but since where it's published keeps changing its URL, you might not have been able to find it. You'll be able to find it now.

See you over at the new website! Please like, subscribe, and share...over at the new website.

Moving to a new website

Announcement,

I'm moving to a new website.

This one will stay up for all the links and stuff to the stories, but the new website is going to have new stories posted on it, as well as the old, where you couldn't get them before. That's all that will be posted there, along with easier links to buy my books.

https://maraduryea.wordpress.com/