I seem to be returning...

It's been almost two months since I wrote anything here, mostly because I haven't had anything to say that wasn't negative and boardering on homicidal so I just ranted to my best friends and gave a quick smile to the rest of the world.

Some might ask why that is; aren't blogs supposed to be for pouring out all your innermost rants and unloading your soul from its negative energy?  Perhaps, but the way I look at life seems to be a little different than anyone else.  My life is what it is; it's God has planned and it's a compilation of the decisions and choices I've made.  The thing about it is that even knowing some of those choices were wrong I wouldn't go back and change them because to do so would alter the fabric of my life completely and that's just unacceptable.

So why homicidal if things are so peachy keen; I know that's what you're asking yourself now.  Well I never said things were peachy keen.  In fact the last two months has pretty much sucked balls (which I have been informed by my daughter have the same aroma as Feta cheese... having no desire to smell either I'll leave that to the critcs to test for themselves). 

The books had 0 sales in June, which doesn't surprise me since they are still completely unadvertised, not professionally edited, and have over the course of five months brought in a little over $100 in royalties.  I'm happy with that, but it doesn't change that little stab of disappointment when you go to Amazon and see that ugly brown box that denotes having 0 sales.  I could put more time, energy, and money into marketing, advertising, boosting sales, etc., but those things are available to me in teeeeeeeeeeny tinnnnny little portions and right now there are too many other things that suck them up.  So instead I concentrate what little free time to myself I have on finishing the next two books in the series and getting them uploaded.  They might sell or they might not, I might get time to advertise them all or I might not... most likely not LOL

June also saw what should have been the first birthday of my beautiful granddaughter Aryiana who passed away from SIDS September 14, 2010.  I still struggle every day with accepting her death and the week of her birthday was impossibly hard.  We got through it and had a little balloon release at my Mom's. We tied pictures of Aryiana on the balloons with information about their purpose and an address to return them to if they were found.  We've gotten one back so far, from a town in West Virginia about 45 miles North of Charleston they said. We only released 24 so to have even one returned is enough of a miracle for me; my Turtle saw her balloons and loved them.

There were some good things in May and June.  I got a significant improvement in my kidney functions probably due to my laying off the caffeine and soda, and whatever was causing me to feel like I was going to die every time I ate anything pretty much went away.  My sugar is still a daily crap shoot, but I can deal with that with no problem as long as I have access to a bag of candy and a dollar for a hamburger LOL 

The long and short of it all is that my life sucks more days than it blows, but every day I wake up and think about the people in our world who would be thankful to have my life.  The people without children who would consider it a blessing to have one they wanted to strangle.  The people without jobs who would stand in line to take our management's bullshit with a smile.  The people who are truly hungry and thirsty who don't have clean water or food of any kind. The people who walk miles back and forth every day to a job that pays them a month what I make in a day. 

I have a place to live, people who love me, a little money coming in, and a few clothes to wear.  For those things I am forever blessed and thankful and while it doesn't mean life doesn't suck, it does mean I have no right to complain about how bad life is to me. 

If you don't like something in your life then fix it, change it, or shut the fuck up already.... just sayin...

Wow It's Been Awhile....

Life seems to have once again gotten in the way of my blogging... or perhaps it was just moodiness and the inability to write anything I thought the four or five people who actually read my blog would want to waste their time on LOL

Actually life is pretty darn good in my neck of the woods for the moment.  Valentine's Day was fairly eventful as I got surprise flowers from one of my best friends and then more surprise flowers from my daughter and my daughter's best friend who is really pretty much my other daughter LOL both extremely beautiful (the girls and all the flowers) and very much appreciated.  Then from my hubby I got the cutest stuffed dog in the world and some very yummy chocolates.  My baby boy made me several beautiful cards and drawings and we had a wonderful time together at his school Valentine's party... 1st grade is the bomb apparently LOL

My book sales are actually tooting right along... between the two novels I have listed on Kindle I've sold 15 copies and made close to $40 in royalties.  I'm now venturing into the self-publishing print world and both titles should be available at Amazon.com within the week.  I'm a little frustrated with the print side of things because I absolutely LOVE the way they look and the beautiful covers I'm able to design for them.  It absolutely amazes me to think I will be able to see something I have written actually in a full print version, and I'm sure once I have a copy in my grubby little paws I will bawl uncontrollably.  My issue with it is that the books are (to me anyway) incredibly expensive!!!!!  Saving Alexandria was minimum priced at $6.99 which I think is a lot for a novella, and Guardian of Dreams (which I must admit is 450 print pages... I got carried away, but the characters insisted that there was nothing else to cut) minimum priced at $17.99...  that's nearly two hours of work for a book written by someone that no has ever heard of and couldn't find an agent or a publisher that would take a chance on her...  seems like way to much money to me.  So much so that I really had decided not to print publish Guardian of Dreams at all, but then my good friend (the one who sent me surprise flowers) suggested that since I'd gone to the trouble to upload the book and do the whole process I might as well put it out there.  If no one buys it then I'm no worse off than I was before and I can still steer my friends and people who are truly interested in my writing toward the e-book which is a much more reasonable $3.99.

That's it for me I think... I wish I had something interesting or important to share, but outside of having to pick up cashier shifts and still not getting my full time hours even between two departments life is pretty much just work, kids, sleep, repeat...