Sorry I haven't been here to publish any posts in a long time. That is so unlike me, when I've normally published at least three to five posts a week, or daily if I can.
I took the time to kind of hibernate from online, and was concentrating from being safe from my nasty neighbors who violated the hell out of me.
They finally left the last of them on Feb. 20th and they are gone. Thank god. But where they put wireless webcameras and hacked into my private life, I am not completely sure I have got them off my electronics and that they took the devices out. I probably won't feel comfortable in my own skin until I can someday move.
But they left, and that is the important thing. I'm going to save up for a new laptop as I've been told this one the hard drive is failing and I may have only three weeks left to it. Which means with the novels, and the recipe books and photographs, is a constant savings to my zip drives, etc. I had to have Best Buy open up my laptop for me so I can use it. I had forgotten the password to the laptop as the neighbors kept making me change it.
They were massively ballsy to want to and did find out all kinds of my personal and financial information. I had to disable my online banking so she couldn't rattle off my balance anymore.
They broke into my apt and stole some things. Of all things a library case and the movie so I had to pay a fee to the library. There's some of my mother's china missing. Makes me so mad. I changed my locks to keep them out and when the locksmith came to fix my locks, he said my only key didn't fit my door! Four years! No wonder I was easy prey for them. And I was the only one who lives alone.
Thank god they are gone. I got to see the apt after because I am friends with their landlady and the place was trashed. From their smoking and drugs, black spots on the carpet, walls were filthy, door of course busted from when the police broke down the door last fall. The girl on the lease later on didn't end up actually living there and she was subletting it out to a bunch of her friends. I honestly don't know how many people actually lived up there, but the poor landlady had tons of cleanup and the place looks perfect for nice new neighbors now. I'm hoping for a nice family or an elderly lady.
After the hell I have been through, I just am so looking forward to nice new tenants. And the not nice neighbors got me paranoid that they were going to act out all their threats and I finally realized they weren't going to and I stopped making them scare me so much. However, my security is staying up as I live alone.
Slowly starting to have coffee dates, but am going to venture into the dating scene slowly. Right now, my priority is making sure that I get to see my kids. I haven't been able to see them since end of January, but that will be done soon as the courtdate for divorce and settling things is almost here next week. Thank god. That judge and my lawyer will make sure I can see my kids. It's a matter of where. Either my place or it could end up being back at their place. The important thing is that there is no more neighbor issue and our lives can probably resume back to normal. Time will tell.
I am the kind of girl that goes with the flow.
And now, I am trying to get my life back to normal, get out of the rat trap, the bills that most of us try to get out from under, and for me, added lawyer bills, etc.... but there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and we all try our best to have our new slates.
I'm going to pray that my laptop holds out. My best birthday present last month was seeing those terrible, terrible people leave me the hell alone. And for some fluke reason they think they can still mess me up, they have another thing coming. Which is the reason why I am going to use all my power within the next four months to get a new laptop, get Webroot immediately and spring for secure internet and shove them the hell off my electronics and my personal, financial information. My private life was never their cotton picking business.
Before they left, they death threatened me that if I wrote a single novel, word, etc,,,,, they would hunt me down, stick a gun to my head and make me erase everything off the laptop and then they would still kill me. Hey, nobody ever has the right to threaten any novelist not to write her stuff.
The one they don't want me to write is The Price of Being a Good Samaritan, but hey, I have every right to tell my story. I have every right to write whatever I want when I want. And I will write it. It of course will be loosely based on what I went through, but I am going to write that one too. One of my good friends who stuck by me through all the crap they put me through said that this could be my bestseller.
Well, one never knows about that. I still love the comment about The Glorious Money Tree Trilogy I am working on how someone thought it had the same starts as Fifty Shades of Grey only better. Will eat that up for a long time, but still will not knock on wood. All of us novelists and writers of all walks of life, never know when or if we are going to hit the hammer on the nail, but hey it happens. And if not, at least we tried, right?
I told my sister a few weeks ago, that it was my choice to take my time away from my old job in order to focus on my kids and all the things I want to publish and I basically have to tell her that it's my choice and I would rather know that I tried then to rest on those laurels and wonder "What if?"
Wouldn't you rather know? And it's why we always say to our children and others, "If you reach for the moon and ask for your dreams you just might get it and if you don't then there is always the wonder."
The world can be our oyster if we try our best. And every child on earth should have that chance to be what they really want to be. It's not someone else's choices that we all make every day. They are ours and ours alone.
So anyway, these last few months, I have been spending some time knitting, which is always relaxing. The bracelets, headbands, etc.....
I'm slowly making some new knitting patterns for my knitting book. Pretty little Knits From Me To You.
I worked some more to the recipe books. Yesterday, I got my new recipes in say about five of them, then when I went to pick out my pictures, I had a hard time remembering which soup picture or pasta picture was the right one!
I've handwritten a bunch of chapters to The Glorious Money Tree Trilogy and need to start typing those in and refreshing myself of my last chapters I typed in. When I left it, I was at 159 pages. Thank god for zip drives too. I saved all my stuff all over the place. Emails to me, zip drives, pass ports, cds, etc....
I came so close to closing out this blog due to thinking the not nice people might decide to start commenting on every cotton picking blog and leaving my street address and sending every nut my way. But at the time, I couldn't figure out how to close it and now I'm glad I didn't. I got thinking afterwards that they wouldn't end up doing that, but that scared the hell out of me.
All I could think of at the time was having someone come in and kill me and utilize my knitting needles in a not very nice way.
Thank god they are gone!!!!!!!!! They were the most terrible, terrible people on earth and people like that just shouldn't be born.
So, now, I am just looking forward to go back into full momentum with the novel writing and working towards hopefully publishing later this year at least one of the books. But that will depend on how old trustworthy laptop with the old pink heart stuck to it will hold out for me.
But, if it goes and I have to wait to type, I will just hand write for a while. And I finally got it so I can create a post with my HTC tablet. But it's not the same as a laptop and a full size keyboard. But if it has to be that way for a little bit, then so be it.
Oh, and the other stupid thing I did a few weeks ago and am still paying for it is spraining my ankle in the parking lot of my apt. Imagine me wearing high heel mary jane clogs for one day, and getting back. I dropped one load into my apt, came back and got my other bags out of the car. I turned, the clog hit the icy snow just right and I and the bags landed in a nasty little puddle. What a mess! And it took a little bit for me to get up, but luckily was able to walk on it. It was swelled up nicely for a while. It's much better now, but still hurts if I do certain things with it.
And wouldn't you know, my two cats thought my leg was the perfect place to take a nap.
Well, I'm going, as I am really hungry and have been using the library's wi-fi too long today. I'm surprised I'm not hearing some grumbling yet.
Jennifer Jo Fay
Copyrighted March 6, 2013
This one was fun to make, but only once as it's hard on the fingers while knitting. And makes a mess.
My needles. I'm going to slowly start taking some pictures for the possible cover for the knitting book. Maybe some sort of collage would be neat. Plenty of time.
A small stash of the yarn. Well, in one area. A knitter always has a good abundance of different colors to choose from and twenty years ha ha to last.
One of the sauces that went over my penne noodles. Yum! I added a little bit too much beef bouillon though so next time it's getting tamed down. I used a gumbo mixture for part of the recipe.
Ella sleeping on the pillow for me to rest and elevate my ankle. That's okay!
Luna sleeping.
The living room. I spent some time organizing.
One of the soups on the coffee table I redid.
Part of my studio. The table has a bunch of my jewelry beads on it right now, as I keep telling myself it's been while since I made some beaded jewelry. Soon.
A dress I am selling on Ebay. Finally am getting back to selling on Ebay and I cleaned out my closets yesterday. But waiting for yard sale season to kick in. I ran out of things to sell over winter time.
Had some fun with the cats one day!