Life Lately | Tulips, Royals, & Blog Schedule

Howdy!

It has been a LONG freaking time since I’ve done one of these blog posts. I always tell myself I need to do more of them or at least have mom buy a thick spine journal so I can get things out but it never happens!

Here’s the interesting part of this, I thought about writing this first than getting to work on Friday’s post, which will be a diary entry directed to my lovely papaw. For today, I am focusing on good things–not saying talking about/to my papaw isn’t good–and I am hoping to unleash a lot of things that have been roaming around in my mind lately! It will be separated by three sections so I hope everyone enjoys themselves and give me your thoughts at the end.

Spring Is Coming!

I like winter, and always have, mostly because snow makes me happy although I never go out and play in it or run through with my wheelchair. This year, we haven’t had a lot of snow and like my mom mentioned to me the other day, she said since we didn’t have a bunch of snow like in previous years, the bugs will be awful because they didn’t necessarily die. I am okay with the occasional fly or in our case, ladybugs but yeah, I could do without the wasps! I’m not a fan of bees either, but we need them to survive apparently!

One thing that I definitely missed during the colder months is my mom buying flowers for our house. I guess we kind of got into a routine of having new flowers throughout every two weeks. I am actually fine with fake flowers, but having something like fresh flowers can really help your mood. At least, it has in my case when my mom bought me some very beautiful tulips one day.

I am not just obsessed with sunflowers, I like a variety of flowers like daisies, roses and tulips. I do talk about my love of sunflowers quite a bit and because of that nobody really knows about the others. So, after my mom found out that I adored tulips, she found these $12.99 tulips in a fairly large vase. My dad didn’t really like the price of them but since then we have all become a little obsessed with them. They change every day. They continue to flourish but we’ve been watching one of them because it’s been a little overzealous on how high he becomes that for a while he began to lean down and we have started to make jokes about it like “I’ve stood up all day. I need a break!” My mom and I can be a little weird sometimes

Since having the flowers in my room, I have been looking forward to spring. My room is located by all of our trees and I have really missed the greenery that surrounds me, but I have enjoyed seeing the moon through my window at night.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

I know you’re probably tired of seeing everybody discuss the royals right now. If you want to ignore this section, you can. I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the drama, but I do want to talk about my thoughts on it.

I have been following the British Royal Family since The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were married, so around 2011. My mom has been reading up about them since Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. And yes, she absolutely hated Camila, The Duchess of Cornwell. I actually do not, mainly because I am a supporter of Anne Boleyn, as she was also a mistress to a senior royal.

For the case of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, I always felt they would be different. They would move into the modern world as royals, but I did not think this would happen at all! When The Queen gave Harry and Meghan the title of “Duke and Duchess of Sussex” was interesting because the last time a royal was given this peerage was Queen Victoria’s uncle Prince Augustus Frederick. Although he had the title of ‘Duke Sussex’ neither one of his wives were allowed to be called a duchess, but what is interesting is that they were not given permission of the crown which at the time of his first wife, George III was still alive. Prince Augustus and his first wife welcomed two children, but were not recognized so they were not awarded any titles as their many cousins.

Prince Harry asked the queen for permission to marry Meghan, but their son Archie does not carry the title of Viscount like say Harry’s uncle Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex’s son James, as he is known as a Viscount.  I understand their right to want to lead a more private life for Archie’s sake, but the separation of leaving as senior royals threw me for a loop! To me, I think this would have been easier on everyone if Harry declined the title of Duke when he and Meghan first married.

When Anne, The Princess Royal first married her first husband, he was offered a title but declined thus their children: Peter and Zara, along with their descendants do not have royal titles. A lot of people will say this happened because Anne is a woman, but at the time of the marriage, Charles was not married at all. She was the only child of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh to wed. Here we have Prince William as the oldest son of The Prince of Wales, married with three children. All three were present when Harry and Meghan married, so why didn’t he say no? A part of me wonders on the fact of possible backlash to the world if Meghan, a biracial woman, wasn’t allowed to be called a duchess. Shrugs.

The Blog Schedule

After what happened while I was doing my A-Z Disability Challenge series, I honestly wanted to give myself a massive break. Since I can’t stop blogging, I figured I needed to find a solution to make it easier and also keep it fun for the both of us. Once January began, I took off for two weeks and do other things that were not related to blogging. It was relaxing, but I did not envision to keep this trend alive for as long as I thought I would. However, I have quite enjoyed myself in these breaks, mostly because I can focus my attention on reading my books in my off time.

The schedule (including a post for Mon, Tues, and Wed) will continue this way until I decide that I need another week for more posts. As of right now, two weeks is doing really good for me. I am still skeptical of this, but I am getting the hang out of it.

I think I am done writing this post now. I thought I would add a few more things about my life, but as I said above, I also have my papaw’s letter to do as well. I think I will include bits about my nephew Nolan in there because I know he’d enjoy it. Well, I hope you are having a great week!

8 Characters We Miss On The Vampire Diaries!

In two weeks the new season of The Vampire Diaries comes back to us!! After how season six ended the way it did, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me a bit to wrap my head around that Elena (Nina Dobrev) Gilbert won’t be returning for the new episodes. If you’re a die-hard TVD fan like me, you’re feeling all sorts of sadness still, because we saw the end of Jeremy, Elena, Tyler, Liv, Luke, Jo (plus the twins!) and Kai–but let’s be honest not all of us are gonna miss him!–at the end of season! I think it’s fair to assume that season seven will be a very dark time for all of our remaining and new characters living in Mystic Falls, Virginia.

I wanted to make up a list of our favorite characters that were killed in the past seasons:

Katherine Pierce –  (played by Nina Dobrev season 1-5)

Her real name was Katerina Petrova, she changed her name to Katherine Pierce in 1800s whenever she moved to Mystic Falls and met the Salvatore brothers. She’s already had a rough life dealing with brothers.  Before she turned herself into a vampire she was running from the Mikaelson brothers in the 1400s when Klaus wanted to kill her to break the sun and moon curse…

As I’ve seen by reading comments on YouTube and Facebook, everybody seemed to love Katherine a LOT more than her doppelgänger Elena Gilbert. She was a very strong character. She didn’t let her emotions control her and didn’t care of the circumstances of her actions. Season two and five were the years of Kat. You got to see what made Katherine be who she was during these times. Those were some best story lines, and as much as I hated season 5 I can say that with a smile on my face. When they brought in the character Nadia, I thought I’d never see the day we’d see Katherine almost act like a mortal. She brought out her emotions that we didn’t think she had left in her body, it was awesome!

Jenna Sommers – (played by Sara Canning seasons 1-2)

Let’s be honest, everybody that has watched TVD since the very first episode and in almost every flashback with Aunt Jenna in it, you are crying and wishing this character was back! To a lot of fans, this was one of our first big “murder” in Mystic Falls. She was one character that we can all agree didn’t deserve to die by the hands of Klaus Mikaelson. After Jenna was killed, we all fell in love with Alaric and felt bad for him because we were hoping they’d be the first married couple on the show. Now after the ending of this past season, Alaric is an unlucky person.

Elisabeth Forbes – (played by Marguerite MacIntyre seasons 1-6)

Okay, I’ll be honest I didn’t cry as much as I sat basically pleading to my TV for Stefan and Caroline to kiss again. Sheriff Forbes was one of those characters that was a parent and maybe the only likeable and responsible parent of the series. Unfortunately this past season, she died of cancer and it was so heartbreaking about the bond of a mother-daughter of the show, it was just heartbreaking! Caroline turned off her humanity and all hell broke loose! Almost as bad as Stefan and Damon’s mommy coming back from a 1905 prison world! I like how we went from one bad family, to a good one, and back to another bad one within one year. We will miss you Liz!

Lexi Branson – (played by Arielle Kebbel season 1)

Lexi! Even though she only had one episode in the first season where she was actually alive (because Damon killed her!) she’s been a favorite character of the fans because of the friendship between she and Stefan. She saved him in his early Ripper days. She’s came back in different ghostly ways to help him. Whether it was to get him out of his own head, talk to him about his thing about Caroline. Which I have to say, when every Lexi/Stefan fan found out that she was for the relationship of those two, it was like Yay! And then everybody bawled when she basically sacrificed herself when the otherside was collapsing on itself! Strong woman/vampire right there!

Rose – (played by Lauren Cohen season 2)

The character of Rose started off as one that hardly anybody liked in season two. Because mostly she and Trevor captured Elena as an act to stop running from the Mikaelson brothers. Which didn’t end very well for her brother? Am I right? There was some connection between those two! Anyways, after that mess happened and we finally met Elijah for the first time. Rose and Damon had some sort of love connection and then she got bit by a werewolf and she was killed by Damon, which honestly it wasn’t a horrible way to die because there was no cure for it. Klaus certainly wasn’t going to heal her after what she did a 1,000 years ago! Hell no!

Nadia Petrova – (played by Olga Fonda season 5)

I’ll be honest, Nadia and Mama Salvatore were two characters that I wanted to learn more about from the very beginning, but never thought we’d ever see them in vampire form! I loved the storyline between Nadia and Katherine. In the beginning, it was a little weird but as it progressed and Katherine (we) found out that Petrova family were part of the Travelers coven, and once Katherine had taken the cure for vampirism and was slowly but surely dying, Nadia found a Traveler witch to give a spell to help her switch bodies with Elena. When Tyler Lockwood bit Nadia and she died, it was so heartbreaking to see THAT end! Katherine so badly loved her baby girl and wanted to keep her but after being on the run for 500 years, She became very bitter and greedy, but she really regretted not leaving Mystic Falls with Nadia whenever she took over Elena’s body.

Anna – (played by Malese Jow season 1)

Anna, the young vampire. She was another early vampire we got to meet in the first season while she started a friendship that grew into a relationship with the little Gilbert. Honestly, she was a good friend for Jeremy, but she was slightly annoying for me! I don’t know why but when she was killed, I was somewhat happy! I know, I know! She’s came back in ghostly ways from season two through five, especially after Jeremy could see dead people after Bonnie brought him back to life at the end of season four? Five? I don’t remember, is that bad?

Silas – (played by Paul Wesley season 5)

Silas, he was very interesting! When this plot with him and Qetsiyah was put into place, along with the drama with Bonnie being the anchor. Elena forcing Katherine to take the damn cure and she finding Nadia. Everything was too much at one time for me, because it took me five episodes before I could get myself to look forward to a Thursday night. Once Qetsiyah was dead, I enjoyed my show again! The reveal at the end of season four of who was “Silas” really and finding out that his shadow self was Stefan. That totally surprised me! I HATED that ending, because Silas threw Stefan inside the vault and dropped off the cliff and into the water – for the WHOLE summer! And it took everybody three episodes until they released he was down there! WHAT THE HELL?

Who will you be missing this season of TVD?

Feels Good At First

For us in the Midwest, we are familiar with the seasons spring, summer, and fall as these three tend to collide together in one BIG season that lasts longer than winter. Seriously! We usually never get a long enough spring of sweet, innocent weather until it switches to blitzering hot that you don’t want to go outside for a long period of time and even though it says “fall” on your calendar, you never take it seriously because it could still be hot as hell or winter could be coming early instead. My birthday is in November and it’s has felt like summer, fall and winter before. It’s a very interesting concept but after spending your life in one place, as much as your heart and soul wants to travel, this is where you belong. This is comfort zone.

I’ve found out that birds do sing in the winter. I remember in school, students and teachers used to say that the birds fly south for the winter. Unless I was hearing crows all winter long, I don’t think that’s all true. I’ve heard birds chirpping outside my window. My favorite time to see birds is in the late autumn, because they’re trying to find food and they go in packs like wolves flying around together in the blue sky, moving with the wind like a flag would. There are so many of them that they take up so much space on the bare trees and cornfields. I think falling in love with the season of fall the most has made me love of trees without their leaves. I love it when they change colors, but a bare tree looks so beautiful when the sun touches it. When a storm comes through, the leaves are not there to protect the small branches and the strong wind and lightning can make an old and wise tree crumble into the ground. I would rather see a tree that a storm destroyed than some man-made machine cut it down. When we were getting the new highway and the first time we took it, I felt so depressed as the trees that were there and the history and years they grew there, just made me sad.

I wasn’t trying to make this depressing, I actually wanted to talk about the good of spring and all of her sister seasons. Spring makes a sad person come out of the dark side and smile again. I know, because I’ve seen it before. The sun comes out and the cool breeze coats the body in love again that the harsh cold burns. Spring brings out the sweet music too. I love to listen to mellow, soft rock and pop music in the winter to get me ready for spring. Train is a good band to get you ready for spring. They’re not heavy, the way I’m used to, but their soft lyrics of love, sorrow, and happiness hugs you tightly. In the last thirty minutes I’ve been listening to Plumb’s album “Need You Now” to keep me in the borderline of happy and sad. I’m not necessarily sad, I’m trying feeling down. The sun is out though, so I’ve been trying to think on the positives of the day. Because I know the rain and storms could come back sooner than you think. I hope you enjoy your day, whether it’s sunny and storming. There are so many reasons to be happy, even if it’s only for a little white. I’ve decided to include a playlist of Plumb’s album, because the only you’ll understand the way I’m feeling is if you felt it too. So just give it a chance. My favorite songs on the album are, “Invisible,” “Drifting,” “I Want You Here,” “Need You Now (How Many Times),” “Chocolate & Ice Cream,” and “Don’t Deserve You.”

Five Sentence Fiction: Sunshine

What it’s all about: Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. Each week I will post a one word inspiration, then anyone wishing to participate will write a five sentence story based on the prompt word. The word does not have to appear in your five sentences, just use it for direction.

This week: SUNSHINE

Winter was cruel to the animals in the woods, while the bigger animals slept away with their full bellies and warm fur, the smaller critters scattered to one place to another to find someplace warm and cozy.

As the snow would fall from the sky, it would continue to rise from the ground, making things harder for the mice and insects to find some scraps of food.

The woods still buzzed with life though, the deer still went out here and there, looking for some sort of grains from the frozen stalks in the countryside, the crows still made their way into the sky despite the blistering temperatures.

Through time the snow begins to melt and slowly turn back into ice again, all of the little critters stay indoors as the big ones wake up for a midday snack and don’t understand why they keep slipping and sliding when they walk on the lake to get a drink of water.

By the end of the days of winter, the woods has become more greener again, the trees have more life to them and the sun shines more in the day to awaken all of the animals from their slumber and then winter turns into spring.

Five Sentence Fiction: Flowers

What it’s all about: Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. Each week I will post a one word inspiration, then anyone wishing to participate will write a five sentence story based on the prompt word. The word does not have to appear in your five sentences, just use it for direction.

This week: FLOWERS

Summer is leaving until next March, which seems so far away.

All of the wild flowers will grow for a short period of time until the winter’s cold will kill them once again.

Even though we lose them, we gain the beautiful colors of autumn: red, orange, yellow with a  touch of green.

Once the frost comes in, the leaves will start to fall to the ground and snow will make its entrance.

Snow will take place of the dead flowers on the ground and the leaves on the branches above.