"When Winning Still Leaves You Disappointed"—I'm a Semi-Finalist!!!

In the last wrap-up, I told y'all I'd have some exciting things to share.

Well, none of those things came through. 

But other exciting things happened. 

And I'm still processing it all. Mostly by not thinking. Lol, that's the only way I'm able to handle any of my hectic life. I don't think about it, just live necessary moment to necessary moment, hoping it'll all add up toward that bigger dream of mine. 

Fun fact: One of my best friends informed me that kids' largest size of shoes correlated to women's US 8. So ... for fun, I bought a pair of boy's shoes. I've worn them and worn them ... and just threw them away recently.

Let's start this post out with some humor.
The following two images are not mine:

I laughed so hard at this ;D 

I feel like that last one needs to be combatted with this ... 

 Every Tuesday evening I teach someone to knit. I've been working on this little pocket-thingie. Most of my dresses don't have pockets, and I like to be able to listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I clean houses, but my wireless earphones require my phone to be close by. I had something similar to this one that I used to wear, but it's become rags ;)
Oh, I also spun the wool this bag is knitted from.
And isn't the button gorgeous? I found it at ButtonJones on Etsy.

Work is life ... 

On May 5th my sister and I finished housesitting. We'd stayed at that place for nearly three months. It was AMAZING to be done. So many things had issues while we were there, plus I'm not an animal person. It was nice having a break from all my siblings. But yeah ... housesitting isn't my thing.

When the lady came home she brought me that lovely fabric pictured above! It's from Africa. I'm so excited to make a dress out of it soon.

One thing about being back home ... I'm trying to become a minimalist. I'll never get rid of my books, but I'm cutting back on a lot of other things. One of those things I cut out of my room is my bed. I did that right before I left to housesit. Now, I'm actually sleeping on the floor. It's not so bad. My bed was too soft anyways. But the floor is maybe just a little too hard ;) I might buy a thin mat I can roll.

 "I met Mr. Clean. At first, I thought he might be the one, but now I'm starting to think he won't last too long."

Cleaning is still going fantastic! Somehow I'm fitting all my houses in every week. Most days seem to be ten hour days. But, hey, I'm working and still having time to write. So life is good and all that ;) 

I walk to my houses if they are close enough. We've had some rain, so that meant walking with this bright coat ... don't know if you can tell it from the picture, but I've thrown away my shoes for the spring/summer and it's time for flipflops no matter how many more cold days decide to come back. 

Believe me, in Montana, we're sure to have many more cold days ;/

... and life is work.

 My siblings entered a talent show at a Young Adult Bible study we attend. They went as a circus act. I laughed. Not sure if I laughed because they were actually funny or if from embarrassment ... The audience laughed, too, though some of that laughter sounded very much shocked and confused.

That's Lamb humor for ya ;)

 Clara and I. I've known this girl forever. Her mom was my mom's maid-of-honor. I haven't seen her since we moved away from Missouri seven years ago. She was passing through and stopped by ... and it was super nice to see her. Definitely a highlight of my week. I even canceled one of my houses so I could spend time with her. People over dirt, I say ;D

My cousins, Rakayle and Amariah had poems published in this little volume of poetry! The first and last poems are theirs.

 Another one of my weird food combos! Sourdough + hummus + turkey bacon. This was my lunch when I went hiking ;D

 I make kombucha. I hate throwing away the SCOBY every time. So I decided to try and make something out of it. I started with jerky.
It was gross. I took a bite of the finished project, gagged, and spit it out in the trash can.
But I'm not giving up. I'll try candy next. If I still can't eat it, I'll settle for using it as a face mask ;)

Other cooking ... I did a bunch of baking for some neighbors/ people I clean for. One of them makes chocolates and gave me some in return. One of the chocolates was filled with peanut butter. Soooo yummy ;)

Seaweed and movie.

I really haven't watched that many movies this month. I watched one called "Mortal Engines" and I actually like that.
I also watched "Christopher Robin" and I found the anti-workaholic message offensive ;p I mean, sometimes you just gotta learn to love your work ... I never dreamed of being a housecleaner. But I love it all the same. And sometimes life just demands that you work, and even if you'd rather not, you still have to work. And I think that's perfectly fine. We weren't created to play, but work. At least for six days of the week ;)
I've been enjoying "Gilmore Girls" too. I'm in Season 2. And wow, Rory is starting to disappoint me by acting like a jerk ...
Close to the end of this month I finally watched Lego Movie 2 and Endgame.
I enjoyed the Lego movie, though the humor and plot wasn't near as good as the first movie.

As for Endgame ... here's my short review that doesn't contain any real spoilers:
Almost every masculine man was “detoxified” or demoralized and made into a blubbering wimp.
Captain Marvel stole the men’s arrogance and amped it up 1000fold. She also made every woman her sidekick. So #rude. 
After hating them for most of the previous movies, Natasha and Iron Man redeemed themselves in my eyes. Loved their final scenes. 
Basically, healthy masculinity trades for toxic feminism in overhyped glamorized shots. But family scenes with Clint and Iron Man and death scenes were good. 
Some say they relate. I think there are many better movies to relate to. Or books 

As for books ... I've been listening to a ton of audiobooks (haven't had much extra time for actual reading). I finished the first "Mistborn" and "Ender's Shadow" series. Both of those series were BEAUTIFUL. I also listened to my first Ayn Rand book, The Fountain Head. You can read my reviews on Goodreads.

Hiking

TRIP #1: I wanted to go hiking every weekend this month. But ... it's hard finding people to go with me. On one of the earlier weekends, a few of my siblings and I went, though, and it was fun.

 Yes, I wore flipflops. I thought the snow would be gone. But there were still a few patches left in the mountains. And, yes, for a while I couldn't feel my toes.

Oh, and I am wearing a Realm Maker's t-shirt.

TRIP #2: I went hiking on a later weekend in May with a friend of mine that's moving out of state to be married soon. She brought some of her little siblings, and I brought three of mine so we had a decent sized crowd. None of our siblings had met before, so it was a great way for them all to bond.

My friend is Keziah, and so is one of my little sister's. So Keziah met Keziah—the first time my little sister met someone with the same name as she.

TRIP #3: And this last weekend I went on a short hike up a moutaint with my little sister Keziah. That's three out of the four weekends I managed to hike. Not too bad ;P

And now it's time to get to the heart of the title of this post, and really, the heart of May.

It's all about writing. Who would've guessed???

To be honest, writing has been a little hard. When I was home, all I wanted to do was be in my nightgown and sleep. Or listen to music and sleep. 

Some days I didn't even want to work. 

I definitely didn't want to go anywhere I didn't have to go.

On top of all of this "Tapioca Kids", my Camp NaNo story, proved to be a stinker. Super hard to write. 

And I had high hopes for my contemporary novel. I'd entered it into Genesis ACFW contest along with a novella of mine. I figured the novella wouldn't get ANY notice and that the novel would sweep everyone off of their feet. 

Part of me really needed my novel to win. It's all of me and my pain dumped into one artistic jumble of words. And I want it to be able to see life. 

Well ... the novella, not my novel, is a semi-finalist in the contest. See my name here listed under the "Novella" category.

What!? I'd actually forgotten I'd even entered the other story. For a small moment, I was really excited, because I do love my novella, too. But at the same time, my novel had all my hopes. In some ways, I was more disappointed that the one has placed while the other didn't. 

And this may be the real reason "Tapioca Kids" was so hard to write. I was just kinda down for a good few days about the wrong story placing.

And then I got feedback from the judges on the novel that didn't place. It was actually pretty good feedback, but it still had me sooo depressed and all I could think about is how awful of a writer I am and how I'd never be able to make this book good enough. 

BTW, I've had several beta readers finish reading this book this month. I'm still blown away by their feedback and love. If only I can find some agent to love my book ;) 

So, yeah. My novella will be going through another round of judges soon. We'll see if that little book can make the top three. I find out next month. And I'm trying to be excited for that book while not letting my hope die for the other book ... 

Also, I finally finished writing "Tapioca Kids" and my writing spirit returned when I started on the second draft of my Cinderella story ... the one I wrote for NaNo last year. 

 

When I found out my novella had placed among the semi-finalists, I celebrated by stretching for splits, and I watched an episode of "Hunting Hitler" on the history channel. Yeah, I'm weird. It's really hard for me to celebrate or such if you haven't noticed. I just want to get on to the next thing ... 

Other exciting news. Annie Twitchell is releasing a book called "For the Love of a Word". It's a book of "love letters" for writers. And one of my articles is going to be printed in her book! I signed my second ever writing contract. 

SOMETHING I HATE:
-People saying, "Just get over it."
It's not the people I hate.
It's their apathy I hate.
-People saying, "Trials are good."
I don't wish for those people to have hardship. But I wonder if a real struggle might open them up to empathy?
-People saying, "You're doing it wrong."
Especially when they never see me, nor act like they want to see me. How do they know what I do when they don't even know?
-People saying, "Do more."
I already do it all.
I can't do more. I try.
I try, and I'm an exhausted extrovert.

AND... 

SOMETHING I LOVE: 
I think it's appropriate I share about this book as the guy who I stole this hate/love wrap-up thing from shared it in his "something I love" section. Ben Shapiro recommended "The First Conspiracy" and now I'm recommending it. I listened to the audiobook in a single day. It's one of those wow nonfiction that reads better than a novel. It's about George Washington and a possible assassination attempt against his life. I learned sooo much from this book, aside from simply enjoying it. I might even buy it so that I can actually read it ... someday.

How Was was your May? Have you ever had a bitter-sweet win that left you depressed for a while even when you should have been jumping up and down with excitement? Have you been hiking this Spring yet? Anything else exciting/ nonexciting? 

Also, I've topped 100,000 views on my blog!!!
Thank you one and all for supporting this blog, and here's to the hundreds of thousands of views in store ;)