What a time to be alive, eh?! I was laid off from my job mid-June due to COVID-19 crippling my previous companies major projects group. That’s been a fun adventure of trying to find a new job, while home full time with both my kids (15yo male, 3yo-going on 4 this month-female), and I went ahead and started school again at University of Phoenix for my MBA! All positive things in that regard, just started this week and will finish up in 11 months. It’s a competency based program, geared for working students to utilize their previous, and current, working experience.

While 2020 has been an absolute chicken-coop-show of a year, there are some positives that have come out of all of this: time with my kids that I didn’t have before, I get to cook again (I love to cook)-trying new recipes and eating as a family is wonderful, though I will admit some nights are pizza or cereal here and there, I’ve applied myself to school once more after a Four Year Break (YIKES! Anxiety, anyone?! Hahahaha), being present for my kids in a way that was sparse before, and there are now Far more jobs available and Search Options to work REMOTELY-this is the best for me personally and career wise! My daughter will be watched by my sister-whom I will be paying, she has FOUR BOYS, all about 2 years apart, 7 (going on 8) and under. She’s a BOSS. It’s also been really nice to take my kids to the pool-it’s been pretty empty at our neighborhood pools, and we’re all getting tans! And by tans I mean…I’ve gotten a little golden, and my kids have gotten true tans xD! CHEATERS I SAY! Hahaha, both my kids with their Native American Indian blood out-tanning me, seems wrong!…but I’m glad they don’t burn like I do.

Now, positives in line, there are some negatives, as everyone is experiencing. I get pennies for unemployment, and had to get Cobra to retain my insurance. It costs $1700 a month to retain our insurance-Obamacare is absolute SHIT in case you had not yet experienced that debacle. That hurts, considering how little I get from unemployment-it just barely costs covering my insurance. Thankfully I had things in place to cover us for several months, but there will be a price to pay for that later on. Writing. I honestly thought I would be able to write So Much More! I was Ecstatic-how much writing I figured I could execute! Lord help me, how wrong I was. My daughter is incredibly demanding of my time, I spend my time at night to enjoy a little peace and quiet, and when she’s gone to visitation that’s when I knock out things I have to take care of in the home!

Now, I added school to the mix, but even though I have that plate overflowing once more-and I’m interviewing for jobs-I have still been thinking about Hail on the daily. My plans for the story are still in line with what I originally planned, but there has been one aspect that has been fluid in regards to how I want to handle it…well, two. So, while I have been distracted, not able to write as I so desired and believed, I have used the time to better form what I want in the latter part of the book. It’s also given me a chance to fully flesh out the first half which I am getting close to finishing up. What I need to do is utilize my career skills-I need to utilize my planning and scheduling ability to organize myself and my time, and pray it works out well enough! Set aside time for school and writing, respectively, every evening. It’s a problem I know every author struggles with-just sitting down, opening the documents, and WRITING. I hate that it’s taken me this long to write this book, but I will finish writing Hail. No matter what it takes.