Music Tells My Stories

Good evening, my Lovelies! I hope this blog finds you doing well and that you have been having the best of weeks. Hell, I wish this week found me doing well and having the best of weeks, too. Alas, that is not the case. I told y'all from the beginning that I was going to be open and honest with you, so here we go.  I'm struggling this week. Actually, I've been struggling for longer than that, but this week, no matter how hard I try to look on the bright side, to find something positive, I can't quite seem to do it.  My mental health has definitely been on edge lately and this past week I've felt I was spiraling more than usual.  There hasn't been anything new going on that I can decisively pinpoint as being an accelerant to this spiral. I mean, it is mostly the same old shit around here. Home, work, health, etc - same, same, same. There was even a conversation this week that led me to say these exact words:  "There is no light. There is nothing but the eter...

Good afternoon, my Lovelies! It is the weekend and so far mine has been wonderful! I know I'm late getting my blog out, and I apologize. Let me tell you a bit about why I'm late this week. I wrote a blog on Thursday. I worked hard on it in the short time I had available to do so, and as I was about to post it, I stopped and re-read all I had written. Garbage. Complete garbage. I don't like complaining and that was all I saw when I did my final read-through. I had been letting my thoughts marinate for the better part of a week and all I saw was trash. So even though I'm late and I absolutely despise being late, you're welcome. The fact that I am unbelievably anal about my writing has saved you from the misery of my doldrums. So, let's go a completely different route and discuss connections. Does anyone else find it absolutely mind-blowing that one connection can lead to so many different things and so many different people? I mean I've always kind of done the...

Good morning, my Lovelies, and happy Saturday to you all! I hope you all have exciting plans for your weekend and that you make the most of whatever time you are able to devote to friends and family. I know I already made a post this week, but as I said, I'd had many different topics that I had considered for it. So, lucky you, you get a bonus blog! (I can hear the cheers of celebration as they go up around the world!) For years I've wanted to do one of those ancestry or DNA kits. Well, I finally took the leap a few weeks ago, put out the extra money, and got myself a 23andMe kit. I opened that bad boy, read the directions, re-read the directions, then went for it. I don't know if I had ever been so excited to spit before. I sealed up that tube, popped it in the mail, and walked out of the post office with the strangest feeling. I was excited but gracious was it odd knowing that I'd just mailed spit. The wait began. Now, don't ask me why, maybe I just needed confirm...

Good morning, my Lovelies! It's Thursday and I'm desperately wishing it was the weekend instead. I hope you're having a fabulous week and that you've found a reason to smile, a reason to laugh, a reason to love. For a few days now I've been bouncing around ideas, different topics that I wanted to talk about, and still when I opened my blog program this morning, I did so with no idea or direction for what I wanted to share with you. But I heard my blog title song on the way to work this morning and it is now running through my head on a constant loop, so I'm taking it as a sign that it was meant to be my subject matter.  Kissing. There are so many different kinds of kissing and we experience a huge array of emotions during those kisses. There's the familial kiss, a simple show of love that is often a peck on the cheek. There's the first kiss that is most often anxiously awaited for and full of excitement at the possibilities of things to come. There's...

Good evening, my Lovelies! I hope this finds that you're doing well, are having an amazing week, and that you've found a reason to smile. It's been a short work week here in the good old USA and you would think that would go a long way toward making my week a good one. Alas, while my week will be short, I'm having some long-ass days.  They say that the eyes are a window to the soul. Well, if you look in my eyes you're going to see the word "exhausted" written on my soul. You may also see phrases like "needs a drink," "needs a real vacation," or maybe even, "needs a sexual experience so damn amazing that she forgets how fucking exhausted she is." Whatever it is you see when you look in my eyes, just know that somewhere in there it should say, "she tried." Does anyone ever feel like they spend so much time trying to do and be everything that they end up doing and being nothing that you intended? I do. There are so many...

Good morning, my Lovelies! Here's hoping that the day treats you well and that there are good things waiting for you when all the work is done. Can I tell you a secret? I'm horrible at keeping secrets. I really do try, but somehow or another they almost always slip out. Lucky for those that tell me their secrets, it's usually my husband who gets to hear them and, well, he never talks to anyone but me, so those secrets are still pretty much secret. I've told you all that, as with most writers, I pull from my life experiences and expand on those to fit the situation that I'm going for in my work. And I'm fairly certain that I've told you that the characters in my books are usually some crazy mix of attributes from people that I've met through the years and the stories they've shared. What does this have to do with secrets? Well, quite a bit when I take a true story, change the names and use it in my work. When I tell you to be careful about what you sa...

Good evening, my Lovelies! I gotta tell ya...this has been one hell of a week. I certainly hope yours has been astronomically better than mine. From bullshit at work, an epic argument over what should have been a minor thing, and just generally not feeling well, I'm pretty much over it. And to top off this craptastic week, today marks ten years since the wreck happened that killed one of my dearest friends. I'm not sure how much more I can take. Therefore, bring on the alcohol! So, as if what I just mentioned isn't enough to make me want to drink, it has come up in conversation with some of my long-time friends that it is time for our high school reunion. Our. Thirty. Year. Reunion. Thirty years? How the fuck has thirty years gone by so damn fast? What the hell? Though I see current pictures of my friends on Facebook, I still (and will probably always) picture them as they were when we were in school. Maybe that is a byproduct of me having moved so far from home and not see...

Good morning, my Lovelies! It is Saturday morning, I just finished a cup of coffee, and I'm lounging around in sexy comfort while I'm waiting for the laundry to finish. Ok, so maybe the laundry part of that isn't sexy, but wearing one of my favorite lingerie sets is. Comfort? Alright, alright, I was chilly and threw on some sweatpants. Fine. I look a hot mess, as usual. Moving on. It was pointed out to me yesterday, that when I began this blog I talked mostly about sex, or my books, or sex in my books, and that recently all I've been talking about is how tired I am and complaining about my job. All true. However, as I've pointed out before, I use my blog as a chance to clear my head and to work through some of the shit I'm going through. Therefore, if I have been boring you with my mental health purges, I apologize.  So you want to talk about sex? Sure! I mean, sex sells, right? So let's talk about sex in literature. How far is too far? Is it better to leave...

Good morning, my Lovelies! How ya doin' on this bright, beautiful Thursday morning? I hope you're mentally, emotionally, and physically well, and I hope that life has been giving you nothing but big, beautiful bouquets of roses  - or whatever your favorite flower is. The past few weeks have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me and it appears that I'm not getting off that ride anytime soon. What's been going on? Well, the trip that I took to Kentucky a couple of weeks ago was more than just a vacation for me. You see, my parents are older and not in the best of health. While I was there my mother (who has had breast cancer twice and has stage 2 COPD) had some surgery - minor, but she was told that she wouldn't be able to be on her feet at all for two weeks, and only limited amounts of time for the two weeks after that.  It was a struggle getting her to realize that she wasn't going to be able to do what she thought she should have been able to do. But ...

Good evening, my Lovelies! Welcome to the final (for now) edition of Shell's Chronicles of Dumbass-ery. While I've only shared a very few examples of my dumbass-ery, I assure you that there have been many more. Now, some may not consider what I'm about to tell you a form of dumbass-ery, but I feel like it is, so, it is.  As a little girl, I always dreamed of what it would be like to fall in love and have a family. Little did I know at the time, it isn't all cute little houses with front porch swings and adorable children and puppies frolicking in the yard. Oh no, it comes with water heaters that leak and have to be replaced, septic systems that back-up, and that damn yard? Well, it has to be mowed on a regular basis. There are mortgage payments and stacks of bills to be paid. There are groceries to buy and dinners to prepare and dishes to clean. Laundry. Don't even get me started on laundry! And those children that I so desperately wanted? Sweet babies to cuddle and...