We are still dealing with the after effects of my step-son’s death.

We need his social security number to get a death certificate, but we can’t find his card anywhere. We are going to have to go to the social security office in Monday to see if they can give it to us. All we have is a scan of his birth certificate, so it’ll be interesting.

After that, we need to get a probate lawyer. He was living in his grandmother’s house, which was still in probate from her death in February. His mother died last December. So, it’s going to be a complicated situation.

I don’t know what’ll happen, but I can’t just leave the house empty. It needs to be cleaned out and either sold or put in someone’s name. He has brothers, but his 2 half brothers on his mother’s side are both in jail. It’s possible that we’ll need to sell the house and give the money to his brothers somehow.

I just don’t know. Since their mother is dead, and she once asked me to make sure her kids were taken care of. Of course, that was before they were all 18 and the other 2 in jail.

I’ve started writing to my step-son in a journal, trying to work through my feelings of guilt. I wonder if he knew how much he was loved. I never said it after he became a teenager. I would give him hugs, but not so much as he got older.

I try not to think about how much pain he was in. I’m not sure how the holidays will go. I know it’s going to be rough, I may just need to make an extra pecan pie and give it away. We always had to make 2 because he’d eat more than half of one on his own.

I’m also going to have to find pork belly somewhere. That was another thing we’d have to rush if we wanted to get any. He loved it.

I’m trying to remember the funny things, like when we had a yellow orb spider on the front porch, that I left alone so it would eat the mosquitoes. He was afraid of spiders so he spray painted it.

We have his Rubik’s cubes. I’m going to have to learn how to solve the ball one, and the one that has different size blocks that stick out until it’s solved.

I’m trying to remember the good times. Like the trips we took. I can’t find any pictures of him from our trip to Vermont in 2018, but he was there.

I’m going to miss taking a selfie of my me with my mom or sister with him photobombing.

Right now, it’s still one day at a time. It was hard to do the memorial video and the obituary, but those were up to me because my husband isn’t computer literate.

The next fun thing is to figure out how to pay for the rest of the funeral home charges, on top of the insurance deductible for hitting a deer last week in my Jeep.

We lost my stepson on Thursday. None of us even knew how bad things were for him. All I can think about right now is how much pain he must have been in, and how I failed him.

His mother died last year, and his grandmother died in February. I was the only mother figure he had left and I just didn’t see it.

I know that people with depression are really good at hiding their true self. I’ve been there, but I’m still struggling not to blame myself.

If you ever feel like no one cares, know that there is someone out there who cares deeply and wants to help you.

I need to finish writing the book I’m working on. It’s a struggle right now because my focus is shot. But I don’t think Amazon will let me push it back again.

Anyway I have to get going on actual work. Laterness.

I finally updated the site, but I have a couple of things I need to change. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, so I’ll give it a couple of days. If it doesn’t grow on me, I’ll update it again.

School started back today. Both of my kids are happy to be in school. I guess they take after me.

I spent the day not getting much done, so I get to go to bed and do it all again tomorrow. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Anyway, it’s late and I’m tired. Laterness and g’nite.

I was scrolling through Twitter earlier today, I don’t even remember why now. I do know it was when I was waiting for my daughter to get back to the cars after her appointment for senior pictures.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-12/daily-harvest-recall-lentil-crumbles-fda-regulation-meal-kit-delivery-food-safety

I just started to read the article, and realized it was behind a paywall. I found another article, on the FDA site from last November. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-voices/fda-works-strengthen-food-safety-protections-consumers-increasingly-order-foods-online

The gist of the story is that meal delivery services aren’t FDA regulated. After so many years in foodservice and the food business, it just grosses me out.

They could be the cleanest places in the country, but they need to be FDA regulated, just like any other place that serves food. They need to be tracked and pass inspections like anyone else who repacks or produces food – even a restaurant has to pass a health inspection.

Failure to do that is putting anyone who uses these services at risk. Yet, the number of meal delivery services is exploding.

Just my thoughts. I understand it’s a small thing in the bigger picture, but it makes me glad that I’ve never ordered from one of these services.

Laterness

Comicon is here in town this weekend. It was good, but it feels like it’s missing something this year. The SCA did have fighting inside this year, so that was fun to watch.

My daughter dressed (cosplay) as a character from one of her favorite anime shows. There were a lot of kids dressed as anime characters that I saw. Then there were some professional cosplayers. One of them did very well, she looked like Jennifer Lawrence in the first Hunger Games movie.

One of these years, I’d love to have a booth at Comicon, but I don’t know what I would do. I want something different from everyone else. There were at least 2 booths with 3D printed steampunk masks. There were other booths with 3D printed stuff as well.

There was a booth with dragon and fairy statuettes. I collect those, so I liked those.

I think if I could get a sawgrass printer, I might do printed bags and tshirts, but it would be something I couldn’t do on site.

Anyway, I need to go back to pick my daughter up. I might try to get there for the costume contest if she decides to participate.

Laterness

I did start on the redesign of my site on 7/5 (the date of the last post), but I had to start preparing for a trip. My oldest got married on the 16th, in Saltillo, Mexico. The younger kids and I went to Mexico for 6 days to be at the wedding and do a bit of sightseeing.

I spent a year on Duolingo trying to learn Spanish. I got down there and realized that I need a whole lot more practice before I can understand what people are saying. I’ll have to keep at it. I am better at reading Spanish, but still not great.

I got sidetracked while writing this today. My daughter started band camp – it’s the two weeks before school starts. She kept forgetting things and I had to go bring them to her. That burned up much of my day. We had dentist appointments and grocery shopping that needed to be done. today as well.

I’ve started journaling once a day to get everything out of my head. I’ve got plans and ideas that I want to start on while I am still job hunting.

But it’s late and I am tired. Laterness and g’night.

I started writing this last week. June 28 we had the primaries in OK. It’s interesting. I’m registered as an independent so I can only use the democratic ballot in the primaries. Republicans don’t have open primaries like Democrats do, at least here in Oklahoma.

Every time I vote, I’m reminded of some of my former coworkers. At least one didn’t vote because she said her vote didn’t count. I can’t see that. I vote in every election I can (sometimes there are no Democrats in a primary so I can’t vote). And really, living in Oklahoma, my vote in the primaries doesn’t matter. The democratic candidate won’t win.

But I’ve always believed that voting is a civic duty. I follow a blogger at stonekettle.com. He always says that if you want a better nation, be better citizens. That includes voting.

I have kids, and maybe someday grandkids. I want a better nation, so I vote every chance I can.

G’nite

I started going through my pages – like my about me page. I had written it so far back that much of the information was out of date. I have updated it.

I updated the Apoc page with the information on Apoc 6. I’m not sure if Apoc 6 is an official version or not.

I’m working on the new design, it’s just taking me a bit.

I’m having trouble finding the picture I had wanted to use. I copied it to a thumb drive, but don’t ask me which one. I’ve looked at two of them, and neither has it. I do have a copy of the picture on Facebook, but it’s not wide enough.

I might just use one of the pictures I took of a covered bridge when I went to Vermont in 2015.

I need to find somewhere to upload all of my pictures so everything is in one place.

I’m also getting rid of the little elf at the top. I found some fantasy art that has a license allowing me to use for a personal site.

I’m also going to work on my author site at some point. I’m really just waiting for my friend to send me the cover designs we had talked about. That’s why I haven’t uploaded the book to Amazon either. I need to find out what she wants for them, as I’m not expecting her to give them to me when she sells her art.

Anyway, laterness

I finally got everything together to move web hosts. Unfortunately, there’s been a blip.

If you happen to see a picture that isn’t loading correctly, can you let me know?

So far it’s only been on this site. The other(s) are fine. Of course, one of them is a plain site for when I finally finish my fiction books.

I reached out to a friend to create the cover since my daughter says she’s not sure how to do it, blah blah blah. I need to work with her on her self confidence. She’s been away for school stuff, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to her.

She can draw the covers for the next series, since the main character in that one is based on her anyway.

In the meantime, a friend from elementary school has been selling her art. I’ve offered to pay her to make me a few drawings for some of the books.

I know I said I’d change the design on my site when I moved it, but I’m still working out a few kinks. I should have it done within the next few days. I want to find a piece of clipart that I used way back when I first registered this site.

I just had to edit to remove all of the run on sentences. I’m not sure what’s up with that today. I shouldn’t just do stream of consciousness, huh?

I just went back through my posts to make sure everything transferred before I delete it off the other hosting server. I can’t believe I’ve been posting on this site since 2007.

I have some posts that did not stand the test of time. I unpublished them when I started looking for a job.

Anyway, laterness. Have a great one.

I remember watching the Newhart show growing up. It was in reruns, but would still play after school.

My husband has been watching a show (I think Deadwood) with the actor who plays Larry in it. Every time I hear his voice on the TV, I keep expecting to hear him come out with the whole phrase he uses every time he walks into the scene on Newhart.

Just a short post today, I’ve got a bunch to do. If you’re looking for something funny to distract you, watch the above clip. Or you can look for more of them on YouTube. They have videos with a composite of all of the scenes in a season. I watch them when I need a laugh.

Laterness