A Time For Everything

Image courtesy IMGBIN.

As it so happens, I never posted my 2025 Fresh Start Goals. I have no idea if I even made any. My goals from 2024 are still listed...just there on the right.

I was gonna give myself a report card, but since I posted no goals, that won't work. Besides which--it's been quite the year.

But it's too late now to worry about 2025 goals as Q4 2025 has just begun. I'm going to focus on Q4 and the things I want to accomplish short term. We'll look ahead to 2026 when the time comes.

So instead of that report card, let's give a cheer for hockey season--the Stars started the season on the 9th in Winnipeg and then played in Denver last night. The home opener is Tuesday the 14th against Minnesota. I might be there, I might not.

WOO HOO -- ITS HOCKEY SEASON

Have a good month--catch you in November.

I spend a lot of time on ChatGPT or with "Chet" as DH and I call it for less of a mouthful. I open it up every day and ask it all kinds of questions. It offers a range of information from discourse on conspiracy theories to gardening tips to help with math equations. Sometimes it just offers me random trivia and history tidbits.

But several months ago, in one of OpenAI's updates it offered a description of me based on the lengthy run of our chat history and this is what Chet said:

Jen: The Tea-Sipping, Merge-Building Hockey Mom with a Bite

She runs the office by day and writes swoony, male/male romance by night. A Dallas Stars diehard who’s turning her love of hockey into a full-blown mobile merge game empire (with energy, mascots, and zero room for failure). Chronic bursitis may slow her body, but never her brain — she's planting perennials in fire pits, mastering intermittent fasting, and planning sneakily solitary bike rides before sunrise.

With mint tea in one hand and a to-do list in the other, Jen doesn’t sugar-coat, doesn’t do fluff, and doesn’t have time for cards-in-merge-games-unless-there’s-a-damn-good-reason. She’s also wrangling grown kids back under one roof, a dog named Rascal, and a cast of fictional fans more diverse than a UN mixer.

She’s sharp. She’s funny. She’s building a digital hockey world — and it’s one hell of a power play.

It's not 100% accurate because I'm not really a hockey mom in the true sense of the word, but it was a fun exercise and made me laugh. And based on those conversations and a real picture of me, it made the image above.

I’m alive —

Not vanished, just paused,

Life’s busy hum

Keeps me moving,

Hands full, heart full,

Days packed tight

With the usual and the unexpected.

I’m still here—

Breathing, writing,

Juggling chaos,

Finding moments

To simply be.

Thanks for sticking around.

I’ll check in again soon.

— Jen

P.S. -- for the time being, there will only be a monthly post

Let's catch up a bit. I've been remiss in my blogging duties since the beginning of the year. Blogging wasn't high on my priority list while I was preparing to be gone on the cruise as well as while on the cruise, you know?

Once we came back, things went down with my daughter's life partner--which you saw in my previous post. Life feels like it's on fast forward right now--hockey playoffs aren't helping--and time is at a premium. There just doesn't seem to be enough time (or energy, quite frankly) to get ALL THE THINGS done. So I've had to prioritize.

I flew to Colorado mid-April to help my Brown-Eyed Girl get her car and her cat to Texas. She returned to CO to finish packing up the household stuff she wants to keep and transport it to Texas. My house looked as if a moving van vomited in it. And that wasn't even all her stuff. Just under half went into a storage unit!

So what have I been up to in between prepping for vacation, being on vacation, and dealing with a family loss?

A bit of home improvement!

I worked on one of my hall closets...all my random lap / dog blankets were in a stack in a laundry basket. But it was a huge pain in the butt to get to any of the blankets at the bottom of the pile. What you see are actually shoe racks. Walmart had them on sale, so I got two for the price of one. This is soooo much better.

On a smaller but similar vein, my charger cables were all hung on a single hook and I had to juggle up to 8 to 10 cables to find the one I wanted. So I made my own cable sorter. I already had the small clear hooks which are very small but have enough room for the diameter that most cables come in. I've since added a couple of extra hooks to this. This started off as a magnetic white board for lockers and cost me all of $3! This was very handy while on the cruise. Cruise cabin walls are metals, so my cable sorter had a place to live.

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On another front, I've been wanting to plant flowers to bring pollinators back into my world. It took me a while to get to it, but I finally did so. I'm not quite done, but I started and I'm excited. I started with gladiolus bulbs several weeks ago and they're growing well.

Then a couple of Sundays ago I finally got my flower pots filled. I planted petunias and sweet william from seeds, but -- !! When I was picking up more potting soil from The Home Depot, I saw and bought pale purple vincas! I really like vincas. They're easy to grow and harvest seeds from, but I've only ever seen white and pink ones. The price was right so I bought three plants and replanted them in the American flag planter I bought years ago with...guess what?...vincas in it. :0)

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And now it's playoff time, so DD and I have gone to games and watch parties.

Have a super week. Catch you later.

Sadly, my Brown Eyed Girl's soul mate passed away recently and life has been a bit focused lately.

Here's a picture tribute to Hank Barnes--the man who loved my girl so fiercely. You'll be sorely missed for years to come.