Category: Bloganuary

Bloganuary

Spirit Animal(S)

Alexandra Diane
Bloganuary writing prompt
What is your favorite animal?
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I have a problem with cute animals. They make me so angry that I want to hug them and squeeze them until they love me forever. This phenomenon is called cute aggression, and it makes it so hard to just pick one adorable spirit animal. Growing up in Florida, like most girls, my favorite animal at one point was the bottlenose dolphin. However, as I got older, the animals I loved became smaller and fluffer. So here is the list of my top four animals.

4.) The piglet: Yes, I know there aren’t that many fluffy piggies out there. However, there are some breeds that exist. Something about their snorty nose and curly tail fills me with happiness. I know they become as large as a labrador or bigger, but I don’t care. I have loved every interaction I have had with a pig. They are smart, sweet, and delicious. It’s the delicious part that messes things up. I don’t think I could ever have a pet pig and enjoy bacon again. And bacon is too delicious to give up.

3.) The White Stoat (AKA the ermine): If you have ever seen a royal coat that has the beautiful white fur with black dots that you have seen, ermine fur. The black spots are the ends of their tails. However, I do not love the white stoat, aka the ermine, because royals of a bygone time loved to wear them to keep them warm throughout their frigid winters. No! I love the feisty little stoat for just that. They are irresistibly cute and probably would try to eat your face. I have a deep love for that contrast. Cute animals that are actually savages. One of my favorite pictures of the ermine is one carrying a field mouse in its mouth. When my daughter saw it she was sad that the white long snowy animal killed the mouse. But I just told her it was carrying its sleepy friend. She accepted that answer and probably still thinks the mouse was tired. 

2.) Otters: Otters are basically just ocean/river stoats. Only I think otters are far more murderous. Especially the river otters. They have attacked people who are kayaking or canoeing too close to their babies. As a mother, I understand this mindset. Don’t fuck with my babies and you get to live. Also, as a mother, I love how the ocean otters will hold hands with their babies as they sleep. They even have a pocket in their fur to keep their favorite smashing rock! I find it amazing that they have evolved to have a pocket in their armpit. Unlike human women who have to hunt down dresses and pants with functioning pockets.

1.) The Eastern Screech Owl: The tiniest and the fluffiest on the list. Full grown, they are only 5.8 oz! They are fierce little raptors that are usually monogamous and remain together for life. They come in a range of colors, mainly orange and brown with only 15% having deep rich red feathers. I love watching them. With their big eyes they take in the world around them, waiting to attack their next meal. While I may not be hunting for my meal, I am hyper vigilant. I take in everything around me observing my world, paying attention to side conversations while maintaining the one I am a part of. The Eastern Screech Owl has been known to look grumpy while sleeping or resting and I have been told that my RBF makes me very unapproachable but like the tiny owl… I don’t mind. 

Bloganuary

Virtual Communication

Alexandra Diane
Bloganuary writing prompt
In what ways do you communicate online?
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How I communicate online….

Well, it isn’t through social media, that’s for sure. Those sites are a toxic waste zone where you have to wear a hazmat suit to find things that bring you soul and don’t taint the soul. Yes, I use it to share my writing, but that’s not communicating. It’s definitely not text messages because I’m pretty sure I have PTSD from worrying about receiving an insanely high bill because I went over my texting amount. No, for me, the number one way to communicate is still good old-fashioned messengers.

I miss the day of AIM when I would hear a door swing open and get excited to find out who logged on. However, there were certain special friends that I would set special sounds for that would make me drop everything and run to the computer. Now those apps are on my phone, making reaching out to my friends and family beyond accessible. I’m no longer waiting for anyone to log on because messages go straight through, sending a notification to the recipients’ phone. No longer are we worried about going over our texting limit. However, there’s a new issue. The younger generation believes that the recipient should answer within seconds and they become frustrated when they are left on delivered or read.

That’s not why I use messenger. I don’t expect people to answer right away. 

Unless it’s my mom because that’s the only thing she should be doing…being my mom and answering my ridiculous messages.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, I will lovingly send a million memes that make me think of them. It’s just fun to send animated stickers and gifs instead of words to get my point across. There is something fun about communicating that way. It’s also nice to write a novel to a friend when you need to vent and not have the message broken up and possibly sent out of order. I know I could make a phone call, but I don’t know what my friends are doing and I’d rather not interrupt them. Sending messages also allows me to go back, reread, and make sure I’ve added all the juice details that I might forget when I’m too busy word vomiting on a phone call. Messaging allows my friends the opportunity to respond at their convenience. 

So yeah, messengers. That’s my top online communication choice. 

Bloganuary

Road Trip: A short story

Alexandra Diane

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

Today I’m busy running around trying to use my 48 hours of free time to spend with my kids. Once kids go to bed tonight I will write about our trip from Florida to Alabama, up to Ohio, to Virginia, and back to Florida.

Until then please enjoy my short story perfectly titled Road Trip

Bloganuary, Celiac Disease Gfree Living

All the foods…

Alexandra Diane
Daily writing prompt
What snack would you eat right now?
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If I could eat a snack right now… This is the hardest choice ever. I have thought so much about what I would eat if I could eat anything. Having celiac disease has severely limited my choices and I would rather write about all the delicious things I can’t eat rather than what I can.

  • Fried chicken
  • Publix cake
  • Freshly baked bread
  • Black forest cake
  • Beef wellington 
  • Muffins
  • Too many cakes to name
  • All the cookies from crumble
  • Cookie dough
  • Cookie dough ice
  • Croissants 
  • Hamburger / Hotdogs buns 
  • Pretzels dipped in cheese sauces
  • Pasteis de Nata
  • Beignets
  • French Toast
  • Croquette
  • Blah Bread from Ireland
  • Goldfish crackers
  • Triscuits
  • Club crackers
  • Saltine crackers
  • Lobster bisque
  • Any bisque really
  • Spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy’s, Checkers, and Chick Fil A

There might be a delicious theme here. My husband makes fun of me because he knows when I am craving food from my past. I’ll bring home cake and cookies. He says I’m just fattening him up so he can’t run away. Both are true, however, it’s genuinely because I just want to smell the food in my house. I miss eating normal food. Gluten-free food is just missing the snap and crunch. The food isn’t fluffy or delicious. Gluten-free food created to imitate normal food taste artificial so most of the time I eat things that are naturally gluten-free which is extremely limiting. 

I miss food. I miss food tasting like food and having the correct texture. But I guess being healthy and not shredding the lining of my stomach out weighs delicious food. 

Bloganuary

Crazy Business Idea: Motherhood

Alexandra Diane
Daily writing prompt
Come up with a crazy business idea.
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The prompt today asks us to come up with a crazy business idea. I was going to cheat and just explain everywhere I’ve worked. Being a ramp hostess for rich people who own private jets. I worked in a large pink building that was supposed to help veterans, but I think it caused them more pain. For years, I spent my life in dark windowless buildings working behind the stage, literally. I’ve worked in broadcast television and news, and that universe is just a lovely bunch of coconuts. And to top it off, I have decided to spend my days teaching other people’s children how to work in broadcast, film, and news. But the idea of funding women during the first five years of motherhood or until their youngest goes to kindergarten is the craziest of them all.

Now hear me out. I know this idea would ruffle feathers, but I think society would benefit from having women at home taking care of their children, if this is the path they choose. This doesn’t mean society forces all women to stay home and never return to their careers. But we have other social programs. This would support parents who homeschool, have multiple children, or have children with special needs. 

I have no idea if I could take advantage of such a program. I go stir crazy being at home. But a lot of that factors in knowing that when I leave the house, I spend money and when I was on maternity leave. I was only receiving 60% of my already small paycheck and paying for insurance out of pocket. Teachers really don’t get paid very well. I wanted to do mommy and me classes, spend time with my babies doing bonding things and fun growth and development activities. Honestly, it most likely would have helped a lot with my mental health and postpartum being surrounded by people going through the same things. Instead, I had no choice but to return to the workforce at three months and entrust the care of my child to others. 

I hear people now: Well, it was your decision to have kids. If you couldn’t afford to have kids, why did you? No one made you go back. insert eye roll

Without women choosing to bring life into this world, there would be no world left. Everything we worked so hard to create would be for the birds. However, countless women sit daily, grappling with the challenge of surviving, being the best parents, and making a living. It would just be nice to have that support in knowing that there was something for those who are aspiring to be a homemaker. Because that career is not for the faint of heart.

A true homemaker, not someone who hires a nanny and goes to yoga or shopping all day, is a thankless job. They care for the children. Transporting them to school and sports. Helping with homework, taking care of the home and cooking dinner. ( Cooking is a big part of why I would be disqualified.) 

Hell, if a man wanted this job, I don’t see why not. I know many amazing fathers who cannot spend time with their kids as much as they would like. 

Society and taxes already pays for those who are unemployed. It may be a struggle, but it happens. Welfare provides support for working individuals who cannot adequately provide for their families. Despite hearing all my life that I won’t receive it, social security exists for the elderly as well. So why not add stipulations for those who want to stay home and care for their families?

Society has transformed dramatically in a very short amount of time. We used to have one person home, commonly the mother, and one working, commonly the father. We have placed our children in the care of others. Hoping these people are the best, to care for our little pieces of our hearts. 

If maybe those who go to school for early childhood education were given the choice to stay home and raise their families, I feel like there would be another social shift. If children were the focus of their home life instead of chasing a dollar, maybe there wouldn’t be as many problems with the youth that we see now. Parents would be less exhausted and families would be stronger.

But that’s a pipe dream. We can’t even get maternity leave covered in America. How are we going to figure out a way to pay those who have the hardest job on the planet?

Bloganuary, Mommy Blogs

Emotional Attachment

Alexandra Diane
Daily writing prompt
Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
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The prompt today asked me to describe an item from my youth that I was attached to and explain what happened to it. But I don’t have one item. I have a steamer trunk and plastic storage bins full with them. Apparently, I have attachment and emotional connection to a lot of my belongings and I have unwittingly passed this onto my daughter. Every time my mom and I would go through my belongings to make space and age up my things, I would have a hard time letting go of items that triggered memories. 

My stuffed animal collection certainly could have filled an entire room at one point. I never owned that many at once, but in my lifetime, they were definitely a plethora of cute creatures occupying most of my living space. A small fluffy blue bird that “tweeted” when shook, named Peachy, has been with me longer than my memories. That bird sleeps with my daughter now. A strange-looking bear that rattles, named sisterbrother, also occupies her bed. I received this bear around two, because that would have been the age my mom found out she was pregnant with my baby brother. (P.S. he’s 30 something now but still my baby brother.) I probably named it sisterbrother because my parents were explaining to me about the newest addition to our family. I have a Care Bear my mom gave me in college. It’s Sleepytime Bear and, of course, it lives in Adelyn’s room as well. Having a daughter makes it easy to pass on all the toys that brought me comfort as a child. She even has a few stuffed animals that my mom made as a child. Those sit on a shelf because they are delicate and she knows they are for looking, not playing. But she will take them down for tea parties because, as she says, “tea parties are gentle and everyone needs a party.” 

I went on adventures with my action figures. Especially the female team members of the X-men, and I kept the ones that I played with daily. My daughter has them now. They battle with her barbies or rescue animals from whatever danger she puts them in. Honestly, watching her get joy out of the toys that brought me happiness for years makes my heart swell. I felt silly for years keeping these, hoping I could share them with my daughter. A risk because there was no way to know if I would ever have a daughter. I don’t know what would have happened if she never came along, and I am not even going to entertain that idea.

She cherishes everything, knowing that they were once mine. Adelyn will bring me things to cuddle with her and tell me stories about what they have done while I was at work. She gets excited and asks if she can pass on her stuffies to her daughter that she has one day. I tell her, of course, and ask what if she has a boy? She will tell me, “Don’t be silly mommy, I’m going to have a girl like you.” 

I kept Polly Pockets. She loves how little the old Polly Pockets are compared to the new ones. However, she says that she likes the way the new ones look because the old ones have funny hair. I don’t blame her. They look a bit weird. She has my old Strawberry Shortcake dolls and a Rainbow Bright doll that was passed onto from my cousin. But holding onto these toys has brought on an issue I never thought about. She wants more and I can’t get these toys because no one makes the classics. I have read her the books from my childhood, and she becomes sad knowing there are no more. 

I foresee my husband and I having the same issue my parents had. How are we going to store these things that are meaningful to her? When I ask what toys she wants to keep and what she wants to donate, I see the pain I used to have. She is processing emotions and holding the toy, trying to decide if the emotional attachment is one she can part with. I won’t push her. My mom let me hold on to what was important. We would check back as I grew and I will do the same with her. Some things just mean more than others. 

Bloganuary, Writing

As a Mother, Educator, or Writer?

Alexandra Diane
Daily writing prompt
What is your mission?
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The prompt today is: What’s your mission? But that’s not a straightforward question to answer. I wear many hats, so how do I know which mission they are asking about? So I’ll answer for all. 

As a mother, my mission is not to raise assholes. Children are only children for such a short time. They will spend a majority of their lives beyond my home and care, making it my duty to raise decent humans. I know it may be a silly concept, but I am not talking about raising people pleasers either. I want my children to know when to be respectful, when to reach out to those in need, and be able to work with others. To know right from wrong, when to seek help or when to problem solve. More importantly, I want them to know when to stand up for themselves and how to leave a dangerous situation. 

Parenting is about love and care, and so is teaching. My course is an elective, a choice program that students apply to be a part of. It is considered a career and technical educational course. And for me, it’s so much more than teaching students how to use a camera and edit. I heavily focus my projects on critical thinking and problem solving. I want my students to understand how to research their topics and find credible sources. The aim is to expose the dangers of unquestioning information and to showcase the ease false information can be created. I usually go off script when students are required to engage in the school-wide Mental Health lessons. Most teachers just have the student watch the videos and answer the questions and leave it at that. The students find the lessons to be a waste of time because they include dated examples. However, I speak to the class about my personal life experiences that relate to the lessons. Many students have thanked me because they feel uneasy or need time to process the information after the lessons. After the Techsafe lesson, I have all my students take out their cellphones. I explain to them how metadata works and show them how their pictures create a map of everywhere they have gone. We then go through their settings and turn off different location trackers.

As for being a writer, I don’t have a mission for anyone aside from myself. Writing is therapy. Sometimes I use it to express emotions and negative feelings, and other times to share thoughts I don’t want to keep to myself. I have had thoughts that have been beneficial to others and have found the readers who needed to know they are not alone. However, I don’t market my work or seek attention for what I write. I write for myself, be it my blog, my short stories, or my book. I write because it is a passion, not a mission to make money.  

Bloganuary, Writing

Life Never Ending

Alexandra Diane
Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
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Because of Anne Rice, there is a very large generation of us that have fantasized about living forever. That morphed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries fans. But I wonder how many of us have thoroughly thought about what it would mean to live a very long life? We all assume that living a long life means it should be genuinely a pleasant one, with less pain and more happiness. However, I don’t think that would be the case. Living a long life would mean watching your loved ones die and continuing on with them becoming a distant memory. 

How enjoyable would life be to be alone and start over again and again, only to end up alone once more? I don’t know if I would like to live that way. Even though I have a fear of my life ending, I’m uncertain if I could handle starting over continuously. I am not talking about immortality, but something close to it. Not everyone would have the luck of being blessed or cursed with a long life. There would still be illnesses. Would that make things harder watching your child die so young? Or harder at an older age knowing they could have lived even longer?  With this extended life, would we have our wits about us, or would there be an uncontrollable amount of people with dementia? Or at that point, would we begin to euthanize humans?

Life never ending is a beautiful thought if everything is perfect. But nothing is ever perfect when humanity is involved. 

Would we be at war longer if those who fought had more time on the battlefield? If our lives were extended, would we continue working in unfulfilling professions for longer or rediscover the beauty of art? Would we prioritize family life because of having more time to cherish our loved ones, or would children suffer neglect as their eighteen short years are extended to centuries? 

I wouldn’t want to live as a human with an extended life unless I was living in a fantasy world filled with vampires and fairies. One where I wouldn’t have to worry about being stuck in a dead-end job for eternity. Because that sounds like hell on Earth. 

Bloganuary, Writing

More than could… I will

Alexandra Diane
Daily writing prompt
What could you do differently?
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When I first read the prompt, I thought it said what would you do differently? I pre-planned my writing to take you on a journey of how each one of my choices would have changed my life drastically. However, that is not what the prompt said. Instead it says what COULD you do differently? This is a thoroughly different answer because it deals with the present and what I can actively improve in my life. For the new year’s this year, I decided to do just that. I decided that this would be the year I would improve on my mental health. 

It’s funny because I am writing this while sitting in a church pew while my daughter is at Sunday school. I overslept and missed our usual 9:30 time. Going to mass, as many Sundays as possible, is something I wanted to change for 2024. I find peace and solace in the services. It has been strange, but whatever my worries have been throughout the week, the message at mass tends to be the answer I am looking for. I leave feeling calm and able to go into my work week with a clear head. I could read the week’s service in my Every Sacred Sunday journal, but there’s something about coming to the service and being a part of the group that adds to my healing. 

Journaling is another thing that I am changing this year. Not only do I have the Every Sacred Sunday journal, which prompts me to engage and process what I heard during mass. I am also journaling for myself. I have used blogging almost as a journal for most of my life. I don’t know why I have had issues with journaling since I enjoy writing. Maybe it’s because when I blog I hold back. I keep pieces to myself that I don’t want out on the internet. However, with journaling, it’s just for me. I have only done it a few times, but I have been honest with myself and feelings. It has helped me digest my emotions better instead of keeping them bottled up inside. 

I know the whole it’s a new year new you thing is cliche, however I’ve never really taken part in this tradition. This year I decided all the things that I was waiting for and making excuses not to do, I would not allow myself to falter. I need to make time for myself, to care for my well being or there would be nothing left of me. All the reasons I have excused myself for not caring for me have been for my children. But after some harsh reflection, I realized if I didn’t take time away for myself, there wouldn’t be anything left of me for them. 

Bloganuary

Welcome to Florida

Alexandra Diane

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

Driving with your hazards on is dangerous

As of July 1st, 2021 the law in the state of Florida changed to allow drivers on the highways to use their hazard lights when conditions create “extremely low visibility.” 

The rain has a strange effect on drivers, causing them to forget how to drive. Driving in Florida is difficult enough. People blame us for bad drivers, but most of the roads in South Florida are filled with tourists from around the world. It’s hard to tell who lives here and who are transplants half the time. The amount of snow birds clogging our roads are fun enough, but add the rain to that and you have a recipe for disaster.

I absolutely hate the fact that they allow hazard lights to be used instead of mandating drivers to use their headlights. Those who visit the “Sunshine State” need to have working windshield wipers. We get freak storms around 3 pm, that maybe as strong as a tropical storm and it could last for a mere five minutes. Being caught without functioning wipers could be a matter of life or death. Visitors also need to understand that when they neglect to turn on their headlights, it renders their vehicles virtually invisible to those around them. Your flashing hazards are little help. However, if you use our headlights, thus turning on your tail lights, the car behind you has a better gauge of the distance between the two of you. 

*** The 3pm downpour that happened on my way inspired this post to our friend’s annual Three Kings’ party. It was pitch black, and I lost count after 30 vehicles, mostly those from out of state, drove with flashers but not headlights. ***