#patience

Thankful Thursday… #Patience

/ Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes / 18 Comments

Thankful Thursday…

First thing this morning, I thought I would post a Thankful Thursday post today, for despite appearances (lol), I do have quite a lot to be thankful for.

Sometimes I wish there were a few more, but I am grateful, nonetheless.

The Veterinary nurse telephoned just after breakfast to report that Milo had a reasonably peaceful night and had managed to eat a little food. His temperature had come down a bit but was still considered too high. Because he was badly dehydrated, the blood test was inconclusive, and he hadn’t spent a penny yet, so they couldn’t test his urine. She reported that he seemed fretful and that they were hoped to send him home sooner rather than later.

No surprise there then, for as well as being a crazy cat, he could be stroppy too, so I imagine he hated everyone right now. Poor Milo, locked in a cage with a drip feed in his leg.

They still have no idea what is causing all of this, so I hope they make some headway before sending him home.

I began the usual morning sweep, website, emails, Twitter etc. Everything was fine until I reached Twitter. I refuse to call it X. It was as if I was in someone else’s account. Everything had changed, and I couldn’t find anything I recognised. I probably should delete it and find somewhere else, but nothing takes my fancy. Mastodon doesn’t appeal, and some of the others are linked to sites I don’t use. I quite like the sound of Threads, which links to Instagram, but when I tried to log in, they said my password was wrong. Not according to Instagram, it isn’t…

I moved on to Facebook, only to be met with the same problem. Wrong email address and password.

Now, I have a fair amount of patience, which, to be honest, is sorely needed when dealing with the internet, but this morning what little I had left, took to the hills and hasn’t been seen since…

So, what exactly am I grateful for?

Not Social Media, that’s for sure. But when I have exhausted my patience, I know I can walk out of my office and join my family in the living room.

Or I can switch off the computer and curl up with my book.

I can also walk out of my back door and stroll around my jungle of a garden; what more could I ask for?

Problem Solving Patience?

/ Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes / 2 Comments

So much for having a peaceful, restful weekend!

It’s not happening… my mind will not switch off and have a rest. I did try but ended up spending most of yesterday working on the WIP. I could have read a book, watched TV, or picked up my knitting. I did none of those things. Strangely, working on my book made me feel better. It also made me think more clearly than I have been lately.

So, what do I do now?

Time has become my enemy. I can see it now, lurking in the corner of my office, a sickly smile designed to make me feel useless and unable to cope. Yesterday proved to me that I can cope, but it has to be on my terms.

I have never been a clock watcher and have always taken my time, doing what I want to do. When did everything become so difficult?

I have thought long and hard about this. Something has changed, so is it me, or the jobs I do?

We all have jobs that we would prefer to leave on the table, but also some that we must do, no matter what. Then there are the jobs that we choose to do, even though we hate doing them. I think this may be where I will find what is causing me to lose my time and my patience.

Most of you would agree that marketing is the most frustrating and time consuming job of all, but I have to own up to not doing much of that lately. Then there is housework, but again, she says sheepishly, I haven’t been doing much of that lately either.

I feel better, knowing there is a reason. All I have to do now is find it and send it packing!

I sincerely hope your weekend brings you what you need… XXX

I am busy thinking!

A Turn for the Better and Flower of the Week…

/ Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes / 23 Comments

After a very confusing week, ending with a coming together of my senses and work skills, I spent Friday afternoon working on the WIP! Yay!!!

This morning, feeling so much more like my old self, I decided to change the battery on my iPhone…

I successfully changed the battery in my laptop last year. A complicated procedure that had my heart in my mouth and my hands shaking. So although the phone is a much smaller proposition, I thought I could do it again.

Nothing ventured, I tried to do this several times, but none of it was easy. I had the new battery and full instructions, but couldn’t even open the case.

Several Youtube videos later, I managed to get it open. Then I was faced with some of the smallest screws I had ever seen in my life. Of course, none of the tools fit the screws. I checked with the sender, who assured me the tools were correct.

I ended up buying two special screwdrivers before finding one that worked.

They said you could do it in three minutes, but took me more like half an hour. As I write this, the phone is good as new, fully charged in ten minutes and holding. Nothing quite like a little success to make your day!

Today, we are teaching Milo to use the cat flap to access the backyard. We didn’t realise before just how nervous he is. For all his tricks and bad habits, he is really just a big baby. We thought he was desperate to go out, but it might take a while…

While doing this, I noticed what I thought was a weed growing in the crack near the wall. On closer inspection, it was a Forget-me-not. These are springing up all over the place this year…

Now, what can I get up to this afternoon…

Too Much Information!

/ Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes / 35 Comments

Life in the Dawes household is on a knife edge now, as the date for Anita’s next and hopefully successful visit to the hospital draws ever nearer.

They plan to be fitting Anita with a pacemaker/defibrillator on Wednesday next week to persuade her poor old heart to start behaving normally. In preparation, we have been bombarded with a cart load of instructions, safety checks and medication updates.

There is so much to remember, and even more information that we really didn’t need, but you know doctors, they must tell you everything, including, in great detail, everything that could go wrong.

Me personally, I like to know what might happen to me, even the bad stuff, but Anita would rather not dwell on that side if things. She hasn’t said as much, but I know she would rather carry on as she is, even with all the breathlessness and fatigue, than walk into that hospital again. If we do get her there, she will be doing it for us, her family and not for herself.

So when the consultant began to describe, in detail, about how he would be feeding several wires through her veins into and around her heart, and that she would be awake while this was all going on, I could clearly see her having second thoughts. 

He then made a tricky moment even worse by rattling off everything bad that could happen while she was on the table. Anita didn’t need him to describe everything she would hear and feel either. I could tell by her face that she desperately wanted to tell him she had changed her mind.

Apart from childbirth some fifty years ago and a broken leg a while back, Anita hasn’t had much to do with doctors and hospitals. Just by osmosis through me and all my many medical problems. For sisters, we couldn’t be more different, even though we look alike…

So, understandably, she is becoming extremely nervous and hating every minute. It wouldn’t take much to have her making for the hills!

These next few days will be an extreme test of everyone’s patience, tact, and diplomacy as we all try to convince ourselves and each other that everything will be fine. Anita will have a Covid test on Sunday and be confined to barracks until the day we leave for the hospital…

#Throwback Thursday ~ As it Was in the Beginning…

/ Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes / 17 Comments

Although I used to dream about writing when I was younger, life came along and made sure I forgot to remember this, always finding new ways to keep my mind from straying.

Even when my sister, Anita started to write and needed help with transcribing and editing her own stories, my own dreams stayed dormant, while life continued to throw some major curve balls.

I learned to love working on Anita’s stories, mainly to keep from drowning under such a lot of misery and frustration. Her characters and stories somehow gave me hope that everything would one day be better.

I needed a lot of patience at that time, and editing is an exceptionally good way of teaching this!

I’m not sure where the first idea came from, but I began to think about writing a story about a woman called Kate Devereau. Someone remarkably like me, as it happens.

I refused to admit it would be a memoir or in any way autobiographical. She just happened to have similar life experiences, that’s all.

After all, they do tell us to write what we know, and I knew Kate very well.

Looking back, I think Nine Lives had to be written so I could move on to a better life. One with more hope in it than I ever thought possible.

Although I have moved on since then, Kate has followed me and has remained a haunting heroine in my first three detective stories, Nine Lives, Out of Time, and CrossFire. My favourite detective, DI David Snow fell in love with her and she haunts him too.

But will Kate Devereau and David Snow ever have a happy ending?

Book Description

Death has been stalking Kate all her life, convincing her that she has nine lives, like a cat.
With nothing to live for, no family to speak of, just a brother she hates, she waits for death to take her away when her lives run out.
People around her are dying at the hands of a serial killer, so has Kate run out of lives?
Will she find a reason to live before it is too late?

“If you like the thriller genre that keeps up the momentum then Nine Lives would be a good read for you. The pace never falters, building up the plot and characters with timely intervention. The author cleverly keeps the story centred around the main character, with the other players coming into the story and yet there are no plot holes or false timings.” Amazon Reviewer

“The story is very mysterious and suspenseful, and I was left wondering if Kate would escape the murderer. The mysterious voice plays a big part in the story and the ending does a wonderful job of explaining the voice and it’s purpose in Kate’s life.” Amazon Reviewer