363 Days till Halloween!

Happy 363 Days till Halloween!

Ok, yea, this is Taborri Walker and yes, I love Halloween the mostest! I figgur since people start posting for next Christmas right after the holiday is done, then why can’t I do the same with Samhain? To my sadness, I didn’t hand out candy this year because last year my count was zero due to the pandemic, the year before that was two, and all the years here the number was steadily going down. I miss having kids over to decorate and to hand out goodies, but I figure, why waste money on a bag of candy I won’t give out most of? I did make three hats – a Jack O’ Lantern, a ghost with stretched eyes and mouth and a purple witch hat with a dark green band and black buckle. I tried to use plastic millinery wire to shape the brim but it’s not working, so I need to contact the company and see if there’s any tricks to using it. Otherwise, I’ll get some 1/16th inch twisted stainless steel wire and try that out to shape the brims. My hats include a tall tail on top with a knot tied in them, and I’m calling them my “Naughty” (knotty) Halloween Hats. Got a lot of compliments, but since I didn’t think to make any until too close to the day, I didn’t get any orders. Pics of them will go in the Product Catalog I am making.

On me personally, this first week of November is jam packed with doctor appointments and shopping right after two of those, cuz I’m pretty much out of stuff I need. My heart has been acting up some, so next week I go see my Cardiologist and find out why. Hopefully all I need is a pacemaker adjustment. We’ll see. I’ve been nursing a small cold since the end of July, and keep cycling through the symptoms every few days to the next one. Today there’s pressure behind the eardrums, my GP said, but no infection, so my immune system is a little weak. If I get worse, I go back. They did a quick C test, but it’s negative. Would like to shake the cold off. Maybe it will give up soon?

For the Books section of Books & Hooks, I’m finishing up a story a long time in the writing. Had to take a break for a while because I couldn’t get a good idea on the sections nearing the end. Talked with my plot editor and English corrector Nanci Taylor and that helped to clarify closer to the ending, and I’ve finally figured out the rest of the story, so I’m working on it. This one is called OtherSpace. It’s about a family who went out west, ending up where Texas would be, and settled in a Valley where there was an odd yellow cast over a lot of it. As the years went on to present day, they learn that this is some kind of being, and can open sections of itself, to put you in a completely different area, so they call it OtherSpace. It also seems to be sentient and mostly responds to the present-day youngest daughter of the Morgan clan, Ginger. The Morgan’s were also building inside the area they could walk through, and storing things in there as well. When the yellow faded enough in other places, people living there would report seeing ‘ghosts.’ But what it is really, is beyond imagining. As Ginger is the nation’s youngest fully-degreed Child Psychiatrist/Psychologist, she travels around to rescue children in dire circumstances. After getting back from a particularly grueling and long session with twelve feral toddlers who were prisoner in a large house where the woman got paid to let men “hunt” the tots and abuse them in every horrific way, Ginger learns that this thing is more than they ever dreamed and she and others with a similar being with them are propelled into a last great adventure, to return these people to their own. It won’t be published this month, but maybe December or soon next year. Have to plan the cover and may need someone who can draw well to help with it. The book to be published this month is Earth Maid 2: Down With the Sickness in paperback only, as the eBook is already out. My artist will use the cover made by my first artist and extend it into a paperback cover. It’ll cost a bit more, but it will be worth it! So the writing is continuing – sorta well. I do have days where I can’t find a single word to get out, but when I do get going, I don’t want to stop. Damn ADHD anyway. I get distracted toot sweet. Also, I just got Windows 11 for my laptop, and the changes it made even on my 2019 Word program is stalling me some, figuring out the new system. It’s mostly the same – but the changes will take me a little bit to figure out. But I’ll get it. I love tech!

For the Hooks section, as well as what I said above, I’m now getting patterns for all types of hats for the Xmas season. I personally don’t celebrate it, and without a family to buy gifts for (except for my two great-nephews, David and Bill,) I don’t decorate personally. I’m sending money to my nephew and niece to set aside for Xmas for both, and Bill was born early December last year, so a bit extra for him for his bday. But the hat patterns so far are: 1. Tree ornaments, 2. Gingerbread faces, boy and girl (a bow makes it a girl,) 3. Elf Hat with ears, 4. Regular Elf hats, 5. Christmas Tree Hat in 2 styles, 6. A reindeer face with antlers. 7. Santa Hat, the normal red one with white brim and pom, with or without a beard, and, if I can figure it out, 8. The Grinch. (Face, we’ll see if I can do it. It’s a normal beanie in lime green with a small Santa hat on top and the face put on. I have a pic to look at, but can I copy it? We’ll find out!) And maybe, if I can figure it out, 8. a candy cane hat, as a regular red/white striped beanie, with a round tube out the top of red and white stripes, close the top end and use millinery wire to shape it as a curved candy cane… again, we’ll see.

For now, that’s basically it for me here. Snow is gone again, it’s supposed to rain for a couple days. Today was foggy all day, and tonight late, my BF Connie and her daughter Erin, another BF, took me to Carrs for a couple things that were too large for me to carry on the disabled bus, and I bought some stuff for them as well as gas money. It was even foggier, yet the idiot drivers up here aren’t slowing down. While I really miss not having a car, it’s nice to not have to pay for everything it needs to keep going and be legal. Snow will be back soon, because people started putting out Xmas décor before Halloween!! That’s why it snows so soon, you know! STOP IT!! I know who you are!!

One last thing… I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving either. I can have a thankful day any day I want. After learning how the pilgrims slaughtered the Natives that saved them a few years later, I dropped the holiday. Please, be thankful every day, even if only for being alive that day, or what reason comes to you. You don’t have to have Thanksgiving on the federal holiday with all the blather about Pilgrims and Natives and such, have the day when you want, with whom you want then. When white men came to this continent, it turned the lives of all Natives into a horror. Why celebrate that? Think about it!

Much love to all my family and friends! H U G S!!