Sherri Cornelius

It's crazy to me how many unfinished drafts I have in my blog folder. These are topics which were at one time important, but once interrupted made not a difference for their unuttered state. I think that's why I'm so infrequently posting. I've never been good at planning posts, and the only two reasons any post gets out there is 1) I have enough time to finish my thought, or 2) the need to spill it lasts over a span of days.

So if you're here you're noticing the new surroundings. No biggie, since my website has been in a state of flux for a while now, but what you might not notice is that I'm back on Blogger.

I've been on the fence about tossing my hosting plan--even though it was just $6 a month I felt it was wasted money since my plans for a big, fancy author website never materialized. And even though I'm more comfortable on Wordpress, they're so monetized now that it's hard to make your blog the way you want it with the free version. So on top of school, work and kids, I decided to learn how to do the new Blogger. It's a slow process. At this moment most of my drop-down menus still have this awesome template's generic lists and I'm not utilizing front page images like I should, but I did manage to get my contact links in there, as well as on of my short stories, Mon Petit Ami. Of course, I might change my mind about the formatting of the menus, but for now it's there.

On the authorial front, I have learned something about myself: I really loathe marketing. I had an inkling I didn't like it before I wrote Skin & Scales, but now I know for sure I'm completely out of my depth. I want to be an DIY author like I am a DIY everything else, but I have to admit my limitations here. I need a publisher to guide me. I'll do anything they tell me, I just need someone else's help in this area.

Let's see, what else...

School's going fine. Pell grant paid for about 2/3 of the summer session, but hopefully it'll pay out a little more for the regular school year since I'll be officially half-time. I just can't believe my audacity at thinking I can accomplish this.

Working at the library is still good, but I don't know how much longer I can do shelving. My joints aren't holding up too well. I didn't even know how bad my joints were until I started working again. I knew particular joints were prone to pain at times, but not generalized joint pain. My fragrance sensitivity creeps up on me some days, but most of the time I'm all right. Part of the problem, I'm sure, is sleeping on this futon. It's been over two years since I sort-of separated from the hubs (we still live in the same house but don't hang out together much), and the futon isn't getting any softer.

But everything happens in its own time and, I believe, to the best purpose. And since the past year has been all about forward motion I think it's okay to rest for a little while. Life seems to build in those rests for me, which is good since I'm not too good at making time for rest myself.

Day off. I plan to spend the morning cleaning and the afternoon doing schoolwork. Jonah's got a friend coming over later, one whose parents are more skittish than I am about the social aspect of parenting. It feels weird to be the outgoing one.

I knitted a cotton sunhat this week. I thought it looked ugly and shlumpy at first, but after a couple of days I see it's cute and shlumpy instead. I do that with every project. I expect to weave in the final ends and be awed by the project's holy glow, but it's still just a hat. It's like that with writing, too. That's why writers are advised to put a newly finished manuscript "in a drawer" for a few weeks. (Used to be a physical manuscript in an actual drawer, now it's bits on a hard drive.)

I need money. An online job would be great, but of course those are rare. I can't write website copy right now (my head is too full of college right now) but I could do data entry or something. The reason I hesitate to get a job outside the house is because I'm already leaving the kids home alone more than I'm comfortable with, and also because the migraines are getting more frequent again. Fragrance exposure made worse by stress.

I'm working on the stress part, which is just a matter of adjusting to all the changes of the last year, but of course I can't do anything about the fragrance part. I think the city put air fresheners in the library, which they had approved at the end of last year, right before I came aboard. You're probably thinking, "But Sherri, can't you tell when there's air freshener present?" I've always smelled strong, perfumey odors at times in the library. Usually I can pin it on a customer and move away and be fine. But lately I've been smelling it where there are no customers. A problem with air freshener (and any fragrance) is that you stop smelling it after a while, so it's hard to know if it's there all the time. Also, if this is AF I'm smelling, it doesn't always smell the same. I'm wondering if the dispensers are the atomizers that rotate different scents.

All I know is my eyes are irritated at the library, blurring my vision and spawning the subsequent evening migraine, and when I get home my clothes and hair carry a strong fragrance. If I work two days in a row, forget about it. It seems to be better to work a couple of long days than many short days per week. Maybe I'll ask my boss if we can do that. I hesitate to ask if the air fresheners have been installed, because I had a false alarm a few months ago and I don't want to compound my perceived hysteria.

But anyway, all that fragrance talk came from why I still want to work from home, if at all possible.

And now I must shower.