Y’all …December has me upside down and wondering where the hell November went.

I had grand hopes of getting you my next story and getting through an edit of what I hope will be my debut full-length novel by this weekend. Alas, all I have to show for it is …

Well… maybe nothing, honestly.

My inner “Karen” (think “Will & Grace”) is riding me hard these days. She’s not new, just a recurring character in the ecosystem. Constantly grinding on about how I’m failing.

If I was honest, she probably helped me achieve what I have in many aspects of my life.

Heaven forbid I try to do something new. And I dare to be imperfect at something new?

Karen says hells to the no.

Nothing she has to say is useful. None of it wanted. It’s not protecting me. Just there, passing judgement on everything.

Even this blog entry.

What does “she” have to say about this blog entry….

• No one cares
• This is too much
• See you can’t even write a blog entry, why do you think a book is possible

If I was someone who didn’t have a “Karen” brain riding her, or someone who pretended she didn’t exist, I might tell you, “Then I journaled and meditated, had a salad with perfect macros before I took a 5 mile walk. And now look how centered I am.”

So, here’s my message to you:

Doing the kid thing, wife thing, 9-5 thing and trying to squeeze in a passion project in there is tough. It makes you question everything, but at the end of the day (as my therapist and chatgpt tell me) I have to carve out time for me amid all this chaos.

So, I will make deliberate time to do my thing and plan the ever-loving hell out of the rest. It might work, it might not. Either way, I have to try.

Because if my cup is empty, how can I pour myself into anything.

Karen can go eat a bag of… well… a bag of something nasty and I am going to get my coffee, planner and laptop and make this thing work.

In the words of Chevy Chase from Christmas Vacation :

With that I leave you, my lovelies. Eat the cookies, drink the nog.

Fill your cup.🥂🍪🎄🥛

-Liv