Tag Archives: crashdlanding

Ya Girl is BROKE broke

28 Saturday May 2022

Posted by in Arts & Crafts, Handmade Jewelry, jewelry, Non-Fiction, Products

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Link to my Store.

Broke like the broomstick of an elephant wizard learning to play quidditch. Okay I didn’t mean physically broke. I mean broke like I reach into my pockets and moths fly out cartoon style broke.

I’m adding images for posterity.

But the physically broke thing applies too. However, this post is amount money.

How many gifs can I fit in this post?

Despite the fact that I make a decent living at my Day Job, I have very little money at the end of the pay period. It’s mostly because of a truck with a growing list of problems and a thirst for expensive things.

Insert joke about gas prices.

I can’t just blame it though I eat and like to buy The Kid things.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I needed to engage one or more of my 72 side hustles. And since I can’t afford to upgrade this website suite to monetize it (I would LOVE TO), it’s gonna have to be one of the 71 others.

JEWELRY MAKING

Now, I know I have never made a significant amount of money off jewelry making in the past, and I’m not delusional enough to think I’m gonna ride a wave of earrings straight to the bank.

But I have several social media outlets at my disposal.

Feel free to, you know, check me out.

That time I made a YouTube video like I was about to do a series 🤦‍♀️

I enjoy jewelry making and I have probably about a thousand dollars worth of jewelry making stuff. Okay I might be exaggerating. But I might not.

I stopped making jewelry because I got disheartened that no one wanted anything. Or they all wanted the same thing and I didn’t have enough. Or the large pieces I made wouldn’t sell.

https://crashdlanding.com/2021/08/16/gray-is-glass/
Yeah. I tried to wear her to my brother’s wedding and the bracelet broke. Might fix might take apart.

Anyway, I’m going to try to mass produce as many different kinds of earrings as possible and hope something sells. I’ll use my socials to advertise (freely not paid) and hope I make a dollar.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading

-c

You Have Done A Bad Thing

26 Thursday May 2022

Posted by in Fiction, Uncategorized

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His vision began to clear. He remembered everything being black moments ago. But was it moments? Or minutes? Or hours or days? He couldn’t be sure. He looked at his hands, empty. His shirt clean. Then his memories began to clear.

“They shot me.” He said aloud. His voice was there but not. I’d didn’t echo or carry. “They shot me, I remember that.” He remembered it but had no emotion. It was like a fact from the past. His past but not. Just something that happened to some one.

“Where am I?” He stood. He thought he’d be shaky or unsteady but he was not. He looked around the room. It was gray. Floor to ceiling. Not dark, but there was no light fixture to keep it from being dark, but somehow there was light.

“You did a bad thing.” A voice, from no where and everywhere said.

“What? Who is that!? Where are you?” He asked aloud. The voice echoed inside the room but his did not. It sat in the air around him.

“You did a very bad thing.” The voice spoke again. It’s tone was lower now. He sensed he should feel something but could not. “You did a very VERY BAD THING.” The voice seemed to roar those last words. The reverberated against the walls. And now he could feel something. He felt the voice echo in his bones.

He put his hands on his chest and torso, as if he could hold his insides, keep them from shaking. His hands felt wet. He pulled them away and they were bloody now. His shirt was covered in blood. He could feel the sting. It started as a sting.

“YOU HURT THOSE CHILDREN.” The voice shook the room. “INNOCENTS.”

Pain shot through him as his bones and guts vibrate inside him. He felt tears on his face as his eyes blurred and burned. He touched his face with shaky hands to wipe the tears but what he wiped away wasn’t tears but more blood. “I’m bleeding to death!” He screamed. But again his voice seemed to go no where.

“YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD.” The voice tore at him. “AND THAT IS NOT YOUR BLOOD.”

Then the screams started. Children’s screams. They ripped out of his ears, his eyes, his chest. They were coming out of him, tearing him to pieces. The pain he could not feel before received it’s revenge. It ripped its payment from the inside out. He could feel it clawing away at his chest.

“YOU ESCAPED EARTHLY PUNISHMENT. YOU SHALL NOT ESCAPE THE ETERNAL.” The voice boomed.

He fell to the floor. On his hands and knees he tried to squeeze his eyes closed. To not see the bloody gray floor before him. For a brief moment he wanted to beg.

Painful cries of broken hearts began in chorus with children’s screams, a dreadful song of fear and pain and sorrow.

He choked on blood now pouring from his mouth. “God,” he strangled out. “Please—” he began.

“I AM NO GOD.” The voice boomed. “YOU CANNOT REPENT YOUR SINS TO ME AND BE FORGIVEN.”

He gurgled a groan in misery. And then the voice was in his ears a whisper and and yet still so terrible.

“I AWAKEN WHEN INNOCENT VOICES ARE SILENCED WITH VIOLENCE. I RISE WHEN ACTS OF EVIL ARE COMMITTED. WHEN DEBTS MUST BE PAID.” The voice sliced at him like a whip. “I COME FOR THOSE WHO DO BAD THINGS.” The voice said. “AND YOU HAVE DONE A BAD THING.”

He writhed in pain. Wondered when it would stop. Wondered if it would ever stop. At the precipice of blackness, all sound stopped, and he heard nothing for a brief moment but his own struggling breath.

And then the voice spoke again. Quiet this time. “NOW HEAR THE SOUNDS YOU’VE SILENCED. HEAR WHAT YOU’VE TAKEN AWAY FROM THE WORLD. HEAR AND ANGUISH. FOR YOU WILL FOREVER ANGUISH LIKE THOSE WHOSE HEARTS YOU’VE BROKEN.

Then, one of the most beautiful sounds in all the world, the sweetest of sounds. Laughter and happiness, of children, of women, of men. For the innocent souls of those taken too soon suffer no more. In spite of what someone might want.

Uncountable moments or minutes or hours or days later, blackness turned to blur, blur turned to a gray room with light but no light. And a booming a voice from no where and everywhere. “You have done a bad thing.”

There is a conversation that needs to be had. But too many opinions of what needs to be said make peace and compromise impossible. I feign no knowledge or authority on any subject matter. I only know what I feel and believe. At some point I’ll share my options on the subject matter. But for now I’ll keep those lost, those hurt, and those left behind in my thoughts. As always. Thanks for reading.

-c

At what point do I let myself stop being so strong?

23 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Non-Fiction, Truth, Uncategorized

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Ok that came out weird. Three days ago my back went out. Well, not completely, just enough for me to be in constant pain if I’m not in precisely the right position, but not enough for me to take time off to recuperate.

Honestly you can just add it to the growing list of aches and pains I deal with on a daily basis. Things like what I think is plantar fasciitis in my left foot, or how sometimes when I take a step with either foot I get a pain in my ankle joint and for a split second I cannot put weight on it. How about the fact that MY ARMS HURT. I am a side sleeper and I cannot sleep on my arms anymore without pain.

My hips hurt from compensating with my feet. My knees hurt because walking and bending and crawling in the floor.

The back pain right now is currently top of my list of “Why If Sucks To Be Me.”

Honestly if I had a pill I could take that would make all my aches abs pains disappear long enough for me to be a functioning adult, I’d probably develop a dependency. Honestly having a moment where I have absolutely no pain would be absolute freaking bliss. A high I will never achieve.

So at what point can I stop the “grin and bear it” thing I’ve been doing for, honestly, years now? Because I’m tired. I am not just physically but emotionally and mentally exhausted.

I’ve gone to work every day I’ve worked since my back went out. I spend the entire rest of the day when it happened at work. I went in the next day because “my brother’s getting married, if I can attend a wedding I can work.” When it should have been “if I can finish out my day after hurting my back, I can work another and attend a wedding.

Actually it should have been neither.

But because I am stubborn I didn’t want to miss work. Because

  1. Last time I hurt my back I had to take a leave. And it was deemed “not medically necessary” by the company that controls leave of absences for my Employer. Those missed days weren’t approved and I nearly lost my job because of it.
  2. I don’t like to think I’m letting someone else down or leaving more work for them to do.
  3. I’m a stubborn ass.

At some point I will break, in some form. I get home from work and can’t walk anyway, and now I’ve got this back pain to deal with.

Hopefully in a week or so it’ll let up. Probably would quicker if I had some time. But I don’t.

Thanks for reading.

-c

I woke up this morning and my body chose violence.

19 Thursday May 2022

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First off, I woke up with a headache. That shouldn’t even be a thing.

Second, I forgot pants. No, I didn’t leave the house without them, I’m pretty sure my Day Job wouldn’t let me get into the building without them. These are unattractive legs. They’re mine, but unattractive.

I realized I forgot to ensure I had clean pants for work. So I sat on the throne (🚽) and “read the news” (but also read the news because smartphones exhaust), just… pantless.

Then, I got up because it was time for The Hubby to “read the news” and I proceeded to drop things. My deodorant into the sink, the box of cotton swabs on to the floor, my shoes. my thought aloud to my spouse were, “is this how my day is gonna go? The universe is telling me it is.”

Honestly it was lucky I took my morning dose of ibuprofen. I’ve taken it every morning for the last few days hoping to minimize foot pain. Aside from everything else on my feet hurting, I’ve be blessed (and I mean that sarcastically) what I believe is plantar fasciitis. Nothing I do helps it, except staying off my feet as much as possible. But guess what? That’s my whole job.

Anyway I make it to work on time-ish. I plan for a productive day, but lo the Remod crew has been hard at work to destroy that which we know so well. Leaving my team (of which I do not lead) to clean up.

Boss works on that while I do other time sensitive tasks. he later asks me ti help with his work, and I commence. Which requires a whole load of bending in picking.

And then it happens.

The Twinge.

A tingling, jarring, unnerving split second of pain. Now the first twinge is nothing. It’s a whisper of what could be. So, as always when I get The Twinge, I stand perfectly still. I think, “is this it? Am I down for the count? Is my life over? Will this be the one that paralyzes me for good?” You know, because anxiety.

So I test the water. There it is again but not quite as there. Subtle. Now is when I think, “this could go one of two ways. Either it goes away never to bother me again… until the next time.” There’s always a next time. They’re just not always close together.

Or. This is the end.

Well, the problem was that I still had a great deal of bending and picking to do. Like a lot. And I was barely two hours into my day. And because I am the type of person to not want to let anyone down because it makes me feel like I’m not doing what I should be doing, I know I will not leave.

Because the last time I injured my back (did I mention this was my back) I was out of work for four days, could not physically move without pain. But I did not get approved for leave from work and I nearly lost my job because my absences were not approved. Apparently leave was not medically necessary.

Horseradish.

So I was not leaving work so I could get in trouble for leaving work. Well I had PPTO so I would have been fine.

But as I told my much younger than me boss: I have been ignoring concerning aches and pains for decades. I’ll be fine.

I made it though my shift. Mostly whining, groaning, and banging non-fragile items on hard surfaces because sometimes you hurt and want to break thinks like you are broken.

I even managed to come home and make a crafty wedding gift.

And now my melatonin has slapped me in the face and is trying to pull down my eyelids. I’ll update tomorrow if I’m able to roll out if the bed tomorrow morning.

Goodnight

-c

There’s a reminder on my phone to tell me to blog

18 Wednesday May 2022

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I can’t remember how often I have it set to remind me, because I ignore it most of the time.

But a few days ago I decided that enough was enough and I was gonna make a change. No. Not more blogging. Although I need to.

Between undiagnosed depression, being a parent, a full time job, and all the things I’ve expected of myself, and exhaustion from all those things combined, my home has suffered.

Yes, I can fix a broken kitchen drawer slide. Yes, I have installed a ceiling fan and a dishwasher, and most recently a doggy door (that last one almost made me lose my mind). I am a handy wife.

But I absolutely hate cleaning. It’s exhausting and never ending. And so, every single room in my home is a mess.

Surprise surprise, I am not a Blogger Mom. You see all these people with fancy beautiful spotless homes on the internet and YouTube and tiktok and they have clean homes and it’s absolutely depressing.

I’ve spent many a day stumbling through the house on my bad feet, wondering “if I trip and fall and break an ankle, and I have to call an ambulance, Will they report me and take my child away?” Or “if I die tomorrow, there’s going to be nothing but garbage and dirty laundry left of me.”

Maybe I could just fake a home invasion and robbery and “accidental arson”? No, wait, prison is bad.

I come home from work and think I need to clean. But it has become so overwhelming that it seems absolutely pointless. I’ve tried to just clean my room, the room I spend the most time in. But it seems that the mess grows back like dandelions after a rain storm on a freshly cut yard.

So I decided, two nights ago, that on my next day off from work (today), I was going to start small. The smallest room in my house, that I can move around in semi comfortable (so not the laundry room) is the bathroom.

In the bathroom is a floor carpeted with TP and laundry. The Kid stopped using her potty seat months and months ago, yet it’s still here.

The sink area is covered with fast food cups and beauty supplies. I have a drill in the floor.

Hey. Drill brushes are fun.

So, I’m gonna start here. and I’m going to work my butt off. Hopefully the endorphins from actually cleaning and getting it done help encourage me to choose another room.

But dang. The laundry is going to be never ending.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.

-c

Welcome

23 Saturday Apr 2022

Posted by in Non-Fiction, Truth

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Over the last few days I’ve gotten several likes and views and maybe one or two followers. Not that it makes me a famous blogger yet. But as it’s been a while since my last post, I thought I’d reintroduce myself.

Hi, my name is Crystal. Welcome to my website/blog. Where I share the most random collection or posts and stories you may ever come across.

Here I will talk about my mom, who passed four years ago. Family related things, though I’ll never name anyone. Other general life related topics. I often briefly discuss changing my life and going in new journeys.

I like to do a “series” called “You Don’t Need…” where I pretend I’m a self-improvement/advice blogger and talk about things that the would tells you you need but might not be accurate.

I also like to say I’m a writer of fiction. I’ve written and self published a few books, currently available on Amazon. The most popular of which is “Black Friday: A Zombie Story. It was written for my friends and coworkers at the time and one reviewer pointed out that that fact made it less good?

One thing I do a lot of here that I feel I should warn you about is I Lie.

I make promises I never keep. I have good intentions, but little follow through.

The only excuse I can give you right now is that I am exhausted about 97% of the time. I work a full time job, I am a mom of an under 10 Kid with ADHD. I’ve been suffering from excruciating foot pain. And as someone who works on their feet for a living, that’s not good. After spending 8+ hours a day on my feet, I come home and only wish to rest. I can’t usually get past short form videos on my phone to think about doing anything else.

I tell myself I’m gonna try harder, because I would love for this to be come a career. But I try to live in reality to an extent and I know that it’s unlikely.

So, if I have any new followers, welcome. You might see me once in a blue moon, but know it’s not because I don’t wanna be here. Ya girl is just tired. Lol

Thanks for Reading

-c

Four years ago today I had already heard the last words my mom ever spoke to me

17 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by in Family, Non-Fiction

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She told me that I had been her rock. She had been in and out of the hospital for four months and I’d been there for most of it. I was there for her because it made me feel better to be near her when she was sick.

Mostly because out of all four of her kids, I lived the furthest away, and wasn’t able to see her as much as I would have liked.

Those were the last words she said to me. She’ had said them as I left her in the hospital, by herself, hours away from home. I had no idea the next time I saw her she would be in and out of consciousness.

I know those were her last words to be.

It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that they’d be her last. Had I known that’d be the last time I’d hear her voice I wouldn’t have left that room.

Thinking about it now I realize I haven’t grieved for her in a while. Not just felt sad that she’s not here anymore. I do that daily. But really grieved. I remain wrapped up in my own frustration and depression and honestly constant physical pain of some sort.

Oh and mindlessly watching short videos on the internets.

I have a tick tack.

On Tuesday (4/19) it’ll be four years since she died. I have to work that day. It’s my least favorite work day. I hate Tuesdays. I’m sure I’ll be my usual borderline angry but trying to hide it self.

But with a touch of sad.

She would have loved my Kid’s gap-tooth grin. She would have loved watching the grandbabies hunt eggs, and my oldest nephew being a goofball. She would have enjoyed sitting with us outside while the kids played. She would have liked my brother‘a fiancé, I think. I’ve only met her a few times. But mom liked everyone, at least until they did her dirty.

I had no idea that writing a blog post about her would be hard. I’m laying next to my my sleeping Kid, writing this, trying not to cry.

The pain of loss, of losing someone you love so much, it never goes away. It is a wound that never heals. And it can never heal because we keep—whether intentional or not—picking at the scab that covers it. We let it bleed a little.

But I will not lie and say that it doesn’t get a little easier to cope with the pain. Over time, you get used to it. It’s like an uncomfortable buzzing sound coming from your ceiling fan. But you cannot sleep without the cool air so you leave it on. And eventually you forget it.

Or how you can always see your nose, your brain just erases it.

All I know is that every day for the last four years my heart has ached and wished she was still here. Eventually I stopped crying every day. But sometimes I hear a sad song, or watch the video from her surprise 60th Birthday party. And I peel away the scab and let the wound bleed.

Doing so sometimes feels like a little bit of therapy. But then I calm down, dry my eyes. And maybe I should start remembering that I’m her rock. Even if rocks gotta cry.

In Loving Memory. 11/10/1956-04/19/2018

J-JCCJ-CJL-BBG-OGNW-EBX-S

We Love You, Always.

-c

I think my child and I have an unusual emotional connection

12 Tuesday Apr 2022

Posted by in Family, Non-Fiction, Uncategorized

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I’ve been pretty sick recently. Okay all of 2022, actually. But lately it’s been the flu. She got it from school and passed it on to her family. Mostly me. So yesterday, my day off work, I said, “I’m going to sleep all day and read.”

So after her and the hubs left for school/work, I went back to sleep. At around 10:30 I woke up and stretched, which caused the start of a devil cramp (a persistent muscle cramp in my legs that cannot be easily ended or reversed by stretches, that also hurts like hell).

I already felt like trash, sinus pressure in my head, coughing, etc. and I just wanted to sleep. But I had to get up and walk off this cramp instead of flexing it away and going back to sleep. So yes. I cried.

Eventually it went away and I made a big old cup of ice water and a sandwich and had lunch.

Fast forward to the afternoon (I took another short nap later) and I’ve picked the Kid up from school and we’re doing homework. Now, when she has a bad day her teacher emails me after school. These emails, while greatly appreciated, usually don’t come until too late. IE after we’ve finished homework and she’s gotten her iPad time.

If she’s had a bad day, and we know in advance, we do not let her have iPad time and we have a conversation about her behavior and what can be done.

I did not get the email until after she was in her iPad and we were having dinner. We had the conversation anyway, and I made sure she understood that had I know beforehand about her behavior, she wouldn’t have had her iPad.

But it turns out her bad behavior began at about 10:30. The same time I had a mini emotional breakdown due to a muscle cramp.

Now, she has been sick lately and is on the tail end of getting over the flu (her school excuse had her going back today). So it could be and was still feeling off and needed to transition back into her school routine. in fact this was probably it.

But the exact same time?

Anyway I’ve been thinking about this for some time now, and I’m going to experiment. Today is Tuesday. My least favorite day at work, and I tend to have emotional breakdowns, just not visibly, on these days.

My experiment will be me trying to have the best day ever. Let’s see if she does too.

I’ve been logged off of Facebook for 118 days and these are the reasons why

09 Saturday Apr 2022

Posted by in Mental Health, Non-Fiction

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I think it’s time to share.

  1. After obsessively posting about and telling literally everyone, not a single soul showed up to my child’s birthday party. We sent invites to her class, I created an event on Facebook which I shared repeatedly, I told people numerous times and verbally invited them. Most people said they’d try to come, said “maybe” to the event invite. One person messaged in the middle of the party and sent a gift but had “more important” things to do. No one else messaged or called or even said anything when I saw them in person. We paid a lot of money and no one came. Except my sister and her crew and I will be forever grateful to her. My baby had fun because of them. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I was the reason no one came. So I needed space from the people who swore they would have been there.
  2. I’ve spent way too much time falsely believing that I could find acceptance on social media. I found myself spending more time trying to think of posts that would make people like me than I should have. I like making people laugh—whether or not it’s at my own expense. My brain believes that it means they truly like me when in fact they’re just laughing at me. All I’ve ever wanted was to have friends and for people to like me. But perhaps it’s not my fault if someone doesn’t like me. They don’t have too.
  3. HATE: hate on each other, hate on one’s personality, beliefs, hating people for things they cannot change about themselves. people hating other people for their political affiliation, for their actions, for their way of life. Hate hate hate. Hate is poison and gets us absolutely no where.
  4. Scams for views: On Facebook, if you have a page, the more likes you get the more/easier you get seen. I have a Facebook page as my readers well know. I can access how much my page has be viewed. Views lead to new views. Views equal money. Nefarious pages post scams or clickbait in order to gain views. I’ve gotten pretty ok at spotting these. There are several people on my friends’ list that share these without a second thought.
  5. “Friends” People who have added me on Facebook, but barely speak to me in real life. Heck most of them barely spoke to me o Facebook. There’s a list, to be honest, of those people. I’ve begun the “don’t speak first” protocol to determine whether I’m a reality friend or a Facebook friend. It’s been leaning pretty exclusively to Facebook.
  6. My mental health: I have lost a lot of friends without even trying. They’ve just disappeared. Not in reality. No they’re alive. They’ve just decided to make a new Facebook and not re-ad me. Or they just ignored me completed despite a direct message, so I was done. This is the “Don’t Push Where There is No Pull Protocol”. If you try to be a friend and they don’t reciprocate, give up. Dwelling on whether or not someone likes you or their lying is absolutely damaging.

Regrets?

A few. That the people that actually cared about what I did on Facebook are missing me. That I don’t get to see when my sister posts or my friend’s babies are posted. My my family. That all the people who have their own Pages for their small businesses don’t get my attention anymore.

But because I use a dummy account to access my Facebook Page, I can search for certain things I want to see. My Kid’s school page, her daycare—though they don’t post her anymore. I can still view my Friend’s pages. I don’t like them with the Dummy, because I don’t want it to be found. Dummy has no friends and she likes it that way.

I can’t say my mental health has improved immensely. I probably have several undiagnosed issues. But I don’t go to a doctor when I feel like I was hit by I was struck by a BUS. But I can say that it hasn’t helped.

Well, the kid is rubbing her eyes and I’m yawning. So time for bed.

Gonna try and be more consistent. It’s been bonkers lately. Goodnight!

Thanks for reading

-c