Big Storms – Been Sick – Hold Onto The Happy

September 29, 2026 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back. I know, I know, it’s been a minute since I’ve been here. If it makes any difference, I hate that I’ve been so inconsistent with my posts. However, it’s been a time and I’m back!

We’ve been having some brutal storms here in the northeast, the most recent being the seemingly never ending Nor’easter we just went through over this past weekend. Just two weeks before that, we had almost 8” of rain in a matter of hours after having almost that much just two weeks before that. Living in a coastal town, our city ended up under a lot of water…thankfully, as opposed to many others, I live on top of a hill and we fared well through it all. (Although the wind this past weekend nailed us pretty hard.)

Having said that however, it is my favorite time of the year and frankly, I love a good storm. Not that I like the damage they cause of course. But I’m one for sitting in the quiet, listening to the wind and rain rattling the windows while I sit inside with a hot beverage and a good book. Fall feeds my soul. Add in a storm? And I’m in a good place.

(Also, we have VERY loud kids who live in our complex that do nothing but let out high pitch screams for hours and after a Summer full of that, having them have to stay inside because of the storms was a nice break.)

Unfortunately, I’ve also been sick. Even coming off antibiotics, I’m very much still not right and haven’t been motivated to do much. All I want to do is sleep. Although I’m back in a nice rhythm with edits again and have been reading a rather excellent new book, I literally fell asleep with my hands on the keyboard last night. I didn’t remember doing it and woke up in a cold sweat of panic that I deleted chapters by accident. (I didn’t, but it woke my ass up that’s for sure!)

It’s discouraging because I had been doing well. I was walking so much better, working out almost daily again and just gearing up for my favorite time of the year. Then I pushed myself too hard one day and haven’t been right since. Walking is so damned hard. I thought I had Covid, but thankfully tested negative even though every symptom is there. Went on two rounds of antibiotics and still, I feel like hell.

With no discernible immune system, I can’t just get the sniffles. I get sinus infections that lead to bronchitis that in the past has led to pneumonia and 10 years ago, led to me on crutches barely able to hold myself up. I get sick every Fall like it’s on the calendar of public holidays.

I was talking about this earlier. Someone once asked me, ‘if your favorite time of the year is September to New Year’s Eve, but you get sick every year during this time, why is it still your favorite?’ I mean, I get the question. Logically, there should be no reason for it. I should dread this time of the year knowing what’s coming. But Fall? Is my soul season. (So much so, I made a design out of that phrase for one of my shops.)

The leaves changing, the crisp air, NO HUMIDITY OR MOSQUITOS, looking forward to the holiday ads…every little thing to come just gives me a happiness I don’t have the rest of the year. So sure, I may end up in bed and looking at the goodness outside through a window. However, watching my trees change color has me taking deeper breaths of relief. Living in hoodies and snuggling down under blankets have me sleeping deeper. I smile more. And what is so wrong about that? Nothing.

We all have those things that make us do that. Smile. These days, we need to hold on to those things even more. Hold on to the smiles. Hold on to the happy. Hold on to the little things that give us the breaks from the stresses of life.

Do I worry about my health? Of course I do! I’ve been dealing with so much over the last 10 years not to. And now I’m in a panic over possibly losing my insurance when the new year comes. Something, I cannot afford to lose with my situation.

So let me see some bright orange, red and yellow leaves. Let me see the silly M&M Halloween commercials. Let me spot the super early holiday ads promoting new light displays and trees. Because these simple things are not only fun to do every year but hey, they’re free! And when they say money can’t buy happiness? While ok, I can’t fully agree with that, as money can buy books…but there’s so much to see and do this time of the year that IS free and creates a happiness not found at any other time of the year.

I have a line in my manuscript that resonates so much here and is so, so true: “Happiness doesn’t come along that often my friend, grab it while you can.”

And that is where I will leave you for today. As always, I hope you got something out of this post and I thank you so much for hanging in there with me. Consistent posting or not, I promise to keep coming back and hope you will as well.

Until next time friends…Cheers!

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One Date: Two Meanings (10 & 25 Years)

September 9, 2026 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back. Hope everyone is doing well and hey, welcome to September! So excited that the ‘Ber months are officially upon us. This is my favorite time of the year and I plan to embrace all parts of it…even the silly. I’ve already spotted some leaves changing and absolutely love catching seasonal commercials on tv. I know it sounds silly, but it’s what makes me happy and after having missed out on the entire last four months of the year last year due to illness, I am trying to keep a promise to myself to make this year count as best I can. And that includes laughing every time I see the new Halloween Reces peanut butter cup commercial on.

This week however, is a tough one for me (as it is for so many) and this post is going to be a bit different from my usual because of it. As I write this, it is September 9th. This date has significance for me on two fronts and while the 25th anniversary of 9/11 is in two days, I’m sure there are people out there thinking, wtf is with the 9th? Well, let me tell you…

If you’ve read my post “A Bit of Personal History” in my about section, you have an idea of where I’m going with this. If you haven’t, (that’s ok), let me explain…

Ten years ago today, my life completely changed. I was happily working in a dream job. I was excited for my future and how after many (many) years, my life was finally falling into place. I had a plan. I had a fresh start and then September 9, 2016 came and it all crashed around me.

The night before, a Friday, I had been at a goodbye party for a friend of mine as she left her position to head towards her own future. It was a great, (very drunken) evening with friends and I laughed the entire time. So when I woke up the next day feeling like hell, of course I blamed the night before.

That Saturday I was headed to the fifth birthday party of a special little guy. I sucked up the hangover and headed to see some extended family and loved watching all the kids having a great time. The only problem was that as the day went on, I was feeling worse and started to realize, it wasn’t a hangover at all. By the next day, I was down for the count. Felt like the flu. A bad flu. I couldn’t even sit up and the next day headed to urgent care where they told me I had developed pneumonia.

A week later I was worse. They thought it was my heart. By the next week, I was walking with a cane. My job was on the line as I had now taken too much time off and couldn’t keep up remotely because I could barely see the screen in front of me to get anything done. My hours were off and I was sleeping constantly.

By October, I was dealing with several doctors. All specialists. All trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I lost my position at work and cried for days because I loved it there so much. I was so sick, I couldn’t breathe properly. I had undergone dozens of tests and by January was walking with crutches because I couldn’t hold myself up to walk. 2017 had me on 32 different medications and they still couldn’t figure out what was going on with me…and this has been the last 10 years of my life.

I’ve had months here and there of feeling like myself. Being able to participate in life again. A summer a few years ago, I was able to be an honorary baseball mom and go to all the games of the little guy and his brother and help out as best I can with the kids. I was even running around and playing wiffle ball to the point you’d never know anything had been wrong with me. When setbacks hit, they hit hard. Just like last August. That one lasted a full year with me in bed. Only recently have I started to come around a bit, doing better and yet, still feeling funky here and there.

To me, this date is the anniversary of my life going to hell and the constant and exhausting fight to try and get it back on track. I often make the joke that I had always wished for time to write…but be careful what you wish for because while I got it, it came at a major cost. The positive flip of that being, I’ve written two books. (Both in heavy edits.) I started this site. I’m trying to build my following on social and have several shops with my designs in them. So while I’m not really making money from any of it, (unfortunately), at least it’s keeping my mind from turning to mush and hey, I wrote two books!

September 9th also has significance for a whole other reason. Twenty five years ago, this day will forever be etched into my head and I relive it as if it happened yesterday.

That day was a Sunday. The weather was more than perfect. Blue skies, no clouds, temperature was warm but not too warm and we went to a big event a few towns over right on the water with the breeze making it even more pleasant. Just the most amazing day.

After walking around the venue for a while, we decided to get some food and take a break. I went to save the seats and as I was looking out over the water and then up to the sky, I was consciously taking note of how spectacular the day was. I kept thinking that this is the kind of day you hold onto because life can change in an instant. I’d never been so aware. It was like the day was embedding itself into me.

The other remarkable thing about that day? The dragonflies.

I should say here, I have always felt connected to dragonflies and this particular Sunday, they were everywhere. It was so bizarre. I was followed by them, they circled me and while I was sitting in the seat waiting for my food, they surrounded me. At first I thought I was seeing things but there was a family sitting behind me and they started commenting on it. Even as we talked to each other, there were none near them! They watched as I put my hand out and a couple of the dragonflies would land on my hand, my arm, my head, my shoulder. I was in heaven and yet so confused. Again, I took a mental note of this because I felt this was something so special, I was meant to absorb what was going on.

As my mother came back with our food, she told me she had stopped and noticed what was happening. I was like a Disney character come to life. I’d been given the nickname Dr. Doolittle years ago because animals are drawn to me at the oddest times, but this was something so different.

I soaked in the moment again thinking that this was happening for a reason. I’ve always been one to look for signs and symbolism in things and there was just something about this that made me wonder what it was all about.

We left that day with smiles on our faces after having a great time and then two days later, with the same gorgeous weather, the world turned upside down.

I won’t go into the events of 9/11 here or what we went through in our home. That is our own story. Of all the things I remember from that day, I remember thinking of the Sunday just two days prior and how I thought things could change in an instant…and oh how they did.

Years later on another 9/11, I went to one of our town’s memorials down by the water. (I live in a coastal town where we can see the NYC skyline.) I took my time walking around and headed to the nature preserve off of the main park. As I came out of the short path into the main space of the park, I heard the most incredible sound. It was like a helicopter was landing nearby. We have helipads in another section of town and we get air traffic from JFK and LaGuardia in NYC so it was possible. However, what I saw? Wasn’t a helicopter at all.

Hundreds of thousands of dragonflies had invaded the preserve! I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. They were everywhere and it was hard to focus on anything because there were so many of the creatures, things blurred out.

I was the only one there. It was so peaceful, even with the steady hum of the insects. I sat down right on the walking path and let them fly and land all around me. I tried to take pics, but unless you really zoomed in, you couldn’t tell just how many there were and they were so fast, so I stopped. I sat and savored the moment knowing this will never happen again in my lifetime. I’ve since researched this and found that they can migrate in swarms, something I had never known before.

I sat and cried to myself. The day was already a somber one with that day’s anniversary, but with all of these beautiful creatures flying and landing around me, it took me right back to that Sunday when they surrounded me in a field before the world changed. The last conscious day of happiness when the world was still ‘normal’. It was a full circle moment for me and one I have treasured since.

Two days. Same date. Years apart. Both with incredible meaning. Of course what happened to us as a collective 25 years ago means something to me and I had gone to a very dark place after that happened. But this date? The 9th? This date is more personal. Two sides of a coin. Total opposite realities. One positive, one negative. And yet through it all, I am still here. You are still here. And for that, I am truly grateful.

And that is where I will leave you for today. Until next time…cheers!

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Slackin’ – Distractions – Snow Days

January 27, 2026 / ccsocialcreative / 1 Comment

Hey guys, welcome back! So sorry that I missed last week, but I gotta tell you, it’s been a time. However, it’s good to be here and hope you haven’t given up on me! (I know, I’ve been saying that a lot lately. Oops.) I also hope that this year has been treating you well so far!

Anywhoo, with all the life stuff of both dr appointments and medical tests, I’ve just been kind of…here. Whatever this illness is that I have (that still has not been diagnosed as of yet), it’s just making me tired all the time. I have no energy, I just want to sleep nonstop and yet I have trouble actually going to sleep. My hours, which were never ‘normal’ to begin with, have gotten way off the charts. However, life goes on and so do I!

I have, of course, been working on my book. I am on yet another re-read and I have so many ideas now of how to condense the original story into something that get me within the word count I need to submit it somewhere. The problem unfortunately then goes back to the previous paragraph. The more I think about what I want to do with the book, the lack of energy I have at the moment is holding the actual new writing back. Every night I sit and read through a few chapters, edit more and then mentally drift off somewhere else. In other words, I get so lost in the reading of the story, that when it comes time to change things around, I just kind of sit there.

To say it has been discouraging is an understatement. The last read through I did, I made so much progress. I had rewritten chapters and cut thousands more words and felt like I was really making a lot of progress. Now here I am, at chapter thirty-something again and I think last night, all I did was change some grammar and an apostrophe. Woo-hoo.

I’m trying not to get down about it. I just don’t want to lose the momentum and excitement I’ve had. I lost a few days of not working on it at all a couple of weeks ago and I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again. I’ve been working so hard on this since last April. Now here we are, with January almost over in this new year and while I’m not physically working on the book in front of me, I’ve been dreaming about where I want the story to go, how I want it to read and came up with new paths for the characters to go.

Of course, getting all of this from my thoughts to the page is something completely different. Keeping me focused instead of flaking out is a challenge and it takes nothing to get me distracted these days.

Speaking of distractions…how about this snow huh? Ok so maybe it hasn’t snowed where you are. But here in the Northeast, the snow/frigid winter we’ve been having has been reminding us that Mother Nature is indeed in charge of things. Personally, I love snow. Even though my hatred of the month of January is well known, I still love snow. It makes everything magical and even though I am nowhere near school age anymore, I still look for the school closings like a kid. I don’t think that will ever leave me either. I used to love snow days as a kid. Meeting my friends at the park to go sledding or have massive snowball fights. Of course the walk back home was always rough. All the enthusiasm of the day was replaced by cold, wet clothes and having to walk uphill to my house with a sled was brutal. But there was always hot cocoa waiting for me and layers of blankets to snuggle under.

During this past storm, I sat with both the book I was reading and my keyboard to work on my own book, a hot cup of tea and watched as the snow poured down on us. I was up in the early morning hours as I always am and it was so peaceful and quiet, that for a bit, I forgot I was doing anything and just watched it come down. There was no noise. No sounds of the nearby highway that I’ve become so used to. No sounds of people starting their cars to go to work. No kids trudging early to school. Nothing. Just complete and blissful silence that let me hear the occasional snowflake hit my window.

Snow muffles life. Not just the sounds, but it literally halts our daily routine. I may not go outside a whole lot anymore, but it still brought me to a standstill watching it. It made me take a break. Made me sit back and reflect and for a little bit, also make me just let my mind go blank as I watched the flakes come down. I love trying to focus on one particular snowflake as it descends from the sky. Trying to see if I can follow it all the way down to its landing place. Not just because I find it hypnotizing, but also because for a brief shining moment, I don’t have to think about anything. I can just be.

Snow quieting our world is a great metaphor for what we all need to do now and then. While everything else in life is happening, we all need to take a step back now and then and just quiet ourselves. Many can do it when they are going to sleep. I am not one of those people. I am the kind that replays everything that has ever happened in her life just before it’s time to close her eyes. So to sit and watch the snow fall, it was like erasing my mind for a bit.

No amount of meditations or ASMR videos on YouTube could do what a half hour of watching the snow the other morning did for me. A complete clearing of the mind. A reset if you will. Now I just need it to snow every day…or have Fall leaves falling from the trees. I’ll take either. (Although I’ll always like Fall best.)

And that is where I will leave you for today. Thanks for putting up with me as always and I apologize again for skipping more than a week of posting. I’m still here and still trying to entertain, well, I hope I’m entertaining! Hate to think I’ve lost my touch!! 🙂

Until next time…cheers!!!

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Clueless – Resources – Writing Tired

August 6, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys! Welcome to August!! I’m honestly clueless about what to write tonight. It’s been a whirlwind few days and my mind is quite scattered…but it always is, so let’s see where this post takes us, shall we?

I’ve been reading up a storm for my cancer society fundraiser (Read Every Day Challenge). I already read a lot, but here it is the fifth of the month, as of this writing, and I’m already two and a half books in! I’ve been more in a reading mood than a writing one these past few days and have been enjoying the total escape into these books. Of course I will link to them below the post and add them to the 2025 On the Bookshelf page as well, but that’s not really the point. The point here is that a book can be a great vacation. So far this month I’ve been to Maui, an island off the coast of Rhode Island and now I’m visiting Nantucket. No airport hassles, no middle seat nightmares and no traffic to deal with. Just me and a book and I’m happy. So if you can’t get away this year, I highly recommend this as an alternative.

While this has been going on, I’ve still been trying to keep on track with my writing. I have so much to do as far as reworking scenes, edits and of course, coming up with new stuff. But by the time I’ve been getting to it lately, I’m just too damned tired to write. I have also not been eating. I don’t mean a little here and there, I mean I’ve gone a full day with no food which is not helping the tired. And yes I know, I have to deal with that, but it does happen to me from time to time and I try to get a little something in me, but again, like insomnia, it happens.

I’m finding that the scenes that I’m writing in this state have been all over the place and good for a blooper reel, if that’s a thing for authors. Plus, trying to get into my own work after deep diving into these other novels has been a little harder lately. Usually when I’m reading a book, I will get a sudden idea for something. Ironically, not related at all to what is in front of me, so no, I’m not plagiarizing anything. It’s just sometimes reading clears my head and an idea hits. The lack of sleep, the lack of food and a lot of caffeine have been fueling such strange stuff that I have been more than happy to not just edit here and there, but cut full pages completely.

I will say this though, my own book is never far from my mind. I have had the opportunity to see both family and friends over the last few days and while in conversations, my mind is playing out something that I wrote just the night before. The bonus of this, was that with the research I’ve been doing for one plot line, I remembered that someone close to me was once in the same profession as one of my characters. I was able to pepper her with question after question to get the inside track of what the life was like and it really helped me navigate the story a lot better.

Never let a resource get away!

You may be surprised to find that while you are googling for background, there may not be a reason to. That someone in your life is connected to what you have been looking up! Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions. For many, many years, I’d never asked anyone anything for fear of sounding stupid or totally out of my element. Especially in the workforce. However one day I realized that at most, someone could just simply answer ‘no’ and that would be that. Never fear the ‘no’. Just go for it. If they won’t answer, then Google it is! In this case, I was able to find out some valuable information that is really going to help a lot and I couldn’t be more grateful.

And that is where I’m going to leave you for today. As usual, I hope you got something out of this post. I know I sounded completely scattered and that’s basically how I’ve been feeling lately, but the message still rings true…never fear the no.

Until next time…Cheers!

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The latest books read, (you can click on their titles):

The Unhoneymooners by Christna Lauren

RoomHate by Penelope Ward

The Five Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

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Insomnia, Reworking Scenes and Possible Name Change

May 20, 2025May 20, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back! I am here trying this Tuesday thing again to see how it goes. From looking at the stats, this seems to be the better day to post (my traditional Friday posts have been slacking big time but that’s ok. I shall keep on trying!

Hope your week is off to a good start. I’ve been dealing with a brutal bout of insomnia myself. I get it at least three times a year anyway, but since healing up from Covid back in March, it has been coming more and more in waves. In this case, my meds have played a factor as well. I’ve been trying to change them up and wean myself off some of them as well. However in doing so, it has caused tremendous pain and lack of sleep. Finally tonight I caved and feel like myself (somewhat) again. Let me be clear, it wasn’t a withdrawal thing and I’m not an addict, I just have a plethora of medical issues that cause incredible pain. Even if I am doing nothing but sitting here breathing, it hurts. I just needed a break. So sick of all the pills. Of course the problem then comes in, without feeling better, my creativity suffers as well.

Case in point…I wrote a chapter last night that I really couldn’t wait to get to. It was a pivotal scene that had been playing in my head for a week and I was so excited for it. However, I was so foggy, tired and uncomfortable, I could barely get through it. I did what I could and then put everything away and tried to go to bed. I thought about it all night, (you know, because I wasn’t sleeping) and even without rereading it, I knew it sucked. I blew right past what was supposed to be an important moment for my characters and did them wrong.

I’ve talked about my writing/editing process here a number of times:

I write a chapter

Next night I read what I wrote the night before, fix it then move on

Write the next chapter

So tonight, after I finish here, I will go back and make sure that the chapter is properly written and the pair are treated much, much better. It’s funny how attached I’ve become to the people I’ve made up. I actually look forward to ‘hanging out’ with them every night. (I really need to get out of the house more.)

Anyway, I am happy to say that even with all this going on, the latest chapter? Is chapter 21! This book has been really taken on its own life and it has been an incredible journey writing this story. Not just the book itself, but documenting it here. I can’t tell if it’s therapeutic or if I’m hoping that someone out there that reads this blog gets that ‘it’s not just me’ moment from it? But it has helped me keep on track and I actually get ideas for the story while I’m typing out my posts. And I’m always so, so grateful to those who come here to read my rambles. I hope that means I’m doing something right!

One thing I’ve been thinking about is changing the name of this site. I had originally chosen CCSocialCreative/Promosocially (my social handle) when I was doing social media management and writing articles on the side. But now the tone has changed significantly and I’m trying to come up with something catchy and that invokes the writing/reading/life stuff spirit. I’ve chosen a few different names but haven’t narrowed it down as of yet. So stay tuned!

And that is where I will leave you for today. I hope that this week brings lots of good stuff, opportunities and something to make you smile. To quote a great ELF: I just like to smile, smiling’s my favorite!

Until next time…cheers all!!!

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