Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 4)

It has been a wild couple of weeks here. It has been a while since I have written about my daughter and my Dad journey. But here it is. I haven’t need to be the Stay at Home Dad for a while now and have been working and letting things go.

My daughter had her second transplant in 2021 and it is doing well, but she still ended up in the hospital last week. For the whole week. Without a concrete diagnosis or anything real.

So we spent a week up in the hospital, doing tests, praying, and hoping for the best. Did we find out anything? Not really. Did they rule stuff out that was not causing the pain? Yes. I have to count that as a win. But she is still in pain.

I have some PTSD from a couple of years ago when it took almost a full year to figure out that her anti-rejection medications were causing problems. A full year of my daughter being in pain wasn’t a good thing at all.

So, now my daughter and my wife are home. They are here, and I like having my family together, excepting my daughter in college and my wayward son. I really like my family, and half of them up in the hospital sucks.

So now, we wait, and hope, and pray that the pain will subside and my daughter will get back to normal and the normal things that a 17 year old should be doing. I am still the dad, and as hard as it is to wait and see, as hard as it is to not just be able to fix things like you fix a car, as hard as it is to see my daughter in pain, I still have to make the best of things and try to make her as good as possible. I have to be strong for her and the rest of the family.

I just have to be there. And go fishing at some point. Lot’s of fishing.

Until next time,

-Justin

You really thought this was going to be another boring post with me whining about not writing enough. Face it, you did.

Well, that is not going to be the case. This Blog is being revived because I am getting published again! Yes, I was chosen to be in my second anthology for the League of Utah Writers Infinite Monkey chapter.

This story is kind of fun. The first anthology had my story about a drunk driver.

This go around it was all about flash fiction. 1000 words or less. Mine was entirely dialogue. It was a fun exercise on a day I was bored and wrote the whole thing out longhand. A couple of revisions later and I am getting published again.

I have several partially finished, several barely written, and many many napkin scrap ideas floating around. It feels good to actually have one done.

I have learned by being a member of the League of Utah writers that I will probably never be a novelist. I am so much better at short stories, some may reach a novella length, but that is about all. I like to write more focused stories and not the sweeping arcs that I like to read. I don’t know why, I like a tighter, short story.

I don’t know what that says about me, but there it is. Sure there may be a novel in there somewhere, but this isn’t my career, this is a hobby. I will sit here and blog, write my short stories and continue to submit to anthologies. I may end up with a book of short stories someday, but we will see about that.

Now I make up stories for fun, share them here and there, and go on to the next. Maybe I will re-awaken the serial novel here on this site, that was fun for a while. I had Poetry Thursday and Serial Saturday at one point. That could be a fun way to do a first draft, I’ll have to see.

Until next time

-Justin

Hello all.  Well it has finally happened.  The machine has gotten the better of me.  Not for long to be sure, but for now, It has beaten me.  What machine could do this?  The mighty table saw.  It is cliche and fills the world of sitcoms about guys cutting their thumbs on a table saw.  But I did it.  And it wasn’t funny.  Or pretty.

This happened way back in October the 21st while I was cutting some pine to make magic wands for party favors for our Halloween party.  One second of inattention, $1700 ER bill and now a thumb that is still not right.  Yes it is finally healed over, but much is still numb or funky right over the scar.

I know, I know you are all laughing right now, and some are saying, “You should use a push stick dummy.”  Well, I was using a push stick.  Only problem, for some dumb reason, I reached over the top of the blade to catch a falling piece.  I don’t usually reach for anything like that.  I usually let them fall.  But I didn’t.

Now, I sit here almost 4 months later, still trimming dead skin from the scar and wondering when this thing will finally be healed.  It still hurts sometimes, the cold is not good on it.  parts are still numb, and may always be.

So, what did I learn from all of this and why should you care about it?  You can’t be too careful.  When things get comfortable and routine you get careless.  I got careless.

 

Well now here is an update.  For some reason this has been a hard post to finish and hit the publish button on.  It has now been 7 months.  The thumb is healed pretty well.  The scar tissue is there but not annoying.  my fingernail has grown out and is finally normal.  It got a little funky for a couple of months.  Parts of my thumb are still a little numb, but I don’t notice it most of the time.