This week I have stuck to my plan. Make it a consistent habit and it will continue. So here we are on another Sunday, and I am typing and editing my journal entries from 2024 and 2025.

Last week I had 14 likes, which may not seem a lot to some, but I wasn’t expecting any, so it was wonderful for me.

Saturday January 6, 2024

“What is it?” Red asked, “A person,” Blue replied and walked over to Laura then knelt next to her. Green followed Blue saying, “be careful, we don’t know her danger.” “She’s hurt,” Blue said. “Not dangerous.” Green knelt behind Laura. Blue and Green also had an ability they could not explain. They could heal. Purple could look into people’s minds, she looked into Laura’s. “She’s not from here,” Purple said. “I don’t know where she’s from but it’s all black, I keep seeing flames and bones, in flashes.” Purple stopped talking and put her head in her hands. “Everything is pain,” she said and started to cry. Red scowled, “We should end her misery now,” she said. “Saving her will threaten our world.” “No,” Blue said, “We can’t leave a soul in misery, we must save her.”

Monday January 6, 2025

My aunt Frankie died, and I don’t know how to feel about it, because I thought she had already passed away. Frankie was my dad’s sister. I’ll tell my mom when she wakes up. It’s Monday, the first day of the week and I do not feel refreshed. I can never sleep on Sunday nights. I don’t know why, maybe I put too much pressure on myself to sleep, or nap too much on Sunday. I just don’t know. The fact is I’ve always had trouble sleeping. In 2024 I was writing a story in my journal and then I stopped. I don’t know if a journal is the best place to write a story. I feel like a journal is a place to either start or end your day. As fragmented as these pages have been, I can see it’s good for me to do this at the start of my day. Because I can think clearly.

Sunday January 7, 2024

The dark world does not let anyone go, they are born there, and the dark world is where they stay. The darkness keeps people in fear they torture and kill them, always for all to see, no one lives long. No one escapes. Mainly because the people ruled by darkness don’t know anything else. This world is their life, and hope isn’t something they know. Life expectancy in the dark is short, those that do live forever are destined to become one of the dark ones. Laura was not one to become one of the dark ones but somehow, she had lived. Through endless torture, beatings to near death she somehow survived long enough to reach childbearing age. The dark ones were perplexed and afraid of Laura more than she was of them. That made her their constant target.

Tuesday January 7, 2025

We are 7 days into 2025. I called my cousin yesterday and we had a nice conversation. I have been thinking about my dad and the stories he used to tell for weeks now. We used to ask him to tell us his bull and burrow stories. He would make fried potatoes and pinto beans for dinner because that’s what the gold prospector would eat with the bull and burrow, he somehow acquired. They traveled through the mountains of New Mexico looking for gold. Dad talked about New Mexico and the superstitious mountains a lot. I’m not real sure if he had ever been there. I never have but I wanted to go and I should someday. The story though I do not think is about the stories my dad told but about my dad. He was a broken man there are many things that happened to him. I like to think he loved us and did his best. That is all I can do now.

Monday January 8, 2024

The dark ones knew one got away, they didn’t know what to do but they knew she had to come back. The leaders came together to find Laura. This was something that never happened. Not since they stopped taking them. At the beginning they took the small ones. As time went on the small ones became big ones which grew to a large population. The dark loved what their world had become. The misery they caused gave the dark an enormous amount of power. As the crowd kept growing the misery increased and the dark became even more powerful. With power comes greed and the dark’s wealth was others misery. Their world was so strong the people who lived there were trapped by their own fear. No one had ever left.

Wednesday January 8, 2025

I woke up so early today, at 4am I am wide awake. I do not know why either, but my guess is that yesterday after work I took a two-and-a-half-hour nap. Then I stayed up until about 1 am, now I am awake at 4 am. I went and threw off my sleep schedule. I am waiting for my robot vacuum to start so I can see if I really did fix it like the app on my phone says I did. Anyway, now I am writing. Yesterday I wrote down some memories I had from when I was younger. One thing I forgot was it took me a long time to start talking. I guess I didn’t really start until I was four. As a teenager and up until my 20’s and 30’s I was painfully shy. I went to college in my 30’s and studied journalism, that is when I finally came out of my shell. To be honest though, if I do not have to talk, I won’t.

Tuesday January 9, 2024

The protectors were trained from the time they were born. Generation after generation grew up to become the next protector. Their lives were pre-determined, they only knew how to keep their world safe, this was their life. The world they lived in never really had many threats, there were some, but they were quickly dealt with and removed. The land where they lived was plentiful. When you did something wrong you were put in a prison where instead of being forgotten you worked to get better. Some left and lived better lives, some stayed until death. The world was not perfect, but it was theirs and they kept the peace. There was sadness and pain, but also light, happiness and hope. Like the dark people rarely left, if they did, they would find their own way and never came back. New people never came either, until Laura.

Thursday January 9, 2025

There is supposed to be ice and snow today. Schools are closed they did that yesterday. Some offices have also closed, when it gets below freezing in Texas the whole state shuts down. I do not have much on my mind today. I have not been feeling too great, and I think that is because it’s cold. The temperature drops and my sinuses hurt. Yesterday I slept a lot, and I had sore painful muscles in my neck and shoulders. That usually means I have a sinus infection. I was a police dispatcher for a few years and when it’s cold the criminals move inside. We had one year during the pandemic and there was a bad ice storm. One whole week of freezing temperatures that would freeze the ice at night and when it melted during the day it didn’t help much because more ice would come and refreeze. They called it icemageddon. People lost power and many died because the had no heat. They froze to death.

Wednesday January 10, 2024

Red was wary of Laura. Where had she come from? What was wrong with her? Did someone bring her there for the protectors to find? It was all strange. Red stayed on alert while Blue and Green healed her, and Purple read her thoughts. “We need to take her to the doctor. She cannot open her eyes,” Green said. Blue and Green helped Laura up, “can you walk?” Blue asked. Laura started taking cautious steps, but it was still hard to see. “Yes,” Laura said her voice just a whisper. If she looked down, she could open her eyes a little. Blue and Green fell into step on each side of Laura. Red and Purple followed behind. As they came out of the forest Red sensed danger. “Something’s wrong,” she said. Then there was a horrible scream.

Friday January 10, 2025

I am so glad its Friday. Before I had this job, I worked in places that needed people every day of the week, so I always worked weekends. I got so used to it and didn’t really care but now that I have them off, I really love it, however, I will say when I had Tuesdays and Wednesdays off I loved that too. On Tuesdays I would do all the shopping and there was never anyone in the store. On Wednesdays I would clean and it would go quickly because it was just me here. Now I still love my weekends, but I would love to come to work a little bit later. I go in at 7 am now and I get off at 3:15 pm. While that is nice, I feel like I could get so much more done and if I could still wake up at 6 am and have a couple of hours free before I start working. I should mention I work from home. Ok so now I am done. No more talky, talky, shush.

Thursday January 11, 2024

Laura didn’t know what happened, she just knew there were other people, and they weren’t trying to hurt her. They were talking but she never really had a conversation with anyone so she couldn’t understand what they were saying, or what was happening. The colors weren’t trying to hurt her so when they told her to stand, she stood, when they told her to walk, she walked. Laura had never seen many colors before, only red and yellow so she was mesmerized by the colors she wanted to reach out and touch their robes but, she didn’t. Her skin was still hot but once the other people showed up the burning feeling stopped, and she could see a little. They walked out of the tall trees and the red one said something was wrong. Laura began to tremble.

Saturday January 11, 2025

It’s Saturday ahhh, yesterday we went to the store. We is my oldest son, my middle son and me, the youngest didn’t want to go because he was playing a video game. My middle son and I got into a conversation about how similar male toddlers and old men dress. I had never thought of that before so of course it was hilarious. My youngest is trying to get a job at a fast-food restaurant. Maybe it will be good for him, not sure, but I wish him well. ‘Lilies of the Field’ is on my TV right now and I keep pausing to watch it, I’ve never seen it before. It’s not what I expected. Sidney Portier is a good actor. Later today I am going to work on my picture. I have a big bag of shredded magazines that I have to sort through for the colors I need. It may take all day just to do that but hopefully I can get some of it done today.

Friday January 12, 2024

Red and Purple went to the disturbance, Blue and Green took Laura to the doctor. When Blue and Green got to the doctor with Laura, Brian Snell was there, just standing there, facing the doctor’s door, staring at the door. Blue and Green stopped a few feet behind him. “Bryan,” Blue said. “Bryan Snell is everything alright?” Bryan began to visibly tremble, he turned just enough to see them, then fell to the ground and began jerking. His back was arched, and his legs and arms were twitching. “Doctor Sally!” Blue Yelled. “Doctor, somethings wrong with Bryan Snell!” As the door to the doctor’s office opened Blue and Green knelt next to Bryan and Laura whispered, “They are here.”

Sunday January 12, 2025

My youngest son has a job interview today at 6:15 am ☹ He seems to really want to work. He made a resume it’s a fast-food place, and he already has a food handlers’ certificate. I think he is going to be shocked at the work and may not be mature enough for a job yet, but we will see, he may surprise me. I have been looking forward to writing every morning. I have also been excited about posting them on Sundays. It has opened my mind. I get all the thoughts out and I think of other things like stories I’d like to write. I’m going to start writing for an hour after work each day to see what that brings. I feel like this journal should be a cleaning of my mind and any other writing I do will be creative. I’m glad to have stuck to it for at least two weeks. It gives me hope that I can keep this up for the rest of the year.