My Blog's Top 13 Posts of All Time / Thursday 13

 

During the A to Z challenge, Liz A. posted for a small blog hop called Thursday 13 in which participants create lists of 13 things to share. It could be anything. I love lists, so I thought I'd join in a couple of times this month for fun.

MY BLOG'S TOP 13 POSTS OF ALL TIME:

1. Writing About: A Car Accident - 77.3K views

2. Writing About: A Kidnapping - 15.4K views

3. Writing About: A Wedding - 11.8K views

4. Writing About: Witches - 7.35K views

5. Writing About: A Plane Ride - 6.43K views

6. Protagonist vs Antagonist - 6.27K views

7. Ad Astra Interview / Olivia and Fiona Discuss Banned Books and Intersectional Feminism - 4.01K views

8. New Release Marketing Conclusions - 3.94K views

9. Writing About: Torture - 3.56K views

10. Writing About: A Foot Chase - 3.34K views

11. Writing About: School - 3.25K views

12. Writer's Burnout Part 10 (No Stress) - 3.25K views

13. Dear “I’m Still a Nobody” Author - 3.02K views

NOTE: Comments are closed to these posts, as is the case for all of my older posts. I close the comments to every post about a month after they go live to prevent spam attacks.

It's always interesting to see what posts get the most views. My Writing About feature, which I did for a few years here on my blog, obviously was a hit. I wonder if I should revive it. Back then, the posts were about topics and characters and scenes I'd written about at the time. I've written a lot since I stopped the feature.

If you'd like to check out my Writing About feature, you can find the archive on this page: Writing About. There's sections for Characters, More on Characters, Disasters, Supernatural/Paranormal/Fantasy, Crime, Romance, Places, Seasons, Holidays, and Other.

Z - Zoo Trip

 

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

A couple of weeks after my mom passed away two friends took me on a tour through the Brevard Zoo, which was named the third best zoo in the nation last year. It was the perfect day, not too hot but actually started with a slight chill, so all the animals were happy and out and active, not hiding in the shade and conserving their energy because of the heat. Because of that, I was able to catch a lot of awesome videos. (You can see those in my V for Videos of Wildlife post.) 

Here are some of my favorite snapshots from that trip. They make me smile.

Tortoises make me smile. 

Y - Yahtzee

 

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

My dad and stepmom happened to be visiting when my mom passed away. When I went to their trailer to spend time with them, be around people, have a distraction, and get out of the house, we played two games—Yahtzee and Tri-Ominos. I had never played either game, so they had to teach me, but I quickly caught on and had fun. I was laughing and smiling and being competitive and had momentarily forgotten all about my grief and my mom.

Playing games with your loved ones is a great way to feel connected to others, to bring a little happiness into your life, and to offer your mind and your heart a pause from your sorrow.

Another time I visited with my dad and stepmom, we played Bay Cityopoly, which is a Monopoly game tailored to the city in Michigan where they live.

X - X Out Certain Thoughts

 

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

While going to Grief Share meetings, the discussions we had and the things people shared helped me a lot, especially when it came to certain thoughts that are extremely common that need to be altered.

1. My mom wasn't taken from me.

It can often feel like our loved ones are taken from us. We'll even pray "Please, don't take [fill in with your loved one's name or title]."

I know when my mom was first diagnosed that I had prayed, "Don't take her away from me."

But I did not own my mom.

None of us own our loved ones. Everything that we say is ours (our significant other, children, parents, pets) don't belong to us. They are on loan to us while we are here. If you're religious, then they're on loan to us from God.

If we don't own them, then they can't be taken from us. My mom was my mom here, for which I'll always be grateful that I was blessed to have her as my mom, but she's more than that beyond my life and beyond her life. 

W - Wellness Journal

 

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

My first trip to Walmart after my mom passed away, I was picking up groceries and looking for a journal that I could use along with my Grief Share workbook because there's journal prompts. I thought a journal would be good to write through my grief process, and I didn't want to use the journal I already had, which didn't have many blank pages left anyway.

Instead of a regular blank journal, I ended up finding a "Wellness Journal." I chose this journal because of how I'd suffered from depression in the past, because of how I was beginning my grief journey and was aware that I'd need the extra help and that my wellness is a top priority.

While flipping through it, I saw pages where you could circle how you felt that day, keep track of how many minutes/hours you meditate and do physical activity, fill out acts of self-care, acts of kindness, lessons learned that day, gratitudes, and daily affirmations. You can also keep track of your screen time as well as check off whether or not you rested and relaxed, performed self-care, moved, and hydrated. 

V - Videos of Wildlife

 

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

Even when you're in the midst of grief, it's important to find things that can bring you a bit of happiness.

For me, that was going to the Brevard Zoo in Florida and gradually posting all of the pictures and videos I captured during my visit. It made me want to dedicate my social media to nature and wildlife because of how much happiness it brought me.

I hope you enjoy them!

Here are my favorite zoo videos:

NOTE: When you click on the video to play it, the image will appear vertically.

Playful Lion

Length: 1:15

U - Use + YOU

 

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

I have two entries for U.

First up, Use.

Not only did I use my mom's perfume, but I used other items, too.

Rings:

The first thing I did was put my mom's high school graduation ring and the ring she left me in her will (a golden ring with a garnet stone in it that belonged to my paternal grandmother, which was gifted to my mom) on a necklace so I could have them with me day and night, everywhere I went, over my heart.

Earrings:

While going through my mom's things, I came across a pair of earrings I had bought her in November 2022. They were a cheap pair from Claire's online. She had wanted cute, small earrings she could start wearing. Before all of the PET scans, MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans, she wore earrings daily, but countless scans forced her to take them out and forget about putting them back in.

She wanted to reacquaint her ears to earrings, so I bought her Leo horoscope earrings. She wore them once before misplacing them. We thought they were in her room somewhere and couldn't find them. We even thought they had fallen on the floor somehow.

Turns out, she had put them in her bathroom...in a macaron-shaped jewelry box where she'd stored all of her earrings. *forehead smack*