You Will Never Truly Leave - a poem for my dad

 As I've mentioned here, my dad passed away last year. On February 16th, it was exactly one year. I know these days, people put up posts on social media. et cetera, which is fine, but despite being a writer, I don't necessarily know what to say. And I don't really post about personal things on social media a lot. Just a quick sidenote here: It's okay if you don't. I know in this day and age it is just about expected. If you lost someone, every year put up a post, but just because you don't, it doesn't mean you don't care or don't miss them. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. Just because you don't post about something online doesn't mean it didn't happen, or it didn't effect you, et cetera. 

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I may be a writer, but that doesn't mean I would even know what to say in a Facebook post on that day - one year since my dad died. It also feels like it's just trite sometimes. What does happen for me, though, is that my thoughts come out as poetry. And the day before my dad's funeral, I wrote a poem. I think it was actually at about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. One couplet popped into my head, I picked up a pen and paper (I don't even remember where I wrote it down) and wrote a poem. My aunt read it aloud beautifully at my dad's funeral. So, in memory of my father, I'm sharing this poem here. My mom actually typed it up and put a beautiful background to it. Blue flowers. My favorite color is blue, and so was my dad's.  

And here are some pictures of me and my dad. 

My first birthday.

Disney trip.

Daddy daughter dance.

First book signing. 

College graduation party.

My Five Goals for 2025

My next blog post is to share the goals I’ve set for myself in 2025. I don’t call them resoultions, I call them goals. They are more specific. These are bigger things I want to do, I suppose. There will still be other things throughout the year, but I have identified five things that I want to be my main goals of 2025. I often would do ten, but I felt like easing into things was better and decided that five goals sounded like enough. If you want to share any of your goals, resolutions, or intentions with me please feel free to do so in the comments. We can enourage each other. Or maybe share your word of the year, if you’d like.

My Five Goals for 2025:

1.       Read 20 books.

a.       I have some longer books on my list this year, so setting it to 20 seemed reasonable. I may very well read more, we’ll see.

2.       Crochet a Kindle case.

a.       This one was on my list last year, it just didn’t happen.

3.     Set up an educational Prickle on Writing with Chronic Illness for the writing group I’m in, Quill and Cup.

a.       A few of the members and I collaborated to come up with a list of things we thought should be included. I said I would make the PowerPoint and sort of ended up as the designated presenter lol. This was quite a while ago, so I would like to make this happen this year.

4.    Finish drafting the prequel to my fantasy novel.

a.       I also started this quite a while ago, and would like to get a draft finished this year.

5.    Publish Dark Book.

a.       I have been talking about what I affectionately refer to as “Dark Book” for a long time now. I think maybe it is time to release it into the world. This will of course take many steps, but this is the main goal. I finished drafting in 2019, so I think it’s time.

 

Those are my five main goals for 2025!! I am excited about all of them. 😊 I always have a reading goal, so that was a given. What are your plans for 2025?

 

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about Quill and Cup check out my affiliate link. 

My Top Ten Books of 2024 + Honorable Mentions

It has been nearly a year since my last blog post. 2024 was a tough year. I am a very private person so I don’t share a lot. It’s not surprising if most people have no idea why it was rough year. There are a few reasons, but a big thing was that my father passed away unexpectedly last February. Actually, looking back, my last blog post was the day before my father died. It was quite a year, as I said. 

Anyway, I’m back, and I’m starting off with my Top 10 Books of 2024!! I love doing this post every year. Last year, there was no post for my Top 10 Books of 2023, but I am planning to do one this year because I don’t want to leave that out. It will just come out later.

I tried to keep this to ten books. It is actually fourteen in total. Ten top favorites and four honorable mentions. I tried to put them in some type of order. My mind changes about some of them from time to time, so this order is relative. I feel like a lot of readers can relate to that. There will be a little bit about why I loved each book, and you can click on the picture to be taken to the GoodReads page. Enjoy!!

1. Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (audiobook)

Okay, I am 99% (98%) sure this was my favorite of last year. Maybe...haha. This was fantastic. The audiobook was phenomenal. I loved the story; the characters are complex and flawed and I loved it. This cemented my love of Taylor Jenkins Reid and I can’t wait to read more from her.

2. The Sandman: Act III, The Sandman (Audio Series) #3 by Neil Gaiman, Dirk Maggs

I adore The Sandman series. Enough said? I don’t know, but I love it so much. I love Dream of the Endless. The audio is fantastic, as well. I loved seeing Dream and Delirium together. She is one of my other favorites, and they are so different, it is brilliant to see them together.

3. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

This book was bloody fantastic!! Yes, I am sticking with that phrasing. I adored it. It is one that makes me wonder if it was my top book of the year. It is strange, but in a wonderful way. It’s lushly written, and gothic, and romantic, and eerie. So many references to myths and folklore and fairytales. I adored it. 

4. White Rose by Kip Wilson

This book was definitely intense. It made me physically react. Yell, groan, cry, practically scream aloud in anger, literally made me nauseous  at some parts. Pissed. Me. Off. It is historical fiction based on the White Rose resistance during World War II. It is a lot. But absolutely one of my favorites of the year.

5. Doctor Who: The Angel of Redemption, a 2010s story (The Decades Collection #6) by Nikita Gill

Nikita Gill is one of my favorite poets, I love Doctor Who, this is from the villain’s point of view, and it is told in verse. This was a no brainer. And I loved it even more than I thought I would. We literally see parts of a Doctor Who episode from the viewpoint of a Weeping Angel. Brilliant.

6. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0) by Suzanne Collins

Oh, man. A (partial) villain origin story for Coriolanus Snow (President Snow). What do I even say about this? I don’t know, but it had to make my top ten list. If you are curious about his beginnings, read this book. 

7. The Gospel of Loki (Loki #1) by Joanne M. Harris

I adore Loki. Yes, MCU Loki. However, I have since read some Norse myths and familiarized myself with Norse Mythology and Loki is my favorite there, too. This book tells Norse myths from Loki’s point of view. I loved it. 

8. Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes edited by Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rocky Callen

An amazing short story collection. All dealing with mental health and mental illness. So much variety within the stories, too. In genre and in format. There are short stories, but also poetry, a comic, and a one act play. I liked some stories more than others but loved the whole collection. 

9. Love Her Wild: Poems by Atticus

I read one of Atticus’ collections years ago and loved it. I loved this one, too. I love the poems and the photographs throughout. I tabbed many pages. Absolutely beautiful. Very accessible, too, for anyone intimidated by poetry.

10. Verity by Colleen Hoover

My best friend leant me this one. It was the first one out of the stack of six she wanted me to read. I think it was the full-length novel I finished the fastest in 2024. I have no idea what to say about it. That ending? Wow. Definitely a good thriller. 

Honorable Mentions:

1. The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab

I love V. E. Schwab. She is one of my favorite authors. I really enjoyed this book, so it had to be an honorable mention. I loved the atmosphere of it most of all, I think. The atmosphere of it reminded me of The Village (which I love) even though it was definitely different to that movie. 

2. Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz

Little Women is one of my favorite classics (and favorite books). I have always gone back and forth about the Jo and Laurie debate. I forgot about this until I saw it in Barnes and Noble, and then I HAD to get it. When I finished, I liked it, and didn’t think it would be a top book, but then I kept thinking about it throughout the year. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you ever wanted Jo and Laurie together instead.

3. X-Men: First Class - Class Portraits: X-Men: First Class (Collected Editions) by Dean Haspiel, Zach Howard, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Paul Tobin, Nuno Plati, Nate Piekos, Brian Clevinger, Derec Donovan, Juan Doe, Lee Black, Howard Chaykin

I love X-Men. I found this at my local library and just had to read it. It collected the first of four X-Men comic series. I liked them all. My favorite was the Magneto one, of course. I just could not leave this one off my honorable mentions list.

4. The Ship Tech by Elliot Ason

This one was a short read, and I had a lot of fun with it. I really like SciFi. Romance just on its own is not my favorite, but add in some SciFi and make the love interest and Android? Then I am very interested and honestly, I loved it.

Those are all of my favorite books from 2024. My top ten and five honorable mentions that I just couldn't leave out, so fifteen favorite total. Which is nearly half the amount of books I read in 2024. I read a lot of books that I loved, so I was very blessed that way. And many are on here for different reasons. I have different reasons for what I consider my favorite reads. I tried to put them in some type of order, but that was very difficult. I'm pretty sure my top three are solidified, though. Tell me if you also read and loved any of these, or if you want to read any. And feel free to let me know your favorite reads of 2024! I would love to know!

Happy New Year!! 

P. S. I got Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes  through an awesome online indie bookstore, Tuma's Books!! Definitely check her out online. I'm an affiliate for Tuma's Books so the link provided is my affiliate link. And you can use my code AMANDA10 to get 10% off!!