family – Page 2 – Tiffany Shearn

Early Mother’s Day

The sun is finally out in Washington, and it emerged with a vengeance. There are some in my life who dread the heat, especially at night when trying to sleep. I, on the other hand, have been ready for these temperatures for at least a month. There might be some thunderstorms tomorrow, but other than that, the upcoming week is looking wonderful. I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Today, we spend a fair portion of the afternoon indoors at an early Mother’s Day lunch. We like to go out on Saturday rather than Sunday to avoid the restaurant rush. No one likes waiting, and the packed establishments become very loud with everyone crammed in together. It is much easier to schedule a leisurely meal a day early to enjoy our time together instead of adding frustration.

This year, my sister is adding some Mother’s Day joy to another family. She has long desired to give of herself (literally) in some way. She donates blood, is on the marrow registry, and even tried to donate a kidney once. That last one did not work out, but late last year, she connected with a couple looking for a surrogate, and things progressed from there.

It is sweet to see their excitement through interactions with her. Their mingled hope and fear at the start developed into a general excitement. Within the coming month, she is due, and the parents are fully prepared to drop everything and drive the three hours up from Portland if she goes into labor early. I’m betting on two weeks from tomorrow.

Pregnancy has risks, and I will always worry about what she is taking on with such an undertaking, but she is happy and content with her decision and has the support through the surrogacy process that she needs. I could never do it, but I’m glad she has had the opportunity to give this gift to someone.

On that note, happy Mother’s Day to all!

Sports Saturday!

After three events and over twenty thousand steps, I am still tired from yesterday!

The day began early with the Jamboree for the Federal Way National Little League teams. My company (not the author one) sponsored the organization this year, so I arrived early with my mascot to celebrate and support the players. As my mascot has a giant globe for a head, yesterday being Earth Day was a bonus.

From there, I scooped up my nephew, and we headed to
Seattle for an extended double-header of soccer. The OL Reign played at 12:30 at Lumen Field. They started strong, with two early goals from Balcer, but they kept letting the Red Stars back in the game. There are some things to look at on the defensive side, but the scoring came through on the day with a final score of 5-2. For a team that has struggled to put away their shots, this was a nice change.

After a bit of rain at the start, the sun came out for the Reign.

I called the day an “extended double-header” because we had about five hours between games to kill. Dinner would take up some before the Sounders played at 7:30, but a good chunk of available time remained. Earlier in the week, I saw an ad for the WNDR Museum in Seattle. The pictures looked cool, so I thought we would check out the art. Unfortunately, this one has put me off of future “art experiences.”

The price was steep, coming in over $70 for one adult and one youth admission. I saw this on the website in advance and have been to museums worth such admission prices. This was simply too small to justify the price tag. The main attraction had a separate waitlist clocking in at over two hours. I could have spent two days at the WWII museum in New Orleans, but the WNDR was smaller than the brewery restaurant we went to for dinner. You could read everything, interact with each section, and still not add up to the wait for the main event. My nephew was nowhere near entertained enough to stretch it out that long.

We gave up waiting, I kissed my money goodbye on a lesson learned, and we went to get some ice cream instead. Next time, I’m saving my $70 and will take it to Pike Place Market instead. I would have loved to try some of the items there, maybe getting a gift or two. We walked from the museum to the market, then back past the stadium for dinner, meeting up with the rest of the family.

Our evening capped off with a Sounders victory. At 1-0, and the goal not coming until around the seventy-ninth minute, the game was not nearly as decisive, but it was fun either just the same. Back to the light rail for the ride home, and I had passed the twenty-thousand-step mark for the day. With his shorter legs, I’m sure my nephew exceeded my number.

I need a nap just thinking about it again!

Happy Birthday (to me)!

I have never celebrated Valentine’s Day because my birthday is so close. One year I was supremely irritated because the holiday fell on the weekend closest to my birthday. My family tried to go out for a birthday dinner and it was insanity. Parking was impossible. There was an almost two-hour wait to get into any restaurant. I was in my teens at the time and had a teenage breakdown (not so bad where my parents went into “don’t make me turn this car around” mode).

Since that day, I have been hyperaware of the holiday’s proximity to my desired family meal day. The latter is this afternoon, and we are going to a local Korean BBQ place. This will be my grandmother’s first time trying it, so we’ll see what she thinks. I suspect she will like the sweeter marinades the best and not care as much for the spicy sides.

A friend also sent me the flowers in the main picture, which was very thoughtful. Other than that, I’m planning to take it pretty easy this weekend. I’ll polish another six to ten chapters of Hidden Strength to send off to my alpha readers. I have just over twenty chapters left to send, so I’m hoping to get those out before the beta feedback for Hidden Promise comes in.

Though, I should also reach out to the cover artist if I want to have that done in time for the April newsletter…Okay, maybe “take it easy” is a bit of an overstatement, but these are busy times, and there are only so many days between deadlines!

Business Unusual

Last summer, I parted ways with another manager with whom I was extremely dissatisfied. On one side, I have worked for some wonderful leaders in my career. On the other, I also worked for and under people with zero interest in the business or the employees. Their concern was how to look good on paper quickly for their next role or promotion. The latter frustrated me endlessly, and after this latest parting, I found myself entirely disillusioned with the corporate world I had loved after graduation.

I also enjoyed being a manager and often said “I could do this better.” The last four months have been about me putting my time, money, and effort where my mouth is as I have worked toward buying and executing a new franchise business. Everything comes together over the next six weeks as I attend training, hire employees, and start serving customers.

If I fail, I set myself back five to ten years of savings and will have to spend double that working longer before I have enough to retire. If I succeed, I will make less annually than before from a salary perspective, but there are other benefits. I can still hate my boss (myself), but I will be able to change the things that frustrate me about her. I will be able to create an environment of employee development and culture I’m excited about. I will focus on the things that matter to the employees and business rather than making someone else look good without consideration for the broader implications.

I don’t think it will all go horribly wrong, but wish me luck anyway!

On the Writing Front

My goal is to get the book 100% revised/edited to send to my beta readers before I head to the training class, but I don’t think I will make that timeframe. It will be close though, so I might be able to finish it after class in the evenings of the training week. Either way, I’m still within the buffer timeframe to hit the release date for Hidden Promise in June.

The greatest challenge will be if my betas come back with broad revision recommendations. I’m working through the grander adjustments from my alphas now, so it all depends on if we all missed something big. Don’t worry, though. I gave myself enough time to get through this in addition to working a full-time job.

I will probably place the release date for Hidden Strength, the series finale, another year out to be safe again. I can always move it up, but pushing a preorder date out has penalties I want to avoid.

If you haven’t started the series yet, or if you want to leave a review, you can find the first book at this link: Hidden Memory. The first two are free to read in KU, and the third will go into KU a month after release. Hidden Promise is also on a preorder discount. You can pick it up for $3.99 until after it releases. It will then go up to $4.99, the same price as the second, Hidden Sanctuary.

As always, thanks for all your support, and you can find more by signing up for my newsletter on the home page or following my social media accounts. Have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas 2022!

I made the mistake of going shopping today for some groceries. Christmas Eve, the store was packed. Parking was crazy, and someone blew through a stop sign as I was going through, nearly hitting me. We were not in danger of being hit, since I was going about five mph. With the car drama and then standing in line for an extended period, I think my brain has decided it’s done for the day.

The late shopping excursion could not be avoided. We signed up to bring various vegetables for Christmas Day, so I did not want to buy them too early. Then the PNW icepocolips hit, preventing anyone not desperate or jonesing for adrenaline from going anywhere. At one point I decided it would be a good idea to at least grab the mail since we were not going for our daily walk. That expedition ended at the top of our driveway when we looked down and wondered if we would be able to return to the house after.

This is the actual slope of our hill and driveway, with zero camera tilt.

Fortunately, temperatures rose overnight, and the two inches of ice coating every surface melted away. We are back to pouring rain in time for driving to events tonight and tomorrow. If you are one of the many people who had flights canceled due to the dangerous weather, I hope you can still make the best of the holiday time remaining. To everyone, Merry Christmas, and I leave you with this picture of my cats snuggling in their heated cat bed.