The first week back to reality is such a back hand across the face with a whiplash of emotional damage.

This month I’ve willingly, voluntarily, by no means of threats or discourse, have started two challenges

• No Spend
• Dry January

And I must say that this sucks.

The days I don’t have work definitely took a toll on my wallet despite me trying my best to avoid over spending. Why is it you go to Walmart for one bag of cat litter and end up spending 120 dollars. Sigh.

I have avoided fast food, to the best of my ability. The $8 biggie bag from Wendy’s struck me at the beginning of the work week. I avoided hard liquor, but bought a case of beer. Right now if I can avoid the liquor store this month I think I win the challenge.

I have a good chunk of change of debt that I owe, but I think I have a battle plan for the next pay check and hopefully the rest of the month.

Well, as this first week of 2026 progressed the dumber it became. Work has simmered to a lull in boredom which should be find and dandy. But its the quiet before the storm i know it.

The whole no spend this has pretty much gone out the window, the sober thing has gone better. Had one rough night but beyond that, I have been doing okay there.

Now if only I could get the dustmites to resume their regular schedule feeding. I fucked up in trying to switch their food and i must have done it too fast maybe? Either way since aspen threw up her wet food on Friday, they both have refused to eat anything. Even baby food. The only silver lining that give me hope that nothing is really wrong, is the fact they’ll eat their freeze dried minnows.

So as long as they’ll eat their treats they should be fine. I hope.

Onto other things.

The gods below is an interesting book. However I may not be able to finish it. Simple put it has roughly 6 characters, of which the chapters feature one characters events. So every chapter is its on slice of events throughout the entire story. Not only do I have to keep track of which character the current chapter is on about, I have to pay attention to the TIME line of each chapter.

The story is about events before, during, and after the Shattering. So trying to remember who is doing what and when is rather jarring to follow along with.

Now with that being said, the individual chapters themselves are very well done. I love the world building, I love the monsters, the magic system, the characters are intriguing, and so far my favorite character is the younger sister.

Now if the over all book had stayed with just the two sisters point of views, I might have an easier time understanding the entire thing.

I am curious though about how it all comes together. I feel like this first half of the books is a large funnel, and its just taking a while to get to the center where everyone and thing makes sense.

So i will probably finish the book solely to figure out how everything connects. Which im hopeful for a satisfactory ending, and maybe lead me into getting the second book in the series.

Beyond that all, life is pretty mild. I’ll do better with the no spend this next week and continue with the dry January.

Goodie

Xoxo Scaredie