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Harping on the harp

My child is playing her fingers raw preparing for her first ever solo gig, and I am so proud, while also SO the bad guy, because I am not letting her slack. She’s really GOING for it and her little fingers are growing callouses, but it feels like she’s conquering something within herself. It’s difficult to say, as a third party, but it’s beautiful to watch. And, yeah, I am the bad guy, but I…

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First trip out of the house this year!

Tomorrow is really the first “normal” Monday of 2025, and we just paid a ridiculous amount of money to have our driveway shoveled, so the obvious agenda for today was LEAVING the Treehouse! We made two stops! One for food, and the other for…food. You can’t go to the grocery store hungry, after all, unless the grocery store has an appealing restaurant within. Ours does not, so we indulged in a…

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Spirit Animals

Cozy Kittens & Animal Symbolism This morning–just a moment ago–I was visited by another of my spirit animals. It was a cozy kitten. Not too surprising, considering the eight inches of snow that fell overnight. Nestle in, settle down, and rest. Keep warm. I know what she wants. They’re never this detailed in real life, but it was something like this. ^ It isn’t the first and hopefully it won’t…

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2025

It’s really here. We’re a quarter way through the century, and it’s disconcerting sometimes how very quickly it all happened. I’m still a little kid–tall, lean, buck-toothed…my knees constantly skinned and my voice always too loud. I could fall down right now and rip a hole in my jeans on the basketball court. I could dive into a swimming pool and swim the length of it underwater, holding my…

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Glow up time for ZuZu in her children's chapter book

Chicken Impossible Cover makeover ZuZu’s lazy freeloader chickens fail to hatch any chicks, so she sets out on an adventure with her family to add three tiny fluffballs of chickeny goodness to the family’s backyard flock. With the help of Mom, Dad, and three older brothers, ZuZu becomes a chicken agent, nonpareil. If you loved Junie B. Jones, give ZuZu and her family’s adventure a read.…

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It's beginning to look a lot like Witchmas

As promised, the winners of the Miss Fitz Magical Mug situation were announced today! Did you miss it? Check your spam or trash folders (and mark the email as “not spam” or “not trash,” by all means). There were four winners in this giveaway! In other news, work continues rapidly on the next story in the series. I told newsletter readers all about it, so if you are interested in downhome cozy…

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PlanetTash.com

As much as I have enjoyed tumblr, and before that, Xanga, I recognize that people aren't really blogging the way they once were, decades (!!!) ago. So.

Tim and I have a website that we update once in awhile:

PlanetTash.com

I don't know if I will be back to Tumblr. The Fabulousness meant a lot to me. It certainly got me through some rather difficult times in my life. It's not really the way things are done, anymore...but you can find me on social media if you would like to stay in touch. Otherwise, give me a follow at PlanetTash.

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Witchy midlife besties and an enchanted mystery, #1 on Amazon and free for a short time. I never do the “free ebook” thing, but with the audiobook coming out soon, why not? Enjoy 😊🧹🐈‍⬛📚☕️✨And tell your favorite familiars 🧙🏻‍♀️🔮This spell will go POOF soon… #reading #pwf #cozymystery #witchaesthetic #witchyvibes #justwitchythings #mystery #midlife #midlifemagic #cottagecore

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Princess Gwendolina character sketch

Princess Gwendolina was born in Singularity and raised by her mother, the High Queen of Candy Mountain, located in the Tyridescence server. She was genetically engineered to be the picture of feminine grace: lithe, blonde, graceful...she’s as close to fairy princess as a real life girl can be, although she knows next to nothing about real life.

Gwendolina has the closet to top all closets, filled with clothes that would make the richest player in World of Warcraft cry with envy. In-game, she can hover and fly with wings, shoot bad guys with candy-powered weaponry, and she is always surrounded by pixies, gnomes, forest animal babies, and other adorable companions. She is known for her multiple Gold medals in the Pegasus Olympics, and is regarded as a celebrity in Tyridescence. Behind the good looks and the celebrity, though, is the heart of a child. She works with young children at Friendship Academy, and shares their sense of childlike wonder.

Gwendolina is recruited by her mother to join SPI, with the intention of reporting back to the High Queen any juicy news or tidbits she might learn about the other servers. To Gwen’s surprise, she forms a bond with her assigned team (Zephyr and Jaxa), and becomes enthralled with the mysteries and every day magic of The Mortal Realm.

Gwendolina has the best toys! She wears a tiara and carries a magic wand wherever she goes, and her boosts and buffs often get her and her friends out of harm’s way. With her featured player status in Singularity, she also has high level security passwords that help the SPI Girls access information that would otherwise be off-limits.

Gwen seems like a curt snob with a wand and wings, but once you get to know her, you find out she is a true and loyal friend with a strong moral compass.

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Bubbly Bethany character sketch

Last but not least, a few years younger than Missy and Salma is Bethany Barry, proprietor of Bethany’s Brews. She moved to town to take over the coffee shop, and almost instantly won the friendship and loyalty of Salma, next door. Miss Fitz has one rule about new friendships: any friend of Salma’s is a friend of hers. The three girls meet regularly for lunch at the cafe across the street, but Missy loves filling in at Bethany’s coffee shop because of the wide selection of herbal teas and jolting coffee brews. Wherever Bethany goes, she brings happy, vibrant energy. She radiates happiness and peace, and even when she’s anxious or nervous, it’s cute. Bethany wants to be a witch, and has a small collection of magic books stashed in her Steve Nicks-themed bedroom. Unlike her idol Stevie, Bethany pines for the man she loves, not yet bold enough to tell him how she feels. Bethany is the friend on the group chat who always sends the MOST hilarious and fitting gifs. She has no kids, but she’s a great “fun aunt” type to Missy’s four, and a buddy to Salma’s son. She loves tarot cards, crystals, incense, and dabbling with love spells.

She is late-30s Drew Barrymore with fuzzy, golden halo-esque hair.

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Sexy Salma character sketch

Salma Vergara is Miss Fitz’s best friend since middle school. A single mom of an adult son who she adores, Salma is the proprietor of a tourist-favorite soap shop in downtown Nashville’s Bearwallow Square. She is constantly attended by her black cat, Coal. Salma loves dressing the part of the sexy witch, and you can find her happily stirring a large cast iron cauldron full of liquid soap on busy Saturdays in the fall. She loves hot cocoa with spicy chilis, and her family owns the most popular Mexican restaurant in town. Rather than cooking up Latin foods, Salma applies her efforts to essential oils, herbs, and healing creams and lotions. With long, black hair and dark, piercing eyes, Salma is a knockout in anything she wears, but she LOVES to show off her curves. Think of her as a cross between Sofia Vergara and Salma Hayek. She is a strong and supportive friend, loyal to Missy, but with secrets of her own (namely, the magical gifts she has tried to hide all her life). She works right next door to Bethany’s Brews, and relies on friendship from her two besties & Bethany’s magical beverages to get her through the long days.

Salma doesn’t save this kind of dress for Halloween, although she owns multiple versions of the “Morticia Addams” look to wear in high season:

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Miss Fitz character sketch

So, this is mostly for me to send to my cover artist, but why not post it here?

Melissa Fitzpatrick, aka Miss Fitz is a freelance writer / stay at home mom of four. She works from home in shared office space with her architect husband, with whom she shares a deep, abiding romantic love. She is approximately mid-forties, heavyset, a former scholastic prodigy, and an ongoing sufferer of several chronic illnesses. She and her husband have rescued myriad dogs, cats, and own backyard chickens. In addition to freelance writing, Missy fills in on odd days for her two best friends, Salma (who produces handmade soaps) and Bethany (who brews amazing coffees and teas) in their small-town’s touristy shopping center. The town, itself, is a cultural mecca and a seasonal jewel of the Midwest, with myriad scenic overlooks for peeping fall leaves--and the tiny, bustling downtown overflows with works from the artist colony members who have populated the town since its frontier days. Missy thereby scuttles in and out of public life to her liking, and as fits her medical conditions. She has many “ins” in the community, but in her standard jeans / sweatshirt attire, she blends in with a social “cloak of invisibility” as “just another mom in a minivan.” Melissa McCarthy would be the perfect Hollywood casting for Miss Fitz. Especially once her hair is a little looser, a little longer. I imagine for the book cover, she would require a witch hat and a big quilted Vera Bradley purse, if possible. Missy would love these bags for their machine-washable qualities. (Of course, in the book, hers becomes imbued with magic...)

Photo for largeness of purse, only: 

Yes, she is basically me at this stage of life. ;)

The video is a MUST WATCH for physicality:

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A Spell of Compassion

I’ve been working on another Kitchen Witch book, and I keep struggling with how to address protest in the time of quarantine. Everywhere you look, gatherings of thousands of people are changing the world, and here I sit, recovering from pnuemonia and immunocompromised, and unable to put my feet on the pavement in support of a cause that means so much to me.

Black lives matter. Police brutality endangers us all. Breonna Taylor and so many other valuable American lives have been lost to the bad judgment of those who are sworn to serve and protect. I live in a country where the color of your skin is punishable by death, or rewardable with a free pass. HOW do I help change this? I want to march, but I dare not risk my fragile health.

I’ve been researching the science of compassion. The brain chemistry of how compassion works, inside the human brain, and how it affects those around the compassionate.

Compassion is the acceptance of others’ suffering as your own, in order to lighten their burden. If you’ve ever had to look away from those Sarah McLachlan dogs in cages commercials because it hurt too badly to watch, then you have compassion in you. You have the seed. So why should you water it? Why should you grow it, if it’s going to cause you any pain?

The answer is, because it will actually change the world for the better. First of all, YOU will feel better. How does others’ suffering make you feel better? Simply put, my dears, it’s magic. You take on a bit of their suffering, then it becomes your own... you take some step to decrease your suffering, which also decreases their suffering, and you are both relieved. Maybe you haven’t created world peace in a day, but you’ve taken a step toward it, which is much more powerful than standing in the same old spot, or even cowardly running away. The thing is, you can’t run far enough away from humanity to escape it, entirely. Not without becoming a sociopath. A cowardly, uncool, unfun, unattractive sociopath.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a coward. Not in the slightest. I know I’m compassionate. So what is my next step? I can listen. I can offer my platform to amplify voices. I can donate money to BLM or the ACLU or Planned Parenthood or other charities that help bear the burden of suffering in this country. For the sake of my children, who need their mother, I should not endanger my life by exposing myself to a deadly virus for which there is no cure, and no vaccine. I can lend my voice, though. I can lend my platform. I can amplify my friends’ voices. I can give money. It’s not a windfall of money, but it’s something. It’s a step in the right direction. It’s not running away.

I’m writing a book about having the Quarantime of my Life...it’s a little sarcastic, that working title, because obviously quarantine isn’t great fun at times. It just feels so silly to even work on that project when there are important civil rights movements going on. Like, how does staying healthy matter, when others aren’t even allowed to live?

Well, staying healthy does matter. When I see those George Floyd posters that say, “I can’t breathe,” I know that no one with compassion would wish me to die of Covid-19. No one who mourns for countless American deaths at the hands of police would want me to leave my children motherless and my husband a widower. Of course my health matters. Of course my life matters. 

I will keep working on my book, and I will support BLM because I am brave enough to work a spell for compassion.

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To all my black followers and friends, stay safe.

Also, I would like to add that black lives have always mattered, will always matter.

It’s awful that we even have to say that because it should be a given. However, we need to say it loud and clear for the racists.

We cannot be silent. 

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Caul(dron) & Oats

All the stress from world events had me aching all over, so yesterday I experimented with oatstraw as a soothing bath tea. Listen in to hear the results!

Catch my 90 seconds or less microcasts on Practical Magic here.