Hello !

Some people like to post a ## lessons learned in ## years. It is my birthday, but I’m not making a list that long 😜 That said, I'll admit I've made some pretty big mistakes in my life. 

But I don't know that I'd have it any other way because if things didn't happen the way they did, I wouldn't have the life I have now. 

💔 one of the biggest was not staying broken up when my high school/college boyfriend took off to the military. I broke up with him, and then got back together with him while he was in Basic Training. Then, he broke up with me by ghosting me right before I was supposed to marry him and move cross country to be with him. When I finally logged into his email because his email password was MY NAME and he'd always told me that--I found out that he'd married another woman when he ghosted me. 

So, yeah. That one hurt a lot. Also, if you marry one woman, maybe don’t have your other girlfriend’s name as your password.

But I learned a valuable lesson there: If you break up with someone, stay broken up. None of this break up and get back together stuff--which I see a lot actually. And very rarely see working out. 

🏠 My next big one I'd say was selling my first house so that I could be closer to grad school. 

I bought a house at the bottom of the crash in 2009 when I was only 23. Because of all the foreclosures, I felt like such a vulture when house shopping. We looked at houses where people had left all their belongings. Pictures of babies on the walls, baby toys, and even one house had adult *toys* on the bed. 

But not the house we bought, it was a shortsale not a foreclosure. And by the time we moved out, we'd refinanced it, so our house payment was $1,000. And we got the girls in that house--here's them ruining the new sod I laid down. That's Minnie in front with her floppy ear. Daisy's behind her. You can't see her face, but she had an awesome superhero mask when she was a puppy.

And I sold it. To rent an apartment for grad school. Mistake! Mistake! Mistake!

We wound up paying more for a 600 square foot apartment than we had on for our 1476 square foot house.  

Lesson learned.

Don't sell a house to rent somewhere.  

Going to grad school thinking "I'd have more control of my time." Also a mistake. 

What I should have done when I was a furloughed state worker (we had four-day workweeks with docked pay to save California money), was take all day Friday to work on my fiction and publish, publish, publish like a madwoman. Then, I'd have had a pile of books and maybe wouldn't have felt so trapped when the furloughs ended. 📚

Lesson learned. 

Still, if things had gone differently, I wouldn't have the life I have now. I could still be living in the other house, with different kids or no kids, and still working for the State. I like the life I have now, with all its ups and downs. And I am happy to have the children I have now. Any slight change from the path I took would have changed the whole course of everything. 

So, with the lessons I've learned and the wisdom I've gained, I'm not focusing on might-have-beens. I'm focusing on what I can do now to build the life I want. 

Lesson Learned. 

And my biggest mistake was this purchase. Along with keeping all the electronics in that one place. This is the one I would take back and am warning you against.

The fire inspector says this is likely what caused the fire in our house. The one that seven months later, I’m still living in a rental while the insurance pays for repairs.

So, please buy the expensive power strips at Lowe’s or wherever. But not Amazon. The expensive ones that will turn off if they overheat because the cheap ones say they will and don’t.

The contractor finally put up a door with a deadbolt instead of plywood with a padlock. So, yesterday we went and watered the plants, but couldn’t go inside. This is what it looked like inside three weeks ago.

What about you? Are you comfortable sharing some of your lessons learned? 

Have a magic day!

🧁✨ April Browne✨🧁

. . ..

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🧁Here is an enchanting read for you!🧁

Dead and Breakfast by Lily Webb

You made your bed, now die in it…

Bored barista Selena Smith’s life is so normal it hurts — until an eccentric old woman claiming to be her aunt appears in the cafe. She insists on Selena coming to work at the Kindred Spirits Inn, her remote bed-and-breakfast. The only problem? The inn and its guests are anything but normal.

When Selena arrives at Kindred Spirits, she discovers magic radiating from the inn's every surface, paranormal patrons prowling its halls, and an inexplicable new ability to see flashes of the past.

But Selena’s newfound powers aren't spiriting away all the guests. Someone — or something — lurking in Kindred Spirits is desperate to exorcise her from the inn before she exposes all the skeletons hanging in the closet of Room 666.

Will Selena’s psychic sleuthing lead her to the truth? Or will the killer make sure she checks out for good?

Dead and Breakfast is the first book in the Visions and Victims series of paranormal cozy mysteries. If haunted hotels, visceral visions, and supernatural suspects get your wand waving, then you’re sure to fall under the spell of this new spinoff series that expands Lily Webb's magical universe.

Read Dead and Breakfast to start speaking with the spirits of Starfall Valley today!

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