Have you ever known someone who is incredibly picky? They could be a picky eater or have exacting taste in clothes. Maybe they'll leave a store if they don't like the way it smells or whine about hearing something you barely even notice.

These are some examples of symptoms expressed by those with sensory processing issues.

For those of you who have met me at conventions and asked why I started soaping, you probably were answered with something like, "Well, I figured I'd use this nose that causes migraines to good use." Or maybe I talked about how at least one of the four of us in our household would react poorly to all the soaps we tried from the store, so I decided to start making our own. Both are true, and both have the same root cause: not allergies, though those did play a role, but sensory processing problems.

You'd think someone would stick to simple projects when they're trying to learn how to do something, but I've never been the smartest person when it comes to stuff like that. So I went from sewing pillows to making a "u" shaped rice bag, to trying to clone my youngest's favorite play dress.

Yes, you read that correctly. I didn't even have a pattern, just an existing dress, some newspaper, a yard and a half of material with matching thread, and a "let's try it and see" attitude.

So here's how I came about making the dress pictured above.

I've been doing book reviews over on the  A. B. England author site and Goodreads for about a year now. I don't write reviews for the books in the Contented Comfort store because, well, they're all written by me, or potentially by members of my family if and when the time comes. Still, I would like to have more to do with books here on the website because they are an integral part of the idea behind this company's founding because there's just something comforting about curling up with a good book.

Chris and I will be at Huntsville Comic and Pop Culture Expo again this year.

This family friendly show is expanding for their second year. The expo will be held in the Von Braun Civic Center's North Hall in downtown Huntsville, Alabama. 

I worked Bridal Fair at the North Hall several years in a row back during my days at Cumulus Broadcasting, so I can say with confidence it's a good venue for the expo for the size it is now.

Anyone who has stopped by one of our booths at the various conventions and events we go to in the past few years knows I write fiction in addition to soaping, blogging, and vlogging. I have a novel and a collection of short works out now, and I'm well into the process of producing another novel. But, what you might not know is I've also been working on a series of flash fictions for a year now.

Each week since early February 2016, I've written a flash fiction story of 500 words of less based on first line prompts I either pulled from online sources or gotten from reader suggestions. At the end of March, I began making audio versions of the flash fictions and posting them each Friday over on Eng Family Vlogs. Then over time, the flash fictions began to intertwine and connect until I began to realize I'd created several new fictional "universes" in addition to adding to the three "universes" I've been writing in for years.