Sunday Update - 2025 Week 45

Well, here we are again at another week.  I looked up what the week # was this time, so yeah, it's right.  7 weeks left of the year.  Let's see if we can make it a good 7 weeks, eh?

No writing this week.  No editing either.  And almost no marketing, except I got a wild hair yesterday and set a bunch of stuff up to be free.  If you missed yesterday's post, Blink of an I is free right now.  Starting tomorrow, Accidental Death will be free for 5 days and then UNEQUAL will be free for the weekend.  For the record, I moved 2 copies of BOAI yesterday.  Weekends really do suck for moving books.  :shrug:  Then again, it could be the book.  People aren't as excited for dystopian novels as they could be.  Oh, well.  

I'm still reading The Martian by Andy Weir.  It's pretty good.  I'm just not not reading as often as I should these days.

In baking news, I made oatmeal raisin bread.  The recipe was posted this past Wednesday.  I meant to make chocolate bread yesterday, but then I got busy cleaning and by the time I was done, I was too arm-tired to make bread.  I did do a batch of Salsa Chicken, though.  Yum.  I might make banana bread today.  We'll see.

On the activity front, I did some work in the woods on Sunday, but then it got too hot to go into the woods.  I tried walking one day, but after about an eighth of a mile, I got a hitch in my giddy-up (i.e. my hip was sticking), so I turned around and came home.  I also did some tree repotting, I swept the leaves off the deck, and I cleaned both bathroom sinks.  Weight: Unchanged at 174.2

As for the gardening, I picked most of my green tomatoes earlier in the week because it was supposed to get cold.  And it did get cold, but when I went out on the deck yesterday, the tomatoes I left are getting bigger and the plants still have flowers.  Derp.  Also, I had moved a couple of the largest green pepper plants into the garage and they each have one tiny ball which may or may not grow into an actual edible pepper.  Mostly what I worked on, though, was repotting some of the trees to overwinter in the garage.  (All the trees are inside now.)  I got a great deal on some tall pots at the thrift store ($2 each), so I put a dogwood in one and a redbud in the other.  Fingers crossed they thrive and I see growth come spring.  Right now, I have 3 dogwoods, 5 redbuds, 4 cedars, 2 hickories, 1 oak, and 2 unknown that may or may not be shrubs.  It's possible one of them is a black cherry because its leaves are turning color and the color is a pale peachy-pink like the cherries do.  We'll see.  The other one might be a buckthorn.  I can't wait for Spring.

Since it's not Spring and it's getting colder instead of warmer, fun in the woods is right around the corner.  Which is good because we've got a lot of work to do on the new property, as well as plenty to do on the old property.  Loads of deadfall to clean up.  We're looking at chainsaws and woodstoves again.  

The deer are in rut.  Which means we're seeing bucks in the yard again.  We have 4 identifiably different ones.  They're chasing the girls all over the place, trying to get some bow-chicka-bowbow action.  

Oh, and like I said, I went to the thrift store.  The big item there, in addition to the pots and some used garden fencing, was an awesome wooden trunk.  It looks great in my living room and the cats have claimed it as a new bed.  Only $35.  Woot.

And I think that's it for me today.  Loads going on in life.  I just wish there was more writing news to relay.  Maybe next weekend, I'll have something to report.  Anyway, have a great day and a productive week, wherever you are!

Peace out.

Thursday This n That

Obviously, I have no idea what day it is.

Gah, busy week.  I'm not used to it being busy anymore.  

I went to town this week to get my plates and driver's license renewed.  Of course, I left it to almost the last minute and made it even more fun.  The people waiting to use the license office were cluttered in the hall of the court building.  (It's a really small office in a corner of the court building.  Three places to help people and only one of them can do driver's licenses, so we happy few had to wait longer.)  It wasn't really that bad... except for the lady who wanted to tell her life story to all of her trapped listeners.  And for the really hard benches we had to wait on.  And the fact they were painting the inside of the building... with a sprayer that sounded like rayguns from an old SF movie.  I laughed to myself through most of it.  I got it done and then went for Chinese takeout.  Yay.

My new license photo makes me look really old.  I mean, I'm old, but that thing makes me look REALLY old.  I blame the fluorescent lights.  Those thing highlight every gray hair.  Blech.

Lumpy's baby is really tiny.  We saw it again yesterday.  So cute!  It looks healthy, though.  It's just tiny.  I think it's less than a week old.  I want to snuggle it up so bad.  Of course, Lumpy would kick my ass if I tried, so I won't.

Today, I get to go pick up Hubs' prescriptions.  Yay.  No seriously.  My best thrift store is across the street from the pharmacy.  I'll get the scripts and then get to some thrifting.  I hope they have some more old crime novels, like last time.  Then I'll hit the grocery store and snag some ice cream (because I forgot it when I went to Wallyworld and I'm almost out.)  Oh, and I have to hit the building supply place because they carry suet and those birds are gorging themselves lately on suet.  They went through a brick in just over a day.  Greedy buggers.  They must have a lot of babies out there somewhere.  

Anyway, life is good.  How are things for you?

Thursday This n That

May day!  May day!  (Heh, I like doing that every May 1st, but I'm weird.)

Reposted from yesterday's FB status update: So, I just got back from the thrift store.  I picked out two books to buy - a paperback and a hardcover.  When I get to the register, the chick there tries to tell me the paperback is $5. When I balked at that, she said 'well, it was printed in the '40s, so it's vintage.  I told her no and that was the original print date.  She tried to tell me it was the only print date in there, so I opened it to the copyright page, scanned it briefly, and then pointed to where it said 20th printing 1975.  She backed down and only charged me $1, but she was kinda snotty about it.  Kids these days.  She's probably never opened a damn book in her life.  

It's bad enough that this thrift store jacked the prices of their books up from 5 for $1 to 4 for $1 to $1 each for paperbacks, from 50c to $2 for hardcovers, and $5 for anything older than 1970 (vintage to them).  The other two nearby stores charges 25c ea for paperbacks.  Last time I get books at today's place, lemme tell ya.  I can handle the price, but dealing with snotty little twits just ruins the experience for me.  =o\

This morning, Hubs looked out the window and saw what he thought were several deer, then he realized one of them was actually the neighbor's dog, Copper.  (He's an old red-bone coonhound, so deer colored and about the same size.)  Well, ol' Copper was just sniffing around he own yard and the deer were standing there watching him - no more than 10-12 feet away.  They'd advance a step and then back up a step while Copper continued sniffing and not paying attention to them.  Finally, he wandered over to sniff another part of the yard and the deer walked away.  It was pretty funny, but I guess you had to be there.

I want cinnamon rolls, but I'm too lazy and I'm trying to cut back on the baked goods anyway.

Right now, there are all sorts of birds twittering away in the trees every morning.  I'm pretty good at identifying birds by their songs usually, but I'm hearing some stuff I've never heard before.  Fun.

We had a big ol' rat snake in the yard the other day.  Hubs and I went out to encourage it to leave, and it was going pretty well until the snake decided to turn and confront us.  I took the rake and got the tines up under it and flung it into the woods.  It was last seen headed down the hill and away from the yard.  No snakes were harmed in that encounter.  It better not come back, though.  Our courtesy only extends so far with snakes - harmless or not.  

Okay, that's about it for me.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  :hugs:

Sunday Update - Week 1

Well, hello there.  The first week of 2023 is in the can.  Onward and upward.

No, I'm still not writing.  I'm not sure if I can while I'm working.  It feels like the entirety of my brain space is taken up with the job and my creativity has curled into the fetal position in a corner. Every once in a while it mumbles something to itself and I try to write that down, but I'm not getting more than a whisper of an idea here and there.  It's been a while since I even got that.  I think it's comatose now.  It's funny (in a warped-sense-of-humor way) that before I went back to work, I had scads of time and no money. Now I have money but no time.

Anyway, I'm working 40 hour weeks with 2.5 hrs of lunch.  Bills are getting paid, the fridge is full, and that's all that matters.  Downtime is for decompressing.

I am reading in my downtime.  I've already completed two books for 2023.  I set my goal for 50 this year.  I should be able to do that even if I find myself too tired to read here or there.  I hit St Vinnys yesterday and came home with 8 books for $6 - a Vince Flynn I didn't already have, a couple of Phyllis Whitneys, a couple Victoria Holts, an Anne Rice, a Rex Stout, and a Ngaio Marsh.  Yay.  I'm reading the Flynn now.

In baking news, for New Years, I made a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting, and I substituted wine for some of the water needed to make the cake.  It turned out a little denser, but was pretty tasty.  I also made beef bourgignon for dinner that day.  (Someone gave me a bottle of Pinot Noir, and since I don't drink, I figured I'd better cook with it.)  It was super yummy.  

As for weight, I clocked in the year at 165.2.  Then I made a pig of myself all week.  (Pizza and donuts at work, cake at home.)  I'm a bit afraid to step on the scale today LOL.  No activity to speak of.  Hubs and I did take a walk early in the week, which was good.  I need to up the activity level before my arteries clog and I give myself a coronary.  

I'm currently doing genealogy again.  Yesterday, I discovered my great-great grandpa had a middle name.  I found his wedding certificate - in German - and using both an online translator and a print-out of German characters as they equate to English, I parsed it out.  Yep, Adam August was my 2x grandfather and just plain Adam was my 3x grandfather.  Genealogy is like working a puzzle combined with solving a mystery.  Right up my alley.  I found out another grandfather had fought in the War of 1812.  And I got one branch of the tree all the way back to a man who was born in 1475 and his sons all have Sir in front of their names.  

Yes, I could be using that time to write, but refer back to the creative portion of my brain being comatose.  I'm all analytical now, so this pastime suits me.

Oh, and I got a new-to-me wool dress coat yesterday.  It's a Larry Levin, or something - which run like $150 and I got it for $8, so woohoo.  Mid-thigh with a cross-button thing.  All I care about is that it's warm and that it goes with my dressier work clothes - for those days when I can't wear my leather jacket.  (My leather has never seen the rain/snow and I don't want it to.)

Well, this update thing turned out way longer than I meant it to, but I wanted to address some things and I'm feeling chatty.  But I think I'm done now.  Have a great week wherever you are.  :hugs:

Sunday Update - Week 45

 Well, hello again.  Let's see if we can rebuild this past week, eh?

No writerly things.  To my amazement, I sold a book.  Woo.  Which meant I needed to update my book sales spreadsheets.  (They were still on September, even though I sold a book in October, too.)  I did that yesterday.

I didn't finish reading anything.  I DNF'd two books before yesterday's post.  I'm DNF'ing the book I started after the post.  It's just weird and I'm tired of trying to make it make sense.  I'm sure it probably does at some point, but meh.

In baking news, I made an apple cranberry crisp last Sunday, then nada.  I do have plans to make a layer cake this week.  I bought pans for it and everything.  I haven't made a layer cake since Owl was a baby.  Wish me luck.

On the activity front, we walked last Sunday and then we went fishing.  Friday, I cleaned the bathrooms at work.  Took me like 20 minutes.  No weight loss this week.  I mean, I got down to 164.4, but then yesterday, I was 166.4, so up and down.  :shrug:

No one made me clean the bathrooms, btw.  I have a low tolerance for scudge in bathrooms. Rather than whine about it, I clean it.  2 bathrooms - each with a toilet and a sink.  I did the floors and the mirrors, too.  Are they perfect?  Nope.  That would take longer and I didn't have longer.  Are they presentable?  Yep.  I also take the garbage out on Fridays because the thought of garbage sitting over the weekend makes me gag.  They're my quirks and I own them.

As for fishing, we didn't catch anything but it was nice to just be at the lake drowning worms with my favorite person.

We got snow Friday night.  It was just a dusting.  Barely enough to make the grass white and leave some on the car.  I can handle that.  No more, though, please.

I went to the thrift store yesterday.  I was looking for an overcoat, but since they didn't have one of those, I picked up 6 books.  4 paperbacks and 2 hardcovers - $2.  Yay.

Work is work.  Like my weight, it's up and down.  The creeping crud is making its way through the staff.  I spent the last two hours of Friday by myself in the office because all the other office staff went home sick.  (I am fine, by the way.)  It was awesome.  I threw a rave.  Hundreds of people showed... :shudder: I can't even joke about that.  I enjoyed the quiet and got some stuff done.  I finally organized the surplus inventory room so it doesn't look like a tornado went through there.  All my filing is done.  Score.

I might zip down to the Wallyworld this morning and see if I can find a turkey that doesn't cost a wing and a drumstick.  (See what I did there? ROFL)  Seriously, though, I've heard turkeys are hard to find and that they're REALLY expensive this year.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Okay, that's probably enough out of me.  Nothing much else is going on.  How are things in your world?

Sunday Update - Week 9

It's been a week and I am toast.  

I got the edit round finished last Sunday and sent the manuscript off to beta readers on Tuesday.  Thursday one of the betas was already finished, saying that she couldn't put it down.  Yay.  But I will wait until all the notes are in before I start entering them.  It makes it easier for me to sort through them that way.  

In reading news, I finished two books and DNF'd 3 others.

Last Sunday, I made cake cookies in bar form.  Yellow cake with chocolate chips and walnuts, so they're like blondies.  Kinda.  No other baking went on and all the cooking was simple stuff.  Today, I might make pumpkin bread.

On the activity front, I took two walks and did two sessions with the gardens.  Then yesterday, after my walk, I also helped Hubs with the home drainage system.  Basically, we're creating a new way for the water to go around the house to help ease up the erosion we've got going on in one place.  I didn't weigh myself at all last week, so your guess is as good as mine.

Today it's supposed to rain a lot, so we'll see how yesterday's work actually works.

I played a lot of poker.  It's good for taking my mind off everything, ya know.  Anyway, I've been doing tournaments.  My best finish this week was 28th out of 450.  Top 7% at least.  I've also been finishing in the top 10% on a regular basis.  I wish I played this well when I was playing for money.

Another notable thing... I filled my car's gas tank.  It was $3.15/gal when I stopped, and when I went to pay, the cashier told me I got in under the wire.  Gas was going up as soon as the truck got there.  Another local station was already at $3.29, so cha-ching for me.  With as little as I've been driving, a tank full should last me about a month.  

And I stopped at the thrift store.  In case you missed yesterday's post, I didn't get any books because they'd jacked the prices up on me, so I said screw it and moved on.  I did pick up a nice metal baseball bat for $2 - for home defense purposes.  The thought of hearing that PING as I wallop a burglar fills me with glee.  Sort of like this clip from 50 First Dates.  ROFL.   I also found a cute metal wall hanging for $3.  It's geese in flight.  So pretty.  

Okay, so I think that's about all.  Not the most exciting of weeks.  At least not on my little patch of ground.  The world?  Well, that's going right down the crapper, but there ain't a damn thing I can do about any of it, so I'm muddling along in my life the best I can.  

How are things with you?

Thursday This n That

I have had exceptionally slow internet for the most part of this week.  Like dial-up slow and worse.  When I do have internet, I'm trying to hit the high spots.  Alas, the blogs haven't been one of them.  Sorry about that.  CenturyLink dude was all like 'suck it'. Okay, that wasn't what he actually said, but that's what it boiled down to.  According to him, there's nothing wrong with our internet, so they refuse to send anyone out.  He kept talking about the DSL slowing down 'during peak times'.  I told him 'I don't know where you're at, but this started at 4 o'clock in the morning and we live in the middle of nowhere, so it's not a peak time here'.  We're looking at options.  Probably Hughes Net satellite internet.  Let's hope that doesn't suck, too.

Hubs is reading me reviews from Hughes Net right now.  It doesn't look good.  =o\

Aside from that, we've been throwing logs all week.  Woods work is extremely cathartic when you're frustrated as hell.  And sawing cedar smells good.  

I saw a teeny-tiny frog a couple days ago.  No clue what kind.  Brown.  And about the size of my pinky nail.  Itty Bitty Brown Frog... Ittibitticus brownius if you want to get technical.  LOL

The other day I went to the thrift store.  Picked up a framed mirror about ten inches long by 4 inches wide. Perfect for a spot in my bathroom where I wasn't sure what would work.  I also got another Vince Flynn novel that I already had.  (It's becoming a running gag now.)  And a set of home improvement books for free.  Cha-Ching.  Hubs was pleased with those.  And they had a new manager, which is awesome.  The last dude was the one who jacked up all the prices on everything.  I bet sales dumped and that's why he's gone.  Anyway, the new dude is way friendlier.  He's from Indianapolis and he has family in Michigan, which is cool.  

The thrift store is hiring.  I mean, they're always looking for volunteers, but this is for pay.  When I asked the oddly-haired (no hair should be that color) girl at the counter about the job, she leaned in and lowered her voice to let me know it was for... the back... which means moving furniture and stuff.  Like she was trying to warn me off.  ROFL.  If she only knew what I'd been doing all of September and part of August.  I have half a mind to go apply and get the job just to show that girl what an old lady can do.  I think it would be kinda fun working a thrift store.  But I'd have to get used to listening to Christian music all day.  It's hard enough to ignore while I'm shopping.  I wouldn't mind if it was GOOD, but it's rarely good.

Okay, time to see if this post will actually save and post.  Have a great day, if you can see this.  I'll be watching TV and throwing logs.

My Life is So Exciting

It's Wednesday??  Blerg.  Not that Wednesday is necessarily bad.  I just feel like a turd because I missed Monday and Tuesday.  Sorry about that.  Not that you really missed anything.  I spent Monday working and I had yesterday off with much decompression happening.  (Code for total vegetation.) 

I did hit the thrift store yesterday.  Picked up 5 old books, 3 of which I already had.  I can never remember which Vince Flynns are in my library, so I keep picking up the same ones over and over.  At least some good comes of this folly.  If the new copy is better, I trade it out for the worse copy.  Aside from the VF novels, I got a copy of The House of the Seven Gables (paperback) which I didn't have.  And an Alfred Hitchcock anthology in hardcover.  I love those things.  They're about the only anthologies I really enjoy.  I also found two gorgeous coats for cheap  ($9 total).  One is waterproof and lined so its toasty warm.  No more slogging out in wet snow and getting soaked.  Yay.  The other is also nice and warm and lovely.  Lined with faux fur.  

I also hit the bank and then drove over and paid the trash bill.  I don't mail that bill because the company's office are right on my way to damn near everything.  Just park and throw the bill in the handy-dandy box they have for that purpose.  

My life is so exciting.  

Thursday This n That

I probably shouldn't be allowed on FB at 2 o'clock in the morning,  My urge to argue with people overrides my need to ignore them.  I probably shouldn't play poker either.  LOL

I spent the previous two days shifting around heavy stuff.  Boxes of books?  No sweat.  I can throw those around like they're pillows.  (Okay, not really. but they're not too big a deal.)  We took a carload of stuff to St. Vinny's yesterday.  I would've sworn that box of encyclopedias wasn't half as heavy when I put it into the trunk on Wednesday as it was when I took it out of the trunk on Thursday.  Blerg.

Thank you, St. Vinny's for accepting that set of encyclopedias.  I wonder if anyone actually uses those anymore.  If they'd been an older vintage I might've taken them myself, but 1985 wasn't old enough to warrant bringing them home.  I have a 1957 set I won custody of when my parents moved out of my childhood home.  

If you don't know what St. Vinny's is, it's St Vincent de Paul thrift store.  They were awesome for me when I was in college and needed things for my apartment.  I give to them here when I can and I love shopping there.  Or at least I did before the 'rona hit.  Now that I see the workers aren't wearing masks anymore maybe I'll go back to shopping there, too.  So many awesome books.  

One of the worst things about getting older is eating.  I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted, whenever and wherever, without worrying how it would affect my digestive system (or my general poundage).  I ate at a freakin' restaurant yesterday and my stomach is staging a revolt.  Which is why I got up at 2am.  I spent hours throwing around boxes and lumber and whatnot.  I was feeling pretty awesome about it all.  Look at me look at me, I'm young and vibrant!  Then I get sucker punched by damn restaurant food and I'm feeling every bit of those 51 years.  Not sure if it was the super yummy burger with its awesome bun.  Or the cheesy spinach and artichoke dip.  Or the yummy chips.  Blerg.  If you asked me earlier, I would've said it was all worth it.  Now?  Not so much.  So, here I sit, drinking baking soda water and hoping to maybe go back to bed and catch another couple hours.  

By the way, the food was so good, after lunch, I ordered takeout from there for dinner.  A grilled chicken sandwich for me and a bacon burger for Hubs.  So yummy.  Screw you, stomach.

Also, by the way, we tried a new restaurant.  (Well, not new since the waitress told us they'd been there 6 years, but neither of us had ever noticed it before, so new to us.)  One thing I learned when I was a road warrior was to eat at places where worker dudes eat.  If there are worker dudes having lunch there, it's good food.  Those dudes know.  They don't have time or patience to eat crappy food on their lunch breaks.  This place had lots of worker dudes.  Some people think 'eat where the locals eat', but that's not always the case.  You have no idea what the locals are used to.  Worker dudes?  They know.

Worker dudes = UPS drivers, construction guys, salesmen, etc.  They travel around enough to know where to eat and where not to eat.  When I was on the road, I could've pointed out both in my sales territory.  Trust me, when you're in the middle of a job and miles from home, you do not want to eat at a bad restaurant.  And all apologies to that poor gas station on Woodward Avenue that I had to stop at after eating in a bad restaurant back in 1999.  

Okay, I should probably try going back to bed now.  See y'all later.

Thursday This n That

2019 is the year of the bugs.  Oh, we're still dealing with the grain bugs from last year.  And there are always the spiders and crickets and cockroaches.  And ticks and mosquitoes.  It's all part of living in the woods.  But this year has been bad.  The oak mites are particularly rampant and rabid this year.  Then Kira got fleas.  (We're knocking them back, but it's an ongoing thing.)  And Tuesday, unbeknownst to me, the bags of corn I bought and hauled in the back seat of my car, were infested with maize weevils.  To the point where you could actually hear them inside the bags - crawling, scratching, chewing... :shudder:  Lucky for us, Hubs noticed before he loaded them into our attached garage, so they never made it inside the house.  I carted them back to the feed store and got some non-infested bags of corn.  Then we unloaded the car and proceeded to deep clean in there.  Dozens of weevils, crawling all over everything.  I even had them on the ceiling of the car - one dropped onto my shoulder and crawled toward my cleavage while I was driving home from exchanging the infested feed.  Gross.  I'll be so happy when cold weather arrives and knocks the damn bugs back a bit.  All I can say is thank goodness weevils don't bite.  That would suck.  Literally. 

Scrolling down the BookGorilla newsletter last night looking for free new books to read when I passed a cover that looked extremely familiar.  I scrolled back, certain I couldn't have seen what I saw.  Yep, there it was - Accidental Death in the BookGorilla newsletter.  I didn't do it.  I can't afford an ad in BG.  And since I didn't do it, it was listed at full price - $2.99.  It's pretty far down in the newsletter and I didn't see any sales as far as I could tell, but hey, it was a pleasant surprise.  Who knew BG did stuff like that.  Gee.

I woke up late this morning, which is to say, around 5 instead of around 4.  (Or in the case of yesterday, around 3.)

I had some time before a doctor's appointment yesterday, so I stopped at one of the local thrift stores.  Before this year, I thought they only carried clothing, but on a whim, I went in and looked around.  Way in the back, they have tons of books.  So, anyway, yesterday their stock was a little thin, but I still managed to pick up 6 paperbacks and 3 hardcovers.  All for $2.  Nothing really groundbreaking in there, and I've already DNFd one, but I'm happy with the haul.

Around here, the thrift stores get a little lean in the summer, what with all the tourists and summer people picking through everything.  But it rights itself in September when everyone starts cleaning out.  I really hope someone out there donates a lot of old crime novels.

A friend who knows I circle the thrift stores looking for books put in two requests.  So now I have a sticky note in my purse with two titles to look for - a Nelson DeMille title and something by Eric Larsen. 

I went to school with a guy named Eric Larsen.  Probably not the same guy.

Okay, that's enough out of me for now.  What kinds of things are you throwing into the this n that today?

Sunday Update - Week 12

Here we are at Week 12.  Seems a little much considering.  Twelve weeks into 2019 already?  :shudder:

Anyway, here's how my week went.

I didn't do any writing or editing.  I just can't seem to muster the will to work.  The Kindle and the notebook and the red pen are sitting next to my recliner, but meh.

I've been doing some FB marketing because Project Hermes is on sale through Thursday night.  I don't have any fundage right now for advertising, so I'm doing it all myself.  With expected results.  I have a sale on the SCIU books starting on the 3rd, and no advertising for that either yet.  We'll see if I can't scare up something. 

I didn't get a whole lot of reading done, but two books isn't too bad.  And the book I'm reading now is a slow read.  Enjoyable, but slow.

Only two days of activity this past week.  Monday I went fishing in the morning and then did garden work in the afternoon.  Which landed me with a squonky spot in my neck/shoulder and pretty much crapped out activity for a few days.  Friday, it was better so we went for a walk around the loop. Ugh, I am so out of shape again that the loop was a killer.  Need to get back to doing that walk 3-4 times a week.  Oh, and my weight is hovering between 177 and 178.  I started the year at 180, went up two pounds from there, and since then the overall trend has been downward, so I can't complain.

Oh, and while I was gardening, I found the first tick of the year.  Which means my time in the woods is almost at an end.  Guess I'll have to find something else to do until autumn.

One of the days last week, I made peanut butter cookies.  Must've been Sunday because I couldn't have done it with my neck screwed up.  Anyway, they taste good, but I must've done something wrong because they were too wet and sticky to accept the crosshatching.  Only one looks right.  I found a different recipe, so I'm going to try again later this week. 

I did a thrift store run yesterday.  I wanted to look for a spring jacket.  A stroke of luck to find when I got there that all coats and jackets were 25% off.  I found a really nice canvas jacket.  And I picked up two books - a paperback and a hardcover.  $3.75 out the door.  I already had a copy of the paperback.  I always buy Vince Flynn's novels when I see them, but more often then not, I find I already have it.  Derp.  I keep the better copy and donate the worse one.  The hardcover was an old copy of My Friend Flicka.  Can't wait to read it.

Okay, well, I think that about wraps it up for me today.  How did the world revolve in your world last week?

Sunday Update - Week 6

Yep, forgot it was Sunday.  Let's just say my mind has been elsewhere lately.  Chiefly, this is the beginning of my first ever week before release day. 

Which means I'm scattered.

Last Sunday, I set up my very own FB author page and to encourage fans, I held a contest for a $25 gift card open to my first 50 likes.  Took about 24 hours.  I'll hold another one for my first 100 fans, so if you're on Facebook, and haven't liked my page yet, go like it.  When I get close to 100 likes, I'll formally announce the other contest.  Which means people who like this blog would get in on the ground floor. 

I also spent the week scouring Dying Embers for mistakes, flaws, continuity errors, and anything else I might've missed along the way.  I finished last night and I can safely say... Well, not that I got them all but that I am done looking.  What ain't fixed ain't gonna be fixed, cuz if I ain't seen it by now, I ain't a-gonna see it.

Also, I made a Goodreads listing for Dying Embers, and applied for membership as a Goodreads Author.  I got approved for that this morning, so that page is set up now, too. 

Ugh.  I'm tired just thinking about it all. 

The cover artist and I are like this close to having a print cover.  And some marketing materials.  Which will be cool.  He did this as a fun thing:

Except I didn't know it was for fun, so I was all like "I see my target reader more as sitting in sweats eating a half-gallon of double fudge brownie ice cream - spoon in one hand, book in the other.  Or with wine."  (At least that's how I like to read a good suspense.  How about you?)

Other than Dying Embers stuff I haven't done much of anything.  Well, Friday I did go thrifting and picked up two awesome chairs:

I edited in the right one yesterday morning while Hubs was sanding.  It was awesome.  The left one is for Pretty Pink Pig - unless Hubs wants to sit there.

Hubs also made some progress on the sanding (which was why I was editing in the office instead of the living room - it's pretty loud). 

What's news in your world?