Sunday Update - Week 48

 Gah.  I woke up late and the coffee is just now kicking in, so here goes the update for the week:

I only managed to write 2765 words last week.  Then I hit a snag and Thanksgiving happened and additional excuses.  I think I have the answer to get past the story snag, though, so we'll see what happens today.

Marketing was done.  I moved 9 free copies of Song of Storm and Shroud. Sold one Sleeping Ugly and one Thicker Than Water.  If I don't sell anything today, I'm at $11.29 for the month.  Not sure what I'll be doing this week.  Stay tuned.

I finished reading The Martian by Andy Weir.  It was good.  It held my interest as much as any book has done lately.  I started reading a quirky SF/Crime Noir book I found at the thrift store - Stellar Ranger.  So far, so good.  Speaking of the thrift store, I added 7 more books to my horde - including a signed Robert B. Parker.  Nothing else really of note but they had a sale, so I picked up stuff that looked even vaguely amusing.  I also got a book on aviation for Hubs, cuz he's into that stuff.  Think of it as Early Christmas.  ;o)

In baking news, I made pumpkin cheesecake.  We finished eating that yesterday, so I'll probably try to bake something today.  I might make pumpkin pie bread, since I have all the ingredients.

On the activity front, I did some stuff - raking and woods wandering - early in the week, then the rain hit and the holiday, etc. Then I did raked some more.  I ran errands one day, and yesterday we did a shopping trip.  Weight: (Pre-TGD) 174.8

Yesterday's shopping trip... We went to Tractor Supply and picked up our chainsaw.  Hubs had noticed in the morning that they only had ONE of the kind we wanted (Husqvarna 16" gas) left in stock, so I bought it online and set it for pick-up.  It was like the lottery, getting the email to let us know it was ready for pick-up.  Yay!  We won!  While we were there, we also got gloves and earplugs and oil for the chainsaw and a small oil/gas mixture that you need to fuel the saw.  After we left there, we stopped by Wallyworld so Hubs could get new jeans, but we also bought other non-food items which will be our Christmas.  Nothing spectacular or exciting.  Just stuff.  Oh, and the log sled I ordered arrived Friday.  Woot.  And the snow shovel will be here tomorrow.  Yay.  We are all set for dragging wood out of the woods.

The rut seems to be over here and the bucks have, once again, vanished.  We haven't seen Lumpy in a few days, so I hope she found a nice place to cross the rainbow bridge and she isn't suffering anymore.  On a happier note, her children are thriving.

Everything here is good and I'm ready for the holiday season to commence.  Ho ho ho and all that.  

What things did you get up to last week?  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 47

The internet says it'll be week 48 this week, so last week had to be week 47.  It's gotta be right, right?  I went and counted the weeks left in the year and it's 6 weeks, unless you don't count the half week at the end there.  :shrug:  I guess you don't count it.  Oh, well.  Anyhooway...

I wrote this week!  5 out of 7 days worth.  Woot.  I ended up with 5505 new words.  Yay.  And DN3 is up to 34056 words.  Also woot.  I think I have the basics of the who did what, now it's up to Duke to catch the culprit(s).  Of course, plot holes abound.  I'll spackle those after I'm finished.

I also did some marketing this week.  After my mental snafu, of course.  I ended up moving 29 free copies of SU and one person read the book all the way through in KU, so I have that going for me.  Not sure what this week will bring.  Hopefully, not the same as last week where I forgot that I remembered to set a book to free.

As for reading, I'm still working my way through The Martian.  It's good. I just don't have the same reading stamina I used to.  For instance, I read for about an hour a couple days ago, and the next day, I could feel it in my neck and shoulders.  Derp.  Getting old blows.

Speaking of getting old, laying around like a lump of oatmeal doesn't do a body any good.  My activity level sucks.  I need to rectify that effectively immediately.  It's not that I did nothing last week.  I did some vacuuming and some gutter cleaning.  I also swept the deck (because I made an unholy mess of it cleaning that section of gutter).  All told, though, it wasn't enough to balance the amount of food I shoved in my face.  I stepped on the scale on Thursday and had gained 2 pounds from the last time I weighed myself.  :sad trombone:  Weight: 176.2

Speaking of shoving food in my face, I made brownies last week.  Mmm... brownies.  Warm brownies... with ice cream... :drools:  

Other than that, I didn't do much of note.  Watched TV.  Saw a couple of neat movies.  Not really anything major.  

This coming week, I need to get outside and do stuff.  Today, I'll rake with Hubs.  Once that's done, I'll get to work on the trail we've got planned to make an easy access to the fallen trees.  I'll be buying a sled-thingie for moving logs up the hill, so that trail is a necessity.  There's already a type of natural trail there.  It just needs cleaning up.  So, I'll be working on that.  And I'll write words.  More words.  Woot.  And it's Thanksgiving week, which doesn't actually mean a whole lot here.  Hubs will cook a turkey, I'll make pumpkin cheesecake.  We'll eat like pigs.  

Oh, and the family thing?  It's pretty much addressed as much as we can address it.  For now.  We're not sure it's over, though, so there's that hanging over our heads like a rotted limb that could fall at any time.  :shrug:  

And that's about it for me.  How was your last week?

When Life Intrudes

Derp.  Okay, so when last we met, I was all set to do marketing starting today.  But I didn't know which book was going out.  Right?  Well...

I would've been fine, if I'd gone right over to Amazon and set a book for free.  Hell, I would've been fine if I'd done that at any point before yesterday afternoon.  That was when the animal waste hit the spinning blades.  The phone rang and we were splattered.  

Extended family stuff we couldn't ignore.  Nothing tragic, but something necessary to think about and plan for, and it took all the mental energy either of us had right at that time.  

Leftovers for dinner.  Mindless TV.  I remember turning off my computer and telling myself everything was ready for marketing in the morning.  I had already printed out a sheet that I use to keep track of my marketing posts and everything.  Then into bed where neither of us slept well.  

I woke up this morning ready to market.  And as I was sitting out in the smoking room, sipping coffee and listening to the plan Hubs came up with at 2 o'clock in the morning, it hit me.  I never set a book to start its freebie journey today.  

So, no... there will be no marketing today.  I'm not sure if I'll even do marketing this week, because of the aforementioned defecate in the fan blades.  Life has intruded.  There are calls to be made and plans to be put into place.  My brain is full of that stuff right now.

Wanna know something really ironic?  Yesterday, I gave myself a good talking-to, and I made a plan to start writing again.  Before the phone rang, I actually wrote about 800-900 words, and had every intention of going back to work on the story last night.  Double derp.

This, too, shall pass.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week Dunno

Well, here we are at the Sunday morning after the fall time change.  I have no clue what time it is, so don't ask me what week it is.  It's a week.

I did some small amount of writing this week.  Just over a thousand words over two days.  Frankly, I was at a point where I had painted myself into a corner and couldn't find a window to crawl out of.  Then I had an idea while sitting on the toilet before bed.  I wrote the idea down when I was finished and then went back to brush my teeth.  Then I laid in bed thinking about how to write the idea.  I really should've gotten up and just written the scene because it was way harder to write the next day, lemme tell ya.  Ya gotta strike while the iron is hot, even if you're sleepy.  Anyway, I think I have it, but we'll see what happens tonight.

Marketing... Well, I did WIOH and very little came of it.  Which is weird because WIOH is one of my best movers when it comes to freebie week.  And it usually results in page reads, too.  :shrug:  Poor returns on marketing make it really hard to get the motor going for writing more books.  Like I need another reason to not write.  Blerg.

I'm in the middle of reading The Martian by Andy Weir.  It's pretty good so far.

In baking news... there isn't any.  I thought about baking bread, but it never happened.

On the activity front, it was cool enough for me to go into the woods, so there was a lot of that.  The active part was mostly cutting vines and dead limbs, and piling those things up, plus moving deadfall.  We also did some wandering in the woods, to survey what needs to be done.  Man, there are a lot of fallen limbs and trees since the last time I was down in there.  I did walk the road once, too.  Weight: 174.2

It got down to freezing last night, so yesterday afternoon, I moved all my baby trees into the garage.  And I picked all the big tomatoes.  They're still mostly green, but they should ripen.  I've got them in a container in the spare room, where they can still get some sun.  Fingers crossed.  The little tomatoes are still out there on the plants.  We'll see what last night's temps did to them.  This coming week, I'll trash the plants and reuse the pots for some of my trees who need bigger pots to thrive.  Hubs and I are in talks about where in the yard to place new trees.  I really need to pick up some fencing before I plant, so they have at least a small chance of surviving the deer.

I think that's it for me this morning.  If I missed anything, sorry.  What went on in your lives?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 43

Eleven weeks left of 2025 and, ya know, this is the first year in a long time where I'm not actively looking forward to the year ending.  Anyway...

I got some writing done.  Not a lot and not every day, but writing was accomplished.  2615 words, to be exact.  Not great, but better than the week before.  Unfortunately, I kind of stalled after the last scene, so I'll need to figure out where I'm going next and all that.  Wish me luck.

I did marketing.  It was all :sad trombone: and I only moved 19 copies of RHI.  Oh well.  This coming week, Wish in One Hand is up on the freebie parade.  It's kind of a Happy Halloween thing.  I mean, what's better to read on Halloween than a paranormal suspense with genies and efreet, filled with snark?  Jus' sayin'.

As for reading, I did read, but I ended up DNF'ing the book.  I got maybe 2-3 chapters in and realized I'd already read it.  And while I did like it the first time, I wasn't inclined to read it again.  No clue what I'll pick up next.  

In baking news, I did cinnamon rolls.  I forgot to allow for cooler temps and didn't let them rise enough, though.  Cinnamon roll fail.  They taste okay, but they're not light and fluffy.  Hubs has been eating them because he doesn't really care.

On the activity front, I went into the woods twice last week.  Once, I did some sawing and log throwing.  The other time, I just wandered around.  I also finished the sunroom window-washing project.  Not a huge calorie burn, but better than nothing.  I haven't checked my weight this week, so who knows?

Speaking of being in the woods... Man, there's a lot of downed trees we need to take care of in there.  We already had the downed sycamore and the black cherry.  Now we have what looks like an elm.  In addition to those whole trees, there are numerous limbs down.  Ugh.  On the upside, I'll get a lot of exercise once the weather turns cold.

Right now, the cats are tussling.  It's sounds like two alleycats going at it.  ... Okay, I broke it up.  Silly boyz.

In weather news, it's been raining cats and dogs, which makes me just want to sit in front of the TV.  I need to get over it.

Okay, I think that's it.  My life is pretty boring.  Sorry about that.  

Have a  great day wherever you are!

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 42

Well, another week has passed and I'm having a hard time getting revved up to do anything this morning, which is why this post is later than I usually post one of these.  

Writing was accomplished. It took me two more days to finish the read-through of DN3, and then I added new words for two days.  1781 words to be exact.  Not a huge amount, but it's something, eh?  DN3 is now up to 24920 words/87 pages.  Woot.  I would like to have this in your hands by the end of the year. We'll see how that works out.

I did marketing.  I moved 59 free copies of Dying Embers.  I also sold one after the sale was over.  No page reads yet, which is :sadtrombone:, but it's early yet.  Tomorrow, Rumor Has It goes on freebie.

Reading was slow.  I did DNF that Victoria Holt yesterday, but I haven't started anything else.

In baking news, I made a pizza yesterday - pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, black olives, and red bell pepper.  Yum.

On the activity front, I walked two days and spent three other days working on washing windows in the smoking porch.  I'm up to 64.25 miles on the walking.  The window washing?  Yuck.  But I'll finish that project today.  I just have to finish the doors.  Then I'll start the project of washing the other windows in the house.  (We have a lot of windows, so I have to break it up a little.)  Weight: 174.0 - I guess washing windows isn't really the calorie-burning event I wish it would be.  

As for gardening, I have 10 tomatoes out there ripening.  Well, I had 10 yesterday.  We had storms overnight, so we'll see what's left.  I have a ripe tomato in the fridge and I had to throw one out because it was funked up.  :shrug:  Not the Master Gardener of all time, but it's better than last time I tried this.  Next year will be even better.  I hope.  Maybe.

Yesterday, Hubs and I watched a good movie - Hostage starring Bruce Willis.  Not the most well-written thing, but certainly thrilling.  It was very intense.  But good guys win and bad guys die, so I'm satisfied.

As usual, life is pretty boring here.  Sorry about that.  How are things in your life?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 40?

 I think it's week 40, but these days, who knows?  :shrug:

Earlier in the week, I was doing pretty good at doing something writerly every day.  It lasted 3 days.  I'll try to start that up again today.  START TODAY*.  Okay, so those three days, I added words to the end of DN3 and then I got stuck because I haven't touched the damn book in weeks, so I went back to the beginning and I'm reading through it all to get back into the story.  I'm up to page 49 and hit a spot where I either have to write a new scene or go back and delete the paragraph where I hint about the maid needing to talk to Duke privately.  We'll see what happens.

I did some marketing this week.  Ugly and the Beast was free and I moved 64 copies of that, and one copy of Sleeping Ugly.  (I also sold a copy of Dying Embers (print copy... woot).)  Starting tomorrow, Project Hermes will be free for five days.

I didn't do a Reading Wrap-up this week because I didn't finish anything.  I am in the middle of reading a Phyllis Whitney that I suspect I may have read before.  :shrug"

In baking news, I make a chocolate oil cake with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream.  It's yummy.  Friday, I made chili and to go with it, cornbread.  Yay.  

On the activity front, I didn't do a lot of very active things, but I did things.  One day I walked.  I did some limb cutting and I cut down a nuisance tree.  I vacuumed and brushed the kitchen rug, which yielded me enough cat hair to build a third cat, if I wanted.  And I did Wallyworld, which is always a workout.  Let's not talk about weight, eh?  I'm going to call what I just saw on the scale an anomaly.  Derp.

The deck garden is still producing tomatoes, so yay.  I get one ripe one at a time, which is perfect for burgers or sandwiches.  As long as the warm holds out, I should still be getting 'maters.  Of course, as long as the warm holds out, it delays my ability to plant trees, so there's that.  (Heat, bugs, etc.)

I'm finally getting over the jetlag from my trip.  Funny how the change of just an hour can really mess a body up.  And I get to do it again next month... change times not travel.  Stupid timechanges.  Blerg.

Nothing else really going on around here.  Hubs and I have some projects we're talking about doing, but we haven't firmed anything up yet, so they don't bear talking about at this time.  

Anyway... see ya next time.  Have a great day!  And if you're so inclined, leave a comment.  I enjoy comments.

*'Start today' was supposed to be my mantra for the year.  We all know how that has gone so far.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 36

Welcome to the Sunday Update.  I think it's Week 36.  These days, who knows? LOL  Anyway, sorry last week was a dud, but let's see what I can do to amuse you today.

I did some writing this week.  Not nearly enough, but something anyway.  I managed 1709 out of two days.  :sad trombone:  This week ain't lookin' great either, but we'll see.  

Marketing was accomplished.  Unfortunately, still being hamstrung by FB, I moved only 29 copies of IDW.  I did sell a copy each of the other books in the series, though, so I've got that going for me.

Nothing got finished on the reading front, so no post yesterday.  I'm in the middle of reading a collection of inter-related short stories by Arthur C. Clarke.  They're okay.  Nothing really exciting, but fun.

In baking news, I made oatmeal raisin bread with a cinnamon swirl.  What can I say... I was inspired by watching The Great British Baking Show.  Plus, I got a new to me cookbook with this recipe in it.  It's pretty yummy, but the swirl part was a bust.  It's falling apart at the swirl line.  :shrug:  Better luck next time, I guess.  Except it took all day to make, so there might not be a next time.  We'll see.

On the activity front, I was more active this week.  Yay for cooler weather, eh?  I did two walks, two days of cleaning/yard work, and a big grocery trip.  I'm up to 53.7 miles walked for the year.  Weight: 171.4

Thanks also to the cooler weather, I guess, my tomatoes are bearing more fruits and more flowers, too.  I have like 5 more tomatoes.  Yay.  I also found this show on gardening.  It's out of Ireland, but plants are plants and dirt is dirt.  I just need to adjust their advice to Missouri climate.  The episode on growing tomatoes was very informative.  I found out I'm not feeding nearly often enough and that I should've pinched off the excessive shoots.  :shrug:  Next year's garden should be way better. Live and learn.

This morning, I heard a strange sound coming out of the woods.  When I did some research, I discovered it was the sound of an Eastern Screech Owl.  Yay.  In other nature news, the fawns are getting big and their spots are fading fast.  We named Sissy's fawn Scout and it's a big fawn.  It's probably a buck fawn, but I haven't seen any antler nubs yet, so the jury's still out.

Yesterday, I wandered the yard with stakes, plotting out where we're going to be transplanting some of the deck trees.  Hubs checked out my placement and agrees, so we'll proceed with that in a month or so.  I'm trying to put them in the ground when they have a better chance of surviving the deer (i.e. when the trees are leafless and less likely to attract attention.)  I hope it works.  Otherwise, there's always next year.  

Okay, I think that's probably enough out of me.  Have a great day and a lovely week.  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 34

 :blink blink: Oh.  Hello.  It's Sunday again, isn't it?  I woke up thinking it was Tuesday.  Days of the week have little meaning to me anymore.  I feel like, at this point, I ought to have reached a higher plain of consciousness, but I haven't.  I've reached a higher plain of unconsciousness, maybe.

Anyway...  I didn't write much this week, but I did write.  DN3 has rolled over 20K words, so that's something.  I'm hoping to have news of more words by this time next week.

The marketing didn't go great.  I started out okay, then I lost the will.  Thus, Unequal only moved 16 copies. :sad trombone:  Song of Storm and Shroud will be free starting tomorrow.  Then the month will end and along with it, my current 90-day span of Kindle Select.  Starting Labor Day, I'll have a whole new 90 days to market stuff.  Woot.  Here's hoping next month is better for sales than this month has been.

Oh, and I spent some time yesterday morning screwing around with Grok, building a sorta-kinda new cover for SSS.  It looks pretty snazzy until you realize the dragon's left back leg is coming out of it's butthole and it's front left leg is spindly and warped.  AI still has a lot to learn about how living things are put together.  No creature - real or imagined - can walk with a leg coming out of it's butt.  Jus' sayin'.

In reading news, I finally finished that Hercule Poirot omnibus.  Yay.  I'm a third through another book.  Also yay.  And I bought 6 new used books to dive into.  Woot.

It was a busy baking week.  I made banana-raisin muffins, pizza, and bread pudding.  The pizza was the only thing that turned out right, but the other two were tasty, so it's all good.  Too much banana in the muffins and I forgot to add sugar to the bread pudding.  :shrug:  Even the best bakers can screw stuff up, so I'm not flagellating myself.  

On the activity front, I was still something of a toad.  One day, I did the dancercizorama thing 5/4/5 (5 minutes dance, then 4 minutes exercise, then another 5 minutes dance).  That's way down from what I used to do, but I'll have to work my way back up to that.  And as my mom reminded me, I'm older now than when I did 20/10/20.  Another day, I walked three-quarters of a mile.  Weight? No clue.  Chonky.

The fawns are getting big and their spots are starting to fade.  We've named Sissy's fawn 'Scout', which'll work for a doe or a buck.  I'm thinking Scout is a buck fawn because it's big for its age.  (Buck fawns are typical larger than doe fawns.)  I need to come up with a name for the twins.  I've already used Dot and Dash, but since I almost never know which deer is which once they turn into adults, I can reuse those.

Okay, on that note, I'll let you go.  Have a great day and feel free to drop a line or two about your week.  =o)

Sunday Update - Week 33

This week... Well, it was HOT.  And I was a toad.  Okay, I wasn't entirely a toad all week.

I wrote Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for 3182 words.  Then I lost track of where I was going next and turned back into a toad.  I'll try to get untoaded today.

Marketing was done.  Rumor Has It was free and I moved 57 copies - 40 of which went on Friday.  Not sure why the spike that day, but there it is.  Also, someone read Unequal this week and someone else is working on Dying Embers, so I am seeing some fundage for this month.  Not sure which book will be up for free this week.  Stay tuned.

Reading occurred.  I didn't bother doing a post yesterday because TOAD.  We'll see what I can accomplish next Saturday.  

No baking because HOT.

No activity because HOT.  Weight: 172.0

I'm still watering my deck garden.  My first tomato got picked.  We had it sliced up on hamburgers and it was yummy.  My second tomato got some kind of funk and turned gray from the bottom.  (It's not touching anything, so not sure what the hell happened there.)  In happier news, I have a third tomato.  It's tiny yet, but it's there.  And one of the tomato plants is still flowering, so there's hope for more.  Something ate all the leaves off one of my dogwood trees.  I think it was a grasshopper, because a discarded grasshopper exoskeleton is laying in the pot.  Did I ever mention how much I hate grasshoppers?  Filthy little bastards.  The rest of the trees are doing okay.  So are the green peppers, but those will never make it to big enough for fruit before the end of the growing season.  :shrug:  They were an experiment anyway, so no big loss.

The fawns are growing.  Sissy's fawn is a pretty big little guy.  (Assuming buck fawn because it's big, but I haven't seen nubs yet, so not sure.)  The twins are thriving.  Life is good.  Hubs is making sure they have fresh water once, if not twice, a day.

In family news, one of my extended family was attacked by a pitbull.  He was out running - he does marathons, so he was training - minding his own business, and some numbnuts was walking his pit without a leash.  He saw the dog and gave it a wide berth.  It didn't matter.  The pit went after him anyway, ruinating his left hand and then, after the owner and the guy got the dog off, it came back for more and attached to his right arm.  He's had surgery to repair the damage, so now it's a waiting game to see how much function he'll regain.  I'm pissed, to say the least.  Poor dude can't work now and who knows when he'll be able to work again.  He's freakin' IT, so all his work is hands.  And he's the nicest guy ever.

Okay, I think that's all the excitement I can take for one day.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  (And if you're walking/running, watch out for dogs with stupid owners.)  

Sunday Update - Week 32

Here we are at Week 32 and I don't really have much to show for it.

I did not write this week, despite every encouragement and a little poking in the ass.  Let's see if we can change that this week.  It goes without saying that AuGoWriMo is a bust for me so far.  I can salvage it if I get off my ass starting today.  START TODAY!  Part of the problem is the last words I wrote were such dreck, I'm having a crisis of confidence.  Derp.

Marketing was done.  It wasn't exactly productive.  I only moved 40 copies of WIOH, which is usually my best mover.  :shrug:  Not much I can do about it without paying for advertising.  I don't have a problem paying, but usually by the time I think about doing a freebie or a sale, it's too late to put an ad anywhere.  I need to plan ahead, which I am HORRIBLE at.

I did read this week, but I ended up DNFing most of it.

Cinnamon rolls were made.  They aren't the best rolls I ever made, but they're edible.  I halved the recipe, but while I was putting everything together, I used the whole measurement for the oil.  I tried to salvage it by adding more flour.  The result is a little weird.  We'll eat them and I'll try not to make the same mistake in the future.

On the activity front, I started out the week really well.  I walked three times for 3.5 miles.  Then it got hot again and I stayed inside.  Those miles put me at 50 miles even for the year, so far.  We won't talk about weight.  Heat makes me blow up like a water balloon, so even if I had weighed myself, it wouldn't really count.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The fawns are getting bigger and their spots are getting less defined.  I saw an opossum.  We also had several baby nuthatches in the redbud tree.  Yay.

Speaking of trees, my baby redbuds are doing well.  I still only have two tomatoes.  Those are getting closer to ripe, so yay.  Everything else is holding steady and not too big, but not dead.  Dang heat.

I think that's it for me.  How are things with you?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 31

This is my 3200th post on this blog, by the way.  Not important, just sayin'.

It's Sunday again and I don't have much to tell you.  I was supposed to start the AuGoWriMo thing on Friday.  I failed.  I did write this morning, though, so that's a step in the right direction.  (Or the write direction... lol.)  Duke Noble 3 is at 16242 words as of a minute ago.  Woot.  I have greats hopes to get the first draft finished by the end of the month.

I did some marketing this week.  Unequal was free and I moved 41 copies. :sad trombone:  Eh, I wasn't expecting it to go gangbusters, but still.  This coming week, Wish in One Hand will be free.  Maybe that'll generate some sales.  

Not much reading this week.  I forgot to post yesterday, so anything I read this week will be on next week's post.

No baking.  It was too hot.

On the activity front, I was a busy lady.  Three days cleaning, one day I did some dancing, I took one walk, and I went grocery shopping.  I meant to walk yesterday, but I needed to run a couple errands and then I got lazy.  Weight: 171.6

In gardening, my tomato plants have loads of flowers and still only 2 tomatoes.  Bummer.  And one of my dogwood trees died.  I think it was heatstroke.  The redbud trees are growing right along.  The hickories are doing well, too.  The one unknown tree I planted is doing really well.  The green peppers are pathetic, but that was a fool's gamble anyway.  I planted too late.  I just pushed seeds into dirt to see what would happen.  Maybe I'll try again next year and start earlier.  This is all a learning curve.  Maybe year three will net me a good harvest of edible produce.  

Other than that, not much to talk about.  I watched way too much TV, but I'm having a lot of fun with the Roku thing.  Amusing myself to death, I believe is the phrase.  I told you Roku would be dangerous for me.  I need to find a way to balance the entertainment with the serious business of actually living.  To that end, I need to write.  And to exercise.  In between all the fun shows.  Umm... yeah.

Anyway, have a great day wherever you are.  And drop a note about what you're up to before ya leave, eh?

Friday This n That

I'm not dead.  I'm just lazy.

I woke up late two days in a row.  This makes me not want to do anything, but I had planned on going grocery shopping.  The jury's out as to whether I'll just skip over to the Dollar General for milk and postpone Wallyworld.

The news lately is fucking horrible.  Mass stabbing in Traverse City, mass shooting in NYC, some shithead killed two people in front of their kids on a fucking hiking trail in NWAR (northwest Arkansas to the uninitiated), four people were murdered by some asshole in TN.  Is it any wonder I don't want to go anywhere?

I dreamed last night that I had a third tomato on my plants.  Yeah, I lead a boring life.  Here's me dreaming about tomatoes.  One more tomato is an exciting thing for me.

I'm supposed to start AuGoWriMo today and write words.  I need to carve out some time to do that and I need to STOP watching Roku for a few hours to get that done.  I can do it!  Unfortunately, we found a new series to watch last night and it was awesome.  Drat.

A couple of days ago, I had a chicken breast defrosted to make Salsa Chicken, but then I realized I didn't have the right cheese, so I turned it into a kind of Chicken Parm.  Slap a chicken breast into a pan, cover it in marinara sauce, cover that all in mozzarella, bake at 375F for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.  I made spaghetti noodles and more sauce to go with it, and added those into the pan about halfway through.  It all turned out really yummy.  We ate the leftovers for dinner last night.  Yum.

Yeah, the lacking cheese thing is another reason I need to go to Wallyworld.  Drat.

During the making of the spaghetti noodles, I spent some time dancing around the living room to music in my head.  Sawyer was freaked out by this.  Finn just looked at me like I'd lost my mind.  Maybe I had.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 30

Thirty weeks into 2025 by my estimation.  I could be wrong, of course, but I don't really think it matters.  Anyway...

I didn't do any writing this week, but I do have a plan to do a NaNo thing next month, so there's that.  Actually, I plan to start today.  We'll see how that goes.  

Marketing occurred.  Unfortunately, I did some marketing on Monday and FB slapped me with what ended up being a 24 hour hold on further marketing posts.  They never tell me when they do it or why or what the parameters for marketing are, so I just have to roll with it.  Bastards.  I only moved 30 free copies of Accidental Death.  On a happier note, someone in the UK read AD and it's sequel, Natural Causes, in KU.  Yay.  I also had some residual page reads for Dying Embers from the freebie earlier this month.  Also yay.  Starting tomorrow, Blink of an I will be free for 5 days and I'll market to the best of my ability.  (Or I'll get discouraged again and halfass market.)

I did some reading.  Not a lot.  See yesterday's post.

Yesterday, I made a half-batch of cinnamon rolls.  This time I went super simple with the filling - just cinnamon and sugar - and they turned out non-spectacular but yummy nonetheless.  I also made a batch of banana muffins.  I'd never done that recipe before and they turned out awesome.  Woot.

On the activity front, I was a toad.  One walk.  I mean, I'm hauling about 4 gallons of water every other day to water my deck garden, but I don't mark that down.  It's exercise, though, so it probably should count for something.  Weight: 171.8 - unchanged.

In gardening news, I still only have those two tomatoes.  They're getting bigger, so yay, but I want more.  To that end, I think I'm going to sacrifice one flower - pick it and rub it on the other flowers to try pollinating ever other flower.  Fingers crossed it works.  The green peppers are still pretty much seedlings.  Next year, I need to start all of this earlier in the season.  My trees are doing okay.  The poor dogwoods are looking to me like they're suffering from the sun/heat.  I moved two of them into a shadier spot.  Several of the redbuds are doing awesome, though.  I'm going to need to stake them up so they don't grow retarded.  The hickories are doing well, too, although some bug is munching on their leaves.  Silly bugs.  I can't get bugs to pollinate my tomatoes, but they're happily eating my trees.  Blerg.

When I go Roku, I expressed some concern about it taking over my life.  Well, I wasn't wrong.  It's sending me straight to the Hell of the Unproductive.  I'm resolved to change that this week.  I need to set aside my new toy and be an adult again.  (Well, as adult as I ever was.)  It's not like Roku is going anywhere.  All the fun will still be there after I get my work done.  

And that's about it for my boring week.  How were things in your world?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 29

 It was an extremely lazy week last week.  Okay, maybe not 'extremely'... but lazy nonetheless.

I only wrote 840 words.  Then I hit a 'I have no idea where to go from here' spot and fell apart.

I did do some marketing.  DE was free and I did my marketing version of swimming with both hands tied behind my back.  Oddly, the second day, downloads took off and I moved 189 copies that day.  Not sure what happened there, but I'm okay with it.  I also got a couple of really nice reviews for DE recently and one of the reviewers bought FG, too. So yay.  Not sure what I'll be doing this week.  Maybe nothing.  Tune in tomorrow.

Reading... I finished another story in the big book of Hercule Poirot mysteries.  I also DNF'd some books.  I'll try to remember to post about all that next Saturday.  

In baking news, I made a yellow layer cake from scratch.  It turned out pretty tasty, if a little dense.  I frosted it in vanilla buttercream and slathered strawberry jam in the middle.  I'd do it again, but cake mixes really are easier, cheaper, etc.  I also did what I'm calling 'open-face pizza subs' and those are yummy.  Yesterday, I made pulled pork.  I had mine on toast with cheese.  Hubs did his over mashed potatoes.  Livin' good in the rural 'hood, and all that.

On the activity front, I only walked once this week.  I also did some cleaning and gardening.  Weight: 171.8  :shrug:

Ah, the gardening...  My first tiny tomato made an appearance, followed by a second.  #1 is about kumquat size now and #2 is a little bigger than a pea.  A couple of the plants have several flowers and the other plants look like they're trying to make flowers, and flowers lead to fruits, so yay.  I also repotted all my little pepper plants.  I planted 18.  An hour later, it rained torrentially, and one got smooshed, so 17 plants.  I know it's late to get plants like that going, but I'm still hopeful I'll get at least a few peppers before it gets too cold.

Other than that, it's been too hot to be really motivated to do anything physical.  Mentally?  Well... Okay, fine... I've been letting myself get sucked into the Roku vortex.  So many good things to watch...  :drools:  I'm catching old movies I haven't seen or haven't seen in decades, awesome new-to-me mystery/crime shows, fun home and cooking shows...  Yesterday, I found Dragonslayer (1981) and saved it to watch later.  I saw that movie in the theater when I was a kid and haven't seen it since.  I hope it's still awesome.

What's been on your agenda lately?

Sunday Update - '25 Week 28

 :blink blink:  I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so bear with me.

I did some writing.  Not nearly as much as I would've hoped, but life's like that sometimes.  I only wrote three days, but I managed to put out 4054 words.  The book is up to 14648 words.  Not NaNo #s, but better than nothing, right?

This week, I marketed Sleeping Ugly.  FB is still hamstringing me, so I get like 3-5 posts up and it tells me they're not letting me post anymore for a while to prevent spamming.  Turds.  I'm following all the rules of the groups I belong to - like only posting one book and only once every 24 hours - but I'm the spammer.  Gah.  So, while I got posts out, they weren't all the groups every day, which meant I only moved 57 books instead of my former amounts of 120-150 a week.  I did manage to sell a couple others, too, so not a total waste of time.  It's just disappointing.

Reading was okay.  I finished one freestanding book and then one of the books in that Poirot omnibus.  :shrug:

Nothing baked.  It's too hot and I'm unmotivated.

On the activity front, I got off my butt 4 days this week.  Two walks, some gardening, and some housework.  I haven't weighed myself.  Again... too hot to be motivated.

In gardening news, the tomatoes all either have flowers or buds for future flowers.  Last night we got heavy rain and when I looked out this morning, most of the plants look depressed.  I'll need to go out today and shore them up with extra slats and yarn.  I hope none of them are actually broken.  That'd suck.  The trees all look fine.  I did manage to repot some of them.  I need more dirt and more bigger pots to really do a good job.  What the bigger trees really need is to go in the ground, but I'm trying to wait until fall to give them a good shot of living through the deer.  After Elmer the Elm's horrific death, I'm hoping young trees without leaves will get ignored and by spring they'll just be part of the landscape and therefore uninteresting.

Ah, Roku... how I love thee.  Yes, I have spent way too much time this week vegging in front of the tube.  I'm watching Midsomer Murders, Murdoch Mysteries, Doc Martin, Yorkshire Vet, Great British Baking Show, and Hometown from the beginnings.  Not binging, just watching an episode each like once a day or once/twice a week.  There are a lot of episodes of all those, so yay.  I'm also watching Emergency!, Red Green, Dr. G, Mayday: Air Disasters, Forensic Files, and MST3K when I feel like it. When we get done, or we get bored, I'll subscribe to BritBox.  I'm looking forward to watching all the episodes of Inspector Morse and Poirot (naturally, Poirot... lol).  

Okay, I think that's about it for me this week.  How are things in your world?

A Cautionary Tale

Saw this just now in one of my author groups.  It's a cautionary tale...

If you use Find and Replace, do not do Replace All.  I did it once years ago to change a character's name.  I think it was Tom and I changed it to something like Bob, so tomorrow became boborrow and tomato became bobato.  Cusbobers? Botbob? Ugh.  It was frustrating and irritating, and kind of hilarious in retrospect.  

Last week, I saw a similar story - only this time it was a reader saying the book they were reading had all sorts of weird errors and after thinking about it for a time, they realized that the author had Replaced all instances of 'ass' with 'arse' (probably to make it more British sounding).  Working on an arseignment?  Going to an arseignation?  Went fishing and caught a big barse?

In the above case, though, I'm not sure what 'too late' would be for a book. Post publication and after a slew of bad reviews perhaps?  Ugh.

If you're silly enough to make this mistake, the fix isn't that hard.  Once you realize you've replaced all your Toms with Bobs, do another Find and Replace, finding Bob this time and going through each separate instance... OR just replace all Bobs with Toms again, and THEN do another search for Tom replacing it with what you meant to replace it with in the first place - each instance separately.  Which is what you should've done the first time, but you got lazy and paid the price.

Sometimes, doing the work the right way, no matter what kind of boring slog it is, actually saves time in the long run.

If you've done it and didn't do that final run-through before you loaded it for publication, only to have people read it and leave bad reviews, you're kinda screwed.  Always check, recheck, and double-check before you hit Publish.  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 27

 Okay, we're over halfway through 2025 and so far, I'm of the opinion that this is the best year we've had in a long long time.  Sure, things are still pretty shitty all over, but things are also looking up.  I'm feeling optimistic.  Which is weird for me.  Anyway, let's get into the past week...

I didn't write much, because I was distracted with other things.  Those distractions are over, so I'm feeling good about the week to come.  I did get over 2200 words down and I like where the story is going.  Yay.

I took the week off of marketing.  Guess what?  No sales.  Not a single one.  Not a single page read.  Crickets.  I need to figure out if I'm going to be marketing this week and what, or if I'm just going to let it slide again.  

I read some stuff, but I didn't finish anything.  

This week, I made a batch of blackberry muffins.  Yummers.  And a batch of chicken wet burritos.  Also yummers.  

On the activity front, I did walk three times for a total of 3.6 miles.  That puts me at 41 miles for the year.  Woot.  Weight: 171.4 - also woot.

The big news for the week... I got the VoiP set up.  (That's voice over internet protocol - which allows you to make regular phone calls on a regular phone using your internet, which for me is Starlink.)  There was a little niggle wherein the Starlink only has two ports for devices to plug into and I need three - my computer, Hubs' computer, and the VoiP device.  So I ordered up an ethernet splitter from Amazon and had it overnighted.  And it was defective. So, I went to Walmart yesterday and bought a better thing from a company I trust, and it works like a champ.  Yay.  Today or tomorrow, my regular phone number should be ported over from Brightspeed to 1-VoiP (our new provider out of Edmund, OK... love them) and then I can officially kick Brightspeed to the curb.  (OMG, they suck so bad.)  Next up, ditching DirectTV.  My Roku device is supposed to be here today through Walmart delivery.  Woot.  If it's everything everyone says it is, DerektTV can go away, too.  Woot.

Okay, I should probably wrap this up so I can get my walk in... and pick berries while I'm out there.  (Blackberries growing alongside the road... hence the muffins.)  Have a great day and tell me about what's going on in your life before you go.  =o)

Sunday Update - Week 26

I almost typed Sunday Ypdate.  Yip.  LOL. Yeah, this is what comes of too little sleep and then waking up late.  

Anyway...

I wrote words!  5269 of them.  I gave myself a good talking to mentally and Monday night, I just started adding words to DN3.  I took Friday off because it was a mentally draining day and I just wasn't in a place where words would come out.  Then yesterday I wrote over 1800 words, which kinda made up for the day off.  The point is, I'm averaging over 1000 words a day, which is good.

And I even did some editing.  I stopped writing one night and as I lay in bed, I realized that something needed to happen between where Duke was and where Duke had been before, so I went back... a thing I almost never do while I'm dirty drafting... and fixed it.  The writing really started flowing after that.  Woot.

No Marketing this week.  I'll see what I can come up with this week for a new offering.  It's hard to muster the urge when I have to fight FB every step of the way, but if I don't market, I don't sell.  And I like selling books.

The reading... well, you can see that in yesterday's posts.  I'm not blazing any trails here, unless it's the trail to DNF.

Yesterday morning, I made a half-batch of cinnamon rolls.  They turned out pretty good, even if halving the recipe took some mathing.  

On the activity front, I did something active 6 out of 7 days, so woot.  I only walked three of those days, so 3.5 miles (37.4 total).  I meant to walk 4 days, but I was wandering in the yard before setting out and I got stung by some kind of baby, bastard hornet.  Hurt like a bugger and put the kibosh on that day's walk.  (It's all better thanks to Benadryl gel.)  Now that it's hot, I decided to start dancing in the living room again.  So I did that one day.  And I went grocery shopping.  Weight: 172.0

Look for more information on Friday's drama this Tuesday.  (The post's already written, I just need to schedule it.)

On a gardening note, my tomato plants are huge and they all look like they're getting the beginnings of flowers, so that's something.  My green pepper plants are still tiny, but they're making progress.  Some of my trees are looking pooky, though. I think they need replanting in bigger pots or in the ground.  Ack.  I have no more bigger pots and they're not ready to combat the deer yet.  We'll see how that goes.  I may go pick up pots today.  Also, the blackberry patch I've been watching down the road is getting close to being ripe enough to pick.  Cross your fingers I make it there before the birds do.

Okay, so that's about all I have for you today.  How was your week?  

What I Did

Despite the risk of jinxing this, I'm going to tell y'all what I did yesterday.

I wrote words.  1558 of them to be exact.  Which puts Duke Noble #3 at just over 3000 words.  It's a start.  No promises.  No judging.  Just write the words.  Every day.

I also exercised.  Not walked... exercised.  5 minutes dancing (which freaked the cats out... like 'eek! hide! mama's having a spastic fit' or something), 4 minutes doing regular exercises, 4 minutes more dancing and then walking around the house to get my heart rate back to normal*.

I told you all I just needed to give myself a good talking to.

Now, I just have to keep it up.  I'm shooting for 1500 words a day but any words will do.  And I'm aiming at ramping up the exercising until I'm back to my old stamina - walk = 1.6 miles 3 or 4 times a week, exercise = 20/10/20 on the days I'm not walking.

No excuses.  I need this for both my mental and my physical health.  Lord knows, I'm not getting any younger.  If I don't want to end up as an old lady sitting in a chair watching the world go by, or drooling on myself in a corner, I have to do something to make that not happen.  This is it.  

Join me, if you're able.  

*Safer than just stopping on the exercise.  You've got to ease your heart up and then ease it back down again.