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 46

Six more weeks left of 2025 and I'm okay with that.  This year has pretty much been a wash anyway.  

Still no writing.  Every morning, I tell myself that I am going to write today and then I go to bed that night without having written.  I did some marketing, though.  Huzzah, I guess.  I'm still marketing today.  For instance, UNEQUAL is free through the rest of today.  I'm not sure which book will be marketed tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

Very little reading was done.  Loads of TV watching, though.  Maybe I should do the 'hey, I watched this' instead of the 'hey, I read this' thing.  :shrug:  Anyway, if you're in the mood for a quirky family movie, try Papadopoulos and Sons.

Last Sunday, I made chocolate banana bread, which was a yummy quick bread.  Thursday, I made chocolate bread - a pretty good, if not chocolatey, yeasty bread.  I'm thinking about trying to make Irish soda bread this week. We'll see.

As for activity, I managed some work in the woods and some sweeping, plus a minor amount of gardening.  And I went grocery shopping.  Not really anything major or calorie burning, I guess. Weight: I don't want to know.  I feel fat.

The gardening for the week was taking the last of the tomato garden apart.  I snipped off the remainder of the above-ground parts and dumped the soil + roots into big pots so they can decompose over the winter and be ready for planting come spring.  Or soon, if I decide to overwinter potatoes.  I was reading up on that yesterday and it seems like a possibility.  We'll see.  I also read somewhere that you can overwinter carrots, but I'm not sure where I would get carrot seeds this time of year.  Potatoes can be gotten anywhere.  You just use a grocery store potato.  There's more to it than that, but I don't have all the ins and outs yet.  We'll see.

:pause for cat coughing:  Ugh, I hate that.  No barfing this time.  Sawyer must've just gotten a tickle (or a piece of fuzz) in his throat.  Ah, the joys of cat ownership.  Anyway...

Regular firearms deer hunting season started here yesterday.  I can hear shots this morning.  Keep your fingers crossed Sonny makes it through.  I have no problem with legal hunting, but I'd hate to see Sonny get killed.  He's such a nice buck and the herd needs his genes.

Okay, well, I'd better go locate some gumption and get something productive done.  At this point, I'll settle for anything.  Too bad it's too warm to go into the woods.  I need to throw logs.  

Have a great day!  And leave a comment so I know there are other human beings in the world.  ;o)

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

Well, there goes New York.  And Virginia.  =o(

I expect NYC will turn into the ghost town that Detroit has become, except the refugees won't be fleeing for better suburbs.  They'll be leaving for other states.  I've seen people wondering why people from shithole places move to nice places and want to change them.  That's WHY they're moving into the nice places... to change them into the shithole places they love.  

Here, there was one thing on the ballot - raise the property taxes in a nearby city so they can give it to the fire department.  It passed.  A little while back, they had the same kind of ballot item for my rural FD and it passed, too.  My FD used the money to erect a brand new, beautiful building... right next to the old building, which they then tore down.  There wasn't anything really wrong with the old building, it was just not new.  Whatever may have been wrong with it could've been fixed at a way lower cost and a dormitory could've been added on, again at a way lower cost.  But they didn't have to do that because they can just add to our property taxes instead of finding a way to be fiscally responsible.  That's the way government works these days, I guess.  Well, most people these days, I guess.  

I can't seem to muster the will to do anything these days.  Except maybe vegging out in front of the TV.  I think Bradbury warned about that.  Probably others, too.

I've made 3c so far this month.  Woot.

Finn's wandering around the house meowing.  I feel ya, little dude.

Yesterday, I did Wallyworld.  Everything is so damn expensive.  Freakin' half-dozen donuts is about $4.50.  Yeah, I bought 'em.  Cuz I needed donuts.  Custard filled with chocolate frosting.  Mmm.  I bought 'em with my own damn money, so yeah.

Yes, I am cranky, why do you ask?  I have active bitch fingers to go with my resting bitch face.

On a happier note, we're seeing bucks.  They're chasing the does and sometimes the fawns.  The other day, I happened to look out the window to see a doe run across the neighbor's yard.  Shortly after a fawn went by, trying to catch up.  Then a buck went by.  A few minutes later, another doe, then fawn, then... wait that's the same buck!  A few minutes later, the three of them went by in succession again.  They must've been running in a circle around the neighbor's house.  I got up to tell Hubs about it, so I don't know how long they continued the race.

Okay, it's time to call the mama.  Have as great a day as you can manage out there.  I'll do the same.  B'bye.

Thursday This n That

 I woke up tired.  I hate when that happens.

Mom has lived in her apartment since 2000 and they just now replaced the carpet that wasn't new when she moved in there.  

Sawyer's being a turd today.  He goes through cycles where he's just a naughty kitty.  Luckily, his naughty-kitty times are getting shorter and farther between.  But when they arrive, I'm tearing my hair out.  Ugh.  Finn, on the other hand, is pretty good all the time.  It's all about balance.

The rut is here.  We're seeing bucks chasing tail - literally.  There are three identifiably different bucks.  One of them is Sonny, who we've watched since he was a little-bitty fawn.  The other is slightly younger.  The other is slightly older.  

I love the Canadian sit-com Corner Gas.  It's a total hoot.

I'm terminally lazy right now.  Today, I really should vacuum and dust.  We'll see if that happens.  Yesterday, I said I was going to make bread and that didn't happen.  Make of that what you will.

We're starting to hear geese as they migrate through.  I love Fall.

It's cold enough this morning that I can actually go in the woods.  That may jump the queue of to-dos... because it's more fun than cleaning.

If a rooster lays an egg on the peak of a roof, which side does it roll down?*  (An old riddle that I was recently reminded of by an episode of Corner Gas.  I think Dad pulled this one on me when I was a  kid.)  

And on that note, I'll let you go.  Have a great day.  And I hope all your this-n-thats are fun.

*Riddle answer:  Roosters don't lay eggs. ;o)

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 41

Hey Everyone.  It's Sunday again and it was a pretty boring week, but I'm a pretty boring person, so thanks for being here anyway. ;o)

No writing again this week.  I'm falling farther and farther down the hole, and I'm not sure how to climb out.  No editing either.  I did do some marketing, so I've got that going for me.  I moved 27 copies of Project Hermes, which ain't great, but it's better than nothing.  I also sold a copy of Dying Embers and had someone read DE, too.  Unfortunately, I'm only averaging about $18 a month.  Not exactly a living wage, eh?  

I did do some reading.  I finished one book and made it partway through another.  Woot.

On the baking trail, I made banana muffins.  Yummers.

In the activity realm, I walked three times for a total of 2.75 miles.  I'm up to 62.4 miles for the year, which ain't bad.  I still would like to reach 100 miles for 2025, and it's possible, but not likely.  I'd have to up my game, hope for good weather for the remainder of the year, and find some actual gumption.  Gumption supplies are at an all time low right now, unfortunately.  Weight?  I would rather not say.

We watched a rather pointless movie yesterday.  Literally, it had no point.  And no plot.  It kept throwing hints and promises that there would be a plot, and then the movie was over.  It was called Northern Borders and it had Bruce Dern and Geneviève Bujold in it.  It was pretty new, so they were old.  I kept joking with Hubs that the reason Bruce Dern's character was so mean was because he spent his youth getting his ass kicked my John Wayne.  (We both laughed, but we're weird that way.)

The fawns have no spots, so other than being small deer, it's hard to tell they ARE fawns.  I haven't seen Lumpy lately.  I hope she found a lovely spot and passed away in her sleep.  Nature's a bitch.  So's getting old.  

I think that's it for me today.  Look for a marketing thing tomorrow.  Other than that, I'm not sure what I'll be doing this week. (Update: Dying Embers will be free this coming week and Rumor Has It will be free the week after.)  I'm over the jetlag, so it's not that dragging me down.  :shrug:

Have a great week, wherever you are.  :hugs:

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)

Thursday This n That

Ding dong the witch is dead... to me, at least.  Yesterday, I had the great honor of killing my account with Brightspeed.  Gah, they suck so bad.  Even the last phone contact with them sucked.  The first person I talked to 'Shannon', who was barely understandable as it was, hung up on me accidentally.  I called back and got 'Sergio'.  He was actually harder to understand, but he got the job done and confirmed my account was cancelled effective 7/9.  Then I asked about the 'final bill' and he said it was like $58+, and I was all like 'whoa whoa whoa, wait a second there'.  I explained how we haven't had phone service for WEEKS and that any bill they sent wasn't going to get paid - very nicely, of course - then I said 'please make that go away for me, Sergio' and he did.  $0 bill and the service is dead.  Long live 1-VoiP.  Of course, I don't trust Brightspeed, so I fully expect to see a bill that they will want me to pay, but I have Sergio's confirmation number and a willingness to call and go all screamin' chicken on them.

By the way, it's really nice to pick up the phone and hear a freakin' dial tone for a change.

I also killed DirectTV.  That dude was also hard to understand, but only because he had his mic too close to his mouth and he was speaking too fast.  He tried really hard to get me to stay.  He offered me a discount.  He offered me a giftcard, too.  I finally ended up telling him he couldn't give me any offer that would be less than FREE.  $0 bill there, too, but no refund (per their Terms of Service according to the dude).  I just still have service through the 18th.  (I already took all the stuff down and put it in the spare room, so nah.)  And since my equipment was so old, they didn't want it back.  Yay.

This new Blogger thing where they want to insert links into my blog posts because their AI told them I should is really irritating.  It keeps flashing a dialogue box at me that I have to dismiss.  If I want links in my posts, I'll put them there tyvm.

I found a new-to-me show on Roku - Yorkshire Vet.  It combines two of my loves - Dr. Pol and All Creatures Great and Small.  And I have access to all the episodes, so I can just sit down and watch one when I feel like it.  For free.  Woot!

The bird of the day is actually a two-fer... Rosy-faced Lovebirds.  I'm not a fan of parrots, per se, but these are okay.  Little cuties.  Aww.

It looks like Lumpy lost her fawn.  We hadn't seen it in a while, and a couple of days ago, I noticed that her milk bag is gone.  It wasn't too unexpected.  Lumpy's getting pretty old and that baby was really small - like premie looking.  Still a sad thing.  On a happier note, we have Sissy and her baby (which would be Lumpy's grandbaby) both doing well and we have another doe with twins who's been visiting.

One of my tomato plants has two flowers blooming! I helped the pollination of them along, so fingers crossed.  Most of the other tomato plants have buds, so they should be blooming soon.  Then we'll get some real pollination action going on.  Woot.

Okay, that's probably more than enough out of me.  Have a great day!

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 23

The first week of June went by... whoosh.  And today is already whoosh.  Of course, I got up late, so part of that can be excused.  The rest?  No Excuses.  I'm not really sure how much reading the minutiae of my life interests anyone else, but these posts help me, so there you are.

Anyway, there hasn't been much in the way of writing or editing lately.  Sorry about that, too.  As for marketing... Well... FB, in its infinite wisdom, decided to limit the amount of posts I can do in a row.  I can get 5 out before it tells me that in order to avoid 'spam', it won't let me post anymore for a while.  Not clue as to what amount of time that is.  An hour later, I might be able to get another post or two out, but not always.  The next day I can rinse and repeat with the same or worse outcomes.  Still, I managed to get posts to most of the groups I belong to and Friday, Project Hermes took off - moving 121 that day alone.  Still, with the other drab days added in, I gave away 161 books.  I'll try again tomorrow with Wish Hits the Fan.

Reading went okay, I guess.  I DNF'd more that I would've liked.  See yesterday, but also stay tuned for next Saturday's Wrap Up.

I made oatmeal raisin cookies this week.  Woot.  They turned out a little dry this time around, which sucks and is weird because it's the same damn recipe I've been using since I was a kid.  I also did a round of pulled pork.  Yummers.  I might make pizza today.  Or Cuban sandwiches.

On the activity front, I did three walks for a total of 2.7 miles (27.6 miles for the year so far).  I also moved some plastic tubs around and went grocery shopping.  (And if you don't think shopping is exercise, you're not doing it right.  Or I'm doing it wrong.)  Weight: 173.8

The deer are all getting un-pregnant, although we've only seen babies with Sissy and Lumpy so far.  They'll come around eventually.

I think a couple of my tomato plants might have buds.  Other than that, they're growing big.  Nice plants, but make with the fruiting already. Sheesh.  One of the pepper seeds I planted has germinated and is about an inch tall.  I think it has a friend that is trying to peek through.  Two plants producing green peppers would work for me.  The trees are doing well.  I lost one dogwood to what I assume was a squirrel digging in my pots on the deck.  It also got a cedar tree.  It dug in my walnut and my hickory, but those are fine.  Stupid squirrel.  I have weeding I need to get to this week, which I should've started doing last week.  I'm blaming the rain.

Speaking of rain, we've gotten about 2.5 inches in the past 7 days, with more on the way this week.  Enough already.  Sheesh.

And that's about it for me for now.  I'm sure there's more, but I'm about done sitting at the computer for this morning.  Time to start the day whether I want to or not.  Have a great day!  And feel free to tell me all the minutiae of your week.  =o)

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?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 18

 Sorry... I overslept.  Now that we're here, though, let's jump right into the weekly update.

I didn't write or edit anything.  Big surprise there, eh?  I did do some marketing for UWC and moved 117 copies of that and a few copies of WIOH.  Not sure what I'll be marketing this week.

I did some reading.  See yesterday's post.

No baking either.  Wait, I take that back.  I made pizza on Sunday.  It was my best pizza yet, so I'm not sure how I could've forgotten it, however briefly.  I'm trying to cut back on baked goods, though, so don't expect to see much about baking for a while.

On the activity front, I've been pretty busy.  I did some cleaning, took a couple walks (for a total of 1.6 miles), reorganized my desk area, got groceries, and did some yard work.  Weight: 173.6

The yard's starting to get back to looking like I give a shit about it.  Things are growing where I want them to grow and things are ceasing to grow where I don't want them.  I spent a chunk of yesterday pulling weeds and making things tidy.  Hubs is helping by mowing the lawn.  It looks nice, if I do say so myself.  

My baby trees are doing well.  Fingers crossed.

Hubs just told me the phone's out again.  It was out last week for a day or so, too.  This is an ongoing battle and I'm this close > < to telling Brightspeed to pound sand and just use my cellphone from here on out.  But I hate talking on my cell phone.  My hand falls asleep and I drop the phone, plus the reception sucks and Mom has a tough time hearing me.  On the upside, every time I call BS, I tell them to take days off my bill.  Pretty soon, they'll owe me.  :snort:

The deer are getting fat pregnant.  Soon, we'll have fawns.  Lumpy is chugging along, but her lump must've burst at some point and she's got nasty stuff hanging off her jaw.  Poor dear.  I don't have great hopes for her or her unborn baby this year.  =o(

I can't think of anything else that happened this week... not anything worth mentioning, anyway... so I'll let you go on about your life.  Have a great day!

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 11/24/24

Here we are again at another Sunday Update.  It's getting pretty close to the end of the year and next year I'll be doing week numbers instead of dates on these posts again.  

Okay, so I did 5 days worth of editing this week which amounted to 30 pages of the book - and puts me at page 82 or 46%.  Like I said, this is not a quick process.  I'd hoped to have this round of edits done by the end of November, but that was before I discovered I'd written in the wrong POV, so it's taking way longer than anticipated.  The good news is that the book is really coming together, so yay.

I didn't do any marketing this week.  And I didn't get any sales either.  I'll probably put something together starting tomorrow and see what happens.  

Man, I read a whole lot this past week.  See yesterday's post.  I also downloaded 8 new-to-me ebooks yesterday, so I'll have tons to read before the end of the year.  Yay.

In baking news, I made another batch of Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Yum.  And I did French Bread pizza last night.  Also yum.  

On the activity front, I kinda fell down.  My excuse is that I had some sort of throat funk going on, which made doing anything problematic.  I spent most of the past week sitting around, drinking tea with honey, and resting.  The good news is the funk is just about done with.  The upside to having a throat funk is I didn't eat as much as usual, so the weight came down a little.  Weight: 173.6  I plan to get back to doing active stuff starting today.

It's deer hunting season here.  Fingers crossed Sonny makes it through the season.  He really is a beautiful buck and would make someone a lovely trophy (and a lot of meals), so I hope he was smart enough to stick close to home.  Ideally, he should stay on out property, but he doesn't.  Silly deer.

I think that's about it.  It's pretty boring around here.  Sorry I'm not more interesting.

How was your week?  

Thursday This n That

I'm starting to feel better about life in general, so that's a step in the right direction.  I saw where some person was saying they were terrified and that's kinda sad.  Personally, the thought of another 4 years of the march toward communism scared the shit out of me, so I'm not sure what's scaring them.  The thought of having to take responsibility for themselves and their own lives when the nanny state gets taken away?  :shrug:  

And I'm ready to stop talking about all this.  I want life to return to normal.  I'd like the opportunity go get groceries and not have to choose whether I want meat this time or toilet paper because I can't afford both.  I realize that this probably won't turn around on a dime, but it would be nice to have it sooner rather than later.

The deluge here finally ended.  We got around six and a half inches of rain so far this month.  The lake level jumped up about 5 feet in 24 hours.  The river near here was flowing at 75 cubic feet per second before the rain and jumped to 25000 cubic feet per second and then jumped again to 48000 cfps.  I haven't driven out or walked down to see it yet, and it's starting to come down, so I won't see it at its worst, but gah.  Hubs just showed me a photo someone had taken of the river.  It's full of crap.  This totally harshes my chances at fishing.  Blerg.

The cats let us sleep all night last night.  Progress.  Yay.

I'm reading a Zane Grey right now.  It's interesting.  So far, not my favorite of his, but it's okay.

The bucks are back.  Right now, they're chasing tail all over the woods.  Horny bastards.

I've really been a toad these past couple weeks.  I need to cut that shit out.  It doesn't do my body any good.  It doesn't do my brain any good either.  And let's not even talk about my attitude.  That's in the crapper.  I said I was going to edit every day this month and so far, I did it once.  Yeah, not the most banner of times.  I'd like to say that ends today, but I can't promise anything.

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

Sunday Update 9/29/24

My life is pretty boring right now.  I'm not writing.  I'm not reading.  I'm barely editing.  

With regard to editing, I'm up to 29% of the book with edit notes.  I'm getting about a page of notes with every 2-3% of the book.  This is what comes of a dirty draft, but there's no other way I'd rather write, so there ya go.

In marketing news, I did the whole FB Group thing for my freebie offering of Blink of an I.  I moved 78 free copies.  I'm also getting some page reads for Blink, which means money in my pocket.  Not a lot, but it's better than a sharp stick in the ass, so yay.  I also have someone reading Wish in One Hand, which I assume is leftover from my marketing push for that last month.

I made a chocolate oil cake yesterday.  After I took it out of the oven, I slathered it with warm raspberry jam.  Once it cooled, I frosted it with vanilla buttercream.  It wasn't amazing, but it was pretty damn good.  Next time, I'll use more jam.  

My activity level is not where it needs to be.  I know how to fix that, but I am stuck in the lazies.  Anyway, I did a little raking in the driveway after a sploosher washed a bunch of pea gravel into the yard.  I also spent time working with Hubs to saw up the logs the electric company left.  We spent about 3 hours total on that over 2 days.  And we took one walk.  I'm up to about 49 miles walked for the year.  Weight: 172.6

Speaking of the logs, two guys with the electric company came by on a UTV and asked us if we needed help.  We assented.  It took one of them less than 5 minutes to completely saw that elm trunk into firewood.  He had a chainsaw, of course.  We'll still need to split it once it seasons, but those guys really took a lot of the work out of the task.  Yay.  We thanked them profusely and then threw all the logs into the wheelbarrow and transported them under the house for drying.

With the fall migration underway, we're seeing a lot of birds we don't usually see.  I can't remember the names of the exact species, but it was a couple of warblers new to me.  We're also hearing more geese.  I love migration time.  

The deer here are starting to separate for the rut.  They were also absent from the yard because of the tree cutting activity, but this is typical fall activity.  The fawns are now spotless.  =o(

Okay, I think that's it for me.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about what's going on in your world.  

Sunday Update 9/15/24

 It's Sunday and I'm actually awake before 6.  Winner winner.  

This week in writing was fairly uneventful.  I only wrote once for a total of 1539 words.  This is what falling off the writing horse looks like.  Derp.  I only edited a couple of days, too.  I'm up to 16% on my edit notes.  I need a good ass kicking and I'm just the gal to do it. :shrug:  We'll see.  I'll need a lot more coffee before I can accomplish anything more than talk.

I didn't do much in the way of marketing until yesterday.  Natural Causes is free right now, so I did posts in all the FB groups.  I moved 41 copies so far.  I need to wait until after 7am to do another round because I did not get up any earlier than that yesterday.  Which kind of has a wave effect making every day's posts a little later until I just end up doing one night post and missing a day.  With the marketing I've been doing since June, I've made about double what I made from January to May.  So I've got that goin' for me.

No reading.

I don't think I talked about baking last week, but I've been doing a lot of it.  Week before last, I made applesauce bars (meh), and breaded pork chops (yum), chocolate cookies (yay), and pizza (woohoo).  This past week, I made applesauce bread (yum) and oatmeal jam bars (yum).

Activity... Well, I did the window washing thing.  That was a lot of work and I paid for it.  I also walked three times for a total of 3.2 miles.  Weight... blerg.  You cannot lose weight, even if you're walking a lot, if you're also baking a lot.  Suffice it to say, I'm up almost three pounds.  :eyeroll:  I'm not really at a point where I'm really giving a hoot about how much I weigh, but if I keep adding poundage, I'll reach that point extra quick.  I gain weight and my legs start hurting and my back starts being a turd and my frontal area expansion gets problematic.  Best to worry about the weight now than face the consequences later.

Oh, oh, oh... one thing I did was something I've been procrastinating about for months.  I loaded my graphics software onto this computer.  I was so afraid of it not working with Windows 10, I didn't even try.  Long story short, it works fine.  I mean, as fine as it did through the last couple of operating system upgrades.  Which is fine enough for what I need.  So, yay.  I can start making graphics and book covers again.  Woohoo. 

Oh, another happy thing... I had somebody actually buy a paperback copy of Project Hermes.  Well, she asked for a copy of BloodFlow because she was looking at old marketing materials and I took one to her because I don't have any paperbacks of Project Hermes on hand right now.  It all worked out.  She was happy to get it and I was happy to get it to her.  I really need to create new marketing materials - which I can do now that I have the software loaded.  Squee.  

Another thing of note, we have a young armadillo hanging around the yard.  I have name him Aloysius. Aloysius Q. Armadillo.  He's all new looking.  Fresh off the factory floor, so to speak.  And so cute.  I hope he stays out of the road.  Around here, I see a lot of armadillos creamed alongside the road, so fingers crossed little Al doesn't meet the same fate.

The fawns are getting big.  The does are getting impatient.  The bucks are losing their velvet and starting to spar.  The rut is fast approaching.  Which leads to hunting season.  As always, I hope none of our deer regulars get harvested.  The herd needs to get culled, but I'd miss Sissy and Sonny and Lumpy.  

I think that's about all I have to talk about this morning.  Besides, I need another smoke and more coffee so I can greet the day with more than a sneer.  

How are things in your world?

Sunday Update 9/8/24

 Good Morning.  I'm not quite awake yet, but here goes...

I got a wild idea and starting writing another book this week.  I'm 3729 words in.  The original idea was that this would be the third Duke Noble book, but I'm starting to think this would be better as the second Duke Noble, which would then shift the book I just finished writing, and am now editing, to #3.  We'll see.  

Also, I've been working a little on phase one of the edits for TTW (Duke #2... err 3).  I haven't gotten very far - only at 4% - but I'm working on it.  I think I already have like 3 pages of notes.  

I tried to do some marketing this week because SSS was on sale, but that was :sad trombone:, so I stopped.  I did sell a copy of it to someone in the UK, so not a total waste.  Also, I gave a gal at the bank one of my bookmarks and she wants a copy of BloodFlow (yeah, it's Project Hermes now, but the bookmark was old and that's the only copy I have on hand right now, so it works).  I'll get that to her later this week.  I really need to make some new marketing materials.  Blerg.

Reading...  We-ell... I did finish one book last Saturday, but I forgot to do a wrap-up yesterday, so I'll throw it on next week's.  I don't expect that to be very exciting, though, because I'm currently using my Kindle to edit and I haven't picked out a hardcopy to read while I'm writing and editing.  Derp.

On the activity front, I started out the week pretty good.  I got in three walks for almost three and a half miles.  Then I got sluggish and meh.  No walkies for the past three days, unless you count walking around the Wallyworld.  We won't talk about weight.  K?

Friday, on my way to do the shopping, I stopped in at the old office because I saw the truck for the one guy I never got to hug goodbye.  I got me some hugs from him and from my faux little brother.  Yay.  I do miss my guys.  And some of the customers.  Anyway, I chatted with people and stuff, which was nice.  And I finally remembered to take my big, metal, outdoor ashtray with me. Yay.

The deer are starting to turn gray.  The fawns are getting big and them what are boys are starting to get their antler nubs.  Lumpy's fawn is a buck.  He's the biggest fawn of them all.  Big boy.  Wuff.

Okay, that's about all the news that's fit to print here.  How are things in your world?

Thursday This n That

I'm having a tough time remembering what day it is anymore.  Yay... I guess.  I mean, it sorta means I'm forgetting the day job, which is good, right?  Unfortunately, I did dream about the job yesterday, so I'm not entirely out of it yet.

The other day we heard this strange thumping noise outside and went to see what it was.  A doe was kicking the crap out of one of the water pans.  She looked pissed, but I think she was just having a gay old time.  Silly deer.

Out for a walk, I stumbled across a new-to-me snake.  It was an eastern hognose snake.  It flattened itself out and rose up like a cobra, but it's totally harmless.  Ooo, big mean snake... I'd better stay away. LOL  I left it alone and went on my merry way.  

My sale is going bust.  I haven't really been marketing it much, though, so partly my fault.  But when I go through the trouble of marketing on the first day and I get no hits whatsoever, it's kinda hard to keep going.  I need some kind of positive reinforcement.  One sale?  Maybe?  Throw me a bone. LOL  I'll do something different next week.  Maybe make Natural Causes free and see if it encourages anyone to buy Accidental Death.  We'll see.

Okay, so I was watching a true-crime show on Monday that gave me an idea for my next Duke Noble, so I've been hitting that hard.   It's at 3323 words as of last night.  It's turning into a SepNoWriMo.  I'm going to write every day this month, too.  Yay.  I've also sent Duke #2 to my Kindle and I'm working on editing that during the day.  Not a lot of progress to report there yet, but yay.  I'm back baby.  

Lumpy's new fawn - Speedy - is a buck.  He's got little nubs that are just starting to show.  Aww.  He's also the biggest fawn we have out there right now.  He's gonna be amazing.  Her last buck fawn - Sonny - is a big ol' buck now and he's only 3.  I hope he survives hunting season.

Yesterday, Hubs and I went to town and left the Boyz running free in the house.  We got home to find our coatrack knocked over.  Naughty kitties.  They were both hiding under the bed - whether because the metal coatrack scared them or because they heard us and thought they were going to get a scolding, I don't know.  The coatrack is now in the spare room where they can't mess with it.  Thankfully, no kitties were injured.  That thing is heavy and could've easily broken a kitty when it fell over.

Okay, I think I've about random-ed myself out.  Have a great day out there, folks, and feel free to leave a comment, if the mood strikes ya.  

Sunday Update 6/30/24

Yay, I remembered to do this on a Sunday for a change!  :muppetflail: You have to celebrate the little successes, doncha know.

Not much to talk about in the writing sphere.  I wrote two days out of seven for 1866 words.  Tomorrow, Ju-Lo-Wri-Mo starts, so I better get over that shit in a hurry and set my ass down here to work every day.  Again, Ju-Lo-Wri-Mo is about 'no expectations' other than to write every day.  I had said something about no editing, but as Silver (who's also participating) pointed out, she's editing, too.  Like I said, no expectations.  This month is to do whatever you want to do as long as you're writing every day.  My problem is I sometimes use editing to avoid writing, so no editing for me.  Basically, Silver and I are using this month to get back into writing since we've both been on our own hiatuses for long enough that it's hard to find the groove again.  If you need this, too, join in.  It doesn't matter what you write.  It doesn't matter how many words you put down.  It doesn't matter if you get to the end of anything in the next 31 days.  Personally, I'm planning on working on the next Duke Noble for those days.  If I get stuck, though, I'll happily jump over to any of the other unfinished books I have.  Or I'll hit something totally new.  

In reading, I finished an ebook and I'm almost finished with the 866 page omnibus of Hercule Poirot stories.  I also picked up 12 new hardcopy books yesterday and a book I ordered from Amazon arrived in the mail.  So yay.  

Not much baking this week, other than I made a pan of chicken enchiladas.  We ate them for dinner one night and I have enough leftovers for two more hearty meals and one lunch.  Today, I'm planning on making apple crisp.  

On the weight/activity front, I did 4 days out of 7.  Weight: 170.4.  Yeah, I'm gaining since I stopped work.  I expected this to happen, so I'm not berating myself for it.  I need to get back to eating smaller portions and increasing my activity.  To that end, I'm going to try to start walking in the mornings.  (It's too damn hot to walk any other time of day.)  I also still have a lot of garden work to do which can also only be done in the mornings.  We'll see.  

The fawns are here.  They're all so tiny and cute.  We've seen like 3 single fawns, but yesterday, I actually saw a verified set of twins, so yay.

I'm still not fishing.  It's too damn hot to fish.  And, like I said, I'm busy with other stuff first thing in the morning which is the most likely time for fish to be biting this time of year.  Oh, well.  There'll be plenty of time to fish this Fall.

My gardens are pathetic right now.  Aside from the neglect they've suffered, we had a hard rain the other morning that knocked my new tomato plants over.  I need to cage those suckers, but that's a task for another day.  The coneflowers I bought look tragic.  They may be at the end of their growing season, which is part of it.  The other part is the deer have discovered them and have gotten over their fear of NEW THING, and they're munching on the plants now.  Derp.

Well, I think that's it for me today.  If I missed anything that you have a burning desire to get on update on, let me know.  Have a great day!  And feel free to leave a comment letting me know how your week went.