Auld Lang Syne

Turn Does The Year
By Stephen B. Bagley

the old year turns
either onto a new path
or onto the same
with only minor changes

we raise a cup or not
as it may be hoping it will
even as we realize
it might not be as hoped

in this heartbeat
between then and now
and what comes after
drink deep the bittersweet

we are promised nothing
but we plan and plan
and if the fates be kind
some plans will bloom

we cannot make promises
we might not keep
even though we will try
and cry and laugh and run

dance with me or
love with me maybe
pray with me perhaps
kiss sweet lips now

think of what we leave
behind walk toward what
is before us hold my hand
as the old year turns new

Happy New Year!

Here's to 2015 being profitable! :-)

Endings and Beginnings

I like the end of year/beginning of year time.  Looking back over what I hoped to accomplish this year, I'm reasonably pleased.  Here's what the plan was (and how it turned out):

Relationships: I'll continue to work on spouse, family, and friends. I'm going to focus on quality time with Mr. L  and calling my parents at least once a month. I want to be a good friend, and that varies with each friend. (I did talk to my parents at least once a month this year. The others are tougher to assess.)

For health, weight, fitness, and diet... I think weighing daily isn't working either, so I'm going to go for twice a month on the first and 15th.  I want to get my fasting glucose level below 100 and normal levels on cholesterol and blood pressure ... I think I'm going to choose Mindful Eating -- as I understand it, that's getting things right in your head, and that's where my eating problems lie. (The Mindful Eating Diet worked well for me for, you guessed it, the usual three months.  I am still less than what I started the year at by seven pounds, mostly due to closing out the year with the flu.  My blood and blood pressure numbers are all pretty much the same. My doctor was not unhappy, so I'll keep looking for ways to work on that. Since I got the Withings scale, I weigh daily.)

For home and property, there are things to maintain and things to improve. Obviously, yard work is a focus.  There are several things at each property I'd like to see us get done, but most of them will require Mr. L to make it a priority, and he doesn't like to be pushed -- he has a timeline in his mind, and it shifts as new priorities emerge, so even if he tells me, it changes from one day to the next, so I'm better off letting him "drive the bus" for those things. I control yard work, housework, and decluttering of my things.  I'm developing measurable goals for those items. (I stayed on top of yard work, and Mr. L got an awesome amount of work done in Central Texas this year.  Utterly failed at decluttering for another year.)

For Writing, I'm going to continue incorporating Product Launch Formula principles into marketing my writing, writing more short fiction, revising my novels, and building my Fiction Club list.  I plan to continue the same blogging schedule.  I'm preparing short fiction for A-Z Challenge in April.  I still need to finish revising Polar Bear on the Loose, and I have several novels to work on after I finish that. (Blackbirds First Flight was an unexpected pleasure.  I did finish revising Polar Bear on the Loose, but she needs another go around to be ready for prime time. I've decided Twilight, temporarily named Geeks, will be the next up for revision.  Blogging went according to schedule.  Fiction Club list hasn't grown much beyond the initial growth garnered from Stephen's awesome encouragement of his tribe, but I pick up a new subscriber every now and then. Having graduated from the first year of PLF, I'm part of Holly's MasterMind group, and they are a fascinating group to work with.)

So, I'm generally pleased with 2014. What's on tap for 2015?

I completed Michael Hyatt's Best Year Ever workshop.  I believe it helped me in a couple of areas (but at this point, unless renewing is a LOT cheaper than the initial cost, I see no reason to renew next year).  I have more specific goals, which was something I wanted to learn.  They could probably still be better, and I may learn to improve them further.  Here goes:

    1.    HEALTH. Lose 28 pounds by December 31, 2015, and reduce average heart rate ten points to 71 (on Withings scale). This breaks down to 2.3 pounds per month and less than one beat per minute on heart rate.  I need to improve my cardio health.  That's why the heart rate goal has been added.
    2.    WRITING. Publish Polar Bear on the Loose by August 4, 2015.
    3.    WRITING. Revise Geeks using HTRYN, averaging one lesson per month.
    4.    PROPERTY. Declutter one room or area of my stuff per month. If it doesn't have a home, box it and remove it from the house, sell it, or give it away. (Inventory glass and decide what to sell, dining room, under back stairs and downstairs bathroom, parlor, kitchen, bedroom an small closet, my closet, blue room, den, living room, store, and garage)
    5.    SPIRITUAL. Pray and meditate for 20 minutes daily.
    6.    INTERNET RESPONSIBILITIES. Successfully migrate FM to Joomla! 3.
    7.    RELATIONSHIP. Be present when I'm with Alan. (I'm not objecting to this one, but it's not measurable, and I'm not happy with it.)
    8.    FINANCIAL. Save $XXXX by October 1, 2015, to be able to pay property taxes in full with we get the bills. (This is a key to getting my finances back on track.)

The key to achieving these goals is the "next actions" tracking I've programmed into Things.  I've not done that before.

I wish you all a prosperous and joyous New Year.

Getting my act together

I'm home alone this week. Little Miss is at her dad's until we pick her up Thursday, Laura is in Des Moines hanging w/ friends too. Bill's working overtime every day... So it's me and the pets rattling around in the house alone.

It's good. I need to straighten some things out in my head and life.

I bought a FitBit yesterday (A One, which is currently clipped to my bra) and I wore it last night on my wrist while sleeping. It says I woke 16 times.

I am a terrible sleeper, always have been, partly due to nightmares (I have to have a light on or I cannot sleep at all) partly due to sinusy issues. It's always a struggle, but at least now I can see and track it, maybe make some modifications. I bought a new calendar and am going to keep a regular to-do list on it, as well as make some general notes about my day. Hopefully it'll help.

I cancelled my Weight Watchers membership over the weekend. My head isn't in the game there - hasn't been for more than a year - and I cannot justify continuing to pay $42.95 a month just to sit in a weekly meeting that I'm not taking anything away from. I have discussed this with my therapist, my physician, even saw a nutritionist/dietician a couple of weeks ago. My problem isn't my diet - it's actually pretty good - it's my brain. But it's always been my brain. My doc wants me to up exercise. That's her only modification, along with the dietician's suggestion to also add soy. I've started to do both of those things (the fitbit should help w/ exercise). My therapist is focusing on some of my self-hatred issues. Whee.

Writing is, well, writing. I get words sometimes. Most days I don't. I feel like I'm spitting into the wind with this book. I can see the whole thing in my head, but can only access random slivers. SPORE's cover blurbs are starting to come in and they're incredible. I hope it does well, but it terrifies me. I'm trying to devise ways to get back into the daily groove, but it's not going well. I need to get another book done. Soon. Sigh.

I have decided we (I) have TOO MUCH STUFF and I'm starting a clear out and purge. Bill wants to put everything in totes in the basement, but they sit down there and sit and sit and sit and the stuff gets forgotten and remains unused... I think I'm just gonna toss/sell/donate as much as I reasonably can. There's just too much clutter!

Anyway, that's about it for me. {{hugs}} and have a fantabulous 2015

Made it

I got through Christmas Day fine with Eric. In fact, it was kind of nice to sit and watch movies together. The only downside was we sat around doing nothing so long I had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

The trip downstate was nice. Sort of. After living here for a year, Mascoutah seems bleak and depressing. We got to see some friends during our short time there, which was a lot of fun. I'm more glad than ever the job there fell through. We've started a game plan to sell the house, and the kids were all for it, which tells me it really is time to move on. We'll be back down in the area from time to time for Games and to visit Vicky, so we'll get to see friends, but the house isn't home anymore. It needs to be passed along to a nice family who can take advantage of the quiet area and good schools. Our target date to put it on the market is mid-April, which means I'll be making a couple trips down there to get the place spruced up, things moved to storage or sold, and small repairs done.

That's about it for now. I've got some loose ends to tie up but nothing earth shaking on the calendar for this week. I suppose if I'm going to set some goals for the new year I'd better get on that.

Contributing to the heat death of the universe

Was watching a show on the Discovery Science Channel -- can't tell you which one because I didn't pay attention -- but the scientist on it talked about how every living thing contributes to entropy, how being alive is a constant journey toward disorder and how using the energy we do is an infinitely small contributor to the eventual heat death of the universe. Yeah, happy stuff. I think I switched over to watch a movie at that point. Probably Guardians of the Galaxy, which I enjoyed greatly.

Later, over a hot cup of chai latte, I began to think about what the scientist said. We do contribute to disorder by being alive. We have our own personal carbon footprint. Energy is used by our gadgets, cars, machines, buildings ... we build a debt up by simply being alive. It's mostly a factor of our current technology; four thousand years ago, we lived short lives. Our impact was less; we simply didn't survive long enough to have much of a footprint.

We can reduce our carbon footprint by doing easy things: Take public transportation when available, don't use plastic when we can avoid it, use recyclable plastic when we can, use more glass and paper containers, change the air filters in our heaters and air conditioners, take our own bags to the store, weatherstrip our houses and buildings, and so on. I'm sure you can think of several things that are fairly easy to do. Naturally, we won't see much of a impact, particularly if no one else does any of these items. But in a huge group, it's amazing how much energy we can save.

But will anyone do them? Some of them are not particularly convenient. Some of them take more time. And in the short run, more money. I do carry my own canvas bags to use; they're cheap and sturdy. We do change the air filters. Our house has energy efficient windows. We don't have access to public transportation here. We probably keep our thermostat too high in the winter and too low in the summer. And so on. It's hard to work up enthusiasm about results when they're dependent on so many people.

Not much point to this. Just where my mind has been wandering. Next week, I'll be talking about my plans for 2015. This week, a couple of visits to the doctor. Actually, doctors. House cleaning. Chores. Planning.

Have a great week and a Happy New Year!

Sick

Mr. L came down with the crud (fever, cough, achey body) on Tuesday, and I bore the brunt of it yesterday. We haven't made Christmas dinner yet. Mr. L feels up to making it today but not up to eating it. We'll get around to it eventually. For now, we're taking it easy. I have the "I've slept too much" headache, but it's all I can do.

I got the lawn mowed and leaves bagged before I got too sick to move. The Spanish Oak is still dropping leaves. I guess that's about it for this week.

Glad that's over

Made it through the holiday with only one blowup. Yay. Maybe some year there will be none. I'm planning on taking down my few decorations tomorrow and it'll be done.

{{hugs}}

Slight movement

We've had a bit of news. The job downstate fell through. As usually happens when dealing with the government, they chose to go with less qualified people they could pay less. It will cost them more in the long run, probably, by the time they get the newbies certified with the certifications Eric already has, but that doesn't fall into the scope of initial funding apparently. I'm relieved, really. Contracting is bad enough without the government involved. So. Not moving home with the daughter. We won't hear anything on the Milwaukee job for a couple weeks, but we're kinda holding out hope for that one. It's a permanent position, and it would get us out of IL, which we've wanted for quite a while.

We've decided what we're doing for Christmas. It will be a Marvel-ous movie fest. We'll start with the Avengers and work forward from there. Thank goodness for Marvel or Eric and I would rarely agree on a movie. We'll also pack up to leave Friday morning. We have some fun things on the schedule for the weekend, including dinner with our neighbors and brunch with Scottish friends.

One other thing--acupuncture rocks. I didn't realize how much tension I was carrying with me until after my first session (here) last week. I can take a full breath now, and I didn't realize I couldn't before.

I hope you all have a lovely, relaxing Christmas.

Come Next Monday

I really will be in San Antonio.  Mr. L asked me to hang around a few extra days while he finished the newsletter, so we're leaving Sunday instead of Friday.

I'm practicing implementing the results of my Best Year Ever work.  I set me weekly review for Friday evening in preparation for putting this post together. I used my areas of focus here to shape my goals. I have eight: Health, writing (2), property, relationship, spiritual, internet responsibility, an financial. They are specific Not sure if I'll share them here or not.  I can easily share the writing goals. Publish Polar Bear on the Loose on or before August 4, 2015 and revise Twilight (including finding it a new name) using How To Revise Your Novel with a goal of completing one lesson a month (there are 22 lessons in the course, so this goal will extend beyond 2015).

I've scheduled projects, check points, and recurring tasks into Things and I'm working those -- revising as needed to be ready for the new year, but I think I have things set the way I want them.  While I thought the course was a little more expensive than I would have liked, and I generally knew everything it presented, it was organized into a nice framework. The forums even helped me figure out one of my goals wasn't really the goal (although I didn't tell them that -- I thanked them for their input and said it was helpful, because it was).

I've mentioned elsewhere that my doctor recommended I see orthopedics about my knee.  He thinks it may be time for a total knee replacement.  The steroid injection he gave me yesterday already has the knee feeling and working better. I've set up an appointment at the VA to ask for a referral to orthopedics to begin the process.  If I'm not comfortable with them, I'll return to my doctor and work through the clinic.  Beside confidence in the staff, the only other difference is cost to me.  Via the VA, there will be no cost to me.  Via my clinic, I could incur up to $3000 in costs (TRICARE's catastrophic cap).  Confidence in the team is the more important thing to me.  If I'm not comfortable with the VA team, I'll investigate my primary care team. I expect I'll be comfortable with the VA team, but I won't know until I get in to see them.

Our local high school football team won the state championship for the third year in a row.

The Air is set up to fill in the gap while the MacBook Pro is in for repairs.  I appear to still be procrastinating on the A-Z files, but I did get preparatory work done for Polar Bear on the Loose and Twilight next steps.

The Week Ahead:

• Yard work in San Antonio
• I have some classwork to do for PLF
• I have three writing projects (PBOTL, Twilight, and A-Z reconfiguration) -- I need to make regular progress on all three.
• Get the MacBook Pro in for the memory repair.

Merry Christmas, everyone. It'll be a quiet day at our place. 

Blind Love

The Polar Bear on the Loose type-in is complete.  This journey began eleven years ago, and it's not done yet, but I'm getting closer.  Inuit is out among her beta readers, and I know some work remains to be done -- quite a bit, actually, but your feedback will help me decide the direction of that.

Here's what I worked on this week:

• Website work for me.  I'm building a mailing list, series of messages, the web page, and landing page for Polar Bear on the Loose.  It's too early yet, but I'm building things to be ready when the time comes.  
• I revamped Inuit's blog, replacing my theme template with my purchased Weaver Pro theme, then I customized it for Inuit's new look.
• I saw some things that initially concerned me on the back end (but I eventually figured out what they were).  Still, I didn't want anyone hijacking my site, so I installed the WordFence security plug-in.  Using the real time feature on that, I saw where a site in Italy had been hitting my login page and trying to login as admin.  I know conventional wisdom is to not use "admin" or "administrator" for you admin login, but I hadn't made that change.  I will be changing the login name on all my blogs over the next few weeks.
• Most Christmas cards and packages got into the mail this week.
• Deer feeder and camera are set up on the ranch for the final deer census of the year.
• Blood draw and prescriptions are picked up
• Haircut done
• I've been trying Wendy's tumeric recipe.  It's not hurting, but I'm not seeing dramatic results yet.
• I signed up for the Best Year Ever (BYE) planning workshop.  (Wendy knows what I'm talking about) It's pretty good, but I'm not learning anything earth shattering (not yet, anyway -- I'm only on Day 3).  I am doing the self-paced version of the course.  The VIP version didn't offer anything I was interested in.  It's too early to judge, though.
• No visit from older daughter.  Her husband got time off work, but she had to work her part-time job.

I'm feeling like a have an overwhelming amount of work to do.   I didn't get the big things done from the list from last week.  In fact, I added to that list.

The Week Ahead:

• Semi-annual doctor appointment on Thursday (ask about knee, which is locking and sending what feels like an uncomfortable electric shock every time I "unlock" it)
• Get email working on the Air
• Ensure apps are up-to-date on the Air
• Do Time Machine and SuperDuper! backups of the MacBookPro on Thursday evening
• Finish BYE workshop
• Watch our local football team compete for their three-peat championship on TV on Thursday evening
• Outline a brief background book about Inuit and her creation to give away in exchange for signing up to the New Release email list. (Book to be written while we're in San Antonio)
• Have everything ready for the A-Z books to do some work on them.
• Once I get to San Antonio, drop the MacBookPro at the Apple store to get it sent off for repair (Christmas week is probably the worst week ever to try to do this)
• Get final packages and cards in the mail

Somewhat better

I've got Christmas cards done, gifts for all the parents bought and almost ready to mail. Eric and the kids are almost done, too, but I have more time to work on them since I don't have to mail anything. I've been listening to Christmas music more, and that's helped. Our travel plans have finally fallen into place, and that's helped, too. While I won't see the kids on Christmas, we will see them the next day. I'm the only one distressed about it. :-/

There are some other things related to Eric's job that I can't get into now that are a source of stress. When we were moving here I dreamed occasionally about being lost in the airport. Those dreams are back. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what they likely mean. I'm trying to make it a point to eat well, get some movement, do something quiet and relaxing, and keep lines of communication with Eric wide open, and it's helping me to not freak out. Hopefully the other shoe will drop this week. Until they do, the primary coping mechanism will be distraction and the secondary will be showing myself kindness and grace.

I hope y'all are well and celebrating (or not) in your favorite way.

Turning point?

Life is getting back to normal here. I'm more functional than I was last week--getting housework done, Christmas shopping started, holiday plans firmed up. I helped decorate the sanctuary at church on Saturday and that was fun. I got my decorating fix since I'm not decorating at home this year. All my decorations are downstate, and I don't have room for a full sized tree. I just can't bring myself to get a bunch of stuff I'm going to have to store the rest of the year when storage space is at a premium, and frankly, I'm not in full-blown Christmas mode this year. I'm treasuring the small moments when they come, but I can't be bothered to sustain it minute to minute. I bought a little (2' maybe) tree made of silver Christmas balls and a wreath for the front door. Mom gave me a snowman in a kilt.

Everything is different this year. I likely won't see my kids on Christmas. I think we're going to drive downstate the day after. I'm still trying to coordinate with Vicky's schedule. I have to go down regardless of what they're doing to get my rendezvous gear. I'm going to FL this year. I blew it off last year because of the timing of the move and kicked myself the rest of the winter. Christmas is a logical time to do that.

I've felt a kind of restlessness since we moved here and I haven't been able to figure out what it is. I think I need to start some kind of a career, something that pays, but I don't know what. I've never had a career. Military wives don't have them unless they're nurses or teachers. The only time I've felt like I was doing something productive in the last three years (maybe longer) was when we were working on Blackbirds. For that brief time, I had a purpose. I was needed by someone other than Eric. I want that again, but I want to get paid. Maybe, if I had a paying job, we wouldn't be so stressed while we wait for Eric's job situation to get sorted out. Maybe, if I made enough money, he could walk away from contract work and start his own business. If I'm honest with myself, even if I got a book contract today, it wouldn't make enough to support us.

The year is winding down. The new year will be on us before we know it. I want to do something to contribute financially that will make a difference to society. I just don't know what, and if I did, I wouldn't know where to start. It's eating at me and I can't identify it. Is this my mid-life crisis?

Lists

I've started using lists again. I hadn't been using them lately. Hadn't felt well enough to do much. Just going to the doctor and coming home to fall in bed didn't require a list. But I'm finally feeling well enough to resume some activity. Not healthy yet, but much better. Enough that I'm trying to un-bury my desk and clean my house. We will have company in two weeks -- my roomie's children and grandchildren to celebrate Christmas, and three of the grandchildren are going to spend the night so their parents can have a date night -- so better to start now and do what I can just in case I get sick again.

Also, the writing group's Christmas potluck is next Saturday. It's food, conversation, live music, the Christmas Story, and a few other activities. I want to stay on top of it so that I don't have to scramble on Friday.

I'm also attempting to publish the family newsletter and get some Christmas cards mailed. I need to get a haircut. And do some Christmas shopping. Several of my relatives are getting Blackbirds First Flight for Christmas! (If I know they haven't bought it -- and I do.) While I like to sell the books, I also want the stories read. I'd like to build up an audience for a Second Flight.

Anyway, between bills, housework, shopping, preparations, doctors' visits, errands, I need lists again to keep everything straight. I'm glad I feel well enough to start having a schedule again.

And that's pretty much what I'm doing this week: my lists. Hope your lists aren't too long and that they are easy to get accomplished. Have a great week.

Put Your Hand in the Hand

Remember that song?  Keep your faith strong, friends.

We got bills paid in San Antonio. I upgraded to the iPhone 6 Plus (I love it), but I have to take the laptop back and have it sent off for repairs -- it has a memory problem.  I got no yard work done and very little type-in or other work completed.  I did get some reading done. After numerous trips under the house over two days, Mr. L has declared the project completed. This means we can take the next steps in the bathroom remodel that's been in the works for around ten years.

Stephen, thanks for the post card.

Mr. L wanted to do several things today that didn't require a lot of effort (except for moving the scaffolding in preparation for the next area on his shingle project), so he dragged me all over the county on various errands.

The Week Ahead:

• Get a haircut
• Pay bills
• Set up the deer cam and refill the feeder for the final census for the year.
• Polar Bear on the Loose type-in.  I'm almost finished.
• Prepare the house for company -- older daughter and husband may visit Saturday
• Remind Mr. L to put together and print the Christmas cards
• Prepare the MacBook Pro to go in for the memory repair (most likely memory replacement), and prepare the MacBook Air to function as my primary machine for a week or so while the Pro is sent out for repairs. (I saw the 5k iMac....swooon)
• Prepare end of year posts, prepare goals for new year, schedule blog posts through the end of the year, so I don't have to worry about them.
• Get A-Z Ebooks finalized and ready for my trusty beta readers to read and critique.
• Get Polar Bear on the Loose finalized and ready to go to beta readers around the first of the year.
• Study.

Have a joyous week.  Bah! Humbug!

Breathing

My nasal surgery went well. Today, though, is quite a lot more painful than yesterday. The bleeding has mostly stopped - still a little - and I'm spitting out more mucus now, which is good. I'm not allowed to blow my nose and, of course, I REALLY want to blow my nose.

My front teeth seriously hurt. A Lot. Which is on my list of 'normal' conditions post surgery. It can last up to 2 weeks.

Yay?

All in all, it's not as bad as I feared it would be. I had the same anesthesiologist as when I had the cyst removed and I'm thinking for sending him a little thank you gift for making sure I woke up twice. Also, his name's David, just like my brother which was reassuring.

I cannot type (or think well) when taking vicodin, so I've done no writing, although I did try a little last night. I could barely hold a thought long enough to complete a sentence, and making numerous typos helped too. ;)

That's really about it for the surgery update. I'm currently past-due for a pain pill so I'm typing all right. Still a little fuzzy in the head, tho.

Monday is our anniversary so Bill's put up with my crap for 26 years. It's been a great time. :)

I received cover art for SPORE. I know Jean's seen it, not sure about Stephen or Wendy - my thoughts are kinda fuzzy these past few days. Let me know if you want to see it and haven't, and I'll PM you on FB.

It's gorgeous, btw. :)

I'm about to dope up and head to bed. Have a great weekend, everyone! {{hugs}}

Breaking a tradition

Well, meant to post earlier, but things didn't work out today as I planned. That's been the theme lately -- things not working out as planned.

I don't like Thanksgiving. I have spent it alone for more years than I care to remember. I have no family close, and they're always busy with in-laws and trips and vacations. You could say that my Thanksgiving tradition is being alone and sad.

This year, my depression was compounded by being so sick. Antibiotic induced colitis was the diagnosis that they finally gave me after three weeks of being sick in many inventive ways. But they finally gave me meds that helped, and with a bland diet, things slowly improved.

In the middle of this, my roommate's father died. He had been sick for a while, but he passed suddenly. My roommate was close to his dad; this loss was hard. The funeral was Monday. It was a good funeral if there are such things. My roommate is coping. It takes time.

So ... I was going to be alone again this year on Thanksgiving. And between you and me, I didn't see how I could handle it. I certainly couldn't go anywhere. Didn't want to spend hours in a friend's bathroom. But I knew I could live through it. I had in the past. Will in the future. Decided I would watch old movies and sleep all day. Eat a frozen turkey dinner. It's not that bad, I told myself. Things could be much worse.

My roommate went to Walmart to buy a few things Wednesday night. He planned on going up to the city to spend Thanksgiving Day with his son and family and then go on to his mother's house to spend Friday with her and then Saturday travel to Texas to see his daughter and family.

Except that's not what happened. When he came home, he had bought a turkey breast and some rolls and a few other things that I thought he was taking to his son's. But I knew his son had fixed a turkey so I didn't know why he was buying a turkey breast. I asked. He had decided to spend Thanksgiving with me.

I tried to convince him to go on to the city. Thanksgiving is about families, and it's my mistake that I don't have one. He wouldn't go. He needed down time, he said. And his son and family were going to meet him at his mom's on Friday.

My tradition was broken. I spent Thanksgiving with a friend. We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, spinach salad, corn, rolls, and pecan pie. It was good. I was sick, of course, but it was nice to have someone else in the house. We watched TV. Old movies. The parade. And football.

I had a good Thanksgiving. Not what I expected or planned for, but there you go. Sometimes things work out unexpectedly.

Sometimes our friends give us the best gifts.

It's 3 hours until December

I've been struggling lately in the same ways I'm always struggling. So not much new there. My right sinus is getting drilled out on Wed and I'm... nervous. Let's go with that. Much more than I was with the cyst.

Needs to be done, tho. I hear breathing is awesome.

Had my annual physical/pap/mamo a couple of weeks ago and everything looked great except my good cholesterol was a little low and my bad a little high. I've been told to up my exercise, so I will do that after I cross this surgery hurdle. I'm not stressing over anything else, if at all possible, until it's done.

I'm writing a little, sewing even less, and mostly just treading water. It being Christmas season isn't helping. I seriously hate Christmas. Just wish I could do Thanksgiving then flip the calendar right over to New Years.

Bah humbug.

{{{{{huggs}}}}}

A Hundred and One

Because I don't want a hundred and two.  Gripes and groans and aches and pains. Pay no attention to that grump behind the curtain.  This is being purposefully obtuse, and I'm sorry, but you really don't want to hear my grumblings.

There.  That's done.  Hi!  How are y'all doing this fine week?

Here's some of the things I got done or worked on:

• Picking up pecans
• Moving scaffolding, putting the wood up and taking it down twice (but Mr. L got a lot of work done on the upstairs shingles)
• Moved the coupe off the trailer and into its bay at the store
• More type-in on Polar Bear on the Loose
• April A-Z Blogging Challenge theme decided upon and 25 of 26 topics.  I still need a "Y" related to the Grand Tour. Yucca is my fallback topic.
• More work on websites
• Did I mention I upgraded PLF to the 2015 version? I'm going through it again and am picking up some useful things.  
• I got the 2013 blogging challenge posts saved off to a file for preparation for ebook formatting.
• Mr. L feels as if he's making progress with Rossie, and isolating her now may not be productive, so we're continuing as things are.  Personally?  I don't think she's quite as wimpy as she'd like us to believe.
• Mammogram went well and results are back as expected.  Nothing to worry about there.
• Signed up with Duolingo to learn Spanish.  I'd rather pretend I don't know it and know it than be truly clueless. My username is PolarBear60 if anyone wants to play along.
• I didn't make any progress on the glass inventory.  Joints have been excessively achey this week. 

The Week Ahead:

• Working in San Antonio this week
• Pay San Antonio property taxes, electric, and water bills
• Work on yard when it's not raining
• Mr. L plans to make a couple treks under the house.  Could it be possible he'll finish the job?
• Work offline on type in and blogging challenge prep
• Continue working on my various courses

Quiiiiiiiet...

Holy cow, what a crazy week. Everyone has gone home and I've been enjoying watching TV without people talking around me. They're all very funny, but sometimes the constant comments get tiresome. We had a good week, and Thanksgiving wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. I talked to Alex for quite a while, which gave Eric and Vicky a chance to contribute to the cooking. Erik (or K, as the boys decided to call him) is a huge upgrade from the old BF. He's funny and treats Vicky very well. We introduced him to the joys of live role-playing games and made him watch The Princess Bride.

The kids actually got in Monday night (they originally planned to come Monday morning but had some stuff to take care of downstate, so they changed tickets). Eric had to work, so Danny, Greg and I hopped on the train and went to Chinatown. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Danny introduced us to dim sum, which basically amounts to Chinese (Cantonese) appetizers. You get 2-4 items in an order and share, which allows for maximum tasting. There were a few things I didn't much care for, but overall it was very cool. The weather could have been better. It started out raining, and by the time we got down there it was snowing, but not pretty snow. It was the kind that scours your face. I'm sure it was coincidental that Danny came down with a cold the next day. Good--ness!! He's a bigger baby than most men when he's sick.

Of course, we shlepped Vicky and K down to Millennium Park and Navy Pier, and we checked out the Christkindle Market (sort of a German themed open air market) in Daley Plaza. And we ate a lot. I haven't stepped on the scale, but my jeans aren't tight, so I think I might be safe.

By now some of them have gotten home. The beds are stripped, air mattresses put away, laundry is washing, the kitchen is cleaned up, and I've ordered a new coffee pot since mine died yesterday morning. My friend suggested I pour boiling water over the grounds, and it worked so well I decided I can make it work a couple more days.

This week it's back to writing, and I have GOT to start Christmas shopping. I think I might be doing a fair amount online this year. Y'all have a good week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not much new to report. The Boys are here. Vicky and Erik get in tomorrow night. The cleaning and grocery shopping got done, or at least done enough. About the most notable thing is that I have written 20 of the last 23 days, which makes me happy. I broke 30,000 today. I could, in theory, still make 50k this month, if I didn't have company. I need to try this again in the spring.

I told my pastor this morning I'm writing the story he sparked and the deer in headlights look on his face made my day. I'm not even sure he remembers the day I told him thanks a lot for the new plot bunny when I have four other books to work on. It was still fun.

This week:
- Millennium Park and shopping on the Miracle Mile
- Celebrate Vicky's birthday (hence the shopping)
- Thanksgiving
- Maybe a quick trip to China Town
- Watch the previous Hunger Games dvds in preparation to go see Mockingjay.
- Watch The Princess Bride. Rumor has it Erik is a PB virgin. Can't have that!

Have a lovely holiday. I'll be giving thanks for all of you!

Keep Pushin'

I almost have the website reorganization and alignments completed.  I managed a pretty spectacular failure or two in the process.  I think because of my redirects, I lost access to the mercuryranch.org WordPress site, then, when I moved everything to a new directory to regain access, I forgot about going in to change the database settings.  By the time I learned how to do it via the database, I already had something boogered up.  I wound up deleting the files and the database and starting over.  It was a bare bones site, and I'm pretty pleased with the new basic iteration.  I should do similar iterations for all my domain names, which will get BlueHost's static page off them.

One of the spectacular failures (and I have no idea what happened) was my Joomla Test Site. I lost all access to it and got a message saying my host needed to be running such and such version of PHP or higher.  Well, my host is running a higher version.  Since I had not idea what happened and had nothing of value on the test site, I deleted the test site. I'll kill the data base next time I go in there and start fresh if I decide to attempt it again.

I moved Rantings and Ravings to jeanschara.com.  It went fairly well.  I still have 300 redirects to fix, but I'm plugging away at those a little at a time.  So, Rantings and Ravings, Philosophical Meanderings, and Inuit's blog have all been moved to their new homes.  NatRogers.com remains untouched. As mentioned, mercuryranch.org is rebuilt.

I have been working on Polar Bear on the Loose type-in.  I have 61 pages to go, and I need to do some modification for chapter separations. Then, I'll be ready to send it to beta readers.  Are any of you interested in reading?

I finally got the formatting closer to what I want for the 2014 A-Z Blogging Challenge ebook.  I have it in .pdf format now, and I need to read it to see if I can make any obvious improvements.  Is anyone interested in reading it and telling me the areas where I'm stupid to let it go out in public as it is? I'm thinking about putting this on on Amazon for sale, so I need to know any of those places.

No further work on Granite Hill.

Natasha's foster mommy suggested Rossie might benefit from a couple of months in a room where she isn't subjected to the other cats (but gets regular visits from us humans). I am amenable to this idea, but I'm not sure Mr. L will go for it.  The easiest way to do that would be to move her to his office (which he keeps closed off from cats anyway).  This could work in her favor in several ways.  First, she's not subjected to the other cats beating her up. Second, we'd be the only people she'd interact with, and she does get lonely, so she might seek more interaction. Finally, without being chased, she might relax and feel more confident.  Natasha's foster mommy had this approach work for one cat but not another who was being scapegoated, so there are, of course, no guarantees. 

I've been inventorying and photographing 9 crates and 5 boxes of glassware. I want to start getting rid of excess.  I also want to quit purchasing duplicates.  The first step in that is to know what I have.  I've all but stopped purchasing Fenton thumbprint.  I have a surprising amount of Bakewell and Pears (which is my preference).

I'm waiting for Mr. L to call the gas company.  His hesitation results from knowing when they replace meters, they are moving them above ground, and he (we) do not want a gas meter sticking up by the street (Not only is it unsightly, we think it's dangerous to have it exposed that way). We have seen that they will put them by the house (where we want it), but we don't know how to make that happen. He doesn't want them coming out and putting in a new meter when we're not here to make sure it goes where we want it to, and we're heading to San Antonio for a week soon.  I hope he will make the call after we get back. (The utilities are in his name.) I'm sure he'll get around to doing the right thing soon.

Unfortunately, Mr. L's attempt to getting a Tuba Christmas event going in our little town fizzled. He needed at least four people (including himself), and only he and two other guys showed up for his organizational meeting (they showed up as a favor to him). As a friend of his said, it made it further this year than last year. I'm not sure he's going to try again this year.  He spent $120 for two weeks of ads in the paper (yes, they were expensive) and got nothing to show for it. The ads were large and well-placed. We can only conclude tuba players in town don't read the paper.

Daphne got her shots and clean bill of health at her annual check up.  I took Natasha and Tarzan in for a few concerns, but they were given a clean bill of health, too.  Always happy to have healthy kitties.  Like I told Dr. Val., "I'd rather you tell me they're just fine instead of wishing I'd brought them in sooner."  She agreed.

The Week Ahead:

• Mammogram on Monday
• Guess I better get Christmas cards prepared
• I've picked up a ton (not quite literally) of pecans.  Pecans for Christmas for everyone (Tammy, if you don't want any, tell me now. Wendy and Stephen got theirs already.)
• Work on Polar Bear on the Loose, 2014 A-Z, Granite Hill, and 2015 A-Z Planning -- I don't have a theme yet.
• Continue work on glass inventory
• Evaluate where I am in all the courses I'm taking and develop a plan to complete them.  PLF 2015 kicks off again on Monday, and I upgraded to get the latest version, so I'll be working through that.  I hope to be in a better position this year to apply what I'm learning.
• Discuss a plan for Rossie with Mr. L that involves keeping her in the den (Mr. L's office) when we're here and in the spare bedroom when we're in San Antonio. Initially, I'll recommend doing it for two months and evaluate where she is on a month to month basis.  Always with an eye for what's best for Rossie.

There's probably more in there than I can get done, but I at least want to get some plans made that can be executed.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Somehow I missed the weekend...

I never thought that would happen, but it does when every day looks the same. Eric was home more last week, which I think messed up my mental timeline.

I don't know about where you are, but it's been COLD here.  Wind chills are below zero right now. I was out and about on public transit yesterday, and it became clear I haven't quite got the hang of dressing for the weather here. Some days I bundle up and go for a walk, and I'm sweating before I'm half done. So the next time I don't put on as many layers and I freeze my patooties. I think it's the wind. I haven't had to factor that in for a long time.

I was waiting for a bus yesterday, huddled in my coat and stamping my feet to avoid becoming a wendycicle and I thought I should ask everyone for blankets for Christmas. And then I should keep them in my car to give to the panhandlers on the street. It must really suck to be homeless this time of year. I've read about people who keep boxes of socks and gloves in their cars for that same reason. I should probably talk to some of my local peeps about that.

I'm almost ready for company. There's a little cleaning left and a big grocery run, and that's about it. I've actually gotten input about what they want to do this time. Threatening them with mani/pedis last summer must have made an impact. (They always say they don't care what we do. If we're doing what I want, we're going to get a mani/pedi and come home to watch chick flicks.) Ironically, Vicky texted me the other day to ask if we could get our nails done while she's here. We also learned last night Chad will only be here a couple days, and he's bringing his new girlfriend. They're staying in a hotel, thank goodness. We have no space left unless she wants to share a twin bed in a room with three guys. I wouldn't want to share a bathroom with that many people, let alone a bedroom.

I'm still writing every day. I've only taken off one day this month. Sunday I couldn't be bothered to motivate to do anything. I found a Property Brothers marathon and wove little squares that will be sewn together in the future. The plot is a little sticky right now, so I'm in write and walk away to think mode. Progress is slow but still forward. Now that I've pulled out of Nano there is a lot less angst. I should stop doing Nano maybe.

I think that's about it. If I miss next weekend, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Been A While

It's been a while since I posted here. Well, a real post. There's been a lot going on: the release of Blackbirds First Flight, the publicity, the huge book signing, more publicity, medical problems (eye infection that required lancing -- ouch! -- and two rounds of nasty antibiotics that have made my stomach into a battleground), bills, and generally life. And yesterday we learned that my roommate's father is fading fast after a long fight with respiratory illness. It's a sad time, this slow letting go, this uncertainty about the future. It weighs on my roommate, and I grieve for him and his mother.

So ... that's all to say I've been busy and mostly not inclined to share. That's what I do: withdraw from the world. Try to cut the input back down to a level I can handle. Too many events and my processor gets clogged. Eventually I can't function beyond the basics. This has always annoyed me. It's unplanned events, of course. I can handle plans, juggle my schedule for events, and generally multitask with the best of them, but when events range into the unexpected and worse are hurting people I care about ... It's hard to handle. I think most people are that way. Best laid plans and all that.

***

Well, I started this yesterday, but got sidetracked with one thing or another. Will finish it now.

I've been slowly decorating my house for Christmas. My tree is up, my Christmas village is mostly in place, and the Christmas train is set up and running even as I type this. It's been too cold to put up anything outside. Depends on the weather if anything does get put up. Having to do things as my energy level permits. Man, I miss the pick-me-up of caffeine. Stupid blood pressure. Stupid heart. Oh well. What doesn't get done probably didn't need to get done. It's not like I have a bunch of visitors. I put them up for mostly me.

I've been working on my family newsletter. Got October sent out. Here's what else I'm doing or plan to do.
- Finish and mail November newsletter this week. Then I will do the extra-large December issue.
- Start the Christmas marketing on Tales from Bethlehem and Blackbirds First Flight.
- Work on the poems and design for Undying: Poems of Myth & Monsters.
- Work on Creations 2015 for my local writing group.
- I also like to investigate the platforms for self-publishing magazines.
- Work on a cover for Blackbirds Second Flight.
- Continue cleaning and de-cluttering my house.
- Christmas shopping!

And with that list, I need to get off here and go to work. Have a great week!

The Sounds of Silence

As usual, it's a mixed bag here in Texas. On the writing front, I got some type-in done for PBOTL. I looked at formatting A-Z2014, but I'my not getting what I want, so I'm going to have to research what I need to do. No additional work on Granite Hill.

I looked out the front door last Sunday, and I was surprised to see a small pond of water in the street in front of the house. We called it in. We didn't see any action Sunday night. Monday, a cone showed up. Tuesday, the "call before you dig" markings and flags appeared. Wednesday, they began digging. By the time we got home from bingo around 9:30pm, road blocks were up, and the backhoe straddled the hole. The leak appears to be fixed, the hole is filled in, and I suppose they're going to let thing settle before the patch the asphalt.

During this time, Mr. L looked into the gas meter hole. With what he saw, he asked me to check the gas bills, because he said there was no way that meter was working. I logged in and checked tonight and traced the readings back over a year before I found a change. This is the problem with paperless billing. I get the email with the amount due. Then I get the email a couple days later that the bill has been paid, and I don't worry too much about it. If I were getting the physical bills, I would have noticed the readings weren't changing. I guess we'll deal with it this week.

The Week Ahead:

• Work at the shop
• PBOTL type-in
• Find out what I need to do in Scrivener to get me what I want in a compiled output.
• Help Mr. L with his Tuba Christmas meeting on Tuesday night
• Daphne for her shots

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

I just like that phrase. Mr. L decided to use the trip to San Antonio mostly for relaxing. He did crawl under the house (with help from Daphne) to refresh his memory on what he needs to do.  He took measurements and decided he needed to go buy a board, because he couldn't find the one he was going to use for the job. Other than that, he had his six month exam with his cardiologist.  He thinks he's worked out the prescription problems (someone was taking the requests but not actually doing anything about them -- we knew that), but the doctor got distracted and never actually listened to Mr. L's heart.  Good thing he seems to be doing pretty well. Since we were already downtown and parked, we went to Schilo's Delicatessen after the doctor appointment (his doctor's office where the appointment was is near the Riverwalk). While the deli isn't on the Riverwalk, it is nearby. They had wonderful sandwiches, split pea soup, and atmosphere.

I got a lot of reading done.  I printed my NaNo version of GRANITE HILL and am marking it up for conflict, characterization, and other things which I hope will help me decide how to manage the series. I didn't get any POLAR BEAR ON THE LOOSE type-in done down there even though I brought it with me.  I did get some done last night.

While at the Giddings swap meet this summer, Mr. L got a line on a 1946 Mercury Coupe without an engine or transmission (but he has those).  We looked at it yesterday on the way back from San Antonio.  If all goes well, after Wednesday, we will own four 1946 Mercurys. The vehicle is little more than a coupe body with some bonus parts, but he should be able to construct most of the vehicle out of parts on hand, and the price was right. Even I thought so, and the last thing I'm wild about is one more vehicle around this place.

I changed the RandR blog theme.

I got the things done that were planned for last week that had to be done.  The rest are still mostly in the contemplation stage.

The Week Ahead:

• Help Mr. L bring the coupe home
• Help Mr. L add the third level of scaffolding to work on the shingles.
• Continue Polar Bear on the Loose type-in
• Continue working Granite Hill preparation
• Quit putting off pulling together the A-Z Challenge ebook work
• Spend some time on the Udemy classes (GIMP and Amazon)
• Bring glassware to shop, inventory, photograph, and decide what to keep and what to sell
• Prepare for a December yard sale (we're testing to waters to see if it is worthwhile or not)
• Blog post work
• Align email subscriptions on Aweber for the new locations (internal to me only for convenience)

I feel like I'm way behind and will never catch up.  I think they call that anxiety.  But there's no real need for it. Rossie and Ruby seem to be more approachable lately.  One less cat in the house does seem to have reduced stress levels just a little. We received a lovely sympathy card from Dr Valeri and her staff.

I hope y'all have a great week.  Keep writing, Wendy!

Plugging along

I'm a third of the way done with Nano. My average word counts have been pretty good, all things considered. I broke 1k on my worst day, and I've written every day. That's an accomplishment in itself, and I need to remember it when I'm beating myself up on bad days. I've decided to take my birthday and part of Thanksgiving week off regardless of word count. If I don't break 50k by the 30th, so be it. I'll just keep plugging along.

One thing different this year is it hasn't taken over my whole life. I'm still eating well, taking care of chores, getting out most days. I do need to move more, but my standing desk is on the FedEx truck and out for delivery today, so I should be able to fix that starting tomorrow.

I had the last session with the personal trainer at the gym last night. They tried to get me to buy more--they have a special going--but I'm going to hold off. She's done a great job but I don't think I'm ready to keep doing the same thing. I need to get the mental end of it shifted some because clearly, despite her best efforts, something isn't working. I've gained a half pound of muscle since May but haven't lost much fat. The Nutribullet seems to be helping more than anything right now. I've decided to shift my focus from weight loss to health and mobility. I actually don't mind keeping the weight on as long as I can remain active and mobile as I age. I don't want to be the old lady in a rocking chair because it hurts to move. I want to be the old lady playing in the park with her grandkids and sending them postcards from Scotland. It seems to me if I focus on eating well and moving more, the weight will take care of itself. It's worth a shot.

We've started Thanksgiving prep. The Boys will be here 2 weeks from today. Vicky and Erik (the new BF--yes, it's going to be problematic) will be here the following Monday. Alex is going to spend Thanksgiving with Emma and her family. It will be the first one without him in 24 years. I'm not thinking about it. There's too much to do to get weepy right now. I knew at some point we would have holidays without our kids. That doesn't make it easier, of course, but it's a reality of life.

I think that's about all the excitement here. Time to get some words in.

The Beat Goes On

I enjoyed seeing Stephen, Wendy, Eric, and everyone up in Ada this week. I think the signing went very well.  Tammy, I'm so glad the Skype worked, but I'm sure we can do better if we have to do it again. I know Stephen had some things he would have liked to see turn out differently, but I think it was the best it could be at that time.  Wendy was phenomenal at finding new homes for her series. She had an amazing "elevator pitch." Gail Henderson was a pleasure to meet, and I look forward to working with her in the future. The Quart House was my favorite restaurant on the visit, but Delicias's fajita salad is excellent, so it was close. The Tour de Ada revealed fascinating aspects of the town that a casual visitor would never know, so thank you Eric and Stephen.

I got the FM Test Site restored to what it should have been -- that was an excellent learning experience. I see there's a class that's just coming out on the upgrade process, and I'm seriously considering taking it.

I took a few more steps in my web site optimization process today.  I moved Philosophical Meanderings out of the root of jeanschara.com and set up a redirect to send anyone going to that URL to the Rantings and Ravings blog (RandR will be moving to that domain in the near future).  I troubleshot a problem with a plug-in I'd installed and discovered the problem came about when I didn't complete the set up and someone tried to use it.  Fortunately, I knew the person who tried to use it, and she helped me figure things out.

Philosophical Meanderings doesn't have a large following, but I still have subscriber settings that need to be tweaked with the move, and this move should minimize the things I miss when I move the primary blog. For instance, I had to redo the blog post broadcast. So far, everything has been very simple to do, but forgetting to do it means things don't work.

I finished my Scrivener class, so I updated Scrivener on all my machines.  I'm downloading the OS X Yosemite to the Retina now (hours and hours). I installed it with no trouble on the Air last week.  The only thing that seems to be causing problems is chat clients in Adium, but they are causing problems anyway, so they aren't a valid reason not to update.

Got most of what I needed to get done last week done.  Still so much to do.  Heading to San Antonio this week.  Saturday will be partially devoted to a friend's 60th birthday party. Here's what else I plan to work on:

The Week Ahead:

• Pay water bills and half of house and shop taxes (that gives me until the end of June to pay the other half, I plan to pay the balance by the original due date of Jan 31).
• Research the ballot. Bexar County has nine million judges up for election. We're heading to SA on Tuesday. We should make it there well before the polls close. Our polling place is in the Visitor's Locker Room at the far end of the football stadium across the street from the house.
• Watch the Paramount site and score our tour tickets as soon as they're up. TCM is having their big shin dig while we'll be in town, and Mr. L fears a lot of participants will also want to do studio VIP tours. So far, they only have through February on the ticket site. Maybe March will be opened up on Monday?
• Polar Bear on the Loose type-in
• Return to looking at posts for A-Z 2013 and A-Z 2014 for packaging into an ebook.  One will be a subscriber gift, and the other needs to find it's way to Amazon, but I need a strategy for that.
• Consider preparing my Threads and Ties short, but that would be best released as promotional material for Threads and Ties, which comes after Twilight (must choose new title!) in the revision stack.
• Is it too early to begin pulling things together for the Twilight revision?  I still have a lot to do on Polar Bear on the Loose, but once it goes out to beta readers, I want to be ready to start.
• Begin planning for A-Z 2015.
• Have websites updated and mailing list tweaks done well before April (which means in February, since we're traveling in March) in preparation for new list sign ups with the A-Z Challenge.
• Continue fleshing out a Granite Hill series.  Happily Ever After Not Guaranteed.

Have a great week.  I shouldn't be on line much later this week.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Enjoy stories and poems from authors 

Stephen B. Bagley, Kent Bass, Wendy Blanton, 

Gail Henderson, Jean Schara, and Tamara Siler Jones

in this dark, thrilling anthology!

Click here to buy Blackbirds First Flight at Amazon!

Click here to buy Blackbirds First Flight at Barnes & Noble!
Click here to buy Blackbirds First Flight at Lulu!
Learn more at Blackbirds Flights.

Library hosts signing for new anthology by Createslate authors

ADA, OKLAHOMA—Ada Public Library will host a book signing for the new anthology “Blackbirds First Flight” 4:30-6:30 p.m., Thursday, October 30. The anthology features stories from Ada author Stephen B. Bagley, Kent Bass, Wendy Blanton, Gail Henderson, Jean Schara, and Tamara Siler Jones.

Bagley, Blanton, Henderson, and Schara will sign copies of the book at the signing. The book will also be on sale at that time for the special price of $10.

“‘Blackbirds First Flight’ is an anthology of stories and poetry with a dark, sensual twist,” said Pru Simmons, Many River Harbor associate editor. “The stories run the gambit from thrilling Gothic adventure to modern urban fantasy to fantastic encounters with the macabre. The poetry is uniformly excellent and tells dark stories of its own, many related to mythology.”

Simmons said the book might become an annual anthology. “We have had many inquiries about the book and its theme,” she said. “We definitely think there is an interest in dark, twisty fantasy that tells a satisfying story and follows traditional narrative arcs. We hope there will be another flight next year.”

“Gail (Henderson) and I are excited to actually meet some of the other authors,” Bagley said. “Wendy (Blanton) is flying in from Chicago, and Jean (Schara) is driving up from Texas. This is the first time we’ll all be in the same town.”

Stephen B. Bagley wrote “Tales from Bethlehem,” “Murder by Dewey Decimal,” “Murder by the Acre,” “Floozy & Other Stories,” and “EndlesS.” His works have appeared in “Creations 2014,” “Creations 2013,” “Creations 2012,” “ByLine Magazine,” “Free Star,” “Nautilus Magazine,” “OKMagazine,” and other publications. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism. He is a member of Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. and Ada Writers.

Kent Bass enjoys writing Gothic action/adventure stories. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business and from the University of Oklahoma, with a Master of Science in Accountancy. He and his family live in Dallas, Texas, where he works for the nation’s leading tax software company. “Blackbirds First Flight” is his first publication.

Wendy Blanton published three fantasy novels, “The Dragon’s Lady,” “Rogue Pawn,” and “Sword and Scabbard” under the pen name Elizabeth Joy with co-author Scott Carman. She has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Business Management from the University of Mount Olive and served in active duty for the United States Air Force for eight years. She is an apprentice bard and tells Celtic folk tales at Scottish Highland Games and other venues.

Gail Henderson collaborated with noted Oklahoma photographer Michael Duncan to produce “Bare,” a book of poetry and photography. “Red Bird Woman,” a collection of her poetry, was published in 2013. Her work has appeared in “Creations 2014,” “Creations 2013,” “Creations 2012,” and “ByLine Magazine.” She holds a Masters of Education in English and Social Studies from East Central University. She is a member of Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. and Ada Writers.

Tamara Siler Jones is a wife, mom, writer, quilter, and cat-wrangler from rural Iowa. She has three novels in print/eBook (“Ghosts in the Snow,” winner of the Compton Crook Award for best first novel of the year in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror genre; “Threads of Malice”; and “Valley of the Soul”; all published by Bantam Books), one book (“SPORE”) under contract with Samhain Publishing for release next summer; one book (“Morgan’s Run”) being marketed in New York, three novels in progress, and a screenplay in first draft.

Jean Schara retired from a 28-year career in the United States Air Force in 2008 and took up residence in Texas. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland University College with a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and of the Troy State University with a Master of Science in Adult Education. She has had several book reviews published in the “Air Power Journal” and several articles published in “Vision: A Resource for Writers.”

“Blackbirds First Flight” is available from Amazon.com, Lulu.com, and other online retailers and in downtown Ada at Karen’s Art & Framing, Inc., 108 East Main.

For more information, visit Blackbirds Flights.

Dear Father...

It was a week worthy of prayer. But aren't they all?

Monday wasn't a good day for us. We had to have Floyd put down. Mr. L had a set back in the rebuilding of my Jeep transfer case (or as he put it, two years lost), and, overall, it was just a hard day.  But it was all things that happen in the course of living. Later in the week, I once again failed at mind reading, but we survived.

My new iPad arrived, and IOS is much better at the restore to new hardware process than Mac OS X, so the new iPad is set up indistinguishably from my old iPad, except it's thinner, lighter, faster, and has an incredible screen.  It even takes somewhat decent pictures. The old iPad has been restored and is ready for my sister to set it up as new to her when she receives it.  I'm also sending her my 8G 2nd generation iPod nano (restored and ready to be set up as new). She has an iPhone 4S, so she can use all the 30pin connectors.  She's been using the Tupperware app on her phone for her business, but she's looking forward to the larger iPad screen for that purpose, and I believe it will serve her well.

In brighter local news, the cats love their new prescription food. I brought it home and filled the towers, and I had most of them milling about and jockeying for position to eat it.

I'm still getting my butt kicked on the test site update process.  I'm getting closer, but the end result is not suitable yet.

Just got a call from a "national data collection firm" conducting a survey, and the caller had the decency to ask, after her opening pitch, "May I continue?" I said, "No, thank you." She said, "Have a good day," and hung up. I appreciated that her script had her ask that, though. I should have participated on that alone, but I just prefer not to participate in those things.

Ranch and store property taxes paid. I got more type-in done on Polar Bear on the Loose. I'm struggling with the How to Write A Series lessons.  Some of Holly's teachings work well for me, and some leave me wondering how I ever thought I could string sentences together in a coherent manner. Well, I can do that, but telling a credible story? Not so sure about that.

I saw a post about ADD on Facebook, glanced at it, and most of what it talked about described Mr. L.  Is it possible he has ADD? Perhaps that's why he tells me he's going to do something, I plan to support him in it, and by the time it rolls around to when he's supposed to be doing it, and I begin doing what I thought would be helping him, he is mad because he's not doing that. He's doing something else.  News to me. He told me something else last night. I can't even ask him what I can help him with in the morning, because an hour later, he's doing something completely different and it's like we didn't have that conversation. But why I am pushing him? He wonders why I spend my time sitting at the computer, but it's the only place I'm out of his way. He's still mad at me, but at least I can get something done.

I know what to do to declutter, but actually doing it?  No so hot at that. I'm working on a few things at a time. I didn't get any Granite Hill work done this week.

The Week Ahead:

• Find something to wear for when I'm in Ada
• Prepare for the trip (bring my favorite pens)
• Work on Granite Hill
• Work on Polar Bear on the Loose type-in
• Mail the package on Monday
• Continue work on FM Test Site
• Probably more things my mind is skipping over right now. I still don't feel as if I have a handle on what I'm supposed to be doing.

Tammy, we'll miss you in Ada, but you have great things going on that we're missing, too.  Stephen and Wendy, see you soon.

Gearing up

I got up early enough this morning and then almost read through church today. I got a low battery warning on my iPad, looked up, and realized it was almost time to leave. Good thing I was dressed.

I'm a little shocked to have cranked out the new synopsis this week. Looks like I'll be doing NaNo after all. I found it helped to walk to coffee shops to work, even if it was just for ten or fifteen minutes. I have three at varying distances and a fourth I haven't checked out yet. There is also a library a mile or so from home.

I broke down and ordered an adjustable rack for my computer desk that's strong enough (so they say) to support my iMac so I can stand and work. I've been sitting way too much lately and my back is starting to bother me.

I haven't been to the gym in nearly two weeks. Since I've been walking outside to take advantage of the nice weather, I don't think it's that big a deal, but it will be when the weather turns. Just thinking about going feels like way too much trouble. I'm going to have to break that inertia.

Our dental insurance kicked in, so I went to have my teeth cleaned and discovered I lost a filling. I don't know how you lose a filling and not know it, but I did. I'll have it refilled after I get back from Ada.

Speaking of which, I've been gathering and preparing. I have to go grocery shopping and do laundry, and then I'll be ready to go. It will be a fun trip. I love jetting off to new places. Tammy, we will miss you! Jean and Stephen, see you soon!

Blackbirds First Flight now on sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

Click here to buy Blackbirds First Flight at Lulu!

Click here to buy Blackbirds First Flight at Amazon!

Click here to buy Blackbirds First Flight at Barnes & Noble!

Breaking the (Computer) Sabbath

For you guys, I'm breaking my Computer Sabbath to let you know that it's been a rough couple of weeks spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. But I'm still trucking along. I was working under deadline for another project that took place Friday and Saturday, and now I'm done with that and ready to start the publicity for the book signing at which I finally get to meet Wendy in person and spent quality time with her and Jean and Gail. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also working on a book with Gail. We had hoped to have the book out (unofficially) by the time of the signing, but that's not going to happen. It will come out in November.

Anyway, I'm still here. Just quiet. Don't want to whine or bore anyone with my complaints, particularly since some of them are apparently self-inflicted. And just to kick off the publicity, here's the story that goes to the newspapers later this week.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ADA—Ada Public Library will host a book signing for the new anthology “Blackbirds First Flight” 4:30-6:30 p.m., Thursday, October 30. The anthology features stories from Ada author Stephen B. Bagley, Kent Bass, Wendy Blanton, Gail Henderson, Jean Schara, and Tamara Siler Jones.

Bagley, Blanton, Henderson, and Schara will sign copies of the book at the signing. The book will also be on sale at that time for the special price of $10.  

“‘Blackbirds First Flight’ is an anthology of stories and poetry with a dark, sensual twist,” said Pru Simmons, Many River Harbor associate editor. “The stories run the gambit from thrilling Gothic adventure to modern urban fantasy to fantastic encounters with the macabre. The poetry is uniformly excellent and tells dark stories of its own, many related to mythology.”

Simmons said the book might become an annual anthology. “We have had many inquiries about the book and its theme,” she said. “We definitely think there is an interest in dark, twisty fantasy that tells a satisfying story and follows traditional narrative arcs. We hope there will be another flight next year.”

“Gail (Henderson) and I are excited to actually meet some of the other authors,” Bagley said. “Wendy (Blanton) is flying in from Chicago, and Jean (Schara) is driving up from Texas. This is the first time we’ll all be in the same town.”

Stephen B. Bagley wrote “Tales from Bethlehem,” “Murder by Dewey Decimal,” “Murder by the Acre,” “Floozy & Other Stories,” and “EndlesS.” His works have appeared in “Creations 2014,” “Creations 2013,” “Creations 2012,” “ByLine Magazine,” “Free Star,” “Nautilus Magazine,” “OKMagazine,” and other publications. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism. He is a member of Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. and Ada Writers.

Kent Bass enjoys writing Gothic action/adventure stories. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business and from the University of Oklahoma, with a Master of Science in Accountancy. He and his family live in Dallas, Texas, where he works for the nation’s leading tax software company. “Blackbirds First Flight” is his first publication.

Wendy Blanton published three fantasy novels, “The Dragon’s Lady,” “Rogue Pawn,” and “Sword and Scabbard” under the pen name Elizabeth Joy with co-author Scott Carman. She has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Business Management from the University of Mount Olive and served in active duty for the United States Air Force for eight years. She is an apprentice bard and tells Celtic folk tales at Scottish Highland Games and other venues.

Gail Henderson collaborated with noted Oklahoma photographer Michael Duncan to produce “Bare,” a book of poetry and photography. “Red Bird Woman,” a collection of her poetry, was published in 2013. Her work has appeared in “Creations 2014,” “Creations 2013,” “Creations 2012,” and “ByLine Magazine.” She holds a Masters of Education in English and Social Studies from East Central University. She is a member of Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. and Ada Writers.

Tamara Siler Jones is a wife, mom, writer, quilter, and cat-wrangler from rural Iowa. She has three novels in print/eBook (“Ghosts in the Snow,” winner of the Compton Crook Award for best first novel of the year in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror genre; “Threads of Malice”; and “Valley of the Soul”; all published by Bantam Books), one book (“SPORE”) under contract with Samhain Publishing for release next summer; one book (“Morgan’s Run”) being marketed in New York, three novels in progress, and a screenplay in first draft.

Jean Schara retired from a 28-year career in the United States Air Force in 2008 and took up residence in Texas. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland University College with a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and of the Troy State University with a Master of Science in Adult Education. She has had several book reviews published in the “Air Power Journal” and several articles published in “Vision: A Resource for Writers.”

“Blackbirds First Flight” is available from Amazon.com, Lulu.com, and other online retailers and in downtown Ada at Karen’s Art & Framing, Inc., 108 East Main.

Back side of October

Been writing, been exercising, been working at modifying my diet to get back on plan. Sewing some, sleeping probably too much, watching football.

I'm a Steelers fan (we suck this year, possibly worse than we dis last year) and since they aren't playing any midwest teams, I probably won't get to see them on TV except Sunday Night Football on Nov 2 when they play (and will likely lose to) the Ravens, then again Dec 21 when they'll also likely lose to the Chiefs. With a lack of televised games, I've started listening to them online via Steelers Radio Network. It's aggravating in some ways, I'm more visual than auditory, but I can do other things like sew while the game is on and I'm not tied to the television. So that's good, Just wish they weren't so sucky.

We've been doing more community things. Last weekend was the Lions Club Pancake Breakfast - I made scrambled eggs for about 5 hours - and this weekend we're putting flags up to decorate the route to the cemetery for an airman who was shot down over the Battle of the Bulge. His remains - along with those of his crewmates - were discovered a few years ago and just identified via DNA this year. It's fascinating and humbling and tragic. He was just a kid, it happened during the first attack flight... Such a waste. Our local Fire Department put the word out on FB that they were looking for volunteers to help, and they needed folks with pickups. We fit both criteria. Anyway, that all starts in a couple of hours and it'll be a good thing to do.

I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much, but as I look back over the week I'm actually doing pretty well. Managed to do some sewing, some writing, quite a lot of cleaning, cooked every day, lost 4 lbs, exercised... I don't know why I always feel like a lazy bum. The reality is I'm not.

Therapy is going all right, she's being easy on me as I prep for the conference at the end of the month. I am rather stressed about that. I have panels scheduled, a reading, books to sell, clothes picked out, the hotel's booked, so everything's set and ready to go, but I'm still anxious. Back into the pool I go.

That's about it, I guess. Can't wait for political season to be over. Very sick of the ads, mail, and phone calls.

Have a happy week, everyone! {{hugs}}

Stephen!!!

We haven't had an update post from you since July. All you've posted is Blackbirds updates. Surely you're doing something besides that.

Sleeeepy

I overslept this morning and we missed church. I'm going to have a hard time keeping track of days this week.

I made some progress on the story I'm plotting. Freewriting seems to be my secret weapon these days. I'm getting good plot twists. My protagonist was kidnapped as a toddler and raised to be a criminal. She's a skilled grifter, but specializes in safe cracking. My antagonist is her older birth brother, who is an honest (or as honest as they come in 1925) businessman. I'm having fun with that dichotomy. More importantly, I'm working every day. If I can pull it together in time, I'll do it for Nano. Otherwise I probably won't be playing this year. It's looking good, though.

We saw Fury yesterday. It was really good, but kind of intense. It was interesting to see the interaction of the old seasoned crew, who'd been together from West Africa, into France, Belgium, and Germany, with the new guy who'd been in the Army 8 weeks and was trained to be a clerk. I don't know if it was based on a true story, but a WWII vet who'd been on a tank crew said it was an accurate representation. I can't even imagine living that. I felt raw after a two hour movie.

I got together with another writer I met at church to see if we could help each other. I'm not sure but we're going to trade chapters next month and see if it's going to work out. She has a YA novel she's working on with another group, but she's not getting the feedback she needs. I'm planning to check out the group next week.

That's about all of interest going on here. I'm getting stuff together for the signing. I feel like there should be more to say, but there isn't. I guess my brain is taking a sabbath today. Or maybe I've finally hit maximum deceleration. One thing is for sure: I don't need a nap.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

It's good to be home. Now we're just trying to find equilibrium after traveling.  The lawn is mowed, the laundry it caught up, the dishwasher is emptied and put away, cats (except Floyd) are home and relaxing, the truck is unloaded, and we're trying to get settled back into a routine.

Here's what's going on here:

• The property tax notices arrived while we were gone. I've sorted through them and have determined my plan for paying them before the end of January (the ranch and store this month, half the house and shop next month, the San Antonio taxes in December, and the remainder of the house and shop in January -- or by June 30th if something comes up -- that gives us flexibility).
• I ordered the new iPad Air 2 (128G, WiFi).  After it arrives and I get it set up, I'll wipe the iPad2, gather it's accessories, box it, and mail it to my sister, who has a use for it.
• One of the tires on the truck has a slow leak, which was the symptom Mr. L's truck tires began to exhibit when they needed to be replaced.  I had hoped to put off replacing them until after the first of the year, but I may have to do it sooner. I firmly believe tires should last longer than 30k miles.
• The new iPhone and new Mac Mini and monitor purchase may be delayed until a few months into the new year.  We'll see how things shake out.
• I've blogged about Pretty Boy Floyd's problems with several other cats experiencing similar issues, so we'll be converting the cats to a prescription urinary tract formula food, including the outside cats, because we don't want any of them experiencing this problem (and I suspect most of the outside cats around here are inter-related, so this could be a problem endemic to the population, so I want to protect them as much as feasible).
• I managed to get some writing work done during the trip. I'm still struggling with how to identify and gain readership. Reading Tina's commentary on Tammy's post on FB highlighted the challenge writers face in their attempts to market their work and make a living.  I don't have to make a living from my writing, but it sure would be cool. How to do that without destroying the magic? We're all struggling with solving that equation (to play on Tammy's FB post about everything coming down to math -- grin).
• I'm trying to figure out how to upgrade the FM site from Joomla! 2.5 to Joomla! 3. I thought I had the "simple" solution ready to go. I pushed the upgrade button on the test site, and it crashed and crashed hard (this is why we have a test site!). I've deleted everything and am uploading the software now, and hope it will allow me to reinstall everything.  I tried this without a clean directory, and it failed miserably. This is the "not fun" side of playing with tech stuff.

The Week Ahead:

• Continue Polar Bear on the Loose type-in.
• Get caught up on How To Write A Series lessons
• Get the FM Test site operational again.
• Pay property taxes for shop and ranch on Monday
• Visit Floyd -- hope to bring him home this week
• Figure out a way to declutter the two rooms in the house we use the most -- kitchen and parlor and begin doing it, systematically and thoroughly.
• Continue work on Granite Hill
• Get sorted on on whether I'm coming or going and proceed in the appropriate direction with purpose and resolve (or something positive like that)

Only one thing to say

Therapy's HARD.

{{hugs}}

Blank Sheet of Paper

We're done with Hershey. Mr. L covered it in two days (that's about 12-15 miles of walking for him) with only a couple of times I needed to haul stuff back to the truck. He didn't find a lot at Hershey, but what he did find was quality stuff. The plan we began last year continued successfully this year.  I go to a designated area and work on writing while he hikes the swap meet.  When necessary, I haul stuff back to the truck or move to the next location. I got a lot of work done Wednesday and Thursday in beautiful, cool weather. Today (Friday) we hung out in the room, and I am getting some type-in work done on Polar Bear on the Loose. I'm up to page 162 of 330 pages (It won't be that many when I'm finished -- I printed it sideways on a regular size sheet in two columns. I did my hand-written revisions that way, too).

Mr. L extended our stay in New Cumberland by an extra day, so, thankfully, we don't have to pack up and move twenty miles away. He made reservations for next year for the same timeframe. I'll do laundry either tonight or tomorrow in preparation for the trip home.

I signed up for Gwen Hernandez's Scrivener II class that begins next week.  I had planned to review the lessons from the first class, but I don't seem to have them all with me.  I must have saved them to the Mini and didn't get them put on Dropbox.  That means I may have to go to the old Time Machine back up of the Mini to find them when I get home.  By that time, this new class will be half way done.  I guess I'll have to hope I retained more of the information from the first class than I fear I may have.  I also plan to take her compiling course in December.

Adding the related links plug in to Word Press does seem to help people check out other posts on my site.  I've been looking for ways to increase engagement.  That tip seems to have helped incrementally.

For the week ahead:

• Continue thinking about Granite Hill and working on laying out the first book in the series.
• Continue typing in PBOTL
• Work the Scrivener II lessons
• Drive safely on the trip home
• Survive these horrible motel beds
• Plan a cardio routine to begin after we get home
• Continue planning and refining life -- so much to do; so little time

Downtime

I got back from Michigan yesterday evening. Despite almost a week with my mom, I didn't gain weight, so I call that a win. It helped that the ice cream shop was closed every time we went into town. I touched base with some old friends, my brother, dad, and a couple cousins. My brother mentioned he'd seen a squirrel picking nuts off tree branches instead of waiting for them to fall and be gathered. That doesn't bode well for this winter.


I ordered a Nutribullet last week and it got here Wednesday afternoon, so I didn't unpack it until last night. I made my first green smoothy with it this morning and it was good. We'll see how long it sticks. It didn't have very many calories, but it's already been two hours and I'm not getting hungry yet. I think I see a grocery run in my future for fresh and frozen fruit.

I'm officially out of books. I sold some last week, and gave the last one to my Grandma yesterday. I expect it will be passed around by my aunts and cousins before too long.

Of course, there was no writing last week, but I did have a lengthy e-mail exchange with a friend who's (soon to be ex) husband has untreated PTSD. I got some good perspective that will help me flesh out Sophie's POV, and Trevor's, too, to a lesser extent. A good chunk of yesterday's drive was devoted to puzzling out the real plot. It's still about as clear as mud, but I might get some work done on it today. I'm planning to. We'll see how much I actually get done with Velcro Kitty helping. It's not easy typing with a twelve pound cat in your lap. Anyone want to play in the mud with me? ;-)

There is nothing on my calendar before the signing that requires advanced planning or my presence for more than a few hours. Although it was good to see my family, it feels like I've come out of a tunnel. I might have to devote some time today to looking at the trees outside my window.

Roll on Down the Highway

The trip is going well.  I'm fighting my dislike of it, and I'm mostly enjoying it. We still have our moments when he thinks I'm ignoring his directions, and I remind him I have to drive in the real world. And he complains that he told me to go to the middle lane for a reason (as a BMW swerves to avoid a collision -- thankfully -- between deer and other traffic hazards, yesterday was mildly harrowing).

One friend we'd hoped to see on this trip died last week.  Another friend I'd hoped to see had to make a trip to Missouri for a family meeting on her mother's declining health.  My friend's husband's mother just died last month.  It's a rough time for their family. Death of a parent is something we've all had to deal with or will have to deal with, but that doesn't make it any easier.

I'm trying to get a short story going.  I've brought PBOTL to type in, but I don't plan to work on it until we get stationary in Harrisburg. I have blank worksheets to play with planning for a potential Granite Hill series.

We're in Morristown, TN, this morning.  Laundry is in the dryer down the hall.  Mr. L is working on trip planning.   I'm catching up on sundry items in the room.  I still don't have an idea for the "Tech Stuff" post due this Friday.  Other than that, my blog posts are set up for the duration of the trip.

I have some writing ideas, but they aren't gelling into coherent stories. I'm doing some reading.  I'm so far behind in that area.

My weight is up about 14 pounds from my previous low.  I need to reverse this trend and resume a downward trend.  I'm experiencing various levels of dissatisfaction and lot of personal churn.  On the bright side, my mom and dad seem to be doing well, and I'm thankful for that.  Have a wonderful week.

Blackbirds First Flight goes on sale!

Blackbirds First Flight is officially on sale now! This brand new anthology features dark, twisty short stories and poems from Stephen B. Bagley, Kent Bass, Wendy Blanton, Gail Henderson, Jean Schara, and Tamara Siler Jones. 

To buy the book from Lulu.com, go here: Blackbirds First Flight. Get free mail shipping or 50% off ground shipping on your order by using coupon code: GMF14. (Offer ends Oct. 6 at 11:59 PM. Offer cannot be combined with other offers.)