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!
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Learn more at Blackbirds Flights.