Glad this week is done.

It's been a week.

Almost done with the first pass of 'buffing out the crazy' revisions to Morgan's Run - about 35 pages to go - then I'm reviewing my notes again and re-reading to make sure all of the smaller not-crazy tweaks are in place. In most ways, it's come easier than I'd expected, I'm usually psychologically resistant to changing characters and their motivations and reactions. I try, but find myself really, really upset to the point of crying. This time... I'm just doing it, diligently, happily almost. Maybe I'm finally ready to let the book go, I dunno.

Anyway, I think I'm on track for getting it to my agent the first of January.

No good news on SPORE yet, but I'm actually rather confident about one publisher in particular. There are plans in place if they and others decline, and we'll keep on trying to get it sold. It'll sell. That's about it for book stuff.

We're as ready as we're going to be for Christmas. Spent a little more than we'd planned, but I think it'll be a good one for our daughter and granddaughter. We didn't know what to get for Bill's dad, but there's a nearby butcher shop that hand-processes locally raised livestock, so we bought him meat. Everyone loves meat, right? I have absolutely nothing sewn, for the first time in at least twenty years.

Thank you all for the Christmas cards! I have them hanging on the cabinet in my kitchen.

There's a bad winter storm south of us - some of you might be feeling its effects - and I've been watching the weather hoping it dumps a substantial amount of snow in Des Moines for purely selfish reasons. Bad, I know, but here we are.

I went to the doc this past week to check out my ongoing pelvic pain/cramping issues and, based solely on related symptomatology, my doc decided it was probably an ovarian cyst. She scheduled me for an immediate ultrasound to confirm, and she was absolutely correct. I knew something was up when the tech turned the screen away from me, focused solely on my left side (even took extra scans my doc hadn't ordered just to get some additional pics) and stopped answering my questions. VERY scary at the time, especially since my grandmother'd had uterine cancer. The ultrasound doc came in to give me the prognosis - a very nice, sad faced woman - and seeing her come in and introduce herself was also rather scary (those kinds of doctors don't come in and talk to patients unless it's BAD), but she said it was nothing dangerous, just needed to be watched and would cause discomfort. I have to go back in mid Feb for another ultrasound to see if it's growing, shrinking, or staying the same. Hysterectomy was mentioned, but nothing was set. I'll know more in Feb. I don't hurt much right now, just occasional twinges and a lot of pressure, but it was both reassuring - at least I have an answer - and worrisome - what if I need surgery. Since my regular doc didn't call Friday, I expect to hear from her Monday, or maybe Thursday to get the full report. I'll just take it as it comes.

The ultrasound doc insisted it wasn't cancer, and, truly, if it was the medical process would've already started turning, so that's good.

I've pretty much shelved the diet this week, but I'll try to get back on it tomorrow. Hopefully. I only have so much focus and energy and between the books, the babysitting, life in general, Christmas, and now my fun new cyst, I'm stretched pretty thin, mentally speaking.

We're all fine, the pets are fine, life overall is fine. I hope you all have a glorious holiday and a Merry Christmas!!  {{hugs}}

*cue Darth Vader's Theme Song*

Things are, mostly, going well. We have enough and, in a lot of ways, that's pretty awesome. It's been a crazy week, tho. No, a crazy month or so, but I'll try to remain focused on this past week (ish).

Our anniversary was last Sunday. 25 years. Was an AWESOME day and a huge milestone.

However, all the celebrating urged me to eat too much and I gained. Again. Dangit. This week, tho, I have the Traveling Tracker (a tracker our leader has members take home, and its contents are then available to everyone else who brings home the tracker) so I've been really, really good since Thursday. Well, other than today. but mostly really, really good. lol In all seriousness, though, if I TRACK, I LOSE, so I am tracking. We went out for mexican tonight tho and I ate too much, point wise, but I'll let my weeklies suck it up since I still had them all.

My weight is still stalled, overall. As of this morning I was 9.6lbs above my low. It's totally my own fault. Well, mine and my stoooopid hormones. I've had cramps pretty much nonstop since before Thanksgiving and they're making me cranky. I have a Dr. appt on Thursday, tho, but she'll most likely tell me it's just one of those things I have to deal with until this aggravating menopause process is over. Bleh.

Since Bill's working about 15 or more hours a week in overtime (and he's exhausted!!) we bought a snowblower this week. I will, quite possibly, be the primary snow blower operator. Not sure how I feel about that, but it has an electric start and seems easy enough to use (I got to blow out the snow in front of the garage while Bill explained what to do and I did just fine), so we'll see.

I was going to sew today with my new sewing machine (1st time!!) but stuff happened, including a masseuse in my house beating on Bill. All of the overtime in sub-freezing weather is really wearing his body down. Today was his only day off so she came here today to loosen him up again. She worked on him about 2 hours. Seemed to help, but we'll see how he feels in the morning.

SPORE collected another rejection this week - that's 4 down, 5 to go. Agent and I also had a phone conference to discuss Morgan and I've been reworking the beginning ever since. When I can. It's tough to do, after long busy days, like yesterday I sold giant coloring books at the mall from 10am until 1pm, then babysat Sarah until everyone got home around 7, then supper, dishes, laundry, etc, all with virtually no sleep (oh, you totally amazing awesome hormones, how I enjoy your fantabulous symptomatology!! *sarcasm*) and I was just too tired and brain fried by the time the house finally quieted down around 11 or so so I didn't get to even look at it. Tonight, tho, I've worked some. Not as much as I should, but *some*.

Mostly I feel like I'm scrambling all the time, but not making much progress on anything.

As for the Darth Vader theme... It's not something I want to discuss in a public venue (I have no idea who's reading my various blogs) but feel free to ask. I think it might become my new theme song. ;)

{{hugs}} and happy week before Christmas!!

Where Does the Time Go?

I dunno, but I'm reviewing where I started the year and what I had planned to accomplish.  It isn't a pretty sight. Plans are made to be broken -- or so some people say, and my plans were successful in that respect.

Looking over my Createslate goals posted late last year for this year:

Relationship: Seems like we're in a mostly good place right now, and we'd like to keep it that way.

This seemed to deteriorate a little through the year.  There's always an ebb and a flow to long-term relationships. I'm not sure exactly where we're at right now.  We're not in a bad place, but it could be better (I could almost always say that, though).

Pets:
Continue care, feeding, and attention for inside (big) cats. 

This is ongoing. Never a problem.

Decide what will be best for the feral kittens. 

As you know, the four feral kittens stayed. Sneaky is the only remaining outside "feral," and she's become remarkably domesticated and has been spayed.  The vet helped save costs for regular medications by suggesting using the big dog Revolution treatment and dividing it among eight cats. I still have to buy for two more cats, but it's much, much cheaper this way.  And, of course, another kitten adopted us a month ago.


Properties:
San Antonio: This year I want to work on interior cleanliness, yard, help hubby with renovations in preparation for putting it on the market (not this year).

Utter failure, but this goal remains valid

Central TX House: Declutter, yard, exterior paint

Other than keeping up with the yard, another utter failure.  We blame it on too much travel.

Shop: help hubby with projects (maybe bathroom repair and cleaning behind the building)

Hubby got the sink drain repaired, but nothing else.  Clean up behind the building has not progressed, but it has not regressed either. A neutral.  I need to give up guessing what may be a priority I can help Mr. L with. Even if he tells me, it shifts.  I should probably learn to ignore the many items I'm not welcome to do and just check the list periodically to see if I can check anything off.

Store: Move bikes to shop, inventory glass, keep it mowed

Kept it mowed.  Nothing else.  The water pipe broke off at the meter resulting in a nice $300 bill, but we've turned it off at the meter and not dealt with it yet.  Moving the bikes involves Mr. L, but inventorying my glass is on me.

Ranch: Trim road edge back

Our new neighbor did this for us by installing a new fence and clearing back from the fence the whole way.  Yay!

Health and Fitness:
Rededicate to WW and Fitness.  No, this is not a broken record.  I began the year at 263 and currently have a net gain of six pounds.  My next goal of 261 has been waiting impatiently for me to meet it.  A reasonable goal would be to be at or below 245 at year's end.

Utter failure.  Ending the year at 280. Dropped WW.  I tried Lose It! but have failed at all aspects of this.

Riding the bike helps keep my knees mobile and helps cardiac fitness (but I'll need to add more resistance to achieve better heart benefits)

Once again, utter failure.

Resume my exercises for my knees.  My right hip is bothering me, and that's directly attributable to not doing my stretching exercises

Utter failure.  I've started a couple of plans in Lift.  One is 90 Days to a New You.  It involves drinking water -- something I do very well, squats, pushups, and jumping jacks.  We haven't started the jumping jacks yet (I peeked-- that's this week), and I'm having to do wall pushups (my upper body strength has deteriorated terribly over the last few years), but squats are not as bad on my knees as I feared, and they are helping in important areas I'd been troubled about.

My blood pressure is giving me problems.  If I can't get it lowered with diet and exercise, the doc is going to have to put me on another medication.  I don't want that.

I tracked this for six months, and doc was satisfied that it's not a problem.  Yay.  On my visit this week, he was pleased with my readings.  He was not, however, happy with my weight.  He told me it's time to get back at it.  Sigh.

Family:
This is always troublesome for me.  I care for my family -- even love them, of course, but I've been away from them so long, I don't really know them.  Mom and I play Lexulous, so we chat back and forth in the course of the game.  My younger brother and his family are on Facebook, so we have some communication that way. My sister has a Facebook account, but she hasn't been on for several months.  My older brother will communicate via text, so maybe I better text him more than an annual Christmas and birthday text.

No real progress in this area.  My older brother did text me a photo of a "new" motorcycle a few months ago.

My folks are coming to OK for my nephew's high school graduation in May, and we plan to attend as well.  So I suggested they might want to ride down on the train, and we'd pick them up in Dallas.  Then I suggested they come spend a couple of days with us in Central TX (Dad hasn't seen the house yet), and they accepted.

Due to health issues, Mom and Dad weren't able to make the trip in May.  They were able to make the trip for my brother's retirement the week before Thanksgiving, but we weren't able to make the trip up to visit them.  So, it's a wash.  We didn't plan to stop to see them as we usually do on the train trip, because we'd anticipated seeing them in May.  Bummer.

Writing: PBOTL revision and completion of How To Revise Your Novel are my top writing priority.  I also plan to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.

I participated in and won NaNo this year.  I did well with PBOTL until around May, then it got pushed aside for travel and other things, and I never got back to it.

Reading: I always have a goal of reading 50 books a year.  2012 has probably been my worst year for reading, and I doubt 2013 will be much better, but the goal remains 50 books.
I think I've achieved half my goal for reading, and I'm pleasantly surprised by that.

FM: I'm more active behind the scenes than I was at the beginning of the year.  I'm not much more active on the front end than I was before. With the transition to Joomla!, I've become the primary back end person.  I've created the test site but still haven't found the best way to get it configured to match the live site.  I plan to redo the FAQ. We need to figure out how to get chat logins integrated with the site login.  There are a few other problems people are complaining about that I have no idea how to resolve.

I've taken care of back end site problems and maintenance at Forward Motion.  Minimal participation up front. I converted the Vision site to the newer version of Joomla! for Zette, and it went live in, I think, late August.

Blogging and Internet Presence:  I'm mostly comfortable with my current blog schedule.  I skip a few days now and then.  I see few new readers and nearly no commenters.  I understand what they meant when they said blogging was dead, but I have no interest in making Facebook a blogging platform.  In fact, I refuse to do so.  I still value what we have here at Createslate as we begin our third year.

I participated in April A-Z this year on two sites and had little time to run around and check other sites.  I decided I wasn't going to participate next year, but I'm re-evaluating that idea.  Signing up for PLF and learning about marketing my writing -- as mediocre as I've been at applying my lessons -- has reminded me I must do better in getting quality words representative of my writing out there.  With time to prepare, I should be able to achieve that goal.


So.  A mixed bag for achieving this year's goals.  Time to begin considering what's realistic for next year. 

Let the sunshine in

Snow and ice here have kept me mostly confined to the house. I have a bit of cabin fever. Ready for the sun to melt the ice away. I just don't like winter. Never had.

Not much to tell you about my health. Not much progress, but no decline either. So that's good? Yes, good, and maybe I am a bit better each day. Just hard to see.

I did finish most of my Christmas cards today, all 64 of them, which is kind of silly. Better than last year when I sent 112. I do enjoy cards, though. Watching for the mail during December is something I look forward to. I hope to mail the cards tomorrow. Depends on whether I can get out of the house or not. If not, maybe my roomie will mail them for me.

This week is a busy one:
- Write and publish the family December newsletter.
- Writers group Saturday morning. This is our Christmas potluck dinner.
- Help a friend with her first book signing, also on Saturday morning.
- Attend the Hanging of the Green at the First United Methodist Church Sunday afternoon, which had to be rescheduled due to the bad weather.
- As many household chores as I can do.
- Christmas shopping. Going for cash and cards this year. Don't have the energy to shop. Of course, can't do that for the little ones who want toys, but Amazon to the rescue. Just have to make out a list and get organized.
- Continue to declutter my desk.
- Marketing for my books and the Many Rivers Harbor authors, particularly Red Bird Woman.
- Take more photos with my camera as I can.

Anyway, those are my plans. Hope you have a great week.

First snow

We've got about 4" of snow on the ground with the possibility of more tomorrow.

Good Stuff:
- I've got almost all my boxes filled. It's getting increasingly difficult to figure out what to pack given the fact that we still have Christmas here. I don't want to pack what we'll need but I don't want to leave too much for the end.
- I got back to words. It's always tricky to get back into the story after being away.
- I made and canned 5 quarts of turkey stock plus about a quart of turkey soup for dinner that night. I have a lot left over, especially since one quart didn't seal.
- Alex graduates next Saturday at 9-freaking-a.m. It's a formality, really, since he'll be staying there to do his Masters. Dad and Linda are coming, and then they're coming back to the house for a few days.
- I was grousing about my "new" jiggly bits to Eric today, and it turns out he likes my jiggly bits. So for now at least, even though I weigh what I did when I delivered Vicky, I'm going to focus on maintaining. Once we get settled I'll look at some kind of self-defense class. I've kinda got my pick in the new neighborhood. He's not worried, the doctor's not worried, I guess I shouldn't be either.
- I'm hanging out with my praise band peeps tomorrow. We've heading to St. Louis to see Josh Wilson in concert. He and one other guy put on a whole concert with a couple dozen different instruments and a loop machine thingy. A couple of us saw him last year, and when our leader heard he was going to be back this year she bought tickets for everyone.
- I've done most of my Christmas shopping online, and have gotten them in and wrapped. I'll be able to ship my mom's this week.

Not So Good Stuff:
- I've been watching too much TV in an effort to have noise in the house. For some reason I want speaking voices rather than music. I guess I could listen to talk radio, but that's all political. (Note to self: we have Pandora on the Roku. Maybe they have talkies that aren't political?)
- It's been harder to stay on task without the accountability of Eric coming home each night.
- Eric can't take the week of Christmas off. He doesn't have enough vacation to take more than 2 days, so he's leaving after work Christmas Eve for the long weekend.

This week:
- Barding gig on Friday before I leave for graduation. Need to learn Christmas stories.
- Get the house ready for company. At least I have turkey soup.
- Write.
- Pack for the night away. 

Have a good week, y'all.

Cold As Ice

We are in a bit of a chill.  Sneaky's water tower froze over, and I broke it.  Fortunately, we had another water tower in the garage, and I pulled it into service, but it's not likely to last long, even with the fleece dog coat wrapped around it.  We go to Temple on Tuesday, and I'll be looking for a replacement.  Other than that, it's been a week!

My MacBookPro arrived from China on Thursday afternoon, and I love it.  I did not love attempting to use Migration Assistant to migrate apps and data over from my MacMini.  In fact, I abandoned the effort after the fifth time when it managed to lose my user account and I couldn't even log in.  Which means I nearly bricked my brand new laptop.  Fortunately, Command-R and my TimeMachine backup I'd made of the unsullied machine the day before worked well, and I was back in business -- using the old-fashioned method of manually downloading all my apps and setting them up.  Fortunately, critical data is all on Dropbox, so once that was set up, data flowed to where it needed to be.  I installed the AppStore apps first (the once I wanted to put on this machine, anyway).  Then I checked licenses for the others to make sure I could install them on multiple machines and installed away.  I'm going to have to make a decision about mSecure.  They need a license for each machine, but if I buy again in the AppStore, I can use it on all my machines.  I'm not anxious to be beholden to the AppStore for my mission critical apps, but in this case, they seem to be driving customers in that direction.

The Good Stuff:

• I feel better this week than last.
• We seem to have found a balance for Lady being free of the cage and Rossie being free to move but putting Lady in the cage in the evening and overnight.  Rossie is downstairs more in the late evening, and she's out and about more upstairs during the day.  The other "kittens" are much more active around the house, too.  This looks like a long process to get Rossie's confidence up enough to work through this problem, but we're seeing progress.
• Based upon a post Erin made on Facebook, I'm trying a new app for the phone called Lift.  The idea is to use the app to establish new habits.  I chose to start with Decluttering and "Become a Writing Machine."  The first decluttering task was to clean out the closet, which I've just done, but it threw a wrench into things when it asked, "Do you really need all those T-shirts?"  Busted!  The first task for the Writing Machine was to define my audience -- a task I've been procrastinating on for a couple of months now.  
• Mr. L has been working on several projects in the master bathroom, and they're coming together -- installing a shaving mirror and new towel hooks by the shower got finished today.  He's still working on the device to hold the new light fixture that will mount above the new medicine cabinet he installed a few weeks ago.
• I'm evaluating off-site data storage services.  Stephen sent me an invite for Carbonite (thank you), but at the moment, I'm learning toward Crashplan+.  With my recent frustration with Time Machine, I'm more convinced than ever that I need one of these subscription services.
• Our local high school team goes to the semi-finals for the state championship next week.  We'll find out tonight if Alamo Heights will advance, too.  Exciting times in local football right now.  Hoping my Ohio State Buckeyes prevail this evening in the Big 10 Championship game.  I have no delusions of them winning the national championship should they be selected to compete for it, given their cupcake schedule and utter lack of defense, but one never knows what might happen with these things.  Last Saturday made for superb football, that's for sure.
• Christmas cards are addressed.  My goal is to get most of them out on Monday. I hope the Post Office has the "Holy Family" stamps -- those were beautiful last year.

The Not So Good Stuff: 

• Although I got my 750 words every day, I utterly failed to do any professional writing.  
• I did read and critique a draft for an on-line acquaintance.  I'm not sure I was tough enough on her, but she did admit she'd been taking shortcuts, and my commentary indicated she realized she couldn't get away with it.
• I'm not doing a good job focusing on my health.

The Week Ahead: 

• Get Christmas cards mailed out
• Do more research on computer backup services (I don't plan to buy until around February -- have a number of bills I need to take care of first).
• Work on my two "Lift" projects -- decluttering and writing.
• Prep for trip to SA -- need to make sure I bring all the right things.
• Order new checks
• Daphne, Delta, Ruby, and Rossie to the vet on Monday for shots
• Me to the doctor on Tuesday for semi-annual visit
• Call in for prescription refills late in the week so they'll be ready for pick up on my way to San Antonio next week
• Begin evaluating what I want to focus on for next year.

Time Passes By

Did you know it's December?  My, my, my.  Time does fly.  I'm feeling miserable this weekend -- a head, chest, and other kind of cold is trying to settle in.  But you don't want to hear about that.

The Good Stuff:

• Ummmmm.
• I finished NaNo.
• I'm seeing incrementally more of Rossie over the last couple of days. With Lady in the cage, I'm seeing more of Ruby and Delta, too.
• I used Apple's Black Friday gift card special to order a 15" Retina MacBookPro. I was going to buy it in late December or early January, and Apple never discounts their stuff.  I can use the $150 gift card to reduce the price of the new Mini whenever it's released.  I found a Hard Candy case on Amazon (regularly $60) for $12.
• The RandR Fiction Club newsletter is nearly ready to go.
• I learned a little more about how the Aweber stuff works by setting up a couple more lists -- one for regular Fiction Club members, which will go live on January 2 and another for blog posts subscriptions to Philosophical Meanderings.  I don't expect a lot of subscribers to that; it's a low traffic blog both for readers and postings.
• Our local high school team advanced to the quarterfinals in their quest to repeat as state champions in their class and division.  Surprisingly, Alamo Heights (our local high school in SA) is also in the chase for a state championship in their class and division.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• Ummmmm.
• Lady is confined to cage while I try to figure out how to reduce her aggressive behavior to the other  cats.  I feel terrible about this, even though it's a large cage and I let her out a couple of times a day in a more controlled area.  This was a long time coming on, and it will take some time to correct the situation, but at the moment, it appears the only solution may be to find a home for Lady where she can be the only cat.
• I "bricked" a 1TB portable hard drive I used for Time Machine backups of the Air when a firmware update failed.  The drive went out of warranty in May, so I'm just out of luck for that drive.  I ordered two new drives to go with the new laptop, and I'll have at least one of them serve double duty as a backup drive for the Air as well.

The Week Ahead:

• Ummmmm.
• Get Revolution applied to all the cats
• Prepare old manuscripts for review and analysis.  I found character sketches during NaNo and found a few I really liked, so I think it's time to blow the dust off the first drafts and put together a plan for the future.
• Rest as needed.  I'd like to feel better next week.
• After temperatures in the 30s last week, we can look forward to cozy 70s this week.

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin...

I've had a terrible time keeping track of days this week. It might be because we haven't done much outside the house. Dinner out a couple times, but no touristy stuff this time. For some reason, Eric didn't appreciate it much when Greg and I agreed it's felt like Saturday all week. :-)

Good Stuff:
- Everyone got here safely.
- Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. Amazing how easy it is when you decide not to be perfect and only do the important bits. Eric bought bread and desserts, and there were no howls of outrage that I didn't make challah from scratch. The only flack I caught was that I didn't make mac & cheese in addition to all the other carbs on the table, and Alex was the only one put out.
- It was great having everyone here. I'm not the only one stressed out these days, and we all needed the downtime to step back and count our blessings.
- The Christmas tree and creche are up. I'm dragging out ALL the Christmas stuff this year. When we un-decorate, I'll let the kids take what they want, or at least call dibs.
- Most of the books are packed. Every time I turn around, I find more of them. I swear they multiply.
- I think I'm getting bookcases for Christmas.
- My cold went away quickly. Yeah for Airborne!

Not So Good Stuff:
- Eric had to work through Wednesday, so he didn't get here until late Wednesday night.
- Alex didn't get here until Tuesday. He decided to stay at school a couple extra days to try to knock out his homework. He still didn't get it all done and had to bring some home.
- It seems like the more I do, the more there is still left to do. There are big open spaces where we've moved things, but still piles of things that need to be dealt with. I need to get more ruthless in my sorting, and I need to keep reminding myself that not everything is moving.
- I've developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I'm going to try speed walking instead of plodding running for a while.
- It's looking like I won't be going upstate again until after Christmas. Between getting ready for the holidays and Alex's graduation on the 14th, and then family visiting after, there just isn't a block of time for me to go except late next week, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get enough of a load together to justify the gas. On one hand, that's fine. It's a long, boring drive, and the cats are neurotic when I get home. On the other, it's hard living alone, and at least when I go up there we both get a break from that.
- I dropped out of Nano. It's not really a bust. I got a lot done, but there's almost no chance of finishing the book this year and I have to be all right with that. I'm setting a new target date of Feb. 28th, but Valentine's Day would be great.
- I'm not going to the rendezvous in FL this year. It's the first time I'll miss it since I started going, oh, about 10 years ago. We need to build our emergency fund back up, and frankly, I'm sick of traveling. I've been gone way too much this year.

So I think that's about it. It's all I can scrape out of my muddled little brain. I'd say it will get better now that there are a couple weeks to get things done, but that's wishful thinking! Looking forward to January...

Sail On Sailor

Last night my projected title rhymed with the one up there now.  In the light of morning and a new day, I'm going with this, more positive view on things.  But feelings are feelings, and I cannot deny that I feel as if I've been an utter and complete failure in every aspect of my life lately.  Intellectually, of course, I know that's nowhere near the truth.  I have a tendency to let little negatives build in my mind into major mountains (or crevasses if you choose to look at it from that perspective).  I dislike that I need to remind myself how wonderfully blessed I am in nearly all aspects of my life.   I am so thankful God has not seen fit to remind me in incredibly personal ways just how good I've had it.  So far, I can see it in the lives of so many others in the world.  And I do thank Him regularly for my multitude of blessings across the full spectrum of life. In no particular order (we're experiencing a cold spell, so the first is foremost in my mind at the moment):

I have a warm, cozy home (two, actually), and other properties to benefit from.
I have been able to provide a stable environment for ten gorgeous kitties (even though I'm frustrated by conflict between two of those kitties, I'm doing my best to resolve it).
I have a husband who is healthy, intelligent, and creative, who can do so many things well by himself.
That same husband loves me unbelievably and strives to provide so well for me.
I have wonderfully supportive friends.
I'm able to help others both financially and with my time periodically.
I have way more things than I need.
I can make time to pursue my dream of writing professionally.
I have the luxury of being debt-free, and have been that way since 1999.
Both my parents are alive and reasonably well (both have significant health issues, but they are doing well for now).
My siblings are all good, morally sound people.
My nieces and nephews are maturing at different rates, but the young adults are pulling their lives together and working toward their future.  The teenagers are progressing well.
My stepdaughters are remarkably resilient.
My granddaughters, like my nieces and nephews, are beginning to make their way in the world.

I have been blessed with so much.  I can relate the things, but there are things money cannot buy which enrich my life as well.  I think my angst stems from the knowledge that much of it is very tenuous and can be snatched away at any time from any variety of directions. 

Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours.  I know you are all blessed in many ways.  May you find health, happiness, and prosperity throughout this holiday season.  Make time to savor the  wondrousness of things as you push through the busyness.  I love and cherish each of you.

Pre-mayhem

The house is as ready as it's going to get. The Boys get here tomorrow. Good thing I care more about the condition of the house than they do.

Good Stuff:
- I got a lot of cleaning and sorting done.
- Made a Good Will run.
- Word count as of tonight is 37,964. I did nearly 13,000 this week.
- The cats seem to be simmering down. Apparently, my prolonged presence is doing the trick.
- Re-read Catching Fire before I go to see it, hopefully in the next few days.
- Vicky volunteered to do the airport run for me tomorrow. In return, I'm cooking a roast and mashed potatoes for her. And the Boys, of course. And hopefully Alex. Still don't know when he's supposed to get here. Kids.

Not So Good Stuff:
- Caught a cold. Not a bad one, but enough to sap my energy. At least my nose isn't stuffy. That goes a long way toward making it bearable.
- While I kicked butt on word count, the cold slowed me down. Also, I was working off normal NaNo minimums, which means with the days I slacked off, I still need a little over 12,000 words this week. I really wanted to be closer to done by this time. I'm about to the point that if I don't make it, screw it. The only thing keeping me going is I really want to finish the book this year.
- Being single sucks. Stephen, I don't know how you do this day in and day out. I'm used to having help, or at least a cheerleader who comes home from work for dinner and tells me how good the house looks. If I wasn't committed to having Christmas here (and singing on Christmas Eve) I'd pack up the cats and go.
- Our tornado sirens went off at 5:15 this morning. It was a false alarm, thank goodness, but I couldn't go back to sleep after that. Must be a contributing factor to my pity party tonight. In fact, I can safely say that's when the 'single sucks' started.
- Still no news on Vicky's lease, but I haven't been pestering her for updates. That's the least of my concerns right now.

This Week:
- Hang out with Boys and kids.
- Fencing tomorrow! And lunch with my friend.
- Write, for pity's sake!

Happy New Year!

I'm 47 today. Or I will be, about 3:30 this afternoon. Eric came down this weekend and we spent yesterday doing fun stuff. Now he's headed back north, and it's back to the every day for me, except for the cupcake I bought myself. No need to have a whole cake around, calling out for me.

Good Stuff:
- We saw the new Thor movie yesterday and really enjoyed it. Really, what's not to love about Chris Hemsworth half naked and Tom Hiddleston causing havoc?
- I bought a new sweater to wear to church today, but it was too warm for a sweater. :-/
- I usually don't tell many people about my birthday. They tend to make a big fuss about it, and while I enjoy a little fuss, I have my limits. They were stretched today. Our worship leader planned half the music with me in mind, and they sang Happy Birthday in the middle of worship. I do appreciate having my contributions acknowledged because I do quite a bit there, but, well, like I  said, I have limits. Luckily, she got it out of her system and we were able to return to our regularly scheduled worship service. 
- Sent more stuff north. Mostly books this time. I think it might be a good strategy to send all the books I can north so we can see how much more shelf space we need.
- Moved some stuff around downstairs so there won't be big holes where we've moved stuff when the Boys come on Saturday.
- Had a physical with the new doc upstate. She wasn't at all concerned with my weight, and everything checked out a-okay. So far, anyway. I haven't gotten results on my blood work yet.

Not So Good Stuff:
- The Boys come Saturday. Eric won't be back until the following Wednesday. Luckily, his boss is letting him work an extra hour a day between now and then so he can take Friday off. Plus I think Alex will be home that weekend, so maybe I won't have to be the entertainment committee all on my own. Not that they need much entertaining!
- The weather today is very strange. It's unusually warm--in the 70's--but super windy, and you can feel the chill in the wind. Classic tornado weather for this area, which would be bad enough on its own, but Eric is driving today. To say I'm praying like crazy is an understatement. I'd really like for today to continue to be a happy birthday.
- There is so much to do this week, and Eric's visit was too short.
- I'm a day behind on word count, which isn't a huge deal. I can make it up, but I have the house to clean and Thanksgiving/company to prep for. I'm putting together a plan. We'll see how that works. Hopefully I won't get so overwhelmed that I retreat to the TV. Or food.
- I might have to conceded defeat on Nano. Not giving up yet, but we'll have to see how this week goes. I was pushing to get it done because I wanted to finish the book this year, and I could, in theory, make it. I'm almost 25% done with 6-ish weeks left in the year. If I can maintain my pace, there's hope. It'll be a real accomplishment. I've never written a whole book in under 6 months, so to do one in 2 will be epic.
- I've been working on this post almost 2 hours. My phone has been ringing non-stop. It's nice to be loved, but I should run out of relatives sooner or later! Jeesh!

I think that's it from here. If not, it's close enough. Have a good one!

S A T U R D A Y- - - - NIGHT!!~

Heh. That song reminds me of roller skating at the roller rink with my middleschool class. I pretty much stunk (stank??) at roller skating, and always had to hold the wall. Not much has changed in 35 years. ;) lol

It's been a pretty typical week here. Got some housework done, laundry is caught up, other than the load in the dryer to fold and the clothes we all wore today. I have even - mostly - organized and cleaned my sewing space. Weight's been more-or-less steady (up a little, down a little, basically going nowhere) and I'm still struggling with the last remnants of my tummy bug.

Been writing tho, every night as promised in my challenge with my friend Shirley. Shirley, however, has had some family stuff to deal with so - as of yesterday at least - she hasn't written anything yet. She will tho. :)

Went to a 'one stop shop hop' with my friend Deb and her mom today. That's where several quilt shops get together to sell their stuff all in one place instead of a standard shop hop where a bunch of shops get together to run group sales and the quilters have to drive all over everywhere to get all of the freebies/patterns/specials. I spent $8 at the shop hop, but we stopped at another store on the way back... I spent $48 there. Quilted Forest in Forest City is a very dangerous store. Anyway, it was fun to hang with Deb and Norma for most of the day. Not sure when I'm going to get to sew any of my purchases tho. I still have Jean and Wendy's quilts to finish (the tops are done, but I haven't progressed since) and Stephen's to piece. It's cut, just not sewn together. Plus all the other partially done or need to get started on quilts for Christmas presents, etc.

Sigh. Must focus on writing, not sewing.

Tomorrow it's football and the Steelers are most likely gonna get their butts handed to them by the Detroit Lions. Six months ago (heck, three months ago!!) I would have laughed hysterically at that statement, but here we are. I might be able to stretch a quilt while listening to the game, especially if it's as one sided as I'm pretty sure it's going to be. At least it'll be on TV this week so I can cuss at the players instead of just the increasingly crappy score at the update line on the bottom of the screen.

Hmm. Maybe I can move the kitchen table into the TV room (it'll fit) so I can stretch the quilts *and* watch the game! That's a plan!!  The lighting's not the best in there, but I think I can make it work (my sewing lamp is portable, after all) :)

My regular monthly sewing class is this coming Friday - YAY!! - and I'll be there all day sewing (double yay!!), plus the next Friday (black Friday) I am, currently, planning on also sewing at the quilt shop all day since Tanya's having a black Friday sew-instead-of-shop-athon (triple yay!). I ought to be able to make at least a little dent in all of the projects. Oy, I have a lot of projects! Here's hoping either Laura or Bill will be home Black Friday so I can sew. 

Little Miss turns two on Tuesday! It's not possible, yet it's like she's always been here. Such an incredible kid!

Lastly, I received a very nice rejection yesterday. It's progress, right? :)

We're hosting Thanksgiving, and I think I'm pretty much set for that, other than picking up the turkey and whatever I decide to make for munchies. I have delegated pie to my mother and I think I'll ask my father in law to bring pop.

I was still pretty stressy/whiny/cranky/weepy until Bill came home last night and I grabbed him, held on, and he held back. He just smooshed the negativity away, I think. Been better ever since.

It's probably a shift in my stupid hormones, but I'll let Bill take the credit for it.  ;)

Be kind, be happy, write lots!!  {{hugs}}

The Devil Went Down To Georgia

And I stayed here in Texas, all out of bandwidth.  Being retired, I sometimes lose track of days and time, but I lost last weekend for posting.  I missed the updates in email, thinking I'd seen them all on the Air down in San Antonio, I just marked them all as read, and that kept me from getting grounded in this week right away on Monday night. Chiming in early to balance the two weeks. For the last two weeks:

The Good Stuff:

• Even though I was inordinately grumpy at Wurstfest when I couldn't find anything I wanted to do after Mr. L finished playing, he took me home.  Or rather, he took me to Timbo's, which brightened both my mood and the mood of our favorite waitress, Barb (she's the only waitress there -- if she's off, the owner is the server, and he's not the reason we go to his place).
• We finally got a tree all the way down in the driveway in SA.  One of many, but one is good.
• Mr. L declared the bathtub drain complete, so we've been taking showers in SA again.  Yay.  
• Kitten shall be called Daphne.
• NaNo is going well.
• I found a nifty poll plug in for WordPress (WP-Polls) which will do most of what I want to do.  I can't embed a link into an email, though, so I'm still looking.
• Mr. L installed our new medicine cabinet yesterday.  Much nicer and roomier than the chintzy, poor quality one the previous owners had installed.  
• My brother's retirement ceremony from the Army is at the end of this month.  Thankful his family won't have to worry about him being deployed anymore.
• Property taxes half paid.
• Bought and hung insulated curtains in the room intended to be a bathroom on the northwest corner of upstairs -- no more chilly breeze emanating from the room.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• I'm not getting enough exercise. Weight is about the same, but clothes are fitting tighter.  Should I blame NaNo?
• No decluttering done.

The Week Ahead:

• Have I mentioned I need to declutter?
• I need to listen to Module 5 of PLF
• I still have some PLF homework to complete.  I'm having difficulty analyzing my audience.  Other than Stephen.  Stephen is my audience. This is good, but I'd like to expand that a touch.
• Despite the chill, I believe I need to mow the lawn again this weekend.
• Mr. L is taking me to a gun show on Saturday.  We need brass.
• Finish NaNo this week.
• Use the remainder of the month to assess my various writing projects and put together a schedule for revising them for public consumption.

Life in all its bleak and wonderful glory

Sorry I've been gone. No good reason other than I simply didn't post. Should have. Didn't. There's probably some deep-seated reason for that, but I'm kind of tired of introspective right now. Maybe tired of me. I need to get out more and see some sights, take in what's left of the season's sun.

This is the first year in eight that I didn't do National Novel Writing Month. I considered it right up to November 1, but decided not to. Seemed more stress than I felt up to, but I miss it and I hope I will be back next year. 

On Saturday, November 2, I went to Author's Day at the Duncan Public Library in Duncan, Oklahoma. That was a good time. I met other authors and enjoyed shoptalk. Sold some books and used my PayPal credit card reader for the first time -- it worked wonderfully. The money was in my account in minutes. Awesome.

The following Tuesday -- this past Tuesday -- I went back to the doctor. No real news. We're staying the course. Just adjusted the meds a bit more. Overall, I'm doing better. More energy than before, although nowhere close to 100 percent, but better. Still having bouts of dizziness, but fewer and I'm learning what triggers them and how to handle them.

Thursday and Friday, I worked on publishing Red Bird Woman by Gail Wood. It's a beautiful book of stunning poetry. I'm proud of it and glad to add it to the Many Rivers Harbor line. 

Saturday, I attended the writers group meeting and gave the program based on the 2014 Guide of Self Publishing (Writer's Digest Books). It was well received, particularly the page of resources that I shared with them. I'm going to post the resources on the group's webpage and will let you know when it's there. You might find some of the sites and books useful.

Today, I watched church on TV, ate lunch, napped, and attended a smorgasbord at the local Catholic church this evening. It's their main fundraising event for the year, and they will serve three or four thousand people. The line was long, and I got a bit dizzy, but I was able to sit down and did okay after that.

And now I'm posting on Createslate. So you're caught on the past several days. What's coming up this week?

Doing chores. Promoting Red Bird Woman. Getting a few words -- any words -- on Murder by the Mile. Posting a few times on The Books of Stephen B. Bagley and 51313 Harbor Street. Taking my meds. Slowly starting to exercise again. Publish a family newsletter. Keep my head above water enough so that I can enjoy life in all its bleak and wonderful glory. That's enough.

Hope you have a great week!

Oh. It is Sunday.

Hmm. Not sure how that happened. All my days have been catywampus lately.

Good Stuff:
- Made it upstate with another load after a 2-day turn-around. Lucky I'd already gotten a head start on the packing.
- Made it to fencing before I left, and boy, I needed to blow off some steam. I've realized that, while I get more done under stress, I tend to get wound up tighter than a watch spring, and I don't have many good outlets. Luckily, I warned my instructor ahead of time, and we had a no-holds-barred bout for the best part of an hour. I'm bruised and more relaxed.
- It's been clear and sunny here. Quite a change. It's been rainy my last couple times. I finally got up to the roof  to take pictures of the lights tonight. I posted one on Facebook. The scotch in the picture is gone.
- We checked out a Presbyterian church not far from here. It's very pretty and I liked the service. The band is totally not what I'm used to--cello, violin, keyboard, guitar, banjo, and accordion. Apparently, not all the musicians are there every week because the bulletin listed the musicians "today." Not sure where my niche will be there, but it's not something I'm going to concern myself with for a few months.
- We went to Ikea this afternoon to buy my new desk. It's more or less a table with a keyboard tray, but the price was right and it will prevent me from having to move the big heavy desk I have downstate. It will also be easy to move when we move out of here, whenever that is.
- I have scotch upstate and whiskey downstate. Moving is easier with alcohol. Wish I'd learned that years ago.

Not So Good Stuff:
- Words haven't been coming as easily the last few days, for what I'm sure are obvious reasons. I'm officially behind in Nano. Looks like I'll be working on my birthday unless I buckle down this week.
- I bought some herbal stuff for the cats to help with the stress. That was a no go. They wouldn't touch it, even when I put chicken in it. Luckily, I found the pheromone atomizers on Amazon and ordered them in time to get there before I had to leave again. Hopefully it's helping.
- Vicky's landlord doesn't want to let them out of their lease until it ends in May. They're going to try to find someone to sublet their house so they can move as planned, but it's all up in the air right now. Worst case scenario is the house will be empty for a few months and we won't have help with the mortgage. We can manage it but it would be better if we didn't have to. We do have good neighbors who will keep an eye on things, and I'm sure Justin will keep the lawn mowed. Not that it will need much more mowing this year.
- I'm sure it goes without saying that traffic is insane here. It's like drivin g in Italy without the hand gestures, although I've been tempted to teach some. :-) On the upside, when I was driving in yesterday, I passed Santa Claus. He was driving a silver sedan on I-90 W, not far from The Loop.  (That's downtown. I have to pass through it to get here.) He was good and didn't make me wish they did hand gestures here.

So that's about it here. I'm about done for the night except for logging word count. How are y'all?

It's Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Generally speaking, Sundays suck, mostly because LittleMiss leaves us for a couple of days to visit her dad and we always mope around, missing her.

Anyway, TheKid is at work, Bill's in the basement playing D&D with friends, and I'm watching the Bengals/Ravens game while keeping an eye out for the Steelers score - at this moment, they're currently 23-3 against the Buffalo Bills, with 3:23 left in the 4th quarter. So, maybe they'll win one. They really need to win one.

I have the laptop here on my lap to write, but since I have a bad case of the 'who the heck am I kidding?'s over my writing, I'm mostly watching the game, petting MeowMeow, and reading quilt porn, er, The Keepsake Quilting Catalog. I need to make time to sew. I need to make my brain write, I need to wash my kitchen cupboards and scrub my downstairs floors and a million other things I'm not doing.

My class is going all right, I guess, but I don't feel like I'm doing a good job teaching. I have two students. One doesn't need the class - she's confident and knowledgeable and, with one finished novel and another half done, really just needs encouragement to polish and submit. The other is a super sweet younger guy, but I'm not sure if he's writing a novel. I think it's more non-fiction essays and I'm not a lot of help with that. I go in with my notes and I'm ready to discuss everything, but she has no questions (just yup, yup, yup!) and he wants to talk about his own things (as do we all). I keep knocking discussion back to the topics of that class (this week it was characters and working past humps/distractions/etc). I dunno, I just don't feel like I'm teaching either of them anything at all.

I was sick most of this past week (LittleMiss brought home a tummy bug to share with everyone) and lost about 5 lbs in a not very happy or healthy way, but I've started eating again and put most back on. I'm not really counting points again yet - I'm still kinda glurgly and my body's screaming for bland yet calorie dense food - but hopefully the tummy will be back to normal operating parameters tomorrow. I haven't exercised either, there's simply no energy. It's amazing and distressing how a virus can wipe me out so badly.

Had my annual physical and such on Monday (before the LittleMiss bug hit us all) and passed everything with glowing colors, so that's great. My doc was VERY ENTHUSED about my weight loss and wasn't worried at all about my plateau. Said it's due to my hormones and to hang tough and it'd work out fine. So I'm trying to do that.

No news on SPORE, and I have about 2 weeks before NY shuts down booky stuff for year end matters, so if it hasn't received an offer before Thanksgiving, nothing will happen until next year. Still waiting edits for MORGAN. It's not going to go out until January, so the chances of me selling *anything* this year are slim to none. Oh well.

We're having most of the family over for turkey and such, which will be nice, and there might be more people. We've kinda put the word out that we're putting out a big spread, so come on over.

I lost the city council election and was relieved. I have a meeting tomorrow and I look at my agenda packet and think, Gah, I don't want to do this! So it's surely a good thing I'm not locked into another 4 years of it. It was a good experience, a learning experience, but I cannot fathom why anyone wants to do this kind of thing as a vocation. Not and keep their soul. It's draining. It's constant bickering over money and who/how to spend it. Or not. Or why to use this company and not that one, even if the other one's cheaper. Did you know there's a GARBAGE MAFIA in rural Iowa? Seriously. And a asphalt one, too. Have to use the right garbage collection/road repair service or it's trouble. Same with bobcat repair, automotive maintenance, electrical... Crazy. Only this month and next, and I'm done. I do want to make a little quilt (a mug-rug, probably) for our city clerk, tho. She's been a great help.

This coming week, I just want to accomplish something instead of sitting around holding my belly and poofing out fumes. ;)

Only 51 seconds left in the game and the Steelers are still ahead 23-3. Yay!

Hope you all have a great week and Happy Veterans Day tomorrow! {{hugs}}

Runnin' With The Devil

No.  Not really, but that title has been running through my head, so I figured I'd use it.  At least, I hope not!  We're in San Antonio for the week.  Wurstfest, you know.  Or maybe you don't.  New Braunfels' tribute to sausage -- a week long celebration of sausage, beer, and German music.  Shrug.  It's a big deal down here.  Mr. L plays with the New Braunfels Village Brass Band at two church services (Catholic today and Lutheran next week) and in the Big Tent early next Saturday afternoon.  I'll probably go with him Saturday afternoon and next Sunday morning, but this morning, I'm at Panera getting a head start on word count (at least, ostensibly). 

The Good Stuff:

• I'm on track for backwards NaNo.  I got the last thousand words for yesterday after midnight last night, so the count will go on today's total, but I'm shooting for 3101 for the rest of today to stay on track.  Starting tomorrow, my daily goal drops below 3000.
• Kitten made the transition to San Antonio on the front seat (in her carrier) beside me.  For most of the trip, she rubbed against my fingers, which I left draped in the door of her carrier.  For the last hour, she mostly slept.  This kitten just loves to be held and cuddled.
• Rossie was active in the house last night.  Usually she takes a few days to willingly come out from under her chair.  She likes being in San Antonio.
• I got the data plan dropped back to 4GB for next month.
• Got half the front yard mowed this morning before having to put the mower on the charger.  I should be able to finish tomorrow -- just in time for rain on Tuesday (which we need -- SA didn't get the rain Austin and Central TX got last week).
• Half taxes paid for the two big Central TX properties.  Plan to pay the little SA property tax this month as well.  Next month is the big SA property tax, and January will pay the remainder of the Central TX big properties -- by paying half before Nov 1, the other half won't be due until the end of June.  That gives us latitude in case something goes terribly wrong financially.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• No progress on the newsletter preparation (but that's not a huge deal, since November is focused on NaNo).
• I must not be focusing on Mr. L enough lately.  No matter what I do or don't do, he seems unhappy with me.  When we try to talk I can't hear him and he can't hear me.  We discussed the need last night for incorporating a long, vocalized pause before we begin speaking to each other.  It would alert the other person we're about to speak, and it would enable the speaker to get up to a volume the other person could hear.
• In a corollary discussion, the reason long-term couples do not speak in restauarants is not that they have nothing to say or that they don't like one another, the are just tired of having to either say, "What?" or having to repeat themselves.  It's just easier to try not to talk over the ambient noise in most places. Young people do not yet understand this.
• I can remember lying on the living room floor and rolling up to a standing position in one smooth movement and thinking I couldn't figure out why other people could not do this.  Sigh. I'm so sad about that.  There are a few things I miss about my 17-27 year-old self.

The Week Ahead:

• Maintain progress in NaNo.  This is the tough week for me.
• Get yard work done.
• Help Mr. L where feasible with his household repair goals for the week.
• Work with cats
• Pay the little SA property tax (Alamo Heights city -- it should be in the held mail when it arrives on Monday).
• Drool on new MacBookPros as well as the Mini (I need to replace my Mini, and it will be my Christmas present to myself.  I'm seriously considering a 15" Retina MacBookPro as well.  I think I can hold off on the iPad for one more generation.)
• Go to Wurstfest on Saturday and try to have a good time.

Loaded And Locked

The van, that is. The latest batch of stuff is packed and I'll head upstate after church tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to the drive, but I'm looking forward to being there and getting the apartment more put together.

Good Stuff:
- The story I started plotting next weekend came together so easily it freaked me out a little.
- I've got a little over 5,000 words in so far, which is good because I likely won't get any tomorrow.
- I'm looking forward to exploring a little more of my new neighborhood. Not sure how much ground I'll cover, between unpacking and writing, but I hope to get out for some walks while Eric is at work.
- The plan is to go to Ikea Monday evening to buy book cases. I'm kind of excited about that because I've never been to Ikea, and I've heard it's really great. We shall see.
- Eric is going to check out a church for us tomorrow. I don't think there is a Methodist church in walking distance, but there is a Presbyterian close by, and they're practically siblings, doctrine-wise.
- Justin (Vicky's boyfriend) brought some of their things over today. He wanted to store some of it in the garage, which was a disaster area. I say 'was' because he reorganized it to make space for his stuff. While he was doing his thing, I enlisted the help of his friends to move the chaise from my bedroom to the van. It will be our living room couch, solving the problem of whether to try to move the 7' long one in the living room or buy a new, apartment-sized one. I have a picture in my head of how the living room will look with the chaise and the bookshelves we're going to buy. I hope reality matches.
- I got to go tell stories this morning! For a change, not all of my audience was 80+. I had a 12-year-old girl hanging on every story. Made my day, and it certainly made up for the fact that I didn't get as many words today as I wanted.
- I found more stuff to donate. Did not make it to Good Will as planned.

Not So Good Stuff:
- The cats are getting neurotic. When Ryan isn't being Velcro Kitty (which has been a lot lately because we've had rain and wind the last few days), he's chasing Tess. Earlier this evening, Chloe was picking on her, too. They miss Eric, and I keep disappearing on them, so from their perspective, neurotic is understandable, but I don't know what to do to chill them out. The Rescue Remedy didn't seem to help a whole lot. Not sure if I need to look for some chill-out diffusers or what.
- Still so much to do, and The Boys have started counting down to Thanksgiving on Facebook already. They will be here 3 weeks from today, and I only have one more trip upstate after this one. Eric will be back after that and can take stuff back, but not the amount of stuff I can cram into the van.
- Justin and Vicky want to have most of their stuff moved back here by Thanksgiving, which is making me feel a little pressured to get out sooner, even though we've all agreed that we're having Christmas here. It comes down to the cats, really. I don't want to move them any sooner than necessary, and while I could, in theory, move up there and be out of the house before Christmas, what do I do with them when we come back here? It's simpler all around if we stick to the plan. Thanks for letting me talk that out, and welcome to my brain. This is more or less what it's been like for, oh, the last several weeks. Eric's calming influence isn't around. Maybe I need to move the whiskey to a lower shelf in the pantry.

So that's about it here. Hope y'all are having a good week, and don't forget time change!

Blah

It's been a week. Trying to stay positive and upbeat, but finding it difficult. I'm blaming hormones because there's really nothing 'blah-worthy' going on. I was down .6lb at weigh in this week - totally did NOT deserve it - and I'm sorta/kinda taking the weekend off from watching what I eat.

Don't be worried. I had a cupcake and some gloriously cheesy mexican food, that's about it. It's not like I've dived into a vat of melted caramel and chocolate sprinkles. In fact, I've had salad twice. See, I can't even have a cheat weekend without glumping it up.

Sigh. Plenty of whining below the cut.

Scotch on the rocks

Actually, it's whiskey--Crown Royal Maple. Just what the doctor ordered after a long weekend. The retreat was good. I learned more than I expected, and I was able to help a couple baby writers. To say I was in my element might be a bit of an understatement. I got a new plot started, so I'll work on that for NaNo prep. In case you missed it on Facebook, I finished the draft of Building Truth Wednesday, just in the nick of time!

The only downside was that the inn's heat wasn't working right and our classroom was cold. Our guest rooms had gas fireplaces so they were nice and toasty. It really was a lovely venue, and the village had 2 indy bookstores. I found The Cattle Raid of Cooley (big Irish hero saga) in one volume in both English and Gaelic. It won't mean much to y'all, but I almost cried on the spot! I have bits of that story in a couple different books, but to have it all in one place is great.

Beyond that, I got words and packing (for the move) done before I left. Of course there's a lot left to go, but I have a few months to get all that done. I also told stories at the nursing home Wednesday, and I have another gig next Saturday. It will be Sunday before I go upstate again. I need time to pack, and the furries need mommy time before I disappear again. They do seem less stressed when I have someone come in to check on them, so I'll keep doing that. I have young friends who work cheap.

This week will be divided between plotting and packing. Oh, and laundry. And, since I've just checked my calendar, starting NaNo on Friday.

Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again

It's no secret I've been less than enthusiastic lately.  At least, not if I listen to Stephen, who has expressed concern. I could blame a lot of other people, but, when I'm finding fault everywhere but with me, well, I know where the real problem is.  Grin. It's me.  Really.  It don't know what or why.  I'll be fine, but I'm generally grumpy and dissatisfied with everything right now.  As they say, this, too, shall pass.

The Good Stuff:

• Thank you all for your help getting "Beginnings" ready for "prime time."  My invitation to join the fiction club is up on the blog, members are trickling in.  Huge thank yous to Stephen for sending his tribe in my direction.  I'm envious and appreciative of his leadership.
• I think I achieved the 80% solution on the list sign up and bennies page process.  It can be better, and I'll work that out.
• I got some logo work done last night.  I'm not happy with it, but I'll keep working.
• I got about 2/3 of PLF module 4 listened to.  Still need to get to the last webinar.
• Sneaky really likes to be petted, but she's still doing the dance of recognition.  Mr. L and I discussed the potential for bringing her inside at some point tonight.  I'm going to leave that decision to him. Nine cats in the house?  Too much. I think. And I'm not certain Sneaky is interested in coming in (despite her cries at the window on a regular basis).
• After belatedly realizing I needed to mow the grass at the store (it was easily a foot tall!), it took me three days and numerous battery charges, but I finished it this afternoon.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• I made a spinach lasagna this week.  It needs work.  I'll keep trying.  I'm just thankful Mr. L is willing to try a spinach lasagna.
• I also made Million Dollar Spaghetti, which is pretty darn good, but Mr. L won't like it (he's not interested in spaghetti), so it's something I make when he's not here.  The recipe is in the shared Evernote folder if you're interested.
• The five pounds I lost on vacation? It seems to have mostly found me again.
• I've made no writing progress beyond getting Beginnings ready to post.  And, of course, that process (as you're well familiar with in your own work) had me asking myself what made me think I was a writer.  
• My mom's been experiencing something that sounds like a nasty flu for the last two weeks.  I pray she's feeling healthier soon.

The Week Ahead:

• Do as much internet intensive stuff as possible this week -- next week we head to SA.
• But I have paid for 8G of data this month, so I can pretty much spend all week on line if I need to, because that's the only time we'll really need it.
• Note to self, dial data plan back for Dec; I won't need it.
• More yard work.
• Design newsletter logo, begin drafting material for it, and look at NaNo prep

Different Background

Stephen and all,

I decided to put up a different background and a slightly modified color theme for the blog. If you want it back the way it was, I'll be happy to put it back, but I thought a little change of pace might be okay.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Finally.  Back home.  Mr. L left late this morning to return to San Antonio for a band rehearsal and a doctor appointment on Monday.  Then he'll come back here to get his newsletter written, printed, and mailed before the first.  Then we'll both head down to San Antonio to do some yard work in preparation for winter.

We have another Grand Tour planned for May 2014, but I'm seriously considering postponing it to May 2015.  I'm sick of traveling, and the Hershey trip seems to not be fading, so I'll have to deal with it.  The Grand Tour trip I have some input into.  Thankfully, being sick on the trip gave me the leeway at the beginning side to stay in the truck for some of the antique stops.  That didn't do much to alleviate the stress of him looking for places that are supposed to exist but may not and communicating the directions to me the driver who had to integrate them into the reality of real life traffic conditions and roads that differed from a truly terrible 2013 edition of Street Atlas USA. This results in many derogatory statements that Mr. L did not recall making when I finally related how offensive I found dealing with him.  I need to remember to chalk that annoying stuff up to just trying to execute his plan, which is usually very good, but I still don't like it.  I chose to stay in the truck for a lot of antique shops, but Mr. L would call if he saw something he thought I might like, and I'd go inside and look.  We have a few perennial places that I willingly chose to wander through, and that resulted in polar bears and the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica following us home.

This is what Mr. L found which resulted in me losing my bench out of the rain for a couple of hours at Hershey, but it was worth it, I think:

Four guys loaded it into the back of the Navigator in pouring rain.  Mr. L and I unloaded it (with a little of his ingenious finesse).  Mr. L noticed holes on the bottom for casters, so we found some, modified them to fit, and installed them after we got it unloaded from the truck.  This is what's called an Ideal 85 slider box.  It dispenses cold drinks for a dime by sliding them to the dispenser area, inserting your dime, and pulling the bottle out.  Some of you may be old enough to remember these from when you were a young kid.


The Good Stuff:

• The scale shows I weigh five pounds less than before we left for Pennsylvania.  I'm pleased about that.
• Sneaky was just fine while we were gone but seemed happy to have us home.
• The vet staff discovered an ulcer on Natasha's eye while she was there and began treating it.  She went back for a follow up visit this morning, and she's doing much better.  We go back again on Wednesday.  The ulcer itself isn't a good thing, but the staff discovering it and getting her treatment was. 
• Ajax and Rossie were cuddled together on the shelf in their enclosure when I got there to pick them up.  Rossie was in the back and fully shielded by Ajax.  He's such a good uncle cat.
• A Books-A-Million clerk in Mississippi talked me into re-activating my Books-A-Million membership, despite having no store near me, when I stopped into pick up some bargain journals I've been looking for.  Apparently, it includes free shipping from the on-line store.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• Lady gave Neal the vet tech a hard time while she was there (this poor guy has borne the brunt of claws and teeth from my kitties, but he's a sweetheart with them all).  She was so mean to Tarzan, they had to separate them (I thought Lady and Tarzan could get along as roommates, but I guess not).  No wonder poor Tarzan was hiding under his towel when I got there to pick them up.  Lady is not adapting well to having the kittens in the house (and, yes, it's been a year). Dr. Val says, "There's always one.  Especially with that many."  She and Floyd are getting along well, although even Floyd defers to her.  Lady, Floyd, and Tarzan were sleeping alongside one another on the bed last night.  I'll note Floyd, Lady, and Tarzan are approximately the same size and weight, so they are relative equals.
• My digestive system is still not 100%.
• My head seems to be swimming as I try to figure out the best way to implement Product Launch Formula for me.  It's all a learning curve, and I'm treading water for now, but I'm still trying to sort things out.  

The Week Ahead:

• The lawn mower has been pleading with me to change it's oil (Really -- the hour meter was flashing "change oil" the last time I mowed), so I need to change the oil before I do much mowing.  I may mow part of the yard to get the engine warm, but it needs to be done.
• Do the revision work on Beginnings
• I cannot find my original download of the image, so I can't redo the author name on it.  That means I'll need to find another image, and I'm just less satisfied with the ones I'm seeing (why isn't this image still up there and available -- I'd buy it again if I had to instead of just re-downloading it).
• Figure out a newsletter template -- the one I'm trying to work on Aweber is not working for me.  Well, it's working, but I don't really like it.
• Do preliminary work for NaNo -- I'm attempting to do 100 500-word flash pieces, so I need to come up with a LOT of ideas to start with.
• I purchased OptimizePress, but I'm having trouble sorting out just how I'll use it.  They have a lot of tutorials on the member page, so that is probably a good place to start.
• Get stuff put away from the trip.  The house looks a wreck.

Now to cover the new gray

I got home Wednesday afternoon, and it's been great to get back into my routine. Very comforting, even if I'll be living alone on and off for the next couple months.

Good Stuff:
- Safe travel for both Eric and I. He came back downstate yesterday.
- I made it back in more than enough time to go to band practice. Singing praise songs for a couple hours was just what I needed.
- The traffic noise at the apartment became white noise faster than I anticipated.
- I found bedroom curtains on sale online. They're supposed to block both light and noise.
- Words! The morning routine has paid off this week. I might be getting close to the end, but it's hard to say for sure. Usually, I'm right up on top of 'the end' before I realize it.
- I'm heading to MN this week for another writing retreat. Hoping, hoping, hoping this one will have the plotting tools I'm missing. If not, I'll have to figure it out on my own because I won't be doing this next year. We have a savings account to build back up and frankly, I've had enough of hotels for a long while. 

Not So Good Stuff:
- While we're relieved that Eric has a firm start date for the job, we're not as happy that it's the 28th and not the 21st. I guess they need time to dig out from the furlough, but we'd like to get paid sometime. Thank goodness for our savings. The plus side of this is that Eric can stay here a few extra days instead of rushing back tomorrow.
- Would anyone be surprised to learn my house is a mess again? I didn't think so. The odd thing is, it seems more cluttered with the chairs from the living room gone. I might rearrange stuff a bit to make it more homey. Or better organized. Or to put off sorting and packing.
- Ryan seems stressed. It occurred to me this morning that the girls have moved twice, but his experience with moving was getting shoved in a cage and brought over here. The poor guy has no idea what's in store, but he knows something is up. It doesn't help that we've left them alone more this year than we ever have. I still have the Bach Flower Remedy for cats I bought when Jeli lived here. Maybe it will help.

So that's about it. I'll be gone all next weekend, so I'll see you when I get back.

Ready or not, here we go!

We've started moving into the apartment. Before pics are up on my blog. It's been a busy day, and we're still waiting on the gas company to show up so we can cook and take showers. They were supposed to be here between 11:30 and 3:30. It's coming on 6 now. Dispatch says the guy is running behind (no kidding) and they're sure he'll be here by 7. Sure would be nice if he'd get here so we can do something about dinner, let alone grocery shopping. We do have electricity, cable, and internet. Considering we haven't officially been here 12 hours yet, I'm impressed with that.

It's noisier here than I realized when we looked at the place. We're practically on top of a busy street, but otherwise the neighborhood seems to be pretty quiet. There is at least one Starbucks in walking distance, and frankly, it will be easier to walk rather than look for a parking spot.

The last week has been spent almost entirely on getting ready for today. It's all a blur, and off the top of my head, my major accomplishments have all included driving, mostly pulling a trailer. Driving in Dallas and Italy prepared me for living here. Thankfully, the trailer has been returned, and the van is resting in the garage.

We did make time, between our return downstate Thursday and our boomerang trip upstate yesterday, to hang out with friends Saturday night. Good food, scotch, fencing and laughter--just what the doctor ordered.

Eric still hasn't started his job. Don't get me started on the shutdown. Just pray for it to end so we can eventually start getting paid again.

So that's what's going on here. I'll be heading downstate Wednesday and hopefully things will settle down a little. Ideally, I'd like to settle into a rhythm of writing in the morning and packing in the afternoon. We'll see what happens.

Even God Must Get the Blues

While the week has gone well for me, there's been plenty of heartache among my old friends.  A junior high friend I went to church with lost her husband last Sunday night in a single car accident.  A high school friend's oldest son fell while doing home maintenance, hit his head and broke his neck.  Three days later, he died, leaving a young daughter without a daddy.  Then Val's daughter-in-law's younger brother had been missing for three weeks, but, thankfully, once the word got out, the brother turned up safe.

The Good Stuff:

• Mr. L devised a way for me to be available for mule duty (which I actually enjoy) at Hershey -- running his purchases to the truck -- while allowing me to get a small amount of work done.  I sat in a central location and worked while he shopped. The first day, I may four runs back to the truck and logged 13,500 steps.  The second day, I didn't need to make any runs to the truck, but I was available if needed and was still able to get a little work done even with the rain.
• Mr. L found an Ideal 85 slider Pepsi machine for the shop.  It looks similar to this (ours is in the light Pepsi blue).  It's loaded in the back of the truck now.
• Had dinner with friends in Gettysburg Friday night.  
• Ran into two couples we know from San Antonio on the grounds of Hershey on two different days.  Pretty amazing.
• Chocolate from the swap meet grounds is always fresher than from the grocery store.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• My MacBook Air is running out of hard drive space.  I had to offload some of my more static Dropbox folders to an external hard drive and the tell them not to synchronize with the Air.
• I ran out of free space on Dropbox this week and had to purchase space.  I briefly debated not doing that, but finally decided I value the Dropbox service and I may as well support them financially.

The Week Ahead:

• Get home
• Execute plan for NaNo, PLF, and writing when I get back to the house (I have a few add-ons to prepare to purchase for the website(s), and I have some writing to get to work on.  
• I'm feeling very unsettled lately.  Not entirely sure why, but it's probably partly related to this trip, which has been going fine, but still...

Tardy to the party

It's been a week. No news on the book front, other than SLIPPAGE is stalled. No surprise there, especially since I'm still in the opening parts. I always struggle with beginnings.

There are four people running for three seats on the City Council. I honestly don't know if I'll make the cut or not. I'll likely be happy and disappointed either way. Weird, huh?

Spent a lot of this week doing fun things with the granddaughter. We went to the AppleFest event at the community orchard, she had fun, I got a little sunburn. We went to a city fair in Laurens. She had a blast, gramma's feet got sore. And yesterday was the autumn Lions Club breakfast. Got there about 6:15, cleaned up the fire station for about 45 min, then I cooked scrambled eggs until about 12:30, and, after more cleaning, managed to get home around 1:15. Was a loooooong day of mostly standing in one spot. Very sore feet. Still. And I hadn't completely recuperated from the 5k last weekend.

We all have colds of varying degrees. Yay. All I want to do is sleep but I have to chase a toddler. Plus my weight is up, about 9.5 lbs, as of this morning. While I haven't been perfect this past week, I have not been 9 lbs of bad in 2 weeks. I went up almost 4 lbs since yesterday morning and while I did have a few pancakes and sausages (followed by a 7pt salad as the remainder of my food for the day) I did NOT have more than 12000 calories worth of cakes and sausage. There's no freaking way. Bill thinks I'm building a lot of muscle since I've upped my exercise. I just don't know, but I do not like it!!

Bill and I are taking another mini vacation this coming weekend to an art fair, so I'll be off the internet for a few days.  {{{hugs}}

On The Road, Again

Yes, the annual pilgrimage to Hershey, PA, to seek antique car parts that probably aren't there is underway.  I found a set of steps for Natasha.  She's twelve, and I don't think she has the spring in her step of a young cat anymore, and I want to help her get up on the bed more easily.  The carpeted wide steps in pet stores sell for around $80 or more, and I didn't want to spend that much. These are very narrow steps -- about 4" deep, more curio display width, I think, but they are about a foot wide.  The stair rails are made of rebar!  The steps are solid wood.  They are propped up with a poorly measured one by four, but Mr. L can fix that.  He pointed the out to me in jest, but I think they may do the job with very minor modification. So, we're lugging cat steps home. 

We may be stopping in a rival shop in that town on the way back -- they have a full set of 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica with index.  Library binding.  Apparently, this is a very valuable series, because it's the last edition where the articles were written by experts in the field without editorial input.  It was published simultaneously in all 29 volumes when previous editions were spread out over a number of years and got outdated before the edition was finished.  I'm thinking I need original paper before politicians started messing with things (realizing that always happens to some extent).  I feel as if I can't believe anything these days, so I'm looking for a factual foundation.  This encyclopedia set would contribute to my paper collection that does this.  It's be great for historical reference, too.

The Good Stuff:

• Mr L has laid out a pretty good route for the trip, and the plan this year is to retrace steps the same way we came.  
• I was sick from something earlier this week, and while that wasn't a good thing, I didn't eat much.
• I'm making small progress toward putting together my Newsletter list.  I'm going to have to delay publication to November, because I can't do a couple of things I need to do while on the road.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• I've been sick since the first morning of the trip.  I can't tell if I got something at breakfast that didn't agree with me or if I'm suffering the beginnings of a gall bladder attack or something similar.  I'm feeling much better today.

The Week Ahead:

• Do as much work as I can on watching PLF videos and homework, draft my Fiction Club documents and begin drafting the inaugural newsletter (I've decided it needs to be every other month instead of monthly -- I can do supplements if necessary).  
• I started working on a template on Aweber today, and was a little baffled by it.  I think I need to do my own template.
• Stephen thinks I should publish under my own name and not my Nat Rogers pen name.  I'm not opposed to that, but I've been doing non-fiction under my own name.  Thoughts?
• Survive the grounds at Hershey.  I've been feeling better, but walking around still brings on queasiness and a clammy feeling to my skin -- not as bad today as yesterday, though.

Y'all have a great week.

Interesting times ... so they say

It's been an interesting week. And I mean "interesting" in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Let's see ... where to start ...

Well, of course, the heart health journey continues. Got to visit the ER again. Whee. But once again, they adjusted my meds, and my heart rate has been more stable since they did so. My cardiologist told me that sometimes it takes "a year or two" to get it right. If I had felt better, I would have leaped from the bed and attempted to feed her a bedpan. But I didn't, so she escaped safely. I'm told to have patience. Patience is not one of my many virtues. But I'm sure I'm growing as a person. I hate that.

 Also, the bills continue to come in. I have worked out a payment plan with two of the creditors; the hospital is still giving me trouble. But I only have so much money. I am going to pay them, but not as fast as they want. They have threatened me with liens, credit problems, etc. I cannot do any more than I can do. A friend who is an attorney told me that the hospital can huff and puff, but they can't make me sell my home or cash out my tiny cash-value life insurance policy or make me tap my even tinier IRA. All they can do is hassle me. So be it. I will continue to pay them what I can. The sooner they accept that, the better for both of us.

I have tried to do more chores around the house. I'm not keeping up, but at least I've been able to keep things picked up and the dishes done, for the most part. I remain tired all the time, but it seems to be getting better. I'm hopeful.

I signed up for Jean's newsletter and am looking forward to it. I've thought about starting a newsletter for my humor, but don't feel up to it, and besides, I'm just jealous that Jean is doing it. I'm sure it's more work than fun. And I am a fun-loving guy. I guess. Maybe someday.

 Speaking of Jean, and I was, she let me read her short story "Beginnings." It was charming and sweet. She does a great job in showing the children's personalities and characters. Woman has talent. She should write more. Someone nag her. I can't right now, but someone should.

Only one of my clients hasn't cancelled her contract with me. All the others wanted their books out faster than I'm able. Ouch. I'm hoping I will get better in time to get a couple of them back. The book for the client who has stayed with me should be published in November, I hope. It's a book of powerful and moving poetry. Can't wait for it to come out.

Tales from Bethlehem finally is on Amazon! That was good news. I also set up a PayPal link on my blog where people can buy a signed copy directly from me. So far, no one has. Not true. A friend did so I could make sure it works.

And several people whom I asked to review Tales from Bethlehem and Murder by the Acre (Second Edition) on Amazon did so. That was awesome!

And I also -- finally -- put out a family newsletter again. I was very proud of myself. I hope to do another one this week.

Speaking of this week, I hope:
- That I put out another family newsletter.
- That I don't visit the ER.
- That I am able to vacuum my house and keep up with the chores.
- That I work on the poetry book. I'm waiting for her to email me three more poems, book notes, and her bio.
- That I'm able to get 1,000 words on the Murder by the Mile rewrite. But I would be happy with 500 words. Any words.
- That I'm able to write another poem for Undying. I had hoped to put out this book of fantasy and science fiction poems this month. Maybe next year.
- That I can attend the writers group meeting Saturday.

So that's last week and now this week. Hope your week is awesome. I'm cheering for you!

Heading Out

We are leaving from church to head North. It's been a week:

-We met Vicky and Justin for lunch yesterday. My baby was wearing clothes from my closet, and they fit her. We joked about how my mom loads me up with stuff every time I see her, and now I'm doing it to Vicky, but she's excited because it's good stuff. :-) I told her to say no to the stuff she can't use.
- We met with them because a realtor friend from church came by to talk about what we need to do to list the house. Not surprisingly, her advice included decluttering, cleaning until it shines, and amping up the curb appeal. She also strongly suggested was paint half the house. Turns out, when buyers come through, they're less likely to buy a house with green or blue walls. Guess which two colors are most prevalent in my house? Not only that, but because of the comps in the neighborhood, we would be lucky to get what we need to pay off the house, let alone finish paying for the upgrades. So Eric suggested we rent to Vicky and Justin for what they're paying in St. Louis, and we could cover the rest of the mortgage. They'd effectively be paying half, so we'd be losing money, but we'd still have the tax write-off,  we'd be paying down what we owe, and Alex would have a place to stay when he comes on breaks to see Emma. We did stipulate no smoking in the house, no illegal substances (they had a pot-smoking roommate for a while), and one bedroom must be a guest room so we have a place to sleep when we come for St Louis festivals. (There are two we're going to help Jeff with.) They are interested but need to talk to their current landlord.
- Did I mention last week that my dad's friend's nephew referred us to a realtor in Chicago? We set up a house hunting trip for this week and she sent us a bunch of listings to look at. Friday, when our realtor was here, she called and said she noticed the listings we really liked were in the 'burbs, and she doesn't do 'burbs. She's been selling real estate in the City for ten years, but she doesn't know anything about the 'burbs. She offered to try to set us up with someone who could show us around out there, but we might want to take some time and drive around the 'burbs we're interested in. All of this on Friday!!! She couldn't have her freak-out on Wednesday, when we had more time to deal with it? And how do you sell real estate in four states and be unwilling to GPS an address in Arlington Heights? 
- We got on realtor.com and found a bunch of listings we're interested in. I went old school, printed them and put them in a binder so I don't have to mess with trying to look them up on my phone when I'm out scouting for a place to live. 
- We started working toward packing, but until we know how much space we're going to have, it's hard to know where to start.
- My coat closet looks lovely. So does the foyer.
- I did manage to get some good words in earlier in the week. Monday was a really good day. I'm hoping I can work past the stress and use the strange environment to my advantage this week instead of being distracted by it.
- One of the neighborhoods we're strongly considering has a Y with a pool and evening yoga classes! Yeah yoga!
- The weather in Chicago looks good, if a bit cool, this week. Guess I'd better get used to that.
- Depending on Eric's work schedule, I may be spending Friday checking out museums. If he has to work, and we're not sure if he will due to the continuing shut-down, I'll have to find something to amuse myself so we can check out of the hotel and go home when he gets off. I can think of worse things.
- Yes, the shut down may affect us. We don't know. The contracting people haven't been able to get a straight answer from the FBI office about whether or not Eric will be essential personnel. If he is, that would be good for now (he'll start getting a paycheck) but not so good in a snow storm. This is another area we're being forced to wait and see. He's supposed to start tomorrow, but he doesn't know where, other than the front door, or what time. He's not even sure of the dress code. Personally, I really wish he'd find something that wasn't government contracting, but apparently that's where the money is right now. At least the shut-down hasn't affected military retirement pay, so we do have some income. We won't starve, and our savings will cover the short-falls.

So that's how things are in Casa Dunno. Stay tuned. I'll report the blog-worthy details through the week, if there are any.