The dogs are pretty small, but the cat is very large, so that constitutes the necessary quorum for a three-dog night as we have finally dipped below freezing. I am tremendously amused by the pile of heat-radiating fur on my bed, all three all curled up together. (My asthma doc is less thrilled, but we’re talking quality of life here.) And of course it reminds me of “Joy to the World” and “Eli’s Coming” and “Easy to be Hard” and “Mama Told Me Not To Come” and . . . well, basically getting high in the seventies. Yes, I’m old.
How did you bring Joy to your World this week?
At my house it was a four cat night, although it would have been a happier one if I hadn’t been up for hours in the middle of the night with a panic attack, instead of getting that extra hour of sleep I was practiced.
It was a mixed bag on the happiness front here this week. My desktop computer crashed (I’m typing this on the laptop, so I’m happy about having more than one computer). It turned out that the hard drive died. Apparently this particular brand (Samsung, for those who actually know what the hell kind of drive is inside their computer) has been doing this. But I have a great computer guy who is working on it as we speak and Carbonite, a cloud-based backup, so while it will likely be a giant pain in the butt to rebuild things the way I had them (especially email, which may have to be started from scratch, gods help me), in theory, I shouldn’t have lost anything vital, like pictures or documents. I’m supposed to get it back on Monday (see “great computer guy” above) and I’ll find out how bad things are. Still, it could have been MUCH worse, and I’m happy about that.
Note: I realized I didn’t have Carbonite’s automatic backup on my laptop, and remedied that immediately. Back up everything, people. The computer is only 2 1/2 years old, so you just never know…
Happiness was good news from my nonfiction publisher, Llewellyn, which I can’t announce yet, but which made me and tarot and oracle illustrator Elisabeth Alba very, very happy.
Last but definitely not least, I’ve got the Blue Moon Circle witchy gang (including my two goddess-children) coming for a week-belated Samhain celebration today. One of the women, who runs a daycare, was sick last week and couldn’t come (a cold, thankfully, not Covid—kids are germy) so we decided we’d rather all be together than do it on the right day. It is cool, but the sun is shining, so we will actually be able to have our last outside ritual and bonfire of the year, along with our feast. Much happiness there.
Promised, not practice. What can I say–I need more than 4 hours of sleep.
Hope he’s able to recover everything from the crash for you!
After a hard drive crash a couple of years ago, I use Dropbox for EVERYTHING. It’s set up so it’s on my laptop and constantly syncing if I’m not connected to wifi, but primarily its cloud based. And I can access it on both laptops, my phone, any other computer I choose. I never worry about crashes or losing my laptop and losing everything. And it’s fairly cheap. Liberating.
I use Dropbox for my writing backup and pictures off my camera. I don’t think it is set up to do as widespread a backup as Carbonite.
Last term of classes started this week and I’m back to wrestling with the Demon AutoCAD. I had a moment of panic and thought about dropping the class and doing it next year. But one of my classmates talked me through it via text. I have made some great friends in the program and that makes me happy.
Spent a lovely morning at a craft sale with a dear friend. We do a Christmas craft sale circuit every year, but everything was cancelled last year due to Covid. We don’t see each other often so it was wonderful to spend to spend some time with her.
I splurged this year and bought 2 hellebores online. I thought I was getting bare roots but they arrived as large healthy plants, cleverly zip-tied into a box. I’m happily anticipating seeing them bloom in the early spring.
What color of hellebores. Or names? Last year for my birthday I received a “yellow “ hellebore (which is what I asked for) but it was closer to a peach color. Nice but not what I had in mind. I saw one that was predominantly yellow a few years ago and have lusted for one every since. A lot on mine set seeds and spread nicely but alas, no yellow ones in the mix.
I had two separate covid exposures at work this week, that I know of. Yesterday’s test came back negative! So yay. I will take the other at home test just to be sure. But my vaccine seems to be working, so that makes me happy.
Congrats on the negative test! How nice are those at home tests?? And much cheaper than going to be tested at the clinic!
Our female long-haired feline beastie deigned to sleep with me last night, but only after I positioned a satin pillow specifically for her to lay on. A girl has to have her standards after all.
Oh Joy. Yesterday my sweetie and I went to our first rally in 20 months. Last one was International Women’s Day, March 2020. And for so long we’ve been looking at dedicated crowds and saying, wish we could go. But, like it or not, we’re getting up there, and thus cautious.
So. Well masked, we went to the Climate Change Rally in Toronto. Small but feisty crowd.
Happiness is attended to my first writing conference in 2 years, and presenting a workshop.
Happiness is also packing up from the book fair (in which I sold no books) only to have two readers head straight for my table and say, “You’re leaving? I need book 3 in the SR series.” And the other one say, “And I want to read book 1 in your new series.” Of course I unpacked for them and sold my books!!
We are home! Hawaii was beautiful, balmy and very Covid aware. But we’re home in our own bed with our own pillows. And my black velvet paintings from funky antique shops have been shipped. I will finally have something to bring to Antique Roadshow. Or not.
Happy to have had FIVE cats on the bed the last couple of nights (or at least, I think I did, at least briefly, with only four on the bed most of the time, since two tend to take turns, with one sleeping and the other patrolling in case another mouse gets in the house — they’ve caught four so far this fall, which is a new record).
Also happy to have a completed outline for a new story, including having figured out the key to the protagonist’s personality/backstory, which had been eluding me, so I can start the actual writing tomorrow in a belated NaNoWriMo marathon.
Happy that the hearts here are nearly back to normal, so I could like comments. I’ve just had a lovely couple of days with a good friend. Boozy suppers followed by romcoms, plus wandering and reading time. I’m loving my gardening and garden designing, and have just found a fellow allotmenteer who wants all my excess plants -raspberries, dahlias, cannas, ginger lily and Chilean glory vines. So that saves a lot of hassle!
My hearts are all still pre-hearted.
Mine, too.
My hearts appear to be back to acting normally (at least to this point), so in celebrations I’ve gone all Oprah: “You get a heart! And you get a heart! You all get hearts!!…” 🙂
My happiness is my granddaughter is visiting overnight, on her way to Her family in Auckland. She has been in Quebec the last three years and we only had phone calls.
She is now a Circus Performer!!! No she did not run away to join, in case you were wondering. Much happiness.
Happiness was spending time with two BFF from grade one. Betty-Jean drove from Manitoba to BC, on her way to visit her sisters on Vancouver Island. We stayed a night at Lynn’s home. A walk along the river, lots of laughs, photos of granddaughters, dinner out, wine, and the best sheets on comfy beds. We discovered we three love really good bed linens, books, music, etc. Nothing has changed much except for our hair. It was wonderful to be together again.
My wife is finally feeling better, after contracting what did turn out to be Covid last weekend. That makes me happy.
This despite being fully vaccinated in April, and eligible for a booster next month, and very careful. We expected that I would be the one to come down with it since I work with a lot of kids, who couldn’t be vaccinated. But I not only feel fine, my PCR test came back negative as well.
I’m sorry. My brother and his wife both had breakthrough covid, but fortunately, since they were vaxxed, their symptoms were mild. Still not fun — my brother’s fatigue lasted for weeks and weeks, while his wife was lucky and only had a few days of what felt like a normal cold. I’m just so glad they were vaccinated, despite living in a very anti-vax part of an anti-vax state.
My hearts are not working properly from home, so please consider yourself better liked than your statistics would indicate.
I was having a hard time transitioning from vacation mode eating (everything and then some constantly), but finally managed to be not only normal, but virtuous last week. I am going for virtue during the week, and relative moderation on weekends, which should see me right. Fingers crossed that I can continue with the same relative ease of last week.
Did a bunch of small things that I have been procrastinating about, which gives me great joy. Got the Halloween decorations down, and the Xmas lights up and ready to turn on Thanksgiving day. Oh, and my pumpkin is hanging in there, so I am lighting a candle in there every night, which pleases me, and prolongs the season discretely.
The hearts are still misbehaving on my iPad so I have not been able to “like” anything.
I am feeling good that it has been dry no sunny for a couple of days so I was able to mow the leaves instead of rake them. I have a composting mower so the nutrients from the mown leaves/grass stays in the lawn and fertilizes it. And now I feel virtuous because my lawn looks good for now. Only for now, unfortunately, there is a nearly fully leaved tree in the middle of my yard taunting me as I type!
I also ordered a new set of flannel sheets for my bed. All the places locally were sold out of the plain white sheets I want so I found a decently priced set online and ordered it. I like white because it contrasts nicely with the colors of the quilt and pillow shams.
It’s been at least a 1 cat night for several nights now, but actually, Fergus almost always likes to sleep on the bed with me. Lily, on the other hand, only deigns to joins us when she feels like it, regardless of the weather.
My dad used to play the album a lot and go around the house singing that song. Drove my mom nuts.
We have a new dog! That makes two dogs. “We are rich in dogs,” I told my husband. We drove to an SPCA to pick her up and got lots of licks.
Bell’s a mountain cur, only 25 pounds, but what a handful. Always jumping on our older, more sedate Rottweiler mix, Roxy. Always jumping on us. Barking down the neighbourhood. Occasional stress pees. (I remembered Quinn dealing with this in Crazy for You, but not what to do about this.) But she’s better. It’s warm enough for her to go outside today.
I’m relaxing post-Nanowrimo write. There is sunshine and dogs and kids and Hallowe’en candy.
My air conditioner is off for the season. I am so tempted to take it out of the window and find a spot to stow it. My heat is provided by a two-speed 1200 watt portable heater, which is running just now. My newest clock tells me that it’s 55ºF outside and 72ºF inside.
Uh-oh. I mentioned “newest clock.” I will make the world joyful by not launching into my twice-yearly anti Daylight Saving Rant. I did, however, make a post about owning no less than 15 devices that display time: One analog wall clock over the outside door, one digital wall clock by the window – it also displays date and room temperature, one (new) digital wall clock above my dream catcher guarding the bed nook which does date, time, indoor and outdoor temperatures and phase of the moon, one digital desk clock with calculator that does date, time, and room temp, one plug-in digital alarm clock on the night stand (the first on the list that updated itself to EST), the clock on the Microwave which had been displaying 0:00 until I moved about resetting clocks. The rest (mostly) observe end of DST on their own. My all-in-1 desktop (I’m on it now), two laptops, three Kindle tablets, one cell phone, one digital camera, two cordless telephone sets, and a stopwatch. The phones and camera needed my intervention. The stopwatch’s battery was dead, and still is. When I need it…
I forgot the clock in the car.
The dotter made me joyful by requesting a shopping and dining trip for tomorrow. We haven’t had one for a bit and I really, really miss those.
You have a stopwatch that displays the time of day as well as the time it’s timing? I must be old fashioned.
That’s kind of the reason I own it. During the 2017 diet, I owned and rode a bike for the exercise. I timed my rides and kept track of the time, too. All I still own from that period (soooo long ago!) are the bike rack for my car and the helmet I wore. And padded bicycle pants. I think I will acquire a new bicycle for Christmas. 3 to 18 speeds. Or maybe it’ll be my retirement present to me.
Multi-function Professional Handheld Electronic Digital LCD Chronograph Timer Stop Watch Sportwatch
Brand: Camybb
Wow. Extraordinarily cheap. I have my father’s 1960s windup stopwatch from when he was timing traffic lights (for school bus route purposes.)
And now I have discovered that some of my hearts turn grey after I have hearted them and left the page and come back. But the count doesn’t decrease.
Sorry, our bad. DST was invented here in Thunder Bay Ontario. Please feel free to rant to me, I’ll pass it along.
I’m over it. The rant can be found in various places, like the Facebook account I deleted. (I guess it can’t be found there anymore, either.)
I added one of my crappy videos to this post in my blog: https://www.somethingsmustbeendured.com/post/twice-a-year-rant
Nearly all of my time devices are shown, including that stopwatch (but it’s a lousy picture, so I need to redo it.)
Kind of a draggy, internally whiney kind of week. But beautiful weather and some nice walks, and sometimes the cat comes in to crush my legs. Last night he considerately woke up, woke me up, and thoughtfully jumped off of the bed before gacking up a major hairball. He’s such a gent. Well, he *is* a tuxedo cat.
Got my Covid booster on Monday. Yay. I’m all vaxxed-up now, shingles, flu, Covid.
Pixie is still waiting on the dental. It’s now scheduled for the 18th. Third time’s a charm?
Work continues on the recent election. My county went RED! We’ll see how that works out and if we will lose our non-partisan citizen board of elections. Time will tell. I’m good with my service whatever happens.
Did some yard cleanup; it was a nice day for it.
Pixie wasn’t allowed on the furniture in her previous home so she won’t come on the bed. She does spend most of the night in my room or in the hallway.
Not a happy or a joyful, just a day in a life. My fifteen year old grandson and his cousins were pallbearers at his and their other grandfather’s funeral. He was so scared because he pictured in his mind that he would actually have to lift the casket and put it on his not quite there yet shoulder. His father told him it is an honorary position and not what is seen in a movie. He got through it and I’m so proud of him.
Hearts are still being weird for me; I’m on a tower (remember those?) with Bing.
Happy I finally got off my bu** and went in and met with a personal trainer at my local Y this past Thursday! I am starting, slowly, an exercise program this coming week; three sessions of water walking. I will build on that through the coming weeks. It’s time. More than time. And I scheduled my Covid booster.
In celebration of that, I’m sitting in my recliner, wrapped up in my afghan, with a fire, reading and watching TV! Yay, Sunday sloth!
There is a series I have found on youtube called “Letters Live” where actors read real letters to an audience. Here is a link to an exchange of “diplomatic” letters between the sultan and the Cossacks who dared to oppose him. It features Olivia Coleman who has the last word as the reader of the Cossacks reply. It gave me enormous joy. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/ACQiwLcFbLk.
I am happy that my library has Allie Brosh’s new, mammoth book, which I will get to ask soon as I finish the two Georgette Heyer mysteries I’m reading, thanks to recommendations here. Also happy that I’ve finally corralled all the now-empty plastic pots to recycle. On Friday I had lunch with a friend I rarely see, which was lovely.
I think I may have made some people happy by conducting Morning Prayer today; at least there were some nice comments. It made me happy to be allowed to select the hymns and design some of the service. And one of our members who moved to Minnesota was here visiting, and it was so nice to see him.
That’s some seriously great music.
My joy: 10 yr old has a Pfizer vaccine appointment. TEARS OF JOY people.
YAY!!!!!!!!!
I read this as: how did I bring joy to other people this week, and oh! Excellent question.
I don’t know, but that’s going to be my goal for the next happiness Saturday.
I bring joy to my puppy just by walking in the door though. You went to check the mail! You’ve been gone for whole seconds! I’m so happy to see you!
Wait wait, I’ve got something. Decades ago, my partner bought me a kite for Christmas, a two-stringed trick kite. I haven’t had it out in maybe 8 years? I took it to the park with my 12 year old and his friend, and we played until it was too dark to play. Ridiculous fun.
Happiness was a long weekend with DH in San Francisco. We live about 45 miles away, so travel time wasn’t bad. We stayed in a lovely hotel, ate some good food, rode a cable car, enjoyed cool but sunny weather, and counted ourselves lucky that we are finally comfortable traveling again.
The main purpose of our trip was attending two delayed shows from our 2019-2020 BroadwaySF series. Both were wonderful, though very different from each other. Days later, it’s the music from Jesus Christ Superstar that keeps popping into my mind, which is funny because we both thought My Fair Lady was the superior show. Go figure.
I had an…interesting…time at the karaoke bar last night. Like it made my top three stories of Weird Bar Nights. Lots of other people’s drama 😛 Ah well, you get a story out of it. Mostly it involved one friend crying after she forgot the tip, another friend (her dad) drunkenly cussing out his wife (marriage ah…not going well apparently) and she drove off and left him at the bar, and then thinking I was likely to get propositioned for a threesome by a VERY FRIENDLY couple who turned out to have been traumatized by his mother getting cancer in her brain and becoming mean to them. Like I said, interesting time…they were very nice and I hope things get better for them.
It wasn’t a whoppingly happy weekend, but I did get to tell some friends (my manifestation group) about the whole crush situation improving. And I am cleaning up my apartment in the event that this goes well and he ever ends up coming over 😛
Well, this last has been the week from hell and this coming week isn’t likely to be better, but the happy bit is that Maggie the cat was wandering around our living room last night just the way she does at home, so she’s clearly adapting to life in our family.
Maggie is now officially an orphan.
Oh, Ann, condolences to you and to your friend’s family.
She’d have been in a vegetative state for some indefinite period of time with no good outcome, so I can’t regret that her last illness was short.
And my brother has said that Maggie, though unexpected — I texted him when I left with Maggie and that was the first he knew of her existence — is a nice addition to the family, so it looks as if she’s staying. We already have a cute picture of her amid my brother’s books.
What a coincidence! My husband was listening to Mama Told Me Not to Come as I read this entry.
My week has been terrible, but thinking about Jennifer Crusie cozy with her pets gives me a moment of peace.
Instead of Christmas/Holiday cards this year I chose photos from our gardens taken over the seasons of 2021. I just ordered the prints as well as the folded card stock and envelopes.
I showed my husband and daughter a list of possible foods to have when we’re hosting guests at Christmas. I’m including New World (okay, new to the Europeans) foods like cranberries, pumpkin, and lobster for the international visitors.
My foot isn’t healing according to schedule because I started walking around way too early. I’m very lucky — while househusbanding is exhausting my husband, he has rediscovered his love of cooking. Not sure how my diet is doing, but at least I’m enjoying terrific meals. (With the boot and a drain monitor thingy, I can’t stand on the scale for an accurate reading.)
My happy this week is also kind of a sad. Paul’s BFF is here for the weekend along with another mutual friend and they are on a hunting trip (read: driving around the back country, insulting each other, napping, and occasionally shooting grouse for their field lunch). I’m glad they are here but the BFF’s personality issues are out in full force this trip. I’ve very nearly thrown him out of the house at least once over racist comments (he’s not someone you can have a discussion with and he is never going to change his ways, even if he were not fighting terminal cancer). He used to keep his opinions mostly to himself but the sicker and angrier and more bitter he becomes, the more hate he spews. Paul got into a huge fight with him yesterday and almost made him go home but he has so little time left and we see him so rarely that he didn’t. He seems to be resentful of other people and the more different they are from him, the more he resents them. He’s always been an angry man who needs to control things and make people be how he wants them but it’s so much worse now. You used to be able to tell him to shut his mouth and he would back off but not now.
The mutual friend has been lovely and trying to control BFF’s outbursts but even he’s disgusted with and annoyed by him.
I’m trying very hard to remember the man I first met 20 years ago and not the man in front of me now but, damn, it’s not easy.
He’s very lucky to have such good friends. He sounds very afraid, as well as extremely difficult.
Office Wench Cherry, I agree with Jane that you are doing your best to help a fearful, ill man.
Some people’s personalities change after they discover they have a terminal condition. One friend went from angry to at peace with himself. Others, like your friend, become “ever so much more so” in their character traits.
I don’t envy this man.
He is very afraid and seems to be trying to push everyone away, which I think is not only common, it is on point for him.
In the unequivocally happy bit, at 5:30 Thursday morning, Paul texted me and told me to head out away from town because the northern lights were throwing a party and let me tell you it was a barn burner. I saw them make 2 sets of different wings, a forest, lots of spirits (lines of lights going upward). I was out for nearly an hour, it was great.
We had 2 family trips out after dark Saturday and Sunday (unprecedented) for Bonfire Night celebrations, and all had a wonderful time at both.
DS had a whale of a time – the whole being-outside-at-night thing was a thrill – roasted his first marshmallow, and saw his first proper fireworks (which he loved, but wanted the volume turned down a bit). He also really enjoyed playing in the playground in the dark at the first event (it was lit with string lights, which looked incredibly pretty). We all bopped along to live music and DH and I had some of the best doughnuts we’ve ever eaten.
Unfortunately no actual bonfire at either event – it was deemed too windy to be safe at the first, and the second was only ever billed as fireworks, but there’s always next year…
I love the idea of dogs in the bed, but not actually dogs in the bed. We have small Pomeranians and I have nightmares that they will sleep at the foot of the bed and get kicked off and suffer horrible injury. So they sleep beside the bed and in the morning, when the alarm goes off, they scratch at the bed and we let them up. Because then we’re awake and won’t accidentally kick them.
My joy this week is that I finished my rewrites for my script for my writing group to review on Tuesday. I busted my butt getting the revisions done, and for the most part, I’m really proud of the new script.
And now for why I came (TWSS), I’m in college and in a class for fiction writing. As my final project, I must do an author apprenticeship that includes reading a work, giving background on the author, and detailing how the author and the work impact my growth as a writer. I’m choosing you and Bet Me. It’s literally my favorite book of all time. And not in the Parks and Rec/Chris Traeger/Rob Lowe sort of way. I’m pretty sure I’ve given away my copy of that book close to 10 times. But I digress. With myself being an over-40 “emerging writing”, I was wondering if there are any interviews you’ve ever done that talk more about your journey to becoming published and the challenges you faced, starting your career later in life. I’d especially like to know more about what in you did prior to becoming a published writer, and what encouraged you to purse it. If not, would you be willing to either reply to my reply or make a post talking about it?
As a last note, I loved your essay “The Five Things I’ve Learned About Writing Romance from TV.” I love that you learned these things from TV, which is what I hope to write professionally one day, because I learned these things from your books, which I hope translate to my scripts. It’s all very meta, as the kids say. Or maybe it’s inception. Oh well. It’s one of those and we’ll just leave it at that.
Tricia, I just put a post up answering all of this, I think. Let me know if you (or anybody else) has more questions.
Had a super productive Saturday; plans for Sunday were derailed by spontaneous hangout with my BFF. As I told her, I gladly chose visiting my friend over spending yet more hours in front of the computer. That was joy. 🙂 Then the husband and I gracefully declined having dinner with them (they are super cautious, even more so than we are, so it would’ve meant eating outdoors on their cramped and unready patio after hours of waiting for something to defrost), went to the posh supermarket together for the first time in eons, brought home yummy convenient food, and watched all the episodes of Doogie Kamealoha M.D. on Disney. A very happy Sunday.