We’re at the end of One in Vermillion, and we’re slowing down to figure out the over arc of each book and the arc of the entire series and the good news is, the arcs are there. We’ve got some rewriting to do, okay I’ve got some rewriting to do, but overall, everything holds together. YAY. I also chopped vegetables, made stroganoff, and sowed clover seeds everywhere. Big plans.
What did you work on this week.
Worked my j.o.b. Did laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning – all the things. Went to the Zoom meeting for my Pinellas Writers. Put up a new blogpost titled Sex and Candy.
I got clarity on the plot for my current novel in progress and I’m anxious to write on it. First I need to submit my chapbook proposal to publishers and contests AND finish final edit / rewrite of Hungry Ghosts so I can self-publish it.
All in good time…
Tonight I washed the dishes and vacuumed before going out for the evening. Coming back to tidiness was very nice. Must do that more often!
In terms of more creative work, I’m doing the preliminary sketches for 2 paintings. I’ve got canvases on order for both of them so I can’t do a lot more till they turn up. Hopefully soon.
Jenny, nothing to do with Working Wednesday but… Up here in Canada Monday is going to be a national holiday in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. Her funeral is going to be at 6 AM EDT and I was wondering if you would consider putting up a post that we could all live comment on during the funeral?
I am adjusting to transitional retirement from teaching ( subbing but not being the Boss of the World) and helping my teacher daughter and her kids transition back to school. So lots of transitioning….
This week I did a little straightening of the closet. I had thought I would do the full – “go through the clothes and be ruthless getting rid of things you don’t use” but I was sleep deprived at the time. I put a couple of pairs of shoes in the pile to go, and I managed to tell myself that the set of hot rollers I’d had for over 10 years – still in the box – probably didn’t need to stay with me, since I’ve never consistently used hot rollers ever. (I’d say I’ve never used them at all, but I’m thinking maybe in my teens . . ). It’s not quite out of the house, but it’s headed that way. Baby steps.
On Sunday, I did a bit of quilting on my home machine, practicing my ruler work skills, on one of my old UFO quilt tops. Maybe one day I’ll finish that!
Nancy, I do purges in small sections anymore. I don’t have the energy for a full closet clean out. And I have a tendency to run out of decision making steam… So I start with one type of clothing, and break in into three piles. Keep, go and maybe. Then I walk away and come back and sort again. I do this until the maybe pile has been decided on. It takes several days sometimes, with a big pile on the bedroom floor. But hey, progress.
I like that! Thanks!
I got home from Bouchercon in Minneapolis late Monday,so yesterday was unpacking, laundry, catching up on hundreds of emails, and sucking up to cats. Today is mostly catching up with everything else (my garden has gotten completely out of hand), and picking up my new laptop, which has been at the computer guy with the old laptop getting everything transferred. Which means then I’ll be spending days trying to get the new laptop set up. Le sigh. And continued cat pampering.
Found a flat that let us view. Yay!
Aggravated rant incoming skipping recommended
Due to difficulties in travelling across Edinburgh while the Queen’s cortege was happening he showed up with all our luggage and I was 10 minutes late, and then I talked too much. I assumed that was it.
Received an email at 9:21pm saying we have been chosen as next tenants, send deposit. Little leery about that, I would have preferred info on what it buys us, what happens to it, how we get it back, under what conditions would we not get it back. But . . . housing market. So I merely checked that the email and phone led to a legitimate company, yeah a bit paranoid but did I mention the market? Plenty of potential marks wandering around, homeless.
They sent individual applications to our emails. We filled them out. Painfully, as Rob was flying and I am working on a phone.
A different company sent emails to both of us, with links, inviting us to join open banking. This is the kind of thing people get sent right before their bank accounts are cleaned out! And for those that don’t know, open banking is to let them have access to your bank and credit card statements to confirm that you can pay the rent. And any other information they care to collect about how you spend your money. They’ll have access for 90 days going forward unless you remember to remove it. The webpages I looked at didn’t say how far into the past they could look. But you don’t have to opt in. Okay. Fine. Confirmed legitimate company and clicked the grr link. Filled in all of the same information the we had to give the agency, again. And it’s all a repeat of what he is doing since he pays all the bills and the only paid work I’ve done in the last few years I did for him. Which seems more trouble than it’s worth to mention. Now to load many pages of documentation. Including pages about all the benefits they assume I have since my only reasonable option from their list was unemployed. My visa specifically states I’m not eligible for any of it. It also says I can’t work as professional sportsperson or coach. Which is the only amusing thing I’ve read during this… this… bad thing.
Oh gosh, nightmare time! Keep us posted? And best of luck!
That sounds really appalling. I remember having to supply bank statements – though I think for claiming housing benefit rather than proving I could pay rent – and blanking out the account number and any transactions that were none of their business. I would not want to give them access to all that information. Do hope it all turns out OK.
I opened the post, saw ‘the arcs are ready’ and am now Very Disappointed that you were not referring to advanced reader copies. You tease.
Parents, do you remember the moment you stopped going easy on your kids in games? My daughter beat me at knucklebones for the first time at the weekend, and I was really playing to win. Milestone moment. She wins at Bananagrams at least half the time too, which is just demoralising. She is 14 so it’s not surprising, but still a moment.
PS I have just googled knucklebones (jacks) as i didn’t know if it was an international thing. It so is, but I think the rules are different everywhere? We play with five metal knuckles (or just stones when I was a kid). Start by jockeying (throw all five, catch on the back of the hand, and then back again), then ones, twos etc, then scatter ones scatter twos etc, then overhand scatter ones, twos etc, then dumps, clicks, no clicks, juggles, horse in the stable, through the arch, over the line, over the jump, thread the needle, catching flies, little jingles, big jingles. Am I speaking a foreign language here?
Yes. We called them jacks, and they were metal, plus a small hard ball was involved, I think. Don’t remember names for any of the rounds – I think you had to throw the ball and pick up one, then two, then three, etc, jacks and catch it before it bounced. But it’s more than fifty years ago, and I’ve forgotten.
There were rhymes to say with the number of jacks to pick up in some groups I played with, but not others. I can’t remember them, though.
My favorite jacks partner was my best friend’s Mom, Betty. Since Cindy always won, Betty and I were united in trying to jinx her. I remember thinking that it was so cool that instead of reprimanding us for for ill-wishing our opponents she was the one who started it.
We played it with actual sheep’s knuckles. All the meat boiled off them, and dried.
The vocabulary and the rules differed even from group to group when I was growing up in the same part of Kentucky. Jacks, it was called, but everything but its name could be different.
We have mice. One of the cats was thoughtful enough to shove a dead one under the bedroom door for me to find early Monday morning. All other projects are on hold until said pests are eradicated.
I am experimenting with small landscapes on 4 by 4 canvases, but I am not happy with them. I can’t seem to come up with something I like without a reference photo and I don’t like repeating those. It’s boring. Alas. Such problems.
Lovely of your cat to communicate with you and let you know about an ongoing issue that they are not fully able to resolve.
I think that it was more, “Look at my prowess, you lousy hunters. Here let me feed you.”
But the message was received. We found what they had gotten into in the pantry.
I had a blind cat once, and a very cheeky mouse who didn’t see the need to be intimidated by her. We took care of the mouse the old fashioned way, and after I moved, I found that it had stored about three pounds of birdseed under one of my bookcases. I guess we got it before it had time to use those supplies stocked for a winter’s day.
They are the worst. So destructive and dirty.
So, after all these months we have FINALLY discovered what is causing my dizziness and vision problems. vision – Low blood pressure, dizziness a deficit of Vitamin B12. So at least now we have a plan. Although truth be told I’m used to being dizzy after all this time and it doesn’t hinder me as much as it used to.
Work is still work and I like it.
Jane, didn’t you mention that you were also needing more B12 in your life? How is that going?
Yes! Hope it works for you as it seems to be for me. I’m taking pills three times a day. My levels are now way above normal, yet when there was a five-day break in my prescription, I went downhill rapidly, and it took nearly a week to feel better again. The doctor wants me to take four courses in all, each of 100 pills, so just over a month, and then to stop and see how I do. I’m nearly halfway through. Apparently if you have a deficiency it can take a while to build up your reserves so that your body is accessing it, even if the levels are already high according to a blood test. (Doesn’t make a lot of sense, I know.)
Good luck!
I had a serious deficit and my doctor told me that at my age (62, although probably this was a couple of years ago) it has to do with my body no longer processing it properly, and that the condition was going to be with me for the rest of my life. (He is a cardiologist with mostly elderly patients, so I suspect he knows what he’s talking about.) I get a shot at the office once a month, and my levels vary from high to high average. I could do them at home, but it is fast, easy, and cheap to get jabbed by his nurse.
My main symptom was a dramatic increase in my heart palpitations, which still exist but nothing like they did when my B12 was so low. Sadly, it hasn’t seemed to make any difference in my energy levels. Kate, I hope you get good results too. I’ve had low blood pressure for years, I had no idea it could affect your vision.
I learned from my cat (the same old blind one) that high blood pressure can adversely affect your vision, in that it detaches the retinas – hence why she was blind. I can imagine that low blood pressure isn’t good either.
It’s my first day back at work after my vacation, and I am not ready. I’m also physically working in the Mountain Time zone though my office is in the Eastern time zone, so I had to get up too early this morning. Yawn. On the good side, my day will be over at 3pm my time. And I only have to work for 3 days this week.
I was stalled on my novel, writing the ending, as Jenny recommends. I finally decided that what I had was good enough, and went back to the body, and it is chugging right along! I have the projected plot, and a transition point, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the bad guy who keeps screwing up my characters’ lives. It will come. It feels good to be creating, again. Now, the house needs a thorough cleaning. Shudder.
Congratulations to Jenny and Bob! That’s a major accomplishment! Good luck with the clover. I planted some last fall, and most of it died in the horrible heat this summer. I hope you have better luck.
I’m late in reading posts, but if anybody sees this, I’d love some info on planting clover. We inherited a huge lawn that I’d like to gradually replace with something more biodiverse. And with less crabgrass and unhelpful weeds. I did a search but only found info on eradicating clover.
I don’t know anything about replacing lawn with clover, but my father and his family all believed the ideal yard was one-third clover and two-thirds grass, and to increase the amount of clover in a lawn you just sow clover seed at whatever time of year is appropriate for your climate.
For more knowledgeable advice than mine, contact your county extension agent, if in the US. They’re not just for farmers.
That’s a great idea. Thanks Mary Anne!
Went on holiday (Spain) to write the final quarter of the WIP (and get some sun and tapas and red wine, not gonna lie), then a friend and her daughter came out to join us and I shelved it for a few days. They are now both being beta readers for me, and it will be FASCINATING (see also TERRIFYING) to hear what a 52yo Eng Lit graduate and a 20yo Theology student separately make of it so far. *nervously opens a beer*
PS JENNY! Congrats on the end in sight! Cannot wait to read it!
I’m preparing for my wonderful trip, while worrying about my parents, and setting up some visits to them from friends. And I’m having a root canal this afternoon, so, hey.
Beauty and the Beast kicked off, smoothly, yay. No issues there, other than I am playing the dancing fork and it continues to wiggle and try to concuss others no matter what and those in charge of fixing it have Officially Given Up, so it’s up to me to just…not concuss. It sticks out way too far from my neck, it’s not OUR fork and I’m told the wood is warped, so…yeah.
I auditioned for the next musical, “A Christmas Carol: The Musical,” after that. I actually got a callback for that one (note: they only do callbacks if you might get a part with a name to it, which I usually do not get), but they only called me and four other people back for reading aloud rather than singing and everyone else was called back to sing…I’m not sure how that’s going to go with a sung-through show. It would be nice if I got even the smallest of name parts, but I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I think I’m better than other people actually think I am. Like I did funny voices because it’s Dickens and I bet the people who just read it flat and straight get the parts.
I am going to attempt to take up tap dancing classes before rehearsals with one of my castmates, starting today, since tap is the one thing I never did and it seems useful for musicals.
Other than that, just trying to recover from exhaustion this week, I’d like to write some book reviews and catch up on my temperature gauge cross stitch project, where I had to go get more floss to account for 116 degree days.
Tap dancing! Cool.
After a week of diligently doing nothing on vacation, I came home to write 6000 words of a new novel that I thought about while doing nothing. Last night after work I got outside to water & groom. Amazingly, no plants died during the epic heat wave; I must’ve given it all just the right amount of water before we left.
Day job: So. Many. Emails.
So delighted that our host has had such a terrific writing year. 🙂
Have spent my day dealing with Plumbing Issues. Turn out I have a broken waterline connecting to the city waterline AND an inside drain in my basement that is not draining. Will spare you the gory details. I live in an old house – late Victorian – so water issues are perpetual. Have learned a whole new language: clean-out, weeping tile, clay piping, etc.
Ew.
Yep. That about sums it up.
Mostly what I did this week was Scantily Clad Gardening. All four of the Kratky Mason jars are sprouting tomato plants! I have visions of future salads and salsa. The red fire pepper plant has another wave of ripe peppers – some are passing orangey ripeness all the way to red. There are forty or fifty peppers on two plants – did I mention salsa? Not to mention the piri-piris, except I just did. Mention them.
I’m looking forward to a lot of books from a lot of Argh authors, and especially the Arghess in Chief and her trusty minion, Bob. (Sorry, Bob, but it was either “minion” or “fellow romance author.”)
Addendum: Every AeroGarden Harvest Hydroponic Gardening Unit is flashing the red FMS* alarm at me. I can hardly believe it’s been a fortnight already since last FMS Day. Excuse me while I break out the Liquid Plant Food and syringe.
* FMS is “Feeeeeed Me, Seymour!” – Little Shop of Horrors
I’ve progressed well with my preparations for the six-month expedition to the North Pole, a.k.a. a week in the Peak District. I’ve done all my mending, washed & reproofed two jackets, cleaned and reproofed two pairs of boots, brought my accounts up to date, washed and ironed a big load of clothes, and run various other errands. I’ve also weeded a quarter of the allotment, ready to sow a green manure.
Tomorrow I need to make a batch of damson jam, do a food shop, sow the green manure, water & show my neighbour what I’d like her to water next week, check my tyre pressures & pack. Then I’m on holiday.
Whee! And you’ll have earned it. I bet it will be beautiful.
I am partially re-calibrated after last week (DS starting full time school). It’s a big change, but I’ve dealt with my concerns about being late for school pick up by setting an alarm on my phone, to the amusement of others.
My big plans are still around, and steps have been taken towards some of them – most importantly the part time work one. Some will take more time/steps than others.
In other news, I have received 3 quilts back from the longarmer (meaning I did the patchwork bit, then sent the top out for the 3 layers of each quilt – top, wadding, and backing – to be stitched together on a longarm sewing machine. That being the actual ‘quilting’ part). I enjoy handquilting, but 2 of these are big queen/king size quilts, which would not be finished until after my retirement if I attempted to do them by hand (and have already been lying around with the top finished but unquilted for several years). And the third, whilst smaller and more recent, has applique that I just didn’t fancy sewing through (too many layers for comfort). So I have lots of binding (finishing the raw edges) in my future. Many quilters dislike binding, but I rather like it, so I’m a happy bunny.
I’d love to see them when you’re done! Congratulations on your progress!
Thank you! I will try to post them to my (currently dormant) Instagram account when they’re done, so will plan to share the link here.
I’m currently a bit over 3/4 done with the binding for one of the bigger ones, so progress is being made…
Spent a couple of days replacing my router and modem. Computer speed is slower than before but at least my internet access isn’t cutting out after 3-5 minutes.
M sister is visiting from Virginia so that’s been fun. She did most of the computer work for me.
Next project is to get my chimney looked at. The bricks need attention.
I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to hear that. You two rock. .
That’s great news about One in Vermillion, Jenny. I’m so pleased it’s coming along so well.
I’m editing. And I love editing. Really really love it. It’s such a sense of satisfaction weaving bits of story into the fabric and making sure the threads follow through.
Now I need to ask whether One in Vermillion refers to Vermillion, Ohio, which I have just learned exists because distant relatives of a former coworker live there, it seems, and she visited them.
Nope. Just a color pun.