53 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, November 15, 2023”

  1. Oh, glorious day! I can actually leave a comment?

    I have my first new book coming out in December after 5 1/2 years, because of a pesky car accident. So I’m bumbling about trying to figure out how to do a launch when no one cares and I still have recovery issues.

    One bite at a time.

    That you started publishing again after a long absence is very inspirational to me.

    On a technical note, I thought I was somehow banned from posting on your blog, but it turns out I have to scroll through every single comment before I can see a place to leave a comment. That might be a technical issue. The only reason I am posting now is because it seems like I’m one of the first people here and and so I can see the comment box.

    Have a great day

    3. Good luck with the launch! I released a book (possibly two; it’s all a blur now) while I was recovering from open-heart surgery, so it can be done, even when the author isn’t at her best!

      Need a couple hints, things I always forget, that you can put on your To-Do list? They’re related — First, make sure the new book is listed on your author page at Amazon (sometimes the automated linking by Amazon is slow or messed up and you may need to add it manually). That makes it easy to find, and Amazon will send (for free) an email to anyone who’s following you there, and Bookbub will too, if you’re registered at Bookbub as an author. So that’s the second thing — make sure you’re registered at Bookbub as an author, even if you don’t plan to buy a Bookbub ad. And then double-check that the book is listed on your Amazon author page, so Bookbub will notice it and will send out a release day email to your BB followers. For free! (I forgot that once and missed the opportunity to have BB do the mailing. There’s a paid version of the new release mailing (for preorder) at BB too, but if you don’t have the budget or followers for that, the free one is good.

      1. I remembered to list the book at bookbub yesterday. I can’t believe I nearly forgot. And I have a plied for some pre-order alerts. We’ll see what happens. Thank you for all the tips!

  2. I’ve got lots of sales work to be doing, Christmas prep to do, plus we’re going on vacation next week so need to get ready for that. All this to say – what I”m working on is reading the new Murderbot book.

  3. What I’m working on this week:
    * taking an hour to get a fucking pill down my throat
    * working at sleeping, which my body no longer wants to do thanks to said pills. Days upon days of constant insomnia.

    (I would like to note that reaching out for medical help has only made me WORSE.)

    * scheduling my next ADHD eval for three effing weeks by now
    * messaging my doctor’s “care team” (she’s out) about not sleeping for 1.5 weeks and is that bad? A friend of mine was all, go to Urgent Care immediately, but what are they going to do? I’m not going to bother if they just lecture me about sleep hygiene and if they’re not going to give me permission to take some sleeping meds or give me something for it, then what’s the point.
    * trying to get ahold of my union guy again, as he’s having a busy week
    * debating if begging and crying would get my doctor to extend my leave, because I am NOT OKAY TO GO BACK TO WORK NEXT WEEK.

    * watching Hallmark Christmas movies because this is all I can do. Also saw The Marvels, recommend.

    What I’m not working on: job hunting, other than looking at listings and getting depressed.

    I’m not okay.

    1. Jennifer – all of this sucks. It is so stupid when “help” is so difficult to interact with and unhelpful.

      In case it is comforting in any way, please know we are all behind you, and hoping our good wishes flow through the ether and soak into your space to support you.

      1. I have a friend with heart issues–she’s in severe heart failure, they have had no idea what to do with her for YEARS–and she just found out two days ago she was misdiagnosed and they could have fixed her problem at birth. Now the only thing that can fix it is heart transplant (which I and everyone else have pointed out was probably where this was gonna go anyway). Having heard of all the shit she goes through with her doctors and “team” and one office refusing to help her… well, now I’ve got similar going on. Yay! Not.

        This is why I didn’t want to go on pills: no medical professional knows how to deal with you not being able to swallow them and nobody has any idea if they will work on you and what they will do, and this is the least bad of the psych meds! This is my nightmare right here.

        Thank you so much 🙂 Y’all are so nice as I lose my mind.

    2. Feel seeing your Doctor about the extension would at least have it on record your health situation is very dire. Would your dr give you sleep aid? Maybe take a friend with you. Thoughts and prayers may seem trite. You are on my heart.

      1. Hope that comment wasn’t offensive. I’m Canadian we say sorry a lot and not offend. Truly hope you are able to get help.

      2. No offense even occurred to me. My friend said I have to put this on my record ASAP, so I guess it’s on. I’m going to try calling the advice nurse when they open up this afternoon.

        The question is, am I allowed to take a sleep aid at all, because I was told to take nothing (except Excedrin, she gave me that one) while on this, hence the problem. God knows I got a pharmacy of sleep meds in my bathroom as is. Unfortunately they categorically forbid me off the only one that worked, so…. GRRRRR.

    3. You’ve probably tried everything for the insomnia, but just in case, something I found during a recent bout with hyperthyroidism that kept me awake — intentionally boring podcasts. Especially this one: https://boringbooksforbedtime.libsyn.com/ She reads public-domain books in a soothingly monotonous tone.

      There are other sleep/meditation podcasts, but I really like this one. Can’t really say it helped me sleep (stupid thyroids), but at least it let me relax and lie still while I concentrated on listening instead of tossing and turning. Not as good as sleep, but better than nothing. And there’s one book she reads from that’s about the guy (forget his name) who invented fancy cat shows. She does a variety of topics, so you can choose what interests you, in a boring kind of way.

      And ignore me if it’s something you’ve already tried.

      1. We’ll see. I may have to try it. I tried sleep podcasts, Calm app: circa 2020-2021 and they didn’t work on me in general and this is a lot worse, but if I’m not allowed medications I may have to resort to it.

        1. Jennifer the pill is Wellbutrin, right ? Generic is Buproprion?
          It does come in a liquid form. Why don’t you ask them if they can prescribe it as a liquid for you ?
          It may not be right for you —I know nothing of the difference between pill and liquid—but it seems worth asking.

        2. Mental health professional here with LOTS of experience with diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD. This shouldn’t be this bad!
          1. Your sleep issues strongly suggest that the med/dosage/time of day of taking it, etc, is wrong. Talk to a pharmacist for options on these if you can’t reach your doctor quickly.
          2. Also talk to a pharmacist about OTC/prescription sleep meds that you can suggest to your doctor during this process.
          3. Look up (or ask someone to look up for you) NAMI and CHADD (ADHD org) for suggestions for your circumstances. Both the meds and diagnosis, and your work situation. Also good resources for unemployment/disability income options.
          4. Check the law in your state re: depression/anxiety being considered disabilities. THEY SHOULD BE. It’s possible you are being given the wrong info here. Just do a quick Google.
          5. The cousins with ADHD should really help re: diagnosis. Also, are there aunts/uncles/cousins etc who might remember you as a child and teen?
          6. A good assessment for ADHD should also be able to figure out how much depression/anxiety etc. is contributing to your difficulties.
          7. Look up disability advocacy, workplace and human rights organizations in your area. Likely to be free resources to assist you. Again ask others to help if this is too much for you. Librarians might ve good resources for this, plus all the other research I’m suggesting (sorry).

          GOOD LUCK!!!

    5. Jennifer, as to not sleeping, have you tried drinking warm milk with cinnamon? An herbalist friend of mine says warm milk helps you fall asleep and the cinnamon helps you stay asleep.
      I hope you are able to get the help you need for everything!

  4. Since last Wednesday, I finished making mittens and hats and scarves for a fleece project for a church ministry. There were 49 bundles, and some extra mittens and hats.

    I got my outdoor Christmas lights up, because I wasn’t going to be able to do that after Monday.

    Monday I had rotator cuff surgery and they moved my bicep by detaching it and re-attaching it elsewhere. The doctor said it went well and that he put four screws in. The screws are made of calcium and magnesium to aid in the repair. I got a new sling and a new ice machine as they were built into the price of the surgery. I have been attached to both since I left the hospital. Now I’m just working on healing. The nerve block is mostly worn off which means I can use my left hand a little bit.

    I also managed to prep some pieces for a hand, sewing project, patchwork of the Cross by Lucy Boston is the pattern. Not sure when I’ll be able to actually work on it again, but I thought I might be able to do that while my arm is still in a sling.

    I am super grateful for voice to text! Also, I am being well taken care of by my husband and friends.

    2. Yay ice machine! Speaking as someone who did two of those surgeries, one with and one without —worth its heavy weight in gold.
      They moved my bicep too. Somehow hearing that is creepy even when you knew they were going to move muscles and ligaments and bones .

      Have a good recovery !

    4. Good luck on your recovery and be grateful for the ice machine. If I remember my Mom’s recovery, it was the single most effective source of comfort. And voice to text will make life much less frustrating. May you and your support team continue the good progress.

  5. I have several annoying tasks that I have been avoiding but hope to complete in the next few days. Well, hoping to have completed – the actual actions involved of completing still not that appealing.

    In happy news, my car is apparently going to be out of the body shop on Friday instead of next week (the front of it get melted, don’t ask), AND the insurance person dealing with my case is back from her time off, answering her calls, and reassuring people that they will be paid for said work, rental car, etc.

    Also crocheting a scarf for a friend using a pattern she purchased. Had to start over twice, but it’s now over a third done, and looking quite like the photo. Friend should be pleased, as am I.

  7. new crochet project, now on my second scarf. I found whole website full of beautiful stitches. Mostly not in English but with really good colour charts which I find easier to follow than most worded patterns anyway. For the interested ellej.org
    There’s other things but the crochet is the fun, satisfying one

  8. DH and I spent Saturday morning moving / dividing my lilies. I had brought three different kinds from my parents’ house when I moved, and now 8 years later they were very exuberantly crowding each other out. I also was able to gift some to my neighbor who has been very excitedly waiting for them. Next summer should be resplendent.

    I also started a week long commitment to care for a friend’s cats – it’s not that far, but driving there, doing all the stuff, and driving back take up the good part of an hour. Luckily, DH is in for this too – I do the early morning stuff on the way to work and he goes to tend them for dinner.

    All of this activity has infringed on my quilting time – but I have started the purple quilt. I’m building the log cabin blocks. Once they’re done, the arrangement should be amazing.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CzqdSDiuKCy/

    I also had to include a picture of Stanley and Wendy. They are sleeping where I usually sit, and amazingly enough were okay with sharing that spot. It’s the first time I’ve seen them that close. Usually Stanley is roughhousing with Teddy, and Wendy is keeping out of the way. So huzzah for amiable naps!

  9. I said last week that I would get a couple guest-blog posts done before today, and I did! And I picked up where I left off a month ago on my WIP.

    Mostly I’ve been nagging a friend who desperately needs to get some financial stuff done by year end so she’ll keep at it, and it’s making me crazy how hard it is for her to get any information or even a response out of financial institutions. They ignore letters, don’t have office hours, and won’t talk to anyone by phone when it’s an estate, since they can’t verify that you’re the right person to access the information. (The latter is understandable, but they need to have an alternative way to get the info, and they don’t.) And if there’s been a merger … yeah, forget about it. The new institution claims not to have the old (pre-merger) info, and the old institution basically doesn’t exist any longer.

    Anyway, I’ve got year-end stress by proxy this year. But I need to finish the current draft of the WIP this month, and fix a plot hole in another WIP next month, so that’ll give me some other stress of my own.

  10. Mostly discovery for my fiction project, plus some gardening; and I spent a day making a start on my lost rights of way research. I’m finding the short days challenging (sunset’s soon after 4), and have decided I really need to grab every sunny moment, regardless of other demands.

  11. My “work” this week has been researching internet providers — during the random minutes that my current internet has been up. It seems like it should be such a simple process and yet . . . not.

    Next up, selecting a fabric for the new couches I’m about to order–trying to find a good compromise between the fabric I would like and the fabric that makes sense with a lab puppy in the house. At least I managed to solve the “upholstered” vs “slipcover” question :-). That’s progress, right?

  12. I mostly have been doing the day job. I did finish proofing DDs thesis except for the foot notes which will be this weeks project.

    And I had to calm DD down a lot because of her closest friends of 25 years (somehow the phrase oldest friend always bothers me) is apparently upset with her, probably due to posts about the war in Gaza … and DD frankly was not being careful enough about conveying her views and cannot admit “I made a mistake”.
    Despite my trying to model that for her whole life.

    I’ve also been doing medical -appointments —two sets of stitches out, one check up, a follow up, tracking down a pharmacy that had a prescription in stock, …

    DH is in Egypt so I’ve had more time to catch up on chores. Somehow I haven’t made as much progress as I think I should have .

    Oh well. Tonight I will bake thanksgiving desserts and take a break from the day job.

      1. Yes! I feel clean —I am allowed to wash my hair and brush all my teeth.
        Also the pain is slowly going away. It’s all good.
        Thanks for asking.

  13. The only thing I choose to call work was affixing neodymium magnets to under-the-counter LED lights and attaching them to the I-beams that bisect the basement so that my “kitchen” area is, well… lit. Also mounted some battery-operated motion-sensing LED lights to illuminate the stairs to the basement. Stuck one in the laundry chute catch-box, too.

    IOW, I performed a little light work.

  14. I got a massive amount of Decluttering / Moving Prep done by having Habitat For Humanity ReStore come and pick up a truckload of furniture. Once I got the DH to concede it was time, I lost no time making the appointment because I checked forecast and it said Rain Next Week (which is now this week, and yep, it’s raining) and a lot of this stuff was outdoors – under tarps, but still. Anyway, it’s gone, whew.

    Did a blog post. Submitted 2 titles for awards. Made a new writer business to-do list. This weekend the weather is supposed to continue soggy so, with an excuse to stay inside, I’m hoping to jump back into the historical novella-in-progress that got interrupted by contemporary novella. Either that or get the last 8 titles wide launched.

    In other words not a whole lot of work but still feels like I accomplished some shit.

  15. Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon and evening in the emergency room before I left in frustration. After I had low level diarrhea for a week and a half, it picked up and I decided it was time to find out what was going on. Immodium D stopped the floods, but left me with other problems. So I dragged myself into the emergency room. I took a taxi, hit 3 detours for construction and crawled in several hours after I had planned. Once there, they took my vital signs, printed an ID bracelet and did nothing else for almost 7 hours. At that point, I was no longer running to the bathroom every 2 minutes, so I figured it night be safe to go home. I almost made it home without an accident. Today I tried to make an appointment with a GI doc to find out what was going on. Earlier in the week I called one hospital and the best they could offer was a nurse-practitioner in March. Today I called another hospital and the first opening they had was June 20th. I could die from dehydration by that time! The whole experience left me feeling very depressed about the state of healthcare in America.

    1. How awful! Your experience makes me very thankful for my medical provider and their timely responsiveness.

      Hope you are feeling getter soon.

  16. The day job is kicking my butt again. We can’t seem to go more than a couple of weeks without hitting crisis mode, which is just silly.

    And I am cleaning my house for Thanksgiving, as I have people coming. And working on Christmas stuff because the year is pretty much over, flying by in a blur of events and increases activity.

    I haven’t started Murderbot yet and am seriously debating waiting until after the holidays so that I can focus. But that my drive me crazy. We shall see. Who needs sleep, really?

  18. I had my Covid booster on Monday and have been in bed since then. I don’t react well to Moderna but it was the only one on offer. I felt so crappy that I was able to nap through the banging and sawing of the new sub-floor being installed in the kitchen. Hoping to take advantage of the warm weather tomorrow plant the rest of my spring bulbs.

  19. I’ve been drowning in meetings while we try to get things done before The Holidays interrupt and schedules get much wackier. Which is to say – sure doesn’t feel like I’m getting any work done, but next week will be quiet and I can concentrate on my spreadsheets. I do enjoy an empty office sometimes.

Comments are closed.