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Working Wednesday, July 17, 2024

We’ve got a book ready to drop Sunday, which is terrifying, always. And I have ten million things to do here, not the least of which is figure out how to use this new fangled thing Bob sent me to jump the battery in my car. If you don’t hear from me again, I blew myself up.

What did you work on this week?

109 Responses

  1. I worked on juggling my car with taking my mom to radiation and chemo treatment appointments. We are very grateful for our support team… family and friends who have been loving on us and bringing meals.

    Shes a trooper and has completed the radiation. The chemo started Monday and she’s set up for 4 rounds. But she’s got 18 days off between the rounds so we are hoping for great results!

    1. I have a friend who is 85 and has leukemia and has been taking chemo every few weeks for several years. Last week she was able to go for a short walk in the woods during treatment week.

      I know that not all chemo treatment s are created equal, but I hope your mother’s is one of the mild ones.

    3. Wishing you and your family, the perfect healing for your mom. And grace for all of you.

  2. I spent a lot of time over the weekend working on the quilt. It was the boring stuff – stitching in the ditch around all the blocks. This stabilizes the quilt so you can do other stuff without all the layers shifting around. Now I have to figure out what to do inside the blocks!

    I also spent evenings working on the scarf I started back in February. I’m a slow knitter, but I kind of got into the rhythm of it. The technique is entrelac, where you work six stitches at a time, making diamonds that look like they interweave. It could use some blocking, but otherwise done.
    https://www.instagram.com/p/C9hVvLXRNQX/

    It’s great that this is finished, because a crochet-along that I’m interested in starts this morning! I’m off to go find those instructions.

    5. That scarf is very sophisticated and beautiful and looks like it was a lot of work. And for a scarf that still needs blocking, it looks in great shape. Congratulations on your skill in knitting and artful folding.

  3. I am excited for the new book!

    I am working on getting all my work done by Friday because I go camping for 2 weeks where I have zero access to cellular, which means that work needs no reason to email me.

    We have to start prepping for the trip, and making sure that we have everything that we’ll need.

    2. Love that about camping! I drag my husband to a place with no reception to hike every weekend—it’s the only time he doesn’t consider himself on call for work (he’s one of 3 IT people at his company, and the only senior IT guy within driving distance of the office).

  4. Yesssss I knew with the sudden flurry of posts this could mean a new book! Can’t wait!

  6. I’ve been wrapping up the last things in my list for our move. Tomorrow very early I’m flying out and getting into our temporary furnished rental. I’ll be out there when the car is delivered and when all the boxes and furniture are delivered to a storage unit.

    Meanwhile, my husband will be here, watching over the loading of all the stuff, finishing with work, and then flying out.

    I’m looking forward to the new book! I was wondering, is self publishing working out better for you both, overall, than going with a traditional publisher? It’s so amazing that it’s an option for authors, and there must be so many parts of the process that readers just don’t know about.

    2. It depends on what you want from publishing. If you’re trying to built a name and a brand and a career, the trad publishing is probably better. If you just want to write stories and get them to readers at a reasonable price without hassling with best seller lists and velocity, then self-pub is great. I love it, but I’m not trying to build a career any more.

  7. I’m excited by the book of course but…I’m also excited by the newfangled thing that you can jump your own car battery with – what is this thing? where do I get one??

        1. I would totally pay extra for a car tool that has tentacles. My husband would despair.

    2. They’re available on Amazon! I think ours was like $60. They’re rechargeable and we could jump our stupid Subaru like 8-10 times off one charge

        1. That I don’t know… I guess if the battery can be jumped by anything external, this device would be fine?

    3. I have one in car and H in his truck. And. All the kiddos in their vehicles as per H. It really works well I’ve had to use it.

  8. My husband is a car/gadget person, so he has all sorts of things that will jump a car, refill a tire, diagnose all the little lights on the dash and so on. It makes sense that Bob would have one. Please don’t explode.

    Yay! New book! I am ready. I feel like my head is going to explode this week and I need every good thing that I can get. To that end, I didn’t get much measurable work done this week. Too hot, too distracted.

    1. I need one that fills tires. My old one has a ‘cigarette lighter’ connection. I used that a few times. That gadget is really handy if you get a slow leak. I should get on that.

      1. I have a Worksite model WCAP328 for inflating tires that can work plugged in to regular home outlet, plugged in to a cigarette plug in a car, or by using an included 20v battery. It shuts off automatically when the predetermined psi is reached. I’ve used it several times. I bought it online and it’s been really helpful. You can also fill sports balls, air mattresses and bike tires, I think.

  9. Yay for a new book! It is nerve-wracking though, isn’t it? Still, everyone (with any taste) will love it.

    I’m working on the new tarot deck, then I need to switch back to the new Llewellyn book, which is due in November and I have barely started. (Yikes.) Struggling to do anything in the garden between the abnormal heat and multiple storm systems. New York State has suddenly become tornado central. WTF?

    I’m also pondering trying to give another couple of online classes, because people have been asking me for them.

    The good news is that my writing avoidance techniques are still working well, and my multiple long shelves in the bathroom have been completely gone through, many things tossed, and everything neatly rearranged. LOL

    1. Maryland is joining you in Tornado Central. It seems like at least one or two touch down somewhere in the state every year. Do you have a basement to hunker down in with the cats?

        1. When I lived in Minneapolis I used to comfort myself that I lived too far inside the city for a tornado to cause much damage because they mainly touched down in the suburbs and the surrounding countryside. Then one touched down next to Lake Harriet which is in the middle of the city and took out the entire Rose Garden. And that was almost 40 years ago. I shudder to think what the storms are like now. Southern Minnesota isn’t as much of a Tornado Alley as Oklahoma, but they do get a lot of them.

    2. Been getting those warnings here in NE Pennsylvania. We just had one half an hour ago. I should probably give Pixie some practice going down the basement stairs. She’ll go into the attic but hasn’t gone into the basement.

  10. Very, very slowly making my way through work in the day job, nothing thrilling to report otherwise – too low in energy to do anything else apart from the most necessary chores.

    Must brush /swipe/sweep away the many many cherries that were crashed down our terrasse Monday night when an impressive storm wrecked nature. At least it didn’t wreck such a big havoc like the hail strom that destroyed my parents garden and ruined most of the fruit plants (bye bye figs, bye bye apples and berries), not to mention the flowers. Half a meter of white stuff not to be mistaken with snow, but equally wet when melted. Many a neighbours cellars got wet with ankle-deep water. But in one underground garage in the same village the situation got really bad with so much water that the cars floated to the roof of the underground.

  11. Day job. Recovering still from COVID and whatever I had last week after COVID. Also rewrote a blurb for a book and it’s too long, but much better. Fingers crossed.

  12. I’m excited about the new book, but (as in the last 3 collabs) right now only available on kindle, and I am a physical book reader. So, getting ready to place my order on the 21st. Keep writing please, you never disappoint.

  13. Finished going through my critique partner’s comments and fixing small stuff, so now I get to jump into fixing story-level issues in the WIP. Yay? I need to bake something today—probably scones. My batch of apple oatmeal muffins has too much baking powder in it, I think—they taste a bit metallic. Edible, but not scrumptious. This week’s allergy shot itches like crazy so I don’t know how much I’ll get done today. Changed ice packs 3-4 times during the night and will need a 4th Allegra to get through the day again, no doubt. I got a steroid injection in my shoulder on Monday, though, which has taken a lot of that pain down already, so I do see some decent sleep on the horizon! Ugh, gotta grab a fresh ice pack. Glad you have a jump starter! Ours was a game changer when we had my Subaru with its parasitic battery drain issues. We finally traded it (the Subaru) in a few months ago after we had to jump it six times over one weekend. Such a stupid car.

  14. I am going to a Bead Retreat at the end of the month. They have classes on 5 days, but I thought I would start out easy, so I am only going for 3 days.

    On one evening, they do a pendant exchange, so I have been working on the pendant that I will give away. This year they want the piece to be animal related. I only have a little experience with bead embroidery and didn’t really like it, but I’m game and I have a pathological need for people to like me, so I ordered a cabochon (a bead with a flat back that you create a bezel around to hold it to your piece) with a picture of a stylized owl and started a pendant using bead embroidery and my own design. After I got most of the way done, I realized that I had put way too much work into it and loved it too much to give it away.

    I ordered 4 more cabochons from the same Etsy shop and started another one, also an owl, but more traditional and surrounded by flowers. I got very close to finishing that one and realized that I just adore it and don’t think I want to give it away.

    Now I am working on a piece using a pottery cabochon that my sister made (a hedgehog sniffing a daisy). She can’t make another one exactly the same, but I think she can get close enough that I can duplicate the piece if I want to and I think I will be able to give this one away. 🙂 My goal will be to post pictures of the finished pieces next Wednesday.

    I’m also the organizer for an activist group. We are going to start writing postcards to voters tonight, so I have been putting together packets so our members can start writing tonight and also take some home. Our goal is to send out 5k cards to Virginians.

    2. Go you on the postcards! I write them too, but the most I can manage is 100-150. I do believe they’re the most useful political advertisement. They don’t annoy people like the phone calls or get automatically dumped like the pre-printed envelopes.

    4. Any suggestions for how to find something like this near me? My aunt is really distraught over the whole political landscape and I think that doing something positive to try to enact change might help her cope. And writing post cards is about the right level of involvement.

      2. Check for your local Indivisible group. I know there’s one here in Luzerne and there is a group that is very active in Lycoming County. Our organizer has a number of people who can’t get out to do canvassing and other things. She takes them the cards and picks them up when they’re done. Cards are supposed to be very effective.

    5. I like your pendant ideas, I haven’t done any beading, but this is my craft year (I will allow myself to take any random craft class I fancy), so I will look into it, it sounds fun

  15. I picked blueberries in the heat and humidity. Three times! I must be a bit crazy, but blueberry season only lasts a few weeks and the earlier berries are usually bigger (although the smaller ones are just as tasty). So far I have 21 lbs in the freezer. I plan to go out one more time (if there are any left after the big storms that came through yesterday) and pick some more. I use them all winter long which is why I like to have so many.

  16. I spread some granules that are supposed to kill whatever is killing my grass in spots. Then we had a gentle rain, so I didn’t have to water it in, assuming the rain didn’t wash it away. I finally got in a walk this morning. We have been under a Heat Advisory for three days. It was very humid this morning, but we had the first of at least a week of cool mornings! It’s going to get drier, too, and that will be wonderful!

    I had some milia removed, and a skin tag frozen off my jaw with nitrogen, at the dermatologist. Milia is a fancy word for embedded whiteheads. some had been there for years. It feels good to be rid of them.

    Kali and I had our spa days, mine for a haircut, and hers for a nail trim, and “sanitary” trim.

    I figured out where all the ants were coming from, that trail up the trunk and limbs on my struggling Maple tree, and puffed Diatomaceous earth all over the nest area and the trail. They came back, but so did I. I hope I win this contest.

    I should finish my current reread in time to start on Rocky Start. I can’t wait!

  17. Day job- no sooner than I settle into a piece of work and begin to think that I am actually enjoying what I’m doing someone throws a spanner. So this week, my boss who is too busy/afraid to meet our team more than once a month, though we have a weekly meeting scheduled we are not a priority, once again sends a list of things he wants done without enough proper info to let us know what he actually wants or what we might decommit to fill his unrealistic expectations. Even more frustrating, none of what he wants is unpredictable, he just never bothered to decide and set out a plan to get it done.

    Mini rant over (I could go on), I haven’t been writing lately. When my day job takes over my brain space I seem to have no mental energy left to write or have any ideas. Hoping to get back to it this week, despite the issues above.

  19. I took time off work so I would have a 5 day stretch. My plan was to escalate my work getting the mobile home ready to sell & invite a realtor to come through & tell me what I have to do to sell.
    Day 1 off my job my back started hurting anytime I move.
    We are on day 4. Back still hurting & I have given up my goal.
    I never have back aches.
    Argh!

  21. I achieved temporary control of the backyard weed meadow:

    https://www.instagram.com/p/C9gULp_vifu/

    The big purple thing is a Canary Island sage, which came to me as a six-inch sucker from my friend’s yard. The hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies love it. I also love it because POOF so much color and I never have to water it.

    The bare area in the middle will be full of California poppies again next spring. 🙂

      1. The wooden thing is actually the end pieces of a broken-down convertible futon frame, serving as a sage-prop & containment device.

    3. There’s a house in the neighborhood who has let California poppies take over the front section that used to be bare stone. So amazing when they come into bloom.

  23. I’m looking for a new cleaning team/lady. Mine is retiring for health reasons. This is, of course, while my husband’s health issues are still undiagnosed (well a tentative diagnosis but I hate it so I am waiting until it is confirmed before I accept it). And I have a dozen things I need to do before the contractor starts on our bath remodel in about a month.

    Yesterday I cleaned a bunch of gunk out of my barbecue. Even though it is a gas’s barbecue, I had enough buildup of charred food and burned stuff beneath the burners that I could get a nice smoked effect every time I used it. It took a couple of hours but it is mostly done and I will be able to a better job of winterizing it since the worst has been dealt with. It is wonderful using it as my main cooking center because it makes kitchen clean up so much easier but eventually it too has to be cleaned. Sigh.

    1. Someone gave my husband a grill robot cleaner which I believe is called a grillbot which he loved.

      1. What a cool idea. I looked it up. I do a good job with cleaning the surface of the grill, it is all the drippings on the bottom that burn and char into charcoal stalactites and the stuff that manages to fall through to the area under the burners. I had to scrape off almost an inch of that stuff. I suppose it is no worse that cleaning up old charcoal but what a pain.

  24. My brother and SIL arrived Monday and I spent most of yesterday driving them to get groceries, etc. and finally to my SIL’s parent’s cottage. Only an hour out of town so not too much driving. It was great to be able to spend time with them. My nieces and nephew arrive later in the week and we’ll go up on Friday afternoon to see them. Second visit on Sunday with DS – first time in at least 5 years the cousins will be together.

    Lots going on in the garden. Thanks to the heat and the almost daily rain, the plants are growing very quickly. The tomatoes need regular attention to keep them growing up the trellis. Some of them are already setting fruit which is early for my area. The calendula and alyssum which I seeded outside, are starting to bloom. I love this time of year in the garden.

  25. My main achievement this week was spotting a window cleaner doing a good job as I walked home from the supermarket and getting him to clean my windows – which for me is a major job that I’d put off for far too long, so they were depressingly dirty. His pressure hose stretched right through the house to reach the back windows, and he cleaned all the frames and the three exterior doors as well. Then I went round and did the insides.

    I’ve also been doing masses of weeding, though there’s still a lot to do: the allotment is getting smothered by bindweed and marigolds as usual. And my attempt to start work again on my fiction project has once again thrown me into depression and an existential crisis. Don’t know whether to keep trying to find a way into it or to try to finally give up. I’ve always thought I could have fun writing fiction, but maybe I’m wrong.

    1. I think you put too much pressure on yourself with the fiction project. It now seems to have built up into something you dread. Maybe take a break from it and write something easy and fun you can play around with

  26. Getting the tenant evicted which takes a lot of work getting all the evidence including the police visits as to why she should be evicted. Tenants seem to have more rights than other tenants or the owner. I just want her gone! Now! Not sleeping well. Waking up worried she is intrenched and I will have to pay her to get out. My two best tenants are moving out as they can no longer stand it.

      1. I have all texts from all three tenants, timelines, letters from other tenants, all emails, telephone calls, etc. everything I can think of to bolster the argument for eviction.

  27. WRT auto batteries, I have a CarQuest 12VDC charger from advance auto parts store. I tried to look it up on the interwebs, but 404d.

    Peppers and tomatoes are ripening. Lettuce, too. I had a cheeseburger with everything for lunch.

  28. I’ve been working on finishing a book for the writing conference I’m going to in the Fall. I’ve got so much resistance but putting myself on a tough daily word count is helping.

    I’m also working on quilting a top that got finished years ago. I decided it’s good practice for trying to improve my free-motion skills. I hope so, anyway.

  29. What I was working on; day job, cleaning the shower, cleaning mounds of papers, reading DDs book which is going to be good and trying to make helpful non critical suggestions —so far I seem to be finding the right balance, mostly things she might want to mention. Also supporting DH who is in England with friend with dementia who seems to be going downhill and supporting DD who caught COVID in Alaska at a wedding and supporting DS who is trying to get a friend who got heatstroke through bad choices to eat (apparently friend has an eating disorder that kicked into high gear.)

    What I am actually working on today:
    I realized that mom had turned to a fake Apple support website yesterday and once again let a scammer in to her computer so advising her on cleaning that up. He also got scammy apps onto her phone. Fortunately I spotted it before he actually got money as far as we can tell.

    And then she totaled her car although she is ok, and the police say it was the other persons fault so it won’t get her off the road once she can find a new car. Or rather another old car with the same dashboard layout as the one she crashed. So that ate up large parts of the day.

    I feel I should say to you all “ I am not making this up you know”.

    Tonight I will watch Bridgeton and pretend the world has no cars computers or phones.

    1. Well hell. When I saw the bit about the car, I was almost excited for you. Hopefully finding a replacement will take a long time. Maybe her insurance company will balk? We can only hope.

      I have found that I needed to install a pop-up blocker with my dad. It has helped limit the dangerous things that he can click on. He isn’t computer savvy enough to know that we did it.

      1. She went looking for Apple support and found a scam website

        I may try the blocker as that seems like a good plan but that wasn’t todays problem

        I would be delighted if she stops driving due to this but I am not counting on it

        1. Have faith. After years of ignoring everything his children said about hanging up the car keys, my Dad finally started paying attention to our nagging after he totaled his car. It took him a while to be able to talk to us happily afterwards, but that enabled both him and my Mom to live to a ripe old age together. And I’m sure that the police where he lived breathed a sigh of relief.

  30. I have two tomato plants growing on the deck, really growing. I thought we were well on our way to great fruit. However, the tomatoes were ripening but turning to rot on the bottom. So, I googled and You-tubed my way to find out what the problem was. Apparently, I was starving them, and they were suffering from malnourishment. Until I could get to a garden shop and buy plant food, I tried this method learned from videos. I crushed 10 Tums and mixed with water and mixed with soil to help them along until reinforcements arrived. Here’s hoping!

    1. My first thought was blossom end-rot, which is due to erratic watering; but you’ve matched your symptoms, so I daresay you’re right. They do need feeding if they’re in containers, but I’ve always been lazy about it and seem to have got away with it,

  31. I’ve just finished three days of being visiting author at a young writers workshop in Brisbane – 40 keen Grade 6 kids from 6 or 7 different primary schools. It was enormous fun – they were so quick to learn and so committed, and their stories were so gruesome. 🙂

    This workshop runs every year, and I’d love to see something like it in Tasmania. I would have adored it when I was in Grade 6. And I had a lot of fun being there as an adult.

    And now I have to shift gears rather suddenly, because this afternoon illustrator Jonathan Bentley and I are launching our new picture book in Brisbane at a kids’ bookshop with the wonderful name Where the Wild Things Are.

  32. That’s going to be my weekly treat. Rocky start hooray
    I’m getting through my physical therapy exercises and sleeping a lot.
    I love reading with the rest of you were doing

  33. Thought I had really over scheduled myself today so I cleaned the bathroom yesterday.

    Then my cousin didn’t need the ride and a political training session was postponed.(Dems seem to be taking security very seriously after the shooting. They have stopped door canvassing. The rank and file are not happy about it but it’s possible the leadership has info on credible threats received.)

    And I was headed out to a meeting when the tornado warnings started so Zooming that instead of attending in person.

    Spent the freed up time turning some worn out jeans into cut-off shorts. Still too hot to do much weeding. Lucked out with no tornado but a nice down pour because I emptied my rain barrel this morning.

  34. I spent a long time on the phone at 2 hospitals trying to make an appointment with a neurologist to take a look at the MRIs of my aneurysm.My internist predicted that it would take up to 4 months to get an appointment, but due to the extremely small size of it, I shouldn’t worry.Yeah, right. I tried to send the internist a reply to his response to the MRI, but my mouse died and I can’t get the darn email to send. But after days of trying, I now have appointments with 2 different hospitals 2 months away. I will see if either of them gets a cancellation before then. The automated phone systems were hell on earth, but once I got through to a live person, things looked up quite a bit. A registration process that they told me would take 15 minutes only took 5 because none of my information had changed since I went to see a knee specialist 18 months ago. Hooray! Both the data entry clerk and I were VERY glad to hear that! But now I am exhausted. And I am scared, no matter what my internist says.

    2. Did he tell you how big it is? My husband has an aneurysm near his heart and the size is stable and they monitor it annually and don’t seem concerned since it’s not growing. They sounds so scary but I gather they can actually be managed quite well.

      I really hope they can see you sooner.

      1. He just said very small and said that he thought the neuro dept would go with monitoring. But I would like to see the neurologist and look at the actual picture . As for being size stable, since this is the first time anyone has seen it, that is not possible to know yet. I’d also like to know what, if any, connection this has to my daily head aches and what can be done about them.
        I’m just glad that I only have to wait 2 months for an appointment instead of the 4 months my internist predicted. I will worry about the competence of the specialist closer to my appointment.
        The specialist’s name is Alan Shepard. If I were a space buff, I’d probably see that as an omen.
        I also have an appointment at another hospital one week later. I may cancel that one if either of them gets a cancellation.

    3. I am so sorry you are having to cope with this very challenging situation, Aunt Snack.
      I think being scared just denotes that you are a very rational human😳.
      Not that makes it easier to deal with the stress & feeling vulnerable – especially when dealing with brain related health issues.
      I am not a health professional & everyone has different health variables.
      But in case it helps, we had a similar situation with a family member needing to have some treatment for another issue for 3 months before the doctors were willing to treat the aneurysm (which was also relatively small). She had an excellent outcome.
      All the advice for her during this waiting period was to ensure good BP control, relaxation strategies, gentle regular exercise & only access information from reputable sources ie definitely don’t go down Dr internet rabbit holes which frequently results in only finding the horror stories. And of course go to an emergency dept if the symptoms change. She also decided to set herself some goals for each week of the waiting period so she was focusing on what she could accomplish rather than feeling overwhelmed at what might happen. Some of them were really low bar & others more complex but she certainly gained a feeling of accomplishment from her achievements.
      No doubt you have had similar advice from your doctor.
      Hopefully you don’t mind me sharing this. I found when I had very severe depression over a long period that sometimes hearing of others positive outcomes helped me to keep putting one foot in front of the other during the really hard times.
      Sending heaps of keeping calm & positive vibes to support you during the waiting period. Best wishes & take care

      1. Setting small goals for the intervening weeks sounds like an excellent plan. I am going to the suburbs to hang out with my feline friends this coming weekend. I think I will concentrate on trying to lure my friend Becky and her kids down to visit their grandparents during the time I am there so I can finally meet the twins. If that doesn’t work out, I can always ask Grandpa Ben if he has any new pictures he can share.

  35. I’m working at an ed tech conference this week. Generative AI is being built into everything. It’s going to be an interesting next few years for students and teachers alike. Some colleges in Houston are still closed because of the storm damage so we have been back to all online again.

    I have an open house planned this weekend so am hopeful for good news on a sale!

  36. My catmint is dying. Its thrived for 3 years. My dad was right. I am “Dr Kevorkian” of the plant kingdom.

    1. If it thrived for 3 years, I’d hardly call you the angel of plant death. I can kill plants MUCH more efficiently than that,

About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author and co-author of twenty-three novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in Pennsylvania, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.

Find out more about Jenny’s published works by visiting JennyCrusie.com

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