I was going to put up my WIP post for this and accidentally hit publish, so that’s already gone. And it’s been awhile since we posted our good intentions for the week–for something enjoyable, NOT cleaning the toilet–so let’s try this again.
What good intentions do you have for this week? Or should we just bag this post and stick with Good Sunday and Good Book Thursday and then Watching Wednesday whenever I have something I really like to share? Up to you. It’s really your blog, I just type here.
75 Responses
I’m telling myself: Stay calm. Be practical. Be my own friend.
This isn’t because of terrible stuff, but wonderful stuff. We leave for Spain on the 8th, and we’re down to crunch time. I’m currently in Indianapolis with my daughter who’s seeing her specialist. We fly home to west-central Massachusetts this afternoon. I have an ultrasound on Thursday; in fact, my calendar is pretty full. But all will be well. Breathe deeply. Again.
Just thought to put Hold Mail and have Bank put Spain on Debit Card on my list.
Thanks for listening!
Enjoy your trip!
Good thoughts on debit card and mail hold! When I made my government-sponsored move to Germany, one piece of advice in their handouts was to carry around a memo book and write down things to do in preparation as they occurred to you. I found that a good idea also for shorter trips as well. I later found the same advice in a book Heinlein wrote about a trip taken in the 1950s, so the idea has been around for a while. I suppose nowadays phones could replace memo books for many people.
And, Vote in Primary tomorrow!
It’s Monday and I’m already looking toward the long weekend. My girlfriends and I are going on a quilting retreat, so the next few days will be getting my potential projects rounded up so I’m ready to pack the car on Thursday!
OOH! So jealous! The only time I pack early is when going on a quilting retreat. The entire week before (and sometimes even before then), I’ll be putting projects together, somehow believing time will warp and I’ll get it all done. I hope you have a marvelous time!
My intention on a business trip to Dallas this week is not to say anything political or respond to anything that’s political.
Love, Your Friend From The Other Side of LAKE ONTARIO
You are a better man than I am. I see a social media post and begin vibrating with rage.
That man is such a prat.
You are too kind. And that’s an insult to actual prats everywhere, lol. (On the other hand, we don’t use the kind of words that might actually describe him here on this lovely blog, so I suppose prat will have to do.)
I usually just take the vowels out.
Long live the name Lake Ontario! I am disgusted that Google caved so quickly, although back when the world was saner, a rule to follow the Board of Geographic Names made sense. As of a couple of days ago, Fox News (the only place where, on their over-air weather channel, I ever heard “the Gulf of America” used with a straight face) was, per Google’s AI, reporting on the Orangutan’s move, but not actually using ‘Lake America.”
Not that I have actual experience there except changing planes, but Dallas seems from reports to be a good place for a Canadian who makes frequent business trips to the US to be extra discreet.
Exactly. Luckily we can’t get good BBQ up here so I am looking forward to that and will be most effusive about it.
In my year in the then Soviet Union, when asked what I thought about the place, the first thing I always said was that the ice cream was delicious. (It was!)
Whereas in all my trips to Russia I praised anything made with dough and/or potatoes.
Tex-mex carnitas too! I am not a big meat eater, but slow roasted meat is hard to dislike.
Google is going to regret that. MapQuest refused to change the name and is now the top map app in the Apple Store.
I should have remembered that the other day. Just shut up, Jenny.
What, you don’t like Lake America? I was amazed it wasn’t Lake Trump. Spray painted gold.
I’m old fashioned. I like indigenous names to remain the same. And it means large beautiful water. What’s not to like about that?? MapQuest has flatly said they’re not changing the name. Unlike the obsequious Google Maps. I salute you, MapQuest.
Bully for MapQuest!
Yup. I switched to MapQuest on my phone as soon as I heard. Screw you, Google Maps.
Selfishly, I prefer the Monday post because I’m not on a desktop on the weekends and try to limit my screen time at home, so I usually see Sunday on Monday anyway. And personally I think that it is easier to set good intentions than recount wins from the past week. Read into my psychology as you will.
I am actually, finally painting again. It’s been a hard year and that makes it difficult to sit down with my inner thoughts, even though doing things with my hands is one of the things that helps. Go figure. I have a show at a local restaurant in November and while I am not in the crunch zone, it still feels close, especially because I am back to the geometry/quilt patterns and those take time. The process is pretty soothing. Lots of scut work in between decisions. I have four pieces started that I rotate between when I get stuck. One is mostly finished and I see the end. One is mostly backburnered because I don’t know how to proceed, one is waiting because I don’t want to do what needs to happen next yet and the last one gets filled in with whatever paint is left over from the other three. I will make that one make sense later.
It’s also time to start thinking about putting the garden to bed. I let it go in July like I usually do and I need to walk it back so it isn’t a complete mess in the spring.
Otherwise, I have decided to be a complete hedonist for the last quarter of the year. All big plans are put aside. Deep cleaning and purging are for January and February. I am not going to feel guilty about buying things that I want. I am not going to kill myself trying to get things listed to Etsy before Christmas. Whatever happens, happens. I am actually pretty bad at indulging myself, to the point where I don’t notice that I am denying myself something I can have, so this is actually going to be a project in awareness, but this year just about did me in and I feel like it is time to turn my focus on finding more things to enjoy. So, a really big intention made up of small plans.
I’m so glad you are painting again and I love your plan for the rest of the year.
A big intention is only ever fulfilled with small plans so I think that’s smart.
Where or how can we see pictures of your painting? I’d love to se what you’re up to!
That is so kind. Thank you! Nothing finished yet. Will share if I manage to complete one to my satisfaction.
Yes, please. Instagram? Facebook? There’s a link at the top of my comment that says “img” and asks for a URL, but that might be because I’m admin.
Copying a link on Instagram and posting it here has worked in the past, but I don’t know if I have tried it since the blog was updated. We will see.
Good for you. I want to start painting again, too. I’ve got all my stuff in one place, just haven’t set up half of my office/living room as a studio yet. I’ve always wanted to try to do the paintings in some of my books, the ones my protagonist does. You’re inspiring me to get it all set up.
Thanks! Having a dedicated space set up helps a lot. I worked on digging out the hell hole that is my craft room some, and set up a folding table. I have never been good at painting on an easel, even though I have a decent one and always gravitate to laying pieces flat, or slightly angled on my lap/end of the table. I am embarrassed to say that it took me a while to figure this out. I guess I had ideas of what a ‘real artist’ was, subliminally, that I needed to shake. It also took longer than I like to admit to move my Styrofoam meat tray palette to the left side of my project so I didn’t need to reach across it. No idea why I put it on the right to begin with, except that everything else seems to accumulate to the left when I put it down and there was room on the right? Gotta stop making these things harder on myself.
All of this sounds wonderful. Monday’s are just horrible for me, and I can’t put a pin into why. But I’d love to lower my screen time and actually try out some of the crafts and watercolor training steps I’ve been watching excessively.
The people in my art group are now encouraging each other to actually DO an Andrea Nelson painting–with delightful results.
I’m on a roll sorting my photography backlog, so I’d love to finish that this week. Also want to sort my trip down south in a month, and do more walking.
Get a dog. Johnny needs walking three times a day, and I love him dearly, so I walk. Left to my own devices, I’d stay in bed with my laptop and eat cookies, but he looks at me with those eyes and I walk. That dog is saving my life.
That’s great, Jenny. I finally got a walk in, after the rain stopped. Kali likes to walk, too. But I’m very grateful that her former owner pee pad trained her, because a lot of mornings it is just too hot to go outside for more than a minute or two.
I know a woman who got a dog when her depression made her want to stay in bed all day. Since she lives in a place where winter makes you want to stay inside for months on end, only the needs of her beloved pet tempted her into the exercise and social interaction she needed. It worked well enough that she opened up the kind of store that depends on a LOT of personal interaction.
I like both but I often confuse them anyway so if two is too much for you, you could combine them.
My big intention is that we get the tub installed and drywalled and tub-surrounded si that I can mud and paint this weekend before school starts so that we dont all have to keep using Mom’s tub downstairs.
I also need to type up a blog post that I wrote last week.
My intention is to get on a plane to London Wednesday. Mom’s health may derail that and I won’t know until Tuesday night. Lots of work prep and home prep and packing prep to make that happen. (Among other prep I need to book a one month overseas phone package but waiting to see if I can actually go.)
Fingers crossed!
I hope all goes well. Given that there are siblings to take up the slack and given your description of your mother’s behavior (which evidently may or may not have resulted from nonculpable mental illness), in case of doubt, I’d say take the trip. But I can see that it would be a very tough decision to make.
Good luck!
Mom’s echocardiogram shows damage but so far they can manage it with meds . She can feel but not move the arm that was dislocated so an mri tomorrow. Expectstion is rehab later this week for at least a week.
My sibs are planning visits so I’m going to get on the plane and figure if things go badly I come back early. I probably have to go up when I get home to write checks for her bills. (And tomorrow I call 3 Kennels and two people who might take the dog to their homes. His usual sitter is only available through Friday
And he’s not well house trained . Sigh.)
I’m happy you’ll get to go Debbie and it means that your mom is better than otherwise.
I intend to finish the Cranky Crone’s Guide to Life and Other Difficulties and send it off to my Llewellyn editor. Who probably won’t have time to deal with it, because it isn’t on her schedule until December. Once that’s off my plate, my intention is to go back to working on the outline for the second cozy, and clean/continue with Swedish Death Cleaning around my house, since that sort of stalled out while I was obsessively writing.
I hope to get a little more done in the garden, but since it is supposed to rain every day through Thursday, well, we’ll see.
Oh, and putting big vibes out into the universe for the Anthropic settlement money to finally start going and and for mine to show up in my bank account, because I could really use it!
Me, too. Although after St. Martin’s takes half and Mollie takes half of my half, it’ll probably be orty-five cents, I still want that money.
Yeah, Llewellyn is going to get half of most of the books, and PRH is going to get half from the 3 cozies. But everything that I got the rights back for (2 NF and a bunch of novels) is all mine. Of course, the self-published ones I get nadda, because I didn’t formally register them with the copyright office BECAUSE IT ISN’T NECESSARY. (And costs money.) And my one SMP NF book, they didn’t register the copyright, even though they were required to by contract. So, yeah. Still it should be a big enough chunk of money to make a difference. And yet, not a word…
Do you follow Courtney Milan on Bluesky? She’s trying to get some answers from the administrator, because there were two appeals, but in both cases, it was just with respect to some legal fees (complicated issue, probably a waste of the court’s time and unlikely to win), which only affects a really tiny percentage of the money, and in theory it should be possible to segregate that contested money and pay out the rest in the initial payment(s), with the segregated money then being paid out to the authors/pubs once the appeals are denied. Courtney’s reading of the agreement was that in the event of a fee contest, that money HAD to be segregated and the rest paid out to authors/pubs, but I’m not qualified to confirm/deny that.
The administrator though (based on actions, not words — they haven’t updated the website in MONTHS) seems to be viewing the appeals as permission to do nothing, so Courtney’s been nagging the administrator (and has announced her intention to go straight to the judge, not as a lawyer but as a party, if the administrator’s request for instructions is inconsistent with the agreement, to the payees’ detriment). Last I knew, she said the administrator was going to ask the court this week for instructions on how to handle the payments in the wake of the appeals, and she was willing to wait to see what that request looks like before getting more officially involved. Getting a response from the court of course will take some time, and the administrator seems to be saying, in essence, based on their actions “Yeah, I suppose we should update the website with the proposed payment plan while we wait, etc., since in theory the bulk of the money is due in September, but we’re not in any rush.” There’s also supposed to be a dashboard where you can see the breakdown between author/publisher and what the status of payment is, but they don’t seem to have started on that yet, even though they’ve known for a LONG time that September is a likely due date.
Anyway, there was also a recent article by a freelance author, not Courtney, implying the author had spoken to an unnamed someone at the administrator’s office, and that unnamed and person was saying December/January for first payments (and that was before the appeals were filed).
So. Bottom line: don’t hold your breath. Personally, I’m inclined to think the Dec/Jan timeline is more likely, given what I know of how slowly the legal system works, notwithstanding terms in the agreement that require a faster timeline. It’s too easy to go to the court and get an extension, and really, what are the authors’ attorney realistically going to be able to say if the administrator says “We can’t physically do it in the timeframe and need three more months”?
As Courtney says, the real key is whether the money gets paid into the fund in time to avoid clawback by the bankruptcy court if the AI bubble bursts soon and Anthropic files bankruptcy. She’s trying to find out if the second (I think it’s the second) of three (I think) payments has been made by Anthropic yet, which she calculates should have been paid, but hasn’t seen any confirmation of it. Bankruptcy courts can order monies returned to the person overseeing the bankrupt filer’s monies if they were paid within … I forget how many … a certain number of months before filing bankruptcy. Usually it’s so people can’t, e.g., give away all their liquid assets on Monday and file bankruptcy on Tuesday, but it’s a lot more expansive than that, and I don’t know what would happen if Anthropic filed for bankruptcy within that window after paying into the settlement fund.
Also, don’t forget that this is likely to be taxable income (payroll tax and income tax), so you may want to be prepared to set aside some percentage of it (higher than you might think) for taxes.
As always, I’m not giving legal advice, just passing along what I’ve read and my own personal experience with the legal system’s timelines.
I always set aside 20% of everything publishing related for taxes, alas. But the rest of this–OY. I never go to Bluesky, but I’ll have to go and follow her. This is nuts.
I intend to finish Anna this week. ARGH.
I DID finish! Still working on final edits. Nothing on cleaning yet.
I have resolved to spend a minimum of two hours today on actual deskwork today and for at least the whole week, possibly excepting a day with a medical appointment. I can probably fill that up for the first day or two with nothing but physical sorting and filing.
Possibly too much time has gone lately to hobby-related activities, but a lot has gone to genuine chores. Just not enough to deskwork.
I’m working on on a fabric piece inspired by Tilda’s work, and it is a struggle – her style is way out of my usual way of working. A friend called it genre jump struggle, trying to turn the knob on how I see and portray things from one mode of seeing/showing to another. If it works, I’ll post it to instagram!
What a fun project!
YES!!! I would love that. I’m looking at the paintings in the Cinderella Deal, too. The ones about the myths and legends, not the portraits.
I planned to walk today! It is cooler, but it is raining, and we need the rain, so no complaints. The next few days should be cooler, too, and I plan to walk as much as I can. I am training myself to wake up at dawn, because the surgery mid-month is early, and I have to be there an hour ahead of time, too.
My new stationary bike will arrive this week, and I plan to put it together, or hound my son to do it, and ride it every day. Nothing but good times ahead!
I am hoping to get back into the book I’m supposed to be working on. Characters from the shiny new object won’t shut up and the ones from the current story have been struck mute.
I’m planning to go see “Coyote vs. Acme” on Thursday. It’s based on one of the two funniest New Yorker humor essays I’ve ever read. (The other is “Four Short Crushes”). And “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” is one of my favorite movies.
Oh, yes, that looks insanely wonderful.
I have a preference for Sunday happies/gratefuls/reporting on crap that happened, but given that I might not read Monday until Sunday, not a big deal for me.
I have no intentions I am interested in, except lunch with cousins. Everything else this week looks to be just the regular stuff.
I have many things I need to do, but don’t want to do, and so have been ignoring them, so this weekend I pulled out the post-it notes and papered the closet door with tasks sorted into “hire someone”, “DIY tasks”, and “small tasks.” I also have a little jar with folded post-its for “mystery 15-minute” tasks, where I can pull one out and do it when I have a few minutes.
So far, one post-it task has been completed and removed from the door. My goal for the week is to finish at least 2 more tasks.
On the more fun side, I’m putting away the stash of patriotic-related fabric that I thought would make one quilt and has so far resulted in two quilts and three pillows (I swear the material replicates when my back is turned) and am now skipping ahead to get started on the infinite stash of Christmas-related fabric. Working through my fabric stash is my way of reducing clutter in the garage (I wouldn’t need so much storage if I didn’t have so much stuff, right?).
If you’re on IG, I would love to see the quilt tops!
Hope this link to the quilts works:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DcuDq9RkuCV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsi=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
Excellent work, Beth!
Thanks, Jan. I was pretty pleased how they turned out, especially since I don’t use patterns and just sort of randomly figure out things out as I go along.
Looks great!
I intend to do some desk work, but I admit that I am procrastinating like anything right now, because I’m embarrassed that I’ve left somethings from last week undone. For my commitments to others, not to myself. So, okay, to myself as well. I had a bunch of family visiting, we had a little ceremony of interment for Mom’s ashes, then a big party with lots of toasts and laughing. So company, then a short trip to see a friend while my sister stayed with Dad. And took him putt-putt golfing, which he really enjoyed. Who knew?
So I forgot about the things I said I would do.
But for this week I will continue to face the discomfort of catching up with “desk stuff” and finding the documents I need, with the occasional bout of sorting out items that can be donated. I never make angel food cake, I don’t like angel food cake, and we don’t need two, or even one, angel food cake pan. But someone with lover them.
My phone is picking up a signal, classical music, and I can’t find from where. I think it’s an Apple play list, but I can’t find it listed anywhere, and it doesn’t stop when I cut off the Bluetooth. It also doesn’t respond when I turn down the volume on the phone. Very mysterious…
How very odd. Have you tried the classic move of “turning it off and on again” and by it, I mean a hard shutdown of the phone.
Maybe you’re beyond this point, but when I was getting used to my phone I found that to get rid of an accidentally opened app playing sound, I sometimes had to hit the screen button for Display All Apps and close an app by moving it off the display. Failing that, you could try the Close All Apps button or rebooting (that is, what Kelly suggested, powering off and restarting it).
I love the Monday post, but do it when you remember.
Non-work intentions include finishing the entryway renovations (this mostly lands on my hubby), gardening since we were gone for 6 days (I picked sooooo many beans this morning!), and catching up on Argh. I’ve missed most of August due to my mom being in the hospital and distracting myself with “The Apothecary Diaries”. So, I want to go back and read all the 12 days of Anna posts, after which I’ll return to The Apothecary Diaries – light novel version. I’ve finished the anime and graphic novels that I have access to.
I went halfway out to my sister’s house when she called me asking to reschedule. So I turned around and came back home, hoping that the land-lord’s inspection team would come and tell me when, if ever, they planned to close up the hole in my bedroom and replace the coping the way they had promised they would after stuffing steel wool in the gap in the wall next to my bed. As of yesterday, I had 4 distinctly different mice that had been coming across my dining room floor when I sat at the table to use my computer. Either two of them seemed to have changed color or I actually have 6 different mice that visit me. Two of the mice that were gray now have cream colored fur that is tipped with a rusty brown. I have never seen mice that looked like that and wonder how they got that way.
The reason I was late going out to my sister’s house today is that when I went into the kitchen to grab a bite I found a glue trap in the middle of the floor with a dead mouse stuck to it. I couldn’t figure out how it had moved so far until I saw the mouse within. I had planned on clearing off my tables tonight and starting the annual sweater wash, but I don’t feel like laying all my sweaters out to dry on the same floor that the mouse died all over.
😳
Maybe a pet mouse escaped for a wild fling a few generations back?
I made a list for all the things I have to do in September, projects, meetings, appointments and political outreach things. Two down and thirteen to go.
I also need to finish writing and sending a business email which I’ve been putting off. Sigh. Really have to stop thinking about it and just do it.
Maybe combine Sunday and Monday into one post? People can either post a happy or intentions or both.