Sunday Update - 2025 Week 30

Thirty weeks into 2025 by my estimation.  I could be wrong, of course, but I don't really think it matters.  Anyway...

I didn't do any writing this week, but I do have a plan to do a NaNo thing next month, so there's that.  Actually, I plan to start today.  We'll see how that goes.  

Marketing occurred.  Unfortunately, I did some marketing on Monday and FB slapped me with what ended up being a 24 hour hold on further marketing posts.  They never tell me when they do it or why or what the parameters for marketing are, so I just have to roll with it.  Bastards.  I only moved 30 free copies of Accidental Death.  On a happier note, someone in the UK read AD and it's sequel, Natural Causes, in KU.  Yay.  I also had some residual page reads for Dying Embers from the freebie earlier this month.  Also yay.  Starting tomorrow, Blink of an I will be free for 5 days and I'll market to the best of my ability.  (Or I'll get discouraged again and halfass market.)

I did some reading.  Not a lot.  See yesterday's post.

Yesterday, I made a half-batch of cinnamon rolls.  This time I went super simple with the filling - just cinnamon and sugar - and they turned out non-spectacular but yummy nonetheless.  I also made a batch of banana muffins.  I'd never done that recipe before and they turned out awesome.  Woot.

On the activity front, I was a toad.  One walk.  I mean, I'm hauling about 4 gallons of water every other day to water my deck garden, but I don't mark that down.  It's exercise, though, so it probably should count for something.  Weight: 171.8 - unchanged.

In gardening news, I still only have those two tomatoes.  They're getting bigger, so yay, but I want more.  To that end, I think I'm going to sacrifice one flower - pick it and rub it on the other flowers to try pollinating ever other flower.  Fingers crossed it works.  The green peppers are still pretty much seedlings.  Next year, I need to start all of this earlier in the season.  My trees are doing okay.  The poor dogwoods are looking to me like they're suffering from the sun/heat.  I moved two of them into a shadier spot.  Several of the redbuds are doing awesome, though.  I'm going to need to stake them up so they don't grow retarded.  The hickories are doing well, too, although some bug is munching on their leaves.  Silly bugs.  I can't get bugs to pollinate my tomatoes, but they're happily eating my trees.  Blerg.

When I go Roku, I expressed some concern about it taking over my life.  Well, I wasn't wrong.  It's sending me straight to the Hell of the Unproductive.  I'm resolved to change that this week.  I need to set aside my new toy and be an adult again.  (Well, as adult as I ever was.)  It's not like Roku is going anywhere.  All the fun will still be there after I get my work done.  

And that's about it for my boring week.  How were things in your world?

Non-Writing Projects

 I'm embarking on a couple new projects.  No, not writing projects.  Yes, I'm still editing and I still have tons of stuff to do in the writing vein.  These are for me. 

First off, Hubs and I decided to try our hands at growing trees from seeds.  Yesterday, I went out onto the property and gathered seeds pods from the redbud, then I gathered fruit from the dogwoods, the spicebushes, and the carolina buckthorns.  I've already done a ton of research to see if this is even possible and then to see what exactly needs to be done to get the seeds to germinate and thrive.  I've already planted an elm (poor Elmer, may he rest in piece... he was quite lovely before the deer ate him) and two cedars (Cecil and Cedric.  Cecil is doing fine in a pot right now.  Cedric never recovered from a late night critter attack.)  This won't be a short process and we won't even know if this works until Spring.  Fingers crossed.

The other project... err, hobby?... I'm gotten the urge to embark on is woodcarving.  We have all this wood and some of it is quite lovely (cedar, lilac, black cherry), so I'm going to try my hand at using it to make something beautiful.  I spent some time yesterday reading up on it and looking at tools on Amazon.  Sadly, the majority of inexpensive wood carving tools are made in China.  I may have to spend more to get domestic tools.  We'll see.  

Yes, I am quite aware that these are distractions and time sucks away from what I should be doing.  I also think I need this to keep myself sane.  :shrug:  Who knows how long I'll stick to this stuff?  It's worth a shot.  I mean, sure, I still have a big plastic tub full of yarn from my crocheting days - along with a blanket I started back in Colorado that I have yet to finish.  This may all come to nothing.  Either way, I'll learn something and that's never bad.

If the trees and shrubs work out, they'll make nice additions to our landscaping.  If the carving works out, I'll sell the stuff I make - or use it for gifts for friends and family.  I really want to carve up some really nice walking sticks and canes.  I have a thing for those.  :points to sporadically gimpy leg:  

Your turn... Tell me about something you do as a hobby.  Or tell me about a hobby you would like to have.  

Thursday This n That

There's something hinky with my toilet.  It's making weird sounds like it's pissed and is digesting its enemies.  Either that or it's become a portal to another dimension where the inhabitants are pissed and digesting their enemies.  I suspect it's just mineral deposits and I need to clean the tank again. 

I saw baby turkeys yesterday!  For the first time in years.  Four little poults and their mama.  Only four probably means she lost the rest because I think they usually hatch out about eight.  But poults!  Yay!

Since the world has become such an unpalatable place, I'm spending too much time playing online play-money slots.  Click, spin, click, spin, click, spin.  With the one I'm playing there are so many different ways to win, I'm often not sure how I won.  Or how I could possibly not win.  :shrug:  Totally random.  Totally out of my control.  Totally mindless entertainment.

The other day, Owl wanted to try a new recipe for chocolate cake with root beer in it.  When it came out of the oven, I was a little concerned it was so low in the bundt pan.  She had the first piece and commented it wasn't quite right.  Hubs and I had our pieces and yeah, something about it was weird.  Really dense and the texture was strange.  It tasted good, but yeah.  So, I sat down with Owl to brainstorm what might've gone wrong.  After a time, she realized she'd forgotten the baking soda.  No leavening agent made it basically a chocolate rubber brick.  Yesterday, I figured out if you cut a thinner slice and then nuke it and eat it hot, it takes away the weird texture, so the cake will get eaten.  It takes a lot to get me to throw away food.  Especially chocolate flavored food.

I'm having a tough time finding new ebooks to read right now.  Not much is really exciting me enough to click through.  I think I might have to bite the bullet and pay for some books in series I've enjoyed in the past.  I'm also down to one book in my pile of random paperbacks.  Oh, I still have loads of paperbacks, but the random pile is too damn low.  I need to get into a thrift store soon.

Fish sticks for dinner tonight.  I haven't had those in ages, so when I saw them at the DG, I snapped them up.  Am I the only one who says it fishticks?  I also say sammich instead of sandwich.  And breffishnook instead of breakfast nook.  :shrug:

And that's it for me today.  What's it for you?

Thursday This n That

You know me.  I love baseball.  But I swear if the players don't knock this horse shit off, I'm done with it.  I loved football more and I quit that without too much pain.  I don't even miss it anymore.  Next up, golf.  All this COVID crap has shown me I can live without sports.

The guinea fowl now wait for Hubs to do his morning 'feed the critters' thing.  They are his faithful subjects.  I have three of them named now - Harry and Henry (previously Harriet and Henrietta, but then I learned they were males) and Pie (short for Piebald - also male).  Henry's light, Harry's dark, and Pie has white on his breast.  They travel together and have enough differences (all guineas pretty much look the same) that I can tell who they are.  There's also a trio of nearly identical guineas - all the same dark shade of gray.  Two males and a female.  And the female limps, so I know when it's THAT particular trio.  I think I'll name them Bing, Bob, and Dorothy.  They're off on the road to Morocco.  ;o)

I think that's Dorothy.  (Smaller wattles is the key to gender identification in guinea fowl, I guess.)

I've been distracting myself with playing free online poker again.  No worries, though.  I can only play for ten minutes at a time before my computer starts to whine from the overload.  Then I learned I can play free slots at the same site without the drain on my system.  Totally mindless entertainment.  I went through 250K chips yesterday, though, so now I have to wait and build my acct back up again.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of virtue signaling.  Then again, I'm pretty much sick of everything right now.  Like I've seen on FB, I think we need to turn 2020 off and back on again, and see if that fixes the problem.  We need some sort of reset on this year.

Tropical Depression Cristobal was a non-event here.  We got like an inch of steady rain overnight.  :yawn:  Right now, we're getting more wind from some thing blowing out of Oklahoma than we did with big, scary Cristobal.

On a walk last night, we saw a squirrel that was dead in the road.  Flat... and more than that, it's spine was laying about 3 feet away from it.  Which I thought was cool.  Owl was grossed out.  On the way back, we had to pass the squirrel again.  I had Owl walk as far away as possible and look into the field as she passed it.  I took a better look.  The animals had definitely been busy on the carcass.  I won't gross you out, too, but I still thought it was pretty interesting.  I'm weird that way.  For years, I had a cat skull one of my brothers found long ago.  Not sure where it went.  Lost to one of my many moves, no doubt.

Okay, on that note, I should probably wander off somewhere and let you enjoy your day.  Have a good one!  And tell me what's going on with your this n thats today.

Updated to add:  I woke up this morning to learn that A&E cancelled Live PD.  Those fuckers.  I'm beyond pissed.

Thursday This n That

Life with an old cat means celebrating when she poops*. 

I'll be 49 on Saturday.  Who woulda thunk I'd make it to 49?  I sure as hell didn't when I was younger.  Hell, I didn't think I'd make 30.  So, woohoo.  No prezzies this year.  I'm going to try something different as a birfday dessert - brownies with peanut butter and chocolate frosting.

I just finished a total genre-bending book.  A Western set on another planet with demon hunters.  I think before I read it, I was calling it a SF with a F twist, but it really read more like a Western than anything else, so I'm running with that as the main genre.  Good stuff with a less than satisfying end. 

Lately, I've been playing this online word game.  It's totally addictive.  I've made it as far as level 31.  I could probably go farther, but it resets every time I shut it down, so I have to start over from the beginning.  :shrug:

Yesterday, I was talking with a gal from the next neighborhood over and she told me she'd killed a packrat.  Here's hoping it was our packrat.  Probably wasn't.  Still, ours hasn't returned since I put the peppermint oil down.  :fingers crossed:

Speaking of local goings-on, some numbnuts broke into my favorite convenience store.  Backed his pickup truck up and pulled the front doors right the hell off so he could steal the ATM machine.  They finally caught him, but sheesh.  Some people.  They have new doors, but the building was damaged in such a way, they could probably easy be pulled off, too.  I hope they string the guy up by his thumbs.

Did you see the news story about the old guy who told a woman on a bus that she ought to try to be nicer and so she pushed him off the bus?  He died and she's charged with murder of an elderly person.  Maybe she should've taken his advice.  I'm thinking there's a lot of people who should take his advice, eh?

And on that note, I'm out of here.  Have a great day, folks, and try to avoid them what can't be nice. 

*Which she does almost every day.  It's the days she doesn't that worry us.  And then I break out the vegetable oil (a tablespoon worth in her wet food) and stand by the litterbox rooting for her.  But she turned 16 last week, so it's kind of expected.  I don't even want to think about what I'll be like when I'm 80.

Tuesday This n That

Since Thursday is Thanksgiving, I figured I'd post the 'this-n-that' today instead.

I spend entirely too much time playing WordRage these days.  It's addictive.  You have two minutes to make as many words as you can out of letters that make up one bigger word.  And you have to get a set number of points at each level or it's Game Over, man.  Anyway, it's more fun than it sounds.  And it reminds me of these handouts the teachers used to give us in elementary school - make as many words as you can out of a single word like Thanksgiving or Christmas or Halloween.  :shrug:  Hey, it gets my brain moving.

I have become a slug.  I really need to get back to the exercise routine.  For some reason or other, I fell off the wagon, landed on my face, and just laid there.  And now it's Thanksgiving week, so there's that to use as a rationalization for not being active.  Bleh.

With the weather getting cold, I picked up some new thermal socks.  Dickies are the best, even if they don't fit right.  And I bought this one pair of super soft and floofy socks with rubber dots on the bottoms so I don't go skating across the hard floors.  They're awesome.  I need a few more pairs of those.  Hell, I want to buy pairs of those for everyone I know so they can have super soft and floofy socks, too.

Speaking of thermal socks, why the hell can't they make women's thermal socks like men's thermal socks?  The only women's ones I can find are too damn tight with nubby shit on the soles so they hurt my feet when I walk.  Dickies needs to make their men's socks in women's sizes.  Jus' sayin'.

Coffee.

I got some postcards out yesterday.  They should be to their recipients shortly.

Gah, I need to start thinking about Christmas cards. 

Speaking of Christmas, I'm anti-Christmas until after Thanksgiving.  Once Turkey Day is over, bring it on.  Except this year TGD is early.  I'm not sure I'm ready for putting up the tree on November 23rd.  I might have to push it all to next week.  But before the 1st because that's when edits are due back.

And year end is coming.  :panics:

That's it for me.  I'm going to go hide in a hole until thoughts of 2019 go away.  What's up with you?

Sunday Update - Week 42

Well, would ya look at that... it's Sunday again.  Embrace it while you can because Monday's a comin'.  Now let's wrap up last week.

No new writing, but I did get some editing done.  Not nearly as much as I would've liked, but it was one of those 'god, I can't bear to look at this thing' weeks.  This is due back to the AWE by November 5th, so I better get my buns in gear.

The cover artist has my ideas for UatB's cover.  She's jammed this month, but she'll start work and get it to me in early November, which is cool by me.

Reading also did not go as well I as I wanted.  Maybe it's the books.  Maybe it's me.

I got the iris bulbs replanted.  All those little leaves poking up make me feel like Spring, even if it has gotten chilly here.  And it's the least they can do since I spent all that time putting them back in the ground. 

Friday I made a batch of corn bread and then made a batch of cake cookies in bar form.  Now that it's cooler, I feel all bakey.  Hubs is happy because he gets yummy things to eat.

I found this new online timesuck - WordRage.  I'm not linking to it because it's a timesuck.  Like any of us need more of those. Ugh.

Let's not talk about exercise and weigh loss, eh?  I was pretty active in the gardens, but it's not a huge calorie burning activity.  I also went fishing, and while that is an activity, 90% of it is spent sitting on my butt.  The biggest exercise I get is hauling my stuff from the car to the fishing spot and back.  

Nothing much else going on.  What's up with you?

Oh, I almost forgot...  Sleeping Ugly goes on sale Wednesday and will be 99c/99p through Devil's Night (October 30th).   Actually, I kind of did forget, but I remembered a little this morning.  I need a freakin' assistant.  One who works for free.  Ugh.

Sunday Update - Week 12

Hello again.

This past week was an exercise in toadness.  Not even sure what happened there.  It was Sunday and then it's Sunday again. 

I'm up to about 93% done with making edit notes for Wish Hits the Fan.  I'll get that done this morning, then start inputting those edit notes.  One of the chapters near the end will be pretty much a rewrite. Since I was a moron and didn't number my chapters while I was writing the book, I have no clue which one.  All I know is that it's lame.  Other than that, I like how it's coming together.

I spent most of the week hypnotized by the Dr. Pol marathon.  It wrapped up last night with his 100th episode, so I should be able to shake myself off and do something this week.  I did learn few things, though.  1)  Familiarity really does breed contempt.  By about halfway through, everything Charles did irritated me.  2)  If I really had to, I could probably repair a left displaced abomasum.  3)  How to treat milk fever.  4)  Goat polio is a thiamine deficiency.  None of this will be useful in my life.  (Except maybe #1.)

Still dry on the reading front.  Reason?  See the paragraph about editing. Then remember that I edit on my Kindle.  Which isn't really an excuse, because I have paper books and another Kindle.  I keep picking up paperbacks and setting them on my end table, then returning them to the shelves.  Nothing's sparking my interest - because I'm editing, I think.  :shrug:

Spent a lot of time fishing.  Even caught a couple keeper bluegills.  Not enough for a meal, but it's a start.  It's just nice to have fish in the freezer again.  (Fish that didn't come from Gorton's, that is.)

Well, that's it for me.  You got anything to crow about? 

Repainting the House... the 21st Century Way

Hey, remember in Total Recall (the original awesome one - not that thing they did to remake it) when the secretary was painting her nails?  She just used a wandy-thingie, touched the tips of her nail, and it changed to a different color. 

Well, I'm not quite using that level of technology, but I am using Microsoft Image Composer to look at different colors on my house so we can get an idea of what color would look the best.  (Yeah, Image Composer - which I've had and used since 2000.  They don't even make it anymore and it's not 100% compatible with Windows7.  But I'm used to it and it is awesomely easy.)

Anyway, I used one of the photos I took of the house:

After several false starts, including one where I turned the whole picture B&W, I got into the 'tools' in the program and chose the 'colorization' function to make the orange part white (for a better canvas):

And since then, I've been trying various shades of wood tones.  Anything to get rid of the orange.  I even tried to match the wood - using the 'color picker' tool (it sucks the color off any other image and puts it into the 'paint') I tried to match our sunroom paneling:

And ended up with:

Way too yellow...

I tried to pull colors off one of the does:

But everything looked flesh toned...

I tried using a fawn's coat:

But the background was making every attempt pull too much green.

Anyway, I'll probably play with it some more today.  I may even go out and take a full frontal pic of the house to get a better canvas to play with.  :shrug: 

Yeah, I probably should be writing...

What are you up to today?  And once you get done answering that question here, please go over to the Killer Chicks and answer it over there. 

kthnxbai

The Timesuck That is Yardwork

Okay, so all y'all know that we bought a house and moved back in April.  The house isn't perfect - what house is? - but we knew all it would take was some sweat equity to make our home the way we want it.  The first thing we did was get gutters installed on the north side - where there were no gutters.  (Really helped with that 5.5 inches of rain we got.)

The next big project was digging up the foundation and sealing it - with it's ancillary project of sloping the ground away from the house (thereby creating flower beds) and creating a drainage system to direct the rainwater coming down the hill away from the house, too (thereby creating walking paths).

First order of business - move the azaleas lining the front of the house so they'd be out of the way and wouldn't get crushed by all the activity.  Those went into new beds on the other side of the driveway.  And they're looking pretty okay, considering it's not the right time to transplant shrubbery.

I moved 5 of them here and the other 4 are on the opposite side of that tree.

So, we got the bushes moved.  Then came the digging of trenches - both to clear the foundation and to create a drain so the rain wouldn't drown our foundation.

Next, we ordered retaining wall blocks...

and began putting those in place.

But we couldn't do much more to the front because we were waiting for the foundation to dry out there.  (The 5.5 inches of rain did not help with that.  LOL)

So we worked on the iris bed alongside the driveway...

It's ready for planting.  And since the dirt arrived yesterday, I'll be working on that today while the Hubs puts another coat of sealant on the front and digs out the back foundation so it can dry. There'll be more pics as we get certain aspects of this done.  (If I waited and posted them all at once, we'd be here all day. LOL)

Yes, all of this is a tremendous timesuck.  And I'm getting squat done for writing.  But hey, it'll look awesome when we're done.  Plus, our foundation will be nice and dry from here on out.

What timesucks have you encountered lately? 

PS.  Yes, my house is the color of pumpkin puree.  That will be rectified next year maybe.  Depends on time and finances and how long my husband can bear to look at that color.

Lessons From a Wasted Hour

Saturday I wasted an hour reading.

Oh, it isn't unusual for me to spend hours reading.  I love reading.  I'd do it all the time if things like eating, sleeping, working and eye strain didn't get in my way.  And in my mind, reading isn't a waste of time.  Except when, at the end of that time, what you just read was a waste.

I hate not finishing books.  What I read Saturday, I didn't finish.  16% in, I gave up.  The book was so poorly written, the characters so cardboard and without redemption, that I couldn't see throwing another minute of my life down that sewer. 

Now I do realize the book was free, so it's not like I spent good money.  The problem is, I spent my time.  And when I woke up the next day I was thoroughly irritated.  I'll never get that hour back.

SF author Larry Niven said it best: "The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation."

Maybe I deserved it because the book was free and you get what you pay for, right?  But I've downloaded numerous free books that were awesome.  Right now, my book budget is non-existent and I'm reading a lot of free stuff.  So far, I've only hit two duds.  And the first of those I did read all the way through.  This one?  I'd rather have gnawed off my own paw.

Still... :trying to find a positive here:... I did learn something from this.  I learned things I definitely need to remember in my own writing:

Writing should have a flow and a cohesiveness.  "The novel is not “a crazy quilt of bits”; it is a logical sequence of psychological events..." - Vladimir Nabokov.  If only the writer had read that quote and taken its wisdom to heart. 

Characters should have depth. "The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail." -  Mark Twain.  Little quirks do not make depth. Personal tragedy does not make for depth - not on its own.  A secret love does not make for depth.  All of these things have to be written such that the depth is woven in or I'm not doing to give a flying rat's patootie about the characters.  Or as Ernest Hemingway put it: "When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature."

And for godsakes, do your research.  RESEARCH.  The tall skinny guy on the ADDAMS Family (spelled always with two Ds) is LURCH not THING.  Her very accurate description of the character was totally undercut by her use of the wrong name.  And saying a guy looks like Thing - who was nothing more than a disembodied hand - is super confusing.  Don't use a pop reference if you're not familiar with it.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm pretty forgiving of little errors.  Typos, proofing mistakes, format errors - I can get past those if the story is good.  If the story's not good?  It's like being rolled across broken glass, dipped in honey and laid on an ant hill.  If you don't get up and walk away, all those little bites can be disastrous.

And now, for good measure, here's a few more quotes to help us writers remember what it is we do - and hold this to our hearts while we hold ourselves to a higher standard:

"The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he may communicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader’s realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations." - E.B. White


"Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books." - John Ruskin

"There is no idea so brilliant or original that a sufficiently-untalented writer can't screw it up." Raymond Feist

So let's all get out there and make sure our brilliant and original ideas don't come across as screwed up.  None of our readers should have to feel they've wasted any amount of time on any of our books.

What's Up?

I've been busy.

I wish I could say I've been busy on writerly things.  I do have a new story I've been working on, but since I'm still over there on the couch hammering the story out in red pen on my trusty notebook, it's slow going.

No, I've been busy cleaning.  (Yeah, shocked the crap out of me, too.)  I know it's totally because I'm avoiding work.  I mean, why else would I get the sudden urge to rearrange the living room furniture?  Sure, I told myself I needed to move things around so I could decorate, but I decorated the house as it was last year with no problems, so I was just fooling myself.

Why, other than sheer avoidance, would I have tackled cleaning the vent hood on my stove yesterday?  It's a totally disgusting job.  And I know my landlady never bothered to soak the vent filter, so it was probably full of grease from past renters.  :gag:  Well, not anymore.  It's all clean and sparkly now.

So, the house is clean - mostly - and decorated for the holidays.  See?

Other than that, not much is up here.  I do have one piece of news that I'm not quite ready to share yet, as all the deets haven't been hammered out yet.  And, of course, there's the new blog: The Unpublished Writers' Guide to Survival.  I wish I had NEWS - like an interested agent or a publishing contract.  Maybe in 2013.

How about you?  What's up in your world?

Living in the Projects

No.  I'm not talking about government assisted housing.  Even though I don't work (at least not for cashola), we're not even close to the financial straights it would take for us to move into one of those places.

I'm talking about the myriad of little things I'm smack in the middle of.  I do one for a while, move to the next for a while, jump into the next...  So, yeah, I'm living in the projects I've created. 

It's April, so it's Ancestry season.  I'm tracing my tree.  I'm tracing the Hubs' tree.  I even traced my daughter's tree from her sperm donor up (which wasn't easy since there's no one I can ask).

Last month, or maybe the month before, I offered to do some tweaking of my nephew's senior pictures for my mother.  He didn't opt for the retouching.  Hmpfh, boys.  And since I took and retouched Daughter's senior pics, I was the obvious choice for the project.  I got the pics Thursday.  There are only three, and it's not hard, it's just time consuming.

Reseeding the lawn.  It's a yearly thing.  Living out here in the high desert makes keeping even the semblance of a lawn alive a pain - unless you have underground sprinklers, which we don't.  So every year, I pick up a bag of seed and hope for the best.  This year I'm trying a new product from Scott's.  It's the one with the dirt and fertilizer included along with the seeds, so it should be easier.  So far, no baby grasses, but I have hope.

I've also been making short excursions into the countryside.  I've got two goals for this.  Right now the birds are migrating, so I've been trying to see what new birds I can add to my birding lifelist.  And I'm trying to get some quality photographs while I'm out.  Ever since the guy at Cornell argued with me about my sighting of a Western Screech Owl in the area, I'm determined to get photos of the unusual birds that pass through here.  Plus, if any of them turn out really good, I'll print them and frame them. 

Oh yeah, and there's this other thing I'm supposed to be doing.  It's called WRITING.  Remember that stuff?  Yeah.  It keeps trying to make it's way to the top but it just gets shuffled back down again.

We're not even going to talk about the blanket I was supposed to be crocheting for my sister.  The strips are all crocheted.  It just needs to be sewn together and shipped to Michigan.  But it's sitting over there in my crocheting bag.

Of course, there are all the typical day to day things I should be doing as well, but since this is about 'projects', we're just going to forget about those for now.  (Why not, I've been forgetting about them so far. LOL)

And for all that, I still don't feel particularly busy or productive.  Maybe that's because I'm not making writing a priority in all that mess.  :shrug:

What projects are keeping you busy these days?  Anything fun? 

Excuses Excuses

We all have excuses for why we don't get done those things that we're supposed to be doing.  So, in honor of those little things that help us procrastinate, here are a few of today's excuses up front.

- I cut my right index finger yesterday and typing makes it hurt

- Today is the Michigan vs Michigan State game!  Go Blue! (They lost.) =o(

- I really need to take a shower.

- The cat needs her claws clipped.

- I started Kristen Painter's Blood Rights last night and I really really want to know what happens. (read three chapters)

- I bought that stuff to make cake cookies over a week ago and I really should make those before my husband eats all the chocolate stars.

- The blanket I'm making for my oldest sister isn't going to crochet itself. (crocheted a few rows)

- During yesterday's procrastinatory cleaning, I missed dusting that thingy-bob under the mirror and all the geegaws on it.

Okay, now that those are out there for the world to see, I can move on and get some writing done.  After all, I've only got two hours until FOOTBALL!

What excuses are keeping you from doing what you need to do today?

Updated @ 1:48pm - Still haven't written and still not feeling the urge to.  Maybe tonight.

Researching My Heritage

Have you ever seen that show Who Do You Think You Are?  I think I blogged about it last year.  It's a show where they follow one famous person's journey to discover their heritage.  Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's sad.  It's very often enlightening - like when Matthew Broderick found out one of his ancestors actually was killed in the Civil War. (Glory, anyone?)

Anyway, I was watching it last night when I was struck with the urge to do a little research of my own.  From time to time, I do this anyway - because it's fun and interesting.  Hell, I started doing this in college when I worked in the Government Documents Department and had access to a boatload of microfiche.  I was the first Meissner to find a picture of our infamous 'Cousin Otto' - the guy who worked for Hitler.  I know a lot about my family, but there are still a few missing pieces.  (Like how exactly we're related to good ol' Otto.)

After a while of typing my paternal grandfather's name every which way - one S, two S, his real first name spelled a couple different ways, the name my father thought was his real first name but was actually his middle name. - I think I might've found the ship's document with his name on it. 

That was the big score of the night.  One document that might show when Bruno got here.  (Maybe.  I still have to talk to Mom to confirm dates and names.)  Another thing I learned?  I don't know as much about my ancestry as I thought.  Once I get to my paternal grandparents, everything just sort of stops.  I had better luck with Husband's family - but his group has some more unusual names than ours.  (Yeah, who knew Meissner was like the German equivalent to Johnson.)  At least on his mother's side.  There are about as many Sandersons as there are Meissners in the world. 

And it gets worse.  On my mom's side, the main surnames I have to work with are Judd and Sherman.  (Speaking of which, next week's episode of WDYTYA features Ashley Judd - who I may or may not be related to.)  Try finding those needles in the internet haystack.  Bleh.  Thank goodness my last name isn't Smith. 

I was supposed to be writing, but I worked on this until bed.  It's a huge timesuck, but it's really interesting to see the individual leaves on the ol' family tree.  And hey, if I hadn't done this, I probably would've have known that Hubs is part Hungarian.  Maybe I should make a pot of goulash to celebrate.  LOL

Have you ever researched your heritage?  Find anything interesting?

Timesucks

Ack.  I can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday.  I blame Facebook.  And my Dashboard blogroll Reading List thingie. 

I've been a lot more active on Facebook lately.  I see now what all the buzz has been about - and I also see why I avoided it for so long.  It's a huge timesuck.  But now I'm hooked, so I'll just go with it.  It's too late for me.  Save yourselves. 

Either that or friend me so we can be addicts together.  ;o)

As for my Blogger Dashboard Reading List, it's made checking on everyone's blogs so much easier.  I just scroll down the list, clicking and reading.  If I see a new blog I like, I just clickity-click and add it.  I'm reading all over the place and I'm lovin' it.  And I'm also spending way too much time now.  Before - when I was still in the stoneages and scrolling through my favorites one by one - I would spend the morning reading blogs and if someone updated their blog in the afternoon, it would have to wait.  Now I can see it as soon as it posts! 

Huge timesuck.

On the upside, I have been getting some writing done. (Mainly due to saying on FB I'm going to write and then needing to keep my word - so FB isn't a total waste).  I hope to have this sucker finished over the weekend.  (Yes, even with the Super Bowl looming Sunday afternoon.)  I'm working on the BIG CLIMAX scene now.  So it shouldn't be too much longer before I'm done.  Keep your fingers crossed that I don't get derailed.

What are the huge timesucks in your life?  How's your writing coming along?  Are you ready for some football?  ;o)