She learned her hands in a fairy-tale

I slept through the week, except when I had insomnia and wasn't sleeping at all. It was an either/or situation. The goal of next week will be to regulate my sleep cycle. Again. I have to do this at least once a 12-week. *sigh*

The house is slowly coming back to order, as Allen has found boxes to put his collectable books in so they can safely return to his closet. The kids are still working on their house so we had Bean for a while because she was underfoot and hindering the process (as toddlers do).They're stressed and fighting with each other because neither of them has a way to vent or control their anxiety. We've offered them that one of them can come over here, watch a movie and decompress, then switch. They haven't taken us up on it and probably won't but we're here for them.

This week I've enjoyed watching 'Mr. Beast Games' with Allen while eating dinner and working on Spud's big boy afghan. I'm using double stitch for him because he runs hot and sweats a lot in his sleep. The afghan is black and I plan to add glow-in-the-dark elements. I missed two days of studying html and I'm not happy about that. I just didn't have the functional brain cells to deal with it even though it's stuff I've been doing since the 00's. 

I got this week's TBo? entry up in good time, though I'm not as far ahead as I want to be. My protagonist has been wrestling with what it means to be a Sociopath and how she's going to handle that moving forward, especially with everything else that's going on in her life. She doesn't want to manipulate people, she just wants to fly under the radar and have something closer to a normal high school experience -- while learning witchcraft and trying to function in an adult capacity. (Yep, she's gonna snap. Hell, I'd snap in her shoes!)

The mushrooms are mushrooming! Right now we've got an experimental bucket of Lion's Mane going in the grow tent. The mycelium is spreading throughout the growth medium very nicely. Soon we'll untape the holes on the sides of the bucket and begin spraying it daily with distilled water. Funny side effect: The scent given off by the growing mushrooms is... um... it's a thing. And evidently it's a thing that smells like 💩 to cats. The Varmint keeps scratching at the floor where TJGG placed the bucket to check on it, as if she were covering her droppings in the litter box. Since the sound is driving me bonkers I'm about to clean the spot with Isopropyl so she'll stop.

 This week has been primarily marked by exhaustion and pain. The perpetual sleepies were gnawing on my eyeballs leading me to spend many hours of time asleep only to wake up feeling even sleepier and more listless than before. Might be that SADD is partying with the CFS, Fibro, and Arthritis with me as the piñata. Whee?

Bean and Spud now have to be separated for sleep time. Spud is happy to zonk out, but Bean isn't and she expresses displeasure by biting her brother who is starting to fight back. This led their parents to totally rearrange the house so that each toddler has their own room, and the parents have moved into the living room. While this was taking place we had both toddlers for several hours on Thursday and Saturday. Our apartment looks like Toys R' Us collided with a buffet. The living room is more-or-less back to rights but the bedroom is a complete disaster. And have I mentioned that I have low energy and high pain? 

Writing didn't suffer because I'd managed to get a little ahead, so TBo? is up to date on Royal Road. Unfortunately any grace I'd carved out for myself is gone and I have a deadline looming. And no energy. And a lot of pain. But at least the Varmint and I have come to an understanding. If she wants to hang out with me while I'm working she hops on the desk, then from the desk to the warmth at the top of the grow tent. Every now and then I glance up and find her looking down on me, and when she catches my gaze she purrs. This kind of feline companionship I can definitely handle.

So far none of the governmental McFuckery has affected us other than drastically elevating our cortisol levels. It's a matter of time, though. TJGG's doctor set him up with a three-month supply of his diabetes medication, and I'm hoping to have the same done with his antidepressants and anti-seizure meds. I've had a squirrel hoard of my own for a while now and keep adding to it, with an eye on expiration dates. I'm urging all of my friendlies to do the same, as well as keeping a thirty-day supply of food, water, etc. just in case. These chuckleheads are in charge of critical infrastructure and our power grid is hanging on by a thread. Not to mention natural disasters.

But still we keep on. Blossom is teaching herself to sew via machine while I brush up on my hand mending skills. We're working on food preservation, mostly dehydrating because the cost of canning supplies is gasp-worthy. We're learning foraging, gardening, wildcrafting, and herbalism. Pooling our resources and wherewithal gets more done. At some point we're going to go halves on a freeze drier, if that's even an option down the road. The way things are going we may be reading the instruction manual in Swedish because if we have to bug out we're bugging all the way out, and our first and easiest choice -- Canada -- is now off the table.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and there are things to do. Be as well as you can, y'all.

I've been a practicing witch for 26 years as of Sunday. Unfortunately I was too tired and in too much pain to celebrate that milestone. To be honest my praxis has fallen by the wayside over the past couple of years.

Evidently we've been having earthquakes off the coast of Maine. This is news to me. No one on this island felt a thing, but it was felt in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I guess that's a perk of living on a giant chunk of granite. 

TJGG has been "horking" (having loud, painful dry heaves) when he tries to eat. We don't know why it's happening or how to stop it, but he lost 40lbs in a month. Good because he needed to lose the weight, bad because he didn't need to do it by not being able to eat. He had an appointment with his GP on Monday but before they could get underway he had a seizure. The doctor sent him to the ER for observation and rescheduled his appointment for the 27th. In the meantime he's still horking. He's subsisting on Ensure and some soft foods like cottage cheese. And since his loud horking scares the grandgoblins we haven't spent much time with them.

I have two books out of the library right now, both through inter-library loan. I just haven't had the energy and focus to read them.

• Unkindest Tide, Seanan McGuire
• The 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris

I'm a week ahead on my writing goal. My protagonist hath fucked around, now she findest out. I doubt she'll learn her lesson this early in the story though. Writing The Book of Questions has been an interesting exercise. The idea is the protagonist is writing in her private notebook, just for herself. Each days' entry starts with a journal prompt found on Pinterest (there's millions of them, no exaggeration). Her responses to the prompts reveal her character, backstory, and current circumstances. She then writes about her day and anything else that's on her mind. Things take a turn when she finds a spell online, casts it just as a way to vent frustration, and... it works. Now she's experimenting with magic. The story ties in to an ongoing, many-branched Urban Fantasy that I've been working on since 2008.

The solarpunk superhero story has suddenly (or maybe not-so-suddenly) become bigger, more important, more complex, and more nuanced than I ever imagined. I was going to focus on this and have TBo? be a side project but they've swapped places. Super/Villain is going to take a lot more than I can currently give it.

And of course, another idea is nibbling away at my brain. Can these plot bunnies please quit breeding now?

My anxiety is off the chain right now. I'm so worried about food prices, shortages, supply chain issues, etc. that I've begun rationing. Not quite WW2 levels, but I'm being very mindful. Actually, if I stay on my ration plan I'll be eating better than I normally do. (TJGG isn't on rations right now. Anything he can eat, he gets.) It's been hard, though. Most days I haven't eaten nearly enough because we're too tired, sick, and in pain to cook what food we do currently have, and not being able to cook and eat has made us more tired, sick, etc. We ordered more Ensure but that doesn't mean we're actually going to get it, the way things have been going.

It's been snowing off-and-on. That's not a problem for us. What is a problem is the dadgummed maintenance guy spreading thick patches of salt and sand everywhere but where they're needed.  My family doesn't brush off their boots before coming in and it gets tracked all over the house. Naturally, our vacuum has chosen now to begin it's death spiral. At least brooming the floor vigorously gives me some exercise and allows me to let off steam.

  From the TBR Pile 

1. Ingerman, Sandra. Shamanic Journeying (6/24)
2. Panza, Christopher. Ethics for Dummies (6/25)
3. Galenorn, Yasmine. Tarot Journeys (6/27) 

Other Books

1. Alexander, Bruce. Sir John Fielding Book 2: A Murder on Grub Street (6/12)
2. Alexander, Bruce. Sir John Fielding Book 3: A Watery Grave. (6/22)

Short Stories

•  

Comic Books

• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #6-8 

June Total: 5 books, 0 short stories, 3 comic books 

This challenge is about getting rid of crap you don't need. Some people do it to help maintain their homes after a major clear-out, others use it as a less stressful way to get started. On the first day you get rid of one thing, on the second day two, on the third day three, and so on. By the end of the thirty days there will be 465 fewer things clogging the energy of your home. I've decided to do it quarterly so that useless stuff doesn't accumulate. 

1. 1 chipped offering dish
2. 1 long, flat candy box from last holidays, 1 tiny box that held some kind of jewelry
3. 1 tchotchke, 1 tin sans lid, 1 matchless sock
4. 2 t-shirts, 1 shoe box, another empty box
5. 5 broken mini candycanes
6. 1 head covering, 1 tiny box that held some kind of jewelry, 2 candle holders, 1 scarf, 1 Ziplock bag of crappy matchbooks
7. 7 cat toys
8. 8 books
9. 1 cat toy, 1 plastic jar of crappy matchbooks, 1 letter holder/picture frame thing, 1 booklet of postcards, 1 empty game box, 1 metal pencil box, 3 books
10.  

Mirrored from my Wordpress

I haven’t read much in 2017. At first it was because… hell, I don’t know. But then I got to thinking about it. Yes, I can – and usually do – take the Goodreads challenge to read a metric butt-ton of books in a year, but maybe that’s not the best way for me to go about it. That’s not where I’m at anymore.

Instead I’m choosing to slow down. One of the core maxims of DIY MFA is to read with purpose. I need to ruminate over and pick apart the books that I’m reading.

So of course, I signed up for every October read-a-thon that didn’t get up and run away. (And if it actually had run away I’d have probably hunted it down, clonked it over the head, and dragged it home.) The only thing that keeps this from being completely bonkers is that the idea to do this didn’t come to me until near the middle of the month.

So here are the read-a-thons I’ll be taking part in during the remainder October:

1. FrightFall Read-a-Thon (Oct. 1-31)
2. OWNtober (Oct. 1-31)
3. #readathonbyzoe (Oct. 14)
4. The House Cup Reading Challenge (Oct. 15 – Nov. 12)*
5. Spook-a-Thon (Oct. 16-22)
6. Cozy Reading Night (Oct. 20)
7. Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-Thon (Oct. 21)
8. Autumn Read-a-Thon (Oct. 22-28)
9. Sbooktacular Read-a-Thon (Oct. 25-31)
10. Hallowreadathon (Oct. 31-Nov.1)

*  Ravenclaw, represent!

Whew! Listing them all like that freaked even me out!

Backing the truck up, I would like to reiterate that I will not be reading as many books as possible between the time of posting and Samhain. I’m pretty good at finding books that meet more than one read-a-thon challenge requirement so I definitely will be doing that. And this month I won’t be checking any books out of the library or buying any specifically for any of the challenges. I’m going to read books I’ve already got, focusing on the few physical copies of books on my literal shelves.

Even so, the TBR list for the month would be alarming and probably get lit on fire before next weekend. So I’ll be doing this three books at a time.

1. War for the Oaks, Emma Bull (finish)
2. Zombies vs. Unicorns, Justine Larbalestier vs. Holly Black, editors
3. The Ghost in the Garden, Hilda Feil

See y’all next Friday! (If not, you’ll most likely find me in the darkest corner of my book fort, curled in a ball and gibbering.)

P.S. Several of these read-a-thons ask that participants make a post in their own blog announcing their participation. This is it. I’m not making ten separate posts! I’d loose too much reading time!

Son of PS: A special thanks to Little Book Owl for her tempting handy read-a-thon calendar.

01: 900 words
02: 4,140 words

03: 2,655 words
04: 3,115 words
05: 2,515 words
06: 3,090 words
07: 450 words
08: 2,265 words
09: 2,250 words

10: 1,500 words
11: 3,680 words
12: 3,150 words
13: 3,025 words
14: 2,250 words
15: 2,550 words
16: 1,500 words

17: 2,250 words
18: 3,150 words
19: 3,300 words
20: 2,250 words
21: 3,330 words
22: 450 words
23: 675 words

24: 1,275 words
25: 2,535 words
26: 2,715 words
27: 1,800 words
28: 2,760 words
29: 2,760 words
30: 450 words

01. 2,691 words
02. 2,074 words
03. 617 words
04. 2,550 words
05. 7,185 words

06. 1,230 words
07. 4,050 words
08. 1,020 words
09. 5,340 words
10. 1,620 words
11. 1,245 words
12. 4,290 words

13. 3,056 words
14. 2,175 words
15. 5,180 words
16. 1,750 words
17. 1,650 words
18. 3,885 words
19. 3,541 words

20. 4,051 words
21. 3,855 words
22. 1,355 words
23. 5,400 words
24. 2,251 words
25. 2,805 words
26. 1,250 words

27. 2,250 words
28. 2,250 words
29. 2,730 words
30. 2,250 words
31. 3,600 words