Here we are again at Saturday, so it's time for some Trail Cam Snaps. Let's get to it...
I call this one "Racoon Butt":
FB sucks.
X is pretty okay, but I haven't figured out how to use it for marketing. (Not free marketing, that is.)
We have fawns! Yay!
Chex Mix Bold is addictive. Unfortunately, my intestines do not enjoy it as much as my tastebuds do, so I stay away from it. Additionally unfortunate, Wallyworld had a big ol' bag of it on sale and right there by the checkout. Thus, I couldn't stop myself from buying it. Also thus, I am paying for it. But it's soooo damn good. Especially when you add a handful of mixed nuts to a bowl of it. Yummers.
Getting old blows. I used to be able to eat whatever whenever and never worry about it. Now? I look at wheat the wrong way and I get into issues. Stupid.
The inside of my greenhouse looks like a jungle. It's scary in there. And hot. When the tomatoes finally fruit and are ready for picking, I'm not sure how I'll get back there to pick them. The potatoes are taking over. I expect them to reach sentience any day now. Oh, and I picked up three new bell pepper plants, because they were free, so now they're in there, too. If I disappear, it's entirely possible I got lost in the jungle. Send help.
It seems like everyone I know is neurodivergent, which begs the question 'if everyone is neurodivergent, is it really divergent?' Think about that for a minute.
I made Irish Soda Bread for the first time, and it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. It's a super simple bread to make, too. Messy, but easy.
For a woman who enjoys making bread, I have a weird quirk. I can't stand having dough on my hands and I have to get it all off or I feel like I'm wasting food. This is not a problem when I'm making a stiff dough bread product, like pizza crust, but for a wet dough... GAH!
Also, enjoying making bread and having issues with digesting wheat definitely do not go together. Good thing Hubs enjoys eating bread, so there's less for me.
Okay, that's probably enough out of me. Have a great day and feel free to drop some of your own observations about the world. Peace out.
Here we are again at another Sunday. It's the last day of May, which is my favorite month, but all good things must come to an end, eh?
Writing went well this week. I wrote every day Monday-Friday and added 4758 words to my manuscript. I think I'm finally in a place where I can tell you what I'm working on... :drumroll: The next book in the Shroudlands series. It's up to 32240 words now, so yay. I'm not laying out a whole shit-ton of words each day, but it's enough. No clue when it'll be finished. The point here is that I am writing again. And once I get comfortable with being a writer again, I might finally get back to editing Duke Noble #3.
Marketing occurred. Not a lot of it, but it happened. I moved 29 copies of Early Grave and someone bought a copy of Fertile Ground, so yay me. May wasn't the best month this year, but it was better than nothing.
Reading... don't ask. Despite my reading slump, I bought 8 new-to-me books last week, because I am a book-buying addict. I picked up some NF books we didn't have and a Ken Follett I haven't read before. Woot.
On the activity front, I wasn't too awfully active, but I did get some stuff done. I vacuumed and dusted the whole house - 1700 sq ft worth - so go me. I also did some gardening stuff. And yesterday, we took a walk. Weight: 178.6 - which isn't as low as I'd like, but better than I feared it would be when I stepped on the scale.
As for gardening, we planted two of my redbud trees in the ground - Randy and Rudy. By the next morning, Randy was gone. I haven't checked Rudy today but I am not holding out hope for his continued survival. (Yes, I could surround him with wire, but if a critter REALLY wants to eat him, they'll get to him no matter what I do.) Inside the greenhouse, everything seems to be thriving. I need to repot some green peppers, now that I have two vacant bigger pots. I still only have two tomatoes, but there's hope. The potatoes have taken over.
In exciting news, we've seen the first fawns of the year! Brand new, still wet off the factory floor, baby deer. New deer are so tiny! (Of course. They have a small door to go through when they first enter the world, so that have to be tiny.) They grow fast, though, so we've already seen one that's less tiny. Some of the deer were still pregnant as of last night, so there's more to come.
I think that's it for me today. Other things happened, but nothing of note. Have a great day out there and a wonderful week. :hugs:
First off, I did not have the trail cam out when something ate one of the redbud trees we planted yesterday. It also wasn't out when the mama deer brought her brand new, teeny-tiny baby past the house this morning. I swear, I'd need like 5-6 different cameras to catch everything.
Anyway...
Here's another version of "Is that a camera?":
I blame Monday's government holiday for making me forget about yesterday's post. I even had it started and everything. Derp. Anyway...
I think I might've figured out FB and their damn bots. It's all about those banned words I've mentioned before. If I use the words 'killed/kill' or 'murder/murderer', it's more likely to slap me with a content warning and tell me I'm a spammer. Fuckers. I'm talking about a MURDER mystery where people get KILLED and there's a KILLER on the loose. I've already told FB their bots are insane, but since it's only bots reading the complaints, I doubt it'll get anywhere. I'm not going to hide those words, but I may have to reword some stuff for future marketing. Turds.
It's been raining here for about 24 hours. Okay, Mother Nature, that's enough. Thank you. Go drip for a while at Mom's house. Her plants need watering and if you do it, it means my sis doesn't have to.
Copied from my FB post yesterday: "Hubs and I were out on the sun porch having a smoke, when we heard a fawn bleating. Actually, the dang thing sounded like it was shouting "MOM! MO-OM!" at full volume. Within seconds, a doe comes charging up the hill hell-bent for leather and ready to fight, with another doe close behind her. She stops just inside the neighbor's backyard and a fawn runs up. He (it had to be a buck fawn making that much of a fuss) immediately starts nursing like nothing much was going on. She allowed it for a couple minutes and then wandering off down the hill again, with him trailing along behind her."
I hate when FB changes my font and I can't figure out how to make it stop, other than inserting new paragraphs and moving the changed text up so unweirded paragraphs drop below it. Frankly, it's a pain. On the other hand, the font adds interest.
The trail camera is awesome, but all those pics are filling my harddrive. I mean, one night I got like 350 pics. The next, it was like 650 pics. At 1-3 megs each, those things fill my 'puter up fast. Yesterday, I went through deleting, which, if you know me, you know I can't stand deleting pics even when they're blurry. Anyway, I did it, and I'll have to continue to do it or face the very real reality of running out of space.
Running out of space on a computer harddrive... I'm one of the old souls who maxed her computer out regularly, so I had to go through on a regular basis and delete shit. It was either wipe it out of existence or move it to floppies. And since my deletion anxiety stems from back then, you can imagine I had a LOT of floppies. (3.5s aren't really floppy. I remember the real floppies.)
Anyway, I have a lot of pics and some of them are pretty cool, so tune in tomorrow for that. If I remember...
Peace out.
Because yesterday was a solemn holiday and I didn't do any marketing, here's my Monday Marketing post on a Tuesday. Tada!
This week, Early Grave is up for grabs. We'll see if FB allows me to do much of anything this week or whether I'm going to need to rethink my marketing strategy. Anyway...
I know I usually market on Monday, and I could today, too, but it's Memorial Day and it just doesn't feel right to be out there pimping books on this day.
Enjoy your day today and try to take a moment to remember why you're able to celebrate any holiday - the men and women who gave their lives to keep America free.
Good morning. I'm not quite up to speed this morning. I think it's Week 21. :shrug: Anyway, here goes...
I wrote stuff this week. I managed four days in a row, but then I fell off the wagon and didn't write for three days. Blerg. I did get 3437 words out, so I'm not kicking myself. Not hard anyway. I'll write tonight if I have to stay up late doing it. (No, I still have to write at night. My creativity doesn't wake up until after 5pm. It sucks, but there it is.) As of now, my WIP is up to about 27500 words. For the record, this is a book I started writing 4 years ago (almost to the day* as it turned out). I got to 20378 words before I stopped.
Marketing was pretty much a bust this week. FB cracked down on me and I was only able to make one or two posts a day before it shut me down. Bastards. I did manage to move 25 copies of Natural Causes... which is kind of pitiful. Not sure what I'll do this coming week.
Not much reading occurred.
It was a slightly active week this week. Mostly, I messed with the gardens. I also did some cleaning and shopping stuffs. I didn't bother to weigh myself. Who needs that kind of negativity? ;o)
The gardens are doing well. Everything in the greenhouse seems to be thriving. I gave them all a healthy drink of nettle tea a couple days ago, which I guess they like. It's supposedly full of nutrients. Stinks to high heaven, but nobody ever promised homemade plant food would smell good. I have two little tomatoes and plenty of tomato flowers, so yay. The carrots in pot #1 are getting taller. Carrot pots #2 & #3 need thinning again. The potato plants are HUGE. Pedro is a monster. I just hope they're growing tubers underneath all that greenery.
The foxes are back. I watched one for quite a few minutes yesterday. It was a little fox and I think it was practicing hunting. It said there, staring into the grass beside the neighbor's driveway and tilting its head back and forth like it was hearing something yummy. Then it got bored and trotted away.
I chatted with a neighbor who told me they had a fawn in their yard the other day. I'm totally jealous. But still, it means the fawning has begun, so yay. Not sure which doe is post-pregnant yet. It's not Sissy - she's still fat pregnant. Fingers crossed that soon I'll have baby deers on my trail cam.
It was my annibirfsary week. We ate a boatload of cake. Other than that, not much celebrating happened. I mean, kisses and snuggles and all the good things that come with being with the one you love for 22 of your 56 years, but no prezzies or singing.
Other than that, not much going on around here. What's going on around there?
*I started writing the book on 5/13/22 - wrote words for about a month and gave up. I picked the book back up again on 5/12/26. I didn't plan that. It was just the book that called to me.
Ack! I meant to post this way earlier... like this morning... but I got distracted, which is the story of my life. Anyway...
I took the camera down during the day and then I keep forgetting to put it back out. To my dismay, as soon as I took the camera down, the foxes started showing up again. Grrr.
Anyway, here are some shots I got from earlier in the week:
Rocky Raccoon on my porch, snacking on suet crumbs.
On the left is Sissy. Next to her is her son, Scout. The butt in the background behind Scout is Lumpy - Sissy's mom.
I'm not sure who this is, but she's pretty interested in the camera.
I hope to have more pics next Saturday, so tune in next time.
FB is screwing with me again. I get maybe one... two posts before they slap me for 'spamming'. Turds. And there's a spot where you can complain, but it says right on the window that it doesn't do anything to change their minds. It's just for training purposes or some such nonsense. Blarg.
I'm writing again, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, writing again means wrist pain again, which isn't such a good thing. Yay for Blue Emu.
The foxes seem to disappear when I put the trail cam up. I only see them when it's not out there taking pictures. Camera shy little buggers.
Pizza is awesome.
So's coffee.
The weather is pissing me off. A couple days ago, it was so hot I couldn't stand myself. This morning, I had to put on socks, sweats, and a sweater because I'm chilly. Make up your damn mind, Mother Nature.
I saw a cute thing online yesterday. Down in Texas, someone with a door cam got photos of an armadillo playing with their dog's tennis ball. Cute! Generally, armadillos are cute, if somewhat stupid. They have baby armadillos at the wildlife rescue I follow on FB. Again, cute! Did you know that every member of each armadillo litter is genetically identical to its litter mates?
Nature is awesome, too.
Of course, nature's also a bitch sometimes.
And with that, it's time for me to go call Mom. Have a great day everyone! :hugs:
Today's book offering is Natural Causes (Dennis Haggarty Mystery #2). It can be read without the first one, but it's even better with it. (And ACCIDENTAL DEATH is pretty cheap.) Jus' sayin'.
Here we are again at another week. Let's see what happened.
I wrote. I still don't want to talk about it much. Suffice it to say, I wrote 4 nights in a row and ended up with around 2800 new words, all on one WIP, so there ya go. I'm not celebrating, in case this is an anomaly. The hardest part about writing after so many months away is retraining my fingers to type as much as I want for as long as I want. Derp.
I marketed. A little. Blink moved a whole 17 copies. Woot. Not sure what this week will bring. I'm at the end of a 90 day KDP reup, so this week might be a little iffy.
Reading still isn't a thing, but I made a little progress with Rudy.
In baking news, yesterday, Hubs made me a cake from scratch - yellow cake, chocolate frosting with a layer of strawberry jam in the middle. Yum. It's not the prettiest thing, but it's been more than 20 years since he made a cake, so I'm not harshing him too much about it. He was going to make the frosting, too, but after the cake wouldn't come out of the pan and ended up kinda roached, he left the frosting to me. Hey, it tastes good and he tried, so that's all that matters.
On the activity front, I wasn't. I did some garden stuff and I went shopping. Meh. Didn't bother weighing myself. Weight: Fat.
The trail cam has been fun. See yesterday's post. The new mower is awesome. So's the new greenhouse. Shopping for the win. Woot.
The garden is growing right along in the greenhouse. I have one little grape tomato growing and one little Early Girl tomato. The green peppers are trying to come back from getting munched, as are the black cherry and the persimmon.
Yesterday, I cut my hair. Short. It was bugging me, so off it went. It looks pretty cute, if I do say so myself. No, there aren't any pics.
Speaking of cake... Today is our anniversary. 22 years. Go, us! And tomorrow's my birthday. 56 years. Go, me! (Yes, people shouldn't leave important dates lying around the internet, but we make sure we never use those dates in any security questions or passwords, so there ya are.) We aren't doing anything for either. We don't give each other cards or gifts anymore. I think that stuff stopped about 15 years ago. We're happy with each other and celebrate each other every day, so no prezzies are necessary.
And that's it for me today. What's been up with you lately?
Hello again. I don't know how you feel about it, but this trail cam stuff is fun.
Anyway, here I am, checking out the placement of the camera...
This one shows pretty much all of the regular deer visitors to the feeding area:
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing some snaps from the trail camera. Like I said, I know I'M having fun.
I'm having fun with my trail camera. Look for pics on Saturday.
I'm writing again. No, I don't want to talk about it. Just saying it here makes me nervous that I'll ruin it and make the inspiration run away and hide. Shhh... be vewwy vewwy quiet, I'm hunting word-bits.
Two of my tomato plants have a tiny tomato each. Since one of them is a grape tomato plant, I'm not hopeful I'll get anything close to sated off that one tomato. Itty-bitty it is and itty-bitty it shall stay. The other plant is my Early Girl, and that one should get sizable enough to slice and put on a sandwich at least.
There's every possibility that my greenhouse could double as a sauna in the off-months. Man, it gets toasty warm and damp in there.
Some days, I get really tired of seeing liars out there in the world. It's even worse knowing that peoplle buy the shinola they're selling. The IDF has trained dogs to rape innocent civilians?? Really. And people believe that shit. Derp. Morons.
Oh, I forgot... you're not allowed to use the word rape online anymore. If you do use it, they harsh your reach on social media. Can't use kill or murder anymore either, and assassination is flat out. Bah. I'm a writer. I'll use whatever words I see fit, and if that retards my reach, then so be it. My reach wasn't that great to begin with. Whatevs.
"Life is hard. It's harder when you're stupid." - John Wayne (It's attributed to him, so I'm going with it.) I do love John Wayne.
I watched a true-crime show out of Australia the other day and a serial killer, who was convicted of murdering three women only got 21-28 years. The earliest date he could get out was 2017, which would make the latest date 2024. So, unless he was killed in prison, he's out and on the streets of AU again. Sorry, ladies. I'd say arm yourself, but I don't think you can down there anymore. Good luck and godspeed.
And on that note, I should probably get my buns in gear and do something constructive this morning. Have a great day, wherever you are. :hugs:
Okay, so after a week of no marketing and thus no sales, I decided I needed to get off my ever-widening ass and get back to work. So here goes...
It's a large book and there's lots going on. I almost wrote this as three books, but I hate it when people do that to a single book, so I just left it large. I mean, it's told in three parts - in the city, out of the city, back to save the city - and it flows well. I hope you take a chance on it and enjoy the journey. (And the happy ending, because I hate books without happy endings.)
First off, Happy Mother's Day to those who are moms or have moms. My furbabies are unimpressed by the holiday, as is my human baby. I'll call my own mom in a while.
Not much is going on in my little portion of the world. I'm still stuck in what basically amounts to neutral.
The gardening is going okay. I planted some more carrots this week and I fertilized everything using used coffee grounds. One heaping spoonful per plant. Then I watered everything. One of my munched green peppers has itty-bitty leaves, so it's trying to live. My black cherry and persimmon trees are showing signs of life. Also, I picked more nettles to refresh my 'weed tea'. In about 10 days, I'll use it to fertilize the plants again. (I saw a video saying potted tomatoes need to be fertilized every ten days, so I'm going with that.)
If you missed yesterday's post, I set up my game camera and have started taking pics. Except I messed with a setting somewhere and last night's trial was a bust. No night pics at all. Derp. The worst thing about this camera so far is the lack of instructions. And no, the company's website doesn't help. At all. Derp. I'll fuss with it later. Anyway, here's me feeding the deer this morning.
Early in the week, Hubs and I mowed the lawn. I love the new mower. It's so light and so easy to start. Yay. I got in some other activity this week, too, but not really anything specific. I doubt any of it had any effect on my EWA. Earlier in the week, I weighed myself, so... Weight: 177.8
We've been seeing foxes in the yard. At first, I thought it was one fox, but over the past week, I've gotten better looks at them all. From my estimation, we have three young foxes and one older fox. Or rather, 3 that are about 2/3 size and one full size. One of the little ones has a white patch on its side, another has a dark patch, and the third is uniform in its grizzled gray/red. So yay. I hope they stick around. They're good for eating vermins. I do hope they don't eat the baby raccoon. Then again, I hope the coyotes don't eat them. Nature's a bitch sometimes.
Other than that, not much going on around here. I need to get off the net call my mom and wish her a Happy Mother's Day. Later, Hubs will call his mom. All is well. Have a great day, wherever you are.
I finally set up my trail cam yesterday. I tried putting it a couple places, just as a test. Here's from the morning:
Here's one from the afternoon:
And finally, here's a night shot. This one was taken after we went to bed.
The camera itself isn't a top of the line model. It only cost like $50, so I wasn't expecting super great things from it. I'm pleased with the photo quality, which is the most important part. It's not a wifi enabled model, so I have to actually plug the thing into my computer to download photos, and there are some hiccups with that. Still I give it 4 stars. Well worth the money.
=o)
I'm late, but not as late as I was last week, so that's progress, right?
I woke up later than usual today and somewhere between the bathroom and my first cup of coffee, a thought occurred to me... IT'S THURSDAY! And panic ensued because 1) I hadn't sent in my timesheet for the week and 2) I hadn't done the spreadsheet I received yesterday which needed to be done so it could go on the timesheet so I could get paid for it this week. Needless to say, I got my cup of coffee, had a quick smoke, and got to work. I got it all finished before 7am (which is 8am office time and when my sis gets in and starts doing payroll) and finally took a sip of my coffee. It was cold by then, but hey, I got 'er done.
Nothing like a bit of panic first thing to really wake a gal up.
I'm a bit sore today from wrestling the feather topper thing into its newly-created pillowcase. Derp.
Since I didn't do any marketing this week, I'm sitting at 38c in earnings. 3c in page reads and one 35c sale of Dying Embers. Woot. Go me. This shows me that I really need to get off my ass next week.
We have a little fox who's been hanging around the general area lately. We see it just about every day now. It's super cute. It's probably from last year's litter. Awww. I'm happy to have foxes around the house. They eat destructive critters and I'm rooting for it to eat that blasted packrat, which is probably the reason why all my lilies recently got munched. (Probably since I moved all the deck plants out of munching range.)
Living in the woods is awesome, but it does have its downsides. One being critters munching my plants. Another is that once the leaves fill out with leaves, we don't really see much in the way of stars at night or rainbows during the day. :shrug: It's a tradeoff.
I keep forgetting to set up my game camera. Derp. Maybe today I'll remember. We'll see if I make it from doing this to doing that without the TV getting in the way.
Speaking of the TV, I'm convinced that Roku is evil. There are so many awesome things to watch that I get distracted by it easily. I sit down to eat breakfast and watch one show, and the next thing I know, it's bedtime and I've wasted the whole damn day. I really need to start policing that. And I will, right after I eat breakfast and watch my one show. XoP.
I had a thought the other night that I would get back to wood carving and start my own like Etsy store or something and I would call it XoP Designs. (If you don't know what XoP is, turn your head sideways and look at it again. It's the old way of doing a face with squinty eyes, a little round nose, and a mouth with the tongue sticking out.)
And on that note, I should probably go be productive or something. I really need to tend my garden, clean the house, cut my hair, and sequester myself in a room until I edit or write something. (For the record, I am NOT ready to retire from writing. I may not be doing it but retiring isn't in the plans either.)
Peace out.
Me and my bright ideas... We had a 'feather' topper on our bed, but we hated it, so it's been sitting in the spare room. We also have the flat sheet to a set of flannel sheets where the fitted sheet was roached years ago. Bright idea? Use the flannel sheet to make a 'pillowcase' for the feather topper and turn it into a cat bed.
I thought I'd pin it and then sew it. No pins. I could've sworn I had a box of pins leftover from my previous sewing adventures. Nope. I had safety pins, though, so off I started.There won't be any marketing this week. I'm tired. Hell, you might even say I was depressed. (From a writing perspective. I don't feel depressed otherwise.) Thinking about writing, or my lack thereof, makes me sad.
I try to be all Positive Polly, but the act only stretches so far.
So, I spend my days doing everything/anything that doesn't remind me of my unfinished novels and my stillborn ideas. Which is probably why I don't spend a boatload of time blogging or visiting blogs lately. Marketing is about the only writerly thing I can manage, and the only reason for that is seeing the zeroes on my KDP Dashboard makes me more depressed.
It's like the writer part of me is curled up in the fetal position over there in the corner. I keep saying I'll get over this, but I'm not sure if I can. I'd like to think I'm not done with writing, that 18 books isn't the final total of my life's work, but I don't really know.
I have a book sitting in the spare room that's done being written. It's DONE. All it needs is editing, but I can't bring myself to finish editing it. Well, editing, proofreading, cover creation, getting it set for publishing... :shudder: So I'm stuck in this weird place where I can't make myself finish it.
Maybe it's fear of failure. Maybe it's being tired of pushing books out there into the world to crickets. Maybe doing this for myself isn't enough anymore.... maybe it never was enough. I dunno.
From time to time, I still think about writing, so there's still hope. Although, some days, I'm inclined to agree with Gena Showalter's take on Hope - it was always the worst of the evils in Pandora's box.
Anyway, sorry to be a bummer on a Tuesday morning. On a happier note, my greenhouse is doing it's job and protecting the plants. Yay. I wish I had a greenhouse to keep my writer self warm and happy and thriving - a greenhouse for the soul, so to speak.
Well hello there. It's Sunday. It's morning. It's time for an update. This week was a busy one for me and I am understandably both tired and sore.
I spent a lot of time this week on the deck garden. Last Sunday, due to critter carnage, I moved the entire garden worth of pots inside. About half of the pots went into the garage and the other half went into the sunroom. The potato pots are huge, so we're talking probably 30-40 pounds each, but I did it. (Hubs' back is toast right now, so I've been doing stuff myself rather than have him lift and carry.) I also thinned the carrots.
My new greenhouse arrived. It's a beaut. Not a large enclosure at roughly 5x5x6.5, but large enough. Hubs helped me put that sucker together on Friday and I populated it with all the plants that can handle full sun. Not that the deck gets a whole lot of full sun, but enough that it would probably kill my redbuds. Then to further discourage the critter, I put blocks all the way around it - each block sitting on the edge of the plastic greenhouse cover. This will also give the greenhouse some stability in the wind, so yay. The three mornings since I put the greenhouse together have been carnage free, so yay to that, too. (I haven't taken any pics yet, so if you want to see the greenhouse I bought, click the link. It's still on sale as of this morning, if you want one, too.)
When I ordered the greenhouse, I also ordered a game camera. That arrived on Friday, but I haven't put it out yet. I did set it up and managed to take several pictures of my hands. It's not the wifi kind, so I'll have to take it down and plug it into the computer if I want to see the pics, but I'm okay with that.
I've been feeding the deer all week, so Hubs can rest his back. The deer are getting fat pregnant. I always feel so bad for them, waddling around the yard. Judging by the size of their bellies, they might drop fawns earlier this year. We'll see.
Friday, I went grocery shopping. Wallyworld was a zoo. Anyway, while I was there, they had a bunch of beef marked down, so I ended up getting a London Broil. I'd never cooked one of those, but it was cheap and cheap beef is hard to find. I took half of that and threw it in the crockpot with spaghetti sauce and mushrooms, and we had my version of steak pizziola last night for dinner. Yummers.
I did some marketing this week. Not a huge amount of books moved, but eh, it's better than nothing. The start of a new month makes my KDP dashboard look so depressing with it zeroes across the board. Having numbers there, even if they're small, helps. Not sure what will be on the Marketing Monday rota tomorrow.
And since I started this over an hour ago and it's been sitting here forgotten as I scroll through X and FB, I think I'm probably done. Have a great day and a wonderful week. :hugs:
ACK! I started this post yesterday morning and never finished it. Derp. Here's what I said then...
I made pizza last night and now my hands are killing me. It was totally worth it.
Yesterday, my new greenhouse arrived. I'll work on putting it together today, I think. We'll see if the hands allow it. Then we'll see if it works to foil the critter's plans. Our new mower arrived, too. That's Hubs' job. We'll help each other if we need it.
We're going on 22 years married. For the most part, the us part has been pretty easy. That's what happens when you're with the right person. Yay.
And now for the stuff I didn't write yesterday morning...
I did put the greenhouse up, put blocks around the base to hold it down and keep critters out, and populated it with plants. This morning, no signs the critter has been back, but it's early yet.
No sign of the marauding mouse from the other night.
Hubs put together the mower and mowed a little to see if he had the height settings right. It works like a dream. Yay.
Gah, Sawyer's being really annoying this morning. This is an especially bad morning for him to be a turd, as I am really sore from the activities of yesterday. Putting together the greenhouse was pretty easy, except for being on my feet for so long, and then the moving of all those pots, and the sweeping beforehand.
I really should go grocery shopping today, except the aforementioned soreness is making me really not want to go.
Bitchbitchbitchbitch. Why yes, I would like some cheese...
What's on your this-n-that list today?
Okay, first off, the saga of the garden...
SomeTHING got onto the deck and munched a bunch of my plants over the course of a few days. First, I sprinkled cayenne pepper over everything. Nope. Then I mixed up a batch of my Rat-B-Gone (peppermint, cloves, and cedar essential oils). Nope. I tried putting up a length of fencing around my tastiest plants, too, but whatever it was climbed right over or went through the spacing. Sunday, I moved all my plants inside - half in the garage, half in the sunroom. And I ordered a small (5x5x6.5 roughly) greenhouse from Amazon. That'll be here Thursday and it's supposedly pretty easy to put together. I also bought a game camera to keep an eye on everything. Fingers crossed.
The plants that got munched... Of my trees: my baby black cherry, my little persimmon, one hickory, three redbuds, and a dogwood are all sticks now. My buckthorn has two little leaves left about 2" up. The other hickory has been halved. Of my produce: all 4 green pepper plants are sticks, one of my fingerling potatoes is sticks, my best pots of carrots had about 2/3rds of the greenery munched off and the other two that were doing well also saw munching. The one carrot pot that only had a few carrots coming up only has one now. Thankfully, it left Pedro Potato and the Tomato Trio alone.
Okay, so I've got a fix for that on the way. One would think I'd be done with critter mayhem, right? Umm, no.
Last night, about 1:30 a.m., I hear the scrabble of claws on vinyl flooring. And it's not the usual sound of the cats chasing each other. I turn to Hubs, but he's not in bed. None of the lights are on, so I figure he's on a bathroom break. The noise has stopped, but that doesn't mean anything in a house with cats, so I get up to go see what the hell is up with The Boyz. I wander into the kitchen to find Finn intently staring at the space under the catfood cupboard. I get a flashlight and shine it under there. Nothing. But he won't be swayed. We keep a cooler next the cupboard so the cats can jump up there easily. I move the cooler. MOUSE. He was terrified and I was stunned, so we just looked at each other for a minute. He recovered first and took off, followed closely by Finn.
Did Finn catch him? No. The little bastard ran along the wall, across the space by the front door, and I lost sight of it. Finn didn't. He started circling Hubs' recliner like a hound who'd run a fox to ground.
By then, Hubs had come out to see what the hell was going on. We upended the recliner. Couldn't see it. I tried beating on the recliner, but no sign of it. We eventually found it on the other end of the room behind the shelf I keep our TV on. Haha! thinks I, we've got it trapped.
Nope. We tried to get it, but it skittered away, ran down the wall, and went into my recliner. So there we were trying to get it out of my recliner. Not a sign of the damn thing.
For some reason, at that point... it being now 2:30 and me being me... I decided to check behind the TV again. Sure enough, the little bastard had slipped by us and was back where it thought it was safe. I put sticky traps on either side of the shelving and we debated on how best to get the little bastard out of there, both of watching to make sure it didn't escape again. At one point, I checked and it was still there. More debating. Checked again. Would you believe it, the little fucker was gone.
At this point, we had both cats locked up in the office because we didn't need them underfoot, especially considering that Hubs was prepared to whack the little shit with a shovel, and we didn't want the cats to get in the middle of that. Since the cats were put away, I went around laying sticky traps and snap traps all over the living room. I made coffee and we plopped down in front of the TV to both settled down enough to go back to bed and to see if we caught the furry bastard before going to sleep.
It was around 4am when we went back to bed with no mouse caught. I got up at 6:30 with still no mouse. We finally put all the traps away and let the cats out at 8 with no success. We did, however, kill a mouse in the garage last night. Not the same mouse. The dead one was lighter than the marauder.
Neither of us has any clue as to how the furry bugger got in the house. I've spent untold time over the years plugging every damn hole that would allow ingress for mice. It's been years, in fact, since we saw one inside the house. More investigating will occur, but not now. I'm bushed. I leave it to the cats to find it and kill it, if it shows its twitchy little nose again.
Unfortunately, Finn did not show prowess at killing the mouse last night and Sawyer, when given the chance, was terrified at the prospect. I'm revoking their cat cards until they prove their worth.
Between the mysterious plant-muncher (packrat, I assume) and the nighttime visitor, I'm about 75% wondering what I did to piss Nature off, because I think she's staging a revolt. Pray for our safety. There are more of them than there are of us and we're getting to old for this shit.
Amidst the throes of garden woes, the show must go on - which means Marketing Monday. This week, I'm putting RUMOR HAS IT out there for your free book downloading pleasure. Enjoy!
And if you enjoy it, please leave a review, then head over to buy the next book in the series - THICKER THAN WATER. It'll be a win for you and it'll help fund my fight against the critter noshing my plants.
Hey all, I know I'm extremely late. In fact, I'm taking 5 in the middle of dinner to type this. Suffice it to say, there isn't much to talk about. Well, except for the fact that some bastard critter saw fit to climb onto the deck and ravage my garden. I spent the morning moving all the remaining pots - some alive, some possibly dead - into the smoking porch and the garage. After that, I wasn't motivated to do anything.
I've since ordered a small greenhouse to put on the deck for plant protection and a game camera to see if I can catch the little bastard. I'd kill it with my bare hands if I could. All that work... Blerg.
Anyway, I hope your day was good. Feel free to talk about it in comments. :hugs:
LOL, Totally Forgot Thursday should be a thing and it should always be posted on Friday. I could make it a list of things I totally forgot, which would be long... if I could remember to write down all the things I forgot.
Pedro Potato fell over yesterday. I totally didn't think about staking him up and how does one stake up a potato plant that's already a couple feet tall without staking potential potatoes?? I managed it, I think, but time will tell whether I harshed any spuds. Anyway, he seems fine this morning, so no harm done, I guess.
I went out of my way to hit the other local thrift store and while they did have a lot of books, I only found two I wanted. What a waste of gas. The books, you ask? The Surgeon by Tess Garretson and a three book volume of 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain. Cost? 75c. I would've made out like a bandit if I'd been into Danielle Steel or James Patterson, but alas, I'm not a fan of either of those authors.
Sawyer woke us up this morning at 4am. He was trying to jump to the top of the big chest of drawers. He missed... he always misses... but he managed to knock the bottle of antacids on the floor. Scared the crap out of himself and woke us both up rather rudely. Sometimes... to the moon, cat.
I hate when I get an email touting 'free shipping' and it's only on order over a certain amount. This last one seemed like it was for any order and only for a limited time, but it's their regular free shipping amount. Dirty pool, chaps. That's one way to get me to not buy anything from you ever.
Sawyer's being a picky eater right now. Turd. I mean, Finn's always been a picky eater, but Finn also doesn't bitch when he doesn't get fed his favorite foods. He simply chooses not to eat what he doesn't like. Sawyer? Nope. 'FEED ME... I don't LIKE that... FEED ME SOMETHING ELSE!' He's my problem child. We do love him, but ugh. (And before you wonder, he's fine. He's also not in danger of starving to death.)
Ugh, I meant to take a shower yesterday, but I wasn't in the mood. I figured I could take a shower when I got up this morning. This morning? Thunderstorms. Blerg. That'll teach me.
Okay, that's probably enough out of me. Any snippets of wisdom from you? Anything you totally forgot that you'd like to mention? Comment away.
Good morning! It's time again for another rousing round of Monday Marketing, with your host - B.E. Sanderson.
Heh. Yeah, I've been up since 4, the coffee isn't cutting it, and I'm a little loopy. Anyway, it IS Monday and it is also time to market. Today, WISH HITS THE FAN is up on the block.
This is the one that wraps the whole series up. There are thrills and chills and spills. There are difficult choices to make and a world to save. Questions are answered and lives hang in the balance. What's not to love there? Trust me. Go grab a copy while you can.
Here we are again at the beginning of another week. Time to look at last week.
Book marketing was done. I moved 52 copies of Fertile Ground. From previous marketing, I had page reads of Dying Embers and Song of Storm and Shroud. Oh, and Wish Hits the Fan goes on freebie starting tomorrow.
Reading is still going slow, but I am reading, so I have that going for me. I'm about a third of the way through Leadership by Rudy Giuliani. It's really interesting.
No baking. Which is good because my EWA doesn't need the calories.
I was pretty active this week. I did a hard target walk, vacuumed, worked on the deck garden, and planted trees in the woods. I haven't weighed myself, though, so whether any of that is starting to shrink my ass? Dunno.
Speaking of gardening, Pedro Potato is getting tall. I have another pot with tiny potato plants coming up, too. One tomato and two of the peppers have flowers. The carrots are growing right along and need thinning again. Then there are the trees. They all seem to be doing well. The one unknown tree has been identified as a persimmon, so yay. Thank you to whatever squirrel or bird planted that seed in my garden last year.
Speaking of trees, Cecil and Clyde went into the woods. They're my oldest two cedars and it was time. When I turned Cecil out of his pot, it was obvious he needed more space. He was getting rootbound in there. Clyde probably could've spent another year on the deck, but like I said, it was time. I can still see Cecil from the house, so yay. Fingers crossed that nature doesn't harsh my babies.
Pregnancy abounds in the deer herd, so yay. Lumpy is still rolling along, but does not appear pregnant, which is a mercy. We also have phoebes nesting under the deck and chickadees using our birdhouse. I love Spring.
Other than that, life is pretty boring here. What's up with you?
On a short continuance from yesterday, let me just say that I did not have roaming hippos in Columbia on my bingo card. (Was talking about it here a HIPPO violation? ROFL)
Yesterday, I removed the 'feather bed mimic' topper thing from our bed. The dang thing was lumpy as all get out. That and the constant fluffing of it were getting to be a pain in the everywhere. Last night, I did have a devil of a time getting to sleep, but I must've slept better. We'll see how it goes.
Getting old blows.
Okay, I'm old. (Yeah, yeah, not as old as some.) I was thinking the other day about my grandmother and how she was. I realized I will never be as old in my head as my grandmother was. Then again, Grandma was never as old as I thought she was. Hearing stories from Mom about her tell me that I was mistaken about her on several points. Oh, she was not a pleasant woman and would never be mistaken for the warm and cuddly grandmas some people have. I was talking with my sister and we agreed that Grandma was a bitch. But really when Grandma was younger, she was a tough, pants-wearing, hard-working chick who liked parties and doing things women weren't supposed to do back then. Maybe she was bitchy because as she got old, she couldn't be the woman she knew herself to be, which would make anyone bitchy, I guess.
You hear all the time about men withholding stuff from the wives during a divorce, but I just read a case where it was the woman. She's in jail now until she forks over the stuff that the court already said belonged to her ex-husband or pays him the value of those things. Equal rights for women means being equal in this shit, too. Good for the judge. Feminists wanted everything equal, where there ya go. Choke on it.
Pedro Potato is getting tall. Go, Pedro! I'm not sure if he's actually making potatoes under there. The only way to tell is to dig him up, the thought of which makes me sad. It'll have to be done eventually, but until then, I'll enjoy him as the healthy plant he is.
We had a hell of a storm last night. Thankfully, I'd already moved all my pots under the eaves, so they got at least some protection. At around 2am, it got really nasty and I wondered if I did indeed hear a train in the distance. (We have no tracks anywhere near here... by train, I mean tornado.) I checked the yard this morning and all is well.
And on that note, I have to go make my daily call to Mom. Have a great day everyone. Peace out.
I see a lot of wild and WTF things on FB and X, so I thought I'd share...
Someone tried to use the phrase 'molon labe' - basically an ancient Greek phrase meaning 'Come. Take.' (referencing gun rights) - but autocorrect changed it to 'melon lube'... ROFL.
Someone made an AI photo of Trump eating McDonald's with Jesus. Now, there's a section of people with their undies in a wad.
I saw a video of a cat whose owner was deaf. The cat had learned that meowing doesn't work, so it figured out how to signal its owner by tapping his arm and then tapping its mouth when it wanted treats.
Just now, someone shared a video out of Japan - a JAWS bath bomb. It looks like a boat. Then you drop it into the water, it starts to dissolve and turns the water blue, then it starts to bubble. Then it releases what looks like blood and a shark's head floats to the service. The head has a piece of boat in its mouth. Too funny.
Another video... Beagle terrifies alligator and makes it run away.
No, the IDF didn't put 60 P-people in a garbage truck. The P-people used a garbage truck to try to sneak into somewhere to do bad things and the IDF caught them.
Some dude (in Pakistan, I believe) said woman shouldn't be (aren't allowed to be?) educated. Fuck that shit.
The pope is more concerned with how Muslims are being treated than with how Christians are being treated. Let that sink in.
Diets are now racist.
Yale gathering applauds a guy who said America deserved 9/11.
Japan loves us. And they have a word for Leftist nutjob - Payoku. Funny, I never thought I'd love Japan more than I could ever love Australia, but one is becoming awesome and the other is becoming a leftist shithole. So there ya are.
And with that, I'll let ya go do whatever it is you do out there in the world. Me? I'm doing marketing posts and then I have to clean. Woot.
I'm creating this post on Sunday, so hopefully nothing screws up and makes a liar out of me.
Anyway, it's free as you're reading this and it'll be free 'til the end of the week. I hope you enjoy.
Well, crap... it's Sunday again, isn't it? Since I can't figure out what day it is most of the time, you shouldn't be surprised that I'm not sure what week it is. Anyway...
Nope on the writing / editing. I'm having stern talks with myself. I may banish myself with my Kindle and my notepad to the spare room until I finish editing the damn book I should've finished editing months ago. I think the main problem here is I'm stuck in the 'I suck and I hate this book' mindset, so it's hard to make progress on something you're pretty sure stinks. And if you suck, how can you fix something that stinks? :shrug:
Yep on the marketing. Not a banner week, but still, something is better than nothing. No clue what's going to be on the block for this week.
No reading. Seriously, I don't think I even picked up my book last week. Derp.
No baking happened, but I did make ham & bean soup yesterday. It turned out really yummy and it used up the last of my Easter ham, so yay.
I was pretty active this past week - mostly with the deck garden. I did take two hard-target walks for 1.75 miles. I also did some cleaning and furniture moving. I'm also trying to eat better - more salads, less crap. Unfortunately, I stepped on the scale yesterday and had gained two pounds. Derp. Weight: 179.4
As for gardening, I have all my produce seeds/plants in the ground now - potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and green peppers. We'll see how those go. I realized yesterday that I fucked up with Pedro. I was supposed to cover him with dirt while he was still small - to encourage root growth. But I was so pleased with Pedro's growth, I totally forgot to mound him in dirt. He is pretty spectacular. I'll mound the other potatoes.
I spent some time shopping this week - Tractor Supply and Wallyworld. I do love Tractor Supply, and they had dirt 'buy one get one 50% off', so I had that going for me. Yes, I am a redneck. Wallyworld was Wallyworld.
Oh, I saw Beauregard the Broad-Winged Hawk twice this past week. One time, he flew beneath the smoking room windows, so I got a really close view of him. He's pretty awesome. On another bird note, the Barred Owls have been hanging out close to the house, so we've heard them hooting for a few nights/mornings in a row. This morning, one of them must have been in the yard because the hooting was really loud. Awesome.
And that's about it for me. I need to figure out what I'm going to do today and try to avoid sitting in front of the TV for the majority of it. A walk is in order, definitely. The rest? Time will tell. Have a great day wherever you are.
I forgot what day it is.
Tuesday, we voted in the municipal elections. One measure on the ballot failed by one vote. ONE vote. Never let it be said that your vote doesn't matter. It does. If we hadn't voted, it would've changed the outcome. (And we'd be paying more in property taxes this year, which we do not need.)
Why do people vote to raise their own property taxes??? I mean, yeah, I could see if it was something important, but this wasn't.
Yesterday, there was a squirrel in the yard that was acting like it was having a stroke or something. We didn't go anywhere near it, but we kept an eye on it from the window. First, it was just laying there in the sun underneath the hickory tree. The next time we looked it had moved into the shade. The next time it was back in the sun. Then Hubs saw it from his bathroom window and another squirrel had walked up on it and they were jumping around at each other, after which it went right back to laying under the tree. A little while later, it was stumbling toward the water pans and got itself a drink. Then it was right back under the tree - about a 15 foot distance - where it was digging with its front paw and then eating what looked like some kind of root. After dinner, it had moved to the backyard and was again eating some kind of root. By then, it was looking decidedly better. I wonder if those roots have medicinal properties. Anyway, the next time we looked, it was gone. Either it got better and went away, or the fox got it during its dusk rounds through our yard. Still, it was all very weird.
What does one do for a messed-up squirrel? I'd call a rehabber, if we had any anywhere near us. The only good one I know of, though, is in OK and they can't take out of state animals. Bummer. I thought about going out there with a net and catching it, but then I'd be violating some wild animal ordinance or something. Around here, the wildlife better get better on its own. I just wish the critters would stop having medical dramas on my lawn. If they're going to die, they need to do it in the woods and far enough away that I don't see it.
Okay, time for me to go take a walk... which is what I was getting ready to do when I realized I hadn't posted today. Derp. Have a great day, wherever you are. Peace out.
Yesterday was a holiday, but let's face it, I can't blame Easter for my totally forgetting to post. I'm late today because I overslept because cat-antics wouldn't let me sleep and then I was up until after midnight.
Let's not talk about writing, eh? Although, I did think about writing. For some reason, a story I started years ago but never finished popped into my head late last night and wanted me to write it RIGHT THEN. But I was trying to get to a place where I could sleep, so I ignored it. I take the fact that stories are demanding to be written as a good sign, but so far, that's all it is - a sign.
The big marketing a whole series thing last week went okay. It looked better than it was because I had three books being downloaded, but per book, it wasn't great. Today, Song of Storm and Shroud is up for a 5-day freebie. (SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD - an epic fantasy for kids and adults alike - is free today through Friday. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W745M6P) Unfortunately, I woke up late and haven't really done any marketing beyond posting to my pages on FB. :shrug: I'm tired and unmotivated.
Not much reading this week. I really am a toad.
In baking news, I made applesauce bars (B-) and raisin-apple bread pudding (A-). Plus, I baked the ham for Easter (A+).
On the activity front, I took two walks for about 2 miles. I also did stuff in the deck garden - moving pots, etc. Last night, I moved a bookshelf and all its books, so that was active. (Sawyer was being turd and using it as a springboard to get onto the TV shelf.) After all the ham I ate yesterday, I'm not going to weigh myself, but when I weighed myself last Tuesday, I was at 177.4.
Ah, the garden. It's rolling right along, as you could see from my post last week. I did plant more carrot seeds to replace the ones that pooped out on me. The feed store has their tomato plants in, but I have to wait until I'm flush again before I buy those. Later this week... I hope. None of Pedro Potato's kinfolk have come up, so I'm getting ready to plant more taters. :fingers crossed:
Other than that, not much going on here. I did mention I was a toad, didn't I.
So, I went out yesterday and took pictures of where my garden is at right now. First off:
Pedro Potato!
Next:
The Pepper Quartet
And then there's...
The Carrot Gang
I'll leave the pics of the trees for another day. Needless to say, there are a lot of pots on my deck right now. LOL
I've had an Instagram account for years, but I could never get it to work because it was expecting me to post from a smartphone (or some such nonsense). This morning I got one of those notifications that people were following me on Instagram. I went over there with the thought that I'd try using it again. Lo and behold, it actually let me post something. Wow.
So, anyway, if you're on Instagram, I'm at https://www.instagram.com/b.e.sanderson/
I can't guarantee I'll post anything with any regularity, but there it is.
B.E. Sanderson... slowly moving into this century. Heh.
As an aside, what ever happened to Pinterest? I had an account and deleted it when they turned into turds, but I never hear about it from anyone else anymore either. Are they even still a thing?
The book is written in a very conversational style - my conversational style - so don't come into this with your Strunk and White in hand. It's for fun. It's for escape. Oh, there is a deeper message behind it all, but I don't beat you over the head with it. If you get it, great. If not, I hope the ride is still enjoyable.
Anyway, enjoy. The books are free, so why not try them? What have you got to lose?
Marketing copy:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MTFRD71
A MODEL CURSE - the entire series - is free for a limited time. Now through Friday, get the whole damn, fun, snarky, paranormal suspense story totally free. (They're always free with Kindle Unlimited. This is so everyone can play.)
Hello. I'm up obscenely early for a Sunday, but that's on the cats. They didn't like last night's food, so they're being turds.
I thought about writing and editing this week. That may be a sign that I'm jones'n for it. Shhh, don't frighten the gumption away. Marketing went crickets on me. I only moved 15 copies of UNEQUAL. :shrug: Tomorrow starts a 'series bonanza' - something different I'm trying - wherein all the books in the A Model Curse series will be free for 5 days. I've already set up tomorrow's post on that.
I started reading a book. Woot. I'm about a quarter of the way through Leadership by Rudy Giuliani.
No baking. I did make a really tasty sweet & sour chicken dish, even if the breading on the chicken did go pear-shaped* on me.
On the activity front, I was a little active this week. It was mostly garden work - removing detritus from the outside beds and working on the potted plants on the deck. We did walk once, though. Go us. I haven't weighed myself. Weight: Fat
The potted plants seem to be doing okay. I'm not sure if I mentioned that 3 out of my 4 pots worth of tiny carrot plants died, but the 4th pot is doing good. I will be thinning that this week and replanting the other pots with new carrot seeds. I have 1 tiny potato plant coming up, which thrills me no end. The repotted green peppers are all doing well. All six of my redbud trees have leaves. The redbud I thought was dead is trying, so yay. Both of my remaining dogwood trees have tiny leaves. The three mystery trees are all doing really well. I'm no longer sure that one is a black cherry, but I'm getting more sure that one is a buckthorn. We'll see.
I did try to do some carving this week. I was really getting into it when the gouge slipped and I perforated my thumb knuckle. That'll teach me. Of course, I wasn't wearing the safety gloves. I hate gloves when I have to actually do anything with my hands. Of course, I'll be wearing them the next time I carve, because while I am sometimes foolhardy, I'm not stupid. Live and learn. Thankfully, it wasn't a large perforation and I'm a good clotter. I'm just waiting to be 100% sure it won't open back up before I go back to strenuous hand activities.
Other than that? :shrug: I hope you had a good week last week and that this coming week is amazing for you.
*a British phrase that I appreciate, so I'm gonna use. What's English if not an opportunistic language that rummages through the pockets of other languages looking for spare phrases and shiny euphemisms?
The saga of Brightspeed still lives. In case you don't remember, we kicked Brightspeed to the curb last July and have since continued to receive information from them. I've called and called, to no avail. I finally gave up on them in October. I figured if they wanted to continue to waste money on me, more power to them. Well, I gave up on the giving up. You see, a few days ago, we started getting calls from Brightspeed, giving us updates on the service repair in our area. After the third time of one of us running across the house to make sure it wasn't family only to see it was Brightspeed, I went to their website, found a complaint email addy, and wrote them a stern missive. Lo and behold, yesterday afternoon, we got another call about the service repair and I was pissed. Minutes after that, the phone rang again and it was Brightspeed again. I picked up with every intention of shouting at the recorded message. Needless to say, I was shocked to find an actual person on the line. She was calling about the email I sent. I explained everything to her, reiterating what was in my email and adding additional info. She was nice - and American, I might add - and she vowed to get this cleared up. Fingers crossed it actually happens this time. No offense to her, but I've heard it before. :shrug:
I don't know about you, but I get tired of dealing with the same shit every day. And no, I don't want different shit. I want a cessation of shit. Is that too much to ask?
Speaking of dealing with shit, Facebook is intermittently preventing me from reacting to posts. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I just can't do it and get a snotty message when I try. Blerg.
From the tiny acorn grows the mighty oak. Well, yeah, but have you ever seen a sycamore seed? Those things aren't much bigger than dandelion seeds and from those suckers grows an even mightier sycamore. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of oaks, but sycamores are huge. (Says the woman who just watched her husband chainsaw a 50 ft sycamore that had fallen on our land.) For that matter, have you ever seen an elm seed? They look like tiny frisbees - smaller than a dime - with a lump in the center. From those grow the majestic elm. All I'm saying is trees are amazing.
I just started reading Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani. The first chapter is all about 9/11. It's a hard thing to read about, but I guess I'm finally ready to revisit that horrible day. I never realized how close we were to losing Rudy in all that. I wish he'd run for President in 2008 and beat what we ended up with. He would've been an amazing President. I wanted him to run with Connie Rice as his VP. They would've made an awesome duo for the leadership of this country.
Okay, well, I think that's enough out of me today. What's up with you?
