Thursday This n That

I actually had someone read the entire A Model Curse series in one night.  And then they started on Once Upon a Djinn.  I hope they go through that whole series, too.  I love that you can track the progress of readers using Kindle Unlimited.  I just wish more people would find and love these books.  It certainly would make life easier if sales went up.

Last night, we watched Free Guy.  I'd seen it before, but this was the first time I caught it at the beginning so we could watch it all the way through.  Good movie, if you haven't seen it.

I also got writing done, so don't go wagging your finger at me.  =op

I had some plain yogurt sitting in the fridge, so I decided to make 'cream cheese' with it.  Put a coffee filter in a mesh sieve, put the yogurt in the filter, put the whole thing over a bowl, and let it drain.  In a day or two, you'll have something that's the consistency of cream cheese.  And it can pretty much be used in the same fashion.  Although, I'm not sure I would try to make cheesecake with it.  Yogurt can be heated but from what I understand, it separates at temps over 350F.  Anyway, I'll probably use this to make dip.  Or I'll make a coffee cake recipe I found yesterday.  :shrug:  

Which reminds me, I think I figured out why my sour cream coffee cake failed.  I substituted yogurt for the sour cream, but that wasn't the problem.  The recipe calls for 1 cup of butter and I only used 1 stick (1/2 cup).  Derp.  I had planned on trying the recipe yesterday and noticed the error I'd made.  Unfortunately, I don't have two sticks of butter to bake with right now.  Maybe after I go shopping this week, I'll try it again.

I keep sleeping in.  I mean, I'm getting up at 6:30 but that's sleeping in for me.  I usually get up an hour earlier.  Yeah, it relates to not being able to fall asleep every night, which is getting annoying... which makes me mad which makes it harder to fall asleep.  It's a vicious circle.

Okay, I'm off to do things and try to accomplish stuff.  Have a great day and leave me your this n thats if you get a chance.  

Thursday This n That

I'm on Linked In and I occasionally get job listings in my email.  One yesterday sounded interesting - Remote Proofreader.  Cool.  I went over to look at it.  The listing was rife with weird characters and grammatical issues.  I wonder if they put it up that way as an initial test for people applying for the job.  Sort of an "if you can read this and fix it, you're the person for us.  ROFL  (There were parts of the job, once I parsed it out, that sounded hinky, so no.  And no, I'm not really looking for a job, but if something amazing came along, who knows?)

Today, the last of my books drops out of Kindle Unlimited.  I'll get it set up and uploaded to D2D this weekend.  

In case you're not on FB or you missed it, here's a pic of one of the foxes that traipsed through my yard a couple days ago:

Yeah, it saw me and bolted, so I didn't get a chance for a good pic.  If it hadn't stopped under that oak, I wouldn't have gotten one at all.  

Yesterday, I dusted and vacuumed everything but the office.  And now I'm sore.  That's just not fair.  Getting old sucks.  Sore or not, I'll get the office done today.

I also rearranged the spare room.  I put the exercise bike under the other window, so I have a view of the bird feeder while I ride.  Of course, moving that there meant I needed to move the table with my radio and cassettes next to it (for better indoor biking), but to do that I had to move the little bookshelf where I keep the stock of my paperbacks and also the plant stand and the chair.  Anyway, the room's like I want it.  For now.  Unfortunately, I was too tired to actually ride the damn bike yesterday.  Maybe today.

:sings: Maybe today, we can put the past away...

Funny how certain phrases can make a song instantly pop into my head.  That was Jumper by Third Eye Blind.

Hey did you hear YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are merging?  They're calling it YouTwitFace.  ROFL

And with that, I'll leave.  Have a great day, everyone.  And drop a comment on your way out.  

Sunday Update - OMG, What Week IS it?

 I have lost track of the weeks again.  Oh, I could go look it up.  I could even just count backward from the end of the year and junk.  Right now?  Nope.  I need a coffee IV.

What did I do last week?  Oh yeah...

I'm still not writing new words, but I did make some small progress with the edit notes.  I've gotten 8 pages of notes input now and that's brought me to pg49 in the manuscript.  Go me.  If you knew the mental hurdles and roadblocks I'm trying to jump, you'd see this is a bigger thing than it looks like.  I need to just put my head down and soldier through.  First I need to be in a place where I can put my head down and soldier through, though.  

I thought about marketing.  Really, I did.  And I learned that Amazon does not let you do any Kindle Countdown Deals or freebies 30 days before a book drops out of Kindle Select and the book has to be in Kindle Select for 2 weeks after the KCD or free offer.  Or some such nonsense.  Except this morning, when I went to check my facts, they're now saying I could possibly put Unequal into one or the other and it's drop date is 11/29, so what do I know?  A friend told me she clicked the box to take a book out and when she went back, they'd put it back in.  Unequal is still showing as deselected, so I'm not sure what's going on there.  Anyway, I'm not doing it.  If you want one of my books, pay full price.  None of them are really that expensive - between $2.99 and $4.99.  You can get the four-book Once Upon a Djinn series for just under $16.  Which is less than one hardcover of most other books these days.  :shrug:

In reading news, well, I didn't finish any books before my Saturday Reading Wrap-up, but I did some other stuff that made a reading wrap-up worth perusing.  

On the baking front, I did a batch of granola bars and yesterday, I made scalloped potatoes with ham.  I also put cheese and bacon bits in it.  Hubs was pleased.  I was content.  I think it needed more of something tasty, but I'm rarely 100% pleased with my own cooking.

We spent some time in the woods this week, but not as much as I wanted.  It was too warm for really getting into the woods until yesterday.  And we sawed through all the wood we'd already gleaned, so we had to wait.  Yesterday, we spent a good hour dragging timber up the hill and then another hour sawing.  We only really got through a 3" diameter piece, part of another, and most of an 8-9" piece of oak.  That last sucker was a bear.  It needs one more cut and it'll be done, but we were tired and left it to today.  The other piece was a wood we'd never cut through before, so we set it aside to do some more research.  It's pretty dark pink inside, but it is definitely not cedar.  I'm guessing black cherry.  We'll see.  It's definitely not firewood.  We may find a way to make flooring with it. We'll see.  Weight: 180.4 - mine, not the wood. (Not sure where the pound and half went, but yay for it going.)

Did the Wallyworld thing.  I'm down to only going once a month, so it's a big deal now.  Anyway, I picked up the turkey for Thanksgiving.  I got a Honeysuckle White for 87c a pound.  Yay.  Unfortunately, the smallest one they had was over 14lbs.  We'll be eating turkey for a while after TGD.

Got an unexpected wrinkle this week which, oddly enough, set me to working on edit notes - just to give my brain something else to think about for a while.  It helped while I was doing it.  Too bad I can't work on edit notes while I'm trying to sleep because my brain went after the wrinkle with a vengeance that night.  Still not a thing I can do about it, but the ol' brain doesn't bother with that.  It just climbs on the hamster wheel and runs.  It would've also helped if I could've gone into the woods, but it was close to dark when it occurred and then the next morning it rained and by afternoon it was windy.  Blerg.

I also really need to go fishing, but the weather's been a turd for that.  If it's not raining and cold, it's windy.  Nerts.

Okay, well, that's enough out of me for today.  I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting.  If you want an update on something that's not here, ask.  I'll most likely answer you.  

How was your week?

Thursday This n That

Yesterday, I had a message on my machine from my doctor's office "...I need you to call us as soon as possible" and no reason why.  So I, of course, began the freak out process.  Whatever could it be?  It's not time for my shot.  I haven't had any tests lately.  Was it something to do with my last bill?  Did they stop taking my insurance?  Argh.  I picked up the phone right then and called.  It was to reschedule my appointment in November.  I told her she could've said that on the machine, and she reminded me of HIPAA.  I get HIPAA rules and everything, but I signed that paper saying they could leave a message and another paper saying Hubs can have access to everything.  They know it's just the two of us here - it's not that big an office and I make myself hard to forget (in a friendly way).  Ugh.  I bet next time it'll be the same dealie-bob, even though I told her she could leave more details.  I guess it's just one more thing I'll have to get over.

I mentioned before that I had a business proposition in the works.  Nothing major.  Like I'm not getting a non-writing, outside the house job or anything.  My family owns a business up in Michigan and my brother offered me an opportunity.  I didn't take it as is.  I have too much writing and life stuff to commit to anything so involved.  But I did agree to a modified version.  It'll make me a little scratch and help Mom out tons, with only some spreadsheet work here and there.  As the scratch accumulates, I'll have money for covers and editing, so look out world.  LOL

The great thing about Kindle Unlimited is that I got to watch someone read the entire Once Upon a Djinn series over the course of two days.  Tuesday they started reading WIOH and I watched the graph for that rise, then IDW, then UWC.  They finished WHTF last night.  Which was totally cool. 

I saw a bald eagle yesterday!  I hope this means the migration for them has begun.  We do have the occasional sighting throughout the year, but when they've migrated to here for the winter, we see tons.  Yay!

The cat is doing better.  No barfing since Tuesday and she actually ate a little dry food this morning.  (She's been eating wet, but less than usual.)  Whatever upset her tummy must be over.  :fingers crossed:

Well, that's it for me.  Have at it yourself in the comments.