Sunday Update - 2025 Week 5

Happy Groundhog Day!  (also known around here as Hubs' emancipation day and Ayn Rand's birthday)

Okay, so the weekly update goes something like this...

I am up to 83% of the book on edit notes.  I expect to finish the notes today and start inputting them.  I do not expect to have this ready to publish by the 14th like I hoped, but stranger things have happened. All in all, though, I worked on the notes every day and went from 34% to 83%, so that's a win.

I didn't do any marketing this week.  I do have a freebie starting tomorrow, though.  PROJECT HERMES is next up on the rotation.  Then, DYING EMBERS will be free the week after, in celebration of its 10th anniversary of being a published novel.  Woot.

No reading yet.  I'm just not feeling it at this time.  

In baking news, I was busy.  I did cinnamon rolls and pizza.  Talk about an arm workout.  I also did a vat of pulled pork, which gave me the opportunity to do Cuban sandwiches.  

As for activity, it went better this week.  Not great, but every journey begins with a single step and all that.  I got out of the house and wandered the yard one day.  Yesterday, I did some tree maintenance - cutting some pesky limbs and snipping others.  I also took out the last lilac stalk and pruned the rose bush in the side yard.  Then I went into the woods and threw some logs, after which I wandered around in the woods for a while.  All good exercise.  I haven't weighed myself lately, so... :shrug:

Ah, the lilac... Here's hoping it grows new shoots.  If not, it's outta there.  I'll replace it with something else bushlike or I'll just let the irises take over that spot.  We'll see.

I'm pretty sure we got the wren out of the garage.  Yay.

I did some genealogy research that I didn't have to pay for, so I could answer a question for Mom.  She was wondering if her grandmother ever became a citizen.  I don't have proof positive, but on the 1930s census, under Citizenship, it's marked YES.  So, we've got that going for us.  I've got the naturalization papers for Dad's dad and his grandpa.  I just need to find and download the papers for the others.  (No reason.  And nothing to do with the current panic about deportations.  Just for our own edification.)

Other that that, it's pretty tame around here.  How are things going in your world?

Sunday Update

Good morning all.  It's Sunday again... you know, in case you have a tough time figuring out what day it is, like me.  

In the writing realm, I didn't write every day like I was supposed to.  I missed two days because of reasons and due to because.  I still managed to add 4840 words, though, so it's all good.  This book is now at 24533.  Yay.  I've also been thinking about another book and wanting to work on that, which for me is a bad idea.  I need to finish this before I go back to that or I'll never finish this.  There are enough unfinished novels on my hard drive to attest to that.  Still, it's good to be thinking about books again, so I have that going for me.

I read two books last week and made it about 100 or so pages into another.  

I was busy in the kitchen this week.  I made oatmeal cookies which didn't turn out too well, but we're eating them anyway.  Then I made coffee cake which didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, but we're eating it anyway.  Then I made pizza which was pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

On the activity front, I only did something active four days out of seven, and some of that wasn't all that active.  Still, it was more than sitting on my butt in a chair, so I counted it.  Two of the days, I walked.  My mileage is up to just over 30 miles this year.  Weight: 169.2

I've been working on the genealogy again.  This week, I got a little farther up the tree on the ancestors who came from Europe.  If I read German, I could probably make more progress, but I'm muddling along.  I also discovered some cousins I once knew, but haven't seen in decades, who have passed away.  They're all on my dad's side, and those people stopped communicating with Mom after Dad passed, so while it is annoying that no one told us, it's not super surprising.  If we'd known, we probably would've at least sent flowers, if not actually gone and paid our respects.  They were all in their 80s, so nothing shocking there, but still sad.  I also found where my great-aunt's grandson was killed in a tractor accident in 1962.  Dead kids in my tree make me sad.

I'm still thinking about the day job. I can't seem to stop myself from wondering if this got done or that got done, and did they remember to do that other thing that I was in charge of but that no one seemed to take care of before I got there?  :shrug:  This, too, shall pass.  Also, I kinda miss my guys.  Not enough to want to go back to work, but still...

Well, I think that's about it for me.  Other things happened, but at the moment I can't think of them, so they must not have been important in the scheme of things.  This week will be more writing, more reading, etc.  I also really need to get on top of updating all my books' back matter and continuing to make sure all the paperbacks are correct.  (That last one should've already been done, but it's a slog because my internet is sooo slow that I'm less inclined to want to do it.)

Have a great day, everyone!  And if you're in the mood, tell me about your weekend.

Digging Things Up

 I've been working on my family trees on and off for probably about 15 years.  I mostly use Ancestry.com for the research and the main tree.  Ancestry got me hooked with one of their free month things.  Unfortunately, you can only use that once, but hey, they're a business and they deserve to get paid.  

I also use My Heritage.  My Heritage has a good downloadable program for my desktop, so I can use that when I can't be online.  And they also have an online search thing that I use on occasion.  

From time to time, I use my search engine.  Type in some information and you can sometimes find out things that Ancestry doesn't have or have yet.  For instance, Mom know that her cousin Shar had passed away earlier this year, but Ancestry didn't have that information yet, so I googled it.  (Duckduck'd it?)  Found her obituary and filled in the appropriate info.  

Obits are great stores of information.  You can find out the names of children, spouses, etc. and fill out your tree that way.  This is especially helpful because places like Ancestry won't show you the names of people who are still alive.  So, from reading Cousin Shar's obit, I could fill in her kids and grandkids names.  (Mom only remembered one son's name,)

Speaking of Mom... she has been super helpful doing all of this.  Thankfully, she also remembers things about Dad's family.  I wish Ancestry had been around back when he was alive.  (Actually, it may have been but I didn't know about it then.)  Dad would've loved this.  Lucky for me, I still have Mom and I utilize her as often as she is willing to put up with me.  I think she likes it, too.  This morning, I used Ancestry to look up some gals she went to school with and give her information on what ever happened to them.  Plus, I think it helps keep her memory sharp.  She's going on 84, so that's an important thing these days.  

I'd like to think this will be important to the younger generations at some point down the road.  It's here if they ever need it.  I did see that my cousin's oldest daughter now has her own tree because I stumbled across it yesterday.  I've never actually met the kid - 30 and she's still a kid... derp - but it'll be nice to reach out to her and see if I can give her info she might not otherwise have.  Unfortunately, she lost her grandmother last year, so she doesn't have access to the stories like I do.  Maybe I'll tell her to call Mom and talk about the old days with her.  

Anyway, if you can afford it, Ancestry is cool.  It's like storing the memories of generations past.  I find it all very interesting.  But I'm a nerd.  

And no, I don't ever plan to submit my DNA.  I know the basics of my genetic makeup just from all the research I've done.  If it ain't in there, I don't really need it.  

Ju-Lo-Wri-Mo Day 12
Starting Word Count: 11797
Ending Word Count: 12791
New Words: 994

Digging in the Tree Again

 Ancestry.com got me again.  They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I'm back to digging in the tree again.  Well, trees actually, because I do my family and Hubs' family and Owl's family from her paternal side.  I also did a tree for my sister's ex-husband's family so she could have it for her kids/grandkids.  Hell, I'd do anyone's trees if they asked me and were willing to pay me for my time.  They'd only need to provide me with information that I can use to research.  It's fun.

In case you didn't know it, I'm a writer and writers love research.  At least this writer loves research.  

Anyway, I've got a three-month membership this time, so no hurry for me like there was in the past with one-month memberships.  I'm not sure how much more I can discover, but it's an interesting pursuit.  I've been spending some time this time trying to learn about my great-uncle Ray.  He was in WWII in the Pacific.  He was also married 5 times and I don't have much information about his wives, so there's that.  My mom didn't even know the names of two of them, so I did give her that info.  

So, I do have these little projects.  For instance, we don't know what happened to Hubs' great-grandfather after his divorce from great-grandma S in the early 1900s.  He just sort of disappeared.   I'm trying to figure out where he went.  I'm also trying to figure out when the Sandersons came to America but I haven't made it back farther than the 1800s because it just sorta stops there.  It's a mystery.  And I do love me a mystery.

The really hard things are looking for information BEFORE ancestors came to the US.  My grandfather was a tot when he came here, so information about his parents prior to their arrival, and any information about their parents, etc. is hard to find and even harder to read because it's all in German.  My maternal great-grandmother came here as a baby, and she wasn't really talkative about things when she was alive, so finding ANYTHING about her family and their life before is damn near impossible.  I keep trying, though.  Someday maybe I'll find it.

So, in addition to writing this month, I'll also be doing genealogy.  Woohoo.  Nothing like a challenge.

Speaking of writing, here are my stats from yesterday:

Ju-Lo-Wri-Mo Day 8:
Starting word count: 10026
Ending word count: 11063
New words: 1057

Sunday Update - Week 4

 Fair warning: I don't have a whole lot to talk about today, so this might be boring.

I spent last week laid up for the most part with a head cold.  I'm still not 100% over it.  It's lingering.  And now Hubs has it.   Weee. 

Sick or not, things had to be done, so I ran errands yesterday.  Walmart was Walmart.  I picked up necessities and stuff to combat this cold.  Then I stopped at the feed store and picked up supplies for the critters.  I got home and unloaded the groceries.  Hubs unloaded the feed.  Then we spent the rest of the day laying around.  

A brief thought on Robitussin Honey... not worth the extra money you pay for better tasting cough syrup.  And yeah, that's the only reason I bought it.  I took some last night to try and kick the last of this stuff in the ass.  Now I have medicine head like you wouldn't believe.  I could've gotten the same for about $5 less a bottle. 

If you checked in yesterday, you saw I didn't read much last week.  I got about 138 pages into a book that I DNF'd.  One would think that since I was home and sick, I would've been reading a lot.  Nope.  Wearing glasses was not an option.  They sat on the bridge of my nose, weighing on my sinuses and making me sneeze.  Which was part of the fun during that short span I was at the office.  

Don't even ask about activity.  Bleh.  However, being sick has reduced my weight.  Weight: 160.0.  Yep, lost about 4 pounds in 10 days.  I do not recommend this as a weight loss plan, though.  I expect that I'll go back up again after this.  We'll see.  On a brighter note, I learned yesterday that despite my lack of activity, I can still heft around a 40 pounds bag of birdseed.  Go me.

I worked about 20 hours last week.  Monday, half of Tuesday, and Friday.  Friday was playing catch-up for the days I missed.  And there are still things left undone which are running around in my head like a hamster on crack.

The big snowstorm they predicted last week ended up dumping about 2-4 inches of the white stuff.  So, totally not the 4-8 or 6-12 they'd predicted days earlier.  It was mostly gone by the time I went to work on Friday. Yay.  

My month of Ancestry ended on Wednesday.  I learned a lot this time around - mostly about people closer in the tree.  Cousins and whatnot.  The best part was talking to Mom and hearing her stories about people.  (Might not have been the best part of her... me rattling on endlessly about genealogy.)  I got to hear about the guy who worked as a clown, marketing cookies in the metropolitan Detroit area.  And the great aunt my grandmother hated, who apparently stunk.  And how my grandfather built the addition on the house she grew up in.  (I googled the address, so I could see it, and then we talked about her growing up there.)  Dudes, if you still have older people in your family that you can talk to about this stuff, do it now before it's too late.  I don't have my dad to talk to and I lost all his stories.  Thank goodness, Mom remembers his stuff as well as her own.  Also, thank goodness Mom's memory is still as sharp as a chef's knife.  

Okay, I think that's about it.  Maybe this post wasn't as boring as I thought it would be when I started.  And the medicine head is going away, too.  Yay.  Have a great day everyone.  I need to hit the Dollar General today because, wouldn't you know it, I forgot to buy Kleenex.  Derp.

How was your week?

Sunday Update - Week 3

 Three weeks into 2023 and I already missed a Sunday Update.  Derp.  This is not an auspicious start for the year.  

Okay, anyway, I ate some things on Monday that did not agree with my stomach and spent part of early Tuesday morning praying to the porcelain god.  But I couldn't just not go to work because there was something very important that I had to do first thing, so I went to work.  Did the thing, made the call... and the dude wasn't answering his phone, so I left a voicemail.  Then I waited to see if dude would call back.  I gave up at 11 and went home.  I spent the rest of the day sleeping and reading, so I was all better when Wednesday came.  Yay.  Unfortunately, that little bout of whatever must've side-swiped my awesome immune system because I woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat which developed into a full blown head cold.  Anti-yay. :shrug: I've had worse, but I am a little bummed that I get to spend my two precious days off blowing my nose.

On the upside, sitting around doing nothing leaves lots of time for reading, so I actually finished 3 books last week.

Despite the cold virus, I made parm-encrusted pork chops last night for dinner.  Yum.  No baking otherwise.

In the weight/activity sphere, I cleaned the office bathrooms and then swept the whole office.  Cleaning is activity, damn it.  I sure felt it the next day.  Weight: 162.6 as of like five minutes ago.

I'm still playing in the family trees.  Mom set me a task yesterday morning, so I spent the afternoon tackling that.  Nor sure if I accomplished anything toward what she wanted me to find out, but I think I have the entire twig filled out, and I can ask if I found the person she was looking for the next time I talk to her.  In doing this, I discovered a bit about this one person in my family who was written up in the paper for wife-swapping in rural Michigan in 1939.  She moved in with the neighbor and the neighbor's wife moved in with her husband, they divided up the kids, and then they got divorces and remarried the new spouses.  Weird.  My month of Ancestry is almost up, though, so this will end and I'll go back to my usual pursuits.  I ought to have people pay me to do this for them.  

I did a little online shopping.  I bought soap.  Lever 2000 Aloe & Cucumber.  It's the only soap that keeps me clean without making me want to itch my skin off or douse myself with perfume to cover its scent.  It hasn't arrived yet, but it should be here before my last bar becomes a sliver.  I also bought 2 CDs - both by AJR - a book to round out my free-shipping amount.  (The soap couldn't be included in that, damn them.)  I haven't received those either, but I already downloaded the music to my computer, so YAY.

I think that's it for me today.  Work is work.  Life otherwise is unsurprising and unexciting.  How are things in your little piece of the world?

Sunday Update - Week 1

Well, hello there.  The first week of 2023 is in the can.  Onward and upward.

No, I'm still not writing.  I'm not sure if I can while I'm working.  It feels like the entirety of my brain space is taken up with the job and my creativity has curled into the fetal position in a corner. Every once in a while it mumbles something to itself and I try to write that down, but I'm not getting more than a whisper of an idea here and there.  It's been a while since I even got that.  I think it's comatose now.  It's funny (in a warped-sense-of-humor way) that before I went back to work, I had scads of time and no money. Now I have money but no time.

Anyway, I'm working 40 hour weeks with 2.5 hrs of lunch.  Bills are getting paid, the fridge is full, and that's all that matters.  Downtime is for decompressing.

I am reading in my downtime.  I've already completed two books for 2023.  I set my goal for 50 this year.  I should be able to do that even if I find myself too tired to read here or there.  I hit St Vinnys yesterday and came home with 8 books for $6 - a Vince Flynn I didn't already have, a couple of Phyllis Whitneys, a couple Victoria Holts, an Anne Rice, a Rex Stout, and a Ngaio Marsh.  Yay.  I'm reading the Flynn now.

In baking news, for New Years, I made a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting, and I substituted wine for some of the water needed to make the cake.  It turned out a little denser, but was pretty tasty.  I also made beef bourgignon for dinner that day.  (Someone gave me a bottle of Pinot Noir, and since I don't drink, I figured I'd better cook with it.)  It was super yummy.  

As for weight, I clocked in the year at 165.2.  Then I made a pig of myself all week.  (Pizza and donuts at work, cake at home.)  I'm a bit afraid to step on the scale today LOL.  No activity to speak of.  Hubs and I did take a walk early in the week, which was good.  I need to up the activity level before my arteries clog and I give myself a coronary.  

I'm currently doing genealogy again.  Yesterday, I discovered my great-great grandpa had a middle name.  I found his wedding certificate - in German - and using both an online translator and a print-out of German characters as they equate to English, I parsed it out.  Yep, Adam August was my 2x grandfather and just plain Adam was my 3x grandfather.  Genealogy is like working a puzzle combined with solving a mystery.  Right up my alley.  I found out another grandfather had fought in the War of 1812.  And I got one branch of the tree all the way back to a man who was born in 1475 and his sons all have Sir in front of their names.  

Yes, I could be using that time to write, but refer back to the creative portion of my brain being comatose.  I'm all analytical now, so this pastime suits me.

Oh, and I got a new-to-me wool dress coat yesterday.  It's a Larry Levin, or something - which run like $150 and I got it for $8, so woohoo.  Mid-thigh with a cross-button thing.  All I care about is that it's warm and that it goes with my dressier work clothes - for those days when I can't wear my leather jacket.  (My leather has never seen the rain/snow and I don't want it to.)

Well, this update thing turned out way longer than I meant it to, but I wanted to address some things and I'm feeling chatty.  But I think I'm done now.  Have a great week wherever you are.  :hugs:

Thursday This n That

 Yes, I am aware that it's Friday. 

I woke up late yesterday. I drank coffee, smoked a cigarette, took a shower, made my lunch, got dressed, and headed to work. Woo.

I'm doing genealogy again.  For some reason, I'm drawn to death certificates. I find it interesting to see how people died.  So, I already knew about the one grandfather who was crushed between two trains on Thanksgiving.  I found out one of his brothers was strangled to death by an overhead door.  Another grandfather was killed in a mine collapse in the salt mines in Detroit.  (Yes, there are salt mines in Detroit.)  He was one of six men trapped.  They got his and another two bodies out, but three guys are still down there.  Like I said... interesting.  Or I'm just morbid.

There are three bald eagles that hang out near work.  I regularly see them and hear them as they're flying in lazy circles over the woods.  It's pretty awesome.

The area hit record highs yesterday.  It got to like 70 degrees.  After last week's negative 6.  I expect another round of the crud to hit the area shortly.  I haven't gotten any of it yet.  Knock on wood.

I was so pooped after work yesterday, we had TV dinners.  Banquet has upped their game from the last time I bought those.  Better flavors and textures.  Last night, we had chicken fingers with macaroni and cheese and corn.  Yum.  Last week, we had Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, and the potatoes weren't like sawdust.  Yay.

I desperately need to go fishing.

Well, it's 7 o'clock.  I should probably go get dressed and make my lunch. I hate going to work.  Oh, I don't hate working... just the going.  I'd really rather just sit around in my jammies than get dressed, hop in the car, and drive to the office.  :shrug:  But who wouldn't?

And on that note, I'll let you go.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  

Monday Update - Week 51

Obviously, no update yesterday because it was Christmas.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  We actually did something a little different this year and started celebrating Christmas on Saturday.  Three whole days - because I have today off - of eating ham.  I also made a pineapple upside down cake. Yum.

Yesterday, I gave myself a present.  I paid for a month of Ancestry.com and spent most of the day swinging in the family trees.  Got one branch of Hubs' tree back to a man born in 1548 Manchester, England.  Woot.  Also, I think I found Mom's one cousin who she lost track of years ago.  And I found a picture of Great, Great, Great Grandpa Homer.  

Yes, he's holding a rather large snake and sitting next to what I think is a buffalo skull.  (If the pic blows up big enough, you might see those aren't paintings around him - they're display cases full of dead critters.)  He was a lawyer before the Civil War and after, he became a taxidermist.  I also learned he was severely wounded at Antietam, which might explain the change from law to stuffing animals for fun and profit.

The big news of the past week, you know other than Christmas, was the cold snap.  It got down to negative 6 degrees F here.  Thursday, we had ice and then snow.  I went to work and ended up coming home after only 90 minutes because I didn't want to get trapped at the office.  I made it to work on Friday and worked a whole day, so it's all good.  Of course, when I got to the office and stripped out of my layers of outdoor clothes, I discovered it was FREAKIN' 52 inside the office.  We got the heater working in short order (lucky my co-worker knew what to do), but it didn't warm up the office enough to shut off again until almost 2.  Our own 'furnace' (it's a heat pump), ran non-stop for like 72 hours and couldn't get the house above 66.  Enough, Mother Nature, you're drunk.

I have to spend some time today getting spreadsheets ready for 2023.  Other than that, not much else is going on.  How was your holiday weekend?  

Sunday Update - Week 52

Time for the update on the last week of 2021.  Yay.  But I've been up since 2:30a, so bear with me.

I worked on editing five days out of seven this week.  That got me 65 more pages edited.  As of last night, I'm on page 181 of 355.  Over halfway!  Yay!

I finally got Dying Embers loaded to Draft 2 Digital.  Just a few minutes ago.  Links will be updated once a few distributors are on board and I can get a customized link.  I set it at 99c.  I also went back and changed the price of Wish in One Hand to 99c, too.  Loss leaders for the rest of the series and all that.  Trying to drum up sales, doncha know.  (I'll do a sales wrap-up sometime this coming week.)

In reading news, I had an okay week, but I missed my yearly goal by 5 books.  Derp.  Ditto on the wrap-up thing here, too.

On the baking front, I made more cookies.  Heh, like I need more cookies.  And I made more granola bars for Hubs.

Speaking of not needing cookies, I didn't hardly do anything active last week.  One day cutting limbs into firewood and two days messing around with the dirt in the front bed.  The good-ish news is that I haven't really gained too much weight.  Starting this year with 182.2 pounds.  Only .6 pounds more than I started last year with.  Woohoo.

Hmm, what else... Oh, I created 2022 versions of all my spreadsheets.  I have some formulas to add for the big one, but the rest are ready to input data to.  Yay.

Ancestry.com had a free week of searching through birth, marriage, and death records, so I did some of that.  Discovered my cousin Gerald died last year.  (Don't worry, we weren't close.  My uncle got divorced from his mom and they were estranged.  So I only saw him a couple times at the family reunion when I was a teen.  Nice guy, though.)  And that my poor little cousin William, who would've been older than my dad, only lived 13 days.  Oh, and that my great-great uncle Cecil may have been a prisoner of war in WWII.  Interesting stuffs.  I also got farther up the tree in a couple spots where the family was still in Europe and those records were translated - like to a Great-great-great grandma whose maiden name was Grodzyski.  (Already found one whose maiden name was Pruzinski.)

Oh, and I saw a big, beautiful bald eagle not far from the house.  So pretty.

Anyway, not a lot of exciting stuff for the end of 2021.  Pretty par for the course on that year.  How did your last week of the year go?

Sunday Update - Week 46

Oh, what a night.  Apparently, some tornado stuff was swirling around the area.  We're fine here.  When the sun comes up, we'll see what damage, if any, there is to the outside.  At one point, it sounded like a large limb came down.  And there was hail.  Weeee.  As long as all my car windows are intact, I'll be content.

I actually did start the week out with writing.  I got about 750 words out.  Then crickets.  The books are also swirling around but in my head.  When I get them sorted out, I'll probably be able to write more.

Marketing... ahem... The first two books of A Model Curse are still on sale - through to midnight tonight - but I fell down on marketing them.  It's hard to market when you don't see results from the marketing efforts.  

I only finished one book before the wrap-up went out yesterday.  Then yesterday, I inhaled the rest of the other book I was reading.  I'll talk about that one on Saturday.

In baking news, I made brownies.  Oh, so good.  And yesterday, I made homemade pizza.  Always yummy.  I think I've already posted those recipes, so they're not here.  If you missed them and want them, let me know.

The other day, Mom said something about not knowing if one of her cousins was still alive, so I did some genealogy stuff.  As far as I can tell, Cousin Shar is still with us, but one of her daughters is gone and one of her grandsons.  

Let's not talk about exercise, activity, or weight this week, eh?

We saw another different buck in the yard.  A little four point with symmetrical antlers.  Not to confused with the little four point whose antlers look like hooks.  So, now there's Arthur, Lear, Captain, Val, and Spike.  Lumpy is still coming for food, sometimes with the twins and sometimes without.  I don't know if I've ever mentioned White Legs, but she's here, too.  (Her two front legs are white.)  And now we're starting to see other does with white legs, so she's passing on her genes.  Yay.

And that's about it for me today.  How are things in your world?

Thursday This n That

I had a really great idea for the beginning of this post, but by the time I got over here, it was gone.  This is the story of my life.  LOL

Saturday, I ordered a new Foreman Grill and a pastry cutter from Amazon.  My Foreman is getting too old to clean well enough to feel safe about cooking on it and I don't own a pastry cutter (silly, I know, considering how much baking I do).  Anyway, Amazon tracking said the package would be delivered Thursday or Friday of this week.  When I checked tracking on Wednesday, It said it would be delivered that day, but it wasn't showing 'out for delivery'.  It was showing that it's here in the area - in Hollister, so about 75 minutes from here* - so I was thinking Thursday.  Then Hubs reminded me it has to go through our local post office.  That adds a day usually.  So Friday.  48+ hours to get a package about 40 miles.  Woohoo.  (Update: My mistake... it actually arrived yesterday afternoon, but it came UPS, which explains why it was here on time.)

*Google maps says 52 minutes but I've never made that drive in less than an hour and a quarter.  And people wonder why I don't visit Branson more often.  (Well, distance plus it's all peopley there.)

Speaking of that, people are amazed about a lot of places around here I've never been to.  Harrison, Rogers, Bentonville, Joplin...  I've never even been in Springfield proper.  Only to the airport, which is on the west side of the city, so I never have to actually cross into the real city to get to it.  Cities... blerg.  They're so peopley.  I can't imagine the lure of being in a space with all those people.  And don't get me started on traffic.  Here there's a traffic glut if 5 cars are at the four way stop at the same time or if I have 3 cars behind me when I'm on the highway.  (In cases of people behind me, I often pull off somewhere and let them pass just to get away from them.)

For the past 7 years, I've talked about going down to Beebe, AR to visit the graves of my great-great-great? grandparents (Mom's Dad's Dad's Mother's parents).  I've also talked about visiting her great grandfather's (her Dad's Dad's Dad) grave over in Coffeyville, KS.  They're each only about 125 miles from here, but I can't seem to muster the will for traveling anymore.  And poor grandpa Frank is laying over in KS all by himself after a horrible accident where he was smushed between two trains.  (The grisly part of genealogy is learning the gruesome ways our ancestors died.)  His wife took the kids, remarried and moved down to OK where I lost track of her, but I know none of them are buried near Frank.  =o(

My new Foreman Grill is the kind with removable cook plates for easier cleaning.  They can be put in the dishwasher, but I'll wash them by hand so they last longer.  All I know is when I did the pre-use wash, it was easy peasy.  Cleaning the old one was a pain in the buns.  I love the cautionary bits in the instructions - make sure plates are completely cooled before removing.  Umm, duh.

And that's more than enough out of me today.  What's up with you?

Thursday This n That

Update on the keyboard saga.  So, I told the customer service rep to go ahead and send the keyboard she suggested and I'd give it a whirl.  I got a keyboard yesterday.  The exact same model keyboard I'm currently rubbing the letters off of.  I sent the CSR a note this morning telling her about the error and telling her not to bother trying to send me any more keyboards.  Enough is enough and I'm sick of dealing with it.  I got an email from them this morning promising to never contact me again.  Let's see if that sticks.

We went out to the park to go fishing on Tuesday.  The park was totally empty except for one camper parked right next to where we wanted to fish.  We went in there anyway.  There was no one at the site.  Just a dog.  By the time we got done fishing, the person had returned.  And wouldn't you know it, she was wearing a Mackinaw Island sweatshirt.  (It's a famous tourist spot in Michigan.)  What are the odds of that?  Anyway, we had a nice chat with her and went on our way.  Lucky gal had the whole park to herself.  And her dog?  Totally was chill about us when we went in, but when we came out, he was totally in protective-dog mode.  Cuz his mommy was home and he needed to protect her.  Good dog.

I've started replanting the irises.  So many bulbs.  I began with putting some back into the cedar bed, where they were when we moved here but on the east side of the bed instead of all over.  It's along the retaining wall.  I used about a third of the bulbs.  Today, I'll start putting them back where they belong.  Leftovers will go in the south facing bed along the garage - where the lilies were before the deer ate those.

Didn't win the lottery again.  Not even a dollar.  This is really getting irritating.

I have to pay bills today.  That lottery stuff would really come in handy. 

A relative of mine got her DNA thing done.  She's point five percent African and point one percent East Asian/Native American.  The Native American I can be pretty certain is from my line of the family.  My 11 times great grandmother was named Mourning Flower and I think listed as Cherokee.  The African DNA?  Well, it's possible it came from my tree.  It's also possible it came down from the part of her tree that isn't related to me by blood.  Interesting but not really critical one way or the other.  I've never really concentrated on the race box of my ancestors, except when I noticed that my mother's grandfather's brother married a woman who was listed on the census as 'half-breed'.

I don't remember if I mentioned the maggot issue or not.  The other day, I went out to the garage to get some gardening gloves I'd left in there and noticed they were covered in these weird little things that looked kinda like seed pods.  Then I noticed the same things were all over this and all over that.  And then I noticed the center of each pod was wiggling.  Maggots of some kind in a webby pod, I assume getting ready to pupate into something else.  We packed everything out of that corner of the garage, throwing out stuff and washing other stuff.  Disinfecting everything.  Cuz ew.,  I had to throw out a whole big container of extra towels and blankets I was saving for dirty work and drop clothes. Last night, Hubs was getting the garbage together to take to the road (they pick up early Thursday mornings) and when he opened the polycart, those maggots were all over in there.  :shudder:  They are not house fly maggots.  They're smaller and yellower with a tiny black head.  I almost wonder if they're moth caterpillars of some kind.  Anyway, whatever we threw out must've had the eggs in it - I never found those - and they hatched.  Gross.  No more of them in the garage as far as I can tell, though, which is awesome.

I'm tellin' ya, it's been the year of the bugs here.  Bleh.

And on that disgusting note, I'll let you go for the day.  What's on your this-n-that radar today?

Sunday Update - Week 11

I keep having to tell myself that this is, in fact, Sunday.  Some little part of my brain refuses to believe it.  But yeah, it's Sunday and here we are again.

I got some editing done.  Not nearly enough, but some.  I'm about halfway through this round now, and I contacted my editor for an extension because this was supposed to be back in her hands by the 16th.  Derp.  Anyway, I'm trying to get my gumption into gear.  Seriously, I am. 

I've been trying to catch up on some reading, too.  I finished 3 books last week.  DJ Salibury's book Sorcery's Child kicked butt.  Then I read one of Kristen Painter's Nocturne Falls books, Miss Frost Solves a Cold Case which rocked.  Finally, I inhaled a book yesterday that I bought on a whim - by a new to me, underappreciated author (first one of those this year).  Sherlock Holmes and the Cult of Cthulhu was totally enthralling.  Three for three on the good books.  Yay!

I've been playing around with some stuff self-publishing endeavor wise.  You'll learn more about that tomorrow on Outside the Box. 

Fishing finally happened.  Once.  And I caught one fish.  A female spotted bass about 13" long.  Under the limit, but man, was she ever fat n feisty.  Pre-spawn is in gear.  Here's hoping I can get out more this week, but I'm not holding my breath.  I have adulty stuff to do.

Last week, out of the blue, I got contacted by a distant cousin - my great-grandfather's brother's grandson.  He'd read a post I did back in 2012 about my grandparents and decided to touch base.  It's pretty cool.  He's already given me some info and pictures I didn't have.  And I'm returning the favor.  =o)

In the exercising realm, I hit the reset on my goal and I'm back to doing something active every day... Well, almost every day.  I hit 5 out of 7 days last week.  Some of those days I did more than one active thing, so it's all good.  Along the same lines, my diet is getting there.  I managed to get all the way through Walmart without buying ice cream.  I'm slowly weaning myself off Mtn. Dew.  (At home, at least.  I still need it when I drive.  It's a thing.)  We had ocean perch for dinner last night.  It was okay, but I still prefer my fresh caught fish or salmon.  Haven't lost any more weight, but that's okay.  I don't do this to lose weight, I do it to get off my dead ass.

Speaking of which, I should go do something this morning instead of writing blogs and hanging out.  Oh, but before I go, don't forget that Accidental Death is going to be free this week and Natural Causes is going to be on sale for 99c.  If you don't have copies, now would be the time to get them. 

Later days, dudes. 

Sunday Update - Week... Time Change

It's the morning after the time change and I don't really care what week it is.  Stupid people messing with the social constructs.  Blerg.

Anyway, here's the week that was...

I didn't do any writing.  I thought about it, but I did not do it.  I got a box with copies of Wish Hits the Fan in it, though.  So pretty.  I need to do some kind of contest or something.

I didn't do too much reading last week.  I got through another Cat Who mystery and then I started Silver James' new release, The Sound of Silence.  I'm about 88% of the way through that.  It's AWESOME.  Naturally.  I'll probably finish it up today and then write the reviews.  I have a few books in the hopper for next week, but...

I signed up for Ancestry.com again.  So, for the next month, I'll be swinging from the family trees.  I already made some awesome discoveries.  Like determining whether great-great grandpa Sam really did kill himself.  (Yes... and no.  He jumped out a window, broke a bunch of stuff, and then died of pneumonia in a hospital a couple weeks later.)  And I finally figured out where 3x great grandma Minnie is buried.  Yay.  That one's been a burr in my side for a while now.  I also discovered last night that Dad's one cousin who'd come to the family reunions my dad organized died last month.  I remember him.  He was nice. 

The weather has gotten warmer again.  It's freakin' November for petesakes. 

Okay, I think that's it for me this week.  I hope all y'all had a nice week and have an awesome week to come.  =o)

Sunday Update - Week 41

Hidey-ho.  It's Sunday again.  And I'm like where did the week go?

It sure as hell didn't go to much writing.  Early Grave is stalled again - this time at 56237.  I just can't seem to get this ball rolling again.  And then yesterday a little voice in my head said, "You should've written this from Lynn's POV, not Ned's".  And I ran screaming.  After I came back, I had a mental debate with myself and considered the idea from various angles.  The decision?  It's in Ned's POV and it's staying there.  I mean, I'll put more Lynn in and everything, but the main POV in this has to be Ned's or if doesn't work.  Plus, rewriting this whole damn book would take a NaNoWriMo level of effort and I'd really like to conserve those for new books.

Speaking of NaNo... I don't know if I'm going to do anything for it this year.  I have other things I should be concentrating on next month.

Reading... I've been reading one book and I'm not done yet.  Maybe today.  It's a 400+ page SF and it's taking time.

I didn't do a fishing report yesterday because there really wasn't much to talk about.  Caught some little panfish, but nothing to blow your skirt up.

In other work, I got the direction I needed to do those spreadsheets right.  (At least I hope I got them right.  The big boss will tell me if I didn't.)  It's not hard, just a little laborious.  It'll all go faster once I get some of this stuff automatized in my head.

I'm getting the genealogy bug again.  I did a little googling, but I'm not ready to commit to a month of it (which is what I have to do once I pay for Ancestry.com).  I did find the actual name for my mom's great aunt's twin sister who died at birth, so that's something.  And where first cousin twice removed Fred is buried.  I wish I could read German, so I could access all those records to complete Dad's side of the tree.  Bleh.

I've been picking up acorns for the deer.  So many acorns this year.  Oberon - the fairy oak in my front yard - is dumping them by the bucketful all over the yard.  I predict dozens of seedlings in my gardens next spring.  Ugh.  Anyway, it's good exercise.  Or something.  I guess.

Okay, that's it for me.  Not sure what this week will hold.  What's up with you?