Sunday Update - Week 24

Yeah, there was no update post for Week 23.  I forgot it was Sunday and then I didn't really have anything to say.  I don't really have anything for today either, but I don't want to disappoint you again.

No writing or editing occurred.  I have been marketing as much as I can take.  No sales whatsoever for Duke.  I've moved 41 free copies of Wish Hits the Fan and sold one copy each of the other books (in the UK).  I'm hoping this spurs some page reads, but I'm not holding my breath.  WHTF is still free through the end of today.  The sale on the other books ends Tuesday.  Wednesday the SCIU books go on sale.  99c/99p each through the end of 6/22.

In reading news, I read some good books and DNF'd some dreck this week.

I didn't do much in the way of activity.  I mean, I washed the car one day and did the windows the next/  Other than that, there was grocery shopping and moving the container garden around.  The week I missed was more active and I'm up to 35.55 miles walked.  It's probably why I dropped a pound.  Weight: 186.2.

A couple neighbors stopped to chat while I was doing the car windows.  They had just seen a fawn.  Only one deer still looked like she was pregnant and she's probably dropped by now.  In fact, they said the fawn was super small and wobbly, so it might have been hers.  Yesterday, I saw a buck with a busted antler.  Snapped right at where it meets the head and laying over like it was attached by skin.   Poor baby.  That probably hurts like a bitch.  It wasn't bleeding, though, so that's something.

The heat spiked here so it's been hotter than it ought to be for early June.  Blerg.  Unfortunately, this means less baking and less fishing.  So, none of that.  

Yesterday, we had a big Texas black rat snake in the yard.  I tried to encourage him to leave, but he hid under a pile of boards we have under the smoking room and I didn't want to mess with it.  I really didn't want to kill it.  I mean, he serves a purpose for the most part.  And he might eat the pack rat, which would be awesome.  Did you know those snakes shake their tails when they feel threatened, so they sound like a rattler?  Silly snake... I saw your tail.  Derp.  I guess it would've been a bit disconcerting if I hadn't seen that it wasn't a rattler.  Since we do have rattlers here and all.  I guess it's time to spray the yard again.  

Chester the Chipmunk has made a home under one of my peonies.  I hope the snake doesn't eat him. Hubs thought he saw a baby bunny at dusk yesterday.  I hope the snake doesn't eat it either.  (Maybe I should've just whacked the snake with a shovel and been done with it.)

Last night, something occurred to me and I got a serious case of the sillies.  I started laughing and couldn't stop because every time I tried to tell Hubs why I was laughing the thought hit me again and I'd start laughing all over again.  What was it?  I was in the process of turning down the bed when I farted and my brain said: Farting is only your butt laughing.  That's what set me off.  And the more I laughed the more I farted and the more I farted, the harder I laughed.  It was a vicious circle.  Getting old is gross.

On that note, I'll leave you.  I hope you weren't bored reading this.  Lord knows, I've been boring the hell out of myself lately.  

How was your week?  

You Really Have to Laugh

I did an experiment yesterday.  A friend got warned by FB for saying something they considered 'hate speech', so I posted the exact same verbiage on my page.  (For the record, saying 'boys are idiots' is not hate speech.  Come on.)  She got warned.  I got nothing.  I'm beginning to feel slighted.  I suspect this is because she is someone with a lot of followers and a reach.  I'm no one in the scheme of things, so they don't give a rat's ass if I post stuff.  Hell, I actually swear and junk... without the asterisks.  Most of the George Carlin words and then some.

I did get warned once for sharing something they'd already considered 'bad'  They told me it was bad and that if I shared it I might be considered bad, too, so I should probably think before I dismissed their warning and shared it on my page.  I shared it anyway.  Nothing happened.

FB has become such a joke.

Basically, I'm at the point where every time FB 'fact checks' something, I assume it's true.  My reasoning?  If it wasn't true, they wouldn't be afraid of it and feel the need to tell everyone how untrue it was.  If I want to check whether something is actually true or false, I go over to Duck Duck Go and look for valid sources.  Multiple valid sources, usually.  I don't rely on FB to tell me the truth.

Speaking of which, a page I follow posted a meme this morning.  The meme showed a see of exactly the same face looking up into the sky and chanting FB's COVID-19 verbiage, which had then been tagged with the same verbiage and then tagged with the same verbiage again.  The meme was tagged with the same verbiage.  Which was hilarious.  

A while back, someone posted something that talked about being unable to understand how a senile pedophile and a high-priced call-girl could've received so many votes.  FB fact-checked it with 'he's not a pedophile!'  I found it incredibly funny that they didn't fact-check his senility or her being a hooker.  Apparently, you can say he's an addled minded old fart and she's a ho, but for godsakes, don't call him a pedophile.

You really have to laugh at this shit.  It's comedy gold, people.

I'm so sad Carlin died.  He'd be calling all of this out, dragging it into the light and showing how astronomically stupid all of it is.

Seriously, though, the only appropriate response to this shit is to laugh at it.  Gretchen Halfwit now says children aged 2-4 have to wear masks.  You can't get kids that age to keep their clothes on and you want to mask them up?  That's going to go over well.  A comedian back in the '80s... I want to say either Robin Williams or Howie Mandel*... has a bit about their kid taking off all their clothes and running around screaming 'LOOK AT ME!  I'M NAKED!'  Keep a mask on that, you silly twatwaffle.  

Sure, it's serious.  Our country is swirling the drain and headed right for the septic tank.  People are dying.  Others are going broke and still others are killing themselves.  Maybe if everyone had laughed at this shit from the very beginning, it wouldn't be as bad as it is.  I don't know.  All I know is if I don't laugh at it now, I'll go nuts.  

*Yes, that Howie Mandel.  He was a comedian before he was a gameshow host.  I still repeat some of his stuff.  It was that memorable.  He was also an actor on one of the most highly-rated medical dramas of the time - St. Elsewhere.  Look it up.

Yeah, I'm Still Alive

 I forgot to post yesterday.  No real reason.  Maybe my brain was too wrapped up in this weather crap.  :shrug:

Speaking of which it's negative 9 outside right now.  Nine below zero...  41 below freezing. :shudder:  And it's just under 64F in the office.  The furnace - which isn't really a furnace, it's a heat pump - is having trouble getting the house up to it's usual 68F.  Plus it's always colder in the office.  But the thing is running and as long as it's running, life is good.  The two space heaters in the garage are keeping the areas where there are pipes at 40F.  Anything above freezing is bonus.  I do not want to see the electric bill for next month.

Having a bathroom in the garage is kind of a pain in the ass.  I mean, it's good for washing yucky things in the sink out there rather than in the nice bathrooms, but I don't think either of us have used the toilet in there in 8 years.  If there were no bathroom out there, we wouldn't give a rat's furry, white hiney how cold it was out there.  

We got about four and a half inches of snow from the first round of snow dumpage.  It's supposed to start snowing again tonight.  Maybe an inch or two more from that.  Blerg.

From a FB page I follow about local weather, I got a link to a site that tracks power outages.  We haven't lost power at all.  I saw someone on FB talking about potential rolling blackouts in the area due to shortages of natural gas (due to the NG wells freezing), and a neighbor stopped yesterday to tell Hubs he heard our power company might be considering doing that, too.  Fingers crossed they don't actually have to do it.  I mean, it would only be for 30-60 minutes at a time, but blerg.

One upside to all this is that I've been making yummy things to eat.  For instance, yesterday I made frittatas for breakfast and then stew for dinner and also coffee cake.  Sunday, I made a vat of spaghetti with a side of garlic bread.  Saturday I made chili and cornbread.  I now have a freezer full of leftovers and Hubs will have to roll me out of here when this is over.

In other news, the weather is making people cranky.  I watched people basically yelling at each other in several threads on the area road conditions.  Dudes, chill.  Yeah, people are asking the same questions over and over without reading the other threads where the questions might be answered.  Yeah, it's pretty logical to think if road X and road Z are crappy, so is road Y.  But for the most part these days, logic has flown the coop.  More so when people are concerned about their safety and their needs.  They're hoping against hope that THEIR ROAD will be okay because they need to get to work or to go buy milk and bread and baby formula.  While their asking might be annoying, it's not really hurting anyone.  Sheesh.

On a lighter note, I saw someone made a meme that shows a snowy road.  In answer to the question 'how are the roads?', it has a dialogue bubble popping up from the road itself saying "I'm fine. Thanks for asking:.  Humor is the key, man.  I saw another one that showed a snowy, steep road and said something like 'Texas Driving Tip: Stay Home.  Y'all aren't conditioned for this.'  It made me LOL because my brother in OK messaged me yesterday with something along those lines.  We're Michiganders, folks.  The pictures I'm seeing of the 'bad roads' are pretty tame compared to what I used to drive through on a regular basis.  It's all relative.  I saw another meme that said something about 'don't laugh at southerners for not being able to cope with the cold and snow, we don't laugh at you northerners when it gets hot up there'.  Umm, yeah, you do.  And you should.  Share the laughs.  Sometimes laughing is all you've got to keep from crying.

Know what I mean?

What are you finding to laugh about today?

One last thing that I hope makes you smile.  Through all this snow and frigid temps, we have sparrows singing their little hearts out.  They're all round like feathery tennis balls right now, but they're finding something to sing about.  Maybe they're just happy we're leaving them loads of sunflower seeds so they have stuff to eat without having to scratch through the snow.  And we're happy to do it for them.  

Sunday Update - Week 43

Hello again.  We're getting pretty close to the end of 2019.  Woohoo?

Anyway, still no writing, but it's getting closer to terminal mass.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what I'm going to write.  I sat down and looked through my 'ideas' file, and not a single damn thing blew my skirt up.  Except, of course, the urge to organize the file.  I guess the left brain is still in charge.  Time for a right brain coup.

The Dennis Haggarty sale was a bust.  And I'm now in the Sleeping Ugly sale (10/25-10/31), which isn't doing anything either.  I suspect my marketing posts to the FB group pages are not getting the reach they used to.  I used to be able to get at least one or two sales.  Now?  Silence.  I'll be lucky if I pull $8 this month.  Fingers crossed next month doesn't suck as hard.

In reading news, I only finished one book last week, but it was kind of an awesome book, so all is well.  Right now, though, I'm reading that book I forgot I wrote but never finished.  (Just reading, not editing or even note-taking.)  It's really good, especially considering it's a partial first draft of a NaNo novel so it was written in 30 days.  Sure, it needs a boatload of editing, but I'd say it'll be on par with the fantasy novels I've read.  You know, if I ever finish it. 

My activity level was okay - 4 out of 7 days.  I count fishing, though, and that's not always a super-active thing.  Weighed myself yesterday - 180.4.  Ya know something?  It's harder to weigh myself when it's colder because I am not inclined to strip down to my all-togethers and step on a cold scale first thing in the morning.  I feel thinner, though.  That's gotta count for something, right?

Let's see... I made oatmeal cake again.  This time I added raisins.  It's good, but all the raisins sunk to the bottom, so it's more like raisin upside-down cake.  Additionally, I used rolled oats instead of quick oats.  They gave the cake more heft and texture - which is good in my opinion, but your mileage may vary.  I also did pizza subs again.  Nailed it.  All they needed was more toppings and for the toppings to be cooked before they went into the sub.  So good.  And last week, I did a thing where I wrapped ham and cheese around chicken tenderloins and baked them.  Yummers.

Oh, I saw the first bald eagle of the season on Friday!  So, the frigid, windy fishing trip where I didn't catch a single blasted fish wasn't a total loss.

The other day I was at the feed store chatting with my friend.  Another customer came in and joined in the conversation.  My friend told him I was there to buy corn to feed the deer and he asked if I'd seen any really big bucks.  "Nope," I says, "we never see any big deer."  And my friend laughs and tells him I'm also not going to tell him where I live - which totally crapped out my 'hide the deer' lie.  Of course, no one can hunt back in here without landowner permission and even then only with bows because the houses are too close together to allow for firearm hunting.  I'm fine with hunting, just not where I live.  I would haz a sad if I knew for certain any of the deer we feed were hunted.  (I'm not daft enough to believe all of these deer are safe in their entire range.  And they need to be hunted to keep the herd healthy.  I just don't want to know about it.)

Getting older really does blow.  Other than the comic relief portions.  Yesterday, Hubs and I were having a conversation about all the various things that no longer work like they're supposed to or the 'old people' maladies that are starting to crop up.  At one point, I said "I am not wearing cornpads! I am not my grandmother!" and he about fell over laughing.  (For the record, I don't know if my grandmother actually wore cornpads, but it seems like a grandmotherly thing.)  Laughter.  It really is the best medicine.

And on that note, I'll let you get back to your Sunday.  What's up with you lately?  What are you laughing about today?

Thursday This n That

I made what I thought was incredibly witty joke about Hurricane Ophelia headed for the Moors yesterday morning.  I laughed.  Hubs laughed.  Then I realized I had made a critical error in my Shakespeare.  Desdemona not Ophelia.  Derp.  Thankfully, I caught myself before I posted the wit online.  In my defense, I had only had one cup of coffee.  One should not attempt Shakespearean jokes when one is caffeine deficient.  (In his defense, Hubs was also low on coffee and also he laughs at most of my jokes - even when he isn't listening.)

Laughter really does make a marriage better.  Even when stuff gets bad, we can usually find something to laugh about.  (Good laughter - not at each other's expense.  Ever.)  Thirteen and a half years and going strong.

I saw a pair of birds while I was out at the lake on Tuesday.  They flew over me making an unholy racket similar to that of a Great Blue Heron.  Gull shaped silhouette with gull coloring against the gray sky, but about the size of an Osprey (larger than typical gull wingspan).  Still not sure what the hell they were.  :shrug:

I read a book earlier this year that I really loved, but I didn't have it in the budget to buy the sequel.  Joy of joys, the author put book two as free yesterday.  Huzzah!  And I feel really bad about not paying for it, so I'll be chatting it up after I read it.  Fingers crossed it's as good as the first book.

If you've ever tried my cake cookie recipe, try this... Make the recipe according to directions (box cake mix, 2 eggs, 1.2 cup veg oil, whatever additions you like).  Stir it all together and then instead of making drop cookies, smush it all into the bottom of a greased 8x10" pan.  Bake at 350F for about 20-25 minutes, or until cooked through in the center.  Cut into bars.  I used chocolate cake and peanut butter chips.  OMG, so good served warm with ice cream. 

Okay, that's it for me.  What have you got?