Thursday This n That

Well, the shit that went down earlier in the week has derailed me.  Why blog if they're just going to kill it for no real reason (or for reasons I'd rather not contemplate)?  Anyway, here I am.  I have a job to do and I'm going to do it.  

And now, as I write this, it's in the back of my mind whether each thing I write is going to piss someone off.  People can get offended by anything and these days, they do.  :shrug:  I gotta be me.

We've been totally wrapped up in the Olympics.  Hell, the TV is already on and we NEVER turn the TV on this early.  But Tokyo is 14 hours ahead of us, so our morning is their night and things are popping over there - medal matches and whatnot.  Woohoo.  Not sure what I'm going to do with myself once they're over.  Sunday, I think, is the last day.  Bummer.

The Westcoast crud that's in the atmosphere has me all garbaged up.  It's supposed to be going away shortly.  Not shortly enough for me.  Seriously, I do not want their air.  Or their people.  Or their politics.  Okay, some of their people can come.  Refugees looking for a better life who don't want to turn middle-America into the places they left.  I'm okay with that.

All I want is to be left alone to live my life and do my thing.  I'm not over here bothering anyone.  But the more they crack down, the more they make me want to get all radical and in your face.  The Zucker wonders who radicalized us?  He, and people like him, did it.

:deep breath:

The deer are happily munching corn - mamas, babies, bucks... the whole shebang.  It's awesome.  Lumpy and Sonny and Shady.  Uno.  Whitelegs and her gang.  Spot and Stripes.  It a great day at Sanderson Acres.  (I was going to say beautiful, but it's all hazy again.  Smoke. Blerg.)

Something is killing my spiders.  We have two corpses hanging in the windows now, their abdomens deflated like spent balloons.  Creepy.  My little orb weaver got a big beetle this morning and now she's busy wrapping it up for later meals.  Yeah, spiders are gross, but they're also fascinating.

Okay, I probably should go do something constructive.  What?  I dunno.  Somethin'.

Anything on your this-n-that today?

Sunday Update - Week 25

Well, that week flew by.  Whoosh.

I did manage to finally get my ass in gear and get some editing done.  Not a huge amount, but you don't eat the elephant all at once, you know.  I have three pages worth of edit notes left to go and then I have to go back and fix the big things.  I'd hope to be getting into that by Monday, but things happen and life has other plans sometimes.  Bleh.

I've been working on marketing again, since the SCIU books are all on sale.  The ad did me some good and paid for itself.  Then crickets.  But I still have 3 days left and I'm not giving up without a fight.

I did get a good amount of reading done.  And I finished the book in the 'currently reading' section yesterday afternoon.  Then I started on a Mickey Spillane.

Only four active days out of seven, but I'm okay with that.  The stamina is improving all the time and that's really the big thing.  If I can walk the loop (a mile worth of hills and curves) and then come home and spray the driveway for weeds and not be toast, life is good.  Okay, so I was a wee bit toasty the next day, but not toast the same day.  ;o)

We have now seen four individual fawns.  Two singles (one definitely larger than the other) and a set of twins. 

My hollyhocks are blooming.  The white ones anyway.  Something munched off the buds on the red one that was close to blooming.  :shrug:

No baking this week.  The temps are climbing into the summer range, which makes me not want to turn on the oven. 

The spiders are back and making webs all over the yard again.  Yesterday, I went all yard ninja on their asses - took a broom and went through the whole yard, knocking down webs - so Hubs could mow without getting a web to the face. 

Well, that seems like everything.  If I forgot anything, it probably wasn't that important anyway.  What was up in your week? 

Charlotte the Spider

I talked before about the resident spider - Charlotte - but in the interest of keeping my daughter's pulse from spiking, I'll start with a picture of Max and a warning that she need not scroll down past his picture because there be monsters.

And now we come to Charlotte.  I tried looking up her exact species, but only managed to boil it down to 'standard garden orb weaver'.  :shrug:  Anyway, she's about an inch - inch and a quarter long minus the legs.  And she's doing a wonderful job of eating large bugs.  Yay for Charlotte.

Don't worry - she's outside.  She's just happened to build her wonderful web outside the north window in the sunroom.  And as long as she stays where we can see her and not run into her or have her on us in any way, she gets to live.

Pretty damn creepy, but she's okay out there.  Now the other spiders her size that keep making their orb webs on the front porch, by the garbage can, and between the cars?  They really need to move out into the woods because the first time I walk into one of their webs is the last time they build one.  I admire their bug eating abilities but my niceness only goes so far.