Short Attention Span Theatre

 It's time once again for Short Attention Span Theatre, with your host B.E. Sanderson.  (Yeah, I went with the British spelling.  You wanna make somethin' of it?)

I woke up today to a pair of fawns with a serious case of the zoomies.  They were running all over the yard, up into the neighbors' across the street yard, over to the north neighbor's yard, around the house and back again.  ZOOM!  So much happy.

I have the hiccups.

Is it hiccups or hiccoughs?  

I got next to no sleep last night.  Thanks, menopause.  Appreciate ya.

Coffee is my friend.

Since I was up anyway last night, I sat down and wrote.  Got another 800+ words added on to the day's total.  Woohoo.

Damn, that cigarette tastes good.

For some reason, the jukebox in my head decided to kick on and it felt like the damn thing was playing every song I ever heard.   Not the whole songs.  Just snippets.  On repeat.  

Put another nickel in... in the nickelodeon... all I want is lovin' you and music music music... SHUT UP!

I went to the DG yesterday.  Pulled into the parking lot with lots of cars and a few people milling about.  Turned my car off.  And notice the big banner across the front of the building: CLOSED FOR REMODELING.  You'd think one of those people would've waved me off.  But no.

I found a new internet music source - Jango.  I put a band into the search and it gave me a station based on the band (Of Monsters and Men, btw,)  It was perfect for writing fantasy.  Especially this song - Dirty Paws.  (Lyric video, not the original one.  And yes, I thought of your books, Silver, when this song came up.)  Anyway, it's free and it hasn't bothered me with annoying ads yet, so I'm good.

Well, I'm way behind this morning, so I should probably scoot along.  Have a great day.  And drop some Short Attention Span Theatre of your own if you feel like it.

Sunday Update - Week... Hellifino

What do you get if you cross a hippo, an elephant, and a rino?  A hellifino.

Umm... yeah, it's early and I'm not quite sane yet.  

I wrote some this week.  Not nearly the word-extravaganza I was hoping for, but hey, it was writing.  An additional 4578 words were added.  What can I say?  Sometimes this writing stuff is hard.  :shrug:  I did sit down and draw a map.  It sucks, but it's a start.  I also looked at free map drawing software.  And then read the FAQ wherein I discovered I couldn't commercially use the maps I would make (as in inside anything I would sell.. like books) unless I used the pay version.  Umm...  Yeah, I'll go back to doing it the old way.  Thanks.

It wasn't a great week for reading either.  

No baking.

I did a bunch of active stuff this week, though.  I reorganized some stuff and I did some weeding stuff and cleaning stuff.  I did a lot of Helper Monkey stuff for Hubs when he was doing the roof.  All the mowing I did the week prior finally caught up to my body and I dropped some poundage.  Weight: 184.4

Speaking of roof stuff, Monday morning Hubs went out into the smoking room and discovered a puddle.  Thus began the saga of the drip, which I already detailed.  Yesterday, Hubs was up on the roof fixing things.  Right now, it's raining cats and dogs, so fingers crossed, eh?  So far, no drips, but it's early yet.  I hope everything he did works, not only to ameliorate the drips but to keep him from having to do that again.  One thing I learned, for future reference... peanut butter takes Liquid Nails off your skin.  (but not out of clothing, so there goes my favorite pair of pink shorts)

We've been watching the Olympic trials.  My favorite athlete so far is Gabby Thomas.  She's a runner.  But she's also working on her Master's degree in epidemiology.  Smart and fast.  Seems like a good person.  And she's pretty, too.  Of course, Simone Biles is back and kicking butt.  And Katie Ledecky is back, too, swimming like a dolphin.  Sam Mikulek made the team again for men's gymnastics.  All kudos to Sam, but I think he should've sat this one out and let one of the younger, healthier dudes have his spot.  (He's got wrist issues and a wonky elbow.)   There's a distance runner from my old stompin' grounds that I'll be rooting for - Grant Fisher - even if I didn't get to see him in the trials.

In gardening news, still no veggies.  Loads of flowers on the zukes, but that's it.  The flowers do their thing and then drop off, leaving only a stalk behind.  :sniffle:  Same with the tomatoes.  Flowers, but no fruits.  It's very disheartening.  

We're seeing fawns way more often now.  Yay.  And we have three raccoons coming to eat.  And two bunnies.  Chester Chipmunk is alive and well, and living under the big hydrangea.

Well, I think that's it for me for now.  How was your week?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 6/26/21

Hello again.  Sorry I'm late, but I didn't set this up like I was supposed to and then I slept in a bit this morning.  Derp.  Anyway, it wasn't exactly a bonza reading week.  I only read one book.  I blame the duds I finished last week with.

I did pick up some new ebooks this week, though.  Urban fantasy, paranormal mystery, romantic suspense, and cozy mystery.  Here's hoping none of those are duds.  We'll see.  

Books read:

43) The Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie (6/23/21) - Mystery - 3 stars.  Not new to me or underappreciated.  I picked this one up a few years back at the thrift store for a dollar, I think.  It was one my mom had on her shelves my whole childhood, so I picked it up out of nostalgia.  And, well, it's a Chirstie.
Review: "I started this book once before, but couldn't get through it. I thought I'd give it a try again. Not my favorite Agatha Christie. There's a lot of rambling in this one and it wasn't holding my interest. But I forged through and I liked the end. The best part is Hannibal, the dog, though."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... I'm not currently reading anything, which is sad.  I'll pick up something new today.

Despite my poor showing this week, I am still seven books ahead of schedule for the year, so it's not really that big a deal.

What was your reading week like?

Thursday This n That

I'm in some kind of mood this morning because I keep getting the urge to argue with morons on FB.  And it's about stupid stuff.  For instance, there was this math problem, and there was this guy arguing that the answer had to be 6 because when you broke the math problem down it was basically 2(2+1), but the first part of the problem had 6 divided by 2.  In what alternate universe do you ever get two goes into six two times???  I want to think he did that on purpose to see if anyone caught his mistake.  (No one arguing with him did, btw.)  It had to be that or else he's a total putz.  Maybe he's a total putz either way.  

At first I thought the division sign in the problem was a plus sign and I couldn't figure out how anyone was coming up with nine - including the calculator the poster posted an image of.  Glasses, you dork, wear your glasses.  LOL

Getting older blows.

Hubs has been leaving a special little pile of seeds by the iris bed just for Chester Chipmunk.  I made Chester a theme song.  "Chester... Chester Chipmunk.  He's the chippiest chipmunk of them all."  It works better if you can hear me sing it.

There's Chester on our front porch.  Isn't he darling?  I want to snuggle him up.  Of course, if I got my hands on him, he'd bite the hell out of me.  Wild things don't understand snuggling.

We have all these woodland creatures.  Why the hell aren't they cleaning my house?  Damn you, Disney, for giving me unrealistic expectations of woodland creatures.

I wandered the yard yesterday taking pictures.  Here's one from my front door, looking across the porch at the yard.  

The yard is great until you have to mow it.  And that's just a fraction of the whole yard.  With trees you have to mow around scattered throughout.  

Yes, we have a ceiling fan on the front porch.  Don't look at me.  I didn't put it there.  It was here when we bought the house.  Now, it's mainly a place for birds to perch while they're waiting for their chance on the suet cage.

We do so love the little birdies that we give them this to perch upon.  ;o)

Anyway, I'm running late today, so I'd better get my buns in gear.  Got anything to add from your this n that lists today?

The Saga of the Drip

 A large portion of yesterday was spent trying to find the drippy spot in the roof.  

Lemme back up a little...

I was sitting here doing something or other yesterday morning when Hubs goes out back for a smoke and I hear swearing.  Then he walks past me into my bathroom and I hear him puttering in the linen closet.  As he passes me again with towels I ask him what's up.  There's a puddle on the floor in the sunroom/smoking room.  

I follow him out and look down.  Yep.  Puddle.  I look up.  Yep, the ceiling is dripping in several places along the seam of the wood ceiling.  We clean it up, place buckets, and make plans to figure it out later.

The only thing to do, we decide, is to finally cut a hole into the attic above the sunroom.  When they built this addition and added on the sunroom, they built a solid wall between the attic above the office and the attic above the sunroom.  Yeah, I know... Derp.  

Here I need to back up further...

When we moved in here, there was no access to the attic above the office addition.  (They used the office as a master bedroom, we made it an office.)  In 2015, when Hubs re-insulated the whole house, he cut an access hole into ceiling of the walk-in closet off the office.  He then insulated the attic above the office, but at the time, he didn't want to go the extra step of cutting a hole through to the sunroom attic.  It wasn't a priority then.

Skipping back to the present...

Once properly caffeinated and nicotined, he got the ladder and went up through the closet access hole to assess the situation.  He then made a plan.  He came back down - never an easy feat.  Plan in place, he marched back up the ladder and I handed stuff up to him through the hole.  He cut the hole through the particle board wall using an electric saw thing and through he went.  

He took a good gander, walked all around (balancing on the boards since there's no floor and he doesn't relish the idea of falling through the ceiling), moved some insulation around, and found... nothing.

Back out the hole he cut and a reverse of the process of getting everything up there.  

Never ones to let a mystery lie, we pondered where to proceed from there.  We are both loathe to cut holes in the cedar wood ceiling of the sunroom.  Out to the deck to attack the problem from the outside.  Still can't see anything wrong with the roof.  Time to take off the fascia and peek into the inches wide crevice from there into the attic.  We've tackled that fascia before and it's not an easy task, but we do it.

Still can't see anything wet.  But the damn space is filled with spiders.  Brown recluse spiders.  Fuckers.  Gah!  Hubs suits up with long sleeves tucked into rubberized gloves and, after he sweeps away the visible spiders, starts pulling insulation through the crevices.  

HUZZAH!  Wet insulation!  Soaking wet insulation.  Once he pulled that crap out, and shined the flashlight above where it was, he saw a single drip, drip, drip.  

Near as I can figure it, we had those really hot days, which probably melted the tar and made shingle slip slightly to uncover a nail hole, through which the water could drip.  

Sometime between now and the next rain, which is a few days off, Hubs will get on the roof, find the hole, and fix it.  He's handy like that.  (I can't help him there.  Vertigo.)  

Some things to note from all this: 

1)  If you're building a house, put some damn access holes into your attic and make sure every part of your attic is accessible.
2)  Roofing nails stick through your attic ceiling and are especially ouchy to your back if you have to walk around up there.
3)  Laying a basic floor in an attic even if you don't think you'll be up there regularly is probably still a good idea.  
4)  If you can't climb ladders and suffer from vertigo, it's good to have a man around.  ;o)

Sunday Update - Week 25

:blinkblink:  Good morning, everyone.  This past week was a fun-filled extravaganza... not really... but it wasn't bad either.  It just was.

I managed to write some words this week.  After finishing my re-through of Unfinished Untitled Fantasy, I put down about 2300 more words on it, made some notes for more, and had a dream about how to handle a particular niggle.  Then yesterday I didn't write on the story, but I made some more notes trying to figure out how to handle the upcoming scene.  I think I've got it.  As of this morning, 80818 words.  Probably about 20K more to go.  We'll see.

I've been doing marketing.  No sales for the genies.  No sales so far for the SCIU books which are discounted now.  I did get a lovely note from a fan on one of my sale posts, though.  She posted a picture of the paperbacks she bought of the SCIU books and AD last year.  And squeed a bit about how awesome they are.  It was a nice thing to go to bed on last night.

My reading week was kind of weird.  I finished a book and then spent most of the week reading my manuscript.  When I finished that and sat down to read other people's books, I hit a couple duds.

In baking news, I made granola bars, corn bread (to go with a big pot of chili), and chocolate oil cake with butter cream frosting. (The frosting was store bought, but that's okay.)

On the activity front, I spent three days on mowing the yard, one day vacuuming the entire house, and one day walking.  I added in the walking from the mowing and I'm at almost 40 miles for the year.  No movement of the scale numbers, though.  Weight: 186.0  As for eating, I'm back to trying to eat smaller portions.  We'll see if that helps.

We saw fawns this week!  Two came scampering through with their mama.  And then yesterday either the same two or a different two hung out with mom while she gobbled down some corn.  (I think it was a different set, but I can't be sure.)  Still no pictures of the twins together - they won't hold still.  I did get this, though:

We also have raccoons.  Rockette brought a friend to dinner and now Rockelle is visiting regularly, too.

(Rockette is the blacker one.)

Chester Chipmunk is alive and well.  So are the bunnies.  Life in the woods is good.

In container gardening news, the zukes are still blooming but still no fruits.  Same with the tomatoes.  It probably has to do with the bug spraying we do in the yard (not the deck this year, just the yard), but I'd rather spray and have no veggies than not spray.  The lettuce and the carrots are pathetic.  So are the onions.  I'm about ready to say 'screw it' and try again next year.  In flower-bed news, something came along and ate the buds off my remaining lilies.  Rabbit or deer probably.  Darn it all.  But the sedums are getting ready to bloom, and the hydrangea is still covered with white flowers.  Can't win 'em all.

And I think that's it for me for now.  How was your week?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 6/19/21

Hello again.  Not much on the reading list, because I was busy reading my own manuscript.

I didn't pick up any new books, which I really need to do since I'm out of unread ebooks.  Ane the last two were duds, which makes me leery of diving into the free pool again.  I will, but not yet.  

Books Read: 

42) N or M? by Agatha Christie (6/13/21) - Mystery - 5 stars.  Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  I've had this one for YEARS and never read it.  Silly me.
Review: "Ooo, this was a good one! I don't know why I hadn't read it before now."

DNFs:

6/18/21 - free - SF.  The author has seen the future and it is crass.  It read like a group of thirteen year old boys sneaking their older brothers' low budget girly mags and reading them under the bleachers.  

6/18/21 - free - UF.  Could you BE any more wordy?  This one was so top-heavy with description, loaded with similes, overburdened with metaphors, and rife with witty/clever little asides, I wanted to poke my own eyes out in the first paragraphs.  I tried flipping past the extremely descriptive opening, but every new experience for the MC was a cornucopia of verbosity.  It promised to be light and snappy, kind of noir mystery with monsters, but if Spillane had written like that, he would've been flogged.

Currently reading... Nothing.  I haven't shaken the gunk from those DNFs off yet.  I'll probably snag a paperback out of my collection for something I can trust to read.  Blerg.

What was your reading week like?  Please tell me yours was better than mine.