Thursday This n That (Yeah, It's Friday.)

I had every intention of posting yesterday, but then I forgot.  

Finn's still not 100% but he's on the road to recovery.  He doesn't like the new purified water.  In an effort to get him to drink more, I'm giving him water on the end of a drinking straw, which is great fun.  Put one end in the water, stop the other end with my thumb, lift it to his mouth, release the water.  Now Sawyer wants to get water that way, too.  So I've got both cats on the bathroom counter, jockeying for position as to who gets the next drops.  Except Sawyer hasn't got the concept down, so he makes a face when I present him with the straw and arches away.  Most of his water ends up dribbled down his chest.  But if I don't give him water, he bats at my hand until I include him the ritual.  When I do manage to get any in his mouth, he appears to be super happy about it, but it ain't easy.  Crazy cats.

I'm supposed to be marketing right now, but I lost the will.  I'll get to it.  

There are some crazy things going on in the news right now, which is making me want to go back to the time when I wasn't paying any attention to the news.  Derp.  

3 days.  And no, I don't think everything will flip to sane after the 20th, but at least there'll be a fighting chance we'll be heading in the right direction.  

I feel lame today.  

For a few years, we've been watching a show called Miss Scarlet and the Duke on PBS Masterpiece Mystery.  Well, this season, they ditched the Duke, which is really too bad because he was a hottie.  I also liked the character, though, so I'm not sad just for the loss of beefcake.  The new guy is okay, I guess.  We'll see.

We heard two barred owls this morning.  First time in a long time, so we were pretty excited.

And that's it for me.  What's up with you?

The Saga of Finn (Or A Trip to the Vet was not Finn-tastic)

It's been a fun week and it's only Wednesday.  And, in case you didn't figure it out, fun in this context means 'not fun'.  It started out with me waking up on Monday morning to Hubs saying that Finn was having trouble peeing.  Sure enough, the poor little dude was going in the litter box, leaving a few drips, and getting back out only to return a few minutes later.  I changed out his water dish and he drank a lot, and later in the day, after a good long nap, he produced a better flow, but it still wasn't right.  And when he wasn't sleeping, he was walking around the house meowing.  I was up until 11pm with him until he finally went to sleep.

Yesterday, he woke me up at 3.  Hubs got up with him, but by 4, I gave up on sleeping.  At 8am, I called the vet and they told me to bring him right in.  They couldn't guarantee when they'd look at him, but I didn't care.  I got dressed and dragged my sorry ass to the car with Finn safely ensconced in his carrier.  He meowed all the way there.  (Except for when a Pink Floyd song came on the radio.  He was either enjoying it and shut up, or he hated it so much he didn't have words.)  

Anyway, they got Finn right in.  I made a pitstop in the restroom and by the time I came out, the vet had already examined him.  He wasn't blocked, but they didn't know why he wasn't peeing, so they kept him for observation and said they'd call sometime after 2:30 to let me know I could pick him up.  I left my Findaloo there and wandered home.  

I did make a quick stop at Wallyworld on my way back.  I picked up several gallons of purified water and a bag of 'urinary tract health' catfood.  

Sawyer was confused as to why I took Finn without him and more confused about why I didn't bring Finn back with me.  

Long story made slightly shorter, when the vet called at 2:30, he went through a whole series of questions about Finn's homelife.  Apparently, he couldn't find a cause for Finn's issues.  Had anything changed here that would make Finn stressed? No.  Was Sawyer bullying him or preventing him from using the litter box they share? No and no.  How often do we change the water?  At least twice a day.  Anyway, I answered all his questions and there's still no clear reason why Finn's got an irritated bladder.  They took a culture and they're sending it to the lab.  I should know in a couple days what the results are.  They gave him two shots - antibiotics and something to calm his bladder - and sent him home.  

On the way home, I picked up KFC, so I wouldn't have to fix dinner.  It was okay, but not awesome like I hoped.  Meh.  

Anyway, Finn's still not peeing like a champion and we still have to watch he doesn't get blocked.  Fingers crossed he gets better soon.  I feel bad for the poor little bugger.  Plus, I really need sleep.

On a weird note, Sawyer is completely freaked out by Finn right now.  Finn came home smelling like someone else's perfume - a vet tech's, I assume.  Sawyer keeps looking at him like 'you look right, but you smell all wrong... who ARE you?'  Poor little dudes.

Marketing Monday

 Yes, it's Marketing Monday again.  Yes, I have a book on freebie this week - Ugly and the Beast.  No, I don't have anything planned or set up.  I had intended to get up and get it all done this morning.  Life intervened.  Let this be a lesson to procrastinators like me - do it ahead of time, so if stuff gets in the way, you can still accomplish something.  Formal marketing begins tomorrow morning, good lord willin' and the crick don't fail.  

Oh, and I lowered the price on Sleeping Ugly.  It's 99c now and for the foreseeable future.

Yes, I could still get something done today, but since I can only market to each FB group once every 24 hours, starting late today puts me even later tomorrow, and later in the day doesn't garner nearly as many downloads as first thing.  I'd rather put off 'til tomorrow what wouldn't do me much good today.  If you catch my drift.  

Now back to life.  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 2

2025 Week 2... or the first full week of the year.  Woot.

By now you're probably sick of me saying I haven't written.  That's okay, I'm pretty sick of not writing myself.  On a brighter note, I finally finished inputting the first round of edit notes and I have begun making another set of edit notes.  This is the process.  I'm shooting to have this done and published before Valentine's Day.  We'll see if that actually happens.  It would be a good thing, especially since 2/13 is my 10th anniversary of being a published author.  

I spent a boatload of time on marketing this week.  I finished the freebie thing for Fertile Ground and did the whole freebie thing for In Deep Wish.  I moved over 315 books, some of them for actual $$ (okay, 301 were free).  As sad as that sounds, this is already my third best January since I started selling books and it's only the 12th of the month.  Monday starts a freebie thing for Ugly and the Beast.  I need to get to work on some graphics for that.

Earlier this week, I actually finished reading a book.  I haven't started a new one because... Well, I'm lazy.

Speaking of lazy, I haven't gotten any exercise this week.  Unless you count shining the red dot for the kitties.  Or stirring ingredients for baking.

Ah, baking... I made a chocolate oil cake covered in raspberry jam and vanilla frosting last Sunday.  Yesterday, I did a batch of cinnamon rolls.  Much stirring was involved, so I guess that's exercise. Heh.  I might do pizza today.  We'll see.

In weather news, we got about 5 inches of snow.  And some freakin' cold temps.  The temps are up a little, so the snow's melting.  We lost satellite TV for a few hours.  We lost satellite internet for... Oh, wait.  We DIDN'T lose internet.  At all.  It didn't even slow down.  Elon Musk is my hero.  On the bright side, it's supposed to be bright and sunny for the next week or so.  Fingers crossed it melts all the crap still on the roof.  And on the roads... because no one has bothered to come down these 'publicly maintained' roads with a plow yet.  

I think that's it.  I'm a pretty boring person.  All the interesting things go into my fiction and everything else is blah.

Have a great day today, wherever you are.  And feel free to drop a comment, if you so desire.

Saturday Reading Wrap-up 1/11/24

Time for the first Reading Wrap-up of the new year.  :muppetflail:  Okay, so maybe not that exciting, but still... yay.

I didn't pick up any new books since the last time I did one of these.  I need to rectify that, but right now my Kindle is occupied with the second round of edit notes.  

Books Read:

1) Child Star by Shirley Temple Black (1/8/25) - autobiography - 5 stars.  New to me, but not underappreciated.  I picked this up at the thrift store during their 2 for 25c sale.
Review: "A very interesting book, if a bit gossipy. This follows Shirley from her earliest memories to 1955, leaving off the later parts of her life. All told in a matter-of-fact way. I really enjoyed it."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... I haven't picked up a new book yet.  Maybe today.  We'll see.

What's on your reading list for the week?

Thursday This n That

My thoughts go out to all my friends in CA.  It's a horrible, horrible thing out there.

In Deep Wish is free right now.  Here's today's graphic:

We're under a Winter Storm Warning effective from today at 5pm to tomorrow at 6pm.  I'll be headed off to the grocery store as soon as I get off my morning call with Mom.  It's not 'storm supply' buying.  It's my weekly trip.  But I can almost guarantee there'll be a run on milk, bread, and toilet paper.  Fingers crossed I can get the things I need so I can hole up here in the house without any hardships.

Sorry... I got distracted.  On the upside, my new smartphone is good for another 90 days.  I refilled my coffee and other necessaries.  

Having faster internet allows me to block people at a higher rate.  Unfortunately, I'm also able to encounter more idiots who require blocking.  The scammers on all the marketing groups give me a whole crop of boobs to block, but if I sat here blocking them all, I'd never get anything else done.

Speaking of getting other things done, I finished the first edit pass of TTW last night.  Woot.

I think I need cake for breakfast.  I won't do it, but I could.  Cuz I'm an adult and junk.

Okay, it's time to call Mom.  I've screwed around enough for now.  Have a great day, y'all.

2025 Books Read

Here we are with my 2025 Books Read post.  I started it a little later than usual this year because it took me a while to finish that first book.  

If you haven't been following along all these years, here's how this post goes.  The books I read are in reverse order - newest first.  * means ebook.  # means 'new to me and underappreciated'.  If there's a number at the end, it's where the book's at in a series.  The links go to Goodreads where I may or may not have written a review.  (Check back on Saturdays for my weekly Reading Wrap-up to see reviews.)

I set my goal for this year's reading at 70.  We'll see how that goes.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's begin...

1) Child Star by Shirley Temple Black (1/8/25) - autobiography

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy this reading journey with me.