Sunday Update - 2026 Week 40

Week 40?  Already?  So, there are only 12 weeks left of 2026.  Wow.

The big news this week is that I finished the first draft of Old Magic.  Wait, the bigger news might be that I came up with a title for it. Or it might be that I think I have a title for DN3, too.  Anyway, Old Magic is now... :drumroll: Home is Where the Hex is.  (Do you capitalize 'is' in that or not?)  And DN3 will probably be Duke Noble, P.I.: Truth Be Told.  Anyway Pt2, HWH topped out at 66960 words for the first draft.  I think I have ideas for a sequel for that, which would make this a series, which the title for will be The Worthy Witch or A Worthy Witch (cuz Worthy is the surname of the family).  The plan now is to edit TBT, starting today, and maybe start writing HWH sometime soon.  Time will tell.

Marketing was done.  Crickets were heard.  September ended up a big ol' donut-hole.  October ain't looking any better, but it's early yet.  I might do something this week and I might not. Stay tuned.

I baked stuff this week.  I think I already mentioned the Choco-Nanner cookies, which are banana cookies with chocolate chips.  They're good, but a little weird.  I also made a chocolate oil cake with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream.  And I did a batch of twice-baked potatoes.  All yummy.  All not exactly good for my waistline.  :shrug:  

To combat the ever-expanding waist, I did three walks this week for a total of 3.2 miles.  I also did some cleaning, some grocery shopping and, of course, the lugging of water for the greenhouse.  Weight holding steady at 180.6.

Speaking of the greenhouse, I have flowers!  One pepper plant has one flower and the bigger tomato has at least 4-5 blooms.  The other peppers still have buds and the other tomato is working on it.  So, even though it's early October, I could still get vegetables this year.  The greenhouse will help keep everything warmer even if it freezes, so yay.

Speaking of temps, it's finally cooler here.  Okay, so yeah, we're supposed to get back into the upper eighties this week, but that's still cooler than those ungodly 100+ temps we were getting, so yay.  Unfortunately, the prediction for this year here is warmer than usual throughout the winter, which will totally harsh my time in the woods.  :shrug:  You can only do what you can do.

The rut is in its early stages here, so the deer are doing their things.  Yesterday, we had two yearling bucks clacking antlers in the side yard.  I think it was Scout and Ranger, but I'm not sure.  We also saw a fox for the first time in weeks, so yay.

Other than that, not much going on around here.  Stuff, junk, and yada yada.  How are things in your world?

This n That

 Yesterday was Thursday???  I was busy pretty much all day, so I totally blanked out on that one.

Tuesday, I took a recipe and Frankensteined it, creating what I call Choco-Nanner Cookies.  Banana cookies with chocolate chips.  They're kinda freaky and the banana flavor is getting more intense with every passing day.  And there are A LOT of them.  Wednesday, I made cake.  It was a boxed Devil's Food (because I got lazy) which I then slathered in seedless raspberry jam and then covered in vanilla buttercream.  Yummers.  Yesterday, I made twice-baked potatoes to go with the steaks Hubs grilled.  It's been a week of food, lemme tell ya.  I may have to put my arms out to see if I'm walking or rolling. In all seriousness, though, I've been eating less (via smaller portions) and walking more.  

Not sure if I already said this but I saw a bald eagle the other day.  Yay.

Gah, it's not Saturday!  I only say this, and so emphatically, because I keep having to remind myself that it's not Saturday.

I'm going to be bach'ing it soon as Hubs is going out of town for a few days.  I keep joking that while he's gone, I'm going to 1) demo the kitchen, 2) repaint rooms, 3) get a puppy, 4) get some more kitties, 5) replace the two kitties we currently have, 3) turn the spare room into an art studio.  None of these things will actually occur, of course, but it's fun to joke about.  Most likely, I will do some deep cleaning and watch a lot of TV.

There are lot of stupid people out there in the world, more so than there used to be.  I think this was planned.  Stupid people are easier to control.  

I just saw where someone in comments to one of my friend's posts said 'your an idiot'.  He corrected them to 'you're' and someone else pointed out that the commenter would never know the irony of his own statement.  ROFL

Some days, I laugh at the morons.  Some days, I just can't even.  Some days, I spend too much time blocking morons.  I can get lost in just blocking people and before I know it, dozens have been transported to Blockistan, and I've wasted too much of my valuable morning time.  :shrug: And that's just Facebook. Don't even get me started on X.

Okay, I suppose it's time to go fritter away my time on stuff.  Hopefully, some of it will be productive today.  ;o)

Marketing Monday - Dying Embers

 In a potentially-futile attempt to save September, Dying Embers is currently free and will be through Wednesday.  The hope is that people will pick up a copy of DE and want the other books, too.  :shrug:

Anyway, here goes nuthin'...

Today through Wednesday, DYING EMBERS is absolutely free. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) Grab your copy of this gripping suspense now. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TEQK7OU

Sunday Update - 2026 Week 39

 Hey All.  Yet another week has gone by.  Let's see what I've got to show for it...

Writing.  I added 4965 words to the WIP. (Old Magic is the working title, but I'm working on changing that.)  It now sits at 63805 words and I'm getting close to wrapping it up.  I've promised myself that I'll type THE END by the end of the month.  

I didn't market last week.  Thus, I moved zilch.  Dying Embers went on freebie yesterday, though, and will be free through Wednesday in hopes I'll finish out September with something besides zeroes in the $ column.  Zeroes are always disheartening and make me feel bad about myself, which never helps with writing.

On the baking front, I did another batch of OCC cookies.  Hubs likes them and they're easy, so there ya go.  I'll be making a cake this week.  And maybe some bread.  We'll see.

In activity news, I walked a couple times.  The plan is to start walking regularly again - like every day or every other day - but sometimes my legs won't cooperate.  We'll see how that goes, too.  I'm also still watering my greenhouse plants.  And I did some repotting of trees.  Weight: give me a minute... Ugh... 180.6

Speaking of gardening, the two cedars - Courtney and Chelsea - got bigger pots and should be ready to go in the ground later this fall.  The buckthorns are awesome.  The persimmon and the black cherry are okay.  I now have volunteer sycamores that are shooting up, so there's that.  In food plants: The Early Girl tomato died.  I tried to rescue a couple of the shoots that were still green and looked like they had roots, but I think those gave up the ghost, too.  The potatoes are toast.  My peppers are all looking awesome, though, and so are the beefsteak tomatoes.  We'll see if any of those flower and fruit now that it's getting cooler.  All of my garden beds are toast.  Between the heat and the critters, everything looks like crap.  I'm hoping I'll still have some things come back in the spring, but the hope is slim.

Nothing much else going on.  Like I said, it's finally cooler here.  It was like Autumn hit and nature went 'oh, okay, so we're doing this now' and the temps dropped.  Oh, and we're finally getting rain, which helps.  The fawns are pretty much spotless now.  I'm starting to hear geese migrating.  Life is good.

How's life in your neck of the woods?

Thursday This n That

What the hell is wrong with people lately?  Just skimming through FB makes me nauseous. I won't tell exactly you what brought this on, because no one else needs to hear that, but seriously...

And now I haz a sad.  I just found out another dog I knew had to be put down.  That's 4 dogs in the past two weeks.  They were all old, but still...  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for our neighbor's dog now because he's a 13-yr-old coonhound, and the bigger the dog, the shorter the lifespan.  If they lose Copper, I'll be a little bereft.

I'm not really in the mood now to finish this post, so I'll leave it short today.  Have a great day wherever you are and hug your pets.  :hugs:

Librarian No More

I received an email from Goodreads this week that my librarian status has been rescinded. (Which was weird because we were just talking about whether I was still a librarian and the next day, POOF, I wasn't.) Apparently, they're going through their librarians and weeding people out.  And I can't reapply because authors and publishers are no longer allowed to be librarians.  If we need help, we need to contact the librarian community.  

Okay, so I haven't been really active on Goodreads this year - or the years before that, come to think of it.  I get it, really I do.  It's kind of a bummer, but it is what it is.  

I was a little surprised to see that authors and publishers are no longer allowed to be librarians.  One would think that those were the most skilled at being librarians, so... :shrug:

I think that ever since Goodreads was taken over by Amazon, it hasn't been as good a tool as it used to be.  I know people seem to be reviewing books less there, like they're reviewing less on Amazon.  Maybe that's just a correlation that has no basis in fact, or maybe it's causation.  I don't really know.  

Anyway, to those I've helped in the past, sorry.  I can't help you anymore.  Hell, I'm not even sure I can help myself.  Time will tell whether it let's me do all the things with my own books that I used to, or if I'll have to bother someone else to do it for me.  That would suck.

Sunday Update - 2026 Week 38

 Okay, so I was sleeping really good this morning when I went to roll over and pulled a muscle in my back.  Talk about going from snoozing to wide awake in .001 seconds.  That'll get ya up if nothing else does, but I don't recommend it.

Anyway, this week...

I wrote on 4 of the 7 nights for a total of 5863 words.  Unfortunately, I had to snip out 1558 of those words because they were in the wrong place.  I set them aside to be worked into a place closer to the end, so it's not a total loss.  The book is at 58840 words total.  I think I worked out a crinkle in the ultimate solution to who did what and why, and how to save the day, but it will involve weaving in some stuff earlier on.  Eh, that's what edits are for.  I'm not sure if this book will be awesome or not, but I'm enjoying the creation of it, so yay.

Marketing...  Ugh.  I did move more books than usual, but that was still only 28 books.  No sales at all yet this month and it's the freakin' 20th.  Blerg.

So, baking... I did a batch of Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies and a pizza - both on the same day.  That'll make you remember your arm muscles, lemme tell ya.  I also made a vat of chicken noodle soup.  Yeah, it's hotter than blue-billy blazes and I made soup.  Wanna make somethin' of it?

On the activity front, there was the usual watering the plants thing - picture me lugging gallon jugs back and forth between the greenhouse and the garage sink.  I also went for a couple walks.  AND I did some sweeping.  Then I scrubbed the front porch.  (Is it any wonder my back muscle went sproing this morning?)  Going from sedentary to active should be a slow process, I guess LOL. Weight: 180.4

The greenhouse is doing it's thing.  I lost the grape tomato and, as of yesterday, the early girl tomato was looking like it's on its last legs.  The original beefsteak is getting roached by the heat, but the offshoot beefsteak appears to be doing fine. (The offshoot is in a pot that has a water basin attached, so it was bound to do better in this heat.) This may not be a good tomato harvest year for me.  Derp.  The peppers are all doing well.  In fact, I think I might've seen buds on one of the pepper plants. Time will tell on that.  The trees are all doing fine.  The potatoes are toast and so are most of the carrots.  Better luck next year, I guess.  I'm still watching gardening videos.  They aren't helping right now, but I'm looking toward the future.

The fawns are almost totally spotless now.  A few of them have a few spots left on their hindquarters, but otherwise, they're just brown.  The does are all turning gray for the fall.  

And I think that's it for me for the week.  Time to go veg out and let my squonky back muscle chill out so I can do things later.  Have a great day and an awesome week!