Sunday Update - 2026 Week 44

Here we are again at another week closer to the end of 2026.  :shrug:  It hasn't been too bad of a year so far.  We'll see what this coming week with its elections brings.  It's also the first day of November, if that means anything to any of you.  All Saints Day, perhaps?  Half-Off Candy Day, maybe?  Recovering from taking the kids to beg for candy??  

I was a toad for most of the week again.  But I did finally get off my ass and do some editing last night.  Only about 4 pages worth, but that's better than nothing.  Here's hoping it's a start to doing this every day or almost every day until the end of the year and publication.  First, Duke Noble, P.I.: Truth Be Told will rise and join its brethren.  After that, I'll work on editing Old Magic (Syl and the Family Hex?  Twisted Branches on a Family Tree?) so it can fly free... err, free as in unencumbered, not free to purchase.  I'm not that nuts yet.

This week, I made apple-cranberry bread and pizza.  Both excellent choices and super yummy.  I did the bread because Wallyworld had cranberries for 72c a bag and I already had those apples I bought from the orchard.  The pizza needs no explanation.

My activity this week was mostly garden stuff, but I did get a walk in, and also some cleaning and shopping.  Still, not as active as I should be, but I'm working on it.  Weight: 178.0 - down a bit, so yay.  I actually did lose 2 pounds in October.  Woot.

The garden is doing okay.  I have little peppers on one of my plants, so yay.  Not sure which color of bell peppers those are, because the plant is at the very back of the green house and I'd have to move a bunch of stuff to see the label.  Eh, they all eat the same.  The tomatoes are still flowering but no fruits.  The trees are doing well and I'll be looking at putting them in the ground as soon as the weather gets cool enough.  

The bucks are still chasing the ladies.  The ladies still don't seem that interested, but maybe they're seeking privacy.  You know, I've never actually seen the deer mating here in the thirteen years we've been here.  They're doing it somewhere because every year we have fawns, but it's all behind closed doors.  (Which is how I like my romance, truth be told.)

We're finally getting some much-needed rain.  Woot.  I suspect we may end up with some dead dogwoods due to the heat and drought this summer.  It's all very sad.  I'll try to turn them into walking sticks, if I ever get back to carving again.

I think that's it for it today.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I can't think of what, so there ya are.  Have a great day and an awesome week.  Don't forget to vote.  Later days, dudes.

This n That

 Yeah, I forgot yesterday was Thursday.  :shrug:

Tuesday is election day. Go vote (if you haven't already). If you're thinking about skipping it because 1) it's the midterms and so doesn't really matter, 2) the polls are showing that a) your candidate is already going to win and doesn't need you or b) your candidate has no chance of winning so your vote won't matter, 3) you have better things to do, 4) you hate standing in line... GO VOTE.  It does really matter, it doesn't matter what the polls are showing because they're notoriously wrong, there is next to nothing better to do, and standing in line is a small price to pay to protect America.  

I have peppers!  At least one of my pepper plants has the beginnings of tiny peppers on it, so yay!  It's the plant way in the back, so I'm not sure what color peppers they are - green, yellow, or red - but they're all bell peppers so it doesn't really matter.

A while back, I gave a friend some cans of wet catfood that The Boyz wouldn't eat, so her neighborhood cat who eats anything could have yummies.  Yesterday, she asked me if I have anymore food my cats won't eat because her (kinda) cat loved it.  LOL

Sawyer and I are currently having a test of wills.  I bought a shitload of food that he swore he liked and right after it arrived and I'd taken it out of its packaging, he decided he didn't like it after all.  So, I've vowed to not buy any more wet food until every last can is gone.  He can eat it or not, but it's what's being served for the near future.  On another note, his intake of kibbles has gone up.  

I keep getting distracted while writing this.  Then again, I keep getting distracted doing most things.  :shrug:  I'm highly distractible.

There's a grammar rule for whether/why a word ends in ible or able, but I can't remember what it is.  Anyway, distractible looks wrong with ible instead of able.  :shrug:  

I have no clue why some words look wrong to me when they're spelled right.  They just do.  Go figger.

Anyway... I should probably wrap this up.  Have a great day and a wonderful weekend.  Later days, dudes.

Marketing Monday - Sleeping Ugly

 It's Monday and it's early, and I have marketing to do, so here goes...

Today, in honor of Halloween, I picked my most Halloweeniest of books - Sleeping Ugly.  It's the story of a super-vapid, super-mouthy supermodel who sleeps with the wrong guy and ends up with one hell of a curse.  I told this story in a conversational way, so you'd be able to climb right into her head and go along for the ride. (At least that was the hope.) You'll find out along the way that maybe she's not as self-absorbed as she pretends to be, and she's got plenty of reasons for being what she is.  

Anyway...

Starting today, SLEEPING UGLY - a snarky, paranormal mystery - is totally free.  (Always free with KU, but this is for the rest of us.)  Pick up your copy before it's too late. 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GM24Q48

PS. Facebook is screwing me hard today.  If you see a post from me anywhere, please share it along.  Thanks.

Sunday Update - 2026 Week 43

 Okay, it appears to be Week 43.  9 weeks left of 2026.  Woot.  (Not that 2026 was bad, but at this point, I'm willing to woot over the smallest of things.)

This is going to be a pretty boring post.  I did nothing... errr, next to nothing... this week.  I mean, I breathed in and out, I ate stuff, I watched stuff.  I didn't write or edit.  My marketing efforts were retarded by FB and I only moved 7 copies of Natural Causes.  I don't know if I have the heart to market anymore, but I probably will do something.  I'm thinking of trying to push Sleeping Ugly - the first book in the Halloweeniest of my series.  Time will tell.

I didn't bake anything.  I need to rectify that because we ate the last of the apple cake yesterday.  I'm thinking of taking my Chocolate Oil Cake recipe and making cupcakes.  We'll see.

My activity was nothing to get excited about.  I didn't even really water the greenhouse.  I checked it a few times, but the dirt was still moist, so not much hauling of water there.  I meant to do more.  I meant to take walks.  As my father always said, 'Intentions are for shit'.  The only yippy moment was stepping on the scale to see I had lost another pound.  Weight: 178.4 (The only real way to lose weight is to eat less and/or exercise more.  This week, I ate less.)

In the greenhouse, like I said, the plants don't really need to be watered as often because it's not as frickin' hot.  The tomatoes and the peppers are blossoming like crazy, but still no fruits.  I spent some time pollinating the tomatoes.  I was about to pollinate the peppers when I noticed that most of the flowers were rife with ants.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  I'm leaning on the side of hoping it's like peonies and the ants are helping with pollination.  We'll see.  

Speaking of the intervention of living things, I stepped out on the deck a few days ago, and there was the packrat... sitting beside the greenhouse, staring at me.  I moved toward it and it exited the deck by dropping off the side.  It's a cute bugger, but I'd just as soon it not be visiting my gardens again.  Destructive little bastard.  I checked all around the greenhouse, but it hasn't been trying to chew its way in.  Yet.  

And there was the most exciting part of my week.  Other that that, Hubs' travel crud is still lingering, but getting better.  I haven't caught it and, at this point, I'm not likely to.  :fingers crossed:

Okay, time for me to let you go so you can get on with your more-interesting lives.  Peace out.

Thursday This n That

 Facebook sucks.  It's telling me I'm spam again, despite not doing anything spammy.  I always follow group rules, and I only post once every 24-48 hours on any given group.  Turds.  Can't dispute it either.  Gah.  Anyway...

Coffee is sometimes the only thing keeping me from going whacko-bananas.

I made chili the other day, but I forgot to buy canned tomatoes, so it was just beans and burger (with seasonings, of course).  Then I got the idea to add the leftover pulled pork to the pot.  YUM!  I don't know if I'll ever have leftover pork when I'm doing chili again, so I'm not sure if I'll do it again, but if I do, I will.

Chester Chipmunk is now living in a hole under the big oak tree.  'Bout time he found that hole.  It's been there for years.  

I was doing a pretty good job of being active before Hubs went on vacation and while he was gone, but since he's been back, I've been a toad.  I really need to get off my ever-widening ass and get back to work.

Halloween is fast approaching.  We don't really do anything for Halloween since the Owl went off and we moved to somewhere there aren't a lot of kids.  The one thing I do is watch scary shit.  Not really scary-scary, but scarier than usual.  For instance, I'll watch The Frighteners, which is the least scary scary movie ever.  I've also been watching episodes of Creepshow (the newer ones with the lame CGI Crypt Keeper).  They're okay.  I did see one with Adrienne Barbeau the other night, which was cool and reminds me I should see if I can find the original version of The Fog.  The newer version is lame, but that one is pretty good.

We finally got some fall weather, but it's not supposed to last. Back in the 80s again.  Derp.  Cooler temps make me want to go in the woods.  Which reminds me... Hubs was looking out into the woods and saw where another tree must've fallen over.  He pointed it out to me and yep, there's a trunk laying across where there wasn't one before.  We can't really investigate it yet because ticks and snakes.  Come on cooler weather!

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

Marketing on a Tuesday - Natural Causes

 Wow.  I totally forgot to post my marketing thing yesterday.  I mean, I thought I'd posted it, but looking at my blog list this morning shows I didn't.  Derp.  Anyway, Natural Causes went on freebie yesterday and will be free through Friday, so there ya are.

Now through Friday, NATURAL CAUSES is totally free. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) Pick up your copy of this taut, noir mystery while you can! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y44BXTM

Sunday Update - 2026 Week Wha?

 It was a week and I'm not quite up to figuring out the week #, so there ya are.

The week started out with Hubs out of town, and while I had great plans to get a bunch of editing done, that did not happen.  I did very little writerly things.  Well, I did some marketing, but not a lot.  That little bit moved 15 copies of WHTF.  On the brighter side, someone out there read Dying Embers and Fertile Ground and some of Early Grave, so October isn't a total wash like September was.

On the activity front, I was busy Sunday through Wednesday - doing Hubs' chores (feeding and watering deer, trash, etc.), moving furniture, cleaning, traveling back to the airport to retrieve him (and getting my steps in walking around the airport because I got there early and our airport is boring.)  Last I checked, I lost a pound.  Woot.  Weight: 179.0

The greenhouse is awash with tomato and pepper blossoms, but no fruit is showing yet.  Maybe I'll have veggies to eat in November.

Moving furniture... Well, I bought some new stuff at the thrift store and that had to be melded into the home décor, and I reorganized.  The new glass-fronted bookcase looks awesome and is doing its job of keeping Sawyer thwarted.  (He's not thrilled with being thwarted, but them's the breaks.)  Hubs is pleased with what I did, so it's all good.  

Hubs came home with the crud.  Naturally.  I think the human immune system was not meant to be picked up and thrust into a different environment so quickly, and that's why people get sick when they travel.  Eh, it's a theory anyway.  He's a lot better today than he was on Wednesday when I got him back.  Here's hoping I don't get what he has.  

I haven't done much of anything since he got home.  I made a Romanian apple cake yesterday, because on the way to the airport, I stopped at an orchard and picked up a 5lb bag of Golden Delicious.  Five pounds is a lot of apples to eat before they go bad, so baking with them just makes sense.  Other than that, I've been a toad.  No activity, no editing, just chilling out with Hubs.  This week will have to be better.  Check back next Sunday to see if I stick to that.

And that's it for me.  Stay safe and have a great week.  :waves: