Thursday This n That

 Mmm, coffee.

It's February. I suppose I ought to change my calendar.  Only a day late, so go me.

Between the weather and the crud, there were only two people at work yesterday - me and another dude.  Nice and quiet, just the way ol' hermit me likes it.  And I get along with the dude, so the few interactions we had were pleasant. Mostly, it was me in my office doing my things and him in his doing his things.

Driving home yesterday was interesting.  When they plowed the highway, they left large piles of ice at the entrances to all the side roads.  And it got just warm enough to make snowcones out of it. So, I had a pile of soft ice to get through to get onto the highway and another to get through to get off the highway.  Lucky for me, I know how to handle shit like that.  And thankfully, the highway was free of other drivers.  A little fish-tailing was involved and I was in the wrong lane for a smidgen there.  We'll see how doing it in reverse works this morning.

Michigander me thinks all of this is piddlin'.  I've driven through way worse.  Of course, it's been 20+ years, but it's like riding a bike.  I don't understand how some people forget how to drive in snow from one winter to the next.  

Hubs with the crud means I've been taking on some of his chores.  Like feeding the deer.  They don't know me, so they freak when they see it's me and not him.  But after a couple days, they aren't running away anymore, so that's good.  I also took over garbage duty.  I rolled the polycart up to the road last night, which was fun since everything is covered in a thick layer of packed ice pellets. Tiny steps.  And hey, I didn't fall.  :knocks on wood:

I made an apple-cranberry crisp this week.  Unfortunately, I had no vanilla ice cream and the roads were too bad for a run to the store.  Lucky for me, I had a bowl of whipped cream in the back of the fridge.  Yum.  You definitely need something creamy to balance the tart of the cranberries.

Okay, I should probably start getting ready for work and junk.  Have a great day, everyone.  

Sunday Update - Week 29

We're more than halfway through the year.  Things are looking up on a personal level.  We won't talk about on a world level, k?  I'm just muddling through and trying to live my life here.

I thought about writing yesterday.  That's actually a step forward.  I also tried to come up with a schedule with which I can get some words out without burning myself to a crispy critter.  It may involve writing in the morning. That hasn't worked for me in the past, but hey, this is a new world I'm working in, so maybe there's hope.  

I managed to finish reading two books last week.  Yay.  I'm still behind on my goal, but I'm not dropping further behind, so that's something.  

In baking news, I made cake cookies last Sunday.  Today, I need to make zucchini bread.  

At work, I was relaying what I thought was a funny story about getting home from work and then doing spreadsheets, wherein I attached the wrong file and sent it to the office.  It was posited that perhaps I was stretching myself too thin.  Eh.  I've attached the wrong file when I wasn't doing a day-job, too.  I make mistakes.  In the scheme of things, it wasn't the worst mistake I could've made.  Hell, I could've sent the right file to all the wrong people.  THAT would've been bad.  Yes, I am tired.  It's just a matter of getting used to all of this and acclimating myself to working when I haven't.  :shrug:  I must be getting used to it, or my brain wouldn't be thinking about throwing writing into the mix, too.  I tell you one thing, I probably won't write on the nights I have spreadsheets to do, too.  Hence, the maybe writing in the morning.  

Thankfully, Hubs is doing a most excellent job of taking care of the house, so really all I have to do is cook dinner.  And some nights, he does that, too.  Or we have leftovers or sandwiches.  It's all good, baby.

We had a bit of a scare this week.  Lumpy came into the yard with only one twin.  Fortunately, the next day, she had both of them with her.  I suspect the boy is starting to get more independent and decided he didn't want to follow Mom that day.  Nature can be a bitch, though, so if we lost one, it wouldn't be totally surprising.  Just sad.  

We're starting to see bucks again.  And we're playing the game of 'wonder which one is Sonny'.  For those of you who are new here, Sonny is Lumpy's son from two years ago who hung around with his Mom and his twin sister, Sissy, until last year's rut.  He's out there amongst the bucks somewhere.  I expect he'll be a little bit tamer than the other bucks because his mother and his sister are so much tamer.  They know which human is the food-bringer and what yard to find him in.  So Hubs can basically walk right by them and they follow him down to the feed pans, like big dogs.  They do not get close enough to touch, which is the way we want it, but they let him get closer than any other deer would.  

We have a bitty bunny hanging out here now.  She's about 2/3rd size of an adult rabbit.  And very chill.  Like the deer, she knows where she can get food and water, and remain safe.  Welcome to the menagerie, Bitty Bunny.

It's been so hot here.  And so dry.  Hubs has been watering my gardens so my plants don't die.  I don't expect great things from them this year.  If we can just keep them all alive, maybe next year will be better.  The vegetable plants... well, they're annual, so there won't be a next year for them.  But hey, they're alive, even if they are nowhere near putting forth anything edible.  

Well, that was a long-ass post.  Sorry.  Loads to say, I guess.  Anyway, thanks for reading this far.  Leave a comment, if you're not too tired from reading, and tell me what your week was like.

The hot and the dry are making life hard for the animals.  Which, I suspect, is why the deer have been eating my irises.  They don't usually do that.  Irises are not a food of choice for the deer.  This year?  Munch munch munch.  Like the hard winter where they ate my coral bells (another plant they aren't supposed to eat).  It is what it is.  

Speaking of deer eating things, they have ruinated Elmer the elm.  He's just a stick in the dirt now.  Hubs keeps watering it, but I think it's a lost cause.  :shrug:  We still have Cecil and Cedric cedars, though.  Fingers crossed that when they finally go into the ground, the deer leave them alone.

Relinquishing Control

Okay, I'm a closet control freak.  (Don't laugh.  Fine.  Maybe it's not so closeted after all.)  I manage to keep it under wraps for the most part, but often, I'm squirming on the inside.  

For instance, yesterday, someone gave us four big zucchinis.  I took the peels off and the guts out.  And put them all in baggies for later shredding.  Twelve big hunks in three bags, by the way.  Not long after, Hubs then took it upon himself to do the shredding for me, because he knows I won't feel like doing it after work this week.  It was an extremely nice and considerate thing for him to do.  But while he was shredding I was sitting in the office, trying to stay the hell out of his way, and squirming.  

All the things I used to do around the house, Hubs is doing now.  He's doing a most excellent job.  But he's not doing it my way.  And I am NOT saying a damn thing about any of it.  

You see, before I met Hubs, I spent too many years with more than one control freak.  Men who would openly criticize damn near everything I did.  I didn't clean right.  I didn't do the dishes right.  I didn't say the right things in company.  I didn't dress right.  You name it.  Hell, I wasn't even brushing my teeth right.  Umm, yeah.  I don't ever want to do that to Hubs.  If he's kind enough to wash the dishes, I am not going to be the shit who tells him he's doing it wrong.  He's not wrong.  His way is different.  The dishes are still clean.  Berating him would be a shit thing to do.  Also super hypocritical, seeing as how I hate it when it was done to me.  

I probably did it to Owl.  For that, I am deeply sorry.  I tried not to.  Often, I just did things myself so I wouldn't feel the urge to get after her for not doing things my way.  It probably wasn't right, but I did the best I could.  I could've yelled instead.  At the time, those were my only choices.  I didn't have the fortitude to let her get things done in her own way and keep my mouth closed.  And I didn't have the time to go behind her fixing things when she wasn't looking so I wouldn't harsh her attempts.  Unfortunately, I think this also teaches a child that if they do something wrong the first time, they never have to do it again because Mom will just take over.  :shrug:  Momming isn't easy.

With age comes wisdom.  Haranguing Hubs for not doing things my way isn't the answer.  It doesn't actually help.  Instead, I just say 'thank you' and go about my day.  Hell, in the past when he's done the dishes, I've gone back and rearranged the dishwasher to suit myself.  Now?  Who has time for that?  Thank you, Hubs, and move along.  I'm just glad the dishes are done.

We did have a little bit of a laugh yesterday.  Former Domestic Manager forgot to leave instructions behind for her replacement, so Current Domestic Manager couldn't figure out something I know without thinking about.  I showed him.  He knows now.  It's all good.  And like he left instructions for the man who replaced him in his job 9 years ago, I should've thought to leave instructions for him.  I know now, too.  And like I said, we laughed about it instead of getting all up in each others' faces about it.

It's all about relinquishing control, which is pretty hard for me, but I'm getting there.  

Thursday This n That

So far the hardest part about the job is sitting.  You'd think I'd be used to sitting.  Apparently, I got enough exercise walking from here to the coffee pot and here to the recliner that it makes a difference.  Eh, I'll get used to it.  I spent the majority of yesterday looking stuff up online and entering data into a spreadsheet.  Yep, dream job.  LOL  

They're calling me BE.  Sure enough, it already lost a letter and by the end of the day I was B.  :shrug:  Maybe I'm just 'be'.  To do is to be.  To be is to do.  Doo be doo be doo.  ROFL

The office manager smokes, too.  So I got that going for me.  Just duck out the back.  Unfortunately, we can't both be out smoking at the same time.  Bummer.  I'd like a chance to chat with her.  

Yesterday morning, Hubs saw a single fawn.  There were a bunch of does present, so not sure whose it was.  It had been days since Lumpy brought her twins and I was beginning to get worried.  But Hubs saw them all yesterday afternoon.  Go, Lumpy!  

I made big juicy burgers when I got home.  Oh, yum.  With Ore Ida fast food French fries.  Also yum.  Hubs offered to cook, but burgers are super easy.  Pat 'em up and then slap them on the Foreman Grill.  2.5 minutes is perfect for medium rare.  And Hubs has taken over doing the dishes, so no clean-up for me.  Yay.

And that's about it for me right now.  What's on your list today?

Thursday This n That

I hope this intermittent posting thing isn't messing people up.  I promise to try my best to be here Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday at least - no matter what else might be going on.  

Finally went blueberry picking.  The farm is like 13 miles from here, so it's not like I couldn't have zipped over there in the past 9 years.  Geez.  Anyway, we came back with a little under two and a half pounds of blueberries.  Yum.  I already made muffins.  Screwed them up enough that I won't post the recipe, but they're edible, so we're eating them.  Rookie mistake.  Derp.  

I have an interview tomorrow.  Wish me luck.

The neighbors put a little blow-up pool out yesterday so the kids could play.  I swear the girl was in it for hours.  Totally pruny, I bet.  I remember when we had a pool.  Vaguely.  It was an above-ground thing my father had gotten for cheap.  I'm not sure how long he left it up, but once we kids weren't keen on cleaning it, he took it down and there was a round dead patch in the lawn for the longest time.   Needless to say, if it gets any hotter, they may find me running across the lawns to bellyflop into their tiny pool.

Lumpy has twins.  Yay.  They're so tiny and so cute.  Aww.

I planted most of the seeds I had leftover from last year's container garden experiment.  The tomatoes are coming up now.  At least they were when I checked a few days ago.  With this heat... I dunno.  I'll be heading outside to water everything shortly.

Hubs is slowly working his way through the bag of carrots.  Go, Hubs!

If I get this job, Hubs will be taking over all my chores.  Except cooking.  I'm not prepared to let cooking go.  Oh, he'll have to do some.  Breakfast and lunch, and maybe things like granola bars, etc.  It's not that he can't cook.  Lord knows the man took care of himself for a great many years before we got married.  If he couldn't cook, he would've either starved or gone broke eating out.  It's just that it's my kitchen and I'm a control freak about my kitchen.  I'll get over it.

I'm also a control freak about my car.  Driving it, I mean.  Hubs takes care of the maintenance without my assistance.  I think it's a fear of something going wrong and if it happens, I want to be behind the wheel.  Probably comes from all the time I spent behind the wheel doing outside sales.  Hubs is a most excellent driver, too, by the way.  This is all on me.

Well, that's it for me today.  I'd better get to doin'.  Got anything on your this-n-that list today? 

Sunday Update - Week 40

Well, that week flew by.  Let's see if I can rebuild it.

I didn't do any writing, but I have been back at making edit notes on Untitled Fantasy.  If I remember right, I'm at 61% now.  I don't even want to think about how many pages worth of notes that is.  Lots.  Lots and lots.  I'd like to have these done and input by the end of the month, then do another pass through and have it ready to send to other human beings by Thanksgiving.  We'll see how that works out.

I still haven't done any marketing, but by some happy quirk, someone bought the entire genie series in ebook and someone bought a ebook copy of Up Wish Creek, then someone read Blink of an I all the way through in Kindle Unlimited.  It was the best sales week I had in a long time.  Sad, but true.

As for reading, I'm still working my way through A Brief Darkness - an Alfred Hitchcock anthology.  So far, I've only DNF'd one story.  The beginning left me meh.

In baking news, I made zucchini bread and oatmeal butterscotch cookies.  The cookies were just made with my regular recipe, substituting butterscotch chips for the raisins.  Hubs approves.

On the activity front, I did something active 5 out of 7 days.  Sunday was a flurry of cleaning, after which I took apart my container garden.  Tuesday was vacuuming the entire house.  The rest was outside stuff.  I haven't weighed myself since last Sunday, but the scale was kind.  Weight: 179.4.  That's down 2.2 lbs from the beginning of the year and down 7.6 lbs from my highest in June.  Yay.

Yes, I took apart my container garden.  It was time.  Well, time for everything but the two biggest tomato plants - one still has tomatoes and the other still had flowers that might turn into tomatoes.  Everything else edible got pulled.  I thought the deer might like the plants, but they ignored the pile of greenery.  :shrug:  I repotted my elm tree - Elmer - and my two little cedars.  We'll see how they overwinter.  

In regular garden news, I redid what I refer to as 'the cedar bed'.  I dug the whole thing up, set aside the iris bulbs and threw everything else out.  Then I leveled it out, covered it in pine mulch, and stuck a bird bath in the center.  Except we put seed in the bird bath instead of water.  The birds are enjoying it muchly.  And the squirrels are SOL for now.

We also took down tippy tree.  Last December, a cedar tree just off the yard began slowly falling over.  When it fell far enough to lean against the next cedar, it stopped.  But it was harshing the growth of the other cedar and making us leery of walking anywhere near it.  So, Hubs and I took matters into our own hands,  He used a saw and an axe to whack it off the stump, then we pulled the damn thing down because it wouldn't fall on its own.  Since then, Hubs has been cutting it into manageable lengths for burning in a wood stove.  By the time we get one of those, it should be seasoned enough to burn.  I helped with some of the stacking.  

Note:  peanut butter removes cedar sap from your skin when soap and water won't.  Smear it on, let it set for a few seconds, wash it off.  Then wash the peanut butter residue off with soap and water.  Easy peasy.

I did a bunch of other honey-dos this week, catching back up with the things I'd let slide while I was otherwise occupied.  I only have two things left on my to-do list - thoroughly cleaning the kitchen counters and then washing the kitchen floor.  Then I can start my front flower bed project - wherein I dig the whole thing up, set aside the plants I want to keep, and then redirt and replant.  By the time I'm done with that, it should be time to get into the woods again for my usual winter woodswork.  Yay.

How are things in your neck of the woods?  

Sunday Update - Week ???

First off, let me start by saying I am totally derailed and scatterbrained.  Six weeks of putting my... well, everything on hold and helping someone else has me sitting and wondering how to start resuming my life again.  I'm not bitching.  I did what I wanted to do.  Just hindsight is 20/20 and I maybe might've done things differently if I'd been able to see then what I know now.

I'm still pondering how to get back into the writing/editing groove again.  I might start with a short story and see how that goes.  I might jump right back into editing Untitled Fantasy, which I have committed to finishing by the end of the year.  I know I need to get back into the marketing groove again soon.  Sales have been abysmal.

If you stopped by yesterday, you know that I'm 6 books behind in my reading goal.  With 50 out of 75 books read, though, I think I can still manage to win by the end of the year.  25 books in three months should be easy-peasy.

Last Sunday, I baked granola bars and made chocolate/butterscotch chip cake cookies in bar form.

On the activity front, I spent 3 days finishing up the Friend Project.  And one day Hubs and I took a wander.  The other days were pudding and I had the dumb.  On Friday, I tried going out and beginning to dig up the cedar bed, but then I heard thunder, so I quit that.  I resumed that on Saturday, but my body only put up with it for about an hour.  Weight: 180.0

Speaking of the cedar bed, my friends gave me several bags of mulch and a big terracotta bowl thingie.  So, I'm going to dig up the bed, lay down the mulch, and stick the bowl in the middle as a kind of 'on the ground' birdbath thing.  They also gave me two bags of potting soil which I'm going to use in my container garden.

Speaking of the container garden...  It's pretty much over for the season. BUT I have to start planning for next year and there are certain things that can be planted in the fall for harvest late this year or for overwintering.  I'm thinking about potatoes and carrots.  Maybe onions.  I still have two tiny tomatoes growing and once they turn red, I'll eat them.  Everything else needs to be pulled out and the greens fed to the deer.  Maybe I'll get to that today.

Since I've been busy elsewhere, my household chores have been neglected.  Oh, Hubs was a big help keeping the dishes clean and making sure the laundry was done - in addition to helping out over there.  I'm talking dusting and vacuuming and cleaning my bathroom.  That's on the list for this week.

So much to do, so little energy to do it.  I'm still sore from the ordeal.  But I'll get there and be back in fighting form soon.  I hope.

How did your week go?

To-Dos or 'The Guilt of Taking a Day Off is Killing Me'

I didn't accomplish anything yesterday, which, I guess, was the point.  I said I was taking a day off, and I did it.  Today can't be like yesterday, though.  

I mean, I had to do two days worth of dishes last night because they were driving me crazy. (I ran the dishwasher this morning so I didn't have to listen to the damn thing, but it was totally loaded.)  My to-do list is staring at me accusingly, reminding of things I should've already had done.

-vacuum
-dust
-cobwebs
-sunroom floor
-sales spreadsheet

It's good to take a day off after you've been busting your butt, I guess, but I always feel guilty.  So, today's going to see those things done.  And I need to work on a blurb for Cinder Ugly.  

And take a shower... cuz, ew.

And the weeding needs to get finished.  And raking.  And the windows.  And I probably should clean out the junk drawer and wash those glasses we never use...

Being an adult means having a lot of stuffs to do.  Whether I'll get everything done this week is anyone's guess.  But hey, at least I'm not bored.

Heh, does anyone else remember being told "if you don't have something to do, I'll find you something to do'?  Hell, I've said heard it and I've said it.  It's a mom thing.

Anyway, time to get my day going.  What's on your to-do list? 

Thursday This n That

I typically do dishes in the morning.  My mother would shudder in horror.  She hates leaving dishes in the sink.  I, too, hate waking up to a sink full of dirty dishes.  But I hate doing dishes at night even more.  Except when I'm writing.  Taking a break to do dishes is kind of my thing.

Hubs gave me an awesome idea for a novel.  I wrote it on a napkin because, oddly enough, I have no paper by my recliner right now.  I have no clue how to implement this awesome idea, but it's preserved for when I'm ready for it.  It's kind of Project Hermes meets Blink (for the those of you who haven't read those - and why not? - that would be political thriller meets dystopian.)

I was supposed to make french bread pizza yesterday.  Wallyworld had some nice french bread loaves on sale and that would save me from having to make pizza dough. But we went fishing yesterday afternoon and by the time we got home I was tired, so we had salad instead.  Today... today I will make pizza.

Despite having assured us that we would have a week with no rain, we got rain yesterday morning and last night and this morning.  Thanks, weatherpeople.  Bleh.

Paranormal Suspense ought to be a genre category we can use on Amazon.  I just read a really neat one that makes me want to write one.

I got a jury information thingie in the mail.  I have ten days to fill it out and return it or they will... wait for it... make me come in to fill it out.  I expected like a much harsher punishment for ignoring my jury thing - contempt of court or something.  Anyway, once I fill it out, I'll be in the jury pool for the next six months.  This is like the fourth time I've been in the jury pool in six years.  I got picked once, but they cancelled the trial.  We'll see what happens this time.

We saw the first fawn of the year.  Not well enough to get a picture, but we saw it.  We saw mom in the woods and then Hubs thought he saw something smaller and brown near her.  Then when she walked off, we both saw the fawn scrambling to catch up.  So cute!

Okay, that's it for me today.  What's on your this n that radar today?