Friday This n That

 Yeah, I'm a day late.  I had intended to type up a post yesterday, but I was running late and then I got distracted, and well, you know what my father always said... "Intentions are for shit."  So, here I am on Friday again.  And I was doing so well last week.

I just saw a post on FB coming from someone who works at a university.  He recently received a letter from a university administrator, telling him that keeping books on his shelves is 'the unnecessary storing of combustible material.'  Think about that for a second  You can't keep books on your shelves AT A UNIVERSITY.  I'm seriously losing hope for this world.

Last night, I went to bed on time.  I've been really good about staying up to write every night, but last night I was tired.  So tired.  And guess what?  I still rolled around in bed like a damn gas station hotdog for hours.  Hubs keeps trying to fix my insomnia by giving me suggestions, bless his heart.  You know the ones - past a certain hour, stay away from the sugar (check) and the caffeine (check), cut down on the TV before bed (well, I'm writing before bed, so there's that).  I've tried listening to gentle music, nope.  It gets added to the mental jukebox that plays every song I've ever heard while I'm trying to sleep.  Mom has suggestions, too, and I've tried those.  I don't know what to think about it all.  Maybe my brain is just overly active lately.  I am writing a new book, after all, and the neurons are firing like Independence Day up there due to that.  Of course, the heat doesn't help.  If I could just get cool, I could get comfortable, and if I was comfortable, I could shut my brain up.  Maybe.  Eh, it's a theory.

I need to go grocery shopping while it's still cool.  It's supposed to get ungodly hot next week.  Problem is, I don't want to go grocery shopping today.  Meh.  I probably will, but I'd like it on record that I went under protest.

We have two yearling bucks hanging around the yard.  One is Scout, which is Sissy's fawn from last year.  The other we have named Ranger.  

Okay, I think that's it.  It's after 8 and I need to get my ass in gear.  Have a great day wherever you are and whatever you do.  :hugs:

Not a Banner Night

Last night was not a banner night for sleeping.  First, I made the mistake of staying up a little late to finish a book.  It was a really good book.  Of course, once I went to bed, I couldn't stop thinking about it, so there was that keeping me up.  And I couldn't get comfortable.  And I was too hot.  And I was also thinking about TTW's impending publication and all the things that need doing before I can push it out into the world...

Like I said, not a banner night for sleeping.  At one point, I gave up and got up.  Turned the computer back on and worked on my blurb.  Whether it's any good remains to be seen.  I haven't opened the file and looked at it since I woke up.  I finally went back to bed and fell asleep around 1 a.m., and woke at 7.  A solid 6 hours of sleep isn't bad, I guess, but I think my gumption is still comatose.

At least it wasn't the cats keeping me up this time.  Nope, they were being good boys.  Figures.

Today, I'm supposed to go grocery shopping.  This may or may not happen.  There's always tomorrow.  I've also got to start working on formatting this novel into ebook and print formats.  I had played with the idea of setting this to pre-order, but that never seems to work out for me, so I'll probably just push it into the world.  We'll see.

Anyway... look for my review of the 'really good book' tomorrow.  And look for THICKER THAN WATER to come out sometime before the 20th.  I should get a post out with the cover and blurb sometime this coming week.  Stay tuned.  

As for me... :wanders off in search of more coffee:

Thursday This n That

I'm writing this at a quarter after 11 after having already tried sleeping for two hours and failing miserably.  The hamster wheel in my head is spinning over every mistake I've ever made, and there's a jukebox playing every song I've ever heard.  I got out of bed when it hit Supertramp's Goodbye Stranger.

I couldn't sleep the last two nights either - because I pulled a muscle in back while blow-drying my hair.  You know that muscle behind your shoulder blade?  That's the one.  Well, that's not the problem tonight.  Derp.

My brother had Supertramp's Breakfast in America album.  He's going to be 60 this year.  How the hell did that happen?  

Speaking of which, I'm old enough to be a grandmother.  Not sure how that happened either.  I was at the first Monsters of Rock concert in the Pontiac Silverdome, for petesakes.  I used to headbang and eat anything I wanted!  Now I screw up my back blow-drying my hair and my innards get messed up when I consume too much bread.  Getting old blows. Zero stars, do not recommend.

If you weren't paying attention... like I wasn't... Easter is a week from Sunday.

So, Hubs was talking with a neighbor today.  Apparently, there are druggies using the abandoned farm to do... well, drugs... and they're wandering around through field and forest.  And another neighbor's own big dogs attacked and killer her little dog and bit her when she tried to save it.  Ummm... Yeah.  So, now we must beware of roving addicts and vicious pooches while out and about.  We live like 90 minutes from the nearest city and a half hour from the closest Walmart, but whatever.  The neighbor is a young guy with a wife and a baby, so he's a little worried about them while he's at work.  Hubs told him she could call here day or night if she needs to.  I'm all for it, but it's sad.  We shouldn't have to worry about whether a young mother and her baby will be safe in her own home out here.  

It was super foggy this morning.  On my way to work, I rounded a corner and almost ran over a rabbit.  He just darted right out into the road there.  Lucky for him, his fluffy white tail stood out against the dark ground and I hit the brakes.  Silly wabbit.

Okay, well, I should probably go try to sleep again.  I'll schedule this for an hour and twenty from now, so it'll post at 1 like it always does.  And then I'll drag my butt to out of bed in about 6 hours.  Yay.  I'll definitely need extra coffee in my coffee for this Thursday, lemme tell ya.

What's on your mental plate today?

Thursday This n That

Ever since I got my new monitor, I can't see the outline of this box where I type in my blogs anymore.  It's like typing out into space.  Derp.

I'm actually typing this at quarter to eleven at night, after lying in bed for an hour and then getting irritated with myself enough to make me get up again.  Played a few hands of poker, read some crap on FB.  Now, I'm listening to classical music and drinking milk in an effort to get tired.

On a side note, listening to classical music to get myself to sleep means I can no longer listen to it in my car.  It makes me drowsy.  Not a good thing to be while I'm driving.  Blerg.

Hubs and I have been dismantling our wood piles.  We have four piles and we've started on Pile 2.  Anything big enough to be firewood is getting dragged back out so we can cut it up.  And we've got some big-ass logs in there.  Loads more wood to cut up.  Yay.  It's mostly oak and cedar wood, but we do have some elm and ash and hickory and black walnut on the property.  Unfortunately, once it goes into the pile, we can't really tell what the other stuff is.  Cedar is easy to identify because the wood is red in the center.  I'm also trying to keep whatever hickory we find separated.

On a side note there, dead cedar trees are dangerous.  Spiky, super hard, dry limbs.  We are using great care not to fall on anything.  You'll put your eye out.  (Yes, I was channeling A Christmas Story there.)  Or you'll become perforated.  Nobody wants that.  And our property has loads of cedars - both living and dead.  

We're having a freeze warning tonight.  My last three little tomatoes are still pretty green and my other plant is still blooming.  They will probably be toast.  :sadface:  

I really should write a wrap-up post for my container garden blog for this season.  

...I went back to bed and laid there until around midnight.  This is me finishing the post at 6am.

It's actually about 36 degrees F right now, so not quite a freeze.

I made a to-do list yesterday.  It's still sitting there.

Hubs just started laundry.  He's awesome like that.  Get up and get 'er done.  

What this n that things do you have to talk about today?

Sunday Update - Week 7

And here we are again...

Despite a firm commitment to working this week, I got nothing done.  Well, not nothing.  I sat down yesterday to work and managed to edit 3 pages before I let myself get distracted.  But hey, three pages is better than nothing.  And it's a start.  Here's hoping today goes better.

As for marketing, I'm doing it, but I'm not seeing any sales.  Fertile Ground is on sale now.  Early Grave will go on sale Wednesday.

I finished one book in time for the reading wrap-up and another book last night (which will be on next week's wrap-up.)

In baking news, I made mini-frittatas and coffee cake on Monday.  Those are all gone now.  I also made a vat of spaghetti and a vat of beef stew this week.  I should probably make cookies today.  Or applesauce bread.  Somethin'.

The big news of the week was the cold and the snow.  It got down to negative something and we got about 6 inches of snow.  We cheered when the cold snap ended and the furnace shut off for the first time in days.  It's blissfully quiet in the house right now - no furnace and no space heaters running in the garage.  Later we'll get the drippy noises of the snow melting, which is fine by me.

The deer look good.  It's nice to know we helped get them through the worst winter had to throw at us.  Arthur, Lear, and Midas all stopped by to eat yesterday - antlerless, but still recognizable. Yay. The birds also are doing well.  Mostly.  Unfortunately, Hubs did find a dead bird laying next to the car.  I suspect it ditched into a car window.  Hubs thinks it froze to death.  We also have a bedraggled looking wren hopping around on one leg who probably won't make it.  I hope that's it for the casualties.  

I don't want to think about what the cold might've done to my gardens.  :shrug:  Time will tell.

Due to the cold and my inherent laziness, I only got one day in where I did anything active.  Let's not talk about weight, eh?  

Insomnia. What fun, eh?  I saw a commercial for a menopause supplement of some kind that said sleeplessness is a menopausal thing.  Oh, yay.  As if the hot flashes weren't enough of a pain in my ass.  On the upside, I'm rarely ever cold at night anymore.  

Anyway...  It's the start of the last week of February.  Two months down, ten to go.  Not that I think getting rid of 2021 will do us any more good than ditching 2020 has done so far.  =o(

As to not end on a bummer note, the birds are singing, the squirrels are looking fat and fluffy, as are the deer.  Spring isn't too far off.  New growth.  Green stuffs sprouting up.  Flowers blooming.  Fishing again.  Yay.

How are things in your world?

Dear Brain

Dear Brain,

I love you like the dickens, but you really have to shut up at night.  I mean, you're like a kid who chugged an entire bottle of Mountain Dew and chased it with those paper tubes filled with flavored sugar.  Yes, I know... they're called Pixie Sticks... hush, Brain, I'm talking here.  

Despite your insistence, I do not need to revisit minor events in college, rename all the dogs at the shelter, hash over a phone call gone wrong ten years ago, wonder whatever happened to my high school friends or that kid that ate paste in Kindergarten... Yes, Brain, his name was Kevin, and that's a lovely picture of him, but I don't care right now.  Hush.  

Neither do I need to plan a garden, rewrite a scene in this book or figure out scenes for the next, organize my cupboards, or go over that hand I lost in poker.  I don't need to plan for tomorrow or next week or next month at 10pm.

Stop showing me videos of past events, people, pets, vacations, and tragedies.  Stop playing songs I haven't heard in years.  Stop trotting out the photo albums.  I don't want to look at them when I'm trying to sleep.

If this doesn't cease, I will be forced to medicate you into silence.  And no one will be happy about that.

If you love me half as much as I love you, you'll just knock it off already.  Please.

Sincerely,
Too Tired to Function

This n That - The Insomniac Cut

Recently, I've gotten into the bad habit of waking up at 3-something and being unable to drift back off to sleep.  So here I am, at 4:30-ish - after having already run through my FB feed and my blog roll - bringing you the Insomniac Cut of my life's soundtrack.  (Sans backbeat.)

So yesterday it was ungodly hot and sticky in SW MO.  I stayed in the house until late afternoon - after the 'storm' blew through and dropped the temperature about 10 degrees.  I put quotes around the word because while everyone else it went past got rain, all we got was wind and the rumble of thunder in the distance.  Talk about anti-climactic.  Anyway, here's how that conversation went:

Me:  We didn't get any rain.
Hubs:  It all went south again.
Me: Dirty rain-stealing bastards in Arkansas*.

Being in the sweet spot for not getting storms unfortunately also means we're not getting rain - which isn't so sweet.  I guess I'll be back outside with the hose again today watering my gardens so my hard work doesn't shrivel and die.

Of course, once the storm that wasn't a storm dropped the temperature, I took Max for a walk around the yard.  Pretty uneventful until we got around to the blocks by the iris bed and even then it was only eventful for me.  There's one block on the corner of the bottom tier that didn't get filled in with rocks.  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught site of something big and green in that hole.  And I wondered why in the hell a katydid was hiding in there.  When I stooped to get a better look, I saw something black and shiny skitter behind the katydid.  Then I noticed the gossamer webbing in front of the hole and holding the katydid in place.  :shudder:  Damn big black widow.  She'll be dying as soon as I get Hubs out there with the permethrin.

Speaking of permethrin, I'm still catching brown recluses in the sticky traps, so while the stuff is pretty awesome, unless you have a way to get every nook and cranny in the house, you're going to continue to find spiders.  We had one guy tell us those buggers smell the insecticide and run.  Personally, I think they're just so good at hiding (hence the 'recluse' in its name) that it'll take several treatments to get them all.  Meanwhile, I have the sticky traps and every one on a sticky trap is one that won't be noshing on me while I sleep. 

Speaking of sticky traps, I was checking them yesterday and one was missing.  So I asked Hubs if he moved it.  He said he didn't even know I had a trap there.  My first thought was 'oh god, a mouse is dragging one through the house somewhere'.  Then I found it - stuck to the top of the bottom shelf of the table it was hiding behind.  Somehow it had gotten from upright on the floor to upside down on the shelf.  So there I was trying to peel it up, without getting it stuck to myself and without knocking over all the stuff I have on that table, when I noticed what I think is white fur.  How Kira got behind that table and why she could go there is beyond me.  Of course, this is merely a guess on my part because the trap is still sitting there, stuck to the table because neither Hubs nor I could pull the damn thing off without removing everything from the table and neither of us was in the mood for that freakin' project.

We both have enough freakin' projects right now.

Speaking of projects... What on your plate today?


*When we lived in CO, our non-stormy sweet spot led my saying to 'dirty, rain-stealing bastards in KS'. And no, I don't actually think people are stealing our rain. I may be a little nuts, but I'm not whackadoodle.