Thursday This n That

I'm enjoying being back on Twitter/X.  I'm reading a lot of interesting stuff that FB isn't showing me.  FB has been a real pain in the ass since the election, putting all sorts of crap I don't care about in my feed and hiding the stuff I've said I actually do want to see.  I've resorted to going to individual pages to see what I'm missing, which is kind of a pain, but necessary.  X doesn't do that.  So yay.

Speaking of hiding stuff, I think FB has shadowbanned me.  I hardly ever get responses to anything I post on my own page... loads of spammy stuff on my marketing posts in Groups, but not on my own page.  :shrug:  I gotta be me.  Of course, I'm not getting a ton of reactions to my X posts either, but I haven't been active on there in 8 years, so I'm not surprised.

Coffee is good. It makes it so I can do thinky things.

I was out of tea and my throat's been scratchy, so I zipped over to the Dollar General to pick some up.  They didn't have a wide selection - green tea, iced tea, Lipton.  I ended up getting the Lipton.  100 packets for like $6/$7 - 4 packs of 25 in little sleeves and wrapped in gold foil.  Ooo, fancy.  I was pretty excited.  It has to be better than Great Value tea, right?  Nope.  It seems like every other teabag tastes like mulch.  I could've gone out and grazed in the yard for free.  Derp.

Editing's coming along.  I'm averaging about 6 pages a day, which is depressing but it's my own damn fault for writing the book in the wrong POV.  Ultra-derp.

This morning, we heard a flock of snow geese going over headed south.  This makes me happy.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned Funky Chicken.  He's a neighbor's rooster and he does not crow right.  It's kind of sad and pathetic.  Well, Neighbor got him a buddy.  The new rooster crows correctly.  We now have the two of them crowing back and forth, like they're trying to teach each other how do it right.  ROFL

Okay, that ought to be about it today.  Have a good one wherever you are and whatever you're doing.  Hasta la bye-bye.

Thursday This n nThat

Sorry I'm late posting.  Our internet is so slow, I try to stay off of it until Hubs doesn't need it anymore.  And even then, doing anything is just barely better than using dial-up.  And yes, our internet is run off our phone lines, so that oughta tell ya somethin'.

Our phone is still sporadic.  We had dial tone this morning.  It'll probably be gone again by afternoon.  

I just got back from a walk.  1.1 miles.  Woof, it's hot out there.  I'm Sweaty Spaghetti.  

I have been trying to grow my hair out.  I kept it short while I had a job.  Now I don't need it short.  However, it's starting to irritate me.  Every time I shower, I threaten to cut it.  I did do my bangs yesterday.  I still hate it.  :shrug:

The book I'm reading it s lot longer than I anticipated.  I should've known, because it's SF, but I guess I didn't notice it's like an epic SF space opera.  Still, it's pretty good, so I'm motoring through.  As long as it continues to be pretty good, that is.

I ran into a neighbor just now.  Her dog was taking her for a drag.  Nice gal.  Nice dog.  It's just a bit undertrained, so it drags her around the neighborhood.

It's dry here.  We need rain.  If you have extra, please send.

Hubs got some junk mail and threw the envelope on the floor.  He's not a pig or anything.  He just put it there for the cats to play with. When they get bored, he'll throw it away.  I do the same with boxes.  It's funny watching Sawyer try to fit himself in the box the fruit bars come in.  As I've said, he's a moose.  Right now, Finn is under a shoebox we left for them to play with and Sawyer is trying to dig him out.  Heh, the Turtle Game.  Yay.

Okay, I'm done.  Leave your own this n thats if you're in the mood.  Have a great day!

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

Hey, it's still Thursday.  

I actually thought tomorrow was Thursday and I was stopping to set up my post for tomorrow all proud of myself... until I realized that it was already Thursday.  Derp.

Tonight, I was really good and made fish for dinner with a side salad.  About 30 minutes after I ate, I made myself a chicken salad sandwich (on a hot dog bun because that's how I roll, baby) because no way was I going to make it through the night on tilapia and salad.  I am satiated now.  Yay.  On the upside, I don't feel like eating a bowl of ice cream tonight.

I think the eagles have gone, but the exchange is songbirds are arriving and the air is filled with happy.

Another think... I think wrens are building a nest in a work van that hardly anyone ever uses anymore.  I hope it gets driven before the birds lay any eggs.

My neighbor used to leave his mailbox open so he'd know when the mail got delivered.  Wrens decided it would be a perfect place to build a nest and we watched them fly back and forth all day delivering weeds and sticks.  The next day, the neighbor had to clean all that stuff out, which was pretty funny.  Even funnier was that the wrens starting rebuilding almost as soon as his back was turned.  Day after day, they would work on the nest and later, he would take all the material out.  The wrens finally got the hint and left.  The neighbor never did learn to close his mailbox.  One day, a woman moved in with him and she started closing the mailbox. 

I love Amazon.  You can get all sorts of disparate items in one place.  Tonight, I ordered a new bra and a 22-pack of Carnation Instant Breakfast.  I wonder what the person putting that package together is going to think.  ROFL

Carnation Instant Breakfast - chocolate flavored - is perfect in a cup of coffee.  Screw milk.  Dump the packet into the bottom of a large coffee mug and fill it with java.  If you've been here long enough, you may remember it was my beverage of choice years back.  I called it 'Breakfast of Champions'.  I'm going back to drinking it because I don't think I'm getting enough nutrition and by the time lunch rolls around I'm so hungry I could eat my shoes.

By the way, the low-salt diet thing?  Screw that.  I thought I was putting a lot of salt on my food until I actually measured a 1/4 teaspoon of the stuff and dumped it into the palm of my hand.  And thus, I learned that's about how much I put into a pot of water for noodles.  The minuscule amount I shake onto a burger is piddlin'.  And I don't even use straight salt for that.  I use Lowery's which has less sodium than salt anyway.  Piffle.  

I'm hovering around 160 now.  Sometimes a little over, sometimes a little under.  And I'm okay with that.  It's 22 pounds gone since last June.  Hell, it's enough of a weight loss that I needed another new bra, so win-win.

Okay, I think that's enough out of me for one sitting.  What's on your radar 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? 

Thursday This n That

The coffee is hot and strong today.  May yours be, too.

I finished looking up and saving all the songs I have written in my little notebook.  Then I shared some with Hubs last night.  He seemed to enjoy the video for Someone to You by BANNERS.  (Watch it all the way to the end.)

Yesterday, while I was on the phone with Mom, Hubs saw a coyote trotting through our woods.  He went to grab the camera, but the bugger was too fast.  We also saw an armadillo a few days before that.  Since the dude who used to kill critters died, and the gal who used to live-trap animals and move them moved herself,  the 'nuisance' animals are slowly coming back.

On the other hand, we've had a big brown dog wandering the neighborhood, too.  Someone we didn't recognize stopped yesterday and asked Hubs if he'd seen the dog, because it had gotten into their garage and stolen a bag of food.  As soon as she drove away, it wandered unconcerned past our house.  I hope it belongs to someone and isn't a drop-off.  Although, a dog as smart as that needs to be my dog... you know, if he doesn't already belong to someone.  I shall call him Rogue.

The unrecognized neighbor (after almost 9 years, we still haven't met most of the people in here, by the way) said Jerry tried to catch it but it ran away.  The only Jerry we could think of is old and doesn't strike us as a dog lover.  Then I remembered there's a female Geri on the other side of the hill who owns a corgi.  It was probably her.  (Turns out there's another dude Jerry, but he is also old and probably not spry enough to try and catch a dog.)  Funny how this gal we'd never met assumed we knew who she was talking about.  Anyway, we think she might belong to the house that's being remodeled.  

In our neighborhood, there are lakeside people and hill people.  They rarely associate with one another.  The gal who moved in next door has lived in the neighborhood for years, but at the beginning of the neighborhood.  (I've known her husband, but just met her.)  She doesn't know many of the people back in here either.  So, maybe there's a third group of people.  

It's an interesting dynamic in this little rural neighborhood, I tell ya.  Like the gal who used to be married to the guy across the street, but now she's married to a guy who lives down the hill.  I don't think I could live in the same neighborhood as any of my exs.  Hell, I don't live in the same state as any of them.  LOL

Okay, I should probably go do something constructive this morning.  Got any this-n-that going on in your neighborhood?

Thursday This n That

Still not dead.  

Yesterday, Hubs got the idea to cover the car ahead of the impending ice doom.  We used the boat cover (boat don't need it... it's in the garage with our Jeep).  While we were in the process of putting the cover on Cally Cavalier, a big blue RAV (Rural Assault Vehicle... looked like a little Humvee) pulled into the driveway.  She was looking for her little dog.  I recognized the car as one I'd seen parked in the newly-sold house here, so yay, met the new neighbor.  She seems nice.  Oh, and Hubs had to walk over to turn on the heater in the well house, so he stopped at her house to make sure she found her little dog.  She did.  Happy ending.  Yay.

Not sure yet if we got any ice yet, but we still have power, so yay.  We are as prepped for potential power outages as we can be at this point.  And Cally is about as wrapped against ice as we could make her.  Especially considering she's wearing a camouflage cover designed to be on a 15' boat.  I should take a pic of her in her new outfit.  (Yes, I talk about my car like it's a person.  I've had her longer than Hubs.)  

In the middle of the sleet-pounding we were taking yesterday, I looked out the window to see two deer standing in the woods, covered in white.  Poor babies.  Hubs went out to feed them.  He's such a nice guy.  He put out extra rations for the birds, too.  

Speaking of birds, we had a bunch of them hiding out on our covered porch during the worst of it.  Poor babies.  Winter is hard on animals, especially here where they aren't really used to it.  

Shit's happening in the world and I don't really want to talk about it.  Or think about it.  

I had to make a call to customer service for a nationally known company.  The gal I got barely spoke English.  Like I could understand maybe one in ten words out of her mouth.  I kept asking her to repeat stuff and she'd say it louder, but it was still mostly unintelligible.  It was like talking to a cricket on crack.  Chirp chirpchirpchirp CHIRP! CHIRPCHIRPCHIRPCHIRP.  I had called to ASK what would happen IF I closed my account - like timeframe and billing, etc.  Before I could figure out what she was saying, she closed my account.  I was all like 'NO NO NO', but it was already done.  Just as well, I guess.  I don't want to do business with a company like that anymore anyway.  The next call was to see if I could set up an account with a different company - now on super short notice so I don't have any break in services.  When the gal there answered the phone, I could've wept for joy because she spoke English.  She set me up and there's won't be any break.  Yay.  Would've sucked if she'd told me I had to wait a month.  

You know, I get why companies send their phone trees overseas.  But for pitysakes, find workers who can speak the language your customers use.  You wouldn't hire ME for a customer service line for Mexican customers, would you?  No habla.  (And no, the above cricket wasn't speaking Spanish.  It was just an example.)

I snagged a bucket of cheap ice cream the other day.  Neapolitan.  The last bucket the store had at a price I was willing to pay.  It's pretty tasty... but it has a weird after residue.  Like fat coating the roof of my mouth.  Sorry, that sounds gross.  But it's true.  I'll eat it all, of course, but I won't be buying that brand again.  Ever.

Okay, I should probably wander off to other parts of the web.  Have a great day.  And feel free to leave your this and that if you're so inclined.  

Sunday Update - Week?

Sorry I'm late.  I forgot it was Sunday until just now.  Derp.

Anyway, it was a week.  I managed to get 88 pages edited and I'm through pg 137.  Out of 371 pages, of course.  Everything is getting more fleshed out.  Deeper and richer.  Ditching crutch words and lame phrases left and right.  Since I started this phase of editing on 1/25, I've only missed one day.  And I'm still only a third through.  Blerg.

No marketing.  No reading.

When I wasn't editing, I was doing a lot of cooking.  I made a chocolate oil cake with super-fudgy frosting, a batch of zucchini bread, pizza, snack mix, and I roasted a whole chicken in the crock pot.  LOL, you should've seen that bird.  It just barely fit in the crock pot.  I sprinkled it with pepper, salt, and paprika.  Jammed a couple tablespoons of butter inside it, and then dotted more butter all over around it.  Jammed the lid on and let it cook for 5 hours on high.  So tender and juicy.  And we have tons left for other meals.  Plus, the bones and broth for making soup.  This morning, I should probably make a batch of granola bars.  Or maybe oatmeal fruit squares.  Or maybe both.  

I didn't get a lot done in the activity realm.  One day, Hubs and I took a short walk from our house to where the snow hadn't melted off the road yet.  Maybe a half mile round trip.  Other than that, nada.  But I weighed myself and I'm back down to 182.2.  :shrug:

Yesterday afternoon, I took a loaf of my freshly baked zucchini bread next door as a kind of housewarming gift.  We stood and chatted a bit.  It was nice.  They're nice people.  And they have a cute dog.  Copper is a red-bone coonhound.  Since they've lived here - in another house - for longer than we've been here, I actually met the dog years ago.  (And the husband, but not the wife or the kids until recently.)  When he was a puppy, he got loose and decided to visit us on one of our walks.  All floppy ears.  Awww.  They also have a nice little girl.  I think she's 9.  And a little boy who's like 2, so I haven't really interacted with him much.

Oh, and I almost forgot.  Yesterday, Hubs was getting ready to go outside and there was a downy woodpecker on the suet.  When he opened the door, the bird didn't move and he had to almost get within touching distance before it flew into the redbud tree.  I saw it land and crouch way down, like it was laying on the branch.  Then I saw a flash of brown as another bird swooped down on the woodpecker.  The downy darted off and the flash followed it.  I jumped up to ask if Hubs saw what I saw and he was pointing into one of the trees.  It was a merlin, which is what I thought might've been after the downy.  I ran to get my camera and got some really awesome shots of it.  Here's one:

To give you some perspective on the size, those oak leaves are actually past it by a few feet, and they might be 6-8 inches long.  Merlins are little as far as birds of prey go, but they're fierce.

Other than that, not much going on here.  Stuff.  Now that the snow is gone, I should probably get off my buns and go in the woods again.  Meh.  One thing I know is I should take my buns into the living room and get some more edit notes made.

How was your week?

Thursday This n That

 The coffee maker I bought a month ago died.  It was a Toastmaster.  So, $15 down the drain.  Yesterday, I went to Wallyworld to get a new one.  They didn't have my usual Black & Decker model, so I picked up a Mr. Coffee.  And, of course, the less expensive models were all sold out, so I ended up with one that has more bells and whistles than we need.  (Literally on the bells... it chimes when the coffee's done.  As if we actually wait for the coffee to be done before we grab a cup.)  :shrug:  We have coffee.  That's all that matters.  And I really only spent $10 more than I would've.

You'd think with all the nifty things this coffee maker does, it would have a lighted clock.  But no.  And the clock is poorly designed because it's set back a little into the coffee maker and I have to lean over to look at it.  Thanks, Mr. Coffee.

In line at the Wallyworld, a masked-up woman rolled up behind me on one of their scooters - you know the ones the store provides - and she started bitching about how people weren't respecting the 6' social distancing.  She was about 3 feet away from me.  And every time I sidled away from her, she rolled closer.  Chattering away about her mother the nurse and the trials she's had to endure during her shopping experience.  I was pleasant and attentive, but eventually I had to turn my back on her and dealt with my purchases.  After I paid and put my stuff in my cart, I turned to tell her to have a Happy New Year and she said something like 'I'm glad I don't know you'.  Well, gee, the feeling is mutual, ya old bat.

Before that, at the cash register was another old woman on a scooter and she got really shrill when the cashier handed her bills but no coins.  A while back, Wallyworld went to a system where they round up on the change so if you're due a quarter, they give you a dollar.  I tried helping out the nice cashier, and explaining it to the gal, but it only made her madder.  As she rolled off, heading toward the customer service counter to bitch some more, the cashier told me she was only really due 8 cents and got a whole dollar instead, so she wasn't sure where the problem lay.  Maybe the lady collects coins.  :shrug:

Needless to say, the world is more than a little nuts right now.  I didn't let any of it harsh my day.  Hell, I got the dirt I've been wanting to buy and a new coffee maker AND donuts, so it's all good.  

Since it was raining yesterday, the dirt is sitting on the front porch and will go into the bed today.  Yay.  I got three more bags of Black Cow composted manure and two bags of what they're calling 'compressed potting soil'.  Supposedly there are 2 cubic feet in each 1 cubic foot bag and it will expand once it's open.  If it does what it says, I'll have 7 cubic feet of dirt to add to the garden and that should do it.  We'll see.  

You should've seen my little Cavalier yesterday.  Four 50lb bags of corn, five bags of dirt, all in the back seat.  (I have to put heavy things in the back seat.  If I put them in the trunk, it feels like I'm driving down the road doing one big wheelie for 20+ miles.)  I was riding low that day, lemme tell ya.  

I think the neighbors are finally moving into their new house next door.  It's been over two years since they started the project, but then the King Flu hit and supplies got harder to get.  Anyway, it'll be nice.  I wonder if they'll let me play with their dog.  He's a cool dog - like redbone coonhound mixed with Afghan hound.  He's all legs.  What a cute puppy he was.  

Gah, I need a dog.

Anyway, that's probably enough out of me this morning.  What's on your this n that radar today?

Thursday This n That

I played the lottery.  Won a dollar.  Spent three.  I don't think this a sound path to financial freedom.  Of course, neither is writing, but here I am.

I don't know about where you live, but our tiny weekly newspaper is filled with Help Wanted ads.  No, I'm not looking for a job.  But I always look at the want ads.  Maybe someday, if I see the perfect job, I'll do something.  Right now, though, I have a friend who's kinda looking, so I'm looking for her.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

Just off our newly cleared yard space, we have two trees that are unlike all the others.  One at the southwest corner and the other at the southeast corner.  Yesterday, I took some pictures and got out my tree identification book to see if I could figure out what they are.  I got close with the book and then I went online to narrow it down.  Near as I can figure it, they're 'pumpkin ash' trees.  Of course, that species really isn't supposed to be this far west in MO, but hey, stuff happens.  Birds eat seeds.  Birds fly.  Bingo bango bongo, you've got trees where you weren't expecting them.  Anyway, here's a pic.  

The leaves all start in a funny pod thing at different points on each branch.  Then the pod opens and the leaves unfurl.  I wish I'd thought to take a pic of that.  Maybe next year.  (If you're better at tree identification and think I got the species wrong, let me know.  Seriously.)

I love trees, btw.  This place is a gold mine for my tree lovin'.  So many cool species live right here on my property.  I'm working on identifying them all.  Woohoo.  My other two nerdy loves are birds and rocks.  I'm in geeking out all over the place here.  I couldn't have designed a better spot for me to live.

When everything else is so freakin' weird, it's nice to be able to focus on something that's not crazypants.  Plants seem to be my outlet right now.  

I met the wife and kids of the guy who's building a house next door.  Turns out she's from Michigan, too.  In fact, she grew up about thirty minutes south of where I grew up and where my mom lives right now.  Her mom's still there, too.  Small world.   I wonder if she knows the one family I knew in that town.  Hmm.

They were cute kids, btw.  Most of the people around here are my age or older.  We only have kids around here when grandkids visit.  Soon, we'll have a little girl and a little boy right next door.  I'm not looking forward to the bus stopping out front at 6am, but I'll get over it.

Your turn.  What's on the this-n-that radar for you today?

Thursday This n That

Me: Crap.  Is it Thursday?
Hubs:  Yep.

Of course, I knew today would be Thursday when I sent my timesheet to the office last night, but upon waking this morning, I had no clue.  Wednesday was a wash.  So was Tuesday, I guess, since I don't remember it at all.  

We're getting at least a couple dozen birds at a time at the feeders these past few days.  Juncos, cardinals, blue jays, white-crowned sparrows, fox sparrows, crows, nuthatches, woodpeckers (downy, hairy, red-breasted, and piliated), Carolina wrens, and one lost-looking, lonely goldfinch.  The sparrows are singing, which gives me a happy.  

We're also getting inundated with deer right now.  Both this and the above are due to the cold and the snow and the fact that finding food on their own is harder than coming here for a free meal.  Moochers.  Heh.

Fertile Ground is on sale now.  I made a pretty graphic and what I think is a grabby blurb to use in my marketing posts.  You can see it over at Outside the Box.  Here's hoping it gains me some sales.

Hubs, bless his heart, thought about contacting our elderly neighbors to see how they've been faring in all this.  Their pipes froze and they'd been without water for 3 days.  Derp.  Hubs to the rescue.  We've been storing extra water for a while now and have added to the stash quite a bit in recent days, so we took jugs to them to tide them over until they could get their water running again.  (With a reminder for them to call us if that stuff runs out so we can give them more.)  We saw a plumber dude over there yesterday, so here's hoping he could do something.  With the temps the way they've been I expect their whole system is frozen solid.  =o(

I'm over 30 million in poker now.  Yeah, I know... stop playing poker and get back to work.  I would if I could, but I can't seem to muster the will right now.

How are the this-n-thats in your world today?

My Morning Walk with a Little Excitement

Yesterday, I went out for my morning walk.  It was already hot and gross, but I need to walk, so off I went.  Now, in the mornings, I tend to walk what I refer to as 'the loop'.  Our neighborhood is basically a big circle that gradually goes uphill to the top and then downhill toward the river.  It's about a mile and takes me approximately 24 minutes to traverse.  I live partway to the top, so the beginning of my walk is basically uphill, then it's totally downhill in the middle, and uphill the rest of the way home.

In the morning, the loop is about 2/3 in the shade, which makes it nice. 

Anyway, it's a hard walk, but one where I usually see things and check out the neighborhood to see if anything's changed, sometimes cross paths with other human beings and loads of wildlife. 

Yesterday was an eventful walk.  First off, I encountered the guinea fowl, Harry and Henry.  I always say "Hi, guys!" when I see them.  And they'd accepted Piebald back into their acquaintance.  They kind of shunned him after he attacked Henry, but all is well in the trio once more.  So yay.

Then I crossed paths with a neighbor I'd seen but never met before.  I have a goal to meet everyone at some point.  Meet but not get to know.  It's a hermit thing.  Anyway, I'd incorrectly identified this guy before as being one of the Smiths, but one day I saw him in the neighborhood when I knew the Smiths weren't in residence, so then it was a matter of figuring out which un-met neighbor he was.  Yesterday, I solved that.  Yay.  He was headed counter-clockwise on the loop and I always go clockwise, so I knew I'd meet him again.  Unless he walked really fast.

A little farther down the road, on the decline toward the river, I got the most excitement.  (I've already told this part on FB, so if you're there, too, bear with me.)  I was walking along, watching my footing because part of the loop is gravel road, when something flashed across my path - about ten feet in the air and I'd say eight feet in front of me - and crashed into the hillside.  I stopped and scanned the area where it landed.  There was some rustling in the brush there.  After a short time, a BIG redtailed hawk popped out.  He looked around and then opened his wings and took off.  (His claws were empty, so I assume he was looking around for the prey he missed.)  A couple wing flaps got him up and then he soared across the road again in front of me.  I watched him go over the top of a house and then bank to the left and head downriver.  So pretty.  So majestic.  I kind of wish he'd caught whatever he was going for.  I mean, I would've felt bad for the critter, but it would've been cool. 

The rest of the walk was uneventful.  All is well in the neighborhood.  Everyone's crepe myrtles are blooming in a most spectacular fashion.  (Mine has two clusters of flowers.  :sadface:)   Nothing new to report to Hubs there.  I did cross paths with the new guy again.  He must walk way slower than I do because he wasn't as far along as I'd guessed he would be.  Either that or he stopped to chat with someone along the way. 

I did the walk in 25 minutes, even with all the stops.  And then I got to regale the Hubs with my little adventures.  A good morning.  And I get to do it again this morning.  I wonder what sights I'll see today.

Thursday This n That

August the 6th.  So far, it's been six days in a row of writing and activity.  Good start there.  Now to keep this up.  Yesterday, after spending the better part of the day crouched down over some spreadsheets, I so did not want to do anything, but I made myself sit down and write.  Then when my hands got crampy, I made myself go for a walk.  I will do this.  See?  I have a thing over on the right now to show my progress.  Yay.

On the docket for today?  Zucchini bread again.  Some other neighbors are supposed to be bringing us tomatoes and peppers, and I'd like to have a loaf ready for them when they stop by.  I can't have a garden - not with all the deer - so it's nice when neighbors bring us fresh produce.  And I like to pay them back by presenting them with baked goods.  Or maybe I'll make them oatmeal cookies and save the bread for the neighbor who brings us zucchinis.  Hmm.  I still have to make the bread because the zucchini is already defrosted, but...  Hmm.  I have to think on that.

I cut my hair again finally.  It doesn't look bad.  A little longer on the left than the right this time, but my head tilts to the right so it's not noticeable to anyone but me.

I have a note on my desk that says 'SSA waiting outside' (the next scene in CU), which keeps giving me pause this morning because even though I know SSA means Society for Sorceral Activity, my brain keeps defaulting to Social Security Administration.  And I can't figure out why they'd be waiting outside.  Derp.

One thing about having a new computer is that I keep having to add words to the dictionary I'd already added to the old computer's dictionary.  There's probably a dictionary file somewhere on the old girl I could transfer to this one, but I'm lazy. 

The fawns are accepting Hubs as part of the landscape now.  When he went to feed this morning, a mom and her twins were munching on the lawn and they didn't even run away.  In fact, one of the fawns approached him to see what he was doing.  And then it thought better of it and backed off.  Still, it's a pretty nice feeling for Hubs.  Me?  They at least don't run when I walk out of the house, as long as I don't walk toward them.

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

Sunday Update - Week 41

Helloooo.

It's early Sunday morning after I stayed up late watching the Yankees shut out the Astros and reading.  Yeah, staying up late is definitely not a guarantee I'm going to sleep in.  At all.

I wrote some this week.  It's gonna be a short story.  I know I don't do short stories, but this kind of hit me, so I started writing it.  We'll see how it goes.

No editing.  No marketing.

I read 4 books last week.  Yay.  And I picked up a paperback I purchased a couple months ago that I'm about halfway through as of last night.  Good stuff.  I hope the end doesn't disappoint.

No baking, but I bought a bag of Granny Smith apples.  I plan on making Romanian Apple Cake.  And maybe apple bread.  Or apple crisp.  Who knows.  I just feel like making stuff with apples.

Did 5 out of 7 days of activity.  Mostly walking again, and one uneventful fishing trip, but I also got some yardwork in yesterday.  Yay!  And I'm at 179.6 lbs, so I'm counting that as a win.

Yesterday.  It was finally cold enough to not have to worry about getting drilled by oak mites, so I went out with the idea of weeding the flower beds.  Problem with that is that the beds are now so full of leaves that weeding them would be antithetical to winterizing them, so I left the leaves and pulled the tall weeds.  I'll get the rest of the weeds in the spring.  The beds that don't accumulate leaves got weeded better.  Then I went into the woods.  Just to look around and take some measure of how much needs to be done this winter.  As I was walking the trails, I came across a problem - a vine that we'd cut off at its base year before last had finally decayed enough to drop out of the tree, right across one of our dogwoods.  Had the poor thing bent so the top was touching the ground.  I trudged back up the hill, grabbed the limb saw and went back to rescue the dogwood.  Fingers crossed it isn't too damaged.  After I did that, I finished my tour.  Loads of fresh deadfall to move once it gets cold and stays cold.  Yay. 

All the rain - we got four more inches this week - means the wet weather stream at the back of our property is running.  It's really pretty and peaceful down there right now with the stream gently burbling downhill toward the lake.

The vacant lot to the north got obliterated.  They had some guy come in and strip off the top layer of brush, then knock over some small trees.  Later, they had some other guy with a backhoe come in and dig and knock over more trees to make room for their house.  Of course, they're drawing a bit of attention from people in the nosy Nellies in the neighborhood who feel they need to add their two cents.  Bleh.  They're not bothering anyone and it's their land, so everyone needs to leave them alone.  We're really the only ones who'll be effected by this and we're fine with it.  Sheesh.  Yesterday the guy brought his little girl with him while he measured stuff - we think for the foundation - and it was nice watching her investigating rocks and exploring in all the dirt.  Reminded me of me.  Man, I'd give my eyeteeth to wander around in there, looking for cool rocks.  Lucky kid. 

A family member had minor surgery this week.  Made it through fine, last I heard.  I'll know more today or tomorrow, but I don't expect the outlook to change.

Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual here.  I need to make plans to go fishing now that the temps are dropping and the fish are biting.  What was on your plate last week?

Thursday This n That

The other day I was out walking when a neighbor I'd only met once before drove past me, giving me two thumbs up and mouthing 'Good job'.  I was totally confused.  It's not like the one time I met her we discussed my activity regime or my hope to lose weight or anything.  Then I got to wondering, in a playful and jocular way, if I'm so fat she felt the need to give me encouragement.  Did I look like I was losing steam and needed a boost?  I mean, I was stopped on the side of the road.  I always stop and wait for cars to go by - because I don't want to get hit from behind and would like a chance to jump out of the way should someone lose control of their vehicle.  It wasn't even a particularly hard walk that day - coolish with a slight breeze.  I wasn't even sweating like a pig, which I often do, or huffing like a freight train, which I used to do before I started walking all the time. She should've seen me 6 years ago.  Man, I was out of shape and 14 pounds heavier then.  Then a 1.6 mile hard-target walk would've done me in.  :shrug:

I don't understand why people ride motorcycles.  Sure, I've never been on one.  But I've been on a four-wheeler and on a snowmobile.  Pretty much the same thing, I'd imagine - flying down the road, wearing a helmet and no other form of protection around you.  The four-wheeler was fun, but I was young and stupid and we could've easily been killed.  I screamed myself mute during the snowmobile ride and it wasn't from fun.  Sheer terror.  It was dark and snowing and I was riding behind a guy who didn't even have his driver's license yet.  Getting pelted in the face with ice.  Loads of fun.  Substitute bugs for snow and that's how I imagine riding a motorcycle would be.  I'll keep my car, where I can sit in air-conditioned or heated comfort, listening to my tunes and feeling pretty secure that if someone hits me, my crumpled body will not be thrown 30 feet or have its skin scraped off by asphalt.  Someone once told me there are no open casket funerals after motorcycle accidents.  Yeah, sounds like fun to me.

Monday I was scrolling through my blogroll and noticed a post on swearing in fiction.  The poor guy had a reader actually take him to task for swearing in his violent epic fantasy novel.  He, of course, schooled her good.  And he pointed out that while she had a problem with his use of curse words, she apparently didn't have a problem with the violence and had even laughed about a reference to a minotaur harming a prostitute.  (Apparently she was reading it in some form of posting a story wherein readers can immediately comment as the story goes along.)  What a world, eh?  I may have to actually pick up this guy's book at some point because it sounded awesome.

I found the above guy through a fantasy novel competition I've been stalking for potential good things to read.  I've wishlisted a couple that I'll buy as soon as the budget frees up a little.  I'd enter one of my books but apparently this thing is so popular, the spaces fill up almost as soon as he announces it's open for entries.  Right now they're in the middle of a cycle, so I don't even have to think about it until next year.  

Yesterday, I went fishing.  Nothing spectacular about that.  Caught a few little pumpkinseeds and a keeper redear sunfish.  After I put the sunfish on the stringer, I went back to fishing, occasionally glancing over to check on Burt.  (Yes, I name the fish I catch.)  The last time I glanced over, I noticed a kind of longish stick in the water I hadn't seen there before.  And then I noted how the stick was jutting out from the water.  And THEN I noticed it wasn't a stick.  I was a big honking snake.  Unsure at the time whether it was a water snake or a copperhead, I sprang into action.  To save my fish.  My fish had taken refuge under a rock.  I needed to reach out past the fallen limb I'd attached the stringer to to nudge him loose, but the snake was in the vicinity.  In fact, the snake had swum to the side of the rock where Burt was hiding.  After I pulled Burt in, I tossed a small rock into the water.  Snake didn't even twitch.  I grabbed a larger rock and tossed it closer to, but not AT, the snake.  When the water cleared, the snake was lying on the bottom with the bigger rock next to it.  'Oh, crap, I hit him in the head.'  My aim was never that good, you know.  But then the snake rose up from the bottom and stuck his head back out of the water again.  No damage done, but he still looked intent on Burt.  I grabbed a longish stick and swung it near the snake's face.  It opened its mouth as if to strike.  So I tapped it on the top of the head with the stick.  Poof!  It disappeared.  Okay, it actually moved away so fast, I missed exactly where it went.  Which meant I wasn't sure if this potential copperhead was going to visit me again.  I packed up my stuff and scurried up the ledges to get the hell out of there.  I researched it when I got home and it was a water snake, which are non-venomous but exceptionally bitey. 

Burt and I made it home with no snake bites.  And now Burt is in my freezer for future dining pleasure.

Okay, I think I've bored y'all enough this morning.  Have an awesome day.  I might go fishing again, so if you leave a comment and it doesn't show up right away, I'll approve it when I get home.

Thursday This n That

I actually got to pet the neighborhood puppies.  OMG, they're so cute!  And I so do not want one.  Really, I don't.  I mean, they're cute and all, but those two boys sound like a handful.  Beagle mix of some kind.  The mother originally made me think beagle/sheltie, but the pups look like beagle/jack russell.  Either way, two breed mixes I do not have the time or the energy for.  But yeah, I'll happily play with them when I get a chance.  Don't despair, though.  It looks like the gal who took them in will be keeping the last two if she doesn't find homes for them.  So cute.  Ugh.

Also got some neighborhood gossip, which doesn't really mean anything to y'all, but it's interesting to us.  Looks like someone is getting ready to close on the vacant lot that's been for sale since before we moved here.  And for some strange reason, he was under the impression that, once the leaves were off the trees, the property would have a lake view.  Umm, no.  He'll have a view of the neighbor's house one way and the cow pasture the other way.  Methinks some realtor sold him a bill of goods.  We're closer to the lake than he is and we don't have a lake view - even in the winter.  Sorry, bud.  Best get out of that contract before it becomes final.  Please get out of it.  You won't like it here.  He told our neighbor he likes to play his music loud and have cookouts.  Noooooo.  She told him we all like it quiet here and we all keep to ourselves.  And he was rude enough to ambush her at 7:30am while she was letting the puppies out for potty, which doesn't bode well for future hopes of courtesy, lemme tell ya.

Speaking of neighbors, there are so many new people here.  We have no clue who most of them are.  So, we went into the local real estate portal and looked at all the property owner names.  I made a map of the neighborhood when we first moved here and a list with all the neighbors.  But so many of them have moved or died, that it's been wrong for a while now.  It's finally correct again.  Well, except for Vacant Lot Dude.  He hasn't closed, so it's still in the old owner's names.  And yes, I am weird.  But it's better than referring to one guy as Walking Dude and that house as Mold House.  (Although, we'll probably still refer to them that way because it helps keep it straight in our heads.)  And there's the one guy who I thought was named Dan for the first year he was here, and since then I thought his name was Tim, but it turns out it's actually Scott.  Umm, yeah, not good with names.  At all.

I don't actually want to meet any of my neighbors, but I like to know who they are.  Duh, hermit here.  And it's not that I would refrain from meeting them if the opportunity arose, but I won't be going out of my way and it won't be a social thing.  I don't like social things.

Cookouts?  :shudder:

I've found over the years that the more I get to know people, the less I want to know them - for the most part.  Every rare once in a while I meet someone cool who stays cool even after I learn more about them.  Usually, though, the more I learn, the more I'm likely to want to crawl back into my hermit hole.

Would you believe the letters ASE&D are already wearing off my new keyboard?  Ugh.

Your turn. 

Thursday This n That

I glanced out the window a little while ago to see about a half dozen deer milling around near the feed pans.  I found Hubs and said, "Honey, your entourage is here."  LOL

He made feeding them his first priority this morning.  There's one yearling buck we call Bumper who waits just inside the woods for Hubs to put the food in the pans.  As soon as Hubs heads back up the hill, there comes Bumper.  (Yes, Hubs is extremely careful out there.  He knows they are wild things with the potential to jab the hell out of him with antlers - even fuzzy ones - and kick the crap out of him.) 

On another note, but a similar one, the local rabbit (BunBun) has become so relaxed around here, it now has to be shooed out of the way so Hubs can feed.  BunBun likes to get right in the middle of the pan and munch the corn at his leisure.  He also regularly takes his siesta in the front lawn.  Flops right down and snoozes.  It's a good life here.

I've been flying along with wild abandon on what I've titled 'Ugly and the Beast' (Sleeping Ugly 2).  I have no idea where I'm going.  I'm just careening down the byways hoping I don't crash into anything gnarly.  I'm up to 6800 words as of last night.  Woohoo.

I actually went fishing a couple days ago.  It was lovely at the lake until these two young dudes came by with their big ass boat, water skiing.  And playing gangsta rap at obscene volumes.  Seriously annoying.  Then yesterday I was at the nearby convenience store getting a beverage and gossiping when I saw them.  One of them couldn't have been more than 5' tall - shaggy bronze hair with tattoos crawling up his arms.  The other was maybe my height (5'7"-8") with long straight black hair tied back in a semi-ponytail.  Also covered in tattoos.  Their tattoos were so black they looked like they'd been painted on with India Ink instead of tatted on.  They acted like whipped puppies while they were in the store and then scurried out to get into a new SUV with an older gentleman behind the wheel.  Daddy's car.  Daddy's boat.  Rich kids on the lake acting like Barney Badass gangsta wannabes.  Thank goodness they didn't act like that in the store.  They would've gotten their asses handed to them by the locals.  (The convenience store is a hangout for the local farmers and salt of the earth types.)

And yes, gossiping.  I am wont to do that on occasion.  But I see so few people I care to talk to that it's rare.  On this particular day, my neighbor who works at the convenience store was feeling chatty.  So, we chatted while she helped customers.  It was an enlightening conversation about the little Peyton Place that is my neighborhood.  There's some kind of weird ass feud going on between this person and those people, to the point that this person feels the need to lie to those people. I told the gal I was speaking to that what this person was telling those people wasn't true and laid out the facts.  It may come back around to me.  I don't care.  I hate liars. 

Ever watch that show Fear Thy Neighbor?  It's on Investigation Discovery and it's all about neighborhood disputes that go horribly awry and end in murder.  Yeah, I worry about that stuff sometimes, which is why I try not to get involved in neighborhood disputes.  I just couldn't help myself yesterday.  Lying makes me so mad.

It occurs to me that I have never talked to the neighbor who works at the convenience store inside the neighborhood.  I met her at the store and we talk at the store.  We wave when we pass in our cars.  But that's it.  And we both like it that way.  She and her husband keep to themselves and we keep to ourselves. 

Anyway, that's about it for me today.  What about you? 

Thursday This n That

Last week a neighbor brought us some squash.  I used it to make bread and then gave her a loaf.  Yesterday, she stopped by with enough squash for me to make eight more loaves.  She really liked that bread LOL.  I told Hubs it would take us months to eat 8 loaves.  He said, you make it, I'll eat it.  So, I'm making it. I was going to start in on that this morning, but I don't have enough coconut.  Maybe I'll make one batch (2 loaves of my regular recipe - the one I usually double) and freeze the rest of the squash.

Then while we were talking with the neighbor gal, she told us how she'd been mowing her lawn, but her mower lost a wheel off the mowing bed and it was tearing up her lawn, but her husband wasn't home to fix it.  Well, being who we are, we talked about it after she'd gone and decided to drop over there and help her out.  We'd never actually been to her house.  She's a neighbor only in that she lives in the general area and they drive by regularly on their golf cart, so we've developed a neighborly relationship with them.  Lemme tell ya, I was not expecting what their place looked like.  It's huge.  I mean, when she said they mow 7 acres, I expected they kept a couple fields near the house short with a brush-hog or something.  Nope.  7 acres of parklike lawn.  It's freakin' gorgeous over there.  And her home is lovely.  Like a lodge you'd rent out for a vacation by the lake, but cozy.  Set way back in the woods where you can't see it from the road, and overlooking the lake. So pretty. Anyway, Hubs fixed her wheel and then took her riding lawn mower for a spin while I toured her home and then we came home despite her invitations to come inside for a while. 

A pertinent note here, I'm really uncomfortable being inside other people's homes. Like approaching panic-attack uncomfortable.  But she's so sweet and she so wanted me to see her home that I sucked it up.  They've invited us to come visit dozens of times since we moved here, and I feel bad about declining necause they're both so nice, but what's a gal to do?  I think I need to take her aside and explain the situation, so she doesn't think it's them. Or that it's their dogs. I love their dogs. They have awesome dogs.  It's totally me.

Well, that's it for me today.  What's going on with you?

Thursday This n That... But Mostly This

It feels like every time I sit down to work this week, something derails me.  Mostly it's been thunderstorms.  I work on a desktop, so there's always the possibility a power outage will screw me royally.  Last night, no storms, so I was a good girl and sat my ass down in this chair and got to work.  Not long into it, I hear a big truck barreling down the road.  Weird, but no biggie.  Then another truck and sirens.  And Hubs saying something about something going on down the hill. 

All told, 4 fire trucks and two ambulances and a couple fire pickup trucks. 

Hubs and I go for a walk to see - because, hey, we never get excitement here.  I don't see anything.  I don't smell smoke.  Off we go on a slow downhill trek.  Get to the dogleg left, still nothing.  Clear the trees and there at the very bottom, all the fire vehicles are glutted on the little access road to the river.  At the mouth of the private access road, we see a group of people standing, so we walk down to them.  I don't recognize anyone - which isn't strange because I don't know all the people in here AND I have a crappy memory.  Then I recognize the dog.  It's the GSD that lives two doors down, so that must be the blonde gal who lives there.  Then another gal smiles and waves and welcomes us.  Not sure if she's the really nice gal who walks with her really nice husband, or the so-so nice gal we helped when their golf cart died and they needed a push.  (Her husband walked up later, so we figured out it was Really Nice Gal.) 

Turns out the newest resident to our sleepy little neighborhood is a whacko who accidentally set his own house on fire burning garbage in his yard.  I've seen him and his trashy, loud pickup truck flying past our house like we live on the straightaway at the Indy 500.  I've resigned myself to him.  Apparently, though, he's a worse problem for them down there.  It sounds like the beginning of an episode of Fear Thy Neighbor, and bad things are ahead if it plays out like one of those episodes.  For the sake of those involved - which ain't us because there is no way we are getting involved - I hope I'm wrong. 

All I know is I intend to be more careful when I'm out walking by myself.  Which is sad.  We moved way the hell out here to avoid crap like that. 

That's my this.  No that today.  What's on your radar?