Thursday This n That

 You know how people say they can predict the weather by the body parts that hurt?  I've decided it's not the weather, it's the barometric pressure that causes previously broken bones to ache.  Yeah, I've been thinking about this because the ankle that I probably broke (but never went to a doctor for) a few years back is shrieking at me.  Oh, and my broken bones scream at me in reverse order - newest to oldest - which is why that ankle is taking the stage ahead of the foot, the pelvis, the thigh, or the collar bone.  Actually I'm kinda thankful the pelvis breaks are being quiet.  When those hurt, it feels like someone kicked me in the crotch.  Not fun.

Potatoes.  The package of seedling potatoes I bought says 90-120 days from planting to harvest.  Several sites online say you harvest potatoes after the green parts turn brown and die back.  I need to research this further because why would they die back if they're happy and well-fed in the greenhouse??  But if that's not the key indicator, how will I know if they're ready at 90 days or at 120 days or somewhere along the way?  It's not like I can see the potatoes growing under the dirt there.  I told Hubs I need ground-penetrating radar, like they use to look for bodies, but small so I can look for potatoes.

I've been procrastinating about going shopping, so I really have to go today.  I have Old Mother Hubbard's freezer.  There's one chicken breast and one container of soup.  Oh, and a boatload of frozey-pops.  This does not bode well for a yummy dinner, so off to Wallyworld later this morning.  The cats are also down to one can of food, which is tragic.  Or will be if I don't get them more food today.

Hubs just came in with the coffee pot to refill my mug.  I picked it up and hovered over it like Golem, saying 'my precious'.  We laughed... well, I laughed anyway.

Roku 'monsters' channel was having an Abbott and Costello marathon yesterday - A&C Meet Frankenstein, A&C Meet the Invisible Man, A&C Meet the Mummy.  I watched part of the first and part of the last.  (The Invisible Man one was never my favorite.)  I used to have the mummy one on VHS.  I do love me some Abbott and Costello.  

Speaking of The Mummy, the best book of that sub-genre is Anne Rice's - The Mummy (or Ramses the Damned).  I think it's her best book, but that's me.  

Okay, I'd better get back to marketing.  (Not that it's doing me much good, but it's better than nothing.)  Have a great day wherever you are.  Peace out.

Sunday Update - 2026 Week 18

Well hello there.  It's Sunday.  It's morning.  It's time for an update.  This week was a busy one for me and I am understandably both tired and sore.

I spent a lot of time this week on the deck garden.  Last Sunday, due to critter carnage, I moved the entire garden worth of pots inside.  About half of the pots went into the garage and the other half went into the sunroom.  The potato pots are huge, so we're talking probably 30-40 pounds each, but I did it. (Hubs' back is toast right now, so I've been doing stuff myself rather than have him lift and carry.)  I also thinned the carrots.  

My new greenhouse arrived.  It's a beaut.  Not a large enclosure at roughly 5x5x6.5, but large enough.  Hubs helped me put that sucker together on Friday and I populated it with all the plants that can handle full sun.  Not that the deck gets a whole lot of full sun, but enough that it would probably kill my redbuds.  Then to further discourage the critter, I put blocks all the way around it - each block sitting on the edge of the plastic greenhouse cover.  This will also give the greenhouse some stability in the wind, so yay.  The three mornings since I put the greenhouse together have been carnage free, so yay to that, too.  (I haven't taken any pics yet, so if you want to see the greenhouse I bought, click the link.  It's still on sale as of this morning, if you want one, too.)

When I ordered the greenhouse, I also ordered a game camera.  That arrived on Friday, but I haven't put it out yet.  I did set it up and managed to take several pictures of my hands.  It's not the wifi kind, so I'll have to take it down and plug it into the computer if I want to see the pics, but I'm okay with that.  

I've been feeding the deer all week, so Hubs can rest his back.  The deer are getting fat pregnant.  I always feel so bad for them, waddling around the yard.  Judging by the size of their bellies, they might drop fawns earlier this year.  We'll see.

Friday, I went grocery shopping.  Wallyworld was a zoo.  Anyway, while I was there, they had a bunch of beef marked down, so I ended up getting a London Broil.  I'd never cooked one of those, but it was cheap and cheap beef is hard to find.  I took half of that and threw it in the crockpot with spaghetti sauce and mushrooms, and we had my version of steak pizziola last night for dinner.  Yummers.

I did some marketing this week.  Not a huge amount of books moved, but eh, it's better than nothing.  The start of a new month makes my KDP dashboard look so depressing with it zeroes across the board.  Having numbers there, even if they're small, helps.  Not sure what will be on the Marketing Monday rota tomorrow.

And since I started this over an hour ago and it's been sitting here forgotten as I scroll through X and FB, I think I'm probably done.  Have a great day and a wonderful week.  :hugs:

Sunday Update - 2026 Week 12

Hello.  I'm up obscenely early for a Sunday, but that's on the cats.  They didn't like last night's food, so they're being turds.

I thought about writing and editing this week.  That may be a sign that I'm jones'n for it.  Shhh, don't frighten the gumption away.  Marketing went crickets on me.  I only moved 15 copies of UNEQUAL.  :shrug:  Tomorrow starts a 'series bonanza' - something different I'm trying - wherein all the books in the A Model Curse series will be free for 5 days.  I've already set up tomorrow's post on that.  

I started reading a book.  Woot.  I'm about a quarter of the way through Leadership by Rudy Giuliani.  

No baking.  I did make a really tasty sweet & sour chicken dish, even if the breading on the chicken did go pear-shaped* on me.

On the activity front, I was a little active this week.  It was mostly garden work - removing detritus from the outside beds and working on the potted plants on the deck.  We did walk once, though.  Go us.  I haven't weighed myself.  Weight: Fat

The potted plants seem to be doing okay.  I'm not sure if I mentioned that 3 out of my 4 pots worth of tiny carrot plants died, but the 4th pot is doing good.  I will be thinning that this week and replanting the other pots with new carrot seeds.  I have 1 tiny potato plant coming up, which thrills me no end.  The repotted green peppers are all doing well.  All six of my redbud trees have leaves.  The redbud I thought was dead is trying, so yay.  Both of my remaining dogwood trees have tiny leaves.  The three mystery trees are all doing really well.  I'm no longer sure that one is a black cherry, but I'm getting more sure that one is a buckthorn.  We'll see.

I did try to do some carving this week.  I was really getting into it when the gouge slipped and I perforated my thumb knuckle.  That'll teach me.  Of course, I wasn't wearing the safety gloves.  I hate gloves when I have to actually do anything with my hands.  Of course, I'll be wearing them the next time I carve, because while I am sometimes foolhardy, I'm not stupid.  Live and learn.  Thankfully, it wasn't a large perforation and I'm a good clotter.  I'm just waiting to be 100% sure it won't open back up before I go back to strenuous hand activities.  

Other than that?  :shrug:  I hope you had a good week last week and that this coming week is amazing for you.

*a British phrase that I appreciate, so I'm gonna use.  What's English if not an opportunistic language that rummages through the pockets of other languages looking for spare phrases and shiny euphemisms?

Friday This n That

I totally brainfarted out that yesterday was Thursday.  Thus, realizing that today was Friday, it occurred to me that I never posted my this n thats.  Derp and all that.

I'm not dead.  Not even close.  I am, however, in a stupid place.  You know the one where you're not doing anything and you're feeling guilty about not doing anything so you don't do anything?  Maybe that's just me.  :shrug:

The prezzies I bought for the neighbor kids are wrapped.  Now I just need to get the prezzies from here to next door.  I also have a tin of cookies for the across-the-street neighbors and I package of cookies for Mom that need to be mailed.  And yet, here I sit.  (Of course, right now it's too early to do anything... excuses excuses)

Sawyer decided that this morning was a good time to revisit his old vaudeville act wherein he pats rhythmically on the front of the dresser ad nauseum. This act was followed by a song routine of old favorites by his partner, Finn.  I thought we'd moved past this, but apparently not.  Silly cats.

I have a song stuck in my head.  (Not Finn's.)  So I looked it up, because I hear it on the radio a lot, but I have no idea who sings it or anything.  It's called Too Sweet and it's by Hozier... Hozier?  Really.  Okay, my brain is now channeling The Mackenzie Brothers, but whatever.  (Yes, I know... their word was hoser, but still...)  Apparently, it's the dude's last name and apparently he's some kind of social justice warrior.  Damn it.  This is why I don't go looking into celebrities.  

And now for something we hope you'll really like...  (If you don't know where that phrase comes from, I'm sorry.  Maybe if I start it out with 'Hey, Rocky... watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.'  :RAWR: 'Looks like I need a better hat.')

My hands hurt.  Unfortunately, not from writing.  Pulling a sled with logs on it used muscles I didn't know I had and there ya are.

Speaking of logs, Hubs and I were just joking around about what to do with the big trunks - especially the black cherry that's still standing.  It's beautiful wood and it would be a shame to cut it up for firewood, but it's so heavy, we'll never be able to move that stuff on our own.  So, we got the idea to carve it where it is.  I said something about doing a faun/satyr, then he said something about a tableau of woodland creatures.  Then we both said something about turning it into a totem.  With Trump's head on top.  Then Reagan, Lincoln, and Washington. :gigglesnort:  We're so funny.

Okay, that's probably about all I'm worth today.  I need to get back to marketing.  Last day for DYING EMBERS freebie and all that.  Have a great day wherever you are.  Hasta la bye-bye.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 49

I'm having a tough time with the concept that there are only three weeks left to 2025.  Where did November go???  Ack.  Okay, it's true, but yah.  Anyway...

The writing went pretty well last week.  I wrote 4 out of 7 days and ended up with about 4000 more words, which put DN3 over 40K.  Woot.  It's all coming together.  

The marketing?  Not so well.  Still, I moved 41 copies of CU, which is better than nothing.  Still no $$$ for December yet.  Which is depressing.  I'm not sure what I'll do this week, or if I'll even do anything. Not selling gets pretty depressing.  Tune in tomorrow for the answer.  If there's a Marketing Monday post, I did it.  If not, then nope.

I'm working my way through reading Stellar Ranger - a SF/Crime/Western mashup.  It's pretty interesting.

In baking news, I made another cheesecake - and I'm done with that for a while.  I also made a vat of Turkey Noodle Soup and another vat of chili.  I meant to make corn bread to go with the chili, but it didn't happen.  :shrug:

On the activity front, I was active every day but one.  Loads of woods-work and one day was groceries.  Unfortunately, today was the first time I weighed myself since before Thanksgiving and I'm up 3 pounds over the last weigh-in.  :shrug:  Maybe I was up 5 pounds and lost two in the woods.  In that case, yay.  Maybe yay?  Weight: 177.8.  

Speaking of woods work... Most of what I was doing out there was cleaning the areas around the big dead cherry to prep for chainsaw work and clearing the new property line.  Then Hubs and I took a line from one end of the property to the other and he tapped in stakes with pretty pink ribbon, so we know where we are when we're in the woods.  I took pics, but I haven't downloaded them yet.  The woods are still an unholy mess, but progress has begun.  Hubs took the chainsaw out on its maiden voyage yesterday, and for this, I christened it.  Our chainsaw is now named Buzz.

As for critters, we saw a bald eagle over our property.  Yay.  And Lumpy is still alive as of yesterday... not sure if yay is appropriate there.  She's pretty damn skinny, and her coat looks like shit, but she doesn't appear to be suffering, so I'm torn.  Not that there's anything we can do about it except wish for either a speedy recovery or a gentle end.  Speaking of ends, I found a deer skull, pelvis, long bone, and one vertebrae in the woods yesterday.  Not Lumpy.  They've all been out there a while and they seem small enough to be a 4-6 month fawn.  Nature's a bitch sometimes.

I can't think of anything else I did this week.  I'm lucky I could think of all the above with as sore as I am right now.  Throwing logs and walking around on lumpy, heavily-inclined hillsides is not for the faint of heart.  I think I need an Aspercreme bath and an Aleve drip.

How was your week?

Lumberjackin'

Yesterday, I was out in the woods, clearing piles of deadfall, etc. in preparation for the chainsaw work.  There's a lot of crap out there on the new property.  We've had several large trees fall over in the last few years and they're just laying there, clogging up the paths and generally retarding progress.  So, we bought a chainsaw to deal with them.

Except in order to get to them and work, we need to clear away all the limbs and sticks and little bushes.  We also need to clear all that crap so we can chart the property line.  The black cherry tree's upper branches are right across the line.  And there's a cedar fallen across the lower part of the line.  Plus there's a stand of spicebushes down there.  It's a mess.

In the middle, we have a huge sycamore that fell over during the storm of May 2024.  That definitely needs to be chopped up.  Walking around it to get from the top of the property to the bottom is a pain in the ass.

So, yeah, chainsaw.  

Now, I'm not an idiot.  Hubs will be working the chainsaw and I will be staying the hell out of the way.  I like my appendages and he's more skilled at that stuff anyway.  But if he's doing all the chainsaw, I'll be contributing by giving him access and then helping drag the logs up the hill.  That's why I bought the sled.  

What's any of this have to do with writing?  Not much.  Well, except for the fact that all the work I did yesterday made for really ouchie hands today.  Typing this is a symphony of ouch.  I need a bucket of Aspercreme and a pound of Aleve.

Still, it's stuff that's gotta be done and we're not getting any younger.  (Okay, it doesn't HAVE TO be done.  I want it done, so I'm doing it.  It'll be so pretty when we're finished.)  Chop it up, drag it up, stack it.  Plus, it's good exercise and it gets me out of the house.  Fresh air and all that.  And eventually, all that wood will be used to heat the house.

Thursday This n That

My arms look like I've been attacked by an itty bitty swordsman.  Only a tiny portion of the damage is cat related.  The rest of it is thorns and woods work.  I didn't even feel most of it when it was happening and only noticed it later.  Eh, it's visual proof I've been working.  And the yard is looking quite nice, if I do say so myself.  

Oh, and the spot on the back of my middle finger?  That's a burn I got while making dinner.  I'd show you, but I don't want to flip you off.  ;o)

By the way, 100% pure aloe will take care of minor burns for you.  Slather that crap on as soon as you can after you've burned yourself and it'll be unpainful in no time.  Works for sunburns, too.  And dry skin patches.  And sometimes bug bites. (Depends on what bit you.)  I use Fruit of the Earth.  And I get mine from Wallyworld.  

I'm having a sale.  I'm not being good about marketing, though.  I missed it on Monday and today's not looking good either.  Still moving books, though, so yay.

We've now located 4 redbud trees on our property.  And I found a honey locust yesterday.  Thankfully, I didn't find it the hard way.  Those things have nasty spikes on them.  I hacked all the spikes off the trunk up to Hubs' height, so either of us can walk around the damn thing without getting speared.  I also spent some major time removing dead limbs from the cedars.  

Yep, I hurt today.  90 minutes of sawing can do that to a gal.

Okay, I'm running late, so that's it for me for now.  Have a great day out there!

Sunday Update 8/4/24

 :blink blink: It's morning, isn't it?  Bleh.  :chugs coffee:  Okay, let's see if we can rebuild the week.

I wrapped up JuLoWriMo on Wednesday night.  And only wrote one day since then.  I did put out over 1300 words that night, but I'm guessing that I still didn't acquire the habit of writing every day if it was so easy to not write.  Gotta work on that.  The book is at 30055 words now.  

Yesterday, I did set up the SCIU books to run this week as a sale.  Dying Embers will be free.  Fertile Ground and Early Grave will be 99c (US and UK only).  I updated one of my previous sale graphics to go with it, which I'd show you but Google won't let me access the damn thing.  Derp.

I forgot to post a Reading Wrap-up this week.  It wasn't exciting or anything.  I only read one book.  I'll add that to next week's post.

In baking news, I made homemade pizza again.  Woohoo.  Otherwise, it really is too damn hot to bake.  Today, I'm going to make a pork roast in the crockpot.  It'll be yummy and still not add too much to the house heat.

On the activity front, Monday I walked the loop here - 1.1 miles of terrain.  Unfortunately, they've re-graveled the unpaved portion and it kinda makes for unsure footing.  I didn't fall, but I slipped around a couple times and must've pulled my calf muscle.  That sucker hurt.  This basically shut down my walking for the rest of the week.  It's finally feeling okay again, so I'll try to get a walk in this morning.  I also need to get back to cleaning.  Weight: 170.2

I don't think I've mentioned it, but I started doing crossword puzzles again.  We get a magazine from our electric company every month and each one has a crossword in the back.  Being the packrat I am, I have several years worth of the magazines, so I'm working my way through the puzzles.  Each time I complete a puzzle, I throw the magazine out.  Exercising the brain AND decluttering.  Go me.  (Not really a lot of exercise for the brain. The puzzles are kinda lame.  Plus, I cheat at crosswords.)

Oh, I almost forgot.  We were without phones again - Monday through Friday night.  They're back, but I'm not holding my breath that they'll stay that way.  The techs are doing the best they can, but the equipment out here is in desperate need of an upgrade and Brightspeed isn't interested in spending the money for an area that brings in so little revenue.  I get it, but it sucks.  We're still back and forth with the idea of ditching the landline altogether.  We'll see.  UPDATE: as of 9:45am, we are without phone again.  For the record, I hate Brightspeed.  If you can avoid using them, do so.

Other than that, not much really going on around here.  The life is pretty boring, which is good thing.  After two years of stress-stress-stress, it's a needed break.  

How was your week?

Sunday Update 7/21/24

Welcome to the Sunday Update with B.E. Sanderson...  

Writing: I wrote six out of the last 7 days for 235 minutes and a total of 5595 new words. I added a new high of 1198 words last night.  Unfortunately, I'm paying for those words this morning with ouchie hands.  Eh, it's the price one pays.  Total word count for the book: 19693.

Reading: Finished reading two books, DNF'd two books.  All in all, a pretty good week.

No baking.  I had thought about making a sour cream coffee cake, but it needs two sticks of butter and that's all I have in the house at the moment, so nope.

Activity: Well...  I overdid it yesterday.  So, in addition to the ouchie hands from writing, I have ouchie other things from gardening - which I attacked with a vengeance right after walking for 3/4 of a mile.  In all, I was active 6 out of 7 days.  Loads of that was cleaning. My stamina is slowly creeping up, but not enough that yesterday wasn't a 'you're gonna pay for this' day.  I haven't weighed myself since last Sunday - 168.4.  I'm up to 28.65 miles walked this year.  Yay.

Gardening: On the upside, the retaining wall for the cedar bed looks amazing.  The bed itself looks like crap, but the wall is awesome.  I had plans to clean the bed today, but it's raining.  Yeah, yeah, that's the reason I'm taking today off.  Derp.  In other gardening news, my lilac bush took a shit for the most part.  I need to hack all the dead trunks off and hope what's still alive can struggle its way back.  To that end, I ordered a hand-held limb saw which should get between the dead stuff and the live stuff with ease.  We'll see.  Not today.

And that's about it.  I'm gonna go slather myself with Aspercreme.  Getting old blows, but the atrophy part of this I did to myself.  Suck it up, buttercup.  

How was your week?

I keep forgetting this...

Ju-Lo-Wri-Mo Day 20
Starting word count: 18495
Ending word count: 19693
New Words: 1198

Randomosity

So apparently Facebook went down yesterday for about six hours.  I noticed because as I play poker, I like to scroll through the feed when I'm not in a hand and when I tried, I got a note from my browser that there was no Facebook.  I shrugged and went on with my day.  I totally forgot about it until later when I clicked my link and in my feed people were talking about the outage.  Some people are joking that Facebook banned itself.  Others are joking that this outage was due to some whistleblower and Zuck needed to shut down to delete stuffs.  

Last night I made a dish for dinner using chicken, onions, baby potatoes, and mushrooms sauteed in butter with salt, pepper, and basil.  Dished it up and drizzled BBQ sauce over it.  Pretty yummy stuff there.  Hubs has been off chicken lately, but he said it was good, so there's a win.  Yay.

We're at that point in the year where I have no idea what to wear.  Too hot, too cold, too hot, too cold.  Shorts and then sweats and back to shorts.  Put on a sweater, take it off.  

I'm up to almost 300 million in poker now.  When you're playing with 20 mil at a whack, it's easier to go up quickly.  There's also the chance you'll go down just as quickly if you aren't careful... and lucky.  Like I was at 200 million and went down to 91 million over the course of a day.  And it took a couple weeks to get back to 200 mil.  :shrug:  Yesterday, I jumped from 245 to 298 thanks to a couple good hands and some other minor wins.  Waxed a couple of people when I went all-in with pocket aces.  That netted me 37 mil.  Got another 10 mil with a flush on the river.  I was third on the leader board for the week for that buy-in level last I checked.  Go, me.

My arms are still pretty much toast from the work I did.  This makes reading hard.  Holding up a book or an ereader for any length of time exacerbates the ouchy.  Typing for too long is also a no-no.  This is the excuse I'm using for not writing again yet.

Yes, mousing is also hard, but I try to limit that when I play poker.  And I don't play for too long at a stretch.  Play a little, take a break.  I think this might be the key to getting back to writing/editing.  Do a little, take a break.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  We'll give that a whirl today.  Maybe.

I cleaned my bathroom.  This is notable because I haven't done it in months.  Because reasons.  Now it's so pretty!  Makes me not want to take a shower in there and mess it up.  

I really need to cut my hair.  This, too, will mess up my bathroom with hair bits which I will have to vacuum up.  Which reminds me... I have to shave my legs, too.  Blerg.  Too much information?  LOL

And on that note, I'm going to wander off.  Got anything random to add?

Randomosity

 It's Tuesday.  How did it get to be Tuesday again already?  Not that there's anything special about Tuesday.  It's just that I feel like we just had a Tuesday and here it is again.  Where the hell did Monday go?

Sunday I reached down to do something behind my recliner and wasn't paying attention to where the back of the chair was in relation to my head.  Boink.  I'm sure it left a mark, but it's above the hairline.  

Yesterday, it rained off and on.  During one of the off periods, Hubs figured it was a good time to walk up to the mailbox to mail a couple birthday cards out.  Halfway there, the rain decided to turn on again.  Sploosh.

I have all my proofer notes ready to go, but the will to work isn't ready for anything.  On the upside, the proofers seemed to enjoy the story and reports are that the notes aren't that bad.  So what's the problem there, Mr. Gumption, eh?

Today's bird of the day is a tufted titmouse. If you have a bunch of them is it titmice or titmouses?  Spellcheck says titmice is correct (no red squiggle).  Titmouses sounds more fun to me.  Especially is you say it like a German psychiatrist.  Tit mouwziz.  Okay, maybe that's just me.

I went to bed last night with like 10 pages left to read in this book.  I was right in the middle of the climax when the cat started meowing that she needed to use the litterbox.  I tried to ignore her long enough to finish the book, but it became apparent that she was getting irritated.  I set the book aside, took her to the litterbox, and then got ready for bed.  Then I couldn't sleep because the book wasn't finished and I didn't know what happened and I was amped up from the thrill of the story.  I should've just finished the damn book.  With only about 10 pages left, he'd better get cracking on wrapping this thing up satisfactorily.  =o\  I'll finish it as soon as I finish this post.

Speaking of which, that's probably more than enough yattering out of me today.  How's things with you?