Sunday Update - 2025 Week 51 or Whatever

 I figure since this coming week is the last of 2025, then last week must've been week 51.  Or whatever.  It was Christmas week and I'm short a few brain cells due to the timewarp that occurs this time of year.

I had a good writing week... well, a good beginning of a week and then the holiday hit and crickets.  Still, I managed to crank out 2236 words and I feel like I'm pretty close to THE END.  I mean, I could wrap it all up in no time and be done with it, but it feels flat, like it needs one more oomph to give it a real climax and then I can write the denouement.  So, I've been playing with how to make that happen over the last couple days.  Today, there will be writing.  I can still finish this by the end of the year, if I hunker down.

Marketing occurred.  Not a lot of marketing and thus, not a lot of movement.  Better than nothing, but not by much.  I'm like $2.50 away from clearing $200 this year.  Not sure if that'll happen, but a girl can hope.  I don't know what I'll put forth as a freebie to finish out the year and start next year.  Stay tuned.

I finished reading a book this week!  Woot.  That puts me at 35 for the year.  Still 5 short of my adjusted Goodreads goal, but I'm not flagellating myself over it.

On the activity front, we took three walks this week because the weather has been nice, and way too hot to play in the woods.  I also did some cleaning.  Eh, it's better than nothing, which is what my ever-widening ass wants to do.  Weight: 176.4

Baking happened.  I made a pumpkin pie bread pudding for Christmas dessert and it was pretty yummy.  (Recipe below.)  I also did a ham for Christmas dinner and it turned out awesome.  Total yummers there.

I've been busy getting ready for next year with my spreadsheets and crap.  Hard to believe Thursday will be a whole new year.  I do wrap-up posts and junk starting Friday.  Maybe.  If I remember.

Christmas happened.  We don't give each other gifts anymore, so no big whoop there.  We got ourselves a chainsaw and a deer dragging sled and a couple books (one of woodworking and the other on art).  Mom sent me card with a check in it, but that still hasn't arrived.  (Don't get me started on the USPS.)  MIL sent a card with a check in it, too.  That's the total of prezzies here.  The tree is still up and will be until Friday-ish.  We watched a boatload of movies - some of them Christmasy and some not.  Life is good.

Other than that, it was a quiet week.  Here's to a quiet end to 2025 and all that.  :hugs:

How was your week?  Did you get any good prezzies?

***

Pumpkin Pie Bread Pudding

2/3 loaf of Italian Bread* (or about 8-10 oz worth)

2 ½ cups evaporated milk

1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree

2 cups white sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp rum extract (optional)

1 tsp cinnamon

Dash ground cloves

Dash ground ginger

1 cup pecans (coarsely chopped)

1 cup raisins

¼ cup butter 

Cube bread (1-1 ½” cubes).  Preheat oven to 350F.  Put bread cubes into a large bowl.  In a separate large bowl, stir together pumpkin and evaporated milk.  Pour wet mixture over bread.  Fold together and let sit until bread absorbs wet (about 5 minutes).  Mix together sugar, eggs, vanilla, rum, and seasonings. Fold that into the bread/pumpkin mixture.  Put butter into 9x13” pan and put in the preheating oven.  When it’s melted, remove and set aside.  Fold pecans and raisins into batter.  Spoon mixture over the butter in the pan.  Bake 35-45 minutes until firm in the middle and edges are crisp.  You might need to put a separate cookie sheet on the rack below the bread pudding, in case the butter decides to escape over the edges.  Serve warm with ice cream or drizzle with caramel sauce, or both.

*I bought a 14oz loaf from Walmart and cubed about 2/3rds of it.  The original recipe called for an 8oz loaf of French bread, but I improvised.  

What's Sincere and What's Scam?

I've gotten a few emails this week in regard to DYING EMBERS (which is still free through the end of today).  Most of them have been obvious - people trying to get me to pay them to market my book.  One of them, on the other hand, was someone wanting to use my book in their book club.  I've been on the fence with that one re: sincere or scam.

I mean, he seemed sincere enough.  He talked about my book like he'd actually read it.  He said intelligent things.  Unfortunately, so did several of the scammers.  (In all fairness, the marketers may not have been scammers, but for brevity, and because it's so hard to tell the difference, I'll call them that.)

It's a minefield out there.  How does one tell the difference between someone who is sincerely interested in a book and someone who's trying to part you from your well-earned and miniscule profits?  (I'm averaging about $18 a month here.)  

The idea that I may be ignoring someone who is sincerely interested in my work wrecks me.  I lay awake at night thinking about it.  I'd be willing to interact with them.  (I almost said like or love, but the idea of interacting with strangers makes me nauseous.  Hell, most days, I don't want to interact with anyone but Hubs, but that's on me.  The older I get, the more hermit-like I become.)

On the other hand, interacting with scammers - even just a little - is bad.  You even bother to tell them 'no thanks' and suddenly you're inundated with crap.  Who needs that?

So, I sit here, torn between knowing I need to interact with fans/readers and wanting to stay as far away from scammers as possible.  It's a slippery slope to hell either way.

What do you think?

(For the record, I deleted the 'book club' email, but didn't send it to spam like I do with all the others.  If he emails again, I'll think about this some more.)

Thursday This n That

I started the week with a massive to-do list, but I'm whittling it down.  And I'm adding to it.  But hey, stuff's getting accomplished.  For instance, all the gardens are weeded now.  Of course, the first one I weeded is already showing signs of needing to be weeded again.  Blerg.

If you read yesterday's post on Paperbacks, you'll see there at the end how I discovered issues with those of my paperbacks I migrated over from Createspace.  That alone added to my to-do list.  I think this is a neverending to-do list.  It just goes on and on and on.

Neverending should be one word.  Jus' sayin'.

Today is April Fools Day.  I don't do pranks.  Loathe them, in fact.  It is, however, the day I met Hubs in person for the first time.  Seventeen years ago.  Our wedding anniversary is in May.  About 6 weeks from the day I saw him to the day we got married.  When it's right, you know it.

When we got to the car that day, Hubs had a dozen yellow roses waiting for me.  I still have several of those, dried in a vase.  If I'd known how momentous the occasion was going to be, I would've kept them all.  I have every other rose he ever gave me, though.  

April 1st was also my childhood dog's birthday.  Or the day we assigned as his birthday.  We got him mid-May 1976 and he was 6 weeks old, so we walked it backwards.  Happy Birthday, you wonderful dog, you.

I don't say my dog's name online because it's frequently a security question.  I also never use that name as a security question because you never know when I'll forget and drop the name somewhere out in the world.  

It's amazing how many little things we have to do in our daily lives because some numbnuts did something no rational person would conceive of doing.  Can't buy effective cold medicine over the counter?  Thank the group of numbnuts who make meth with it.  

I just joined this group over on FB that's devoted to Crime Fiction.  But they don't allow self-promotion except on Mondays.  So it's just a bunch of people talking about the books they're reading and asking about books others have read.  It's kind of nice.  I did do a self-promo this past Monday and got one sale in the UK from it.  I think.  It's a UK group - a fact I discovered after I'd joined.  :shrug:  It's either that or my one Brit fan who used to hang out here found the book on the same day I posted.  Either way, yay.

I got my proof copy of RHI on Monday.  The Amazon proofs come with a banner all the way around the cover saying 'Not for Resale'.  Well, duh.  Except the banner covers verbiage I'd like to be able to read to determine whether it looks right.  Derp-heads.  The old Createspace proofs had 'Not for resale' stamped on the back page.  Heaven forbid someone wanted to buy one of those.  :eyeroll:

While I was out weeding, I found a wee, itty-bitty frog.  A baby gray tree frog.  So damn cute.  I mean, they only get to about 1.5 inches when they're full grown, but this one was maybe a half-inch, so a baby.  Yeah yeah, actual baby frogs are tadpoles, so let's say an adolescent tree frog.  Geez.

Well, this ended up being longer than I thought it would be, so I'll just leave ya there.  Got any this-n-that to share?

Thursday This n That

I don't have a smartphone, I have a dumbphone.  I've had it for like 10 years.  It doesn't do apps.  It doesn't need wallpaper.  It doesn't have a camera.  I could text with it, but what a pain in the ass.  Once, I tried to use it to access the internet.  It did not go well.  I pay $19.99 for three months worth of service.  It makes phone calls.  And it's for emergencies - like when my car battery dies while I'm out at the lake, or when I forget the grocery list, or when I witness something I might need to let the police know about.  Or if something happens that someone might need to let me know about when I am not at home.  I also use it when the landline is out, but I have to walk out to the road because the signal in the house sucks.

Sometimes when the world gets particularly heinous, I go to Pinterest and look at the pretty pictures I've pinned.  So there's that.

Last night, I had thought about going fishing this morning, but it's all weathery out there with more weathery stuff throughout the morning.  Rolling boomers in the sky.  Don't need to go fishing bad enough to risk getting zapped.

Isn't the English language an awesome thing?  I write 'weathery' and even though it's not a word, you know exactly what I mean.  Same thing with writerly.  And who hasn't heard a book described as 'unputdownable'?  With English, you can throw parts of words together and make a new word that other English speakers can still understand. 

I need to clean the coffee maker.  It's been getting progressively slower and this morning it's spitting and sputtering like the percussion section of a spastic symphony.  I do not need it to die right now.  Time to run vinegar through it again.  But first, time to drink more of its awesome elixir.

The other day, I did my weekly Wallyworld trip and wouldn't you know it, I forgot to buy a beverage for the trip home.  It's too hot to drive without a beverage, so I stopped at the feed store - cuz even though I didn't need feed, they carry a limited selection of beverages.  I got Orange Crush.  Anyway, while I was there, my favorite in-person reader friend (FIPRF) was training a new cashier and while the new gal was ringing me up, my friend nods at me and says "She's a writer, you know.  You've probably read some of her books."  At which point, I about fell over laughing.  The new girl was thoroughly confused, but we explained it all and I gave her some swag.  Maybe I'll have a new reader soon.  FIPRF really does try to generate new readers for me when she gets a chance.  She's awesome.

And that it for me today.  What's the this n that skinny for you today?