Saturday Reading Wrap-up 8/10/24

Dang.  It seems like every day I'm apologizing for being late.  Today, I'm blaming the internet because I actually tried to post earlier but I couldn't bring the page up.  Derp.  This is the wrap-up for two weeks' worth of reading.

I picked up some new ebooks this week.  Read one and have three left to go.  No new hardcopies, but I have a ton of those, so no worries.

Books Read:

18) Oblivion's Cloak by Dylan McFadyen (8/9/24) - epic SF*# - 5 stars. New to me and underappreciated.  Picked this up for free from The Fussy Librarian newsletter.
Review: "This is a long and intricate book, which I didn't expect when I snagged it during a freebie promo, but it's enthralling and kept me reading - sometimes to the exception of everything else I was supposed to be doing. There are harsh bits in it, but they fit. The characters are hard people living hard lives, but the author still managed to make them sympathetic. Plus, in the end, good guys win and bad guys die. And you cheer for both events."

17) The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie (8/4/24) - mystery - 5 stars. Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  I snagged this one at the thrift store for $1.
Review: I can't get the Goodreads page to pull up.  Click the link to see my review.  

16) The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks (8/2/24) - fantasy - 5 stars. Neither new to my nor underappreciated.  I bought this one for full price from Amazon - $6.99
Review: I can't get the Goodreads page to pull up.  Click the link to see my review.

No DNFs.

Currently Reading... I haven't picked anything since I finished that SF yesterday.  My eyes needed a break.  I'll probably go with an Erle Stanley Gardner or a Western next.  We'll see.

What was on your reading list this week?

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!

Sleep Deprivation ala Sawyer

Last night, we decided that it would be a good night to let the boyz have free run of the house.  We have great hopes of someday just letting the cats out so they can do their things and still being able to get a good night's sleep.  Let's just say that didn't happen.  I got maybe 4 hours of sleep.  Hubs got about the same.  Needless to say, we're dragging ass today.

The problem... now and every other time we've tried this... is Sawyer.  He's a moose.  He's also kinda spastic.  And he doesn't quite know what to do with himself most of the time.  Finn, loose at night, generally just picks a different place to sleep.  Sawyer wants to know why we aren't paying attention to him.  He meows loudly, scratches the walls (sounds like nails on a chalkboard, folks), and generally creates mayhem until one of us gets out of bed.  This is also why I can't take naps these days, by the way.

If you don't remember or haven't seen where I've said this before, Sawyer's name at the shelter was Chili Pepper.  That was a big hint there.  We understood the hint at the time, but we were thinking jalapeno and this boy is more ghost pepper.  And, like I said, he's a moose.  I haven't weighed him in months, but he was 16 pounds then and he's probably 20 now.  Not fat. Just solid.  And if big kitty doesn't want to do something, good luck trying to get him to do it.  He's a toddler with knives.  

He's gotten a lot better, but he's still... WOW.  Especially juxtaposed against Finn who is laid back and calm.  (Not quiet.  Finn's my talker.  But he's also not in an 'in your face' kinda cat.)  

I read somewhere that larger breed cats take longer to mature.  Finn, who seems to be part Siamese, was an adult cat at a year.  Sawyer? We think he's part Maine Coon. And, let's just say we're still waiting on him reaching maturity.  I hope he outgrows this.  

It's not like I don't know how to train a cat.  I have tried everything.  Water bottle squirts?  That worked for like a day and then he decided water squirts were fun.  Orange peels to keep him off things?  He was all like 'yay, new toys' and batted them around.  I put essential oils around.  He made a face and then attempted to lick it off, so I had to wipe it all off before he ingested it.  I've even swatted him on the butt.  He thinks that's just playing rough and he's all WOOHOO! MOM WANTS TO PLAY!

Don't get me wrong.  He's a boo and I love him.  This too shall pass.  I hope.  Until then, it's either lock the cats up at night (No worries.  Our office is huge, it has all their toys, it has the litter box, and we put food and water in here before we close the door.) so I can sleep or get used to dragging every day.  Sawyer has no problem with spending his nights in the office.  He sleeps, he eats, he sleeps some more.  Finn, on the other hand, hates being closed in here.  He sleeps, too, but you can tell it's under protest.  Unfortunately, Finn also hates being left out of the office, so where one goes, so goes the other.  

Right now, both of them are sleeping.  In my bedroom with Hubs.  Sawyer on the bed and Finn on the dresser.  If they could do that at night, life would be awesome.  Since they can't... :yawn:

Promo Monday

The sale has started! Get all three Serial Crimes Investigation Unit books for less than $2 now through Friday night. DYING EMBERS is FREE. FERTILE GROUND and EARLY GRAVE are only 99c/99p each in the US and UK. Read them all!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078MQ9RX9

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?

JuLoWriMo Wrap-up

Okay, so Silver and I did this thing in July that we called JuLoWriMo, wherein the plan was to do something writerly every day.  The idea was to use the month to get back into the saddle after our extended periods of not-writing - hers due to medical issues and mine due to working outside the home for a couple years (which, frankly, sucked the creativity right out of me).

All in all, I think it worked for both of us.  She's back to working on her stuff daily and I'm back to putting words on paper.  I didn't do every day.  I wrote 27 out of 31 days, though, and managed to add approximately 24000 words to my WIP.  

For this, I chose to work on the next Duke Noble.  I'm calling it Thicker Than Water right now.  I'm not sure if I'll use that as the title at the end.  I liked it better when I first started the book than I do now.  :shrug:  Anyway, I started writing on this story on May 30th when I laid down 198 starter words.  I was creeping up on the end of my day-job and the ideas were starting to pop, so I jotted one down.  I did some more words in the month of June - like revving the engine before the big race.  This gave me 4564 at the start of July.  

The hardest part, at the beginning there, was getting my hands used to cranking out words again.  I did not have to remind my hands how to type, thank goodness.  I did do a lot of that at work, just not for any extended length of time.  And writing requires extended typing.  So, my fingers were fairly flying over the keys, but after 30-40 minutes, my hands would start to cramp and my wrists would complain.  The next morning, my digits would be pork sausages.  Gotta work those bad devils until they get over it, doncha know.  Eventually, the ouchie got less and less and I could produce more words without paying for the deed the next day.  I'm not up to previous numbers, but I did manage to whip out 1304 in one sitting.

The other hard part was learning to focus on writing again.  Sit here in this chair with my hands on the keyboard and let words flow out of my fingertips without distraction.  Hubs was awesome and wrangled the cats on several occasions, so I could work in quiet.  But life doesn't work that way most of the time, so I needed to get used to working with things going on around me.  I think I accomplished that, too.  I was in the middle of my writing session Wednesday night when Hubs got stung by that wasp, and after I took care of him, I sat back down and got about 500 more words out.  

What I need to do from here on out is continue to write every day (or most days) and for longer stretches of time.  And if I can't do longer stretches of time, then I need to start having more than one writing session a day.  In the old days, I could crank out a 

Anyway, I think JuLoWriMo was a success.  If you've never done something like this, I highly recommend it.  Even if you're not a writer.  They say it takes 30 days to form a good habit... I think.  This is one way to do that.  Write every day.  Or exercise.  Or paint.  Whatever it is you want to do, pick a month and go for it.  You might be surprised at the results.  

Thursday This n That

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is now my favorite movie.  If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend it.  It's was made as a tribute to Harold Ramis and it totally rocks.  I can't explain what it's about without dropping spoilers.  (I tried.)  The main character is this girl, Phoebe, who's smart and funny and courageous.  She makes friends with this boy who calls himself Podcast (and steals the show).  And it's set in Oklahoma.  With ghosts and strange things happening.  I find something new to love about it every time I watch it.  If you even slightly enjoyed the old Ghostbusters, watch it.  

The saga with the phone was over... and then it wasn't.  Last Wednesday, it was fixed.  Monday morning, we had no dial-tone again.  They're supposed to be working on it, but the one tech told Hubs they're having trouble finding parts for equipment as old as we have in this neighborhood.  Fortunately, we still have internet.  (Albeit only slightly speedier than dial-up speed some days.)   :shrug:  With the way this is pissing Hubs off, we may end up chucking the landline altogether and using our cellphones instead.  Which sucks.  Have you ever tried to carry on a long conversation on a flip phone?  Hand cramps in a major way.  I need a cell phone that looks and feels like a handset.  Better yet, give me one that looks like an old receiver from a corded phone.  I could talk for hours on one of those without getting all crippled.

Speaking of crippled, I pulled a muscle in my calf when I went for a walk on Monday.  So, I've been limping which threw my gait off and now my hips hurt.  Growing old is so much fun.

Trash dude is here picking up our garbage.  

Speaking of garbage... last night Hubs went to take the trash up to the road and discovered the hard way that paper wasps had built a nest in a crevice on the garbage receptacle. He was stung twice - on his thumb and on his forearm.  Benadryl gel was applied followed by ice packs. Needless to say, the nest is now a smear on the concrete and the bottom of my shoe, and one wasp was flattened.  The other one made its escape.  War has been declared.  No truce in sight.  To paraphrase Sean Connery in Untouchables, you sting one of mine, I kill a hundred of yours.

I hear Hubs moving around.  For once, I got up earlier than he did.  Neener neener boo boo.

We've named Lumpy's fawn Speedy.  And her grand-fawn - Sissy's baby - is Patches.  

And on that thought, I'm outta here.  Have a great day and feel free to leave some comments with your own this n that.