Sick of Myself

This is the last day of the month and as I look back, I realize what an utter toad I've been.  Frankly, I'm sick of myself right now.  Which means I need to change something.  I'm a firm believer that when you see something you don't like about yourself, you need to change it, so there you go.

Starting today... because why wait until tomorrow... I'm going to stop being such a toad.  I am going to get back to writing and editing and cleaning my freakin' house and getting some exercise.  And I'd better do what I say I'm going to, or I'll have myself to answer to.  We don't want that.  I'm a bitch to answer to.

First things first, I did the damn dishes.  Yeah, I did all the dishwasher dishes last night, but I left the hand wash dishes.  Those are now done.  What's next?  No clue, but it'll be something.  Dammit.

Sunday Update 9/29/24

My life is pretty boring right now.  I'm not writing.  I'm not reading.  I'm barely editing.  

With regard to editing, I'm up to 29% of the book with edit notes.  I'm getting about a page of notes with every 2-3% of the book.  This is what comes of a dirty draft, but there's no other way I'd rather write, so there ya go.

In marketing news, I did the whole FB Group thing for my freebie offering of Blink of an I.  I moved 78 free copies.  I'm also getting some page reads for Blink, which means money in my pocket.  Not a lot, but it's better than a sharp stick in the ass, so yay.  I also have someone reading Wish in One Hand, which I assume is leftover from my marketing push for that last month.

I made a chocolate oil cake yesterday.  After I took it out of the oven, I slathered it with warm raspberry jam.  Once it cooled, I frosted it with vanilla buttercream.  It wasn't amazing, but it was pretty damn good.  Next time, I'll use more jam.  

My activity level is not where it needs to be.  I know how to fix that, but I am stuck in the lazies.  Anyway, I did a little raking in the driveway after a sploosher washed a bunch of pea gravel into the yard.  I also spent time working with Hubs to saw up the logs the electric company left.  We spent about 3 hours total on that over 2 days.  And we took one walk.  I'm up to about 49 miles walked for the year.  Weight: 172.6

Speaking of the logs, two guys with the electric company came by on a UTV and asked us if we needed help.  We assented.  It took one of them less than 5 minutes to completely saw that elm trunk into firewood.  He had a chainsaw, of course.  We'll still need to split it once it seasons, but those guys really took a lot of the work out of the task.  Yay.  We thanked them profusely and then threw all the logs into the wheelbarrow and transported them under the house for drying.

With the fall migration underway, we're seeing a lot of birds we don't usually see.  I can't remember the names of the exact species, but it was a couple of warblers new to me.  We're also hearing more geese.  I love migration time.  

The deer here are starting to separate for the rut.  They were also absent from the yard because of the tree cutting activity, but this is typical fall activity.  The fawns are now spotless.  =o(

Okay, I think that's it for me.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about what's going on in your world.  

Thursday This n That

I'm thinking about changing the cover for Song of Storm and Shroud.  I mean, I worked really hard on that one.  You have no idea how hard it is to make a dragon, especially when you're cobbling one together out of photos and using this part from that critter and that part from another critter.  Cobbled together so it doesn't LOOK cobbled together.  I think I did a really good job, but... Oh, I don't know.  I would think that one would have more sales.  Eh, at least you can look at it and know for certain it wasn't made using AI. lol

Yesterday, while Hubs and I were trying once more to saw that friggin' elm trunk in half, a couple young guys from the tree crew stopped and asked if they could help.  We let them.  It took them less than five minutes to not only cut the thing in half, but to cut it into logs fit for splitting and burning.  Of course, they had a chainsaw.  Yeah, yeah, we know we should get us one of them there fancy doodads.  It's on the list.  Hey, on the upside, sawing logs by hand is awesome exercise.

Mom and I were talking just now and the conversation got around to people we knew and whatever happened to so and so.  I searched a name and her obit came up.  In the obit, I saw where her sister had also passed away.  I mean, these gals were in their 80s., so not that big a shock.  Still, it's sad knowing all  of these old friends of the family are passing away.  Those gals were close to us at one point in time and, as sometimes happens, we all drifted apart.  I really loved their parents when I was child, but those two have been gone for a long time.  

I bought rainbow sherbet.  It sounded good.  And now I remember why I don't buy rainbow sherbet.  I hate lime flavored stuff.  Actual lime?  I have no problem with that.  Lime flavored stuff tastes like soap to me.  

The other day I was trying to come up with something interesting to do with ground pork and came up with something like fried rice that tastes pretty darn good.  I used part of a seasoning packet from pork ramen noodles, ground ginger, onion powder all sprinkled over ground pork that had been browned with finely diced carrots and celery.  Mixed in some rice.  Yummers.  I have leftovers, so that's what I'm having for lunch today.  

If you haven't watched the new show High Potential, I highly recommend it.  Of course, the silly gits had to put the damn show on at 9pm, so now I have to stay up late on Tuesdays.  Oh well.  It's not like I have to get up for work or anything.

Okay, I should probably get to doing something constructive.  These books won't sell themselves and I still have two days left of my Blink of an I giveaway.  

Have a great day!

Confessions of a Gameshow Addict

Hi.  I'm B.E. and I'm addicted to gameshows.  

I probably need an intervention or something, but Hubs is an enabler.  (Psst... he watches them, too.)  And I'm not hurting anyone.  I rationalize it by telling myself I'm keeping my brain active, but let's face it... Other than MasterMinds, I'm really not exercising the brain cells.  I mean, Deal or No Deal has no mental value.  The contestant picks cases, for petesakes.  

I remember watching gameshows as a small child, so I guess you could say that The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal were my gateway drugs.  Mom watched, so I watched.  Later, I got hooked on Jeopardy! so I was in front of the TV every night at 7 watching Alex and the contestants.  

For a while in high school, I was a participant of sorts.  It was called Quiz Bowl and then they changed the name to High School Challenge.  Teams of trivia buffs from high schools all over the area would compete on TV (PBS, so nothing network and no big fame there).  I made captain of the team my Junior year - the previous captain graduated and there was no one else to take over.  

There was a time there when I was too busy to watch gameshows.  I was working, I was a mom, I had things going on in my life.  I dabbled a little after I retired, but I was busy with homeschooling and my writing.  Then we moved here and I spent more time watching.  I got off the shows entirely while I was back to work, but since then, I've been slowly getting more and more hooked on them.

I start at 10am with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  After that, it's Deal or No Deal.  Then old reruns of Match Game.  (I will NEVER watch the new one.  Alec Baldwin makes me nauseous.)  After that, I take a break because I'm not a big fan of the newer Wheel of Fortune episodes.  Later, I'll pick back up again with shows like MasterMinds, Split Second, Switch, and Chain Reaction.  Then I stop until the next day.  

I really could be getting a lot more done if I didn't watch these things.  Oh, I do occasionally get some editing done on commercial breaks, but that's sporadic.  Maybe today I'll do something else.  But then I wouldn't get to see how far that guy made it on that show.  Or how silly the contestants are on the other ones.  It's a vicious cycle of addiction.  

Tasty Tuesday

Between planting mums on Saturday and sawing logs (actual, not metaphorical) yesterday, I am too pooped to do much of anything, including offering a coherent post.  So, rather than sit here reading nothing, I suggest you do what I did on Saturday afternoon... make yourself some brownies.

Basic Fudgy Brownies

3/4 cup butter or margarine 

3/4 cup unsweetened baker’s cocoa

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease sides and bottom of 8 x 10 baking pan.  Gently melt butter in medium saucepan.  Remove from heat and stir in cocoa powder until well combined.  In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and frothy.  Add cocoa/butter mixture and stir to combine.  Sift flour over the mixture and gently fold in until just combined.  Bake on the center rack for 30 minutes.  (Toothpick inserted in center may not come out completely clean.)  Do not over bake.  May serve warm after 10 minutes, or cool completely before cutting to store.

Monday Marketing - Free Book

 Well, it's Monday and in my infinite wisdom, I set up a freebie thing that starts today.  I even already wrote the post, which is well ahead of my usual game.  In another quirk of fate, I even got up early.  And then totally forgot to do that which needed doing.  So, here I am at 6:45 waiting for my email to load because that's where I put the pre-written marketing post so I wouldn't lose it.  

There it is... and here it is...

I've seen so many people in various groups asking for recommendations on adult dystopian novels that I decided to offer BLINK OF AN I for free - today through Friday. (It's also free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription, but this is for the rest of us.)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079X142G2

In the blink of an I, the world can change.

Raised by the Union to believe she’s worthless, declared incompetent by a system she doesn’t understand, Mary Jones wants nothing more than to run away and hide. When an underground society known as the Order chooses Mary for a mission to escape the city, she’ll discover she’s more than she has ever been allowed to realize.

Here's hoping it moves some books and gets me some residual sales.

Sunday Update

 Well, hello there.  Thanks for coming back for another Sunday Update.  I was a particularly lazy toad this past week, so not really too much excitement to report.  

No writing this week.  I did about 10% worth of editing on TTW.  And I spent a goodly portion of last Sunday working on paperback issues.  The only paperbacks I haven't addressed are the OUAD novels.  I'll get to those eventually.  I also did my usual morning marketing 9/14-9/18.

Speaking of which, the numbers...  I moved 91 copies of Natural Causes during the freebie.  I also moved 4.44 copies of Accidental Death for a whopping $2.25.  Which is better than a sharp stick in the ass, but not really anything to blow your skirt up.  Woot.  We'll see in the coming days whether anyone starts reading those books in KU.  I did see where Natural Causes made it to #7 in free crime noir, so I have that going for me.

Update 8:22a:  FYI... BLINK OF AN I will be free starting tomorrow.  We'll see how that goes.

No reading this week.  I really need to get back to that, especially if I'm not going to sit my ass down and write.  Derp.

Not much baking this week.  I got a wild hair yesterday and made brownies.  It was a necessity.  Why? Well...

Hubs and I spent yesterday morning planting mums.  Six big ones and five small ones in a lovely arrangement in the front bed.  The big one are two each of yellow, orange, and purple.  The small ones are all white.  I'm hoping they all come back next year.  Afterwards, I was craving brownies, so I made them.

And the above is pretty much all my activity for the week.  Unless you count the two trips to Wallyworld and the day I moved a couple chairs.  Weight: ?

Last night, Mother Nature got a bug up her ass and gave us a thorough waterboarding.  It lasted less than an hour, but man, was that rain ever coming down.  Sploosh.  The freakin' yard looked like an abstract water sculpture done by a madman.  The drainage trench was full to overflowing, the downspouts from the gutters were shooting out water like they were fire hoses, and our front flower bed with all the new mums was a small lake.  I'm guessing between two and three inches in under an hour.  

Oh, and another thing that happened this week was the tree butchering by the electric company.  They did do a better job than when the road crew 'trims' and hacks everything to pieces, but it's still quite shocking.  They were supposed to leave us the trunks of the three trees they cut down.  They left us two 6-8 foot lengths and carted off the rest - including Max's scratching tree which I had planned to make into a staff.  Turds.  Anyway, it looks semi-apocalyptic around here right now.  Trees all over the neighborhood are gone or halved where they cut limbs away from the power lines.  It's sad.  Yeah, it was necessary.  Yeah, I shouldn't expect the same quality of tree-trimming that a landscaper would accomplish, but man... =o\

I think that's it.  Today, I need to go out into the yard and clean up from the storm.  We also need to move those trunks away from the road before some numbnuts decides they're free wood and carts them off.  (A neighbor said the electric company was telling people they could do that.  I hope they also suggested that these people ASK the property owner first, but I doubt it.)

Anyway... Have a great day wherever you are.  And feel free to leave a comment if the urge strikes you.  I may not reply to comments very often, but I read them and so do other people who wander through.  =o)