Category Archives: My blog
Caterpillars and butterflies
Posted by doggonedmysteries
When I was quite young, my father gave me his well-worn, dog-eared butterfly book. I have very little that was his so the book is highly treasured by me. We loved looking up caterpillars and butterflies when we saw them.
Tonight, I discovered that my bronze fennel has several caterpillars snacking on it. I grabbed the book, looked them up, and they are swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. I won’t kill them. Swallowtails are such lovely butterflies. I hope the little guys hang around long enough to change into their winged beauty. Who needs fennel when you have swallowtails to look at?
This week we’ve had a few days of much needed rain. South of us, they had quite a bit of flooding. We were lucky here. My garden is happy and I’m happy because I haven’t had to water.
The first sugar baby watermelon is almost ready to pick. I can’t wait! DH’s hand is the one holding the cucumber in the pictures from yesterday’s post. A few curious people asked whose hand it was. The cucumber measured 9 inches long with the wide end having a circumference the same measurement.
Posted in My blog, my garden, Weather related, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Food, Gardening, Gardens, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Picture post
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Posted in My blog, my garden, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Food, Gardening, Gardens, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Pond, Ponds, Writer, Writing
Too much information
Posted by doggonedmysteries
A local plastic surgeon is advertising a new liposuction. “We can remove your belly fat and use it to enlarge your butt and enhance your breasts.”
Now, the truth be told, I’d love to have some belly fat removed. It’s always been a trouble spot for me. However, even though I have no ass, I have no desire to have my fat removed from one place and added to another. Besides, since I’ve never had an ass (I’ve known several asses in my lifetime but we won’t go there) I wouldn’t know how to act, dress, or sit on one. I’m used to my flat ass. I’m betting it would seem oh so weird having new fat back there. Would I have to learn how to walk all over again? Would I bounce out of a chair if I flopped in it? I have so many questions.
That brings us to the other part of the body they will inject the fat. I’d rather have a reduction in the boob zone than an enhancement. Mine aren’t overlarge but why not have my boobs reduced so in another decade or two they aren’t pointing at the ground? Little boobs stay perky.
Posted in Misc, My blog, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, comedy, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Humor, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Life is down to simple pleasures
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Thanks to BP, the cost of fish, shellfish, and heating oil will skyrocket this year. Don’t you believe that they won’t pass the costs on to us. Tighten your belts is what they will tell us. Honey, if my belt were any tighter my backbone would meet my belly button.
We don’t go out and we seldom buy anything other than necessities and a DVD or two. We only buy the DVDs because DH can’t sit in a theater.
Our vehicles are over ten years old. We don’t drive anywhere other than to do the crucial things in life.
Our dogs are overdue on their shots, which is one thing I hope to rectify the end of this month. Both of them could use a check up and I will make that appointment sometime next week.
Life is down to simple pleasures and keeping spending to a minimum. Instead of traveling, we enjoy our backyard—weather permitting. Tonight was lovely since we had rain today and the temperature dropped to very comfortable.
I am growing vegetables and melons for the first time in years. Other than a few tomato plants and some herbs the last several years, I haven’t grown anything edible. Now I have tomatoes, a variety of peppers, and two types of squash, watermelons, cantaloupes, and cucumbers.
Posted in Misc, My blog, my garden, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, tighten your belts, Writer, Writing
It’s going to be a while before he lives down this one
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Casper has a boo-boo. For those of you that don’t know, Casper is my white van that, because of all its electrical quirks, it seems as though it has a ghost, thus the name.
DH had another ambulance run emergency with his mother and came home to get my van in case they released her he could drive her home. (She is home now.) His mother can’t climb into his truck so he has to use my van. On the way to the hospital, he had a minor fender bender when the driver in front of him slammed on her brakes. The other vehicle was a large SUV and she had no damage at all.
However, my van had damage. I am not a happy camper. Gentlemen, if you drive your wife’s car for any reason, do so with great care because I’ve got to tell you, it’s going to be a while before he lives down this one. Well, it will take at least until it is repaired and then some.
I guarantee you he’ll hear the words ‘drive carefully’ every time he drives my van from now on.
Posted in Misc, My blog, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Days of record-breaking triple-digit temperatures
Posted by doggonedmysteries
We need rain. We haven’t had any for weeks. The heat is making my garden produce like crazy. However, it wouldn’t be doing that if I didn’t water every day.
So far, I’ve harvested nine banana peppers, five Hungarian sweets, a large patty pan squash, and one lovely cucumber that I shared with G. I’m keeping my eye on two sugar baby watermelons that are growing rapidly. I’m also hoping that two won’t be all I get from the vines.
We finally have a couple of tiny cantaloupes going and the tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes. The tomato plants in the back garden are taller than I am.
I have two very AC spoiled dogs. They only want to go out when they absolutely have to go. I can’t say that I blame them this heat has been miserable. DH, the dogs, and I have stayed indoors as much as possible. I hate this because I normally spend my summer outside as much as possible.
When they coined the saying, “the South shall rise again,” I don’t think this is what they meant. This heat can go back down south where it came from.
Posted in My blog, my garden, Weather related, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Dogs, Family, Fiction, Food, Gardening, Gardens, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Updates and a Happy Birthday wish
Posted by doggonedmysteries
Record heat here today and it was far from pleasant. Normally I enjoy summer but we’ve had two major heat waves already and it’s barely into July. We are going to have more records broken this week according to the weather reports. If I wanted to live in the south I would, but I don’t.
My neighbor finished painting the shed today and it looks brand new. All is painted except for the doors, which we told him to leave alone. DH wants to straighten out some dents that he put in them and then we’ll paint them.
Happy Birthday Chuck! Hope you have a nice birthday, Sweetie! Our dear old friend Chuckles has tacked on another year today.
On a gardening note: I found three little watermelons on the vines today. The cucumbers are getting larger another week or two and I might have some in a salad. I harvested more banana peppers. There are a few nice patty pan squash coming along, finally. No cantaloupes yet, the one or two I thought we might have died teensy. I’m guessing they weren’t properly pollinated could be because the male and female flowers were out of sync but they seem to be blooming together now. I hope that means we will have fruit to enjoy. There are now dozens of green tomatoes on the tomato plants, yippee!
Posted in Misc, My blog, my garden, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Food, Gardening, Gardens, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t (No I didn’t misspell it–read on)
Posted by doggonedmysteries
There are days where words don’t easily come to me. This is not a good thing for a writer. I would love to be able to sit down and have words flow from me like a river. However, the river has a problem. An insane beaver constantly builds dams to stop the flow.
I no sooner break through one dam than another one crops up to cause a deep pool of wordlessness. The insane beaver has a name. Life. Most days Life is kind to me.
However, when he wants to cause trouble he certainly can. Those are the other days. The days where Life doesn’t care if I want to work. He has his own needs. Therefore, he reminds me of them at the most inconvenient of times. Seconds after I get rolling on a great scene he slaps his tail against my head and makes me put the brakes on.
If you let him, he will cheat and won’t play fairly but we all know that Life is seldom fair. If you don’t know this then you haven’t met Life.
Posted in My blog, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Humor, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
I’ve rewritten far enough, now I can move ahead
Posted by doggonedmysteries
For quite some time I’ve been working on rewrites of my books. I’d realized that one of my characters wasn’t working and knew I couldn’t drag him through an entire series. Therefore, I killed the character before the first story began. That meant I also had to go back through everything, extract his physical being from all the rest of the books, and leave only his memory behind.
This wasn’t an easy task, and even though it wasn’t a messy death, I’m still finding his remains here and there, in one book or another. Moreover, if I don’t find all of the traces, those people who read and review my renderings will find them.
I managed to finish cleaning up all but one. Finally, I rewrote the chapters I had of Doggoned Bones. I’ve posted the rewritten chapter 1 on the page. Now I feel as though I can move forward on all of them.
If you haven’t checked the book excerpts recently, you might be surprised. Can you spot the missing character?
Posted in My blog, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Ampyra authorization
Posted by doggonedmysteries
The approval came through for DH’s prescription of Ampyra. Now we are waiting for it to arrive. We do this with a mix of hope and fear. We hope it works. If DH is lucky, the drug will help him to walk better. We are concerned about side effects.
DH walks with a cane and at times, he should use a walker. He refuses to do that at present. I can understand it. I have wished that he wasn’t so stubborn about it a few times. He has accepted the use of a handicap cart outside so he can walk the dogs in the mornings. He will also use an electric cart in stores because he knows he can’t walk the distances he’d have to there.
Dealing with MS for him is a constant battle. DH has a long and wide stubborn streak in him. At times, it’s a pain in the asterisk. However, in the MS combat zone it pays.
Yes for him it is combat. MS is not a blessing, not a challenge, but a battle to fight and win. He’s never been one to back down from a fight.
Posted in MS related, My blog, Writer, Writing
Tags: Ampyra approved, Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fampridine is now Ampyra, Fiction, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
Holey pepper Batman
Posted by doggonedmysteries
I check the growth of my veggies every day. Yes, I’m impatient for them to ripen. So far it’s bugs two, me one. The bugs have managed to destroy one patty pan squash and an Ancho pepper. I’d been eyeing up that pepper every day since it was a blossom. By the time it grew to the size of my thumb, some bug managed to nibble a large hole into it.
I declared war. At night I haunted the garden by flashlight, picking bugs off the plants and depositing them into a jar filled with soapy water. I rubbed the same mixture onto the tiny peppers every night. Now I have quite a few nice sized peppers that will soon be ready to pick and they have no holes in them.
The melon and cucumber plants are also bug free now and growing with wild abandon. I have pea sized watermelons and cantaloupes on the vines. There are enough baby cucumbers out there to choke a horse or fill a large gherkin pickle jar.
There will be at least three eggplants since that’s how many blossoms we have today. It makes me glad that I have my mother’s moussakka recipe. That is a real treat.
Posted in My blog, my garden, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Beads, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Crafts, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Food, Gardening, Gardens, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing
The old dog needs a new trick
Posted by doggonedmysteries
DH points a finger gun at the dogs. “Stick ‘em up.”
Patty’s paws shoot for the ceiling and she balances perfectly. She gets a cookie. Gavin raises one paw and gives a bit of hop with the other. That’s the best he’s going to give DH. He’s not fond of the trick since he can’t sit up and hold his balance. He gets a cookie anyway.
DH is bored. The dogs are bored. The hot weather is keeping DH in the house. TV sucks there’s nothing on worth watching during the day. DH wants to teach them a new trick.
I told DH to try teaching them to roll over because Gavin excels at lying down. He’s not getting any younger. Gavin will be nine in November. The poor dog is beginning to show his age a bit. His bully runs are not as frequent nor do they last as long. He not only takes naps but the dog goes to bed at seven in the evening.
This should be interesting. Patty is smart and quick on the uptake. Gavin figures if it isn’t give paw, down, or kennel up, it’s not worth learning but then again there is that promise of a cookie…
Posted in Dog related, hobbies, Misc, My blog, Writer, Writing
Tags: Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Dog humor, dog tricks, Doggoned, Dogs, Family, Fiction, Home, Humor, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Pet humor, Pets, Rescue Dogs, Writer, Writing
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