Blog Archives

Yippee for lots of sun and warm weather

 

       Wow, two days of glorious warm weather!  We had plenty of sun and temperatures in the mid seventies.  I managed to plant the flowers left over from the planters on the front porch.  I worked on the pond—the magnolia is dropping petals like crazy now so I’m skimming the pond every time I turn around.  I would stay out in the yard all day if I could.  It smells wonderful out there with the tree in full bloom. 

     The birds are fun to watch right now, they are arriving by the dozens to take baths in the waterfall.  The robins are real clowns in the water.  Each one has a unique personality and method of bathing.

     The pups collapsed into a deep slumber after romping in the yard all day.  Maybe it’s a good thing that tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy with possible rain.  Gavin is sore after two days of tons of activity.  Poor baby, it was a long winter and he spent most of it as a couch potato.

     Then, didn’t we all?  I know I paid for it later after I spent a few days weeding the gardens back when we had our first hint of spring weather. 

 

Eight ball, side pocket

 

8 things I’m looking forward to:

1.       Pennwriters Conference, seeing all my friends there.

2.       Finish writing my books.

3.       Selling my books. 

4.       MIL’s release from the rehab.

5.       Going to my cousin’s wedding

6.       More lovely days like today

7.       Meeting Lisa Scottoline at PW

8.       A quiet evening

8 things I did yesterday:

1.       Worked on my books

2.       Visited my friend’s shop.

3.       Played with my dogs and my friend’s bulldogs

4.       Wrote my blog post

5.       Cleaned the bathroom—had to do something constructive didn’t I?

6.       Sorted laundry—no I didn’t do it yet, it was too nice to be inside today running two flights of stairs to do laundry

7.       Drank a gallon of coffee

8.        Had DH order pizza for dinner

8 things I wish I could do:

1.       Visit my cousin in NM

2.       Go to the Mad Anthony conference

3.       Have someone do all the work on my house that needs to be done

4.       Build a deck and a pergola

5.       Move out this house

6.       Move out of this city

7.       Kick a certain someone’s a$$

8.       Talk to  my Uncle

8 shows I watch:

1.       Castle—rapidly becoming a favorite

2.       All the CSI’s

3.       The Mentalist

4.       NCIS

5.       Bones

6.       House

7.       Medium

8.       Two and a half Men

8 people I tag:

Any eight people who wish to be tagged

Damn, we should be able to delete and rewrite

 

     Have you ever wished that life had a delete button?  Imagine if you could delete embarrassing incidents or nasty people from your life at the touch of a button.  Maybe even have a chance to do a rewrite. 

     Were you the one who drank too much, danced on the tables in bar, and had a friend post it on You Tube?  Uh oh, delete, delete, delete.  Did your Aunt Betsy regale everyone with every little detail of her recent surgery during your wedding reception?  DELETE! 

     How about when Nurse Nocompassionatall treated you like a side of beef with cooties?  I bet you want to rewrite that scene now that you’re no longer drugged to the gills and have had time to think of what you should have said to the nasty b@$*!

     Come on, don’t be shy, tell us what happened in your life that you’d change.  Or, better yet, hit that delete key and give us a rewrite! 

What do you do when your train of thought jumps the tracks?

 

     This happens to me all the time.  I’ll be writing away at break-neck speed and Dear Hubby will decide that it’s time to start a conversation with me.  Screech!  Crash!  Bang!  My train derails. 

     I sigh, lift my hands from the keyboard, turn, and I look at him over the top of my glasses, “What?”

     He knows he’s derailed me.  He has the grace to look sheepish and then mumbles something about the TV program he’s watching.

     I do try to hold my temper in check.  “Sweetie, do I look as though I am watching TV?  I have no idea what you are talking about, I was writing.”

     At this point, he either restates what he’s said to me or says he’s sorry for interrupting. 

     Now comes the part about what do you do?  I can sometimes read back over what I was writing and get right back on track.  However, if I find I’ve completely lost my momentum, I have to take a break.  This is the best time to grab another cup of coffee, take the dogs out, or move to my chair and have a gabfest with DH.

How do I get one of those?

 

     I’m the one gal in my family who was born without the shopping gene.  Yes sir, this gal doesn’t like to shop.  Dear Hubby is more willing to go shopping than I am.  (Talk about your role reversals.)  The man has ten times as many shoes than I do.  His clothes take up at least three times as much room as mine.  He has dragged me out shopping for clothes because my jeans were getting too ratty for his taste.  Hey, faded, ratty jeans are soft and comfortable jeans.  Some people would even say they were stylish except that mine were indigo in color and had no holes or wear marks when I bought them. 

     Have you seen the commercials on TV where someone is shopping for a computer and when they find the one they want (for under a thousand bucks) the ‘sponsor’ pays for it?  Hell, I’ll shop my little buns off; for as they long as they want me to, if they buy me one, and I HATE TO SHOP.  However, I sure as heck could use a nice new lap top so I can drag my manuscripts along with me wherever I go and work on them anywhere. 

     See me?  I’m jumping up and down, waving my arms…Yoohoo!  Look at me I’ll shop.  I will, I’ll do it!  Aw, come on.  I’m offering to do the one thing I hate most.

MIL’s Rehab hospital staff the good, the bad, and the incompetent

 

     At the rehab hospital where my MIL is, there are some very good people on staff.  Unfortunately, there are also some very incompetent, dishonest, and lazy people working there too.  The first month of her stay, the nursing staff completely forgot to give her any of her meds and Dear Hubby hit the roof.  The housekeeping staff lost most of her clothes the first week so he went hunting through the laundry and luckily found most of them.  Dear Hubby goes there every day to make sure that they don’t screw up again. 

     Most of her PTs are very good but she has one who has decided that my MIL will not go home.  If DH isn’t there to watch over his mother, this PT will leave the poor woman in a chair all day.  She is paid for this and the rehab has the nerve to bill my MIL’s insurance?  EXCUSE ME!  I don’t think so.  (At this rate of greed and incompetence, I see a lawsuit looming.) 

     His mother desperately wants to be in her own home with her dog.  She hasn’t been working her butt off every day so they can shunt her off to their nursing home.  She’s a very stubborn woman who doesn’t give up easily.

     I’d made up a basket of chocolates for her and the staff helped themselves so often when she’s been out of her room and in PT that she barely got any of them.  If I’d wanted the staff to have them, I’d have sent them their own basket.  She gets little pleasure as it is, being stuck in that place, and for them to make pigs out of themselves on her candy is vile.

Happy Easter!

happyeas

One in seven

 

     It seems as though we are only going to have one day of sunshine in seven, hello April.  The song isn’t kidding.  I wish I’d taken the time, to plant in the garden, the left over flowers from the planters.  Now it looks as though I’ll not get a chance to until Sunday.  If I miss Sunday’s clear weather, I’ll have to hold off for another several days where the weather people have forecasted more rain.

     At least today was mainly just a brooding sky and we didn’t really get any rain until after ten tonight.  However, I didn’t get out planting because the sky looked as though it’d open and pound us with torrents of rain any minute.  It was also a chilly enough that I wasn’t eager to go crawling about the garden.  The flowers I’d put in the planters on the porch looked perky today so I do believe they’ll thrive there.

Sun and flowers

 

     I couldn’t resist the tug of the sunny day we had today. I bought some potting soil and flowers for the planters on my front porch. The planters had been alongside the driveway for several years. However, last year, when we had new, very nosy, and noisy neighbors move in directly across the street, I removed our chairs and moved the planters to the porch. I can’t wait to see how my petunias, pansies, and snap dragons will look once they begin to grow and fill out the planters. (I didn’t get them planted last year so this should be fun.)

     While I was filling the planters with soil and flowers, a pair of mourning doves decided to work on their nest above me. Mourning doves aren’t the greatest nest builders, but this pair tries. They’ve been nesting in the same spot for a couple of years now and are used to us coming and going. I enjoy hearing them so they are welcome additions.

     Even though we lost the neighborhood camaraderie we used to have while sitting out on our front porch, we’ve found something special. We have our own sanctuary in the yard on summer evenings and enjoy the pond along with the wonderful peace and quiet.

Why I shouldn’t watch HGTV

 

     Sometimes late at night, after Dear Hubby has gone to bed, I feed my addiction.  I watch HGTV.  I watch the design shows, the home renovation shows, and even the house hunting shows.  I do this while I’m writing too.  It has come in handy for some scenery.  However, it makes me want to do things around here like paint every room, dry wall the kitchen and the last bedroom that needs it, and put in new flooring in the living room.

     Like anything other than painting the living room and kitchen is going to happen any time soon.  I’ll do that once I can open the windows.  Oh, how I’d love to have one of those productions show up on my door step and tell me they were going to do all the work that needs to be done.  Yes, I have wild dreams. 

     I dream of an organized, easy to clean home.  I dream of inviting people in without adding the words “don’t mind the mess.”  I dream of furniture that doesn’t look as though it’s gone through a war.  Yes!  Yes!  Then I wake up.

Who the @#$*turned off the heat?!

 

     It’s darned cold outside again.  Who the @#$* turned off the heat?  Sure as shooting my poor magnolia tree’s blossoms will turn brown from frost tonight with the mercury dropping to twenty eight degrees.  I’m glad I didn’t pack my warm jacket away.

     Even the dogs are disgusted with the chill in the air.  They preferred to do their romping indoors today.  My couch looks as though a tornado hit it and I can’t tell you how many times I picked pillows up from the floor.  Everything on the top shelf of my curio cabinet walked to one side.  They both banged off the kitchen cabinet doors so much today I thought the doors would fall off.  They run into the kitchen, slide, and use the cabinets to stop and turn.  Yes, my house was pure bedlam today.

     They dragged Dear hubby into the frenzy and I don’t know who was worse the dogs or him.  My sanity walked a thin line as I tried to write and either a dog or a big ball thrown by DH bounced off my chair every few minutes.  At least they all had fun.  I want the warm weather back so the dogs and DH can blow off steam away from my desk.

Writer set your goals…uh, sure

 

     As a writer, I should set a daily goal and strive to reach it.  I try.  I honestly do try, but it seems that when I do someone moves the goal line. 

     My goal for this blog is to write 200 words a day.  My daily writing goal on my books is 1000 words.  So far, I’m hitting the goal on the blog and falling short on the books.  I hope to change that. 

     I discovered that I was unhappy writing my book in two point of views and I am going back to the original format of writing it in a single POV.  This past week I’ve been doing a lot of cutting and pasting.  I hope that by the end of this week I’ll be rolling along on a much improved manuscript.

     The dual point of view was not working at all.  I also think that by going back to a single one I’ll be able to drop clues and red herrings easier.  I believe my remaining characters will be more fully developed and become more interesting. 

     My critiquing group is probably going to kill me when I hand them the new manuscript at the end of the month.