Month: March 2020

Creativity, Dogs, family, Food, Life, the World, Writing

What a Bit of Sun Can Do

1972italy

What a day yesterday turned out to be.  It stayed dark and cold all day with the wind blowing the trees so they bent sideways.  And we got about 4 inches (10cm) of snow.  By the time I left work my car had about an inch (2.5cm)of ice that I had to scrap through.  Of all that happened yesterday the best was spending time with Chris and the kids and my awesome husband went out and found me a six pack of my beloved Oberon (a seasonal wheat ale from a local brewery that was due to be released Monday with parties and fanfare but with the virus the told distributors to put the Oberon out as soon as they got it instead of waiting) and a copy of the first book in the graphic novel series Locke & Key that I have been searching for for years (honestly… I have looked at the graphic novel section n every books store that I have been to since I found out about the series and haven’t found any of them).

This morning the sun is blazing out and the is all but gone.  Hopefully that means the snow is melting and going away.  Hell of a bit of weather for Spring.  We were hoping to move the bikes atleast to the bike pad for more shelter but with this snow that has been negated.  All three pups are asleep.  Stella seems to have wrapped herself in blankets and is asleep on her back.  That seems to be her favorite position when she sleeps.

I do feel better about things today.  Let’s hope this good feeling continues and gives me the momentum I need to follow through with today’s projects.  And let’s hope the kids will give me enough time and space to do said projects.  Ha ha ha.

Just out of curiosity how many of my readers are on quarantine?  What do you do to keep yourself occupied?  If you have others with you do you need to keep them busy as well?  (Like kids and dogs.)

I should get myself going while the ambition is there.  Although Moose is giving me the eye whenever I stop typing.  Sigh.  Oh well.  I hope this finds you and yours safe and well.  Thanks for reading!

Creativity, Dogs, family, Life, Thinking, Writing

Working In the Dark

1972italy

This will be a short one.  I have the headache from hell and since Chris stayed home from work we spent tour afternoon and evening together so I did nothing I was supposed to including pull my stuff together for work the next day.  Soooo… I get to run around this morning.  I gotta say the traffic this morning sounds like business as usual.  Not a bunch of people who have to stay home.  I have heard a steady stream of traffic for the past few hours (I didn’t sleep well last night).

Our rain turned to a rain/snow mix and now snow.  Everything looks to have a light layer of white.  Bah!  At work I HAVE to get those reviews done and sent in.  HAVE to!  (Yes it emphasis is more for my benefit than yours.  I get sucked into the virus mess on my phone and all is lost.)  I need a tee shirt that says “Hocus Pocus I Can’t Focus!” for days like this.  It will be difficult with this headache going on.

My babies are happily snoozing.  As they should considering how much playtime and running around we did yesterday.  I am glad when that happens.  I tend to just want to do nothing somedays and I need to stay active.  I don’t want to become a lump on the couch (another benefit of having dogs).

Ok, I need to get gone on here.  Thanks so much for reading!  I hope you have a great day!

Creativity, Dogs, dreams, Emotions, Life, the World, Thinking, Writing

A Bit of Positive

1972italy

It’s funny how I can go to sleep happy and looking forward to the next day but when I wake up I have no positive going on.  Part of it is all the latest in the news.  I think I wake up and my subconscious is like, “How bad is it gonna be today in the world?” so I am very blah.  Moose has an upset tummy (I listened to it through the night the poor guy) and hasn’t eaten.

I am proud to announce that I will be doing a bi-weekly column in the paper on things to do while you are stuck at home.  It’s only to be 250 words but I can put  lot of information in that.  I am very grateful for this because it looks like the meetings have been all cancelled until May.  That it a huge cut for me since that paycheck pays my car payment and the motorcycle insurance.  So I am going to be doing a mad scramble.  I will need to get cracking and see what I can write and get out there ASAP.  All that aside I am very excited to do the articles because there is so much you can still do at home!  I am writing about things to do online as well as things for those that might not have online access or just want to step away from it for a bit.  So I have some virtual tours as well as ideas for puttering around the house.  So far I have four pages of ideas.  I need to figure out how to present them all.  Themes?  A how-to-do-it one for each idea (one online and one at home)?  I don’t know yet.  I want to sit down with the list today.

I surprised myself with the whole thing.  I pitched it to my editor as something someone could do, not necessarily me.  I thought since everyone would be reading the paper more it might be a good idea to include a little something like that.  I was told it was a good idea if I wanted to run with it.  (I have to admit I did let out a yelp when I read that.)  I immediately sat down and came up with a bunch of ideas.  An within half an hour I had written the article and sent it in.  THAT really surprised me.  I wasn’t sure if they wanted it for this weeks paper or not but I cranked it out an sent it in.  So I will let you know if I sent it in in time for it to make it into this week’s issue.

I should probably wrap this up and try focusing on my other writing.  I should also send out some queries to magazines and such to see about getting other stuff out there.  Wish me luck!  Thanks for reading!  I hope you and yours are safe and have a great day!

family, Friends, Life, Movies, Sports, the World

Another Day and Some Hockey Memories

1972italy

This will be another short one.  I slept until my alarm this morning and then spent more time than intended reading the news.  Things are slowly grinding to a halt.  I went to the store for supplies yesterday and the shelves are becoming bare at the grocery.  No yeast there or at many stores so my bright idea of making bread from scratch may end up a bust.  Or just find a different kind of bread to make.  I posted on Facebook that I would make bread for people if they bought the supplies.  I would even deliver it if it was within a reasonable driving distance.

A nice thing that has come about (even though it will shut down the repo yard eventually) from all this in that many banks and such are waiving missed payments due to the outbreak.  I am not sure for how long (I got an email from my bank this morning but I’ve not read it) or what the details will be.  But I appreciate that the almighty dollar is not going to be in control with some of these bills.  Atleast not yet.

I watched two hockey documentaries last night.  One  was on Bob Probert and the other was on Grant Fuhr.  I met Probert when I was in high school (he has to come and sign autographs as part of his probation terms).  And I LOVE goalies and Fuhr has always been a favorite for me.  Watching those docs I remembered how awesome hockey was for me growing up (I even dated a hockey player for a while… sigh) and how hard it was for those guys coming up from the minors with all that talent and being exposed to all the attention and glam of the big leagues.  Amazing stories form most of them!

Nuts.  I need to shut up and get gone!  Thanks for reading!  I hope you have a great day!

Aging, Creativity, family, Life, the World, Travel, Writing

The Realities

1972italy

We awoke to ice bits hitting the windows this morning.  Winter is being a stinker!  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Not much celebrating will be done this year as all the restaurants and bars (along with gyms and such) have been closed by our governor.  Only thing available with them will be take out.  That being said apparently there is a special unemployment thing for those that get laid off because of all this.  And I think that is a good idea.  So many people are living paycheck to paycheck.  We’ll see how all that works.  So far we are both still employed.

I am having a hell of a time finding any motivation in all this.  I have time, I have energy but I don’t have the motivation.  There is nothing making me want to work on my writing.  And if I can get myself to finally face it I have no idea what to do with it.  No idea where my story is going… and the reviews should be fairly easy to write but no.  The words don’t seem to want to come for any of it.  So I just sit and stare at my notebook with pen in hand.  It is very annoying.  I am going to pull out some of my writing books that have exercises in them and try a few of those.  Something has got to give.

The world is a scary place right now.  Dad is in Montreal and if something should happen to him I won’t be able to get there if they close the border between the U.S. and Canada.  I know he’s not doing well.  His arthritis in his neck (it is actually all through his neck and back) is getting really bad.  He has problems holding his head up because of the pain.  But his doctor says there is nothing they can do to stop the pain.  I know he has had nerve endings cauterized in his back from the pain there.  He has problems sitting for any amount of time now so he spends most of his days either in his recliner or on the couch trying to get comfortable.  He will go days without contacting me because it hurts to sit at his computer (and that is saying something… he has been a computer programmer his whole life and has never been without a computer it seems).  So I don’t know.  I see his health getting worse and nothing can be done to help him.

It looks as though the sun is coming out and the clouds are disappearing.  Something good this morning.  Maybe it will warm up too.  Thanks for reading!  I hope you have a great day!

family, Life, Movies, Nature

A Lazy Day Brings Rosy Mornings

1972italy

I hate when you start to get a good nights sleep but go and wake up every little while to check the clock.  Finally a good solid sleep but I didn’t want the alarm to wake Chris.  Hopefully tonight will be another good night of sleep.

One of the things that I did to help the boredom was download about 10 new books that authors on my Facebook page had run for free over the weekend.  They generously donated their money so that we would not be bored being alone (I phrase it like that because some of the titles donated were $19.99 otherwise).  And since Goodreads made it easy to download all the titles I have ordered that makes it easier for me to review them on there when I am done.  Seems the least I can do since they were kind enough to give me something to read.

I spent a good chunk of time talking to Mom yesterday (it actually warmed up enough that we had the door open and I was sitting outside while we chatted).  Then Chris and I watched a few movies together.  The last two were Deadpool 1 and 2.  I still have a hard time watching the second one because of my friend getting killed doing a stunt on set for the movie.  But we had a good time because Ryan Reynolds is the only actor that can ever bring life to the character of Deadpool.  Love it!

Today has dawned pink.  The sky is blue but all the clouds are pink.  And there are a lot of clouds right now.  So there is a soft pink cast to everything outside.  Kinda cool.  And I see by the clock that I have used up my allotted time.  Thanks for reading!  I hope you have a great day!

Creativity, Dogs, Life, Reading, Writing

Writing and reading

1972italy

What a mess things are!  I went to the grocery store yesterday and I am very grateful that I live in a small town!  We legitimately ran out of toilet paper and I heard nothing but where not to go.  I went to our local grocery and LO!  There was a full aisle of the stuff!  There was a sign saying only one per customer and all the paper towels and napkins were gone but we got toilet paper!  Hey, it’s the little things right now that make you smile.

I did get some writing done.  Everything but my novel it seems.  I worked on the two book reviews and my April Fool’s article for the paper.  Annoyingly I spent more time than I intended on my laptop because I had a second update happen.  I just did one the morning before!  So I had to dink around with that and then I always run my cleaner and virus protector on the laptop to be safe.  More time.  But everything seems to be ok.  Hopefully that means no more updates for a while.

This morning has dawned cold.  There is a heavy frost on everything this morning.  Winter is not going without a fight apparently.  Atleast the sun is out and no clouds.  I did get a cool photo of the moon this morning.  I will try to use it for the main picture on this post.  I am grateful it turned out just as it looked.  So many times I will take photos and what I see with my eyes is not what the camera sees.

I suppose I ought to get myself together and work on something while everyone is asleep.  If they will stay asleep.  Moose is usually the first one to get in my face once he sees that the laptop is being shut down.  Then Stella and Essie.  Bless them.  But enough chit chat from me.  Thanks for reading!  I hope you have a great day!

*side note… I’ve been deleting photos so I can upload more but no matter how many I delete (and I notice that they have duplicated many of my photos and I have deleted the duplicates) it still says that I have no room to upload more photos.  Sorry.

Emotions, Life, the World, Thinking, Writing

Musings

1972italy

It is dark outside and in.  But there is a bit of soft light coming through.  The temperature has dropped drastically.  We are back below freeing at night and barely above it during the day.  I don’t know what the day will bring.  I made a nest for Moose on the couch and Stella is covered up sleeping in a ball on the love seat behind me.  Essie is across the room in the man cave asleep amongst the blankets.

I am looking at the flyer for the writer’s conference I was going to try to go to in April.  I don’t think that this is going to happen.  I think that it will be cancelled.  Schools statewide will be closed as of Monday.  The word is for atleast three weeks.  That will include the date for the conference which was supposed to be held on campus.  I am bummed but glad I did not pay ahead.

It might be easier to get back to writing since everyone is being mean, some hateful, on social media over all this.  Most people seem to fall in one of two camps (if they bother to comment about any of current affairs).  There are those who think it is a complete scam that the government made up to try to cover up something else (and don’t bother pointing out that the rest of the world is affected by this disease) or there are those that every time a new person gets diagnosed cheers because maybe they will die and that will fix some world problem (this includes the “Boomer” generation since none of them supposedly care about the environment since they are the ones that made the mess to begin with as well as various political figures and countries).  The rest of us are trying to make light and get through it the best we can.  But the hate that is online!  It is sad.

So maybe getting lost in a story is not a bad thing.  I haven’t been very good about my writing projects of late.  So much seems to be going on this week.  I spent more time on the phone trying to find out what needs to be done to get the garage to pass inspection.  The gal I’m dealing with is very very nice and has gone above and beyond to help us with everything.  I am so grateful!  We seem to end up talking dogs and animals every conversation though.  It’s not a bad thing but I can go on ad nauseum about the kids if I am left to my own devices.  I have had to curb myself a few times.  lol.  She hasn’t seemed to mind.

I suppose I should get to writing.  Hopefully the kids will stay sleeping so I can get atleast a review done.  Thanks for reading!  I hope you are well and have a great day!

Life

Concerns

1972italy

I was going to try to not write about this whole epidemic thing but we have gone from 2 confirmed cases to 12 within a day or so.  I hope there is food and such left at the store when Chris goes grocery shopping today.   A lot of local friends are talking about how the major grocery chains have got empty shelves as of yesterday.  It’s rather disturbing.  I have friends downstate who are recovering from cancer treatment that I am worried about (right now this is where most of the cases are located).  Another big concern is bills.  If no one is working then how do bills get paid?  Money is tight for most as it stands.  Essentially losing your job (albeit temporarily) is going to be devastating for most.  Myself included should it come to that.  Then there are my friends who are convinved that this is all a scam by the government (and don’t try to point out to them that it started in the rest of the world before it got here).  I try my best to ignore them.

The wind is amazingly strong this morning.  The trees are getting a distinct lean to them.  The heavy rain we got last night has taken care of a goodly portion of the remaining snow I am pleased to see.  I think it will be a slow day at the lot.  I am grateful I have no meetings to cover until the 24th.  Hopefully things will be better.  Makes me wonder if they will discontinue meetings at one point.  Or maybe just not have people present?  Do a video chat kind of thing?  I don’t know.  I guess we will see.

Nuts.  I didn’t realize it was so late.  Thanks for reading!  I hope you have a great day!

Books, Creativity, Life, Thinking, Writing

Pushing Through to Find the Stories

1972italy

This is later than intended.  Ah well.  It is overcast this morning.  We are supposed to get more rain.  Hopefully that will make a good dent in getting rid of the snow.  I am also hoping that I can do some writing today.  I got a little bit done but I ended up focusing on the garage again.  I will probably get another call from the inspector’s office at one point about the photos I sent yesterday.  I am hoping to get the ok and not have to do anything except reinforce what is already there.  PLEASE?!

I did some actual work on the novel yesterday.  I am having trouble getting into it.  I have my miscellaneous characters and my main character, their respective backgrounds and a general storyline.  But then I stall out.  I have been writing various scenes with the characters interacting so we get to know the characters (I need to get ahold of a surfer to answer some questions I have before I can go further in one scene).  But I have yet to find a good way to string them together.  Maybe I don’t.  Maybe each is a chapter on how they met?  I don’t know.  That doesn’t feel right.  And so the struggle goes on.

I also need to finish two of my reviews.  I have been putting them off because the deadline was moved due to Mother Nature but I really need to get them done so when they are needed I can just send them.  I keep dragging my feet because I don’t want to mess them up.  Nevermind that I have written quite a few book reviews and had them published.  For some reason I don’t trust myself and my ability.

I supposed I had better wrap this up and get to it.  Even if it is a first draft only.  It will be something.  That is the nice thing about doing the book reviews, I can work from home and not deal with people.  Hmmm, the wind is picking up too.  That is a good sign.  Thanks for reading!  I hope you have a great day!