Lucky 13

I was looking through my completed stories and saw that I have 12 that are ready for editing.  For a short story book with dark stories, it seems more appropriate to have 13 in the book, so I need to get cracking and write another story (and get them edited) so I can get it published.

In other news, Candice has been suffering from a mystery illness for over a month now.  The doctor now thinks it is her gall bladder and/or an ulcer.  She goes in tomorrow morning for an ultrasound for the gall bladder, and sometime later this week or next for a throat scope to find out about the ulcer (and esophageal cancer possibilities).  Either way, we probably can't start and "hard" treatments until we return from vacation mid-June time-frame.  Of course, we are both fighting off a head cold right now, too.

I just started the sprinklers and cut the grass for the first time this year, so spring/summer has officially begun now.

Also, I need to take out the "missile" (luggage container that we mount on the roof of the Santa Fe for vacations) and rinse it out since it got a lot of mud, etc. in it in the rain storms last year before we were able to get it inside out of the elements.  We also need to start working on a "To Do" for getting ready for our vacation. (I'm pretty sure Candice just rolled her eyes as she read that.)

Anyway, that's all I have for right now, thanks for reading!

Death Takes A Vacation

What's been happening since the last blog?  Well, not much in the writing realm, though there has been one significant happening on the writing front that I'll talk about in a minute.  First, I've only managed to write one day since the last blog post update, mostly because of lack of inspiration and desire.  I've just been kind of blah on creativity the past few weeks.  I suppose there are lots of reason, not the least of which is me not making myself write even through the non-motivational period (like I tell Candice she needs to do with her art when she gets into similar creativity droughts  - I am apparently a hypocrite - at least recently.

A little over a week ago, Candice's grandma suffered a heart attack and had to be carried away by ambulance.  She's fine now, but it was scary for a couple of days.  She made it home just in time for her birthday party (which was also Gabe's and Jeanette's party).  She's been tired a lot more since coming home, but seems to be getting stronger with each passing day.

Gabe has become a greedy little jerk.  Everything is all about "me, me, me" and "gimme, gimme."  I know we're not knowingly promoting such an attitude, and it makes us want to go without giving presents to him for a while if he doesn't grow out of it soon.

Now for the "big" writing news - yesterday I sat down and wrote for the first time in weeks, and not only did I start a new story, I finished a new story.  It's only 3 pages and about 1200 words, but it's a pretty decent story.  It revolves around who death is, and his decision to finally take a vacation, which turns into him taking off a whole year and covers how the world changes in that time.

It was a concept that occurred to me while listening to The Book Thief (which we're almost finished listening to).  It is narrated by death and he describes taking the souls away, so naturally, the though occurred to me "What if he didn't do it?"

Anyway, that's what has been happening with me and my writing lately, thanks for reading.

Preparations

We leave on Thursday for a much needed vacation.  We're going to South Carolina for two weeks, then driving north to Rochester, New York so Candice can attend a glass art convention.  I'll have the kids in a hotel by myself for several days.  Hopefully, in the week before, Gabe and/or Donna will learn to swim enough that we can go to the hotel pool one of those days for some fun.  We'll probably take Candice to her convention one day, too, so that I can take the kids out somewhere too (Yeah, I'm a glutton, etc)

But aside from the adventure upcoming, we have a list of more than 30 things we need to do before we leave, and we've only done about 5 of them.  Granted, some of them can easily wait until we get back as they aren't "vacation critical" and will probably join an ongiong To Do list for projects that Candice and I need to do.  I need to go back a few blog posts and pull out the project list and add that to the list too.

We started the savings account, and taking away the minimum amount needed to keep the account going, we're about 15% of the way towards the office desk, so Yay!  We also moved a temporary desk into the office (formerly our dining room) and I moved our computers in there.  Now Candice and I are forced to occasionally look at each other!  ;-)

We've also since the last posting discovered that it might have been Ginger bad dog, not Bailey bad dog (though it likely could be both) that has been digging up the sprinkler heads. Mark and Ginny have agreed to help us by watching the dogs while we're gone.  They're getting $100 and some homemade jelly for their kindness.  We're also taking all the dog food and treats the dogs should need while we're gone.  Thanks, Mark and Ginny!

I think we came to the conclusion that we're going to sell the Mercury and when we are ready to actually focus on the car restoration project, we'll but another classic car that is running but still fits the bill for fixing it up the way we want it.  It'll likely be a hearse we fix up, which will also serve double duty for our being Halloween House.

I've sprayed an entire huge pump sprayer cansiter of Round Up in the vegetable garden to kill the thistles, but they are still living.  Granted they are starting to show signs of dying, but most are still alive.  Is there anything stronger out there?

That's about all for this post.  Thanks for reading!  (I expect another one a week from today to get posted also.)

Frequently Infrequent

So, in holding with my mantra of "whenever I get around to it," I haven't updated my blog in a while.  I frequently update it infrequently.

So, What has happened since the last post?

Well, it turns out that though my platelet count is in the normal range, it's too low for donations outside of emergencies and holidays, so I only gave blood and will continue to do so.

We still haven't done much more on painting in Donna's room-to-be yet.  We've still got one coat on the bedroom door, both coats on the the trim, and touch-up on the walls and ceilings.  Then I can move furniture in there and we can get started on Megi's room.

I still need to finish Candice's ventilation system.  Hopefully I can do that this weekend.  I have to make a trip to Home Depot to see about ducting and connectors (specifically one that I can bolt to the fan and connect the other duct work to it) before final assembly, since that will drive how big of a hole to cut into the board on the receiving side of the fan.  I also don't relish working in the garage when it's sub-freezing outside...

Gabe has lost two coats at school this year and was lucky to not have lost a third one.  He's currently grounded because he doesn't think the rules we impose on him actually apply to him and he does whatever he wants to do (like taking off and not wearing his coat on the school playground when it's 30 degrees outside and leaving it out there).  Hopefully his inability to play over the next couple of weeks will have somewhat of an impact on his ability to follow our rules.

It looks like we might be getting a visit from my sister-in-law next week all the way from South Caroilina.  I'm looking forward to it!

The fish are surviving well, though we did lose a couple due to the stress of changing environments.

Megi has claimed "No!" as her current favorite word, and she says it in a sing-songish manor where her inflections rise as she says it.  It's cute.  For now.  She's still a beast when she doesn't get her way and has been since 4 months old.  I'm not looking forward to her terrible twos.

Donna is starting to learn that she's not the princess she believes herself to be and that she has to do what mommy and daddy say.  Hopefully we get this streak of "entitlement" kicked soon, then we have to work on the crying about everything with both her and Gabe.

We haven't heard anything back from the IRS on grandma's taxes.  I have no idea how long it should take before we hear anything, but I said in our response that if we didn't hear anything back, we'd assume it was over.

On that same note, we filed our taxes this morning after they were "rejected" last night.  It seems we never changed Gabe's last name with the Social Security Administration after I adopted him and when I put his name in "correctly" it was "incorrect."  Add that to the list of things I need to do with the government about my kids (Gabe shows up wrong for my medical insurance, the paperwork with the VA to have Meg listed as a dependant on their system STILL hasn't finished processing.  I could care less about the extra $30 per month that isn't taxable - it won't affect my bottom line practically at all - I want her to be listed on my survival benefit plan in case the unthinkable happens.  Damn beaurocracy.

I still haven't gotten around to cleaning out the garage after the mice incident, either.  I doubt I will until it gets into the 60s or warmer either...

Many of the old members of Wordtrip are making a semi-honest effort at getting the site active again.  For those that don't know, it's a forum for writers once listed many years in a row as one of the top websites for writers.  Hopefully, it'll add to my motivation to get these short story compilations written and published.  (Shouldn't this paragraph be near the top of this blog since the intent of this blog is my life as an author?  Oh, well...)  I'm not able to be on it nearly as often as I used to be, but I'm trying to access it a few times each day to post and read.

Candice's business is going well, but she's thinking about moving it to another website instead of Etsy.  It's a dicey move since Etsy has a huge customer base, but the fees would be less per year, and it also adds the listing into Google shopping, which could increase the customer base (assuming the customer base isn't going directly to Etsy or eBay to do their searches.  If that's the case, it could prove harder to get it going good.  I think that's a better plan for leaving Etsy than starting her own website at this jucture because it's less work and she doesn't have to recruit her entire customer base.  One she's well established with a large customer base, then her own website is probably the way to go.  We'll see...

I did get the other hotels booked for the vacation this July, so it is all planned out and essentially finalized.

That's all I have for this entry, thanks for reading!