This is...the conversation zone

Sunday.

No screaming today, though I'm being hard on myself for not getting "enough" done on the WIP. That I've rearranged several chapters and rewritten four more is the merest bagatelle.

I really need a time-turner.

This week upcoming has me phoning The Earth tomorrow. Tuesday, I'm wanted in Bath at an Unghodly Early Hour, with needlework in the evening. Firefly visits her vet on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday is blessedly free. Friday morning, Sarah's scheduled to come in and clean, and it is also the 2nd anniversary of Steve's death. I'm giving a talk at the library on Saturday afternoon, when it's supposed to -- *checks wunderground* -- ah. Downgraded to "snow showers." Much better.

It is entirely possible that I will not be much around for the balance of this week.

Everybody be well. Stay safe.

I'll look in as can.

8   Cuckoo's Egg, C J Cherryh, (audio first time)
7   *Plan B, (Liaden Universe® #4), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
6   Getting Rid of Bradley, Jennifer Crusie (audio first time)
5   *Carpe Diem (Liaden Universe® #3), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
4   *Conflict of Honors (Liaden Universe® #2), Sharon Lee & Steve    Miller
3   *Agent of Change (Liaden Universe® #1), Sharon Lee & Steve                 Miller
2   A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (Lord Julian #10), Grace             Burrowes (e)
1   Spilling the Tea in Gretna Green, Linzi Day (e)

________
*I'm doing a straight-through series read in publication order

A very nice day out. The Belfast Indoor Farmers Market is the place to be on a Saturday in February, and I don't think it was just the Valentine's Day Effect.

I purchased many frivolities, including this new leather bag, which, if I've got to be carrying my passport with me, my usual go-to bag is too small. This one has three compartments: one for your phone; one up front, which you're looking at, and a big central compartment. At the time this picture was taken, this bag held my Boox, my "papers," wallet; business cards; lighthouse passport; other paperwork; and the charging cords for phone and Boox. It obviously was not holding my phone, because that's what I was using to take the picture.

I also bought savory mushroom and veggie pie for lunch, a tea cake, for dessert, a bottle of ligonberry mead from Run Amok Meadery (which has an awesome label, not only for the graphic, but for the Denial Clause: "In my own defense, the moon was full and I was left unsupervised.") Um, what else -- ah. A small round of whole wheat sourdough, six Asagio cheese bagels in the Maine Economy Size, and a pair of local alpaca kneehighs, because I have discovered it to be a Universal Truth, that one cannot have too many alpaca kneehighs.

I have a couple things to do here on the computer, because I also distributed cards, and got a nibble from a jury member of the Maine Craft Store in Ducktrap, who sent me "something." After that -- and this -- I believe i will continue my Writer's Day Off by viewing another episode or three of the Silly Show I tapped last night, "My Demon."

The drive was nice, and after I left Belfast, I went down to Camden to say hello to the harbor, before I turned around and came home.

And that is: Run Amok Meadery
imMEADiate Gratification
Honey-Lingonberry Wine

I . . . have been remiss in updating the blog, for which my apologies.  The last couple days have been not much worth writing about anyway -- mostly reading and doing daily chores, with intermittent sadness.

That said, we move on to!

Monday midday already. Sunny and cold. I put paper plates of seeds out on top the snow on the deck. I prolly shouldn't have done, but I miss seeing the birds. The cats are fascinated and the new sliders in Steve's office gets them right up close and personal.

I called Dead River this morning, while I was still sitting under the glow of the Happy Lite, and was therefore taught the new method of oil delivery. Back in the Old Days, the oil truck came on -- oh, Tuesday. Or possibly every other Tuesday. But, they delivered to a schedule, which they could be expected to keep, to top off the tank. This was ... simple. We have now graduated to a more complex system, wherein oil usage for a particular address is calculated, using known data, and when the oil tank at that particular address reaches what ought to be one/third full, an oil delivery is triggered.

I pause here to mourn simplicity.

The helpful office person I spoke with at the crack of dawn this morning explained this to me, though she could not tell me when the delivery would be triggered. We left it that a truck would come by sometime this week to top off my tank, and then I will Observe the System in Real Time, so that I may see for myself how well it works.

Moving on. Yesterday, my back hurt, and my hands hurt, and -- let's just say that I was a hurtin' person, enough that I was aware that I was hurting. After I finished my work with the WIP, and had written a draft of my Remarks, I decided to field test a gummy. For Science!

I cut a gummy in half (taking it from 10mg of THC to the 5mg  recommended for newbies), which dose is said to make one feel calm and subtly relaxed. It made me feel that I had drunk way too much wine.  Not a pleasant buzz, but rather a "shouldn't have had that last glass" light-headed-and-unsteady feeling. I mention here that the muscle relaxants and prescribed pain relievers also make me lightheaded and foolish on my feet.

On the plus side, I was feeling no pain. I spent the next while drinking lots of water, and eating snacks and listening to my audiobook, and eventually the "too much" feeling went away, and pretty soon thereafter, I went to bed, and slept very well.

And when I got up this morning, I was still pain-free.

So! Conclusions. Do gummies work for pain relief? Yessir, they do, and they don't make me sick. Most of the prescribed pain relievers and muscle relaxants really make me sick. Already, I'm ahead of the game. Do gummies work as a muscle relaxant? Seems so, since the pain hasn't come back today. And let's not discount that lovely night's sleep.

Obviously, I'm going to have to be very cautious with them, and I may want to conduct a follow-up experiment with one-quarter of a gummy, to see if I can get relief and! still be able to function.

But that's for later.

For today, I spent the morning reviewing the WIP and have less than 50 pages left to read. I'll be doing that after lunch, which will be bean and veggie soup out of the freezer. Unless I decide on something else.

Tomorrow, I will start the day off by opening the tax portal and will hopefully finish filling in the necessary forms before it's time to go to needlework.

Wednesday morning, first thing, Tali has an appointment with her vet, and when I come home I will begin reviewing beta reader comments, and starting the process of producing a final draft of the WIP.

Doesn't that look tidy and fine?

So! Who else is tidy and fine today?

Ah.  One of the things I let get past me was the Celebration of Talizea's Gotcha Day, on February 3.  Here, we have Then:

And now:

What went before Thursday: So, I bought a stability ball today -- also known as a Giant Yoga Ball -- on suggestion of PT, and by doing so I learned several things.

Thing One. I had to go to Wal*Mart to obtain this item. Now, I haven't been in a Wal*Mart for at least 8 years, and at that time, I was in the Augusta Marketplace store and it was filthy and ill-kept, misfiled, and nerve-wracking to be in -- you know, like all the stores are now. The Waterville store, today, was -- spacious and well-lit, the shelves were stocked appropriately, signage (with a notable exception, which I will share) plentiful and easy to see. The gentleman in the red vest and ID tags who I stopped to ask where I should look for a Giant Yoga Ball told me that I would be going to the back of the store, to the Sports section, and then he used his phone to tell me that Giant Yoga Balls could be found in Aisle I-15.

Thing Two. Being as I had to walk to the furthest corner of the store to find Sports, I did have plentiful opportunity to look about me, and discover those things reported in Thing One. When I got to Sports, however, I found I-14 and I-17, but not Aisle I-15, which would be my luck. I asked a young lady who was stocking shelves, and whose face immediately said she didn't want to have anything to do with me why there was no Aisle I-15, and the young man who was her partner said, "Oh, no, I'll show you," which he did (I-15 is, in the Waterville Wal*Mart, where they file the bicycles), and when I said, "There are no Giant Yoga Balls here," led me to the exact shelf, which is where I learned Thing Three, which is!

You have to inflate the Giant Yoga Ball when you get it home. It comes with a cheap, plastic, manual air squeeze, and it will, conservatively, take me three days to inflate this thing. However! I have the ball in house, and have started on the inflation project, and I'm calling that progress.

I am now needing to get to my backlogged email.

Tomorrow Sarah comes in the morning to do the cleaning, and I believe I will be blocking out the rest of the day, which will give me 4.5 days to concentrate on reading/writing until I'm next needed elsewhere. I may, in fact, make a weekend of it, and order in, so I can keep focused on the WIP, with short breaks to blow up the stability ball.

So! I have what passes for A Plan. I note that this Plan may mean that I will be not much around the Internets. It's OK; I'll be working.
#
Friday. Cold and intermittently sunny. Sarah changed her hours to Saturday.

Woke up at 5:30, got up at 6, sat with the Happy Lite, ate breakfast and was reading the WIP before 8. Read 200 pages, did a couple loads of laundry, broke for lunch -- chicken Alfredo from ... I have no idea, actually. Pasta Americana? It was good and I have leftovers, which is also good.

The story is not nearly as terrible as I had feared. In fact, it's pretty good. So that's a relief. I have 68 days until I have to hand it in, and even though I have to Really End It, excise those 9,000 words, and probably write ... two? more fill-out scenes, I should be able to make that deadline.

Beta Readers! If you are still reading, do not despair! My Method is to do my read, then read your comments, once I have the story in my head in its present shape. You are, in a word, Still Relevant -- very much so! -- and I look forward to your notes with anticipation.

The stability ball has been inflated, and the cats are of the opinion that nobody needs a ball that big.

Dead River, after assuring me yesterday that my delivery was scheduled for today -- has not yet delivered. I'm in no danger, but I would very much like to know why it's suddenly become difficult to deliver oil to this address.

I still need to finish my Remarks and choose something(s) to read for my Event on the 21st.

The missing 1099-MISC arrived today, which would be my luck, because I wrote to the issuing party regarding its whereabouts yesterday. I now have to block out the better part of a day to enter everything into the accountant's portal, because the thing is purposefully designed to force you to fill it in All At Once. In former years, when I was working from paper, I would have been filling the forms in as columns were added, and paperwork arrived, and the manifesting of the last 1099 would mean that I filled in one final line, reviewed, and took the whole packet down to Oakland on Monday morning.

Stoopid portal.

What else? The now-called Business Office, formerly Sharon's Office, looks like a bomb hit it again. I used to write and do business in here, and . . . I can't figure out how I did -- oh, no, I do know. By this time in the Proceedings, the manuscript would have taken over the living room, and Steve would be reading it while I did the taxes, and I would have been able to keep up better with the day-to-day paperwork because Steve would have picked up the laundry and the cooking and the dishwashing, because he would rather do those things than the taxes.

deep breath

Nope.  Still Not Preferring this timeline.

Last night, I collapsed into bed earlyish and asked the Boox to read Cuckoo's Egg to me. Now, I have read Cuckoo's Egg manyManyMANY times. It is, in fact, one of my favorite books. I know this story. But listening to it is a Whole Nother Experience. I have not had this particular sensation of . . . newness . . . with the other books -- all old favorites, because I'm still learning -- I've listened to, so that's interesting.

And that I think catches us up. I'm going to take some time to excavate my desk.

Ah.  Today's blog post title brought to you by Rocky and Bullwinkle.