Plans and Foci

It's good when plans come to fruition. I've finished most of the POV revisions on my larger story and, reading through it several times already, I like what I'm writing here. It's clear, it's working for the characters, etc. I still have work to do on this - no doubt. But it's always nice to be happy with a work in progress.



My cousin Missy (Mother of the Bride) at her daughter Danielle's wedding last year.

My cousin from CA phoned me last night. This was the cousin that I drove down to Nebraska in May to meet with. It's been so much fun to connect again and bring each other up-to-date with our lives. She just spent a bit more than two weeks in France, Switzerland and Germany touring through with her husband and had lots of fun things to tell me. We've decided that if we ever both take a trip together, she can go and listen to whatever musical concerts she wants, and she'll just find me in whatever museum when she'l through with the ear candy. It would be a lot of fun! It was SO much fun to talk with her.



Missy has several horses. She's always been horse crazy and an excellent rider.

Tomorrow my DH and I are hoping to go over to my friend Cindy's house and fix her wall. This is my friend whose husband suddenly died a bit more than a month ago. She had a bathroom pipe leak that her DH had resolved by cutting away the wallboard from the pipes in the hallway. Unfortunately he died before he was able to repair what he had to pull down. So she asked for our help. DH has decided how he wants to tackle the job and he has the measurements and photos that I took and printed for him. So we're hoping to go over there early on Sunday and get this fixed. I'm crossing my fingers that we can get this done. We're running out of Sundays. Ren Fest starts on the 18th of August and from that point on, we'll be at the Festival each Sunday until the end of September. It's crazy to look at the summer from the perspective of June and realize that in many ways it is almost over already! EEEEEKKKKKKK!!!

Friday! So Needed...So Wanted...So Welcome!

So, it's Friday. I mention the obvious just in case you were a brain-dead zombie when you awakened this morning and turned on your computer in search of the appropriate designation for this glorious day. It's Friday. Now, for most of you that will mean that you are at the end of your work week. It doesn't mean that for me because my work week doesn't end until 5pm tomorrow, but I'll be happy with Friday. After all, I'm one day closer to my "weekend" than I was yesterday.




Today is the final day of my Creative Writing course. I've really learned a lot and I have enjoyed the class a great deal. It's not information that isn't out there, but it is information that I needed to remind myself about. When I look back over my writing and student history, I don't think I ever had much of a grounding in the actual structure of writing, plot development, character exploration, point of view, etc. Of course I am a voracious reader and have been all of my life, so much of what I needed to be able to write well I have absorbed by reading tens of thousands of books. But I did find taking an organized course to be very helpful as well. If any of my readers are thinking about taking an on-line continuing education course, if my experience is anything to go by, I recommend it.




I didn't have much time to continue with my own story revisions last night. I owed the latest chapter to my ESL friend for whom I do beta work, and worked on her story instead of my own. But I did get another page or two done. I'm almost caught up with the POV revisions and can then settle down to continuing the story through the last two weeks of its timeline. I do have to admit, though, that I like the flow of the story much better since I did the POV change, and I think it reads much better. I have to get finished with this, though, so that I can start the formal editing (yes, it has to go through at least one more serious edit before it is fit for other eyes) and begin work on the other stories that I've committed to. Or perhaps I should just revise my life's motto to read: "I should be committed!" Happy Friday, all y'all!

Shooting Myself in the Foot

I'm sure every one of my readers knows the feeling. You comment in a conversation and suddenly stop - you've just said something horribly inappropriate and stop in horror as your realization of the disconnect between mouth and brain becomes apparent. Well, I didn't do anything quite that bad. In fact, not at all that bad. But, I do keep changing my mind on stories that I am writing, resulting in massive re-writes. If it was a drabble, or even a smaller story of 2000-6000 words, no big deal. But the big ones with major re-do work...whatever am I thinking!?! Nonetheless, I decided to change the POV on my AinA story yesterday, and after working on it for more than six hours, I made my way through to page 17. Only ten more pages to revise before I can pick back up with writing the rest of the story. Geez! It's not as if I don't have other stories waiting in the pipeline to be written. I can't spend my entire lifetime on a single one. Somebody kick me please.....




But to return to the mundane from the keyboard, my Solstice was actually very nice indeed. One of my f-list friends identified my pic of an alternate Stonehenge as Stonehenge Aotearoa in New Zealand. Wow! I need to go there and see this in person. So beautiful! I had a "Celebrate the Solstice" coupon from my local coffee shop for a very inexpensive iced fancy coffee which tasted lovely, and I also had a coupon for a free "classic ham sandwich" from Honey-Baked Ham (nom, nom). So good! The two coupons gave me a wonderful lunch. Add a shortened (45 minutes - yes...for us that is shortened) conversation with Aearwen in the late afternoon and all was good.




Customer numbers and sales numbers are drastically down at the shop this week so far, and that is NOT good. Maybe everyone is concerned with the flooding that is happening in the northern part of the state? I have no idea about why our sales are so down, but I'm starting to get really concerned. I have expenses I have to pay like rent, utilities, and salaries for my wonderful employees. This is NOT helping. I guess I'll have to smudge the shop this morning and see if we can turn another corner in this maze I call retailing.

Litha and Computers

This evening we celebrate Litha, the mid-summer Solstice, and it feels like summer with a heat wave throughout the US today. People are flocking to the beach and lakes, air conditioners are running causing selective power brown outs, and movie theatres and shopping centers are crowded with people escaping the heat. It's not too bad here, but it is hot and since today is my day off, I'll be without any air conditioning for the day. Maybe I'll lose some weight through sweating? I wish all of you a fulfilling next six months of life, love and creativity while I cherish Litha in my heart today.

I don't know where this location is, but how beautiful the sunrise is over this monument.  If
you know where this is, please let me know.  

The shop has been haunted by a computer djinn, or so it seems. On Monday the register computer wasn't starting properly and was stuck in "safe" mode. After starting it several times and unplugging it, I finally looked up some possible solutions on-line and tried one of those. It worked, although it seems to give me the "start Normal...Safe" list every time I start it now, but at least it is starting and working properly. My register and sales software doesn't work in "safe" mode so this was an important fix.



Then on Tuesday, the register keyboard bit the dust. This was MOT a good thing and required us to hand-write receipts while I scurried to find, install, and identify key combinations for a standard keyboard. That was a real mess because our usual keyboard is quite specialized. After I had a functional keyboard attached I contacted the company who designed our sales software to get a new keyboard. BUT, the particular model we use is no longer made and the connection would be different and may not have worked on our system. So, I went to Ebay. Armed with the manufacturer and model number of our keyboard, I found a vendor where I could buy one for $90 + shipping (compared to $530 + shipping from my software developer). Guess what I did? You're right. I expect my new keyboard to be delivered on the 23rd.



I also have a monitor whose picture tube is going bad at my work, but Chickie has an extra flat screen monitor that she's willing to let us have, so she'll bring that by the shop today and I'll swap them out on Thursday. I hope that will solve our computer hardware issues for a LONG TIME!

Summer Storms

So, the question is how long I will have a computer this morning before I will have to shut down to protect my electronics. We have a massive thunderstorm producing huge hail and 60 mph winds just west of us and it's roaring into the Twin Cities as I type. Last night we lost power ten minutes before the end of Master Chef (grumble...grumble) so I'll have to catch up on the recap before tonight's episode. Frustrating! But I don't like it when my electronics get fried and that's a possibility with this storm that's coming into the cities.





It's summertime and thunderstorms are common for us at this time of year. But it's been a bad two weeks for the state with some areas having more than eight inches in the past week. More rain with high winds today will result in fallen trees and flooded roads. So far (knock on wood) we're not flooding today, although we did have some water in yesterday morning's storm. Geez....





On the good news front, my eye doctor says my eyes are in great shape and I now have a new prescription in hand so that I can get my eyeglasses relensed. I had this done before and I'm looking forward to a more accurate prescription that will eliminate some of the blurriness. So, to catch this post before my computer gets hit by lightning (or whatever...) I'll put some pics into this and call it a "done deal".

New Eyes and New Sod

I got LASIK in my right eye in 2001 and my final follow-up appointment for that was in 2002. But since then I haven't had my eyes examined. For several years I found reading to be very difficult and worked with audio books instead of written ones, but when I got my bifocals I read more, and when I got my NookColor I was back to my normal voracious reading habits. I'm very pleased about that. But as I increased my reading, my prescription for my glasses got more and more out of date. I've needed new glasses for quite a while and finally broke down and set up an appointment with my eye doctor for an exam. I have that today and I can start getting my glasses relensed with a new prescription soon. That will make me very happy! My eyeglass frames are unique and custom made, so I don't replace the glasses completely, rather I get new lenses for my frames instead.

These aren't MY eyeglasses, although they are designed by the same
company.  I love having unusual eyeglasses though.

Yesterday was Father's Day in the United States and my DH and I went to my father-by-marriage's home for several hours of hard labor. Well...to be fair...the labor part was mostly on my husband's part, I was 'supervising' and I did go and purchase additional supplies mid-task.




Last year my father-by-marriage's large tree was felled by high winds and had to be removed (after destroying part of the garage). It was a real mess, but it was all covered by his house insurance, luckily. Not having the tree in the back yard causes his porch to get much hotter without the shade and protection it had given. My father-by-marriage purchased a new maple tree last fall and had it planted, but it's still young. Bare dirt remained where they had removed the large tree and he was spreading grass seed regularly, trying to get grass to grow there. Slow...very slow. My DH decided to purchase and lay sod for him. So it was a labor of love, but after several hours the bare spot was covered with green and everyone was delighted. Now to make sure that it actually thrives. That will entail daily watering for 2-3 weeks, and then every other day for another month, etc. But it looks great and I'm sure it will be happy grass. A successful Father's Day gift.