It's Friday - My Normally Busy Day Will Become a Busy Night

Today will be a busy day. Not because of activity at the shop - it's been HOT, and walk-in activity for shopping has been minimal. I'm quite grateful that I had two dealer/collectors in yesterday who purchased some very nice antique jewelry items. That helped my bottom line a great deal, and I'm very grateful. But when the heat is in the 90's F, people generally don't wander the streets. They stay in the air conditioning of their homes, or their cars. Of course we have A/C at the shop as well, but they do have to walk a bit outside to get to our front door. 

The windows on the floor above the shop are open in 
this photo, so I can tell it's a old one. The apartments 
above the store have been vacant for a decade while 
the landlord "renovates" them. He's as lazy as DH 
can sometimes be when it's a project that doesn't 
excite him. Obviously that's the case here. LOL

Chickie gets back to the shop next week, but not until Wednesday so I won't actually see her to get the run-down on her vacation until Thursday. Meanwhile, DH and I are butting heads and getting in each other's way. It's been an uneasy truce, at best. I'll blame the weather for some of that as well. The heat simply doesn't aid in keeping an even temper. 

I love my local grocery store - Lunds/Byerly's. I took this 
photo in 2022. Do you see the second rainbow? I immediately 
went back into the store and shared the photo with several 
of the checkout clerks who've become friends over the years. 

I'm stopping at the grocery store on my way to work today and picking up the various veggies necessary for my Ogre Juice. We have a small refrigerator at work where I'll put them until I can get them home, and right after work tonight, I'll clean the kitchen and start making my next batch. I've got it down to a fine science by now - it's been 3 years or so. Still, it will take an hour, or a bit more, to get my next four portions blended and into the refrigerator, and the kitchen cleaned back up again. This is mandatory, however. No wiggle room on my health. 

Isn't this more the question? If everything is 
unremarkable, is there anything worth remembering? 

DH says he's worried about my memory (or lack thereof) and what he's simply not understanding is that any memory lapses I might have are directly related to the business. It's simply that I don't want to be there any more, and my mind realizes I would much rather be beading or working with enamel or fusing glass or soldering metal. I want to be creative once again, and that's impossible when I'm tied to the business. I realize he's trying to get us out of business to the best of his ability, but it's much slower than I wanted, and frankly, I'm VERY tired of waiting for him to catch up to me. I want my life back, and that requires sealing the door of his previous life firmly behind me. 

I'm trying my very best to do this at the shop, but 
it's far more difficult than I had anticipated. GRRRR

So, the problems are the same, and the heat index is high. Why bother writing this at all? Because writing my daily blog is something that I do every day. Often it's the only "practice" I get in the art of writing at all. I get my thoughts out, and then I can progress with my day because I won't dwell on them any more. And you, my beloved internet friends and family, get to share in all of my triumphs and my angst. Sorry about that! LOL Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow to celebrate the end of a work week. Slava Ukraini. 

We Got Snow and A Bit of Envy

I have no idea how much snow we got last night, but we're under a Blizzard Warning today. That really won't hit the Cities, but the rest of the state, away from the major residential areas, may be impacted quite seriously. If it gets really bad, they'll close the interstate highways until the winds die back down again. 

We haven't had a Blizzard Warning for the past three 
years here in the Twin Cities. But we're right on the 
border of Winter Storm Warning and Blizzard 
Warning, so I'm pretty sure we're getting a little bit 
of both. That's us - right there in the middle of the map. 

I know we were expected to receive somewhere between 5"-8" of snow overnight, the wet, heavy Spring snow that we get at this time of the year. We were located on the fringes, however, and I'm really hoping we're on the lighter end. Looking out of my front windows this morning really wasn't telling me much. The walkway is protected by my huge snowbanks on the East and the wall of the house on the West and North. I won't see the driveway until I'm ready to go to the shop, and I might have to wake DH to come out and snowblow if it's too much or too heavy for me to handle on my own. 

If it's too much snow for me to handle on my own, or if 
it's really heavy, I'll wake up DH and ask him to go out 
and snow blow so that I can get Minion out of the 
garage and onto the roadway to get to the shop. 

I had a lovely day off yesterday, spending most of the day in the kitchen cooking a batch of Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup and another batch of Ogre Juice. I realized this morning that I started Year Three of WildFit a couple of weeks ago. I don't even think about it any more - it's become second nature and I'm delighted with the food choices I make and the body I've settled into. 

I've been on a lot of "diet" plans over my life, but WildFit 
seems to suit my lifestyle perfectly. I haven't really minded 
the changes I've made to the food choices I make, and 
I've really enjoyed getting back into the kitchen and cooking 
again. 

DH's Urologist phoned late yesterday to let him know that his MRI was excellent - no cancer or pre-cancer showing at all. That's a relief. The Doc seemed like a really nice person, and DH really likes him, but he's retiring this year (lucky guy!) and recommended a specific PA in his group for DH's future appointments. DH, on the other hand, is extremely disappointed that Dr Moore won't be available any more. It's almost like he's taking the Doc's retirement as a personal affront. Bah! I'm just jealous. It's a lot easier to retire when you're employed by someone else than when you're self-employed. 

Considering all we have to do to retire, when Doc can just 
put down his stethoscope, sign a few forms, and leave for 
the last time, I guess I'm a little envious too. 

So, I'm going to wrap this up, finish drinking my morning tea, and take a look at how cruel Mother Nature was overnight. I guess I'll be getting some snow-clearing exercise in, no matter what, since my walls at the store have already melted down into nothing. That means shoveling out there will be a total PITA. Have an excellent Saturday and wonderful weekend, I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini. 

Right Now, I'm Sleepless in St Paul - Late Night/Early Morning Thoughts

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday extended weekend, whether you celebrated Christmas, New Year's or any of the other assorted holidays that happen around the end of the calendar year. I had a lovely three days away from the shop, and will be jumping back into "normal" scheduling again starting today. 

My schedule right now is totally messed up. I got WAY 
too much sleep over the past few nights, but tonight I 
got three hours and then awakened, unable to return to 
sleep at all. I'll be dragging by tonight, but I'm giving up 
on sleep for right now. 

 On Sunday, we went to my youngest niece's home for the family holiday celebration, which was lovely. It was a chance to catch up with all of the family, and almost everyone was there. That made for a large household full of people, in a variety of ages from children to elders. There was lots of food and lots of talk, football and hockey, and games and small gifts for the kids. It was great, except for the football game which was horrendous. Still, one can't have everything - LOL. 

The Vikings game on Sunday was pathetic! I'm fairly sure 
there were a lot of fans who were just as disappointed in 
the game and the score as this fan was. (Yes, some people 
really do go all out for their team spirit, and not necessarily 
in a good way - LOL). 

I got caught up on a lot of sleep - I guess too much sleep, since I managed about three hours of sleep last night, awakening at 11:30 pm, and simply couldn't get back to sleep, no matter what. So, here it is, 1:00 am and I'm writing my blog, when I should be sleeping until 3:00 am before my alarm awakens me. I'm sure this three-hours of sleep night will catch up with me at some point, but it seems I'm destined to be a bit of a zombie today. 

The Zombie Insomnia logo just about describes how 
I'm doing right now. I have no good reason for not 
sleeping - I'm not overly stressed, etc. But I know DH 
is super stressed about getting things wrapped up 
this year, so it's time to step in and hire a professional 
to get this underway and done well. 

DH is stressing about how to get the business closed this year - and I understand, totally. I'm churning various things around in my head as well. One way or another, it all has to fall into place soon. I have a direction that I think will work well for us, and I'll try to tackle DH about it later in the week. Then it'll be up to him, but he's stressing about this and I think my direction might relieve some of that stress. Maybe. 

I think there's a way where we won't give up on our 
dreams, just shift them to a different focus. I know 
this can happen, and it can happen well and in a way 
that we'll both be happy with the results. Now to 
convince DH about spending what's necessary to 
have a successful remainder of our lives. 

So, it's now 2:00 am, I leave for the YMCA in a bit more than 2 hours, and I'm giving up on sleep tonight. I'm just not at a point where my mind is at rest. These times, however, are rare for me, so I'll live with the fact that I can't sleep and I'll get some work done before heading to the pool. Have an excellent Tuesday, and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully at my more usual time. Slava Ukraini. 

Retirement? A Pipe Dream That Fails Again

Voting for the current LJ Idol closes on Thursday night, and I hope that you'll consider voting for my story. We're down to 18 people now, but I already have two strikes and one more and I'm "out". I'd rather be "in" for at least one more challenge, and maybe quite a few more past that. Here's the link for you to follow:  https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1125058.html . 

I'm into the final 18 and I'm pleased about that, but this 
was a smaller group than they have had sometimes in the 
past too. I think I'm a bit grateful about that, because 
reading and voting on several 100 stories would be 
beyond my ability. I do have to read all of these and get 
my votes in, though. 

It's been a lot of fun and a good challenge writing to prompts in this fashion. I remember writing Tolkien fan-fic to prompts in other cases, or in format prompts - drabbles, poetry, stories of less than 500 words, etc. I always enjoyed the goal and the parameters shifting to give my brain and imagination a bit of exercise. In this instance our prompt was Laiochezia - emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language. I'm not sure where our moderator comes up with these prompts, but he's made me use my dictionary quite a lot. 

I've never put a lot of thought in curse words, and the 
words I've chosen have changed over the years, but I 
think everyone does use them at one point or another 
in their lives. 

As for retirement on August 30th? I think that was a pipe dream, and I'm massively disappointed about it. I'm stuck on DH's time schedule and I'm hating every minute of it. And, of course, he just DOESN'T get it. At all. I'm grateful I've got my days off, and I'm especially grateful I've got Sharon coming up so I'll have several days in a row off with her and the State Fair and Renaissance Festival, but I'm angry and I'm disappointed. 

I'm angry and disappointed, so I'll take it out on the 
pool in a bit less than an hour from now. At least 
I'll probably get a good workout going. 

I'm disappointed and sad and borderline depressed, and it seems like all of the effort I put through the last two years to put a lock on it and walk away has come down to nothing at all. We actually have managed to do quite a lot, but not enough. Not enough to actually call it the end of a long day. And when I'm busy working hard at computer work, he's playing bridge on his phone or doing crossword puzzles. GRRRRRR! 

Last week Thursday's swim was amazing! The clouds 
were perfectly positioned, and when the sun rose, 
the sky turned brilliant orange. Every single swimmer 
stopped and looked at the sky. All of us! It was a 
magical time. 

I'm off to the pool to swim some of this growl out of me. I forget what never-ending task he's got me doing now, but I'm sure I'll remember it when I sit back down at my desk at the shop. It's all a big "whatever" right now. Still, I have the pool, so it can't all be bad. Have an excellent day, please go read and vote, and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

It Was A Relaxing Sunday - Now On To a Busy Monday

We had a relaxing and very enjoyable day in the backyard yesterday. To top it off, DH grilled steaks on the grill for dinner, while I fried up some onion and fresh mushrooms as a side. All in all, it was a good day. DH said he was planning on exiting STC (my business) in June, 2023, so almost a year after I'm leaving, since I plan on getting out of there by the end of August. I suspect I'll still have to go in sometimes, and I'll do that, but I don't plan on being there my four days a week any more come September. 

I love fried mushrooms with onion alongside my steaks, or 
on top of my burgers. I like fresh Crimari mushrooms and 
a good Vidalia onion, and I use coconut oil instead of 
butter, since I don't eat dairy. It's quite tasty. 

I finished my story for the current prompt and I'll post it today, maybe even in tandem with today's blog post. I'm happy with the direction I went, which is far different from the actual definition of the prompt word: craic. Craig means an enjoyable social activity, i.e, a good time, and comes from the Irish language. I took it as an anagram instead. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. You can find it here: https://erulissedances.dreamwidth.org/871655.html  As always, I appreciate your reading it, and if you're kind enough, your vote when the poll comes open on Wednesday. 

I loved the prompt this week, although I went in a 
totally different direction than the true definition 
of the Irish word. A different drummer - that's what 
I usually hear - LOL. 

I had a tough time sleeping last night - I suspect because it was a bit hot, and the humidity was higher than we've been used to. But we're into the beginning of summer, and that means I'll be using my fan and my mini-air cooler to sleep. Still, the fan didn't really help last night - I was too restless. I finally grabbed my phone and turned on one of the hypnosis meditations I had used when I needed sleep before getting my tattoo last year. That worked really well. I was asleep within 10 minutes and didn't awaken until my alarm went off. 

I love this deck. I've used a lot of different decks over 
the years, but this one sings to me. I love every 
image, and the cards definitely sing to my fingers 
when choosing a card of the day. I have other decks 
now, but this is my go-to - the one I carry with me 
in my computer bag. 

I've been choosing a personal Tarot card for the day for almost three weeks now. I shuffle the deck well (using the "smush" technique) and lay the cards in a fan, the backs facing me. I choose blindly, with my eyes closed. I find it quite bizarre that out of almost 20 pulls, I have 2 from Coins, and the rest are all from Swords or are Major Arcana cards. That's just beyond what mere chance would provide, given there are 78 cards in the deck, comprised of four full suits plus 21 Major Arcana cards. (Actually, there are four additional cards, one more in each suit - a "bonus" card if you will, that is the palace for each of the four courts.) I'm curious what I'll pull today. 

Oh that note, I'm out of here. I have to try to catch up a bit - I didn't get a chance to sit at the computer at all yesterday, and I have photos to look at and posts to read. Have a wonderful Monday and I'll be back tomorrow. 

A Winter Storm - Snow Is My Day Today

We're in the middle of another "Weather Advisory" today, with 2-3 inches of snow expected by mid-afternoon. It started snowing about an hour ago and it's going to impact my "day off" throughout. I only need to get to one grocery store today - my neighborhood store - but it's still going to be one of those days when I'll be quite happy to be home and immobile. 

2-3 inches of snow can be easy or difficult, depending on 
the moisture content of the snow. I'm hoping this will be 
a dry snow - those are easy to clear from driveway and 
walkways. If it's a water-filled wet snow, it's going to 
be a lot more work to keep things clean and I'll have 
definitely gotten my 10,000+ steps in and a considerable 
amount of distance into my trek to Petra. The first 
challenge will be the gym - I'll have to brush off the car 
after my morning swim. 

Of course it's also trash day today, so I'll be carting the trash and recycling bins to the curb before I leave for the swimming pool. They won't have a major amount of snow on them when I'm able to return them to their home in the garage later this afternoon, but I guess I'll be shoveling several times to avoid as many tire tracks as possible. Maybe, if I'm really energetic, I'll find the snowblower instructions in the kitchen drawer where we keep those sorts of things, and find out how to turn the damnable thing on and use it. Two to three inches isn't a massive amount of snow, but it might be good practice. The snow should end by mid-afternoon if the weather prediction is right. 

We have one of these - a Cub Cadet snow 
blower. The directions are at the handle 
area. The first thing is "Insert the key", but 
I have no idea where the key is ... so that's 
hurdle number one - LOL. If I can get that 
figured out, the rest should be do-able and 
rather fun, all things considered. 

Yesterday was a VERY busy day at the shop. It wasn't that we had that many people, but we had one of our more dedicated beaders in to stock up for the winter months (she has a farm, so she has time to craft during the winter, and very little time during any of the other seasons). She makes incredible beaded snowflakes - just stunning - filled with Austrian crystals and faceted beads to catch the sunlight. By the time she was finished (and she spent more than three hours shopping with us), she had a cash register tape that was more than 4-1/2 feet long and a very full shopping bag for her merchandise. These are the type of customers I adore - wanting to do specific things, and willing to purchase the products that will allow success in their projects. 

Many of our customers over the years have made 
beaded snowflakes. We carry snowflake 
frames in three different sizes and sell them 
all year round. This particular customer of ours 
uses Austrian crystals and assorted beads in 
patterns and colors I've rarely seen, and makes 
exceptionally beautiful snowflakes. They are 
similar to this, but even better. She's got a 
great eye for design and detail. 

I need to start looking at Shopify and Etsy (and maybe Wix) to find out what will work best for us as we shift from a physical location to a virtual one. We'll need to sell down and sell off whatever will remain after we close the store later this year, and we probably will start of that sooner rather than later. Hopefully I'll get some time this afternoon to start looking into options. I never seem to have a lot of time at work to spend on research, and it's not something I can just "jump" into without knowing it will do what I need. Do you shop online at Etsy or Shopify? Do you have a preference? Let me know your thoughts and experiences, it could be a great help to me. 

After retirement, the options are huge. We'll still have
merchandise remaining to sell. So, should I build 
a website with Squarespace, Shopify or Wix? Should I 
sell on Shopify, Etsy or just clear things out on Ebay? No 
matter what, I'll have to take a ton of photographs, so 
I might finally have to dive into a new digital SLR camera. 
That's another bunch of research. Argh! 

I also need to do other household things today - laundry, making my next batch of "Ogre Juice" for the coming days, and some general housekeeping. I expect I'll be quite happy to finally sit down at 4:00 pm for my weekly chat with Aearwen. We had to miss last week because I was working, so we'll have lots to catch up on. After all, it's a new year and we haven't spoken since just before Christmas. So, have an excellent Wednesday, enjoy your day and the people you happen to interact with, and I'll be back tomorrow. Peace! 

Today I'm Living A "Normal Revised Schedule" Change - ARGH

In my "normal revised" schedule since starting Physical Therapy, Wednesday is my day off from the gym and every few weeks I have a PT appointment early (7:00 am) in the morning. Of course, my "normal revised" schedule had to be revised this week, since my PT has a scheduling conflict. I'm going to the gym today, but the rest of the day is still my day off. Tomorrow, I'm seeing my PT at 7:00, but then continuing on to work for the rest of the day. 

Switching schedules is rather like switching lanes in rush hour - difficult,
and fraught with danger while trusting that the others around you won't
mess things up even more. 

Although it might not seem like a horrible mess to all of you, my dear readers, it's a total MESS for me - sandwiching in breakfast before therapy and still getting there on time, and skipping the gym on Thursday. It's already driving me crazy - LOL. So, can you hear that semi-hysterical laughter coming through your monitor? Yeah. That's me trying to deal with this rather silly schedule shift. 

I want to do holiday ornaments for you this year, and found half
of what I need last night. I'm going to hunt for the other half today
while cleaning and reorganizing (and labeling) my art supplies bins. 

Today is my "day off" - grocery shopping, housecleaning, several loads of laundry, and continued work on my space in the craft room. DH wanted one of my bins removed from its' temporary location since that is designated for a different type of storage. I got that done last night, but I'm looking for the materials for this year's Holiday Card. 

I love sending my cards to friends all over the world. My life is a
little crazy right now, but that shouldn't change friendships. 

I still want to send cards out to my friends all over the world, but they're going to be less labor intensive this year by necessity. They're still going to be hand-made, but a bit less hand in the making this year because we've been so busy. Next year's card might also be more minimal, but afterward I should be more on-track for success and be able to return the cool factor. I hope so. I'll be making a "Call Out For Cards" in October, so keep your eyes open for it. 

That's a wrap for today or I'll be late. It's always so difficult to get into a schedule and then have something gum up the works. I'll be fighting this small revision in my schedule for the next 48 hours! Have a totally wonderful day and I'll be back on Thursday. 

Catching up - A New Hat Pin!

Sharon left on Tuesday to return to Denver, and yesterday I received a wonderful padded envelope from her with a lovely Denver Broncos pin to add to my new Aussie Oilskin hat. I have worn a hat similar to this for many years - it's my go-to hat, good for almost every event. My old hat had finally died - worn out in service. I always had a variety of pins on it, so I pulled a few together for the new hat. The collection will continue to grow, but I'm quite pleased with how it's coming together now, and of course the Broncos pin was the PERFECT addition. It would have been even better if the Broncos had won their season opener last night, but I guess I can't have everything - LOL. 

I love my new replacement hat. The old hat was quite literally worn
into the ground. The center pin is a lovely Cthulhu, on the right is
a Blue Heron that Chickie gave to me, and now I have my Denver
Broncos pin on the left - a gift from Sharon. It's a good beginning
on my hat decorations. I'm quite happy. 

DH and I loaded some wood and my multi-drawer rolling cart into the truck last night and brought everything home in the rain. I love my multi-drawer cart - it locks, it holds a LOT, and because it rolls, it can be moved with ease. We discovered that it actually fits underneath the solder bench when we left it on the breezeway to dry off. I might end up leaving it there and dealing with downstairs storage a bit differently. It's a thought in any case. 

What I have at my workspace is quite similar to this -
a multi-drawer wheeled unit that locks. I think mine is
only five drawers, instead of six, but it's a very handy
thing and I love it. 

Our cold snap continues. The weather was supposed to move back into heat over the past weekend, but apparently the Weather Gods never got the memo. It's been colder than usual for this time of the year, and every customer I talk to speculates that we'll have an early and colder-than-usual winter. Although I'm thinking the same thing, I would rather not have that happen. We have too much we need to get accomplished in what remains of summer and fall before beginning to deal with winter. 

While my friends in Europe have been dealing with a summer of record
heat, we've been dealing with an unusually cold summer here. I think I've
only had my fan on less than ten times all summer - extremely rare - and
the A/C at the shop has been on when needed, but usually I've just had
the fan running for circulation, not needing any chilling. 

So, rather short and sweet today because I'm trying to get caught up a bit with my friends and their own journal entries. So much going on in their lives, and I'm more than a week behind! Have a totally wonderful Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. 

A Celebration of a Milestone

It's odd to feel older, because age is basically just a number and within the exact truth, a birthday is actually celebrating the achievement of living until the end of a year. You don't get to celebrate your year-one birthday at birth, it's only celebrated at the culmination of year one and the beginning of year two. Continuing with that rationale, celebrating your 50th is actually celebrating the completion of your 50th, and so on, and so on. Today I'm celebrating one of those "milestone" years, and I'm not all that happy about it. 

True milestone birthdays actually don't come around that often. You
celebrate your first, of course, and the start of your teenage years.
Often you celebrate age 18 and 21 because you have increased
legal rights. Thirty is a celebration milestone, an age of
responsibility. That is followed by ages 50 and 65. Everything
after that, 80, 90 and 100 seem incremental and
rather incidental. 

Celebrating birthdays has always been hot/cold for me. I enjoy the freebies - a free cupcake from a favorite baker which I'll take advantage of today, the free bagel with cream cheese that I had yesterday, and the nice dinners that DH usually makes to celebrate. But, it also means I'm a year older, my body is wearing out sooner (although the gym and I are trying to forestall that for as long as possible) and deadlines that we have are getting closer and closer. 

I want to travel to Egypt. It's been a goal of mine since I was
eight years old. My cousin has been to Europe several times,
even lived there for a school year. My goal has always
been the desert sands and stone monuments of Egypt. 

Our goal is retirement - a career shift, in essence. I want to have a life away from being at the shop 5-6 days a week, and I want to be able to work on my own art or crafts or writing in the mornings and spend the rest of the day with DH. We want to travel, something we haven't been able to do together for decades (the last vacation we were able to take together was in 1994), and basically we want a life. 

Since I'll be in that part of the world, it would be stunning to
drop by Petra, Jordan at the same time. Of course, I want a
really extensive tour of Egypt, so there may be no time, but
wouldn't Petra be marvelous? 

Since I plan on living until age 85 (longer would be a bonus, but I will be sorely disappointed with a lesser amount of years), I will have some time to play, but energy is harder to come by when you're older, and extensive traveling will become more and more difficult. The several trips abroad I had been hoping for a decade ago are settling into one or two. Even though there are many places in the world that I want to see in person, I am a realist. It's more than doubtful that I will actually get to most of them. 

I also would love to travel through Portugal via river
cruise. We both love Portuguese wines, and it would
be a good chance to kick back and relax for a while. 

But that's OK because today I'm celebrating the day and the possibilities that this upcoming year holds for me. It will be a year of extreme changes, and I'm focused at achieving those changes and moving along with life as it is offered to me. At least, that's the goal. Have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Enjoy the day! 

B2MeM 2019 Is Coming To An End

We're coming into the final week of B2MeM 2019. I started the month thinking "Oh, it's Bingo. I love that format. I'll give it my best shot and see how I do," to ending it with "Oh darn, I only have Sunday's prompts left and then Bingo will be over." That should make it clear to my readers that I have thoroughly enjoyed the month's worth of challenges, writing stories, reading the stories of other writers, and commenting. It's been totally awesome. 

It was a lot of fun to write within the Tolkien universe
once again. It's been two years since I allowed myself
to play in this sandbox. 

I do write every day - I blog six days a week, and I often write in my own fiction, but I hadn't played in the Tolkien universe for quite a while. Although I have wonderful friends over there, many of whom I am in touch with through my blog, I have also had some unpleasant experiences within the fandom that caused me to pull back a bit. But, I'm getting older, my skin is thick and quite resilient, and I just don't care any more. So, if I see something on LJ or DW regarding something I want to write about in the Tolkien universe, and I have the time, I'll probably do it. 

The previous B2MeM challenge I wrote within was 2017's
"Night and Day" B2MeM challenge. That challenge had
a variety of pathways that could be followed. I took the
longest pathway (because I like a challenge) and was
successful at the end of the month. Lots of fun. 

Time is the question. My Bingo entries were relatively short. My personal criteria for participating this year was two-fold: (1) I had to write short - ficlet or drabble length only, and (2) I had to combine all of the daily prompts into a single tale. Those were my personal rules. I could have written as long as I wanted, and composed an individual story for each prompt, but I set my boundaries. For me, the challenge was in melding the varied prompts into a single story that had focus - that could be told in entirety, with minimal words. 

I don't know that I'll have the time to do other writing challenges within the universe. Many of the other writing events and exchanges that run throughout the year either require longer word counts, or restrict to only drabbles. Those are both good boxes to work within, but summer is coming up and we have SO much to accomplish to be able to retire at the end of the year. Crazy busy - that's what we'll be. 

My very first B2MeM challenge was the Passports challenge
of 2011. It's what brought me from being a reviewer, editor and
commentator, to being a writer within the fandom. Again, I
succeeded in completing the challenge and I got all of the
varied passport stamps on my Visa. It was a LOT of fun and
a good intro to B2MeM. 

So, I'll probably post a big "Thank You" on Monday to the moderators and other authors for a wonderfully entertaining month of writing fun, and then I'll return to my current primary focus - making my house a place where I can merge the items for my workspace into my current home. That's rather like a shoehorn and a tightly-fitted shoe. It's going to work, but it's not going to be comfortable. 

Have a wonderful weekend, and I'll be back on Monday. Remember to be kind to others and to animals, and try to finish the month up on a good and positive note. 

Writing, Swimming and the Cold

Once again I've succumbed to the writing lure and subscribed to an on-line writing course. I've done this periodically through the years and have always learned something that honed my craft a bit more, but I also know that time will be tight over the next 18 months. I miss writing, though. As I was cleaning I came across one of my LOTR stories from a few years ago and after re-reading it, I discovered that I still enjoyed the tale. That's not the case with everything I've written over the years, but some of my work is holding up to time. Practice and consistency helps with any art, though, and that includes writing. 

The nice thing about LOTR Fan-Fiction is that the
community is fairly active. There are always challenges
pending and activities I can dive into to help practice and
fine tune my writing skills. 

Just because I don't have the time to continue working on my novel, and just because I can't dive back into the LOTR fan-fiction universe again just yet, doesn't mean I can't hone my writing skills again, so I'll do my best to allocate two 30-minute periods each week to "Descriptive Writing" and "Irresistible Fiction". If nothing else, it will be fun to think about something other than cleaning, organizing, and shifting items from one place to another. 

My life is winding down and I want to spend a decade or
two doing creative things - making my stories in print and
in art. I can't do that if I'm working a 60-hour week at the shop. 

DH will keep me on track with the packing and moving of stuff. He's got his focus and his internal timetable, and he's keeping us on schedule. We want to retire - I want out. The only way to do that is to actually bring home the things that need to be home and then sell the rest. So much easier said than done for a business that's been ongoing for more than 30 years. 

It was wonderful to finally be back in the pool yesterday. I wasn't
too far off my pace, either, ending my mile within two
minutes of my best time before my three week hiatus. 

On another plane, it was pure joy to be back in the water and swimming yesterday. Although I'm going to make sure to build in at least two days of machines this week, I'm going back to the pool for today and tomorrow. I think I'll allocate Thursday and Friday to machines, and Monday-Wednesday plus Saturday for the pool. I hate to miss my Saturdays, they're usually the least crowded day and I often get a lane of my own for my mile. 

Too many people are one paycheck away from being homeless, and
in temperatures like we'll have over the next few days, some of those
unfortunate people will die because the shelters will be full and will
have to turn people away. 

I'm ready to bundle up and face the cold. We're at the beginning of three-four days of intensive sub-zero temps. Today it's currently a balmy -4 F ... NO, it's now -6 F. By the time I go to sleep tonight, it'll be -16 F and still dropping. This is killing cold and we'll lose some of the homeless who refuse to leave their cubbyholes or have no place with space available. My heart goes out to anyone without shelter during temps like this! 

Have a safe and warm Tuesday, I'll be back tomorrow.