My B2MeM Is Becoming B2MeM2 and Scheduling

It's March 30th and I still have purchased prompts that are sitting in my ToDo pile. It's totally my own fault. I could probably have written something yesterday between helping DH with computer install issues and cataloging more books, but I didn't. When I had some free time, I worked on virtual jigsaw puzzles instead. I think my brain is still recovering from the flu of a couple of weeks ago. I'm writing my daily blog, but not much else. I suspect April will complete my B2MeM stories *sigh*.

I loved these antique watches. What a perfect image
for time passing by. 

Of course, I also have income taxes to finalize and a tax appointment to set up. I'll probably try to phone and get the appointment set for later this week when I get to the shop this morning. That will give me Wednesday to finish pulling my paperwork together. So - no writing there.

So far I'm only burning one end of my candle, but I suppose
the other end is just biding its time...

I have the final chapter of Iris's latest story to beta. I've owed that to her since February. I'm not very timely on this at all and have been thinking I may have to bow out of our long-standing relationship just because I have so much I have to accomplish within the next few months.

Hear those crickets? That's me looking at all this work and
choosing to waste my time doing virtual jigsaw puzzles instead. 

What do I need to do? (I can hear the curious minds thinking out loud, at least in my own head.) *sound of crickets* Well, I need to get my house redone. We purchased the house in 1986 and have lived here with the same carpeting, window treatments and wallpaper since then. That's a long time and all of these items are old and falling apart. We didn't have the money to replace them, but we've been saving up for this and this year is the year to do it. Thus - my cataloging books as I put them into organized boxes.

DH dislikes most carpeting we've seen, so it will be a challenge
getting some samples that he'll like. But he's paying for all
of this, so he needs some say in where his money is going. 

I'll try to get to the decorating store within the next two weeks to choose some possible carpeting samples for DH to look at as well as to arrange for them to come to the house and measure. Then it will be a matter of moving furniture and scheduling someone to be home when the carpet is installed. I'm not sure they could do the wallpaper at the same time, but that would be handy. The install could be really good, or it could be really bad, but it has to be done. Ideally, I'd like it completed before I leave for Bead & Button Show in early June. No pressure - LOL, no time for pressure. Happy Monday to all.

So Late & So Much To Do! - BUSY!

My in-box was filled with all sorts of emails that I actually had to deal with - print, process, follow up on. Before I knew it, I was running late and that's how this day is going to go. I have my new charge terminal which I want installed and tested before I open the store. I have to go to the gym and the bank before I open, and I have an appointment with a security consultant right when I unlock my doors. It's going to be a crazy few hours here.

I enjoy Michael Connelly's gnarly Harry Bosch character. I haven't
watched the TV series (don't get the specialty cable stations), but
I've always enjoyed reading and listening to the books. 

I had every good intention yesterday. I wanted to get some computer work done. Scan some more books, Measure my car's cargo bay for a possible interior protection component. Do some writing. Do some beta work. Open my Camp NaNoWriMo cabin. And of course, the usual - grocery shopping, laundry, etc. I did the usual because groceries and laundry are very important in my life. But I needed a day of down time - things have been very stressful. So instead of doing any of my computer work, I buried my nose in a NookBook - "The Burning Room" by Michael Connelly, to be precise. I adore his Harry Bosch character. So I read. I didn't write, I didn't beta, I barely read my on-line notifications. I read a novel. I'll regret it today, but enjoyed the bit of down time.

Right now I'm just being pulled in too many directions. That
will calm down, but not until the end of the month. Eeeek!

Today will be a LOT different. Today I'll be at the shop. I'll be working with customers, tagging and putting away new and restocked merchandise, talking with vendors about supplies and problems, and hopefully resolving some long-standing issues. I'll stir-fry some chicken for dinner and then go on-line to file the sales tax report with the state for the month. And finally I'll pour into bed and try and get some sleep because I'm already tired just thinking about my day - LOL.

No grass growing on my busy mind. But sometimes it would be
nice to have a bit of space in which to breathe. Today will NOT
be a breathing day. 

I hope your day will be a bit more relaxed than mine will probably be. Have a wonderful Thursday and I'll be back, a bit less rushed, tomorrow.

Spring is a'Coming

Pity the poor person who is responsible for
changing multiple clocks twice a year.

In the US, Daylight Saving Time started on Sunday morning (very early). Spring is 'spring ahead' so we lose an hour of sleep. Normally it doesn't hit me horribly because it's on a Sunday and that's the day that we sleep in. But I was a wreck by mid-afternoon yesterday and actually crashed out for a nap before dinner. I always figure if I'm falling asleep in my chair while trying to edit, I should probably at least get into a prone position.

This is the season for leaking roofs. Homes and
business will both be sporting buckets. It drives
me a bit crazy - I hate that constant dripping sound.

We checked out ceiling leaks in the shop and Jim's Dad's house yesterday, chopped a lot of sidewalk ice up to make them safer, and did a bit of grocery shopping. Before I left to do these varied errands I washed my computer keyboard. Over the top? No. The left Shift key was sticking and more times than not I wasn't getting the capital letter I needed. I'm not good with using the right Shift key, so washing time. I have a washable keyboard or I wouldn't try this, and amazingly enough, it worked. Shift key is now happy and I am also.

I had Dale add a washable keyboard to my computer when he
built it last year. I love the keyboard, and now it has proved
its worth. 

I finally was able to finish my B2MeM story last night. I'll post it today sometime for later reveal. I knew what I wanted when I accepted the prompt, but it was one of those stories that had to be dragged out of my mind, one word at a time. Argh! Fortunately after some serious editing, it even reads well. It's really silly how much time it took. Now to get back to editing for a couple of friends and writing my next LOTR Community assignment.

Spring cleaning - the best of intentions and the complete
lack of stamina is my usual difficulty. 

Spring to me always means spring cleaning. But since we'll still have cold temps for another month and the possibility of snow here and there too, I don't feel the need to dive right into it. But soon. My fingers are actually itching to dust, run the vacuum, and polish. Silly me!

My thoughts are a bit disjointed today...

I realize the post this morning is disjointed, but so it goes sometimes. Have a great Monday!

Day Off Thoughts

It's my day off today and it's a heat wave - instead of -12 F, it's -5 F and it's supposed to actually get above zero today. Whoo hoo! It's hard to comprehend a day above zero these days, which tells me that I'm really meant to be a hermit in the wintertime. But I need to run some errands, and I need groceries, so I'll have to venture out for a while today.

I enjoyed participating in the Snowflake Challenge and got enough
positive feedback that I will try and be brave once more. I may regret
this, but I'm willing to try putting my fiction out in a more open way again.

I promised people in the Snowflake Challenge that I would become braver and put more of my stories out there in my personal journal instead of just in selected community postings as well as post them more often to the archives. That's one of my goals today since I have two completed drabble series that need to be uploaded as well as one story. So I plan to work on that, beta for Iris, and scan some project articles I found as I was throwing away extra copies of some of the magazines the store carries. I might even bring the portable heater down to the computer room and warm it up a bit more. It might be a rollicking -5 F, but it's still darned cold.

The Toho Design Challenge provided the beads you see above. These were
the only beads that could be used in the project. I'm 70% finished with mine, and
I love the way it's turning out, but then life got in the way. 

A bit less than a year ago I accepted a beading challenge project and I got fairly far with it, really enjoying the feel of a needle and thread again. But then my father-by-marriage died and my scheduled free time disappeared. So I have an unfinished project that I had promised to turn in. I've been feeling guilty about that and would like to pick it up again. I'm almost caught up with writing projects (except for my o-fic, of course) so I may try to carve a bit of time out to continue working on this.

I'm looking at about six different text reading software programs. I want
to find one that is versatile and that can run on both Win XP and Win 7.

Speaking of o-fic, a wise friend suggested that I read my book aloud to discover where I feel I started moving away from the original plot path to figure out the best way to get things back into the direction I want. I thought that was a marvelous idea, but really didn't want to sit down and read 100,000+ words aloud. HOWEVER, within a couple of weeks, an author whose blog I follow was talking about the very same thing. She used a computer program that reads the files aloud for you in a variety of voices that you can choose. Now this sounded interesting. I've started doing the research on programs that I think may work best for my application and my type of computer system (she uses Apple, I use a PC) and will choose a software program soon. Then I can begin to listen to my book and see whether it is worthwhile or not, where I might have gone wrong, and what I might be able to do to fix it. Lots of work there, but I feel good about it.

This particular picture is from Manitoba, Canada where their normal temp at
this time of the year is -11 F. I guess -5 F suddenly sounds better to me ...

So, as I bundle up and make plans to be at my computer doing various things for most of the day (along with errands, laundry, and other miscellaneous stuff) I will wish each of you a fabulous Hump Day! Be safe, be warm, be happy!

The Next Stage Begins

Today is the final day for the sale of my father-by-marriage's remaining items. The auction closed on Sunday and pick-up day is today. DH will be at the house for the day along with Boyd, the auction coordinator, to facilitate the pickup. All items must be out by 6:00 p.m.

I wasn't happy, or unhappy, about the auction results, I'm just happy to have it over with. I know that many of the items remaining that may have had value were taken by various grandchildren, or my DH or his sister. I fully admit that I took five bows, two quivers, and some smaller artwork pieces, as well as a few vases and a slow cooker that I can use in my studio. I also know that the items remaining were not valuable. But there were things that came up that I will mention in case any of you end up in a similar situation in your lives.

I hate clowns, and this Emmett Kelly doll that my FIL bought
for my MIL was a real collector item that I was happy to
sell. My MIL never liked it - she wasn't a doll person. 

Having everything remaining in an estate sold by a third party is convenient and I think was a good decision. None of us wanted to put on a garage sale and we didn't want to list the items individually on eBay either. I arranged for Boyd to come by, photograph the items in groupings that he felt would work well for bidding groups, and list them for a week of auction bids. I had a few problems, however.

This complete set of dishes for eight along with service platters and
creamers sold for $2. Ridiculous! If it had been separated and sold differently
it might have brought a bit more. But, it's done now and at least it will be gone.
For this money, though, we probably would have done better by donating it
and taking the tax write-off. 

I think most of the problems would have been resolved early if I had insisted on reading through the text for each item BEFORE the auction text was posted live to catch typos, misinformation, and make sure that the descriptions actually did justice to the items. I also think that some items that had been grouped should have been split to get a higher bid and better auction action. There were typos and inaccurate information in the text that took most of the week to get clarified and corrected, and this was while the auction was live! Not good!

The copper kettle went for half of its value, but that's OK. It took more than
four days before the text was corrected to indicate that it was pure copper
(except for the handles) instead of "possible" copper or copper plate. Sheesh!

If I ever do something like this again, I think I could do better photographs and certainly better descriptions. Boyd's notes were sketchy and we were correcting information almost daily as we read through the text for each auction item. I think those descriptions were reflected in the slow bidding interest and flat final bids.

The dining room table - solid maple with six chairs in almost perfect condition, should
have brought it $200 but only brought $40. He took twelve pictures of it, but
had it listed incorrectly as a Montgomery Wards piece instead of a
Bassett piece for days. I'm quite sure that affected bidding interest. 

But - on the positive side - we have managed to sell most of what remained in the house, including almost all of the larger furniture items. We will get some money from all of this - not a great deal but some and that's a very good thing. And we'll be one step closer to getting the house onto the market and sold. I suspect we'll skip Renaissance Fest this weekend and go next weekend which will be the final weekend for the 2013 season. If we do skip, we'll spend a few hours at the house beginning the final cleaning and trash collection.

The guitar went for a reasonable amount, even though it had some small
damage at the base. I was happy with this one.

I'll be so happy to finally have this house on the market and sold!

Breathing While Drowning - Accomplishments and Failures

My SinS is complete! And it leads to the failures listed below, but in itself it is an accomplishment. I had so many problems getting this together and yesterday, a day that I was supposed to spend cleaning for Sharon's visit next week, I spent most of my time finishing the writing and then going through with a serious review and edit before sending it off to my wonderful, fantastic and completely amazing beta. She copy edited it last night and it was back in my in-basket this morning. I'll take one more look tonight, then slap on the header and send it on its merry way. Finally! SinS is complete. It didn't meet every criteria my recipient wanted, but it meets most of them and more importantly - I'm very happy with it. Whew!

I'm celebrating! Writing my SinS was a chore, but I'm so happy with
how the story turned out.

I received my element(s) for the LOTR Community September assignment and, through some strange act of an unknown deity, received two elements. They actually work together, so I sent another email and said I could do both of them if they wanted, but otherwise they would have to decide which of the two I should use. Hopefully I'll have an answer by the end of today so that I can get started on this one.

I indulged a little bit and dropped by Bwana Archery and talked to them about my bows. I'll bring them in and they'll take a look at them, but they said that unless they see something obvious, the wooden bows might last for one shot, or ten, or 100, or break when being strung. Apparently there is no way to tell off-hand how well a bow has survived the years just hanging on the wall. A new bowstring will run me between $12-$15, so that's affordable. I'll bring them in after Labor Day.

Is the outfit necessary to string my bow? I hope not.

The Minnesota State Fair opens today and will go for the next ten days. We have the largest attendance of all state fairs (both daily and average attendance) The Texas State Fair has larger attendance, but also goes on for a longer time period. The first State Fair was in 1859. It wasn't held for five years between then and now - a pretty good record. It was cancelled for two years during the Civil War, a scheduling conflict with a similar event in Chicago in 1893 also prompted the Fair's cancellation. World War II caused it's cancellation in 1945 and a polio outbreak caused the cancellation in 1946. It occurs on a permanent site of 320 acres. Although it started out as an agricultural showcase it has expanded to include the interests of a varied state population. I have blue ribbons on my wall from beadwork I've submitted in the past.

Love this night shot from the Space Tower. 

Famous events for the Fair include a very famous speech by Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901 when he said the infamous words "Walk softly and carry a big stick". He would become President 12 days later when McKinley was assassinated. The amazing horse Dan Patch matched his 1:55 pacing mile record at the 1906 Minnesota State Fair. He appeared at the Fair several times over the years and one of the main Fairground streets is named Dan Patch.

Dan Patch, Champion Harness Horse of the World

Chickie is going to the Fair today so my manager will work for her. I hope to be there Saturday night and, of course, Sharon and I will be there for three days next week. The State Fair - it marks the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, and I look forward to it every year.

Now to get my house clean *sigh*.  Oh...and check out Google today - a lovely animated frontspiece set to Clair de lune celebrating the 151st birthday of Claude Debussy.

Back to the Groove

Have you recovered from your celebration yet? This weekend is Pride Celebration in my area so people will be celebrating the Supreme Court decision through the weekend and then diving into the shortened July 4th week. Party on!

I don't know the year, but this pic was taken at a Minneapolis Gay Pride
celebration. I would love to attend but DH would never consider it *sigh*.

But after you are finished with the party, you have to look around and see the uprooted bushes, wilted banners and the empty bottles in the corners of the yard. Then it's time to clean house and get back onto a regular schedule again.

Waking up after the party can be a jolt of reality.

I've been lazy with my writing, having three items on my hard drive in various stages of completion. It's rather like I'm holding my breath waiting for inspiration. So silly! I know that inspiration is all around me, that plots are always knocking at the glass doorway in my head, and I know that I just have to give myself time to listen and play. I hope I'll have a chance to do that over the next few days because I owe it to myself.

My plots aren't always as well behaved as this Playskool line is
in their Apple Store toy, but the plots still are there and progress
as they are allowed through the doorways in my mind. (Love the Segway.)

I took on a second beta job and started that last night. It seems like it will be a slow slog - lots of red. But I want to read into the story a ways and see if it is a worthwhile plot or something where I will limit it to a one-time deal. My time is limited and I have many projects clamoring for each moment I have free, so I want to make sure that I spend my time wisely. I don't mind doing favors and I enjoy the process of editing - every time I edit I learn more about how to structure and improve my own writing too. But I have to weigh the pros and cons. I'll at least work through what she gave me. I should be able to return the first chapter to her by the end of the weekend. In all fairness, I'm NOT far enough along in her story to determine if her character is a Mary Sue or not, but I thought I'd share the pic below anyway because it's fun and amusing.

Have you written a Mary Sue character? Something of yourself will usually come
through in any good characterization because it gives reality to fiction. But
there are ingredients and then there is the whole pie. Don't write the whole pie.

And speaking of weekend - I hope all of you have a wonderful one ahead of you. I don't have anything specific planned except working on Saturday, but I'm sure something will come up. There is always housecleaning and maybe, if I'm really lucky I'll get to finish some of those in-process shorter stories and return to one of the two novels I've been working on in my "spare" time...maybe.

Celebrating Cinco and Music

We had a marvelous Cinco de Mayo yesterday. DH started the day out with Chorizo omelettes and we ended the day with steak burritos. Between meals we were glued to the TV as the Minnesota Wild won Game 3 in our round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. And we capped the day off by watching The Amazing Race final. All in all it was a great day. I didn't do any writing but I did beta the next chapter of Lai's latest so I accomplished something, at least.

Cinco is always a good time. This colorful sign
seems to be full of celebration.

Those of my friends from outside the US may wonder - what's up with Cinco de Mayo? Well, in the US it is celebrated as a party holiday, somewhat similar to St Patrick's Day. Cinco actually celebrates the victory of the Mexican Army over the French at the battle of Puebla. This isn't Mexican Independence Day, that comes in September. But a lot of people in the US probably think that it is. It is celebrated with tequila drinks and Mexican food. Since I'm dieting and DH is not good with tequila, we kept our celebration to food only. So good!

Dusting - something I should probably do more often...

I did some housecleaning on my Dreamwidth account and pulled out some subscribes from people who had unfriended me, some more than a year before (I'm not really current on these things because I really don't care all that much). So anyway, the point of this is that if you feel that you got unsubbed in error, let me know and we'll get things back together again. Otherwise, I'll just consider that I got rid of some cyber-cobwebs and all is good.

I love recommendations for You Tube. Got any for me?

I had my nose in books for most of the weekend, my happy point. Several of them mentioned songs or specific orchestral pieces that were fun to find on You-tube and one even led to my purchasing a piece on i-Tunes. I can't resist a good classical music piece, but I rely on friends and books to help me with current music, especially trends and groups from outside the US. Thank goodness for the internet - all of you keep me hopping :-)

Studio Day and Final Card Callout

Let me start out with this. If I have sent you a Solstice Card in the past and you want one this year - Email or PM me your address. No address - no card. Simple. I'll be working on these like a crazy person for the next three weeks and should be able to stuff them into the mail just before the Solstice. At least, that's the ideal. I love making these, I love sending these, and I don't require a card in return. But I do require an address...I know...such a concept - LOL.

I have two main goals for today - working on my Solstice Cards and doing beta work for Lai. I'm spinning around on one of her chapters and I really need to get over it, dive in, and just do it! I feel remarkably uninspired today, though, so I don't think I'll be doing a lot of writing on my own stories today. My LOTR Community GenFic Holiday Exchange piece is coming along well, but I'll push it off until tomorrow because my cards have to take the forward platform today. I need to have things cutting out by the late afternoon.

The class catalog for the 2013 Bead & Button Show arrived on Monday and I've been going through it to figure out what classes I might want to take. I have to balance the desire against the pocketbook - not always an easy task. Fortunately registration isn't until January 8, but I do need to get my hotel reservations nailed. Just waiting for a firm schedule from Shruti before I can do that. It will be so much fun to share space with my friend from Delhi, India again :-) She's such a talented and generally fun person to be with and we always have a good time. Bead & Button Show is quite different that the shows we've shared in the past, but I think she'll have a tremendous time and I always attend and have since the mid-1990's, so it's always like returning home again for me. Good Times Ahead!

Self Doubts and Thoughts

I'm reading a book recommended to me by my friend Susan called "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition, How to Edit Yourself Into Print" by Renni Brown. I've got this loaded onto my phone for reading, and Sharon Kay Penman's "Here Be Dragons" loaded onto my Nook. I was reading through the basics on showing instead of telling, character voice and action, etc., and of course I was mentally revising what I have recently written because that's what I do when I read editing books like this.

Yes, I could revise the story I was thinking about, which happened to be "Dragon Seeks a Wife", the o-fic that I turned in for possible publication. I could rewrite it, make it more show and less tell and strengthen the character voice. I was deeply in thought about how I would approach the revision and how those changes would alter the tone of the story and then I stopped short and realized that this is one time when telling instead of showing was appropriate.

I wanted the story to be in the format of an old-fashioned fairy tale, the story as told by a storyteller around a fire at night or at the kitchen table while cutting vegetables. It was an important that it be formatted from that distance, that "Once upon a time..." distance. When you read about Hanzel and Gretl, you don't read about their personal reactions as they enter the woods or try to find their way out except in basic dialog. You do find the invisible narrator discussing the tall trees and the fact that the bread crumbs are eaten behind the children. Suddenly I felt better.

The entire thought of Kermit and Miss Piggy as Hansel and Gretl makes me smile.

I liked my story and still do. I may be revising it for a long time to come, but the basic format and focus of the tale is one that I'm comfortable with. It may strike the publisher as undeniably amateur, but that's OK. I didn't learn to write technical articles overnight either. I can learn to write compelling fiction and I have a lifetime to polish, learn and relearn, and find my voice. I'll continue to write and, just for today, I'll stop second-guessing myself because I can be my own worst enemy when I critique my own pieces of prose or art.

Finally A Day Off

It's been two weeks since my last "normal" day off and I finally get one today. Call me happy! That doesn't mean that I'll be sitting around, I have a long list of things that I need to do, but I'll have a chance to do some laundry and talk with Aearwan late this afternoon - yeah...happy. I have to make serious inroads to cleaning today and I owe Lai some serious beta work, so those two things are my focii today.

The women came through where the men fell short. Hmmm...wonder if there is a life lesson there???

Congratulations to the Women's Gymnastics team for winning the Gold in team competition. It was the US team's to win and Russia's to lose. I really felt for the young Russian gymnast who had such a dismal showing on the floor exercises. You could tell that she was just devastated, and she was cute as a button.

Beach volleyball can be such a physical game. It's fun to watch.

It hasn't been a cakewalk for the US this year, but it's been a fun journey so far. The Germans did a wonderful job in equestrian competition coming away with both team and individual gold, and the men's gymnastics team competition self-destructed. But we're pulling off beach volleyball and our women's soccer team is doing very well.

It's a good thing Gandalf isn't counting on me to meet him in Bree. I'd be running very late. But...baby steps are OK if one hasn't walked in years.

It's a slow walk so far for me on the treadmill, but I've been sticking with my determination to walk every day. I missed four days in July from the day that I determined to start, and I told myself that I would increase my distance to a mile a day for August. On the Eowyn Challenge (EowynChallenge.net recommended to me by Surgical Steel many months ago) I have reached the Stock Road, so not very far yet, but if I can stick with my goals for August, I'll be near the Elves camp of Woodhill by the end of the month. I know it doesn't sound like much, but just working out for a while each morning has been a positive thing and I know from my past that it takes me a while to build up my stamina, etc. So...baby steps but steps nonetheless and I'm pleased that so far I'm sticking with it.

Horses and Happiness

Yesterday was a delight for Olympics viewing. I started out seeing individual women's archery and then moved into the Crosscountry Equestrian event from Greenwich Park. That was so beautiful, and it took until close to noon to get through all 74 riders so I had a chance to drop back now and again and see more of the rides. Such beautiful horses. Now, at 4:30 am, the Precision Jumping has started. This will go much faster since the course will take less than two minutes to jump. The horses are beautiful, the riders are planted onto their equine partners. I guess it doesn't take a lot to make me happy...this does :-)

The cross-country jumping event was absolutely fun to watch. Mesmerizing!

Precision jumping is the third day of the equestrian competition. Scores cannot be advanced, but they can be diminished so the goal is to ride as cleanly as possible within the appropriate time.


Gymnastics for the US has been somewhat of a disaster, and last night was no different. I don't quite know why we always seem to self-destruct when the chips are down. We come into events like this as one of the powerhouses of the world and then pratfall in front of the world. Oy! But we're getting a mixed bag in our swimming prowess, and it's fun to see the finals but our commentators seem so shocked that we are not always winning. Well, it's a world competition and we're good, but we're not going to sweep it all, nor should we. France is doing very well in swimming, the Chinese dominate in diving although we did get Silver for synchronized men and Bronze for synchronized women. Not bad.

The Royals have been out in force at the equestrian events. Kate, William, Harry and others have been there both for the cross country and today again for the precision. I guess they love the horses as much as I do (and their cousin, one of Princess Anne's children) is involved as a rider for Britain.

There is something so wonderful about synchronized diving. This photo is one of the Chinese teams. They are always like mirror images. Beautiful!

Tomorrow I will have my first true day off for the past two weeks. My schedule will be housecleaning and getting some beta work done for Lai that I've owed her forever. Sometimes I think it is a wonder that she puts up with me. But I'm very grateful that she does :-) Off to watch more horses...have a phenomenal day!

A Day of Computer Work and Movies

My foot is healing, but I think one more day of no running will be better for healing than stressing the skin just when it is trying to grow new skin. My dermatologist once told me that skin grows at the rate of 1mm in 24 hours, so I'm going to let the raw edges heal for one more day. Then I'm back to the treadmill...I promise (you and myself because those are the promises that really stick!).

I owe some serious beta work to my friend Lai and will be working on that for most of the day. I also need to photography my entry for the miniatures part of the LOTR Community Challenge since I didn't get to it on Sunday. The entry will be late, but they don't have firm deadlines and I've had it ready, just need to grab the camera.

This lovely thunderstorm was in Texas. Great lightning, isn't it?

We finally got thunderstorms through the area in the middle of the night which broke our heat, dropping it ten degrees. Now things are much more comfortable, so I'm grateful for the boom and the rain. I think we'll have periodic storms throughout the day today so I will need to be kind to my electronics, but I'm pretty sure that things will be OK.

And Chickie and I go to dinner and to see Brave tonight. My DH, of course, "forgot" that I would be out tonight, even though I mentioned it on and off for the past two weeks. Oy! So he grumped about how he would have bought something "special" for his dinner if he had known I was going out. Good grief! I wonder sometimes.... But I'll be enjoying a nice salad, a piece of pie (free pie Wednesday - hard to beat) and a fun movie. What's not to like - LOL?