Sunlight Sucks

I’ll admit to being distracted this weekend by shiny stuff. To be honest, they were photos. I was looking for one kind of photo to do a cover and found something else that would work on a different cover. And so on, and so on. Every time I’d look for something, I’d end up with something for a different project. They all had to be done, but they didn’t have to be done in the order in which I did them. Probably one good reason I got distracted so easily is this darn cold. It’s on the way out, but the lingering cough makes me feel like I’ve gone a few rounds with...

24 Oct

7 Replies

Yeah, I got one last week. The nurse wouldn’t give one to a co-worker with a cold. She said the shot lowers your immune system and if you have a cold you’ll get worse. Well, that explains all the people who get sick after they get the shot. Their immune system must have already been low and they must have already been sickening. The shot just hastens it. Or if your system is just weak, whoever has a bug can give it to you much easier after you have the shot. So my co-worker with his cold stood next to me and found out he couldn’t get the shot. I sat down, got the shot and...

17 Oct

2 Replies

When I think of commuting I am reminded of the time I used to drive from Huntington Beach to West LA and from Huntington Beach down to La Brea Tar Pits. Well, across the street from the tar pits actually. Those were gnarly drives. But I was younger then and didn’t think too much of the drives for quite awhile until it really started to get to be a drag because I was losing a really good chunk of my day sitting on the freeway. More recently, at least in the last 12 years that I’ve worked at the cemetery, I’ve had commutes into Santa Ana-Orange from Huntington Beach and Westminster,...

19 Sep

2 Replies

Last week’s post about the coyotes has nothing on the stuff that’s been happening since. We haz snakes! Yep. Western rattlesnakes. Thus far, Rott has had two close encounters of the snake kind. One occurred on the side of our house where it’s all cement. Rott was out checking the outside lights and sprinklers after dusk. He was standing near our back steps (which we don’t use because the fancy new dryer is so big is partially blocks the door) and he flashed his flashlight on the ground and about a foot from his foot (in Guinness flip flops) was a snake. A two foot long rattler....

5 Sep

1 Reply

The canyon where I live has a lot of wildlife. And cows. The neighbor next door said she had a rattlesnake in her yard recently and had to have another neighbor kill it. There’s owls and other birds of prey. And coyotes. The coyotes start singing around 11:30 each night. You can hear the older ones howl and the younger ones yip. We’ve been told not to let the babies out because of the predators. They are house cats so there’s no way we’d let them out. Although, before we got the security screen door, Neko managed to push out the bottom panel on the battered screen door that...

29 Aug

Comments Off

Last week I had a nice whine over a simple tummy ache. Funny how the small stuff can just feel devastating sometimes. This week I’ve moved from whining to mental eye rolling. You see, I have galleys to read. For you non-authors, galleys are what authors get prior to a book going to print. You have to proof the galleys to ensure there are no mistakes. If there was a mistake in the ebook that didn’t get fixed, this is your time to fix it. So I had a nice cover flat of Tales of the Darkworld Volume Two and a big fat file of galleys. Volume Two is two novellas, each one just over 40K....

22 Aug

1 Reply

Some of you may have heard me talk about how one of the babies wouldn’t settle in the new house. He first hid in a recliner, tearing it up from the inside to dig his way to the center of the chair where we couldn’t get to him. He didn’t come out for weeks until he was thin and sick. We got him out and into the biggest carrier. Put him in there with food and water and a pee pad and had the chair hauled away. He did okay in the carrier for a few days and then Rott let him out. After that he hid under the futon for weeks. We’re pretty sure he came out once in awhile to run...

25 Jul

Comments Off

This Independence Day I’ve come to understand the real meaning of being independent. Rott and I are out from beneath the yoke of being renters. This house is our house and no one can tell us what do with our house or demand entrance. The sense of freedom is amazing. As much as I struggle a bit to pay that loan payment, I derive a huge sense of satisfaction from writing that check and knowing that it pays for the walls around me to belong to me…to us. This is our sanctuary and no one controls what we can and can’t do here. It feels amazing. Having a landlord feels and is oppressive....

4 Jul

Comments Off

I’m not writing a post today. Instead, I’m sending you on tour, a tour of my new house! I’m busy at the office today but hopefully will be able to take off Tuesday and Wednesday because we have movers scheduled and we HAVE to be out of the condo! Rott’s driving the truck but I’m supervising the mover helpers. So I’m off to get as much work done as possible so I can have the time off. Before I go, here’s my requisite Marcus for this Monday. Wish that was my hand on him…LOL Have a great Monday everyone! »View More

9 May

Comments Off

Have you noticed the freakish weather across the US? Seems like weather patterns are changing. And that’s not the only thing changing. They caught Osama Bin Laden and executed him. He’s been a thorn in our side for years and finally, we got him. Changes the face of our war on terror a bit now, doesn’t it? The publishing industry is undergoing shifts as ebooks and epublishing and self-publishing are all on the rise. A royal prince just married a commoner. (And woot! for that! Must have been his mother’s influence there.) And I bought a house. Haven’t actually managed...

2 May

6 Replies

Cold hard cash. Yep. That’s what the house buying has come down to. We’ve given them some of the Franklins, but the rest are waiting to be handed over when we sign one last paper. The exchange of cold hard cash for keys should take place today or tomorrow. For the last three weeks I’ve thought each day might bring the end to the waiting but after backing out of escrow on the house we thought we wanted, we ended up with something newer and more expensive. Now, finally, we seem to be at the end of this process. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m excited. I suppose I am, somewhere...

25 Apr

1 Reply

We got our house! Woot! This week I’m headed off to the Romantic Times convention. When I get back we’ll be signing all the final paperwork and closing escrow on the mobile home in the canyon that we wanted. Despite all the work and all the money and all the stress, this is what we want. No more landlord (other than the park) and lots more space and hopefully, no prejudiced, loud, obnoxious, contentious, vandalizing neighbors. And a lot more quiet than we get currently. Yes, I’ll have to commute about a half hour now, but it’s not like I haven’t done that before. ...

4 Apr

4 Replies

Crap I Posted

Stalk Me

Follow That Blog!

Who Came Here

Facebook

Blogroll

Admin