Winter Breaks and Plot Bunnies.
It’s late winter and filled with the rainy days I love. That keeps me grounded and looking forward to bits of spring green. And who knows? I might even pick up the writing again.
After a miserable end of autumn with a lot of financial headache and mental chaos at home, I looked for something, anything, positive to add in my life. And I found it at a local no-kill animal shelter where I now write adoption descriptions for many of the animals there looking for their forever homes. Yes, there’s sadness there just like in real life. But there’s lots of quiet happiness there too, unlike a big part of my life at the time. It’s like writing, but not writing. It’s working for me and from what I’m told, it’s working for helping with adoptions too.
What isn’t working is me getting back to writing fiction just yet. So, I’ve taken a break. And a break from all computer/writing classes I was working through and any planned convention trips including that big dream one this summer. The personal finance situation hasn’t eased up; in fact, it’s worse, so all spending is out.
But lately, plot bunnies have been tickling at my brain again. Writing time is returning. I can feel it. Can’t afford to do much else so why not write?
Hello Autumn!
Goodbye September, hello first month of my favorite time of year.
Just finished my homework – all five chapters read plus quizzes. Can’t do the hands-on stuff because I don’t have Windows 7 here at home, but I don’t see this as a problem as we work with Win 7 in class; that long, long, terribly long 3-plus hour long class with the awful, uncomfortable chairs.
I’m a list maker (not compulsively) and I’m pleased enough to say I completed almost everything on my September to-do list. Missing were cleaning a set of sunny windows located some twenty feet up (I’ll get to it the next cloudy day we have), learning how to put together a video from some I took over the summer and getting back to that novel I started last spring. All are going on October’s list which is pretty light thus far and mostly filled with outdoor chores like packing away the patio furniture and tossing potted annuals. Adding work on that novel makes perfect sense there and primes me for both OryCon and NaNoWriMo at the beginning of November.
Add one last, special drive in my car with a good friend before packing it away for the winter and a light sprinkle of fall décor inside the house. I love this time of year!
A Little This, A Little That.
The class book arrived yesterday and so, I’ll take that needed computer class after all. Whew! Thanks for telling me to stay on getting the book in time. It worked.
All OryCon manuscripts have been sent out to participating pro authors and workshop writers for critique. Double whew! All the final stuff I love doing – making workshop signs, printing a master list, putting together pro author and writer packets and gifts, detail planning a special pre-workshop event – is all that’s left, other than the convention and workshops themselves. I’m excited already!
Another year as workshop coordinator is almost in the books. My time being such has been a joy, a dream come true for me. I can only hope some of my enthusiasm and attention to detail came through and helped improve the workshop process and experience for all.
I haven’t gotten back to writing more on that quasi Y/A novel I was working on back in early summer but I can feel it speaking to me. The summer writing classes and another, stronger admission from The Man about not wanting anything to do with writing, and specifically my writing, have left me feeling like a boat without a rudder. I can only hope no more admissions come to light regarding writing (or anything, actually) over the next few months. It’s as if he knows this derails and blocks me and he doesn’t mind, even though he says he doesn’t mean for it to come across like that.
It most certainly does. Is this the definition of passive/aggressive behavior? And if so, what’s the cure?
[personal] …Or Not.
And as quickly as I signed up for that computer class I needed, I had to cancel and withdraw from it. It seems that the book required for the course has been out of print for some time and the teacher isn’t responding to email asking where on earth to find it. Amazon, Google, Books 24/7, Abe’s Books; no one has it and the college bookstore, while having an empty space for it on their shelves, acknowledges that they haven’t had it in quite some time, nor expect to have it again anytime soon.
In the meantime, I either go to class in a week and fight with the teacher on what exact book he demands of his students and where to possibly find one, all the while growing a week behind on class study (it was only a four week class), or cancel the class within five business days of the start date to get a full refund back.
I felt squeezed between a rock and a hard place. I need to take this class before they will let me take more specialized computer classes. Without this one class taken first, I can’t take the others that seemingly, every office and temp job place requires one to have complete understanding of.
No. It would seem not a business or office place exists any longer that needs simple filing and typing. Now, all minions must know how to create elaborate reports using various elaborate pieces of software for their managers. Filing and typing? That’s old school and by old, we mean ancient history old school. Like just short of the age of dinosaurs.
I’ll have to take a stab at the class again next spring, the earliest I can take another class anyway.
Further irritation came when calling the college administration office to withdraw from the class early in the afternoon, well before one would think the office would be closed. The only option available was to leave a message which was then followed up with an email explaining the reason for cancellation. If I don’t hear anything back before the end of the day tomorrow, I will have just handed them eighty-five dollars I had a tough time affording. Cha-ching for them. Conveniently by design perhaps? Grrr…
[personal] The Sportscar of Humidifiers.
We bought a humidifier, the first time we’ve ever done so. I’ve resisted up until now but lately, with the combination of extended dry weather and the wildfire smoke drifting in and out, my lungs weren’t as happy as they could be, would be, if we had had any more rain than the trace we got here a couple of weeks ago.
The first humidifier we bought was DOA and the store couldn’t assure us the rest they had in stock weren’t dead as well. Something about a non-serviceable fuse tripping itself. What’s the point in that, I ask.
If we wanted the working in-store model, the one that frankly, looked as though it’d been through a couple of years-worth of store customer bumping, banging, touching, pawing and fondling, we could have that…but at no discount.
After a complete refund, the Man chose a pretty, higher end model, what I’m calling the stylish smoke gray and polished stainless Sessanta Grigio Ferrari of humidifiers. The Man’s prone to do that, citing the, “You only live once” reasoning that he doesn’t speak aloud but practices in every step. I didn’t care what he chose at the time and neither did those dehydrated slabs of fruit leather I call lungs.
However, and here’s the thing Enzo won’t tell you up front: You have to pre-soak the machine’s water filter for twenty-four hours before use. No humidity love for me last night.
Tonight, it’s a different story. I had no idea how good cool humidity could feel in a climate controlled house. I think I’m going to sleep very, very well tonight which will be wonderful because the rest of me aches from yard and house catch up.
We’ve cut up the last of the trees and large branches we planned on taking down this year, netted the entire fountain/pond against the fall leaf drop, fixed an annoying website glitch, strung and artfully attached a very long cable throughout a room and made a big batch of rice and of beans to pack away in the freezer because in my opinion, nothing says lovin’ like a freezer full of pre-cooked meals on the cheap.
I finally feel our lives are back on track after a summer of rush-rush here and rush-rush there. That might change in the next few weeks as I tackle yet another college course, this time computer-oriented. But it’s only four weeks long. I can do anything for four weeks.
