Floating away...

It's a soggy mess here, and I just found out from Chelsey that today's our biggest chance for severe weather so far this season. Aaarrrgh! Yesterday evening, the skies here became greenish, and we had high winds (I actually saw some rotation in the clouds above us), torrential rainfall, and frequent, dangerous lightning. I am not looking forward to a repeat of that! Funny thing is, this all happened some time after my dad and step-mom called to see if we were alright. O_o Our yards are looking like swamps, again. Yesterday, I asked Jeff if he thinks we should build an ark! :P

In other news, I've got some great ideas for my Immortal Watchdogs: Damian of Crete character's modern story. I need to jot them down and brainstorm for a bit.

I also need to finish the Kindle e-Book I started yesterday. I only have, I think, three days left to finish it.

I'll be babysitting Josiah tomorrow. Thankfully, I'll be able to babysit him at Eric and Chelsey's place. We still have too many fleas!

Anyway, I need to hurry up and get off here. We've got some distant lightning and thunder, and I don't want to tempt fate.

Lois

Wow! Could It Be A Real Post?

Good morning! It's been a while since I've posted a "real" post, I know, but I'm here now. :)

This weekend was a little different. Friday morning, I asked Jeff what we were doing. I knew what needed to be done over the weekend. I just wanted to know what we were doing that day. We never decided before I posted my dailies, so I just puttered around a bit...on and off the computer...until about dinner time. Jeff then suggested we go out to get something to eat, so we went to Taco Bell.

After that, we went to Hobby Lobby. I got some yarn and knitting needles there with my 40% off coupon.

Then we headed down to the shopping center. Our first stop there was Shoe Carnival. We both bought hikers, and I have to say, mine are so much more comfortable than the shoes I bought last time I was there! :D

Next, we went to Books-A-Million to see if they had a Kindle on display. They didn't, so we headed over to Target so I could pick something up. They had Kindles on display, but they didn't work. :(

Our next stop was PetCo, where we bought some fish food, cookies for Nikita, and two more African Dwarf Frogs:



One of the older frogs seemed really interested in thenewcomers while they were being acclimated. Hestayed there,watching, for several minutes.


One of the newcomers

We got home late, and went to bed a lot later than usual, as acclimating the frogs to the aquarium took a long time.

Yesterday morning, we slept in. I never had time to post my dailies until last night, as we were out pretty much all day. We went to Hobby Lobby with another 40% off coupon, which I used for more knitting needles. I also got some more yarn and a yard of cloth to send to a friend who's going to make me a cover for my "tea cart":



My "tea cart" is really just a TV cart being used for all mytea and supplies. I like having it handy! :)


The material goes perfectly with my moss green walls, andthe pinks in it match the pink in some of mydecorative boxes! :D

I did a little rearranging in my studio last week, and I moved my new coffeemaker and all my tea stuff in to where I used to have my laptop table. I moved the laptop table back in front of the windows, where it used to be a long time ago.

Speaking of, I need to fix myself a cup before the coffeemaker shuts off...

Anyway, after that, we went to Staples to see if they had a Kindle on display. They had two, but one only showed a demonstration on the screen. That was the newer, bigger, more expensive one. That's not the one I want. I want the other one they had on display, the smaller one with free 3G. You could leaf through books that were on it and you could really play with it. Yay! :D I really, really want one more than ever now. ;)

We looked around at the furniture there. I saw a computer cart, some book cases (Jeff liked the three-shelf bookcase, but I like the lower profile of the two shelf, especially since it's wide, not narrow) and some other desks I really liked. Hopefully, I can get that cart sometime. It would be awesome. :)

After we left Staples, we headed over to Walmart to do our grocery shopping. We saw Eric and Chelsey and Chelsey's friend leaving, and since I had my Knitbook binder with me, I gave it to Chelsey (I'd told her I would give it to her the next time I saw her). We talked to them for a couple of minutes, then they left and we went inside to do our shopping.

It's been a pretty good weekend. We spent more than usual, but considering the things we bought, we did very well. Also, Jeff just paid the mortgage and put a large chunk toward his credit card bill (we had to fall back on it when he was unemployed), so our bank account balance has gone down a lot, but we'll build it up again.

And speaking of that, I'm finally getting serious about studying my driver's manual so Jeff can teach me to drive. Once I have my license, I plan to start looking for a job. The plan is to earn the money to fix up this house so either, A) we'll like it enough to live in it indefinitely, or B) we'll be able to sell this house and get something better closer to town.

You know, we looked at a house near the new library, but we turned it down because it needed a ton of work. I'm kicking myself over that now, because we could have fixed it up and it would be a much better house than this one...and I'd be right across the street from the library! It cost something like 58,000, I think. It might have been 68,000. I can't remember. Either way, for what we spent on this house, we could have bought that one, got a home improvement loan, and fixed it up. We'd be in town, and I'd be so close to the library!

Oh, well, no use whining about it. I'm done. ;)

I did a little writing this past week, but I did more research than anything. I finished a short story I'd been working on...a Will Scarlet short story. :)

Tomorrow, I'll be babysitting, so if I get any writing done, it will likely be after that. Today, I'll be designing and printing pages for my Day Timer. I need to work out a schedule. I've got several things I want to start doing:

• Write something every day
• Research for my writing
• Editing every day
• Sit down every day and do some real, honest-to-goodness reading!
• Start turning some of my art cards into other things, such as mugs, t-shirts, keychains, etc.
• Create some new art cards and other artwork
• Knit and/or crochet

So, I've got a lot of stuff I want to start doing on a daily basis (at least on my week days, which right now are Sunday through Thursday). I also want to get some of my writing ready for submission, as well as some of my artwork.

Of course, sometimes I have to babysit, so I have to be able to drop everything for that. But it should only be one day a week, and not even every week. Occasionally, it will be more than once a week, but it shouldn't be a problem. As long as I can work on at least one or two things on those days, I'll be fine. And the weekends I'll save for hanging with my hubby. :)

And on that note, I'd better get busy with those Day Planner pages. ;)

But first, here are a few more pictures:



Jeff looking through our new seed packets.In this picture, he's checking out the Lupines.


To brighten your day, Snapdragons andTexas Blue Bonnets! :D


Snapdragon buds close up with opened flowersin the background

I hope you're all happy and healthy! Have a good one,

Lois

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I'm swamped with e-mails this morning, and I have to babysit in a couple hours. I'm going to try to catch up later though. The most important thing right now is to post this, then read and answer some work e-mails.

Jury duty wiped me out yesterday, so I never got online when I got home. I have to serve this time and already started hearing the case. I have today off, but I have to go back in tomorrow morning. I'm hoping the case will be over and done with by tomorrow afternoon, but we'll see. I found out that even after serving on a jury, I could still end up sitting on another case or more. How's that fair? *shrugs*

Anyway, Jeff and I watched Kismat Konnection last night. It was even better the second time around, and I really love the soundtrack. All the tunes are catchy! :)

And Josiah has started walking with a little walker he has! :D Eric shot a video of it. He's so cute! :D

Well, I'd better get to it. I want to be done on here before I babysit so I can do some writing this afternoon.

Have a good one!

Lois

A Rambly Sort Of Post

I have to babysit at some point today while Eric and Chelsey go to the dentist. Otherwise, I plan to spend the day writing and doing laundry. I'm getting more and more excited about the new characters and their story. I wish I had more hours in the day!

I also plan to go to Sweet Bay tonight. I haven't been there since sometime in November, so it'll be good to see the Yetis again. :)

We watched A History Of Violence last night. It was good. It wasn't my mom's kind of movie though, of course, but she watched it with us anyway.

And Eric called me out to the living room when Bret "The Hitman" Hart came out to the ring on the WWE last night. I used to watch wrestling when it was the WWF, but that was a loooong time ago. It was interesting to see how much he's changed...as well as Shawn Michaels. They're both a lot older.

I just downloaded a House of Heroes CD from Amazon.com digital downloads. It's awesome!

It looks like I might have one new student soon...for the Fear of Writing Online Writing Course. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I sure could use the money.

Well, I'm rambling here, so I'd better stop writing and move on to other things. ;)

Have a great day! :D

Lois

I'm Extremely Productive Today...NOT!

I had to babysit, but I thought I could still get a lot of work done. I was wrong. He's moving around a lot better, learning how to scoot himself around, if not actually crawling. And he grew fussy, too.

So I was only able to do some online research, pasting what I found into a document. Then I formatted it to look good. There were too many pages to print, so I turned the document into a PDF file.

The parents have returned from their dental appointments and taken the boy back out to the living room, so I am free to do some actual character development. Yay! :D

Since it's so late, I won't be working on the Nano Novel, but at least I can work on these characters some. I'll work on the novel some more tomorrow...and probably the new characters, too.

15,926 & Counting!

Yesterday was great! I wrote 5,720 more words, bringing my Nano Novel's word count to 15,926! :D I went to Sweet Bay to meet up with some of the other writers in our group, and started out writing the rough draft for a feedback, but then I couldn't concentrate any more on feedback, so spent the rest of the time doing sprints with the others, adding a bit to my novel's word count. When I got home, I wrote rough drafts for two more feedbacks, then did a couple more sprints online to raise my daily word count to 5,720, surpassing my goal of 5K for the day. If I can keep this up, I should have no problem reaching 75K by November 30! :D

This morning, I'll be working on another rough draft for a new feedback that came in last night, then I'll revise the others. After that, I plan to work on my novel.

I'll be going to Sweet Bay tonight, too. The write-ins are awesome! :)

I'm also babysitting this morning. I'll be starting that in about five-ish minutes. He's a good baby and it should be fine.

Have a great day!

Lois

Another Manic Monday!

I've got two feedbacks from yesterday that I'll have to revise and two more to write first drafts of. Otherwise, I'm hoping to work on my short story and the outline for my Nano Novel.

Last night, Jeff and I watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Despite the title, it was actually a pretty serious movie. It was very good, too. It starred Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins).

I get today and tomorrow off from babysitting, but then I babysit on Wednesday. I'm not sure of the days and hours from then on.

I'm not sure if I'm going to Sweet Bay tomorrow night. Can any of you Yetis out there tell me if we're still going to be getting together at Sweet Bay after the Chinese Restaurant thing (I won't be going to that)?

The day is starting out nice and sunny. It's 51° right now. I'll take it while I can get it!

And now I've got to go. I have work to do.

Have a great day!

Lois

Time to Get Busy!

I have some feedback to do today. I will probably have more before the day is over. I'm hoping to squeeze in a character journal entry or two. Maybe I'll even find some time to transcribe some more of Cottage.

I'll be babysitting this afternoon into tonight, so I want to get as much work done during the day as I can.

I don't know when we'll see the sun again, but I'm loving the lower temps. It's been in the 50's and 60's here. :)

I'm planning to go to Sweet Bay tomorrow night. I hope I don't have to babysit!

Well, there's not really much to write home about, so I'd better get off here and fix breakfast, then get to work.

Have an awesome day! :D

Lois