Monday, June 27, 2022

New Release: The Time Between Heartbeats

 

 
 
My first historical has been released into the world and it's epic at 92K words or so!

The original version of this book was begun back in the fall of 2015. Now, I haven't spent all this time working on it. It was about 75% completed for many of those years, but I decided I wanted all those words to be worth something, so I finally got around to finishing the whole amazing tale a few years ago. It also took some time getting 92K words edited and then applying any revisions.

But here it is in all its wonderfulness. :0)

For more information, you can visit the book's page here on my blog/website.
 
To read an excerpt, click here.
 
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In other news...a fan fic I love and have re-read a dozen or so times (and I'm not being hyperbolic--I have actually, literally** read that thing that many times) has been finished on the author's end and will be updated at the fic site I read in the coming weeks. Yes, despite it not being complete, I've re-read it over and over because it was that wonderful.

There are in fact a handful of fan fics that I revisit year after year because, like with any favorite book (and they are books, despite also being fan fiction), I find comfort, peace, and pleasure in those worlds.
 
And with all the crap going on in the world, I'd much rather visit those worlds than pay much attention to the real thing unless I have to.

Have a great week!
 


**Y'all know how I feel about this word--when I use it, I mean it!

Monday, June 20, 2022

What I Wanna Be When I Grow Up...

The jury's still out on what I want to be when I grow up. :0)

But as I was going through boxes in preparation for the new home office desk...I came across a couple of school papers from my two youngest kids.

They were both surprisingly...accurate. DD and I both got a laugh.

DD was probably in third grade when this happened.


And Sonshine was probably in Kindergarten when he made this.


DD isn't an official teacher, she only has half the required degree; but she has enough of one to teach the 2s and 3s at a faith-based school as well as provide after-school care. But for the point of this post--close enough.

Now, short order cook at a local sports bar isn't anywhere close to "chef on tv" but he cooks food for money, so we're in the vicinity. He used to watch cooking shows when he stayed home sick from school. I'd encouraged him to pursue chef-ery post-high school, but he declined... And now... Well... 

**shrugs**

I too wanted to be a teacher and even started my education toward that end, but then I became a mom and my life took a detour. At this point, I'm mostly happy doing what I'm doing (office manager / bookkeeper; hobby enthusiast), so I think I'll stick with it for a little longer.

Have a great week!!

Monday, June 13, 2022

Before and After: My New Desk

I'm loving it, to be honest.

The room isn't finished by a long shot, but the desk is in place and I'm slowly deciding what comes back into my office space. I've sorted through quite a bit already. Some is getting packed away for future consideration, but some is being thrown away and some is going to the donation station.

With everything going on my life, clearing out unwanted stuff helps lighten the load. I'd read or watched something a while back that posited that even though we may love a thing or things, it still weighs on us because we might, for example, still have to dust/clean it. It still requires thought/brain power. So I'm trying to reduce some of that clutter--both physically and emotionally and "thinkily." I can't think of the right term, so I hope you understand what I mean.

Mom's arrival has also displaced certain things in house / life, such as my charging station. I have a small plastic hook situated over one corner of the dining room bench seat where all my charging cables hung. The little charging bricks, along with my air pods and my Bluetooth speaker, used to sit lined up along the back of the bench. When I needed to charge something...I chose the appropriate cable and the correct charging brick and plugged it in.

Well that's not available anymore because that's where Mom has taken up daily residence. So my new charging station is now on the shelving side of the desk where I've placed new hooks and have a plug-in USB hub.

Any who... here are the before and after pictures of my space.

BEFORE: The pics were taken from the door.





This last pic was taken from behind my set-up. The door is to the right.

If you want to see the pics of my empty-ish office, click here...

 AFTER:



Notice the lack of red, white, and blue lights now. A section of one string burned out and when I went to flip the string around, the whole thing wouldn't light back up any longer. So I need a new set of lights. I'm hoping for one long one of the correct length, rather than three I have to string together with the big mangled "knot" of connecting ends hanging on my wall.

See that shelving unit on the one side. I love that. It was a selling point. That lamp won't live there forever. Gonna move it to the corner behind the dog bed (I'll put a cube shelf thing there) once I buy some better lamps for the desk area.

I still have some work to do, but it's coming along and I'm much happier, more comfortable, and much more productive.

Have a super week...

* * * * *

P.S. ~ The Colorado Avalanche swept the Oilers and now I'm waiting for the results of the TBL / NYR series.

C'mon, Rangers!

Monday, June 6, 2022

Hockey in...June...?

Well, yes!


We're down to the Conference Finals...

Colorado Avalanche vs. Edmonton Oilers in the West and Tampa Bay Lightning vs. New York Rangers in the East.

I placed several $5 bets on various teams early in the year.

Only one team is left playing. That would be the Avs, and they are a juggernaut right now.

But Tampa Bay is going for a three-peat, meaning they're back-to-back Stanley Cup champions and going for their third Cup win. They too are a powerhouse team. (Usually.)

As of this morning, the Avalanche and the Rangers lead their respective series ...

In hockey, however, anything can happen. So by the end of the week, we could be looking at an Oilers / Lightning Cup Final. Both Edmonton and Tampa Bay would have to win all their remaining games. Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely? No

But the Conference Finals and the Cup Final is not what I wanted to muse on today.

Let's circle back to my boys in Victory green.

It's the dawn of yet another new era in Dallas Stars Hockey.

Rick Bowness, head coach for the last couple of seasons, and the team parted ways. Bones inherited the coaching job initially when the previous coach was fired. And as a result of the run to the Stanley Cup Final a couple of years ago, he was offered a new contract.

A lot of people in the fan base are of the opinion that he's not the best coach for our team and while I'm not a strategist nor do I really understand a lot of aspects of the game, I've come to agree. Their explanations make sense.

Bones is an old school coach, but the game has evolved, is evolving, as are the players coming up. While Bones is by all accounts a great "players" coach--everyone in the League loves Bones as a person--his coaching style seems to be stuck in the 80s and 90s. And some of our really good players aren't playing as well as they could as a result. Their skills and talents aren't being utilized, they're not being put in positions to truly shine and succeed. And that's a shame.

Hopefully, the new coach will be able to balance the strengths of each and every player for a truly contending team.

Several of our older players--"veterans," as the over age-thirty players tend to get labeled--are coming off the books, meaning their contracts have expired and are not being renewed. Sadly, we're stuck with one guy who most everyone (fan-wise) hates.

On the other hand, they offered one of our very best players at age 37 a one-year extension. And thank the Good Lord for that. Joe Pavelski, along with his two younger line-mates was responsible for over 40% of our goal scoring last season. While on the one hand it's impressive--we made the play-offs on the backs of those three men--we should be getting scoring from all four lines as well as from the defensemen.

From L to R (in Victory Green, of course): Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz, and Jason Robertson aka Pavelski & Sons.

We made it to a game seven of the first round on the back of our young goalie. He was the best goalie in the league during his single round of playoffs and was just shunted into second best position two games into the third round...

Many in the fan base are hoping that the new coach will balance all the talent we have--help the veterans be as productive as possible and allow the young guns opportunity and a chance to shine, all while bringing back a little more offense from up and down the roster.

Looking forward to see what the 2022-2023 season has in store for a boys in Victory Green.

In the meantime--LET'S GO AVS!!