A Time For Everything

 ...and it's only Wednesday.

We've been extremely lucky here at Chez FitzGerald. We've had power the whole time (as had our office space)--knock wood.

Unfortunately, several of my close friends as well as writers groups friends have not been as lucky and have been without power and heat and some without water. One friend's pipes burst just this morning.

*sigh*

It's been a huge mess here in Texas and, no, the large wind turbines scattered across West Texas are not to blame. People are to blame. Somewhere, somehow, people made decisions without enough information, without thinking through the consequences and establishing contingency plans and here we are...

2021--adding insult to the injury of 2020...

There's not much "in other news" that's good...except, I guess, that in less than a week, temperatures (highs and lows) will rise above freezing and stay there going forward. Then begins the aftermath of picking up yet more pieces.

I'm sorry--this isn't a very positive post, but a lot of things just suck right now, and not acknowledging that seems disengenuous.

So...hope you're someplace warm and safe...and we'll check back on Friday...

Take care...

 

 

The squirrels provide no end of amusement... Check out the critter lying in the picnic table--feet dangling over the edge. And the other one just sitting in the bowl snacking leisurely.

In other exciting news, our Dallas Stars won their game yesterday--a game they desperately needed to win. It was back and forth with the score throughout the who game. A nail-biting, barn burner for sixty minutes plus of game play!

Also, the heatwave has been slightly broken. It'll only be 93* today instead of 103*!! I'll take it.

Hope you had a great weekend...

I started on one of the two books I'm writing this year.

I piddled with it last week, but it wasn't really flowing and I then I had a think about things and realized I was probably starting in the wrong place.

Lo and behold, when I sat down to write yesterday morning, over 900 words came pouring out of me. This morning, another 627 appeared on the page. :0) Off to a decent start, so that's a relief.

In other news, we had a wonderfully foggy morning when I left for work.



In other news, hockey's back. DD and I will be at the game tonight. Be loud, wear green, GO STARS!!

Have a super week.

It's been drippy and dreary all weekend, but on an UP note, the temperatures are warmer. Not complaining.

Yesterday, I did something I've been wanting to do for awhile--ice skating. DD and I went yesterday. We only lasted about 15 minutes though as DD's feet were hurting bad. Not sure if it was the skates or what, but also it was her very first time on ice skates. We made it around the rink maybe five or six times--her with a stack of buckets for balance--before calling it quits. I tried with some buckets once around, but managed better on my own. Despite the fall I took on the first lap. Oops. There was also an under-10 birthday party going on so there were a lot of other unsteady skaters milling about and it's harder to manage your own unsteadiness when you have to navigate others. We're planning to keep going as schedules allow.

There's a donut shop along the main drag in my neighborhood. Rest assured I haven't stopped in there in quite a few years, but I can't now, even if I wanted to. It's apparently closed for good. This makes me kinda sad, although I definitely get it. The guy who owned and ran it--just the one guy--had been there for probably 50 years. One time or another, when I bought donuts occasionally, we'd been chatting and he mentioned he'd been there about 40 years. Ten years ago for a donut purchase sounds about right, so I'm sticking with the theory that he owned and operated that place for 50 years. I hope he's enjoying his time off now that he's not up and working in the wee small hours anymore. And I know that because he was already in there (plate glass windows all around) when I'd pass by on the way to the gym at 0345...

Hope you had a good weekend no matter what kind of weather you had and here's to a productive week. Take care...

If you know me, you know that I vehemently hate the cold. Anything below, say, fifty degrees displeases me. I can tolerate anything lower better on some days over others, but seeing such negative temperatures in other places around the country or the globe--well, it makes one think and be thankful even if North Texas still hovers around the freezing point.

Have a great weekend and stay warm, where ever you are.

Between the fourth Navy ship collision in Asian waters this year (only August people) and Hurricane Harvey, not much has been on my mind except two of my children--Sonshine in the Navy in the Asian waters and my Brown-Eyed Girl in the vicinity of Harvey.

Sonshine is really the safer of the two as much of South Texas is getting submerged. There's just no where for the water to go. Luckily, the Brown-Eyed Girl and her roommate live on the third floor. But they're pretty much stuck there for the duration, which will probably three or four more days. In addition to the rain itself, Lake Conroe, located just north of where my baby lives is full, full, full and is overflowing/being drained, and because the earth is already saturated, it just runs down the streets and sidewalk. So yeah.

DD is safe and sound here with us, so that's good.

Please keep my oldest and my youngest in your thoughts and prayers.

Of course so many folks have it way worse, so also pray for South Texas, our leaders and our citizens. If you have any cash to spare, please give to the Red Cross.

Yesterday morning, 6:20am...


 Today, 5:40am...



Whatever your weather, enjoy the weekend.

Ugh...

With the regular AC unit at the office out of order and portables/fans in its place, the summer is hitting me a bit harder than expected.

Of course, Mother Nature decided to go all out and hit us with some high temperatures....



But it's almost the weekend, so I can stay cooped up in the house where the AC works just fine.

Have a great weekend and stay cool wherever you are!

My blog has been so full of Nashville, I haven't had a chance to talk about anything else. So let's see...

There's finally a new band director for Sonshine. It's late in the game, sadly. I don't know about other schools, but for us, band never really took a break it seemed like school was out, but within a few weeks, there section camps to attend once a week, then twice a week, until the few weeks before school started when everyone would come together and work as a full band. The guy is a former Marian, which I think is definitely going to help--if he uses that persona and doesn't take any guff from anyone. I haven't met him in person though he's called me on the phone. This year, however, I'm not going to be as charitable with my time. Sucks for him, but I have other fish to fry.

Like my new business. I finished a couple of projects and I'm waiting for a couple of proof jobs to come in. And I've been honing my skills at a few other tasks so I can expand my offerings. The goal is to make enough money so I can quit my day job. Right now I have to be careful not to ramp up too fast, because I do still have work to do at said day job. Especially at the beginning of the month (hello, August)--there's payroll, and invoices, and reminder packets, and reconciling all the bank statements. I also have to train the new guys to handle my biggest on-going project. We have one client that I provide the bulk of the support for. So until the newbies are up to speed, I can't leave. Everything else, I could do from home. Which is the first goal. Get out of the office and work from home.

I haven't talked about my weight loss effort for a while either. It's...coming along. Slowly. Very slowly, if at all, to be honest. I haven't really gained anything back, but nothing's coming off either. While in Nashville, I walked a lot. Everyday for three days. Hours and hours. I realize you can't really keep that up especially with a day job, but I figured since I'd started, I would keep going. The goal was to walk an hour a day in two 30-minute chunks. That's all well and good, but all that calorie burning makes me hungry and I haven't been doing a good job and monitoring calorie intake. Nor do I walk twice a day every day. Sometimes, yeah, but I'm still building strength and endurance. So I listen to my body and when it says it needs rest, I give it rest. So the next step is to get back to counting calories and find some exercise that burns more calories in the same amount of time and/or alternate walking with some other type of exercise.

 And on a final note, we're having an awesome summer. Read mild!! After the last who-knows-how-many HOT HOT HOT summers, this one's been fantastic. We've even had rain in July. Now that we're looking down the barrel at August, I'm sure it'll heat up, but hey it's August and it's supposed to heat up. But I guess we'll see how it goes.

So, dear friends--how are YOU??

Last Wednesday, I talked about my short-comings as a mother. Well, hinted at them, anyway. On Thursday night, DH and I sat down with the kids and reiterated the law. They all know it by now. But it was said in no uncertain terms in front of all of them together so each of them knows the others heard exactly what was said. We also discussed consequences and expectations now that two of them are adults and one is rapidly approaching the magic age (did you hear the sarcasm there?). Of course, Sonshine will still have six months of high school and living under our roof from that point.

Anyway, the point of the rambling being that the Brown Eyed Girl, while not pleased with a few of the rules and our edicts, has decided to tow the line for the moment. Which definitely makes my life so much less stressful.

Kitty, on the other hand, is good for a laugh just about every day. She scampers around, from one end of the house to the other, climbing furniture, as well as door jambs. She is especially fascinated by the ceiling fan pull chains. If carried into a room, she immediately scopes out the dangling offender and if you get close enough, she climbs her way to your shoulder. Of course, we get close enough, because it's so funny to see her trying to stand on her hind legs on your shoulder and not lose her balance while trying to swat at the light pull (yes, that's the official term for the what ever's at the end of your chain, if anything). You have to be careful of course because she will dig her claws into your shoulder and your head to do so. I'm too short to let her play, so I get to watch the others get clawed. :)

Crazy weather is crazy--yesterday, I walked to the P.O. Box at 2PM. It was sunshine and very windy, probably 75* or so. An hour later, no joke, the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees, dark clouds had rolled in and there was rain, thunder and lightning. Some places were even under tornado watch. A friend of mine even had hail. Go figure.

What's the craziest weather you've ever experienced? (Not to say this is the craziest for me...)

It's unseasonably warm for this time of year here in North Texas. I personally don't mind the warmer temperatures, but warmer temps mean that whatever moisture we've accumulated is going to evaporate and we need it. Our lakes and ponds and rivers are still down by anywhere from 9" to 18". Not good folks. But I realize none or few of us are experiencing the weather we grew up with.

The weekend was almost perfect. I wrote and spent time outside doing yard work--if you consider burning off your fire pit yard work--and enjoyed breakfast with a dear friend. The third member of our intended trio had to bow out at the last minute with a sick hubby. While I understood completely, she was sorely missed and her absence was what made the weekend only almost perfect.

But CP and I hit a few major Fort Worth sights and landmarks as well as a couple of minor ones. Sandwiched in between, no pun intended, was breakfast at a local bagel place. I had a pretzel bagel and, oh my, was it delicious.

Starting this Friday, Fort Worth Friday will be resurrected and you'll have the first pictures of our breakfast adventure. My original intent with Fort Worth Friday had more of a historical leaning, but I've decided to just go with anything and everything that tickles my fancy about my home town.

As if that weren't enough, I watched a lot of TV this weekend, including Grey's Anatomy and Downton Abbey, and except the one episode of one show I really wanted to watch. Ah, well. Lunchtime viewing for today.

How was your weekend?

(And can you believe today's post is already up??)

And has been for almost 24 hours. We definitely need the rain and it isn't coming down so hard and fast that it's leaking into our office space as it is wont to do. I only I wish I could be enjoying it from home rather than my office. I'd curl up with a good book--next book to read is Blood Marriage by my lovely friend Regina Richards. (Can't wait, Regina!!!)--some music playing softly in the background and a never-ending supply of hot mint tea. (And possibly a sweet kitty curled up with me.)

This week, I am wearing my judge/beta reader hat. My writing group holds a contest each year as our primary fundraiser. I have five entries, one is completely done, one is almost done, and three to go. These contestants are going to get their money's worth in terms of feedback even if they don't like what I have to say.

I haven't quite finished outlining my goals, but I'm not sure what the plan is for the next item on the list: writing. I've had no desire to open my any of my manuscripts for several weeks and have given myself permission to continue ignoring them until the 19th. (The new charm/writing cycle begins the 20th.) That'll be two cycles in a row I haven't earned my charm. The coordinator tried to convince me I'd earned it last cycle, but I didn't feel like I had, so I wouldn't take it. I suppose I ought to figure out my problem in the next week or so, huh?

There's nothing else major on my goals for the upcoming year, just things I want to accomplish around the house and yard.

On that note, I'll sign off for the day!

What's your favorite way to spend a rainy day?

I think. We're going into the weekend right before New Year's Eve. I don't really want to go down to the store before the 30th. I just want to relax and rest up for the 30th and 31st and get my house clean and the laundry done and prepare for the new year as best I can.

Before we get to what I received for Christmas, I heard some things I wanted to share.

1st) Norman Schwartzkopf died last night.
2nd) Radio City Music Hall celebrates 80 years, but more interestingly, its pipe organ with 4410 pipes and two keyboards is the largest pipe organ ever built for a movie theater
3rd) well, there is no third--I can't find the info anymore. ugh
and
4th) if you're the praying sort, please lift up Mrs. Carmen Bernal and her family; Mrs. Bernal suffered a stroke this past week; she's the mother of Sonshine's band director...

Now for Christmas...

We spent Christmas Eve at my mother-in-law's house with everyone present--including one of my sisters-in-law and both my nephews, and of course my Brown Eyed Girl. Many many years ago, somewhere around thirteen years or so (when Sonshine was around 4, best we can estimate), we'd taken a picture of five of the six grand kids. Well, those same five were back together and all grown up. So we piled them back on top of one another and took another picture. I'll share the before and after as soon as I get the before scanned.

Christmas Morning for the Brown-Eyed Girl and me started at 4:30ish am. Neither of us could sleep any longer so we got up. DH found us shortly after 5. By 5:30 we'd woken up DD and Sonshine and began the festivities. We were done by 7:30. Pretty sad huh??

Some pics of Christmas...





Knowing that bad weather was on its way, us girls were home by noon. Later that afternoon, we received a white Christmas as an additional little surprise.


So how was your Christmas?

And don't forget, goals for the New Year coming Monday--see you then. Have a good weekend.

I hadn't really been dreaming of a white Christmas, but as I was home safe and sound by the time the white stuff started falling, I was quite happy to enjoy it. And since the temps won't rise about the freezing mark until close to noon, it's hanging around for a while. I'm not complaining. It's my kind of snow--the kind that covers roofs and lawns, but melts away on the roads and driveways. No shoveling required.



And since I'm the only one in the office today, I'm not heading in until a wee bit later--once the other crazies are where they need to be.

Christmas itself was lovely and fun, and I received some wonderful goodies. I'll share those with you on Friday. For now, I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet, some hot tea, and continue reading.I hope that where ever you went and whatever you did for Christmas, that it was wonderful.

And now that Christmas is past (barely, but still!) New Years is just around the corner, and it's time to set or re-set some goals. I'll share mine on Monday. Be thinking about yours, too.

So last night I worked at Dallas Cowboys Stadium...December 2, right? Why was it still warm outside when we left last night at, oh, 11:30??? I'm not complaining. There's hardly enough room for the bodies in the stand, much less heavy winter coats, but it's December. It should be colder. Crazy.

Breakthrough! Last week, I shared that my friend (and last week's guest) Angi Morgan read my manuscript and made very helpful comments. I was able to get back into the game on this WIP. I'm glad to report that I have cut enough words to drop back under the required 10 to 15K word count for the line I'm targeting. But I still have some in dept revisions to make and the word count is going to push the 15K limit until I hit The End. But I think that's really going to challenge me to choose the right words and make every single one of those bad boys count.

The only constant is change...which I really don't like. Last week, one of our employees gave notice. In and of itself, that's not really a bad thing, but his departure comes at a really bad time. Not only will his last day be the first day of fireworks season (the 20th)--when DH and Sonshine are out of town, but our other employee is going on vacation (out of the country) on the 22nd. That means DH is our only employee for three weeks.

Now thankfully, it's over the holidays and we run rather slow this time of year, but DH can't be two places at once. So...I may be running the fireworks store with Sonshine for the first 10 days. I'm not as dismayed by possibility as I once might have been. Because what it means is a lot of writing time! And right now I want it and need it.

And still no word from the editors at Entangled. But any time now. *fingers crossed*

Check back in tomorrow for my next Christmas post!

Another reason to love (hate?) Texas. We're back up mid 80s during the day and last night, the heater didn't even kick on, so the house didn't get colder than 70*.

There's nothing exciting going on right now. :(

I started reading though. It's not necessarily a good thing when I have 2K to write by the 20th and a story due by November 22. (It's just a fan fic thing.) Also my anthology needs to be sent in by November 1, but it's mostly done. It just needs a final polish.

How about a warm fuzzy picture or a picture of something warm and fuzzy today? I wouldn't mind spending the day with a good book, a hot cup of tea, and this sweet thing curled up next to me.


What would you rather be doing today?

Of course, it's been summer since June 21, but it's been nice. But real summer heat has finally hit Texas. The actual temperature is supposed to hit 106* today. UGH UGH UGH

I didn't take my doggies out for their walk last night because it was just so hot. One missed it, the other didn't seem to care. I promised Sammy that I'd take her tonight. UGH

In other news, I have revised my contest entry. I finished it yesterday, mid-day and then put it away to rest. It's now about a 1/3 of a page longer than the allowable 10 pages, so I have to find a new place to cut it off. Or start the story farther in as one first-round judge suggested, which means I could submit a little more of the story. Decisions, decisions...

It's official, I'm a Batman fan girl. I bought myself a tee-shirt on Saturday. (I was already in the store when I saw it--I didn't go in search of it on purpose.) I'm also considering seeing the third film in the theater again. I rarely go to the movies, but for me to see the same film in the theater more than once: it's serious. :) No fan fiction of the horizon, though.


The writing room is almost finished. The latest addition is a 50" HD television, now hanging on the wall. DH bought it for the fireworks store, and went and got it for me and mounted it. I was just going to buy a small TV for in there along with a new Wii balance board so I can get back to doing Wii Fit aerobics. But, hey, I'm not going to complain.




I haven't watched a movie on the TV yet, but I'm looking forward to that. I just can't decide what to watch first. (It'll probably be Harry Potter.)(Probably 6 or 7.1.)

All we need now is a desk and a pair of comfy chairs and this room is set.

Hope you had a great weekend and here's to a good week.

The weather on Friday was a bit nuts. Not crazy, make-the-national-news nuts, but some thunderstorms blew through with some wicked wind, dropping the temperature seventeen degrees. Clumps of leaves were pulled off the trees and all the dead little branches were shaken loose. (kinda hard to see, I know)


Remember Fat Patches? The neighbor's cat I shared a picture of several weeks ago? Well, it seems his family wants to move away. I got home Friday and saw a for sale sign in their front yard. Now, it's silly to be so saddened by this since I hardly ever even talk to these people. But they've been living across the street for many years. They moved in when their oldest was a baby, still in a carrier, and he's now maybe eight or nine years old. Then we watched them have two more children, the youngest still under a year old. :( I guess it just signals the end of an era...and of course Fat Patches will no longer be available for kitty fixes.


All the computers/servers in our office were upgraded last week in preparation for a new massive software implementation designed to help us become more productive and manage our resources better and then subsequently make more money. So it's been a slow few days as I learn to navigate Windows 7 and get all the programs and tools I use to do my real job loaded back onto the computer. Then of course there is re-bookmarking all my favorite Internet sites. Yada, yada, yada...

A chapter mate of mine just shared with us the dangers of using images off the web...she was sued. It's all said and done now, but as you can imagine, it was expensive and frustrating and time consuming. Number #1 lesson: disclaimers do not matter. If you didn't take the picture and don't have express permission to post it, you are in copyright violation. Lesson #2: take/post your own pictures OR join a stock photo site.

I went back through my blog--all five years of it--and there are very few images I've used that don't actually belong to me. So, yes, I'll be going through and replacing those if possible. If I can't replace them, I'll just put in a place holder. Who's going to go back and read those old posts anyway???

Last week I also sorta kinda finished a book. Not ready-to-submit finished, but send-to-critique partner finished. So I did. I told them a) to be harsh and b) not to rush, though I am anxious to get their feedback.

And yesterday, I finally got to working on revisions of A Snowball's Chance in Texas. I worked on it all day between laundry and other random chores and made excellent progress. The story is so much better now. It really truly is. I'm going to have to cut more words as the addition of the fixes added more words than I had available, but that's okay. I knew I was going to have to rework the beginning anyhow and get to the sex scene sooner. I'm hoping to save the prologue though.

I'm going to have to start yet another new story to get new words for my next charm. Despite the fact that I have five or six stories that need to be finished. I can take a month, possibly two (though not in a row) to do revisions, rather than write new words, and still earn a charm. But for some reason, I always feel compelled to write new words. By the time this book in a year program is over, I'm going to have a half dozen *more* stories to revise. Unless of course I just become that good. ha ha ha ha ha

I was going to work on the new story yesterday, but didn't quite have enough of the story worked out for my personal needs in order to start it. So I worked on the revisions as mentioned above. And I'm so glad I did.

So I leave you today with a picture of my charm bracelet with the newest charm: the lone star of Texas.

Tea, that is. :) Normally, I get up and make my bowl of oatmeal *and* a large mug of plantation mint tea. This morning, only oatmeal at first. The tea came later and even then I only drank half of it.

I can explain. It was warm in the house. It's also warmish outside. So the need to warm up from the inside out was not there. Though I did still put on a long sleeve shirt this morning. (It still gets too cold for me in my office.)

Supposedly, the next few days are supposed to be hotter than normal--close to the 90s. And the winds are blowing, which means lots of dirt. But since it will be hot, the A/C will be on and there will be less dirt because I won't have the windows open.

The writing is going well. Slow, but well. I'm trying to edit/revise as I go. And since I only write 250 words a weekday, that's easy to keep up with and I can usually double my word count.

Yesterday, I spent about an hour on YouTube...

See, in this new book my hero and heroine dance, and I needed some inspiration and help on describing the moment. So I called up my fond memories of watching Indy race car driver Helio Castreneves on Dancing With the Stars many years ago. So I went to YouTube and found the vids of Helio and his dance partner Julianne Hough and their many dances. I don't normally watch reality shows like that, but I think one of my kids was watching it, and Helio and Julianne--they had some sort of connection--sucked me in. (That is the only season of that I ever watched, by the way.)

Anyway, it worked well enough. I was able to write the scene, though it took a really long time. I'm talking a couple of hours (not including the one on YouTube) to write five short paragraphs--about 600 words all told. But I am happy with those words.

So I'm at work and the A/C has kicked on and I'm now ready for a full mug of hot tea.

Hope your week is going well so far.