A Time For Everything

Last Friday, I mentioned accomplishing some stuff. Of the three things I mentioned, only one was worked on last week as it should have been--the book; one was half-assed--the weight loss; and one wasn't even gotten to--the garage.

I just wasn't feeling it. Until yesterday. I finally started sorting through some boxes. I loaded up my car with as much stuff as I could fit without playing Tetris and jamming the cargo area full front to back, top to bottom. Of course, I'll have to unload it all tomorrow morning when I get to work, but that's fine.

Unfortunately, my trip to the donation station was originally postponed because of rain, and now it's on hold indefinitely until the world is allowed to open again. But all the stuff will be ready to go when it does.

As for the weight loss, I did get up and exercise every day but one, because I was up late (re-)watching a hockey game. I do build in those off days for the mornings after hockey game attendance or hockey game watching from home, so it wasn't as if I was cheating. In fact, I lost all those built-in off-days because hockey's been canceled.

On the other hand, I've been comfort / stress-eating more carbs than I need to, so I haven't lost anything, but I haven't gained anything either. But! Starting yesterday, I'm back to wearing the Fitbit, which tracks all my steps and exercise and food / water consumption. I'm hoping that by having to log my food and see the daily numbers, I'll be less inclined to eat the things I shouldn't. *fingers crossed* I'll see some improvement this week.

And last but not least--the writing. After exercising each morning, I plop my heinie in my chair, put on the headphones and Harry Potter soundtrack, and write. Since hockey's been canceled and I have no off-days, except the one I mentioned earlier, I've been making progress every day. Yesterday morning, I even knuckled down to sort out the actual timeline as well as some wonky plot issues. My romance beats are lined up and ready to go.

I've been working on this thing since mid-January and it's just about done and is very over word count. It's very rough and needs some heavy handed edits, but I'm ready for it!

While going through boxes left by my Brown Eyed Girl that she slated for donation--I came across this...

Why, yes, that's a tiara. While I wouldn't have bought one for myself, I'm not turning one down that's there for the re-appropriation. Where would I wear it, you ask. Well, I wore it on Sunday during my ZOOM session with some of my writers group friends. They loved it. I might even wear it to the first meeting back. :0)

And one last thing--the trip to WalMart this morning was not bad. There still wasn't any toilet paper, although they'd had some. I saw a woman with a package in her cart. Unfortunately, there was none left by the time I reached the appropriate aisle. But the cereal aisle was fully stocked and there was bottled water and plenty of bread. The lunch meat and meat displays weren't full, but they weren't barren either. I have hope that next week will be even better.

Take care and have a great week.

Several people, and probably more, but including Bill Gates five years ago, predicted a pandemic.

Why was the United States, then, not prepared to handle a) testing, b) vaccinations, c) the needs of the health care system to handle those infected...at the very least?

Because politicians / the government are / is generally more concerned with their own wants and needs, as well as the here and the now issues of their constituents. While the government has a role in these types of extraordinary events, and while I'm disappointed in our preparedness, is it solely the government's responsibility to be ready?

What about the health care system itself? What abut the pharmaceutical companies? What about private companies and organizations? How much falls on an individual?

I don't know the best answer, of course... No one wants to prepare (i.e. spend money) for something that seems so unlikely to happen.

Being prepared aside, it's satisfying to hear / read about how people from across all manner of industries are doing what they can.

For example:

The family distillery who switched to making hand sanitizer and offering it to their community for free; they did ask for donations, if they could be spared, but they are not refusing to give out their product.

Bauer, a sports equipment manufacturing company, who switched to making face shields for health care workers instead of hockey masks.

There are more, but you get the idea.

Anyway, it's the weekend again. So here's to that. here's hoping my local grocery store won't look so bare Sunday morning. And here's to writing time, which I will have an abundance of tomorrow morning.

And finally...the last of the cruise pictures.

From our stop in Belize:





Next time we cruise and have a stop in Belize, I'm gonna spend the day on the beach. It was incredibly beautiful there. For the rest of the Belize pictures, click here.

From our stop at Costa Maya:








I might consider swimming with the dolphins on my next trip to Costa Maya--that looked like fun. So one of those dolphins was playing catch with those people up on the walkway in the background. For the rest of the Costa Maya pictures, click here.

 Have a great weekend. :0)

That's a movie title, by the way, not any sort of commentary on anything...

One of the many things affected by COVID-19 are movie releases. While on the cruise, I happened to catch Skyfall, Daniel Craig's third Bond film and subsequently saw the trailer for this new one.


Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and I was super excited until I got home and learned they were postponing its release until November. While I want people to be safe from illness, I'm disappointed that I won't get to see the movie anytime soon.

How about you? Who's your favorite Bond?

Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton,  Pierce Brosnan, or Daniel Craig...

Some humor to lighten our day...









Hope you had a good weekend. I had big plans for writing. Alas, I shot myself in the foot by volunteering to host a four-hour write-in early Saturday morning for a writers conference that had transitioned from an in-person gathering to online sessions, utilizing various social media platforms as well as ZOOM.

I was going to be up and writing anyway, right? I have a ZOOM account since my own group was going to use it for our monthly meeting, right?

Problem a) I'd never attended a ZOOM meeting before and didn't know how the platform worked. Problem b) I didn't do a trial run the day before to iron out technical issues which led to wasting a full hour of writing time finding a work-around.
Problem c) Everyone arriving at various times kept distracting me from my work and so Saturday was a complete bust for me.

I did determine, however, that I prefer straight typing chats much better for that sort of thing and should we do them in the future, I will use a different platform to host.

I also spent some time Saturday afternoon using one of my favorite writers tools (a particular book) along with notes I'm made while on the cruise to get the story arc / plot onto large post-it notes to make sure I hit all the marks. Which I mostly did. Sunday's early morning writing session was very productive as a result, so whew. I was beginning to stress out that I wasn't going to ever get to write again. :0)

If you like to learn, The Great Courses if offering a one month free trial. They have a ton of really cool and interesting subjects to choose from. They do require a CC to create your account, but I just set a reminder for 27 days out to login and cancel the trial.

Here's to another week of social-distancing.

Take care--

If there was ever a time to say Thank Goodness It's Friday it's now. As things continue to slow and shut down, I'm glad it's the weekend.

A handful of our clients have decided to work from home, but that doesn't affect us much. We're still showing up every day and taking care of the back end side of IT.

I spent some time project planning yesterday as I mentioned Wednesday I needed to do. Looking at the breakout makes me want to not do at least one of them... If you're so inclined to see what my project planning looks like, it's here. The verbiage (project / phase / task) is taken from our software at work and worked well for my purposes. Plus it's always nice when my two worlds can cross-pollinate.

Home life is back to normal. The last piece was finding my charger cable for my car, and now that's back in the car... I'll go grocery shopping early Sunday morning as per usual and hope that the shelves look closer to full than to empty. But we'll make do with whatever I find. The dog will get her first bath in probably 4 - 5 weeks, poor thing. I'll prep food for the week. Laundry will get caught up once and for all. I can hardly wait.

I might -- MIGHT -- start on that garage project.

I'm already working on the Holiday / Disability Anthology.

Aspects of the weight loss project will be put into place.

And now...more cruise pics!! These are just general pictures from time on the boat...





For the rest of the randomness, click here.

Have a great weekend!