a Sale

 The whole birthday month things peeves me. One day is plenty for me. The only thing I'm doing for my birthday month is clearing the decks. Making space. Cleaning house. Changing course. Having a sale!

Click on the link up there for the details. Email me with your picks. As ever, first come first served.

days of yore?

Right now, Facebook and its mutant offspring are down. Dick-in-the-dirt down, and it's an interesting turn of event that this happened while a FB representative named ANTIGONE was defending the company against some pretty damning allegations made by a whistleblower. FB did what lined Zuck's pockets regardless of how it stoked political divisiveness and misinformation. NO SHIT!! 

                                                                         

I do miss Instagram. Bailey was a star yesterday.

Ah, technology. The new version of Scrivener sucked into the big laptop today with no issues. Now I'm going to force myself through the learning hoops. I limped along only half using this powerful tool for the first three books. I'll try to work smarter this time and pretend I paid to sit in a classroom and get the most out of it.

Just this morning I bought an 18-month planner because a web-based calendar tool that I've been using for years is saying goodbye so it can become another silly I-phone app. Dude, I think you may have chosen poorly. Anyway, I will clean my fountain pens tonight. I already have a bunch of stamps that I'll have to do the math to use, they are so old. I can do that with a pencil and paper too. 

the prosy stuff: I bought my first-ever set of dishes. Mom's hand-me-down Corelle was good forever, but even Corelle is not indestructible. I have three of the four coffee mugs that my sister-in-law gave us for a shower gift. Number four paid the price when Jimmy took it to work with him one day.  Joked to his buddy that they were supposed to be unbreakable and banged it on something as if it was a hammer.

The new stuff is gorgeous, huge, and heavy. I will probably wind up putting the dinner plates under my house plants. The bowls and dessert plates are perfect.

galaxies under the grub

 

churning the scrap basket

 

conversations

Going forward, posts like this about the writing life will go to Cooking the Hook. 

Art and fiber-related posts will stay here, but damn, I can crossover on a whim. Nice being a landlord.

  It was much too early for that kind of conversation. Let's just call that a fever dream. I had my booster Monday and ran a little hot that night. 

Here's a sweeter conversation. A dear friend called out of the blue. We've known each other forever. Two human beings could not be more at odds, but the core of our relationship was our good fortune of having had decades-long marriages to good men. 

Time and distance did their thing but Barb and I still had the biannual hour-long catch-up calls. This time she shocked me. My dear girl has always been straight as an arrow and charmingly old-fashioned. How we meshed remains a mystery. She called to tell me that she's bought my books, read them and loved them and when was the next one coming out.  

I guess I had better pick up the pace.

Extravagance

 

Let a fine day begin with long-awaited new shoes arriving just in time. AND, miracle of miracles, they fit and do not offend my fashion insensibilities. In the past month, I have bought four pairs of shoes online and sent all of them back. Shopping in person is even harder when you wear 10W.  

The crown and heart of this day was a surprise ice cream social for my co-pirate and his bestie since pre-K.

We scarfed up the ice cream, wished we had brought sweaters, and just watched these two spiral around each other. She will be moving away in a few weeks, but for now, the joy overcomes the sorrow of the days ahead. I think they will keep in touch.

I bought myself a traditional derelict bouquet from the nearly dead bin and cooked for myself something that was not whatever slammed between two slices of bread.  

 

You can see my hairy friend waiting for me to look away so she could lick the plate.

I wish there had been wine. Still, I corrected my chemistry, put on some music, and stalked the internet boyfriend for a while.

All of this in an effort to NOT keep checking on the stats of my first ever advertising promotion for the book. This screengrab for book one of the trilogy was the peak. Color me thrilled.