skellorg

i am: present and accounted for
listening to: rain pattering on the windows
drinking: british blend tea

• I made an incredible pot roast earlier in the week and now have some incredible BBQ made from the leftovers simmering on the stove.


• It's raining right now, and supposed to continue doing so until tomorrow evening when, if the weather forecast holds true (and what are the odds of that, really?), it will change over to snow, snow all night and much of the day Monday.


• I'm continuing to work on two projects at the same time - the manuscript project, which I'm dragging my feet on because I really have reached the final manuscript and I love the research phase, and re-rendering several dozen of my fractals at "print quality," each of which takes several days.


• I haven't worked on the manuscript project in two days, because my hands ache. I don't know if it's the weather or overuse, but my left wrist is now looking sort of knobby and aches like my right wrist did before it crumbled and fell apart. If I end up having to have part of the bone removed in my left arm too, well ... that doesn't really bear thinking about.


• So I've been resting my wrist for the past few days, not typing much. Instead, I've been utterly and completely sucked in to an egghunt application, called Hatchlings, at Facebook. Crazy, I know, and not like me at all to get caught up in something like that. It's just challenging enough to hold my interest though. I only have 27 of the 100+ limited edition eggs! Must find more! Must! ::: tsk ::: (If you're on Facebook and haven't added me, please do. Note me if you need my contact info.)


• My medieval website won an international "Site of the Decade" award yesterday. Go me. Website awards can be kind of goofy, really, but this particular award was judged by some of the nitpickiest people online. The criteria was such that I thought my site would be tossed out at the beginning of the judging, even though nothing in particular jumped out at me as a disqualification. I was informed that I was in the running because I'd applied for their evaluation/award in 2000 (or maybe it was 2001?) and was named the "Site of the Year" at that time. So, my site was measured up against nine other sites, but all ten of the sites had to first pass the disqualifications and then be evaluated on many fine points of coding, content, navigation, etc. And I'm rambling. Pardon me. It does feel like quite an accomplishment though, and will probably boost my traffic for awhile.


• Son left on his second deployment last weekend. I hope he gets to see something more interesting than Bahrain and Dubai this time. And the inside of the underwater tin can he calls home. And hopefully the tentative plan for him to return in three months to attend a LAN school here, instead of the standard six month deployment, will stay on track. I wouldn't want to be around him if they told him it had fallen through and he was stuck on the sub for that extra three months.

and that's me updated.

today's reading: since last updating i finished my reread of jasper fforde's the eyre affair, the next in the series lost in a good book, which i think was better than the first, and am now in the midst of 98 reasons for being by claire dudman and enjoying it immensely.

i am: waking up slowly
listening to: wind chimes
drinking: british blend tea

i had a dream this morning right before i woke up (indeed, the dream woke me up) that i had commented on an entry by zcat_abroad, and moments later received a mail reporting that anonymous had replied to my comment. i returned to the journal where, the first thing i noticed about the comment was the userpic - charlie brown sitting at a miniature piano, where linus should have been. the comment itself rather nastily criticized my lack of proper capitalization and punctuation. it said something to the effect of, "Children in the lowest grades are taught to capitalize the first word of their sentences, along with proper nouns." in my dream i was mentally composing a sarcastic reply/excuse for my stream-of-consciousness-like entries and replies, and i woke with a start, thinking, "ooh, i need to remember that." remember what? i have no idea, but i suspect that's the only reason i remember this dream.

the thought passed (quickly) through my mind, yet again, that maybe i should take the time to capitalize and punctuate properly here, but you know ... i really don't care. my hands are so trashed from the many things i'm working on that require proper capitalization and punctuation, among other projects that are stressing them, that, at this point the less effort it takes to do something with them, the better.

i'm also aware that i tend to use the word "that" in many places where it's not necessary. to which i reply, bite me, chuck.

today's reading: finished my re-read of jasper fforde's the eyre affair late last night. today i'll get started on the next in the series, lost in a good book.

i am: taking a break
listening to: telemann - viola concerto in g
drinking: honey lemon ginseng tea

We've been having a few days of early spring this week, and it's been nice. I find the smallest of birds fascinating to watch - the wrens, chickadees, and the house finches (which look large next to the others.) They flit around in pairs scoping out possible places to build nests, then flit off, only to return five minutes later. I've enjoyed having windows open during the day, except for the havoc it's already wreaking on yog's poor eyes.

I've been continuing to madly work on manuscripts. I know I keep saying "the last one," or "one more after this one." I feel like I've been saying that for a few years. Now I'm working on what would be the last one if I didn't realize I'm missing representation from a particular time frame. When I finish it, I'll seek one out and will have completed the research/transcribing phase.

In the meantime, I'm re-rendering all of the fractal designs I have uploaded and made into products at my Zazzle shop. Near the end of the year I sold quite a few products: Quite a few to me is more than one; I have not been very successful in my online marketing attempts. In reviewing my end of the year report from Zazzle I was surprised to see that from the middle of November until the end of December I'd sold eight calendars, a mouse pad, five cards and a keychain. This was with minimal promotion and marketing; I hadn't even bothered to list with Google Shopping. So, giving my aching hands a break from the manuscripts I've been educating myself about these things and now have a new plan - which involves re-rendering all of the fractal designs I have uploaded and made into products at my Zazzle shop (full circle) in larger sizes for prints and other products that are available on sites other than Zazzle, i.e., CafePress. My grand scheme is to create a shop of my own, similar to the Merkat Cross section of my medieval site, on my newish Abandon Reason site, which I'll then take the time to properly promote. This will all take quite a while, but the renders run quietly in the background while I'm doing other things.

The only drawback to this is that while the system is rendering the old designs, I can't create new ones. I really miss that creative outlet and am definitely experiencing Apo-withdrawals.

Since I have my grand scheme mapped out and processing in the background, now when I take a break from the manuscripts, I've been loading Facebook. A couple of days ago I finally added my educational information and was instantly rewarded with a link to check out other people who attended the same schools I did. I surfed through over 500 photos/user names and was brought into a strange state of living in the past and wondering who the hell those bald, graying grandparents were. And it's not only that I didn't recognize 99% of them; I couldn't relate to them at all. Real estate agents, police officers, preachers, architects, gray-haired women surrounded by toddling grandchildren. (How did they get so old? I'm not that old.) I recognized a few names, but only one face. The handful of people I was looking for and would have been comfortable adding as a friend aren't there. Friends from post-high school days are, well ... non-existent. I worked and was friendly with people I worked with, but there were only two people that I had any contact with outside of work and they're not there either. I've often jokingly referred to my hermit-like life, but have now been struck by the fact that it's not a joke at all.

Enough navel gazing; back to work.

today's reading: i'm about halfway through jasper fforde's the eyre affair, which i'm rereading in preparation for the next in the series, lost in a good book.

Bees and wasps, but not without good cause. When I was five years old I was playing hide and seek with some kids in the neighborhood and hid under a largish shrub that was part of a hedge separating two yards. I hunkered down in the still green shadows, patiently waiting to be found (I never made the mad dash to to the established homebase) when I felt first a prickle, then a sudden intense burning on top of my head. I don't recall being aware that I'd been stung, at first; I only remember an incredible freak out of running and screaming bloody murder, my mother coming out of the house with a magazine in hand (so much for her relaxing cup of coffee and read while the kids were outside playing.) She rolled it up and started beating me on the head with it, which added to my confusion and terror. It wasn't until she was picking the dead bodies out of my hair that I realized I'd hidden directly beneath a large wasp nest. I was double-stung again several years later - stepped on a bee, and when I put my other foot down to lift the hurt foot, I stepped on another one. I still have problems today not doing a duck and squint when a bee or wasp zips by.

Another fear I had was of being abducted by aliens, which I wrote about here a few years ago.

i am: present and accounted for
listening: the dryer spinning
drinking: british blend tea

( a dream is a wish your heart makesCollapse )

today's reading: since updating last i finished company of liars by karen maitland and started clare clark's the great stink, but have abandoned it. it's too dark for the mood i'm in. i've now started a re-read of ed mcbain's the frumious bandersnatch, which i haven't read in a very long time, but remember enjoying immensely.