Quote of the Moment

"It's never wrong to hope, Byx," said my mother. "Unless the truth says otherwise."
- from Endling #1: The Last, by Katherine Applegate

Friday, September 16, 2011

Deer me...


Where has the year gone?  How can it be halfway through September already?

Well, it's been a couple weeks, so I thought I'd poke the ol' blog.

I wish I could say I've made vast strides on my many projects, but I expect you'd see right through that ploy. Truth is, I've been focusing on writing and reading, weighing toward the reading end.  You can, as always, check my book review blog for more details on that front. For the quick summary, suffice it to say that I've finally broken 750 reviews at my website. I may even break 800 by the year's end. How is that possible? Recently, I started seeing reissued Animorphs books go through at the library, which spurred me to finally go through and add individual reviews of the series. This, naturally, requires me rereading them. Freed of the one-book-a-month schedule imposed by the original release, I've found I can get through two or three installments in a day, if I'm not doing anything pressing. I'm trying to space them out, though. For one thing, I'm already ahead of the re-release schedule. For another, I'm sure all zero visitors to my book review blog will get sick of them if I post too many in a row. And, of course, there's the whole "other things I should be doing instead of rereading books" thing... Still, it's not easy holding back. Even though I know how the whole thing ends (not the most uplifting finale, to say the least), they're still addictively readable.

On the family front, life seems to have settled into a rough holding pattern. Grandpa just has good days and bad days. Dropping more water weight tends to give him more good days, as does getting on top of infections early... not easy, when every little step requires jumping through a zillion little bureaucratic hoops in order to get the staff of the assisted living home to help. (For instance, we had a standing order - in writing - from the doctor to increase his water pill dosage if he gained a certain amount of weight in a day. When he gained more than that, we were told that they had no memory of this standing order, and we had to run around playing doctor tag to get another order issued... all while Grandpa was falling further and further into his fog.) He hasn't been up to any major excursions since the sand sculpture exhibition, though. With the weather taking a sharp turn toward autumn, I don't know how many more excursions we'll manage to pack in before things get too damp and dreary out.

I suppose I ought to wander off. Just thought I'd toss a quick post to keep this thing from getting too stagnant. (Oh, the deer photo was taken from my car window a couple mornings ago on the way to work. The young buck stood by rather placidly while I clicked away with my purse camera. Rather considerate, all things considered.)