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

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Interlude with Hummingbird





Because there's an ugly rumor that that danged Evening! Magazine segment is airing tonight, and I need to distract myself. (It could be a false alarm - the website's calling a behind-the-scenes of the Seattle library, and we're the county library system. Or maybe they're just idiots...)

For the curious, Grandpa finally went home from the hospital. They're still adjusting meds, but he's doing much better than he was.

(EDIT - Yes, it was tonight. And they botched my name - twice. Ergh... but at least it's over with.)

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

The March Procrastination Post


Dang, it's March already? Who approved that? I still haven't finished half the stuff I meant to get done in February. Or January. Or the whole of 2012, for that matter...

Well, as stated, the primary purpose of this post is to procrastinate. I have a story in revisions that I'm stalled out on, a short story I'm struggling to finish, and half a hundred other projects large and small waiting, with varying degrees of patience, in the mental queue.

For the curious (all none of you, I'm sure), Domino's doing a little better than he was. He didn't respond to the medication that should've worked for inflammatory bowel disease, implying that it is, unfortunately, something more complicated... something that it doesn't make sense to pursue too aggressively in a 17-year-old cat who is otherwise happy. The next medicine the vet tried interacted poorly with his heart murmur. So now he's on pills for congestive heart failure, and a special diet that might or might not be helping with his intestinal issues. (He has his good days and his bad days, but at least he's almost always made it to the litter box.) Domino's taking the new routine fairly well, though I had to start giving Orion treats when I pill his brother; he was jealous of all the extra attention Dom was getting. I just hope he doesn't get any ideas from this - he's 17, too...

I'm closing in on my 1000th book review over at Brightdreamer Books, but plans to give the main site a facelift and overhaul are on hold. I downloaded a discounted website editing program (WebPlus Pro X5, on clearance) earlier this year, only to realize that I'm far too rusty at WYSIWYG editors to even contemplate a large-scale project like that. (I'm also balking at the raw, nitpicky work of transferring over 900 pages into a new program; WebPlus Pro doesn't have an import feature for HTML, apparently.) However, I'm not giving up entirely. I just need to play with the thing enough to get comfortable with it. I also want to come up with new graphics to go with the site overhaul, and I haven't even begun designing that.

Work continues to be worklike. I'm keeping an eye peeled for secondary income opportunities, but so far haven't found anything that wouldn't require giving up my current job, or at least my current shift. I won't do that unless I'm guaranteed to make up the monetary difference. Oh, and that Evening! Magazine segment on the library shipping center has a tentative, maybe-possibly airdate sometime during National Library Week in April. (I didn't know there was such a thing. Neither did my boss.) Here's hoping they find something more thrilling to air... like, say, a five-part segment on lint recycling.

As I type, Grandpa's back in the hospital, hopefully only for a day or two. He started having trouble breathing a few weeks ago, linked to his congestive heart failure. Hopefully, it's just a matter of adjusting medication; that's helped in the past. While he's there, he's getting an echocardiogram to make sure everything's going okay. We're waiting to hear updates now.

And, as mentioned earlier, I've been working on improving my writing, both in quality and quantity. My goal is to start submitting something - even short stories or flash fictions - by midyear, and to get at least one of my existing monstrosities edited to beta-stage before 2014. (That used to seem like such a long time in the future, didn't it?) That's actually a large part of why I haven't started designing new web graphics; my creative energy has almost entirely been diverted to writing. My sketchbook sits forlornly in the corner, waiting for attention, while I pound away on my keyboard committing untold literary atrocities. Whether or not the trade-off's worth it remains to be seen...

I suppose that's all for now. Time to head over to Word 2010, open up a story file, and see if I can squeeze a few more words out of my scattered brain before it's time to fool with dinner.

 (Top photo taken at the heron rookery off of a local Park & Ride; bottom taken at a nearby eagle nest.)