Interlude with Crozier

 Because spring isn't spring without the annual re-fronding of the family ferns.

Not much of note has happened. The cats seem to be holding their own.  Mother finally had her cataract operation, and is getting used to life without glasses (having worn them since grade school, it's a bit of an adjustment.) Dad goes to a specialist in early May to deal with an early-stage skin cancer spot; the doctor wasn't overly stressed, so I'm hopeful it's the easily-treatable kind. And I've been fighting pushy cats, projects, and my own procrastination to try to finish a story. Any story, at this point. With luck, I'll have something to show for it by the end of the month.

I've also been on a spring cleaning/culling kick. It's eaten into writing time, but it desperately needs doing. Decluttering's supposed to help increase energy flow and idea generation, too, and I could use all the help I can get on that front. So far, I've tossed a good-sized can's worth of recycling and junk, and amassed an exceptionally heavy box for Half Price Books. I know I have more to go, but I needed to do all that just to reach the rest of it.

Guess that's it for now.

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.)

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.)

Interlude with Hawk

Just a quick post to remind myself that I'm still alive... and that raptors are cool. This, sadly, counts as a good photograph of one by my standards.

As for what I've been up to... eh, not much. Domino has been having Issues which may or may not be manageable with medication (inflammatory bowel disease... if he's lucky, and it's not lymphoma.) I've been having trouble getting story revisions done, due in no small part to the aforementioned ongoing feline health issues sapping my energy and attention. And, thus far, there's been no word on if or when that Evening! Magazine segment will ever air. (Fine by me if it vanishes forever...)

So, all in all, I've had better Januarys. Hopefully February will be less depressing.

But, hey, at least I saw a cool hawk.