My parents recently adopted a malamute named Nova Scotia, and she's super sweet. She's three, so she's very high energy and tends to bowl over the other dogs. I have to separate them sometimes because she plays rough and has puppy manners. For example, earlier this week she sat on Tundra's head and chewed on … Continue reading A Gift to Scotia’s People
My husband and I have been working with two of our friends on getting them their Griffons in Guild Wars 2. It's a laundry list of 'buy this' and 'buy that' and 'complete this and that group event'. It's the group events that have been the problem because we have no idea how to get … Continue reading If It’s Not on One Server Try the Next
I'm not the world's best chef, and that's pretty well known. In High School my friends teased me mercilessly for burning a pot of water and for putting a fork through my middle finger when preparing a meal. But I try. I'm not afraid to try. The results are hit or miss, but I try. … Continue reading In Which I Am NOT the World’s Best Cook
I have a sobering post here today. It's entirely my fault. I got sloppy backing up my novel, and it's only pure luck that it wasn't worse. I lost one of the recent scenes I've been working on. Literally a week and a half of working on it, and I didn't bother to back it … Continue reading Let Us Discuss the Importance of Back Ups
My in-laws have an dog named Aasha. She’s sweet and borky, but she doesn’t like other dogs, violently so. We always kennel Tundra when we go to see them. She’s old and tired. She has some form of pituitary cancer, but they can’t do anything about it. She drinks and drinks and drinks but then … Continue reading Aasha Baasha
There's no photos this time because I didn't remember to bring my camera. My dad and I drove up to our family cemetery in Sparta, Wisconsin. We're related to about 75% of the people buried there, and it's where I hope to be buried some day. (After being cremated, because rotting grosses me out.) Every … Continue reading Family Cemetery Visit
I don't talk about work on this blog, partially because I work with people's personal information, partially because I don't want people hunting my blog down and asking me questions here, and partially because it's a family business, and I try not to share stories that I don't have everyone's permission for. That said, let … Continue reading Positive Feedback, Ya’ll
I don't show it often, but I have a big white board (it's actually white board vinyl taped to the wall) where I sort out my next writing steps. I let it get a little dated and only updated to show when I finished a How to Revise Your Novel section. Note that this link … Continue reading Sorting My Kanban Board for Revising
A friend of the family went into hospice this year and passed away. It was a whole debacle involving an estranged son and conflict and just, UGH. That's not the story though. The friend passed, and the son was supposed to clear out her apartment. He took his time about it, and when he finally … Continue reading Who Would Sink So Low?!?
I've been following my favorite author on her Facebook page, and one of the things that really impresses me (other than her amazing books and genuine care for her fans) is that she treats her writing like a business. It's not a nine to five - she gets up in the afternoon and works until … Continue reading Treating Writing as a Business
I've started using an online writing tool to up my word count: 4thewords. You can find it here if you want to take a look. Right now I'm outlining, but it forces me to sit down and work on it daily. There's a one month free trial, and after that a month's worth of their … Continue reading Writing Tools: 4TheWords
A lot of the time, when you're writing, you're writing into a void. No one sees your words but you for months and months while you draft and do the first round of revisions. It's lonely. It's hard to see what you have on your hands because you have no distance from it. Is it … Continue reading When You Write, You Write Into a Void
I've started slowly going through my stuff in the basement. You know how it is - you pack to move, move, and then just never get to the last few boxes. No multiply this by ten moves now, and there are QUITE a few boxes that made it into my basement and no further. I … Continue reading What Have I Got in My Boxes?
This is a long story but there are cute puppy videos at the end, I promise! My parents have been looking for a new female Alaskan Malamute to keep Joe, their Husky, company. When he came to their house, they had Mariah, who was elderly. They got along after she put him in his place … Continue reading Meet My Parents’ New Fluffer, Nova Scotia!
I had an interesting conversation with my dad the other day, and I mentioned some of the best decisions I've ever made, ones that have paid forward and paid forward and make my life better today, so here's some musings on that. Warning: It's a long one. The choices: Reading the Dave Ramsey book my … Continue reading The Best Decisions I’ve Ever Made
Are you an author? Forget all the snobby definitions of what you Must Have To Be An Author. If you write, you're an author, and if you write more than once in a blue moon, a writing tracker is a HUGE HELP. For years, I've fumbled along with my excel spreadsheets, constantly breaking them, but … Continue reading Writing Trackers
I commissioned some artwork from Ina Wong on DeviantArt for the cover of my Young Adult Urban Fantasy novel, 'Still Water'. You can find her here on DeviantArt, and her work is AMAZING. I gave her a basic description of the main character, indicated she would need to be muscled like a swimmer, and let … Continue reading Take a Sneak Peek at My Cover Art!
If you know us at all, you know we have an adorable floof that we dote on. (cute artsy picture of floof) (actual photo of floof) Now that I've shown you his cute, I want to talk about the Vaccine Trial he's in. Three Universities are testing a Cancer Vaccine for dogs, and we signed … Continue reading Participating in a Cancer Vaccine Trial for Dogs
When I hear an animal or bird has gone extinct I'm sad, but in a distant way. Have I ever seen or heard of this species? Am I sad just on principal? I've never cried over it. More often I'm angry about it. Until I found this bird species' last song. This is the Kauai … Continue reading Kauai O’o: Extinction
My mom began having hip pain and difficulties walking about three months ago, and it progressed so that she could barely stand even with a walker. She was in a LOT of pain. She had me check, and when I pressed where she said it hurt it went 'crunch'. Nothing in your hip should go … Continue reading EDS – Even I Can Tell Something’s Wrong Here
My aunt passed after a three year battle with cancer. She had lung cancer, we thought it was beat, it returned and spread. They got to a point where further treatment was futile and a struggle for her, and she stopped treatment. We visited her a few times before Christmas, but then Covid came, and … Continue reading Goodbye to My Aunt
Super short post because of the holiday, but the company who runs 4thewords? I messaged them tearfully to ask if there was any way to recover the words I overwrote. I included the gist of the first line just in case they were able to look. No response. BUT!!! I sat down to use the … Continue reading Huzzah!
Today is Wednesday, and I'm meal prepping for Thanksgiving. I know a lot of people aren't able to celebrate, but we have an odd situation in our households... Odd as in we work upstairs in the office in their house. We go over to their house almost daily to work, see my mom and dad … Continue reading An Early Happy Thanksgiving~!
