Since this came up in another post, I thought I'd make a list for you. Kaler Born - written when I was 14, this is my biggest dumpster fire of a book! 75,000 words. Shields of Magic - mostly written in notes passed back and forth with a friend, age 15. 30,000 words. Familiar - … Continue reading How Many Books Have I Drafted?
My desk got a little out of hand. I have a desk (more like a repurposed small kitchen table) I use for the computer, and a desk sitting by my Kanban board for projects that I want to do without the computer taking up space. It was a mess, stacked deep in items I tossed … Continue reading Cleaning Up My Work Space
I'm practicing painting gouache over existing drawings, but to do that I have to first have existing drawings! So, here are a few sketches I've done while working on how I want to sketch with these tools. Hamrib Art on YouTube gave me the inspiration. She does amazing gouache work over her pen sketches, and … Continue reading Sketch Dump
It took FOREVER to type up all the post-it notes, but here is my completed Kanban Board from the HB90 class for quarter four of this year! You can see I've narrowed my focus for the quarter from the ridiculous list of things I WANTED to get down to the highest priority/biggest impact items. Outlining … Continue reading Kanban Board from HB90 for Quarter Four
First of all, I tried to make a cute picture in Midjourney AI, and the wolf/couch mix you see above is the hilarious result that I just HAD to share. Tundra tends to have tantrums and destroy our couch. This time he made his best cute face after. And then to show more of the … Continue reading Cute Tundra After a Couch Tantrum – Photos Within
I'm working on Sarra Cannon's HB90 class right now, and I just reached the goal setting section. So far it's been eye opening, and she's had us clearly delineate how much time we have for things in a realistic fashion. She limits you to THREE goals, clearly stated, with measurable results. She says that too … Continue reading Goals and Reality in the HB90 Class.
If you're interested in reading my novel, Still Water, I have a review campaign going on at Booksprout. FOR READERS: this is FREE to join website and only requires that you leave a review in return for reading whatever books you choose from the website. This is great for folks who don't have a lot … Continue reading Free Copy of My Book for Reviewers on Booksprout!
Taking my class, I ran across the idea of running ad promotions and the techniques involved. So I looked at the provided links, and it turns out that some of the popular platforms really aren't that expensive, Bargain Booksy for example, which is flagged on multiple lists as a 'buy whenever your 30 days waiting … Continue reading Booksy Ads
I have an AlphaSmart Neo 2, and I love it. Previously I had the original AlphaSmart in high school. FreeWrite has some similar products, but the price tag on them made them an automatic NO. We're talking $600+ for an item that doesn't do much more than an AlphaSmart Neo 2... which I might note … Continue reading I Don’t Think You Got the Memo, FreeWrite
First of all, this is NOT an affiliate link. Second of all, the only reason we bought a mattress is because our current mattress now has a class action lawsuit for having fiberglass in it. More importantly, the instructions on it say to take off the cover and wash it... leaving fiberglass all over the … Continue reading We Bought a Purple Mattress
Taking all of the classes I'm doing right now has thrown a wrench in my plans for writing this fall. So, here is what I'm currently planning to do. This is of mild interest to most folks, at best, but makes myself accountable here, in front of you. Biggest priority: Writing three short stories, one … Continue reading My New Writing Plan for this Fall
A few of the preparedness types that I follow have been aggravated by a study done through Cornell University and FEMA. A study on preppers. First of all, here is the study in full. And here is a break down of interesting data from a prepper site. They point out some differences between the standard … Continue reading FEMA Does What Now?
If you're an author, and you want to buy ONE class on how to publish, I'm thinking Sarra Cannon's Publish and Thrive is the one. I'm 100% serious about this. I spent all weekend at my in-laws' house, and there was nothing to do, so I was going hard at her class and... wow. So … Continue reading Publish and Thrive
I haven't always been financially stable. At my sickest, I was living off of the kindness of friends and the food pantry, and I remember vividly how hard that was. I also remember the ridiculous number of can of green beans I got every week. (Green beans have very few calories, and I can't eat … Continue reading What Should I Bring to the Food Pantry? 9 Essential Items You Wouldn’t Expect
Since I'm having surgery soon, when my doctor offered a chance to have help filling out a medical power of attorney, I jumped on it. It sounds really intimidating, but it wasn't bad at all. I think the entire appointment took half an hour, and a lot of that is because I already knew what … Continue reading Medical Power of Attorney
Tomorrow I have a consult for getting my tubes tied. With EDS, any surgery can be a huge risk, and while we've known for years, my husband and I, that we don't want kids, we had avoided doing the surgery because of the risk. I have an IUD, it works well, and for years abortion … Continue reading Consult for Surgery
With the cooler weather this week, I pulled old plants and planted anew for my fall garden. They're coming up! Radishes coming up! The carrots take a little longer. *smile* Beans! The peas aren't quite ready yet. ALL THE LETTUCE! Along with some stragglers that self seeded. This tower is swiss chard, onions, and perpetual … Continue reading Fall Seeding Garden Update!
We bought a new standing freezer for food storage from my garden, and I'm slowly filling it. That said, the set up we had for it was awkward. Even with my chair pushed in all the way at the kitchen table, the door didn't want to open far enough to let us take things out … Continue reading My Freezer Don’t Fit
I am taking a RIDICULOUS number of online classes right now related to publishing and advertising, and they're going well. A bit further down I'll break down which ones I'm taking. I mean, they're a huge time sink, but I'm liking them so far. Which is kind of funny because I hated college. I love … Continue reading Take ALL the Classes!
I have never complained to a store about their product. My mom has. My husband has. My brother has. But most of the time I just chill and deal with it. Or maybe write a rant on my blog and move on. **coughNintendocough** But, I can no longer say that as of today because my … Continue reading First Ever Customer Complaint
My in-laws were kind enough to gift me a hammock for my birthday! I immediately set it up, and the only place I could was between the pig pen and my deck, but whatever. The pen doesn't smell, and the neighbors already think I'm weird. I can relax and talk to Ollie! And of course … Continue reading Hammock for My Birthday!
My husband preordered Xenoblade 3's special edition. This means he spent months waiting for the page to go live, dropped everything when the notification from our watch site came through, and spent four hours sitting in queue, but he finally was able to buy it. Many, MANY people didn't get to and were left disappointed. … Continue reading Nintendo, Really?
Happy Birthday to Mom! Happy Birthday to my father-in-law! Happy Birthday to me! Today is the day between all of our birthdays, and we celebrated with the in-laws on Saturday and my family on Sunday! No celebrations today, and I spent most of the day working and cleaning, but ya'll. I got a hammock for … Continue reading All the Birthdays~!
My garden was featured on Provident Prepper on YouTube! I saw that they covered several handicap accessible gardens that solved things differently than I did, so I messaged them with photos of my garden and an explanation of how I work around my disabilities to keep gardening. They asked for film. I sent them film. … Continue reading Featured on a YouTube Channel!
So... I'm taking a class on Amazon ads. And I dutifully did my homework and set up an ad and put it in for moderation. It was flagged for my book being EROTICA. Ya'll. Ya'll, you've seen my blog. You might have read my book. Can you visualize me writing erotica, much less sharing it … Continue reading Amazon Ads
My blog has reached 800 posts as of this one, so yay me for being consistent! I have been posting since early 2017, three times a week, with only a handful of misses. All things considered I'm doing pretty well! So, yay me! *confetti*
We busted our tails this weekend to clean up and weed the garden this last weekend, so here are some photos! My squash are struggling and infested, so they don't look great. From one end of the garden: From the other end of the garden: The Greenstalks from one end: The other end: It's been … Continue reading Garden Update!
I've had a grow set up in my closet for the longest time for starting my plants inside in the spring. The other wall is food storage buckets, and there were cords EVERYWHERE for the grow lights. It was a tight squeeze, a mess, and I kept trying to clothesline myself with the cords. This … Continue reading Redoing My Closet Storage!
We have a very large Alaskan Malamute, and his FAVORITE FOOD EVAH is tomatoes. When my tomatoes weren't ripe yet, all was well, but he figured out that there were some red ones, and this happened: Look at this mess. It's a dog sized area that is 100% flattened. So, my husband looked over the … Continue reading SOME DOG Ate My Tomatoes – A Solution
We bought a baby nectarine tree! It actually arrived last week, but I was keeping it comfortable in our greenhouse while I waited for the digger's hotline folks to mark up our property. I definitely don't want to be hitting anything buried when we plant things. So, we planted it and put chicken wire around … Continue reading A Baby Nectarine Tree and Garden Updates
There was a GreenStalk sale, and the two new ones I ordered have arrived! I also ordered bases, the plant supports, and a frost cover, not shown in this photo. And I processed food today. The pound or so of tomatoes went to my neighbor who traded a jar of canned venison for them. I … Continue reading GreenStalks and Tomatoes and Venison, Oh My!
Pitted a pound and a quarter of cherries. I put them to freeze until I have enough to make a sauce. Then I wiped down everything that had been splattered with cherry juice. ... or at least I thought I did. My husband took this photo to show I missed a few spots. *smile* And … Continue reading In the Cherry Pitting Trenches
I pitted my first batch of cherries, and let me tell you, if you want an axe murderer costume for Halloween? Pit some cherries. They're tiny little Nanking cherries, and I found that squeezing the pit out one side was the easiest way to work with them, but about every tenth cherry would squirt cherry … Continue reading Cherry Pitting
I downloaded a new piece of software AND paid for some of the modules on their website so that my chronicler and I could sort the data from my novels, so let's have a look-see, hey? The website is at https://www.campfirewriting.com/ and you can pick and choose which writing modules you want. The software is … Continue reading Looking at the Campfire Website and Software
This isn't all of them - I have quite a few on 'notify me when in stock', but this is the main order. It was HAAAAARD to limit myself, but there are no more than two types of any vegetable. For your oogling pleasure: There are a few items I ordered through Burpee as well, … Continue reading Next Year’s Seeds Have Arrived!
The garden has been growing like crazy, but until this week, all I really had to eat was lettuce. Now, the lettuce has bolted, but I'm seeing flowers on my vines and some vegetables! The corn has tassles! There are peas: Strawberries have been coming in off and on, and I've eaten about eight of … Continue reading Finally, Signs of Food!
I planted Nanking Cherries several years ago, and while they bloomed last year, a late frost killed all of the blossoms. This year though, I have cherries! I crawled around under them, and this is about a third of what's in there. I left what wasn't ripe to ripen, obviously. It's not a lot, and … Continue reading Our First Cherry Harvest!
My kindle was out of juice, so I didn't have my reference photos and ended up snagging a photo off the shelves to paint. I turned out all right, but something went horribly wrong with mom's face, as evidenced by my husband saying 'is that supposed to be your mom?'. *facepalm* Plus the gouache is … Continue reading First Attempt at Gouache
Friday garden update time! These pictures were actually taken on Sunday because I do my blog posts on Sunday, so they're delayed a week or so. BUT! Behold, my green thumb. In the greenhouse! Tea, sequoia, vanilla orchid, coffee, bay laurel, mint, some seedlings, and an aloe vera that has had just a tad too … Continue reading Grow All the Things!
Looking at the warnings that we'll have rolling black outs all summer, and the fact that we have FOUR freezers now... we bought a second Jackery. We actually bought the first Jackery in March or so when it became clear black outs were a threat. Here it is: It came with four solar panels AND … Continue reading We Bought a(nother) Jackery
My debit card expires this month. I'd been waiting patiently for the new card, but it never arrived, and when I went to check the banking website this week, it says it should have arrived in May. There are no transactions I didn't recognize, and I don't activate a card until I'm holding it, so … Continue reading Bank Aggravation
This week we've been frantically pawning lettuce off on anyone who wants some because with how cool the weather has been it's been growing faster than I can eat it. It's raining today, so I didn't go out to take garden photos. That said, some of the strawberries in my tower died, and the ones … Continue reading Friday Garden Update – Strawberries!
Our freezers have been full for a while, and anticipating garden influxes, we decided that buying a good sized standing freezer would be our best option rather than try to fit another small chest freezer. We intended to trade the chest freezer it was replacing to my brother. I went to the nearest Menards on … Continue reading We Bought a New Freezer!
I've been busy this last week, even if I was feeling pretty awful. I got TWO of Holly's How to Revise Your Novel lessons done: And I'm plugging along on lesson 8. And then, I've fallen in love with watching artists paint in gouache, so much so that my husband is getting me a set … Continue reading Creative Update
Today is my Friday Garden Update, and the only real bad news I have is that deer bit off the top of some of my watermelon and didn't even have the grace to eat them, just dropped them on the straw bales and left them to die. *scowl* Sunflowers and chives are happy: Buckwheat is … Continue reading AGH! Deer in My Garden
I'm plugging along on the novel I'm outlining, working title 'Girlie'. Yes, my working titles are terrible. I never settle on what I want the final title to be until I'm done with the novel, and then it's a battle. The inspiration for this one, that I didn't save because I'm an idiot, is from … Continue reading Weekly Writing Update
It rained heavily for a few days here, and I went out after the second day and opened my driver's side car door. Water sloshed out. *facepalm* So off to the shop she went. I mopped up what I could with towels first, but they dried it all out and hunted down the drains that … Continue reading Car in the Shop Again
I think I need to consolidate my gardening posts into ONE post a week, so I'm working on that, and I am to drop them on Fridays. Here's my garden photos! Strawberries looking good: Green onions almost ready to pick: Happy Chives! Tomato beds have some flowers on them now! Lots of peppers and basil … Continue reading Friday Garden Update
Here's a random cute for you! I startled a baby bunny, and the foolish thing wasn't smart enough to be scared of me. I got both photos AND video! Some close ups: It wasn't even the size of my hand yet. Closer look: AND I GOT VIDEO. So go here for some cute video of … Continue reading Bun Bun in My Garden Has No Fear
I was gone over the weekend, and I came back to an explosion of growth in my vining seed trays! I mean, LOOK at this! They only have to get a tad bigger before I'll start transplanting them into the straw bales. I'll make mounds of soil for them to grow out of though, no … Continue reading Plan B Is in Progress!
I have my whole straw bale set up, and I planted it with potatoes aaaaaand..... They died. Rotted in the bales. *headdesk* So. Plan B. Grow ALL the vines! I'm hoping that growing a bunch of vining plants off the bales will help tear them up some. Here's most of what I planted, sans cucumber … Continue reading Well, the Potatoes Died. Time for Plan B!
I'm planning out what I want to achieve for the next few months, and so here is a photo of my Kanban board. Two sections of the board are for my current novel in revisions, 'Murky Water'. The HTRYN Lessons are the class I use to evaluate and set up to revise my novel, and … Continue reading Planning on My Kanban Board
We've had JUST about enough of my dog getting tangled in the hose with his lead, so we finally folded and bought a hose reel. It's installed. It's hard for me to bend over and reel it up, BUT it's a lot harder to untangle and uncooperative dog from a hose. So, what do you … Continue reading Hose Reel
I have seven GreenStalk planters, and this is my first real attempt at growing in them outdoors. I tried indoors, but without being able to drain the bottom easily, I ended up with fungus gnats that killed everything. As a group. I planted the bottom tier on most of them with a vining plant. This … Continue reading The GreenStalks Are Taking Off
I have most of my plants in the garden now, excepting my replacement plantings for the potatoes. The potatoes are not potatoeing, so I'm looking at putting in watermelon and pumpkins and such in those bales to try and loosen them enough for another try next year. First, my green onions. I don't want them … Continue reading Planted ALL THE THINGS~!
It's warm enough now that I wanted to start hardening off my plants and evicted them from my closet. Of course, the smallest ones stayed under the grow lights because they're just babies, but the big ones? Especially the tomatoes? Out you go! On the left bottom, the rocks holding it in place. In the … Continue reading Moved My Plants Into the Greenhouse
Garden update time! I seeded six of my seven GreenStalk planters. The nice part was that I could sit in a chair or stand to do most of the work. I used wax pencils to write on them. Varying colors depending on the planter. The wax pencil is holding up to the rain and watering … Continue reading I Have Seeded the GreenStalks!
Okay, this totally needed photos! We already had this feeder on the existing Shephard's hook. My mom gifted my husband with this one: And so I got him a matching one because hummingbirds will fight to the death over a feeder: And of course, if you have hummingbird feeders, you have to have oriole feeders … Continue reading My Husband Put Up Bird Feeders!
Because the top of the wood box my husband made is particle board for now, he painted it to resist the weather a bit better. And then, he went through our wood pile of wood and brush and broke it down! The big, useful-but-won't-fit bits are to the side. Look how neatly it fits: Here's … Continue reading Updates on the Wood Box
My compost thermometer finally arrived, and you KNOW I immediately upon unboxing ran outside and tested my straw bales. These ones, as a reminder: Anywho, they were ALL over 100 degrees, and two topped out at the goal temperature of 140 degrees! They're peaking, so as they cool a little I'll be able to plant … Continue reading 140 Degrees for the WIN!
My apricot trees are blooming! Yay! They're blooming way to early! Not so yay. So, send some well wishes to the weather that we don't get a hard frost. Because I'd actually like fruit this year. Please be nice, Wisconsin weather!
