Jul
15

Saying Goodbye

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I had to say goodbye to Tumbleweed this weekend. If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know I’ve had an African pygmy hedgehog for about three years. She’s been an interesting and amusing little thing – she certainly had her own mind made up when it came to things she did or didn’t like and though she was grumpy much of the time, she still had a particular charm. However, over the last year or so, she had been slowing down. Her left hind leg began to fuse together at the knee, forcing her to walk on her hock instead of the ball of her foot. The vets had never seen that happen before, but it didn’t seem to slow her down too much at first. Over the next year I did notice that she wasn’t as active as she had been. The vets said she had… Read more
Jul
9

Change of Venue

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I’ve been stuck on a bit of writer’s block lately. While editing the latest WIP I realized I needed to overhaul some chapters (and I’m actually in the process of adding some new ones to help flesh things out.) But it’s been slower going than I’ve like. I mean, yes, I’ve added nearly 8k so far, and I suspect there will be another 10k or more by the time I’m done, but since the story was a little short when I finished it, that’s fine with me. Part of the slowness is being distracted by a lot of stuff going on in real life. I’ve been finding it difficult to retain the focus that I need to get the words down. It’s not that I don’t like the story – I’m always thinking about it and taking mental notes, sometimes writing them down – but when I actually sit down… Read more
Jul
8

Gaps

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Obviously I’ve been off the grid for a little while. Partially due to the healing process (which has gotten substantially better in the last week or so) and partially to taking my usual week at the beach hiatus. It was somewhat bittersweet this time – most of the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy has been done, but everywhere I went, there were definitely signs of damage.  Some stores remain boarded up, a few of the houses on the beach appeared to be standing on a last leg, some buildings have been reduced to empty lots. (The House of the Rising Bun, alas, has not reopened – not sure it will come back, which would be a shame. So many other landmarks are also gone – so sad.) Even the 4th of July fireworks were really subdued. I could read something poetic into that, but quite honestly so many business were affected… Read more
Jun
24

Lego Weekend

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Though I normally reserve Lego building for after book projects, I gave myself a long pass last week. Healing  being what it is, I really just wanted something that would take my mind off my pain and discomfort. So I turned to Lego – and more importantly the latest LotR Lego sets that were just released over the last several weeks. I did the Battle at the Black Gate a few weeks ago, which is rather delicious in it’s creepy factor. It even included a Mouth of Sauron minifig, which is pretty cool, considering you only saw that guy if you had the extended verison of the movies. Nice they included him.   Creepy mouth. 😉           I also did the Council of Elrond which has a really nice Rivendell palette. Lots of fun greens and golds, and finally an Arwen mini fig. I know LoTR/The… Read more
Jun
21

Crawling Out of the Hole

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It’s been a long week. The surgery went as well as could be expected on Monday – though of course, once the doc got in there and poked around…well, let’s just say they ended up rebuilding some stuff they weren’t anticipating. I’m okay, just wayyyy more sore than I expected I would be. Each day is a little better. Actually, the surgery almost didn’t happen at all. It was scheduled for 10 AM and I got to admissions at 8 AM to start the paperwork. (Keep in mind, I’d been up the entire night before and hadn’t eaten anything since midnight. I don’t sleep well before stuff like this, among other things.) By 9:40, I was STILL waiting to be admitted -because of a computer issue that had removed my doctor as an admitting physician, even though she’d been doing surgeries and procedures there for many years.  My doctor showed… Read more