You're Doing It Wrong

Portland food trucks. I am a big fan of Caspian Kabob which colleague and I refer to as Narnia.

Today is the last day that I gave myself to be 100% no worries about the book. Yesterday I felt under the weather and spent the entire day in bed reading or in front of the TV. I’m not sure if I was really fighting off something or my body was like: enough already. We’re taking a day off.

Today I started by trying a new exercise program that was super fun and upon completion I lost 90% of the feeling and strength in my arms. I spent the rest of the day trying to get caught up on 1000 things like defrosting the chest freezer (done!) and flipping my closet so the winter stuff is put away and warm weather stuff is up front. I’m still woefully behind on administrivia.

I like the stickie notes for the computer desktop and when I have something to deal with later I paste to a sticky note. Right now I have at least 15 stickie notes on the desktop which is too many. I took a screenshot that I was going to post but I think there are passwords and other stuff that you don’t want to just blurt out to the world. I need to reel in the stickie notes.

Also when I’m writing I create tons of files and I have a system(ish) but I’ve completely ignored it lately so I have files all over the place that I need to rename and redate and put in a place where I can find them if I need them.

That sort of stuff.

Tomorrow I’m back at it. I have tidying up on the manuscript that I can do without early reader feedback. And I have to write the blurb and strategize my release. There is no shortage of things to do.

RE: Garden

It’s too chilly for the tomatoes to do anything. The rest of it is raging. I have sunflowers taking over. A lot of my greens have already bolted but they’re so pretty I’ve left them. Looks like surprise(!) potatoes are happening. The pumpkin/squash situation is looking good. The berry patch has been neglected and still is going nuts. I’m hoping to clean up out there tomorrow afternoon.

I went to take pictures of the garden and look: raspberries! I’m going to pick tomorrow.

Book #3 out of all written, or #2 in the series I’m working on, has just gone off to beta readers. Whew!

Estimated release date is first week of September — but we’ll see.

For weeks I have ignored every other aspect of life so I am going to spend a week letting my brain grow back and getting organized and doing some pleasure reading and paying attention to the yard. Then I need to plot for the new release.

These stupid things are eating my dahlias. I have about 30 scraps of paper on my desk of things I need to do and dealing with these monsters is at the top of the list.

More updates soon.

This weekend I completed my fixing the continuity issues pass on my manuscript. Next weekend I have to proofread and clean up for the first readers and then it’s out the door for a month.

I have made a list of about 500 things that I plan to do during that time which is hilarious because I still need to prep for the promotional part and I will never get most of those things done. I should make the list say: read books and sit on couch for a better chance of success.

But, feels good to see forward motion on the manuscript. I have struggled with this one and I’m not super confident but I feel better about it.

These are tomatoes my cousin sent me. They came in a box and I was not sure how this would work but they were well packed and looked fine upon arrival. The directions said if you couldn’t plant immediately then repot and I didn’t have time for either because I was headed out of town but I made time for planting.

It was supposed to be hot over the weekend so I was worried I would return to shriveled bits but they doubled in size. I will shop for tomatoes like this in the future. The plants I put out that I sprouted on my window sill look terrible. I have to keep the windows closed or I can hear them screaming.

Garden is in good shape. I have lots of sunflowers and a few greens, beets, carrots, pumpkins and potatoes out there.

You may find it hard to believe but I have completely lost track of what I’m doing here.

I thought I had photos of my flowers out front all cropped and ready to post. Instead, I found this one tulip photo.

I wasn’t overwhelmed with my tulips this year. They were okay-pretty. But there have been years where I drove up and thought: my flowers are so amazing. Then I would get out of the car and stand there and admire them.

This year I thought maybe they suffered from too much rain. Does that happen? I also buy the cheapest bulbs. Maybe that’s the problem?

All the flowers out front are long gone. There are still a few tulips in the back and the irises are just coming in. Last year we had crazy hot weather just as the irises came out and that was the end of that.

Should we be so lucky this year.

I think I’ve mentioned that house across the street I refer to as the bro house.

Our cool neighbors moved and a couple of years later we still haven’t figured out what’s going on there. I am not the world’s most outgoing neighbor but I at least wave. No person who lives (stays) there has ever even made eye contact with me.

It is not a large house — I think maybe 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. The basement was unfinished last time I was there. Small yard. I think I have identified two regular residents (bros). One guy has a dog. There are any number of cars coming and going from that house. Different cars parked overnight – most of them black SUVs. Mostly guys but occasionally women.

I don’t think it’s drugs. Nothing about it seems like drugs. I’m wondering if there’s a company where people travel a lot and this is the place to crash when they’re in town? They’ve had a few parties but generally nothing to complain about — just odd situation.

About 6 weeks ago they woke me up at 2:40am on a Friday night (Saturday morning). I assumed it must be a sweetheart quarrel – why else would people be talking outside in the middle of the night? But then the following week, they woke me up at the exact same time. I could hear car doors slam and people drive off. Bob said it must be a party breaking up but why would the party break up at the same time each week?

I came up with the idea that maybe someone has an early shift and they are headed to work. Except why they stand around outside talking before going off to work?

The following week it happened again, same time. But I haven’t heard them since.

It’s a mystery.

This isn’t particularly relevant to where I’m at in my process, but so I can feel like I’m making forward progress I’ll post my latest stat:

The manuscript that ate my brain:

A few years ago I decided to round up all the little dishes and boxes of coins we have around here and roll them and take them to the bank.

The bank said: you don’t have to roll coin.

They emptied out all my rolls, brought me the empty papers and then put my coins in a machine.

We have accumulated a lot of coins again so I threw them in a bag so I could take them to the bank. I told colleague what I was up to and he, too, brought in a giant bag of coins. More than that even.

We merrily took off for the bank with giant heavy bags of coins. When we arrived, the bank said: we were the last [of this] bank in the country to have coin machines but we got rid of them a couple of weeks ago. You can roll them and bring them back.

We brought our heavy bags of money to lunch and then carried them back to the office and rolled our coin. We ran out and I went back to the bank and announced we needed more rolling papers.

In the end colleague turned in $124 and we had $71.