Category Archives: doing it wrong

This is Roxy. She lives in Marysville and her dad is the one that gave me my epic tomato plants.

Here’s a not great photo of the latest harvest. More about my tomatoes in the days to come.

Not long ago I was here complaining about everyone doing it wrong. I have been yanking my hair out dealing with banks and technology. I don’t see how this is easier than writing a check and putting it in an envelope.

We had one more hour long phone call to get Bob added to my bank account. Then they Fedexed a debit card which I stole and hid because he’s not going to use it. Then I finally linked the savings for overdraft which was the point of this whole stupid thing.

Meanwhile, I tried ride-sharing. I have ride-shared when other people paid but this was the first time I paid and I was not impressed since they charged me double what they charge ticket partner after a Timbers match. I complained and they explained I had to pay a premium rate. Which again, ticket partner has never been charged a premium rate. So I asked them to close my account.

*Then* they credited me the premium charge. I still closed the account and then got a fraud alert on my credit card, which is through Bob’s pile of money. The alert went to him. I didn’t know and I got an alarm from my cellphone carrier that I hadn’t paid.

ARGH.

I spent an hour of my Saturday morning unraveling that mess.

The next door neighbor issue is that somehow, even with a tight housing market, we lucked out and now the everybody-crash-here house is next door. I’ve counted at least 10 different vehicles parked over there in 3 weeks. They are mostly silent except from 9pm to 4am on Friday and Saturday nights. If we keep the windows closed it’s okay. But it’s the tiny wedge in the calendar when we can enjoy open windows. So far no one has been especially friendly with some pointed eye contact avoidance. I’m still hoping we can get to know them and maybe it will be okay.

I’m not even going to start on the legal book sellers. I was able to do my business with a phone call which would have been helpful to know before I was in the endless looping chaos of their websites.

I have a VERY IMPORTANT soccer match starting in 1 minute so I have to run.

My Urban Indian Romance Book #1 is on a free promotion right now. If you or someone you know might like this info, links are here.

Just in case anyone missed my endless social media flogging, I had a new story come out this week. Here’s the link:

Skinny Charlie’s Orbiting Teepee.

And in other author news, I finally have an announcement about book 2: It will be here September 5.

I finished the last bits today and put it all together. I need to double check the files and take a break to rest my eyeballs in a gentle saline solution. I’ve been staring at the screen too long.

I’ve been dying to write a long rant about my bank but since I had a story come out, I didn’t want that to be the top post. But now that the furor has passed, I’ll go ahead.

Every couple has to figure out their own way to share money. Our general attitude is that it’s both of our money, but we keep it in separate piles. For my main separate pile I had Bob on the savings but I opened the checking later so he wasn’t on that. (Spoiler alert: he’s still not on it.)

The bank sent me a notice that they automatically enrolled me in their overdraft protection program. I did not want to be automatically enrolled in anything. Since I have a savings account, I wanted that to be my overdraft protection.

I logged into that account and commenced with the clicking and the clicking. It kept telling me I don’t have a savings account.

Later, when I had time to dick around, I phoned. They said, you have to have the same people on the checking account and the savings account if you want to link them.

So I logged back in and commenced with the clicking until I sent Bob an invitation to join the checking account. He received no invite. We did this for two rounds before we found time to both sit in the room at the same time and phone them again.

Turns out Bob did not have an email account linked to the savings so who knows where they were sending the invitation.

We were on the phone with them for 45 minutes. I have no idea what the problem was. Something something credit card. We don’t have a credit card. Bob reading off endless data for their files. We finally begged to end the call, we have lives.

Last I checked, Bob is still pending to be added to the account. I still don’t know what’s what. All this so I can use my savings as overdraft protection. Number of purchases I have overdrafted in my lifetime: 0.

I have many more people who are doing it wrong for future stories. Terrible legal booksellers? New story on that. The rental house next door? Funny you should ask.

More details to come.

My sweetheart has a medical procedure this week that requires dietary prep including 24 hours of fasting later this week. Pray for us!

I’ve got the okay to stay home tomorrow during the eclipse-o-pocalypse. Everyone enjoy your moon on sun action.

We had a couple of baby raccoons hanging out several weeks ago. I took both these terrible pictures from inside the house. They make cute little chittering sounds. I was a little worried about them wandering around during the daylight but it’s nature. I’m sure they’re fine. Someone has been chewing on the pumpkins out front.

The write-a-thon is finished. I finished everything I wanted to but not as much as I hoped.

I’m not going to work too hard next month on new stuff but I will be prepping all the stuff to get the book published.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed. Last figure I saw they’d raised over $18,000.

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.