Wrapping Up December 2021

  I envisioned myself blogging (and writing) much more this December than has actually happened.  Part of this is due to posting to social media more than actually blogging.  I suspect that I need to have add some time-keeping software to my apps to bring social media usage back into balance.    

To recap the last few weeks.   

Through a series of events, the Day Jobbe has expanded to full time.   It's mostly remote, and I drive in to work some days.  I am doing a combination of departmental intranet design and web site management.  It has been a reminder of how brutally insurance benefits are awarded (or not) to vested employees. 

 

Writing is going very slowly, which I find it tends to do this time of year.  

My extended family is doing mostly well and managing to stay healthy during the pandemic.  

The cats have crossed another threshold with the dog and are more likely to spend the night in the house (rather than the garage) with the dog.  The cold might have something to do with this.  They also seem more tolerant of the dog in general, and no longer zip out of a room whenever she appears.  

Smokey seems to have recovered from his earlier medical emergency.  He's still as fluffy as ever, but--whether through the medicine he's taking or through the touch of age--he is bonier than he used to be.  

On the design front:  last November I sat down and decided to see about reproducing an Islamic design I've always thought was an interesting interlocking of circles, triangles, and hexagons.  As is usual with these sorts of designs, one can make it tile infinitely.  Other design projects include designing this year's family calendar and paper projects.

Mid December

Saturday we got a tree for the house.  We usually go to a tree farm about a half-hour out of town and then tromp around.  The tree hunt started out sunny, but as we got to Fern Ridge, the clouds rolled in and it became grey.  I thought it might rain, but it didn't.  

The Friesan We Didn't See

In the past, we've managed to be at the farm the same weekend as Friesan Horses, but we missed them and had a ride around the farm in the horse trailer pulled by a tractor.  After the ride, we found a tree pretty quickly.  Mark sawed it down and we took it home.  It's in the tree stand now, soaking up water and undecorated.  The house smells like pine.

This weekend was the weekend of craft.   I think I may be peaking out on craft.

As I've been writing this in the PLC parking lot, a woman of a certain age has driven up in her red SUV with Death Metal blaring loudly enough that I can hear it clearly through her car and through my car one stall away.  Now she's sitting in the car with the engine off but the music on.  I think the song must have ended, because she's getting out.  She's in a fuchsia rain slicker, and walking away with a poinsettia in her hand, looking like Amanda King's grandmother and not like a Death Metal Rocker.  

Writing:  45 minutes of mostly editing the Tuesday Holiday story.  Which is very silly and will probably need trimming or an abrupt end.

First Monday of December

Looking back, I've gotten out of the habit of posting my workouts.  I was fairly good last week, I worked out Saturday, Monday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  I continue to do the rowing machine to about 160 calories or so.  I've switched my routine to the weights-with-strings station and I upped my dumbbells to 30 lbs.

I'm going to try doing planks at random times during breaks between other stuff; I tried it in the craft store the other day while I was waiting for the cutter-plotter to finish a job.

Later... this afternoon I did 200 calories on the rowing machine in 15 minutes.  And I managed not to drop a 30 pound dumbbell onto my foot laughing when "I Guess You're Just What I Needed" started playing.  

Writing... I submitted my erotica.  I think in terms of writing it was interesting because it forced me to write from a character's POV that I don't necessarily share.  When I'm writing science fiction or fantasy, it's hard for me not to be in the character's POV as they fly a starship or cast a spell.  When the POV character did something in this story, I thought, "Ugh. I would never do that."  Anyway, we'll see what happens. 

I finished up a short story to bring to the Wordos table for next week.  I also polished up a 800 word romance (still needs work).  I've got some other things that are close.  The writing goal for December is to finish up the half-completed drafts and polish up things the Wordos critiqued.  There's a prompt swap story I need to work on, and also the Wordo's holiday short.   And I should submit manuscripts now before the rejections start rolling in.

Dreams:  I had a Dr. Who dream, which turned into a Returning to Arcosanti Dream, which ended with me tearfully singing "Memr'y" from Cats with someone who had created a steam-driven foundry out of snow (The foundry was cool.  But the duet?  Really?  That was twenty years ago...and it was doomed before it began...).   I'm guessing this might have been sparked by reading about the tarot card Strength, because I did a Significant Tarot Reading for this person, which turned out to be more about me (sigh).