Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Things

Wed, 13 May 2026 22:27:42 GMT

Things done:

-- Watered our plot at the community garden and the two sidewalk squares in front of our building. Meant to do that last week but ran out of time and spoons.
-- Bedsheets washed and a new set put on. Juli 'helped' in her own cattish way.
-- Gave Juli far too many pettins already, as she is now begging for even more.
-- Watered the house plants as they were all looking a bit shrivelly.
-- Blogging and journaling kept up. Yay!

Things to do:

-- I still need to reorganize the garage storage room, but that should not take more than an hour at most. I just want to make it a little more accessible, and to put the stuff I don't need right away further in the back. As for the books that are in there, I'll do a quick save-or-donate. I think most of them are manga titles so I'll see if I still want them.
-- Still need to reorganize my writing bins in the garage. That could take longer so I'll have to do that on one of my days off during the week.
-- Restart the longhand scan project. This is going to take some time, and it's a little noisy so it'll be a weekend/evening thing when A isn't in the office working. I'd already started on scanning The Phoenix Effect before we moved, so I'll continue on that, then work on whatever might be next. I was thinking perhaps the poem/lyric notebooks, as I know those would be relatively quick and easy to do.

Things going on:

-- On the 23rd I will be the opening bookkeeper at my old shop, due to a slight scheduling hiccup (the main BK on vacation, the backup taking a day off, with no one filling in). No problem by me other than it would have been nice to let me and my current main BK know this before this past Monday. It'll be a bit weird to be back there, but I am curious as to how things are in my absence, and who will be my openers, heh. Am also hoping that it won't be another case of BK work with a pinch of twelve other responsibilities for flavor.
-- Work on Theadia is still eluding me, though I think I'm starting to figure out why. I'm not entirely happy about it, but it is what it is, and I'll have to deal with it how I can. I'll post something about it on Friday at the writing blog.

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What I did on my spring vacation (end result)

Mon, 11 May 2026 16:07:24 GMT

-- Finally put up the three framed pictures that have been sitting in the office for the last couple of months.
-- Fixed a few small issues in the shower (filled a gap in the caulk in one spot and glued/regrouted a loose tile) (hoping this'll finally do the trick)
-- Slept in until 7 because any later and both of our cats would jump on us demanding breakfast
-- Replaced a few things in our community garden plot
-- Successfully avoided doing any actual writing work BUT caught up with some blogging and journaling, with a vague plan to readjust said writing issues
-- Finally finished the mixtape I've been wanting to finish (still no name yet, other than "Mixtape 2026 I") and started another one tying in with my Walk in Silence project.
-- Caught up with various other house errands and shopping. Things are now well-stocked, cleaned, gassed up, and put away.
-- Realized that I am not dreading heading back to the Day Job this week, even though I'm doing two midshifts today and tomorrow. This is a very good sign!

Did not get to it, but am planning to do on upcoming days off:
-- Rearranging/cleaning up the garage storage room. I bought a puck light to put on the ceiling that should help visibility in there.
-- Related: I have a handful of books in there that can probably be donated.
-- Rearranging/straightening out/labeling my writing bins in the garage for easier access. I'd like to restart the scanning project that I'd begun at the old place to get my longhand work digitized.

Other future plans:
-- Post here more often, partly as a way to get my brain rewired (see previous post) to do things like this purely for the hell of it.
-- Journal more often, same reason.
-- Now that I've learned that my shorter breaks at work are fifteen minutes and not ten, I feel I have a few more minutes to do fun things like map drawing or whatever. Learning how to relax, and rewiring my brain away from passive scrolling. [Playing the daily Squaredle and checking on texts from A is allowed, of course.]

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Busy weekend

Sun, 23 Oct 2022 22:21:02 GMT

Things completed over the last few days:
--Flu shot received
--4th Covid booster received (side effects minimal, maybe a few aches and that's it)
--Food shopping done
--New releases listened to/downloaded
--Fee/donation to adoption agency for two (!!) cats (more on this in a few) paid
--Cat toys, litter box, food dishes, and other fun things purchased
--Cat tree purchased and built
--New cat carriers bought and original purchase returned
--VOTED! Will mail the ballots tomorrow before work!

Things fallen by the wayside:
--Writing. WELP, I figured it would happen anyway considering I just had ALL THE THINGS to do and I'm a bit distracted by the preparation of the arrival of not one but two kitties. Yes, two! After having the face-to-face-online interview with the agency, we both thought that considering the original cat we wanted (Jules) was from a litter of four, we'd be fine with taking on one of her sisters (temporarily named California). But anyway...yeah, I've had a few distractions lately so I'm fine with that. I kind of needed it as I'm feeling a little worried about where I am in Theadia. I don't think it's bad, but I'm having one of those "I'm too close to it and probably need to back away before I fuck it up" waves and should probably take a mental break from it for a tiny bit. And amusingly enough, Althea has mentioned in the book itself how a cat is the perfect distraction. Heh.
--750Words and Inktober. Again, same distraction, but I'm not letting it bother me. For the former, I'm not taking it too seriously and just working on a sort-of-new story idea and playing with the outline. For the latter, I've already done it twice already and caught up quickly. I'm not doing ginormous detailed art here, of course, but doodles. Essentially my outlook for both has been "it doesn't have to be consistent, as long as I get back to it." A few days off in between is fine.

Things to come:
--Awaiting word from the agency as to when said kitties will arrive or be brought home.
--Dropping car off at a garage after work tomorrow to have some work done on it.
--One of A's friends is coming to visit next weekend and there may be some transportation hiccups, but we shall see.
--Getting back to writing work.

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More Changes

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 23:08:20 GMT

Yes, I took an extra week off from blogging because I wanted to think a bit more about what I wanted to do with my writing. I've come to the decision that while I'll continue with the weekend update here on DW, I'm dropping the WordPress blogs down to once a week until further notice. This is primarily because I need to focus more on novel work and Day Job searching and planning. Just enough to keep the blogs consistently updated without me driving myself crazy digging for ideas. As for the novels, I've been averaging around 650-700 words a day, which is terribly low by my standards but at least I'm getting somewhere. I can get higher word count, but I'm not going to force it. It'll come eventually.

I also cleaned off the whiteboard again. Yes, I always flip-flop on that thing. It's helpful but it can also be a hindrance. It reminds me of what I need to work on, but it also stresses me out when it starts feeling like a strict deadline. So I'm going to try something different here: I have a clipboard hanging next to my whiteboard that hasn't been getting much love over the last few years, which will be used as a non-deadline Things To Do List. I already have my list of stretches and exercises here, so I can add a list of creative projects, errands and whatnot.

In other news, for some unknown reason I can no longer connect my Pixel phone to my PC to empty out the pictures (something I've been doing for years, moving them to the PC hard drive and backing them up on an external). It's weird because it's only my PC where this happens; it'll charge up the phone, but won't read it. My laptop can still read it no problem, so now when I move the pictures I need to move them there then transfer them to my PC through Dropbox. It's a pain in the butt but it's the only way I can think of doing it right now until I figure out why this doesn't work. My Dropbox is like 'what the hell are you doing' and the syncing doesn't know if it wants to spend a few hours or a few minutes screwing around.

[Which reminds me...I really need to get that non-working external over to the PC shop up on Geary to see if they can save what's on there. I don't worry about the music that's on it, but some of my personal stuff and my older pictures are on it.]

Other than that, not much else to report...we've been having weird winter weather as of late so we haven't been outside much lately, and A has been busy with Day Job stuff so it's been kind of unexciting here. I still need to work on nailing down a decent exercise/yoga regimen, but that shouldn't be too hard to do. And hopefully the weather won't misbehave too much in the coming months!

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

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