Walter Mitty Reimagined...

Chapter 73 of Covenant is UP!

Will have the monthyly update for the Directory up on the first, btw.

Now, if only I had a wee bit of brandy in the house to celebrate... lol

Have decided I definitely am not working any more 4 days in a row. Or even 3. I was so wiped out that yesterday and today I would sleep for 2-3 hours, be awake for 4-5, then sleep again for a few, then wide awake. The body (and mind) is not meant to be asleep at 9PM, awake at midnight, asleep at 4AM, and then awake again at 7AM. Of course, having to work in two departments with no additional help and two nights of the largest shipments we've gotten in weeks didn't help either. :p

So anyway, did get some things accomplished. Got some more work done on Covenant's latest chapter - past the hard parts, so now it should start flowing a little faster. Ready to end the Nazi hunt bit and move into the last few chapters leading to the start of the show. In other words - getting to some really fun chapters! :D

And I went through all my stories and notes for stories and got them organized in a big list so I know what I've done, what I've got planned, and what I just have ideas for. Including original stuff. (Actually found a story in my files for TAT that I'd forgotten all about - only got a little written, notes really, but just reading through them I thought, OMG I have GOT to write that! Sigh. Just what I needed...

Spent most of the afternoon mowing. Trying to keep up with the leaves now, plus I mowed down three more gardens. It looks so strange to see the bare earth where they were, but nice, too. Clean. Still have so much to get done before the really cold weather comes - and especially before the snow flies. Gawd - hate to think that it's getting closer.

Wednesday after work I have to stop and pick up chicken wire, some posts, and tons of plastic. The chicken wire and posts for putting around the roses, new post heap, and various other plants that have to be protected over the winter; the plastic for the windows. And I have to pick up straw bales for around the roses, even though we put the leaves around them, too. Takes twelve bales for all of them...

So much to do, so little time... but that's life in general, I guess.

I have Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights off, so this is my weeked ;-)  And as usual, I am soooo happy it's here. I've applied for a housekeeping job at the local nursing home - part-time and 20 minutes away - if I walk. :D  They didn't list the pay, so even if I do get called for an interview, or better yet, get offered the job, it would depend on that. I can work very cheap - but I still have to have X amount to accomplish my goals. But the idea of working in town, no driving except in really bad weather... yeah. That's exciting.

Especially after yesterday. I try not to do anything really strenuous on the days I do work, simply because of the physical requirements at work combined with it being graveyard shift. But the brush dump is only open on Wednesday evenings (so I'd have to get up extra early) and the second Saturday of each month. And since we had a ton to haul out (three pickup loads) I had no choice. It took almost 4 hours to get the tree limbs cut to fit in the pickup, and load the trees and brush and then haul it out and unload it again. But it's all gone now, thank God. But I went to bed as soon as we finished, and when that alarm went off - oh gawd, how I wanted to call in sick and go back to sleep! Just grateful it was Saturday night - typically a very easy night because most of the freight is for the "specials" of the coming week, which we don't have to stock.

So today I'm tired but not too terribly sore. A lot of scratches on my arms and hands, though. And one gouge about an inch below my larynx where a branch bit back :p Pretty good bruise around it, as well. So that was a little scary...

My brother isn't here either - he left before I got home this morning to take care of some business. And he won't be down next weekend as he's going on a photo 'safari' for about four days. He and a group of fellow large format enthusiasts are driving out to South Dakota, taking pictures along the way and critiquing them. They're going very close to Webster, where our mom was born, so if he has time he's going to stop in and do a little genealogical research for me :D

So anywhooooo... over my weekend I'm going to get some more yardwork done (much easier with the brush gone) and some (a LOT) of writing. Almost completed the next chapter of Covenant - then only 8-10 more chapters and it should be finished. FINALLY!!!! Although I'm toying with a sequel of sorts - just taking a lot of various scenes from the show and rewriting them to reflect the Covenant history. Could be kinda fun...

And have several characters figured out for my original writing - and how they'll interact. Still don't know precisely what I want the focus of the story to be - what happens that these characters have to deal with. I've had a few ideas but I immediately think of some other book (or movie) that had something that's too similar. I think I'll probably go through some old (like early 1900s) newspapers and see what I can modernize. Things back then weren't so "global" - which, to me, makes them more interesting.

So, with nothing else to say - off to my typing! :D

Got all the nits and questions on Covenant's Chapter 67 taken care of and posted to my site, the Archives and FFNet. And got some good ideas from my betas for the upcoming chapters, so at least one thing is going the way it should. Also discovered that I needed to rectify the Archives links to some of my other stuff, so uploaded the "I has Moved!" page for all of those. So now people won't get the stupid ISP's "what the fuck do you want?" page instead. :p

My brother's not coming down this weekend either, which I really wish he was, if for no other reason than to have another human being to talk to - or at least, breathing the same air. Oh well. Maybe I can focus on some of the million projects waiting this weekend instead - keep my body occupied if not my mind.

Now I'm going to sit on my ass and watch the ice skating compulsories.

Today was a really productive day. I finally found my way into the next chapter of Covenant - no more write, toss, write, toss - it started to flow together again. So am already about half-way through - and actually wishing "Lost" didn't come on tonight because I'd rather be working on my chapter! So the "I have to write something even if it's rubbish!" phase seems to have departed. Thank God! (And I'm skipping the first hour of "Lost" because it's just a repeat of last week's second hour and I didn't like it the first time around, soooo... )

And if anyone says again that writing for a "mere" fifteen minutes a day doesn't work - I will point to what happened to me today. I've found my two main characters for my original story and was trying to figure out how to set up the events (and ending) I want for them. I started going through all the little "meaningless" tidbits I'd written (and never, never throw those away!) and found it. Just sitting there waiting for these two to pop into it. When I wrote it, it was just meandering, and only a paragraph - but it's perfect for these two characters. So in and of itself, worthless. But it was one of my fifteen minute "duty calls" and now it's ready to be a story. So - WRITE EVERY DAY PEOPLE! One day one of those snippets could come in very very handy.

So - a good way through the next chapter of my fanfic, and a good starting point for my original short story for the contest - definitely a productive day.

Now, if I could just say the same about the housework...

Has anyone else seen the ads for Frost/Nixon and wondered who is that guy pretending to be Nixon? I guess Frank Angella is supposed to be a really good actor (lots of awards, y'know ) but god - he sounds like a horrible parody of Nixon with a British tinge. That in itself would keep me from seeing the film - it would drive me nuts every time he opened his yap. Not that I go to movies anyway - most aren't worth the cost of a ticket. I'd rather wait and get the good ones on DVD so I can watch when I want, at home, on the couch, in comfortable clothes.

Still tearing the house apart - throwing so much junk! Argh. And rearranging things. Tomorrow (or maybe yet tonight) I'm tearing the island apart in the kitchen. Gently, though. My dad built it so I don't want to just trash it. But I can take it apart and reassemble it in the toolhouse where it will be put to good use. Then the table my computer is on will go in the kitchen, and I'll bring the desk (which my dad also built) out of storage. The old couch is getting tossed in the spring (the dogs have pretty well claimed that as their own so...) but for now I'm going to shove it out on the porch until I can haul it out. I'm going to make new cushions for the old futon frame to take its place. Then tearing out the old closet in the back bedroom (freestanding) and put that in the north end of the downstairs bathroom to hold the cleaning supplies and equipment. Then I can do an overall cleaning and finish painting downstairs.

Then I tackle the upstairs.

Probably be spring before I go after the attic and basement.

Writing-wise, have been doing a bunch of beta-ing for various people, and working slowly on Covenant. Hope to have the next chapter up for the MadBetas by the end of the week, and I really, really, really want to have that finished by the end of the year. Mainly because I've got some new ideas for the lost NaNo story, thanks to my working on my genealogy again. Some amazing stories come from seeing how various families change, move, grow and die off over the decades. And I can't forget Tess or Billy will kill me   And the next story of the Juggernaut series (Changeling, Mon Bell Ami) is starting to call. Add in the many Holiday and Quick Pick shorts I have stacked up... OY!

So I guess I have to get my butt in gear and make a really really serious effort to get these things scheduled and then KEEP TO IT! Quit letting little things like real life get in the way...