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Is 53 a lot? Sexual partners – Yes, dollars to your name – no.

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I was planning on a diatribe about raising my kids but I seem to have pulled a muscle in my thigh while skating for the first time in nearly a decade, on ice skate two sizes too small. Not to mention it is currently minus 22 today, plus whatever the windchill is. The ice rink we spent a few hours uncovering is now covered in last nights snow, once again. Ugh! My back! My back – my ass and my crack.

I seem to recall car travel being a lot quieter in my youth, whereas my kids use it as a time to narrate their whole lives, second by second on any car ride, no matter the length. It is …. trying. To say the least. Not that I don’t love the sound of laughter and giggles. Or the occasional hilarious story from either kid, but it always descends into cackles and shrill squawking. The kids – they never know when to quit while they are ahead.

On the up & up side, it will soon be March, which means Maple Syruping time! I do love to run the boiler out in the sunshine. Keeping the sap burning for 24 hrs a day for a week or two. Not a fan of hauling in the buckets from the forest, but I can pour sap, and keep a fire burning for hours on end. The crackle of the flames, the soft hiss and pop of the sap boiling, the steam and smoke. It can be very relaxing provided it isn’t insanely windy, or obscenely cold. If it’s too cold you get no sap, and it’ll be a short lived experience. If it hovers just over freezing in the sunshine – whoo boy! Giddy up.

Had some time on my hands to explore more of the Ghost of the Dirty Starling story line last night. I hope to be able to do a bit more this week. I feel like one really long chapter is coming on. I have been able to hang comfortably in the one thousand word range, with occasional dips to seven hundred words. I like the length changes personally. If I had to pad out each chapter to be an arbitrary ten pages some would feel drawn out, where they don’t need to be. Flaunt the rules. Make your own way. Do it how you want to see it done.

In other news, the Olympics started? Really? How did I miss that? Oh right. Human rights abuses, and boycotts and such. Shame for the athletes who have worked for four years to reach their peak over these two weeks. This will be the only time I care about Alpine skiing, down hill slalom, bobsled, luge and figure skating.

Crazy how a million dollars in our town will get you a run down back split of bungalow that needs work. That’s fucking wild. Who the hell wants a million dollar plus mortgage hanging over their heads for twenty five years. Gives me anxiety to think about it. Surely not all of these people can possibly make six figure incomes do they? Maybe they do. I don’t know. But six zeros slowly counting down on an ever looming mortgage would make me want to vomit. More power to you if you can stomach that kind of stress in your life/marriage for decades at a time. Yeesh.

The NEW 52 – It’s like Area 51 but with a 2 instead.

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Which means it’s probably full of interesting military tech and has an awful lot of misinformation floating around about it – so not much unless you really like aviation history, and things like the A-12 Oxcart or the SR-71 Blackbird. Both fantastical pieces of machinery, but not aliens though – sadly.

So what’s on the horizon for today you might ask? More snow shoveling to be precise. Not much, only three inches or so. A quick glide over the property and that’ll be sorted out without issue. However, the bigger issue is storage of all this gods be damned snow. I have banks of it three, almost four feet tall. The space between our drive way and our neighbours is perilously close to full. We’ve both had to give up a couple of feet of driveway itself, to be able to hold the stuff. Our drive which could usually hold four large vehicles without concern would be down to three, and the third would need to be a sedan or smaller. Once you’ve gone skiing, and snowshoeing and tobogganing and skating, and maybe snowmobiling, the draw of the snow diminishes greatly by every single passing day. Plus the cold makes me itch, and I generally hate being house bound 24/7. The wind/air here hurts the face – intentionally. BAH!

Closing out the busiest work week I’ve had in a while, so I look forward to cuddling up with a book, or perhaps being able to dabble in some creative writing. Slow week on that front I’m afraid. The paid work takes precedence over the hobby stuff. Gotta keep the internet flowing somehow!

Speaking of internet, are you guys watching The Book of Boba Fett at all? The last two episodes were weird. Like surely this could have been saved for Mandolorian Season Three, right? Not that I don’t love Grogu and Mando mind you. Just seems out of place, or a weird tie in, and Ashoka & Luke too. I know we’re about to head into SpinOff madness but that seems ill conceived. But if you’ve read my writing you know I’m not one who should complain about the state of someone else’s writing – Ha!

How do you solve a problem like 51?

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But not centimeters of snow! Thankfully. We did not get the one foot of snow that was potentially forecasted, although more snow is coming later on today. My back thanks you! Four inches is manageable every couple of hours.

Speaking of puns, I added at least one visual pun into my latest report. Made me laugh, I wonder if anyone else will clue in to it. Fun tip, having worked so hard Monday through Wednesday, plus some light work this previous weekend I now get to enjoy a lighter day – Go Me! Much appreciated by my brain, wrists and sense of musical whimsy. I did bust out some music yesterday as I was nearing the end of laying out my first draft.

It’s funny as a kid, youth, teen, early twenties I could not work in silence, I had to have music on, but after working for many years in open office spaces, I’ve come to love working quietly. I can on occasion, if I don’t have to pay attention to critical elements, listen to loud music and sing along as I work. Mainly doing pie charts, and bar graphs, and scatter graphs though. Not the table portion. A mixture of Motorhead, The Beatles and The Blue Stones, followed up by Wolfmother and Status Quo. That’s my go to musical line up these days. Hood and loud too. Which is fine because I work from home, and don’t live on top of my neighbours. I guess I’d have to invest in some seriously high quality head phones if I ever go back to working on site when Freelancing, or go back to an in-house design position. I like the zero commute time too much though. Chasing dollar bills has always ended badly for me. I guess if the work/industry is amazing I could potentially do it again. But coming from large market alcoholic beverages with massive start of the year marketing meetings with air travel, fancy hotels, meetings in swanky spaces, free drinks, great food, famous guest speakers and late night parties for days on end, you’d be hard pressed to improve on the type of perks I’ve known over 16 years affiliated with that industry. Work hard and play even harder was a common refrain amongst the C-Suite types.

Yeah – so. Still writing a bit every single day, and haven’t forgotten about my short story series. I’m working through some character moments in my head before I write out anything. I am trying to get these last six or so chapters to land properly. Going to require some footwork on my end. I’ll keep you posted.

Melty Brain & Eye Strain.

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Fought hard against the report today, went deep into the trenches and was bested by it. Dry eyes and a melting brain. Hard to think straight. Sore left eyeball for my troubles. Thought I could possibly complete the robust beast today, but no such luck. On the upside I have only 60% of what I should have had to do tomorrow left to complete. Perhaps trying for that extra 40% was just too much. But why put off until to tomorrow that which you can do today? Well – eye strain and melty brain for starters actually. Twenty pages was a solid goal, going over was silly. No chance I was going to pull off the full last forty in one six hour uninterrupted day. A+ for effort though.

Know your limits and play within them! Or else try not to melt your brain by doing too much with it all at once like a fool.

Tomorrow marks day 50! Do I have something fun to say? Any new pertinent information to share? A rant to glide into, or perhaps a movie review? Who knows, you’ll just have to wait and see.

Good morning, good afternoon and good night.

It’s February 1st : An exploration of Day 49.

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Almost to fifty, if you can believe that. This wasn’t so much a new years resolution as an attempt to grind out some time in my schedule to do any sort of writing I could on a consistent basis. And on a couple of select days that has prompted me to write new and interesting materials. It’s not all Pulitzer worthy text, which I am aware, but genre-esque space science fiction fun. Easy reading if you will. My question now is, how long do I keep the streak running for? Until I finish book two? Most likely yes. Then I might take a break. Or, after I complete the last six or seven more chapters I’ll switch gears and write a few more autobiographical one off’s to pad the page count a bit. Make it feel like the 99 cents through Kindle is worth it! Ha.

Or I’ll feel like painting or sculpting or it’ll get warm enough to do some wood working. I find it unpleasant to handle chisels in sub zero temperatures. If it’s around zero or above i can make it work.

Had a solid work day yesterday, and today is shaping up to be a good one too. Invoices out means paid invoices coming back in, in the near future. Just resting my wrist for a shake while I quickly clack this out on my phone via thumbs. Have to make the effort to get up and walk around. Shake out those shoulders and legs. Get limber! Stay healthy out there people!

Day 48, and it’s going to be a busy one.

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Lots to do, lots to do today. Also have to get my eye sight checked today. Fingers are crossed that I still don’t need real prescription glasses. Trying to hold off, as once I give in my eyes will deteriorate more rapidly in my middle age. Paid work is still rolling in, which is fantastic, so good there for now. Big – big job I’m working through now. If I can get a good chunk out of it today, like I did on Saturday and Sunday then I will be able to sleep better knowing I am making progress on it. Still have thirty odd pages to go of the raw data to assemble. My wrists will sing come Friday!

Might need to be a little less present in writing my connected short story series this week. But who knows. I have to take breaks to eat and move, so maybe I’ll get a sense of some story beats I just have to get down on paper.

All the best on this, the last day of January. Just think, you’ll never have to do this day again!

Sunday – Sunday, and other musical madness.

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You guessed correctly, today is Tuesday! But in all seriousness it is Sunday January 30th of the year 2022. This is day 47 of my writing every day campaign and I have thus far written seventeen new chapters this year. A fair few of them are under a thousand words, and on occasion I have written a little over that threshold. I have found that to be manageable. Writing some of the three thousand word or longer chapters in book one melted my brain for the day, so I’m trying not to do that. Or if I feel that’s how a scenario is going to play out I’ll break the writing up over two days to save my brain some trouble. Although if I’m in the groove and it all comes pouring out I might just have to go with it, and save my once over after review for the second day.

I’m currently reading the ninth and final book of a series and I am at once both eager to read it, and sad it’ll all be over once I’m done. I could go back and read it from the start, but I want to read new stuff, not constantly go back to my comfort materials. I’m starting to feel the same way about my painting and sculpting. I definitely feel the draw to recreate characters I’ve done before, but then I also really want to try other things out as well. Case in point; do I try yet another Ninja Turtle or give Killer Croc a go, because I’ve never tried sculpting him before. Do I upgrade my Hellboy bust or try a full figure space man instead. I lean towards static busts, but a dynamically posed full figure of a person would be really good practice. I haven’t tackled hands or feet in a long time.

I also have to wonder whether my use of silly titles plays into how widely seen these blog posts get some days. Now “widely seen” is doing some seriously back breaking lifting here. Widely in the sense of what I write is around twenty five people, so do with that information what you will.

Could be a busy week, but it should be a good one. Kids are off for a PA Day on Friday, short week! Enjoy your weekend!

The last frigid Saturday of January 2022.

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We are all nearly one full month into the year now. Heading into an equally cold February, but with paid work on the docket, and a healthy family – thus far.  Had a morning with cartoons and helping to dress the kids dolls in new clothes. Attempting to trouble shoot a doll whose eyes no longer open when it sits up, and making everyone scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Doing a lots of nothing, looking at memes and thinking about how to approach some new work that came in yesterday afternoon. I have all the ground work laid out, templates, tables and colour palette, and a new design based off of their supplied brand style guide. It’s going to be a real looker when done. I just need to give it a good think so that I reads properly and I don’t have to adjust it a tonne later on. Think it through now, will save a lot on revisions later. Is my thinking anyway. Doesn’t always play out as planned, but I think I can do a little extra on this one.

As a freelancer I work as the projects come in, so my days vary wildly in regards to how busy I am. When it rains it pours, and then I get streaks of quiet time in between. Allows me to do alot with my kids that I wouldn’t have been able to do in prior roles. All the better for me!

Come on springtime sunshine, green grass, warmth, and flowers.

So now the drum beats for all out war.

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I’m kind of dreading this part, as the scope could potentially be enormous, and I don’t know how to juggle something that large. I have a feeling – (“I’ve got a feelin’ woo-ooh, that tonights gonna be a go…) that I will introduce a massive scenario, pointing out some broad strokes, and then dive in, tight close up, on some unsuspecting persons face and have the world carry about them with nary a care for the finer points. It’s terrible, I know, but I just can’t seem to care enough to attempt to explore naval battle tactics in space when my current grasp of both the navy and zero gravity physics are tenuous at best, mostly zero at worst. So no – we set the scene, jump cut around it, and get to the point of my over arching story. Stop in for a few with some nice people, see how they are making out in the battle, and then carry on as you were.

For these next few pivotal chapters I’m going to have to revisit my point form outlines, as I have a number of threads to collect and tie together. I try not to get convoluted, even with my run on sentences, I know, I know. Trying to say too much in too short a space. But i think i can get this all tied up, and loop back to the earliest chapters, and some other threads that seem like they’ve been dropped, but i promise they haven’t. I’m trying to build to a big crescendo, and then maybe I’ll have a history professor teaching a class give some clarifying exposition at the end, so that it all makes more sense. Plus leave me some wiggle room to come back later to flesh out other parts of the whole thing that i skimped on, because i didn’t know how to tell that part at this time. Get me? You got me.

A word of warning though, some parts of this may turn into a blood bath. We are talking war stories, horror elements, body horror (potentially) although that feels icky to me. But could prove useful. Maybe a love story portion. All out despiration. Some courageous moments, and then some funny dialogue moments, and some far flung science fiction to wrangle the pieces all together. Sound like fun? Yeah – come on. Stick with me now. Book two has just finished chapter sixteen, you’ve got four to six chapters left in you right!?! I hope so. For my sake as well.

In other news, going to be a big football weekend again. So that will be fun. I wonder if these games will have the same caliber of excitement as last weekends games did. Whoo-boy right up to the closing seconds with the will they, won’t they story arc.

Also – as an aside. I’m finally getting around to painting last years two finished sculpts. The old man of the see, who has a passing resemblance to Christopher Plummer, was done as a faux bronze, and the Ogre is very blue. Maybe he needs a grey wash over top, not sure. Needs something to tie him together and be more than layered blue dry brushing. Keep on putting pens to paper!

This 45 doesn’t have an army of red hats. Thankfully.

You want me to do WHAT? In this gig-economy!

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You’re off your tits mate. And other such fun snippets of dialogue I either overhear at the school drop off, or television, movies and think. Ha. That gives me an idea. But not so much today.

It’s Thursday, my dudes. Not quite the weekend but it can be seen and felt from here. Although with working from home, and for myself, it all rather feels the same. Well, maybe now that my wife and kids are back to school (for however long that manages to last) the weekends will feel a slight twinge of otherness to them, with the house full from sun up to sun down.

In other news Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, followed closely by a week or so is Family Day, then we have March break, and the slow drag into springtime! Yay! Which is a lovely thought, but we have six weeks of horrible sub zero temperatures, snow, ice, freezing rain and slush to wade through first. Can 8 just say this though. I’ve enjoyed all of the blue sky sunnies days we’ve been having. It’s really something wonderful to be cold and yet have that gorgeous open blue sky overhead. What little heat we can feel on our faces directly from the sun is welcomed with open arms.

Rather than doing a grocery pick up like usual, or a delivery; I actually went inside a store yesterday. For the first time in a number of weeks. Good and empty, given our current pickle (pandemic obvs’) to grab a bunch of ready made meals for my wife to have at work. When it’s quiet, and no one else is around and you forget you have a mask on, it can almost feel normal-ish. I can’t recall the last time I took my kids to wander around a mall to just look at what’s new, visit a play place, or have lunch out together. I think we’d have still been using a stroller and rear facing car seat for my youngest the last time I did that.

That’s what stings right now. I was looking forward to taking my kids out of school surreptitiously to go to the mall and have an afternoon together and do something fun. But I don’t want to add even a scintilla of additional exposure over and above what they all ready face. In the years to come, I hope to be able to resurrect that mental health day time together. I miss that time doing something fun one on one with either of my kids. Lego land, Square One, The Bass Pro Shop, a Massive Disney Store, or Toys R Us. I used to love just going for a walk around, while the weather outside was horrendously cold. Get some excercise, mock youth fashion trends, because I’m older now, and I’m keen on my late nineties/early two thousands fashion choices that I made that suited my body type and wallet.

Trust in me – just in me… where’s my copy of The Jungle Book!

Also – the gig economy sucks balls. I don’t want to HAVE to turn every hobby into cash flow, that’s just part time work, on top of your day job. That’s no way to live. I get the Type A’s who are physically incapable of resting might be drawn to that option, but you have to have down time to recharge. You’ll burn yourself out. For what an extra couple of bucks, but no time to read, draw, paint, sew, play an instrument or relax. I get that wages sort of suck, and have done for ages, but that type of self deprivation isn’t sustainable in the long term. I hope you can find a happy medium. Or strike it rich! Or discover a wealthy patron who will fund you in the event of their death.