How do you feel about making up new words to suit the world you’ve built (should you write Science Fiction and/or Fantasy). Do you ever get push back from your editors to try an use existing words instead? Does it depend on your fame level/readership base, just how much they would let that sort of thing slide? For example – should George R R Martin decide to create a bunch of new words, (being a very successfully selling author) would he have an easier time of it with his editors/publishers, than say a new body on the scene with their first ever book to be published & no copies sold as of yet. I would be most interested to know.
Also – how connected do you get/feel to the characters, places, events that you create. Potentially applicable to historical researchers and biographers too, as they expend tremendous amounts of energy and time researching all facets of a time period/event/people. Like, do you cry when you kill them off, or they die, because that makes the story better, or is the basis for another event. I’m getting wordy here. Veering off track. I could pull a full tangent right now! How attached are you to characters, reoccurring or otherwise? Conversely, do you chuckle when you do heinous shit to those characters you made that you don’t like – especially if based off of people in your own life – like a former bully, or ex of some sort. I’d love to know!
I’m nearing another full calendar year in between writing a full book of short stories – again. Not that I intend to go for a round three, but…. maybe? Hard to say. Work has been busier this year. Lids are older now. Wife has the year off. Kids are enrolled in way too many extracurriculars that require driving to & from locations. So unlikely I’d write much any time soon. But I get flashes of story lines I’d like to tackle every now & again. I feel like the Covid brain fog from March added some hard breaking to my desire to write a cohesive narrative. I just couldn’t hold it all in my head with enough clarity to put pen to paper. Brain damage on a vascular level, it be like that sometimes. Bet.
A ruptured right ear drum, complete with a bloody, oozing mass from deep inside the ear. Wonderful way to wake up before 6:00am today. So far looks like no associated pain. Waiting for a potential fever, or any other signs of illness. Whee!
Today is Friday, of all days, so here’s hoping you all get those weekend plans you wanted. Whether that means they are cancelled, or actually moving ahead this time, is up to you. Your fantasy, your choice. Stay bundled up in bed in a blanket watching whatever you like with a cup of something in your hand, or out crushing it in a bar with bottle service, you enjoy yourselves.
This week has been a pretty good one as far as Summer Break 2023 is concerned. Visited a mine where we found all sorts of Amethyst crystals, went to the lake for a brief 3 day stay, swam in the lake, hot tubbed, went tubing with the kids on what ended up being the windiest and roughest day on the lake. Shipped off the wooden moose on Monday, and got that out of my shop after months of looking at it every time I went in there. Kids even went to the zoo twice this week. We need to pace ourselves a little better. Or else we will be run ragged by the end of week nine. Will need to nap all day the first week the kids go back to school if we keep this up!
In other news, I have started book #15 on my 12 book a year challenge. I was disappointed- again, by Mo Hayder.**SPOILERS AHEAD** The Treatment was well written, well paced, but the ending contradicts the first pages of chapter one, so I don’t know if she had written herself into a corner, or used the wrong name/character in the end to be the big bad, but it was a let down. I don’t understand why said big bad would go about trying to expose their own misdeeds. As it made no sense for the early iteration of the character, nor for the big bad version of that character at the end of the book. I don’t think that a very late stage admission of schizophrenia solves the problem either. And a split personality was not mentioned, nor played upon as a theme either. Sad. The Ritual was a bit anti climactic in the end also, so 0 for 2. Shame she’s dead, the author that is. There were loose ends I’d want to see tied off, but no such luck now.
But what do I know about writing eh? Not much. She made a living at it, had the book made in to what I can only assume was either a sterilized white wash, or a horrendous book accurate car crash of SA trauma by child predators of both sexes. Either way, no thanks. Not watching that.
Haven’t picked up my children’s book to finalize my last handful of drawings yet. I can feel the weight of the languishing project on the back of my shoulders. I fear it will take another 8 full hours or more to complete those last few pages. I need to break that into smaller chunks and try thinking of it as just a page at a time. Story is written, edited and finalized. Just being a slow hand with the artwork. I’ll post the pdf here once it’s done for all six of you to see. Ha. Or maybe I will add it, and Book 2 to my amazon kindle unlimited library, and see if I can sell one copy of each book to be consistent. Though I did scratch that itch when I wrote and published the first book of collected short stories. Far more people followed along and read them here for free than have done so on Kindle Unlimited. Go figure.
Well now, that’s a deeply circumstantial – and awfully personal question. And the answer is, it depends. Am I home, away, early in the am, very late at night, inebriated, hung over, under gastrointestinal distress? Everything factors in to the answer. No way would I let fabric touch a public men’s room floor. Nu-uh! No way. Never. But if fighting for my life on the seat, may strip down entirely (when at home). Who needs clothes on when it feels as though your entire life is draining into the porcelain. Unwanted firehose spray back is a powerful deterrent. Like I said, that is deeply personal, and I thank you for respecting my privacy at this time.
Tuesday – forgot it was recycling day today. Saw the neighbours gear out front and twigged to it, luckily before the green trucks came through. I didn’t even register it was going to be Tuesday while prepping for gymnastics last night. Usually I pull the bins out of the guard box on Sunday or Monday to load them up, and be ready to spring into action anytime after 7:00am should I hear the grumble of the green trucks on our street. But I completely blanked on it. How odd. I have been fairly busy straight through since January 2nd this year, which is – really, really rare for me. No major breaks as of yet. Oh I know they’re coming. Highly unlikely I’ll be this busy all year long.
I had to put the Urn build on hold due to the cold, and volume of work I had on tap. Glue doesn’t set properly in deeply cold weather. And as mentioned before, no major heat source out there right now. I have it partially insulated, but I have a long way to go before the temperature would stabilize enough to work comfortably between December and Mid March. The base is done, the exterior chamber is done. I have the pieces for the interior cut and ready to glue in place. I have the top of the cover ready, and can build the tray and cover fairly quickly. Then it’ll just be a matter of scraping, sanding and then a highly polished finish to make it shine! I’m ok if they decide to not want it. I’ll put it in my office closet up out of the way, and can hold on to it for myself.
Started a Richard Morgan book I’ve had in my possession since 2007. I remember how much I loved the Altered Carbon book series. This is in that universe, but not directly related. I have a fantasy novel he wrote from 2008 in my to read pile too. I usually tend to buy more books than I can read in a year, so I’m happy to oblige historical me, by actually getting around to reading books that have sat on a shelf for ten-fifteen years or so. I know I have a Mo Hayder book I haven’t read yet too. I’m usually not into horror / murder books, but she writes great, creepy, gripping stuff. The current Richard Morgan book I’m reading is “Black Man”. Longest book I’ve read in quite some years. Over sized paper back with tiny type. So I feel like it would be a much longer trade paperback than the page count it currently has. I’m two fifths of the way in. Lots of action, lots of science fictiony hand waving tech jabber, and lots of mystery/suspense. For some reason I thought I had read this when I kept seeing it on the shelf, but it’s not ringing any bells no matter how far I get into it. Which is great. I hate when I forget I’ve read something before. Invest all that time to read it, and then PING! oh! I know how this ends, oh I’ve read this before! Damn it! On to the next book.
I haven’t put any time into sculpting yet this year. I know I will at some point. Just not right this minute. I haven’t put much thought into finishing up the illustrations for my childrens book either, come to think of it. I really should get that stuff squared away. Not that my writing career will ever go much beyond this space, and self publishing. Sometimes I just gotta get a story out of my head. Doesn’t have to mean anything more than that. I share it, if anyone besides me reads it, or enjoys it, all the better. Hope I made you smile, or wince, or chuckle, or cringe. Better than straight up apathy. You know what I think? I think that many of you out there have a story you want to tell. I think you should put pen to paper and get it out. Just let it fall out of you. Don’t worry about style, voice, the hook, or any of that. That’s for the editing stage. Right now, go jot down some points, and just plop it out on the page. The good, the bad & and the ugly. You’ll feel better when you do. Way easier to tweak and refine what you have in your hands than wish you wrote the perfect thing in one go. But what do I know. I’m just some dude talking on the internet to the three folks that read me off and on. Hey guys! Hope you are well. Ciao Bella!
What on earth is going on with the writers of all these cartoons? Why is absurdist nonsense the soup of the day right now? Did they all grow up on Spongebob and think “Hold my acid tabs”? What a bunch of odd, weirdly all over the place, rapidly paced, fast cut, gibberish. One or two shows of this nature makes sense, you know, corner that market, but now it seems like everything is talking cupcakes, wishing upon farts, dopey unicorns, leprechauns, and manic squirrels, or inanimate objects come to life, like a stick with a leaf for a pal, and a talking strawberry. There’s far more weirdness out there than I could recount, but so much of it is “just” weirdness. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge fan of Ren & Stimpy, and Spongebob too, but this just seems like excess. As though they put words into a salad bowl, pulled out several and then thought this is good enough.
Not a fan of the current animation style either. But that’s more of an aesthetic taste, than anything to do about quality. I’m sure they are all ridiculously time consuming to produce, and reuse portions to cut down on costs. Run cycles, and character transformation breaks (think Sailor Moon transformation sequence) draw it once and reuse it in every subsequent episode. Looks like a lot of the shows use a similar animation program from 2d drawings. They have a sameness to them, in line work, line weights, colour palettes, and fluidity of motion. I think the days of flipping through frames over a light board are long gone. Do they still do inbetweens and key frames with the current software? Or is it filled in by the software? No idea. I’ll have to ask the animators I know from Sheridan College. I’m sure they’ll love that line of questioning.
Not that any of this matters mind you, just an observation. Perhaps it all stems from the television channels that we frequently watch. If we were more adventurous maybe we’d find new, more linear shows with alternative animation styles. I think that because I grew up in the 80’s with G I Joe, He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats and then TMNT, and other classics along those lines, that that is the animation style that I respond positively to. Or, those early 2000’s CGI movies that went hard in the paint for texture and movement. Not that feature film animation bugs me, we’re talking some of the made for tv stuff. Then I think back to the 90’s with X-Men and get all nostalgic again. But that could be due to how they drew Rogue, and how often Jean Grey moaned on that show. Ha.
But at least I am responsible for having written two books of collected short stories by my own hands. Nearly 200,000 words of interconnected amateur hour sci-fi nonsense that I am proud to have put pen to paper to create. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. I can strike it from my bucket list. No short cuts taken. No AI to do the lengthy leg work in my stead. Brain fog, fugue states after writing 3,500/day for a couple days in a row. I did that. Me. I don’t care if it comes across as dog shit, glib, or derivative. I did it myself. And sold a copy, not to myself. So nyah! Eat it.
The last two weeks, whilst busy with work, have included some leaps and bounds forwards with my model kit build up. I finally have all of the individual components cut off their sprues, cleaned off the nub marks, sanded where required, and built into the appropriate sub section piece, (ie.) Elbow, knee, ankle, hip, hands, cockpit etc etc… Below is a picture of all the parts laid out ready for priming soon.
All parts laid out, with thruster cones separated onto painter’s tape for ease of painting, and keeping track of the smaller bells.
I am going to use the yellow & black version of the water slide decals, image below. To change up from the red/black version I already have.
Going for yellow accents this time around.
As far as a paint scheme is concerned, I’m going to use USAF colours to make this model look a little more custom. My airbrush nozzle is too large to accurately achieve individual panel coverage, so I’ll need to tape off sections to get colour variations from the paint set I have in hand. A mixture of light greys on top side & legs, and the dark greys & black for the laser canons, major weapons attachments (darker grey plastic elements shown above) feet, vents, and other odds and sods. Plus oil washes, panel lines, decals and rust effects. I ordered the Tamiya 10mm low tack tape to help me with masking after all the priming and base coating is done. My hope is, that by leaving everything in smaller parts I can do a far better job of masking, and eliminating overspray where I desperately don’t want it. Fingers crossed! Then a high gloss coat to round out the sprayed portion of the build up.
I will need to paint the cockpit & pilot separately, as there are lots of edges and bits to pick out & high light. I’m really trying to make this one look legit, so no real time limit, but I’d like to not still be doing it in March. If you catch my drift.
Vallejo USAF colour range. Variations on grey.
I’ll finish it off with prominent decals, and the clear plastic stand. I’d like to be done by the end of February, but that will depend on workload, my kids staying healthy, and all the PA Days, & Holidays, and weekends not interfering too much on my schedule. We’ll see how that pans out.
Paint & decal instructions.
Work has been steady throughout January, so I haven’t even had the chance to crack open my illustrated children’s book. To be totally honest I haven’t even given much thought to how I will depict my two main characters, Lemon or Smush. Which is kind of important. The story is written. I have done five or six drafts, and I’m happy with where it is. But, I do need to get those pesky illustrations done. I know I focused a great deal of my free time into reading half of this years book list up front, and meticulously picking through my VF-1 model kit build up, so I didn’t leave much time for the book. Nor did I feel as though I needed to. I haven’t sculpted yet so far this year, nor painted, nor done any wood working, so… gotta pace myself. Too many hobbies, and too little free time. Have managed to play my guitar a few times, which is really nice for a change. That is very relaxing. Loud, but relaxing. Let us not forget that both my kids do four extra curricular activities per week – each. So my evenings are spent playing chauffeur/ assistant coach/cheerleader and water boy. So evenings aren’t exactly free time for me either.
Hell, here I was thinking I’d start Book Three of collected short stories this winter, like immediately after Christmas break, but that hasn’t hit me yet either. Do I go a whole different route? Or stick with what I have developed and just find a new angle to explore? Not sure. Really need to think about it, and write up some outlines. Maybe later. I’m pooped.
I read Mary Robinette Kowal’s “The spare man“, “Fart Quest Vol.4“, Tom Segura’s “I’d like to play alone“, The first two “Dungeon Academy” books, and then Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Children of memory“. With a partial read of Robert Evans’ “The kid stays in the picture“. A book I feel like I should go back to now that I have cleared my schedule for reading through until July 1st, 2023. But we’ll see. It repeats itself alot, with the gambling, drinking, and adultery themes. The names, and motion pictures change, but ultimately he’s retelling the same six stories over, and over again, with that Shake or slap an hysterical woman, old Hollywood charm. The girls are prizes to be claimed, and discarded at whim. Interesting, up to a point. Not my tempo. As it were.
I’m about the start in on the N. K Jemisin Broken Earth Trilogy, so I have high hopes! Please let them be good. It would be better if they were great, but I’ll gladly take good any day of the week. Exceptional would be amazing, but a good trilogy, with no filler feeling chapters is hard to come by. Is this the authors seminal work? What they’re known for? I don’t know. I didn’t do all that much research, but a few names I trust from previous high quality references to books gave this one a thumbs up, and it has won a prestigious Sci-fi award for the whole trilogy, book by book. So that’s gotta say something positive? Doesn’t it!?!
I should really go back and try to read more of the Carl Sagan book, but it came across like a text book, so I need to be in that sort of mind set. For education rather than entertainment. That was the difference between reading about the Pluto mission, versus the Mars rover stuff. One was *a story*, the other a technical play by play, like a parts list, and engineered drawings in exploded view. One I thoroughly enjoyed as it did contain lots of education information inside the story telling, the other I detested, and only got part way through before putting it away. My labouring over a text days are done. Philosophy, Sociology, Economics, even Business Admin textbooks were a chore at times, and I’m glad I don’t have to hack my way through those sorts of things anymore.
Also I do want to know how the Grapes of Wrath ends, but who-boy, that was an exercise in patience for colloquial speech patterns. Feels like it will mean something by the end, but gah! The idea of spending the next five months reading five pages at a time to just get to the end of it feels like a total waste of my time. Can it provide a great enough epiphany at the end to warrant such a slow, halting, and seemingly unending read? I don’t see it. Not from the 150 plus pages I have all ready read. Maybe the end packs the most whallop? I don’t know. Seems fool hardy to leave your whole message for the very end. But I’m no writer of an American Classic. So he’s gotta know what he’s doing.
Today is Wednesday, and I’m looking at being pretty busy today, and this evening. The kids have things to do every night of the week excepting Friday, and the weekends. One month in and I am exhausted, so who knows how the kids are coping. I know they enjoy it all. But, I think we need to narrow down some interests, as this is a bit much. I am grateful that I get to see the improvements from gymnastics, Taekwon-do, and their dance lessons. Had I still been working downtown for any number of breweries or agencies, I’d never get the chance to see this stuff. I get to see them tey it for the first time, work at it, conquer it, then build upon it. Rather lovely – at times. Anyway, great day to you all.
I think I’m going to aim for 400 days of blogging, creative writing, and a general sense of nonsense and then reassess. I didn’t really have a plan beyond wanting to do a little writing every day for a year, and well…. now I am beyond that by a slight margin. I don’t have any goals for writing beyond the mere act of doing it. I try to get more concise. To limit run on sentences. To be more coherent in general. I’d actually need to reread a portion of last years posts to see if I managed to achieve any of those things. So, I’ll go out on a limb and I will say, sorta, kinda, maybe?
I do use this medium to moan, and lament about daily struggles and annoyances. But believe you me, I don’t have it too bad. I’m doing just fine. I could do with slightly better gut health, but otherwise, we’re all good. I just love to narrate a good gripe, every now and again. For those at home keeping score, I have Domestic Duties Monday’s, which sometimes gets bumped to Tuesday. I occasionally do movie reviews. Mostly if they are awful, or evoke some type of emotional response from me. Rage being a perfectly reasonable response to write about.
Rarely, I will cover retro gaming with my kids. As I have access to a Sega Master System, PS1, Nintendo 64, Super NES, Atari game system, Xbox , and an Xbox 360. So for older games we got you covered! I had kids so the PS4 & PS5 sailed right by me without waving. So nothing more recent than late stage 360 games get reviewed here.
I sometimes cover wood working projects, home DIY items, and my own spin on sculpting monster/creature busts and figures. I don’t recall ever discussing my music tastes, or instruments, but I can if I felt like it. I have taken to assembling an instrument stock pile, so that my kids have access should the mood take them. Key board, guitars, possibly drums, a violin, and a clarinet. Maybe we’ll form a family band just for kicks to keep ourselves occupied in the future. Who knows.
I just feel like I want to quit dreaming about things, and just go do them, regardless of being an awful noob and all. I don’t need to be any good, I just want to do the things, and experience them first hand, instead of watching others do the thing on YouTube. Perhaps building a new skill, or just preparing the way for my kids to learn, and do new things too. No point being miserable doing only what others expect of you. That way lies madness, depression and misery.
So in short, I don’t know how much longer I plan to keep going on a daily basis, but whatever I do, it’ll be more of the same. With the caveat that I might stumble upon a good short story theme or character, and then light up this phone with new installments. Fingers crossed. Ciao Bella!
That’s it, game over, today is the last day of my 365 day writing challenge. Obstacles met and over come. Bam! Something about apples….
But seriously, it’s a big day for what amounted to a difficult task. We had power outages, illnesses, trips, travels, and heavy work days that made this a real barn burner of a challenge. But I got through it all. Wow!
But now what? Maybe I go the whole Calendar year? that adds what, an additional seventeen days? Not bad. Maybe I can break the 200,000 word mark? I thought i just might do it, but I got to around 185,000. So close enough, I think.
So what’s on the docket today. I think I’ll do a double header and will begin my year in review of the wood working projects I built this year. There are several, so settle in. I made furniture, jigs, objects, and some pretty random items to be certain. I did at one point have the list in chronological order, but that list has gone into the ether, so now i’ll just have to randomly talk about the things as I recall them. No don’t worry, it’s not off of the top of my head, I did spend some time the other night writing them all down – again. Just not in any order beyond what i could remember first.
For my sister in-laws baby shower I made two new Cedar newel posts for my in-laws house. As I recall those were about 8.25″ square, and about 2″ high. I painted them white, and they are still affixed to the front exterior stairs. For the new rabbit Butter Scotch, I made two rabbit houses, one was a 13″ square, the other was smaller to fit into the reserve cage at the cottage. In September I used dowel construction to build a Pine display unit for my kids toys, and for them to play dolls on. My youngest has since etched her name into the top with a black ball point pen. I made a rather tall end table to display things in, that was Walnut & Ash. I made a tapering jig for the legs, so that counts as another build item too. I made a Hickory & Ash end Table / coffee table with slatted shelves. That currently sits in our basement and has not been attacked by either child as of this time. After several long years I completed the last 80% of the Ash screen door, that went up prior to my wife’s birthday party in early June. Has not collapsed or fallen off it’s hinges as of this time of reporting. Ha. I used a bunch of scrap wood to build a cubby system for all of my drills, drivers, heat gun, and staple guns, pin nailers etc… It was more shop infrastructure, than anything else. Much like the wheelie cart for my planer & jointer. It isn’t much to look at, style wise, but it’s sturdy and easy to move around in the confined space of my shop. I took some time to try to see if I could build a proper floating shelf drawer out of Walnut. It has a blue felt pad on the interior, and has remained fairly square since I built it. That also taught me not to use Wax on Walnut, as it clouded over almost immediately, so now I use the wax only on non visible portions to lubricate drawer slides and moving parts under jigs etc etc… For the farm orchard I built a scrap wood bench, that was four feet long, and a foot wide, and about fourteen inches tall. My wife, and my mother in law wanted some place to sit when watching the kids down at the farm when they go tree climbing, or apple picking. It weathered the Dericho wind storm and stayed put, also remained upright, when trees fell, and the silos were mostly ruptured. Go me! At the cottage I refinished an old iron & wood bench. Sanded it down, and put two or three coats of tan stain on it. That was done in about a day, less than that, late one afternoon in August. On the lathe I turned down some Walnut bases for some sculptures, namely my Hellboy bust and the cruddy looking great ape I made where I botched the nose terribly. I also turned down a handle for the screen door out of Maple from our tree out front. In the shop I built two peg boards, a Dado jib, the aforementioned tapering jig, and a 45 Degree cutting jig, plus a smaller tenoning jig that I used on my Pine Display Unit. In the way of metal work, I built a router sled flattening jig out of angle iron and nuts and bolts, doing the cutting with my angle grinder and a cut off wheel. That was pretty loud, and thrilling. Didn’t set fire to anything, so that was a major plus. I built a whole slew of Ash chisel caddy’s that hang on the wall. I built two toy boxes, one large one out of Pine, soon to get caster wheels, and a smaller one out of Cedar for my little ones bedroom. And last on the list is the Air brush caddy I made for all my paints, mask and the air brush compressor unit. That feels like just about everything that I made this year. If I remember anything else, I’ll be sure to mention it. I have posted photos for many of these items in previous posts throughout the year, so i won’t bore you with more at this point. Just kidding. Here they are in no discernable order. Also, just realized I made a massive Ash charcuterie board this year too. Duh!?! Can’t believe I forgot about that, I only see it 8n the kitchen every single day.
That wraps up the build portion. On to THE BOOKS! This year my goal was to read twelve of them. Sometimes I waste precious hours scrolling twitter when I could just as easily read a book, so try as I might to resist the sirens song of doom scrolling, I often did, rather than read. So I’m a bit short. I gave up on the Grapes of Wrath about half way through. But I do know I will go back to it. It was just starting to lag a bit back in August. Also the last book, Carl Sagan’s about the Demon Haunted World, is good, but I’m not sure if I’ll actually complete it before 12:01am on December 31st, or a few days into January. Here is the list of what I read this year.
The twelve books of 2022.
This year I found Adrian Tchaikovsky and read four of his novels. I have a fifth ready to go as a Christmas present. I also have a Mary Robinette Kowal book to open aswell. I am anxiously awaiting any new Lady Astronuat books she might put out. Also if Martha Wells could pump out two Murderbot books per year I’d be very happy about that as well. I will also pursue more of Don Winslow’s books in the coming years, as Man on fire was really good. I don’t typically do crime drama, but it was compelling and easy to read. More of that please. I was more than happy to find a Robert J Sawyer book I hadn’t yet read in the Oppenheimer faux history. That was really great too. I, like many others, have been waiting for George R.R. Martin to finish the last damnable book of the Fire and Ice Series, so I’ll drop fifty sixty bucks on that hard cover whenever it comes out. Not to forget the fun romp that was John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society. That was a pleasant read last spring. I’ll have my eye out for any of his new releases aswell. I see that Fart Quest has book four out. I’ll order that for my birthday come Spring time. That’s a really beautifully illustrated series that turns on D&D charm, and general fantasy tropes. Meant for kids and pre-teens but I get a kick out of it just the same.
Not much else to say. Had an email from a client whom I did work for late last year, looking to pick up where we left off, and that’s about as great a recco as I would like to get. Repeat happy customers that come back year after year. If you could only see my grin.
So this is it. The big Kahuna. Once I press send the challenge is complete! Wishing you all well. Those who followed along playing the home game. I don’t think I’ll stop just yet. I’ll aim for New Year’s Eve. Put another 17vseconds on the clock ref, I have a few plays left in me to go. Ciao Bella! Love you all.
Was tidying up around the fireplace and noticed something odd with a lone flat, laid out tissue (unused), so I picked it up, and what did I find you ask? I’ll tell you. The letter “H” carved into the top surface of our new display unit. In black ball point pen. Sunken into the wood grain. And some other random drawings, equally pushed into the wood surface. I was not impressed with the youngest. Not in the least. She gouged it in there good and deep. I am impressed with myself for not losing my shit. Not much I can do about it, without having to sand the whole top surface. Restain it all, and then add all new clear coat to it too. It is too cold for much of that to be done in my garage. And far too smelly to do inside the house. It off gases for so long. I left it outside for a few days after each step when I built it in September, and it still smelled strongly once it came inside for set up.
The youngest’s handiwork. Pitted and gouged up real good. Thanks random ball point pen.
Why it wasn’t done in pencil, I’ll never know. Oh well. That’s a 2023 downtime problem to solve. Or a spring cleaning effort come April.
Otherwise it is now Wednesday December 7th, 2022 and I don’t have much else to say today. I mean, I do, but it’s not kind. And doesn’t involve my marred table. So happy hump day. Oh, also we are now well inside the last ten days before I reach my 365 days of writing goal. I am very excited to finally see that big number, and know that i somehow managed to stick with it, even with the storms, illness, vacations, and hectic school/work schedules we all have. I wish i could say the same thing about my exercise plan, but that was always second fiddle to the writing. It is still important, now that i am getting into my near mid forties. Staying in some kind of shape besides round, or pear are of a higher importance to longevity, and general satisfaction when looking in the mirror. So perhaps i will shuffle my priorities in 2023, and put exercise first and writing second? I doubt it, but it’s a fun mental exercise to play around with. What would that look like. How do i monitor success? Do i have to go “buy” an app or Fitbit or membership somewhere? If so, count me out. 2023 should be a year of cheapness. Saving since you never know if things are going to tank hard, and leave you wishing you’d put more away for a bad year.
2022 may wind up being one of my better years for the business. No where as good as when i worked full time in house for another company. But good for me still. It can get real easy to fall into the trap of living up to your new found wages. If they slip, fall shy, or disappear you are pooped. So best to find your line, and live there through good years and hard. Keep it as simple as you are able without being a deprivation weirdo. You know the type. All boisterous about going without, but then secretly binge behind closed doors instead of using sensible moderation. But I digress. Take care out there folks. Ciao Bella!
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 
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