The Madness Never Ends

We're here at the new place mostly trying to sort through the chaos of the move. We lived in the old house for about 12 years (about 8 years the house before that) and we've accumulated a LOT of junk treasures. We have too much stuff for the house, I think, even though this new place has great storage and closets. 

Then again, most of the chaos will migrate to the basement and attic, just like the last house. lol

We're making progress, sorting and storing and trying to find a place to hang this picture or put that chair, and things are moving along at their own somewhat chaotic pace. At least until this morning when we found out that there's an issue with the sale of our old house that requires urgent attention, signatures, and delivery of proper forms and whatnot. Today.

Of course we're a hundred miles or so away from where this all needs to happen.

So we're scrambling and stressed, but after today, after the whole thing at the old house finally finishes, closes, and the new buyers get to move in, it'll be DONE. Unless of course some other crazy unexpected and completely illogical thing pops up. Which it will. Because that's how it works, I guess.

Anyway, it's good to be home and this house has felt like home ever since we got here. So, stressful or not, it's all good. :)

 And yet another housing update

Our buyers have settled down and we're set to close by the end of this month. We're actually moving next weekend, and I will be COMPLETELY offline from Friday the 27th until probably July 8th or so - there's a 10 day wait for DSL installation with our new phone/internet provider. Please don't tell me to go with someone else, in rural Iowa there IS no one else. There's one option, and one option only, unless we go via satellite.

But we're moving next weekend!  Woot!!

If you already have my snail mail address and/or phone number and I don't send you updated information by the time we move, PLEASE email me asking for it. I am a ditz, I'm stressed, and I'm soooooo disorganized. We don't have a phone number yet - hopefully we will before moving day, ha ha! - but snail mail's all set up. 

The Kid had her college orientation weekend this weekend - we just got home a couple of hours ago - and she's all registered for classes and ready to go! All we have to do is pay for it. lol

And, in keeping in the 'teaser line' mode, here's one from a scene I wrote this past week.

Lars glared at Dien. "Jess and I have kissed. There. You know. And I'm such a pervert that I touched her backside once. Come and arrest me."

That's about it for me. Have a great week!

Flooding

Hey everyone. I've been receiving emails concerned about how we're coping with flooding. Here, where we are, there isn't any. Oh, the back yard is kinda squooshy in places and we have some water in the ditch, but that's it. I hear that they're closing down downtown Des Moines - it's a good distance south of us - and that there's some flooding issues and water problems in various low lying areas and along rivers and creeks. We don't have that problem here, in fact our basement isn't any wetter than normal (we have a dank muddy cellar and it doesn't even have standing water). But, then again, we don't live near a river or creek or even a flood plain. 

A friend of ours who lives smack between the Des Moines River and a creek that feeds into it has been flooded out of his house. Another friend who lives in rural southern Iowa has to take a round-about way to get anywhere because the main road to town is partially under water. Another friend's daughter has standing water in her basement (as do a lot of people, I hear) and, really, those are the only impacts the 2008 Flood has had on us.

Bill's driving route north has so far been clear, even though some fields have standing water in them. Everywhere we tend to go we can get to without sign of water anywhere. We're high, dry, and just fine. We've been getting rain almost every night - last night is the first in about 2 weeks without rain - but other than making it difficult to get grass dry enough to mow we haven't had any trouble.

I hope y'all are managing the weather all right as well. Hang in there. It'll be hotter than hades and bone dry in Central Iowa before you know it.

As a teaser, I shall leave you with the current opening line of Stain of Corruption:

Jennit Perr's battered ghost stared at Dubric and there was nothing he could do about it.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Stay dry!

 An update.... hopefully

My internet connection has sucked for what seems like forever, but I thought I'd try - again - to check in. I can get on Bill's computer all right, but I can't use my blog software at all (it's Mac only and Bills on a PC) and emailing is a major pain in the patooty. Other than me cussing my busted ethernet port, we're all just fine here.

The Kid's graduation went well - she has freshman orientation at her college in a couple of weeks - and she's relishing her lazy summer. Well, lazy other than when her mean ol' mom makes her do things. Like put gas in the lawnmower or cook supper.

Bill's still working overtime and driving that crappy commute, so he's pretty tired most of the time. I've written a decent hunk on Stain of Corruption and have been doing some flesh-out-the-plot work on SPORE. So that's all good too. Best of all, though, we apparently have a buyer for our house. We're getting inspected tomorrow and if all goes well - which it SHOULD - we'll be closing by the end of the month! 

Which of course means that we'll need a place to go, a new home of our own, right? How about a three bedroom Victorian within reasonable commuting to Bill's job? It's pushing the limits of our price range, but I think we'll be okay. It's absofreaking gorgeous inside - least I think so - with all original woodwork and hardwood floors, and it's completely updated too! We just have to get past tomorrow's inspection and we're good to go. I'm a bit concerned about the scheduling of all of this - I mean, how can we close on our house and get the new house downpayment in and close there but still have time to move before our buyers are taking possession?? But our realtors and mortgage folks are certain it'll all go just fine. So I'm letting them handle it. lol

Oh, to contemplate flux capacitors

Hey all. Things here are all in flux again. 

Let's see. 

I am a guest poster/columnist on Poe's Deadly Daughters this weekend, it's a re-print of an essay I did a couple of years ago about superstitions and crutches.  Check it out!

We have three potential buyers for the house, all of whom want it, none of whom have the money. They're all working on financing, loans from family, and other cost issues. Hopefully they'll figure out something soon. And so we wait.

The Kid graduates next weekend. Other than a test or two she's finished High School. This simply isn't possible, we just brought her home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, surely. She's out and about right now with 'the guys' which, literally, are guys - well, there's one other girl. They get together every Friday evening and play HALO. My daughter is a very good sniper and hide and sneaker, apparently. So they decide to play Tennis, which she sucks at, but that's not as much fun for the group as HALO, so they get bored bopping the tennis ball across the screen and go back to HALO. Where they all die. Except my daughter who has this maniacal laugh...

Anyway, she's out shooting her friends.

It's just recently, since the kidlets really, that our daughter has become social. Her normal wiring dictates iPod on, ear buds positioned, and nose in book for hours and hours and hours. She still does that, most definitely, but she's out and about doing things with - gasp! - people most weekends. Good for her, she deserves to hang out and have some fun. The only thing is, her parents miss having her around.

Bill and I talk all of the time about how we're soon to become empty nesters. She's off to college in August and it'll be just the two of us again. It's going to be a very, very odd adjustment. I've already informed Bill that we need to intentionally do things that get us out of the house sometimes to interact with other human beings. We're hermits by nature, both of us, but we need to do something once in a while right? I have no idea what we possibly might do, might get involved in, I guess it will depend upon what things happen in the small town that we move closest to. If someone ever buys our house, that is.

Writing wise, I'd very very much like to say that I'm churning out gazoodles of words, but I'm not. I am writing, sort of, a little, on Stain of Corruption and I've printed out some notes and things to work on with SPORE. I just wish I could reach down and grasp story again like I used to, it's just been so slippery and elusive. I can get words without too much trouble, they just never seem to connect to anything. Like I'll have a Lars and Jess scene that doesn't really have a time or conflict related situation. Then I'll write a bit of something that Dubric remembers from the war - again, with no story point reference. Then something else totally unrelated to anything. And another scene with Lars and Jess... I can't seem to find any threads connecting any of this and it's very aggravating. And what's the deal with Paul and the Narrator?!?

Something will break free. It has to. I just hope it happens soon. 

Just a pissy kind of day 

Woke up waaay too early, but when I went back to sleep I had a bad dream which ended abruptly when Bill came home. I was supposed to be up and ready to go - we had an important errand to run this morning - and of course, I wasn't up or ready. I was groggy, sore, and disoriented from the dream. And and feeling rushed because I wasn't ready, which didn't help. I've been on edge and pissy ever since and I apologize to anyone who's had to deal with my snippiness today.

Grr!

 Writing advice... from a finance blog

I've been reading The Simple Dollar for almost a year now, ever since we fell into extreme financial distress with the kidlets. Trent has consistently solid advice on a lot of issues - admittedly, it's not always applicable to every person or situation, but what advice column is? - but the coolest things about Trent are: 

1) he too is an Iowan (in fact, he shops at the exact same grocery store I do) and 

2) he's a writer.

Anyway, this morning Trent wrote advice to a friend about following dreams and how to grasp them. It's all about passion, baby, and how to pursue it. He tells us how he became a professional writer - he'd just sold his first book, go Trent!! - and how any of us can achieve our own dreams, what ever they are.

 House update

So far, exactly half of the folks who've toured our house have come back for a second look. The latest of those first saw the house Wednesday morning and are coming back for another walk through tomorrow (Saturday), with the kids and in-laws. They've also had several back-and-forth phone calls about financing with our Realtor and, assumably, that's in motion. We haven't received an official bid yet, but we're encouraged. Also, Sunday morning our house will be featured on Iowa Realty's weekly TV show, complete with a virtual tour and an open house that afternoon.

Hopefully this will move on to the next phase soon. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

As for writing, it's stalled, again, but it's more me that's stalled than the writing itself. I did eight pages yesterday, but I'm finding it difficult to sit still for long, let alone focus. 

 3453 words

That's my total so far. I'm on page 17 at an odd place to end a scene, but so far so good. The narrative voice is completely different than anything I've written before. It's in first person, for one thing, and the main character isn't the narrator.

Still enjoying myself, but I'm done for the night.

 Offline for a couple of days

I'm just trying to get a grip on this story. 

 Two More Pages

I am not pushing myself. I will not force myself into another blockage by making myself write while my writing muscles are flabby and stiff. I'm just letting it come, as it comes, and getting surprised with every paragraph.

Another two easy pages last night.

And his name is Paul. That's all you need to know. 

 Two Pages

I did two pages of fiction tonight, thanks to Holly Lisle's How to Beat Writer's Block course.

Two. Easy. Pages.

I cannot describe how utterly ecstatic I am. I don't want to push it, don't want to scratch and dent the process again, so I'm calling it a night and am gonna hang with The Kid.

Thank you, Holly!!!

 Gaylaxicon

I've just confirmed that I'll be attending Gaylaxicon in Bethesda, Maryland on October 10-13th. My friend Leanne is coming with me, and this should be a really great convention.

If you're in the area, please come!

 Legal Ramifications

We went to talk with a lawyer today since my neighbor's been rather reluctant to move or remove his shed that extends about seven feet onto our property. It's not like there's a disagreement over whether it encroaches or not; it does, that's pretty obvious, and it hasn't been there long enough to get grandfathered in. It's a pretty open-and-shut issue, straight forward and simple. Legal paperwork, filings, and things are being done up for us to get the matter handled so that there won't be a question when someone decides to buy our house.

Sigh. It never should have come to needing a lawyer.

In other matters... let's see... I sewed a quilt top over the weekend from some black batik block-of-the-month blocks I did last year. It looks pretty cute, definitely an art piece, and it's about 50" x 60". I also sewed 12 new blocks from a fabric line called Portobello Road by RJR fabrics. I picked up a couple of charm packs of the entire line on Saturday and sewed them Sunday adding in a white-on-white cotton print as a background fabric and I used an older-style traditional star block from a selection of 1930's patterns I have. The fabric and blocks are definitely not my usual style, but they're kinda cute. In a very old-fashioned girly sort of way. Last week I also finished yet another quilt top, a couch-quilt sized thing from the all batik goose-tracks blocks I made in 2006. It's also very pretty and reminds me of buckets of sherbet in an ice-cream store case. And I actually finished a small quilt, a purple and black table runner that I sent to a friend (but don't tell him because I don't know if he received it yet ;). And I got some more charm packs of fabric I wouldn't ordinarily buy because it's good for me to do new things in different colors and styles even if it makes me want to pull my hair out. lol And I have some Nancy Halvorsen fat quarters (she's my favorite fabric designer) and, well, I have a lot of sewing I can do to keep me from going completely out of my mind with boredom while rattling around this nearly empty house. :)

And, yes, I'll try to remember to take pics of the quilts and blocks. My camera's currently in a box. Somewhere. I think.

We bought a new car a couple of weeks ago. Did I mention that? (scrolls back to check blog files). Nope, I hadn't mentioned it. The commute - about 90 miles, one way, in a nearly 20 year old Ford Explorer - was killing us in gas, about $200 the first week. AACK! So, being cheap like we are, we decided to dump that money on a good very economical car instead of down the gas tank. We bought an '08 Prius Hybrid. It's been getting *about* 48mpg for Bill's commute which is WORLDS better than the 17mpg we got with the Exploder. We have never, ever, not once in the entirety of our marriage had a car payment. We've driven other folks' cast off clunkers and things we've bought really cheap from friends, never, ever anything less than ten years old, ever, and most have been considerably older than that. So it's really strange to have something new. It's silver and pretty cool overall, but I'm still getting used to all the digital doo-dads and the electric motor being silent and all that stuff. It doesn't even have a key, it has a power button, like a stereo! There's a sensor that detects when someone with the electronic chip key-fob thing is in or approaches the vehicle. No chip, no admittance, and no pushy the power button. We refer to it as The Space Ship.  lol

The Kid has an interview for a scholarship on Wednesday. She's pretty nervous, the amount of her aid depends on how well she interviews. Bill, of course, is flipping her crap about it. Right now. And I'm having trouble concentrating on this post. So I think I'm going to sign off. :)

Have a lovely day, everyone!

 Connectivity

 Hey all!

I dropped my laptop the other day and messed up my ethernet port. Connection via wireless has always been... touchy. I'm trying to find alternative options or decide if I can afford repairs.

Otherwise, things keep on keeping on. I've begun some preliminary work on a new Dubric book, The Kid is prepping for Freshman Orientation at her new college and her high School graduation, Bill's doing great with the new job, and we've had 3 sets of folks come for a second look at the house, just in the past few days. So, mostly, we're keeping our fingers crossed!