Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 29

2023 Dilemma

Every year, I pick a word. It becomes my theme and I even go so far as to do the word in vinyl and put it on my wall. Right in the middle of my kanban board so I can see it every time I walk out of my office.

I'm having trouble narrowing it down for 2023. Do I want to go with Peace? Freedom? Comfort? Calm? Something else entirely?

I don't know and it is not calming or peaceful to be into January without a word for 2023. I know. It's silly. The years went on without a word for a long time before I started doing this and this year will go along just fine, too, if I can't come up with a word.

But I want a word anyway.

Happy New Year!

Let's all have an awesome 2023!

Decker

Deck has finally started to share information about himself!

I say this as if this is unusual, but it isn't. It seems most of my characters need to be coaxed to share who they are, but it's always frustrating. It doesn't stop me from writing their stories, but it has led to some big work on revisions.

For example, when I was writing Ravyn's Flight, I was literally more than halfway through the story before Damon shared a key piece of information about himself. It meant rewriting a lot of work. A lot.

So Deck keeping quiet isn't a new thing, but it was still a huge relief when he started opening up about who he is.

Then there's Francesca who remains mum about who she is. I know she was in love with Deck when they knew each other in the past and that his disappearing on her was extra painful, but other than that? I don't have much from her. I'm hoping that when Deck is through telling me about himself that she'll pipe up, but there are no guarantees.

This is more unusual. My heroines are normally a lot more forthcoming than my heroes. Maybe it's because Deck has been in three other stories I've written and this is Francesca's first appearance.

Adventures with Cold Weather

It was cold last week in Atlanta. Like 9 degrees and there was a wind chill on top of that. Not Minnesota cold--where I lived most of my life--but cold enough to make me think of Minneapolis winters. Without the snow.

But they sure don't invest in a lot of insulation in the homes down here. Never mind that it's good for keeping homes cool in summer when the air conditioner is running. So the house is cold in winter and I do not like being cold.

With the heat going and a sweater on, it wasn't bad. And like I always do on Saturday, I went to start laundry. And I got an error message.

I figured the load was out of balance, although it's a front loader so that almost never happens. But hey, towels. ::shrug:: I rearranged the load and started the machine again. And I got the same error code again. This time I searched online.

No water. Can be caused by frozen water lines.

We also had no water in the refrigerator's water dispenser. Everything else, though, was fine. It was supposed to warm up into the 30s on Christmas, so I thought I'd just do a few loads then.

At 1:30 on Sunday I still had no water. But a little over an hour later, the machine ran and towels got washed. Hurrah!

Well, not quite hurrah. When I went to move the towels into the dryer, I noticed there was water on the floor. A lot of water. Not enough to go into the hallway, but enough to cover about half the floor in the laundry room. I couldn't find my sponge mop. This isn't great

I ended up using towels to wipe up all that water.

When it was cleaned up, I took a look at the hoses behind the washer, but nothing appeared to have burst or be damaged, so I don't know where the water came from. I'm afraid to use the washer now until the repairman can come out and look at it. He's getting a call today. Fingers crossed he can come out this week.

Merry Christmas!

 For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas!

Directionally Challenged

I mentioned on Tuesday that I am challenged when it comes to knowing how to get places. If it's somewhere I go all the time, I'm fine, but new locations? Not so much.

There are stories I could tell about studying a map--the paper kind--and promptly turning the wrong direction. Like the exact opposite direction. I've been lost in more cities than you can imagine and I've learned to stop and ask for help.

But then GPS came along. My car has it built in, but I use Waze on my phone because then I get traffic information.

The app, though, has a few quirks.

Like I start it for the drive to work as I'm walking from the house to the garage. According to Waze, my walking speed has been as high as 83 MPH. Yes, I said walking! Seriously, I'm always in a hurry, but even on my best day, I can't out-race a cheetah.

And of course, the quirkiest things of all can be the strange directions. One time, the app directed me off the freeway, took me on a roundabout, side road jaunt and then guided me back on the freeway because traffic had slowed. If there's no accident, I would just as soon wait in the slow down than execute evasive maneuvers worthy of one of my heroes.

A couple of weeks ago, I put in directions from one location to another that I knew was close by. I was like 99% certain I knew where to go, but I wanted to be 100%. Waze wanted to direct me back to the main road, to another main road, and then to the same road I was already on! So instead of turning left like Waze said, I turned right and my destination was like a few blocks.

But things like this are a small price to pay because when I take a wrong turn--which I sometimes do even with GPS--it gets me back on track. I need that. Because I'm no joking when I say I'm directionally challlenged.

Another Phone Thing

I recently got a new work phone. I needed it because I was using an iPhone 8 and it was bricking up on me. Like the screen would be lit up, but when I touched the screen nothing happened. I couldn't even reboot it because I couldn't get the on-screen "button" to slide. Everything was just dead.

And don't even ask me about trying to load an update. That was an ordeal. I cringed when Apple released any iOS updates.

The new phone is a 12. My personal phone is an 11, so I'm one ahead on my work phone now instead of three behind.

One of the things I did with this new phone was create a work-only ID to use on it and keep my personal Apple ID separate.

When I got my first company phone, I didn't have my own smart phone and they were generous with allowing us to use the phone for personal stuff, so I did. But more and more of my life went mobile, and I ended up buying my own iPhone when the pandemic hit because I didn't know if I'd have a phone...or a job.

As soon as I got my own phone, I moved everything personal off the work cell. I tried to set up my account so that when I downloaded an app on my iPhone, it didn't load on the company iPhone, but sometimes I'd still find the new app there. I also had my messages showing up from time to time and sometimes work messages showing up on my personal phone. No. No. No.

So as I went through the procedure to set up the new phone, I switched to a new Apple ID that I'll use only for work. The only apps on that phone are company apps (and Waze because I'm directionally challenged). It was kind of a pain in the butt and I wish I'd been smarter from the start--although while I was using the phone for personal as well as business, there wasn't really a good way to get around it.

But everything is separate now and I have a purple phone case to protect the new phone. You can hardly tell it's Apple's boring business black color. My personal phone is yellow. I really like the yellow.

Review: One Small Hitch

***Warning: There might be spoilers. The movie was released in 2013.***

It's the time of year when I watch romantic movies. The one I'm talking about today is called One Small Hitch and I streamed it with Amazon Prime.

Our heroine is Molly (Aubrey Dollar) and our hero is Josh (Shane McRae). They've known each other all their lives and Josh is friends with Molly's older brother. They're both on their way to a wedding in Chicago, and before they arrive, they agree to pretend to be engaged.

Josh's father is dying and they want to make him happy and Molly is getting family pressure. They do admit to a couple of people from the beginning that they're only pretending.

I expected this movie to be shallower than it was. More surface stuff and happy ending and all that. It wasn't. The movie opens with Molly discovering her boyfriend is married. Josh is a player and while they're in Chicago, he's hooking up with some woman he knew in high school or something like that. And got caught by his mother in a hotel when he was with this friend with benefits.

There's also some seriousness because Josh's father is dying and there are no miracles.

Overall, I liked the movie. Molly and Josh were engaging characters and I was rooting for them to be together. I did not like Josh sleeping with that other woman while he was pretending to be engaged to Molly. You'd think he could manage to keep his hands off other women for the time he was in Chicago.

The other thing that made me scratch my head was their stay in Chicago was extended. What did Molly and Josh do about their jobs? What about their apartments? Their mail? Did friends handle everything for them? But still, didn't they run out of vacation time? I mean they're gone long enough for Josh to work at his father's business in Chicago.

There is a happy ending and a little surprise amid the credits at the end, so don't immediately turn it off if you decide to stream it.

With the caveats I mention in this review, I say if you're looking for something to watch, you could do worse than One Small Hitch. It's not all sunshine and roses and it does violate some romance novel protocols, but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

Dusted

It's been cold in the office. I reported it at work, but the people who sit around me would rather wear a jacket than get the heat fixed, so I'm freezing. And then I saw this sweater online. Duster length.

Perfect! It'll keep my legs warm, too.

You know in the back of my head, I remembered that models are tall and that I am not tall. But for some reason I was sure the duster length would be just fine on me since it wasn't too long on the model. I know, I know.

Well, the duster came today and I excitedly put it on. It's different than my usual style and that was part of the excitement. And as you might have guessed, it was too long for me, almost reaching my ankles. Dusters are supposed to hit, what? Mid-calf?

Okay, I thought, this is still okay. I'm not tripping over anything. And then I looked in the mirror. My super cool duster sweater looks like a bathrobe. In no small part because of the length.

Crushing disappointment.

And of course, because it's a sweater, there's no way to cut it down to make it shorter. I've decided not to return it. I need something warm for at home, too. I just never expected to have a knit bathrobe.

Transfer Protocol

I started 2022 in a different company's planner than the one I've been using for years. As it turned out, this was a poor decision on my part. When my usual planner had a sale last February, I picked up their 2022 daily.

While I wanted to set up the late addition to my year, I never had time and I decided I can just work from both copies to carry over birthdays and anniversaries to 2023.

I'd just transfer over the old daily data so that my memory keeper would be complete.

Yeah. Months worth of daily lists and appointments all moved from the planner I abandoned to the planner I returned to.

Oh, I started doing it. I made it through a couple of days before I was like OMG! This stinks! I'll sit down and do it later. Because I did still want the year to be complete no matter how tedious it was to rewrite everything.

Well, guess what? I have my 2023 planner and now I need to finish moving everything from 2022 or forget about it entirely. I'm not willing to forget about it.

So on Saturday afternoon, I sat down and began transferring things again.

It's still tedious. The good news? I thought I had to enter most of March, but as it turns out, I began the second planner on March 1, so I only have to move over two months worth of information and February was a short month.

Yes, I am trying to convince myself how lucky I am. No, it isn't working. But I'm into February now, so I'm making progress.