Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 49

Series Notes

 

I know just last week in my blog about blogging, I mentioned not liking to talk about series for the risk of disappointing someone. And yet, here I am, about to talk about the Paladin League series anyway. Hopefully, this doesn't cause anyone any angst.

With that said, I do have plans for the Paladin League. Ryder and Finn have already been released. Griff is up next. And the series closes out with Kyle.

Kyle was really quiet through the first two books. A lot of times, characters talk to me long before it's time for their stories. Kyle did not.

Because of this, I felt as if I didn't know him real well. Clearly, I needed to fix this, so I sent him to work with Griff. This worked. Kyle is a smart ass. I haven't had a hero like this since Deke from IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR. But his smart assery is different than Deke's. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I can feel it. Maybe it's because he's quieter than Deke was? Or maybe he only seems quieter because I haven't written him yet. Deke was book 1 in the Light Warriors series, so I knew him from the start.

But I've been enjoying getting to know Kyle as much as I have. I'm sure no one is surprised to hear that Griff is dominating his own book (as he should be!).

Kyle also has this sense of observing others around him. He's not detached because he does care about people, but he's able to see the bigger picture at the same time. Maybe that's the way to describe this. While everyone is lost in the weeds, he has an eagle-eye view.

Of course, I'm sure he'll lose perspective when he meets his own heroine.

It's interesting, though, to observe Kyle observing others. I'm glad that he's still a bit in the future because I don't feel as if I can write him as a main character. Not yet. But I already have the cover for his book, so Kyle is definitely up next even if I have to dive in head first.

Blog Secrets

I mentioned in the last blog that I come up with ideas to blog about, don't write them down, and then forget them when it is time to blog. I also mentioned that I started writing down ideas in my test planner.

Well, the writing ideas down wasn't always a complete success either. You see, I'd write it on the second page of the planner, flip over to another day, and totally forget to check it when it was time to blog. Some of these ideas aren't time sensitive and I can blog about them in the future, but others?

There were a couple of holiday movies that I never got to write reviews for. Christmas Chronicle (or is it Chronicles?) thumbs up. Christmas Chronicle/s 2, thumbs down. Maybe I'll rewatch them (at least the good one) and review it for Christmas 2021.

The other movie I watched around the holidays felt like a Christmas movie, too. The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. It was okay. Not a bad way to spend a few hours if you have nothing else to do and Matthew McConaughey.

Then there are the four movies I watched that I could have reviewed any time, but have forgotten too many details to do this. These I will watch again and will review at the time, so I'm not giving away future topics. :-) There are times it's very hard to come up with anything to talk about.

I could talk about the book I'm writing, but I don't want to give away spoilers. I could talk about the series in general and I'd like to do this, but I have so many ideas and I've talked about them in the past on the blog and then I never wrote them. I hate to raise people's hopes and have them disappointed. I do have ideas for 7 more Jarved Nine books--really--but no time to write them.

There are other ideas I come up with, but when I try to write them, I realize there's not enough to say to fill an entire blog post. This is frustrating because I would like to bitch about this email thing that's cropping up online, but two paragraphs isn't going to do it.

Basically, I'm the poster child for blogging wrong. Sigh. Some day. Maybe. I can get a better grip on this.

Test Driving a New Planner

 

I tried a new planning system in conjunction with my daily planner. I wasn't giving up my full year planner, but this new system sounded intriguing. It was a case-bound planner for 90 days. Each day had 2 pages.

This space intrigued me. Two pages?

I love my normal planner, but am beyond frustrated with Saturday and Sunday sharing a single page. Saturday is my biggest say of the week--I need a full page. Sadly, the planner company would rather put pages and pages of lists in there rather than full planner pages for every day of the week.

Seriously, look at this tiny bit of space for a busy, busy weekend. Are you kidding me? But yes, let's keep perforated list pages. I cut those out every year because I never use them and they just get in my way.

But I digress. So the 90 day system sounded intriguing. I'd have to date the pages myself, but I have date stickers and a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine so I can make more stickers whenever I need them. And did I mention it has two pages for each day?

Of course, the other drawback was 90 days, not 365 days. I like having my full year at my fingertips, but I was willing to give it a shot.

After trying it for six months, I've reached my conclusion. It's okay, but it's not going to replace my yearly planner. It's a secondary planner, nothing more.

I thought I might use it to do some brief journaling, and while I did some of this, I didn't do it much. It was good to make lists, like ideas for blog posts. :-) I'm notorious for coming up with ideas, not writing them down, and then totally forgetting them when it's time to write a post. I'm going to try to write it down in my regular planner.

I still couldn't fit everything I need to do on Saturday on the page with the check boxes. I had to make my own check boxes in a second column.

Overall, this system will probably work for some people just fine, but it's not for me. I'll stick to my normal planner, even with the ridiculously small space for my busiest days.

Latest Knitting Project

Behold my latest knitting project, the Fully Charged shawl.

I need to block it (soak it with water and let it dry while it's pinned out), but I can't find my blocking wires. I wanted to share anyway because I thought it turned out so cool.

It's a little small to wear as a shawl since it only used two skeins of yarn, but I'm not much of a shawl person anyway, so I'll probably use it as a scarf.

The colors are awesome--an aqua blue and bright yellow--and knitted together, they almost have a green feel at times.

This project is actually a quick knit and mostly fun. There were some big slip stitch sections that became a little tedious, but they didn't last that long and the bind off was fun. If you're a knitter, I'd recommend this pattern if you're into small shawls/large scarves.

The Vaccine Saga

 

I don't know how other states are handling vaccine distribution, but things have been beyond frustrating in Georgia. Trying to get my dad vaccinated...sigh.

When Georgia expanded vaccinations for COVID to people 65 and older, I was like, yes! Now I can get my dad vaccinated. He moved in with me after my mom died, and while I've been able to work from home, I still have worried about him. He's had doctor appointments. I've been out to get groceries and I could bring something home. I just didn't know.

But trying to get him a vaccine was beyond frustrating.

First, there were no instructions on how to get him on a list. The extreme lack of communication was beyond aggravating.

Second, he got an email from the Veteran's Administration, but no instructions on how to get vaccinated. (We found out at the end of February that his VA clinic was doing vaccinations every Wednesday, something that would have been nice to know.

Third, when I finally saw that the GROCERY STORE PHARMACIES were doing online vaccination appointments, I tried and tried and tried to get him an appointment. Everything was full. Every time.

After weeks of trying, I finally got him an appointment--45 minutes away from where we live. And because I forgot to put in his Medicare number, I lost the afternoon appointment I had clicked. We ended up with a 7:20 pm time slot.

Nothing like driving to a city that I've never been to before and then driving home in the dark. And the 45 minute drive? Make than 90 minutes because we had to make it in rush hour. At least I had daylight when we headed that direction.

So this grocery store is in an area that's still pretty rural, so of course, a ton of people are not wearing face masks. Do not get me started on how selfish this is. I had to maneuver my elderly father away from the these people, including one who was sitting in the waiting area for the people getting vaccinated. All over the age of 65. Really, dude? Really? He, BTW, was not getting vaccinated. He was waiting for his wife who was wearing a mask and was grocery shopping.

We had to wait about 15 minutes afterward to make sure my dad didn't have any reaction and then I drove him home in the dark on roads with no streetlights. It was really rural for a while, too, so I was worried a deer would run out onto the road or something.

And four weeks later, we did it again.

Still, despite the stressors, it was worth it to get my dad vaccinated. He still needs to stay at home until more people are able to get inoculated, but now I don't have to worry so much about him. Now if I could get vaccinated, my COVID stress would be pretty much gone.

2021 Season Start

I'm going to write another baseball post and beg your indulgence. The season starts today and I'm excited.

Last season was strange. No fans in the stands. Cardboard cutouts. A short season. It was necessary because of the pandemic, but I also missed baseball so hard. (Notice I did not say firm!)

I heard some announcer or analyst...shrug...someone say that baseball marks the passage of history. That we can mark time by the games and I discovered how true that was when there were no games to mark the passage of the days. It felt wrong, and although I know starting the season on time is a little risky, I'm glad they're trying. I feel like everyone learned a lot from doing it for 60 games last year, so I'm hopeful we can manage this full schedule.

And as the vaccine rolls out and more and more people get it, there should be more and more fans allowed in the ballpark as the season progresses. Maybe.

That was something else that was so strange. How quiet everything was even with the piped in sounds.

I didn't realize how weird it really was until the off season when I was re-watching the postseason games that the Dodgers won. (Vin Scully made me a Dodger fan.) I mostly was watching the National League Championship Series and the World Series--the games that had limited fans allowed to attend. And then I watched the game the Dodgers played against the Padres. There were no fans for that game. It was a huge difference! The games with the fans present even at 25% were much more fun to watch.

Let's hope we can get through this entire season without any outbreaks. Let's hope we can find a new normal once people are vaccinated and we can go to games in person again.

Here's to a more normal 2021 and a normal-ish 2021 baseball season.

Strange Word Choice?

 

As we fast approach the start of the baseball season, I wanted to talk about phrasing I noticed last year.

I started to hear announcers, players, analysts say things like: he hit the ball firm.

Firm. Not hard.

Why did everyone associated with MLB decide we weren't going to use the word hard any longer, but substitute another word. Firm.

It sounds so strange to me to hear things like: He hit the ball firm. He throws a firm fastball.

What's wrong with the word hard? It seems more appropriate than firm. Firm feels like it has different meanings for me. He has a firm handshake. Her mind is firmly made up. Sure, you could maybe say hard handshake, but that doesn't feel right. Firm handshake.

Hard hit baseball. Not he hit the ball firm.

I don't know how long I'll hear this lingo. They're still using it on the day I'm writing this. But I hope this is a short-lived phenomena. It kind of grates on my ear. It's not to the level of annoyance, but more jarring because it simply doesn't feel right.

Look What I Made

Knitting an afghan is usually a really tedious thing. In fact, I've failed at it, putting one I was trying to make into hibernation because it was soooooo boring.

This afghan wasn't boring. I don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but even though it's knit in one piece, it's setup like squares. They have different patterns, and after 36 rows of knitting, it changes to the next pattern. Plus cables!

There were times I got tired of cabling, but part of that was that I didn't like the cable needle I was using. I finally found one that works better for me and then it stopped being a chore.

It was long, though. I started this early in the summer of 2020 and only knit a row or two a night. It took around six months to make this.

I knit it between other projects, mostly. I was knitting squares for an afghan I plan to gift, but the patterns for the different squares were only released every 2 weeks or so and I could knit a square in two evenings. When I was caught up on the squares and didn't feel like slogging my way across this monster, I would knit other things.

But after six months (Seriously) of inching my way through it, I finally finished before Christmas. I was pretty damn proud of myself.

My Problem Children

 

My problem children are my characters. Seriously. They're messing with me.

The hero who is supposed to come after Griff's book isn't saying a word to me. Not one word! Yes, I am still writing Griff and Cat's book, but usually, the next one up starts giving me hints about himslef by this stage in the lineup.

His heroine has been mum, too.

You know who's talking? One of the team members that is supposed to be in a second Paladin League story arc. I call it Trilogy Two in my head. He shouldn't be talking to me yet!

All of which is making me wonder if this isn't my next hero after all.

This is going to mess up timelines and make me scramble to rearrange everything. I'm still trying to push back with the guys, but it isn't making any difference. "Mister I'm not talking to you" remains quiet and "Mister you're not supposed to be up yet" is telling me all kinds of things.

Why do I have a feeling that I'm the one who is going to lose this argument?

The Notebook Problem

I might have mentioned I have a problem with notebooks. I love them and buy them even when I have no need for them.

Someone posted a link to some really cute hardcover notebooks and I toodled over just to look at them. Look, not buy. But they were so cute! I couldn't resist. I ordered two of them.

I thought they were coming from South Korea. Yes, I know, but they were cute! It turns out they were shipping from China. I wasn't sure what I was getting, but the quality was excellent and the shipping time from China to the US wasn't bad. However, it did take my package 2.5 weeks to go from a post office facility 30 miles from my house, to my mailbox. :-/

The books came in boxes that were gorgeous. I'm going to have to keep them even after I start using them.

The paper is very thick, I believe 160 gsm, which is the thickest I've ever bought before this. I really don't need that kind of thickness since I don't do watercolors or any other kind of art. Sadly, I have zero artistic talent and will only use them for writing, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the paper.

These are for bullet journaling, so there are dots and not lines. I miss the pre-made index that a lot of bullet journals have these days, but that's a minor quibble. There is the elastic strap that keeps the book closed and two ribbons to mark where you're at.

There's a pocket in the back of the books which is a feature I really appreciate. I have another book that I actually am using right now and it doesn't have that folder in back, something I really needed. And both notebooks came with paperclips in shapes. If you can see in the top picture, that one is copper and in the shape of a planet.

The other amazing thing is the page edges. OMG!

I'm trying to get over my "these are too nice to use" mindset, but wow, they are almost too nice to use. I still have them stored in their boxes, waiting for something important enough to use them for.