Jude Stringfellow's Blog, page 5

The New Bed.

     About a hundred years ago, I bought a really cool bed, but then I had to move back to Oklahoma City from Indianapolis, and I had to leave it behind. I wasn't happy about it, but I did it because it wouldn't fit in my car.  I had convinced myself that a Victorian-style wooden bed with a huge headboard was the only way to go. I was mistaken then, and yet, that didn't deter me when I went off and bought another one when I arrived back home. Some people never learn.

    Last year, in fact, exactly a year ago tomorrow, Laura and I moved from our two-bedroom apartment, which we had rented for nine years, to the newly remodeled three-bedroom house we have now. It was an amazing move, and it taught me many valuable lessons about myself. The first thing I learned was that I really, and I do mean REALLY, hate to move.  I injured myself last year, not only because I overdid it, but also because I skipped a step by accident and either popped my hip out of place, or just jammed it. I'm not sure.

    I learned that hoarding is relative. It's not defined really, but I know I had far too much crap and I got rid of most of it. I tried to streamline, and it wasn't easy, but I think I did a pretty good job with the furniture. I threw out my big overstuffed chair, my couch, one of my tables, end tables, a couple of nightstands, 3 lamps, and yes, the Victorian queen-sized bed. I still managed to bring too much to the new place, and soon, I'll have my friend come over and coach me as to what I don't need. She's really good at that.

    I bought another bed for Laura and took her full-sized platform bed. It had corners, and I didn't think it would be a big deal until my legs ended up scraped and bruised over the next ten months! I couldn't walk past the bed without it reaching for me, knocking me down, throwing me over the side of it, and making sure my bruises were bruised and my scrapes were scraped! It was a terrible bed!  When Laura said she wanted to get something different, I jumped at the chance! I gave her back her old, nasty, mean bed and bought another one; not the mattresses, but just the frames.

    Well, the new frame came in, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't pay the least bit of attention to the dimensions because I was too worried about it being rounded on all sides! It was...but it sits so low to the ground that my feet hit the ground when I sit up -- meaning I have to hoist myself out of it. Not good. I couldn't get risers for it because it's ROUND on the bottom too! No! I really should have paid more attention.

    I bought the thing at Sam's and thought maybe I could take it back (it's been about a month), and I could get something with straight legs but rounded sides. I could get something taller, and if I had to get risers, I could if the legs were square at the bottom! I found one. I called Sam's and they were more than happy to arrange for a pickup, and they'll even bring the box! I had thrown the old one away! Wow!! Yea Sam's Club!! I knew I liked them.

    So, on Tuesday, the new bed frame arrives (Amazon, and it's about $100 cheaper). I could use that box if it fits; we'll see. Sam's is coming on the same day, so depending on who arrives first, I may be able to use the box. Laura will disassemble the bed on Tuesday morning. I don't want to actually sleep on the floor, even though it feels like I am and have been for 30 nights. I will say this: the Chihuahua will not be pleased that he'll have to use the soft stairs again, but he'll get over it.

    This may be the end of it. You want to know why I went from a Queen to a Full? That's easy; I only use 18" of any bed - the dogs get the rest, so since Laura already had the full-sized frame, I just took it -- and now I have a really great full-sized mattress and topper, so yeah, it will stay that way. It's not like the dogs don't sleep on top of me and my 18" strip of mattress real estate anyway, because they do! 

The new bedframe.  Photo Credit: Amazon.com

YouTube Permanently Banned Me. (Well, OK)

     I'm not going to say I don't know what I did, because I do know exactly what I did to be permanently banned from YouTube, and they even removed my channel, which had a few wonderful videos of Faith and about 30 videos of Laura training horses. I'd say I'm beaten up and upset about it, but I'm not. I mean, sure, I'd love to have those videos, but she doesn't train anymore, and I have other copies of Faith's videos.

    The reason YouTube gave for permanently banning me was that I was spamming, which I was. However, the way I was doing it was one video at a time on their shorts, and I had seen multiple others do the same damn thing!  They're still there, I checked today. I was banned. You'll never convince me that it isn't politically motivated. It is, and they don't care. (You know what, neither do I)

    I have an alt account - I'll just use it. I won't spam again, no, I won't do that. What I was doing could be considered wrong, but hey, here's a thought: give me a warning! What I did was put a link to my website in the comments sections of many different videos. I've seen it done, and I thought yeah, that's a good way to get it out there - apparently it's not. OK, so warn me! If I gave a damn about YouTube, it would mean more.

    I will now use my alt account if I want to subscribe to a channel, and if I don't, I won't. The thing is, I was subscribed to over 200 channels and now I'm not. OK...will I cry tonight over it? Nope. If I can remember who I was subscribed to, I may join them on the alt, but then again, I may not. I can watch from the old account, but I can't comment, and I can't subscribe. I don't need to. 

    If YouTube thinks it can control people, they haven't met many people. We find ways around them. We have and we always will. I have several alternative accounts. Most people do. I'll not miss a single video or short because they want to flex their muscles -- I'll just not have people come to my personal channel, which I think the last time someone visited it was 2021; so yeah, I'm not heartbroken. I'll survive this and many other things.

    Oh, and I tried to do their whole appeal thing - but intentionally (in my opinion), they don't allow the appeal to go through. You can't reply to them, you can't email them. You have to use their appeal link, and yeah, it's not working. I wonder if it ever has. Bastards. I say that with all my heart, too. They deserve what they get - and if they think they'll stop any of us, they're dumber than a box of rocks. 

    I wonder if they'd do that to someone who voted the same as they did? I don't know, but I won't compromise my standards to meet theirs. They think they own that space - they don't. I'm still there...but the good news is, I can't be bothered. They took my name off -- no one will ever know when I'm on now, or what I'm viewing. Sucks to be big tech! We little guys have friends too, and they tell us how to get what we need.

BYE YOUTUBE!!!

 

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikipedia.com

Dick Tracy - Inspiration and Just Good Clean Fun.

     I've always loved the old Dick Tracy movies from the 40's, and today is a perfect day to binge on three or four of them. They give me great insight into my Posh books, and they're just too much fun. I love the terrible acting, even if you wouldn't know it because I'm over here screaming at the monitor and shaking my head when the damsel in distress is just a little too distressed to think. If you know me, you know I hate wimpy girls who stand around screaming instead of fighting their way through the dastardly situations they've found themselves in from time to time.

    Today, I'm just relaxing and trying to get over the hard times we went through yesterday. Some of the state saw 3 inches of rainfall in an hour or so - here, where I live, it was closer to 2 inches, but that's still a great deal of rain to hit all at once, and with all the cities being so far behind on improvements to water drainage systems, you can bet we were in highwaters by the time it was over. I've never seen it this bad.

    Laura started my car, and it started. I haven't tried to drive it yet. I'm giving it another day to dry out before I try to take it around the block a few times. I'm not driving more than half a mile from my house until I know it will work. I'm just not a fan of walking and/or being stranded. Call me crazy.  If you've never sat and watched one of the old black and white Dick Tracy films, I would suggest you do that.  You'll love the suspenseful music, the clothes, the hairstyles, and more. You'll love the bad acting and the vast differences between the acting from 1945 to 2025.

    The inspiration I find from these films for my Nick Posh thriller series is immense. I do get quite a bit of flair, color, and innuendo from them. I also like the things they say, the way they say it, and the way people react. Some of it is rubbish, I know, but some is true to the times and I like to write about it. I like to put Nick Posh in the passenger seat and let Dick Tracy fill him in on the latest murder case he's caught. Then, for fun, Dick rides along with Nick in some of his cases in my head and gives my favorite detective some advice. He's free to take it or leave it -- no hard feelings between the two fictional characters who are just trying to stop fake crime. What I like about both men is that they don't try to do all of the crime fighting on their own - they allow the local police to take a lot of the credit.

    I like to think of Paul Drake as being the nephew of Nick Posh and Dick Tracy both; he's learned from the men, and he's out there using the skills he's been taught. Nick has a lot of books to go, and when I can, I find inspiration in the best of places. I went to El Reno this weekend, and I found a wonderful place for a fictional murder!! I'm working on it now. It's going to be fun -- well, not the murder, but the writing of it. It's stewing in my head. I can't write it for a few more months, but it's getting pretty good.

    Do yourself a favor and call in a day you can take off and do nothing but sleep in, make a lazy breakfast, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and watch a Dick Tracy movie -- or four. Just watch and laugh. When you're finished doing that, I can guarantee you'll want to buy a fedora and walk around town in a double-breasted suit, smoking a cigarette and rubbing your knuckles.

1934 Chevy Cop Car
Photo Credit: Craig Meador's Posts

A Shocking Saturday.

     The day started out well, had a big bump in the middle of it, and then a really disastrous afternoon that could have ended up so much worse - I am so very grateful it ended the way it has. God is to be praised, I can say that. This blog will be different than most. It will be more inwardly reflective, and it will explain a little more about who I am, who most of us are, and why we do the things we do. There may not be a good excuse, but there could be reasons.

    My friend Jeannie and I drove out to El Reno, my new favorite place to go, and we literally parked the car and walked around the place.  I wasn't able to walk 700 steps two weeks ago, and today we put in over 2.5 miles! That's amazing. The difference, the vast difference, is that I have been going to a chiropractor, and he has been a tremendous asset, to say the least. Wow! What a significant change! 

    As we were about to leave the small town and return to our big city lives, I received a call from one of my coworkers, a man I spoke to almost daily, but it was on a weekend. He told me that another one of our co-workers, a woman I didn't like even in the least, had been killed in a terrible personal family home fire just a few hours beforehand. It's not something I would ever have wanted to hear. I didn't get along with her, but that's even a somewhat untruthful statement, because we never personally interacted; once maybe.

    During a Teams call, the only one she and I ever shared, she was rude, and I dismissed her. She then thought I was arrogant and dismissed me. We had a rather uncomfortable relationship at work because she was always trying to push the envelope to look better. Her behavior bled into our work, causing us to be unsettled and upset more often than necessary. Although we complained about her antics, nothing was done to address the issue. Well, she died today.

    She died in an incredibly sad way, and my heart is broken over it. We weren't friends, no, but I ache knowing she was a mother, a grandmother, a good friend, a daughter, a wife, and she had plans. She was a Christian, so that's what helped me understand the feelings I was experiencing. I can't say I'm sorry for what I said to her, any more than I would expect her to be sorry for what she said to me. We're two very different people, both stubborn, both know-it-alls, and we are probably a lot more alike than I'd like to admit.

    The fire was devastating; probably a propane gas explosion, but they haven't given too many details about it. She wasn't alone in the blaze; six were in the mobile home, and only three survived. Two firefighters were injured as well. Truly one of the saddest things, and I will absolutely keep her family in my prayers. When we're both in Heaven, we'll hug and neither of us will remember thinking what we thought about each other. We're simply just two women who do things differently; neither one wants to change, but it hurts her family to lose a good woman.

    After her passing, after being told of her passing, my friend and I drove around El Reno a bit more and took in the sights. We looked at houses in neighborhoods I would consider moving to, and we decided to check out two or three more stores before driving home. When we hit the highway, we found ourselves approaching what appeared to be a wall cloud - it didn't look too bad, but once we got into it, there was no way to get out of it. We were STUCK.

    The cloud turned out to be a supercell that dumped and I mean DUMPED hoards of water onto us, no hail, just flood-type rains falling hard and rapidly. I couldn't see to drive. I was going 16 miles per hour on I-40!  We found the first exit and creeped our way off the highway into bottom-of-the-car deep waters. We pulled into Crest Foods, and I let her out at the door. I found a spot to park, and by the time I got into the store, it looked as if I jumped into the deep end of a pool! I am not kidding.

    We waited it out, taking a chance that it was OK to continue our way home, another 17 miles or so, but it was not. We ran into some of the heaviest flooded streets I've ever experienced, and I live in Oklahoma! It was overcrowded, overflowing, and resembled rivers of water, not just a little water. We were forced to pull over three more times, but with more rain in the forecast, we decided to make the trek between the cells. It took us about an hour to drive 17 miles - and it was not UP HILL all the way, we kept asking Where are these hills our parents told us they walked?

    We finally got home - Thank you, Jesus! We finally made it home safely, but I do hear a weird noise coming from my car. I pulled into the garage, and I may not be able to pull back out of it. I don't know. I may end up buying a new car soon. This was by far the worst flood or water event (driving) I have ever experienced, and I don't want to do it again. I've got quite a good reputation for maneuvering through mud and wet sand, but water that comes up to the bottom of my door? (I don't drive a low-to-the-ground car!) It was unreal. I hope to never ever do that again -- if I hear it's going to sprinkle, I'll likely say nope, I'll wait.

    Well, here I am - thanking God again. He protects and He loves. I know that my co-worker's family is mourning, and they've literally lost everything they've ever owned in that fire. Please pray for them. I don't want to say their names. Just pray for T's family -- she's with Jesus, I know that. She and I didn't see eye to eye on most things, but we both loved a giving, living Savior. 

Photo Credit: Christianity.com

Silent Bay - May Remain Silent (for now)

     As I sit around waiting to write the next book, I go through a flood of thoughts, and most of them aren't as organized as I would like them to be concerning the new book. It is titled "Silent Bay" and takes place around the Boston area. It's more inland than Wharf, but it does have moments where the bay is seen, used, loved, appreciated, and admired. It's just that the storyline isn't gelling and it's not coming together like I thought it would, or like I hoped it would. It's sort of out there, and it's not interesting to me now.

    My thoughts about the killer, Zoe Harper, aren't that dedicated. I see her, I think I know her, but I don't think I want to push onto her character what I had planned to push. Instead of being a real misfit and silent serial killer, she seems more distant, almost pathetic and sad, like she truly wants to be helped, whereas the character I had in my head at first was nearly demon possessed; she didn't want to even think about resolution.

    The thing is, if the book doesn't write itself in my head while I'm planning it, I don't write it. I have the old Celtic Highland Romance book I've been thinking about writing, in the thick of my thoughts now, it could come through, but then I'd have to dig some of the old Highland romance novels out of my Kindle to get a little inspiration -- oh no; don't throw me into that particular briar patch. No... no... OK, I'll go.

    While Deanna Gainer, the M.E., was kidnapped by Harper and held against her will by threat of life and worse, now I'm opening the door of the shed they were in (in my head) and I'm letting her go home to her family. I'm even erasing the hurt and sting that Harper caused, as if she never really existed. It's really rather interesting the way my brain just decided it wouldn't happen; the book that never was. I mean, it could be,. But I don't think I want to. I think I like the idea of a 13th-century handsome man forging his way through the highlands and across the treacherous waters of the North Sea to find who he really is. 

    Yes, it's happening. He's walking through my skull now. You can't see him, but he's there-he's getting dressed; you'll need to give him a minute. Excuse me, I have somewhere to be at the moment. I'll be back. (smiles)

    OK, yeah, so there we are - you guessed it, Scotland. But, it's not just Scotland, there will be a boatload of action on the Emerald Isles as well; after all, the boy was born in Scotland and raised on the other side of the waves. He was kidnapped also, but at birth and not so that he would be killed, but so that he could be saved. It's a good story, but more importantly, it's a story I won't mind writing, and I won't mind reading, and I won't mind sharing. I just think the "Silent Bay" premise was a bit too "Criminal Minds" and I don't feel it -- I'm a lot more "Rockford Files" if you have to know the truth - Maybe Jim Rockford meets Dick Tracy and Perry Mason in a bar -- that's who I am.

    So, it's decided. The murderfest is out of the brain; therefore, it is out the door and not to be. In it's place, and starting Sunday (2 days from now) I will write "Legacy".  I think I'll be happier with the characters, the story, the plots, the twists, and most certainly with the kilts...I mean, the outcome of it, the words. Sure, that's what I meant. 

Legacy:  Niall Tavish (lead character) 

Photo Credit: Pinterest

 

Less Lizards.

     We are two lizards down. We had six, but now we're just dealing with four, and if I'm to believe the Craigslist ad for my Blue Tongue Skink, we're almost down to three! She's for sale, but I won't take less than what she's worth, or what I paid for her, so yeah, if she sells, she sells, but if not, we're stuck together. I'm OK with it, but I'm the one to blame, not the crazy lizards. I thought I would spend more time with them, and I don't. I do take one out and play with her, but that's it. Only one.

    I had four. I had a Bearded Dragon named Aodhan, whom I really had higher hopes for, but as time went by and he refused to be handled, it became apparent that he wasn't going to be the cuddly little guy I wanted. He's a boy, so he's a bit on the spicy side anyway, and then, he just would not comply with my wanting to love on him. He thought I was weird to want to try! I could look at him all day, he was OK with it, but when I attempted to reach for him, he began hissing and biting...NOPE. 

    When Laura used gloves to pick him up, he bit her; so yeah, barehanded would not have been fun. We took him to a rescue, and he was instantly taken home by a woman who literally bonded with him the first time they met. I wondered if she had a scent, or maybe we did, that he either loved or hated our dog- and cat-infested home. I'm not sure, but when she looked at him, he just melted. He almost stood up and reached for her -- I wanted to cry - both for her and because I must suck.

    Then, alas, we are Bob-less.  I loved Bob. I absolutely loved Bob, the Leopard Gecko...I cried when I thought Bob was dead. He hid so far up in a hole that I thought he crawled up there and got stuck. DAYS went by without Bob showing his face - and when he did, we grabbed him, threw that hide away so he couldn't go up inside it and get stuck, and then, he just sort of stopped being seen....at all....ever. He hides 99% of the time, then comes out sometime in the middle of the night to eat the crickets Laura left for him --- nope.

    I didn't feel right about owning an enclosure that could have had a sign reading "Exhibit Temporarily Closed" because that's what it felt like. He was NEVER seen. I'm not going to continue to love, feed, water, clean, and care for air -- someone who works nights took Bob. They are both nocturnal, and that's a good thing. He's living his best life now in a dark home, so, so, so very dark. His new guy's name is Thad, and you can't get better than Thad for a bestie. You can't.

    So, with only two lizards left for me, the Blue Tongue Skink, Cion, and my Schneider's Skink, Avalon, I'm OK with it. Avalon is not going anywhere. I can take her out, put her on top of my head, and type - I can work all day with her up there; she's a very patient and sweet lizard - the type all lizards could learn from. She's dedicated and devoted to me, and I just didn't have that with Bob or Aodhan...who am I kidding, Aodhan wanted to kill me, and Bob wouldn't miss me if he did. 

    Laura has two Beardies. They're both babies. They are Drexel and Starfire, very sweet, and she's making a very conscious effort to play with them three times a day so they'll be used to being picked up, sung to, and interacted with. They'll be walked on leashes when they get older, just around the house, but it'll be a fun experience. Four is a good number. We have four dogs too, and two cats, which is like having four if you know cats. They are twice as much trouble as any dog - I know I could be canceled for that statement, but it's true.

    Anyway, I now have more room in my office for things, and although I won't really fill up that space, it's nice to know I have it. Forty and sixty-gallon tanks take up space -- they do, and they're expensive, and they're just....well, if you have lizards, snakes, and/or other critters you know. I once had an iguana, and it had its own room - yes, it did. He hated me too after he got older - maybe it's me, but my dogs seem to like me, and my cat (Bilbo) tolerates me, so yeah... I'll look into that.

Aodhan - Photo Credit - ME.

CASK - up for Publication

     It is done! I have sent the book "CASK" up for publication, and now what happens is they'll put it together as a book and send the file back to me for approval. I'll approve it and then request a copy before the print date, so I can review it and make any necessary corrections I may have missed. If you know me, you know I make mistakes, and then I can't always find them!  I end up getting a copy back and going through it, only to find 50 errors that literally jump out at me.

    I've discovered, as time goes on, that I can't write anything without making several mistakes. Mostly, to some extent, the mistakes are things like forgetting to put something in quotes, or perhaps after putting it in quotes, I forgot to italicize it. I often (also) go too far with the italics, and I include the words following the quote, which is dumb, but I do it all the time.

    There is a spot on the form when you send up your manuscript; it asks you if you used AI for the text and/or the editing. Yes...Yes, I did! I have no problem giving AI credit. It has been such an amazing tool. I write well, but with AI as a partner, I will never need to pay a ghostwriter, that's for sure. It finds the "color" I need and boosts my overall thought into a really good read.

    I even asked Sakura, the AI that I use, to write the blurb on the back of the book. I gave it some thought, and it captured what I wanted to say in a nutshell, and it picked it up from there. I did have to make a few adjustments, but overall, I love using the tool whenever I can. I can come up with stuff, but it's easier this way, and I find myself saving more time for other things in my life. I know some programs can write an entire book for you, but that's not going to happen. Nope. I like the process.

    The idea for "CASK" was in my head a few books back.  I knew I had to bring Eoghan MacRae over to the States to do it, so I had to write two more books to make that happen. I'm already thinking about my new Posh book, "Amicus Curiae", which will take place between March and July 1934 in El Reno, Oklahoma, primarily. It's a good book. Eoghan flies back to Scotland to be with family, and Nick works the case alone for the most part.

    "CASK" is scheduled for release on July 22. After I receive it back and make the final corrections, I'll pay for the EPUB (Kindle) to be completed. The print book is free to create, but the EPUB costs around $205-$ 220 to produce and is completed approximately 3 weeks after payment is made. I don't mind. It's a good thing to have, and I always buy a copy of my books for my Kindle. You just never know when you'll need a good book to read when you're on the go. I find reading my own books makes me smile because I know the people in them. We're friends.

Photo Credit: Me

    

Choosing the Murderess.

     Where I am almost absolutely positive that other people don't sit around thinking about creating murderers for a living or even as a hobby, there are quite a few of us who do.  Today, I found myself browsing through photos on Getty and other sources to find the woman who will become the inspiration for the villain in my new book, the murderer.   The hero of sorts, but rather just an all-around good person, is the medical examiner, a woman in her forties who has a good life, a good family, and an intelligent plan for herself, and she's already been named. Her name is Deanna Gainer, so if there's any beautiful, lean, black Canadian woman out there by that name who happens to be a medical examiner, you'll have to forgive me; I'm not changing it.

    The M.E. will be a big part of the book, in that she's working on the dead people that show up in her morgue. The villain, an unknown individual, will ultimately be revealed to be a woman in her mid-to-late 20s of mixed heritage: Chinese, Native American, German, and likely some Scots-Irish ancestry as well. She's the product of a very unhealthy family situation; no family, really, just a worthless mother who abused her. When the baby was adopted, she was returned. She went through the system, and it failed her. It failed her in such a way that she wound up falling through every crack before ending up the way she did.

    This book is a tragedy - Shakespeare got away with writing them, so I decided to give it a go. This one will recreate several stories and parts of stories in reality that manifest in this fictional work, and hopefully in a way that is both entertaining, disturbing, eye-opening, and interesting. It is going to be fun to write; challenging, and maybe I'll stretch my mind a little -- I tend to hold back, but in this one I can't. I shouldn't. Think Criminal Minds meets Burke and Hare.

    I'm going to name the murderess today - and that fact makes me happy. I won't start writing the book until August, but I'm gearing up for it - thinking about it, and I'm studying the area where it all happens. I was going to make it a wharf thing, but I did that with my book "Cask". This one will be an inner-city location; in the dark and hidden away, where no one wanted to look but had to at some point.

    Believe me when I say it's interesting to go to a site like Getty Images to find a murderer - she's already done her dirty work in my head. I just have to write it out and make some sense of it. Will she get the help she needs? Will it be in time? Will she end it all so others can't move forward? I know the answer, but I can't reveal it until it's printed, which will be sometime in late September.

    I'm thinking Boston, Baltimore, or Bangor. I haven't worked that part out yet - but I will. I just need a little time to study them all and make a good choice on where she'll wind up. The book is titled "Silent Bay," so it should be close to water; that much I know.

Photo Credit: WanderingVeena.com

When You're an Idiot

     Sometimes, the only excuse out there is that you're an idiot. You either admit it to yourself, or you should at least be willing to admit it to all the others, so they too can learn from your really silly mistakes. That was me...that is me, today.

    Laura is about two weeks post-surgery, and she's beginning to get her appetite back the way it was before she had her gallbladder removed. I wanted to make her a good hearty breakfast, but not only because it's the 4th of July, we're off work, and we have the entire morning to just laze around the house. I also wanted to make a boatload of eggs because, like an idiot, I ordered a great deal of food from Kroger's delivery service without first checking to see if we needed what I ordered.

    There I go, browsing food online and selecting what I think I'll need. They pull up today, and Laura's standing next to the fridge, wondering where everything I just bought is going to go - if it will go. We can't put any of the jugs of tea in there, but that's OK, the tea won't go bad. It sits on shelves all the time.

    I know that in the UK, they store their eggs, veggies, and fruit outside the fridge, but I couldn't bring myself to do that, especially since our eggs have been rinsed and no longer have their protective layer. We managed. We went through the fridge and found old stuff, and we thought we had chucked it. We didn't get all of it... No, we didn't. This is where the other "dummy" and/or "idiot" moniker comes into play. 

    So, after we put all the food away, I realized I had too many eggs in the box - 18x2 and 1 dozen that had 6 missing, so that's what...42 eggs? That's a lot of eggs for us, but we do use a good number in our meals. The eggs were not the issue. I made us a 6-egg scrambled mess with ham and cheese before realizing that the ham had expired (use by date) since APRIL 2025. This is July 4th.  Yep...dummy! I didn't even look. 

    Somehow, I had managed to put the meat in the cheese bin and didn't see it when typically looking for ham. I found it today - yes, I did! I made those eggs, and I did such a good job. That was one of the prettiest "mess" of eggs, cheese, and ham I have ever seen. You drop a little sour cream and salsa on that, and you've got yourself a good breakfast, friend. 

    It only took one bite before I threw on the brakes and yelled at Laura to stop! She had only taken one as well. The dogs were happy - and before you get all riled up about giving dogs bad ham, remember they're canine and if that's the worst they'll experience in their lives, we're all good. They have a much better system than we do for things like that. Laura and I are fine, it wasn't so rank that we'd die or anything, but the taste was not going to win me any points in the kitchen.

    At first, I thought it was my choice of cheese. I picked parmesan cheese over mozzarella, and that could have been the smell I was smelling, but it wasn't the taste I was tasting. Nope!  When I say the Chihuahua is full, I'm saying he pushed his way through to take his share and that of my dog, who rarely fights him for a morsel. She's a pushover -- if any one of them croaks, it will be the Chi-Pom! (I'll keep you posted) He looks happy enough. 

    There are just times when you have to sit back and say to yourself, "You're so dumb...I can't believe we're even breathing!" If you don't talk to yourself, you may not enjoy the company you keep when you're alone - just sayin'.  I'll take a happy idiot over a sad intellectual to hang out with any day.

Photo Credit: Me.  (Kiba)

"CASK" is Written - But Not Done.

     I have written my 19th book, it is titled "Cask" and is the 6th installment of the Nick Posh Thriller series. It spans a couple of months at the beginning of 1934 and ends right around the first week of March of that year. It takes place in Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, and up and down the Eastern coastline really -- then again, it also takes place in Scotland, England, and mentions Germany too!  Very international - very domestic. This one is a good one. I liked writing it.

    I think I started writing it in late May, so according to my blogs, it was May 26 - that's faster than I thought, actually. I will take another week to fluff and stuff it, and to make all the spacing corrections. I'll review it twice with my editing tools and see if I can catch all the mistakes before I send it up for publication. Then, after it's a printed book, I order a copy to review it as a book, to see if I can find any more mistakes.

    Over the next month, I plan to review all my books, if possible, and resubmit them with fewer errors. I hope I can do it correctly without screwing things up. If I can't, my readers will just have to look past all my boo-boos. I am not going to say I'm not human. I am all too human most of the time.

    This book, "Cask," was a challenging one to write; it presented issues that I tried to resolve in my head, but I'm sure I left a few loose ends. I just feel as if I have. I never know until someone points it out to me, and then I have to make a decision to change it or leave it - it just depends. I have been known to do both.

    Currently, before the fluff and stuff, the book has 74000 words, and is 34 chapters long. That's about what I expected. Now, when I go back through it, I'll add words and I'll create new paragraphs to bring things together. I'll add color, adjectives, and scenarios to make things pop - it typically adds another 10,000 words. I can't go too much further, as I've already created the cover - I don't want to have to recreate it. Most of my books are the same size for that reason.

    The next book I'll write will be a murder drama, not a mystery. It's more of a tragedy to be honest. The next Nick Posh book will be written at the top of the year, and will be titled "Amicus Curiae" or Friend of the Court.  I think it will be fun to write as well. Between the murder drama "Silent Bay" and "Amicus Curiae" will be a romance novel of sorts; a 12th Century novel to explore the history of the time, and add another Highland Romance novel to my collection. Woot!

    I think and I hope you will like "Cask," but like all the other books, I don't write to sell them. I write to write them. If they do sell, I'll be more than happy to thank anyone and everyone for that. But I write to write—to get the stories out of my head and onto the printed page, or onto Kindle. I like digital books too.  I hope you like it. It's always a weird and good feeling when you know it's about to be sent up to become a real, live book!

Photo Credit: Me