It's something we ourselves have been working on for quite some time

The event at the Fox Tale Book Shoppe was marvelous - thank you so much to everyone who came out to see us! Wonderful store, wonderful crowd, wonderful company.


(L-R: Lila Bowen/Delilah Dawson, yours truly, Kate Tilton, and Victoria Schwab.)


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This morning I dropped Quinn off at the vet's office for The Big Spay. The office called a little before lunchtime to report that everything went great, and she's doing fine - which is marvelous! But it's their standard procedure to keep spay patients overnight, so I can't have her back until tomorrow morning. Monday night won't be the same without my little TV buddy, but it's for the greater good.



* * *

I spent much of yesterday doing Real Hard Work on my yard. In short, the back left corner of my yard is (a). full of tree roots, (b). riddled with boulders, (c). on a semi-steep grade, (d). almost entirely in shadow, and (e). just plain awful. I'd kind of let it go to hell, calling it "the bird corner" because that's where I put out birdseed and a makeshift bird bath. I mean, what else was I gonna do with it? The answer: Make it a nicer bird corner. More deliberate in appearance, if you will.

When all was said and done, I spent about four hours removing rocks and bricks, shoveling in fill dirt to level the space (more or less), installing a retaining wall, and topping it off with annuals. Behold!

The corner went from this hot mess...


To this minor disarray!

(Note: Birdbath/feeders are more level than they appear. It's a trick of the aforementioned grade.)

The wall itself is made of a manufactured stone product that's easy to work with and very affordable; no, it's not as fancy-pants as real stone/mortar but it's much cheaper, and something I could manage myself with just a rubber mallet, a level, and a shovel. Besides, one of these days we plan to replace that super-classy chain link fence - so we didn't want to install anything TOO permanent.

You can find the faux-stone here. You have to order it through Home Depot, but it ships from a small independent company (from Florida, I want to say?). Great customer service, and I strongly recommend it - perfect for raised garden beds, too, if you want that sort of thing. Won't warp or rot like wood. (The wall appears shiny and somewhat more colorful in that pic than in person, for it started raining very shortly after I finished.)

Anyway, the entire makeover cost about $180 - except for the birdbath, which I fell in love with ($70). That includes the manufactured stone kits (2 of them, though I only used 6 of 8 pieces), four bags of fill dirt, three bags of mulch, a flat and a half of pansies/violas, and one of the bird feeders (the other I just cleaned up). I already had everything else on hand. (The planters, shepherd's hook, potting soil, etc.)

Now we'll see how long it takes for the dog to destroy it.


Don't be fooled by this adorable face for it LIES.

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Here's recent progress on my young adult haunted house story about a long-lost adventure pulp comic manuscript that's guarded by a good ghost and a bad ghost; now with Bonus! gentrifying drama, golden-age mystery, Hollywood intrigue, fallout from The Storm, and an agent who's just trying to do the right thing, goddammit:

Project: Drawing Fire
Deadline: November 16, 2015
New words written: 1887 (cumulative)
Present total word count: 41,963



Things Accomplished in Fiction: For pity's sake, the agent is only trying to help! But paperwork is a bitch, and so is the internet. Sometimes.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Neighborhood jaunt with the dog, in the rain; took kitten to the vet and left her there and felt like a horrible person, even though it's for her own good; got some awesome stuff in the mail, including a check; so I went to the bank; went to Walgreen's; recorded about half an hour of Chapelwood for the Once and Future Podcast with Anton Strout; proceeded to chat with Mr. Strout re: our pets for another half an hour, probably;

Other: I am so tired. I had to get up so early. The cat clinic is across town, and the vet wanted Quinn there at 7:30 a.m. Oof. I will not be picking her up at such an hour tomorrow, but that's okay - the vet needs to check on her and get her ready to discharge.

Bonus crittergram: Quinn is getting so big! Here she is squirrel-watching with Spainy the other day.



Number of fiction words so far this year: 97,951