What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread) Showing 5,601-5,650 of 8,509

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Hope you will recover fast, Jim!

[Nina]

Yes, the second day is always worse. But what a very nice experience overall. congratualtions on 3rd place.

[Jim]

Surprisingly, I feel pretty good today. I guess I'm not as fat & old as I thought. Chip was sore Sunday night, but seemed fine last night. I still gave him the night off & just did some light chores myself. Best to keep moving.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim wrote: "Surprisingly, I feel pretty good today. ..."

Glad to hear it!

[Nina]

The only book our book club all agreed they liked this past year's selection was "All the LIght You Cannot See." I just finished reading again, "Foreign Affairs," by Allison Lurie, that I read in the 80's after it won the Pulitzer. I didn't like it as much this time.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Thanks for posting, Nina.
Here's the link to Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie.

[Mercurialgem]

Worked......home at 4:45pm.....relaxing....then sleep and do it all over again at 5 am...... : /

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Hang in there, Mercurialgem.

[Nina]

Nice memory.

[Nina]

Joy, if you read Foreign Affairs post what you think of it. I have a question for all my Goodread friends. Does it bother you if you come across what you think of as a glaring mistake in a book? Does that color what you think of it? The reason I am asking is someone in our area won the prize for best book in our city. In that book she has the main character walk past the reflecting pool in front of out Art Museum. The story is set in the 1950's and a lot of it takes place in the museum. The reflecting pool was not there until sixty years later. She also go the street names wrong in that neighborhood. Because my book friends liked the story they didn't think these mistakes mattered. They did to me. Am I too particular?

[Werner]

No, Nina, I don't think you're too particular. Writers who set their story in a particular real-life time and place have an artistic responsibility, IMO, to make it correspond to the real one as closely as possible; and in general, readers have a right to expect that authors not make egregious errors in matters of fact, that take one out of the story. For a writer, research should be a serious part of his/her craft; and when it clearly isn't, I'm with you in seeing that as a flaw.

[Nina]

Thanks for your answer, Werner. Makes me feel better.

[Werner]

You're welcome, Nina!

[Joy H., Group Founder]

I agree with Werner.

[Jim]

I closed up all the vents on the house last night & put the insulated cover I made over the crawl space entrance. Don't really need it yet, but it's down to 34 this morning.

I brought the hummingbird feeders in, cleaned & bleached them for winter storage. It's possible that a stray might come by, but we haven't seen any for almost 2 weeks & I don't want to take a chance on them freezing & cracking. Seems a waste to keep making sugar water, too.

I should have gone around & collected seed heads before now, but haven't gotten around to it. The cosmos are still blooming really well, although this cold will likely do them in. I'll take all the seeds I gather & scatter them along the banks & hedgerow along the road where I can't mow. Not many come up, but every bit helps make the place prettier.

The big chore will be tearing up the vegetable garden, especially getting all the Smart weed out of the strawberries. I wonder if all the strawberry plants have lost their leaves yet? If so, I might just spray the smart weed with 2,4-D. It's awful stuff & leaving even a tiny piece of root allows a new plant to grow. I've been battling it all summer.

I mowed the lawn this week, probably for the last time, too. It's time to cut the asparagus plants down & put some salt, manure, & lime on their bed for the winter. I just use a little of the pure salt that I use for snow melt.

I need to clean the fish pond pump again. I think I'll leave it in for a while since it's supposed to get warm again next week. No need to put in the heater yet. I should dig up the lilies next to it & thin them out. I want to put them along the back yard fence to keep the grass down since it's impossible to weedeat along the wire properly. I've done that on some parts & it's working out well. Unfortunately, the horses eat some of the blooms & like to help me plant. Last time, Indy almost decapitated me with my shovel. I'd left it leaning up against the fence & he grabbed it in his teeth & swung it around. I'll be careful to keep it on the ground this time.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

I guess you're ready for winter, Jim.

[Nina]

All that and another job computing..Keep up the good work but don't overdo. Your body is human.

[Nina]

Good hint about cleaning the hummingbird feeder. I didn't know you had to bleach them. What ratio sugar to water do you use, come spring?

[Jim]

Nina wrote: "Jim, my daughter with the two horses doesn't have nearly what you have to do to winterize but she does have a pool and that takes extra work. Is your barn heated? Her's isn't."

Only the tack room in the barn is heated, Nina. It's best not to heat a barn as a general rule. If the cold is too wet or unseasonable, we might toss a blanket on a cold horse, but barns need too much air & heat is too big a fire risk. That's a thumbnail answer.

We fight a black mold in our hummingbird feeders all the time. We try to just change the sugar water often & rinse well with really hot water to keep it down during the feeding season. Any soap or bleach then & the feeder needs to stay out of action for too long. The birds don't seem to like the first set of feed out of them. I don't know if they can taste the soap residue or what.

1/4 cup sugar to 1 cup water is the standard hummingbird mix.

Many of those chores take a minute or go quickly & so do a dozen others. Some, like gathering the seeds, are done over weeks & can take an hour each time. As the winter closes in, other chores come up like covering the hose bibs & bringing in the hunt scene - horses with riders (4), hounds (4), & a fox that I stick out around the front yard gardens. They're looking pretty good after a couple of years out, but I bring them in during the winter.

[Nina]

From, all of your descriptions I know i would love your place.But too old to take care of it now. Maybe ever...My daughter only has four acres and it keeps them quite busy. I am going to tell her about scattering the seeds.

[Jim]

Well, I got off track & did get the seeds scattered:cone flowers & hibiscus. I don't know if anything will come of them. I do get cone flowers from spreading the heads & seeds around on the banks, although it usually takes a couple of years. I've never gotten a hibiscus from seed just tossed on the banks, but they might be too dry. The hedgerow gets more water. No, I'm not going to start the seeds. I have no luck with that. No place with enough light for them nor enough interest. They can make it or not.

I never made it out of the back yard & am not close to finished there. I wound up working on the pond & cutting back the trumpet vine. I need to cut the lilies back before I can dig them out from around the pond & the Rose of Sharon bushes need to be cut back too.

Marg keeps putting things on my list, too. I had to fix one of the trailer doors tonight. That's my biggest problem with lists - they grow & I keep finding things I forgot to put on them. Oh well. I'll do what I can. Most usually gets done, but if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim, I know what you mean about lists!

[Nina]

One of my favorite flowers are coneflowers. Are yours lavendar or all different colors. When we had them bordering our lake they were lavendar. There were so many wildflowers that I didn't know the names of them. The Monarchs loved the thistles. Sometimes I miss beachcombing.

[Jim]

Ours are lavender, Nina, although I also have some Black-eyed Susan colored. At least the leaves look just like cone flowers. We have wild Black-eyed Susans around & they're completely different. Both spread pretty well by seed, but I try to leave them around for the birds.

I dug up more lilies from the goats' pen & finished planting them along the barn side of the back yard fence. I got most of it done yesterday with lilies from next to the pond, but still had half a dozen panels to go. Next year I'll try to finish up the north fence line. That will take about 30 pieces. I lost count on this one, but put 4 per panel. It was a couple of dozen panels.

One more Rose of Sharon left to prune & then I can pick up all the scraps in the backyard. Hopefully tomorrow night, although I need to take the dogs for a run. Lily was quite put out that Marg took them tonight. Indy was jumping at everything so Marg made Lily stay near them to scare away the critters & keep Indy calm. It works like a charm on him, but upsets her since she doesn't get to hunt.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

I love Black-eyed Susans!

[Nina]

Jim I forgot to ask if you have hollyhocks?

[Jim]

Some, Nina. I used to have a lot, but they got a rust a few years back & haven't been doing so well.

I got the back yard pretty much done tonight. Filled my little pickup to overflowing with weeds & trimmings. From the look, you'd think I hadn't done any maintenance in years instead of a couple of months.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Good work, Jim.

[Jim]

I'm all scratched up, Joy. My wife says that as we get older, our skin gets thinner. It must. She says I should start using gloves & wear long sleeves. Ugh. What a pain.
:(

[Nina]

Jim, it doesn't get better with age. Who ever coined the words, "Golden Age?" NOT. I miss my youth such as it was raising six kids along the way to now.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Yes, Jim, gardening gloves are important.

[Jim]

I've rarely worn gloves. I don't like the idea.
:(

[Nina]

I think Joy is right but I too rarely wear gloves. Perhaps it is what you get used to.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

I use gloves when I handle the rose bushes. Those thorns can hurt!

[Nina]

Fortunatley my husband does the rose bushes with a large pruner and so he doesn't get the thrones on his fingers.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

It's when I pick the roses that I get stuck. :)

[Jim]

I guess everyone has seen that Maureen O'Hara died. She was 95. Wonderful actress. I loved it when she played John Wayne's wife. They made a good couple.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news...

[Nina]

Oh, she was so pretty. Sad to see her go but understandable. Joy, I know the feeling of rose thornes. Ouch!I probably won't publish my book outside of giving it to my family but I lost the websites you gave me, Jim and I think Werner but just in case I decide later to do it could you send me the addresses again? Thanks. I am up to chapter 16 and working on pictures now.

[Jim]

Nina, for an electronic version only, Smashwords.com is free, but you could probably just create a Word document & publish it as a PDF as easily yourself. That would make sure it stayed just in the family rather than to the public.

As for publishing a bound book, there are a lot of options out there. Before you can pick a place, you really need to have a good idea on the size of the novel, the number & type of pictures (color, B/W, line drawings, etc.) & how many copies you want. Lulu.com is good for text books, but I think it gets really pricey with pictures. I've heard Blurb.com is good with pictures, but I have no experience. After you get that far, then you have to decide if you can deal with their particular formatting requirements & restrictions, so get a few options.

This industry has changed a lot in the past few years & new players are coming up all the time, but so are scams. Some will take your money & never deliver a product, so make sure they've been around a few years. Others will deliver a crappy product, so it's worth it to get one copy to check out before ordering a dozen for the family. You might want to check some of the writing groups here on GR for better advice & folks with some direct experience.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim wrote: "I guess everyone has seen that Maureen O'Hara died. She was 95. Wonderful actress. I loved it when she played John Wayne's wife. They made a good couple.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news... "

Thanks, Jim. I hadn't heard about this. Wow, she had a long life!

[Nina]

Thanks Jim for your good suggestions. i appreciate the time you took to fill me in. I'll let you know what I decide after it's all said and done.

[Nina]

I am now reading "The Art Forger," by B.A, Shapiro. So far so good. Joy, is there a goodreads review of this book? After getting two thirds through the "Dress Thief," I didn't enjoy the last part. But, I did hang in there to see how it would end. I think the author just decided to add some things and wrap it up. Too bad.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "I am now reading "The Art Forger," by B.A, Shapiro. So far so good. Joy, is there a goodreads review of this book? After getting two thirds through the "Dress Thief," I didn't enjoy the last part. ..."

Here's a link: The Art Forger by Barbara A. Shapiro
Here's Ruth's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Nina]

Thanks, Joy. I think I'll keep reading it. Sounds intriguing. What are you reading. Just read that the Alice Faye Bio was very good. Have you read it?

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Haven't read the Alice Faye Bio, Nina. Soon I will be reading a book by Anita Brookner which I ordered from our library.

[Nina]

Joy, she is one of my favorite authors. Is the book "Hotel du Lac?"

[Werner]

Nina, in answer to your question (message 5638), I don't specifically remember giving you a link, but I'm pretty sure that if I did, it would have been www.lulu.com . That's the printing service I used for a self-published edition of Lifeblood when I was between publishers. But I've never used it to publish anything that had pictures, so I don't know how well they would handle those. They also don't let you edit even a single typo without re-doing the entire project (unless they've changed since I worked with them); so if you pick them as your printer, you'd better do all your editing before you send them your text. My understanding is that Smashwords (www.smashwords.com ) only does e-books, not printed books, but I could be wrong.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Joy, she is one of my favorite authors. Is the book "Hotel du Lac?""

No, I've already read that one.

[Werner]

Rebekah and Tony left for Washington DC this morning, shortly after breakfast, and will catch a flight for Australia tomorrow. Highlights of their visit were a weekend trip to the Carolina Renaissance Fair; Easley Library's Terrifying Tales event; Tony's first real experience of an American Halloween; and celebrating Luke's ninth birthday with a bonfire. (And of course a lot of loving fellowship here at home!) Now, things return to normal; but we'll treasure our memories.

[Nina]

How wonderful to celebrate Halloween with a grandson from overseas. Yes, memories are to be treasured. we can never have to many which is why I have now completed 18 chapters outlining mine for I hope generations to come to read what it was like way back in the twenties when I was born and through the years of raising six children and then amassing 18 grandchildren and a peek into their lives then and now. Werner why don't you write a bit about this happening and give it to your grandson?