Updates on my mom and stuff...

So Mama had her first chemo treatment yesterday, and she's doing pretty good so far--no nausea or anything. I took her today to get a shot to help rebuild her white cell count, and we hit the local Goodwill (nothing exciting to report there, though).

I do need to get a picture of the huge Pyrex mix and pour bowl I got back in, I think, February. Those days are kind of lost to me because I was fighting that horrible upper respiratory infection, his cousin, the second upper respiratory infection, and their neighbor, the full-blown head cold. Arrggh!

Anyway, Mama and Sis1 wanted to go to the Doll Market in Greensboro, but they moved to another city a few miles up the road. Yay! Road trip!

After we stopped and looked at the cute dolls (there's another long story stuck in the middle of this--remind me to tell you that one later), and doll-related things, we decided to hit a couple of local thrift stores on the way home.

At one of these shops, I saw a familiar shape--the pouring spouts, the oh-so-70s brown color, which my ex-DH would have adored, as brown is his favorite color! And that's another long story, which I may or may not tell you someday.

So I dig this tremendously large bowl out from under some dented metal baking stuff, and checked it over. Perfect shape, but no price. Well, that's not usually good, but I ambled over to the cashier and asked. What's the worst that could happen, right?

I stayed very calm when he looked at the bowl and said $3. Three dollars! Are you kidding me? Deep breath. Deep breath. All I said was okay, that sounds good, and went to look around the rest of the store. It doesn't pay to let your excitement show. Besides, I save all that for you guys. wink wink nudge nudge

We ended up buying some cute baby clothes (for our dolls, there's no babies coming along in our family any time soon), and we all left happy. Well, I was very happy, but I'm just weird that way. Ooohh, Pyrex. Drool.

I need some batteries for my camera, but as soon as I can I'll get some photos up, especially one that shows how big this bad girl is. 'Cause I know y'all are just dying to see my latest Pyrex fix. snort!

Now that I've bored everyone to death with my thrift store escapades, let's talk about the BOOK! I'm still editing, but making good progress. I'm going chapter by chapter now, filling in details, taking out details, smoothing scene transitions, and figuring how the chapters look.

With any luck, it will be ready to publish by the end of the month. Although I should say, it will be published by then, because I have an editing job that has to be done by July, so I've got to get going.

And on that note, I will leave you Gentle Readers. Take care, and remember:  Summer's coming!

I'm baaa-ack! I think.

So, you may have noticed I've been away from blog-land for a while. It wasn't planned, at all, I assure you! What happened was, Mama went in for a one-day surgery to remove a couple of cancerous spots in her breast, and things went downhill from there.

This was a week ago Tuesday. All seemed to go well, and we took her home around 4:30 p.m. Around 7:30 she called Sis2 about some swelling and tightness in the breast. By 9:30 she was feeling very lightheaded, and fainted twice. My father called and said he needed help getting Mama to the hospital, so I came over. (I may have mentioned before that we live next door to each other.)

It seemed like we would be able to drive her to the emergency room ourselves, but when Mama passed out again we knew we were in trouble and called 9-1-1.

Our local emergency people are great, by the way.

Once at the hospital, we thought things were improving, with her receiving some IV fluid, and thought we would all come home. Then Mama's doctor decided she should stay overnight, and we waited for her to be moved to a room before we left.

Well, you know how this is going to go, don't you? Right.

We waited, but no room movement was forth-coming, and around 3:30 a.m. Mama suddenly turned to Sis1 and me and said she was starting to feel "woozy" again. We got a nurse in, and within moments Mama was having a seizure. Yikes! That was new.

As the two of us squeezed behind the door out of the way, we watched about eight people work on our mother, whose bed by that time was tilted head-down. She was pretty much out of it, though she could feel everything they were doing. The last reading on the monitor showed a blood pressure of 60/30, and the ER staff was having a hard time finding a vein they could use.

Anyway, to cut out a lot more crazy-making details, the doctors and nurses got her back, and she ended up spending what was left of the night in CCU, being moved to a regular room later. We brought her home on Friday the 13th! I guess thirteen really is her lucky number.

Things are going better--barring the other night, when Mama had a spell which Daddy described as "bleeding all over the place", which as you can imagine sent me over there in a panic (turned out to be normal but rather scary seepage from the surgery site).

After her visit to an oncologist, she found out she has a bad type of cancer and will need chemotherapy, which we had hoped we could avoid. But she's alive, and with any luck, I can start to sleep at night again.

It should come as no surprise that I haven't made much progress on editing the book, although I did get most of a short story down the other day. It's another one about zombies, which considering the last two weeks probably shouldn't surprise me.

So, Gentle Readers, this was my family's tale of woe, hope you weren't bored. Remember to kiss your loved ones, and make them get those mammograms!

Read an eBook Week begins!

I'm participating in this promotion this year for the first time. I hadn't started publishing this time last year, so I missed it. Last year I did the big July sale at Smashwords, though.

Anyway, I've put a short story free (Down Time), and the collection (A Visit From St. Nick) and a longer short story (None Shall Speak His Name) at half price, though I will probably add my other shorts as free also. Just click on my Smashwords page on the left, which will take you to my page. All my books are at the bottom, with links.

My novel that I was working on during the February writing challenge is done, but it's waiting for editing, so I couldn't put that in for the week like I'd wanted. Bummer. But on the bright side, the first draft of the book is done! Woot! Woot!

Speaking of the challenge, I surprised myself by getting 27,285 words. That was quite a lot for me, considering I'd been sick since just before the first of the year, and in no mood to sit at a keyboard! It was enough to get the book done, at any rate, which was my goal.

While I'm letting that novel rest a bit before tackling the editing, I'm outlining a post-apocalyptic novel that is meant to be a prequel to "Down Time". It covers the events that led up to that story, though it will end several years before the short story takes place. An asteroid breaks up and the resulting debris pelts Earth and plunges the world into a nuclear winter. The book is about a group of survivors, and how they try to keep going and stay civilized.

Outlining is kind of fun--I open a new project on yWriter, and rough in where the events should occur. I start with 25 to 30 chapters, figuring two to four scenes in each, and jot in events I want to have happen in the chapter notes. That way I can write a scene here and there as the muse strikes, or I can start at one point and just go on.

The neat thing about the program is that I can move things around, delete or add chapters and scenes, whatever the book needs. And doing it on the computer saves my hands, since I can type with less stress than I can write. At least most days--there are times when my hands hurt to much to do either.

So, Gentle Readers, that brings us up to date. Don't forget to check out my page, or the promo's page on Smashwords for some good reading deals.

snow day!

We got one of those February snows that North Carolina used to have when I was a kid. Seriously, the weather would be great until about this time or maybe March, and then we might get one or two snows.

And yesterday was the day! We got two inches at the old homestead. I went out this morning to get some photos. BRRR  Baby, it's cold outside.

up to my second knuckle

 

looking towards the parents' place

 

same tree, different angle

Today is Sis2's birthday. She was born when I was almost nine, so I call her my birthday present (I was born on the 22nd). I'd wanted a pony, but Daddy said we couldn't send her back, despite the fact I already had a sister, thank you, so...

It's funny, too, that Sis1 got the same thing for one of her birthdays--she was born on November 7th, and our baby sister was born on the 4th--or was it the 3rd, I forget which, for some reason. For their birthdays, they often get an election!

Then there is Bro1, who was also born in November. His birthday often falls on Thanksgiving. Yeah, my mother must have loved November. Bro2 was born in January, so he's the odd man out in the family.

On a side note, I'm still working away at the writing challenge, I just haven't updated here. I have 22,241 words, which puts me at almost 42,000 for the novel--that's a light at the end of the tunnel that you see there.

I didn't write Saturday, since I was out with Sis1 and Mama, hitting the thrift stores. Fun times, for sure, but no progress on the book. Then nothing for yesterday, either, because my hands were hurting. Dang arthritis.

Bummer. Two zero days in a row. I was going to take my birthday off and enjoy the day, but I think I'd better write.

There's nine more days in the challenge, and if I get 4,200 words each day, I can still reach the goal. Totally doable.

So, Gentle Readers, I've got to get busy. Keep warm and winter on.

Still striving in the writing challenge.

One of my goals this year was to complete projects, and not start them and move on to something else. That's very frustrating to me, and rather counterproductive to my goal of publishing four novels this year.

In order to motivate myself, I did a little scrapbooking thing called "One Little Word", and I also joined a writing challenge for the month of February on the Kindle boards.

Things have been going pretty well on both fronts, despite my having the month from Hades health-wise. I seldom get really sick, usually only feeling bad for a day or so, but I started the new year off in January with an upper respiratory infection that knocked me on my butt. I got over it, then relapsed (or was reinfected), and when I was finally seeing the end of the mucus tunnel I promptly got a head cold.

Gosh darn golly gee!

I'm finally feeling better, but I have almost no energy. And I'm getting cabin fever from being cooped up indoors, having spent about 45 days moaning, sneezing, coughing and blowing copious amounts of--stuff--out of my nose. Gah.

Anyway, I'm only 1,958 words behind on the challenge! Go me. If I can keep the interruptions down (excluding grocery shopping, which is critical to a happy home, because the people here like to eat) I should be able to catch up. The novel I'm working on was already behind, having missed its scheduled publication in December. I'm ready to finish it and move on to the next project.

Until next time, Gentle Readers. Keep healthy and soldier on.