Writing in the Rain

Random thunderstorms have been pummeling our little section of Ohio since dawn. The darkness and tippy-taps on the roof would have kept me asleep all afternoon if I hadn't set my alarm.

A Cup of Conflict is racing on its downhill slide to "The End". This is good because I want it done, edited, and formatted before Genius Kid comes home in August. Yes, all the government and military paperwork has been signed off, and he has his plane tickets. He gets a few days with us before he has to report to his next base, which is thankfully within a day's drive if we want to visit him.

Unfortunately, it looks like he'll be in the barracks, so he can't take the Grandpuppy with him. Grandpuppy will be so excited to see GK, and then he'll be terribly sad when GK leaves.

So the rest of August will be spent giving both dogs extra cuddles at another change in the household. I just hope they sleep while on the couch with me so I can get writing and edits on the Books of Apep done.

It's Definitely a Monday!

Things are getting back into their normal groove at Casa Harden. My body's recovering from the two-week road trip. The pups and husband aren't quite so needy, though they all come check to make sure I'm still here every couple of hours or so. And I'm slowly catching up on work related things.

However, everyone but the Grandpuppy has medical appointments this week. Today was Princess Bella's annual check-up. Everything's fine, just typical middle-age crap. We both have arthritis in our knees.

Over night, the dang robins built a dang nest in my Ostara/Easter wreath on the front door. This year, DH didn't trim down the freakin' bush you prefer, you mini-dinosaurs. Stay out of my wreaths! Thankfully, no eggs had been layed yet, so I didn't feel bad about removing the next.

Saws have been humming or growling through the area as homeowners and cleaning crews are dealing with the fallen branches and downed trees from last Wednesday's extreme storms. However, the neighbors directly behind us are not one of those dealing with the wreckage. I'm thankful none of the debris landed on our side of the fence, but I miss privacy provided by the downed or damaged trees.

And now, I'll head over to Starbucks to get some actual drafting done. Tonight, I'll be editing the stories that are scheduled for release next week, plus March's release that wasn't finished in time.

I may be a turtle, but I'm still running this race!

Home Again

The last two days have not been the best for my mental and physical health despite the Beckster and some lovely South Carolinian medical personnel taking care of me.

Tuesday morning, I woke up at 3AM with a UTI. I get them when I'm super-stressed. It doesn't matter if the stress is bad or good. Yeah, I know those are relative terms. But the last time I had a UTI was the day after my father-in-law's funeral. And I was having fun on my Tour of the Carolinas until everything caught up with me on the last full day in the South.

As I said above, the ladies at the urgent care clinic I went to were absolute dolls. I got in and taken care of. The PA assigned to me checked in regularly, especially when they discovered the testing machine had malfunctioned. They got a machine from another facility lickity-split because they couldn't prescribe antibiotics without confirmation.

While I waited for the prescriptions to be filled, I grabbed breakfast and gassed up the car. By the time I headed back to Becky's, less than two hours had passed.

Despite my plans to write and the antibiotics kicking in, I still felt like crap, so I took a good three-hour nap and a shower before she got home from her spin class. I had to skip the evening's martinis, but we got take-out from a delightful little family own restaurant.

On Wednesday morning, I woke feeling reasonable better. The drive from from Columbia, SC, to Northwest Ohio would only take nine hours, depending on the number of pit stops I made. Most of it is a straight shot up I-77.

Or it should have been.

A tractor-trailer crash brought down power lines across the interstate near Exit 124. I-77 was backed up for miles in both directions. The alternate routes were also backed up. You can't take three lanes of interstate traffic down to a couple of two-lane roads and not have delays.

Or in this case, a four-hour delay.

I didn't get home until after 11PM.

Just ahead of a major thunderstorm system that peeled shingles off the roof of our shed, overturned the decorative cistern next to our patio, and knocked over several neighbors trees. The official weather report says we had a 70 mph straight-line gust, but a neighbor and I speculated we may have had an F0 pass through from the sounds and the amount of damage.

But I'm home now. Two puppies are very pleased to have extra pets and cuddles again. And DH is happy that he no longer has to eat his own cooking!

Super Cells and Twisters

Last night's writing was lost to the tornado-producing super cell that passed through our area. At least, we didn't get any hail like Illinois and Indiana. We're fine. I just spent the day trying to get caught up on things.

Take it easy folks. You never know when Mather Nature is going to drop a house on you.