Vampires of a different sort

Why I'm reading this:

My mother in law handed it to me a few months ago and said, "I know you like vampire books." She shrugs. "I was out of things to read." She's a shut-in reading addict more of the Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steele variety. Vamp novels are totally not her thing, so I took her "this was really weird" with a grain of salt. I was heading to the beach with the kids and grabbed it off my To Be Read pile without ever even glancing at the inside flap.

Turns out she was right. But in a good way. Tap Tap not your typical sparkly, angsty or lusty vampire novel, to be sure. Gritty, twisted and full of surprises, I've been enjoying every minute of it.

Maybe I'm twisted all on my own, but I've laughed outloud several times at the witty and masterful characterizations of the vampire's unfortunate victims. I am in awe of Martin's ability to pack so much characterization into a paragraph or two, painting such a clear picture that I know exactly who the unfortunate soul is and when they die a page or two later, I find myself caring.

I can't see the end yet, which is a big plus for me. When I finish, I'll deliver the final verdict, but so far I'm impressed!

Rat story progress tally:
Rotten bananas thrown: 2
Progress: 0

Another writing distraction conquered!

First of all, thanks to all who stopped by last week to vote on the direction of my newest writing project. The rats have won! I spent some time doing my rat research last night and am ready to dive in when tonight's writing window comes around.

Onward into my victory!

Prior to rat research time, I was busy cleaning up the remnants of my far too long and drawn out redecorating project. After much swearing and cursing of the original builders, I am happy to announce that the laminate floor is in! The tools are put away, the sawdust has been vacuumed, and the chaos of renovation has been put back to rights.

Behold the the before and after.

The green room becomes...

The red room!
(Yes, we still need new carpet. That wasn't in the budget just yet.)

The other half of the room.

Ah, that feels good. If only it would stay all neat and clean.

Okay, guilt monkeys, I have all my major distractions out of the way. I declare that two weeks from now, I'll have the first draft of this rat story done. Here are your bananas. Thank you.

Why is everything blurry?

I had planned this victorious monday morning post. As usual, my plan went out the window as I pried open my eyes. Well, one of them anyway.

As of last wednesday night, my flowerbed project is complete! My last task was to clean out the overgrown play area--mostly filled with invasive pricker vines which have kept my kids at bay and kept their toys all over the yard since last fall.

The mission was successful. Mulch mountain is no more. The weeds are removed. The toys have their old home back. All was well... until...

I woke up the next morning with blisters all over my arms and cheek and realized we'd been hosts to poison ivy. In the thirteen years we've lived here, we've never had a problem with it. Now, apparently, we do. Or at least, I do.

Vegetation obliteration spray has been applied. Anti-itch cream as been heartily slathered. Thankfully I was wearing gloves so my hands are only slightly affected or it typing would be a miserable task. The bad news is, I'd just cleaned out the wayward raspberry bushes the night before and my arms were covered in scratches that happily absorbed the aggitating oil and I was hot as hell while pulling the weeds and apparently wiped my face on the back of my glove several times, so my eyelid, cheek, jaw and neck are also affected.

As if that wasn't enough fun...

I spent my weekend intent on making the the best of the situation by finishing up the living room project--at least that could be accomplished in the luxury of air conditioning. The last slip cover has been sewn. After a month and half of walking around it, my sewing stuff has been put away. Hooray!

With all of sunday ahead of me and a severe need for distraction from the ever increasing urge to itch my skin down to the bone, I give my husband the wifely equivelant of the boo-boo lip and got him on board with finally putting in the laminate flooring. After much swearing, sweating, prying up of staples and ancient tack strips, and breathing in of carpet padding funk, the new flooring was laid.

This morning I woke up with a half swollen shut eye and a puffy side of the face. Thanks allergies and poision ivy!

Today, I'm planning to enjoy a cold washcloth on my face as much a possible. Tonight we can conquer the trim and then put things back to rights. Tomorrow I can get to writing about the rats.

Lets hope that this time, things go according to plan.

Oh rats!

I've started a new story. The one I was percolating in the last post. This is a dysotopian-type story, set after a major earth-shattering catastrophy. Being new as this story is, I'm still feeling my way around it, seeing where it will go, before settling down and pounding it out.

As of last night, Marcus, the MC, is busy searching for food and fending off fellow raiders and rats. The prompt I'm working with allows for either sci-fi or fantasy. So, my question for you today is: Should I have fun and include the pov of the rats or keep this more serious and about the humans struggling for survival?

Cast your vote in the comments box.

Garden Tour

While Trust is bubbling around in the subconscious thought percolator, I'm busy brainstorming a new project, possibly a short story or novella. I'm also percolating the long awaited ending to Swan Queen. So many things to think about, I tell you.

This morning I went over feedback on a sci-fi short and got that submitted. That makes three shorts out in submissionland at the moment. I like to juggle a few things out there at once so when a rejection comes in, I'm not too bummed. After all, there are still other possible positive outcomes in the works.

Since I'm doing all this percolating, and ironicaly, this post was not on the list, how about I share some of my garden projects I've been bathering about for the past two months.

Previously. this was a solid mass of siberian iris.

And this was a mess of four foot tall orange daylilies that endeavored to choke out everything else.

These edging bricks were all covered in grass and dirt.
I've done a lot of archeological dig gardening so far this summer.

Added a lot of new stuff here, and after four years of neglect, treated this sun beaten patch of sandy garden to some much needed mulch.

Before I attacked this, only to top row of bricks was showing and the japanese iris had taken over. Amazing what a few years of letting things go will do--and not in a good way.

The new pond I put in. Previously this was a little 30 gallon pre-formed pond. Now its three foot deep and four foot by six foot wide. I wanted it bigger, but the waterfall section is sitting right on top the remains of a tree stump and I wasn't energetic enough to rent a stump grinder.

Lots of weeding done here. If I let this go, it would be a oak and pine tree forest.

The other side of the photo above. It's a very wide garden section.

A new section I put in a couple years ago that only needed some mild clean up.
Hands down, the easiest bed I had to tackle.

The roadside garden. This one was also recently redone so it wasn't horribly overgrown, just weedy.

Finally! One I can show you that has nicely filled in since last fall's makeover.
I hope they all look this nice next summer.

The other section of roadside garden. Did a lot of rearranging of perennials here because the bushes have all grown so much since I first put them in.

The iris patch in front of my very neglected garden. Blame my fractured ankle that came at the wrong time of year. (Is there a ever good time of year for that?) Did some major dividing and giving away of plants from this section.

Two years ago our new neighbors put in this fence which offered me the excuse to finally tackle one of the last untamed sections of our yard. Goodbye pricker vines and sassafrass trees! Moved a bunch of divided stuff into here and did a lot of weeding. Those sassafrass trees are like adverbs, they keep popping up everywhere!

Four more non-spectacular gardens are going undocumented for now. They need to fill in a lot before they are at all worthy of a photo.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. :)