Moving houses

After almost four years I've decided to put Other Pages to bed, so to speak. It wasn't an easy decision; after all, this was my first blog, the first time I put words I wrote out for anyone to see. But demands on my time are much different now than they were four years ago and I find I'm not able to keep up with Other Pages and Pages.

Since writing is now my career I'm putting all my energies into focusing on making it a success and I don't want this blog to sit here gathering dust. It's too important to me for that. So I'm going to close it down in a week and delete it from the blogosphere.

Since I'll only have Pages from here on out, I'll be switching it up a bit, adding some personal things like the ones I posted here (except for home remodeling pics and related stuff) in addition to writing about my adventures in writing. I hope my followers here at Other Pages will follow me at Pages as well. I'd love to see you there!

Now I just have to figure out how to save four years of blog posts!

Thanks for being here with me for the past four years as I learned the ropes of blogging. It's been great and the journey continues at Pages. See you there!

I am dinosaur; hear me roar!

At the risk of sounding like one of those old men at the check out in Wal-Mart who gripes about technology when the checker hands him back his electronically scanned check, things are moving a little fast these days. Case in point: Audio CDs.

To thank my beta readers for helping with my book (yes, it's really finished this time and so is the query letter) I put together a playlist of the seventeen songs mentioned in passing in the story. Plus two bonus tracks because all CDs have bonus tracks. My intention was to burn this playlist onto CD and mail it out to my betas, but, y'all, audio CDs are harder to find than an open check out line at Wal-Mart.

I went to the two stores here in Hooterville that sell electronic thingies and you'd have thought I inquired about a transistor radio. With a strap so I could hang it from the handle of my bicycle. Both stores informed me they don't have audio CDs, in a tone reserved for those persons who might break with reality any moment and begin disrobing. Apparently, sharing of songs now consists of pinging, or binging, or banging or something I can't do since it involves iTunes and iTunes hates me. The feeling is mutual.

A couple of months ago I put together a playlist of random stuff both Husband and I could enjoy when the only two non-automated radio stations left in the world couldn't be picked up on our vehicle's radios. I loaded the whole thing onto a flashdrive and presented it to Husband with pride. There you go! Music that doesn't suck! 248 songs! He brought the flashdrive back that afternoon and informed me only two songs would play. (Since one of them was "She Just Satisfies" by Jimmy Page I didn't see the problem, but he didn't agree.) After two days - TWO DAYS - of mulling this over and putting the playlist on my little mp3 player which did the same thing as the flashdrive, I realized the songs that played were taken from a source other than iTunes and just loaded onto it. In other words, they weren't mp4s or whatever new, unimproved format the others were. His new truck (note the word "new") would not read mp4-whatevers.

So off I scurried to the internet and downloaded some something that promised to convert those tunes to mp3 format. It took For. Ev. Er. And even then not all of them converted, the error message saying something incomphrehensible that I didn't bother to try to understand. Just gimme my music, man! I finally got what did convert onto the mp3 player and Husband now has a (diminished) selection of music that doesn't suck to listen to in the truck, including, I might add, "She Just Satisfies."

During all this converting and downloading and swearing and throwing things, I attempted to just put the music on my iPhone so I could plug that in and see if it would play. iTunes gleefully informed me that my phone was synched? associated? mated to? dating? another computer and therefore would not let me do it. This caused another bout of swearing and throwing things because this computer is the only one my iPhone has ever been plugged into. Maybe it called iTunes a heartless bitch with no conscience and iTunes got all offended and broke up with it. I don't know. I guess if I ever want my music on my phone I'm going to have to do whatever dastardly thing iTunes suggests which will probably wipe out everything on my iPhone which will bring about a trip to the phone store where they will tell me there's nothing they can do and that'll be $500 for a new phone, thank you very much.

I'm so HAPPY all this technology is making it so much easier for us to access music.

Which brings me back to those CDs I wanted to give my friends. Youngest Daughter finally took pity on me and rummaged through some of the boxes she hasn't bothered to unpack since moving back home over a year ago and found a sad little stack of blank audio CDs which she gave to me. So I got the music onto them and mailed them off. Then I put a vinyl record onto the new turntable I got for Christmas and pretended listening to music was still easy.

I am was a radio announcer

Man, is this ever true! Thanks to my super friend Christopher L Webster for sending this my way.

Um, January? Where'd you go?

I had just flat-out forgotten how time consuming it is to write full-time! I sit down at the computer and before I know it, four hours have passed. When this happens two or three times a day, it makes the month fly by without me realizing it. That's what happened to January.

Add to all this time writing the responsibility of caring for a new puppy who must be taken outside every two hours, and it doesn't leave time for much else.


Gratuitous shot of Holly. Isn't she precious?

On top of all that, Holly's been sick. Poor little thing had some sort of viral infection which has made the going outside thing even more urgent than normal. I finally had to leave her at the vet's on Friday morning, feeling like the world's biggest heel when she turned those sad, brown eyes on me, accusing me of abandoning her to indignity and torture. Oh, I hope she can come home tomorrow, because the house is just too quiet now.

I've been able to use that quietness to my advantage, though. Especially yesterday. Husband and Youngest Daughter took off for Memphis so the kiddo could buy herself a new car. (Remember her poor Avenger? Yeah.) With no puppy and no humans to care for (the cats, by the way, like it best when I leave them alone) I engaged in a writing marathon, finishing The Book. Yep, I typed "The End" and was pretty darned pleased with myself. Of course, it's far from over, but I feel a real sense of accomplishment. Not only have I finished it, I've got it the way I want it again.

Now we'll see how fast February flies by!

My birthday came early!

Even though my birthday isn't until Wednesday, I seem to have most of my gifts already. I could get used to this! Younger Daughter gave me a DVD set of "North and South," and getting Patrick Swayze at his young, sexy, most Southern self to watch over and over again! is pretty darn wonderful.

My birthday gift from Husband, though, is right up there in the upper tier of the Birthday Gift Hall of Fame. This what he got me:
Is this not the cutest little girl ever? Her name is Holly, and we've adopted her from the Independence County Humane Society in Batesville, Arkansas. (One of my favorite cousins remarked upon hearing this, "You drove clear to Batesville for a puppy?" Well, yes. It may be a 200-mile round trip, but adopting this little dog was worth it.) She's a Lhasa Apso-Shih Tzu mix, one of a litter of five. I think all of them have been adopted, and I know her mother was adopted today. I know this because we drove clear to Batesville today to spend some time with Holly since we can't bring her home just yet.

The Independence County Humane Society has a firm rule that no pet can leave the shelter unless it has been spayed or neutered. I admire this policy, even though it means Holly can't come home with us for about two more weeks. We would have Holly spayed in any case, but so many people don't, or won't, and those puppies and kittens that result will probably end up in the shelter, or running loose. This is unacceptable, and it's one of the reasons we knew our puppy would come from a shelter.

Needless to say, we enjoyed our visit with the newest member of our family. Our cats, however, were quite put out when we arrived back home smelling of eau-de-puppy. There will be some big adjustments around here when Holly arrives!

But so far I'm pretty stoked about my birthday, even though it's a "milestone" birthday. Ah, whatever. Age is just a state of mind, and I have Patrick Swayze AND a new puppy!

What about the book?

I know. I've been blogging about pretty much everything except The Book lately. (And tomorrow I'll be putting up pictures of my new puppy, Holly, so you will so want to check back in for that since she's the cutest puppy ever!)

Since kitchen remodels, slow cooker recipes and writing don't seem to mix very well I've started a new blog devoted totally to writing; my own writing, things I've learned about writing, writing advice I've taken, and so on and so on and so on. The new blog is called Pages, which seemed sensible as this one's called Other Pages.

So for all things writerly, go there. And come back here for more random stuff I come up with and cute puppy pics!

Given enough spray paint I could rule the world

Or at least make it look a little better. Thanks to ideas I've found on Pinterest I've been refurbishing some things around here. Nothing too drastic, mind you, since I am, in theory, still remodeling an entire kitchen, although said remodeling was postponed during the whole holiday rush and I've not yet gotten back into the sanding and painting groove. No, my recent refurbishing has involved things I've had lying around forever and never really found much use for. Like this little item:
Actually, it's not all that little, but you know what I mean. Years ago I was in a little gift shop with my step-mother when I spotted this...this...honestly, I have no idea what it is, but it was priced half off so I bought it. I had thought it might look nice hanging above the rather large archway between the living room and kitchen, but when I got it home I realized it was much, much too big to fit. Plus, it weighs about ten pounds since it's made of wrought iron and I had horrible visions of it plummeting off the wall and on to some unsuspecting person's head as they went into the kitchen for a glass of ice water. Since then it's been leaning against various walls around the house until I could figure out what in the world to do with it.

Lately, though, I'd been eyeing it with disfavor and actually had some thoughts of trying to foist it off on someone else. After all, I was tired of lugging it from one spot to the next, and I hated the color - that off-white that just looks dirty, and those artfully scuffed spots that are supposed to make it look like it's been around and well-used for eons, a look I am totally over. And then I found this:
The perfect turquoise! (Although Krylon calls it "Blue Ocean Breeze.") I love turquoise, so much so that I even considered painting Steve that color. Steve escaped, but the wrought iron whatever-it-is didn't.

First I cleaned it up and gave it a coat of primer.
I did this on the back porch with the help of three feral cats who were more interested in the spray can of primer than they are in feeding time. In fact, one cat narrowly missed having her fur highlighted when she jumped onto my work surface just as I was pressing the spray button.

After the primer dried I brought out the turquoise and gave it a good coat. Just one coat did it, and I love the way it turned out!
All the little decorative bits show up so much better now, and it's all shiny and fresh. I've decided to mount it on the wall above the refrigerator when Husband can figure out some way to get it to stay up there without falling and pulling out huge chunks of the wall on the way down.

I still have most of a can of turquoise spray paint left and am looking around for something else to brighten up. Today I spied a fancy-schmancy mantle clock I've had for a long time but no longer use since it has an antiquey gold finish. I think it might look really nice painted glossy turquoise! I'll let you know how it turns out.