Sorry that I am a week late. Life caught up with me.

 Dear Reader,

My schedule has been a mess since I was sick a few months back. I'm trying to fix it but I'm having problems sleeping which just makes things worse. Sleep deprivation is not your friend. Books are still in a holding pattern because this week has been full of appointments for various family members and I'm cleaning up a disaster. You know how they say if Mom gets sick, the whole house will go to pot. For a long time, I just thought it was an expression. Then I had pneumonia for two months and it happened.

I do have one thing to report, I'm making slow progress on all this knitting and crochet I am doing to make presents for people. If I'm lucky, I will have things finished by the holidays. I feel a bit guilty that I knit so slowly, my son's sweater has been on the needles for two and a half years. Fortunately, I have the back third partly done. Now I just have to knit 24/7 to finish it. It's a WWI pattern from the Red Cross that I found on the Smithsonian's website. I thought 'oh, this looks easy enough.' and then my son saw it and declared that was exactly what he wanted me to make for him. Looks are deceiving and it is clear that my son has inherited his father's patience of death on this front.

I would post more, but I have knitting to do and coffee to drink so I can stay awake. Tomorrow, I will do my best to come up with something more directly related to this blog and not so boringly domestic.

Up coming recovery period.

 Dear Reader,

I am taking the next three days off from blogging all over creation. Sunday's Craft of Writing Post will be back to back with Monday's Flora & Fauna post. I just need some time to recover from this migraine and head cold. I'll see all y'all on Monday. ♥

Word count? What is that you speak of?

 Dear Reader,

Here we are at the final day of NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. Many people are at or real close to the finish line. Others are slogging along, possibly cursing their decision to participate in these challenges. Word count is the big gauge of success and source of stress during this month. Posting across six blogs, I have absolutely no idea what my word count is. It took some stress off my shoulders, but six blogs ... that was a lot of work. It has cemented in my mind that some of these blogs are going to be updated on a weekly basis.  Because updating all of them in one day eats my entire morning of writing time.

The serial stories are stalled right now. The science fiction book is stalled because my notes in pencil are become illegible due to fading. At least I found them. The series of modern fantasy is on hold as I am awaiting contact back from the person who requested the work to be done. We had a gentleman's contract initially based on a virtual handshake. I have four books written and a fifth started. It is time to take that gentleman's contract and put it on paper to make clear what is expected of everyone involved. I'm having difficulty contracting him, because he's in grad school right now and busy as heck.

My fantasy series is on hold because I'm correcting errors in one book and trying to make things work according to my plot map in the other book. Hopefully books six and seven of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar will be out by late spring. In case you are curious, the story arc plotted for the whole series takes place over thirty books. I have snippets and bits of ideas for the other books, but I have to finish what I have on the block first.

I have nothing witty or insightful for you today.

 Dear Reader,

Dealing with the stress of how health insurance is a protection racket has rendered me markedly devoid of ideas for this blog. I could talk about how bad it is or how it should be illegal the way they screw people over, but everyone knows this. Don't even get me started on dental insurance or vision coverage. Those are luxuries.

To say the least, my afternoon turned sour and has successfully shot down what plans I had for writing. I suppose it is time to go work on some dishes or otherwise try to be useful. I'm sorry y'all.

Flora & Fauna: No magic plants today.

 Dear Reader,

I have been so busy trying to keep my real plants alive that all world building regarding plants has fallen by the wayside. I would share with you a picture of my small indoor garden, or as Beloved calls it, the jungle. The problem is the plants are in sorry shape. I have three that need to be potted up. They're in bad shape because they're rootbound. I have others that have this weird white fungus growing on the soil. I don't know how they got infected with this, but I have some Neem oil to spray on it and kill the fungus. Long story short, I have quite a few plants that look more dead than alive and I'm trying to fix that. It's not going that great. But as long as I keep trying, I'll probably manage to nurse them back to health.

Craft of Writing: Something funny but useful.

 Dear Reader,

Here's a tip for keeping your preteens and teens from completely invading your writing time. Fart. My boys will either run away going 'Oh Gods, MOM!' or back off a solid eight feet waving things in my general direction that they hope will make the fart go away. If you're lactose intolerant like me, the farts smell worse (or so I've been told). Compared to my husband's gassiness, I am an amature. 

Once, he dropped a bomb that had me reaching for my inhaler. That evil creature locked the windows of the car and cackled all the way home as I was choking and digging through my purse. So, sometimes, I will threaten them with having their Dad fart at them.

Remember, if anyone objects, let them know if we don't fart, we'll explode.

Have a great Sunday and I hope you had a laugh.

I don't typically post here Saturdays, but it's NaBloPoMo so I have to.

 Dear Reader,

I guess, I could go on a pedantic rant about how my back hurts, coffee is as awesome as tea, or update about my kids' attempts at NaNoWriMo. Instead, I will post a humorous meme, drink my tea, and wait for the Tylenol to start working so my back ache goes away and I can actually focus. In coming meme:

Have a good day, everybody.