Dandelyon's Worlds

One of the nice things about this new computer is the bouncing bubbles screen saver. The virtual bubbles are see-through (in case you haven't seen this screen saver) so you can still see whatever was onscreen--even read it-- through the bubbles. It's relaxing and almost mesmerizing.

I do keep forgetting the clock doesn't update while the screen saver is on.

I never got a vegetable garden in this year, between wasting time on the garage and the many cold or wet days we had this spring. So I've been missing out on my fresh peas. However, my friend Ithiriel did get her garden in, and harvested too many peas for her and filkart  to eat today, so when they came over to do music, I was gifted with fresh peas.  Now I have snacks for tomorrow, assuming I don't forget they're in the 'fridge and leave for work without them. 

Oh--and My Angel made french toast out of the current loaf of safe-bread, which worked MUCH better than making a roast beef sandwich with it did.  The Sami's  bread was much better for that, but I'm all out of it and haven't figured out where to buy it if The Nutman isn't selling in my work building this week.  I can have the other half of the batch for breakfast--and thank goodness real maple syrup is safe food for me!!!

And best of all, my voice appears to have finally recovered from the reaction to the out-gassing new carpets in the hotel where Duckon was held.  Maybe my feet will soon stop being so swollen.

Overall, it's been a pretty good day.

This weekend:  Muse Fusion over at torn_world . 

And next week, in honor of the crowdfunding  community being in LJ's spotlight, I plan to do a card draw, and am contemplating whether I have something new and interesting to say about Busking in Cyberland. 

So if anyone wants to share comments or questions about online busking, comments on what you'd like to see me writing, or suggestions for what deck(s) to use in addition to Rai Kunabei's disks, please, feel free to share.

And if not--what's good in your life during this fine full moon?

Hmm...that sounds like a character name. It's actually what it was like outside today, on the way in to work and after work too. Probably all day, but I can't vouch for that.

I thought about taking the camera out to look for another rose to share with you all, but I didn't--after all, the camera is also my cell phone, and killing it would not be a good thing.

Monday I was delighted to get the occasional phone call at work, even when it was one of the calls that start "Do you speak Spanish?" Today I really wanted to hide the phone under the rug--I had things I wanted to get done, and the phone calls weren't helping! (Knowing how to count to 10 in Spanish is helpful--it means I can repeat a phone number back in Spanish, so at least my bilingual attorney can reach the clients and potential clients I can't properly talk to.)

When I called on the way to the grocery store to ask My Angel what she needed from there, she complained that she'd left the bedroom window open, and it was cold and damp and she felt like she was camping, without any of the good parts.

But still, perhaps Misty Grey should be the name of some kind of fantasy sleuth...someday.

Oh--and did you see today's cool Google logo? I am enjoying living in the future.

Happy Full Moon, everyone!

There's a very beautiful full moon outside, shining partly veiled through the clouds. I'm not at all sure about calling it the Flower Moon this year--we've had barely a handful of dandelions so far this year, though the wood violets are just starting to bloom. But the roses are just starting to put out leaves, so the garden looks kind of scraggly soon.

In better news, the garage comes down tomorrow, which will be one less thing I have to worry about, and another of my stories has been sponsored over at Torn World. As soon as our Webmistress has the chance to convert it from subscribers-only to public, you will be able to read my story The Experiment, where we meet Filor's science-geek cousin.

Filor and his cousin are both adoptable characters, by the way.

Besides work and getting ready for the garage to come down, I spent the day working on a new Torn World story about a young intersex person in the Empire. The Empire's (unnecessarily obtuse) term for people who aren't male or female is "no-gender", however, there are places in the Empire where that term, and the new gender reform laws, are a great improvement over local tradition.

Now I'd better wash the mold spores and dust from the garage off, so I'll sleep well and be rested for work tomorrow.

Do any of you have plans for the full moon?

So, we have a beautiful full moon overhead, and the Torn World Muse Fusion is ongoing. I really was too tired for it last night, though I started a story which I'm continuing today.

The computer is still being slow and cranky; it shut down from overheating again last night; luckily none of the writing was lost, though a lot of time was lost fiddling with the external fans to get cat hair out of them and then getting the computer started up again. I'm dreading hitting the summer heat if I can't get a new computer by then, and the desktop computer is still out with a persistent virus.

In work news, I've hit the end of my full-time temp work, and have only one week of half-time work left. Unless something happens very suddenly on that front, I'll be unemployed again by next weekend.

In the meantime, it's Equinox, which means it's time for me to do readings, but there's no way I can do them and the Muse Fusion at the same time. So, I offer a poll:

[Poll #1719861]In the meantime, the story I'm working on for the Muse Fusion is Dragon Oak, and is about Rai-Kunabei, who some of you have met during my readings.  I think it will be around 3,000 words when I'm done, and can be sponsored for a total of $30 (from one or a group of sponsors).  After that, I'm going to tackle the question of what it's like to be near a border when two time-shads fuse back together.

And if you stop by the Muse Fusion and leave a question or prompt, I'll have some more writing to do tonight or tomorrow!  If I use your propt or answer your question, you get a private peek at what I create even it's not sponsored.

Happy Spring, everyone!

This is last night's update--I was too tired when we got brushes cleaned to do any of the things I'd planned. Comes of being wakened early by the insurance guy who I expected to call on Friday (his voice mails were not working right), and then driving to Chicago in a car with no air conditioning at midday in mid-summer heat.

The window detail is brightened enough for you to see who's in the house; it's a little darker in person.

And the texture that works so nicely for the tree and clouds is a real pain for houses and windows!

The "moon" in the tree limbs is an illusion caused by where the ceiling light was shining on the wall--but I really like the illusion!

We had another friend who dropped by to talk, who actually tried painting.  that was fun.

 But I think what's best is having a teenager who keeps smiling and saying "I like it", "this is great" and "thank you!"

Oh, yeah, the (as yet incomplete) tree:

  

Another update, and a surprise dragon, follows.

Unfortunately, so did low-lying clouds. We saw a little pink to the east, that was either moonlight or sunlight on the clouds, though the camera didn't pick up the pink tones well:


While we were waiting, hoping that the cloud cover wasn't too thick to see the big, orange harvest moon on the horizon, we did a brier celebration of the season.  And took a few pictures:


It got darker and darker.  Finally, our first glimpse of the moon:


And then I took a bunch more pictures of the moon:




And finally, the moon disappeared completely behind more clouds and we headed home.  It was out of the clouds again as we walked into our house.

So, no huge orange harvest moon for us, but it was beautiful anyway.

Now I've got some chores to do, so I'd better hit post and do them.

Today is the autumnal equinox and the full harvest moon. My Angel has been wanting to go watch the moon rise over Lake Michigan for some time now, and her health hasn't cooperated.

But her insomnia didn't totally ruin her sleep last night, so we're headed out soon!

I'm charging up my digital camera cell phone, so there will be pictures!

Gosh, I love modern technology.

I've been foggy all day, despite which I managed more than 1000 new words on Fireborn.  Though now I have a hole in the middle, I've been writing Mist's viewpoint, having left Orchid flying into the middle of something interesting...

I also went searching through the directories on this computer and my two flash drives looking for a rewrite of a short story that I did about a year ago; had an insight into how to improve it, but didn't want to revert to the version that's about 10 years old!  Of course, it was in the last place I looked (things always are), but pity I tried looking in the bigger flash drive first, since it was on the smaller one...

I won a pdf copy of GUD Magazine, started reading the first piece, and my brain free-associated from that imagery into something different, definitely more dystopic than the stuff in the Fireborn world, and I have nearly 1000 words in that short story.  I do plan to get back to the magazine, and do a review for them (free stuff deserves a useful thank-you) but I want to solidify this story in my mind first.

I'm working on getting more stuff out in what is still, unfortunately, currently a rejection-collection project.  If the nature of the results change, I'll be sure to let you know.  I'm still working on getting to know the current markets, figuring which ones are a good fit for what stories, especially the online ones.  At least response time is much faster than it used to be, when all submissions went by snail-mail.

In other news, I have been taking pictures of a painting in progress, however, it is destined for the second Torn World contest, which is entered anonymously.  As a result, I can't share it with you until after the contest is over and the results are announced.  But I'm making slow progress on it, mostly while TV shows I want to see are on.  Though My Angel teases me that I don't "watch" TV, I just listen to it, especially when I'm painting.  I would have made more progress today if they had shown both parts of the Dr. Who story...but I have to wait until next week for that. 

As far as process thoughts go, I find it interesting that last week's interview with the agency, with all its tests and paperwork, and no actual job that they might find for me on hand, disrupted my creative flow a lot more than the actual job interview this week did.  When I do get a day job, I'll doubtless have to cut back on blogging to hoard time for the actual fiction writing, since cutting back on sleep isn't helpful! 

But I am determined to keep working on Fireborn.  Just so's you know.

I am enjoying my cell phone's camera function, really I am. I'm amazed at how much it can pick up inside, with just your standard ceiling lights. In contrast, it works poorly for bright things like flowers in the sun. They glow!

It's not altogether a bad effect, but you lose color and detail.



The mulberry is still producing berries (yum), and the peas are producing enough that I'm getting tired of them, and the spinach bottoms, faced with the knowledge that their seeds didn't have a chance to develop, are sending up new leaves to try again. I have more tiny green tomatoes, and some tiny green peppers (some bell, some hot), and lots of herbs. I was telling Foodie Friend about my cooking plan the other day (start the butter melting on the stove and take the scissors outside to cut some herbs, return to add the cut onions and herbs to the pan), and he drawled, "how French of you!" and I had to laugh. I wasn't trying for any particular style of cooking, just using what was in the garden and fridge -- and fresh-picked stuff tastes really good!

So, one of our visitors today was a dragonfly. We get a few every year, and every year I wonder why they're flying so far from Lake Michigan. I know it's a city, but there have to be other inviting gardens in the blocks between here and there! This guy sat still for two pictures where I can't see him at all; in this one at least he is visible.

This reminds me of one of my frustrations; this computer doesn't seem to have a program loaded onto it for cropping pictures. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad to have this computer, as it is a LOT faster than anything else in the house. My kid's dad gifted it to us when he got a better one, and I'm trying to make every penny last as long as possible until I'm employed again, so a new one isn't in the cards for quite a while. But can anyone recommend a free program that does a good job at cropping pictures? I don't mind showing off my tomato plants, but the dragonfly would be much more visible if I was showing only him! And there are other pictures I'd like to reshape too, for one reason or another.


Another visitor, one of several, a small (half-inch-long or so) very white caterpillar. The head was a tiny black spot, and the underbody yellower than the top, in the slightly-green yellow range. Not sure what it will grow into, so I left it alone.

Another limitation of this camera is that if I get too close, it all blurs. Still, this thing wasn't designed primarily as a camera after all, and does much better close-ups than the cameras I used in my teen years, one of which was much better than it out to have been (enough so that people told me, to my face, that I was lying when I said the photos were not taken on an expensive 35mm with a filter).  I remain both amazed and frustrated by what I can (and can't quite) do with my camera!



I was going to post a picture of another purple flower that I'd love to know exactly what it is (besides a "weed"), but either my cell phone isn't sending it or aol is being its usual tardy self in processing the e-mail, and it's late, so maybe next time. Instead, the first daisies, so you can see how my camera handles the contrast between direct sunshine and shade.

It's actually approaching full moon while the roses are all blooming; they're late this year, like everything else. Usually, the weekend they bloom all together is Duckon, and I mostly miss it; this year I've been able to go out and look and take pictures. The day lilies are finally blooming too.


Today's lunch was spinach and peas and mulberries, direct from the garden, following my theory that I should be eating as much as possible from the yard, not the grocery store. 

You haven't heard much about my job search because there's not a lot to report, and there's no way to make "I looked at a bunch of job listing sites, and in the paper, and sent applications to the few I found that I might have a chance at getting, and didn't get a call this week, and just found out that the place that said they wanted me in for a second interview hired someone else" anything but depressing.  Ditto with "the realtor can't get in touch with the guy who claimed he really really wanted to buy the house."  I also don't think recounting the details of my root canal would be lots of fun, for you or for me.

I am writing, though, both the stuff that's going into this journal and a novel set in the same world.  And learning new things, like how to make a LJ poll work.  (At least I think I figured how to make it work; I haven't seen any responses, so maybe I'm wrong.  Or maybe it's summer and no one cares when I post my fiction because they're out enjoying the sun.)

For ysabetwordsmith , a picture of the Joseph's Coat bush, now that it has more than one flower on it, though later in the season it may be better--I'm in the middle of cutting down an old scraggly bush to get it more sunlight. 


I'm still seeing bees and butterflies, and the occasional disgruntled moth (disturbed by my weeding).  And mosquitoes.

And I pulled up a bunch of the spearmint that's invading the roses (I don't care if it invades the lawn; then lawn mowing smells really good, but roses like sunlight!) and have a batch in the dryer, making the house smell good too.  Oh, and the first morning glories are blooming -- this one was still in shape for pictures when I finally got outside today, since it's well shaded by the echinacea leaves.

So, does anyone know what these purple flowers are called?
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