Dandelyon's Worlds

Got woken up this morning to learn that My Angel's PT was out sick today. (Someone recommended a PT that specializes in helping people with balance issues caused by eye problems, and the lady is fantastic.) I got the receptionist to schedule a replacement appointment and put it on the calendar. Then, since I forgot to do it yesterday, now that my new health insurance card has arrived, I called to order new CPAP supplies and cleaned the ones I currently have. Naturally, by that time I was quite emphatically awake.

I did a bunch of unexciting little things, figuring that when My Angel got up we could go out and make a new archway for the entrance of the garden. The old one, constructed mostly of saplings we cut down and wild grape vine (and wire) had lost structural integrity last autumn, due to age, wind, and My Angel falling against it. I'd pinned it to the tomato cages to keep it from falling on the car over the winter, and took it down before the big wind storm a couple of weeks ago.

By the time she was awake and almost ready to do stuff, it wasn't quite too cold for the planned work, and I'd moved the car to give me a place on the ground to build the arch, and had just gotten started pulling stored saplings out to assess which one would work best without additional cutting when she told me she would be talking funny for a bit. What? What are you talking about? Her temporary crown came off. So in I went to have her call her student dentist, who said it was too late to get her in today and sent her off to the pharmacy to buy a "lost filling and loose cap repair" kit.

I consulted with her about the arch; the best sapling was taller than I'd hoped for, but I didn't want to get the axe out and cut it shorter, and My Angel is too tall for a short arch anyway. She headed off to the car and I decided to get the shovel and dig the post hole I'd need (one because one of the supports was still there from last year) and found the door was locked. Thankfully she hadn't driven off yet, or I'd have been locked out without my tools while she was gone!

So, door unlocked again, off she went to the pharmacy and I got to work on the arch alone. Sigh. That wasn't the plan! But I did ok, taking the wire archtop I'd made from an old piece of roof antenna and the sapling, some still-limber branches, some lengths of grape vine, and gardening wire, and made 3/4 of an arch on the ground, looping the metal sun-and-moon and butterfly decorations to it, wiring it all together, and then, with the bit of metal fence we'd put up earlier this spring next to the woodpile as a support, got it into place, wired to the metal fence on one side and to the support sapling that's still attached to the twine fence on the other side, and at least that bit is done.

I still have to pull down the bean and morning glory vining from the rest of the twine fence, and probably replace a couple of other supports. But first, tomorrow if the weather remains sunny, I want to get peas planted. And probably spinach. Hmm...I wonder if I could plant anything else this early. Cabbage maybe? Google says early to mid April, and we're near enough to the lake to be in a warmer planting zone than most of Milwaukee, so yes. Onion starts? Google says mid to late April, so no. Turnips? yes. Beets? Possibly. Carrots? No, wait until the threat of frost has passed, unless it's an "early variety". (But the seed packets I have say "as early as the soil can be worked". I'll trust the packets, since those instructions were written for the variety in the packets.

So, there's a bunch of things I can plant tomorrow! Probably more than I'll have time for.

By the time My Angel returned, it was windy and the sun was low enough to be behind the houses on the west side of the street, so it was quickly getting colder. We went inside, and I looked at the flats I'd planted with tomato seeds.

A couple of days before Equinox, I'd planted a flat with "volunteer" tomato seeds. Volunteer meaning I'd taken tomatoes from my garden that were starting to rot and smashed them on a dry pot of dirt and let them dry there (because I read that tomato seeds need to sit in spoiled tomato juice for a while to sprout well). Later, I needed the pots and dumped the contents into baggies, making it really hard to tell what was seeds and what was just dirt. So I just spread about a tablespoon of the mix onto each pot in the flat, covered it with seed starting mix, watered it, and put it on a heating pad and under a rectangular plastic "dome". These seeds will grow children of one or more of the tomatoes I'd planted, so things like Northern Lights, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Black Krim, and other heirloom varieties, usually ones that are striped, yellow, green, or purple.

Then on Equinox, right before and after the "moment", I planted two more flats, one all tomatoes from seed packets, and one 1/3 tomatoes and 2/3 peppers (cayenne and sweet Italian peppers, mostly, some from seed packets and some from plants grown in the garden last year. Seedlings were already starting to show on the first flat at that point. Wow, that was fast!

Today, I found two tiny sprouts in the second flat, a Purple Russian (from a free thank-you packet sent by a company I'd ordered other stuff from) and one, well, I don't know. Apparently I was tired enough I forgot to label the last two tiny pots. Argh. There are no sprouts in the third flat yet. But in the first one, most of the pots had at least a dozen happy seedlings. I prepped a fourth flat (adding dirt to the 18 little pots), took out three of the most crowded pots, and filled the flat and four other small pots with 3 seedlings each, leaving three or four each in the original pots. All those babies (roughly 75) were from just two of the little 3" pots. The other one I returned still-crowded to the flat.

I've gotten really good at transplanting tomato seedlings, and three to a pot is too many, so even if I lose 1/3 of the transplants, unless there's some other problem with the babies, or I get sick enough to forget to water them, I'll have lots of tomato seedlings to give away. I plan to put a fan into my sprouting room this year, to hopefully get stronger stems and leaves; since I haven't done that before there may be a learning curve on doing that well; that's one possible source of losing some of the plants before outdoor-planting time.

We tried to glue the temporary crown to My Angel's tooth with the recommended product, with a lot less success than I had with the arch and the seedlings. The tooth is not bothering her, so she said she was done trying. I hope they can see her tomorrow to glue it back on properly, as I'm afraid the tooth might be fragile without the temp covering it. We'll see tomorrow, I guess. If nothing else, she has another appointment Friday.

And, I got distracted and didn't hit post. So, an update: I have the seeds that it would be ok to plant tomorrow in a plastic thingy for easy transport outside, and I should sort some papers or play some music. I'm not doing that until after I post this, so I'll just say see you soon. I'll try to take a pic of the arch to share tomorrow too.

I don't feel inspired to do a 2011 retrospective. Maybe this weekend.

Right now, I'm feeling more like looking forward, considering: What goals should I have in the new year?

One friend, seen at the New Year's Eve party I always go to, said he thought perhaps he should aim for more hugs in 2012. That sounds like a good goal to me. I don't know if it will get more stories written, re-grow my guitar calluses, or further any other of my long-term creative goals, but friends are important too.

I'm going to keep my 10-submissions-a-month goal that I started last year, and have already copied the spreadsheet, renamed it, and entered the first submission. I didn't make that goal every month--some months I did more and lots fell short--but it helped me focus in a positive way, when I wasn't too busy to look at it. There were also times that everything I had on hand was out already.

That leads to a clear conclusion--I need to write more. To that end, I think I should log into the chat room with the other toonowrimo  writers more often.  The only problem with this is there's rarely anyone in the room between dinnertime and what should be my bedtime.  So if there's anyone else interested in writing from 7 to 11 CST, let me know.  I think I'll try to do at least one word war regularly, meaning at a minimum more days than not.

Speaking of bedtime, I need to put a higher priority on sleep.  Being too tired is too much like writer's block. Who cares if it's 7 p.m.--if I'm tired enough to sleep during what is normally my most creative time of day then I should treat myself to actual proper sleep-in-a-bed.  I must remember that exhaustion--which is not the same thing as working past dawn on a night when the Muse is whispering in my ear and I can sleep in the next day--leeches away my time and creativity.  Staying up always seems more attractive than the face-hugger, but for the most part, that's a lie.

I am, of course, planning to keep my day job in 2012. Paying the bills is a good thing, and so is health insurance, even if that keeps getting more expensive and covers less every year.  I also like having a job where I get to help people who, through no fault of their own, have been hurt. (I admit, I still do like writing fiction better. Too bad as a culture we have fallen into the attitude that nearly all creative work should be available for free.)

That brings me to another rather free-form goal--to keep stretching my skills as a storyteller, including not only my writing, but my art, music, and ancillary stuff like promoting the small-press publications I'm in.

I've committed to running the next Torn World contest, answering questions and cheerleading and trying to fill in for Ellen while ellenmillion  is on maternity leave.  If you folks want to give me a gift, enter the next Torn World contest and harass me for links to background information or snag me in a chat room to brainstorm before sitting down to create something for the contest.  That contest will be another Fauna of Torn World contest, so stories, poetry, art, and metafiction about sea monsters, invasive insects, cute pets, and strange wildlife will all be welcome!  (If you want to give Ellen a gift, enter this month's contest, whose theme is Fashions and Fads--you're welcome to ask me for information, links, or brainstorming this month too!). 

As to my own Torn World projects, I plan to finish Wild Snowy Chase very soon, and then turn my attention to some of my other characters.  Lalya in particular has been neglected; I need to plot out more of his story and immerse myself in it for a while.

I do want to work on the Feather-Blessed Dragons story--I owe that to meeks  for the wonderful art she made for it, but I've been wanting to find time for it anyway.  I'd also love to finish Clockwork Dragon, and I have some ideas for stories to submit to upcoming anthologies too.

I also still want to put some of my short stories out as an e-book anthology, and maybe a few as freebie singles, but I have not yet figured out what to do for cover art.  Maybe if I can carve out more time for art, I will succeed in making some.  I'm still leery of spending money on it, since I still have bills to pay off and deferred house fixing stuff that's been on hold due to being unemployed for so long.  But that might eventually be the solution. 

In short, 2012 will be another year where I dream big and try to make a bunch of those dreams real. 

It's bedtime for me now--I have to work tomorrow, after all.  This weekend is Sketchfest, so I'll be doing some art--but in between sketches, does anybody want to war?

So, they predicted wonderful weather until the thunderstorm hit. So, we thought, we'll clean up the yard and plant bulbs.

So, I was sitting here eating my breakfast and I hear a thump. I go into the bedroom--nothing got knocked over by a cat. Then I looked out the window--a piece of siding fell off the house. Oh, wonderful.

Once MyAngel got up, we spent the afternoon on the porch, cleaning out a squirrel's nest (plus dead squirrel), sistering or replacing damaged wood, and putting up one of the leftover pieces of siding stored in the basement. The leftover 2x4s in the basement were old hardwood--sturdy, but not the fastest things to nail t We finally used part of the piece that fell off to cover a remaining hole, temporarily, since it was getting dark and windy. We'll have to properly cut another piece of siding, as well as replacing insulation and properly sealing everything on another day.

Fun fun.

And now the storm is blowing in.

Here's hoping we did enough, at least, for today's storm.

The bulbs are all still in their packages.

On the positive side, the neighbors like the purple flowers we were too busy to go down and properly identify. Here's hoping the storm doesn't shred them before tomorrow.

It's been a busy year. A year ago the Torn World site opened to the public, and I've been active on the editorial board all year. I've also been working on Torn World stories, art poetry, and worldbuilding.

Over the course of the year, I've had 26 stories, 11 poems, and 14 pieces of art published there, as well as more art, illustrating some of the worldbuilding articles onsite. One of the stories, Building a Home, which was Dini and Lalya's debut story, was featured in ErgoFiction.

Despite how busy I was with Torn World, I also did other writing. Deep Dreams was published in the Best of Friday Flash 2009, and Vibrations of Battle, Vibrations of Joy was published in Crossed Genres. And my story, Boney Fingers, survied several edit requests to be accepted into Magicking in Traffic, while another story, co-written with RJ Astruc, was accepted into another anthology. Though, of course, I collected many more rejections than acceptances.

I didn't do everything I set out to do; I didn't finish Fireborn, though I did add to it. I also didn't finish Clockwork Dragon (though I did get our boiler replaced, so we have heat again).

And I started a new diet, trading hours spent reading or writing fiction for hours spent reading ingredient lists.

I started the year unemployed, and have had three different long-term temporary gigs, though the first one ran doctors' appointment to doctor's appointment. I'm going to miss the people where I'm working now; the last day of work there is scheduled for January 7.

I'm still pondering New Year's --not resolutions-- goals, I suppose. I want to getg back to the Feather-Blessed Dragons stories. I want also to finish Clockwork Dragon and Fireborn. I'd like to collaborate again with RJ.

I'm definitely continuing with Torn World, and with writing and submitting shorter things.

I had toyed with the idea of making at least 100 submissions in 2010; I didn't quite make that, even counting Torn World. This year, I'm toying with trying to manage at least 10 submissions a month. I suspect that having a shorter tracking period might help keep me focused. And I also want to do more music and more art, and get my house less cluttered and in better shape.

Oh, well, it's late. I can sleep on this stuff before deciding on which goals to tackle first.

If anyone has thoughts, ideas, or preferences, you're welcome to share!