Progress Report

[aearwen2]

Well, Hubby is feeling good enough to start "following the lawn mower around" again outside, and he has my front and back yards looking like a park again. He goes for maybe an hour or so before he totters into the house, pretty much spent, but he's determined to build up his stamina again - and I can't blame him for wanting to bounce back as much as possible from the health issue that landed him in the hospital just before the holidays.

Our weather continues unseasonably warm and pleasant. I'm starting to fear that if/when the Winter decides to revisit us, I'm going to have a lot of very confused plants who were just getting ready to bloom their little hearts out. Usually, if this happens, we have very small crops of apricots and plums, because the rain will literally beat the blossoms off the tree without the bees having done their "thing". My lilac bush (the one that survives) will blossom, only to have the blooms beaten to death by the rain.

We've had enough precipitation, however, that I predict a fairly dangerous fire season towards August through October. Hubby jokes about looking out the kitchen window and "watching the grass grow an inch," but it isn't so much a joke as one might think. Rain equals weeds and brambles up on the hillsides, which turn into tinder-dry fire hazards in late summer/early fall. That's why this part of the country tends to burn rather spectacularly every year, by the way: all that is lovely green today will be dead and dry brown by then.

On the kids front, Squeek in OR is currently crashing on the couch of an assistant manager at his work. Evidently his personal journey of growing up and figuring out who/what he was and what he wants disappointed the folks he'd been renting a room from - and they chucked him out the door very precipitously. From what I hear, they have a history of distancing themselves from people who dare disagree with them. The good news from up there is that he's managed to swing a small car loan from his employer, and will soon have his own set of wheels. After that, the next on the list of things to get is a small apartment. Applications for low income housing have been tendered - we'll just have to see what happens there. And, at long last, both he and Lacey have decided that their marriage simply isn't gonna work. They may get a place together, but it will be a roomies, not husband and wife.

Súl is under all kinds of pressure at her work - there has been a lack of communication from the head honchos (surprising, to me, actually) and a pending upgrade to the technology of the place that has things very much up in the air. I worry about her a bit, because sometimes the receptionist has her day so tightly scheduled that she doesn't even have a break during which to scarf down a lunch - and she's lost enough weight now that she has no internal reserves to call upon in those times. That's the price she pays for being the top manicurist in the area, I know - success certainly has its down sides!!

I'm trying some Icy-Hot on my bad shoulder today for the first time, and I think I'll give it a go on my bad knee later. I still ache, but it is less today than yesterday. We'll see if that continues, because my Muse is starting to get impatient with me. She wants to dive into I Dhaerlend Dadui and get that finished now. She's also decided that, on Phoenix (working title of an O-fic novel WIP) she wants me to put my first draft up on a shelf and sit down to rewrite the thing from the beginning all over again. To try to edit everything in would be a massive and ultimately frustrating process. I want to get to that - and have promised myself that I'd sit down and start it once I have two of my LotR novel WIPs finished. In The House of Elrond is finished now and is wending its way through Lizard Council and Hall of Fire before being posted. If I can just finish IDD too, that would be very, very satisfying. That's my goal for the year, by the way: finishing at least two of my six LotR WIPs and working on a completley new version of Phoenix.



Enough of my nattering. Hope you all have had a good week. Mine's been pretty good, actually.

Comments

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to hear that things are getting better and that your DH is feeling good enough to putter in the yard. I'll keep giving you feedback on LC, after all, isn't that what friends are for?

- Erulisse (one L)