Another Fine Mess

     Hey, everyone. Nice and cool today. After the heat of the summer I'm really enjoying this. Wish I had time to be out in it though.
     Just a short update to keep everyone in the loop. My better half, as everyone knows, has had a rough time of it lately with this bout with the shingles. Well, wouldn't you know? We go to the doctor last week, complaining that there is something else going on lately and sure enough . . . there is! Something that has been hiding its ugly head beneath all of the other, evidently.
     After a series of blood tests, we are told that his kidneys are failing! Well, five minutes of sheer panic. Then, thank goodness, we both have sense enough to stop and take a breath and look at what we're dealing with. I hit the computer, reading (out loud) as fast and furiously as I can and, after about a half hour, we have our socks on the right feet again and have calmed down considerably. I recall my Uncle Clover who lived for quite a number of years on dialysis . . . and this was before they knew much about what they could do otherwise.
     Anyway, we booked some preliminary tests and the poor guy (who was in a bad state as it was) had a couple of terrible days preparing for a colonoscopy . . .those of you who have experienced one know how awful it is and those of you who have not have really got something to look forward to...and an upper G.I.. Neither of these produced anything that was contributing to the situation so now we go the next step. As soon as all the wheels finish turning we will be referred to a nephrologist who will no doubt make his life miserable in unknown ways (particularly through diet . . . and boy! do I look forward to forcing that little way of life onto him).
     At least, from the research we've done up to now we're fairly optimistic.
     My writing is at a standstill but, by golly, I'll catch up again one of these days.
     Damn, getting old is fun, ain't it?

Getting Back Up On That Horse

     How many of you have trouble starting all over again after falling down on some responsibility? I sure do. Case in point . . . this blog.
     Now, I really enjoy writing it. Honestly I do. But for some reason, when I have something that gets in my way and causes me to lose the necessary momentum I just seem to fall to pieces.
     Every time there is a crisis in my household I seem to stop writing and then I can't get underway again for love nor money. (Well, since money never has made much appearance when it comes to my writing anyway, perhaps I should just leave it at love.)
     I'm not sure if I've mentioned that my Dear Heart has been suffering from the Shingles for the past two and a half months. In March, when he first became sick, he was mis-diagnosed and treated by a substitute doctor for the wrong thing and then ended up in the hospital where he was mis-diagnosed again for something entirely different. Therefore it was a couple of weeks before his regular doctor discovered what his condition really was and it was a little late.
     I have never seen anyone suffer anymore than the poor man has done. Now, you and I have heard all sorts of horror stories concerning the Shingles and I believe every one of them at this point but until one actually observes or experiences it there is simply no real way to describe it fully. My husband has always been able to throw pain out the window and never gives in to anything. One summer he broke a tendon (!) in his right calf. There was nothing that could be given to him to help the pain so he simply strapped his boot tight and worked all summer until it healed. Once he drove a chisel through his forehead, just missing his right eye, but returned to work as soon as we returned home from the surgery in Kansas City.
     Should I sprain my ankle, heaven forbid, I will be in bed for a week and someone has to carry me to the bathroom.
     But the Shingles has brought him to his knees. He has spent most of the past two and a half months in bed, living on Percocet, if you can believe it. This is a man who is suspicious of multi-vitamins and refuses to take cough medicine. And even that doesn't do more than take the edge off. He does not break out . . . he merely has terrific pain through his body, as if, he says, someone is using large butcher knives on him and later crawling up and down on his back and shoulders. And as if that isn't enough, I'm watching like a hawk in case he gets too despondent. Being in this much pain just invites depression.
     His doctor tells us he is using my husband as a poster boy to promote the shot that will help prevent getting the Shingles. Fortunately I had received it about six months before and we had intended for him to do the same and simply hadn't gotten around to it.
     He has lived to regret it . . . hourly.
     My message to my readers is to head to your doctor's office pronto and get that shot. You won't regret it.

BOOK WORK, ETC.

     Send up fireworks! The first thing I did this morning was send off a short story ms that is due by the end of the week. So I'm feeling very professional. Congratulations, me.
     Actually, I did have a bit more time than that. The editor had one copy but had asked me to add a couple of little things so it had been easy to put it aside . . . not professional . . . and I simply hadn't done it. Anyway, it's finished now, so onward and upward.
     I'm putting the final touches on the juvenile novel now. Junkyard Bones is finished and the editor is waiting for it but I had problems with my word processing programs and it has screwed things up royally. I originally wrote the book in Word Perfect and when I got ready to submit the finished ms (after final approval) I decided to transcribe it to Word 7. It was a good thing because Word Perfect decided to give up the ghost and die completely.
     Guess what? Each letter 'b' in the ms turned into quotation marks. Well, fine. I started to manually correct them. (I haven't mastered Word 7 at this point. No, don't try and tell me . . . I only get more messed up.) That was bad. So I tried 'find and replace'. That really changed the whole ms around. On top of that it didn't allow me to change my mind. Ooooooo!!!!! I'm gnashing my teeth and stomping my feet and tearing my hair.
     Anyway, to make a long story short, I hauled the whole computer to MWG and got help and now things are good again. I've gone over half the ms to make sure everything is good and I have half of it to go and then I'll e-mail it to my editor (also a good helpful friend) and it will be good to go. I'm really glad because I'd sure like to have it in time for the school year. Well, we'll see.
     Made arrangements for another writer's conference today (first of June). I'm entering the Trash to Treasure book in several contests (it won an Honorable Mention in the Best Book Award at MWG last week) so I've got to get that done. I have a list of probably twenty things writer-related to do over the next week or so and it is over-whelming . . . a suggested article for a quite well-known periodical, a script to study for a local cookie-cutter conference (they're putting on a mystery and I'm the star!), book signings to arrange .  . . yeek.
     And my poor dear husband still has the shingles. He hurts so much and there isn't a thing I can do for him. He decided yesterday and today that he HAD to do some work (first mowing of our e-nor-mous yard . . . not lawn, yard) and three hours just about killed him. I think it proved to him that he just has to wait it out even if it takes a month. Daughter came over and mowed and mowed and mowed and one of the teen-agers did a lot of trimming. Tomorrow I should be able to find time to finish up (I hope) and maybe he will stay indoors and take it easy, even it it about kills him.
     I finally get the chance to boss him around a little and I can't even enjoy it. Dern.

In the Groove Again? Hmmm...

     I'm hopeful that my readers get a bit of enjoyment out of reading about my chaotic life...when I finally get around to sharing bits and pieces of it! My apologies, but that's the only way I manage things lately.
     Sometimes I think I need a camera anchored on the top of my head documenting my day-to-day existence. No one can believe the reality of my life. If I were to write an on-going story listing all the things that go on in this household, every editor I've ever encountered would laugh herself/himself silly and throw me out in the street so fast it would make my head spin. Of course, there are those who believe I'm dizzy anyway but I pay them no mind.
     I've no intention of going over everything that's happened since the last post. Suffice it to say that I'm still waiting on the last piece of income tax info (damn the poky US government...and you don't want to know what I think of them) to come in. How many days do I have left? Yeah, that's what I thought. And I was told (automated, natch) that it would be here by the 7th of April. That should certainly leave plenty of time, right? Well, tonight is the bottom of the 11th and I've not seen hide nor hair of any documentation. GRRRR.
     Darling Life Mate has been in and out of the hospital and is suffering (and I don't use the word lightly) from a severe case of the shingles. This has been ongoing for most of the past month and shows no sign of letting up. This man is the one who never gives in to pain of any sort, the person who once snapped a tendon in his calf completely in two and simply strapped his boots tight and kept on working through the summer as it repaired itself (there was nothing that would ease the pain at all). But this one has just about done him in.
     My advice is: if you can afford it at all, go and get the inoculation to protect yourself. Shingles is a horrific problem. Anything that can bring my husband to his knees would kill a lesser person.
     The yard (and I use the term loosely) has reverted to pasture and we've not yet pick up trash and sticks from the winter. We live in the country, forty acres, and there are trees and bushes everywhere. I've not raked the fallen walnuts or hickory nuts for the past couple of years due to the knee problem, so with all the trash everywhere there is no taking a mower over it without something being done about it first.
     Oh, yeah, I can just see that happening, the two of us out there bending and picking up. Now and then I actually do feel like I'm more than a youngster these days.
     The tax and the shingles were enough to ruin the month, without even mentioning a dozen other family issues, so I've been a wee bit busy, I'll admit. Then I turned over the calendar page and realized  I had committed to a major writer's conference and it was almost on top of me.
     Well, by golly, I decided, I wasn't missing it. And DLM insisted it would be all right if  I went away and left him at home to suffer alone.
     So, off I sped all the way to the other side of the state for three action-packed days of learning more about writing and net-working, only to discover that, even though I've been at it for quite a number of years, I'm doing everything wrong...well, at least the net-working.
     For instance, this blog. Evidently, I'm really being a little too personal here and not showing my professional side to my readers. Urk. And all along I was hoping to pick up an editor here or there.
     Oh, well, for the time being, until you are all caught up, I'm going to keep right on writing in manner I'm doing. I've got umpteen chapters to relate to my loyal readers before I can retire and go on to another subject, don't I? I haven't even got back to the trip to Paris and to the Czech Republic and that was waaaayyyy back in February! (Where does the time go? And I'm having so much fun!)
     And I have to tell you all the wonderful stuff about the new book, Junkyard Bones. Oh, yeah, and try and get you to buy the old ones, too! Uh-oh, I forgot...I'm supposed to be more subtle about sales and not hit prospective customers over the head with it.
     Sheesh...I try and try to learn. Oh, well, I get a little of it now and then.
     I'm gonna do better soon, though. I swear it.