The "a lot" part wasn't life changing. Nothing major. Just a lot. I planned to write a flash fiction piece for my Patreon followers, finish my Immortality short story & do a blog post mid-week. Instead there was a Dental Event. <Gruesome details redacted.>

That unpleasantness, the subsequent repairs (and their consequences) trashed those plans.

I'll be subsisting on cheesy mashed potatoes for another day or two, but the swelling's down and things mostly taste normal again. Best of all, I'm off the woozy painkillers & catching up on fun writing things.

Like this update.

Stressful waiting-for-appointment time & exhausted recuperation time is always draining. there's always a nagging sense of "I'm not getting anything done" when I'm not doing what I intended.

But as often happens when I can't concentrate creatively, I did a lot of secondary activities. Normally most of these would've gotten their own, more timely posts, but I didn't have enough brainpower to spare to write it down until now.

I'll share things as a list, since I like lists.

LIST OF THINGS DONE!

• Went grocery shopping for post-toothwork soft foods & impulse bought loads of new soups & deli items to sample.
• Watched a boatload of old disaster & action movies
• Played with the website programming tools I've been ignoring for ages
• made new blog footers
• Did code repairs & updated links...or maybe broke things worse. Who knows?! Either way, I enjoyed the learning & experimentation process. It went pretty well except for the part where I accidentally published this blog post before I wrote it. (Note to self: stop working on your website after midnight.)
• Ran 4 loads of the fussy laundry items I always say I'll do later.
• Weeded, watered plants, fed birds, & wandered though the yard enjoying the blooming things. (That's why I included a yard pic with this post)
• Started a "backyard wildlife" log to record sightings.
• Took lots of pictures of Pips, because he is made of cuteness.

More lists

Wildlife seen in the yard in & around all the perennials that are finally well-rooted & blooming their hearts out:

• 1 red dragonfly, 2 blue dragonflies
• 7 Monarch butterflies, 3 Black swallowtails, 1 Tiger swallowtail, 3 Painted Ladies, and too many Cabbage whites to count.
• a flock of blue jays, in addition to the usual sparrows, finches, cardinals, and chickadees. (I think the jays are nesting a few blocks away) 1 really cranky woodpecker & several cranky robins.

Movies & shows: mostly rewatches because I was so low on brainpower. Except for the disaster flicks. They are excellent for low brain times.

• continuing my rewatch of Ghosts w/Spouseman
• Fire Twister (Not to be confused with Firenado, which I also watched, Worse acting & writing but better CGI.)
• Hijacked first 4 episodes. (SO GOOD)
• Silo A whole season in, I'm still not sure if I like it or not)
• Rampage (I would've watched San Andreas too, but couldn't find it. Dwayne Johnson action humor hasn't disappointed yet.)
• Virtuosity (forgot this movie existed.)
• Hot Fuzz (despite over-the-top gore, I love this brilliant love letter to buddy cop movies & revisit it as a comfort watch.)

And now I've written my "What I did this week so Future Me can refer to it for reminders" post, so I can add that to the list of accomplishments.

Healing is work. It's annoying I have to keep reminding myself of that, but I do. So here it is in print: I did so work a lot this week.

Enjoy the book promo below. And the new shiny extras that should show up properly at the bottom of every post, even on mobile. Unless they don't. It's kinda hard for me to know if things are working on this site unless readers tell me.

But I digress. (That's how you know it's me, right?) That's all for now. Until later!

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