The Usual Update: spring equinox edition
9 highlights and lowlights from a heck of a last week, plus plans for the coming days.
Our misbehaving sewer line has been de-rooted, unclogged, and declared intact enough to not need replacing. House is much less smelly, except for an occasional WHEW & hooray!
Plumbers will return in April when the weather is warmer to give the sewer a fancy steam-cleaning, because welp, it’s still pretty sludgy. But it’s sludgy out there, not coming into the house, so things are flowing the right direction. Literally. (It was so bad the plumbers asked if we poured grease down our drains, then snorted when informed no, but teenagers lived here before we did and the line hadn’t been rodded out in 10 years.)The podcast interview I was on went live, people boosted it on social media, and at least one person has listened to it and declared it to be interesting in a good way. So that was a huge relief and a big happy. If you haven’t listened to it but want to, I did a whole post on it with a. link.
:A while back I sprained my thumb badly (how? WHO KNOWS? Sleeping, probably.) It has very much been interfering with everything involving hands. Like, say, writing. I bought two finger splints last weekend, Pippin promptly ran off with one and lost it, but the second one is doing its job. I’m down to splinting 50% of the time after just a week, so I’m pretty pleased about that.
Spouseman and I fnished phase 1 of spring yard cleanup right before a snowstorm blew through. I pruned and trimmed the redbud tree, the button bushes, and a bunch of perennials.. Next warm dry day I will be hacking back the red twig dogwoods before they try to take over the world. I could’ve done more, but I’m trying to be good to my thumb.
My big next yard project will be figuring out how one maintains the underground pipes between the gutter downspouts/sump outflows and the garden beds. There has to be something, right? (Rodding them out? Power flushing?) but I can’t find any guidance online or off. I may have to take the extreme step of asking a professional.Had dinner with friends from out of town, and it was a delight to catch up.
Dex Greenbright brought my whimsical idea about a Crow Of Hope to beautiful life. I love it so much I did a whole post about that, too. I’ve ordered 3” round stickers—same size as my drink tea/coffee sticker, and 5” round window cling versions. Print ETA TBD.
Bought proper carpentry tools for my office project and used them! My new work table came in handy, too. I modified a second Shoji screen to fit in the space in front of my napping nook. It took less than half the time it took me to work out the prototype. Having the right tools makes all the difference.
Played in the kitchen. Made a bunch of little soda bread loaves and a big ol’ pot of chili. I also coached Spouseman through using the rice cooker on the way to making an experimental batch of saucy sausage & peppers baked with rice. That came out well enough it’s going on the regular meal rotation.
Found a new game to obsess over, namely Strands or Spanograms, depending on who you ask. The daily version is on New York Times, but there’s an archive and I’m slowly working my way through the backlog. I’ll run out eventually, but not for a while yet.
Extra! I noodled around with a bunch of old quotation graphics from my books because I remembered how much I love making those, and I made three new ones using quotes from Relics. I’ll post those on “social media” sometime this week. Every time I think about posting promotional stuff I get exhausted and end up ranting on the WTF All Day blog instead. But this week I swear I shall post a thing.
Final note: I’ve now used my new office work table four times for projects and daily for lunch and I'm wondering how I did without one for all these years. Having a flat surface at working height that I don’t have to clear off to use is priceless.
And now, the best part of any post: Cat pic!
So innocent, this cat, lounging in his napping bed. This is where he went to sulk after I booted him off the work table twice while I was cutting things.
Okay, that’s all until later.
What’s on your bookshelf?
This is the part where I talk about my books.
Relics From A Traveling Show
The newest of the new! A collection of all my short fictions in one handy volume, available now from your favorite booksite or local shop.
Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.
Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:
Title: Relics From A Traveling Show
Author: K. M. Herkes
ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)
Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.
If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.
I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.
All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.
Support your favorite independent bookseller! Find a local shop via Indiebound
Be a potato.
" Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)