Home Town

My DH mentioned yesterday that I connect our family to the community at large simply by seeing the same people every day. I don't always know their names, but I recognize them at the grocery store, the hardware store, at the Christmas tree stand, and I often say hi when I have time if they don't look too busy.

I want to say that this is important, but is it? Maybe in an emergency a person who recognizes me might be more likely to stop and help, but even in that unlikely situation I think a good person would stop and help regardless of whether they're a friend or a stranger.

Is it important for people to know their neighbors, or at least recognize them?

I don't think there's a clear answer. I just know that I enjoy living in a place where I can go to the post office and small talk about the new building going up with my vet and the person who bags my groceries and the person I helped with a return the previous day.

For my fellow Nanoers--have you backed up your Nanowrimo project? Don't put it off!

Nanowrimo Final Count!

Last night's total word count was at 59,339 words. I probably could have snuck up past 60,000, but I had a really hot bath and realized that I had a better idea than the one I was working on. So I'm going to unwrite some stuff tomorrow and continue on this new, more exciting track.

In other semi-writing news, I'm reworking the Wyrd Goat logo and putting more serious work into the Wyrd Goat website. I'll let y'all know when it goes live. Hopefully it'll be a fun website with lots of wonderful books, links, and other nifty stuff. Advance thanks goes to Lisa the Awesome who is helping me figure out GIMP while doing some serious heavy lifting with some graphics I need. Yay Lisa!

In other, other semi-writing news, Masks will soon be ready. I have a first reader going through it now.

Tomorrow, more work on the floor in the morning, which may lead to finishing the upstairs which in turn may lead to dancing. I don't know! This may be too much fun in one place. Anything can happen ...

Nanowrimo Count Up--58297 words!

I gained some weight, but I ended up with about 58,297 words (final count will be posted tomorrow) for Nanowrimo this year and I didn't neglect my house or family as much this year as previous years. I ended up in the perfect place in the book for Nano to end--I'm in the muddle in the middle. Anyone who's written a novel knows that the muddle in the middle can be pretty brutal. The writing can be slow going, or worse, you're doing fine until you realize that you've lost track of everything that's going on and you've dropped three of the eight balls you've been juggling and now you have to backtrack because the character couldn't possibly be on that side of town ... yeah.

Not that I've ever done that, but if I had, I would scream just like this: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!

Congratulations to all my buddies that crossed the Nano finish line!! Validate sooner than later, because the validator will probably be pretty busy the closer we get to midnight in the various time zones.

Have a cookie. You can always hit the treadmill sometime in December, or if not, January is the traditional time to do that sort of thing, and that's not too far away.

Ack! Is it really closing in on 2012? Time seriously flies. I'd better get back to writing. Until next time ....

Nanowrimo Count Up: 50,536 I Win! and Happy Thanks Day

Our Thanksgiving celebration is mostly over already. We had a wonderful visit in Bend, OR with family and friends. I drank too much wine (for me, that's 2 glasses) and then after everyone except my DH and I went to bed, I wrote until 2am. (He did too. We're a little bit sick that way.)

Signet is now at over 50,000 words. I've made my Nanowrimo goal! Of course the fun doesn't stop there. I doubt I'll finish the book by Nov. 30, but I'm going to give it the ol' writer's try.

In more serious news, my good friend over at Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is going into surgery. It's my understanding that although this is a serious surgery, his doctors don't believe that his life is in danger at this time. All surgeries have risks inherent to them, so I'll be thinking about him and his lovely and talented wife.

Also, RIP Anne McCaffrey. She created wonderful worlds that I as a young person and many people around the world of all ages loved to explore. My condolences to her family, in particular to Todd.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. My sister-in-law (I love you K!) hit the nail on the head when she mentioned that we're fortunate to have good health. Family, friends, food on the table, a roof over our heads, health insurance, our kids are doing great, and we live in the wonderful Pac NW ... I have no doubt that things can get better than this, but if they stayed the same (which things never do) I would be content.

As soon as the floor upstairs is finished, that is. :P

I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday. If you're going shopping on Black Friday, be careful out there. And remember, it's only stuff. Don't let the crazy people grabbing stuff out of your cart make you crazy too. Their actions and that stuff they need so desperately that they're willing to grab it from your hands will not make them happy, and that stuff can't really make you happy either. There are so many ways to express love that it's not necessary to cling to the idea of one object given to one person or to hoard something in your house in order to feel fulfilled.

With that or some other more wise wisdom-y thingy in mind, it's possible to have a lot of fun on Black Friday. I'll be working, of course, but I might stop by the store before my shift and check out the deal-iest of the deals. Happy Thanksgiving!

Nanowrimo Count Up--45000 words!

Day five of six days in a row of work. Yes, I'm grateful to be working. Still. Always. But I'm tired, and I won't be any less tired tomorrow.

In writing, I've recently had to remind myself to use all five senses as often as I can. I just had my characters cross a huge common area. Guess what I forgot? Sound! Yeah, I didn't do taste or smell either. I did do a little tactile stuff. But the sound would be as important as the sight. Sound will define what sort of crowd this is, and what the general mood is. Angry crowd give anyone the creeps? Does me! Laughing singing dancing crowd make you want to join in or wonder what the celebration is all about? Busy noisy cranky crowd suggests a typical day in downtown, right? So there we are, and there in the story we weren't. Going generic will allow the reader to create their own stuff via their imagination, but a few specific things will help lead them in a potentially more interesting direction and can suggest culture stuff in the process.

Back to the keyboard-y salt mines. If I don't post before then, I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving Day. Drive safe.

Nanowrimo Count Up--41032 words!

I'm hitting a weird point in the book where I feel like I'm racing toward the end, but I'm only halfway, if that.

The ending came to me during a bath. I'm not sure what it is about hot water, but it works for me. Anyway, now that I know the heartbreak and joy that comes at the end, I can't wait to get there. My word count has shot up as a result. I hope to reach the winning count, 50,000 words, by this Friday. And I really hope, though I doubt it'll happen, that I'll actually finish the whole book before the end of the month.

My poor DH has to suffer through me explaining bits and pieces of plot when I finish a particularly exciting scene. He made me happy today by letting me know that he enjoys listening to me talk about my book. Of course he had to tease me after that remark, but we're like that with each other. We like to tease, and tickle, and play. We have a wonderful relationship that keeps us both writing like crazy. Maybe someday we'll both be full time writers. I think that would be awesome. I wouldn't have to guard my writing time so jealously anymore, and when he invites me to go somewhere to Wifi, I won't want to say no so that I don't lose writing to travel, which is followed by feeling lonely and wishing I was with him. And I won't feel harried or like I've wasted my time if I say yes, and we won't play that not-so-fun game where we're lingering longer than we like and trying to find useful things to do while the other person finishes up their latest thing they started when the other wasn't done ... yeah. That can be crazy-making after a couple of rounds.

Oh, and about that flooring project ... what flooring project? I was going to try to finish the living room today, but instead I'm at 41,032 words.

Totally worth it. But the floor needs to happen, so I'll work on it really soon. Not sure when, but soon.

OryCon 33: Word Count 33652

This OryCon I did more socializing than I have in a long time, and it was glorious. I didn't care that my @ss had flattened from sitting so long or that I wasn't making much headway with my novel.

Free samples:

Dreams and nightmares ... the sensory advantage fiction has over film, though film has some great advantages in pacing and visuals. Also, how kewl is it that although someone can be distracted from a movie and miss part of it, if someone becomes distracted from a book, they pick up where they left off or even go back and reread something to get back into it? Prose is a fascinating medium. And our brains are even more fascinating. You can have lucid dreams, faulty dream paralysis, teach yourself to fly, speak to the dead, have repeating nightmares, dreams with plots, and dreams that are so boring you're glad you can finally stop looking for the darned olives at the grocery store when you wake up. Thanks to Jason Brock and a dedicated audience at a very late panel that wasn't even listed for a fascinating conversation/panel on the subject.

Early attempts at writing fiction ... OMG. Does anyone remember their first efforts at storytelling? I had this thing for long, straight black hair that goes down to the waist (why did it have to go down to the waist?!) and purple eyes and chainmail bikinis on bodies that drove men mad with love. Lust was sort of an abstract idea at the time. And I adored the Monkees (who still perform from time to time--a coworker went to a concert of theirs a few months ago) but not as much as horses, which they would chase through various environments and then the wild buckskin would save Davy Jones' life. Karen and I laughed so hard I'm sure people were giving us dirty looks but we didn't care. I'd tell you her stories but they're so awesome she has to tell you herself. I didn't even get to tell her about all the Battlestar Galactica episodes I made up and then later was convinced that they really aired, only to find out that my favorite episodes never actually existed. Darn it! I think I might have hurt myself laughing. We're still telling silly stories, but now I'm not afraid to share them. Plus, I now know about copyright and won't make the (deliberate) mistake of using someone else's creations to carry my stories.

And I don't care if they're cliche'. I still think amethyst eyes are awesome. I just won't prance a violet-eyed warrior princess riding a black unicorn across any of my stories unless I'm writing a spoof. (Sadly.)

What Violence Smells like, Looks like, Feels like, you get the idea like ... you'd think that this panel would turn into a gross-out contest, but the panelists dug deep and revealed things that were painful and nightmarish to them on a personal and professional level. I was so honored to be there while they shared all that with us. I forgot to ask a question so later I cornered Rory Miller and asked him if he remembered what being tasered tasted like. He said 'it tasted like pain.' We laughed, but you know, it's intense stuff. We're made of meat, all of us, and we're all mortal and sometimes you have to laugh and cry and let it out and let it go if you can because the alternative is to curl up and shiver until you die.

Autism ... I liked when the panel started talking about education, because I don't think our education system is serving anyone right now, bright, challenged, bored or plaid ... our kids aren't learning as well as they could. I have high hopes for remote schools, but change is slow and change may not be for the better if we don't figure some stuff out. My kids are out of school, so I don't have horses in this race anymore, so to speak. But I care about the world's future, and kids are it. What do we do? Pay for more studies? I don't think so. Studies are horrible, and they tend to ask leading questions that have no purpose but to suggest narrow political answers. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

As far as I can tell the boy and the girl had a blast as well. And I missed so much. Filk concerts. The masquerade. Heaps of panels that I wanted to go to. The art show. The art show! I can't believe I missed the art show. I only breezed through the dealer's room. And I didn't get a triple penetration chocolate donut from the Voodoo Donut van. I had to settle for a (yummy) chocolate frosted chocolate cake donut. I'd say waaaah, but you know, it was a tasty defeat.

Lots more but I'll probably blog about something else next time.

Oh, and I can't forget! In sad fuzzy housemates news, Veronica has made a full recovery, and Finn's scalp wound is starting to heal nicely. It was looking very, very iffy there for a while (I think Brian 'helped' by licking the wounds a bit too much) but the next day Finn had everything scabbed and sealed. And Veronica (Poop!) gets to go outside again, so she's happy.

All in all, a good time was had by all. G'night!

Nanowrimo Count Up--22413 words!

I have another day off tomorrow, so I'll be working on the floor, and writing.

On a more serious note, Veronica, aka the Poop, is not feeling well. She stopped eating and drinking. I'll call the vet tomorrow. She's moving around super-slow and is sleeping lot, which implies to me that she got beat up by another kitteh and is sore and possibly has a mild infection brewing somewhere. I admit I'm worried, but we've been through this with Wizard a couple of times before. She's young and strong and will probably bounce back without any interference, but I'd like the vet to assess her for dehydration, and it would be nice if she were prescribed something to alleviate the soreness (if memory serves, they usually give a steroid shot) to get her moving and eating again. I'm sure they'll prescribe antibiotics if she has a fever.

Poor kitteh ...

And also (why is there so often an also!) Finn scraped his head up pretty good. We're not sure what happened, but it doesn't look like a bite from the other dogs. Quite a bit of hair is missing around the scrape, and we know it wasn't there last night. Trapped under the porch? Got his head jammed under a tree root while digging? Ran under a low branch? We have no idea. We called the vet, who said to watch to make sure it doesn't get worse/icky/full of pus and basically treat with neosporin. Check, check and check. Unlike the Poop, he seems fine, though his head looks alarming with so much scabby stuff and missing fur.

Sheesh.

Nanowrimo Count Up--13994 words!

I should be writing my novel ...

My DH and I spent a lot of time working on the floor upstairs. We're now almost done with the living and dining rooms. Seriously. As in, single digit number of feet left to go. Then we get to start on the entryway.

It's an amazing transformation. Already the house looks better, even though everything is in a state of utter turmoil. Even the kitchen looks nicer. Okay, granted, part of that is because my DH hugely cleaned it up. But it's also because of the floor coming up to the kitchen. The cupboards now look like they belong. Before they looked too dark and kinda grungy. I think it was the too-sharp contrast of everything else attempting to be off white, including the carpet, and then the dark cupboards kinda stuck out. Same with our furniture. The roll-top desk I adore now looks almost like it was chosen so that it looked good with the floor. Fabulous!

I have tomorrow off, so we're going to spend part of the day writing and part of the day working on the floor. Hopefully we'll be able to finish things up, if our former-contractor friend D. has time to help us with the transition by the sliding door.

I'm so, so excited! Word count, and house beautification. There's something really wonderful about accomplishing difficult projects. Yes, it's daunting, and yes, it's possible to fail, and yes, yes, yes, it's hard and time-consuming and seems to be a huge distraction from what appear to be more important things. But those more important things often turn out to be busy work. So which is the huge distraction, really? The answer depends on your dreams and goals.

Nanowrimo Count Up--1846 words!

Yep, it's that time again. Nanowrimo: NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. The goal--50,000 words by the end of the month, which is about 1667 words a day.

It's always good to get a head start. Stuff happens. Thanksgiving is stuck in there (and for those of us who work retail, Black Friday is shot too.) Offices flood (happened twice during Nanowrimo in the past ten years.) The point is to write every day, and for the days that you know you'll miss, to write extra either before or after so that you make your goal.

For many, this is a fun exercise, and a chance to finally write that book that they've always wanted to write. For a lot of pros it may be a non-event. They may write 50,000 words in three days. (Stephen King wrote a 200,000 word novel in the time it took you to read up to this point in my post.)

Some fun facts:

*Some people clear 250,000 words during Nanowrimo. No kidding. Some of them are even first time novelists. (ooos and aaaahs from the audience.)

*Nanowrimo is organized by the Office of Letters and Light, a charity that does awesome things like provide books for the needy.

*A 'standard' (double-spaced, 12pt. font, 1 inch margins) page has about 250-275 words, depending on writing style. This can vary quite a bit, with some dense pages approaching 300 words, and spare pages with a poetic or spare structure coming in well under 100. These standard pages give an editor a very good idea of how thick the spine on the novel will be.

*Most 'mainstream' novels fall between 80,000 and 110,000 words because traditional paperback and hardback publishing finds that this length satisfies the reader, has ample spine on which to print necessary info like the novel's title, and doesn't have so much content that it requires lots of extra (expensive) paper and ink and binding to produce even if they make the font really, really tiny.

*Lots of incredible books are shorter than 80,000 words and much, much longer than 110,000. Really big ones over 200,000 words are sometimes referred to as door stoppers or tomes.

*Shorter books are often printed with bigger fonts, lots of pictures, or with lots of empty space around the print so that there's enough spine on which to print the title of the book in a visible font. Conversely really long books may be printed on thin paper, in smaller fonts, or have smaller margins. Compare sometime a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare or Stephen King's The Stand with War of Art or Michael Pollan's 64 Rules for Eating Well. (Yes, I really meant War of Art, not Art of War, although that's another book that is often filled out, though more often with commentary and lots of prefaces.)

*Although Nanowrimo seems to be held at a weird time of year and shouldn't offer any tangible benefits, the energy that comes from attempting Nanowrimo has inspired lots of people to meet or exceed their goals year after year. I've tried a year-round goal of 50,000 words, and have also tried it during a more 'sane' and quiet month. Nada. This is the time, the place, and these are the people.

I hope some of you will join me in trying to write 50,000 words (or more!) in November. It's not too late to start! If you do, feel free to buddy me. I'm kzmiller.

Too Much of a Good Thing (again, or is it still?)

My DH and the kids are coming home tomorrow after a nice vacation on the coast. I so, so wish I could have gone too, but I was at work. Again. Still. Thankfully our store has everything I need. Canned food, microwaves and dishes to cook with, sleeping bags, ammo and firearms, tools, pillows, toilet paper ... everything. I could even keep the animals there, though the goats would eat an awful lot of bags of bunny food. I could set up baby barricades (which we have right at the store!) to keep them penned on certain aisles where they'd in theory do the least amount of damage, or maybe I could keep them in the warehouse area. And of course the kittehs and dogs could roam free, as could the chickens, though it might be a pain to clean up after the chickens. Anyway, I guess I wouldn't actually have to leave work, like, ever. I just prefer to, you know, spend some time at home.

It would save on commuting, though. Hmmm ....

Nah. No comfy chairs.

Oh, wait, we totally do! I forgot! That's hilarious. And we have a futon! But I'd have to move them to be near an outlet so I can type on my laptop.

I am looking forward to having a whole two days off in a row soon. It'll be a little weird, but I think I can adapt somehow.

Not complaining! I am very, very grateful to be employed.

But still. Five days on, one day off, five days on, one day off, and now I'm in the middle of four days on ... then finally, finally, two days off.

I might even get some work done around here. Dishes? I have dishes. I just wash what I need ....

The End!

I've hit the end of Masks. Now to go back and add a couple of minor details, update some maps, finish the cover, and I'm done!

done done dunny done done I'm done! I'm done I'm done I'm done. Done done done.

Okay, now done looks like it's spelled wrong. But I don't care because I'm done!

I may have to put together a writer's clock. I'm thinking about something like this:

5 Why oh why?

10 I'm crazy

15 OMG, Fun!

20 What are dishes?

25 Out of underwear

30 Screeeeeech

35 Lost ... need ... map ...

40 Researching ...

45 Flying in the dark

55 OMG, Done!

12 Zzzzzz

Too Much Work

I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Masks is eating my brain and I don't want it to stop until every last cell is gobbled. I've got to get the water sealing problem fixed on the sliding door while the weather holds--when I have no idea because it'll be almost dark when I get home and I can't do it now because it needs to be cleaned up under there first. I have to work on House of Goats, I have to get two book covers done, and I haven't touched my Wyrd Goat website (I have the domain but I'm still working on the bones of the actual content.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I wish I could call in sick but I'm too ethical. Okay, that's totally untrue. The wishing part is untrue, not the ethical part, because wishing for it would be wishing that I was unethical, and I don't. Argh, I'm confusing myself! Help meeeeeeeee

There's only one cure. Soup for lunch. Soup for lunch makes it all better. I'll go pack some into my snapware container that I use for hot lunches and just focus on day job work.

Maybe I'll take my laptop with me to work and get something, anything done during my lunch hour. Yeah ....

What do you do to cope when you have too much to do and not enough time?

Masks Update

My DH is home! He was just gone for a weekend, but it always feels like a long time when he's away, whether it's a day trip somewhere or 14 months in a foreign country.

I keep discovering new things about the universe I'm writing in. Often I'll go back and insert hints and make changes, but sometimes I have to leave those details in my head, ready to unveil at an opportune moment.

One time in my mid-teen years I overheard my father complimenting me. He didn't know I was close by enough to overhear him. What he said astonished me. At the time I thought of my writing as a game, a diversion, something fun that was for my amusement alone. Every so often I'd have an excuse to write something creative for school, and I had a lot of fun with that. I had no idea that my father had read any of it, though I often deposited my papers on the kitchen table in order to show my parents how I was doing academically. What he said to his friends that evening was that my stories were like a flower with lots of petals unfolding.

Boy, I sure would like to live up to that compliment. Anyway, I think what he saw back then was an effect of my writing process, where I race forward and then go back when I get a fresh take on something so that everything is consistent and carefully (I hope) foreshadowed.

I spent much of last night, late into the night, doing just that with a particularly cruel truth that Mark, the pov character, will discover far too late to prevent a tragic confrontation.

I love writing. It's fun. I think the only difference now is that I do think about how I can best help a reader in on that fun. It requires a lot more work, since the reader can't know what's in my head. But that's fun too. I can keep secrets, and then pounce with them.

Floor Hiccup

I was cruising along, minding my own business, taking bad sections out of the subfloor and replacing them with new particle board when suddenly (dun dun duh!!) I found dry rot. It hadn't worked all the way through the plywood under the particle board, but dang ...

So I have to seal the sliding door inside and out, and fill that depression in the plywood with 20 year caulk just in case the sliding door isn't the problem ...

It's pretty dry there, so it might have been damage from the original door. Just in case, though, I have to do all this stuff because if there's water coming in, even at just a slow drip, it needs to be fixed. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, if more water does come in, it will probably mess up the laminate there pretty badly. Fortunately because I'll know to keep looking for the root of the problem, unfortunately because then of course I'll have to tear up the floor there (again) and replace it.

Ugh.

In other news, Masks is coming along fast and furious. I'm really excited. I have a really good feeling about this book. It's been tempting to spend the entire day writing, but I really do have to go shopping for caulk (ugh ugh ugh!) and various other flooring supplies so that I'm prepped for doing more stuff on Thursday. That's when D. will be over early early in the morning to help me out some more.

Ugh. Whose genius idea was this anyway?

Huh?

Huh?!

sigh

Floor Progress

The floor is patched. Finally! I've made progress toward the fireplace/hearth, at which point my fabulous retired contractor friend D. will help me figure out how to mate a rhino with a lobster.

This is where super-long movies like Om Shanti Om (highly recommended, btw, and don't let the whole beginning half fool you--it's an intense love story that even my jaded DH enjoys) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy really come in handy. I've seen them so many times I don't have to really watch them. Listening transports me. I do stop and watch favorite parts, like the Pain of Disco. (Seriously, you have to watch Om Shanti Om.) But other than that I can listen to the music and the dialogue and be there while still paying attention to important things like power tools.

I've gotten far enough now that I'm starting to get that feeling that I'm actually doing some good rather than just ripping the house apart chasing a dream. Oh, and the carpet? It's outside killing grass for me so that I can expand the garden space near the house. I have so much pasture grass (far harder to deal with than tame lawn grasses) that it overwhelms the large sections of garden I've managed to create from blackberry zones. Finally connecting the garden to the proximity of the house will do magical things to the way the garden appears overall. It'll also be easier to manage.

That carpet stinks to high heaven, and the rain has actually improved it by rinsing out the worst of it. I'm once again reminded why I loathe carpeting. Seriously, it's disgusting stuff. Unless you have the money to replace it fairly often, like every five years or so, it just becomes a haven for dirt, dust, dust mites, fleas, stains and general filth. No amount of steam cleaning will get that stuff out. I know. I kept up on the steam cleaning, and it was still vile underneath when we pulled it up. Ten years of grime percolating down through the pad, permeating every layer in between, will do that.

I'm glad to be rid of it, but boy is it a lot of work to go to laminate. It's worth it. The house is tons better already, and we haven't even got a tenth of the surface area covered yet.

Okay, maybe it's over a tenth now. I've got two empty boxes, and three mostly empty ones out of thirty-ish.

And now, I must go back to work. Part two of Fellowship awaits!

Floor Drama

It's such a simple little thing.

You know how you'll be plugging along on a project just fine until you have to stop and do something you haven't done before in order to continue, and you resist because you have to get a bunch of materials, and then you finally get them, but then you have to read the instructions and they sound okay ...

... and before you know it three days have gone by and even though you know what to do because the instructions are simple, you feel like you have to prepare yourself and you just don't have the emotional energy after a day of work ...

... even though you figure it'll take you a half hour at most ...

... and you can't get back to doing the thing you know how to do really well until you do this little thing?

Yeah.

Day four today. Patch a dip in particle board. Really similar to stuff I had to do to prep for tiling, with similar materials but suitable for use on subflooring.

Should take a half hour or less, including mixing it with water.

Is it done?

Of course not!

Will I do it tonight?

For pity's sake, I hope so.

If not, I've got the whole weekend.

But how much more productive would the weekend be if I just got this

one

little

thing.

Dammit.

More Flooring

Here are my kids, helping with the never-ending parquet. It's everywhere! It's in my kitchen under the linoleum. It's in the bedroom under the carpet. It's in the closet. (Seriously.) Everywhere we pull up flooring upstairs, there's more parquet. It's kinda creepy, actually. Parquet isn't easy to install.

I'm sure it looked fantastic back in the day. Unfortunately it doesn't look very fantastic today. Mysterious stains, bleaching, water damage and odors that have permeated what little finish remains on it have made it pretty icky. Maybe the stuff in the bedroom isn't too bad, but I'm not about to pull up the carpet in there to find out. The bedroom carpet is in halfway decent shape. At this point I'm all for the if it ain't broke don't fix it philosophy.

After all the prep (which is ongoing, btw) I finally got to lay down a wee bit of floor with D's help. He did all the brainy stuff, and I just kept going after the hard part was done. And I hit my first milestone. First empty box! Awesome, but scary. Will I have enough of this stuff to complete the project? Did I measure everything right? The conflicting info online and other places is crazy-making too. Everyone insists on poly film of various grades over cement. Everyone also insists on a vapor barrier in crawlspaces under the house where you're putting in floor 'at grade level.' But this is neither. This is my upstairs, with only downstairs rooms beneath all the upstairs rooms. In addition there's alarming warnings pertaining to putting film over wood, as it will cause mold and mildew problems.

But nowhere does it say what specifically to do in my situation. Seriously, people, who wrote the technical manuals for these things?

If I have to I will pop the floor apart and put plastic under it if the 800 number people tell me so when I have a chance to talk to them on Tuesday. But I have a feeling that they'll say it's not necessary.

Is that so hard to say, folks, in your very, very brief instructions in the teeny, tiny print?

So I'm in a holding pattern for now. But it's a pretty holding pattern. And the kitties love it. I have a feeling they'll love it a lot less, though, when they go charging up the (carpeted) stairs and hit that first stretch of slick new floor.

Weee!

Upstairs floor redo ... ongoing stuff

All my great plans are shattered, but in a good way.  It turns out, after consulting the amazing D., that I don't have to tear out a bunch of stuff to put in my new floors.  Just a little stuff. 

Unfortunately that little stuff breaks up into little pieces.

So I'm yanking up all the parquet floor after all instead of pulling up the particle board underneath and replacing that.  It's sort of satisfying, in a violent OCD kind of way where I rip out exactly 3 rows and then sweep and I try as much as possible to rip out each 4x4 section whole.  (It's not possible as often as I'd like it to be.)  D. suggested that pulling up the parquet will go about as fast as I can get pissed off, but I just can't seem to get pissy enough for it to go really, really fast.  At least it's happening in a relatively clean fashion.  The floor isn't pretty, but I can walk around without it going crunch crunch crunch.

The best news in all this is that the floor will be done much sooner than expected.  Way before Christmas.  Hopefully before Thanksgiving.  Possibly (!) before Halloween.

We'll see.  

D. said something awesome that's keeping me excited about this project.  He said his father told him that when you complete something like this, it makes a house more into a home.  You'll always be able to look at it and say to yourself, I did this, and it's beautiful.

I'm really, really looking forward to the first time I see and think that.

I'll try not to look in the direction of the new hole in the wall so that moment can come sooner.  I didn't do it!  And I don't want to know who did it.  I just hope nothing broke when it happened.

Argh.  Construction.  Argh argh argh.  But it will be over sooner rather than later.  Yay!

Farms are Fun!

There are some things about owning animals, especially farm animals, that people don't think about.  

The goats don't just graze endlessly in a picturesque manner in their pasture, and you don't just pet them over the fence.  You gotta get in there.  I posted fairly recently about giving them wormer.  The other day I had to trim hooves.  At one point Snowflake had the girl down on the ground (ground covered in goat poo, I should point out) and the girl was yelling "I'm okay, I'm fine, keep going!"  It's like a funny little rodeo, but icky.

Chickens can be incredibly cute.  Again, you don't just toss scratch grain to them at a distance while they peck at the ground in a picturesque flock.  You have to walk (carefully because they get underfoot just like cats do at feeding time) among them to change water and to fill the feeder and find eggs.  Sophie is particularly cute.  She knows that treats come from human hands, and she doesn't mind being petted.  When I bend down to pet her she isn't sure what I'm going to do so she spreads her wings a little (she squats low and spreads her wings to get petted and when she gets picked up) but keeps her neck stretched as long as possible and twists her head around hoping to spot something yummy among my fingers.  When I pull my hand away she does a cute little leap toward my hand hoping to find grain there.  Leap!

Too many cats ... it's normally a good thing to have cats all over the place to keep the rodent population down.  (It's also awesome to have a little dog like Chase to kill rats because only a few cats are tough enough to take on an adult rat, though they bring home babies from time to time.)  But you'd better not get caught near the sliding glass door.  Think it's a chore to let one or two cats in and out all day?  Try five or six.  It's the worst in the morning on a rainy day.  The whining begins as soon as the alarm goes off.  I let them all out, and then some want to come in again five minutes later, and another ten minutes later and by that time one of the ones I let in wants out again, and the barn cat Tom Riddle sees me and freaks out and sprays to mark his territory.  I retreat, but inevitably I pass by the sliding glass door again and there's a kitty out there in the rain with its ears folded down and the silent meow, and one of the ones inside sees me heading for the door and races to be let out ....  All.  Day.  Long.

Dogs and coyotes.  Ah, the eerie and beautiful sound of coyotes in the distance.  Guess what?  The dogs hear them too.  The leader of the pack begins with rapid-fire barks.  The little one yips and runs up and down along the fence, then races to the back, back to the front, bark bark bark.  The leader slows down just about the time the big back-up base starts in with his steady, monotonous barks.  Oh yeah, eerie and peaceful and off in the distance.  Not!  At least our dogs don't howl when they defend their vocal territory, though sometimes I wonder if it might not be better than the barking.  There's something about that staccato that's a little like getting jabbed with a fork at the base of your neck every second or so at 3am when you're trying to sleep.  Besides, if our dogs howled I'd probably join in.

Maybe just the first thousand times.  Then it'd be back to me stumbling to the front door, ripping it open, yelling "Hush!" and then shutting it again before they can all charge into the house and fill it with fluff.

I think living on a farm is a lot more fun than most people realize.  It's just not the kind of fun they imagine.  It's somewhat like having kids.  Before you have them, you have all these dreams and a pretty good idea that it'll be hard too.  Then you have them and wham--it's everything and nothing like you expected, and so much more.