Quote by JustAnotherSapphic

Cable and wifi upgrade is really nice but now I've got even more options in terms of watching stuff on streaming services.

Best of all, everything is upgraded in time for Jane's return on Sunday.

I thought you'd moved on to Alan Rickman. Or are you shipping both (did I use that term right? I'm so old!)?

Looks like we'll have a baseball season - they agreed on the International Draft, which was the big sticking point. They might even have a full season, though I'm a little skeptical that can be done. I'd think the sport would cause a lot more injuries if they played with no days off. Still, good news. I miss baseball.

No Talia Thursday. Me and the cats and the blank page.

A coffee and a cinnamon shortbread cookie please.

Huh. I thought I posted this morning - I just must not have hit submit.

At any rate, sorry about Uncle Wiggly Sara (that an old school expression for bad ankle). That sounds pretty serious! I hope your procedure goes okay.

Shame about baseball season - I am disgusted by their willingness to destroy America’s game in pursuit of a little more cash.

Best of luck on the repaired peepers, Ape.

I wrote well today. Another snow storm coming in, but I got my last errand accomplished just as the flakes started coming down. I feel bad: it’s gonna snow for 2 days and Talia has to drive into work both days whilst I laze at home with the cats.

Enjoy the day, Inspirators.

A coffee and a banana cookie please.

Quote by Brad_Naylor

I am drinking and watching TV

When I am done writing, I too will be drinking and watching TV.

I am writing.

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic

...so I ordered an Arthur (yes, as in the PBS character; don't judge) plush yesterday, and he should arrive by Friday if the mail isn't wonky.

...and this isn't me hoping he arrives sooner than that.

I AM judging you! Not for the Arthur plush, or any actual failings on your part. Just on me having to sit through those terrible PBS shows when the kids were little. Arthur. Clifford the Big Red Dog. Freakin CAILLOU! It was hell, I tell you, hell!

Sorry for the outburst. I need to watch my morning episode of Little Einsteins.

Back on the horse, writing every day, and I have a whole string of free days to keep plugging away. I'm definitely starting to head toward a climax (not that kind) and denouement. A few scant months away.

Sorry about sending you snow Sara. I'm sending you a total lack of baseball next.

Coffee and a Collective-Bargaining-Agreement-shaped cookie please.

Lotsa snow last night and this morning, and no end in sight. I had to drive in it this morning, and it was not fun. But back home. Ready to drink some coffee, warm up, and start writing.

Baseball looks likely to cancel more games. A losing proposition for everyone involved. I don't always side with labor, but in this specific case it looks like the players are coming to the table in good faith, and the owners keep shutting things down. They're the ones saying there's a "deadlock" - no the players union.

Anyway. Time to write. Coffee and a butterscotch cookie would be great!

Good Lord, no one's ben in to make coffee? Okay, I can brew a pretty mean pot of coffee. And boil a pretty mean kettle of water for tea. Let's have a quick Keurig while we're getting the REAL pot of coffee ready (my usual routine).

No Talia Thursday. I'm back in the groove - making my thousand words a day, and it was even warm enough to take a long walk yesterday - I love my walks.

Gonna see a play this weekend! Yay! Meet Vera Stark. I know very little about it, but I love plays. I think it's a musical.

Coffee and a Mardi Gras cookie please. Remind me to tell you some day about the time I got arrested during Mardi Gras....

Wah! My former employers have just canceled their promise to let me use a copy MS Office free for life. Looks like I have to plunk down $150 for a home version of Office within the next 45 days. I refuse to buy a yearly subscription ($100/yr), and my experiences with OfficeLibre were not encouraging. Grrr.

More tasty greed-shaped cookies please!

Quote by DenimAngel

grumbles stupid people who are in charge of negotiating MLB MORONS!!!

The MLB 2022 season is DELAYED

Grabs a cookie and some hot chocolate

Yep. The billionaires thought the millionaires were making too much money. So everyone loses. Most of all the game loses. Fans and credibility and money.

I look to have an actual calm day ahead of me - we'll see if that lasts. It's warm and sunny and I am going to try to climb back into the novel today.

A coffee and a greed-shaped cookie please.

Scooby snacks! Thanks Sara!

Long day. My daughter was in the ER last night, but all appears to be well now. Whew! Life is short, but parenthood is long.

The house sold fast this weekend, for more than I expected, which is cool. A bunch of dumb little details are gonna follow, but it should all be over in a month.

MLB is currently in their 11th straight hour of talks, with tonight being the last day of negotiations. They’d better get their sh!t together or they are gonna lose a LOT of fans. Probably not me though. I’d prefer to watch and b!tch about it.

I’m grabbing a cup of decaf and a couple Velma cookies and kicking back with a book.

And…we just accepted an offer on the house. Higher than I was expecting, so yay! Weird to work hard for a month and a half, and have the thing sell in 48 hours. Not that I am complaining.

I suppose I should want to celebrate, but staying home and hanging out with Talia sounds like a pretty good celebration already.

So, coffee and cookies are on me! Some Velma-shaped cookies please!

Good luck with the peepers on Monday Ape.

I'm so sorry to hear about your dog, Red. It sounds like you found some healing in the ceremony and dignity with which they handled the remains. I have a paw print of our beloved Minky on the wall of my office.

Woke up to actual house offers today! We'll be fine, I think. The house looks really nice - way nicer than when we lived in it! All that work is beginning to pay off.

And I am taking one more day off. I will edit a bit, but mostly I will rest on my laurels and wait for offers to come in.

Coffee and a home-shaped cookie please!

And...the house is on the market. I feel like I'm crossing the finish line in a marathon. It looks great. I'm psyched.

Plus, it's nice to be cashing out of the real estate market on the apparent eve of World War III (nervous laugh).

So, me and the cats will be kicking back and celebrating today, on No Talia Thursday, with an anxious eye on the news (the cats are very interested in geopolitical politics). I may putter around on editing some short stores, but I'm basically taking a day off.

Talia and I are debating going to see the opera of The Shining, at the Elle Caulkins Opera House, as a celebration. It's supposed to be really good, and I've never seen an opera before. Plus, IT'S THE SHINING!!!

Coffee and a peace-shaped cookie please.

Quote by Ceebees

Watched Parallel Mothers. A beautiful film by Pedro Almodovar staring Penelope Cruz. Deals with friendship, motherhood and romance against a backdrop of the history of the Spanish Civil War.

Loved this movie. Almodovar can do no wrong.

So I'm not a big Vin Deisel fan, but he made a great sci-fi movie called Pitch Black, and a goofy but fun sequel called Chronicles of Riddick. There was a third movie made that for some reason slipped under my radar, and I found a couple nights ago on HBO. Simply called Riddick. Good sci-fi, if not quite as good as the first movie. David Twohy wrote and directed all of them - he's from the X-Files writing room.

That X Files writing room is responsible for a lot of good TV and movies. The Sopranos writing room too.

I'm sure I'll end up doing something today, but I have absolutely nothing planned. It's Decompression Day, I have declared! House is done as it is gonna get, jury is over. I will start writing again, but I think I am gonna wait a day. Today I am just gonna see where the day takes me.

Happy Wednesday everyone! No Talia Wednesdays is switching to No Talia Thursday, so she's around. So are those doofy cats.

You sneak up on me with that boot, Sara, and the cats are gonna get you!

A coffee and a boot-shaped cookie please!

Okay, I am done or mostly done with all my recent obligations. I'd love to be part of this anthology and I'll have a version of Monster ready by the end of the week (I promise changes will be minor!). Do I just send you the .docx, WriterGirl? Do I need to do anything else? I've been a bit out of the loop on this.

Quote by Brad_Naylor

I thought MITHC got off to a great start. I believe it could have, and should have, been fitted into two seasons. Like a lot of these kind of shows, once they get an audience they tend to milk it. I think LOST is a good example of shark jumping. Westworld also went on for too long. All the best shows I've seen pull you in, take you on a ride and know when to stop. Breaking Bad was a good example of knowing when to stop. It left me wanting more and that's what makes it great. That's just my opinion though.

I didn’t watch Lost, but I agree about Westworld. Started out great, and with a bunch of great ideas, but then spent so much time building out a whole “mythology” they lost all immediacy. I assume they were borrowing a page from Lost in doing so.

Really looking forward to the last season of Better Call Saul.

And the verdict is.....GUILTY! GUILTY! GUUUIIILLLTY!

If it's not clear, jury duty is over. We voted guilty. We found out afterward that he has a BUNCH of felonies he's currently on trial for we didn't learn about before. So, in hindsight, he was definitely guilty.

It was a good group of people in the jury. We got along well.

Did a few house chores for the sale on Thursday. Now I am gonna kick back and just chill for the first time in a very long time.

Sorry about your ankle, Sara (reminds me of an old Salinger story, Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut). I'll sign your cast!

Elyse, you have great taste in crushes - you pick my favorite actors. Oldman, Rickman. If you start crushing on Sam Rockwell (one of my very faves) I may begin to suspect you have a spy in my household.

Coffee and a guilt-shaped cookie please!

I've got an account for 50 free images legally available from DepositPhoto for book covers if you want to browse them. I've probably used 10, so would be free to share. They are good, and there is a lot of variety. Message me if you are interested.

The house is as ready as it is gonna be. My back is screaming at me. But it's cleared out, and cleaned, and staged.

Jury duty continues tomorrow.

Sigh.

It'll all be in the rear-view mirror in a few days.

Coffee and a patience-shaped cookie please.

Quote by WriterGirl

Nicola gave permission! Woohoooo!

Nice!

I'm in jury duty next week, and after that my house hits the market, so if I don't react to the project much, it's just temporary - too much going on right now! I'll have a revised/polished version to you as soon as the dust clears.

The option of real names or virtual seems smart.

Jury duty. I'll likely be scarce for the next week or so. I'll pop my head in when I'm done.

My house goes on the market next week. I'd sure like to be there to supervise the finishing touches. But I suppose this is my obligation as a citizen, and it looks like it'll be interesting at least.

Coffee and a cookie please.

Tale Winds?

Can we polish if the polish takes the story over 5000 words? I had to cut like crazy to fit the word limit and I would love to have an extra 200 words or so to play with,

My apologies to anyone who felt left out. That wasn’t my intention, and I genuinely don’t think it was anyone else’s. Writing is hard, and people’s egos are understandably on the line.

The anthology sounds like a wonderful idea.

Congrats to the winners of the comp! It was a good one - I gushed on the comp thread so will not do so here.

Lazy day house-wise: I am handing out checks but doing no more heavy lifting, at least for a day. I need to let my back recover. 9 days til we hit the market.

Huge snowstorm hitting tomorrow morning. I may have jury duty (I call in to find out tonight), and may have to drive through the snow to get there. Still, despite the poor timing, I've always wanted to serve on a jury. Lotsa good story ideas, if nothing else.

Sorry for all the snow is about to hit you, Sara.

"A writer's victory for sure" is a good way to put it Pingu. VV, congrats on that REALLY well deserved first place win. And congrats to JLB and Ceebee, and to all the other runners-up. And congrats, of course, to everyone who attempts the impossible task of writing a story and putting it out there for others to read. What a courageous act writing is.

Great comp, great stories, I enjoyed reading every one of these.

Happy Valentime’s Day everyone!

I am supervising workman at the old house when I should be locked in a cozy V Day embrace with Talia, but sadly, I had to rush out of the house after we exchanged gifts to be here. Wah! Still, I should be home soon.

The Super Bowel was fun. Not a big football fan, but I sorta enjoy the hoopla. Now, we can all focus on MLB shooting themselves in the foot and alienating the entire fan base by postponing the season to grab a few more dollars.

But hey, the sun is shining, it’s V Day, and the work here is progressing nicely. I not gonna be writing 5 days a week again until the house is ready, which is making me a little crazy, but I shan’t complain.

RIP to Reitman, he really was a talented director, as is his son. Those movies will have some legs. They’ll be watched and enjoyed 50 years from now.

One of those cookies and a hot cup of coffee would be perfect.

Ugh. On what should be the last dumpster load. My back is barking, as my Dad used to say. Still, we are very close to being ready. 13 days away.... It does feel gratifying.

I quit writing. I'll start up soon, but I'm scared if I write without my head fully in it I'll just f it all up anyway. So, a little 1-2 week break until this house stuff is settled.

Not to get political, but what's up in Canada with the truckers? We don't get a huge amount of coverage. I assumed it would peter out, but it appears to be getting kinda weird and dangerous.

Coffee and a dumpster-shaped cookie please!

My genuine condolences, Red. Pets really fill a life with love and fun and loyalty. I'm glad he went peacefully.

Overslept over an hour this morning. I must have needed it. I worked HARD yesterday. More work today - dumpster number three is pulling up in about an hour, and the Sisyphusian (sp?) task will continue.

Baseball starting on time is looking less and less likely. Grrr.

A coffee and a key cookie please!