A few Measly Steps a Day

I'm having a really depressing day. My book got published. That's great, right? No. The cover is boring, really bad. No one's going to want to buy it. I do have an answer to the cover problem. In a month, I'll design another cover, and issue a second edition. A friend designed the cover for free. So I feel like a heel for not liking the cover. And I'm not a professional designer.
I'm trying to publish an e-book edition, but so far it's not working.
My husband just bought a pig. He pays for the cost (we pay for the cost.) of the feed, then the pig is slaughtered and we get the meat. All 200 pounds of it. We pay to rent a freezer, and we keep paying for it until the meat is all eaten. There are two of us , and I don't eat much pork. Do you see a problem with this scheme?????? Tom has had heart problems and shouldn't eat pork, although this pork is probably healthier than what you get in the store.
Meanwhile, I read the prequel to the book I just published, and I hated it. The good part is that the writing has improved. But the prequel was already published, so there are people who read it and probably won't want to read anything else i've written. I'm working on upgrading the prequel, and it's going well, but, the hard part is that when I published it, I really thought it was good.
Then there's COVID and the fecal sample who calls itself a president.
Then there's the hacker who just said that my passwords have been compromised and I should check them. I almost fell for it.
I had to log in with a password into psych central and into Nanowrimo. I usually don't have to so that leaves me wondering if someone has my passwords or is trying to get my passwords.
I'll try to be happier next time.

P.S. kissing Jane Fonda, heavy drug use, freeing wives from slave traders, and sky diving are overrated.

Would you like some free pork?????

Alright. Breathe.
Every step holds its energetic opposite. I just read a piece that had a metaphor of every wind contains an inner wind blowing in the opposite direction. Some of that is just so much puffery, so let it blow by. This may well be the early signs of a big shift to a better gear. Let that be too.
About Mr Pig. Your husband loves a bargain more than logic. And you love your husband. He also likes reserves more than having to "hunt" too much.

Here's a blog from Vt on the costs of raising a pig.
Cost to Raise a Pig in Summer

• Purchase Price $100
• Feed Costs $115
• Slaughter $60
• Butchering $100
• Total Cost: $375

Finished hanging weight was approximately 150 pounds per pig, which means about $2.50 per pound hanging weight. And that only the summer raising, not the overwintering costs or costs of a freezer to store the meet.

Locally, I get bacon for $4#, ham, sliced, for about $5, and various sausages from $4 to $6#. We have a small freezer. Hm, I think you might want to look around for a local place to donate.

Could be terrific fodder for a blog or two.

###

I have made my piece/peace with the pig.

I will eat about 15 pounds of pork in one year. Tom will eat about 50 pounds the first year, and 5 pounds the second. He will try to smoke the pork for ham and bacon. He will make sausage. He will pay someone to smoke the pork belly for bacon. He will be sick of the whole thing by the end of the first year, but he'll keep the freezer rental because otherwise he'd have to throw away the meat. We will be paying on that freezer for about ten years or until he dies. If I die first, he'll keep paying for the freezer. We will buy a lot of coolers for transporting meat. The coolers will get filthy, and we'll buy a new cooler each time we need one.

On the bright side =

My daughter and her family would probably take a roast on two or three different occasions. If his cousins will take a roast or two that would whittle the amount of pork to a more manageable amount.
I would donate to a food bank, but it's tricky to donate perishable food.

p.s. About a year ago, I bought a thirteen pound pork roast. It provided three roasts and four steaks. Of that meat, I have two steaks left. I'm cooking one of the steaks now, and I'll still have one left in the freezer.

p.s. Total cost of the pork about $20 per pound.

Just read this DB story. First sentence: My wife want a dog.

Eventually, you can guess, she'll wear him down and they'll get a dog. At the pet shop the breed of dog the wife wants run "295 per, with papers." The narrator wanted to joke and ask if they had any illegitimate children for less, but could see the joke wouldn't land.
Anyway, this thing with the pig reminds me of the punchline of the story: they will wear you down. I'm puzzled how to stop an idea that really doesn't 'pencil out' as the developers say, but the Other really keeps pecking at you to agree to.

Example at the condo. While on the board, one of the board members wanted to carve into our lobby a box to leave outgoing mail in. Some story about the convenience. I think the cost of the carpentry and patching ran to $800. I really felt we'd be better off keeping reserve cash in, er, the reserves, but what could I say?

So, We put it it. It's been broken into several times, now the lock is missing, and I keep it from flapping about with masking tape. Oh, she's moved out to live with her daughter, so I am left to deal with something that wasn't even my idea.
Back to the pig. I see you're at peace/piece with this. I'm just riffing to keep my mental acute.

At this stage, the best place to stop the cash burn is limiting the freezer rental, I guess. The fastest way to do that is to sell off what you won't eat yourselves as fast as possible. My father was great at tapping the informal markets for stuff. I remember runs to get tamales and sausage. I say informal, as these transactions where handled at the screen door, so I doubt think sellers has so much as a food workers license.

Much to chew on as you chew the fat of the bacon.
##

I'm just hoping he doesn't decide to buy a freezer. Ha ha chew the fat! Good one.

Me - I'm ignoring the porcine conundrum and focusing on writing because that is more productive and if I'm going to get upset, I'll find something better to get upset about. I'm spending most of my productive time improving my prequel. I have to try to market the sequel, but that's more challenging and more stressful. I started working on a marketing strategy. I have some fuzzy vague ideas of what I want to do, but they're fuzzy and vague. So this is where my fat-chewing energy is directed.

Happy stuff. Sorry about the mailbox miscalculation.

Take care.

Writing is terrific as it's all about the writer. The agony and the tedium, gnashing and tweaking, marketing & rewrites. Somewhere there pops in enough moments of sheer joy it pays back for the rest.

So, with my work with my client's effort to get this property transfer at a stage that I don't have much to do with, I'm feeling some energies returning to do other stuff.

Part of me has taken the Serious Road for much of my life and used the Fun Road for vacations. Serious Roadtrips stuff now:

#1. Reading most of Dee Hock's blog and then summoning the heart to get in touch with him and have a couple of chats. He's 90 and talks up the stuff I also think a lot about. Rather Urgent. Oh, I also want to copy this site into a couple of archives.

#2. Reading Thomas Paine's works. Not Urgent.

#3. Watching all of Fred Allen's Meeting of Minds shows. Serious and also Fun. Already watched the first 2: Cleopatra, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Aquinas, & Thomas Paine!

Fun/Serious Stuff.

#1. I have an idea that a game can be made of group discussion and decision making.

#2. Take the gamification course on Coursera to get some insights.

#3. Find places to pilot it.

#4. When it feels pitch-able, find support.

#5. I wonder if there might be grants for this? Hm.

#6. It would be fun to recruit a Muse for this. I wonder if Jane Fonda is available. Afterall, she kicked off the aerobics craze, so knows something about infusing fun with serious.

R

I have about six pages of a brief dalliance with morning writing in long hand a couple of weeks ago. Every time I glance at them and think, I need these typed in, I shudder. So, long hand to computer is NOT the method for me. If I could I'd laser beam thoughts right into the minds of readers.

My income is very low right now and I'm waiting to see what's shows up. A sort of happy-go-lucky way for a bit. Maybe just a week as this council vote might get set for Monday, 10/19.

Re Census: my partner reminded me we did ours with the mail-in version a long time ago. This is good news because I don't recall it at all. We have a catchphrase: memory is social. Yup.

Today: I may take up a free Coursera class on Gamification. I need my own word, though, as gamification is no fun. Screams "academic." Interestingly, most of the articles I've glanced over are very dull and have no use of the gaming tools to enliven their text.

Off to a nap.
R

Watched yet another Laurie Santos video on her researched proven tips for getting through our shelter in place. 1. Exercise. 2. Gratitude. 3. Sleep. 4. Social. 5. Process stress with:

R - Recognize your feeling something
A - Accept the feelings
I - Investigate what may have brought them out
N - Nurture yourself (I presume after doing something)

Ha! Drifted away for several hours. Hope this survived the inactive meter.
R

Yes, to Laurie Santos. That's what i do when I get depressed.

R, have you ever had this happen. When I upload an attachment, the computer uploads an older version. The obvious cause is that either I didn't save the changes, or there's another version of the document somewhere, and I'm downloading it by mistake.

But this has happened more than once and the older version does not exist.

Any thoughts?????

I'm going to try making more changes and saving them. And then deleting the new changes and saving that. And I'll see if I can upload what I want to upload.

Any thoughts???

Hi D, that's happened a couple of times when I got confused about what was the best/latest version. Especially with many reviewers and that track versions/reviews tool in play.

Sometimes I've shifted the current version to a new folder but forget I did that. Or I make a small change and delete the wrong one.

Seems you understand it's the wrong version after you upload it. You might experiment with different file names so you know by the name. I typically use "draft," "review," and "final." Sometimes with fast cycles I use the date: filename 10-16.ext

I work a lot on Google because it allows me to collaborate across all my devices everyday, and if the need arises to share stuff with other people. It's got a version history tab which allows me to see the dates and changes I made and name particular versions. It also means the current version is the active one. Google docs, sheets, and slides are subsidized (free to users) by their ad revenue.

I just got a notice that MS WORD 2016 for Mac will no longer be supported. I guess it'll have to stop drifting and finally get a job. MS said I could pay their subscription to the 2019 package for life, I suppose, or buy their suite for use on one machine.

I guess MS wanted to make this decision really easy.
R.

Today's steps:
Goal: weaving game element into other contexts
step: read more on dungeons and dragons
possibly: next lesson on cousera on gamification (funitize, to me)

G: good person
S: take notes at meeting
S: attend class (online)

G: save money
S: shop at Grocery Outlet

G: dance at the edge of frustration
S: see if there's a way to embed a countdown clock into a google page or google doc. Try for 20 minutes early in the day when I'm more frustration proof.

R

"Dance on the edge of frustration" - I like that.

For me - goal for today - writing - get rid of crossed out part and XXX parts. (Where my writing is bad, and I've memo-ed myself that I need to fix it.

do one step on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or setting up a blog.
On step toward red-doing my will.

I seem to always be falling off the edge of frustration and landing in the middle of frustration.
Happy stepping.

Curious news ... it seems that my client's transfer will come before the City Council on Monday, Nov. 2 @ 2 pm; with a Briefing this Monday @ 9:30 am.

The past couple of days have been intense with drafting something to put in the Councilmembers (CMs) packets. Also, a week or so ago I sent an announcement to my network which I had to recall when the first date we were told didn't prove out.

Now, it seems ON, so the message will go out one last time.

In the process, found the solution before my frustration fired up for putting a countdown clock in a google.site webpage. In spite of all the annoyances with technology, when different companies makes stuff that work well together, it's a type of happiness.

Not getting to my Stoic Week materials this time due to the urgency. Catch up this weekend I suppose.

Oh, taking a fun non-accredited set of classes through the Canlis (restaurant) Community College. Tonite the parents of the two men who currently run it were on demonstrating their famous Canlis salad plus prawns in butter with garlic & Vermouth. Two dishes, not one mixed together.

Learn so much watching these classes. They did sell "kits" with everything in it, including 3 bottles of wine. Didn't buy. But did just shop the college store and bot their notebook with 3 Blackwing pencils. Souvenirs.
Revu2

Busy today with housework: dishes & laundry mostly. Took a nap and awoke with much energy.

Ah, time. Reading through some old pre-covid free newspapers. The paper itself is now all online and immediately let go of much of its staff when they saw the closing of restaurants, bars, and theaters announced.

Anyway, one issue. I have several long music pieces to research.

While reading a book of article on food from 2015 I come across references which need research as well. All part of my education.

Helen Hanff has a great story about her self-guided college education based on close reading and follow-on research of Arthur Quiller-Couch's On the Art of Writing.

Quote:

In the first chapter of On The Art of Writing he threw so many marvellous quotes at me – from Walton’s Angler, Newman’s Idea of a University, and Milton’s Paradise Lost – that I rushed back to the library and brought home all three, determined to read them all before going on to Q’s second lecture. Which would have been perfectly possible if I hadn’t included Paradise Lost. In Paradise Lost I ran into Satan, Lucifer, the Infernal Serpent, and a Fiend, all of whom seemed to be lurking around the Garden of Eden and none of whom my teachers at Rodeph Shalom Sunday School had ever mentioned to me. I consulted my Confirmation Bible, but I couldn’t find Milton’s fearsome personages in Genesis. I concluded that Lucifer and the Fiend weren’t Jewish and I would have to look in the New Testament for them, and since this was an entirely new book to me, Q had to wait while I read that one, too.

Yup, off I wander on a Hanff tour of music.
Revu2

I'm not a Bible expert. As far as I know - there are references to hell (weeping and gnashing of teeth. But I think the war between the angels is all Milton. But it's a great story, and a piece of Milton did make it into my novel.

So speaking of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I can't remember what I've posted, but I've been away for a while. If I repeat myself - well - it won't be the first time.

Through Unfamiliar Waters is published. Yay! Somehow the version that is published is an older version, and doesn't have all the latest changes in the manuscript. Someday, I will get around to writing a second edition, but, i can't face that right now. If there's a way to get me a snail-mail address without sharing the info with the whole internet world, I'll send you a book for free. (You is any of the people I've been chatting with, not just R.) This is step one of my marketing plan. Also, the Kindle version is published. The Kindle version is the correct version.

Meanwhile, I'm back to working on Temporary Address. It's the prequel to Through Unfamiliar Waters. If you self-publish something and don't like it, you can always change it. Ta-da! I knew my writing has improved since I wrote it, and I knew that people might want to read my books in order, so I figured I'd spruce it up. Shock of shocks! I really didn't like it. (how's that for great - sarcastic - marketing strategy. Anyway, I'm trying to fix the parts I don't like and put out a second edition. I've gone from "this is so terrible, I'll never get it good enough" to "maybe there's hope" To "there's definitely hope."

Interesting observation. I was visiting my mother-in-law a couple of days ago. She's in a nursing home. (a really good one. Good nursing homes do exist - who knew!) The staff brings her to the front of the building, and we visit through the glass. She can't hear much, I write what I'd say on a dry-erase board. So I'm writing, and my husband nudges me. "You forgot the R" "What?" " There's an "r" at the end of "remember." "Oh,"

So I write another note. "you left out a word," he said. "No wonder you have so much trouble editing your novel."

He's not wrong. Later, I wrote a note to a friend on the flyleaf of my novel, and I left out a word, and had to sign another book for her. I hope this isn't all too much information.

So, go do marvelous things, everyone. Or just do small things, but do them with heart.

Hello world. D, I just pm'ed you with my mailing address and bit of other contact information. Thanks.

I'm looking hard at my opinionated-argumentative-advocacy-activist self. That side of me is worn out. With the likely approval of this property transfer on Monday, the most intense advocacy project of my life will close a chapter.

I also see a lot of this side with my partner. So today, after a morning mediation on what I'm weaning away from and what I'm adding (is there an opposite term to weaning?) I found myself twice simply saying, "Well, I'm not going to argue about it." And really feeling fully calm and OK with it. One I still recall, the other is already faded out of memory. Ha!

Refreshing. I'm recalling a scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. After Paul Newman and Katherine Ross enjoy a bike ride to the musical score of "Raindrops keep falling on my head" which never made any sense as it was shot on a clear day ... anyway I distract.

After this bike ride, she wonders if she and Butch would be together if they'd met first. Newman says in some Arabian countries sharing bike ride is akin to being married.

The Sundance Kid steps out on the porch in his skivvies and sees them hugging.
Sundance Kid: Hey! What are you doing?
Butch: Stealing your woman.
Sundance: [Going back inside] Take her. Take her.

Most times, most days, most issues, the difference of opinion is not worth the breath to argue about it. Even when you're a crack shot like the Sundance Kid.
Refreshing.
I'll practice again tomorrow. And the day after that and the day after that.
Revu2

Interesting. I do think it's important to pick your battles. I learned about that raising a child. Some issues are worth throwing every ounce of parental authority into the fight - anything involving safety, for example. Others are not. Once I figured out my priorities, parenting became a lot easier.

Hopefully, I'll have interesting stuff to post in the future.

Hello PC. Lazy-ish Sunday morning and whole day. I have a call with a new friend in about 45 minutes. In that sort of open field place where I'm twist and loving it.

Yup, all battles picked. I don't pick easy ones, or easy ones don't pick me.

Eager to exhale from this long haul of getting our transfer. City Council will decide at their meeting on Monday @ 2, PST.

Other than that, have many ideas, but next will be some reflection days.

Revu2