Odds and Ends

Being easily confused when you're overwhelmed is not unusual, but when you figure it out that feeling is amazing!

I'm completely exhausted but that's fine. I figured out an hour per class per day maximum. Then four hours of working time on something. What I have no idea, but I am determined that the amount of time spent picking up after creatures in this house is less than an hour a day. 

The household dynamic is changing, and so is my mind about keeping everything uniform. It's kind of boring to keep everything the same way. The dog has moved inside semi-permanently after having been sick for a few days, but now he's back to his hyper self. He doesn't want to be outside alone, I think he needs a crate, but he doesn't do anything but sleep at night. So maybe not.

Yeah, I've got no idea what I am doing, except changing the color of the text that you see as you are reading this. I am making schedules (mico-detailed) to account for the hours in each day that I spend awake even as I watch my "to do list" become less than half completed each day even as I par it down to next to nothing. 

OK so I recently decided to enroll in some online classes. The first two, Fundamentals of Personal Finance and Fundamentals of Human Nutrition. One class is in its second week, the other in the first and I would be lost on what I'm doing but considering taking the highest level offered in the second class.

Streamers and balloons dropped from the ceiling as the class walked in. Mrs. Wright stood back with a smirk; it had taken months to put the celebration together. The awards were hidden behind the curtain, concealed in innocent looking cartons. Students were whispering, wondering, until one of them pointed out the banner over the stage. Screams of excitement filled the room. The group was ecstatic as it became clear to them.

Ever get the feeling that there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done? I have that feeling all the time. The list never seems to come to an end, and there are constantly additions being made.

While, it is a holiday though it will not be entirely. We have a check-up and speech for the kiddo. That'll keep her from going stir crazy, we took a field trip to the laundry and a couple of stores Saturday. She nearly broke me between the cookies, video games, and toys from the irritation machine. Oh well, she earned them. A little research after her dad came home and told me his phone was broken led to a change that eliminates the equivalent of a single cell phone bill each month. My cell phone in the meantime, as I find an alternative carrier I can live with would be pay by the minute at 15 cents per text and 20 cent per minute for calls. The amount of calling and texting I do would be rather limited at the moment, in an effort to spend less than $22 per month (with taxes) and ideally less than $11 a month (tax included) as I decide on a new carrier, which will of course involve the purchase of a new phone. I would be knitpicking  or rather examining various phones and carrie...

Keys, where were the keys? Amber had no idea; she was going to leave if she had to go on foot. She heard a gunshot and momentarily froze. The shots got closer; Amber grabbed a screwdriver jamming it in the ignition. Speeding off into the night she was certain that they could never find her. Fleeing was far better than letting them know she was frightened.

Lists are a constant factor in my life since I would work from home. I have to have some way to seperate work life from home life, I mean otherwise I would go nutty. There are days when I lose it and attempt to seperate the work list from the home list; the result is that there are two list laying around taking turns getting lost. One Long List I tend to do one long list, for the purpose of not losing the list. It sits on my desk in front of my computer so I can mark off work as I go. The only time this is a real problem is when I accidentally cover it with the notes for work to make sure I'm on track with whatever assignment I'm doing at the moment. There are days when the list is so long it rolls over into the next day, I have been known to make lists for the entire week. Call it the control freak in me but when things are to be repeated on a daily basis I put tiny boxes beside them to check them off for the day. Rolling over work items to the next day is something I...

Monday and Thursday each week I automatically get just over an hour break during lunch time. This is a direct result of volunteering at the my child's school. I simple read a book with her and another one of her classmates (a different child each week or so) and give them a test on the book. The tests are predesigned on the computer, all they have to do is remember what they read.

There are days when writing won't lend itself to a specific title. This is where all the "Untitled" works come from most days. These are the days when the thoughts even though organized will not lend themselves to be given a title. Writing for a living often means researching subjects to gain insight. Spending weeks doing nothing but research endangers creativity. The mind develops a block that is hard to get past. The need to produce can override the need for the writing to make sense some days.

Howling could be heard in the underground shelter; the damage would be great if they left. The air was growing thin; dizziness was overwhelming her. The sounds were getting closer, death was imminent. They had told her she was paranoid. How wrong they had been. What is making the howling sound? Who is in the shelter with her? Who told her she was paranoid? Is she paranoid or is the threat real? The word is  paranoid , the limit was 75 words. This post comes in at a mere 45 words; clicking the link will take you to M3 and the rules.

The men were terrified that the creature would return to finish the job. The intensity of the damage was far to much for them to comprehend at the late hour. Houses appeared to be little more than tinker toy sets stepped on by a tantruming child. Large patches of bare land were assumed to be footprints from the creature as the search team struggled to maintain composure in the wake of the destruction. No survivors had been found; this did not promise to be different.  Radio broadcast continued to warn of the impending danger, evacuations are encouraged but to where no one knows. The main highways have long since been blocked, virtually destroyed leaving deep valleys that the most skilled climbers would not attempt even with proper gear. The wreckage that lay strewn at the bottom of the valleys created a fire hazard to say the least. The explosive nature of the devices in the areas could only be compared to the bombing of  Hiroshima so long ago; the mutations a direct res...

OK so I had to wait forever for my utility bill, which was only for 25 days. In the end it was $62. The holdup? The utility company apparently has a short circuit that does not allow them to realize fewer days on the bill automatically mean a lower bill for normal households. They sent out a crew (two people) to check the meter because usage was not in line. The result? They determined that the usage was in line, but the meter display was going out and installed a new one. The bill is down by $33 from last month, unfortunately I do not get to pocket that money...yet. There will come a day. I checked my bank account, made the adjustments in my checkbook for tiny fees (less than the  cost of a stamp) for online transactions and made the corrections. Still need to balance it, but I need silence for that so it'll be tonight. I made an electronic transfer to savings (one I've been neglecting) of an entire 40 cents so my checking balance would be even. My savings balance? An entire...

The decision comes in the form of whether or not to give the short kid's dog away. He can have a home with a farmer, and go hunting with them. He'd have more attention and a more active lifestyle than he does now. The hard part? The kid's attached to him, she doesn't mind that he's destructive. I don't really mind either, it's not his fault he's hyper. Johnny, my how he's grown. The outcome, Johnny stays put. He's a good dog, he protects his home and his short kid. He would be almost due for the annual vet checkup and be in need of both pen and dog house. He has weathered the storms without complaint and is well aware that no matter how badly he behaves he is loved. Moving will have to accommodate him. (Yes, it is the final dream that I will not give up on.) I was curious after my savings post to check my change jar. The pennies in it 7 days into the new year? $1.41. That's nowhere near enough to make a deposit, yet. The good news i...

Smoke billowed from the rubble as the workers attempted to pull it away. Hope of survivors was slim. It was their job to search until every drop of hope had been exhausted. The workers dared not sleep for fear that it would cause them to leave someone brokenhearted.

The evening sun was sinking quickly, Anna paced quickly back and forth. The waiting was torture; he did not deserve to be here. She should have been on that plane. Richard took her place, and now she waited for news that she was not sure she could take. She grew listless flipping through the magazines. The doctor finally came out and the look on his face made her certain that the news was not good.

The first week of the new year was not productive as far as work was concerned. However it was productive in the form of reading. I managed to read a couple of books but not to write a lot. Promotions of my own book? I did a couple. I also managed to complete a few items on the lists that I am constantly making. I managed to get half way through one of the lists on the day that it was created. That is a big deal for my lack of focus lately. I even manage to make lists for the following days with things not yet completed carried over. These were added right before I got ready to call it a night. The fact that my mind is on a vacation by itself is rather disturbing but oh well, that's nothing new. Time to call it a day since I just lost the entire point.

Aligning the sights on the rifle was as natural as putting on her makeup. Allison was aware that she had one shot at the target, missing meant losing everything. The thought made her smile; her existence was already void of meaning. Today she would correct it, the cause would be eliminated. Richard had taken everything she cared about, now she would take his life from him. The reason he lived was now a tall brunette with curves to challenge a racer, she had to be eliminated. Richard would live an existence as lonely as Allison’s had been since he took the one person she loved most from her. The word is lonely, this post is part of the FTP over at  M3 . The limit was 150 words, this post comes in at 108 words. What did Richard take from Allison? Is the tall brunette the target of the rifle? Why does Allison only have a single shot? 

It's amazing how time passes before you realize it. The things that you take for granted are often the ones that vanish before you know it. Things that you dread seem to take forever. The older you get the faster time seems to move. Vacations from school always seemed to fly by the fastest as a kid, and now that the baby is in Kindergarten, they fly by even faster than they did then. December 21, 2012 the baby got out of school at noon to start her Christmas vacation. The vacation ended January 3, 2013. A total of approximately 12 1/2 days. It's also tax time again. I left the tree up longer than usual this year, not ready to take it down for some reason. I did however take the air conditioners out of the windows, they haven't been used in a while because of the weather, and the fact the weather stripping was never put on the outside of them was allowing a large gush of cold air beside them. The winter temps are a bit much for me as it is, and the additional breeze is n...

2013 is finally here despite all the doomsday predictions otherwise! My living room almost resembles a living room again; not sure how long that'll last with the million toys that occupy this house but it's a nice way to start the year. I have plans for the year, most of them won't turn out right but that'll be ok too. I would be beginning the year free from deadlines, except for the ones that I set myself for personal projects. The expenses are on track for the goals I set, so far. A month or two will tell if they are staying on track. Well, Happy New Year!