from the childless cat lady 4eva

[tielan]

After TS's endorsement, it occurred to me that I am now a childless cat lady 4eva. I mean, I knew I was one already, but the '4-eva' bit is important.

Yesterday was a very active day. (Where 'active' is relative: I spent it mostly meal-prepping some salad jars.) I decided against bible study, one part 'very annoying stitch', one part respiratory issue that doesn't seem to be going away.

Slightly sore throat. Slightly raspy breath. I got some twinges in the upper lungs, but that might also be the way I'm sitting. Or the medications, which say "don't take if you have asthma" which I don't on a medical grade, but I do have a puffer for when I get respiratory issues (which have been flaring on and off for the last five years).

I didn't go to sleep with painkillers, it's more twinges than discomfort. Anti-inflammatories and anti-biotics, yes, but I wanted to see how I'd go without painkillers. I didn't sleep really well; sort of so-so. So maybe I'll do some lighter painkillers tonight?

Today, with the help of B1, I have sown the lower lawn with clover. She doesn't like clover (because it takes over), I like it because it's hard for the chooks to kill. And it's a legume that pulls nitrogen from the air and puts it in the ground.

The south lawn has been somewhat de-lawned by the roaming of the chooks over the last six months, and I am planting things that might do better at growing and re-growing over the coming years. It's not good for the soil to be bare too long, and clover should do a decent job of covering things over.

--

Not one but two new readers going through and not only reading but commenting on my fic has made me go back through my MCU/Maria Hill stuff over the last dozen years. It's always interesting to see what prompts people to leave comments. Also, interesting to watch the way things shifted over the years.

I'm still bitter; I'll always be bitter. But it was a good run in fandom, and I made plenty of my current swathe of friends out of it. *mwah*

--

Missed out on nominating for ToT exchange, so I won't sign up, even though I never either receive an MCU:Maria Hill fic, or get assigned one, I still feel...out of place? Not quite there? Weird? ...when signing up when I haven't nominated. (Also: dozens of MCU pairings/characters, none that I'm really interested in.)

Need to work out what I want for Yuletide. Even though the last couple of years have been 'only just squeaked my assignment in'. I'll still play; it's still fun and sometimes a challenge.

Goal for writing this year is to finish The Nullifae: Agent of Change (or whatever I've called the first book) and start the first-person rewrite.

--

Smokey cat is about to start bothering me. Oh wait, no, she's settled down. Anyway, it's time to have lunch.

Comments

[senmut]

he only reason my whole yard hasn't been seeded every year with clover (I like it because it stays short without mowing) is that my wife is allergic to bees. So while I want to encourage the fuzzy little bastiches, I can't encourage them TOO much.

[tielan]

Yeah, that's the trade-off for many people.

(I don't have any allergy problems with bees so I just plant whatever and let them go for it.)

[timespirt]

Did they not send you home with an Incentive Spirometer for Lung Strength. When they intubate you they are supposed to send you home with one to breathe into to keep your lungs clear.

"HUGS" Feel better hon and rest.

[lilysea]

Gosh, I've never been given one of these and I've been intubated for surgery multiple times between 2010 and 2019

[timespirt]

My mom came home with them more than once and so did my dad. Guess they don't do that everywhere. It does help the lungs.

[tielan]

Yeah, same as lilysea, never heard of such a thing.

[kore]

//blows kiss back

Yes a spirometer! I had one after my Inpatient Procedure ("twilight sleep") and it helped a lot.

[tielan]

No spirometers here!

[jenab]

I found my throat was sore for a good week after getting my biopsy done.

[tielan]

Well, it seems to have eased back today, so...might be just that lingering irritation? Maybe there was a mild infection while my throat was recovering from the intubation.

[hiddencait]

We have horrible stickerburrs we are in an ongoing war with in our yard - at 2 acres, it is NOT a small task, but with the pupper and the baby, we really need to try to keep the injuries down enough that they can actually play back there. Otherwise what's the point?

I think I'm bowing out of Yuletide this year for the first time in a WHILE, but I really do want to get one of my non-trailer park cryptids series novel WIPs (an adult low stakes cozy fantasy and a YA zombie horror thing bc I contain multitudes LOL) done by the end of the year so I can start on the query trenches again, and I realized I have been using fanfic exchanges as procrastination. I have one long fic exchange I'm currently signed up for that I missed last year so I don't really want to default on it, but I'm debating on that too.

It may be a case of I need to bow out and then take a pinch hit only if I finish the WIP so then fanfic feels like a treat maybe? No clue.

[tielan]

I had to google 'stickerburrs' and oh, yikes, those do not sound good.

As an odd suggestion: have you considered goats? They eat anything, and seem to be particularly good at clearing and weeding things that otherwise usually need to have the living daylight sprayed out of them which is bad for not only them, but also any living creatures around and about.

In some places (I know you live in TX, not sure how urban/suburban/rural) you can hire a couple (or a half-dozen) goats, plus fencing to keep them contained, for a couple of days or a week or months in order to clear spaces. Obviously, this is more difficut if you live in, say, the Houston suburbs than somewhere a little less...manicured and HOA-ville.

And a cozy fantasy sounds nice. I'd love to write one, but I don't really feel like I can make it cozy enough! Isn't there any kind of conflict or crisis? Or does it have to be a low-stakes crisis? Like "an important shipment of books has gone missing for our heroine bookstore manager, and it turns up delayed by customs because someone scribbled GOAT on the side and some Boomer-age customs office was convinced it contained actual goats? (IDK: what counts as crisis? Who can tell!)

[hiddencait]

They really are awful. I hate them so much.

We actually have considered that! We are in a smaller town which you would think would help, but haven't found anyone that will come out to our "little" two acres yet sadly. It defintiely seems like it would be so much better than having an ongoing chemical warfare to force the damn things out. Supposedly other types of grass and weeds can choke it out too, but we have really sandy soil so it's hard to even find decent native plants to grow well in it. Aside of course from the sticker grass :(

I'm sorta just halfass-ing this cozy first draft and then I'll see if I can find a beta or two to give me feed back on that in particular. From what I can tell from the ones I've read, the genre tends to be a lot more character focused than plot focused. So relationship complications or small town politics almost? Also the cozy setting seems to be a big part of what "makes" the genre - thus the coffee shop or book store or spell shop settings in a bunch of them. Mine is mostly farm setting but in a fantasy world so with the benefits of the stereotypical village pub and random knights coming and going and almost casual magical elements if that makes sense. I dunno if I'm actually pulling it off, but it's fun and that's the part I really think I needed more than anything lately.

I probably should have read more of them before starting but I'm having too much fun writing at the moment to stop and dive into more of the genre lolsob. It's sad that 7k on a single project in a month feels like a HUGE win, but seriously after the past couple years it is, so I'm running with it while I can.