Spring Break Day 6

Success! Two more boxes built out and placed. They still need to be finished and the contents properly tilled, but I can get that done in the next few days and lay in the paths. So, woot!

Otherwise, I spent time getting us geared up and ready to go back to school. Spring break over. Viva la escuala....or something.

Spring Break Day 5

So frustratingly, the ground is still sogged through. I'm all for the joy of hard work, but I draw the line at shovelling waterlogged clay. It's not much of a line, but it's the one I got.

In the end, it was not a very productive day, although I did finally finish my student comments. In theory I should have done them on Friday, but I find writing comments home when I'm sick and exhausted is generally a bad idea. I end up being way more blunt than I should be even for a more Northern audience.

I'm finally getting used to the new orientation of the living spaces at home and I've stopped doing double-takes at the wall art being up. So some good things happened I suppose.

Spring Break Day 4

Today was Thomas's day. So, we went to the aquarium. Aside with some irritation with the Aquarium's internet presence and communication, the day went really well. Thomas particularly liked the beluga whales and the small asian otters. By the time we got to the tropical exhibits, he was completely tuckered out.

I have to say, taking Thomas to these things makes me see them in different ways. He and I crawled through all the tunnels they've set up for kids. I particularly enjoyed holding him up in the penguin pods.

It was a good morning.

After nap we went out for groceries and Thomas got to watch a new movies: "Monsters vs. Aliens." The cast list on that movie is ridiculously good but there are so many references to movies and cartoons from the 1980's, I have to believe it's mostly intended for an adult audience.

Spring Break Day 3

So, this is the day we took for ourselves. No projects. No chores. Just relaxing whatever way we wanted to.

Since the rotten weather precluded being out in the yard and was, in fact, bad enough to not want to leave the house, we indulged in a day of stupid video games and chinese food. We used to do a fair bit of this back when we met.

It was a very relaxed day.

Also, I discovered something. I don't regret spending the time that way, however, it's not as fun and satisfying as it used to be. I guess I'm getting older or something. Either that, or I'm hitting a lifetime saturation on video gaming. Could be either.

Spring Break Day 2

So, it turns out when it rains in a torrential downpour for an hour and then continues to drizzle for 10 hours over night, that no matter how nice the weather is the next day the ground is going to be too sodden to work with. I went out this morning to give it a shot and nearly ended up one my butt covered in red mud. As it was, my boots were covered in enough of the stuff to cast an earthenware pot out of.

So, I threw it in until things dry out. Of course it's supposed to rain tomorrow which probably means Thursday is out too. *sigh* The gods must be laughing.

On the upside the peas are growing fast now. The strawberries are doing well enough that I have to watch for and pinch off flowers. I also have little sprouts of cabbage, spinach, and lettuce.

Since I couldn't work outside much, we went to the Dekalb farmer's market where I stocked up on some essentials and I rearranged the public areas of the house so that the 'dining room' is now in front of the bay window and the old dining room is Thomas's play area. In the process, I went through about two years worth of accumulated clutter. I still have more to clear away, specifically turning desk into a coloring and craft area, but all in all I'm pleased with my progress.

Spring Break Day 1

It's happened, I've become an adult. I'm actually excited about spring break because I have the opportunity to work on the house... how mature is that. :-P

So in day 1, Ryan and I got the following things done:

• I started moving the less giant but still large mound of dirt...then it rained
• Ryan filed our 2016 taxes
• We culled Thomas's toys
• Resorted and refiled the dvd's and made the public collection more kid friendly
• I put the art on the walls...finally. (We've only lived here 5 years, after all)
• We bought the kitties a new scratching post and got rid of the old one
• I swept the living room floors and cleaned out the the underspaces of the couch and end tables
• Oh, and I got summoned for jury duty. . .  again

I know jury summons is supposed to be random but it feels like I get called four times for every single time that Ryan does.

A productive day all in all

Across the Wall by Garth Nix

It's always exciting to find more written in a world when I think I've read it all. Part of the reason I don't tend to rush to read series fiction the minute they come out is because once I've read the latest I have to wait a year or more for the next one to come out and by that point I feel the urge to reread the earlier books. Last time I did this on purpose was the Harry Potter nonsense. By the time the last book came out, I had read Chamber of Secrets six times which is excessive. . . even for me.

Truly, only the first story is an Old Kingdom story, but it's a solid collection over all. There are 13 stories. My five favorite are:

1. "Heart's Desire" - As it turns out I'd read this one before, probably in a "Fantasy and Science Fiction" issue. Much like Nix, I'm not a big fan of Arthurian stories, not because I don't like King Arthur story, but more because I'f just read so many people's adaptations that I got tired of them. This however is an interesting take on the story between Merlin and Nimue.
2. "Hope Chest" - this is a kind of gritty old west fantasy story with a mysterious protagonist and an evil dictator. I liked the feel of it, there was a darkness to it all that was enticing.
3. "Three Roses" - This is a short, short story presented as a fable about love, loss, and generosity. It is tightly woven and has a clear lesson.
4. "From the Lighthouse" - it took me a while to decide I liked this one. It's a sort of science fantasy setting involving an arrogant and grasping businessman who tries to buy a village, overtones of the British Empire there. However, the villagers have a method for dealing with such things.
5. "Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case" - Honestly, this isn't the strongest story in the book but it is the reason I hunted this collection down. This story picks up right after Lirael and bridges the gap and connects it to Abhorsen. While it's not necessary to read this between the two books, it does help to figure out what is going on.

There's also a Choose your Own Path story ("Down to the Scum Quarter") in there and a few others worth really looking at such as "Lightning Bringer," which was very dark, and "Charlie Rabbit," that just ripped my heart out of my chest. All of the stories are linear in nature and many would appeal to thoughtful sort of high school student.

The Wages of Anonymity

So, I've had this lady pestering for the last few weeks by sending me messages on Goodreads and leaving comments on posts on this blog. Honestly, I don't really read my messages on Goodreads since they are mostly board spam and comments like that on blogger are usually spambots. So, in the immortal words of Dory the fish 'just keep deleting, just keep deleting." However, after the third little note hassling me for $42 I decided to use Goodreads messaging as a shield and try to get to the bottom of it all.

I was pretty sure that there was a real person behind it all for three reasons. 1. each of the notes was worded differently, spambots usually just send the same message over and over. 2. she had attempted to reach me through two different sites, albeit the only two that I allow to be linked to each other, again a spambot usually just hits one site. 3. I backtracked her user information on those sites and found many of her online community pages including both her facebook pages, deviant art, and furaffinity profile pages.

Well, I was right and I got in touch with a very feisty artist from Minnesota. She does anthropomorphized fox illustrations. Most definitely a real person.  So the story is that she landed a commission from somebody using "umberle" as a handle on furaffinity. She delivered the work, and the person didn't pay. Being a fairly intelligent young woman she apparently started looking for other sites with umberles. That got her to my blog, and from my blog to my goodreads profile which currently features a fox sitting on a stack of books. So, it's not unreasonable to assume I'm the same person as this furaffinity umberle. Unfortunately for her, I'm not the same person and the fox thing is a coincidence.

So here's the thing about the internet. Everyone is on it and there are a lot of people creating handles out of the same 26 (or so) characters. This makes commerce on the internet for an individual very chancy at best. That's why there are so many sites like ebay and etsy. They provide a modicum of security or at least traceability. Commissioned art doesn't have similar site as far as I'm aware. The best most artists can do is insist on a deposit or partial payment before sending the work. Still risky though.

I feel a great deal of empathy for this young lady. It really sucks to put work into something that you think you are going to be paid for only to get stiffed in the end. All the elation turned to frustration.

So if ya'll are at all interested in fox people illustrations, swing over to her site on furaffinity or deviant art and give a sale.