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I got back from the conference two weekends ago, determined to clean up my office.  But before I could do that, I had to finish the drywall in the corner.  Last Friday, I finally finished and painted the drywall.  So this week has been spent attacking everything else.

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Which, to me, is made even more impressive by the fact that the clean desk also meant catching up all my finances in the computer and putting everything on the desk away or filing it where it belonged.

I feel very accomplished.

There are not words enough to describe "Avatar", especially on a IMAX screen in 3D.  WOW!!!

My eldest who is learning this technology in school is so blown away he's wordless.

And I'm now mom of the millennia.  :-)  Especially since I promised I'd take them back and get there earlier to get better seats.  :-)

I've been swamped with non-writing stuff to do, but I've also been down-in-the-dumps because of the yucky weather.  Usually I'm a fan of autum, but not this year.  It's been cold and rainy and yucky.  We've had two nice days in the last month and that's it. 

All the rain makes it really hard to do simple things like rake the leaves, and the cold make it not only wet but miserable to work outside.  Not fun anyway I look at it.

I'm hoping that it clears up in the next few days so I can get the boys out to work on the leaves.  We'll see, I guess.

Ahhh... the smell of burning dust as I turn my furnace on for the first time since early May... fall is here.

I worked, at least all the work there was to do.  But mostly I cleaned and organized today.  I had a paper-box full of papers that needed to be filed, or needed something else done with them, and I went through the box today.  I also took a large stack of papers of writing-related-stuff and organized it all so I can actually FIND stuff... novel concept.  I tagged a bunch of websites and recycled the paper copies.  And just a whole bunch of stuff like that.

And I actually made it to the same Panera as the gal who wanted to talk about plotting, so we did that for two hours.  I showed her the process I used with my manuscript with all the sticky notes and that seemed to fit what she needed, so it felt good to be able to help.

Blessings upon my boss for being understanding.

So, starting off with that, I worked today, because I really needed the money, unfortunately having to work didn't negate everything else that had to be done today, so I actually didn't even start working until 4pm today.  But I put in four hours on not-critical-but-useful stuff for work, so that's good. 

And before 4pm, I actually got a fair number of things checked off my to-do list for today.  Make note, that was only today's to-do list, not the overall to-do list, but I guess every little bit helps.

It also helped that today I realized I've been wallowing in victim-mode for the last few days.  When I recognize what's going on, I can deal with it, and as soon as I realized what was up, I knew why I was thinking that way, so I'm now working on thinking a more productive way.  It's not an immediate fix, but it's a start. (Read more)

The book is off, the next one (or next several possibilities) are all jelling in my brain, and I'm cleaning off my desk.

Well, more metaphorically cleaning, than actual cleaning, although my desk does have more open space on it... but I've been sorting through all the miscellaneous files that have collected in my "Books" folder on my computer.

The first of this year I put a webserver on my desktop and started buiding a new organizational system for all my writing information. And between then and now I've been sorting out how best to arrange stuff.  And I think I'm getting there.

So I spent most of the last two days taking all the tons of files of stuff I've collected for research, or technique info, or business info, or whatever, and putting them into the new system. (Read more)

I spent all day (except for dentist appt.) organizing all the financial paperwork that's been left for too long.  I dread spending days like this... so of course I don't do it in little bits so I can avoid days like this.  **sigh**  I never claimed that I made sense.

Anyway, got some stuff done.  More to do tomorrow.  It'd be easier if there was enough money to pay the bills, but **shrug** that seems to be the way of life lately for a lot of us.

The good news is that my desk looks somewhat cleaner, the box of to-be-filed-stuff is lighter.

Plus I made a 4-page long list of paid chores for the boys... of which they have done some, and each thing they have done is a thing off my mental to-do list, so that's extra good.  It's off my list and I didn't have to do it.  :-)

My to-do list is still way to long, but it's shorter than it was this morning, and that feels good. (Read more)

I'm sure I say this at least once a year, but I'm going to say it again... if I liked hot weather I'd have stayed in Texas.  **sigh**

It doesn't help that I live in a house without central air-conditioning.  Yes, I have two window air-conditioners set up on the main floor, which do a decent job at keeping that floor livable.  And the basement is comfortable. 

But the upstairs, even with the furnace fan sucking in basement air and circulating it, is still a mite toasty, which doesn't make for pleasant sleeping.  Yes, there is the possibility of sleeping in the basement or the main floor, but my kids stay up two or three hours longer than I do and between the three of them they take up both main floor and basement, so if I want to sleep the only place left is the mite-toasty upstairs. (Read more)

It's been a busy day from one end to the other.  I actually worked at my paid-job, not as long as I'd want, but I did work some, so I get brownie points for that.

Beyond work, I got done a few of the things on my to-do list, and one of those things was to get this new blog up and running and set up so it functioned the way I wanted it to function.

Why am I moving blogs?  The main reason was that I was tried of having to update two different sets of software... with the blog now hosted on the software that runs the rest of my website, I only have to update one program. (Read more)