Category Archives: stock market

Bible study, letters, reading, stock market, Writing

On Again, Off Again Journal

Leave a comment

For several years I’ve been keeping a journal. I’m not very regular with it. My typical time to write is in the evenings, after everything else is done and we are watching TV.

  • Up at 5:50 a.m. Weight 202.0; blood sugar 117.
  • Walked 2 miles, my fourth straight day to walk that distance, and my tenth day of morning walking in an effort to improve strength and stamina ahead of my surgery.
  • To The Dungeon, without coffee. Devotional reading (currently in a book on prayer) and prayer.
  • Begin work on the Bible study I’m writing. My goal was to write one section, about 600 words. I was able to do that. Had time left, so began work on the next section. It was a good time of writing.
  • No book sales when I checked early.
  • Reviewed the stock market and made one trade.
  • Upstairs for breakfast of sausage-onions-peppers-eggs-cheese on pita bread, then outside to do some light yardwork.
  • Checked on two home improvement items. Our propane company did change out the hardware on the propane takes as I asked. Someone called me about it a couple of weeks ago but the reception was so bad that I couldn’t understand him. And, I called the plumbing supply store about the replacement toilet seats I wanted to buy. They had never called me. I learned they couldn’t find one of the right size, material, and color that I need. So I researched and found one on Amazon and ordered it. Let’s hope the color matches.
  • Worked on scanning documents to save electronically and then discard the papers. I got rid of three stray genealogy papers and a number of writing site papers. I only need two more days at that pace to get rid of one more notebook.
  • Read in the sunroom. Cloud cover made it easy to do today. May have napped a little out there.
  • Lunch of leftover pizza, crackers, and blackberries.
  • Made a blackberry cobbler to give away.
  • Back to The Dungeon for a few more computer tasks, including managing correspondence.
  • Looked through some books to choose a couple to take to the hospital with me.
  • Rested upstairs in my reading/TV watching chair. Worked on crossword puzzles but fell asleep.
  • Read three letters in the Carlyle Letters Online.
  • Had supper of leftover taco salad, still quite good on the fourth day. Dessert for me was, you guessed it, blackberries with a little sugar sprinkled on them.
  • Wrote a letter to my second grandson, which I’ll mail tomorrow.
  • Remembered I needed to write a blog post for tomorrow, and so started writing this.

Well, that seems to describe a full day. Maybe I’ll actually find time to write this in my journal.

miscellaneous, stock market, Writing

A View Looking South

Leave a comment

[Dateline 31 May 2023, for posting 9June 2023]

From my reading chair in the sunroom, looking south. It’s hard to tell, but I recently spent a couple of hours cleaning the window fan from years of dirt. Gotta be healthier.

Summer is here—maybe not by definition, but by the reality of temperatures. When I finish my morning work in The Dungeon (writing, stock trading), I go to the sunroom with either coffee or water, and read for an hour.

The sunroom is not air conditioned, and it gets hot in the summer. A time will come, in July and August, that it will be over 90 degrees by noon and more or less unusable. Right now, however, it’s around 80 degrees at that time. Each year I make an adjustment at this time. I swivel my reading chair around to face south, put a fan in the window just a few feet away, and make do with the air flow making the room fairly comfortable.

I made that change yesterday. I would have done it a little earlier, but the fan desperately needed cleaning. That took a long time, as I had to removed the grill (which turned out to be a pain) but couldn’t fully remove it due to some clips on one end. Thus, I had to reach my hand in between the spread grills and clean it as best I could. I finished that on Monday, and used the fan for the first time this season on Tuesday.

Now, when I sit there, I’m looking out the south windows a couple of feet away, rather than the north windows on the other side of the room. What do I see? Well, the chair is low enough, and the window ledge high enough, that for most of the view, all I can see is trees. Oak trees. Most of them with 12-inch or larger diameter trunks. They are dense. The canopy is fairly solid and very little sunlight penetrates it—that’s even after thinning the trees to make our woodlot somewhat park-like. If I raise up a little, I see more of the trees and trunks. The ground is lower, and falling away.

Except for off to the right. There the ground slopes up steeply. I can see the tree line at the edge of the woods, the grassy area between the trees and the street, and the asphalt strip of the street. The grassy area isn’t solid. It is punctuated by blackberry bushes that I’ve allowed to spring up. I can even see a small pile of cuttings from this morning’s yardwork, which I plan to move to a compost pile tomorrow.

Further away, across the street, I can see the woods across the street. A hundred and fifty feet into that lot is the fort I build with my grandsons, but it’s too far back in the dense foliage and I can’t see it from the sunroom. I know it’s there, but I can’t see it.

This new view means that I can no longer see the birdfeeder on the deck; it’s now behind me. However, today I noticed that I can see the birdfeeders reflected in the south windows. It takes concentration to look at the glass and see the small reflection instead of looking straight at the south woods. I was able to see birds come and go, but the reflection wasn’t clear enough to know what type of birds they were.

I have about a month more to enjoy the south view if temperatures are normal. It might even be a little longer than that, if I change my schedule and read in the sunroom before the heat of the day warms it beyond the edges of enjoyment level. Or there will be the occasional rain day, when I can use the room all day.

So what point am I trying to make? To change your schedule according to the needs of the moment? To enjoy whichever view life gives you? To observe the panorama of views that life gives you? I suppose all of the above.

Now in my fifth year of retirement, I’ve come to enjoy my noon reading time. I’m usually up at around 6:30 a.m. and in The Dungeon working by 7:00. With only a short break for breakfast, that’s close to five hours of writing or whatever work I have to do. Reading makes a nice break. The sunroom is nice venue. I have enough books in this house to find interesting reading material for the next 50 years—no exaggeration.

So I keep busy in the sunroom. At times I even look out at the windows and simply enjoy the view.

 

Bible study, reading, stock market

Working Hard

Leave a comment

It’s 6:26 a.m. on my blog posting day. I normally try to have this written long before this on the day before, but circumstances worked against my getting that done.

The circumstances are, we are in West Texas again, the third of four trips here this year. The first was to babysit the grandkids while our daughter and son-in-law were on a mission trip to Thailand. The second trip and this one are to help out as they begin transitioning to a new location, south of Houston. Richard is down there two weeks and back here two. While he’s gone, we’ll come here to help out.

Yesterday I got the three older grandkids working on pre-move projects. They couldn’t get on screens until they had achieved a certain degree of completeness. They did it without complaining. In the evening, I worked on Bible quizzing with the two middle ones, as they will have a competition in June.

During the day, I have so far been working on yardwork tasks. Yesterday I completed the main task I had, though in reality there is much more to do. I’m going to take today off from outdoor stuff, I think, as I was quite worn out yesterday. I also slightly injured my chest swinging an ax to cut out some old, dead roots from a long-gone hedge. But that’s done, the debris discarded, and I need a day for the old bones—or perhaps it was muscles, ligaments, or tendons—to heal.

We’ve eaten leftovers so far. Today I’ll have to cook something. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that.

I’ve had plenty of indoor time to work on my other “jobs”. Over two days I added over 3,300 words to A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 7. I’m down to only one chapter left now, most likely three days of writing. Then I’ll have the Introduction to do and, of course, editing to turn it from a first draft to a publishable book. On to the little bit of work left to Part 5 of AWTHW, which I hope to finish in May. I’ve had time the last two days to do my stock trading. Fortunately, the type of trading I’m doing right now doesn’t take a lot of time. It’s relatively low risk, yet I’m ahead of the market for the year. That’s nice to see for a change.

I’ve been able to get a little reading in, but not a lot. It’s been good reading, however. To be a good example to the grandkids, I’m reading in a print book when they are around rather then one of three books I have going on my phone.

So, it’s been a good trip. Still more than a week to go before we head home. Lots of work to do. Today I’ll have to take a little time to work on The Key To Time Travel, as the cover designer has reached the point where she needs book dimensions and back cover copy. Since she’s there, it’s time for me to get a few last-minute edits done. I should have that published in May.

Christianity, Engineering, stock market, Writing

Thoughts on Occupations and Leisure

Leave a comment

In my last post, I made some comments on C.S. Lewis’s essay “Christianity and Culture”. I decided to re-read it, finishing it on Saturday. I’m now in the process of reading the train of criticism it provoked and Lewis’s response to the criticism. Last night I went looking for the criticism, and found it on-line. Alas, it was all behind a paywall. In the next few days I may spend a little more time to see if it exists somewhere else on the internet that doesn’t require a financial outlay.

But Lewis got me to thinking, and I journaled about it Saturday night and may journal about it again. Lewis wondered, several years after his conversion, if the cultured, educated life he was living and earning his living from was compatible with Christianity. He said that he had come to the conclusion that the end/goal of the Christian’s life must be to glorify God and see His kingdom increased. Did the cultured life, a.ka. the literary life wherein literature is pursued as an end in itself, contribute to these two aims of the Christian life?

Lewis concluded the cultured life was not incompatible with Christianity. To do so he searched the scriptures, the early Christian writers, and many later Christian writers from Catholic and Protestant sources.

All of which led me to wonder whether my vocation and leisure was compatible with the aims of Christianity. Of course, I left my vocation behind for retirement. For 44 years I spent my time engineering public infrastructure and private developments. I did this in five states and three countries. I earned a good living at it. I think I helped the world, and in some cases changed the world, by practicing that profession. While doing so, I believe I did it as a faithful and devout Christian. When asked to pay a bribe while in Saudi Arabia—a request made by a fellow American expat—I refused. When some Bible extract booklets were shipped to be by mistake, I distributed them in-country, including to a Lebanese Muslim expat.

I could go on blowing my own horn, but that’s not a good thing to do. I only do so to show why I come to the conclusion that the decades I spent in my chosen profession were compatible with Christian discipleship, a conclusion arrived at with considerably less searching than Lewis did.

What about now? I actually have two new professions. One, of course, is writing. My books and stories are a mix of overtly Christian and secular underpinned by a Christian worldview. I don’t have a lot of sales and no notoriety, but it’s difficult to see how that would be incompatible with Christian discipleship.

My other “occupation” in “retirement” is stock trading, or securities trading as defined by the IRS: buying and selling stocks and options for the ake of generating income and building wealth. On the surface that looks a little more iffy. Again, taking a somewhat superficial look at it, securities trading is not inherently evil. It could be looked at the same as buying and selling paintings, or buying and selling baseball cards, hoping to have a gain. With securities, it’s all done in an account, you don’t have an inventory of goods to deal with.

It would seem to be acceptable so long as you do it right. No insider trading (as if I had access to such). No risky speculation. Tithe the gain and give offerings on top of that. Pay taxes on the gain according to the law. It would seem to me that with those stipulations this second retirement vocation is not incompatible to Christian discipleship.

One other thing to consider is if following these retirement occupations is causing me to shirk other responsibilities. My answer to that is no. As I look at the things I do around the house, in the family, in church and community, I think I’m doing okay with what I do.

This little bit of thought has taxed my brain. I’ve given all this a cursory, perhaps shallow, analysis and concluded I’m not wrong in my retirement pursuits. I hope I’m right.

miscellaneous, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

What to Write on a Rainy Monday?

Leave a comment

Actually, I wrote that title while it was raining. Right now the sun is shining. No, wait, it’s behind a cloud again. The rain stopped close to an hour ago. The forecast is for more rain during the day, but right now the radar doesn’t show anything close.  I’m not sure what to expect.

The forecast for this blog post is also a little uncertain. I still have those three short books to review, but don’t feel like doing any of them today. I have a few book sales I could report on, but nothing earth-shattering, so I’ll pass on that. Stock trading is going ok. We aren’t killing it, but nothing really to report. Engineering has totally disappeared, as CEI no longer calls on me for anything. I guess that’s not bad, as I don’t miss it. The two years of hourly work was a good transition into retirement, but is now over.

Health is okay, maybe even good. Can’t seem to lose any weight but am not gaining any. My heart seems strong, my blood sugar is under control, I had covid19 and I have also been vaccinated for it, so I don’t fear going around without a mask. I still wear it in situations where it is posted that masks are required or requested. I may wear it a few other times as well. It was hard for me to get in the habit of mask wearing and it will be hard (maybe not as hard) to get out of the habit.

Work on the church anniversary book has slowed, but as soon as I finish this post, and maybe reach a new threshold in the book. I think I’m still on target to finish it around the end of June. I’m reading for research in the next Documenting America volume. Otherwise, I don’t have any other writing in my head that is just demanding that I get the words on paper or pixels.

So, this is a good time to work on this website. Not on the layout or the bells and whistles of a WordPress site, but the content. A writer friend recently looked at my site and suggest some improvements. Or, rather, just said it needed improvement. Then, today, a writing blog that I read had a post about improving your website. I’m always hesitant to do any changes to the website content for fear of screwing something up.

I’ve known for some time that I have things to do with this. Maybe this is the time to knuckle down and do them, while other tasks are not urgent. It’s been suggested that I move my bio from the landing page to a separate tab and have different content on the landing page, perhaps news about my books, or links to them. I’ll have to think about that.

One other thing I really should do this week is some Kindle Direct Publishing work on my book series, to turn them into true series, properly linked on KDP. I’ve been told that easy. I don’t think I’ll work on that today, but perhaps over the next couple of days I’ll look into that.

I believe the next three days will be a mix of the anniversary book and the website.  After that, who knows? Just as the sun-clouds situation here today (cloudy right now but no rain) has been uncertain and changeable minute by minute, so my writing plans are.

Christianity, creativity, stock market, The Teachings, Writing

Grinding Away

Leave a comment
Will I ever complete the 4th book in this series (3rd book chronologically)? I’m sure I will, but right now the way is not clear.

This week I got back to work on The Teachings , re-reading in the last three chapters and looking at comments on Chapter 7 by a member of my critique group. I made sure my manuscript notebook was correct and carried it with me wherever I was in the house. It went with me to The Dungeon, to the sun room, to the living room, even to the kitchen table. I barely looked at it, just two times I think.

Alas, all my good plans were only partially realized. I’ve spent a fair amount of time on stock trading this week. Monday through Wednesday I didn’t make any trades. I mainly did research. Actually, I think I made two small trades on Monday and one on Tuesday, testing a new strategy with a very small toe dipped in the trading pool.

Then, in the drive to continue to declutter and reduce our possessions, I took yet another box of old correspondence out a couple of days ago and began ordering and inventorying it—letters, postcards, and greeting cards from my juvenile days through the first five years of marriage; to my dad and a few to my grandparents, I finished that box yesterday, sort of. The main batch of correspondence is done, but I pulled from the box all the things that don’t fit. These include letters to Dad from his uncles in England, a few letters and cards to him from his siblings, a few to my grandmother from her friends, and some of ours from other years. I found six pieces of correspondence that are part of our Saudi years, so I’ll have to put them in another place. Having more or less finished with this box (a box of keepers for now), I think I’m down to two or three boxes of things to go through and inventory.

Other downsizing tasks included getting rid of four old bicycles, and preparing to mail books and magazines that have sold on Facebook Marketplace. Then, of course, there were two dentist appointments for me. One was supposed to be for Lynda, but as she’s slightly under the weather I went ahead and took it, cancelling a second one I had for later in the month.

Yet another box of old correspondence pulls me away from other tasks I’d like to do, the unnecessary but enjoyable interrupting the important.

Now, having gotten all those tasks out of the way, I should be ready to work continuously on my book, right? Not quite. I’m reading in five different books right now, and try to do some in each every day. I won’t list them here, as they may be the subject for my next blog post. Suffice to say that I’m making a little progress in all five.

Saturday will find me blowing leaves and hauling them into the woods, picking up recently fallen brush, and maybe finishing the border of wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. I think I have about 6 feet to go, a twenty minute task. I want to get that done before our next visitors come, which will be a week from Saturday. And, of course, there’s always preparation needed to teach Life Group, even when I’m just a substitute. Oh, wait, Saturday is the Rhode Island Author Expo. Since it’s a virtual event this year I signed up to attend it—as a participant, not as an author. That pulls me away from other things from 9 to 4, if I decide to attend all sessions. I’m not really a Rhode Island author, having lived away from my home state for 46 years, but I still want to keep a little of Little Rhody in me.

So, while I can be thankful that the desire to work on the book has finally happened, I can also rue that other tasks continue to get in the way. I’ll somehow get the book done, but it’s sure taking much, much longer than planned.

books, Health, letters, memories, miscellaneous, stock market

A Strange but Good Day

Leave a comment

Tuesday, July 28, 2020. A most interesting day, and perhaps typical of the jumbled life I live right now.

You’d think life would be simple, being retired and mostly staying at home due to the corona virus pandemic. You’d be wrong, however. I suppose the reason is in part that I have too many interests. Let me catalog some events from the day.

So far I’ve transcribed 2/3 of the letters in this box, and they run to 31 typed pages (the box is not full).

I woke around 6:15 to see my digital alarm clock flashing. Must have been a power failure in the night, probably momentary but enough to reset the clock. I got up and weighed and checked my blood sugar. No change in weight (still at the lower end of the range I’ve been bouncing around in). My blood sugar was 81, a good number. The day before my new doctor’s nurse called to convey the doctor’s follow-up comments on recent blood work. All was normal, except iron, which is a little low. Since the nurse didn’t mention the reduction in insulin dose that the doctor said, and since that reduction wasn’t in the printed office visit summary they gave me, I told the nurse what my blood sugars had been with the lower dose—the same as they had been with the higher dose. She said she would tell the doctor. Fifteen minutes later the nurse called back and said the doctor wanted me to reduce my sugar further by a couple of units.

But that happened on Monday. I’m talking about Tuesday. It was raining at 6:15, which meant I wouldn’t be able to go outside for my morning yardwork. Instead, I went into the sunroom and just rested for 30 minutes. I then got up, dressed, got my morning coffee, and went down to The Dungeon for my normal work. Everything seemed very normal. I read devotions, prayed, recorded my health info, checked my book sales, opened my stock trading programs, then checked my e-mail. And the first surprise came.

I had an overnight e-mail from a man with Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. They wanted to use a photograph from this blog for training purposes; would I let them know how to acquire the rights to do so. Wow, this was strange. I spent 15-20 minutes trying to figure out if this was legit. I found web pages for that organization and it all looks legit, except the man’s name was nowhere on it. He’s in an administrative position, however, and they don’t list any administrators on the site. So I sent him an e-mail to try to verify that it’s a legitimate claim.

Shortly after this an e-mail came from Amazon, confirming my order for $543 and change. Except I have no orders outstanding with Amazon. I compared the e-mail with the one from my last order. They looked much the same but there were telltale differences. So I contacted Amazon, confirmed it was most likely a phishing attack, forwarded the e-mail to them for investigation, and went back to my normal business.

Normal business on a weekday includes stock trading. I placed a trade and it filled. Good work. Then, instead of working on one of my books, I began transcribing letters from our Kuwait years. Have I discussed this before on the blog? I can’t remember. I won’t go into it much now except to say that morning I transcribed three letters. That brings the total transcribed to sixteen. In the Word file they run to 24 pages. I have ten more to go in this box, and dozens more in the main box. These are just some I found lately going through my mother-in-law’s things as part of our decluttering effort. They will be added to the large plastic bin (30 x 24 x 6) full of other letters from our Kuwait and Saudi years, all waiting to be transcribed. I also managed to do a little over a half mile on the elliptical.

That got me to lunch time. From that point on the day seemed more or less normal. I made a quick run to the nearby Wal-Mart pharmacy for a couple of prescriptions, had some reading time in the sunroom since the day was cool enough. The wife and I did our evening reading in an Agatha Christie mystery. Normal seemed good.

Throughout the day I was careful of what I ate, though I wouldn’t say I dieted. Yet, when I weighed Wednesday morning I was at my lowest weight in over two months. I followed a similar eating regimen on Wednesday and we even lower on Thursday. This was while reducing my insulin dose (per doctor’s orders) and seeing only a small increase in my blood sugar. Maybe my health is improving.

As I finish this post on Thursday afternoon, I have a generally good feeling about where things stand. A good felling and outlook is…well… good. Bring on Friday. Bring on the isolated weekend. I might even get some time to work on a book or two.

self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Rainy Days and Mondays

Leave a comment

The Carpenters had a major hit with their song “Rainy Days and Monday“, the lyrics saying that they “always get me down.”  As I look out The Dungeon window, through an opening in my computer desk, through the vertical blind slats, through the glass and the screen, I see a cloudy day. When I awoke at 6:30 a.m., a gentle rain was falling. The rain has mostly ended now.

Exactly what I see out The Dungeon windows as I type at my computer.

Yet, I’m not depressed by the dark day. Nor am I depressed by this Monday, or any Monday. Being retired helps with that, but I was never one to rue the end of the weekend and start of the workweek. And I do have my work to do. Monday through Friday I work on our stock trading business. Since nowadays I’m mainly trading for income rather than wealth building, it’s less intensive than it used to be.

But seeing as how I mostly liked my engineering career, and was enjoying the work I did those last few years of that, Mondays were never a drudgery. Nor were the weekends necessarily better than the workweeks. So much work to do at home in just a few hours, I never felt like I was on top of things.

Now, that all has changed. I spend a lot of time at the computer between stock trading and writing and promoting my writing, but I’m not chained to it. Any day I can go outside for an hour of yard work. Any day I can work on de-cluttering. I’m able to exercise on the elliptical (strategically placed in The Dungeon) several times, as I do most weekdays and some on the weekends. Any day I can go outside and walk. Any time my mind gets weary I can take a break, perhaps go to the sunroom and read.

So, I sit at my computer, look through the desk and the slats, and am encouraged. This morning, after my Bible reading and prayer time, rather than write I decided to update my writing income and expense spreadsheet. I had last done this in early to mid-May, so I wasn’t too far behind. My mileage is entered; my inventory purchases are entered both in expenses and on the inventory sheet; my sales amounts are entered. I have an exact picture of where I am profit and loss wise. And, since the spreadsheet sums everything and auto-fills lines for Schedule C, may taxes due next April are mostly calculated—so long as the IRS doesn’t change the form.

I have a few more writing related business tasks to do, which I’ll do as soon as I finish this blog post. Tomorrow I’ll do the same thing with the stock trading. That is mostly up to date on a spreadsheet, but I need to transfer it to my income tax spreadsheet. That will only take 30 minutes, and I’ll be way ahead of where I typically am come January.

So, time to get back to other work. I have two books—one finished, one nearly so—that are begging for my attention. I hope everyone will be able to find today productive and enjoyable.

Dateline: July 29, 2019, for posting on August 5, 2019

construction, Documenting America, Engineering, reading, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Random Friday Thoughts

Leave a comment
Can a graphics duffer create the print-book cover to go with this? Enquiring minds want to know.

As I look out from The Dungeon windows at 06:47 a.m., the sun is hidden by the tall trees at the rear of our backyard. But enough sun gets through I can tell it will be a sunny day, at least to start. Storms are predicted for tomorrow, and might start in a small way sometime today.

Yesterday was a busy day. In addition to stock trading in the morning, I did a few writer things. I’m trying to create the print book cover for my friend’s book. I made a good start on it despite the fact that it’s been a year since I created a cover. Using G.I.M.P., a no-cost alternative to Photoshop, I managed to get the overall sizes of each part of the cover in place. I found some good notes I wrote on that. Alas, I’ve forgotten enough that I didn’t get it done in the time I had. Hopefully I will this morning.

I then at a quick lunch, hopped in the van, and went to do some engineering work, final inspection of one site and monthly inspections on three other sites. I completed the final inspection, with a little arguing with the contractor thrown in. Not bad arguing, just them obviously not appreciating the things I found. I got a little testy at one point when they gave new information about a structure I’ve been trying to get them to modify. Why they didn’t give me that info months ago is a mystery.

I went to the first monthly inspection, walked the site, saw only one or two things out of the ordinary. This has been a problem site, with me constantly finding things they are doing in violation of City codes. They’ve started to get much better. They had installed almost all the handicapped ramps incorrectly. I decided to let the first few go, but I found a new one wrongly constructed. They will have to change that. They also had one where they attempted to construct it correctly, but came up short. Fortunately the correction is inexpensive.

The engineering work to that point took me from 12:30 p.m. to about 3:30 p.m., with two more sites to go. I was beat and dehydrated, as I hadn’t taken water with me. I decided not to do the other two inspections, leaving them to the employee of my former company who joined me yesterday for training purposes. I came home, rested an hour, then wrote the reports for the two inspections.

Then I took it easy in the evening. We had plenty of leftover chili to use for taco salad, so had that for supper, and a slice of turtle pie for dessert. I spent much of the evening on the computer working on the reports as well as trying to find some photos in the company files to prove the point I tried to make on site.

I’ll soon be creating a cover for “Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition”. It will be a simple re-creation of this one.

I wrote an e-mail to the CEI project manager, telling her my inability to do the two other inspections was “most likely a combination of too much sun, frustration with [the other] engineer and developer and contractor, age, and perhaps a creeping retirement-starting-to-care-a-little-less each month.” I haven’t heard back from her yet. I have trained the other man to do these inspections and had no doubt he could do the remaining two and write acceptable reports.

I spent no time in the sunroom, didn’t work on my own books at all, didn’t make much progress on my to-do list. My wife and I did a little reading aloud, and we took a very pleasant call from our oldest grandson and had evening devotions with him. Our reading carried us after normal bed time.

So, up this morning after sleeping through the night, ready to “awaken the dawn” that I see unfolding out the window. It’s fully light out, though the trees still obscure direct rays. On to other things for a couple of hours, then back to the book cover work.

miscellaneous, stock market, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

The Monday Report

Leave a comment

I had intended to write a book review today, but circumstances have worked against me. I got to the office this morning to find the workmen not done, and I won’t be working in my office today—at least not at the beginning.

You see, the outside wall of my office is under duress. Shortly after I moved in there, about a year ago following major remodeling throughout our building, the outer wall began to crack. It seemed to be just the stucco finish on the wall, not the drywall behind it. That would mean no major problem. About three months later, the contractor returned to take care of various punch-list items, and repaired it. They cut out the parts that were cracking, back to undamaged stucco, and re-did it. Excepting a slight change in the texture, you would never know it had been a problem.

Then, about a month after that, it started again. Same exact thing, same exact place. Only this time it progressed faster and was a little more extensive. Last week the contractor finally got back to try to figure out what’s going on. Clearly, this was not just cosmetic. They decided to tear the drywall out, see what’s behind it. They scheduled the work for 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning, and advised me they were unlikely to be finished on Monday.

Sure enough, they weren’t. New drywall was in place, but not yet mudded. So I found an empty cubicle nearby, set up my laptop, and here I am. It appears to me that I will have limited access to my office for the next three days. That’s the bad new. The good news is: maybe, at last, I’ll become more proficient at using a laptop keyboard. Something’s going on in my office; I hear their machines behind the closed door.

The morning routine was also changed in my taking a different route to the office. Coming home yesterday afternoon, I went a certain way to check out my morning commute route in the daylight. As I expected, the route is littered with potholes. Enough so that you can’t always dodge them if there is on-coming traffic. So this morning I went a different way. It had almost no potholes. The drive was easy, traffic heavy but moving. I had to put gasoline in the pickup, and arrived at the work only five to seven minutes behind my target arrival time.

I was coming home yesterday afternoon from an afternoon writer’s event, not from church (which did fill my Sunday morning). Yes, a real writer’s event, the first one I’ve been to in about a year. It was a book event held by the Village on the Lakes Writers and Poets, a local organization in Bella Vista. Bentonville author J.C. Crumpton . He has several books published. His talk was about his writing process, how he came up with ideas for these books. A total of nineteen people were there. I had a chance to talk at length with the head of the organization, and briefly with J.C. Hopefully, I’ll interview him on this blog before long.

Saturday was an interesting day. Rain graced the early morning, or the promise of rain at the time I got up. I made some coffee and headed to The Dungeon, not to write, but to do whatever indoor chores I could. First, I went on-line to my bank to update the checkbook. Then, I entered income and expense into my budget spreadsheet, getting that up-to-date and double-checked. Then, I tackled mountains of receipts that I hadn’t yet dealt with. For the Wal-Mart receipts, that mean checking them against budget entries to make sure I had them in the right expense categories, then filing. For others, it meant filing or moving to the shred pile.

After that, I filed financial papers. This took some time. I got mine done, but not my mother-in-law’s. Hers are in a big pile, which I will get to probably next weekend.

Then, I went back to income taxes, which I had started last week. First is our trading partnership tax return, which is due March 15. I had made all the trade entries, along with miscellaneous income and most expenses. Saturday I finished the expenses, and looked for a $100 discrepancy between my records and those of my brokers. It took me fifteen minutes to find my mistake, a simple typo, and get that correct. That meant I had everything I needed to actually fill out the return. I hadn’t planned on that for Saturday, but I thought, it’s pouring rain; I can’t work outside; might as well stick to it and get ’em done.

So I did. In about an hour I had the forms filled out, ready to print and proofread. That will be a Monday-Tuesday task. I feel great getting to this point, which is way ahead of where I was last year.

As a result of all of this, I did no writing on the weekend. None. I had hoped to write several thousand words in The Gutter Chronicles – Volume 2, but it was not to be. Maybe tonight. I did get a lot of reading done, research for a future, maybe-this-year, publication. Maybe I could have written instead of read, but both are necessary tasks.

So, I post this from Cubicleville, commending you all the grace of God this Monday morning.