Category Archives: Writing

Bible study, C.S. Lewis, home improvements, Writing

A Blustery, Productive Day

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Sleet has turned to snow. Not much accumulation expected.

Hello winter, on Veterans Day. At midnight we were 50 degrees. We woke up to 39 degrees and falling. Right now it’s 25. The wind is howling and snow is falling. If it were continuous snow and heavier this would be a blizzard. That’s okay by me. I’ve nowhere to go tonight, no reason to leave the house except for getting something I left in the van last night.

I’ve been productive today. I was up at 6:45 a.m. Before long I was in The Dungeon with coffee. For about two hours I split my time between working on my book in progress and stock trading. Did some general reading as well. I put in four options trades, all rolling out existing positions. Three of the four filled at my limit. I touched-up and expanded another chapter in the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. That’s only three of 17 chapters that have the expanded information in the Leader’s Guide, but at least it’s a start. I fear, if I continue along this path, I’ll never get it done. There’s always something more I can add.

The cardinal was much prettier from my view. A downy woodpecker is at that feeder now, but I don’t think I’ll be able to capture him.

After breakfast around 9, with a little sleet coming down, the wind whipping the trees, and leaves rapidly leaving their branches, I broke with my routine and came out to the sunroom. While I have two books I’m currently reading for research, I decided to start a new one for pleasure. It’s a book of essays edited by C.S. Lewis. Only one of the essays is by him. One is by Tolkien, the others by other of their friends. I’m going to enjoy this, I think, if I understand it. I managed to get through the 10 page Preface today.

Inside around 10:30, I did a little work to use existing materials to “build-in” the microwave over the oven. This has been open for a while, the wife didn’t like it, but trying to get a suitable build-in kit to fit a 30+ year old opening is difficult. I managed to get the old kit to work, and it looks presentable if not perfect. They I began putting furniture back in place in the living room. It had all been moved last week for carpet shampooing. I finished the cleaning on Saturday, put some furniture back yesterday, and finished the living room today. I hope to get three heavy pieces back in place in the entryway, and that pre-Thanksgiving company work will be done.

Then I began a task for my old company, an engineering review of a submittal for a project in the City of Centerton. I spent over two hours on that, taking a detailed look at the drawings and assembling my comments. I still have the drainage report to review, which I will do either tonight or tomorrow. This works keeps me in coffee money.

Coffee, books, a computer on my lap, snow and wind outside, cool temperatures inside. What more do I need right now?

Speaking of which, after retrieving that item from the van (and foolishly checking the mailbox, forgetting this is a mail holiday), I heated some coffee and came once again to the sun room. The sleet has turned to snow—not much snow, just enough to make it feel like winter. This is an early snow for us, although last year we got our first snow on November 13th or 14th, so about the same.

For the first time I’ve taken my computer to the sun room and am typing this post there. In front of me is the deck, snow and leaves showing, birds coming to the feeders. To my rights I see the tops of pin oaks being whipped by the wind. To my left is my reading table piled with too many books, also with my coffee. The temperature out here is 59 to 60 degrees; just enough to keep the plants comfortable, and about where I like it.

A big gust just blew snow off the roof in a very picturesque way. I need to wrap up this post, get some photos loaded, then get to my research reading. I’ll have over an hour and a half for that before supper. Unless I decide to make that cauliflower/sweet potato dish. I’m thinking about that.

Bible study, Christianity, Church History Novels, Documenting America, research, The Teachings, Writing

Rested and Ready

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Well, this weekend was certainly different than last.

I don’t know that I ever formally announced this book on the blog. Maybe I’ll do that on Friday.

I have a list of blog posts I intend to write on. The problem is, each on the list takes a fair amount of forethought. I can’t just open the post box and write about rugged individualism, for example, without some research.

So, that list of posts is going to have to wait. I’ll just write about the weekend, as I did last Monday. Friday afternoon, as we were waiting for company to arrive, I received a message to say my order from Amazon had arrived. Great, I thought. That’s my copies of Documenting America: Making The Constitution. Went to the front door—to find nothing. Checked the notice again and saw that they went to my old office in Bentonville. E-mailed the receptionist there, and sure enough that’s were the package was. Even though company was en-route, Lynda and I hopped in the car to go fetch it. Took an hour in craft fair weekend traffic.

We had a good time visiting with our company, one of Lynda’s cousins. Talked all evening then again Saturday morning, and they were off to their next stop. Just as they left a light rain began falling. It continued for an hour or so, making everything outside wet, too wet to do the outside work I had planned for the day.

Confined to inside activities, I did paperwork tasks for a while, such as updating the checkbook and budget, as well as organizing the miscellaneous receipts and filing them. Food for meals was already prepared and waiting (meaning leftovers), so there was nothing else to do but read and write. Well, I suppose I could have cleaned, but that will be a next week task. The carpet in our main living area is desperately in need of shampooing. A day of vacuuming and dusting prep work, then maybe tomorrow I’ll begin shampooing. Well, if we have all the supplies, that is, which I believe we do.

It’s selling well in person. ‘Twould be nice to have some on-line sales as well.

Sunday I taught Life Group, Chapter 1 of Acts Of Faith. I sold the last three copies of it but have more on order, hopefully to arrive on Wednesday. Sold 26 of them from my order, but still no sales on-line. Alas. I napped some Sunday afternoon, continuing to read in Mere Christianity, and in the evening in my research into the Didache. The day concluded with another storm line and, after going to bed, a phone call from the county alert system saying we were in a tornado watch area. That soon passed, and I went back to bed and slept well.

Oh, yes, walked 2 1/4 miles on Saturday and 3 miles on Sunday. My weight is down a little, and my blood sugars have been nicely under control.

Today will be a writing day, as storms overnight will make it too wet to work outside. Tonight we eat with my cousin who moved to Bella Vista, and get to know him and his wife some. Hopefully I’ll be one or two chapters further in the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith.

Bible study, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, family, home improvements, Preserve The Revelation, research, The Teachings, Writing

Weekend Company

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The view from my ladder, five steps up. The limb looks large in this photo, but that’s deceiving. It was only 3 to 4 inches diameter.

After writing about a difficult weekend last weekend, I had a good week. That blah Monday turned out to be restful, and I recovered. It was almost as if my day of rest was Monday instead of Sunday. I hope they all won’t be like that as I teach this lesson series. I teach again this Sunday, so we’ll see how it goes.

I did some good work on the Leader’s Guide for Acts Or Faith. It’s far from finished, but I feel much better about it than I did even five days ago. I took my notes prepared for teaching last Sunday—the Introduction to the book—and worked them into that chapter of the Leader’s Guide. I went on to two more chapters, and am now well-along on Chapter 11.

I attended critique group Wednesday evening. We had five writers present, no visitors. Four of us shared, and we had good discussions. I shared the first four pages of “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, the next short story in my Sharon Williams Fonsesca series. I’m 2,000 words into it, heading to somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000. I hope to work a little on that in the days ahead.

I began a new activity in my daily routine: an hour or so of yard work in the late morning. Perhaps I should say I resumed that activity, for I was doing that last spring. After the late-August storm, I worked on the wood lot north of our house, clearing away the debris left after two large trees fell. Now it looks almost like a wooded, leaf-covered park. I’m now doing the same with the woodlot on the south side. This had two smaller trees down, and much deadfall from normal tree life. This is actually a much bigger job. I’ve spent four mornings on it.

On Wednesday, with all the large limbs removed, I decided to get up on a ladder and cut away a broken limb on a tree close to the house. I’m sure certain family members would be aghast at my leaning a ladder against a tree I was cutting on and then getting five steps up on that ladder. But, it was just a 3 to 4 inch limb, nothing major Having only a small, folding pruning saw that would fit the place where I wanted to cut. I got it done, taking frequent rests. It was a task accomplished that make me feel good about my work.

Speaking of tasks accomplished, on Wednesday I had this comment on my Facebook author’s page.

“Preserve The Revelation” is terrific! Each book in the series stands alone. So many authors constantly “explain” what happened in the previous book or you won’t understand the story, which I find irritating. Watching for #3 publication!”

Good feedback on this. Though fourth in the series chronologically, it is the second published, in March 2017.

It’s great to get positive feedback, especially from one who’s now reading a third book of mine. This spurred me on to work a little on the third book in the series (numbers 1, 2, and 4 currently published; she’s reading #4). For over a week I’ve been reading for research and making good progress, learning a lot. Wednesday, after reading that comment, I spent an hour making an outline of book #3, tentatively titled The Teachings. It stands at just a notebook page in length, but it’s a start.

I don’t intend on writing this book until I finish “TDF”, and perhaps one more short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Perhaps a December start is most likely. Between now and then I’ll search my various paper piles for two or three pages of notes I made earlier this year on the book, each time starting from scratch. I’ll see what my earlier thoughts were and whether I remembered them and worked them into my outline.

Speaking of various paper piles, we have company coming today for an overnight stay, one of Lynda’s cousins and her husband. The clean-up of the house and yard started yesterday, and will consume much of today before they arrive. The paper piles have to go, along with other clutter.

So, I end this. I hope all who read this had a good, productive, satisfying week, and will experience the same in the weekend ahead. See you in my post on Monday.

Bible study, C.S. Lewis, Church History Novels, Engineering, Health, poetry, reading, Writing

An Enjoyable Loss of Sleep

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Will this be my only poetry book, or will inspiration to write more ever return?

This morning I awoke at about 4:30 a.m., did a restroom break, went back to bed, and couldn’t sleep. This has happened before. Normally I go right back to sleep after being up in the night, but sometimes, only on the later in the night awakenings, I don’t fall asleep. At 5:30 I decided lying there with disjointed thoughts was silly and got up. Throwing on a long sleeve shirt, slipping my feet into my aging and almost done-for slippers, I took my mug of water and headed for the sun room to read.

No coffee, you ask? No, I don’t like to take coffee before I weigh and take my blood sugar, and I wasn’t ready for the latter. So I went to the sun room and started to read in Jack, a life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer. I had loaned this book to a friend and asked for it back recently, as I wanted to read it again. I say “again” as I’m not 100 percent sure I read it before. I think I did, well over ten years ago, about the time our Life Group was studying The Screwtape Letters. I’ll know if I read it before if, in the last chapter, I find a certain scene there. If this is my second time through it, it’s quite fresh and enjoyable, given the time lapse since the first reading.

The windows in the sun room were still open, and it was cold. I regretted not pulling on jeans and my inside jacket. The temperature was to get down to 40 overnight, and I was sure it was that low. Outside, the air was stirring. Breezes came and went. The rustling in the adjacent wood was almost constant, though never strong. Occasionally it came through the open window before me. Why didn’t I shut the window? And the one to my side? Why didn’t I go back to the bedroom and get dressed more properly? For one, I didn’t want to risk waking Lynda. Also, I much enjoy being slightly cold. It was easier to pull a blanket over my legs and chest and enjoy the coolness.

I read with good concentration and made much progress. Shortly after 6:00 a.m., Lynda opened the door. We had a brief conversation. I got up, weighed, took my sugar, got dressed, got coffee, and went back to the sunroom and reading, while Lynda went back to bed for a while. I returned to my reading, but with a little less concentration. Thoughts of poetry began to take some brain space away from the words on the page. Oh, my comprehension was still fine. It’s just that I’d like to be able to write poetry again.

Poetry is probably an affectation for me, not something I should spend time on. When I wrote quite a bit of poetry over a decade ago, I enjoyed it. I don’t know whether I produced good poetry, but it was the type of poetry I like to read, so it was good for me. In my mind I’ve outlined six additional poetry books, and have listed their potential titles on the page. I know the order I’d like to write them in. Yet, I have no inspiration beyond that.

I’m not going to force it. I have too much else to write, both works-in-progress and planned, to devote time to poetry without inspiration. I like to say that poetry comes either by inspiration or perspiration, and probably requires both. I’m going to wait, however, and not apply the perspiration in hopes that the inspiration follows. I think the opposite order of things is better.

I need to get the Leader’s Guide for this done, but it’s progressing painfully slowly. More perspiration needed, I think.

So what will my day consist of, now that the sun has risen enough behind the dense cloud cover to show light through the trees outside The Dungeon windows? I hope to finish a chapter in the Leader’s Guide to Acts Of Faith. I made some progress on it last night. I hope to write a scene in “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, and get that to the halfway point. I have a few short-term stock trades on, a couple of which will come to a conclusion today; I’ll have to pay attention to them, though all looks good right now.

I have some engineering work to do. I went by the office of my old company yesterday and picked up two project for review. One, I’m fairly sure, is small and I can possibly complete in less than two hours. The other may be larger; I won’t know for sure till I get into it. Plus I have construction reports to review. I anticipate spending three or four hours today, and as much as needed tomorrow to complete these tasks. It will cut into my writing time, but the money is good, and it’s also good for me to keep my mind engaged in engineering work.

One other thing I may do today, time permitting. II might create the computer folder and files for my next book. Tentatively titled The Sayings, it is book 3 in my Church History novels series. I plan on starting it next month, but it, too, is taking up gray cells. I need to get a few things on “paper” so that I don’t lose them. Plot threads are coming to mind. Specific scenes are coming to mind as I read for research. I’m not sure I’ll do this, but perhaps it’s better to get it done and see if I can free up that brain power for the real tasks at hand.

So, it’s going to be a full day for sure. Some exercise would be good as well. I would say that this is a day when I have truly “awakened the dawn”.

Bible study, self-publishing, Writing

Does “Acts Of Faith” Make Me Vulnerable?

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“Acts Of Faith” is now available for sale as an e-book on Amazon. The print book and e-book at other retailers will soon follow.

This week, Acts Of Faith: Examples From The Great Cloud Of Witnesses went live on Amazon as an e-book. The print book proof is supposed to arrive today. Assuming it checks out as good, I need to swap out the cover for one with a few tweaks, then I’ll hit “publish” and it will be live, too. My first published Bible study.

Although this is my thirtieth item to publish, in some ways this one is making me feel more vulnerable than all the others. It’s kind of like when I published my first (and so far only) poetry book, Daddy-Daughter Day. That was my eighteenth book to publish, and it made me feel very vulnerable at the time. I remember it as a strange feeling. I had novels and short stories and non-fiction books out there for people to buy and either like or tear apart. Why did poetry make me feel so at risk? Perhaps because I’m not trained as a poet. All I know about poetry I learned through my self-study, late in life. What if I mess it up, if my poems are garbage? Poetry is heightened language, with rules that aren’t needed in prose. All this combined resulted in my feeling vulnerable. I hesitated several months before hitting the publish button.

Although this seems a long time ago, I remember how I felt vulnerable publishing this.

Now I’m feeling the same thing with Acts Of Faith. This isn’t my first Bible study. This is actually my ninth Bible study to prepare from my own research. The other eight I’ve already taught (or co-taught) from my notes to the adult Life Group I attend. One of them, Entrusted To My Care, is being taught right now from my notes in another group. For that study I happened to make more extensive teaching notes, which I gave them to the other teacher. Four weeks in to the fourteen-week study, she says it’s going well.

So, I’m no stranger to Bible studies. Why then this feeling of ill ease?

It’s probably the same thing as with poetry. I’m an amateur in this field, a layman playing against a host of trained clergy, teachers, professors, evangelists. Look at all the Bible studies published that have become popular. They are published by those who could be called professionals. Is there room on this field for an amateur to step up and make an impact?

I didn’t take any of those other Bible studies the next step and turn them into publishable products. When I prepared Bible studies and taught them to our group that’s been together for a long time, if I made a misstatement as I taught, I could cover it over with a joke and keep right on rolling. Now, however, if I have a mistake in my book—and I would think that, as a layman, I’m more likely to make a mistake than a professional—it’s out there in print for everyone to criticize. Yes, and that makes me feel vulnerable.

But is that bad? In a recent sermon, our pastor talked about this. He said that God made Himself vulnerable when He came to earth and faced the same temptations as we do. One of pastor’s key points was, “Vulnerability deepens relationships.” He added that we need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable. If he didn’t say it outright, he implied that being vulnerable is necessary to do effective work for the kingdom of God.

That sermon came as I was in the midst of publishing tasks for Acts Of Faith but had not yet hit the button. I had some but not all of the publishing files created. Didn’t have the covers finished. I was at the point where I could easily have decided to stop publishing it, shrinking back into my comfortable world of fiction, etc. But the idea of making myself vulnerable as a way of doing great things for the kingdom of God pushed me forward, and hit the button I did.

What’s to become of Acts Of Faith? I have a somewhat captive audience in my Life Group, and should have ten to fifteen sales there. I know of another five to ten people locally who will want a copy. That puts me a little over average for my sales. And, who knows? Perhaps this will be my breakout book.

 

Bible study, self-publishing, Writing

Closing In On “Acts Of Faith”

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Last week I put the finishing touches on Acts Of Faith: Examples From The Great Cloud Of Witnesses“. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but I think it’s in good shape. I’m pleased with it as it is. On Thursday, I think it was, I formatted the book for print, completing that in a few hours.

As reported in my last post, I set about trying to make a cover for it, and failed miserably. But fortunately I had the earlier cover for it and was able to take that, make a few modifications, and I had a more acceptable cover. People I showed it to thought it was acceptable. On Saturday I set about making the cover wrap for the print book. Here’s what I came up with, still subject to a little tweaking.

Here’s the print book cover. I’m not claiming it’s great, but I think it’s acceptable. It also starts a theme that I can use for future Bible studies if I publish them.

Yesterday I uploaded all this to Amazon for the print book. For the third straight book the files I uploaded, both book interior and the cover, met Amazon’s technical specifications and they said I could order the proof copy. I did so, and it should arrive Thursday or Friday. By that time I’ll have the print cover changed with any tweaks needed. I e-mailed the basic cover to my critique group, Scribblers and Scribes of Bella Vista, and will show them the full wrap when we meet on Wednesday.

So, yesterday I also began the work on the e-books. This is the opposite of my normal order. Usually I do the e-books, which I find easier, first, then do the harder print book. Since I’m under a tight deadline for having the print book available I didn’t want to delay that even a day, so I changed up my normal routine. I finished the Kindle version interior yesterday. The cover is, I think, all ready. Later today, after I complete a few chores and errands, I’ll upload the e-book. As soon as it’s approved I’ll publish it. That could be later today or, more likely, tomorrow. Then it will be on to the Smashwords edition.

It’s kind of exciting, but also kind of scary. I’ll write about that in a future post.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals, poetry, reading, Short Stories, Writing

September 2019 Goals

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I used to do goals posts regularly. I’ll do it this month and see what comes of it.

One thing I’ve been doing in the evening is going through old posts on this blog and adding categories to them. My son helped me set up my website in June 2011. Part of that was creating this blog. I already had a blog over at BlogSpot, titled “An Arrow Through the Air”. He did the work of porting all those posts over to this blog.

I intended, at first, to run both blogs. This one would be my writing blog; that one would be for more personal stuff. I did that for a while, but soon saw the pressures of life wouldn’t allow me to do both. So, I abandoned AATTA and concentrated on this blog. Eventually I renamed this one to be An Arrow Through The Air. The old one still exists. Every now and then I make a minor post there just to keep the account open.

A few months back I went to the back pages of this blog, I forget why. I noticed that all those posts from the old blog came over but none of them had categories. The all show up as “Uncategorized”. That’s not a major problem, but…oh, wait, I remember now. I was trying to find a post I did back in 2008 on a certain subject, went to that category, and didn’t find the post. That’s when I learned none of the categories had stayed with the posts as they ported over.

So, slowly, as I have a night in front of the TV where I can’t really do anything else, I’ve been going back through the old posts and adding categories. It’s actually a tedious job but I feel that it needs to be done. As of last night I had completed all the posts for 2008. Looks like I have two and a half years still to go.

One thing I noticed was that in 2008 I made a monthly post about my goals for the month—writing goals mostly—and then an end-of-the-month post showing how well I’d done. That was almost a journal, of sorts. It made me think I ought to do that occasionally. So, here’s my first goals post in a long time. Perhaps on Sept. 30 I’ll come back and make a post of how I did.

  1. Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve done fairly well at that this year, and I’d like to continue it.
  2. Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of  Documenting America: Making The Constitution. I’m close. The covers are the big holdup.
  3. Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of  Acts Of Faith: Examples from the Great Cloud of Witnesses. I’m almost through with edits, but I can see this happening.
  4. Write a short story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca series. I have a sheet or two of notes of what I’m going to do next, if I can only find them.
  5. Critique 2-3 poems at the Absolute Write Forums. I’d like to keep my foot in poetry somehow. Maybe this is the way.
  6. Attend writers groups on the 11th and the 18th.
  7. Complete reading three items and begin two or three more. As of this morning I’m halfway through two books (each around 260-280 pages) and a third through a 60 page article. I should easily finish all these with no problem. I don’t know what I want to read next, but I’ll start searching my stacks before lone.
  8. Prepare my first newsletter for release about Oct 15. And figure out how to make it happen.

That’s enough, I think. See you all on the 30th with a report.

Bible study, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

Publishing My Next Book Getting Closer

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I finished writing Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition in mid-June. I let it sit a little, then began the editing process. The editing took a while as I didn’t go overly fast. Plus, in late June I finally decided I should write and publish my Bible study, Acts Of Faith, and so pulled off DA for a while. I meant to have it published in August. Alas, with only nine days left in the month, I think that’s unlikely to happen.

But where do I stand with it? I have completed all passes of edits. On Wednesday I ran Chapter 5 through our critique group, and have a few comments to go over and perhaps make changes. I’ll do that today. The next step will be the cover, which I’ll do myself using G.I.M.P. I already have the series theme, so all I have to do is change the title and use a new center image, which I already have picked out. I may need to load G.I.M.P. onto this computer. Doing all that is a tomorrow task.

That cover work, of course, is for the e-book cover. Before I can do the print book cover I have to format the print book so I know the thickness. The interior formatting will be the next step. I might do the e-book formattings (one for Kindle, one for Smashwords) on Sunday, or it might slip to Monday. At that point I may upload the e-book to the platforms, thus getting it published in August. Then I’ll tackle the print book formatting. That always takes longer, and I’ll have to dedicate a day or two to that. I hope I get it done before the end of the month so that I can order a proof copy.

So, when will the next Documenting America be published, you ask? With any luck and sufficient diligence on my part, before the end of August for the e-book, and before September 15 for the print book. Stay tuned. I’ll announce it here. I’m working simultaneously on the leader’s guide to AOF, so we’ll have to see how the time goes.

family, memories, travel, Writing

Back In The Saddle

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Here’s what I looked out on from my chair on the porch.

Or, rather, back in my chair, at my computer, with my books and tools around me, ready to write—or in the week, mainly edit.

My wife and I were away for a little over a week. This was scheduled, then changed. Our son-in-law was to go on a mission trip to Mexico and we were to go to Big Spring, Texas, and help our daughter with the kids. The mission trip was canceled, a fairly last minute thing, due to not having the minimum number of people necessary to make it happen. They decided to get away for a few days instead and asked us to join them. We agreed, with the time commitment being a little shorter than the mission trip would have been.

Fishing wasn’t what I most wanted to do.

The trip was to Ruidoso area in New Mexico. I had never heard of this resort area, up in the mountains. South of Albuquerque, west of Roswell, it’s pretty high up. We had a rental house at elevation 6950 feet.  It’s monsoon season, and we had rains all but one day. It didn’t really slow us down at all. Daytime temperatures were 75 to 85 when it wasn’t raining, nighttime lows were 57 to 62. Very pleasant.

We had fun at the Flying J Ranch.

The wife and I did very little planning for this trip. We were supposed to drive to Texas on Friday August 2 then drive with them to New Mexico, a five hour drive, on Saturday August 3. But at the last minute we left the afternoon of Thursday Aug 1, intending to pull up at their door after midnight. A wrong turn in Wichita Falls means we didn’t get in until 3 in the morning. Alas.

Ah, yes, jail the outsiders.

The trip was nice and relaxing. Our rental house was just the right size for us. Richard took his older boys fishing a couple of days. I’m not into fishing so didn’t join them. I wanted to hike. I went on four of them all together. One on Sunday in the neighborhood with grandson Ezra, 1.57 miles. One Monday at Grindstone Lake with my daughter, her two youngest, and my wife, 2.45 miles. One Tuesday at a Federal recreation area, with most of the family, 1.56 miles. One Wednesday (the day we were leaving to

Elijah panning for gold at the Flying J Ranch.

come home), up a hill near our house with the two oldest grandsons, 1.25 miles without a trail. And a different one back at that recreation area, 1.61 miles. None of them were overly strenuous, but had uphill segments where I had to stop on occasion.

The house with the red roof is the one we rented, as seen from the nearby hill we hiked up on Wednesday.

On Sunday we went to a church, not knowing it was next to one of our denominational campgrounds and that they were just finishing a week of family camp. So we attended a camp meeting type service. We then drove up to a ski area to ride the gondolas, but they had closed due to rain. I’m not a fan of mountain roads, but we did okay.

Plenty of deer came by our cabin, this one right up to be fed.

When not engaged with grandkids, I did a little editing in my completed books, did some reading (as described in my last post), though I found the reading hard going, too intellectual, I suppose, for reading in somewhat distracted conditions. Still, I enjoyed cool mornings or evenings on the porch, coffee and book or e-reader at hand, soaking in both knowledge and clean, mountain air.

I was on the hike too, but took the photo.

Ruidoso is a place I would like to go back to. We found out what was available in the Smokey Bear Ranger District, specifically the Cedar Creek Recreational Area, which included camping, picnicking, biking, and hiking. Several longer trails are available which I would like to hike. Perhaps we’ll go back some day, and make some more memories.

self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Rainy Days and Mondays

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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