Random Ramblings

The imp spent last night, and will be spending tonight, with grandma and grandpa.  He was very whiny yesterday morning when I interrupted his cartoon time,until I drew his notice to his backpack.  Then, he got excited. 

The pixie is working toward getting a new toy.  She's gone since Wednesday with only one accident last night, and she thought that was going to be a fart, since she'd already pooped in the toilet.  I'm inclined to let that go, since it was a reasonable assumption.

Odysseus and my bedroom door needs to be repaired.  The door facing split--the people who re-did parts of the house before we bought it nailed the plate that keeps the door latched shut to the door facing. Which means that the door pops open with the least bump...which means that the cats don't stay out.  Especially not my co-dependent cat Cricket when I'm back there laying down with a headache.

Shadow and Cricket spent half an hour last night stalking a good-sized moth--it had about an inch and a half wing-span, and couldn't fly very high for very long.  They had a mega good time with that.  No, I don't know which of them actually caught and ate it. 

The dog still thinks she's Snoopy.  Her favorite place to be when she's outside in her pen is on top of her dog house. 

We still need to fix the back yard fence so that I can just turn the dog out the back door when she needs to go out.  But I have one question: how in the world do you keep a terrier who likes to dig from digging up the whole back yard?

So, we're not more than two weeks (plus one class day) from the end of semester.  Their last papers are due next week (Monday for the Comp I class, and Wednesday for the Comp II).  They'll spend the last two weeks blogging...and I've decided, since I'm done with lecture, that so long as they write the posts, that they don't have to come to class anymore.  (I can do that, since I'm in the library, not in the English department where I'd be told off for not forcing them to come whether they need to or not, and for letting them go early when we're done, instead of wasting their time.)

So, I've heard back from three out of the four beta readers who read Highway to Tartarus (MSgt B, you're the one I still need to hear from).  I've had a couple of suggestions for revision (details added here, or changed there), but unless the last reader offers substantial revision advice, the book is pretty much done, and will come out December 1. 

Other than that, I've been working on Resurgent.  It came unstuck big time, then stuck again, then has come unstuck for the second time when I abandoned the original outline entirely.  I started working on it on November 4, and I've been shooting for at least three thousand words per day.  Making it, most days.  Currently, I've got ten chapters out of a planned 20-25 written, at least in first draft format.  I'm hoping to finish the book by the end of the month, so I can set it aside and focus on something else over Christmas Break, which starts December 7, for me, and runs all the way through January 13.