Morning By Monet

This is his palette, his water-ey style and colors. The clouds are clumping in a pleasant non threatening manner and the light is lovely. The temperature is cool at 59 F. All in all, a lovely morning.
Today is Pot Luck Day as Sundays are going to be for months here. This week I'm bringing a casserole, last week was an apple pie. Homemade, of course. I think next week I will make mac and cheese, even though I have never made it before. I have bags and bags of macaroni that need moving from the pantry. Anyway, who doesn't love macaroni and cheese.
Then, when the Pot Luck is finished I will work on the cookies for the meeting tomorrow morning.

This Monet morning is going to turn into a fun day. I hope yours is as well.

It's is about the second time.

I am bored. It is a lovely day and I have finished everything I wanted to do. I've read several chapters in a somewhat interesting book. I've munched on pretzels, I have played computer games. I'm bored to tears.
Oh, there is alway something to do, that doesn't mean that I want to do that one thing. Don't want to and not going to.
I think I'll put on my walking shoes and take a spin around the apartments.
This is so odd as I almost never, ever get bored.
Okay, sunny lovely afternoon here I come.

Time to get back to Work.

I have two novels on the very cusp of being finished. Blackberry Murders has nothing to do with phones and plenty to do with Blackberry bushes. You may not think that is scary, but oh me oh my, will you be surprised. I have been writing on this full length novel for many years. It seems to have a life of it's own. It got totally scrambled, fried in a computer meltdown. So badly fractured that even the paid computer experts could not unscramble it. I started over again with it, and painfully rewrote 120,000 words of fun, murder, mayhem and horses.Actually it wasn't fun, but I did have a few pages of hard copy to work from. I learned a pain filled huge lesson about backing up my writing and external memory collectors. It needs one more edit and she is ready to wear her new clothes and go meet some friends at the pub.

The next full length novel at the wire is Love Arrives on Horse Back. This one has a more positive back story. I had started it aa a general "what if" premise, but I was feeling iffy about it. I thought it was interesting but would anyone else. One day months ago, I had my regular checkup with my primary care physician, he sometimes askes me about my writing. I know, knock you over with a feather a Doctor who wants to know what you are about other than symptoms! Dr. John Hou M.D. Health Care Partners, 4275 Burnham Ave Ste.220 Las Vegas, Nevada. Behind Desert Springs Hospital.
 Anyway, I told him the idea and said that I felt it was iffy. He didn't feel that way, he said write it, it will be good. My son, Brian said write it, it will be good. So I wrote it and it is under submission to a publisher. It is in the second round of submissions waiting the final very slow answer whether it will be published by them or not. I wish they would hurry up I would like to rework the final two pages, itching to re-write those pages.

That leads me to right now. Fresh new writing. All the older works are published or thrown out as a bad job.
. I'm in the first pages of a sequel to Star Hunter, my first and I thought only Sci Fi to ever be produced. But I loved the Bounty Hunters, every single one of them, and writing a ensemble of 10 or more main characters is a definite brain whirl. This time I think that Boomie will be the main focus and I'm adding a super smart Physician, who is the opposite of all big brawny physical action types of the Bounty Hunters. Oh, he is going to get involved in the action scenes all right. He might turn out to be the favorite character I have ever written, except for the fellow in Ms. Got Rocks, whom I killed off and was so sad that I did, I cried out to my sister that I murdered him and I didn't want to.
Here I am, and happy to be feeling well enough to get back to work. That old saying "Busy hands are happy hands". This is a big grin you are seeing.

That Hardly Seems Fair.

Wouldn't you know it. I just get the good to go on the major knee surgery and I'm planning all kinds of good things to do that I haven't been able to do. Wouldn't you just know that after going to various doctors and radiology offices (6) in the past two weeks, I caught a cold and have been down for the count since Friday night.
Murphy's Law, thy name is Jacqueline.

Dancing in the Moonlight 2.0

October 9th.
Just short of three months from knee replacement surgery, I got the final word from the Doctor. I'm done, finished, cooked, repaired and can put away walkers,canes, Physical Therapy and best of all the pain meds.
I want to thank Scott, my Physical Therapist here at home for not only pushing me onto the bike, but his kind and caring self. I want to thank, as well, Catherine and Clemencia (Phys Therapist) at Desert Vally Therapy in Las Vegas for laughing at my jokes, making me cry and sweat and because they were always willing to talk about nail polish, our sons and nutty topics. And all three of them for thinking that ballroom dancing was a great idea to go do, now.
Now here I am after at least six years of incredible pain, almost pain free, with two 9 inch scars on my knees, with two metal and plastic knees that both make clicking noises and my first adventure out in public without a cane. I felt light and unencumbered. Sort of like I left something somewhere.
I have my personal card for setting off metal detectors, getting antibiotics before I get my teeth cleaned and a boatload of other things I never thought would be important to do with some plastic and metal implants.
I'm ready for ankle weights as I still have to strengthen the muscle above the knee, and dancing shoes and what the hell am I going to wear?
By the way, it snowed in the Spring Mountains last night and the sight was lovely this AM. I hope the tourists came out of the casinos long enough to look at it..It was dang cold this morning as well. I love the desert. I don't have a camera talented enough to get a pix of the snow.
I am feeling really sorry about the people in South Dakota suffering from that horrible snow storm this past week. Sorry about so many livestock that didn't make it through the storm. Horrible loss.

Dancing in the Moonlight from Sept. 14th

I spent yesterday looking at Web pages for a ballroom dancing teaching studio in Las Vegas. I found one that appealed to me after watching hours of video of dancers, instructors, recitals and international competitions in Las Vegas.
Today I picked out shoes, cant dance in my beloved Crocs. Well I could but that might be to awkward with the non-slick soles. The shoes were less expensive than I expected, but not inexpensive, either. I chose a blush color, I wanted the silver ones but I never wear anything silver, so blush it is or will be when I am ready for dancing. Sunday will mark the two month anniversary since the new knee was implanted. It will be several more months before I'm really to go hippity-hopping on the dance floor. But wishful thinking was fun and got me to do some exercises which I have been slacking off doing.
I think the hard part is going to be finding appropriate outfits for my fat figure and age. But what fun it will be looking. A woman can dream can't she?

Celebrating Sunshine

The sun is out. The air conditioning was off until 3 PM. Wonderful temperature. Tomorrow promises to be even better. The awful humidity will be gone by Monday and we can get back to being a desert.
You know, I have mentioned that we get a monsoon every summer and how I love it. Usually, it is a dynamic exciting 4 or 5 days. This summer the thing just won't go away. We are approaching 20+ days of high humidity and/or rain, thunder and misery. That is just my opinion about the entire thing.
We certainly need the rain, but jeez Louise, let's have some in the winter, okay.

It is Friday already?

I did another I Love Lucy and did get this published on Friday. Pretend, it is good for you.

What happened to the week? Seems all I have accomplished is going to Physical Therapy and sleeping. I don't think I have been doing that well, either.
Southern Nevada is in Monsoon season, and usually this is a favorite time of year. Not this year. It seems that it is lingering, and after the Carpenter One fire the thunder and lightening are not the lovely fun natural fireworks. The humidity has been especially high and we, Southern Nevadans, are not used to that kind of stuff. I, personally, would like to give it back to New Jersey and New Orleans. This week we have on the menu the dregs of two tropical storms out of the Gulf of California in Baja Mexico and one that came all the way across the South from the Gulf of Mexico.
This morning is hazy but full of our famous blue sky.This afternoon back to the thunder storms, without rain usually.
I'm melting and cleaning my son Craig's homegrown beeswax. After it is cleaned I'm making votive candles and lip balms. The wax is coming out a lovely white creamy shade. I'm very happy to get this gift from him.

I had planned on making Bread and Butter pickles but I forgot to buy the cucumbers. I warned you, I was an I Love Lucy person.The next opportunity to go to the grocery is next Tuesday after P.T., then I will be doing B and B pickles. A couple jars will go to my son for part of his birthday gifts.

I did get the cantaloupe and it is in the freezer in the easiest recipe ever for something that is amazing on a nasty winter's morning. I'll share.
Freezer Cantaloupe

Cut up a ripe cantaloupe into serving size chunks or what size that will fit your container.
Pack melon loosely into a freezer container, in amounts for a family size serving.
Prepare frozen orange juice per package directions and pour over the melon to cover.
Leave room for the juice to expand as it freezes.
Freeze. Defrost a little bit before eating or not.



Have a wonderful, fun weekend.

Don't Tell Me Seattle Slipped South.

Good Gravy, this is the strangest monsoon season. Yesterday, it rained a bit here and was grey and overcast all day and night. I woke this morning at 4 AM to rain, steady earth soaking rain.
It is like living in Seattle, not the Mojave desert. Certainly we get rain, but not frequently do we get an inch of rain in 20 minutes like on Thursday.
I live next to a weather recording station. We have had .44 inches of rain since midnight and it is a lovely 68F.
I am not complaining oh no. I am expressing surprise.