Pulling Strings and other stories

This morning, after prayers and breakfast with Lou and sending him off to work, I went back to bed and slept away the rest of the morning. I'm still a touch groggy. If this blog-post is tolerably coherent, that's all I can ask for. No guarantees that it will be interesting or well-phrased.

Yesterday evening—just the evening—I finished and sent off three weeks' worth of editing work, cooked dinner, made a cobbler, made and canned three pints of blackberry jelly—which turned out to be blackberry syrup—and, finally, got a Hog's Head Common Room post up just after midnight. My entire week has been variations on that theme. And now, though I still have some reading and writing deadlines to hit in the next few days, I'm surfacing. With a splutter.

Surely I can't be the only person whose mind works like this:

SAYS: I wish it were next week; I’m tired of this one.
THINKS: Oh, no, now I’m just like the kid in the fable who pulled a string and bypassed his whole life, and now life is going to punish me for that and someone will probably die this weekend AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Neuroticism aside, it's sunny, I've got some vinegar to spray on the cherry slugs that are eating my little tree, and I can hopefully get back to working on my book this evening. Those are all happy thoughts.

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The deck is almost painted:

Originally, the entire thing looked like the steps do now.

I'm loving my canner and jar-lifter, courtesy of Mom:

Unfortunately, I still can't reliably find the jelly stage.

The fuschia is blooming beautifully:

It's trying to take over the driveway, but it's so pretty that I just don't mind.

And Maia is spending the day relaxing in the sun:

Yes, I would like to do likewise.

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Writers' link of the week: Cinema and storytelling expert Barbara Nicolosi just joined Patheos. I'll definitely be following her blog. Here's an interesting post on visual imagery.

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Music of the week: Another of the most beautiful pieces of music in existence. I'm learning this with some friends despite my terrible vocal issues. Hopefully I don't rasp any of those high notes when we finally perform it—but ah, it's glorious.



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Random amusement of the week: I don't know how it took me this long to discover StickWorldComics, but when my brain couldn't handle any more editing this week, I turned to this page and read nearly all the archives. Favorites included beans because I laughed and laughed, really general because IT'S SO TRUE, before you post because it is ALSO SO TRUE, and—because the snark is just so enjoyable—history.

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One little house to clean, one little tree and possibly one rather larger tree to spray over with vinegar, several gardens to water, more books to write than I want to think about right now, and one still-sleepy blogger to take on the tasks... here goes. Happy weekend!