Frustrations!

I'm working on creating an e-book for Kindle usage, using a romance novel I wrote almost 25 years ago.  For someone who is as technically un-savvy as me, this is a major undertaking and an exercise in frustration. I worked the book to the point of downloading it to the website, then the website crashed.  I went back and did the work again and got it as far as the download, but when I previewed how it would look at Kindle, I found  had lost the paragraph indentations and learned that I had to remove the headers that were in the original manuscript.

After four hours of work, I am stuck and will put it off for another day.

At any rate, the novel was never a serious work, written under a pen name, so I look at it as a learning experience.   In the end, I may turn out to be an expert on this kind of thing and will be able to publish book after book under my own name.  Maybe.

 

Twelfth Night Surprise.

On Christmas Eve, I went to the Lutheran cemetery and placed a candle at my parents' grave as I do every year. For years, I took a real wax candle, but the type I used isn't made any more and no other would stay lit in the winter winds. Finally, I began taking an LED battery-operated candle  and retrieving it a day or two after Christmas.

This year, with snow and cold weather, we didn't get back right away.  I figured the battery would have long worn out so there was no rush.  Today, however, is my mother's birthday so we thought we should pay a visit to her grave and at the same time, pick up the candle.

There, in the snow, the candle still flickered.  It had been burning throughout the period known as Epiphany.
LED lights last a long time, I know that, but this amazed me.  I think we will leave the candle for the full twelve days of Christmas from now on in her memory.

Change of Plans

This morning, Heather Innes Skyped from Stirling, Scotland.  She and I go a long way back to the time I arranged a house concert for her here in Seymour.   Several years after that, I was in Scotland and she kindly took me around the Highlands as far as Gairloch.   There we stayed at a bed and breakfast lighthouse keeper's cottage during the summer solstice.  We were so far north, the sun never really set.  It was the beginning of a series of adventures that I journaled then fictionalized into a novel, now in its third re-write. I hope to have it complete by end end of May.

About eight years ago, Heather was back in Wisconsin with her Irish friend Jacynth Hamill, singing a capella Celtic music as Caim.  They did not have many bookings so I told them next time around  to let me know and I would be their agent.  It worked out very well two years later and we did it again a year after that.  Now they are coming back for the third time under my wing.  I've arranged twelve venues for them here in northeast Wisconsin.

They were to start this trip in Florida, a tour that another agent was to have organized. The plan was for me to drive down and pick them up mid-February, a nice mid-winter relief mission for me.  Oh, how I was looking forward to a week in the sunny South!   Unfortunately, he never did the leg work, and that end of the tour has been cancelled.  They are coming directly to Wisconsin instead.

I will cheerfully take care of them here, but I am thinking now of driving down to some place warm at the end of January or the beginning of February.   Is there time to organize a mini-tour for myself?   I'll make a decision by next week.

 No matter how it turns out, I want to go to Great Britain in a year or two to visit their two countries.  One trip always seems to lead to another.

The Autoharp Case

Gary gave me a brand new autoharp case for Christmas.  This is good because the old case was falling apart, held together with two bungee cords. I was beginning to worry about damage to the autoharp.  My first harp was demolished when a teacher grabbed it with an offer to carry it.  It slid to a linoleum floor with a crash.  My second harp was also dropped to its detriment, needing repairs. A new case will give me a sense of security as I travel this summer.

Getting a new case is also bad.  The old case was plastered with stickers from around the world and they couldn't be transfered to the new one. I liked to show the case  to the children during my performances and let them guess at places like Yarrambat.  (It's in Australia.)

The good news is that now I have to fill the new case and that requires more travels around the world.  

Gary started me off with a Rails to Trails Conservancy sticker.  This is appropriate because I like to walk on those trails whenever I am near one.  In addition, I've worked on the local trail planting trees in a program we called the Seymour Greenway.  Over two years, we planted 48 large trees, from conifers to deciduous trees in the two miles of the Newton Blackmour State Nature Trail.  The entire trail will eventually go from Green Bay to New London, mostly through farm land.  In the Seymour section, hikers will find a shady grove and benches.  I'm proud of our work, so it is appropriate that the first case sticker reflects that.  

I wonder what stickers I will during the summer reading program tour.

In the Wee Hours

Sleep is not usually a problem for me, provided I can draw heavy drapes and shades against the street lights.  I go to bed promptly at 9:00, read for an hour, and it's lights out.

About once a month, I am hit with insomnia, something I seem to have inherited from my mother, who suffered greatly from it.  When I can't sleep, I simply get up and spend the night working on the computer.  This is fine during the months from spring to autumn, but in the winter cold, I am not happy with this solution.  We have an automatic thermostat that turns down the heat down to 57 degrees F. (14 degrees C.)  at 10:00 pm and so it stays until 6:00 am.  I am all in favor of this as our own little antidote for global warming.  I refuse to change the dial for a little discomfort.

So when I woke up at 3:00 am today, I stayed in bed reading until 4:30 when Rascal Cat and I decreed that it was morning.  I put on long underwear, a robe, woolen socks, mukluks, a warm coat and a knit hat and set to work, a cup of hot tea to keep my hands and stomach warm. Because it was too cold to sit in front of the computer screen, I decided to make my favorite vegetable soup, pulling leftovers from the refrigerator, cupboard and stove.  With the soup bubbling away, I started the oven and made muffins.  At 7:30, the house is warm with delectable smells wafting through.  

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When nature gives you freezing temperatures, cook.

Getting in shape

Today we began our post-holidays exercise regimen.  We did some walking, though the weather was really too cold.  Gary used the treadmill, but I found it too noisy.  I prefer to brave the elements and headed downtown where the stores serve as a windbreak. I can do this as long as the temperature is 20 degrees F. or more.  Next I started to yoga practice but I couldn't find the yoga mat I keep in the car.  I searched all over and finally began to think I'd left it behind at the nursing home, where the practice is held.  Sure enough it was there in lost and found.  I retrieved it  and made the 4:00 pm practice.  

This evening, we went to the fitness center at the high school and worked out for forty minutes on the weight machines.  My goal is to be able to lift one of our canoes by myself come spring.  I have a long way to go.  

Tonight, a few minutes on the exercise bicycle.  I'll sleep well tonight. 

No Regrets Today...but Tomorrow?

This was the last day of holiday feasting, with my son and his family coming to dine on my scalloped potatoes and ham.  I used a new Nesco roaster, so I was doing experimental cooking, made more complicated because I had to prepare the meal, turn the roaster on low, then go to church to direct the choir through a rehearsal and a church service.  Throughout the sermon, I had no spiritual awakening, just a concern in the back of my brain about how that meal was progressing.  I watched my watch and was happy we had a guest pastor who knew the benefits of a short service. I scurried out to the car with no good-byes.  

All was well, the main course cooked to perfection.  Then came the dessert of ice cream and cookies.

Tomorrow starts a full month of penance at the fitness center.