I woke up at 4:30 this morning and just knew I wouldn't fall back to sleep. Not only was I not tired, I felt like I had to get up and work on my query letter for my book. So I was in my office with a mug of chai tea by 5:30 and worked until 7.
It was the most productive 90 minutes I've had in a long time.
Dwayne got up early, too, so I had a coffee break at 6:00 and told him, "This is what it's like to go into labour. There was no way I could stay in bed. I had to get up and work, and I've given birth to a great query."
Finally. In the past 18 months, I guess I've written two dozen versions of my query letter, trying to find the right way to describe my book. Finding my new focus (although not new; there all the time) fixed even that problem. I could even do a pitch in an elevator!
So now I'm thinking I'll have a new routine whenever I get to write books full-time. I'll get up at 5 to work until 7 then go for a walk then eat breakfast. If I've done two hours of good work first thing in the morning, I'll be able to enjoy the walk and breakfast without the pressure of getting to work.
Ah, the dream: No pressure to get to work.

For the past week and a half, I've been dealing with a case of shingles. What I thought was a short-sleeved blouse chafing a couple of "spots" on my upper right arm last Tuesday ended up being this huge 4 inch by 4 inch mess. By the time my husband insisted I head to the hospital (seeing as it takes 6 weeks to see my family physician), it was too late to stop the infection from bursting out. I'm taking the anti-viral meds but they're likely only stopping the shingles from spreading beyond my upper arm (there's a spot on just above the inside of my elbow that has created a less-awful mirror spot on the other side of the elbow bend but other than that, it's been contained to the upper arm).
So just as the temperatures start to fall, I have to wear T-shirts because -- don't read this if you have a weak stomach -- this stuff oozes. The bigger the patch, the more oozing. Disgusting. It's on the front of my upper arm so it's pretty obvious.
"What happened to your arm?" was a common question this week. It actually looked back then like a bad burn. It's not just the blisters that come up; there is also this vast redness that encircles each spot and my arm is puffed up. First thing on Monday morning, Jane was busy and Charlie was on the phone when someone came in with an In Memoriam for the paper; after helping the customer, I went back to my desk and said, "Perhaps Scabby Annie shouldn't be dealing with the public."
On Monday night, I slathered Vitamin E gel on it because some of it was starting to dry up but that appeared to make it worse; yesterday, I slapped some aloe vera on those two lesser spots and cripes! dried them right up but sucked blood up too so the scab looks worse than it is. While I'm glad I didn't try it on the big patch, I'm amazed at how quickly the aloe vera dried the patch up; didn't "heal" it, per se, because the redness around it is still there.
Shingles really is awful. I'm lucky; I'm not experiencing any pain that often goes along with it. I get twinges in the deeper blisters (two of those) but nothing that needs painkillers. I've just used allergy medication for the itching and swelling.
Here's the thing: when this first broke out, I thought it looked like the cold sore I get on my nose. When I finally got around to Googling "shingles" (which is all I think the ER doctor did), it mentioned the danger of a shingles outbreak on the forehead or nose because it could spread to the eyes. I'm thinking I've been getting SHINGLES on my nose all these years. No wonder it was so bad. The website also mentioned the cream, Zovirax, for treating shingles. Well, I have a whole tube of that thanks to my cold sores so I slathered that on it yesterday and by jingo, that seems to be drying it up faster than anything (except the aloe vera but that instant moisture-sucking aspect is a little scary - what if I used it on my nose?!?)
My conclusion about this is that the anti-viral meds are fine (same stuff I was prescribed for cold sores) but the topical cream should have been prescribed as well. And I wonder what role aloe vera could play? So how do I get this knowledge back to the medical community? Not seeing my MD for treatment means there is no follow-up; am I getting better? what is working and what is not working? I'm going to have to write one of my newspaper columns about this.
I am going to make an appointment to see my doctor because I would like to explore this connection with my nose further so I need to see a specialist for that.
I'll be glad when I can start wearing long sleeves over the spot, though. I'm wearing a zippered fleece sweater so that I can keep fairly warm while having my right arm out. Works for the most part although the arm is cold all the time, and I peed on the unused sleeve last night because I forgot it was hanging down behind me when I sat on the toilet.

It's Abby's birthday today.
She is one.
One! Already.

If you missed the whole point of yesterday's spur-of-the-moment, lying-on-the-bed post, this is it:
I watched my husband come into the bedroom, take off his socks, put on a clean pair, then go searching for his slippers. They were on the mat on my side of the bed (which is next to the sliding door to the west deck) so on his way to the slippers, he used his socks to "mop" the muddy paw prints left by Abby in the middle of the night.
Well, at least he's a good cook.

So I have discovered that the whole point and purpose of a tablet or smart phone is social media. That's why you only get a space big enough for writing a couple of lines.
Not ideal for a writer like me who takes four or five lines just to warm up.
I keep thinking about setting up a FB or Twitter account under my official writing name but without a book to promote, and with the freelance writing career on sabbitical, I don't see any point. I watch the commercials for these tablets and see all the things it's possible to do with them but now I see that it's all App and WiFi related; there are no internal programs like Word or Photoshop that you can work with off-line.
Maybe there's some new, still-obscure social media site I can join for practice. I hear China is launching one...

I'm typing this on my new tablet which is not really designed for a lot of typing, and honestly, you might as well have given me a spaceship to operate because I have no idea how use all the stuff4 that's associate with this and now Ican't even see the text I'm typing
But that's not the reson Iam writing at thistime.
I want to tell you that I just discovered myhusband's secret to cleaning the floors: put on a clean pair of socks then drag them over the muddy footprints on the bedroom floor.

(tomorrow at work at a real computer, I will fix my typos.)
(note to sister: now Iknow how Mum feels when she is typing emails.)

There was something interesting I was going to write about today, thought of it last night, but I didn't write it down so you get this instead:

Here's our pumpkin patch with a few squash mixed in. Everything has ripened up early this year. I'll be able to line the stairs with pumpkins for a Thanksgiving decoration but they might not make it until the end of the month. By then, they'll look like zombie pumpkins!

Had a very productive weekend that was, somehow, relaxing at the same time. I read, wrote, painted, went to the cafe twice, even watched a movie. But by the end of Sunday, I realized I hadn't done anything active or physical at all. Every time I started up the lane with the dogs, it started raining. Didn't move a single rock or dig a single hole either. Now that we're heading into October -- already! -- I'll have to start thinking about cleaning up the gardens, finishing rock walls for new gardens -- more! -- and planting bulbs. All relaxing in a completely different way.

I kind of feel like this pumpkin (orange, plump, productive) just without the bird shit.

I like surprises. Even the kind when someone is standing behind me and I don't know they're there when I turned around and it scares the beejeezus out of me.
But the best kind of surprises, besides a fabulous 40th birthday party, is finding a new pair of boots sitting by the door when I get home from work. (My husband is so knee-jerk generous, his idea of retail therapy is to buy something for his wife.)
Not just any boots, mind you. Bog boots, this country girl's preferred footwear year around.
And not just any Bog boots but...

RED BOOTS!
This is my signature footwear. Officially. As of this moment. From now on, I'm wearing nothing but red shoes. Watch my feet when I'm on TV doing interviews during my book tour. I'll be wearing red boots (but not Bogs; those I'll save for the Better Homes and Gardens profile).
There is no freakin' way I'm not going to get published now. The secret is great footwear, I know it.