So spring has sprung, and I've been largely off the internet for a week or so. I needed a break after the death march of the Brimstone draft, and I've been playing catch-up on other writing and/or writing business miscellany...and beginning the seasonal yard work. I hired a little help to get things underway, and now the place is looking pretty keen: everything is mowed and trimmed; perennials have been tended to, and are growing in nicely; and annuals have been added in the usual pots and positions.

I swear, the yard went from dead-of-winter to full-on-spring in just a few days. It's gorgeous, and I'm thrilled - and I'll be even more thrilled in another few weeks(?) or so, when we finally get to install a new fence. Or so I cross my fingers.

At present, we have a four-foot ribbon of chain link that's decades old, warped like crazy, and growing through one tree/two shrubs/one privet hedge/the remains of another privet hedge, long deceased. God, I wish I was kidding.



We overpaid on our taxes two years in a row and this year, we're cashing in - thus the high hopes for six feet of wood in a semi-privacy perimeter. It won't be cheap and it won't be easy, but maybe we can finally swing it.

We intend to save one imperiled mulberry tree, but we need to take down an overgrown hackberry that's menacing our neighbors and throwing black fungus/dust all over one corner of our yard. And the privets. Those have got to go. (Probably with the fence they've grown through - all in one weird bundle of wood, leaves, and twisted chain link.) So I say all that to say this: It will be a far more involved process than a mere fence-building. It's more like removing an art installation that's been sitting in a jungle for fifty years. Then building a fence.

I really do hope we can pull it off.

* * *

Hmm...what else, since last I posted?

Well, let's see - I went and saw an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist because I've been having some trouble with my sinuses. It was a frustrating, tedious visit ... but I could use the CAT scan, so I stuck it out for the sake of the referral. No word from them on the CAT appointment yet, but I assume word is coming.

Or maybe not. I didn't leave that office with a great deal of faith in it, TBH.

* * *

I also went to lunch with my aunt and cousin, who were passing through town. After noshing, we went out for pedis. I chose a disco sparkle orange, then changed my mind a couple of days later. Now they're grape-jelly purple.



Let the record reflect, I kept my promise to only post this picture - in which my aunt does not look like a serial killer ... like she does in the other picture I took. Which I am absolutely not sharing here.

* * *

Dog party.



* * *

In other news, posting will continue to be light for a little bit - as I'm heading up to Kentucky on Wednesday. That's right, I'm leaving the husband behind to care for the "kids" and driving up for ConGlomeration , in Louisville. (I'm stopping at my dad/stepmom's place on the way there, and on the way back. Thus the Wednesday departure.)

I'm really looking forward to it! My very first sci-fi convention EVER was RiverCon in Louisville, back in ... 1999, maybe? 2000? It's been awhile. (And that event closed down a number of years ago, I believe.) So besides the convenient parental stopover, I'm wound up for the sheer nostalgia of it all.

But I won't be on the internet much, except (no doubt) to post to Twitter as I'm able. So until I get back home next Monday, feel free to join me over there. Or don't! Whatever makes you happy. I'm cool either way.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back on the wordcount hobbyhorse next week...