Tired and sore today, but happy. Two days ago I celebrated being up in good shape by going to a memorial service for my sister's stepmother-in-law and visiting some with her gathered children. The next day all of us went to Dad's house and cleared some more land. Best beloved and I cleared a lot around the cement fish pond. When had the grapevine trellis collapsed? I hadn't noticed because of all the blackberry vines. Today I hope to dig up all the compost covering the pond and concrete walks made by the birds and sunflower seed hulls over a number of years. Pulling all the vines growing in that was a chore and a half. Dad watches us do the work he can no longer do and pets our dogs. He still hates that we are Christians and, much worse, Republicans, but maybe he is coming to peace with it. It is amazing how willing to work hard my sister's girls are. I am jealous that she has all these girls (six living) to play World of Warcraft with to talk with and to go to coffeeshops with. I have one that can only talk like a wookie and one that would not enjoy going to very many places with me. I had so much fun with my mother, going to art shows and sewing expos and going on long drives to take the wookie to a center to give us a week's respite and gardens and comparing notes on books etc, that I had hoped to have such a relationship with my daughter. Ah, well. God knows.
I was able to talk to my sister's youngest about why eye gaze hurts for her is because for her and me, eye gaze stimulates the amygdala in the brain instead of the limbic system as it does in most people. I explained how I practiced eye gaze until I had finally desensitized and she would need to do so also or people would not trust her.
Anyway, it was a good day of work, and altho I got tired, I did not get shuddery like I did last month when I pruned for a few hours and notched my lopper on Dad's wires.
Then we went to Starbucks and discussed Shatterworld with my sister and two of her daughters. One of them could not finish the third book because it was too depressing. More talk, and ok, ok, I'll write an epilogue, but it won't be my husband's epilogue. And Ralph in a morning consult at Sheri's restaurant had already persuaded me that an epilogue was required. So, I haven't finished writing Shatterworld after all, grumble, grumble. I am also truly distressed at how many people say that my husband's additions are useful. Glower. He says he is the editor and publisher, so he has the right. Glower deeper. He promises he will not mess with the books I am writing for my oldest son's universe. Good. And oh, I am adding some more conversation of Elder Chin in the closet, but again, it won't be my husband's sermon. The niece who couldn't finish the book will try again.

I need to be fairer to my husband. He took the books that I had written fifteen years ago and that had been lost when the computer died, and collated the different versions on paper and retyped all of them for a Christmas present to me. Then he organized a number of critique group meetings and collated all the comments into one document. Then he plans to finance the self-publishing of said books.    That is love.   If he had not done that, Shatterworld would still be sitting in boxes in the basement.
We found out the last infection is by an antibiotic-resistant bacterium. Since the lab called my husband (I am too deaf to talk on the phone anymore) I don't know the name of the little bugger, but I would not be surprised to find out that it is a pseudomonas, which is what I caught in Rwanda a little over a year ago. So I started a new medicine, and for the first time in a few months, my sinuses have stopped draining and I feel like I might be alive after all.
Yesterday I finished the first version of a prologue to Killing The Siij. Jay of the Outrageous Fiction critique group suggested I do that instead of a lot of flashbacks. Bowmark's version of the events were covered in The Scarred King. Since I want all the novels set in Joshua's universe to be stand alone novels, it suddenly made a lot of sense to show the event where Bowmark and Risli crossed from her perspective. Yes! And I wrote half a chapter about the young garloon just before he went on a seek. He shall gain a name on the seek. What shall I call him? Writing this novel is a lot of fun, and I'm glad a found a critique group that is helpful after the one I belonged to for over a decade dissolved because of moves and jobs.

I am so tired of being constantly sick. I get one infection cleared up, and one someplace else shows up. On the other hand, I am feeling good about getting some good writing in on the novel Killing The Siij. I need to be working some more on proofreading the Trilogy and addressing the issues various people have brought up. And my husband keeps pressuring me to keep in his additions because they are so useful. And then there's the epilogue he wrote without consulting me at all. Well, he's a sweetheart and some of his ideas are good, but I still need to write in the additions the way I would and not the way he would. If I were to write an epilogue to the Trilogy, it wouldn't follow his history at all at all. He thinks the books are so important that he must contribute. And he's a teacher. And he likes to preach. I hate preaching in books, or so I think until my husband and others point out where I have preaching in the story. I thought that was dialogue when I do it.
Anyway, he wants this to be a collaboration; I want him to leave me alone. And then he brings up that if he hadn't typed the books for me, they would still be sitting in boxes and would never be published. Well, is that fair I ask you? What do facts have to do with anything? And... what I'm really sick of is being sick and being unable to accomplish much in a day.

Finished Darwinian Fairytales, Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity, and Other Fables of Evolution by David Stove.   Huh. The man believes in evolution, but he does not believe in natural selection, or scarcely anything said by Darwin, his followers, and Dawkins and his followers. He points out the errors with closely reasoned arguments.
Odder by Dean Koontz: a fun, engaging read if you don't mind some murder and mayhem. The short and colorful disquisition of Indians and gambling casino followed by an extended metaphor was worth the price of admission.
I'm in Hebrews now. Forgot to mention I read a number of magazines such as WORLD magazine, Christianity Today, Fine Gardening, Fine Sewing, Cloth Paper and Scissors. Why should you care? I dunno.

And I forgot to mention that our houseguest/boarder is in the hospital again for a week. He's 84, and very sick. He's also a delightful man, and an elder in our church. I'm beginning to wonder how much longer we are going to have him. I'm always sad when he goes to the hospital. He's running the race well, as is his wife in adult care. But, you know, that last bit is such an uphill climb.

A few more thoughts

I finished reading "a long way gone  Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah: Ohhh God, Ohhh God, Ohhh God.

I had forgotten what I wanted to add to West Oversea. I so much admire the missionaries who dared to go to my ancestors in Scotland and England. And considering how often the Vikings "visited" England, there might be some Viking or Danish blood in me as well. The murder rate was horrendous. The religion was horrendous. The people enjoyed slaughtering foreigners. Thank You, Jesus, for the people who went in Your Name to my people.
On one of the New Year Celebrations in Rwanda I was asked to speak, and so I told the people there were Christians in Africa long before there were Christians in the British Isles and how glad I was for the missionaries. I explained just how dark it got in England and how desperate the people became for light. They worshiped mistletoe and oak trees and burned people in wicker baskets. On New Years the king would have sex with a white horse in front of everybody. The people built huge bonfires and prayed for light. And I read the verse about the people in darkness who have seen a great light. And I thanked God for Jesus who is the great Light in our lives.

I finished On Combat: there is a book to go on the reference shelf.

Oh, and we think we found out where Frank's patients went. It seems the receptionist was not calling the patients about six-month appts. After Frank held a staff meeting and said the receptionist was the first person he would need to lay off, suddenly his days were full again.

And speaking of Frank, my best beloved, he and one of the Chinese Crested dogs had irreconcilable differences and so little Kip went to the Humane Society. I'll bet he wasn't there for ten minutes before he was picked up. If he went to a household without a man in it, I think he'll do fine. So now we have the Crested mix who looks like a muppet, and the house is quieter and less tense.

I pruned the plum tree to a height where I can reach the fruit and coated all the stubs with a no-sprout chemical. We'll see if it works. Prunus trees love to watersprout. I brought in some of the branches to force, and they are blooming beautifully.

Bright Day

A cool and sunny day meant I could go out and do a batch of pruning.

Frank and I have been trading illnesses for a few weeks now and I've been muzzy headed and bereft of any accomplishments. I see that developing the habit of blogging will be difficult. I would much rather add witty comments on other people's blogs.

For Lent, I am giving up reading science-fiction, except of course for the editing of my stuff.

Frank started to read Accedia and Me, and he had a completely different take from me. He is not impressed with the desert fathers and the exploration of their minds and mental sins. He says their main sin was going off to be by themselves. They should have lost themselves in service to others instead of wondering why they didn't feel like praying anymore.

What I've read the last few weeks while laying in bed feeling accedic:

Isaac Asimov presents The Great SF Stories 17 (1955)  So, that the year Clarke's The Star came out.
The Starbridge by A.C. Crispin    Aliens! Sex! What's not to like? Well, as I have said earlier, I like sex, but not in my reading or in my movie viewing.
Her Majesty's Wizard by Christopher Stasheff: the first in the series. His writing got better.
Hunted by James Alan Gardner: Aliens! I liked it.
Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz: Oh I did laugh. Bizarre and hilarious.
West Overseas by Lars Walker: I enjoyed it and learned how to pronounce some Norwegian words.
Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster: couldn't finish. Charming idea but maybe I was just too sick to get into it.
Arana's Visitor by Julie Rollins: I think this would be a good book for a junior high group to read and discuss.
What are the Chances? by Bart Holland: A fun review of odds and statistics.
The Hottest Urban Legends by Jan Brunvand: good grief, the stories we tell each other.
When The Sky Fell by Mike Lynch and Brandon Barr: If you are into military sf and enjoy every single detail of how things happen, this is the book for you. This was not the book for me. I like biology and medical details, not machinery so much. But one detail did bother me a lot: how do ships "list" in space? I have a brother-in-law who should like this book. He has large photographs of airplanes, jets on his wall. Now why I dislike photos of jets and like photos of bridges puzzles me. They are both highly engineered works of man to get people from one place to another. So why...
Project ULF by Stuart Clark: I don't know why a microbiologist who should know better would have his protagonists capture specimens for zoos in the most amateurish way possible. There's the broken-hearted male and the beautiful girl and aaargh! I just don't like thrillers. So why do I like the thrillers by Dean Koontz who does the same stuff other thriller writers do? I dunno.

I'm almost through On Combat which is fascinating. I'm working my way through The Book Of Absolutes. The social part was tough. The physics part is much easier. I'm going to see if I have the stamina to read The Book Of Absolutes into an MP3 so my philosopher son can hear it while he is working on his sculptures.

A Tiny Bit Done

I typed a few paragraphs on Killing the Siij.
Last night Frank and I read through chapter three of The Pacifists' War, and neither of us saw anything we wanted to change. We'll see what the critique group says.
I have not found anyplace that our dimwit dog has peed on yet. I'm starting over and rewarding him with treats for doing the right thing outside. Remind me to never ever get a Chinese Crested again.
I cleaned off some of the dining table. I had told Frank about how I wanted to rearrange things someday, and so, because Zach was here they did huge amounts of moving and dissassembling, and then after Zach left, he did some more and hurt his back and decided my bright idea was a stupid idea and now we are waiting for help to move furniture again and in the meantime the house is torn apart with debris strewn everywhere and the pastor from Burundi is coming to spend a few days with us this weekend.
I have discovered that instant paper mache does not stick to pipe cleaners. I have discovered that toddlers make really sticky floors, but I don't feel like cleaning them yet.
I finished Karen Hancock's The Enclave. I liked it, though sometimes the dialogue bothered me, with the bosses sneering at a Christian worker. My experience with professors and researchers is that when they discover you are a Christian or a creationist, they grunt in surprise, and then they just never talk to you again. On the other hand, her professors are insane, so.... okay.
I'm reading The Language of God right now. I always thought it might be Stephen J Gould who converted me back to believing in evolution. I lost my faith in evolution in college when I started studying dating methods and realized the number of assumptions you have to make I was not willing to make for dating to work. And then...long story. But no matter how much Gould I read (and everyone really should read his Mismeasure of Man) or Dawkins or anyone else, I have not been convinced.   But Francis Collins might convince me.