23 July 2026

 Oddz & Endz #76.1

 Ok, this is probably the longest I've gone letting the dust just pile up around here. I kinda lost my writing mojo for a long time and haven't done much of anything since I last posted here. That includes writing-writing, and I left a massively unfinished manuscript languishing on my computer. The good news on that front is that I have the whole story in my head still, and it's about ready to come pouring out.

I need more hours in the day to get it done, but things are easing up so I fully expect to get back to it this weekend. Expect to. That means very little, I know.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

One of the biggest things we've been up to is purging and donating stuff we no longer need or want. Two bedrooms cleared out; I got rid of about 95% of my stuff, and almost as much in the way of clothing. And I still have too much. I think we've taken 12+ car loads of stuff for donation, and considering we have a Mazda CX90, that's a lot of car space to fill. And it doesn't include the massive pile we tossed into the back yard, things too broken or worthless to donate...holy fork, it was $$ to have hauled away.

One bedroom is now a playroom for Amelia. We get to have her a couple days a week while both parents are working, and it felt like time for her to have her own space. It gets the toys out of the living room (though she's free to drag some back out here if she wants) and if she wants to watch Elmo on repeat for an hour, or Ms. Rachel, she can (and the cords have now been hidden, lest tiny finger try to yank on them.) So far she seems to like it...and so do the cats.

The other room is for my MIL. She needed her own space, too. Not sharing pix of that, because she deserves some privacy, but take my word: after painting and stuff, it's a very nice room. She's with us part time, because for some reason the Spouse Thingy's sister didn't want us hogging her. So rather than fight over her, the siblings did the mature thing and split her lol

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

With July fading into August, it's time to start training for The Great Cycle Challenge in September. I pledge 200 miles when I registered back in January, but like always, I'm hoping for more. I'm 33 pounds lighter than I was during last year's challenge, so I have high hopes I can ride it faster and rack up more miles with each ride than I did before.

And no, my boobs were not 33 pounds, so losing them didn't help on that front. But that did eliminate the pain I'd been in, so I'm a touch more spry, I think.

OTOH, maybe I'll do the whole thing on my slow-as-chit trike, and really work for it. That thing is a ton of fun, but it's heavy and slow. Zero cardio benefit for me, but there's just something about it. And if I do, then I can listen to complaints about YOU HAVE THE DREAM BIKE WHY AREN'T YOU USING THAT ONE?  

What? And get it dirty? Tsk.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

 I really hope I don't let this blog just sit here again. The dust is hard to get up, and I'm a lousy housekeeper.