Get Up! Get Back to Work!!!!!

So I suppose I’m going to be reduced to actually having to do some paying and nonpaying work, huh? As the now-completed drama has unfolded, I’ve just let everything go. Other than reading a few chapters of my novelist’s saga and reading some journal copy behind my associate editor, I have done exactly ZERO work, either of the paying variety or of the life-maintenance variety.

The yard has gone to pot.

The house is OK because I had the incredible luck to find and hire Luz the WonderHousekeeper. But we do need some new cleaning goods and stuff for her.

Class has been out of session, but yesterday I posted Canvas shells for the two comp sections that start the day after MLK Day. That, alas, is next week.

Groceries and dog food are still in-house, since I ran amok stocking up before the last surgery. But soon they’ll run out. Plus I learned the wonderful FreshPet dog food rolls contain excessive amounts of calcium and phosphorus, bad for Ruby on two counts: bad for her tendency to develop UTIs and bad because at a year of age her skeleton is still developing. Must go out and get meat to make new real food for the hounds.

My lists are dead.

Lists. Reviving the to-do lists is the top priority, since in my dotage the To-Do List is the single most important tool that keeps me on track to get things done.

Number 1 To-Do is to restore the yard. Or at least begin to do so.

I found these little black metal garden border mini-fences at HD. They’re much less obtrusive than the white fake picket fences and the lengths of wire stuff I use to keep Ruby out of the pool area and out of my gardens. During a short period when I wasn’t too incapacitated, I managed to shove a few of them along the bed that borders the pool, allowing me to get rid of one stretch of uglification.

It’s not much improvement, because I decided to leave the jungle effect created by the now feral blue plumbago, Lady Banks rose, and Mexican primroses by way of blocking Ruby from getting into the pool. Also left some of the wire stuff in place for the same reason. Jumping into the water to get her out is strictly verboten just now — one is not permitted to soak one’s incisions. Plus that water’s probably in the low 40s; the last time I had to dive into icy water to rescue a dog will be, I hope, the LAST time.

You  can see that she can, in theory squeeze through the scruffy-looking green wire garden border stuff. She has done so, on occasion, but so far hasn’t managed it here — probably because the white wooden border was up before I put in the black pieces.

I don’t think she can  jump the black stuff, though she might be able to, especially if she sees Charley jump it. He, however, will simply step over it, and that will not model a flying leap. Really, a corgi needs to be trained to jump — their short legs plus their long body tend to make jumping over something pretty counterintuitive. Plus between the plumbago and the Meyer lemon, the brush should block her from getting enough purchase to clear that thing.

I hope.

Anyway, high on the list is to get about 60 lengths of that black metal stuff and replace the bent, sprung, generally tacky-looking green wire stuff throughout the backyard and the front courtyard. This will require raiding quite a few Home Depots, because they don’t usually have much of it on hand. Two HD’s are within reasonable driving distance, and another resides in Scottsdale on the way to the Mayo. Though I doubt I’ll be driving out there again soon, nevertheless I know where it is and it just isn’t THAT far away.

• Next, take Harvey the Hayward Pool Cleaner over to Leslie’s for a little free refurbishment.
• Backwash the pool (today!!!!!)
• Continue adding acid to stabilize new water (was finally able to lift a bucket of water & acid yesterday. 🙂 )
• Fertilize and deep-water the orange trees
• Purchase a new car…
• …OR at least have Chuck the WonderMechanic overhaul the Dog Chariot so it’ll keep running another fifty or hundred thousand miles
• Draft an introduction, chapter, table of contents, and chapter outline for the proposed mastectomy book
• Go to the library or pony up some dollars to see the current issue of Writer’s Marketplace and track down some literary agents as candidates to take the place of my deceased agent.
• Figure out what I was supposed to have done on Other Client’s book and do it
• Bill the clients (!!)
• Revive marketing campaign for Slave Labor
• Find a PoD outfit to do hard copies for Slave Labor
• Download Scrivener and begin learning how to use it to compile .mobi files
• Figure out how to get Slave Labor on iTunes and Barnes & Noble; get that done or delegate the job to someone
• Figure out whether Scrivener can be used to lay out pages for a book-length work that is mostly gray space
• Ride herd on subcontractors by way of getting the cookbook to market
• Finish compiling the book of essays; use that as the “sandbox” project for learning how to make a Kindle book in Scrivener
• Continue writing Book II for Fire-Rider
• Figure out how to get that thing to market ASAP, too. Nag subcontractors.
• Revive the physical budget to get a grip on 2015 spending
• Make a run on My Sister’s Closet in search of flat-lady clothes
• Visit Nordstrom’s Rack in Scottsdale, for the same purpose

Heh. Not much to do there, eh?