…I have nothing, writing-wise. But I expected that, as we had dinner plans on Monday, plus Monday is paperwork day, so I often don’t get to writing on Mondays. And yesterday – also expected nothing. The past couple weeks have been one thing after another, and I have things promised to others that I haven’t even been able to get to. Now they’re to the point where I really need to.
When I can, I put off other stuff and make time to write. Sometimes the writing has to wait.
At least I accomplished one big task that’s been hanging for over a month now: reformat my daughter’s computer. (This should have been on the list I posted Sunday, but I forgot it.) It’s been slow and bogged down for a while, and eventually got so that software couldn’t be installed on it (a problem when that includes security updates and virus definitions!). We weren’t even able to copy her stuff off onto a flash drive, so I had to actually take the hard drive out of her computer, install it in mine, copy stuff off, and that added to the overall task. Also, that was when my graphics card decided to crap out – in the middle of copying! But all that is behind me now (hopefully!). So now it’s on to formatting, cover design, and critiques I owe!
If you’re doing ROW80, is your week going as expected, even if your expectations weren’t high?
by Jennette,
Ohio was all over the national news last week, when a man in Zanesville released 56 exotic animals that he owned, then killed himself, leaving the animals to run amok and possibly hurt, or even kill someone. The debacle had an unfortunate end in that law enforcement had to kill 50 of the animals to ensure public safety. One of the questions raised was, why was this man able to keep these animals when he’d been convicted of animal cruelty in 2005?
Which raises another question: What happens to exotic animals when they’re removed from a bad situation like this?
A white tiger at the Heaven's Corner Zoo
One place they might go is Heaven’s Corner, a wild animal sanctuary located in West Alexandria, just a few miles west of Dayton.
Heaven’s Corner is a privately-owned, nonprofit, USDA-licensed zoo that houses over 150 wild and exotic mammals, reptiles, and birds. The organization’s primary purpose is rescue. Most of these animals were pets whose owners were unable to care for them and either released them, or called for help (that little cub isn’t so cute when it grows up to be a tiger or bear that could rip a person apart!). These animals are often brought in by law enforcement or other state or local authorities. Sometimes, animals are dropped off at the sanctuary. Others came to Heaven’s Corner from other zoos that closed (usually due to lack of funding). These are animals that can’t be returned to their natural habitat for any of many reasons, and the staff of Heaven’s Corner strive to provide each animal with a safe, species-appropriate home where it’s properly cared for.
This Macaw also calls Heaven's Corner home
The other part of Heaven’s Corner’s mission is education. It’s open to the public, and often hosts school groups. I visited several years ago (time to go back!), and was fascinated to hear the stories behind many of the animals, which include several species of tigers, leopards, bears, tropical birds, snakes, and even crocodiles. It’s well worth a visit, and all admission fees go directly toward the care and feeding of the animals. They also accept donations via their website. They also have an active Facebook Page you can Like.
Last week’s unfortunate incident will undoubtedly result in new legislation limiting ownership of wild and exotic animals in Ohio. When new laws take effect, there will likely be plenty of owners who will surrender newly-illegal animals. When they do, Heaven’s Corner will be ready to help these animals find a new home – or provide them with one.
If you live in the area, have you ever been to Heaven’s Corner? If not, do you have an organization like this in your area? Does your state have animal incidents?
And I just finished edits through Chapter 6. Does that tell you anything? More importantly, does it tell me something?
(Yeah, like I took on too much this week!)
Granted, yesterday was fun. I went on a “castles and caves” cruise through central Ohio, saw some lovely sights, spent time with some wonderful friends, not to mention my daughter. You know, doing that living life thing we writers often have to make a point to do. So it was well worth it.
I wanted to get through Chapter 8. Or ideally, Chapter 10. Reality? What’s that?
Sigh. Okay, time to get real. Thankfully, I don’t have any major plans today or this coming weekend, so that will help a lot. I also have several things I’ve committed to do for others that I can’t put off any longer, things I owe writer friends who do stuff for me like beta reading and copy editing. So I am going to commit to the following:
Format anthology for my copyeditor
Book cover design for my beta reader
Chapter critique for my critique partner
Edit Chapters 7 & 8
If you are participating in ROW80, good luck!
by Jennette,
Time management has been a challenge for me for as long as I can remember. And keeping my house clean?
(Excuse me while I go have a good laugh)
Okay. Anyway, yes, the day job makes a convenient excuse. Not sayin’ it’s a good one, but it’s mine, and I’m sticking to it. Actually, I no longer worry about it, because now that my husband’s retired, he does a lot of it, and trades work with a friend to do some too (don’t hate me!). But when I was laid off a few years ago, I knew I had to step up.
Flylady’s website is full of tips to get your house (and other aspects of life) under control through routines. She sends out motivational emails every day, and sells products on her website that she’d personally used and determined to be the best value for what they do. She also has a lot of great sayings:
“Your house did not get messy in one day, it’s not going to get clean in one day!”
“You cannot organize clutter, you can only get rid of it!”
“Baby steps get the job done!”
“Just fifteen minutes!”
What a difference ten minutes makes!
Words to live by!
While I was out of work, I did a good job getting clutter under control, and I kept up with the house fairly well. But reining in clutter is an ongoing task, and I haven’t kept up with it since going back to work several years ago. Yesterday, I tripped over shoes in my walk-through closet and decided enough was enough. Surely it wouldn’t take that long to declutter my shoes, so I noted the time and figured I’d spend fifteen minutes on it and see what I could get done.
Buried in that junk, I found three pairs of boots I hadn’t worn in at least two years, and five pairs of shoes that were worn out (and I also hadn’t worn in a year). Those went out. Behind them, way in the back of the closet, were a cleaning bucket I’d thought was lost, and a laptop I had from my first software development job, that I bought in 1997! Even if it could run modern software, the screen was just about shot the last time I fired it up. So I found a place that recycles computers for free, without using toxic chemicals or shipping it over to China, and I put the boots in a bag for the next AMVETS pickup.
Time? 10 minutes!
Okay, five more minutes. I decided to tackle my husband’s shoes, since his size-14s are even more of a tripping hazard than my shoes. He didn’t have any to throw out, but I did move a few he doesn’t wear often to the back, behind his slacks.
Fifteen minutes total, and I was done!
The rest of the closet awaits for my next fifteen minutes, some other day, maybe tomorrow!
Have you ever put off something because you thought it would take a long time – then when you finally jumped in and got to it, found that it didn’t take long at all? Have you found anything as ridiculous as a non-functional, 14-year-old laptop??? Got any decluttering tips? Please share!
by Jennette,
Halfway through the week… and I only have half of a chapter revised. So I’m thinking, my goals of working through five or six chapters was, shall we say, a bit ambitious.
I could come up with a number of excuses – as noted on Sunday, we had dinner company, then the video card in my computer decided to go kaput, which took me two hours to diagnose. That in itself was annoying, but then I realized I had several things to be thankful for:
I was able to work on the computer and figure it out myself, rather than take it somewhere, which would have not only taken more time, but cost more $$
I didn’t lose any work – even though when the video card died, it spontaneously shut down the computer, but I use dropbox, so everything is backed up, as soon as I hit Save. Word’s autorecover worked quite well too.
The video card that died was an add-on upgrade – meaning it was in addition to a built-in video interface, so I can still use the computer. It’s not powerful enough to run on my big monitor without looking stretched and fuzzy, but at least it works.
I ordered a new video card and it’s due in tomorrow.
The new video card cost $69.99 – then has a $15 mail in rebate. So it could’ve been so much worse on the wallet!
Still, the weekly goals need a little backing down, especially in light of the fact that I have a busy weekend coming up. So instead of working up through Chapter 10, I’m going to shoot for Chapter 8. It’ll still be a push, but hopefully doable!
If you’re doing ROW80 (or even if you’re not), how’s your week going?
by Jennette,
We’re going to check out the weird and maybe creepy this week on My Town Monday.
When I was a little kid, maybe seven or eight, my grandpa took me to Community Golf Course a few times while he practiced putting. After he finished, we always drove around the park, taking in the scenery and sights.
The tower as it appears today
Community borders Hills and Dales Park, a beautiful, historic landmark in and of itself with picturesque trails and picnic shelters. The park was a gift to the community from John H. Patterson in the early 20th century. Patterson Road cuts a winding path between the park and the golf course, and just a little ways north of its highest point sits a small stone tower.
The tower fascinated me as a kid, and I wanted to go inside, but it’s always been locked as far as I can remember. When I asked my grandpa why, he said someone had killed him/herself there. I never got any vibes from it that the place might be haunted, and never really gave it much thought for years after that. But every now and then, I drive past, and wonder, so I decided to do some research.
I always just called it “that tower at Hills and Dales Park,” but it apparently has some much more evocative names. Most commonly, it’s called Frankenstein’s Castle. Some people refer to it as the “Witches’ Tower.” There’s a story behind its closing, too. My grandpa was right about someone dying there, although it’s questionable as to whether or not it was suicide. According to a newspaper article in the Daily Gazette (Xenia) on May 18,1967, a couple of teens from nearby Bellbrook took shelter in the tower during a thunderstorm. The Kettering Police got a phone call the evening before, about someone being injured at the tower. The young woman was found halfway up the stairs, dead, with extensive burns all over her face and chest, indicative of a lightning strike. The guy also had burns on his face, but survived. He couldn’t remember anything of the event, but others surmised he was coming down the stairs behind the girl when lightning struck the tower’s metal gate/door, sending a fireball up the interior steps.
This is what the tower looked like decades ago
No one seems certain of when the tower was built, but it’s been there since at least the 1930s. Some theorize that it was built by the CCC during the Great Depression, to serve as a lookout tower. (I never realized it had once had a roof until I found the image below!)
And yes, some consider it haunted. There are accounts of people seeing lights in the narrow, vertical windows at night – not like someone’s in there with a flashlight, but small spots in the shape of a ball. The same people also saw a figure on top of the tower, that then ran down the interior steps and outside, then disappeared.
The same people returned a few days afterward, and saw a rope noose hanging out one of the tower’s windows. On another visit, they saw a shadowy figure in white hanging upside down from the noose. Other people report being chased across the road by the woman in white.
I’m skeptical by nature, so have trouble believing any of this. But then, I have never been to the tower after dark, which is of course when the creepy stuff always happens. Maybe I should try it some time?
If you live(d) in the Dayton area, have you ever been to the tower? Do you think there’s any truth to the stories? If you’re from elsewhere, do you have any weird, haunted landmarks like this in your hometown, and do you believe the stories?
Contemporary tower photo via forgottenoh.com Historic photo of tower by Rollyn Putterbaugh via fotki.com
by Jennette,
It’s an Ohio thing, who knew? I didn’t, that’s for sure! But, I wanted to do a little digging into this so-called “Hallmark holiday” and find out what it’s really all about.
My Sunbird was not a convertible, but looked much like this one otherwise. There's a reason cars are special to me!
See, for me, Sweetest Day is something more. I admit to being cynical about it until 20 years ago, as I was about Valentine’s Day (“holidays that are great for someone who has a Valentine/Sweetest, and make the rest of us feel like crap”). What changed it for me twenty years ago was, I met my husband. Not on Sweetest Day, but on the night before Labor Day.
We met in a bar after a fireworks display. A friend of mine, who knew him through a friend, said hi, introduced us, then be-bopped off to someone else she knew, leaving me there at the table with the guy I had no idea I would marry, and his friend (whom he hasn’t seen since). I got his number planning to have him work on my car, a Pontiac Sunbird with a bad oil leak. I couldn’t afford a repair shop bill – heck, couldn’t afford any repair bill at that moment – but a month later, I had some money saved so I called him.
I dropped off the car on a Monday night. He called the next evening to let me know what was wrong with it (cracked head gasket) and how much the repairs would cost, then we talked for an hour about all kinds of things. When I picked up the car a few days later, I paid him $400 to fix what would have cost three times that (or more) at a shop, and he asked me out for the following Saturday night.
Sweetest Day editorial that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in October, 1922 (click to enlarge)
That Saturday was Sweetest Day. He left roses on my doorstep earlier that afternoon, while I was out shopping.
Some sources credit Herbert Birch Kingston for starting Sweetest Day in Cleveland in 1922. His original purpose was to spread some cheer to orphans, elderly shut-ins, and other downtrodden or lonely folks by giving them gifts of candy. Kingston was employed by a candy maker, so there was certainly a commercial component to Sweetest Day’s origins. Other sources claim it was totally commercial, the concoction of a federation of Cleveland area candy industry insiders. Although the initial intention was to encourage people to gift candy to anyone, it’s mostly celebrated in romantic relationships modern-day practice.
So, Sweetest Day is a bit more than just a “Hallmark holiday” for me. (Despite its long history, Valentine’s Day is still pretty much that.) I had never really heard of Sweetest Day before high school (1980), but it turns out it’s been around a lot longer – and it was started in Ohio!
The sources I found all stated that Sweetest Day is still largely celebrated in the Great Lakes states, and not much elsewhere – also something I didn’t know, being a lifelong Ohioan.
Sweetest Day is this Saturday, October 15th. I still don’t know what I’m going to get for my husband. Often, we just go out to dinner, which is what we did on our first date.
Do you do anything for Sweetest Day? Or is it a Hallmark holiday for you (or less)? Do you have a fun story of how you met a significant other? Please share!
Car photo via motorbase.com (unattributed) Sweetest Day newspaper clipping via Wikipedia.org
by Jennette,
I forgot to post last night after finishing the night’s revision work. So I’m posting this with my phone – please forgive any typos! Not enough time, can you relate? But at least I am where I wanted to be by now – sanity check list done, and Chapter One revised. How about you?
by Jennette,
Motorcycles as far as the eye can see! The blue one on the left is mine.
Oregonia is a normally-quiet little hamlet just outside of Lebanon, Ohio. But every year on the second Sunday in October, it’s overrun with bikers, biker wannabes, race spectators, and people who just want to party.
The Motorcycle Hill Climbs have been held annually at Powell’s Farm (no relation to me) since 1948. The Dayton Motorcycle Club has hosted the event since 1973. Local lore says that when the original owner passed away a few years ago, the will stipulated to his heirs that the property would be made available to host the Hill Climbs for the next 50 years. As far as I know, the event has been cancelled only once in its history, due to rain. It was rescheduled for the following Sunday, (which has happened more than once), but this one also had rain.
A view from the bottom of the Devil's Staircase
The big draw, of course, is the motorcycles. Not just the dirt bikes in the race, but those in the parking area. Thousands of motorcycles, of every shape, color, size, make and model, from the most plush touring bikes and trikes, to battered, historical fixer-uppers that are barely roadworthy. My husband and I rode up with the guy my husband does funeral work for – who rode one of the special edition Harley Davidson police bikes, with the purple flashing light for funeral use. He got some long looks, LOL.
Beer is sold at the Hill Climbs by the cup – and by the gallon. Years ago, the gallon jugs were numbered. I’m not sure what the purpose of this was, but by the time we arrived, typically between 11AM and noon, people with single- and lower two-digit numbers were usually passed out, jugs in hands or nearby. I had my own, ubiquitous jug – of water.
The races can be pretty exciting. The Oregonia Hill Climbs is the last race of the year for the AMA Pro Hill Climb Racing circuit. Called The Devil’s Staircase, the dirt track goes up something like a 40 degree incline, which doesn’t sound like much, until you try to walk up it. Then imagine riding a motorcycle! The hill is stepped, which presents the greater challenge: the rider must get up enough speed to crest the first step, fifty feet up, then slow enough to not wipe out. If the first step doesn’t cause a rider to wipe out, the ones near the top of the 330-foot hill sometimes do. The winning bikes in the Unlimited and Extreme classes make the climb in seven seconds or less.
Sometimes dirt clods go flying into the audience. One time several years ago, a rider lost it and his bike went over toward the audience. Usually about one in ten participants either drops his bike, or breaks a chain (with the same result). One motorcycle caught fire yesterday as it crested the top of the hill. But not to worry – fire fighters and medical crews were standing by at both the top and the bottom. (The fire was extinguished immediately, and neither rider nor bike were hurt.)
A lot of bikers come to Oregonia on the day of the Hill Climbs and don’t even attend the races – instead, they party on private property, or go to the Little River Cafe down the road – a historic bar/restaurant with lots of outdoor seating. My husband and I usually leave after the first couple of racing classes, in the interest of getting out before the drunks do. It’s not unusual for someone to get hurt leaving the Hill Climbs – unsurprising, considering the amount of beer served. Law enforcement is always present, too.
If you live in the area, have you ever been to the Hill Climbs? If not, is there an event like this in your hometown?
Sequencing was a challenge (as I knew it would be), and making time to work on this was too. But it’s done!
This week’s goals
1. Last minute sanity check – IOW, note important stuff I’m afraid I’ll forget
2. Dig into the real revisions: going through my notes and actually writing the changes on my manuscript pages. This is Lesson 16 and starting on Lesson 17 of Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel system. I say “starting on” because the actual cut is brutal, and this manuscript will definitely be more work than either of my last two, and I’m trying to get it done faster, too. Here’s hoping I’ve learned enough to do that.
Several people expressed interest n HTRYN. She’s not currently taking new students, but will be starting on Monday, I believe. I’ll add a direct link when it’s available.
…I have nothing, writing-wise. But I expected that, as we had dinner plans on Monday, plus Monday is paperwork day, so I often don’t get to writing on Mondays. And yesterday – also expected nothing. The past couple weeks have been one thing after another, and I have things promised to others that I haven’t even been able to get to. Now they’re to the point where I really need to.
