Charlie Foxtrot, all the way up

Okay.  Last week was hell.  I’d have been forced to call in sick, were I still working.  I had one of the worst migraines I’d ever had in my life hit me on Wednesday.  And that was on the heels of a nasty sinus headache playing hell with being able to see straight.

It’s done, now.  Migraine started fading Saturday, and was gone Sunday when I woke up.  And I’ve managed to catch back up on housework (had to drop almost everything last week).

And then yesterday, I got an email.  See, my son wants to play soccer in the school’s peewee league.  So, I signed him up.  They’re just starting their peewee league, and I signed him up with his class.  His practices were set for the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday, after supper.  I figured it could be some father/son time.

I got an email yesterday.  There was a mess-up–the school’s kids’ soccer director hadn’t read the rules clearly.  The kids are sorted by date of birth, not grade.  So, Daniel’s going to be with the next grade up, not his.  Okay.  Fair enough.

We’d planned to get his soccer equipment yesterday for his Tuesday practice.

Problem: new practice was from 3:00 to 4:30 yesterday.

Yeah.

Not even remotely according to my plans.  Andrew managed to get a bit of time off work and scramble for the equipment.  The cleats fit, but the shin guards were too short–Daniel’s all leg, and in the height range that includes MY height, according to the back of the packages.  It didn’t matter anyway–little guy was still recovering from a cold.

We’ve got the soccer thing handled, now, but I wish the school had been a little more on-the-ball from the get-go.

Which left me with the time to test out my idea that I had week before last on how to get my cover art ready to go and get my damn book published.

I think…I think it’ll work.

The canvas is too big for the scanner.  And we don’t even remotely have the right software to scan it a bit at a time and stitch it together–we tried.  And failed.

My idea was that I’d take the camera and take a picture.  I think it’ll work, but I think it’s going to take some work.  And several shots.  I’ll spend a good bit of time on it this afternoon.

I’m praying, crossing fingers as best I can, and hoping that I’m right, that it’ll work.

Well, that was frustrating.

Office Depot’s scanners aren’t big enough.  Neither are Walgreen’s.  There are print shops in town, but I’m really not sure of their scanners, and there are a couple of things making them kind of out of the question for a maybe.*

I am not giving up.  I am not giving up.  I have one more idea.  And even then, I won’t give up.  I’ll figure something out.

Right now, though…right now, I have the house to myself.  I dropped the kids off at 7:30 on the dot (their insistence–they wanted to play in the gym before school started), and I won’t be leaving to pick them up before about 2:30 (they’re out at 2:50) this afternoon.

So, right now…right now, I’m going to write.

Still trying…

I’m going to have to take the artwork to somewhere with a bigger scanner.  Because the canvas won’t fit on my flat-bed scanner.  Nope.  Not even sort of.  Even the main part of it doesn’t really fit well.  I think Office Depot may have something of the sort.  Other than that?  I kinda don’t even know where to start looking.

I…hmm…I may have another idea, but I don’t know if it’ll work…

In any case, that’s not all that’s on the table, right now.  I’ve got a good bit of the second Liquid Diet Chronicles (title, right now, is Having a Pint) plotted out.  First 12,400 words (out of around 60K planned) written; and I know where it’s going.  The problem is having both the time and the energy to write.

This week’s the first full week since June that the kids haven’t had swim lessons; their last week plus a day or so saw their lessons moved from 10:00 to 8:30 am.  That…was draining.  I did get some writing done, but not a whole lot, and only during the swim lessons.  I haven’t done much this week, other than just getting stuff transcribed.  No time–the kids were in need of having a referee constantly at hand.  No energy, either–the constant bickering is draining.

Next week, though…next week, the kids start back to school.  That means from 7:30 to about 2:30 every day they don’t have scheduled off, I’ll have most of the day to myself.  And then…then, the writing will commence.  Because Meg’s damned impatient, and wants to get this shit done, you know?