zeborah | Reading

Wanted y’all to hear it from me: CROWNWORLD (book 3 of the Moonstorm trilogy) is canceled. I will not be completing the book (the trilogy). I’m very sorry to readers who were hoping for the conclusion.

This was a mutually agreed, amicable decision between the primary/US publisher (Delacorte), the UK publisher (Rebellion Publishing - Solaris Books), and myself.

Between sales and publishing realities (MOONSTORM sold poorly and its prospects are unlikely to improve for political reasons you can guess), this was a rare situation where this benefits both publishers and myself. I could not announce the cancellation earlier for legal/contract reasons, and can't "simply" release the partial draft of CROWNWORLD for same.

I didn’t plan on MOONSTORM being a market failure. But novel-writing is a career with baked-in instability and career risk. I knew that going in.

Abbreviated version of what happened on my end:
I have 66,000 words of a near-finished draft that I don’t plan on resuming. The breaking point was when I had a concussion in March 2025.

You might ask why I don’t “just” yeet the last 10,000 words to have a book for release to readers even if the print publishers are no longer interested in publishing it. After illness and family crises, I’m exhausted. More than one person close to me nearly died; I set writing aside for months to do caretaking. I have peripheral neuropathy (among other things); my hands and feet might recover, or they might get worse and curtail my ability to do the things that bring me joy.

Both my publishers extended incredible grace and kindness to me during this period. This is not on them. The trilogy existence failure is on me.

I’m moving on. I’ve spent the past several years writing ~three books every two years (or 1.5 books per year - releases won't line up because of production/publishing variables). This probably sounds slow/leisurely but was not sustainable with my health as unstable as it is. There would have been a breaking point down the line even if it hadn’t happened with this specific book. I'm going to spend some time on endeavors just for the joy of it.

I hope y’all have many books you’re looking forward to reading, by other writers.

Note: I’m not in financial distress at present. Please don’t worry on that account.

Best,
YHL

kareina

We stayed up too late last night, oops. We hadn’t meant to, but the time between our group training on zoom at 21:00, and 23:00, when we finally went to sleep just zipped by. This make it a little tough to wake up this morning, but I managed, and got some tidying up done around the house while chatting with Keldor as he drove to work.

Then I sat down to the computer and resolved to actually make some progress learning the new tool “SEAD Shape Shifter” that my colleague has built for mapping datasets to our database structure. I have tried doing this off an on since he unveiled it just before I went to Uppsala last week, and haven’t made much progress. Today, after trying again, I decided that what I really need to do is just sit down with the guy who made it and have me walk through it step by step, till I understand how one uses it. So I sent him a calendar request for Monday morning early, and he replied with “how about Monday afternoon instead?” Yes, that works fine for me too.

Then I thought “I should prepare for the meeting”, and sat down and took notes about every window in the tool, filling in tables for each with the names of every box, if it is a drop down menu, free form entry, or what, if it is drop-down menu what each of the options are, plus a blank column into which I will be able to write down notes as to what everything is and how we use it.

After several days of no ability to focus on work and getting easily distracted, I suddenly had a project that I could fall into—my “quick little preparation” for Monday’s meeting felt like it took perhaps 15 minutes to work my way through everything, but a couple of hours elapsed. I like it when I can focus like that and accomplish stuff. Bonus when it is work stuff, and I am getting paid to do it.

While I worked Simon returned and resumed in the attic on the Create extra bathrooms project. Now the bathroom walls are pretty much done and ready for us to spackel and paint, and the wall for the back of the closet next to the loo (which will create a warm space over where the water incoming and drainage pipes slope through the floor to where they head down through the hall closet to the basement) has been well started. Tomorrow Simon will insulate the closet wall, cover it with gips. On Monday he will go buy the parts for the sliding door, and will mount it on Monday.

Then, as soon as we get the room painted and the floor installed the plumbers can return and install the sink and toilet and get them working. The easy part of the project, where I throw money at it and it just happens, is winding to a close, and soon we need to find the energy to do our part. Or, once I get the bill for the part I am hiring, I can decide if I can afford to have the contractor do more than I have already ordered.

kareina

Having gone to bed early, I woke for the early stages of the dawn light, and decided to get up for a quick pilates session, as my hips were aching a little. Then I returned to bed and curled up with Keldor, who decided that today is a day where sleeping in is more important than getting to work on time, so I got a 35 minute nap before waking again.

While I worked, the contractor was busy in the attic, putting in insulation, and starting the walls. Getting this far before lunch:

And this far after lunch:

walls

This evening I was busy. Keldor has a gift in progress that needs runes, so I spent a little time browsing the Rune Database to see how certain words are used on rune stones, using the search function for a single letter in the relevant word, then using shift-F7 to check the results for the words I wanted. Because those results are shown in several languages, including Old Norse, Swedish, and English, I could search for either English or Swedish spellings, and then see how the the word was spelled on the stone. Then, for some of them, we can cross-reference för the rune stone number on Runkartan, where they have transcribed the runes themselves, using the Futhark rune font. and see which runes were used. Once I did all that, I took a photo of the object into CorelDraw, added a curve where I wanted the runes to sit, then used the “fit text to curve” option to make the runes follow the path, and then sent him the photo of the result, to use as an example when he does the actual carving.

Since Charlotte wasn’t feeling well last weekend and didn’t get to come up for the bardic, she opted to come up this weekend instead, so we have company again, and so I should put down the computer and get ready for training tonight.

kareina

Didn’t want to get up this morning. Did anyway. Got to the bus on time. Worked. Meeting. Another meeting on the bus home. Read for a while (Keldor took a long bath). Shower with my sweet boyfriend. Yoga. Heading to bed early, because I can.

kareina

Made a new batch of Muesli before work, the first since finding those bags of freeze dried raspberries and strawberries that I bought (forgot where). They are a lovely addition!

I began my work day with good energy, and started accomplishing things straight away, but after about an hour became super sleepy, so I took a short nap, and tried working again, soft of managed a few things, and was still so sleepy I gave up and went back to bed, setting an alarm for 20 minutes. Then Keldor called after I had been asleep for 10, so after that call I tried getting up and working, but never really accomplished much with the day.

In the evening we had our first Reengarda styrelsemöte (meeting of the shire officers) for the year, during which we made the formal decision of which of us are authorised to access the bank account, so we can turn in that paperwork to the bank. While we were waiting for meeting time we played a game of Qwirkle on the living room carpet in front of the computer, and I got a truly impressive amount of Qwirkles, giving me a 57 point victory. If I thought the new location made a difference, I would want to play sitting on the carpet more often!

After that meeting it was time for our zoom training meeting, and then I took a shower and went straight to sleep, as I was still tired.

kareina

Despite having stayed up late last night for the bardic, I still managed to get up early enough to say goodbye to Daniel and Cinder, who left at 07:00. I had thought to go back to sleep after that, but before I accomplished that goal Albreda had gotten up, and we got to talking, and then it was time to wake Keldor to get ready to head into town for crafts afternoon, where we celebrated Viriya’s birthday and had a pleasant afternoon chatting with folk and working on projects.

Then we stopped by the store to stock up on a few things we’d run out of with house guests this weekend and dropped Albreda off at the airport before coming home for a quiet evening, but with a very full heart after such a nice weekend with house guests and bardic visitors.

Having learned yesterday how to play his Bunne bygelgitarr, Keldor this evening asked google for a list of songs that can be played with that few chords, and chose Bad Moon Rising as the first one to try, and it went quite well. I hope that he continues to work with this instrument, and that I play mine more often!

james_davis_nicoll

Federal Ranger Cracka Buckshore's efforts to keep irate parents from lynching handsome Fodo Bathin are complicated when Cracka, Fodo, and everyone else on the planet are kidnapped and taken to an artificial universe.

Golden Sunlands by Christopher Rowley

china_shop

Argh, I need to get back into regular posting, because otherwise these things get monstrously long! I might start breaking the sections up into separate posts. After this one.

Previous poll review
In the Om poll, 7.8% of respondents meditate regularly, 23.5% meditate from time to time, and 41.2% said no. In ticky-boxes, "skipping across treetops and dancing through the clouds" came second to hugs, 45.1% to 74.5%. "Feeling kind of zonky" came third with 41.2%. Thank you for your votes!

Reading
More Bujold -- Andrew and I finished Shards of Honor (incl the scene with my DNWs; thankfully there's just the one) and have just started Barrayar. Really enjoying her sense of humour.

In the Penric novellas (also Bujold), I'm listening in the order they're served up to me, so I've read Penric's Demon, Penric and the Shaman, Penric's Fox, and I've now stalled out in the middle of Masquerade in Lodi. Idk why, it just hasn't grabbed me.

I have the next Wimsy book open on my Kindle, but have not given any time to reading lately.

Kdramas
Some more Family by Choice with Pru. I love this show so much.

I finished Can This Love Be Translated? which was quirky and slightly disconcerting all the way up to the last episode. And then the last episode made me go, loudly and repeatedly, "What? WHAAAT?!" Hong sisters, I love you, but I question those last-minute narrative choices.

Long ramble; spoilers for the whole show

The setup is that an up-and-coming actress stars in a low-budget horror movie where she plays a killer zombie. On the last day of shooting, she has an accident and winds up in a coma for six months (no post-coma PT required). During that time, she becomes an international sensation, so she wakes up a star. For most of the drama, while shooting a reality travel show, she's haunted by her character from the horror movie, or possibly she has multiple personality? It becomes more MP-ish as it progresses, and ends up kind of creepy-sweet. But there's a whole childhood backstory about her mother poisoning her father, trying to poison the main character as well, and then taking the poison herself. After that, the main character had to stay with emotionally distant relatives, so many resultant issues. Given the horror elements and backstory, I wondered if the reveal was going to be that the kid had accidentally killed her parents instead, or something like that? (And how would you even handle that in a romance?) Instead, the reveal was... her parents both survived the murder-suicide incident due to paramedic intervention, but left the country separately, neither wanting to see their daughter again, and NO ONE HAD EVER TOLD HER. And the haunting/MP alter was actually her mother (or based on her mother)???? So in the final episode, the main character leaves the country to find her parents, off-screen, and then the main couple reunite for the romantic ending. It was just... what a weird way to resolve the backstory?? Surely the fact that both of her (messed-up) parents chose to abandon her opens up more cans of worms, rather than resolving anything? But that's not even touched on! And to suddenly tell us that the person she's been for half the show (who flirts with her love interest and goes around randomly kissing people) is ?based on? her murderous mother??? Whaaaat??

Anyway, I enjoyed the translation side of things a lot and the leads and romance generally.

Am now watching Beyond the Bar on my brother's rec (not that brother; the other one), though he then emailed to say he didn't like the ending. It's pretty brutal in places, and

spoiler

the male lead's trauma is that he wants to be a dad, and his ex-wife had an abortion while they were together.

Plus, if they're trying for an office romance, that seems wildly ill-advised. But I'm enjoying it so far, so I'll see.

Other TV
Watched two and a half seasons of Barry before all the murder/moral complicity got to me.
We tried Bones and noped out halfway through episode 1. Also, half of Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic where he's an ape.

We're currently watching:
- The Pitt -- waiting impatiently for the next episode. (No spoilers, please!!)
- SurrealEstate -- Canadian, seems fun and not quite as episodic as I expected.
- Wonder Man -- MCU, fantastic cast, nicely paced, fun, very curious to see how they're going to wrap it up, because we only have two short episodes to go and they have a LOT of balls in the air.
- Hacks -- about female stand-up comics; we've only watched the pilot, but I plan to continue a bit longer before we decide one way or the other.
- We Are Lady Parts season 2 -- a timeline cleanse/refresh. (I love them all so much!! Why are they so hard to draw? ;-p)

My sister and I just finished season 3 of Fringe. I was having trouble staying away for the last two episodes, but that might not have been the show's fault.

Also Andrew and I saw Avatar: Fire and Ash at the movies. (A bit too action-y for me; I preferred #2.)

Audio entertainment
- Writing Excuses
- The Shit No One Tells You About Writing (episode: The Job of a Disruption -- paraphase/jotted down quote: The job [of the disruption] isn't just to catch the protagonist off-guard. The job of the disruption is to then reveal layers of power dynamics. That could be a further deepening of existing power dynamics in a way that reveals complications, or it could be a power shift (lose or gain power). Looking for threat, temptation, tension, curiosity.)

- multiple listens of the Good Manager podfic

celli made me for

fandomtrees (listed here because I loaded it into Pocket Casts)
- Keep It Steady (in-progress m/m high-school fake-dating audiodrama; relisten, some eps multiple times)

( US politics. )

- Cross Party Lines (NZ Politics)
- The Tongue Unbroken (episode: The Ocean That Unites Us)

Writing/making things
I have one

fandomtrees fic at beta (my beta for that fandom is super busy with off-line stuff). I've been working through the other one, and I'm a bit worried it's got all clogged up with feelings exposition, which is something that's been bugging me about my writing lately -- but I may just be hypervigilant about that, idk. I have a post for

fan_writers in the works. Art practice has ground to a halt for now. Everything is fine.

Life/health/mental state things
( Cut for length. )

Food
My parents accidentally bought a mini air fryer. The basket is 15.5cm in diameter, about big enough for a single cupcake. I offered it a home and have been using it for various things. A new favourite, courtesy of Youtube "air fryer hacks" videos, is leftover pizza, sandwiched together with more cheese in the middle, and reheated till it's crispy. A+

Link dump
Samsung caught faking zoom photos of the Moon (The Verge, a couple of years ago) | The Mayor of Ottawa declared Shane Hollander Day (what is happening?? Heated Rivalry has also shown up in our local newspaper's trivia quiz and in the NYT's Connections puzzle, lol) | Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis (Youtube.)
(The rest are literally just tabs I'm closing that I want to be able to find again) How to break up with Google | Head South (NZ film I intend to try sometime) | Sacha Judd's website, What you love matters (articles page) | Spacious Acting (old skool acting blog) | NZ Respiratory illness dashboard.

Good things
Andrew. Modern medicine. Treats from the bakery. Having two houses. The cat. Thoughts about writing. Greeting cards. You all. Hugs!!

Poll #34182 Neighbours

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41

View Respondents

Do you know your neighbours?

View Answers

we socialise / lend things
9 (22.0%)

we have each other's phone numbers/email and chat in passing
22 (53.7%)

well enough to nod or wave
22 (53.7%)

not really
10 (24.4%)

some of them
19 (46.3%)

they suck / we have issues / we're at war
2 (4.9%)

other
2 (4.9%)

ticky-box full of sloths in slippers having staircases installed in their trees
17 (41.5%)

ticky-box full of cat photos
24 (58.5%)

ticky-box full of taking for granted the flawless regularity of printed text
17 (41.5%)

ticky-box full of board games (Scrabble counts)
12 (29.3%)

ticky-box full of the dusty fuzz of old red velvet against your fingertips
12 (29.3%)

ticky-box full of hugs
29 (70.7%)

kareina

Since we had been late last night with our quest for Northern Lights, I hadn’t had much sleep when I got up at 06:00. Even so, I had enough energy to accomplish everything I wanted to do before the party:

Bake cookies
Bake Garlic Bread
Make a pot of chili
Clean the kitchen (with help) after both my cooking, and Keldor’s cooking (he’d made sil and potatis, as Mary had never tasted pickled herring, and was curious enough to try it)
Cut out and work on fitting for Daniel’s cloak.
Helped with rolling and pinning the hems on Cinder’s black tabard
Moved my computer desk out of the living room and arranged my computer recliner chair and rocking chair to better create a circle like space in the room.
moved my hammer dulcimer and bas moraharpa to the living room
tuned the dulcimer and started tuning the moraharpa.

At this point Mickel Räf arrived, and when he learned I was tuning the moraharpa he offered to help, which assistance I cheerfully accepted. Then he tried playing it, and did a good enough job that I had no problem recognising the tune he played, though he commented that it would take time and practice to be able to play it smoothly Then Albreda tried it, and also got recognisable tunes straight away.

Then Keldor showed off his musical instrument collection, and Mickel showed him how one plays his Bunne bygelgitarr, the odd square four-stringed guitar with a movable lever to get the three chords that it will play (A, D and G).

Soon thereafter Gerdis arrived and she and Mickel took out their violins, which they played off and on all evening, sometimes just playing music, sometimes playing along with something the rest of us were singing. Once I even played my dulcimer (Ridom) and they played along.

spelm�n

Albreda borrowed a violin briefly, and then picked up some crocheting, while Daniel worked on his chain mail art, Cinder and I did sewing, and Keldor worked on armour.

The evening was a delightful mix of music, song, and conversation, and even a little dancing. Even our neighbours, Rizza and Sture dropped by for a while, and seemed to enjoy it, and expressed interest in joining Reengarda. I love having company, and having company that sings and or plays music is even better! 100% recommend, will do again.

kareina

Took a walk during lunch with Cinder up to the store, returned home and tried to resume work, but then Albreda sent a note saying which bus she’d taken, and it was pretty much time to walk up to the bus stop, so I shut down the computer, put on coat, hood, and boots, and went out the door. A couple of blocks later my arms explained that I would have been smart to have put on the same wool sweater under my coat that I had worn the first time, as it is, in fact, cold out.

But -23 ⁰ C isn’t too cold for a wool coat over a cotton flanell shirt for only the 15 minutes walk to the bus stop, so I continued on, but I waited for the bus inside the house. Neither did we walk home, as Keldor was only a couple of minutes after the bus.

We then spent some time hanging out with Albreda and Cinder. A bit later my friend from work, with partner, dropped by briefly to drop off a synthesizer he his hoping to trade to Keldor for a woodworking axe. As luck would have it, the style of blade he is looking for is the same as the copy of an adze from the Mästermyr chest Keldor has lying in the desk drawer full of blades awaiting handels, so if he decides to accept the trade it won’t take much additional time.

Alas, they couldn’t stay as they were on their way to a family gathering in Skellefteå, but hopefully they will come again another time.

As they were leaving Daniel arrived. He had planned to take the train down from Kiruna, but it was -43⁰ C there, and that is so cold the train was cancelled, so he drove down instead.

So the evening was spent in good company, everyone doing crafts.

Albreda was the first to go to sleep, fairly early, due to an early start to the day, and but set an alarm for midnight, to see if the predictions for decent Northern Lights viewing between then and 04:00 were accurate.

An hour or three later Cinder said goodnight, and as midnight approached the rest of us were getting ready for bed, and I decided to go do a scouting mission, and bundled up for the walk down to the nature reserve to see if they were out. They weren’t but it was a really beautiful with a largish moon shining so brightly that the trees cast sharp shadows onto the snow. I went straight back in and around then Mary was just waking up from her nap as her alarm reminded her to check for Northern Lights.

So we went out for a lovely moonlight stroll in the -23 weather. It was so bright out, we could even take a selfie!

selfie

kareina

Niklas returned and started putting in the drainage pipes to the attic. He replaced the old metal vertical pipe to the attic with a plastic pipe, and added a split that runs off towards the new loo. In order to accomplish this he needed to drill holes in the floor jousts, each a little lower than the next (counting from the end by the loo), so that there is enough of a slope in the line that flushing the toilet will actually send the water etc. moving that direction. Then he added another split, to a decreasing sized drain for the sink.

While he worked, Gustav, the electrician also came over and started running the wires. I thought the plan was to run them in the same sub-closet enclosure as the pipes, so when we discussed drilling down through the floor of the closet to run the new wires directly to the fuse box, I expected the hole to come out into the laundry room. This is also what we expected, and we used the laser measuring tool to determine how far from the outer wall it would be. Answer, around the middle of where the old door between the bedroom and laundry room sits the one that we intend to board up, so, yah, I am good with that.

Neither of us paid attention to the fact that the wall on the edge of the stairs is a little off set with respect to the wall between the laundry room and the downstairs bedroom. If I had, I wouldn’t have thought it mattered, since I expected the wires to go down the closet side wall, which is perpendicular to the offset wall I just described.

However, rather than running those wires in the closed off bit of the closet, he opted to run them down the center back of the closet itself, so, assuming we put back the existing very tightly fitting shelves, we will need to cut a divot into the back edge of the shelf to accommodate them.

It turns out that the wall offset in the cellar is pretty much exactly the width of the wall, and that the wall between the upstairs bedroom and bathroom is not offset. This meant that when he drilled down right next to the west side of the hole on the main floor, it punched through right next to the east side of the wall in the cellar bedroom. Oops.

He came and called me, and I decided that was fine, the wires could go from there over to the fuse box in the cellar, and he resumed work.

By the time his work day was done he had run wires to where the light switch in the new loo will be, and an outlet right next to that switch, another outlet below them facing to the outside of that wall into the main room. Another wire over to above the sink for the light there, and also to the outside of that wall for an outlet into the half of the attic that will remain cold storage. He also left a long coil of wire ready to run the other direction to do outlets in the bedroom itself.

As they were finishing up their work, the first of our house guests for the weekend, Cinder, arrived, so I quit work early to catch up with her. After they left I cleaned away all the concrete dust and chunks out of the guest room and moved her stuff down stairs to empty the entry area before the housekeeper arrived.

While the housekeepers were working their magic Cinder decided she was sleepy, and went downstairs to rest, so I returned to the computer to wrap up my work day.

Keldor ran some errands after work, including checking the second hand store, where he found a bathroom mirror with a lamp above and a shelf under for only 69 sek, so he got it. Then he also went to another store and bought a new towel hook, a toilet bowl brush, and one of those free standing toilet paper holders that hold a stack of spare rolls on the upright post, and have a folding horizontal top for the active roll.

When he got home we looked at the day’s renovation accomplishments and discussed the options we had discussed with the plumber for ensuring that the water lines to the upstairs loo don’t freeze, and agreed on building the insulated wall on the outside of where those come into the attic.

This means we can build closets into the wall in that area, which will give much needed storage without losing space in the room itself, so a win all the way around.

kareina

One would think that today would be a smart day to sleep in, since the plane didn’t land last night till 22:45, which meant that it was just before midnight before we were home, the cats had had treats, the litter box emptied, and a quick shower taken so I could get to bed (yay pre-flight airport yoga, which meant I could go nearly straight to bed) just before midnight. But no, I hopped up with Keldor just after 05:00, and while we talked during his drive to work I managed to:

Clean away all of the things at the back of the “walk in closet” in the bedroom (created by putting the paperback bookshelves about a meter in front of the built in closets along one way) so that I could move the litter box there (after taping some butcher paper to the walls)
moved the litter box to the prepared place, and cleaned all of the litter that had collected around it back into the box.
emptied the cupboard above the litter box, moving the cleaning supplies to the space in the kitchen under the microwave and food dehydrator, the towels into the cupboard with the sheets, and the miscellaneous other things to the craft supplies room. So that cupboard is ready for the plumbers to drill holes through the one side of it to run plumbing through
cleaned up the garage enough to make room for more stuff
Moved most things in the laundry room to the garage
took the various bits of scrap wood left over from the building of the framework for the walls in the attic, and cutting away the old floor for Create extra bathrooms to the cellar, where some of it will be re-used in other projects, and others will be burned in the furnace on days Keldor wants extra hot water for a bath.

I got that all done on time to have breakfast before the plumbers arrived. It turns out that they had expected that Simon would have put the holes through the floor and into the cellar for the pipes to the attic, but clearly Simon didn’t know that, so Marcus will call him to arrange that and discuss details, while Niklas started on work in the cellar. He is cutting away the existing plumbing in the laundry room completely, and getting it set up to move the water for the washing machine over to the other side of the room, where it will live, and install both a toilet and sink where the washer stands now.

Of course, this means I can’t flush the toilet or run water down the sink till he’s done. I have extra drinking and cooking water in the fridge and filled a couple of buckets for washing with, and put a bucket in the sink to catch washing water. A small inconvenience for what will be a huge improvement! I am really looking forward to having another toilet and a sink in the basement. Just think—one will be able to wash one’s hands after doing messy things in the workshop, without having to come up stairs!

Soon after I wrote that much, Niklas came up and said that Markus had spoken to Simon, who hadn’t thought about preparing the closet for the plumbing pasing through when he did his cost estimate. Niklas wondered if opening that up was something that Keldor and I could do today? If so he could do the downstairs today, and come back tomorrow to get the pipes to the attic taken care of.

I called Keldor, and found out that in addition to being tired from staying up way too late picking me up from the airport last night, he was also having a n especially difficult day at work. He started the day with a job in the platinum extraction room at Boliden’s ore processing plant, a place that is very warm. The whole day was spent in various locations at that instalation, working in temperatures ranging from 25⁰ to 30⁰ C, while wearing full protective gear, so he spent the whole day dripping sweat while doing extremely physical instalation jobs.

As soon as I heard that I understood how his day was going, I knew that if we were going to open up acess to the existing pipes in that closet (currently the part of the plumping system that opens out on the roof’s vent stack to ensure that the drainage works), it would have to be me, who does the job.

So I made the quick decision to prioritize the house over work (an easy decision given that I was too tired to be at full brain capacity for data mapping, and taking shelves out of the closet and opening the wall sounded more fun just then).

It took all day. This house was built by a professional who built it as his own house, and when he did that enclosed area to protect that pipe in the corner of the closet he didn’t intend for anyone to ever open it up again.

If I had been prepared to destroy the building materials in the process, it would have been easier. However, when the plumbing in the attic is installed, we still want that closet to function as a closet, so I wanted the shelves intact, which meant not only hammering (with the big wooden hammer) from the underside to get their nails holding them to the small shelf support edge boards, it was also necessary to remove those shelf supports to get the very perfectly fit shelves to rotate enough to losen so I could remove them. The shelf with a metal rod closet bar under it was only possible to remove after Nikals bent the rod for me to extract it.

Ok, the bottom shelf, which Keldor and I had installed when we converted that closet to an open bottom area for the litter box, and an upper enclosed cupboard for cleaning supplies on the bottom and towels and other things on the upper shelves, was easy to removed, as we had installed that one into the existing closet space, so the shelf was just enough smaller than the space to make it possible to rotate into place and then sit on wider shelf supports than used for the upper shelves, which were installed before the front part of the closet frame and door were installed.

(Keep in mind that the back corner of the closet, where the pipe enclosure is, takes only ¾ of the space, so the shelves all have a small L shaped projection to one corner, that makes rotation for removal challenging.)

Once I managed to get all the shelves I started removing masonite layer from the pipe enclosure, with no care to preserve that bit, I accepted that I was destroying it, I don’t know about new masonite, but the 70 year old stuff crumbles when you pry on it, and the finising nails holding it in place have heads so small the can’t be extracted without lifting the masonite itself (and, since it was painted, the nail location wasn’t even visible till I started prying).

Once the masonite was out of the way it revealed a solid tongue in grove board construction under layer, with the length of the boards running from floor to ceiling. The boards, having been sealed under the painted masonite since the house was built in 1956, still look fresh and new and yellow, so I knew that I wanted to preserve them at full length, if possible.

I rather suspected that Keldor would vote for using them in some other project(s), and do a different solution to that closet corner, so I started by prying the edge board enough to losen the nails enough to remove them. However, that wasn’t enough to take it out, as the top of that board was surrounded by a thin layer of the masonite on the celing of the closet, and the base went into the floor of the closet, which is 5 cm higher that the floor of the room.

I tried using the chisel to shave away the ceiling masonite, and got enough cleared away thatI could tilt the board out, but the base wouldn’t pull out from under the closet floor. Eventually, I consulted with the plumber. We decided that it may be nailed to something under there, and it isn’t worth taking apart the front of the closet to lift the floor to get those boards loose.

Instead, the plumber used his oscillating tool to cut all of the boards off at 20 cm height, which made it possible to remove the boards and expose the pipe ready for him to change it out tomorrow.

By then the plumber was ready to head home, his workday done.

kareina

My morning flight to Uppsala was scheduled to depart at 06:00, so we needed to be on the road by 04:45 at the absolute latest. Therefore I set the dawn light for 04:10, and a backup alarm for 04:15 (everything was already packed).

I woke before the dawn light even started, so I did a quick 15 minutes pilates session before getting ready, and we were still out the door by 04:33.

I didn’t try to work on the flight as the person seated next to me had broad shoulders and wore a coat with padded arms, so spilled well into my side of the seat, so typing on a computer, or even sewing, would have been cramped and uncomfortable so I took a nap instead.

I landade at Arlanda airport around 1 hour before my colleagues who flew out of Umeå, so after finding a toilet I then looked up their gate and waked to the other end of the terminal to meet them. By the time I had come so far there wasn’t much time to wait before they had landed.

They are staying for other meetings, so both had checked baggage, so we went to baggage claim, and Phil’s bag came out straight away, but Ershad’s didn’t. So we went to the “my bag didn’t arrive” counter and they started to look for it in their system. When it looked like it might be a while Ershad suggested that we head to catch our train, while he waited for the bag.

So we did, but luck smiled on Ershad, and he caught up with us, with his luggage, just before the train arrived.

We stopped at a cafe on the way to uni for second breakfast. I don’t normally like sandwiches, but they had one that looked interesting, an avocado and artichoke cream on a fruit bread base. So I asked what was in the artichoke cream besides artichoke, so she let me read the label on the jar. No vinegar. Yes, I will try that. I really enjoyed it. I love artichoke. I love avocado. I like bread with cranberries in it. Combining them with a dusting of sesame seeds and chilli turns out to be good, too.

avocado sandwhich

After we had eaten we walked over to the uni, where first we met with some of our Swedigarch colleagues to discuss a workshop we want to do this spring, and discussed potential dates. Assuming that the people not present today who need to participate in the workshop agree to the date, then it looks like I will need to be in Göteborg Tuesday after Double Wars, in which case I would go there straight from the event and fly home after.

Then we joined even more colleges for lunch, which was good company. The cafeteria food was cafeteria food. Their only vegetarian option was stir fried noodles with a hint of vegetables for colour, and not much flavour beyond salt and oil. Being hungry, I ate it anyway.

After lunch we met with the people who provided one of the data sets that we will ingest into our database, which was a productive meeting with lots of useful information, and a lovely fika with cardamon bread and blueberry bread. Yum!

After that meeting ended at 16:00 my colleagues went on to the castle for another meeting, and I met Hjalmar and Sofie. I was hungry, and desperate for vegetables after two high starch meals on a row, so we went for Ethiopian food, and sat and talked and worked on sewing projects till it was time for me to head to the train station and return to the airport.

They say that one needs 1.5 hours at Arlanda to get through security and to the gate. When taking the last flight of the day on a Tuesday the lines are nonexistent, so I had time to clean up my meeting notes a bit and do some yoga before it was time to board.

I also impulse bought Keldor a little gift. He likes liquorice, so when I saw a shop selling nothing but liquorice I looked in. He also likes foods containing tar. So I asked if they had anything containing both. They did, three different types to choose from, so I picked one at random. I hope he likes it. Note: I don’t like liquorice. I don’t like tar. He’s on his own with this candy, no matter if he likes it or not.

kareina

Simon came and did the first steps for our attic bathroom. The old floor is up, and the wall frames are on place.

He will come back after the electrician gets wires drawn there, and the plumbers get the pipes in place.

Since he was coming, I worked from home in the morning, but I had a meeting in the afternoon, so I took the bus that should have left at 11:20, but it was closer to 11:35 that it actually arrived, so I was a little worried I might be late to the meeting. But I managed just on time.

The meeting ended early enough to swing buy the store to get some salad from the salad bar to eat on the bus home again (I foolishly also bought a garlic bread baguette, thinking I would eat half. Nope, the whole thing vanished. Oops.)

Since my flight to Uppsala tomorrow leaves early, we went to bed at a reasonable hour.

hrj

There's a terrible tension when reading fiction submissions between wanting to share the experience (both the good and the questionable) and knowing that no good ever came from discussing specific submissions in public. [1] Especially when...*waves hi to some of my submitters who also read this journal.*

If I had an editorial team, then that would be the appropriate forum for such discussions, but the project simply isn't big enough to call for anyone besides me. (Also, part of the joy of a small project is that ability to cater to one's own tastes without the need for compromise.)

I think as the Fiction Series has evolved, I've gotten a bit more skilled at identifying and articulating what I'm looking for and what drives my decisions. I've blogged a couple times in general terms on that topic (and link to it in the Call for Submissions) so even those who don't follow me personally in social media can have a glimpse inside my decisions process, if they care to.

Anyway, nothing really important here, just ruminating on my current priority. Only 7 more stories to read in the first round, then comes the harder part.

[1] Conventions have occasionally had panels on the theme "it came from the slush pile" where stories get shared, but anything that gets specific enough that a particular story/author could be identified is rather in bad taste.

james_davis_nicoll

This all-new Human Gorilla Heists Bundle presents .PDF ebooks from Human Gorilla Creations that help you create tabletop fantasy roleplaying adventures of thieves and thievery.

Bundle of Holding: Human Gorilla Heists

james_davis_nicoll

Aisha's unique senses could help the empire escape the ecological crisis the empire has inadvertently engineered. Too bad dynastic security requires her death.

The Girl from the West (Kokun, volume 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (Translated by Cathy Hirano)

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Hi all!

I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.

Thank you!

james_davis_nicoll

I just got email from Fig's owner that Fig (who I owned from 2012 to 2017) passed away this evening. Cause unknown. My impression is Fig just didn't wake up.

hrj

I forget whether I discovered the technique for turning artichoke leaves into cardoons earlier than last year. Having solidly learned the knack, I've started the harvest already (while the globes won't start showing up for a couple more months). The result is basically a slightly bitter "carrier" for other flavors, but they add bulk and fiber to a dish. They go well with marinara sauce, for example.

I actually got my act together to grow some "winter vegetables" this year and have a dozen cabbages thinking about doing something, as well as some assorted greens. Haven't checked to see if the peas have come up, but there are also onions that were started as seed last spring that have gotten as far as scallions now. This is the tricky time of year when I don't have the irrigation turned on, so I need to pay attention to whether it's raining often enough to keep things going.

I harvested all dozen or so of my grapefruit and they're chilling happily in the crisper drawer. (Some critter had gotten to a couple of them, so I didn't want to leave them on the tree.) I have a half grapefruit every couple of days, since the word is that they don't always play well with blood thinners and I don't want to overdo it, but that'll take me through the end of the month or so.

The juice oranges are mostly ripe and I'm picking one or two at a time. (I think there may be a couple dozen in total across three trees.) And it's time to Do Something with this year's Seville orange crop, which reminds me I need to reach out to the friend who wants some for marmalade. (I can never remember what the middle vowel in marmalade should be on the first try.)

Other than that, I need to spend a lot more time pruning and weeding during the wet-and-fallow season. But the first daffodil bloomed today, so there's that.

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zeborah

February 2024

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Zeborah's reading page

Reading

for anyone wondering: CROWNWORLD publication (book) canceled

more progress

the new room is getting walls

another sleepy day

a sleepy day

Reengardas hantverkträff

Golden Sunlands by Christopher Rowley

Me-and-media update

Bardic!

visitors!

two contractors today

a busy morning

a long day

The project we have been eagerly waiting for has begun!

Reading Submissions

Bundle of Holding: Human Gorilla Heists

The Girl from the West (Kokun, volume 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (Translated by Cathy Hirano)

Minor operations; testing new serving path

Fig (2011 - 2026)

Veggies of My Estates

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February 2024

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