Some Updates

My Albacon schedule for this coming weekend has been scaled back a little, since my roommate is unable to attend. I’ve changed my room reservation, and I probably will not host a room party. I’ll be arriving at the hotel around noon on Friday and only staying in Albany for the two nights. Otherwise, my scheduled panels and the Saturday reading from The Longer the Fall are all confirmed.

There is, however, an addition to my schedule: I’ll be participating in the group signing on Friday afternoon from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. This concludes the Writers Conference on Friday. I’ll be signing copies of Mortal Touch which will be available at the convention special price of $15.00 each. As always, anyone who buys a copy or brings a copy to have signed is entitled to a free three-card Tarot reading.

Other Updates:

The second sick raccoon I spotted last Thursday did return, briefly. I noticed it curled up asleep in the long grass right by the side of the driveway. I went out and took a close look at it, walked right by it and down to the newspaper box, and walked right by it coming back, and it never stirred, although it was breathing. An hour or so later it was back on its feet and hobbling toward the neighbor’s. Its tail was dragging on the ground and it seemed to be feeling its way with its nose, like it couldn’t see. So pitiful…:-( I haven’t seen it again, nor any other sick animals, although I keep expecting to trip over a corpse. The yard got away from me this summer and there is a lot of long grass that I should have mowed and didn’t. *sigh*

Winter is coming. My freezer–just the top part of my fridge–is filling up with food. I got a lot of containers of almost-past-sale-date strawberries for 75 cents each and one of blueberries for 50 cents, and made lots of berry puree for baking. I now have that, lots of whole blueberries, one container of blackberries, pumpkin puree, homemade tomato sauce, and a tin of little “harvest cakes” I made for the last church service. There’s still room left in the freezer for more! 🙂 I’ve ordered two cords of firewood.

I’ve been doing a lot more food prep than usual. Last Friday, I helped out with vegetable peeling for the First Parish Church’s Harvest Supper, which we did in collaboration with the Congregational Church next door this year. I (like other volunteers) cooked a turkey at home and brought it in, then spent 90 minutes helping peel and cut up potatoes and butternut squash, for what turned out to be about 200 people. The Harvest Supper was a great success despite (or maybe because of) the weather utterly sucking on Saturday, raining out the town’s Pumpkin Festival which had to move into the nearby elementary school. I didn’t help out with the supper itself, though, because I had a conflict. My brother-in-law was at my dad’s for the weekend, helping dad with some work around the house and going to an orienteering meet. On Saturday, I went up and cooked dinner for him and dad: roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, and salad. It all came out very well and I brought home some leftovers.

It being a new month, I was updating my very detailed budget spreadsheets, and out of curiosity, I ran some numbers on my grocery bills. Since I started this dietary regimen, I’ve cut my grocery bills by 30%! I’ve saved about $420 so far this year just on groceries! I’m spending an average of $4.80 per day to feed myself. With my mortgage payments going down 31% this year, and the fact that I cut the cat food costs in half by switching the cats to only dry food, it’s no wonder that I seem to be spending a lot less money in 2009. I couldn’t figure it out!

I’m resuming my Bowflex workouts tonight after a hiatus: one of the cables broke, and I had to order a new set. That’s no biggie–the cables aren’t expensive and this is the second time I’ve replaced them. (I’m really tough on my poor exercise equipment.) But I had to wait for them to be delivered, and there wasn’t a way to expedite shipping. At least Fedex found the right house this time. I think their sense of direction is inversely proportional to the value of the parcel they’re trying to deliver.

I lied about my clothing size. I went up to the LL Bean Outlet store yesterday, and I’m Girls size 12 in their jeans. I tried on the 12s by mistake (I thought they were 14) and they fit perfectly. So I got two pairs–marked down to $14.99, rang up at $12.99. Gods, but it feels good to wear clothes that fit and don’t just hang off me in bags! This last six pounds I have to lose are proving to be very resistant, but I’ll get there. (Edit: I got the new winter boots I needed, too–LL Bean boots, half price!)