Raven’s Range
Blather around a virtual range

It’s been a rough week.

JR became so sick that we had to rush him to the vet. He was too far gone, in too much pain, and we had him put down. :( Then we had to grieve. The other cats are getting used to the new order but they don’t actually like one another as much as they did JR, so their primary kitty buddy is gone. I’m still struggling a bit with the change. After ten years, one gets used to having a large orange kitty around.

I’m definitely feeling the bite of overwhelm now. I have started the rework of Markeroni and the end result is going to be so much better, but I’m not at the stage where I can see my way clear. I wish I could have just finished one piece of the puzzle this week, but what’s happened is that I’ve tackled a piece, it’s gotten frustrating and fiddly, and I’ve moved on to the next to save my sanity. The work I’m doing is very intricate and involved, which is not really my forte, but there is a reason this kind of thing is called spaghetti code. ;)

Right now I don’t actually feel as though I’m getting anywhere, and I’m acutely aware that while I’m involved in this I’m not earning money, which worries me. I’m thinking of how to approach getting more business and non-profit clients for writing brochures, newsletters and the like; I also need to approach some magazines.

Worrying about all of this translated into a good old bout of insomnia last night, so Don took us into Weaverville to find some token item at the open-all-hours drug store. (It turned out to be a can of stew.) On the way back some construction workers flagged us down to let us know that our tail light was out. We’d gone down a rugged dirt road earlier (it jolted us so much that the case of Coke we were carrying split in half, shedding cans willy-nilly around, many of which ruptured; it apparently also unhooked the wiring of the tail light).

Meanwhile, the smoke is bad more often than not, and highway 299 is on and off closed as the Whiskeytown fires continue to get out of hand. Most of last week it’s been over a hundred, which means there are no walks, which is a good way of relieving stress and getting perspective. As it stands I get breathless just going the few hundred feet up to the house.

It’s not all bad, though. I met someone through Freecycle that I recognized as being an (inactive) Bookcrosser and Markeroon, and we had a nice chat. For reasons I’ll go into another time I decided to start eating chocolate again, and indulged in a quarter of a bar this afternoon. Those three little pieces cheered me up enormously. ;) I also sorted through many old photographs and am starting to think I might achieve my 2008 goal of getting up to date on Raven’s Quest.

This morning we noted that one of the chickens was in a pickle: It had gotten inside a crate, which was supposed to be shelter, and had apparently swelled up overnight to the point where it couldn’t get out again. :: giggle :: Don and I performed chicken rescue and have been calling ourselves Chicken Heroes ever since, but I still wonder how a chicken can swell up to that extent in a single night. ;)

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