About my new fountain! Also weekend busyness which included much running around, loading of heavy bags of rocks, fighting with software and printers (oh joy), and moving things a couple steps forward.
Transcript
00:02.38
jeffekennedy
Good morning, Everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Ah, that’s good. Delicious! Oh hold on I’ve got my phone on buzz just in case because the man is taking ah my car in to have it serviced for me. And know I don’t have to tell you to hold on but I can’t get over. Maybe it’s part of the verisimilitude of us having a chat over coffee. Please forgive me while I check my phone. It was just my mother only my mother who is fine now she says she’s back to normal. Ah, feeling good. She has to wear her mask for one more day and then she’s free of that so that’s great isn’t it and I haven’t said today is Monday July eighteenth so yeah um David is very kindly taking my car in to have the oil changed and have it checked because tomorrow we are driving it down to rio doso to in of the mountain gods for his birthday week. His birthday is Thursday I think his siblings fly in tonight. So this is one of those things where he and I differ but he’s like Mr maintain the car I’m like put gas on the car and make it go. Ah. When we go on a trip. He always wants the mechanic to check over the car to make sure it’s all right for a road trip it’s like yeah it’s 3 hours but ah here he’s been right many times so I cancede the point. Um, and I do agree that um, checking for problems is far better than having it like break down on the road. So um, been busy, busy busy. So I think I’ve ever told you all. Um, about having the fountain installed my brand new fountain I will post a photo of it. Um, they installed it a week ago friday and it was we took lots and lots of pictures. It was fascinating to watch I didn’t post any of them. Um.
02:41.79
jeffekennedy
Partly, mostly because I got busy and then it’s like ah I don’t know if I want to post all those pictures some people who are better at social media than I am share more that which I find ironic because I’ll like tell you anything but it’s like do I want to post all these pictures. I don’t necessarily want my am. Yeah, all that stuff out, but it was amazing to watch them. Do it of 4 guys dug the hole and then they maybe I did talk about some of this oh hummingbirds over my head. I am like a frank howl painting it gave her fresh you or her gave it fresh ah with them. Let’s call hummybirds them I gave them a fresh juice yesterday last night. Yes, very happy. So yeah, got that installed and the way it works I don’t know if I’ve ever explained I I don’t know if I told you guys all right? I’m just going to you all I’m going to tell it again. They dug the hole. And then they lined it with like a felt blanket and then a big rubber flexible tarp and then they put and they’ve framed it in with 4 by 4 and then used um steel eye beams that go across. Because the rock I chose is like £1800 and then they brought in this thing that they called the stinger and they brought it in and it carried the rock out and it went it set down and they were really wonderful if if you’re a longtime listener. You know that I was angsting about this. Um, that they you know I they were so nice. They were so accommodating. They were amazing and so all my angst was for naught as it so often is ah you know and so they were very patient and wonderful about. You know, positioning the rock making sure it was exactly the angle that I wanted it at I was like a little more this way and they were. They were so nice about it and I mean I could see why because you know £1800 rock once it’s down you want to leave it down and um. And then they you know, put water in the pit and they put well before they put the rock down. They put 2 layers of grate a larger grate and then a finer grate on top and then set the rock on that.
05:23.78
jeffekennedy
Pumps down underneath and it pumps water up through the top of the rock and it fountains down it goes back into the bottom. So what I didn’t realize um I guess we just never discussed. It is. They’re supposed to be rocks on top. So it looks like the water’s just falling into rocks. And really, it’s falling to the great right? I think it’s such a cool idea. We’re having a little bit of a hummingbird war. Oh and the wren is chiming in. So they didn’t put the rocks down. It was just a great and so um and I just didn’t have time to deal with it all last week. It was such a busy week so on Saturday morning. I woke up fairly early and ah got my phone and went back to bed and was lying there reading and playing with my phone and I started looking up where I could get rocks and David woke up and I said you know I think. I want to just get up and go and get these rocks early I forgot I’ve been planning to go to yoga oops I really need to get back in that habit and I know I’ve been saying that for months and months possibly a year which reminds me I need to sit up straight. Ah. So we went and bought rocks and it’s it’s an it’s an uninteresting saga so I will not give you the blow by blow. But we ended up going to a couple different places and finding someone to ah lug the 30 pound bags of rocks. Um, to load them until the cart forest proved to be impossible. So I just did it. Um, because I’m strong like bull and.
07:18.75
jeffekennedy
It was a workout actually I’m good I feel pretty good but we got 10 bags of 30 pound bags of rocks and I on saturday saturday I did a few things I was I felt very productive but it was um I don’t know. It. It was productive I got the laundry done I did 2 loads of dishes because it had been such a busy week that like every dish in the house was dirty as I think my mother would say so I ran the dishwasher twice and i. Arranged the rocks around the fountain and I got all of that landscaping done and I think it looks awesome and I’m so happy with it. It’s um, it’s a real delight so and then I cleaned up my office. Which ended up being a little ironic because I dealt with the entire chaos of my office and got it all cleared out very happily I think I mentioned to you all before that drives me. That’s if my office is in chaos. So I got it all organized. This is all saturday. And then um, finished up like around 5 and drinks wine. It’s been hot here. Um not as hot as it is other places but we’ve been up into the low 90 s which is hot for us. So we’ve been running there conditioning. I don’t much like air conditioning. That’s why I make a face if you’re on video so then on sunday one of these things that I had to deal with was getting stuff out for the sfw. A. Finalists? Um, yes, belatedly in fact, one set of things that I’m sending out is from a year ago and so I had 2 air tables full of finalists and their addresses which. We’re not in an easy mode to put into labels but I had my mailing labels I used to do this all the time for work and so this is part of my theme of like how technology moves without you they change stuff. Um I used to be so good at mail merge I could just but boom get all this done. And I spent all this time on word sunday morning because I thought I need to make sure I have enough labels I want to make you know because I was going to go run errands. So I thought okay I need to get labels done first I spent like.
10:01.28
jeffekennedy
Oh I gotta check my phone again. I think this is probably not my mother hold on it was just my reminder on the jack oil change which David remembered better than I did he remembers all things car. So. Um I I spent way longer than I should have on those fucking labels and I ended up I like couldn’t even figure out how to make it go into a new page. Ah I’m sure there’s a way. And there used to be a way but um, and then I couldn’t get them to print because I finally figured out it just took me longer than it should have because we have new internet I had to actually go to the printer itself and change the wi-fi connection on the printer to connect it to our network for wireless printing. I tried all like all from the other direction, but it’s all done now. It’s all set then I went out to run errands and got the remaining supplies for the nebula finalist treat boxes and Vitamins David asked me to get. And then I went to bed bath and beyond and got some birthday presents for David and then I went to target to get one of the birthday presents that they were so no longer carried at bed bath and beyond. It was very interesting bed bath and beyond had greatly reduced stock. And when I went to target they also had greatly reduced stock. So I think this is what a lot of these um fly big box stores are going towards is um. Not have it because they had so much backlog there for a while when all the container ships finally arrived right? So I know that bed bath and beyond has a much area feel more space. Maybe they have less stock and so they’re rearranging to make it look better. So anyway. They were like oh yeah, we used to carry that we don’t anymore. So then I went to target and found some helper people I mean at least I found people to help me. Um and they they said oh but we’re all sold out. We do carry it but we’re all sold out at this location. So then I went to lows and. It was kind of um well David does watch this podcast anyway, it’s one of those extender grabber things which I didn’t even know what to call it but you know like you have the handle and it has a little grippy thing at the end and he wanted one of those we used to have one in it broke and so.
12:45.59
jeffekennedy
Asking at 3 different stores for you know these people and I said I don’t know what to call it and they’re all like ah you know and of course they can all search on their phones because they all have that inventory app on their phones now and they said well I just put in grabber. So I found it at lows if you need one. It’s in the cleaning supplies. Go figure I couldn’t forget what category they’d put these things in so I did find one um it was really hot. I had the topped out on the convertible which was perhaps unwise because I think I got a little hot and then I was meeting Emily Ma who is our editorial director for sfwa I’m doing the letters now so that I have to go through and correct where it says Sifwa. On the transcript but it is more correctly. Sifwa not sfwa.
13:48.17
jeffekennedy
I’m religious to to see how that transcript handles him so she was supposed to come over to to help me assemble the treat boxes and I texted her and said can we make can we push to 2:30 and she said fine because I stopped at Starbucks I really wanted my trin to. Unsweetened passion tea. Love those things. So refreshing. So cool. So I went and got that if you eat all of the unripe grapes. There won’t be any ripe grapes I’m talking to the curvebuilt thrasher and they are working very very hard to. Feed their nestlings on the front porch but I noticed the other day that they were taking the unripe grapes to the babies which you know fine, but this is we’re going to get denuded of grapes feeding these thrasher babies. I know it doesn’t matter. So yeah, and then I got home and I bear I didn’t even have time to eat which may have also been a. Because Emily and I plunged right into I made myself an apple and some hummus but then like it sat there and languished because I kept making my hands dirty and we were trying to put these treat boxes together and then there was like confusion I don’t it was ridiculously difficult to do. Like how many did we need and who were they going to and oh my fucking god I just can’t even tell you so we got it mostly done I didn’t get everything done on it that I wanted to it turned out I had the wrong kind of mailing um envelopes. The certificate blah blah bless so I didn’t even need all of those labels that I made and we are leaving tomorrow morning for end of the mountain god so it’s just gonna have to wait till I get back at the end of the week but I’m a couple steps a number of steps closer to. That done. The good news is is that last week I did have a 10000 word week on shadow wizard that’s good news for me anyway, um, a little over 10000 I think – I’m 10, 057 None words so good momentum on that book I’ve been listening to I finished listening to the bright familiar audio book and now I am almost done with the Gey Magic audiobook so
16:28.61
jeffekennedy
Feel like I’ve got a good grip on the story. So I’m kind of waffling at this point with going down to end of the mountain gods with David and his siblings should I try to write I’ve been planning to write next week I go to Apollycon. Um. Ah, pretty excited because my agent ah Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost literary agency is going to be there. She figured out that like 5 of her clients are going to be at this conference and she decided to come so that’s going to be kind of cool. Be nice to see her I’ve not seen her since July of 2019? Um, so yeah, that’ll be really great. So I am hoping to be able to continue to write through a polygon which I should be able to because. Of the the timing of events ah should allow me to get my words in in the morning. So right now I’m waffling on should I try to keep writing this week I had been planning to they tend to stay up all night in the casino which I’m an early bird so and ah I don’t. I can I can only like play the slots for like an hour and then I get bored. Um, ah so but then I feel kind of antisocial too. But I you know like go to bed and I wake up early and they all sleep until like ten or eleven so I could do it. Um, but I’m also toying with should I take a vacation but then I’ll lose my momentum on the book. So I’m really waffling on all of this. We’ll see how today goes I’m hoping to write tomorrow morning before I leave. Um. I’m trying to decide whether or not to do the podcast I know that my mother votes yes, do the podcast. Um I don’t know but I think I’m going to play it by ear. Maybe I will do some podcast interviews at a polyon. You could get Sarah to do podcasts with me that could be fun and I’m rubing with Jennifer Eaststep would you all like to hear an interview with Jennifer Estep ah other authors I will be hanging out with there are Leslie Penelope Amanda Boucher Lexie Ryan Chelsea Mueller um probably forgetting people.
19:12.29
jeffekennedy
Not that I don’t love them It’s just that my brain is ah I’ll tell you what trying to figure out these labels but it’s because I had 2 different years right? and some finalists overlapped like they were finalists in both years. So I knew I have 2 sets of certificates to send out. But I could send 2 certificates in one ah envelope for people who overlap the 2 years and then I had another set of this year’s finalists were getting wilter certificate and a treat box but those can’t go the same thing so I don’t know that the logistics fried my brain for no good reason at all. Um I I would approach it differently this time I probably ah this is a theme lightly right? I was probably overthinking it and I’m still going to have to make more labels because I know I messed up the amusing thing about social media though was that when I was putting these labels together. There were at least 2 people or well there were 2 people and there could be more but that I knew had moved just because they talked about on social media and so I was able to tag them and say hey I noticed I think I saw that you moved do you have a new address. So anyway, um, such are the trevials a daily life right? Um, we should all be like the hummingbirds ah fighting over the peters. Ah, it’s not a romantic. Analogy. Is it all right? So I’m just going to see how I feel tomorrow find out what the timing is going to be on us meeting up I’ve got to prioritize getting words mom so maybe podcast tomorrow maybe not and regardless I will talk to you all again. Someday you all take care bye bye.