The time is 3:20 pm. Eight and a half hours are left before 2018 fades away, to be consigned to memory. Or not. I think I'd just as soon forget about most of it.
I did complete an afghan for an annual Chinese auction next spring. That gives me two and I hope to make one more. The poor quilt is still waiting to be finished. The problem? A couple months ago I experienced what's called "Trigger finger". I did some research on it and found out it's an extension of carpal tunnel syndrome. The affected fingers have a tendency to lock, like you're pretending to have a gun. I've been waking up with it every morning and it takes about an hour or so for it to go away. At least, so far, there's no arthritis involved and I'm hoping it stays that way. I can deal with a little inconvenience.
The "electronics from hell" (see previous blog) are fighting a losing battle. The new laptop has been set up. A couple weeks ago, a new printer was set up as well. I didn't have much choice. It seems you always need a certain thing when you don't have it. The previous printers were hardly used and ended up a mess. Six months without a printer and I had need of one several times. "Of course," she said with a twinge of sarcasm. "Isn't that always the way?" The only battle left at this point is the TV.
It's been a little over three months since I've had a working TV and it's been VERY quiet around here. Sometimes it feels like there's no one else in the building. No sounds from other apartments, no one in the hall. It's easy to lose track of the days. At least with the working TV, I just had to think back on what programs I watched the night before and I knew what day it was. The bummer is, I was looking forward to the new fall season and said flat screen died four days before the season started. With the cable gone, CBS all access, Hulu, Vudu and other 'systems' are looking better and better. There has been one advantage for not having a TV at this point.
Since 1998, I've been keeping a journal of sorts for books. It's one of the few things I've actually kept up over the last twenty years. With no TV to watch I've been doing a lot more reading. For this year, the grand total is 188. Added on to the previous 19 years (drum roll, please) an over all grand total of 3073 books. That's an average of 153.65 annually. That's a lot of books. Some were short stories, others were 400+ pages. Over that time, I've included some of Mom's books that are still sitting here, waiting to be shipped out. One of her favorite authors was C.J. Box. The whole Joe Pickett series was really hard to put down. There were a couple books that were published at least ten years ago and had plots that closely mirrored today's political scene. I was amazed at how close it was.
One other good thing about reading is how something in the story can trigger an idea for another story. You just have to be careful that you don't get so involved in your ideas that what you're reading is nothing but words, with no meaning behind them. Lately, I've had this soup kettle sitting by the hearth, doing a slow simmer. Every time an idea pops up, it gets tossed into the pot, to be checked out later on. At lease that's how I imagine it. When I finally take a break, I can poke around inside the kettle to see what I've got there. Some bits might be ready to work on while others have to be tossed back for a bit more simmering. Sooner or later they form the basis for some main dish, as long as they don't sit in the pot too long and end up sticking to the bottom. By that time, you pretty well know the particular idea wasn't such a good one, for whatever reason.
I don't know if I'll bother making a list of goals for the new year since the last couple years have been disappointing. For right now, I'm going to add a few more pieces to the jigsaw puzzle sitting on the dining table and figure out what's for supper. The rest of the evening will be focused on watching a couple new DVDs.
Here's to 2019. May it be all you hope it to be.
