So Much Going On

We were up early once again yesterday because we have so much going on right now. This is a trend I need to put a stop to before it becomes a habit I can’t break. 😊

The first order of business was to get our pontoon boat out of the garage and onto the scissor trailer with the help of Terry Sheppard, one of our neighbors, and his friend Jerry. Then we took it down to the boat launch, which was quite an experience. The new mismanagement company that has taken over our community has rebuilt the dock and fishing pier. With the old dock, we could step directly onto our pontoon boat once it was in the water. The new dock is much higher, so we had to step down onto a seat or live well and then to the boat’s deck. I can’t imagine what someone with a flats boat or something like that will be able to do. A kayak? Forget it!

At any rate, we took the boat for a short drive, and then I said a sad goodbye to it. I love it and have enjoyed it tremendously the few times I had it in the water. But one of the rules here is that it is not supposed to be sitting in our driveway. The few times I have done so, I had complaints from the overlords here, which is why I have to keep it in the garage. But since the garage door is just barely high enough to get the boat in and out with the scissor trailer cranked all the way down, every outing is hard work just to get it outside and then back in again. We have some major life changes coming up very soon, and it was just time to let it go.

With the boat on its regular trailer and gone, back at home, I put ads on the local Facebook Marketplace pages for the scissor trailer. Then I finished sending out my free author’s newsletter to my subscribers, announcing my newest book, Big Lake Drunk. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, send me your e-mail address at editor@gypsyjournal.net and I will get you set up. I never share your information with anyone and don’t inundate you with spam. Just an announcement when every new book comes out, and sometimes some other interesting information about the writing life to go along with it.

About the time I finished that chore, I got a message from our friend Gwen McMichael that she and her hubby Jay were going to be passing by and asked if it was convenient to stop in. Sure, it’s always a good time to see friends! We know Jay and Gwen from our mutual days as RVers roaming the country, and now they live just a couple of miles away from us here in Florida. They had new electric bikes, which looked like they would be a lot of fun, and so far, they seem very happy with them.

After Jay and Gwen left, I spent some time answering questions from authors, readers of my books, and blog readers. One question I have been asked several times was from Wednesday’s blog, when I said that the character of Roberta Jensen, the blind judge in my Big Lake mystery series, is based upon my dear real-life friend Roberta Jensen, who is blind, and was my attorney before she retired. Now she is one of my proofreaders. People were asking me how a blind person could proofread a book. She is an excellent proofreader. She uses a program for the blind called JAWS that reads text to her, including punctuation, and she finds a lot of typos in punctuation that we all miss.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Even duct tape can’t fix stupid, but at least it can muffle the sound.