Christmas 2016

This has definitely been an eventful year; and it is about time that I (Lisa) actually write during my week.

We spent last Christmas in California visiting with family, and of course the Tourmaline mine.  This Christmas will be spent at home with some mini rock activities for the grandchildren of some friends - the 6 year old is really into rocks.

Here are some highlights from the year....

Lisa

• April: Missed the NW QM conference due to illness - but the presentations I organized were a success and prompted an invite to present at the National conference in November.
• May: (See Patrick's list).  Marisa came up to help and made a new chair cover!
• August: A trip to California to visit Patrick's mom and Lisa's family.  I began my 8th year working at ISU; 6th year in the ITRC.  This is the longest I have has worked at the same place!
• October: Lisa's mom diagnosed with breast cancer.
• November: Presented at the National Quality Matters Conference in San Antonio.  Won! the 3 Minute Thesis competition at the AECT Conference in Indianapolis.  All 5 members of dissertation committee finalized!
• December: Back to full steam working on dissertation.

Patrick

• April: Patrick's mom diagnosed with ALS.
• May: Patrick diagnosed with diabetes with a week long visit to the hospital.
• August: A trip to California to visit Patrick's mom and Lisa's family.
• September: Completed the first Chainmaille book, complete with pictures and detailed instructions for his own design.  It is currently being tested.
• November: Won NANOWRIMO! with 58,201 words for a new novel.
• December: Rockhounding in the parking lot of the Army Surplus store.

I'm sure some exciting things happened before April, but I just can't think of any at the moment. (and neither can Patrick)

In thinking about Christmas I ran across this beautiful quote which spoke to my heart about the message of Christmas.

The Advent message is that one homeless night long ago, in a place called Bethlehem, God wrapped humanity's broken songs and shattered chords with the music of the spheres.  

~Leonard Sweet

For several years the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has put together Christmas messages.  This year the tag is #ASaviorIsBorn and this video explains why we need a Savior - much like the quote above, the gift of a Son brought completeness and hope to everyone, everywhere.

Many others have shared their talents - a search of #ASaviorIsBorn will bring up many songs and stories, here is a playlist of some of my favorites.

Merry Christmas everyone!

A thought for the season

This week is a short one... Basically one thought that I had at church yesterday.

You can apply this to hymns, carols or what ever else you need, but...

When you sing songs about Jesus Christ you are singing to him. Give the best you have/can in the song.

The Little Drummer Boy in a carol of old played his drum for the young Savior as he had no other gift to give. I submit to you here and now that this is what we should be doing when we sing to our Savior.

It doesn't matter if you think your voice is good or bad. It definitely doesn't matter what the person next to you, or any other mortal being, may think. You are singing to Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savoir. As long as you give him your best your song is accepted by Jesus Christ the Lord. That is what matters.

I wasn't going to include a video in this one, but Lisa pointed out one of the videos I've linked to. So let's end by taking a look at a few variations on giving your best...

Till next time God bless...






 

Thanksgiving week and Nanowrimo

First off, happy thanksgiving and merry Christmas everyone.

This week we had Marisa up here for the holiday and mayhem ensued...

Actually a lot of the mayhem was mine and would have happened anyway....

I 'won' NANWRIMO (and about a week early!). What that means is I wrote a complete novel of over 50,000 words this past month. More precisely I wrote a novel of 58,201 words (238 pages) in 22 days (I didn't write on Sundays). Winning NANOWRIMO also means that I'm getting a bunch of free stuff and discounts that are writing related AND!!!!! THREE PUBLISHING COMPANIES WILL BE CONTACTING ME ABOUT THE BOOK. I should be getting all the relevant info via email tomorrow.

The original was hand written and then transcribed so technically I have my first edit pass done as well. One more thing I should say about this and then I can let it go (until I start the serious editing in January).

No non-diet or caffeine free soda was harmed in the creation of this book! Diet Dr Pepper not so lucky...

We survived our first dealing with diabetes thanksgiving pretty well. I even made the stuffing I usually make (of course since I'm fooling with cooking again I may try modifying it some, so stay tuned...)

Lisa and Marisa did a lot of knitting, a lot of staying up late and a lot of shopping...
Which leads us to the answer of this years where is the weirdest place I went rock hounding this year...

Parking lot of an Idaho Falls surplus store! The one with the holes is a fossilized corral (please don't ask me what that was doing there! I didn't expect to run into any of these little buggers). So once again I'm out pick'n rocks in literally freezing weather. At least this time it wasn't snowing! It was a nice reward for finishing the book (Ok, 238 pages... 22 days... you didn't really expect me to drop that this quickly did you?)

Lisa should be proposing her dissertation here soon. She has her full committee now. She might have a few things to say about the week which she can add to the post (or issue a rebuttal) as she sees fit.

That's it for this time everyone...
Until next time thanks for reading... Unless...
If you really want to know what the book is about...

It has two main themes that I've found two videos that sum them up pretty well...
Thanks to Billy Joel and INSOC respectively...






If you want to know how these fit in with the book (and they really do) you'll just have to read it. I'm done talking about it for now (for sure this time).

And that really is it until next time. And, thanks for reading.

What the other half was doing...

Ok, Lisa posted on Monday about her really good conference performance. What else was going on during that week?

Well...


Thanks to taedh7 for the video... but serious folks...

First off, the Kickstarter ended. In an ironic twist of fate the Kickstarter not funding turned out to be the best possible option! I got it up. I did it. I finished it. Someone contributed. But, not enough contributions to make it go.

Now this is good because 1) I re-evaluated and solved my problem with the ebook version (which will net me higher royalties (think 2-3 times the royalties at half the price to the customer!) 2) I got a contributor in the background who came through with funds for the test kits without contributing on Kickstarter. This got the project going without the fulfillment and tax issues that would have come with the timing of the Kickstarter. The book will be out (to a test audience at least) by the end of the year and in a general release next April.

So what does that mean? (you know besides the obvious I'm a professional author now...) What did I do with the rest of the time ('cause the failing up part didn't really take that long...)

First I'm planning the questionnaire to go with the test version of the book.

Second...( Thanks to Akinius for this one...)



But seriously again...
There are a few thrilling heroics... I'm currently doing a Nanowrimo (national novel writing month) project...
Here are the current stats

I am currently at 34,207 words out of a 50,000 word minimum goal for the month. If things go on track I will be cracking 40,000 on Friday. Basically if you think of it in terms of thinking and page count I've been writing a Masters Degree Thesis a week for the past two weeks. I will write another one this week and probably another one over Thanksgiving week!

After I write the whole thing I will be ignoring it for at least a month and then get into the editing in earnest. Hopefully that part is over by the end of February so I can get the final edits on the Chainmail Bottle Carriers book done in March (Note: I'm not taking December off... I have a short story collection and a diabetes book that are on hold so I can do the nanowrimo thing...).

Now... I'm about to do something here that I've never done here before...
As far as I know nobody except for Lisa has seen this one yet...
An excerpt from my upcoming novel Johnson Farm...

John couldn’t quite put it into words, but he was sure the words he’d read were a special thing, a holy thing. It was the only book she kept on the little desk. It was the only thing she kept among her treasures.

John stopped himself. It wasn’t the only book. There were the little books on top, what did those hold? He almost, almost got distracted by a slab of variegated tigers eye, blue mixed with gold and somehow green. It lay right next to the books and was so beautiful. But the books still called to him. He reached past the stone and pulled out one of the books.

The little hard backed notebook had a worn cover, the ink that looked like a date had run enough that he couldn’t read it. The first couple of pages were water damaged as well. John flipped further back into the book.

Ephraim got a letter today. He says someone named Ezra wrote him about his father. I guess Ezra was a friend from Ephraim’s past. He doesn’t talk about home much. He says that Ezra wrote about Ephraim’s father being sick. I asked Ephraim if he wants to go home. He said he would think about it but he wanted to pay another visit to the quarry before he went anywhere. Who knows when we will be this way again?

“Diaries? Are those all diaries?” John flashed his light side to side across the row of books. “Maybe this is what Ezra meant about answering questions.”

He slid a couple of the little books into his hip pocket and looked longingly down at the desk top. Sure enough there were slabs of every kind of tiger eye; the golden, blue hawk’s eye, red bull’s eye and the variegated. There were several of those, but only one with the green.

The sound of the front door opening alerted him to trouble. John had just enough time to relock the door and hide the flashlight before Dad came around the corner.

So, a little less gun play and a little more word play (note: guns do come up a few times in the story and the John probably would crash the spaceship if he had one...)

That's it for this week.
Lisa will post next week if she wants to and hopefully I will be back and unreasonably cocky in two...(then again I did just write a whole novel so maybe it won't be unreasonable!)

Conferences and Travel (Lisa's belated post)

I (Lisa) should have posted last week, but after 3 full days of travel (still not sure why I had to fly to Minneapolis to get to San Antonio) and back to back conferences, I was tired.

I presented at the first conference (Quality Matters) and got great feedback and made some new connections.  At the second conference (AECT) I competed as a grad student in the 3MT competition - explain your research in less than 3 minutes without any fancy language.  I'm really glad I did it.  Mostly because it got me to really think about my dissertation research.

I was extremely nervous during the first round, and slotted to go last.  I did try to pay attention to the others, but found it very difficult.

The end result?  I won!  Interesting to note that the runner up and people's choice winner was a grad student from BYU.  I love all the BYU (Provo, Idaho, and Hawaii) connections at the AECT conference.

So, if you want to know about my research, I had a friend record me during the finals round - it is only 2 1/2 minutes - and hopefully I didn't get too technical.


I (Patrick) am really glad that Lisa did well. Winning the 3mt is not a small thing. She also did a book signing with her co authors for the  book that she's got a chapter in.

I do have some news to talk about on my front but I will wait to talk about it so as to not detract from Lisa's post.

Growing up is hard to do (even when you're an 'adult')

Things change, that's part of life. If living things don't change they die. One of the things that needs to change for me is that my writing needs to be better, all of my writing. Since it is sort of what I do now I need to treat it with more respect. I need to put more time and effort into the things I write, even when it's 'just a blog post'.

I also need to make better use of the social media that I have available to me.

Put these things together and you get less blog posts here. Some of my posts here have been more like a couple of Facebook posts strung together. I can do better than that.

So, I will be cutting back here, posting no more than every other week. The posts will be higher quality posts, it's the respect you, I, and the blog deserve. I will also be putting things that 'belong' on Facebook on Facebook. I may talk about the same things there and here. I probably will talk about the same things, but the posts will be longer, more in depth, and more though out here. The quick off the cuff stuff will go more on Facebook where it belongs.

Videos won't be going away, but they'll be here less often and more of them will be my own stuff. Hey, I'm making them so why not!

Craft projects / art / shiny things will be here; more of them and more regularly/predictably. I reminded myself that balance is needed in all thing and that includes between the work shop and the writing desk. That means more cool stuff to show up here.

Recipes and food stuff will continue to show up here occasionally, so will diabetes stuff. These are things of our adventures and they belong here. They also deserve better treatment than they've been getting lately.

A while back (after I started WMS, but before they left Rexburg) one of the sister in laws asked if I write out the stuff for this blog before I put it up. The answer was no; I did for WMS but not for The Adventures. Now, the answer is changing to yes and no. It honestly is going to depend on the subject matter and what's going on (probably a lot less prewriting during NANOWRIMO  and deep/serious edits on major projects and a lot more while I'm in more of a marketing/proofing/selling phase).

I've talked about going to every other week and Lisa filling in in-between before. That was a mistake. Two mistakes actually: 1) Lisa is busy and can't always post every other week; 2) I let myself get sucked back into posting every week because I felt like it was necessary.

Things change. Lisa is welcome to post and will when she feels like it. I will be posting at most every other week. It's about the quality of the writing and your time (and mine); sometimes a bad product is worse than no product at all. (If any one really insists on hearing from me every week (Yeah, in my dreams...) they could go read WMS  I'll still be doing that one weekly)

This time I'm not going to feel bad if a week goes by with no post here. I've told you what's going on and it really is for all our benefit. Maybe with less and better posts here there will be more comments (and maybe the Fathers Day Tie post will get bumped out of the "most popular post" slot).

Well that's the news.

Lisa may be posting about her trip next week. If not, then I'll see you in two!
Take care.

Reving up, counting down...

Definitely a busy one in our little corner of the universe!

Lisa is leaving for her double conference trip on Saturday. It was originally just going to be a one conference trip but then she was asked to present at the other one. So she's got one where she's been invited to present and another where she's working on making contacts and setting up for the job she really wants when she grows up...

(Ok, ignoring her comments about when  I'm going to grow up and continuing the bragging) She should also be getting bumped up to a higher position with Quality Matters soon (they're the ones who invited her to speak by the way). This is something that's been very good for her (even if it is tiring some times).

She is  on hiring committee for the university (again) and hoping to be done with her dissertation this year (leading to some speculation on several peoples parts about where we will be next year (even without me using our moving to scare our bishop...)).

The conference trip is actually going to be a bit of a challenge for reasons that I'll be talking about in my Wordsmeanstuff post on Friday (no, I'm not going to say it here, because if I don't there's 0.0000001% chance somebody who reads this blog will go and read that blog....)

So next question (and one not addressed in the WMS post...). What will I be doing while Lisa is gone... (thanks to Akinius)



The week Lisa is gone is the first week of National Novel Writing Month (I may have mentioned that before) so, as much as possible, most of my other writing projects will be on hold while I bust out a 50,000 plus word book in thirty days (actually 26 since I try to take Sundays off...).

I will also be doing camera stuff for three or four videos that are on my list to get done. Three of the videos are associated with the chainmaille book so I need to bust those out quick! The fourth one is actually another shop project video that's tied to another project I'm working on (but more about that later (if I talk about and work on that one I'm up to seven book projects on the running list and my official limit is five...).

Note: if the city burns down while Lisa is gone it's not my fault this time! Nothing (almost nothing) I'll be working on involves fire (ok, except that one... and that one... and maybe that one... and the kid in the book might set something on fire (it still won't be my fault if the city burns though... I was working on some other project at the time...))

Speaking of the chainmaille book... you'll notice I haven't really mentioned the chainmaille book or the Kickstarter project. Kickstarter isn't really going too well. But I'm not bitter.

Actually a couple of things have happened behind the scenes that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't launched the Kickstarter and had it follow the course it has so far...



One way or another, Kickstarter or no Kickstarter this thing is launching!

Why I chose something from Starblazers (and even more so a Starblazers Pachinco machine) is something for another post, but I'd like to thank SonicBoom for the clip.

I found the solution to my 'doing this as an ebook' issues and funding that will definitely help with some test kits for select testers. So if the Kickstarter goes it goes. If it doesn't it's actually way easier for me to do it the other way (so actually if you want to slow me down, make the Kickstarter go through...). My royalties will actually be higher on the ebook too (We're talking $2.00 to $3.50 per copy on a $5.00 ebook versus to $1.00 to $1.50 per copy on a dead tree edition...). I'm still planning on the release date I listed in the Kickstarter (April Fools Day just seems right!).

Can I actually pull it off? There are only 156 days left.

That's it for this week.
Till next time... Remember...
Insanity is a sane reaction to an insane world!

The Adventure Continues... (again?) (pretties below...)

First off I'd like to thank everyone who has shared the information about the Kickstarter campaign (Chainmail Bottle Carriers). Friday's blog post here got the most views of any that we've put up in a while. (Yay!)

I also realized that I really don't have an indication of who has shared anything along, so if you did and you want to let me know post a comment or send an email to psknewone@yahoo.com.

The good news (for me) is somebody has definitely checked out the Kickstarter.

The bad news (for me) is that the only response I've gotten is two outside people who've offered to promote the Kickstarter for cash...

The bad news (for other people) is that I'm about to ask people to do something again...

The good news (for other people) is 1) I'm going to get this out of my system and then the rest of the post is good stuff; 2) for the most part what I'm asking is painless; 3) I've actually improved the low dollar rewards on the Kickstarter.

So what I'm asking is... 1) again if you're so inclined, tell people about and/or share the project. 2) I need one brave soul to break the ice and make a pledge! I would do it myself, Lisa would do it, but if any account that's got my name on it contributes the whole thing gets shut down (it's an ethics thing... and Kickstarter's rules.).

Now, I've actually sweetened the pot. Five dollar contributors now get the PDF of the finished book when it comes out.

I'd really like to get to the 30% mark (which brings us to a 90% chance that other people are going to jump in and bring it the rest of the way) but for now I'll be satisfied with one contributor... (will it be you?)

Ok now that part is done and we can get on to things that are really scary...

Orange bell pepper Jack o' lantern. The store was having a sale and it just seemed right!

Not scary enough?
How about...

A maniac with a knife!

Real knife, part time maniac... I got the knife at a local rock show as a reward for getting the book together and the Kickstarter running. I've learned a lot on this project already so I'm calling it a win. The question is just how big of a win.

We also got other goodies...

This one is Lisa's prize. Those are actual crystals in tiny cracks in the rock. Love to tell you where to get one, but the supply is some what limited (especially now that the quarry they come from is closed (unsafe for mining)).

One of my other goodies for the trip...this one is going to be put to work pretty quickly but after it's cut the pieces are tumble polished, so the finish pictures are at least a month out if I started cutting right now (actually 37 days because the current tumbler load still has a week to run...).

In other news Lisa's getting closer to proposing her dissertation and collecting data. She's debating on timing and whether going to graduation is really important to her. I want to tell her it is (but of course she expects that out of her husband (she might believe some of you guys better)).

As always, more to say and more going on, but I've babbled on  enough for now...

As my parting thought...
When the negative people start showing up and going all Laman and Lemuel  with their "I told you you couldn't do it" talk; tell them what I tell them...

Until next time,
Take care, but take the good risks too!

What All the Noise is About

Yesss, I know I missed my usual Monday post this week (with everything going on I thought that might happen). It's all for a good cause though. One of the projects I've been hinting about and babbling about is live and about to take flight!

There are a few folks out there that have previewed this for me already, and I'd like to thank them again (you know who you are). I really did consider what you had to say with this.

What am I talking about? Well...
Watch the video and see!



I'm setting up a Kickstarter campaign here: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1094327337/chainmail-bottle-carriers-book

to fund this project. This is kind of the ultimate small press as I am putting this out myself.

If you're not familiar with Kickstarter here's how it works...

I set up the page (here's the link again...https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1094327337/chainmail-bottle-carriers-book), people go to it and if they like the project they get to contribute money and I give them something in return. What I'm giving to people is all on the page... If the funding goal is met by my deadline (3:00 AM November 15th, 2015) I get the money, put out the product and send out rewards. If the funding goal isn't met everybody walks away and nobody is out anything (it cost me my time but I learned a lot so that's a net gain already...).

I'm only running the campaign for thirty days because statistically that's the best length for the campaign, and I'm ending it on November 15th to accommodate paydays and spending habits (I've done my research).

Now, here's a lesser known statistic and where I could use some help from you guys... If a project can get to 30% of it's goal ($754 in my case) the project is 90% likely to go all the way. It's kind of about people seeing it and believing it will go.

At this point it's as much about spreading the word as it is about money (actually for a future project I'm planning to do a Kickstarter specifically as a marketing thing...). If you can and are willing to put some money in that's great (again if we can hit $754 the probability of getting the rest is 90%). You will be getting some goodies out of it.

But... there's an even bigger way you can help! If you're willing to help put the word out about the project that is truly huge! I saw a thing today where someone brought in $10,000 because three people were willing to talk about his stuff. 

Under Kickstarter rules I can't actually offer anyone money or other financial rewards, but I'm willing to barter with people here. I'm willing to offer some goodies, some of the stars I mentioned on the KS page, shiny rocks, and so on for people who are willing to tweet, put this on facebook or otherwise send some attention my way (there is a share button right under the video on the page (on about the same level as the location and my picture...).

If somebody really comes through with promoting this I've got a few bigger items that I could shake loose (like a couple of these carriers...)

Don't worry if I include a bottle it will be a brand new never used one... if someone really really comes through... I don't know we'll have to see on that!

No pressure, I'm not asking for anything that you're unwilling to give. I'm not asking for anything that I wouldn't do (or haven't done) myself.

I'm also very willing to share my experience and provide help in setting up a Kickstarter campaign for one of your projects. If you've never been down this road a little previous experience and advice can't hurt. And if you have been down this road, then you know the value of an extra set of eyeballs (again thanks to my previewers).

So this is the madness of the moment. I think it's pretty cool and one way or another I'm going to succeed with this thing eventually. I'm giving you a chance to get in on the act too (and yes, I really am going to list all the contributors in the back of the book).

There isn't a lot here about Lisa's projects or other stuff like that. Look for that stuff  next week. 

And, if you want to help Lisa out... try sending her a supportive text or email. This grad school thing is tuff!

Well this is my report.

Until next time remember,

You don't know what you can do to until you try.

And, thanks for all the support!

I finally get vacations...

I finally get vacations...

Thursday and Friday were the days for Lisa's conference in Boise so I went along and for two days (not counting parts of Wednesday and Saturday...) I was able to relax get away from this whole publishing and marketing end of the writer thing...

But maybe I don't...

When it comes to the actual writing part of being a writer I got more done on my two vacation days than I would in three days at "work"...

The writey wordy stuff...
As of today I'm back hard at it. I shoot the video for the Kickstarter tomorrow, I finished a short story that I started on the trip and I dug up a couple thousand pages of research for another book I've got in the works.

I am very much looking forward to the day that I can send the shirt and tie people part of writing (marketing and such) back to what ever _ _ ll it comes from and get back to just hardball writing (until the next one is ready to be shoved out the door and then I'm write back here (pun intended (Hey... I have to suffer, everybody suffers!)))

On other fronts Lisa is pushing closer and closer to proposing her dissertation. Then she gets to deal with the human subjects committee AKA "the murder board" (whether that's a statement about how I feel about them or what they do to projects is up for debate...). And then she can do the actual gather data part of the research...

Lisa is also gearing up for her double conference trip at the beginning of November.

I'm not going on that one because of costs and my NANOWRIMO project. That would be a novel of no less than 50,000 words in one month. Since I don't intentionally write on Sundays that would be 1923.08 words per day for a whole month... (remember that hardball writing I was talking about). And that's not counting blog posts, emails, or any of the other wordy stuff I have to do.

The shiny pretty stuff...

Writing isn't all that's going on...

The first shipment of stuff on my business account got here today. Now I have to build the stuff and figure out a better storage system (so I can keep the business shiny and the personal shiny separate better...). Some of this is for things for the ETSY store we're opening and some is for the Kickstarter (more about that in a week or so...)

This also happened...

We broke down and bought the half a hog bundle as part of a local grocery stores case lot sale... 50 pounds of pork... How much meat to we have? I have no idea I lost count around 45 meals... (and that's not counting the pork stock we will be making with the bones...)

Woodn't you know (pun intended again...)

Naturally we stopped at one of our usual rock connections in Boise...

And part of Arizona came home with us... Apparently the tumbler is going to be back in operation soon...

And of course Lisa got into the act...

With a nice little piece of jade.

The biggest over all piece is mine (and onyx)...

But that's because I have a plan for it that involves making something for Lisa (to be seen later).

Annnd we'll end where we began...

With petrified wood... and me wondering whether I get this vacation thing or not...

That's it for today. Till next time...
Life is like a box of chocolates...
You'd have a pretty good idea what your going to get if you'd only read!

What wasn't in the other post...

Yeah, I was serious no videos or that kind of thing in the other post I'm putting up today (wanted to keep that one clean...) but people should know me better than to think there wouldn't be some kind of noise going on...

With all of that stuff in the other post, I've got to say that for me the writing the book is the easy part! This whole get it marketed and published end is stressful!

So, here are a couple of things that I found useful in trying to keep myself centered or get myself re-centered as the case may be...

Thanks to Almost Angst Free Productions for this first one...



That one does really help some times...

As for this one, it's another track from INSOCs 2014 album that has been my theme song more than once while dealing with this world of marketing people and ebils (I mean editors)...



There are a lot of points of meaning for me in this one right now... but you almost have to be here I.E. out of  your comfort zone and getting ready to do something completely insane (like launching a book or defending a thesis or dissertation) to get all of them... 


That's the post folks...
Until next time...
the adventure continues...

Sean 27:56 For Mine is a Life Full of Miracles

Nope, no videos or shiny things in this one (ok lots of shiny things but that's not the point). On this one occasion I am actually quite serious. My life is a life full of miracles.

One of them is my wife... Lisa... you might have met her...

I can brag about her later, let me tell you about a few of the other miracles that have been happening lately...

 

Umm... first off the book (one of them) is done and if things go anywhere near right it will be out this year. 

Note that that is this year, not next month... As one might expect the print date has slipped some (Who knew that writing the book was the easy part...). Part of the reason the schedule slipped is that Lisa and I decided that the book could use some testing before it's full release (so I will be looking for a few brave volunteers to see if the instructions make sense (we learn as time goes on...)). So rather than launching the book next month I'm launching a Kickstarter to fund the tests. The book will go into a limited test release in December and the fully re-edited book will be out in April (somehow sending the final copy to the printers on April Fools Day just makes sense...).

Now then... earlier this year I did end up going to the hospital, which was not all that fun. The fact that I lived and am actually off insulin (and so quickly...) is a miracle. Add to that that the book whose cover you just looked at and two more in the top five on my production schedule are direct results of that trip... A slight change in direction for some of the writing stuff, but one that has cemented that yes, I am a professional writer. This whole mess fits into the Life Changing Miracle category.

Follow the bouncing banking for this one... 

Last year Lisa and I were going to go on a conference trip and I was worried about funding for it. I did some digging and found some old money the state of California was holding from when I was an undergrad and put in the paperwork to get it... Lisa and I never went on the trip and the money would have taken too long to get here anyway. It wasn't a lot of money, but after it got here and I paid tithing we split the remainder three ways: $68 to Lisa for some knitting stuff; $68 to me for some chainmaille stuff; and $68 that got put into the bank for a latter project...

The chainmaille order is the one that most of the materials for the originals of the designs in the book came from. As for the $68 I put in savings it was mixed with a little more money in savings and waited.

This last week I needed to open the new account for the Kickstarter and publishing stuff (my own business and easier to track if it has it's own account). With the money in savings I still needed $26.00 to open the account. I didn't want to use our regular income for this because it was a special project of it's own and I wanted it to be something I worked specifically for and found a way to do, so...

I dug around and found an old cash of change that I had but it still wasn't quite enough. I cashed in the aluminum cans I had on hand and got some cash. I was bummed and thought I didn't quite have enough till I counted everything together...

After taking out tithing on the cans I had enough to open the account with $1.68 left over! So, I was able to open the new account for the new business without having to dip into paychecks and regular house funds to do it. Sure, I could have just slid a hundred over from the house checking account but I didn't want to do that, both because I didn't want to pull extra money away when Lisa's getting ready for her double conference gig, and this version has a way better story! And yes I do feel I was blessed to be able to do it. But wait there's more!

Today I made my first supplies order from the new account, some stuff for the Kickstarter and promotion of the book. The total $68.26! 

So the money from long before we were married, that I was willing to give up for Lisa's trip (and I still gave a way part of it to her...). Actually helped with this book. Not once, but three times... And it was money I'd forgotten I'd had for the last 12 years... Don't care what anyone else says, MIRACLE.  If it had not been for that forgotten money and the failed trip (and the whole hospital/not dying/insulin thing) this book never would have happened.

One more related miracle...

Working on the marketing and business side of the book is stressful and that's no lie... (somewhere in our stake there are a couple of people walking around headless for bugging me while I've been trying to get the publishing and Kickstarter nailed down...). Just when I want to get out of here but it looks like it's not going to happen... Lisa gets a chance to go to a two day conference in Boise and because work asked her to go, it's covered and doesn't mess with the double conference! 

As usual, no more info on that one till it happens (other than the fact that somewhere between here and NANOWRIMO in November I'm going to get two days of just straight up fiction writing in (no marketing, statistical analyses or other "shirt and tie people stuff").

Summing it all up... 

Miracles can and do happen. But, sometimes you have to take the effort to make yourself worthy to receive them and to put yourself in the right place to receive them. Sure there are the ones that happen without your help... but a lot of the time it's preparing and asking (and knowing what to ask for). The miracles can and will happen, you just have to be ready...

That's it for this post 

Until next time... if the miracles aren't happening, make 'em yourself!

Update and chowdown...

Fairly short one this week (and if you don't hear from us next week it's because something big is in the works...)

We (Lisa and I) are fairly up to our eyeballs this week, but I thought I'd get back to something I said I would talk about later...

The pasta sauce in this picture is all from food storage or cabinet items...
It is actually pretty simple and quick and tastes good. We use Thrive freeze dried products in it, but you don't have to (you just have to find someone that does high quality freeze dried (not dehydrated) meats and veggies (sorry this is not a "sprouted wheat" recipe...)). (Lisa and I are also ThriveLife consultants so if you want to do a party or place an order add a comment and we will get back to you!) We also get our spices from Penzeys. (No kick back here, just some amazing spices at awesome prices.)

1 cup freeze dried beef crumbles
1 cup freeze dried sausage crumbles
1/2 cup freeze dried mixed peppers
1/4 cup freeze dried onions
2 6oz cans tomato paste
3 cups water
2 tbsp basil (dried)
1 tbsp oregano (dried)
1 tsp smokey paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Don't bother to re-hydrate anything! Put it all in a pot and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. I'd give it 15 minutes to a half hour to simmer depending on what you want to do with it. Served over pasta I would go for the longer end. If you're like me and like to add some rice (about a 1 to 1 ratio) and use it in stuffed peppers the 15 minute end is fine.

It's good stuff from food storage!

Told you it would be a short one today...

What else is going on? I'm not saying...
But it feels about as calm and orderly as this...



Hopefully be posting again in a week or so...
Till then take care.

Weekend? Or, the Muddle in the Middle?

Well, the last 96 hours have been interesting around here...

I'll get the obligatory jabbering about writing out of the way first... between Friday morning and now my prospects of getting a book out by my chosen date of October 31 have gone from "yes definitely!" to "Probably not!" to "Schrodinger's cat!" (both released and not released at the same time...) to...
"If things work out right the one will be out in limited release for testing and the other one (that I'd planned on for "December or so") may be out in October!"

As is, I've got the one down to two appendices and a cover, but because of some changes in formatting for the Ebook version, and working out a rout for the printed book to come out too, I have to do some layout changes. This really is happening.

More to come in the next few weeks, but for now we'll just say that it was the start of of "Patrick and Lisa's Treasure Hunt Weekend."

And this brings us to Saturday...
Saturday was the Stake "Take-n-trade" activity, a chance to get rid of stuff you don't want, find some stuff you can use, and do some good old fashioned horse tradin'. It was also a morning activity so I flew solo while Lisa got some well deserved rest.

And the results? I found money!

Seriously I found a bag of coin wrappers someone wanted to get rid of and when I was home I found money in the pack! The legend of my garage sale skills continues! I also found this...

As some of you might know Lisa has a thing for little boxes...

And this nice little guy has character...

After returning home to pick up Lisa we set off on part two of the mission...

A local lawn and garden center was reportedly having a "spin and win" event. After confirming the rumor we came away with a 10 percent discount, some fertilizer and a weed killer to keep those pesky plants out of my project parking and building stuff zone...

We also found lunch! Then we took a trip to the grocery store. Not very exciting (no pictures), but it had to happen some time.

After putting the groceries and a little recoup time we set off for the last major event of the day the Sagebrush Art Festival...

I actually had several people ask me about my chainmaille belt that I made. We had some good talks and made some connections. I also talked with Lisa about a future project that I will refer to as: OPERATION KEROUAC... the name alone should keep people wondering until I'm actually ready to talk about that one (note: that would be a 2017 project at the earliest (did I mention I have a writing schedule...))

We did bring home some goodies...

Some onyx and pearls that Lisa has in her box. And,

A ruby in zeolite carving. This stuff is a bit of a challenge to work, and this one was nicely done.

Sunday we got some sad news concerning Lisa's mom. I will let Lisa decide if she wants to talk more about that (I've already taken my trip down that road for this year...).

I also found a boy that I am convinced will be a ward clerk some day... I was standing in the bishop's doorway talking to the bishop and this kid (who's about two) starts to walk in. I looked down at him and said "I don't think you want to go in there." The kid looks me square in the eye and asks "Why?" and not just the 'I'm saying a word' why but the 'you will tell me what I want to know' why! And he stayed put until I gave him an answer. This kid definitely has a future...

That brings us to today... where Lisa got to deal with 'interesting' people, and I got to work on... (whimper...) marketing materials... at least they're for my own book project.

How did Lisa survive the people and how did I survive the less fun side of writing?

Let me answer that with track 2 of Information Society's latest album...



I told you it's scary inside my head...

Well gang, that's it for today. Until next time...

Wear a scarf... it's starting to get nippy at night (and yes those are some of Lisa's).