Oh, February, Why Do You Last So Long?

I don’t particularly like February. Yes, it’s the shortest month of the calendar year in number of days, but it’s also the longest, at least to me. It’s a chilly, dreary, gray lump of a month. It’s not really winter, although we will still get some winter weather. It’s definitely not spring, but there will be warmer days. It’s the one month out of the year that you just have to push through, and hope it goes by quickly. Which it usually doesn’t.

The insurance approval for the BaldMan’s chemotherapy is finally done, so with a bit of luck, that will get rescheduled for this week. That will be a relief. It’s going to be a bit of a rollercoaster from what the nurse said, but at least it will be underway.

I just hope that when the new Medicare plans kick in at the beginning of March, this doesn’t start all over again. We have been on COBRA this month while we waded through the maze of Medicare plans. Finally went through a broker who found us both decent plans that won’t break the bank. We are on two different plans mainly because he has more doctors and meds than I do, so he is a bit more limited in who covers what. But we both ended up with decent coverage at little or no cost. So good.

I think I have the next installment of my urban fantasy series, The Yo-Yo Files, roughly figured out. It looks like this one will be a ghost story. Still in the rough planning stage and I need to sit down with my ghost and have the “What’s your motivation?” talk, but it’s taking on some shape. The first three were novellas (well, if you want to get technical on word count, the third is a novelette, but whose counting? LOL). Don’t know yet where this one will fall but I hope somewhere in that same range. I do have an idea for another story in the series but it’s a bit darker and with less room for the humor aspect of the rest, so I don’t know. It might not be a good fit, given the nature of the earlier ones. It might be too far off from the overall feel. I’m still playing with that one a little, so it may work out at some point.

Otherwise, I am playing with a few short story ideas. Nothing is much more than an idea right now, but mermaids are a possibility. And all the recent talk of AIs in text and art has something niggling at the back of my brain. We’ll see.

The other thing occupying my time right now is some basic garden planning. I have a set of 50 native species plugs on order to ship in the spring that should pretty much finish off the shaded side of the house we started last year. The main plan is to get rid of most of the lawn in back (eventually) and turn it into a series of native gardens. This year, we want to over seed it with a native “lawn” mix and, as it needs mowing, figure out where we want to lay out paths through the yard and start to plan garden beds from there. We also bought a metal raised garden bed that I will use for vegetables and herbs. I did a bit of experimenting last year with a few pots of peppers and beans since our yard doesn’t get the full sun that is generally recommended for vegetable gardens. They all did pretty decently. I’m sure they would have done better in full sun, but it was encouraging. I think with a little careful selection, we should be able to grow at least some of our summer eating.

I am typing this on Sunday afternoon and Sunday night is the Superbowl. We will be watching even though neither of our teams made it this year. All I will say for now is: Fly, Eagles, Fly!

Have a good week. Drink your water, and eat some vegetables. Go outside, breathe the air, and sit in the sun if you can. Be nice, or even nicer, to everyone.

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My latest published book:

“Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. Twelve scifi and twelve fantasy short stories that can each be read in minutes. Available now Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, and most other e-book retailers. More information here

I have written science fiction, fantasy, and urban fantasy stories. There are novels, novellas, and shorter pieces to fit everyone’s reading time. There are even some free stories, both here on the site and in other places. You can go here to find out more about the books I have published. They are available at Amazon, Smashwords, and most ebook retailers. Thank You