You’ve probably noticed…

You’ve probably noticed, the blog has a fresh, new look, not to mention a new title.

I’ve been struggling for a couple weeks - that felt like a couple eons - to alter the source code for the blog’s template. But, ahem, every time I tried another idea that seemed like it would be the charm, the mess only got worse. Finally, I gave up and set a new Blogger template. And being new, unlike the previous one that was ancient as such things go, this one was fully customizable. Phew!

Can’t think why it took me so long to come around to the completely logical decision to apply a new template, except that I do tend to be change-averse. When I think how much time and angst I could have saved myself by exploring the current Blogger template set! Sometimes I’m not too bright. * igh*

As to the new title: At the time I founded the blog, The Arty Blog seemed appropriate. Now, though, something broader and more inclusive is called for. Life, the Universe and Everything isn’t the most original title. It fits the bill though.

Let me know what you think of all the changes.

New History Quiz

Here's a link to my latest FunTrivia quiz, "It Happened in 1941[click]." I've been so much at sixes and sevens that it totally slipped my mind to post the link till now.

What do you think?

How do you like my first-ever meme, hot off the press?

Bedtime Reading and a sweater

I did indeed start The Silver Chair last night and shall finish it tonight. I do love Narnia!

BTW you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a plain, navy blue wool cardigan at L.L. Bean! They have lots of cardigans in lots of lovely colors, but navy seems to be an endangered species. I only saw two for which navy was a choice; though in all honesty, once I'd grumpily picked out a sweater I didn't look at the remaining few. But what I don't get is why this basic color was so hard to find. I mean, how does navy blue go out of style?

I'm not totally thrilled with the cardigan I ended up with, but it should keep me warm at least. Here's the link if you want to take a gander:

1912 Heritage Bird's-Eye Zip-Cardigan

Late Wednesday Evening

I've been sleeping a lot the past couple days, which does not make for interesting blogging. However, I have been re-reading, or re-listening to, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. Tonight I'll start The Silver Chair, also from The Chronicles of Narnia.

Update:Almost forgot! One Night Songs went online last night and has brought me a few nice notes of appreciation.

Monday, Monday

Another lovely afternoon here, sunny and pleasantly cool. We've been having a beautiful October. I suppose November will also be true to form, cold, misty or rainy and dreary. But I certainly can't complain about October.

I finally made it to two hundred thousand points at Fun Trivia and advanced to the next level. Phew! Still no word on my quiz under submission, "One Night Songs." *sigh*

A New Week

- Photo from listener at Howard Empowered

The week is starting auspiciously. Dad got my iTunes restored, hurray! Because the backup from which he did the "restore" is a couple years old, I have a number of CDs to re-import; but, it is a *whole* lot better than starting all over again. That he succeeded in the end is a testament to his determination and, I think, his engineering training that led him to find the problem intriguing. However that may be, I'm very grateful!

Still kind of down, but fighting it. Besides the iTunes restoration, another good thing is that I finally broke through the two hundred thousand point barrier at Fun Trivia. Of course, that's still peanuts, but it's progress. Stilll haven't heard back on my submitted quiz. But, I did need to make a couple minor corrections and resubmit, which sent it back to the end of the queue; so, it'll be a while yet. I'm eager to get this one online, since it will allow me to move on to the next stage of Adventures in Authoring. Don't want to start The Great Quiz Race or any other quest type challenge till I've completed Adventures in Authoring, and I have no idea how much further there is to go in that.

Meantime, I continue to work on more quizzes. Haven't done any actual writing, either songs, poetry or fiction, in some time. But I figure getting the blog re-started is a good first step.

I Never Did Get the Hang of Thursdays

Another in a run of lovely Autumn days. I don't know how long the weather will hold, but am enjoying it while we have it. iTunes is still on the fritz. I'm beginning to think Sis is right and there's nothing for it but to re-import *EVERYTHING*. *sigh* I'm pretty down today, despite the lovely weather. But it's better not to get into that.

Midweek Agro

Computers are wonderful...until they aren't!
My iTunes has been giving me mysterious and vexing problems for several days now. So, finally, after discussing the situation with Sis, I decided to uninstall and reinstall iTunes. A cinch, you say? Obviously, you do not know moi. First the file(s) did not download at all. Then they only downloaded partially. As I type the files are downloading again *fingers crossed and knock on wood!*
It's amazing not to say disturbing how dependent we become on technology. Mind you, I still play good old fashioned records and CDs, as well as the occasional cassette. But I feel lost without iTunes.
Update: How is it possible for a program, in this case iTunes, to continue generating error messages after it has been removed? I keep getting boxes saying iTunes was not installed correctly. GRR!

Tuesday Evening

- Photo courtesy of listener
at Howard Empowered People

Another beautiful Fall day here. I haven't done anything; though a little while ago I pre-ordered at amazon.com some Christmas CDs, including Andy Williams' complete Christmas recordings. Looking forward to that. Ordinarily I'd be grumpy at Christmas stuff being up already, but pre-orders are all right...I suppose.

Monday Afternoon

Lovely, sunny afternoon. I had a nice tea: buttered toast with apricot jam and tea with orange, passion fruit and jasmine. Not altogether sure I like jasmine, but it made a nice change.

I am now the proud owner of a two (count 'em, two) terabyte external drive. Remember when one gig seemed ostentatious and totally unnecessary? Ah, for the good old days when life was simple. *wry grin*

I've been spending a lot of time at Fun Trivia and more time offline working on my own quizzes. It keeps me out of trouble. But it does become something of an obsession, so I need to watch myself.

Week Ending

It hasn’t been the greatest week. It’s only fair to say, it  hasn’t been the worst, but  I’m glad it’s ending. Haven’t been feeling too perky.

Breezing through the Georgiana Rannoch books – currently on Naughty in Nice, the fifth in the series. Still enjoying them, though the  boy crazy friend Belinda is beginning to wear a little thin. After this I’ll be caught up, having come in with Book 6, The Twelve Clues of Christmas. Suppose at that  point I’ll have to return to more substantial reading fare. But I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

In the outside world, Patty Page died this week. R.I.P.

Here’s my favorite of her  songs, “Old Cape Cod.”

Staying Power?

Had a good writing session Wednesday evening. Also doing well maintaining the Rosary and the two sessions on the elliptical. Despite the persistently sore hip, making progress at increasing the time. But Thursday was definitely not a good day. Friday was better, but not great. Tired and really don’t want to do anything but listen to my audiobook. I hope Saturday is better!

Like A Herd Of Turtles

Got started on the new story. No title yet, not even a working title, just a filename. However, it is started, which is something.

In the interests of research, I used my googling skills, such as they are, to look for Much Lovering, the name of the village – tentatively situated in Devon – where our heroine eventually ends up. Astonishingly, there doesn’t appear to be anyplace with that name in England. Doesn’t it sound like a quintessentially English name? That’s better though. If it’s wholly fictitious, I can set it up just as the storyline requires. So, in a way, that’s a relief.

Will be some time till we get that far. Need to get through our heroine’s unhappy life in W. Mass. I have it all laid out in my mind, but sometimes translating from mind to paper (computer screen) is more challenging than one would think. However, it’s still early enough for me to be optimistic.

Haven’t written yet today. Hope to get an hour or two in before bedtime.

On the other hand, I didn’t remember to say the Rosary yesterday but did today. Hope I have the staying power to stick with it. Not only is praying good for the soul, it’s good for the body too. My mother says saying the Rosary lowers her blood pressure, and I also find it calming.

Also doing well with the exercise. Put in two sessions on the elliptical today. Also am able to sustain longer. I’m hopeful that ten minutes at a time may be within reach.

Not all the news is good. Spent the evening buying MP3 music and CDs. Only two CDs though, and the MP3 music was mostly single songs, only one album. So the final cost wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Still, that’s something else I need to watch.  * sigh *

Well into Royal Flush, the third Georgiana Rannoch book and loving it.

That’s probably enough of my mindless rambling for now.

New Beginnings

It’s a new year, which traditionally calls for new beginnings.

Tonight I’ll start a new story. Today I’ll start getting serious about exercise and, after my birthday and the lemon Meringue pie Patty usually brings, a bit of weight loss as well. This year I am going to beat the pernicious habit of using bad language. And I’m also going to get back into the good habit of praying, saying the Rosary every day if nothing else. And I’m going to finish * something * - preferably “World Enough and Time.” Didn’t finish anything at all last year.

Not very ambitious goals perhaps. But then I’ve learned to set the bar low. Here’s hoping I have the perseverance to achieve them, modest as they are!

On a more lighthearted note, I’ve discovered a new series, the Royal Spiness books by Rhys Bowen. They are delightful Mystery/Romance stories set in 1930s London. Always love finding new books! They are definitely Chick Lit, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, I recommend them highly.

Rejection Isn't Always A Bad Thing

Daily Science Fiction rejected “Snowball The Wonder Cat.” That wasn’t really a surprise, but I just thought I’d try.

However, the rejection gave me the impetus to show the story to my writing group. A couple of members gave me suggestions that have proved very helpful. So, I’m now working on developing the story. It’s already twice as long as it was and considerably deeper. Developing Cassie’s personality and the relationship between her and Snowball. It’s going well and I’m excited about it.

...and all because of a rejection.

Maybe not much, but something

Started working on a new song today, “Come to Me”. The timing, that is to say the note values, isn’t quite right in the last couple measures, but it’s definitely coming along nicely.

I’ve also been working on more Engelbert quizzes for Fun Trivia. (To see my existing quizzes, follow the “My Quizzes” link in the sidebar.) Not only do I very much enjoy researching and putting together these quizzes, but this is a great time to be promoting Enge, now that he has been named as the UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. As one of my friends said, “Engelbert Mania has begun!” I’m not sure I’d go that far. But, at the very least, people are going to be looking for info and trivia about him. And your humble Cat is well positioned to fill that need.

I’ve also been forging ahead with my Hadley course on Punctuation. This stuff is harder than it looks! I express myself pretty well, but the finer points of punctuation, including italicization and capitalization, have always eluded me. That’s what comes of reading with audio rather than direct from a print or braille text. But now I’m discovering that some of the things I thought I knew – things I’ve been doing for years – are not according to Hoyle, or at least not according to this course. * sigh * Live and learn, I guess.

Anyway, I haven’t been accomplishing a whole lot lately. On the other hand, I haven’t been accomplishing nothing either, and I suppose that’s the main thing.

Quiz Me A Quiz

My new quiz has been up for a while. Come join the fun and see how much you know about Engelbert's music.

Engelbert and Friends II

And don't forget to play and rate my two other quizzes on Engelbert and his music.

Midweek

Here it is the middle of the week, and what have I done? Not much.

Got a package off to a friend

Uploaded a song to YouTube, “A Chance to Be a Hero” by Engelbert from a concert recording. It has proved popular, which is most gratifying.



Dashed off a quickie poem. The moderator of my Engelbert discussion list usually includes an original poem in her daily message to all members. Today the title sparked an idea and in response I produced the following:

Don’t Tear Our Love Apart

Can't remember when you kissed me
I Don't know when last we touched.
Though you're sleeping here beside me,
I miss you o so much.

It's like you cannot see me.
Is ambition all to blame,
The drive to make more money?
I thought not. What's her name?

Don't tear our love apart.
You already broke my heart.
So let me keep the memory
of days that used to be.

It's over now. You're leaving,
Your eyes as hard as stone.
And I am left here grieving,
Forsaken and alone.

Don't tear our love apart.
You already broke my heart.
So let me keep the memory
of days that used to be.

Don't tear my heart apart.
You broke it, so we'll part.
But let me keep the memory
Of days when you once loved me.

Actually, I think that last line should be:

Of when you once loved me.

Not great poetry, certainly, but not bad for an off-the-top-of-the-head effort. And even writing bad poetry exercises the brain. The rapidity and ease with which I produced that surprised me.

Still, gotta get my act together for the remainder of the week.

Have Lesson 2 of Punctuation to do. Also, need to redo Lesson 5 of Abacus 2. And I was so pleased with myself on that one. Guess being pleased with a result is a bad sign. Much else to do as well. Got to find the motivation somewhere. I don’t want this year to slip by, as so many years before it have done, with nothing to show. I guess discipline is the word. But, oh, how I hate discipline!

The End of the Week

Yesterday was amazing. It seemed like the entire population of Facebook turned out to wish me happy birthday. I also got e-mails and phone calls. It made me feel wonderfully warm and fuzzy, and quite humble.

Today, my friend Patty and her little girl, Sara, came over. They brought me a lemon meringue pie (my favorite!) and beautiful roses. And, they were able to stay for a couple hours, so we could have a nice visit. All in all, I had a great birthday.

This evening I started a new Hadley course, this one on punctuation. Oh, if only I’d had access to this as a youngster, how much bother and embarrassment it would have saved me throughout my life! But, better late than never. Should be able to get Lesson 1 e-mailed in on Monday.

Also, I need to check on my final Abacus 2 lesson, which I submitted right before the start of Winter break. Hadley re-opened Tuesday, but my instructor hasn’t responded to my submission; hence my concern that it might not have gone through.

Knock on wood, this year is starting out pretty well. There’s a great deal to do, but I’m cautiously optimistic that at least some of it may actually get done. Stay tuned.