An Update
Housing Situation:
Floors sanded. Check.
One coat of varnish down. Check.
Varnished dried? Er... Not so check.
We did it yesterday. It's supposed to take 4 hours to dry. 24 hours later it's glistening and moist, not a sign of dryness to be seen. I reckon it's the humidity here in MA at the moment. The air is basically liquid, and it seems just scientifically impossible to dry floor varnish in such conditions. To make things worse, we just received our POD full of our household stuff from CA. That's great, of course, but the scene here is rather absurd...
Boards spread across the wet floor, David sloshing back and forth to the container carrying boxes and table legs and printers, etc, cats miserable because we're keeping them outside in the rain to keep them off the floors, kids oblivious because they're having too much fun... I'd take pictures, but I've got work to do.
Professional Situation:
Ah... You guys know I quit my day job, right? How very strange of me. I left it for a house in the woods to write books. And now... I'm settling in to that house in the woods to write books. Kinda scary; kinda wonderful. Either way, I'm happy to say that I believe I'm close to announcing another bit of book news. I'll let know when I know for sure.
Floors sanded. Check.
One coat of varnish down. Check.
Varnished dried? Er... Not so check.
We did it yesterday. It's supposed to take 4 hours to dry. 24 hours later it's glistening and moist, not a sign of dryness to be seen. I reckon it's the humidity here in MA at the moment. The air is basically liquid, and it seems just scientifically impossible to dry floor varnish in such conditions. To make things worse, we just received our POD full of our household stuff from CA. That's great, of course, but the scene here is rather absurd...
Boards spread across the wet floor, David sloshing back and forth to the container carrying boxes and table legs and printers, etc, cats miserable because we're keeping them outside in the rain to keep them off the floors, kids oblivious because they're having too much fun... I'd take pictures, but I've got work to do.
Professional Situation:
Ah... You guys know I quit my day job, right? How very strange of me. I left it for a house in the woods to write books. And now... I'm settling in to that house in the woods to write books. Kinda scary; kinda wonderful. Either way, I'm happy to say that I believe I'm close to announcing another bit of book news. I'll let know when I know for sure.
Labels: Family Stuff
posted by David Anthony Durham at
3:52 PM
8 Comments:
We just finished re-painting the ceiling in our bedroom. It took forever to dry too, and it looked splotchy at first, but now all is good.
I'm glad your POD made it from California. I had friends who moved to Utah recently, and the moving truck crashed in transit, caught on fire, and needless to say, they had to start from scratch -- new furniture, new appliances, everything.
Which makes me think of a question: do you back up your novel in several places? I think I have mine backed up on about three computers, a flash drive or two, and a few hard copies. What program do you type your novel? MS Word? Is there a publishing standard in regards to software that publishers want authors to use? Is Microsoft Word okay to use?
I LOVED summer in Boston... hmmm. Sorry about the floors though, that is a huge bummer. I hope they dry soon so the kitties can come in... Oh, and so you can finish getting settled in of course, which is important! :-) Congrats on making it home & can't wait to hear more book related news. I also picked up the Aces Wildcard II book in a used bookstore (just down the street, yea!) the other day and can't wait to read it. I wouldn't have known to grab it if it wasn't for your blog about them.
Oh...also, could you post your wife's blog address?! I'd love to take a look and forward to a couple other knitting fanatics I've told about it! :-)
Take care,
Shauna
One more thing, I am also curious about Steven Till's question on the computer programs for writing... I also use MS word, but are there others that are better or used more by authors and publishers? I'm also curious about programs some authors use to come up with potential book covers if you have any ideas or experience with that kind of thing that you can or would be willing to pass on. ~Thanks.
Home repair. Ah. Bliss.
I'm happy that you're back at your home in the woods.
It's great that you and your posse and your POD are all where you need to be. I do feel for you when it comes to the moving, though. I've had a lot more stability as an adult, but growing up an Air Force brat meant a massive household move across many state lines every two or three years. It was madness. And disorienting. But I always seemed to like where we ended up.
One of those places was Chicopee, Mass, which meant a lot of activity time in Holyoke, Springfield, and Boston. I even remember Cape Cod and a bit of NYC.
You talking about your Durham home in the woods brings back warm, fragrant memories. I'm looking forward to future posts as the year goes on.
I forgot to add...
Varnish IS an SOB, yeah. Even with perfect weather. *sigh*
I keep seeing 'Man Friday' footprints in your varnish. Do you have a huge tub of nail polish remover by your beds at night so you can get that stuff off in case you forget and step in it? Would you have to get the sissors out and shear the cat if she lay down in your gloss and it dried? Oh boy I have a tonne of questions....Nick
Okay, so it's three days later and a portion of the floor is dry. Some is still tacky, though. No longer amusing.
Nick,
Shear the cat? Nah. I think we'd just leave it there until it molted.
Steven,
I do use Microsoft Word (for Mac in my case). Never had a problem with my publisher. Last few years I haven't even sent them hardcopies, just attached the doc and pressed send. I'm not sure if all publishers are the same. Likely not. But I can say that I've found that just using standard software usually works just fine.
Shauna,
Gudrun has a new pattern out. I'll just go do a post about it, with links...
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