Nicola Cameron Writes

Time on Treadmill: 10 minutes.
Stress level: Would duck out on meeting Misha Collins.

Remember all that writing stuff I do as well as make sparklies? Well, I’m trying to get everything put together so that I can attend WORDFest SW on Saturday (with my books and jewelry), plus finish one last labradorite pendant, pay the car insurance, and do all the other things that keep this place running.

As a result, I did not get my usual thirty minutes in today. I’ll try to make it up over the weekend, but frankly I doubt that’s gonna happen unless a miracle occurs. In better news, Ramón has gotten some promising info on the job front so we have hopes, and we celebrated his first day of leisure by going to see Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood. I have to admit, I liked it, and I didn’t see the ending coming until I realized, oh, wait — this is a fairy tale. Okay, now I get it.

I also think this one one I’ll be buying because for some reason I was getting serious nostalgia vibes from it (which makes little to no sense as I was three and nowhere near LA when this movie was set, but that’s my brain for you).

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Bemusement status: Moderately boggled.

Compared to last night’s debate, this one so far is somewhat eh. Harris’s voice is somewhat shaky, Biden looks sad, the mikes are not what I would call professional, and Andrew Yang seems to be the only one who came charged (although Di Blasio just got finished trouncing all over Bennet over Medicare For All). Don’t know what’s going on in Detroit tonight, but it feels like they all got some sort of bad news that they’re trying to ignore while dealing with the debate.

In other news, I’m re-hydrating after one hell of a hot afternoon in the garage working on a larimar and aquamarine pendant. If this thing comes out the way I think it will, it’s going to look amazing, but I know not to promise anything until I finish the final bit of polishing. I’ll also be trying to finish another pendant and a pair of earrings before I attend a show on Saturday (WORDFest SW) — I’ve got jewelry that will be in the Art Show at Armadillocon, as well. If I can sell a bunch of jewelry and books this weekend, I would be a very happy camper.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Annoyance status: Would push a small child out of my way.

It’s just one of those days when I’m trying to work and Ramón has decided to update the refurbed PC laptop he bought for me (for my new intermittent contract work) in the kitchen, which is less than eight feet from where I’m sitting. Which means he’s talking to himself, carrying the laptop over to me so that I can set passwords and security questions, and generally being distracting.

Now, I am very grateful that he bought me a laptop, and he’s setting it up like the in-house tech resource he is, and he’s a wonderful man whom I love very much. I just can’t work with him in the same room. I may have to rethink the office arrangement and see if there’s some way I can fix the office chair so that it doesn’t sink down to child level within five minutes of me sitting down and completely wrecking my knees in the process.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Head status: Thick and snotty. Thank you, tree sex.

People think that freelance workers don’t have the Monday blues. Ha. Ha ha ha. What we don’t have are weekends, or evenings, or holidays, or vacations. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to be able to work from home in a pair of leggings and a t-shirt, but there’s also the tendency to just keep working even after business hours (or your work hour quota, however you’re arranging it). One of the things I have tried to do time and time again is set specific hours when I’m working, and then stop after that time is up.

But it’s kinda hard to do that when you have to run errands, or someone decides that they want to talk to you even though you have fingers on keyboard and are typing away, or the cat’s puked in the living room once again and you need to get the steam cleaner out, or mirable dictu you get stuck into a project and don’t want to stop, or… Well, you get the idea. Because I’m at home I keep getting interrupted all throughout the day, so my actual work day lasts far longer than that of someone who spends eight hours in an office.

So, yeah, Monday sucks for all of us. In more pleasant news, I finished my birthday present to myself, a rather tasty pendant set with a carnelian and with a flame surround. Mind you, sawing out those flames was an adventure, but man, the end result is worth it.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Cleanliness: Squeaky and sweet-smelling

I made a command decision today. I have a pendant on the bench that is a really lovely two-tone carnelian oval cabochon in a sterling setting where the bezel has been ringed with tiny hand-sawn flames.

And I’m keeping it. It’s my birthday, I bought this cab for myself, I wanted a sun/flame pendant to celebrate the fact that I’m a Leo born in July, and now that it’s all together and sitting in the pickle waiting for its bail to be attached, I’ve decided screw it, I want it for myself. I have more than enough stuff for next weekend (I’m going to be at WORDfest SW in Burleson, TX, if anyone wants to stalk me or buy books and jewelry), and I still have at least two more pairs of jewelry and another pendant to make before then, so I can afford to keep this one. It’s mine, and I shall treasure it.

And yes, I’ll post pics when it’s done. Seriously, this one is going to be so damn cool.

In writing news, I’m back at work on both King of Blades and Uncertainty Principle, and Blades should be available by the end of August while Uncertainty should be available by late September.

In health news, the bad knee is still acting up after my lark with interval training last weekend, so I think I’m going to maybe give that a miss for a few more weeks. On the plus side, however, Aunt Flo left the building on Friday in one of the briefest periods I have ever experienced, so I’m hoping that the end is near and I’ll be in full-fledged menopause by 2020 or sooner. I know women can look on that with horror, but having my PCOS’ed ovaries finally go into hibernation will be a blessing for me. I can always get HRT if I need it — hell, I’m already using progesterone cream. Best of all, the retained water is already coming off, and I suspect I’ll hit a new milestone sometime this week, which will be fabulous.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Pain level: Much reduced, thank you.

Oh, the difference a day (and a dose of prednisone) makes. Not only did I stay up all night working on these feather pendants (two oxidized silvers, one oxidized copper, and one fire-painted copper), I then had a fantastic eight hours of sleep, woke up and cleaned the kitchen, did some laundry, put the feathers on cord necklaces, moved the bench and surrounding items in an attempt to find the aquamarine cab that bounced off the table yesterday (couldn’t find it, but that’s okay — I can get another one on Monday), went out for a lovely Mediterranean dinner with Ramón, my editor, and her husband where we discussed the suckiness of the looking for work situation, replaced a fritzy socket in a table lamp (even better, it turns out the old socket was for three-way bulbs — once I put in the new single-intensity socket, the lamp became much brighter), and now I think I’m gonna put on my jammies, take my meds and go to sleep early because I can. dammit.

Also, my jawline is becoming more pronounced. That’s kinda cool.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Temptation to blow it all off and stay in bed: Immense.

Things came to a head today when I seriously just wanted to stay in bed and die, I felt so crappy. With me, allergies don’t just mean aching sinuses and lots of mucus going down my throat — it also hits my joints, and man, today was a seriously bad pain day.

But I don’t have time for that because I have things to do, tra la, so I went out and got a bottle of Flo-Nase (which I’d run out of a few days ago, bad Nicola, no new laptop) and popped one of my few, treasured Prednisone pills. Can’t take it all the time because it’s horribly corrosive, but I have a prescription that I can dole out if and when I really, really need it.

Today, I really, really needed it. A half hour later I felt moderately human again and was able to get stuff done in the garage (making some pendants for my family) and knock out time with Chuck. Hopefully it’ll last long enough to let me get some decent sleep tonight, because I could definitely use it.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Desire to pour Drano into my sinuses: Rising.

Oh, Texas. I really don’t know why you don’t post a sign on your borders that reads, “Welcome to Texas — here are your adult onset allergies.” I never needed antihistamines on a regular basis until I moved here, and climate change has made all of that even worse because it’s humid as hell down here now. Needless to say, the plants absolutely love this and are pumping out tons of pollen in celebration.

To make matters worse, it’s affecting the cats. Poor Jessie and Jaz keep sneezing, a number of them keep throwing up big puddles of mucus, and JJ (AKA Mr Sensitive to EVERY Allergen) is overgrooming again which means I get to stick half a Chlor-trimeton down his throat every day to give him some relief. I can live with aching sinuses and feeling like crap, but I don’t want to see the furkids dealing with this, as well.

Oh, and dealing with this while working in a hot garage? So much fun. I wear a mask because I deal with a lot of particulate matter and fumes from heating metal, but I still tend to come in with a sore throat and aching ears. But at least I have pretty jewelry as a reward, so that’s something. Now if people would only buy it…

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Exasperation with Orange Cat who insists on unrolling toilet paper rolls: Infinite.

I …

Okay …

Let’s start at the beginning. As you know (Bob), I’m in perimenopause, have been for well over a year, which means that my period comes if and when it damn well pleases. And lo, it showed up this morning, a full week after it was supposed to start so apparently my cycle is now thirty-five days. Whee.

But that’s not the unexpected thing. The unexpected thing is that I’ve put on water weight. Yeah, yeah, I know, but let me explain. One of the big problems I’ve always had with my malfunctioning ovaries is that I would put on water weight during both my menstrual period and my fertile period. And when we’re talking water weight, I don’t mean a pound or two — I mean five to seven pounds. Yeah, it was that bad. And it happened twice a month, which made life ever so pleasant and any attempt at weight loss pretty much useless (you try losing two pounds over two weeks, then gaining five to seven pounds for five days, then slowly shedding it, then gaining it all AGAIN two weeks later, and see how disgusted you get with your own metabolism).

But since I’ve started doing three things — using progesterone cream, taking alpha lipoic acid and cinnamon with chromium supplements (Ramón’s doctor suggested that Ramón start taking them for his diabetes, since they’re supposed to help balance a borked metabolism. Since diabetes, PCOS, and Hashimoto’s are all metabolic disorders, I thought I’d try them as well) and walking thirty minutes a day, there have been some changes. For one thing, I didn’t retain any water during my last fertile period, which was a blessing and a half.

For another, the slow but steady weight loss I’ve seen since I started working with Chuck stopped a couple of days ago. I didn’t worry about it that much (all of this is intended to make me stronger and build my endurance, after all — any weight loss is simply a nice perk), but it was mildly annoying.

When Aunt Flo made her appearance this morning, however, I estimated I was retaining about three or four pounds of water weight, judging from the puffiness of my extremities and the way my knees feel. And then I stepped on the scale and learned … I hadn’t gained any weight. In fact, I was actually about a half pound down. Which means that I had continued the slow, steady weight loss — the water weight just fooled me into thinking it had stopped. Once everything wraps up on Sunday, I should see a three-to-four pound drop a day or two later as all that retained water goes bye-bye.

People, I cannot stress how much of a game changer this is. My ovaries and my crappy thyroid have wreaked hormonal havoc on my metabolism for forty years. If perimenopause combined with the exercise, supplements, and progesterone are finally, FINALLY getting them to calm the fuck down, this counts as an actual miracle in my eyes.

Also, if what I think will happen does happen on Monday, I should be at the lowest weight I’ve been in about five years. So I have that going for me.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Delight at cooler weather: Doing the Moldavian Dance of Joy.

I know this is only a brief respite. I know that Mother Nature is merely putting the tip in, teasing us with a reminder of what decent temps are like. But oh my friends, it never hit 90°F today in the clavicle of Texas and that made me a very happy camper because it meant I could finish up some projects in the garage during the DAY. What a concept.

As a result both my jade pendants are now finished (see below — I’d gotten the cabochons years ago, meaning to turn them into earrings. When I pulled them out a few days ago, I realized that they were way too big for that and should be pendants), and a pair of earrings for a friend are now in the tumbler and awaiting setting tomorrow. I’m trying to build stock because I’m going to be doing a show in two weeks AND sending some of my pieces to Armadillocon for their art show (also, I need money, but that’s the norm these days), so I’m pretty happy with my production schedule so far. Once I finish the friend’s earrings, I have a super cool pendant I want to do with a carnelian cabochon and a flame bezel, and a set of scrollwork aquamarine earrings.

Yes, I’m still writing. But if I’m frank, sweethearts, right now I make more money off the jewelry and I have bills to pay right away so that’s what I have to focus on. Don’t worry — I’m still working on King of Blades and Uncertainty Principle, and both books will be out this year alone with the still untitled romcom about the actors. Of course, I would be able to spend more time writing if people bought my sparklies, just saying…

In other news, my childhood has been officially ruined by a gentleman who goes by the nom de plume of Weird Dad. Weird Dad decided to use FaceApp, that darling of Russian data scrapers, to put a beard on someone.

To be specific, he put a beard on pictures of Mr. Rogers. Yes, the same gentleman of “It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” fame, a kind and gentle soul who helped generations of children learn how to look for helpers, and most likely the only bodhisattva most of us will ever know in our lifetimes. And this innocent prank did something that absolutely no one, including Weird Dad, expected–

It made Mr. Rogers bangable. I swear to God, all of the romance writers I know on Twitter are astounded by this, too, but it’s true (not to mention deeply disturbing). It doesn’t help that Mr R’s kinda got a Chris Evans thing going in some of the pictures. If you don’t believe me, go look for yourself.

Just don’t blame me if your childhood gets ruined, too.