I wish I could say the sweat was from treadmilling (yes, I got thirty minutes in), or lifting weights, or doing some sort of healthy exercise. But it’s mainly from working in a hot garage while I added to the heat with butane and propane torches.

Yeah, I’m making jewelry. The pendant shown at left, to be specific (although I decided against the silver balls, as they made the top look crowded once the bezels had been soldered on) — fossilized yellow coral set with citrines on an 18 GA sterling silver backplate. After getting everything cleaned up and polished, I put it in the tumbler where it’ll be burnished by steel shot overnight (seriously, this works great. I add about a pound of different shapes of steel shot to water, a cupful of burnishing compound and a couple of drops of Dawn dish detergent, then pop in whatever needs to be burnished, and it comes out gleaming the next morning.

And I hear you saying, “Well, that’s nice, Nic, but did you do any, you know, writing today?” As a matter of fact I did, on both King of Blades (up to 10K and three chapters now) and the holiday novella One Sweet Christmas. Depending on how much work I get done in the next two weeks I may have to bump Blades to an August release, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing since it could get included in a NYT list of indie releases in August – October if I do that. We’ll have to see.

I don’t know why I’m so tired, but I am. I just want to go to bed, but I know if I do it now (8:47 PM) I’ll be up at 1 AM and whoops, there goes my circadian cycle.

So I’m making myself stay up until 10 PM at least, at which point Grandma here can go to bed. While I’m waiting, I’ll knock out that thirty minutes on the treadmill. Maybe the cardio will help keep me awake. Or I’ll fall over and break something, who knows.

That beings said, this also makes two complete weeks of walking for thirty minutes, give or take, every day, and I’m here to tell you that it really has made a difference. My legs are more toned, as is my butt (the skin on it has gotten the tiniest bit deflated, which makes me happy), it’s easier to bend over, it’s easier to walk around, and I just don’t feel as sick and defeated as I had two weeks ago. And yeah, there’s been some minor weight loss as well, which is nice, but once again that’s not the goal. Nic wants to be able to walk long distances without wanting to be put out of her misery, and this is really the only way to do it. Thank God Ramón bought that treadmill 15 years ago, that’s all I have to say.

I’ve also learned that a 24-hour Claritin every day is a must, not only to dry up my sinuses but to stop my joints from reacting to whatever allergen is freaking them out. Good to know.

So today has been pretty much spent at my bench working on earring settings (7 AM – 12 PM because it was the only time when the garage was at a bearable temperature), eating lunch and cooling off (12 – 1PM), collapsing into a weird but desperately needed doze (1-5 PM), then getting up and puttering around, watching more episodes of Fleabag, going out and deadheading some of the plants before we got hit with yet another small but powerful storm, making dinner, then wrestling with a store-bought prong setting for some earrings only to find that I’d used jump rings that were too big (5 PM – now). I was able to salvage the other setting and put on smaller rings, and it looks faboo, but now I have to wait until Rio Grande ships me another 10x12mm pre-notched sterling silver setting to finish the earrings.

And let me tell you, I now understand why jewelers prefer to make their own prong settings because trying to shape a one-size-fits-all piece so that it’ll take your stone is a pain in the freaking ass. But at least I now know how to do it, so I’ve got that going for me.

No, I didn’t walk at all. Gonna go do that now, whee.

I made the huge mistake of not getting a decent night’s sleep last night, which has rendered me semi-comatose all day. Yes, I got my thirty minutes in on the treadmill, but then we went out with my editor for a birthday dinner (she and Ramón were born on the same day) at this great Lebanese place, and between the pita bread, the hummus, and the gyro plate I’ve been hit with a carb bomb that is making me soooooooooo sleepy.

But I don’t WANNA go to bed before 10 PM because if I do I’m just going to wake up around 1 AM and not be able to get back to sleep. So I need to find something that will keep me awake without being physically or mentally exhausting, and I think Season 2 of Fleabag on Amazon Prime is working nicely. Not only is it blackly funny, but I can now see why so many people find Andrew Scott attractive. Mind you, I’m perfectly aware that he’s a handsome man as well as an immensely talented actor, but it was one of those things where I consciously appreciated the man’s aesthetics but they didn’t really light a fire.

Now he’s playing a goofy, charming Catholic priest of all things, and I don’t know if I’m so tired that I’m channeling the main character’s unrequited lust or what, but damn, he’s smokin’ hot. Yeah, yeah, I’m going to hell…

So today I only got twenty minutes in on the mill due to a combination of this lingering cold and needing to get some work done. While I feel a bit bad about that I know it’s not the end of the world. I still got off my butt and walked for twenty minutes, which is far better than spending the entire day sitting.

In fact, with the improving leg strength and stamina I think I’m going to start back at the gym on Monday and see if I can add some weights in three days a week with the daily cardio. I know I may look like Mrs. Potatohead but I like the way I feel when I lift, so it’s probably time to start throwing iron around.

Oh, and I said I’d check in on any weight loss on Day Ten. Yes, there has been some, not a huge amount but that’s not the goal with all of this. It’s more important to regain strength, stability, and flexibility, and that’s all starting to come back. If I get smaller, too, that’s a nice fringe benefit but I’m not going to obsess about it.

That being said, MAN my calf muscles are starting to shape up nicely.

Yep, still doing thirty minutes a day.

Yep, still listening to Pod is My Copilot while trudging along.

Yep, still entertaining the cats.

Yep, still sweating like Seabiscuit.

Yep, my knees still hurt like a mother.

But. I was able to climb up a ladder today to replace the seasonal decor over the front door without much of a problem (we have a pair of garlands, a front door wreath, and two vases of flowers that get switched out every season. Today I put the Summer flowers up, so the foyer is now a riot of color).

Plus I was able to do two sessions of fifteen minutes each instead of three ten-minute sessions because, well, I wasn’t tired when I hit the first ten minutes so why not just punch out another five minutes? Plus tomorrow I’m going over to my editor’s house to help clean her guest room because her broken ankle requires her to stay off it and not do things like clean her guest room (she has an incoming guest, hence the cleaning), and I’m not dreading this. So it looks like the endurance is starting to come back whether it likes it or not. Now if I could just find a way to get some sleep without wanting to slice out my knees, that would be faboo.

In writing news, I have a draft cover for King of Blades. I’ve wanted to get Matthias on a cover since Book One, and I finally did it, dammit. Mind you, this isn’t the final version — I still need to do some tweaking here and there and smooth his face out just a bit more (not too much, but enough to match the painted style of the other covers in the series), and maybe add a shooting star under the moon because what the hell, why not. Ooh, and birds — birds would also be a good idea.

But at the moment I am very, very happy with this image. As I put it when I posted it on Instagram, “It’s the closest I could get to Iain Glen without actually using a picture of, you know, Iain Glen.” Now I just have to finish the book, and everything is cool.

It’s called “I was tired yesterday and forgot to post.” Today’s treading involved turfing Jemma the tortie off so that I could get my steps in. She was astounded when the deck started to move slowly and deposited her on the floor at the end.

Yes, it was slow. No, she wasn’t hurt at all, merely boggled. She proceeded to jump onto the pedal sewing machine to watch me sweat while Ramón unboxed a monitor that he’s hoping to hook up to his BBC Micro (he collects old computers and the treadmill is in the dining room, as is the pedal sewing machine. Don’t ask).

In writing news, I made headway on King of Blades and officially moved into the three figure mark for book sales this month, which is a nice return to 2017 levels. Now if I can just keep that up or bump it up even more, that would be faboo.

Oh, also, amusing moment with Ramón tonight — a few weeks ago he started watching a SyFy show about futuristic bounty hunters called Killjoys, which he thought I’d like to watch because of the snappy dialogue and the kickass female lead. And lo, I do find myself enjoying the snappy dialoogue and said kickass female lead, but it’s the hot silver fox quasi-villain who really caught my attention. I do appreciate a morally dubious character with the right amount of grey in his hair and a set of smokin’ blue eyes.

When I was a kid, I loved stormy weather. It was great to hang out in a window and watch lightning bolts chase each other across a bruise-purple sky.

These days, I still love the aesthetics, but what wet weather does to my joints is extremely unpleasant and goes to show that growing old isn’t for the weak. Nonetheless, my aching body got on board the treadmill three times and churned out the necessary mileage. Why? Because damn it, I want my endurance back. Plus I figure the pain will subside eventually after my body realizes that no, this isn’t a passing phase and it had better get used to it.

Actually, what I’d really like to get back to is what I was doing in this picture (I’m in the middle). I used to fence with the SFWA Musketeers at SF conventions, as well as with a group of SCA folks here in the clavicle of Texas, and that was an absolute blast. During this time I was also bellydancing, and I think that was the most fit I’ve ever been as an adult. Not to mention flexible — I can still do really good belly rolls and snake arms when my joints play ball.

Wonder if Romancelandia needs a roving band of babes with blades…