A raptor of some sort (we have hawks, vultures, and owls here) must have hit a dove or pigeon in our back yard because a good ten square feet of grass were littered liberally with feathers (the longest ones were dark about halfway down the shafts then turned white, and the down was white). I just raked them up—didn’t find any body parts so I’m guessing those were eaten by the raptor.

The only reason I saw this was that Someone had piddled a bit right at the entrance to the breakfast nook litter box (in their defense it was absolutely chokka with poop and pee so I cleaned it early), requiring me to take up the litter-catching mat and bring it outside to hose it down, whereupon I found the murder scene. In any case the floor has been swept and mopped, the broom has been hosed down and is drying with the mat outside, and the feathers have been deposited in the trash bin.

Happy Easter, everybody!

The plan for today was to get To My Muse fully formatted and uploaded to Smashwords and Google Play, then work on editing Shifter Woods: Claw.

Ha. Hahahahahahahahaha.

I was in the middle of breakfast when I was reminded that T-Mobile was pinging Ramón and asking where the payment was so I sat down and paid all the bills. Then J.J. started yowling at me so I stripped out his bedding, put fresh on, put the soiled bedding in the wash and started that, gave him fresh water and treats on the table next to his bed, and cuddled him for awhile because I think he was as achy as I was with the incoming weather change.

At which point Jasmine climbed onto my table in the library and puked from a height on the rug, as she does. So I cleaned that up.

Then I remembered that I wanted to wash our bedding as well (and this has to be done during the day because it involves three comforters, a microfiber blanket, a body pillow cover, and a knee pillow cover. Ramón calls me the Greater American Nesting Female for a very good reason). So I grabbed the basket of clean laundry and washed sheets, went upstairs and stripped off all of our bedding, then remembered that I wanted to take pictures of the three quilt tops I’ve finished in the last months and a stripped mattress was the best way to photograph them.

So I spread the tops across the mattress and photographed them.

By that point it was now early afternoon and I needed something to eat so I polished off the last of the Italian wedding soup from a few nights ago. Moved the now-washed cat bedding from the washer into the dryer, loaded one comforter into the washer, started to head back upstairs … and Ramón wanted to discuss his plan of how we’re going to install a hatch in the fence behind our pool pump (because it’s caged with PVC piping and needs to be taken out and have various things cleaned/replaced). So we hashed out a plan of how to do that in two weeks when we have nice weather for the weekend.

Then J.J. started yowling again. I changed his bedding again, topped up his water and treats, stroked his head, and went upstairs only to realize that I needed to post my social media stuff, including making some TikTok videos. Worked on that and remembered that I had deal with the bedding being washed so I went back downstairs, moved the now-dry cat bedding into its storage area, moved the wet comforter into the dryer, loaded the second comforter into the washer and got that going.

Looked out the window and saw that the weather was sunny and perfect, ideal for cutting down all the frozen lantana in our back yard and hopefully clearing way for some new growth. Since we’re going to have cold and rainy weather for at least a week I decided to get it done now. Grabbed some secateurs, my gardening gloves, and a couple of garden trash bags from the garage and cleared out two beds’ worth of dead lantana branches and leaves, which left my arms itchy as all hell.

I then remembered that I still needed to make up the bed so I went back upstairs (why, yes, I climb a lot of stairs every day, thank you), put fresh sheets and pillowcases on the bed, put away the clothing that I had brought up, and went back into my office to format and edit.

At 4:00 PM. Spent two hours working on all that, then realized I felt like absolute crap from allergies and the oncoming weather change and asked Ramón to go out and bring some cooked chicken in for dinner. Which he did, bless him, and I spent the rest of the evening picking at To My Muse and monitoring our bedding and bringing pieces upstairs once they were dry (which requires two dryer cycles per comforter and I have to turn the comforter over so that the inner damp side gets hit by the hot air, which is why this needs to get started early in the day), reading news about Clarkesworld closing its submissions due to AI-written slush (more on that later), and finally taking a much-needed shower.

So if you ever wonder why I don’t publish as often as other writers, well, now you know.

Not for me—for Ramón. Although he didn’t get a lot of relaxation in, having spent the morning struggling to get the pool pump motor apart and see if he could figure out why it was vibrating so hard (he’s an engineer, this is what he does—remember how we fixed the subsiding front walkway? Yeah, this is more of that).

His technical opinion: we have to disconnect the pump from the pool plumbing, dismantle it, clean it out, replace a bunch of seals and other motory things, then reconnect it. One eensy problem—when we had this motor put in about eight years ago the guy who did it rerouted some of the pool plumbing pipes directly over the motor, which means we can’t just unhook it and lift it out. It pretty much lives in a cage of PVC.

Which means our options are as follows:

1) Cut out the piping over the pump, pull the pump and fix it, then install new PVC piping. Quite apart from the fact that I’ve never done that before, I’m not sure if we could get everything fitted properly.

2) Cut a hatch in the fence behind the pool pump that would allow someone to reach in, unhook the pump, and pull it out through the fence. On the one hand, this would allow us to pull out the pump on a yearly basis to clean and fix anything that needed fixing. On the other hand, we have one of those offset slat fences and creating a hatch that would be both secure and aesthetically pleasing would be … a challenge. Yeah, let’s call it a challenge.

Ramón is already on the side of the fence hatch and I do agree that this would make future pump upkeep much easier, but he’s talking about taking out a section of the fence and the back gate to create it and … no. Just no. I think I may go out sometime next week when the weather is nice and just get it done myself. My honey is brilliant, talented, and a whiz with tech and motors, but I’m the one who earned the title Spackle Woman, Maid of Mortar early on in our marriage (my grandfather could design, build, and repair anything, and his skills seem to have been passed on genetically because EVERYONE on that side of the family can do what he did). If anyone will be handling power tools, it will be me.

Much to my surprise I got a text from the accountant this morning saying that the tax return was ready and I could go back out there to sign it and pay for the service.

Unsurprisingly our return was minimal (mainly due to the money we took out of the IRA for my knee surgery) but at least it was a return and pretty much covers the CPA fee so I’m grateful for small favors. Another writer I know said that she owes big time this year, so not going to complain.

However, it also means that certain plans I’d been holding in reserve for a goodish tax refund will have to stay in reserve until I can find the money for them. Which isn’t necessarily bad—it’s certainly a good prompt for me to get my ass in gear and publish more books, set up the Patreon, record audiobooks, and start selling signed print books directly.

The more I get into the small business owner headspace, the better. I know I can make a decent income from being an indie author, but I have to stop thinking like I’m only the Talent and start thinking like I’m the Producer as well.

I have just completed one of the two yearly scheduled road trips. Our accountant’s office is just a touch west of Arlington (the accountant was recommended to me by a friend when I used to work in Irving. They’re so good at what they do that we don’t want to switch to someone in Plano), which means I have an hour and a half round trip to go out there, drop off our files, and come home.

And yes, they have a secure online server where I could upload scanned files (and I have a printer that is also a scanner and will work such arcane magic), but I like the drive. For one thing, the hillsides of the various highways are usually carpeted in bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and other wildflowers, which is always pretty, and even a short road trip is kind of fun for me.

This year, however, I got the taxes finished in record time (I usually get everything done in March) and the hillsides showed nary a bluebonnet as I drove down 181. Bit of a bummer, but there’s a nice field nearby that usually gets carpeted with bluebonnets and I can always get my fix when that blooms.

While in previous years we usually got some pretty tasty returns due to me having a small business and a home office, I’m hearing that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2018 is going to adversely affect a lot of people for fiscal year 2022 so I’m not holding out hope for a big return. If we don’t owe anything, I’ll be happy with that.

To be honest, there were no grand romantic gestures here in Casa Cameron, which I know may be unexpected for a romance writer. But neither of us were in the mood for such gestures, nor do we need them. Ramón and I are ridiculously affectionate all year round so we don’t need an official day for those kind of activities. Also, flowers need to be put out of range of the J Crew which is problematic, and we already had chocolates. *shrug*

So today pretty much consisted of working, changing out J.J.’s peed-upon bedding, fetching Thai for dinner, and generally relaxing. I did wind up churning out 1,210 words on Crystal Blade, which felt really good, and I now have a solid plotline of what should happen in the second half of the book.

In other writing news I’m picking at the outlines for High Tide (Olympic Cove Five) and To Love a Wild Swan (Hidden Empire Three). Mage of Fire (Two Thrones Five) is still simmering in my subconscious and with everything else going on I don’t want to poke at that quite yet. Once I have Crystal Blade done, however, I’m going to try an experiment and work on Crystal Reflection (Paladins of Crystal Three), Tide, and Swan in rotation. Since the stories are all so very different I’m hoping that I can stay fresh by shifting from book to book depending on my mood of the day.

And if it turns out that I’m just muddling along without getting ANYTHING done I’ll switch back to doing one book at a time. We’ll see.