As I write this, the clouds are gathering for another Florida afternoon thundershower. When I was a girl, this was a common thing and we drove our parents crazy all summer long while the five us us were cooped up in the house. My father called it afternoon thundershower season. Those afternoons would last f o r e v e r.
For the last few years, we didn’t have thundershowers like this one. But now they are back, and back, and back again.
The benefit is they keep the atmosphere cooler. This summer, we have had very few days above 95 degrees. Or at least it seems that way because by the time the late afternoon comes around, it is 85 degrees and the humidity from the thundershower is blowing away. Our grass is the greenest it has ever been. Our shrubs are perfect.
Inside the house, it is dark, and the fans are blowing. we hear a faint rumble from time to time because the heart of the thunderstorm is rarely overhead.
Now that I have the Jeep, I just want to be outdoors. And the weather refuses to cooperate.
~*~
I just finished Brandon Sanderson’s The Alloy of Law. I’ll try to review it next week; this week I’ll be taking a few days off so my mom does not have to be alone while she recovers from hip replacement surgery. Fortunately, there are a lot of us, and most of us are able to pitch in a vacation day or two. My turn is at the end of the week.
~*~
Writing update! Kind of.
I am currently in thinking mode about how to best rewrite a scene toward the end of Magic by Starlight. It is one of those scenes that I need to remove and replace, while keeping some critical outcomes. In the meantime, I have some other things I could be working on, including East of Yesterday, an Accidental Enchantments story, a Petroleum Sunset story, or one of my backburnered projects. But I confess, I am not.
Instead, I’ve been playing Skyrim.
Bad writer. Bad!
But Skyrim is so fun! My character is 16th level now, and I am now able to fight a dragon without passing the remote over to my husband. I like the idea of being able to earn Thaneships and having houses in every city. (Of course in Morrowind, I had houses in every city as well, but that was because I took over the houses after killing the evil occupant as part of some quest. They closed that loophole in Skyrim.) I’m not so keen on the idea of taking a side in a civil war that my character has no real stake in. So far, I’ve avoided doing so.
But it’s a dreadful time-suck, and I have tried not to let it take up too much of my time. I have not played it today. (But I did watch my husband play.) As soon as I finish this post, I’ll fire up the manuscript and see if I can get in a few hundred words. I promise.
After all, the weather isn’t much good for anything else today.
Thundershowers are strange. They always make me feel like I need to be ready for something, somehow. I suspect my muscles tense just because of the electricity in the air. {Smile}
Best of luck to your mother, and to everyone who’s helping her during her recovery. {Smile}
Good luck with the writing. I just completed a very rough draft of a story that’s been almost done for embarrassingly long. {rueful Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Thanks. turns out the surgery is next week. Congratulations on completing your rough draft!
I hope your Mom having surgery next week instead of this week isn’t too inconvenient for the folks lined up to help her get better afterwards. {Sympathetic Smile}
Thank you. {SMILE}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
The mention of Skyrim made me laugh. I was just watching Linsey Sterling’s violin version of the music over on Youtube with my (just got his masters in Music Theory which is his excuse for major geek-fests) little brother yesterday. 🙂
Do you mean the version she did with Peter Hollins, the singer? Because I got the greatest surprise when I realized the “weapon” she was using in their fight scenes. It’s just got to be seen to be believed, but I didn’t notice it at first at all. I mean, he was using a sword, so obviously… I got quite a surprise. {BIG SMILE, wink}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
I saw it too! I thought it was a great concept. The costumes were awesome and the talent was amazing.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BSLPH9d-jsI
Yes, that’s the one. 🙂 I don’t know Peter Hollins, but Linsey Sterling has some awesome videos. She did a Piano Guys crossover of the Mission Impossible Theme that was a lot of fun. (We watched it last night when we were staying up way too late. My sis has been in from Wisconsin this past week so we were showing her youtube videos.)
I like Peter Hollins. I discovered both of them when Rabia linked to their collaborations. Peter does a lot of layering tracks to add more lines and reinforce lines until he’s satisfied with the sound. I think the result can be pretty amazing. {SMILE}
I like Linsey’s videos, too. They’re great fun to watch, and nice to listen to as well. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Both of them were new discoveries for me. I’ll have to look for their other videos.