And however much I really hate to say this, I have story obligations to finish, and I really, really have to get some stuff written and off to the nice people who have been patiently waiting for them. So I am only going to make one doll a week from now on, for a Monday auction. After I get the obligations out of the way, I will return to two a week. I promise!

So Cleo’s first night outside was a success. She had to endure the storms that came through, but she managed, and she’s sticking around the house, which is a good idea. So that’s good.

She’s also being all lovey-dovey, too. Which is fine as well. Outside.

I bought her a collar (breakaway, of course) so if she does wander into the neighbors yards, they’ll be able to tell that she’s owned. And I plan on telling my neighbors about her, too.

And I think she’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure she spent the night in the shed. I’ll have to fix her up a place in there.

Today outside it is in the low 80s, with low humidity, so it doesn’t feel hot at all. In fact, it feels wonderful! Too bad that this weekend will be in the low 90s. Grrrr.

Some of my peas are almost ready to pick!

After almost a week’s worth of waiting, it finally rained overnight. In fact, I think it’s about to rain again this morning, so I’d best be quick! But two storms came through, with lovely rain for my newly planted plants. Now I can mulch Ethan’s garden and the flowerbed. Yay!

It was nice to sleep without a catfight, too. Although I didn’t sleep all that well, thanks to the thunder.

Ah well. Better luck tonight, I guess. And I have to get ready for work, so more later.

I now have an outside cat.

Cleome hit the last straw today when I got home and found my favorite mug in pieces on the floor.

Let me rephrase that:

I’ve had this mug for probably close to eight or nine years. I bought two of them at Home Goods in Beechmont before it closed quite some time ago. They are marked ‘Hausenware Made in China’. My favorite, of course, was dark wedgewood blue with spirals. It was perfectly weighted, and fit my hand perfectly. It was everything I could ever want in a mug. I used it every single day. Seriously.

The second one has a loose handle, so I use it much more rarely. Now I have no choice.

My blue mug has lived through a lot. My ex threatened to break it, I dropped it on more than one occassion, and it sat next to my computer while I wrote countless novels and stories. It was on my list of possessions dear to me–and I was very, very paranoid about it breaking, because I’ve never been able to find another one anywhere. (Even ebay; I’ve looked!)

Every morning before I left, I would put my mug on the counter beside the dish rack, far enough back so that if the cats were to disobey Rule #3 and jump up on the counter, it should be fine. That is where it was when I left this morning.

When I returned home from work, I walked into the kitchen to find my hollyhock plants all over the counter and out of the pitcher of water they were sitting in, and my mug in pieces on the floor.

I have only seen one cat on that particular countertop. And I’m sick and tired of cleaning up her pee. (Grey–you were right–it’s a dominance thing.) And I’m sick and tired of having to yell at her every single night when she attacks Zoey (my older declawed cat) with no provocation on Zoey’s part. She isn’t nice to anyone, she wants to rule the roost, and no one else gives a damn about the roost, who rules it, or where they sleep.

So I tossed her butt outside, after having a screaming fit, because damn it, I’m still angry about this. I know, both my parents said that it’s only a mug. But it was my favorite mug. And irreplacable.

Oh, sure, I can use another one. But it won’t be the same. Ever. Damn her.

I only have four rules. Everyone else has no problem obeying my rules. I don’t think they are horrible rules, or too difficult for anyone here to obey. And they do obey. They know when they’ve done something wrong. And for the most part, they are very rule-abiding kitties.

Cleome is welcome to stay outside. I will feed her and give her plenty of water to drink. I will give her a place to sleep. My house is really far enough back from the road, so she should be fine, really, if she is smart enough. It’s not a busy road anyway, and I’ve yet to see a roadkill cat since I’ve moved here.

But she’s staying outside. She’s fixed, she has her shots, she’ll be fine as long as she stays out of trouble. But she will not set foot in my house again. I have had it.

(And I’m sorry if this comes across as if I’m a horrible person. I have cleaned up her pee for months. I have shut her into the upstairs bathroom in isolation. I have endured catfights in the middle of the night, through the night, and morning, and afternoon, and whatever. She would come up to a sleeping cat and just attack without warning. She can attack the stray cats if she wants to, but I’ve had it. The mug, especially, was the last straw.)

So. I’m looking for a replacement mug, but it needs to be as close to exactly the same as possible. Does anyone here know any potters that might be able to make one to my specifications? Or two, so I can really have a spare?

**Mourn**

“You do realize that by killing Jacob Daulton, you put in motion the events that led up to all of this?” Amalea asked.

“What do you mean?” Kyren asked, finally able to look away from the house. If he walked inside, what would he see? Beth? Or some forgotten ghost of the human he had loved?

“If you hadn’t killed him, the Hunt would not have been free for the Council to bind.” Amalea took his arm to lead him away from the house. “If the Hunt had not been bound by the Council, then Magdalen would not have any chance to try for the throne, because they would have been banished long ago.”

“And Bethany–and my daughters–would have died,” Kyren said. He tried to push past the hurt of her words, since he knew she did not mean to hurt him. “Or gone mad; either way he would have murdered them.” He pulled his arm from her grasp. “Perhaps this is all my fault, then, and I was right. The only thing I regret about killing him is that my ‘crime’ was discovered before I could take both my daughters and Bethany to safety.”

Aha! Everything is Kyren’s fault after all. I knew it!

Poor Kyren. He’s not very happy at the moment.

(copyright, as always, belongs to me.)

Since it’s not very hot outside, I made apple crisp this evening. I haven’t had apple crisp for months, and I’d been craving it lately. So after Mom and Dad and I went to Sam’s this afternoon, I liberated a pack of apple pie mix (Liberty, from last year) and made some.

I didn’t quite get the top to turn out correctly, but otherwise, it’s quite yummy. Breakfast tomorrow! Yay!

Next year, I think I will plant only two of each variety of squash/cucumbers/whatever, but have more different kinds. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with three plants worth of butternut squash. Other than eat it and share it, of course, but next year I’ll have acorn squash and probably spaghetti squash as well. And eight ball zucchini, just because–eight ball zucchini is cool.

I had thought I needed to make a doll for tomorrow, but it’s the end of June, and thus time for the second custom doll offering! So that leaves me off the hook until Thursday, which works for me.

If anyone who reads this joins my doll mailing list–I’m planning to offer coupons and suchlike to the mailing list members as time goes on. All you have to do is email me to join. I promise not to spam up your inbox.

So that means, since I don’t have to make a doll for tomorrow, I am writing instead. Whoohooo! HD is now 63,167 words. It’s slow, but it’s progress. And things are about to pick up a bit, I think.

I have to go to a meeting for work tomorrow morning, and then come home and go to the thing-I’m-not-mentioning at 3pm. So think of me!

Let me put it this way: It would definitely cut down on my gas comsumption.

Let’s see.

My St. John’s Wort is just about to bloom. I’ve been waiting for weeks–after the rue started blooming I looked and looked for buds to no avail. Now it’s going to bloom! I can’t wait!

I chopped down the pokeweed under the porch (again) tonight. It had pulled the plastic whatchamacallit stuff off the porch (the stuff–um. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it prevents animals and suchlike from getting under there, at least concievably) so I put one of the lengths of picket fence across that spot and made the sweet peas go up it a bit. They are going nutso.

I planted birds’ nest gourds, sunflowers, and fancy mix gourds in front of the front porch tonight. I accidentally disturbed some small white bulbs–I have no idea what they were, but there were a bunch of them. I don’t think they were crocuses. But they seemed to still be okay, so I put them back and left them in peace.

I have a baby butternut squash! It is about 3 1/2 inches long at the moment.

My zucchini area loaded with buds, and as soon as tomorrow, there will be blooms.

Almost all the perrenial sweet peas I planted in pots have sprouted–and the delphiniums also look great. The forget-me-nots aren’t all up yet, there are no wild strawberries up at all, and the catanache (sp?) has a very low germination rate so far, which is disappointing.

I still have apple gourds to plant, but not that many of them. I think I’ll end up giving mom the rest of the gourds, because I don’t have any more room left, thanks to the sweet peas.

I had a Zebrina Hollyhock sprout in the grass right at the edge of the road. It got cut once, but then it started to bloom, so I tried to save it, but I think its dead. However, I found some on ebay, so I can replace it, at least. Poor thing.

I took a week off of dollmaking, not quite by choice, since I did finish Yolonda this week. But I’m trying to get everything planted, mulched, and situated so I can start doing more maintenance and less earthmoving, if that makes sense. I will be working on that this weekend. In fact, I have a largish list to work on, too.

And last but not least, please send good thoughts and prayers my way at 3pm my time on Monday. I’m not going to say why just yet–some of you already know–but it’s potentially good news.

Yolonda.

Specifics:

Cashmere ’skin’, handspun auburn wool hair, painted and needlesculpted features, rosy cheeks (although you can’t really tell in the pictures), wool halter top, silk blend skirt, striped cotton blend leggings, blue and green bracelets on one arm (the blue matches her eyes.) 13″ tall. I am very happy with how she turned out!

And just because Grey asked, here’s a closeup of the fabric that took me so long to find:

You wouldn’t think it would be that hard, would you? There is glittery gold in there, and burgundy, orange, and pink. I knew exactly what I wanted, but it took me this long to find it. (And honestly, if the shirt hadn’t been damaged, I might have worn it. It was cute!

So there she is, finished at last. I’m going to try to get her in the mail tomorrow, if I can make it to the post office from work. (It’s hard–there’s no post office nearby anymore, which is a pain!)

Yolanda is done, but I’m going to give her her own post.

It’s very hot and humid at the moment–I have both air conditioners running and lots of fans as well, since my rooms back here don’t get any of that non-humid air. (When I say the air conditioners are running, I mean they are set on 79-80 degrees, so they’re just taking the humidity away, really.

I do think that I might end up getting a small air conditioner for back here–if ones exist that run off regular current. I’m not sure they do, however.

I tied up my tomato plants (well, the ones in the big garden) this evening, and mulched the four extra tomato plants as well as the coreopsis in the flowerbed/garden.

I also ate the first ‘fruits’ of my garden–fresh baby pea pods on my salad for supper. Yummy! In truth, I’m not sure the peas will make it to ripeness, they were that good.

The lettuce is still producing, although all the mesculun (or however you spell that) bolted about two weeks ago. You can still eat it, but it’s blooming. I like the blooms, so it can stay for now.

I’m still not sure what I’ll end up putting there when the lettuce goes. Maybe dill and basil? I don’t know.

I still have to plant the gourds and the sunflowers in front of the front porch. That’s on my list for this weekend–hot humid weather or not.

And now, for Yolanda… (well, her post will be above this one, of course.)

Ha! I finally found the fabric I wanted for Yolanda after five or so trips to Goodwill. Finally! So I should be finished with her tomorrow. I hope to finish her early enough to take pictures so I can have her in the mail on Thursday, but we’ll see. Sheesh. You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult to find!

HD is, at the moment, 61,247 words. Which is really cool, because it’s fitting together perfectly (or at least as perfect as a novel can get) this time, and I’m back to where I started from in the ‘rewrite’ (It was more of an add-on, really.) And I still have to add in Carrion. So I’ll definitely have at least 90-100k by the time I’m finished.

Remind me to write about the $3,000 picnic table Dad and I saw at Burlington. I don’t have time tonight–it’s unfortunately time to go to bed.