Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek At My Week” for October 23, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week!
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
This being Halloween month, I’m hoping you’ll be celebrating (or preparing to celebrate) the Halloween season with me!
- Writing: My main focus at this time is still “Freedom Inc” (book 1 in my new sci-fi adventure series, “Threaders“). The story is now at over 57,100 words, and I’m currently working on the newest, third part of the envisioned five for this book. At least I was able to get some writing done this past week – in spite of what looks to be the start of WW3 and all sorts of other shitty weirdness going on out there! Hopefully I’ll be able to report back with more impressive progress to you next week!
- Articles: None.
- Audiobooks: The audiobooks for “The Last Hurrah” and “Terror In The Outblack” will be coming soon!
- What Readers Say: I know I can’t please everybody (so I’m not trying to!). That said, it really pleases me when I see that I’ve managed to do it anyway! Drop me a line and let me know how you think I’m doing – or leave me a review on Amazon or Audible!
Bibliography – A listing of all my books:
Other Stuff:
An Author’s Kitchen
I just wish this rain would fuck off!
It’s not that I don’t know we need the rain right now – but my kitchen isn’t the catchment area for our local dams… or wait – considering the state of things, perhaps it is… I love the rain. I really do. But the inside of my kitchen doesn’t.
I’ve been working on the kitchen roof on and off as funds allow for some time now. Just Thursday – one of the few sunny days this past week – I was up there laying flashing tape along the seams on the left-hand side, working towards the right, but even after buying 6 rolls (around 18 meters) only had enough tape to make it halfway across the kitchen.
The ceiling boards are basically ruined and probably need replacing. I can’t do this until the roof leaks are sorted, because with the ceiling removed, the water will leak directly onto the cupboards – and y’all know what chipboard does when it gets wet… Right, an even bigger disaster.
Since Thursday’s work, the flow of the leaking water appears to have been redirected to different places, but with half the roof still leaking apparently through the overlay seams, down below it seems even worse. The flow is heavier too. The buckets need emptying every few hours. And with rain several days a week lately, it’s a real pain in the ass.
I’ll have to wait for next payday before I can buy more tape to finish the job – in about 4 weeks time.
In the meantime, this is what we have to live with.
Balancing The Budget
This morning I sat down to work out a few little sums.
It’s official – this month (October) I spent the single largest amount I’ve ever spent on groceries in the last ten years since I took over the household. And not by a small amount either.
While we usually spread our grocery list between 3 or 4 different shops to cut costs, over the last year I spent between R1000-R1100 at Checkers each month. In October, the Checkers amount alone came to a shocking R2083.61. Last month, it was R1085.74. It has literally DOUBLED from what I usually pay, and for actually a little LESS than we usually buy because we were trying to keep costs down!
By comparison, our bill at Econofoods (meat & a few sundries) this month was R755.09 – about R254 less than last month – but ONLY because they didn’t have chicken portions in stock. Had they been in stock, we’d probably have paid around R1000 or more there, which would’ve been more than last month’s R901.16.
My monthly grocery budget allocation is R2500 to support two people and 4 cats. This has, by and large, been sufficient for us to live on quite comfortably over the last 7 years, even with a few little luxuries like some sweets and chips etc. In October, the actual expenditure on groceries amounted to R3404.20 – nearly R1000 more in total than budgeted for!
Since the cat food only costs me around R350 every two months, I’ve decided that it’s far cheaper and more economical to be a cat.
It’s not amusing to hear #ANC officials claiming that “the interest rate is going down”, or that the cost of living is “manageable”. After all, those useless parasitic fat cats occupying high level government positions take home far more than most of us will ever see in a lifetime of actual honest work.
Inflation? Cost of Living? No wonder they can flip their wrists dismissively and say, “what’s that?” Truly, it’s a case of “Let them eat cake”… and we all know how that worked out in the end. May they reap as they’ve sown.
In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached the magical 51 reader reviews yet! (The highest number any of them has, is 10 – which is a pretty good number compared to many others, but it’s still not high enough for the almighty Amazon!) I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!
I wish you all a pleasant week until next time!