Good morning, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek Into My Week”, a behind the scenes look into the (I hope) interesting events occurring in my daily life!
For the most part, my week was the usual ensemble of dreary routine events – work, book marketing, tinkering on Dolly (my 1962 Beetle and daily transport), arguing with my wife about dinner, and rearranging the furniture – but just occasionally something interesting happens, interesting enough to want to tell someone about!
Here, for your enjoyment, is my recollection of noteworthy events in my past week!
Monday:
Facebook Does It Again.
It seems that every day brings more drama with #Facebook.
On Monday I set out to do my usual round of daily marketing (which I do every weekday), blissfully unaware that shit was about to get wiggy again! I mean, I was in a fairly great mood that morning, until this happened!
I tried to post an article promoting a book on my Facebook profile – IN MY OWN AUTHOR GROUP, and some gods-awful useless broken algorythm behind the scenes turned my post into a selling listing – and put it into review! Grumbling, I immediately deleted it and tried again. With the same result!
I went to check the group settings, and disabled the ability for even admins to post selling items, applying a tweak here and a tweak there – to no avail! It did it again! Then I closed the window and opened a new one to try again – with the exact same result! Bear in mind that I’d been doing the exact same thing, following the exact same process for weeks – and it worked just fine… except for that day!
The whole time I’d been stewing and keeping my composure remarkably well, given that I was alone at the office and there were no witnesses. Of course, everything has its limits, as do I!
“This Is my first post for the day, so what are you complaining about this time?” I roared. “WTAF, Facebook?”
Then, realizing I was getting worked up, I thought “bugger that!” and switched profiles to my Page profile to make the same post in my author group – this time Facebook waffled something about “an error has occurred” and wouldn’t let me make my post that way either! I stifled a scream of outrage and angrily closed Facebrick. I wasn’t going to let Facebook spoil the rest of my day, so I moved on to something else.
I’m Now Officially Signed With Hally Park Publishers!
Arriving just in time to brighten my day after Facebook did its best to sabotage it, was an email from Claire at Hally Park Publishers in Howick, KZN (and yes, I can officially tell you the name of the publisher now!) to tell me that she’d received all the manuscripts for my books I’d emailed her on Friday night, as well as the signed copy of the contract! She also told me she’d get into the editing and formatting process for the paperback versions ASAP! Oh, I’m so excited about this! I’ll tell you more as it progresses!
As I told you last week, this will not affect the rest of my books that are already available on Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Moon Books and Smashwords so you will still find them there in all those places, and this is unlikely to change in future!
Tuesday:
A Relaunch Of My YouTube Channel!
Anyone who knows me knows I’m not comfortable in front of video cameras or microphones – in spite of the number of interviews I’ve already done while I was involved in human rights activism (with ECGLA and SAGLAAD)! Nevertheless, if you snooze, you lose – so I finally bit the bullet and posted a new in-person video on my YouTube channel (shouldn’t that be MeTube??) anyway, it’s a brief first-person introduction – this is me, I’m a writer, I’m a transwoman, yes I’m not happy about my voice either – deal with it.. I have to!
I’ve had a pretty good response to my first two videos so far – pop along and have a look!
Nothing Like A Little Crap Wildlife Photography
I’m fortunate and blessed to work close to nature. That is to say, while I work in a concrete, brick and mortar building surrounded by paved roads and pathways, manicured green lawns and trees, what surrounds all of that, is essentially a piece of African bushveldt in the middle of the city. That said, there are geese, snakes, weird and wonderful bugs, ducks, donkeys, cows, scorpions, giant snails, lizards, and monkeys roaming freely in the area – and while the occasional herd of goats will pop by for a visit, not much surprises my colleagues and I anymore, and certainly not to the point of eliciting a squeal or a full-throated scream – not even a sudden loud “Mooo!” from a cow chewing the cud right outside the HR office window!
That said, this past week I snapped off this lovely photo of a monkey that jumped up to sit on my window sill. Just a pity the venetian blind got in the way! Still… opening it would’ve scared the little feller off!
Then there was the tiny stroppy green spider parading around on top of a fire-hose box against a wall, who charged me with his front-legs raised! What an attitude – is that “metal” or what?
Thursday:
The Universe Has A Strange Sense Of Humor
Thursday morning I got out of bed feeling fine, and not noticing any problems at all. The first item in my weekday morning routine is exercise, and after that I dressed for work and made coffee. All good so far, all fairly standard, nothing out of the ordinary… and then, as I was sitting on the sofa checking up on overnight activity on Wordbook, Facepress and the like – it happened! Suddenly, out of the blue, a sudden stabbing pain in my right eye, and a mad itching sensation! A quick flight to the bathroom to see what the heck was going on, and staring back at me in the mirror, was my bloodshot, swollen right eye!
What was it? Pink eye – aka conjunctivitis? Dust (or cat hair – don’t ask!) under my contact lens? I applied some eyedrops and headed off to work. I still managed to get everything done that I needed to do, but even so, as the day wore on, my eye felt worse and worse, until just about 3pm I felt I couldn’t take it anymore! Eyesight is vital to every author – and not just for all the usual reasons – but also because being so obstructed, it made everything I tried to do so much harder! Using a PC with one eye closed is for the birds, dammit – to say nothing of the inconvenience caused to other people! To all those who had to run across the road a little faster, or who had to swerve harder than usual to avoid colliding with me, I humbly apologize!
I’m not a patient person at all – and on this particular day I just wanted to get to a pharmacy and get some meds to sort this thing out! A friend of mine who’s a nurse (as well as my mother-in-law, who’s a retired nurse) confirmed it was conjunctivitis and told me what to ask for at the pharmacy, so on the way home – driving carefully if impatiently – I collected the necessary and went home.
I applied the ointment right away, and then because the itching burning in my eye also made my sinuses stream, I also dosed myself with a strong anti-inflammatory and an anti-hystomine. I spent the evening lying on the sofa beside my loving Querida, with Joe Kenda and Ghost Adventures playing unseen on the media center, while I dozed in and out of consciousness. Needless to say, I slept very well that night – and the pink eye is still with me, but gradually improving.
Friday:
Friday was a bit of a struggle getting through everything with the conjuctivitis, but fortunately it was just in the one eye and not both! Anyway, not much happened on Friday, and I was able to go home early – and spent the rest of the day nursing myself and dozing on the sofa with series on the media center and after the wiffle finished work in the study, she came to join me. She’s an avid gamer and enjoys playing games on her phone, even while watching series or movies!
In the late afternoon I took a stroll across the road to Brite Bakes bakery in Stanley Street – owned by our neighbors – and ordered a couple of takeaway pizzas for dinner – and enjoyed a lovely cappucino while I waited! The eye and all the inconvenience it caused aside, Friday was a really nice day!
Saturday:
Dolly’s Intermittent Wiper Upgrade Works Perfectly!
In last week’s “Peek” I mentioned the wiper upgrade I fitted to my VW (called “Dolly”!) This Saturday morning we had the opportunity to test them in real-life conditions as we did the obligatory Saturday morning shopping – and as you can see in the short video below, they work perfectly!
It may seem like a small thing, but intermittent wipers certainly make things a lot easier and more pleasant on an old car – especially one being used as a daily driver!
Still Saturday: Investing In My YouTube Channel
I mentioned restarting my YouTube channel earlier, and I posted two new videos on Tuesday. Both of those were shot with my mobile phone, but since I didn’t want to hold it in my hand “selfie-style” while speaking, I stuck it on top of the handle of the little desktop fridge on my desk! Yes, I suppose that’s where the faint buzzing noise in the videos came from! Haha!
Anyway, on Saturday morning my wiffle gifted me a video stand for my mobile phone, to make shooting videos for my channel easier! I’ll start off with a new video soon – as soon as my conjunctivitis has cleared up!
This should be quite soon, because by Saturday morning my right eye was less inflamed and less bothersome. This morning (Sunday) it looks almost cleared up, and just a little tender. Hopefully by Monday it should be cleared up completely and I should be able to start wearing my contact lens in that eye again. Okay, maybe by Tuesday! Well, let’s see – I’ll play it by eye!
Sunday:
Making Tintin Models For My Collection!
While I can’t afford most of these items – which due to the terrible exchange rate cost in the THOUSANDS of rands (notice I didn’t bother to capitalize the “r” for rands there) I certainly can afford paper, cardboard, and a little judicious color printing! Plus, I’m not unhandy with a scissor and paper glue either!
On Sunday morning I put up a shelf in our arts and hobbies room and set up my favorite Tintin and Asterix books with what few figurines I have so far. Most of these books date from my childhood, well-read and much loved! I’ve downloaded a few paper model templates and will be printing and building them soon to add to my collection! I’ll show you more pics when I’ve done so!
Cheers!
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