A New Look

Notice something different? (Smile) I've updated my website, and the blog's background now matches it. I think it looks pretty good. It did mess up the text of old posts some how. Guess I'll have to try and go in and edit each one over time.

I'm not finished with my website yet. Still have some pages left to do, and some of the links aren't working yet. But when you get a chance check it out and let me know what you think of the new look. I like it so much better. I kind of already miss the opening Charlotte's Web page, but so many people told me I should use my author page as my home page, and then let people go to the writing side or reading side from there. I finally had to agree with them. (Smile)

www.charlottedillon.com

Health Warning for Writers...

...Or for anyone who spends a lot of time on the computer.

I've spent years on the computer, and years before that with pen and paper or on my old Brother Word Processor. In between I drew and painted.

Needless to say, my wrists and hands have paid the price. I've had CT, corporal tunnel, for years and now I have a new little problem that's turning out to be a bigger one than the CT. It's known by most of us non-doctor types as something simply called Trigger Finger. It is in my ring finger on my right hand.

At first it started as just a little catch, a little ache at times. Then it got where I could reach and grab something small and the middle knuckle on that ring finger would lock up, kind of feel like it slipped out of joint when the hand closed into a tight fist. I could stretch the hand back open and I would feel the finger snap free, --where the name Trigger Finger comes from-- like the knuckle popped back into place or something, and the finger would open and be fine. It did hurt when it did it, but not bad. I was sure I must have just jammed my finger or hurt it in some other way. I was spending a whole lot of time on the computer then, even more time than normal. I have my RWC groups to deal with daily, my website, other e-mail, I was finishing up that non-fiction manuscript to send in and went right from it to trying to rewrite one of my romance novels. I was spending more times scrolling with the mouse sometimes than typing.

Then it got worse. The finger would lock up even when I wasn't making a tight fist. Instead of happening a couple of times a day, it began to happen four or five, then seven or eight. Then I started waking up at night with my finger hurting and realized it was locked and I'd have to make it open. It was starting to get where I couldn’t stretch the hand open and free up the finger sometimes. I was having to actually straighten the finger out with my other hand. Most of my hand was beginning to hurt more often now, kind of even felt sore. I wondered if maybe this was some new part of my CT from all the extra long hours on the computer. I finally asked on line. I got a few very quick replies from people with the same problem. Within minutes I had the name Trigger Finger. I did a little research on line...which hurt like H E double L since my right hand is my mouse hand and using the mouse had gotten almost too painful to even do by that point.

I learned from my searching that Trigger Finger had to be caught quickly and treated early, before the finger started staying locked. If not, it can lock in a closed position and stay that way. Surgery is often needed, especially if it isn't caught soon. I also found out that diabetics, which I am one of, are at a greater risk of getting both Trigger Finger and Corporal Tunnel, and both are harder to treat in a diabetic. A cortisone shot in the hand can help, but often doesn't.

If you catch it soon, take it easy on the hand, use ice, stretch the fingers, get help early, you might never really have a problem at all. Of course I let mine go way too long because I had never even heard of something called Trigger Finger. I'm hoping the right people will see this post and if it starts happening to them, they will know what it is right away and be able to take care of things before they get in the shape I'm in.

I'm still trying to use ice often, I have a splint for the finger, I've switched to one of the keyboards that's supposed to be better for people with CT, and I'm now using a touch pad instead of a mouse, but so far nothing is helping much. I'm really limiting my computer time and other things that hurt a lot, like pealing and cutting up stuff, or even stirring thing--limiting as much as I can anyway. I'm hoping something will help, but I guess only time will tell.

Picture of New Pup

I told y'all the other day about our newest dog. We've named him Kane and this is a picture of him. Getting one wasn't easy. He is never still. (Smile) By the time I would get ready to snap the picture, and actually have him looking my way, or being still, he was off and gone again. My husband finally got him part-way into his lap and I snapped this one quick. I think it was the best of the ones I got.

I'm not sure how old he is, but he's still a puppy and as you can tell by the size of that front paw, he's going to be a BIG dog one day. Right now he jumps on everyone and bites and chews everything, but he is a baby. (Smile)

Waiting and Waiting...

It has been almost eight weeks since I mailed off my completed non-fiction manuscript, along with what I hope was a detailed and well-done proposal. The agent's site says to allow six to eight weeks, along with mailing time, to get a response.

I hope that means I will be hearing something one way or another soon. I've never been really good at waiting. (Smile)

Good news or bad news, I'll be posting the news here the day I get it.

A New Dog

When I lost my dog Red a few months ago, I swore I wasn't going to get another dog. After all, we have seven--SEVEN--so we didn't need eight. I've seen strays, had people try to give me dogs, and even saw one stray that looked like Red that really pulled my heart strings. Through it all, I stood strong. No more dogs!

Until a couple of days ago. (Smile)

My husband and I had gone to Wal-Mart to get some things, including dog chews and dog food. We had two bags of dog food so one was in the buggy and the other was under it. A stray dog, a puppy really, came up to us just outside the store and began to follow us. I fastened my eyes straight ahead and refused to even look at the puppy.

Before we reached the truck he had got ahead of the buggy and was smelling the bag of dog food under it. A few more steps and he was biting at the corner of the bag, trying to tear it open to get at the food. We kept going.

When we reached the truck he stopped too, then went to work whole-heartenedly on the paper bag of kibble. I had those chews in the buggy, so I tore the bag open and tossed the poor pup one. He grabbed it up happily while my husband--who could no doubt see the danger of where this could go--rushed to get our stuff into the truck.

The puppy only gave the chew a few seconds before he decided correctly that it was a hide chew and not real food. With determination he turned his attention back to the bag of dog food under the buggy.

With my heart breaking, I told my husband to open the bad and pour the puppy some food out. Of course then I was afraid someone might hit him with a car if he were standing there in the parking lot eating and maybe not moving because he didn’t want to leave the food, so we decided against pouring out some food for the pup.

My husband tried to put that last bag of food into the truck and the puppy tried to follow it into the truck. I just couldn't stand it.

To make a long story short. We left with our stuff and one puppy in the truck. He's keeping Clover, Red's friend, company in the big back and side yard. He's eating a lot, loves to play, and I think is going to be a huge dog in a very short time. Clover is so happy to have a playmate again, since the other dogs are all inside dogs and he only spends time with them when they go out or I let him in for a little while. The new pup's name is Kane. He looks like he has a number of breeds in him, including maybe some pit bull and boxer. I'm not so happy about having a puppy again. They chew on everything. (Smile) And yet he already feels like part of the family.

The Limbs are Down

I know it looks like a whole tree, but that's the limb that was holding on by a splinter to the big oak you see a glimpse of standing beside it. In this picture the smaller limb is still up. You can see it leaning against the backside of the oak. Hubby decided if we waited for the city to come take care of it, the thing would either end up on one of our pets, one of us, the truck, the house, or something else that wouldn't be good, depending on which way it headed when it came down.

I'll admit I wasn't happy about him trying to get it down. A man he worked with was killed after Katrina, trying to get down a leaning tree. That limb my husband got down this evening was about as big as a tree. I sat inside, my stomach in knots, through the hour or more it took him and our son to get that biggest one on the ground. Even inside the house with the doors shut and the AC on, I heard the thud when it finally gave way and landed in the drive with a crash. The sad thing is, there are other huge badly damaged limbs up in that tree. I know it's only a matter of time before they too snap and come down.

My husband and son are still out there in the dark, as I write this, trying to cut the limbs up and get them out of the way so they can put the fence back up. Both have to leave for work before daylight in the morning.

But what are you going to do with men?

Excuse the Fit, but I'm Throwing One!

This was taken in my back yard. Not in August of 2005 after Katrina, but today, August 6, 2006.

Under that huge broken oak limb that’s hanging by a splitter from the trunk of that even bigger oak tree, is my husband's gas grill, charcoal grill, a patio chair, and a number of my plants and flower pots. The biggest part of the limb is still stuck against the trunk, but when it comes down, and it will, it's crashing through my chain link fence. (It would probably get the truck too, buy my husband parked it across the street and is leaving it there until the limb is gone.)

If I hadn't been so angry, I think I would have just sat right down in the middle of the new mess and cried. I tried to get that tree with its spilt limbs taken down. Or even just the limbs taken out. It’s a big, big oak tree, and I never wanted to see it go, but Katrina just got the best of it. The limbs, like the two that came down today, have spilt-off hunks missing from them.

After I signed papers, FEMA came out and looked, took down two small pieces of limbs, had their tree expert agree the tree needed to come down, and then they refused to do it. Said it was really on city property and a city (Bogalusa, Louisiana) problem. I told the FEMA tree expert that those splintered limbs couldn't hold their weight up there, and they were going to come down on my property no matter who the tree belonged to. He said they would come down, some year. (He said that only weeks ago.) They were supposed to be taking down any trees or limbs that were leaning or a danger to homes.

Well, that the tree is on city property, I know that, and it is all fine and good I guess, but the corner of my house, my truck, my yard, my fence, and other things like my plants, don’t belong to the city of Bogalusa, and those things, my family’s things, are what’s going to get crushed when those big limbs come down. Like today. (It would cost hundreds for me to pay someone to come take it down for me. It's a city tree and they should pay to have it removed if FEMA says it's their problem.)

The city of course isn't going to touch the tree--I'll bet you. The tree on the other side of my driveway is a hollow oak and has a big dead limb that sticks out over the driveway, over my car. (My new car that I had to buy because I couldn’t leave my other car parked in my own driveway because I thought during Katrina that hollow tree would come down on it. I had to move it to protect it. Well, the tree actually stood, but the lower land spot beside my house where I moved the car to, flooded so badly that my car was totaled.)

That tree has been sick and hollow for many years. The city of Bogalusa marked it after I complained, and said they would take it down. That was some where around fifteen years ago. My mother's been gone for eleven, and it was years before she died. They've marked it a couple of other times over the years, after I've fussed again, and all that's happened is the paint mark has worn off with time. That tree and the one that lost the limb today, were both marked to be cut after Katrina. But that didn't happen then either. Seems FEMA was ticked at the city for having to take down trees on city property that the city should have handled, and I guess the city was ticked at FEMA for leaving a lot of those trees for the city to take care of later.

And guess who is paying the price for their battle?

Sorry for the little fit, but sometimes you just gotta scream or you'll just blow up.

Sometimes all it Takes is...

...a Big Fat Zero.

No, really. I started doing this for my workouts. I hate to workout, but know I need to. So, in an effort to get myself to do it more often, I took a notebook and drew out three columns on the page. In the first I put the date, in the next I put my weight, and in the last I put how many minutes I work out for the day. I soon found that having to draw a big 'ol round zero in that column was something I didn't like to do. I also don't like looking back at the page and seeing too many zeros in a row or even scattered about. I'm still not working out as much as I should, but I'm working out more often, just to keep from having to add another zero. (Smile)

So, why can't the same idea work for your writing? No reason that I can think of. If you have been having a hard time writing and just skipping too many days, grab a notebook—doesn't have to be fancy, just what ever's around—and draw lines down the page to make three columns. Put the date in the first, what kind of writing in the second, and the amount in the last.

Date, I don't need to explain. What kind of writing, well, you can just put the word Type, and then when you fill in that column use words like rewriting, editing, new writing, ect... Make that middle column the biggest so you have a little room if you like. You can even add things like promo, research, or such, depending on what you did that day. The last column is for the amount. You can put hours if it was research or promo or even a workshop you did on writing for income or promo, and for the actual writing you can put a word count, the hours, or the pages. Since it's your record, you can set it up to cover what and how you want.

The hope is though, if you start noticing days in a row where there is only a line of zeros, you'll try to make them appear less often, which means your writing will increase. (Smile)

Wish Me Luck

And cross your fingers too. (Smile) I've been working on a non-fiction book for writers to help them, what else, but write. An agent who handles such non-fiction books looked over some of it and asked for the complete. I mailed it out today after spending the last few days getting it polished and ready to go. Now all I can do is wait.

Found Missing Gril

The missing gril I wrote about in my last post has been found. :-) She isn't home yet, but an aunt and uncle who weren't too far from where she was found, picked her up and in a couple of days she will be back home.