For the past month, I’ve been struggling to find what posting schedule would be best for the blog. Twice a month? Once a month? I’m leaning toward once a month since I can’t really give any more comments on the writing process except “still editing!”
Turns out that my original schedule was almost met. I did finish the 3rd draft of my book by the end of September, and I have about 10 chapters printed and ready for my editor as soon as he’s able to take them. I just ran into a few rewrites that slowed me down, but in the end will make for a better book. I’ll definitely have all the chapters to my editor by the end of this week.
Then it’ll be time for the cover. I’m looking forward to that as a different way to stretch my creative muscles.
So, now let’s get back to the story of Not so Fun and Interesting Things that Happen to Debra. After the fire, the insurance company took care of us really well. One company came in and took all our hard textiles that could be saved to ‘de-smoke’ them and put them in storage. Another company took all the electronics to test them and save what they could. A third company took all our soft textiles, (clothes, shoes, purses) to dry-clean. Spoiler alert, that smoke smell DOES NOT come out easily. I’m talking washing and rewashing clothes even after we got them back from the soft textile company.
But for everything they could save, there were a lot of items they couldn’t. They wrote off everything in the master bedroom immediately, and other than the soft textile company that went in for the clothes, nothing else was pulled out of there. We had a lot of keepsakes, and some were salvageable, although hard to get to. I did find all my highschool yearbooks and picture albums, but I had to dig through chunks of sheetrock that had caved in from the ceiling. I’ll also note here that the night of the fire, my brother-in-law pulled out all our gaming PCs (my husband’s, my daughter’s, and mine) along with the monitors. Because they were off during the time of the lightning strike, they were fine.
However, we had no place to put this stuff except in our car. Remember my shoulder injury that was slowly getting better? Well, that was about to change. The loading and unloading of all our luggage and computers into hotel rooms, not to mention the digging through debris, killed any progress my shoulder had made from the first steroid shot. It got worse very quickly. By July, I couldn’t raise my arm level out to the side, let alone try to lift it over my head. I couldn’t reach around behind me to put a belt on, and taking off shirts was a struggle. It wasn’t that there was just pain stomping me (and there was a lot of pain), but the muscles in my shoulder had ceased up and blocked any movement.
Back to the doctor I went, and I finally got transferred to a specialist. He gave me another steroid shot and ordered an MRI.
Guys. I’m claustrophobic. This was horrible. I spent the entire time in the machine trying not to panic. My efforts were not in vain because they got some good images. The results were a frayed rotator cuff and shoulder bursitis. All because I tried to carry in too many groceries?
People. Take care of yourself.
The hours I spent in physical therapy were brutal and am pretty sure my therapist was Satan himself, who feeds off other’s tears and pain. However, I learned the right exercises to do to help loosen up my shoulder, although I think the steroid shot was doing most of the work. I no longer see the therapist from hell and have nearly full range of motion back, if not the strength. Daily stretches and workouts with a 1lb weight are helping. I’ve learned to compensate for the injury, so now it only really affects me at night when I’m sleeping. It’s hard to find a comfortable position when your arm refuses to move a certain way. I’m not fully conquered, but I hope some day to get there.
As for shows, I’m once again re-watching Avatar: The Last Airbender for the 10th time, and eagerly awaiting the season finale of The Boys this Friday. This season has been crazy beyond words, but I’m hooked. If you’ve waited to binge it all at once, (and really, why did Amazon do that?) it’s almost time! Can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts on this season.
Look for my next post around the first of November. I’m getting back into the flow of this blogging thing again and should be able to stick to this schedule. I hope to have more writing news for you then! For now, Happy Reading!
