Round Two

More boxes, more shelving, more of our life's collection out on the wall today. We opened the door to our basement today, to try and clear some of the crap out from down there, so as to be able to shift some of our storage boxes down there, and so dislodge the log-jam.

Bad move, very bad, bad things, just bad...ness...

Spiders are fine when you can see 'em. When you go down into the basement and then feel tickling things at the back of your neck - that's bad. Plus, last year we had rats in our garden (thank you folk next door who keep their garbage rotting out back). Exterminator guy came along and did his exterminatey thing, except, clearly, what he actually did was drive them indoors...floor of the basement is littered with rat-shit right now. I know the spirit of adventure should dictate we plough on and persevere and all that.

Screw it. Pulled the door closed again, refused to think about for today. So we've ended up shifting bits and pieces and chunks of stuff. Leaves us without the feeling of progress from last week, but still, it's moving in the right direction.

Am similarly funky on the whole weightloss thing - have been doing the right stuff pretty much all week, but feel big and firmly chunky today. Not giving in to my previous 'normal' response, which would be to run to the scales and check what's going on though. Pushing ahead with this positivity schtick. Guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

In terms of positivity though, have made a little progress - have started sending stuff to agents again, for the first real time in about...blimey...13 years or so. In the first instance, am sending out my children's story because - well, if I'm honest, because it's finished, and I'm relatively happy with most of it. Also, last night, had a brainwave about how to solve some of the issues with the 700 page novel I wrote last year, and make it a) make sense, b) be funnier, and c) hopefully not take as long as the complete Iliad and Odyssey to tell! So, am hoping to get that tweaked to buggery and sent out to agents before my 40th birthday. Also, am working right now on my third instalment of the Devil's Guide to the 21st Century (the update of Ambrose Bierce's classic Devil's Dictionary). Once I have the third instalment complete, it'll be around 3000 words of definitions - that's enough, probably, to start submitting it for possible representation. Would dearly love to get it out this year, because it's the hundredth anniversary of  Bierce's work, but that seems a little unlikely, given that I only discovered that a couple of months ago when I started writing it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.

So that's where you find me today - vaguely progressing in the house, properly progressing in the writing, feeling, if anything, like I'm slipping back on the weightloss. And trying, above all, not to stress about it all. Happy Saturday!