Tag: The She-Wolf of France

All Day Long

And now it’s Wednesday, which is also pay-the-bills day as well as payday. Huzzah?

Huzzah? Huzzah. It’s best to pay them no matter how depressing that task may prove to be in the end. Bills, death, and taxes–all of them, inevitable and unyielding.

It rained and was grim all day yesterday; most unpleasant, actually. By the time I came home from work, the temperature had dropped down into the forties, and the Lost Apartment was very cold inside. But wait–we have an entire new HVAC system; let me try the heat! So I did as instructed; turned both upstairs and downstairs thermostats from cool to heat, set the temperature at 68 degrees….and within half an hour the difference was amazing. I turned them both down a little further when I went to bed last night–I was exhausted, falling into bed at nine thirty, exhausted and already have dozed off in my easy chair–and this morning when I woke up it was still pleasant inside. I just checked the temperature–48 outside–and it is not cold in the Lost Apartment. Repeated: it is not cold in the Lost Apartment, upstairs or downstairs.

Which makes me think the problem was never our high ceilings in the first place, but rather the system.

I was very tired yesterday, too–some combination of the rainy cold and perhaps not sleeping as well as I might have preferred on Monday night, plus sometimes counseling people is emotionally and physically draining. Most days when I get off work I am not that tired–sometimes I am even a bundle of energy, bouncing off the walls–but last night wasn’t one of those. I was very tired when I got home from work and found myself drifting off to sleep as I watched History videos on Youtube (mostly about the fourteenth century; the Black Death, the Hundred Years’ War, and the She-Wolf of France), so finally at nine thirty I decided to stop fighting it and go upstairs to bed. I slept extremely well last night–I woke up at four, stayed in bed for another two hours, drifting in and out of restful sleep and my body feeling completely relaxed, which was also lovely, so this morning I feel rested and ready to go. (We’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?)

And so, while I will be paying the bills this morning and updating my check register (yes, I am old school; I keep the check register because I have too many autopay charges every month and so I have to keep track of what I have and what is available for me to actually spend), here’s hoping it won’t be the odious chore it all too frequently is. I’ve not even touched my manuscript since I got the extension–sometimes, time away from it is necessary, and I was not in a place good enough to do good editorial work on it–but I am going to dive headfirst into it tonight when I get home from the gym (I skipped because I didn’t want to walk to the gym in the cold rain yesterday), and then of course it’s my two work-at-home days of the week sliding into the weekend. I always consider it a win when I make it through these early mornings of getting up at six–and I am getting so used to it I am starting to get up early again on my days off–shades of the days when I got up at seven every morning for years!

And wide awake at seven, at that. I sometimes miss those days of highly productive mornings…..

And on that note, I am off to the spice mines! Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

London

I’ve always wanted to go to London, and hopefully, one day before I die I’ll be in that former capitol of world empire; visit the Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum; see the jewels in the Tower of London and the spot where Anne Boleyn died; stand at the side of the Thames and acknowledge all the history that sailed from its banks. I do love me some history, after all, and after I’d become incredibly familiar with American history I moved on to English, and eventually European (primarily French, to be honest); it was the time that PBS was airing first The Six Wives of Henry VIII, with Keith Michell, and later Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson (who is whom I always picture when I think about Elizabeth I, with due apologies to both Bette Davis and Cate Blanchett); plus, the establishment of the Atlantic coastal colonies was directly, obviously, tied to English history. I read about the Wars of the Roses and the family split that led to them in Thomas B. Costain’s The Last Plantagenets, bought at a flea market for a dime; I eventually read his entire “Pageant of England” series: The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century, and The Three Edwards; The Last Plantagenets was the final volume of that series (Costain also wrote terrific historical fiction, which I ate up with a spoon), and thus, Costain is responsible for my fascination with two of the most interesting women in English history–Eleanor of Aquitaine (total badass) and Isabella, aka the She-wolf of France; she who overthrew and murdered her husband Edward II, with the help of her lover…only to eventually have her lover murdered by her son’s adherents and wind up banished to Castle Rising for the rest of her life.

Someday, London. I know you’re waiting for me over there to come.

Yesterday was a good day as far as work was concerned; I managed to write almost three thousand words on the Secret Project (maybe even more, since i also revised the first chapter) and I’m feeling a lot more confident about it. I knew I would, once I dove back into work on it, but just wish I hadn’t pushed it off for so long; I could be done with it by now if I’d not wasted so much time, which is highly annoying, but also kind of par for the course, really.

But…there it is, you know? Why waste time with regrets?

White Lines continues to entertain us highly; I swear, people, if you’re not watching shows from Netflix Spain, you are missing out on some seriously bonkers drama. First Toy Boy, now this? A crime drama set on Ibiza, with feuding club families, cocaine and Ecstasy everywhere, and murder? I’m telling you, it’s like Jackie Collins and Sidney Sheldon got together and created a show–and it’s oddly compelling, for all of that (as was Toy Boy).

Tuesday and a short week staring us all down. I already feel off; as though my hard-won equilibrium has been stripped away somehow and I’m not even remotely sure where I am at and what I need to do.

Ah, well, back to the spice mines with me.