So, I am actually started on a life time goal of writing a manuscript. Of course, in a dream world this would be writing a book but some thoroughly disheartening research has suggested to me that claim would be very pretentious. Apparently new authors rarely get published. Ah well, I am having a wonderful time with it and if it never goes anywhere, I can deal with it. As of today, I have over 27,000 words for my projected ~175,000. The bottom line is that I am having a gas with this project and can't squeeze enough out of each day to spend on it. 
 My story is lightly sci-fi/fantasy told from a third person limited point of view. My main character is a young man from a rough background who has an unreliable moral compass and struggles to walk the good walk between selfish/self serving and selfless consideration of others. He befriends an off the charts genius hitchhiker who has dropped out of academia to quietly (away from the prying eyes of the government) pursue parallel world changing theories that would lead to free energy and a deeper understanding of the human psyche than we have ever had by factors.
 The smart guy is torn between the compulsion to follow through with his ideas for the sake of the research and his personal uncertainty about the innate goodness, or badness of the human race. He struggles daily with the moral questions of duty to the greater good and refusal to contribute to our existing gluttony and abuse of the world and really wants to drop out and play in a band. The two travel together on a journey of growth, ultimately partner up to trust each other and try to resolve their separate and common moral questions. The smart guy meets a girl who becomes a perfect point on their trio but opportunity to prove his validity leads one to take advantage of the other and leads to horrible tragedy. The betrayal is bitter and rends the remaining two, demolishing what might have remained of what they had built. Chance, or is it really, fortunately brings the two survivors back together again where they discover a reversal, of sorts, for the misfortune which had occurred. The story comes to a close with hope for the future and a hard won and heart rending reunion of the two survivors.
 The process of identifying the interactions between these characters is amazingly consuming. I find that it is like being different people and God all at various times. I honestly feel some responsibility to get their stories right. 
 So, sometime in the next year, I imagine I will spend a huge amount of time editing and rewriting and then will begin the process of gleefully bashing myself against the brick wall of the many agents who will refuse me and after which I will capitulate and self publish on Amazon in the 99 cent book category. Really though, Sammy, Trevor and Amy won't care, they, and the farting dog Rocket Man, will be alive somewhere and that's all that really counts.

So, after nine years of smoking hard work, our farm is (mostly) done. There is touch up stuff here and there but really all of the big stuff is over. That seems pretty weird. Will I know what to do with myself now... YES! I think I can figure that all out just fine!

The master bath is, happily, done. It was a process to figure out, on the fly, how to build a walk in shower. Minus the internet and it would have been constructed with black plastic, unrolled and duct taped to the studs. Add the miracles of the millennium and a little mind meld between me and some people who actually know what they are doing and shazaam, a shower. Not perfect, not horrible, without significant blood loss or requiring large quantities of alcohol to recover from (though I am thinking about those bottles upstairs  above the quarter bath). Floor heat is in, but not on yet (waiting. 28 days after installation. No idea why besides the mortar bag said to). The toilet flushes and presumably, appropriately, sends it's contents to the septic system. I haven't actually verified that empirically. My conclusion is more by inference and, like the light bulb in the refrigerator and our acceptance that it does turn off when the door is closed, taken a little bit on faith. I flush, nothing horrible runs out on the floor, things must be good.

Most of the discretionary time that I have to spend on the computer, other than the get-up-and-have-coffee-and-see-what-airplanes-are-for-sale morning 20 minutes, is at work. My best access there is with my IPad and the website that I'm using to manage the Singing Dog site is NOT mobile friendly. That leaves me struggling and slogging through each and every step with my lap top linked through my IPad as a hot spot and the process is crazy making. The bottom line to all of that is, anything that happens on this site is probably going to smack of, struggle, slow and crazy making. Sorry for both of us.

4/16

 The entry way is done, trimmed and the floor heat is on. There's a fascinating difference between the heated 75 degree section and the unheated -30 section. You'll be able to figure out where the heating mat is and what witches would feel like if we were referencing their feet...

Working on the entry way. Marble tile. Cutting each tile is fairly slow going so I look at them while they are moving ever so slowly through the saw. fascinating stuff marble. What went on to make the endless patterns and swirls, tides, tones and fluid looking floes in that stone. I try to imagine that, the process's the atoms have been through, from their stellar beginnings to the table of my saw and ultimately the eternal proximity of feet.