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Monday, October 21, 2013





If you're a college student and just recovered from the haze of midterms, portfolios, and projects due, you know what I mean. If you're not, it looked something like this:


...and will continue looking like it at every deadline point.


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Busy busy! Test posting from my phone

It's been a busy week at the hunter household. Mark spoke at the Peabody library of Whitley county, and I answered questions. That was the fun part - we used the other vacation days to start winterizing the house, run errands, do writing work... And catch up on some of our shows on the DVR of course. It's Walking Dead time again, people!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

As Mondays go, I've had worse.

I woke up with pain today, but I was able to get through the day with minimal trouble. I did at one point say, "I reallllllyyyy should have stayed home," but I made it. I somehow passed it off as being simply tired, because everything that I was doing to alleviate the pain (or otherwise just be a lump) ended up making me want to nap. Either way, I muddled through class by being distracted and attentive to our workshop, and only ended up being minorly grouchy about one of the pieces we 'shopped that didn't look like it had even been proofread before being turned in.

After some good and healthy food and taking Bae on a W-A-L-K, I feel quite a bit better. Not awesome, but not bad. I definitely ran into some people having a far worse case of the Mondays.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Ball python video

This is a video of my ball, Lucius, feeding. I made it to test out my new camera and uploaded it in case anyone is curious (I assume some people are, since there's tons of similar videos on YouTube).

Click the cut to view (hidden for those who don't want to see).

Warning: Rat death. It's the circle of life. Mufasa told me, and he can't be wrong.

Friday, September 6, 2013

What's in a dog name?

"I have no idea what's happening."

This photo is from our trip to SEMO. Bae enjoyed peeing in three new states.
Most of the time when I tell people my dog's name, if they know me or Mark at all they say something like, "Oh! That's perfect!" I still do get a few blank stares, though.

Baeowulf came to us as Goliath, the name the shelter gave him. He's huge, so its easy to see why he got that name. There's not really a good way to shorten "Goliath" to a one-syllable nickname for ease of use, and it was hard to say when trying to train him or talk to him. He didn't answer to it yet, and we didn't feel like it quite fit him - he's big, but he's not mean and doesn't have a habit of trying to crush children.

We ended up wanting to change the name right away, but it took us a week or two to come up with the perfect name.

The spelling is a different story. We added the "a" for a few reasons.

Spelled Baeowulf, it can be shorted to Bae, which makes sense for people if even they haven't heard of the epic. Without the a, the shorted name would be Be, and I'd have to answer 9000+ questions about why I named my dog be or hear it pronounced Bee, and bees freak me out a little.

Secondly, it's a wink to the show Once Upon a Time. We really like my favorite character Rumple's nickname for his son Baelfyre: Bae. We didn't want to name him Baelfyre, so the combination of the two names, Baeowulf, worked for us.

Now, Bae knows his name. And he know's he's in real trouble when he gets the o-wulf added... though he probably recognizes "wulf" from the amount of people that tell us he looks like a wolf (or werewolf, once).

Saturday, July 20, 2013

It's official: My dog is a river rat.

Here's a random photo of Bae being cute and knowing it, since I didn't take the camera out on this trip.

Thursday my husband Mark and I did something we do all the time in the summer: canoe at Chain O'Lakes State Park.

This time, however, we took the dog with us.

It was a bit of a challenge since the additional shifting weight in the middle caused some balance and steering problems, but luckily for us we're both canoe veterans. We both learned to paddle in those big honkin' all-metal canoes, and I had a good amount of experience paddling with squirming children - including hauling them into the boat.

Bae took it like a champ. He didn't quite understand the whole thing, but once he figured out it was just like a ride in the car except he could drink water while doing it, he was in. He loves smelling new smells, and boy were there ever new things for him to check out down the canals. He even stayed in the boat when we docked at the side of a channel to adjust his rigged life jacket floatie and help a few boatloads of people who bottomed out.

Not to get all sappy, but there are few things better than being in a beautiful, scenic place with your best friend and your dog.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Turns out you CAN teach an old dog new tricks

This is Baeowulf, our German Shepard/? rescue pup, lounging on his couch.

That's right - when you're 90 pounds and full of allergen-filled fluff, you get your own couch in our house. He knows the difference; he does not get on the regular couch or the other furniture.

Since we're going to be visiting some relatives and friends at some point this summer (boy was that ever vague), I wanted to make a little cheat-sheet... and brag on our very good boy a little.

Commands/words Bae knows:

  • Sit
  • Down
  • Stay
  • Up (to jump up, up on to something, or up for a treat)
  • Up-up (to go up and stay up for hugs or a treat)
  • Come
  • Cross the street
  • Outside / Let's go / walk / potty
  • Car / Get in the car / Ride
  • Home / Go Home
  • Mark, Emily, Bitty (a relative's nickname)
  • Snuggle
  • Ducky (his toy duck)
  • Squeaky (his toy that squeaks)
  • Treat / Cookie (also the TARDIS sound our 'cookie' jar makes)
He also knows not to take commands, food, etc. from others unless we give the OK, for safety reasons. He's a pretty good judge of character, and of sensing when we like or don't like somebody. He doesn't really enjoy children, but he tolerates them if we tell him to - as well as protecting them and 'herding' them if he thinks they need it (IE making them stay on the path or out of bushes at the state park).

I really need to get a video of his insane bouncing before our weekly walks, when we tell him, "Let's go for a ride in the car to go to the park for a walk with Mark!"

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Turning the day around

I woke up today with quite a bit of fibromyalgia pain.

Thankfully, I don't have to deal with it as often as many people do.

However, I pushed through and didn't let it get to me today - mostly because Mark and I went kayaking over the weekend, and I felt like I 'got away' with that. For all I know, I'm just having delayed muscle pain and the fibro is sharing it with the rest of the body. I worked on a few projects, made some food that actually required effort, and did a light workout. I'll sleep like a log later and either feel wonderfully refreshed when I get up, or will be justified in ignoring the alarm clock.

Slightly Off the Mark: Bagpipes, helicopter coming to Albion Fire's 125th...

From Mark's blog:


Slightly Off the Mark: Bagpipes, helicopter coming to Albion Fire's 125th...: The Fort Wayne Firefighters Pipes and Drum Corps and Samaritan helicopter plan to help the town of Albion celebrate its fire department...

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Storm Chaser Shorts award nomination

My husband's short story collection has been nominated for an award! The humor anthology he's in, My Funny Valentine, got a nomination as well. If you could send him a vote, that would really make his day:

http://www.efestivalofwords.com/vote-here-for-2013-best-short-story-collection-t397.html

It does require a log-in, but it only takes a few seconds and seems like a pretty active place.

Monday, July 1, 2013

"Smoky Days" for Kindle

I just submitted Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights to Amazon, and it's under review for its Kindle publication. It should be ready tonight or tomorrow, unless I broke something!

Edit:
It's publishing now and will be available in around 12 hours.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Smoky Days release

Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or so with the Albion Fire Department, the non-fiction book my husband Mark wrote that I edited, is officially ready to go in print version. We've got boxes of 'em sitting in the office here. It's starting to get really real - the radio interview and television interview/feature (not yet aired) are a little overwhelming! And boy is it ever good to be overwhelmed by good news!

The book is already up on Amazon, but will officially début at the AFD's 125th Anniversary Celebration on the 20th of this July. It'll be out as an e-book afterward. For more info you can check out Mark's website here.


We've also been getting some progress made on our own side projects; he's working on his beloved science fiction short stories and the sequel to Storm Chaser, and I've been puttering around on my poetry chapbook and designing covers.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Slightly Off the Mark: Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: The proof is here...

The hubs blogs about our book project:

Slightly Off the Mark: Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: The proof is here...: The proof copy of Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights is in! Here’s a photo Emily shot just after we got it: Just a few more minor corrections and we're ready for first printing!

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Oh look, an update!

Well, what can I say - it's been a while!

My medical issues have been getting progressively more complicated; fortunately, I believe I'm now in the hands of a good team of doctors, as we seem to be making progress. Mark and I have delayed our wedding ceremony to be on the safe side. My college graduation has also been postponed.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Amidst the various medical-related things I've been doing, I've also been working on writing and editing projects. I've drafted several new poems, revised some earlier ones, and started putting them together into chapbooks. I'm slowly catching up on all the reading I've had to put off in lieu of textbooks and other assigned reading.

And I've been working diligently on Mark's fire history book, which is now in the last proofing stage. Once we get the print copy proof next week, we'll know if we need one more round of changes or if it's ready to go to print! Once ready, it'll be available at the Albion Fire Department's 125th anniversary celebration. For a sneak peak and more info, check out his website.

As for this blog, I plan to begin blogging fairly frequently. I will be including personal things, especially those things relating to my various illnesses. It should help me to talk about it and keep a better record, but I decided to make it publicly viewable in case anyone can benefit from it. I'll keep using tags so those who want to skip to certain types of posts can do so.