Sleep? Who sleeps?

I’ve got a guilty conscience. Last year was not my best when it came to putting words on paper, or on the hard drive if you want to nit pick. It was like running a relay. I would burst into a run for a short distance, pass on to something new, sprint to catch up, get diverted, and I now find the book at the two thirds mark and the characters have taken the plot in a totally new direction. I guess they decided that if I wasn’t going to pay attention, and do my job, they would grab the reigns and get this sucker finished. The new direction is a surprise and is going to lead to a wild ending.

I’m shooting for 130,000 words and as of last night I’m at 90,000. With this being the last book of the trilogy I’m trying to bring it all to a healthy conclusion but, someone’s gonna die, said the gunslinger but who, that’s the question Yorick. It will depend on how much trouble they get themselves into at the end. I can probably follow their lead for a while yet, but soon I will have to take charge, and bring it back to a realistic finish. Maybe. Maybe not. The suspense is killing me.

Follow up to the previous weather alert.

Just a quick note to update yesterdays storm preparations.

The night was cold again but the only precipitation was a light mist and a few rain drops. The front went through fast and the morning dawned clear and bright.

We spent the day in sunshine, watching cars on TV bang into each other on the icy streets in Atlanta. They can’t handle winter any better than we can, the difference is that in rush hour in the city they still try to drive 80 on the bypass. Pile-ups there are spectacular.   

A new year. A new decade.

We are now a week into all this new stuff and it feels the same as the old stuff, except colder. We get cold snaps here in Dixie every  winter, frigid one day, warm weather comes back a day later, but the cold came with the new year and stayed. Not blustery snow and sleet cold, but the temperatures get down in the teens at night and forces the dogs to sleep under the covers, our covers. Kind of a furry bed warmer with attitude.

For the past few days the weather people on TV have been talking up a forecast of “Possible” snow for tonight. This caused a mass closing of schools for tomorrow, a run on the food stores for the basic food groups, mainly Vienna sausage for some reason, bottled water and fake fireplace logs. You can’t be too careful with snow storms coming.

The local emergency councils have been in meetings for two days making sure the people are protected. It was 50 degrees this afternoon, but to be prepared, the emergency management team sent the trucks out, spewing sand and salt around on the bridges because, as the signs say, “Bridge may freeze before the road does”.

I know. All you Yankees who live in snow for months during winter laugh at us Southern dip sticks, but we suffer through these periods of cold, in spite of our “Emergency Management” bosses. They don’t get much chance to put on their fancy uniforms, drive around in their four-wheelers, make decisions and stuff so we step aside and nod our heads when they take command of the sand trucks and warn us to let the faucet drip to prevent pipes from freezing. It’s just part of who we are, give or take a dip stick or two.