Only 10 days since my last entry. and it is indeed a Sunday, so I’m getting close to my proposal to blog every Sunday – 🙂
I’m beginning to think I am being scammed by Austin Macauley, the “publishers” of my book. I just returned to them the fourth “proofread.” This time my Amendments page included the preface: for the third time…
They have continued to leave out huge chunks of text and not return my paragraph formatting to the original manuscript.
I was listening to an interview on NPR the other day, and apparently this has become “a thing.” With so many people writing books using AI, these pretend publishing companies are cropping up and taking advantage of wannabe authors. I thought I did due diligence by getting an okay from my editor who has had two books published by them and also a fellow student who said that her book had some vocabulary issues because she’s from Texas, but ultimately she said it went okay.
The billing department said they were told by Production that my requests had been met and that I needed to pay up. I informed them that this was not true and told them about my need to ask for the same corrections, now for the third time. I also shared with them that I was starting to feel that I am being scammed. This is just too bizarre and unprofessional. We’ll see where it goes.
I learned recently that my car parks itself! I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but it’s high on my list. A friend the other day said that perhaps I shouldn’t use this because I might lose my skills. Ha!! That’s very funny. It assumes that I had skills in the first place.
When I came out of the grocery store yesterday and was getting into my car, a young woman approached me to admonish me for parking so close to her car. She said that I parked so close that she could not enter her car from the driver’s side and had to crawl in through the passenger’s side. She was now parked across from me, but she decided to wait in the parking lot in order to show me a photo she had taken of the space between our cars. I thought, I could have gotten in there. Given her size, I refrained. I apologized and said that I would do better next time. So, now it seems that parking between the two yellow lines is not enough. Now I must be sure that I am parked as close to smack dab center as possible or I risk being scolded. I’ll see if the parking assistant can help me.
I’m on schedule with my training hikes. I walk Tuesday, Thursday and either Saturday or Sunday, 7 miles each time. It’s enough. I know Jolene and I will be walking more than that every day, but this Lapham hike is pretty challenging, so I don’t plan on doing much more than that. I plan to do a long one with Mary soon.
I walked this morning, and it was 90 degrees. It wasn’t too bad though. I just walked slowly. I met a couple I have seen before. They are planning a hike in Glacier Park in Montana. We were chatting in the community center where I stopped for water. He started talking about his training and mentioned that he was 67, sounding as though that were old. He asked how old I was, and when I answered 73, He said, “I thought you were in your 70s…” Bastard!! Wrong answer! You’re supposed to say, “Really?! I thought maybe 50.”
I think it’s funny how we all like to hear that we look younger than our age, and how many people believe that they look so much younger. Or worse yet when people say “guess” when someone asks them how old they are. Makes me cringe. I remember reading an article a woman wrote basically saying, “No, you don’t look younger, get over it.”
And the park continues to offer enchantment. I was going to try to identify these, but I’m too tired. Maybe some day. I’m particularly interested in the one that looks like a petunia. Any guesses?
I’d also like to identify this plant. I saw it in a doctor’s office. I was suprised that it was real. An app identified it as a Traveler’s Palm, but the photos didn’t match.
I am now officially a certified calligrapher. We had our graduation ceremony on Friday. It was very nice. I thought we were going to see each other, but it wasn’t a Zoom, it was David in his home studio showing our certificates on You Tube. There was also a group chat going on, but it was hard to watch both at the same time. In any event, that phase of my calligraphy journey has ended. I am now signed up for class being conducted by Sneha. I think she is going to concentrate on the capital letters.
Here are a couple of pieces I just finished. The Autumn piece I did for Mickey. She wants to gift it to one of her favorite nurses who is pregnant and due in September. The baby’s name will be Autumn.
This is for another friend, Anita Martin, from my Soul Matters class. I don’t think she reads the blog, so it’s safe to post it.
The centering isn’t great; there should be more space at the bottom, but otherwise I’m happy with it. Anita’s favorite color is magenta.
Cordelia and Marie were here last Sunday (can’t believe a week has gone by already). We started working on the pine-cone flower project.
This is the goal:
Stay tuned…
Samantha bought a house in (or around) Boston. It’s so cute, and I’m thrilled for her.
I’ve been playing around lately with an AI app called Photo Revive. These were all still photos to which the app can add the action of your choice.
Some might say I need to get a job.
And last but not least, Kath;y stopped over today to give me a birthday gift and this cute card that she made:
