It took a while, what with the raking and all, but I’m working on the AfterWord now, so I should have Destiny and Intrigue up soon.

I actually did a bit of judicious clipping in Destiny. It was written at a rather difficult time for me, deaths in the family, Lynn leaving us to go be with her folks in Florida, losing my cat of twenty years and horse of thirty years… and as it was a very complex book to begin with, I found some unnecessary redundancies in places. I didn’t mess with it a lot, but I think those who have read the original will find certain scenes just read a bit more smoothly now.

I certainly hope so.

anyway…I’m going to go finish those comments and see if I can’t get them up by Friday.

I’m sure you all think I’m nuts, all the time I’m spending on the garden. Unfortunately, once we decided to take out the lawn in front and then buy the plants, certain things became absolutely top priority.  The big problem is  I’ve only got this brief period between too cold and WAY too hot to do the heavy labor. I really don’t have a lot of options, because that grass has to come out or get mowed and the little shrubberies need someplace where their little roots can begin to stretch. Their eventual “home” is currently under construction.

The side of the house was a bit more of a problem than I anticipated, but once it’s done, it’s done and I can take my time with the front. Or so I thought. Areas out front were beginning to sprout grass, so I had to leave the side to attack the front with the tiller and my trusty rake today because rain is coming this week. ARGH. Once I’ve gotten the expletive deleted grass out, I can take my time landscaping, but getting that grass out is a lotta work! I’m not sure the crew we hired to get it out really would have made much difference. The root mat is really deep.

But I got a start on the water feature today. We laid out the plastic and figured where it’s going to go and what direction it’s going to face! Mostly, I just did lotsa raking. But if the rain comes, there’s no more work outside for a while…other than getting a few more plants in.

I don’t do mud!

I didn’t like mud pies as a kid…I like them even less as an adult. Bleh! Have I mentioned I learned the efficacy of four letter words trying to push a loaded wheelbarrow through wet-side mud?

I was cleaning stables. I leave it to your imagination what that wheelbarrow was loaded with!

Sorry…I’m trying to get them up but the NextGen plugin is screwing up. Actually, it’s probably my fault because I haven’t upgraded the plugin for quite a while and now it won’t upgrade. I’ve got a query in to see if I can resolve the problem. Sigh….

Sorry for not getting the pix up. Will make another stab at them tonight. I was up yesterday morning at six or before, got a couple of hours in on Destiny, then a couple hours out front with Tilly, then an hour on the ice. By that time, I was ready to go face down in the bean dip…but we went by Lowes and for once we were in the right place at the right time. They’d just gotten a truckload of small shrubs…things that would normally run six or seven bucks…selling them for $2.50 each! I mean…sheesh! We’re sitting here with a huge stripped lawn wanting shrubs and bang! Well…we committed shrubberies. So…I came home and tried to do some more work outside, because having committed shrubberies, we needed someplace to put them.

but I didn’t last long. I came in, showered, and tried to get some more editing done, but after dindin ended up going face down in the bean dip for an hour. Got up to watch American idol (don’t ask me how anyone did, I was dozing through most of it.

This morning, we got to planning what was going to go where…and decided we needed some more shrubberies. I spent the morning editing but when it came time to go skate, we decided to go right to Lowes instead. When we got home, it was back out to the side of the house to do some serious tiller and rake work. We’ve decided to “finish” that area and use it as a nursery until we’ve had time to prep the front. But finishing that area is going to be a bit of work. Have to zap the grass, the take dirt next to the curb down below curb level to make a red lava-rock walkway (pedestrians are supposed to use the other side of the road, but they don’t.) But the ground slopes so we need to put a row of retaining wall stones along the length so I can “flatten” the slope enough to hold mulch so we can weedcloth the area. We’ve three big evergreens whose roots need to be accommodated, so it’s going to end up kind of interesting.  We’ve got a plan…it remains to be seen if the plan works!

Thankfully, the weather, after two icky-hot days, is gloriously cool and perfect for working outside. Hopefully we can get this section done this week and be back on the ice next week….but who know? My Overstock bathtub faucets arrived yesterday and the fan for the kitchen arrived today and OSGuy has promised the bridge supports soon…I think my work’s cut out for me!

Better get back to the brothers.

I get the picture. No postie…

I’ve been kinda busy…Finally got the process figured out for the books and I’m trying to get Destiny and Intrigue ready to go up. There was always a weird inconsistency between the two (won’t tell what it was!) And I’m trying to make sure that’s sorted out this time. I think most of the changes need to go in Destiny, but I’m not putting Intrigue up until I’ve made it through Destiny.

Anyway, I’m working on that in the morning…been skating, then working in the garden until I can hardly see straight. I come in, have dinner, then just sort of stare vacuously at the TV.  Then there’s that infection I’ve been carrying…fortunately Someone, whose initials are OSG, came to my rescue last week. Feeling much better and sleeping much better, so hopefully the VacuousitySyndrome will soon be a thing of the past. Mostly, it’s just not leaving me with much to talk about.

Work progresses in the front. Carolyn has been bravely wielding the mantis on our front yard while I dug after and wrestled with the excess sprinkler heads, capping them off, so we can get the sprinklers going on the roses without encouraging the grass we don’t want. Also trying to get ahead of the weeds in the back. Now that it’s warmed up, they’ll ‘splodin’ out there. I don’t want to do much with Preen because I’m hoping the alyssum and Johnnie Jumpups will continue spreading.

It’s sooooo much fun seeing things coming back to life.

But my Big Job this weekend was moving Audrey. Audrey is a very large, very unproductive climbing peace rose that came with the house, and lived right beside the front door…giving us, like, two flowers a year. We’ve cursed that thing regularly. Problem was, it was tucked into the L made by the house and front stairs, with several other well-established roses in front of it. Oh…and the tall sprinkler head in the one place to put your feet next to the stairs. So, capped the sprinkler head clear down and filled in the hole to give me someplace to put my feet and began digging…squidging in for a shovel-full, trying not to take out the roots of the other roses, then carrying it around the big rosebush to find a place to pile it. It was one of my better contortionist moments. As I dug, I began to think that maybe Audrey’s problem was nutritional. Her roots were tucked right up against the foundation and the soil was all gravel. I don’t think we could have fed her enough to bloom. So, I took pity and tried to salvage her roots, which meant even more contorting as I got down with a trowel. Well, I got her out and moved her to the back to better soil and I’ll give her a year to get reestablished. Next year…if she still only gives me two blooms…she’s outta there!

Later!

and better pics. Absolutely brilliant examples.

Trajan Pro is another font I really want to be able to use. I knew there was a free version out there…Optimus Princeps. One download site was insisting that it was “plagiarized.” Now…that’s hard on a font based on a two thousand year old carving. However, taking the computer work of someone else is a different matter.

So, I checked out the person responsible for OP, to see if it was someone  like Roger White, who did the Vivaldi lookalike…just another designer using the same historical inspiration. And I’m telling you, this fellow didn’t need to swipe from anyone. Prepare for hours spent punching links and the back button, and chuckling. This guy does magnificent fonts…hundreds of them…and fabulous little pics showing how they can be used…and all he asks is that you donate to a charity if you use them. Pretty cool.

Anyway…have fun!

Manfred Klein

After all this work, I’m just not sure it’s worth it. I think I’ve found something legit to use and it’s just a version of a copyrighted font that somebody has adjusted and put up as “free.”

The license for a font is interesting…I looked at the license for Vivaldi and to paraphrase, you can embed in a file if it is “read-only” or in some other way disabled. (Can’t remember the exact wording.) Now…the question is, I bought Windows and got this font through a legitimate source. Does that mean that if I could some how disable it, would it be legal to include?

I know there’s a program out there with which I could easily delete all elements not actively used in the document, rendering the included file unusable for anything other than the book. Would that be legal use?

I just don’t know. And there doesn’t seem to be any way to ask.

I can’t waste any more time. Sorry, folks. Plain vanilla files is all I can give you.

Darn it. Sooooo close…

Turns out the fonts I want to use are all copyrighted. I mean…sheesh! I can’t complain…but it is distributing without the license.  So…I’ve got to find free versions that look kinda like what I’ve used.

Trajan Pro, Westminster, Bank Gothic, Vivaldi, Brush Script, Hanson’s Hand and Schwartzwald

If anybody out there is a font-o-phile with copyright free fonts that look like these guys…I’m in the market.

What’s really frustrating is, the first Trajan I had claimed to be copyright free, but in fact somebody had evidently put it up without the attribute. I mean…how do you know getting them off these sites?

Wow, this is getting to be a serious bummer.

OK…for copyright reasons, I’ve killed these links. My profound apologies to the copyright holders.

Thanks for all who helped. Now…gotta find legit fonts.

Harmonies with fonts

Harmonies w/o fonts

I’ve got two files up there from a cleaned up html base. I’m hoping this will help with the goofy formatting.

If you have problems with the file with fonts, please try the one without.

I can’t thank youse guys enuf.

Big hugs

Oh…embarrassment. There’s a nice little link to explain how to write the tags. My only excuse is that the durned program did an update today…which must have changed how it recognizes links. The important thing is…all is well in epub land.

Oh…embarrassment…