Working on editing my 2nd draft, I noticed I needed some coffee and a snack. No snacks, so I went to the store got some donuts and chips to help me edit. While I was out, I stopped at the Library and got a couple of movies and a book, Stephen King's "From a Buick 8". When I got back, made the coffee and noticed that the cats tracked litter from their box onto the carpet. So, now I have to vacuum. It's now 3:25 pm. I don't need any more distractions, got ta get off of FB too!

National Novel Writing Month...

…and so it begins.

November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo, to those who participate. Its main goal, for writers, all around the country, is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days! I am already 2 days behind…sort of. 

My only problem or question, (to myself), do I want to participate this year? In the last four years, I have only finished one novel and it is still sitting on my desk collecting dust… (Editing cost a fortune, at least for me it does, retirement does that, sometimes, I mean, I’ve given up Lobster, caviar and Champagne and now only eat beans, beer and PB&J sandwiches for dinner, now). In 2015, I started a new novel but only completed 12k words. It sat around, (in my computer), for an entire year waiting for me to finish. 

In 2016, I started writing, again. I finished, in November with 25k words, total. What I feel so bad about, I have been day dreaming, night dreaming, thinking about my novel just about every day as to, how do I defeat this writers block? How do I have the two main characters interact? This conflict, with me, has been going on since the end of last year’s NaNoWriMo.

Do I wish to participate? Probably not. Well…maybe so. I can say, and I really feel it, I really need to WRITE this novel, finish this novel! However, where did my passion disappear too?  

Many, many years ago, I really did have a passion for writing. However, I would have to lock myself in my room, (I had two young children, annoying children, always wanting to play children and yes, and I did play with them more often than not – after I finished writing). I managed to finish three books during those turbulent times, only to have them published during the last three years. 

Do I want to participate…? I am going to write. I am going to write 50,000 words, during November – or longer. I am going to finish this novel. I have to see how my resolve is, find my muse again, and find my passion, for writing. I miss it, with a passion.

 

Way back then, I would drink and knock out a few thousand words a day. My drinking, gin, vodka and scotch days are over now. I just drink beer, but that doesn’t seem to help. Coffee seems to be my only help (hope?), and I have a few bags of coffee to get me through the month of November. 

The light is on, tomorrow I will get my bearings and…I will WRITE! 50,000 words or else!  And, now that I think about it, try my best to keep this cat off of my lap as I write. He’s so cute, sleeping on my lap. Geez…

Yes, its official...

Yup, I'm losing it...it has been confirmed, again. I took that particular sweatshirt with me, camping, this past weekend. I know I put it in my bag. For that past four days I have been looking for that sweatshirt, to no avail. I really searched this house from top to bottom. Nothing, zilch...no sweatshirt could be found. Today I was going to finish raking the leaves in the back yard. I needed a cap, which I knew was in the dryer. Guess what I found in the dryer...my sweatshirt, where it languished for the last four days, hiding from me.

nothing has happened...

Nothing happened today, nothing, not a thing, zilch, nada, nothing..so far. I do know, I gotta stop throwing peanuts at my cats, those things are  too good to be throwing at those cats. And, to make matters worse, I only had one cup of coffee...go figure.

I've forgotten and I can't...

I consider myself a thinking person, someone who always has a brilliant thought on his mind. But, I guess as I progressively age, a guy just wants to have fun…but, alas I digress.

About a month or so ago my Keurig coffee maker died, or so I thought. What did I do, I went out and purchased a Mister Coffee, coffee maker for about $20. Prior to that I had purchased an expensive, well a near expensive couple bags of coffee, which I used in my Keurig coffee maker. That coffee was great, great taste and so forth.

The only problem, coffee tends to spoil after a couple of weeks (actually a week or less. I just can’t drink coffee that fast, though).  And, what made it even worse the Mister coffee maker left my cup of coffee with a bad plastic after taste. Yesterday, after having no coffee for a couple of days, I thought I would try the Mr. Coffee machine again. This time, the coffee was just terrible, I mean terrible! A biting, stinging taste on my tongue. I took one sip and had to spit it out, it was that bad.

This morning I opened up a jar of instant coffee. I have never really liked instant coffee, never. I usually drink it when I go camping. As of right now, eight hours later, I still feel that coffee in my gut. It seems to be hard to get out of my system.

Anyway, I remembered something my son told me a very long time ago…”Use YouTube, Dad!” Sure enough I went to the web and looked up Keurig coffee makers on YouTube and my exact machine came up and the video explained what was wrong and what to do about it. A very simple thing to do.

I now say to myself, “How stupid could I have ever been?” This is something I should have done two months ago and I wouldn’t have suffered as much as I have in the long run. And I have suffered. I need my morning coffee. Not because I like it so much, (love it), but it offers me the energy to get out of the house and do my daily run or walk or anything else that requires exercise.

If I can ever remember, old age seems to be doing that to me or I have been drinking too much…I’ve got to remember to use YouTube when something around the house breaks. Anyone wanna buy a Mister Coffee maker, cheap?

Wired!!

Fred Green: "I was going to take a nap, a little bit ago but, I have had so much coffee today, on National Coffee day...I guess that ain't going to happen! I'm wide awake. I did manage to clean the kitchen, wash dishes, fold some clothes...I would have made up the bed but my cat, who was lying there, grabbed hold of the sheet and wouldn't let go so I came down here to write this."



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Today is National Coffee day, and I have had so much coffee I actually feel "High"!

To eat or not to eat...

Fred Green: "I've had so much coffee today, I forgot to eat lunch. Oh well, what to eat, what to eat?"



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Recipe for iced coffee...

Three Things...

 Three things:

Thing number 1.  I got up this morning and, as I laid on my bed and stretched, my sciatic nerve in my left leg said, NO! No stretching and you are not getting out of the bed today. Of course I ignored that dagger in my butt and got up any way.

I tried to put on my PJs, (I sleep in the nude) and tried to lift my leg and struggled to get my left leg in to my PJs. I limped to the window to look at the rain falling and then limped down the stairs to feed my cats, Tom and Jerry.

I was going to play racquetball this morning but, my butt said NO! For whatever reason I am becoming a servant to my butt, specifically, my pain. It seems that everything on my left side hurts. Anyway, I am going to sit here and write and then watch football for the rest of the day and suffer with the pain in my butt.

Thing number 2. After racquetball I was going to go on a 7 mile hike and finish with a picnic. When the food had been devoured I was going kayaking. Looking out the window, the rain hasn’t stop. I just checked the radar and all of Michigan is covered and the rain will be out of here by 5 pm. So, the organizer cancelled the hike and the Kayaking. But, she re-scheduled the hike for tomorrow. All in all I still might go and walk 3 miles, in the rain anyway, just because… (I ate two donuts this morning).

Thing number 3. Last but not least, this morning was a good thing, no, a great thing. A couple of weeks ago, while grocery shopping, I needed to get some coffee. Since my Keurig died I have been drinking Folgers Breakfast Blend and ran out. So, I thought I try something really different. Of course anything Starbucks is out of the question. Sometimes, what you don’t know may or may not hurt your, philosophically speaking, of course.

As I scanned all of the coffees on the racks in the coffee aisle and I spotted something different, a coffee I had not seen before. Since it was $2 cheaper it’s what I wanted, so I bought it. It turned out to be Seattle’s Best coffee, more on that later. Today, I opened that bag of Seattle’s Best coffee, brewed it and waited for a bit before I drank it. I was surprised by the taste.

Talk about the best tasting coffee I have had today, and probably for the next month, too! I am not a coffee snob, but I know what I like and I have tasted quite a few great tasting coffees and this was one of them, this month. Even though, in the back of my mind, I knew that Seattle’s Best was owned by Starbucks. I Googled Seattle’s Best and sure enough…Starbucks Best.

I don’t know why I cannot stand Starbucks coffee, at their stores, and I now know why people who drink it add lots of sugar and cream. Now that I think about it and I’ve had three cups of coffee, (my cups hold 3 cups,), I probably will stick with this brand for a while longer, considering it is the least expensive of most coffees on the coffee rack.

Oh well, it’s still raining, I guess I will sit here and watch the last three episodes of Dark Matter and later, Football … and finish that pot of “Seattle’s Best” coffee.

My Monday Morning Moment...

My Monday morning moment: I got up with a desire for a nice cup of steaming coffee. I washed the old-time percolator out, put in a brand new filter, tenderly added three scoops of coffee and then put the pot on the stove and turned the fire on.

I then went and turned on the boob tube to watch the news. After five minutes, I smelled something burning. I went into the kitchen, checked the stove and noticed nothing. There was steam coming out of the pot, or what I thought was steam.

I went over to the cat and had a conversation with him for a couple of minutes, but that burning smell was getting more distinct than it was a few minutes before. I looked at the pot and noticed that the steam wasn’t steam at all. It was something burning in the pot. I took it off of the stove and noticed the weight. I had put no water into the pot.

The filter had practically burned up, on the inside, and the little plastic knob on top melted. I stood there watching it and not noticing that I had forgotten to add water.

Oh well, no coffee for today, so don’t ask me anything, for the time being.

Coffee...and keep it coming!

Coffee…and keep it coming!

My new Keurig, 3 years ago

I woke up this morning thinking what am I going to do about getting my serious morning energy so I can go out and be productive in this world? Or just run three miles…(considering that I went hiking and then kayaking yesterday and this morning I was so sore I didn’t want to get out of bed, and I have no drugs to deaden the racking pain in my shoulders, back and places I didn’t know muscles existed.).

This is day four with my broken Keurig Coffee maker. I had to buy a cup of coffee on Thursday night and I decided that I would just chew the coffee grounds and see how that works. It didn’t. Then, like a true light going off in my head, I remembered that I had a nine cup Aluminum Camp Percolator! I dug it out of that big green duffel camping bag that was sitting under my kayak.

I pulled it out of the box and washed it out, considering I hadn’t used it since June, might have had bugs living in it – hey, it happened before, a couple of years ago. Anyway, when I got it clean enough to use I filled it with my coffee grounds and fired it up. However, I forgot the filters to put into the brewing cup. (I found that I did pull the filters out with the percolator but I put them in a place where I forgot where I put them.)

In the end, the coffee tasted good. Not as good as the DD store bought coffee, but it did wonders for me. My cup is large, two and a half cups large, so I had two…actually I just drank all the coffee in the percolator, since I didn’t want to waste any of it

Now, if I can remember to put the filter in the brew cup, tomorrow, I should be good to go, at least until I can find the instruction manual for my Keurig and fix that darn thing. 

Never, never, ever say...

Fred Green: "I heard someone say, you should never say what else could go wrong. My coffee maker died this morning and I said to myself what else could go wrong? Well my glasses broke now I can't see, more or less I can't read anything. Oh well Life Goes On, I mean, what else could go wrong?"



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Coffee, Oh Coffee...

 "I'm gonna die!! My coffee maker is dead, dead, dead!! I'm gonna die!"

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Sleeping the night away..

"Why is it that every night when I get ready for bed, I lay down, about 11:30ish and fall right to sleep with all the lights on and a cat's butt in my face. Only to wake up about 12:20 a.m. or so just to get up to brush my teeth and turn off the lights and listen to my cat yacking non-stop for a good 10 minutes. Then when I get back into to bed, I can't sleep! Last night I remember seeing 2:10 am! Oh well, no more late night coffee for me! (It was decaf, at 9:30, I love the taste of coffee!!)."



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Coffee, coffee, coffee...Meh, sometimes

Facebook: "I have no idea why the coffee I make in the morning taste like, "MEH"! And no idea why the coffee I drink in the evening taste, "Great"! This morning I tried the K-cup (decaf) and it tasted great, but I now feel, MEH! I just don't want to buy 100 K-cups for $30 when I can get 5 pounds of Folgers for $8...Oh the sacrifices..."



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