Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

Well, upon looking at last year’s roundup of goals reached, and goals to reach – I haven’t done too shabbily at all. Of course no big-name producer for streaming entertainment has made a serious (or even an unserious bid) to make the Adelsverein sequence, or the Luna City series into a mini-series – but hey, I live in hope. What’s a dream for, anyway?

Anyway; the windows, sliding door between the dining room and the Sumptuous Catio and French door for the front bedroom were all done and dusted early in the year, just before the great Texas Snowmagedden of 2021 descended upon us, and just in the nick of time, too. The Daughter Unit and I weathered through, just fine, since it never got cold enough in the newly-re-sided and insulated house to freeze anything of note.

The Chicken Abode was also done, and stocked with four laying hens, and it all worked very nicely, right up until the tragic day when something vicious got into the back yard and slaughtered two hens outright and mauled a third so severely that she died two days later. The fourth hen died around midsummer, cause unknown, and Larry Bird the rooster also, but from old age. I don’t want to restock the coop until spring, when Wee Jamie the miracle grandson, is a little bit older, and I have the time to spare from tending to him, while my daughter begins on making her fortune as a licensed real estate agent.

Basically, all the previously established goals for maintenance of the house itself have been achieved. Now the only remaining project is to finish paying for said projects: the windows, the siding and paint, and for an emergency fix to the HVAC system incurred the week that Wee Jamie was born. Fortunately, I have a couple of clients for publishing assistance, which will, with luck, help with that. The only remaining project that I have in relation to that is to get the den floor done in the same high-end vinyl flooring which has gone into one room and the hallway so far, and pay Roman the Neighborhood Handy Guy to do the work. I also want to be able to afford a nice pneumatic nail gun, so I can do certain carpentry stuff myself and not have to keep borrowing Roman TNHG’s compressor and nail gun.

New projects for this year:

1 – run a short length of tall fence with a gate in it from the side of the garage to the brick-faced pillar which encloses my next-door neighbor’s yard, to make a small private patio, which opens through the new French door from the front bedroom. I plan to paint the whole fence and gate white, to match the trim on the house. Eventually, when my daughter has had a good few years in real estate and moved out to her own establishment, this room will become my office and library.

2 – renew the fence and gate on the opposite side, and paint it white to match – basically, a straight façade of fence, garage door, fence across the front of the house, keeping all but two small areas on either side of the driveway private and secure. Maybe install electric porch lights on both sides.

3 – if sufficient addition income from royalties and the Teeny Publishing Bidness permits, see to redoing the back fence, which is in truly parlous condition. No, I don’t think I can reuse the original fence palings, one more time, although at the rate that costs for them are going up, I might have a good try at it. Wood is wood, and I kind of like the weathered look.

Alas – all this work for the Teeny Publishing Bidness means that writing Luna City 11 is put off until mid-spring, and the Civil War novel, That Fateful Lightning (which is half-done at the moment) is also put off until I can submerge myself in Civil War campaign and medical trivia and write the second half; full of drama, battles, blasted hopes, showers of half-inch sized lead ammunition, and hope for a better world when the war is won. Hopes that are seasoned with despair and tragedy, for wasn’t it always thus?

My daughter and I, accompanied by a selection of stock, Wee Jamie in his stroller, and a full assortment in a cooler bag of our lunches and his bottles on ice, spent all day last Saturday at a craft fair in Beautiful Downtown Bulverde, at the senior center there. Which is disconcertingly under the flight approach of a tiny airfield just down the road; at odd times all day, a small single-engine aircraft road overhead just above tree-top level, the shadow of it skating over the treetops and meadow. My daughter had a selection of her origami earrings, most of it stock created early last year. What with the advent of Wee Jamie, who will be six months old this month, and her interests in developing a career in real-estate, this is a hobby which she will have to set aside for a time. She also had a selection of wood-burned oversized Christmas ornaments, which all went to one purchaser who wanted them for an outdoor Christmas tree display, and a collection of small needle-felted seasonal ornaments which, alas, did not sell. We were kind of discouraged because of this. Maybe next year. We worry about what hell the retail economy will present to us, by next year. We had thought that shoppers at the craft fair would be interested in spending their money with local small crafters, what with all the ships stuck off-shore, loaded with crappy consumer goods from China for the holiday market season. We’ll see what happens with post-market sales – there is always a bump-up after a market event.

I had two bins of American Girl doll-clothes and costumes, which were much admired, but didn’t sell as well as they have in the past. At least I covered my half of the table fee and then a bit, which is always reassuring. Our only event the rest of the year will be for my books, at Miss Ruby’s Author Corral in Goliad, the first Saturday in December. My daughter is looking forward to taking Wee Jamie to see Santa, although posing for a picture in the saddle of a longhorn steer may be a little too much to expect of an infant who will be only seven months old when he has his encounter with the Guy In the Red Suit Who Drives a Team of Reindeer And Delivers Gifts to Good Children on Christmas Eve.

On the other hand, Wee Jamie was both much admired for his baby cuteness, and for his being absolutely good throughout. He napped in the stroller, didn’t fuss, consumed two bottles … and was so exhausted by effort of being cute for the entire day that he slept that night from about six PM until past nine on Sunday morning. Wee Jamie is coming along, in his development. I insist that there is nothing to worry about, in missing some of the development benchmarks or hitting them late, which is the pediatrician’s concern. It is my adamant belief that he is about a month behind the expectations because he is a boy, stubborn and reluctant to develop, and another month because he was delivered three weeks before full term, at barely five pounds and a bit. He smiles for my daughter and I, a smile which is all over his face, he is of late entranced with toys which rattle, make crunchy sounds, and musical notes, he has discovered and been entranced by his fingers and hands, and his reflection in one of the toy units. He rocks back and forth from side to side, when laid on my daughter’s bed. Turning over is nearly within his grasp, we think – and he can almost sit up unaided for almost a minute at a time. He also seems to enjoy watching videos, especially the series Shaun the Sheep. He sleeps mostly through the night, after his 5 PM bath, and the bottle which follows – which is a great relief to both of us.