And that's done

Well, for now.

I finished the tables on the paper yesterday (they were a lot of work and they are still not perfect BUT I am hoping if the paper gets accepted, that the journal editor can work with me on making them look better).

I made a few editing changes, and wrote an abstract this morning*, and after adding all those in, I sent it off to my co-author: so that means it's officially "done" for at least a few days (until whenever she gets back to me) and then I think I give it one more look-over, and then send it on to the editor of the journal, and I guess I can count this as ONE thing I have accomplished this summer.

(*Really, you SHOULD write the abstract last; it is meant to be a summary of the paper. Though I know a lot of people who write it first, especially if they're submitting it to a Proceedings or for a conference. I have even known of people who - and I have read abstracts I strongly suspected were - write the things before they even have all the results).

At any rate: I can't work on it for a few days, not until I hear back from my co-author, so I guess it's time to shift to doing some reading (like, on that Policy and Law book) until she writes back. And maybe the end of this week go get the soil, I don't know. It's really hot right now and I admit the idea of trekking out into the field doesn't appeal, but it has to be done.

***

I *AM* taking at least Independence Day (Thursday) off. Maybe Friday too, I don't know. I do know if I take too much time off in the heat of summer - when going out and doing stuff is kind of unappealing - I get kind of weird and sad for lack of stuff to do.

(Also, I anticipate not sleeping so well this week; fireworks are legal here and popular and already some folks in my neighborhood are shooting them off. So far it's just been a few around 11 pm and not much later than that, but I'm bracing for it to be like past years, where it would go all night long. Or maybe I'll get lucky and most of the teens/very early 20s people have moved away, and most of the people setting them off are older/working and don't stay up all night long to party)

I tentatively had plans for Saturday with Laura - she was going to drive in and we were going to go to Fort Washita, among other things - but she is having a family emergency and it looks unlikely that's going to happen. I understand and it's cool, but I also totally admit I am still disappointed.

Or maybe Friday or Saturday I force myself to clean up the guest room, in the vague hope that maybe she'll be able to get free later in the summer. And deep clean my bedroom. Or something like that. I would just like my entire house to be clean for once rather than one room at a time, but cleaning takes a lot of time and energy (and requires either a ruthlessness in re: throwing stuff out or a lot more storage than I actually have).

***

I bought the limes called for in the carne machaca and forgot to use them. No big loss; it turned out fine as it was. But I think I'm going to run by Pruett's when I go home for lunch and see if they have any of their good skirt steak out for sale; I could use the limes up on fajitas. I even have the mini corn tortillas on hand....really hoping they have skirt steak now.

***

I pulled out the long-stalled quilt in the frame last night and worked on it for about a half hour. Maybe that's what I have to do; maybe working small amounts consistently on something will get it done better than waiting until I have the desire to work for several hours on it.

I do find I need brighter light to work by now. Maybe next time I have a good JoAnn's coupon, I consider buying one of those Ott-Lite floor lamps and replace the reading lamp I have next to my big chair with that. (Sadly, they're kind of ugly lamps, and the reading lamp I have is a pretty lamp. I suppose I could look into getting a higher-wattage LED bulb for it instead...)

***

I also want to work more on the Vignere cipher quilt. And then just "play" and have some fun doing scrap quilts. Or maybe, especially once I get my new-and-hopefully-better glasses, pull out the hexagon quilt again and handpiece more on that. I think some of my craftwork may have suffered because I didn't realize my close vision had declined a bit more and it just was less comfortable to do/I couldn't do it as well. (I can pretty much knit simple things without looking at them, but sewing and quilting require you to attend to what you are doing)