Lessee, haven’t posted in a while, or at least, I haven’t posted anything significant in a while. I woke up this morning to find eight spam messages on eight different posts, so since I was in the back-end deleting all of those, I figured that since I was back here, I’d post. I haven’t yet decided where I want to start this post concerning how far back in my week I want to cover, which is pretty much the reason why I’m rambling on right now about posting as opposed to actually doing so. Guess I’ll start with Wednesday.

Grandma Doyle’s funeral was nice. Father Leo gave a really nice homily at her funeral mass and didn’t use nearly as much incense as was used at Great Aunt Irma’s funeral a few weeks ago. The thing with funerals is that I’m generally fine and won’t start crying until I see someone else tearing up. So when I heard my sisters-in-law asking about Kleenex, I whispered I had a whole box. That’s when they pointed out my niece Sammi who was bawling. Yeah, five minute in. Oh well. Then Leslie, Jill, and Erin all got up to sing after communion and the whole church started crying. To talk to the three after the fact, it sounds more like their experience in the choir loft trying to juggle microphones and songbooks was more a comedy of errors though, something that had everyone seen it would have gotten us all laughing and not crying. All in all, a good service.

Afterward we visited with a lot of family members at the reception. I met lots of cousins (whose names I’ve mostly forgotten already despite the fact that Ian doesn’t have nearly as many cousins as I have) and got to see the aunts and uncles again. Fascinating to know: Fred’s actually the second youngest just before Betty. Ian and I were always under the impression he was among the older siblings but nope, that’s Maryann and George followed by Rita and Joe (I get the last two’s order mixed up though). I hadn’t realized until I saw them together that Aunt Rita and Aunt Betty look a lot alike. Dad and his two brothers really don’t look alike at all though, so it’s hard to tell they’re even in the same family.

After that reception, we went to the Doyles to hang out and sit around on the back porch just shooting the breeze, everyone playing catch up. Dad broke out the bottle of wine that I had bought for them in France back in 2002 from Château Brissac (bottled in 2000), which he had been saving all this time. Everyone drank a toast to Grandma and then just about everyone drank a lot more once Uncle Terry broke out his homemade wine and Dad broke out some homemade wine a friend had given him. (Personally, I prefered the French wine–way more dry and deep–but everyone else liked the American and Canadian [Terry’s a Canadian] wines because they’re sweeter, which is pretty much why I’m not the biggest fan of North American wines, not after having had the pleasure of French wines, lol.) After that it was back to the usual beer (Dad’s poison is Pabst Blue Ribbon, seriously) and soda and lots and lots of talking. Ian and I ended up staying until after everyone else had left and just about everyone else had gone to bed. We were up talking to Jill who had come up from North Carolina before finally deciding that since it was after ten, we should head out. All in all, I have to say it was a really good day. The weather was beautiful, the flowers were beautiful (you saw a couple in the previous post and one of the buds has since bloomed), and getting to visit with family was great. I just hope we’re not all going to Sister Rita’s funeral any time soon (she’s the last surviving sister and just moved from her convent in Indy to a different one recently). I really, really hope we don’t go to Grandpa Ringwald’s either. I may not be all that close to him, but like Dad said, it’s nice knowing he’s over there in Madison. I think I’m all funeraled out for right now anyway.

Thursday was spent catching up on sleep and then working on the novel. I typed up a lot of notes and worked on organizing my computer files better as well. I also watched a couple movies (Faust, a 1926 German silent film and Ma Vie en Rose, a 1997 French film) and that was pretty much it. Boring, and therefore back to usual.

Friday was the first day I volunteered at the local library. I walked down there and helped shelve books for about three hours. The librarian I worked with was just so thrilled to have someone help out who understood shelving immediately and was willing to even just straighten shelves that she kept saying how happy she was to have me there. It’ll take me a while to get used to Dewey Decimal again, especially since their shelving system is far more complicated than usual due to special separating out of particular collections, but I figure it won’t take long before I don’t even have to think about it anymore. I had fun and I think I might go back for a couple hours today just to get out of the house and take a walk.

Rook showed up Friday as well, and we ran to Wally World so he could grab random snacks. I helped him set up his computer so he could surf random Japanese websites and play video games. We chit-chatted a bit about random stuff like politics, my novels, and school. That’s pretty much also how Saturday went: him in the den on his computer, me in here typing up the last of the notes out of two different notebooks on my machine, and throughout sporadic conversations and jokes. He’s currently lumped up on the floor in front of the TV looking a lot like a loose pile of blankets. He’ll likely get up soon to surf more of the internet and download random games. I can tell he’s downloading stuff because my internet connection sucks, lol. Damien also swung by yesterday late to pick up his Buffy DVDs and Guitar Hero games. He and Ian played on the X-box a while before he headed out for Bloomington. Haven’t seen him in what feels like forever!

As I briefly mentioned, I have finished typing up the notes in two notebooks dedicated to my novels (or rather had finished until I added a few more notes late last night). Because my first novel was written eseentially over two distinct time periods, I have edited and re-edited the first two thirds about a hundred times. That can’t be said about the last third, so I spent part of last night editing that last third in its notebook just to get a feel again for the end of the novel. I find it’s easier to type up material I’m very familiar and comfortable with, so I’ll probably re-read that last third again before working to type it up. Basically, the first thirteen chapters were all done in France and everything else was added back here in the States about a year later (and continuing up until 2005). I’ve got to spend a lot mroe time on that last third because stylistically it may vary drastically due to having been written well after the first two thirds as well as having been written over the course of two years instead of five months. I think I’m going to try and focus on getting the first novel typed up for a while then go back to the second novel to add new content. Starting in November, however, I’ll be switching gears again to begin Book 3, and that’s why I want to try and get as many notes typed up as possible as well as get the almost-mindless typing of Book 1 out of the way for a while.

Well, if I posted more often, long rants like wouldn’t occur as often, but that’s they way it goes. After all, I’ve been typing almost non-stop for the past several days. Today’s the first break from typing I’ve had… Uh… Excepting this post, of course. 😉 I’ll probably try to get Chapter 14 of Book 1 finished today so I can post it and then knock this huge post off the top of the page. Until then, try not to let your eyes pop out attempting to read this.