Happy Sunday everyone! I just posted chapter nine of Facilitate Your User. Keylee and Paul are finally bonded. It’s a good start for them but that’s exactly what it is – a start.
Today’s picture is the view outside the window of what I affectionally call the “cat/computer room”. This is the room I do all my writing in and also has the kitty window seat, their cat tree, litter box and food. Newton’s head is in the fore, the garden beyond and maybe a little difficult to see considering the screen is in the way. The coneflowers in the garden are blooming beautifully right now. I have to say – I love a coneflower, and now you can find them in all different colors.
Not sure what the weather is like where you all are, but here in the Midwest it is hot, hot, hot and very humid. I mowed the lawn early this morning and was still dripping sweat. I would much rather this weather than the cold, but even this is getting too hot for me. It’s tough to do things outside in this and I feel bad for anyone laboring in this type of heat.
Speaking of laboring . . . whew, work has been busy. And it’s not just us. Veterinary clinics across the country are slammed right now and have been for the last few months. It is a condition I don’t expect to let up anytime soon. So, with that said, for all of you pet owners out there, try and have a little patience with your veterinarian. We are really trying but the truth of the matter is that we can not see every pet that needs it. We are all backed up from the early months of COVID when we had to put off routine procedures. That backlog has simply compounded the following months – months that are typically our busiest anyways. There comes a limit when you simply can’t work smarter or faster than you already are. There is a limit to how far you can push staff members and yourself and still expect everyone to show up healthy and sane to work the following day. It is a struggle right now and we feel terrible when we have to turn people away, funneling more of you to an emergency clinic you may have to travel an hour or two to get to. It weighs on us, but like I said, there comes a breaking point where you just have to say the word, “No”.
Patience is a gift the Fates seemed to have passed me by on. I suppose I have other gifts – some good and some not so good, but patience definitely isn’t one of them. That makes this kind of one of those, “Do as I say, not as I do” moments. Sigh . . . try as I might, sometimes I’m a hypocrite.
With all that said, I plan to do some reading later today and I hope you all can do the same. Reading and writing are the biggest de-stressors in my life and I’m planning on using them to try and recharge my batteries so I can get up early tomorrow and start the race all over again. I hope my stories give people the kind of mental break I’m always searching for. That is probably my biggest wish for my writing.
As an aside to those coming to my website from fanifiction, I’ve got the first few chapters of Bakusen’O re-read and will hopefully start loading them to this website this week. I’m guessing you’ve all read it before and it won’t change much. I just thought I’d bring my Inuyasha stories to a new home. I have no plans on willingly taking them down from fanfiction at this time so you’ll still be able to read them there.
As always, stay well, happy and good luck remaining sane.
MJ May
veterinarian and fiction writer 