Undicsiplined Lout

From a Nonstop I did a couple weeks ago, in the throes of blankness:

Lord, I need your help! I’m totally confused, I don’t know where to go, I’m starting to get antsy and uneasy because time is passing faster than pages are accruing and even though yes, it’s come together before, the last time was so hard and so bad and I hate having to do that to my editor and everyone else. I want to be responsible and reliable, not the temperamental, undisciplined artiste who can’t meet her deadlines.

If I can't, then I gain a reputation as a sluggard and a person with no discipline which could well be the truth. It may be I don’t have discipline. But if I need discipline, what am I to do about it? Why can’t I make myself… hmmm...

Make myself. Lord, do you even want me to make myself set a time and get my butt in here at that time and write nonstops? I could do that. To a point. Until my shoulder starts hurting, which it is starting to now. So I just can’t go on and on and on.

And now I wonder, is all this idleness and distraction part of the process? After all it’s always been like this. For thirty years of writing it's been like this. Of course, maybe I’ve always been undisciplined. Or maybe… the whole creative function won't be controlled. I wish I knew what I was to do.

Don’t compare yourself.
In whatever you do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord.

Okay, yeah, I get that. But… how do I do that with this? What does "heartily" look like? Reading a bunch of stuff, making a bunch of notes, then making an outline from the notes, based on which event follows which, and finally sitting down and just writing it out from the notes? That’s the way I learned to write papers for school.

But this isn’t like that. I don’t really know how all the pieces of this book fit together. I don't think I even have all the pieces yet. And I can’t just go read and collect a bunch of facts to put into my book.

Furthermore, if I stop and look back, I see that there are lots of reasons why I am where I am right now. I have had a lot of distractions.

In March last year, when I began writing this book, my hard drive crashed and I had to get a new computer. Simultaneously, my glasses didn’t work for about three weeks and I kept having to drive across town to the eye doctor.

In April I had the blog tour for RotGK, where there were interviews and blog posts to write and comment on. All told, it took about three weeks of my time.

In May… I got the royalty statement and realized that Legends of the Guardian King was not going to be the wild success I’d hoped and dreamed for.

In June I broke my leg.

In July I recovered, sitting about with my leg elevated (which is not easy to do while at the computer).

August 1, I broke my arm and lay around on the couch with my arm elevated for six weeks straight. I read a lot but did no real writing.

In September I went to a Bible conference, got my cast off, and started therapy.

In October I continued therapy and tried to start functioning again – catching up on all the dirt and dust and mildew that had taken over the house during the summer when I was lying on the couch with my arm elevated.

In November the trigger finger problem began, and troubles with my shoulder. I had to learn keyboard techniques to avoid the mouse.

In December it's always crazy, we were out of town for a week and my shoulder really started hurting whenever I tried to use the computer.

In January we had our Arizona Bible Conference and got Quigley, the Tasmanian devil doggie. And my car broke.

In February I was still dealing with Quigley, while the trigger finger worsened.

So yeah, there’ve been a lot of distractions. That tells me this book is important spiritually speaking, but that doesn’t tell me if I’m out of line for not being more disciplined, even if I don’t know what “more disciplined” looks like.

Grace,
Karen

Back to the Biofreeze

Today I saw Dr. Meaney, my orthopedic surgeon, for what I hope is the last time. My arm is doing well, and I should have full recovery of my range of motion by the first of the year. To celebrate I came home, worked a bit on chapter 10 -- I think it's very close to done -- then went to the Y. My arm was doing so well there, when I got home again, I decided to do the set of arm exercises I'd forgotten to do at lunch time. I was quite vigorous in my pushing, figuring, I suppose, that I wouldn't wait for the first of the year to get that range of motion back, but regin it all today.

For that idiocy, my hand is now throbbing for the first time in a couple of weeks. And my right hand has been sore for days from too much housework after next to none for way too long! So, I'm walking about with two flippers again <<>> and am now going to go and put on some Biofreeze and ice the thing in search of relief.

Which is why this post is so short. Have a great weekend.

Karen

Halfway There

I've been really tired the last couple of days. And also really busy with various pursuits. Which is why there was no blog post yesterday. I see my orthopedic surgeon tomorrow -- the one month follow up. In preparation, the physical therapist measured my range of movement and we compared it to his original measurements. I've made decent progress and am about halfway there on the waving/flapping motion with my hand, and maybe not quite halfway on the twisting/rotating motion (twisting your arm so your palm faces up or down -- facing up is the hardest and the one with the least progress)

Between the visiting dog, interrupted sleep, various chores needing doing, the increased number of arm stretching sessions, errands and appointments, I haven't had more than a hour 0r so a day to focus on Box. Tomorrow doesn't look much better but I might be surprised. I'm off the skyscrapers, and have made the relevant decisions about my building. For one thing, I intend to abide by Connie Willis's advice to research and work out no more of the details of your background than you really need. I'm not writing a novel about constructing a building, after all...

The latest area of inquiry is what life is like for a postdoc (and what exactly a postdoc is) and in a research institute. Yesterday I overwhelmed myself with the vastness of my ignorance. Today I remind myself that I am not writing about life as a postdoc or in an institute, either. It's good to keep the goal before me. Also, the Lord knows exactly what I'll need to know and I'm going to trust Him to guide me in that pursuit.

To that end I started reading Michael Crichton's Next which I just picked up from the library yesterday. Already I've learned about dewars (steel thermoses you fill with liquid nitrogen to transport embryos) and cytokines, got reminded of venture capitalists and the biotech world and, having been slogging through a fairly boring biblical novel (a different one from the one I talked about a few posts ago), am quite pleased to be carried along again.

But I still think I'll be going to bed shortly after this is posted. And after I ice my arm one last time...

Grace,
Karen

Moving Forward

Today marks two weeks since I've had the cast off. My arm is still an almost constant annoyance -- aching, twinging, being weird -- and not regaining its range of motion nearly as fast as I expected, but it is improving. And my expectations, I realize now, were worthless, based as they were on my total ignorance of this rehabbing process.

But every day I can do a little bit more, and I'm content. One cool thing to come out of all this is that I now have a night time brace for my right hand and a nifty little "smart" glove with ergo beads to keep my right wrist in proper position while typing to prevent the carpal tunnel syndrome from revving up. And of course, I have the speech recognition, as well.

And I'm also making progress on Black Box. Not a lot, but I'm still feeling utterly relaxed about it, knowing that the Lord is going to see it through. I worked in some changes on Chapter 7 today, and have come to the realization that I have GOT to make some maps, so I'll probably be doing that Friday or Saturday, if I have time. I have to go in for another physical therapy session Friday afternoon, plus do my home exercises in the morning, so I can get in two sessions for the day. That's good for eating up about three hours at least...

Anyway, my hands are getting tired of typing here (speech recognition can be quite cranky and stop working for no apparent reason, which it did when I was trying to dictate this post) so I'll say good night and toddle off to ice my arm.

Have a great weekend!
Karen

Therapy

I went for my second therapy session yesterday. My physical therapist (Jeff) first had me put my arm in a tank of melted paraffin. That was pretty cool -- er -- hot, actually. But when I pulled my arm out and had a wax hand, that was cool. Then he wrapped it in plastic wrap, then some kind of quilted thingie that had been heating in a steam bath and finally a blanket. Then I sat there for a bit and let it all sink in. That was the good part.

After everything was nice and warm, he took it all off, including the paraffin, and started cranking on my arm. The two places with the most limited range of movement are bending my hand back from the wrist, and trying to turn it over, palm up with elbow locked at the waist. Even with lots of work and pressure, the muscles/tendons hardly gave at all in either area. Progress is minimal. And of course my wrist, which doesn't care for such abuse, tends to swell and ache in reaction afterward. I do have a brace, but Jeff recommended I use it as little as possible.

At the moment, my most regular use of it is in the middle of the night, when I wake up to a throbbing wrist and grope around in the dark for the brace. Putting it on brings swift relief and I fall back to sleep until morning, when I take it off again.

The whole process has made me think of things spiritual and how much time, teaching and pressure it takes to transform us. How so often in our lives we see no progress at all, even as we know that God is at work in us. Staring at my stubborn wrist, especially when I'm trying to pull it around palm up, and seeing such resistance, seeing maybe a hair's breadth worth of movement, is a great visual aid to compare with things invisible.

And what of Black Box?, some ask. It's coming along slowly (I finished going through chapter 3 and making changes today), but I am not in the least alarmed. I just feel very calm, very placid, very much at peace about it all. It will get done in the right time. And I am no longer interested in stressing out about it.

So many things have happened lately in my life that have shown me that God really is in control of every little detail, I can hardly think otherwise. Relax, He has been telling me, and let life come to you. I have everything under control. The only thing you need to fear is not entering into the rest I've designed for you to live in. I've really seen it as a choice, and more than that. I've come to the realization that nothing the world has to offer is worth giving up this peace. Yeah, maybe I'll be so relaxed that I won't get the book out "in time" (whatever that is) and lose readers. But you know what? I no longer care. I'd rather have the peace.

Grace,
Karen
PS. The picture is of one huge, 4-parted kite that we saw on our beach walk in Oregon. It was cool, and reminds me of resting and relaxing... so I put it up. The biggest one on the bottom spun in the wind

It's Gone!

The cast is off! My arm is skinny, wrinkled, the skin feels hypersensitive, I have three dimpled scars from the pins and VERY limited mobility. Dr. Meaney gave me a prescription for a wrist brace and a referral to a physical therapist. I got the brace, went home, called the therapy place, and it turned out they had an opening in 2 hours. So I took it, and 3 hours later I completed my first session. I have a long way to go in regaining my range of motion.

Typing is ironically pretty easy for it; it's my right hand that's having trouble now, seeing as I overdid yesterday with trying to wash all the coats in the coat closet combined with working too much on the computer. I'm going to have to get that headset I think, because the computer has too much trouble understanding what I dictate through the desk microphone. And since the carpal tunnel in my right wrist seems to be an ongoing problem it looks like I'm going to have to get serious about this speech recognition program.

My assignment for now is is a quartet of exercises I'm to do three times a day until my next appointment with the therapist. There's also a period of warming the arm before the exercises and then icing it afterward. Which means the whole operation is probably going to take up a good bit of time. Oh well, I'm getting used to that by now.

Mostly I'm just thrilled to have the cast off.

Grace,
Karen

Our Unstressed Ancestors

Recently I read one of those ubiquitous articles about how to deal with stress. Along the way the author made this statement: "Unlike our ancestors, we live with constant stress. Instead of occasional, acute demands followed by rest, we’re constantly over-worked, under-nourished, exposed to environmental toxins, worrying about others — with no let-up."

I'd guess most people read this sort of thing like I always have before, identifying with the common stressors and nodding my head. Yup. Our modern day lives are so much more stressful than those of our ancestors...

Oh, really? Is that why we are living longer than at any time except the days of Moses, Abraham and Noah?

Stress our ancestors didn't have? Are we talking those cavemen, hunter gatherer types the evolutionists always reference? For the sake of argument, let's say we are. They lived in the wild. They had to worry about injury, about animals eating them or their children at any moment, about finding enough food and water. Storms, floods, snakes, predators, no insurance...no doctors. Heat, cold, disease with no vaccinations and no antibiotics. They worked constantly just to eat, and keep themselves clothed and sheltered. Former childhood ailments like whooping cough are nearly extinct in our day, yet killed many in years past. Death in childbirth was at 30% for the mothers back in the 1700s, let alone in the caveman days. And even in the 1700s, children often didn't live past three.

And this was less stressful than our lives... how?

Frankly I think we have it pretty easy. Most modern day stress is really the result of a way of thinking, not a saber-tooth tiger who just started feeding on our village....

Karen

(Hmmm. Was that a rant? Maybe not a full-fledged rant. Maybe only a mini-rant. But still, I think it might have been.)

New Review & BHP tips

A new and nifty review of Return of the Guardian King is up at Christian Activities.com. You can find that here. What a nice present to start out the fall.

Also, every other month or so Bethany House sends me an envelope with advertising and publicity material produced for my titles. This is not usually a very thick envelope, alas and in the cover letter they always include some marketing tips for the month. I don't think the marketing tips are included specifically because there isn't a lot of stuff in the envelope, but I could be wrong. :-)

This month's tips concern reader reviews at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and christianbook.com. "If a reader lets you know that they enjoyed your book," says the BHP letter, "ask them to consider submitting a short review at one of the sites. As a first priority, encourage them to post at Amazon since it has become the top site for book-buying research, but it's very helpful at the other sites as well."

Bethany House has also developed a page on their website which they intend to continually update with simple ways readers/friends can help promote books they particularly like. If you're interested in seeing what they've come up with, click here.


With Tuesday being day 2 on my countdown to cast removal, my wait is now almost over. Only one day left. Hooray! I know the bones have healed to a large degree because there is so much more I can do now that I couldn't do only a few weeks ago. I have more strength in my fingers and the most pain I have seems to come from pressure spots inside the cast where my hand bumps it when I try to do things. (Like type, for example -- which I'm doing now.)

I also made some decent progress on Black Box, which surprised me. And I'm staying with the relaxed mental attitude about it all! Yay!

Grace,
Karen

Speech Recognition

Well a number of people have told me I should try using speech recognition and since I have a program already on my computer, I thought I'd give it a try. It comes automatically with Vista so I didn't have to buy it or install it, all I had to do was go through the tutorial to learn how to use it. I'm using it now. It makes me talk more slowly than I'd like to, so I'm not sure how well it will work for writing fiction, but I'm going to give it a try.

When I first started I was so excited I started laughing and the computer didn't know what I was saying. There's a little box at the top telling me it's listening and if it doesn't understand it asks me "What was that?" So while I'm laughing, it's asking me that and meanwhile typing "up up up up up up" and something about "losing she got offer but up up up up up up up up up up up up up". Which only made me laugh more. At least if I get totally lost I can just use the mouse, but I think this is really going to help take the load off my hands.

Already I've written an e-mail and this blog post and plan to try some more e-mails and maybe even Chapter Nine tonight. What I really should try is a nonstop but I fear I would talk way too fast and mumble way too much to produce anything coherent.

Next is to see if I can get this inserted into the Blogger program (just now when I said Blogger, the computer thought I wanted to "save water"). I guess you'll have found out by the time you read this if I succeeded.

Grace,
Karen

Finally Back

Last post I said I'd be back on Tuesday, but as it turned out I was too travel-tired to make myself write anything. One of the reasons I added another week to my hiatus from blogging is because I was in Salem, Oregon for their annual Oregon Bible Conference over the weekend. We had fantastic weather, fantastic and challenging lessons, wonderful, rich conversations and a lot of conviction about showing God's mercy to others, specifically in the realm of communicating the Gospel or important information regarding the spiritual life, even though the likelihood of being rejected is great.

A group of us also went to the coast again (see photo) but this time it wasn't foggy. Cold when you were walking into the wind, yes, but not when it was at your back. I had a great time.

The friend I traveled/roomed with and I approached the entire adventure without our usual in-detail planning, and didn't even rent a car. Instead we relied on God to work out all the details, and boy, did He. It was awesome to see the provisions unfold, day by day, moment by moment. And seeing as our lessons have been on the divine decrees of late, it's been tremendously stimulating to be able to apply those concepts to our lives.

Also, while in Oregon, my broken arm and carpal tunnel hand had a chance to rest since I didn't have to deal with the usual chores and such. Even better, the cold dry air worked wonders for relieving the discomfort, though that returned as soon as I stepped back into the hot, humid air of Tucson. Thankfully, the humidity is falling rapidly, so that, too, may soon be a thing of the past. Plus, I've only one week left of wearing this cast. I can't wait to get it off!

The really funny thing? I've never been to a conference where anyone had a cast. And this time there were two of us with them. So we got to compare casting technique and injury stories. His was much more interesting than mine...

Grace,
Karen

An Update

Well, last Thursday, I saw my orthopedic surgeon and he took out the nails. (Really, "pins" is a euphemism. They were 3-4 inches long and about a thick in diameter as framing nails.) He used a pair of pliers to get them out and had to tug pretty hard to do it. It hurt and felt weird but wasn't all that bad, and I much prefer having them gone.

He also made it clear that the break is very bad and I "did a lot of damage" which was evident this time from the x-rays. I'm going to be in physical therapy for months. And the swelling and need to elevate my arm is not going to end until I get the new cast off in 3 weeks.

The carpal tunnel problems in my right hand that I mentioned last post, continued through this last week and have not really abated even today. I've been reduced to reading, praying, watching movies or just sitting and staring out the window. It's been strange to be so... unproductive, though I've been at peace about it. It's obvious this is where God wants me for a time, so this is where I want to be. I know He's working, just not exactly clear on what.

Not wanting to push the typing/carpal tunnel problems, I'm going to take another week off from the blog. Check back next Tuesday for my next entry.

Grace,
Karen

Carpal Tunnel

The broken arm is mending. I'm not having so much trouble with the swelling as I was, though if I overdo, the cast still gets really tight, my fingers swell and my arm starts hurting. Then I have to lie down and elevate it. Still I was enjoying longer and longer times of doing chores and on Saturday, I even got back to writing.

Sunday, though, I awoke with carpal tunnel in my right hand -- pain and intermittent numbness from having to do the work of two hands combined with too much writing longhand and working with the mouse on Saturday. There'd been glimmers of this in the last week with bouts of the tingling and numbness in my thimb & forefinger, but I ignored it.

The end result: once again I have to scale back and do nothing "productive."

I'm learning patience, acceptance of God's timing and how to trust Him completely for this time and the book I'm unable to work on. I've also got an opportunity to focus on the blessings I'm still receiving, rather than the disappointments anf frustrations and enjoy my life -- even these slow and seemingly "wasted" days.

Because of the carpal tunnel though, I'm going to try to stay away from the computer, so I'll be taking a break from the blog this week. Check back next Tuesday (the day after Labor day) for my next post and a progress report. (Eventually, at least, I should have quite a run of movie and book reviews!)

Grace and peace,
Karen

Two-Handed Typing

Well I've come to the conclusion that whatever I do, it's not going to change the rate of my arm's healing. Whether I lie around all day or do things, it's going to hurt off and on, it's going to swell up or not, it's going to heal at its own pace and I must be content with that. And I am. In fact, it's a relief to realize I don't have to worry about that.

This weekend I finished Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas, and watched The Illusionist, for the second time -- I liked it better than the first time. All of this is feeding into research for Black Box.

And how cool is this? I just typed all that with 2 hands!

I can tell though that I won't be doing it for long, because I'm feeling growing pain in my wrist as I do it, but still. Two handed typing! Even if only for a few lines. Hooray!

Karen

New Cast

Tuesday was a great day -- the swelling down, almost no pain. I got a lot done. Wednesday I paid for that. The swelling returned full force, and with it the pain. I could do nothing but lie around and ice my arm. I guess that is a common scenario. Today I saw the doctor and he removed the splint and replaced it with a light blue cast. It's great.

I saw the x-rays and things are coming along as they should be. I have three pins and they each looked about 4 inches long driven into the bone lengthwise. Now I know why I kept having pin pains in more than one place.

My fingers are still hampered by the swelling (they won't bend enough to type) and it is too painful to rotate my arm enough to get them lined up with the keyboard so I'll be doing the 1-handed method for awhile yet. And now it's time to go ice my arm.

Grace,
Karen

Healing

Another day of healing. Another day to find some new small thing I can do because the pain is less and the bones are stronger. There are still plenty of things I can't do, but I'm really starting to get the importance of focusing on the positive and forgetting about the negative.

For example... yesterday I was starting to get restless with how much I was having to lie around and do nothing -- even reading was difficult since the books I wanted to read are too big to handle one-handed while lying flat on one's back with an arm & pillow on one's chest. Then I remembered: lying around and letting my mind wander is exactly what I need to do to work on the book! And I won't get carpal tunnel doing it.

So today I welcomed the time to lie still and watch my penguin mobile and the mental blankness began to give way to small thoughts, ideas and snatches of dialog as more and more things came together. I'm almost ready to start rewriting Chapter 9, I think.

Also, I noticed overall today a dramatic decrease in the swelling of my arm and the attendant pain and discomfort that comes with it, which removed a lot of distraction.

Grace,
Karen

Sleeping

What with the pain, the awkward sleeping positions I must assume, and the pain meds I was taking last week -- which gave me strange dreams -- I've had opportunity to reflect on the similarity between being asleep and being out of fellowship/God's plan. Since the Bible talks about people in spiritual or temporal death as being asleep, this is not an unreasonable line of thought.

When we fall asleep we are no longer aware of reality. Instead we have dreams about a highly subjective set of circumstances and events -- things drawn from our own heads -- memories, desires, frustrations, concerns, etc. They make sense in the dream and might even seem very important... but when we wake up, we realize they made no sense at all and those things that seemed so important are trivial. In the dream, we've been completely cut off from reality, shut up in a reality of our own making.

Not only that, we awake to find that hours have passed in the real world! We've "lost" time.

In the same way, when we are out of fellowship, or the plan of God, we are all caught up in our own petty concerns, the illusions of the world, and the influence of other people who have sin natures and faulty thinking. God's word seems flat and irrelevant, and the Lord some dusty historical figure who has little connection to our lives.We've fallen asleep. We're no longer connected to the ultimate reality of the spiritual life. We need to wake up.

We need to ... rebound! :-)

Karen

Recovering

The biggest problem with typing isn't so much that I have to do it one-handed, it's that I have to keep the other hand elevated above my heart while I do it. Dropping below that level causes pain, swelling and throbbing. However, the pain is decreasing significantly these days -- I stopped taking pain meds (except for the occasional Tylenol) yesterday. In fact I stopped with the Percoset last Wednesday because it turns out I'm allergic to it.

In the effort to speed healing and reduce pain, I've been trying to lie around a lot, the easiest position in which to keep my injured wrist above my heart. If you're not on pain meds that keep you loopy, however, this gets old fast -- until I realized I could use the time to... READ!

Last week I finished Michael Crichton's State of Fear, and this week I'm almost finished with John Olson's Adrenaline, both read as forms of research for Black Box... I've also spent a lot of time on the phone and two friends on different days, independent of each other, dropped in around lunchtime with my favorite lunches. So it's been nice. We've also gone out to eat a lot, nor can I really do laundry or clean. A forced vacation, an assignment from the Lord, which I intend to fully enjoy.

Karen

Surgery

Tuesday I went to the hospital to have my arm bones put back together. I would never have thought it would be fun to have surgery, but it was. The Lord was with me all the way.

Sometime after my husband and I arrived at 11:45am, after paperwork and bloodwork, I was brought back to a bed and given a gown to put on, whose ties I couldn't tie one-handed... I waited a long time there and then my friend Verna showed up. Since she is also a nurse who works in that very hospital, it was like having my own personal guide to surgery. She could explain what all was going on, go check the schedules to see when I was slated and she even went and got Stu from the waiting room so we could all visit together.

The other nurses were fun, too and no one much liked my falling off the walking path story, so we worked on coming up with a new one. Something along the lines of swimming off the coast of San Diego and encountering a shark... Verna was even able to come into the pre-op waiting area (and she told me my anesthesiologist was excellent, which is always nice to know.) After that the anesthesiologist put a mask over my face and I woke up to pain in my arm and then painkillers. The rest of the evening was spent in loopy land where I was more or less asleep. But still, for the most part, it was a fun day.

There was another thing, too, a funny, little thing the Lord did between Him and me. The day before I'd been working with my pencils and markers and thinking how it would be nice if I could get a second box to divide them up, markers in one box, pencils in the other. Just a passing thought. Then at the hospital, I realized I'd forgotten my glasses case and the nurse said they had a case, one I could keep, in fact -- it was a pencil and marker box with a wash cloth in it! I just laughed and no one there knew what had just happened but me and the Lord.

Tomorrow (or the day after, or... whenever I manage to get it typed...), the recovery...

Karen

Distraction for August

Well, the distraction for August arrived promptly. Last Wednesday night, August 1, Stu and I were walking around the park at a good clip, and were almost done when I accidentally stepped on the edge of the asphalt path, which is about four or five inches higher than the surrounding hard-packed dirt. It threw me off-balance, I took a big lunge to recover, then another, and another, trying desperately to regain my balance. Alas, I failed and went down hard, all of my weight falling on my outstretched left hand. My arm/wrist broke on impact (along with my watchband) -- both bones, one of them in two places. Surgery is scheduled, so a pin can be put in. Which means I’ve another 6 – 8 weeks of dealing with broken bones.

This is considerably worse than the fibula, both in terms of pain and in terms of being disabled: I don't type very fast one-handed. But I know without a doubt that this is a part of God’s plan for my life, chosen deliberately for me in eternity past for my highest and best. He will provide all I need to go through this. I have already learned much about severe pain, for one thing, and am learning even more about waiting…this will no doubt show up in a book!

And since I finished ch 8 the morning before the accident, I was just about to start contemplating what I have to do in ch 9. Looks like I'll have lots of time to do that, now…

Grace,
Karen