Tada!

Welcome to day 17 of Thingadailies.

I'm tempted to say that these videos will continue until I'm comfortable speaking on camera, but clearly that is not on the horizon and I don't really want to extend Thingadailies into next year. Maybe I should write out a script or something. I don't know.

Anyhow, my breakthrough of the day was adding an image of my book in the editing stage. So now I don't have to hold it up and actually get it on screen. Progress!

Lulu is obviously the star of the show.

Now that Lulu is in the spare room, I took the time today to disinfect the bathroom where she'd been staying previously because... two more teenage cats are supposed to show up tomorrow! They just need to fix their GI issues and then they'll be off for adoption.

(I didn't take the 1-day-old kittens in terrible shape — I don't have an incubator, so other fosters are better equipped to give those guys the best shot at survival.)

Comfortable

Welcome back to day 16 of Thingadailies!

Today I did another AITA episode. Production went faster this time because things always go faster the second time. Someday I will be comfortable talking on camera, but today was not that day.

The good news is that Lulu looks really good. She moved into the larger room today, so she has more room to move around and play.

Tomorrow may be another short like today, or I might get back to book covers. We shall see!

Shorts

Welcome to day 15 of Thingadailies!

My goal today was to figure out how to create a YouTube short — without having to install an app on my phone. Luckily, it wasn't hard. You just need two things: the video has to be vertical (not landscape), and it has to be under three minutes.

The Mighty Gnocchi helped me out and we managed to produce a short. As always, there was a learning curve, and I had to do a couple things twice, but the whole thing is less than three minutes, so it still didn't take terribly long.

Do I want to become a YouTube star? Absolutely not. (Unless it will sell a bunch of books — then maybe, but there are easier ways to market.) I am trying to get a little more comfortable on camera. (Amazing lack of eye contact, T!)

Anyhow, enjoy.

Lulu is doing well, and I'm actually going to go clean the spare room (which has ear cleaner all over the walls from when Mister was there) so she can move into a bigger space.

Click!

Welcome to day 14 of Thingadailies!

Remember back on day 2 when I created a video that was definitely not going to convince anyone to adopt my foster cat Gnocchi? Back then I said I'd create a real Gnocchi video someday.

Today is that day. Gnocchi currently has three tricks (touch, kennel, and sit). During my first attempt at filming, I screwed up and filmed all the spaces in between when I wanted to film. Yeah, one of us in this video is competent, and it ain't me.

Therefore, much of this footage is the second time I was asking Gnocchi to do these things within 15 minutes. Luckily, she really likes treats.

She has potential adopters coming to see her next weekend. Fingers crossed that works out!

Ephemera

Welcome to day 13 of Thingadailies.

Call Him Mister Adopted!

Yes, Mister has been adopted from the shelter. It took one day longer than I thought it would, but that can only be because nobody walked through the adoption center yesterday. How could someone not love this goofball?

In other news, potential adopters may be coming by to meet Gnocchi! I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high since we haven't yet scheduled a time, but it's still exciting.

Ephemera

The thing for the day is an audio recording of my short story, Ephemera.

I haven't touched my recording equipment since I finished the Shift Happens audiobook. So it took a bit to get back into the swing of things when recording this short story. (Yes, I read almost half the story before I noticed it was recording from the wrong input. It defaults to my laptop's built-in microphone, which is never the one I want to use. I really wish Audacity had a way of disabling input and output choices.)

Anyhow, now I remember how many irritating noises I make when speaking. How does anyone ever talk to me? Also, I couldn't get Audacity to talk to my Bose headphones when I was editing. I remember having that problem before, but I think I could sometimes get them working again. Not today, though.

It wasn't until I finished throwing an image onto it in iMovie that I remembered Jamie saying she creates a short clip in Canva and has it repeat. Oh well. It's late and I still need to add words to the current cozy, so this will have to do.

Onward!

Names

It's day...(checks calendar) 12 of Thingadailies!

Foster Updates

Gnocchi remains her lovely, obnoxious self. Lulu has continued to improve and was playing quite a bit this morning. You can still see the extra effort when she needs to use her hind end, but she's throwing herself around with a lot of energy!

Yay, Lulu!

Names

Today is Thursday, which is the day to spend a couple hours at the library's makerspace with my friend Teresa. I decided to make name cards for my longer term fosters using the Silhouette Cameo. The cards will go on the doors to their rooms as soon as I find my tape.

The angle I used to take the pictures is weird because I used reflective cardstock and it is hard to photograph.

I like how they turned out.

Maybe there will be audio work tomorrow...

Moving On

It's day 11 of Thingadailies!

Playing

Not the greatest video, but Lulu has been playing with her toys today. Here she is playing with a ping pong ball. She's still a little wobbly, but she gets stronger every day.

Moving On

You can tell I'm getting bored with the tutorial because now I'm all "yeah, yeah, add a butterfly, make it glow, whatever." That's about as much effort as I was willing to put into it. So I'm calling the tutorial finished, even though I skipped a bunch of stuff.

Tomorrow will be... something different. Possibly something of even lower effort because I'm taking care of a friend's cats and I have a critique group meeting in the evening. (Plus caring for my two fosters.)

Speaking of critiques... I have about 10k left to read, and then I need to come up with something coherent to say that is potentially helpful to the author. That can be challenging when we're outside of genres I normally read, so I'll probably focus on pacing and world building.