Welcome to December!

It's time for Holidailies again, during which I dust off the blog and write an entry every day through January 1st.

I'm feeling a little foggy today because

1. National Novel Writing Month just finished yesterday, and
2. My 65# dog developed a urinary tract infection and woke me up every hour last night to go outside.

Basically, I'm too old for those things to happen simultaneously, so here are a bunch of exclamation points for you to add anywhere you think this blog post needs more excitement: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Feel free to use them all.

About Me

Call me Theresa. I'm currently a full-time author (SF/F as T.M. Baumgartner, cozy mysteries as Tess Baytree, and one website for both because I'm lazy). If you read those genres and want to check out my books, great! (I added that exclamation point for you as an example.) If not, don't feel awkward. It's fine, I promise.

I also foster kittens for the Yolo County Animal Shelter. Right now, I have two kittens (Margo & Tina) who have ringworm. Fingers crossed it clears up soon because they are tired of living in the easily-cleaned-and-bleached tub. Here's a link to the kitten cam: https://www.twitch.tv/tm_baumgartner

I'm also a municipal liaison for National Novel Writing Month, which sounds like more work than it really is. Basically, I cheer writers on and try to have write-ins at venues that aren't randomly closed at the time we've scheduled to meet there. (This is a bigger problem than you might expect.)

My Pets

Let's face it. They're far more interesting than I am. Ordered by descending age:

1. Freeway - the 20-something cockatiel. Likes to chirp loudly when I'm on the phone.
2. Guido - 19-year-old cat. He's reached the screaming houseplant stage of his life, when he mostly sleeps, I make sure he has enough water, and every once in a while he springs to life and howls his opinions about whatever he's mad about. (Long-time cat owners know this stage well.)
   He has lymphoma (of course) and may not be around much longer, but who knows? He's had lymphoma for four years and he's still here. I love this little jerk.
3. Georgie - 10(?)-year-old dog. The one who kept me up all night. Aside from that, he's a good boy. He's also just stupid enough that I can mold cheese around his antibiotic capsules while he watches, and he's still excited that I'm giving him cheese. Let's hear it for dogs that aren't rocket scientists.
4. Gin - 3.5-year-old feral cat. She lives in the house, but I can't get near her.
5. Tonic - 3-year-old feral cat. He's Gin's son. To him, I am the devil. Luckily the house is big enough for the ferals to avoid me. They seem reasonably happy.

Plans for Holidailies

I have a list which is six topics long and I've just used one. So this will probably get random pretty quickly. I mean, one year I blogged about things in my hotel room, so this isn't unprecedented. If that scares you off, godspeed, my friend.

I'll probably talk a bit of indie author shop and maybe play around with the 3D modeling program. Plus, I'm taking a sculpture class — no, I've never sculpted before, so this will likely be a complete disaster, aka perfect for blogging.

Obligatory Picture

Random sight from a walk in my neighborhood. Click on it to make it bigger. It's kind of cool.