Last night, I promoted the kneeling chair I have been using since the 90s from office chair to cat tree. This was a difficult decision. Somewhere deep in the storage unit, I do have a more traditional office chair, a gift from a local writer friend two moves ago. We will be digging it out, but probably not until my back stops twinge-ing, I am not sure exactly what the cause of this back pain is, but the most likely culprit is the kneeling chair.

I still love the dratted thing. I bought it decades ago, with money I earned from working retail. I probably paid more than I should have for it, but A) it was my money, B) a favorite author/writing inspiration had that same model chair and loved it, and C) it was (and is) pretty darned cool. It is, however, old enough to own property, join the military, get married without parental consent, and drink. It has probably wanted to do exactly that over the years we have been together, and it deserves its retirement as Storm support. (Unless Storm decides she no longer wants the chair now that it is not my office chair anymore. She is a cat, after all.)

Real Life Romance Hero moved one of the kitchen chairs in to take the place of the kneeling chair. I like the straight back, and I am already feeling the change in how using the computer physically feels Back support for the win. While I do believe there is a lot of truth in the proverb that a poor workman blames his tools, I am also fully aware that having good tools does’t hurt.

That’s largely where we are in a lot of things in the Annaverse. (Is that a thing? I say it’s a thing, and I rule the Annaverse, so now it’s law.) We have been in our apartment for six months now, so half as long housed as we were unhoused, and believe me, we are insanely delighted to be able to say that. It’s time to not only put down roots, but to make sure those roots are the right roots for the lives we want to live. For me, that means embracing life as a writer of romance and romance related blabber, and making sure that I have what I need to do that job most effectively.

Thankfully, for me, that means making a lot of lists. I would take a picture of the papers and binder discs that are scattered all over the stripped bed right now (housemate is off doing mega laundry; she is a superhero) but my back says that is not an advisble move with the angles I would have to put myself. Sitting in a straight backed chair is good, though, and lying on my side in a pillow fort is good, too. Fortunately, those are both writing positions of choice. So far, so good.

Research is underway to get a new laptop PC. We have become, over the last couple of years, the laptop graveyard> I am not going to give up on the vintage MacBook Pro, but the others, well, those probably are best suited to recycling. The HP laptop with no H key, and the screen that folds all the way back when it wasn’t designed to fold back at all; the hot pink laptop that I still love but which screen won’t show anything unless I I lie flat on my back and hold the screen at an angle that is best described as three-quarters closed. This is probably a severed wire, and probably an easy fix. We will see. RLRH also has his share of laptops that have gone to that great power strip in the sky. I can’t play Sims on that one, though, and that’s become essential. Hence the research. Writing and Sims. I know my priorities.

We may also be doing some research into office chairs, and/or pick up an interim chair in case the chair in storage won’t fit in the back of Housemate’s car, and will need to wait for when we rent a van and move the “real” furniture home. Furniture comes from a variety of sources. Parents’ homes, secondhand, locally sourced, brand new, and the nebulous area of me finally deciding that the best way to incorporate the hammered copper topped coffee table my grandfather made when my dad was little is to repurpose it, maybe as a dresser topper, or maybe with a new set of legs, to serve as a dining table or desk. We will see. I know I want my secretary desk, that I have been in love with since I was about four, for my longhand pursuits, and then pick everything up and take it to a separate computer desk when it’s time to transcribe.

As for the writing, my plans to jump right into it this morning snagged on getting the mega laundry ready to head out, with a pause for my weekly conference with Melva. We talked about the audio complications that kept our interview from going as well as we all wanted, how an offhand joke will make a great scene for our planned Christmas collection. That will probably go into the notebook I am setting up for my collaborations with Melva, most likely in index card format. Getting stuff down in the quickest away possible and filing it away works well for me to get the thought where it belongs and letting me focus on the work I need to be doign now.

I am very much into “now” right now. What can I do now? What works best for me now? What do I need right now? What is no longer serving its purpose and needs to move on along so it doesn’t become a stumbling block? What have I put away that I really need to bring back out because I miss it and want it and it’s part of the bigger picture and always has been? There’s a lot of stuff like that.

For today, getting this blog post up, even if it’s a big blob of blather, was essential. I don’t need the guilt of a missed blog post dogging me into writing time or family life, and consistency is something I want to improve. Hence this, and also trusting myself and my words, hence stopping it here and moving along to the next thing on my list for the day.