I know what you’re thinking, I missed last month. There were no August updates. I have to apologize for that and I promise there is a good reason for it. My best friend, whom also runs my website, lost her father last month. As everyone who has ever lost someone close to them knows, sometimes you just need a minute.
My girl needed a minute and I was more than happy with giving it to her.
 
So an update, I’ve completed the edits to Mechanical Dragons one and two, I’ve received the new editor’s edits for book one and sent two off. I got my newest book, The Gift, the second book in the Blood Magic series, back from my betas and ended up adding an additional 11k words to it and I am currently working my way through Mechanical Dragons book one edits while simultaneously writing book five of that series. And of course waiting for The Gift to be returned from my other editor, so that I may finish that book and send it off to be formatted and fitted for a cover. (It’s being release in November of 2019.)

I’ve decided to push the short stories to next year; it just wasn’t a reasonable request for me to do everything I was already doing and create quality products. But this is good. I’m happy with my choices.

In the midst of all this craziness I also took a short vacation. Hubby and I drove to Yellowstone and did some touristy stuff. Well mostly he did the touristy stuff. I’m not much for sightseeing but I tagged along while we looked at waterfalls and big holes in the ground. We missed Old Faithful by about an hour and we weren’t going to wait around for the next show.

Drove on a road that was so scary I didn’t want to look out my passenger window for fear that Hubby may sneeze, veer off the inch wide shoulder, and careen down the mountain side. Yes, that scary. But it was beautiful, very picturesque and I was happy I went.

On the other side of Yellowstone was a dear friend, whom I like to refer to as Utah. We only got to spend about a day together but we talked and laughed and she let me play with her VR system. I was introduced to Beat Saber and I must say best game ever! Loved it so much I nagged Hubby all the way home and for another week until he caved and bought the system.

Two things happened that has caused this VR experience to become a major disappointment. First because I hit it so hard core when it was up and running the bursitis in my shoulder flared up and I couldn’t lift my arm higher than my elbow. Yeah it was bad.

The second thing that has been happening is the game, only Beat Saber has been crashing incessantly. There are days where I can’t even finish a song before it crashes, then other days I can get through four or five with no issue. It’s extremely frustrating, we are working the problem and I still play, I just quit after the third crash.

I would still recommend the game but would warn that this crashing problem is pretty wide spread, and of course the gaming company is doing nothing to work the problem from their end. But that’s a rant and soap box I don’t want to get into or on.

So onto the good things this game is doing for me. It’s getting me active. I do play it every day and I do work up a sweat while doing it. It’s amazing cardio as long as you move about, don’t plant your feet in one spot. Myself, well after the first two days my knees were just blown, I couldn’t walk, stairs were a nightmare. I think no matter how much I tried to move about, I would lock my knees. I have bad knees to begin with so this just made it worse.

My solution, an exercise ball. I sit on an exercise ball while I play. At first I thought I wouldn’t get any benefit out of this, but wow was I wrong! The muscles it takes to balance yourself on the ball was surprising. I make sure when I play I don’t reach, with my shoulder still a little sore I can’t reach to far without causing pain. So I shift on the ball, sorta roll back and forth, and I make sure I sit straight up and don’t lean forward.

The shifting actually gives my legs and hips a decent workout. Depending on the song and level I play, later in the day I feel like I had been doing squats all morning! It’s pretty awesome, I still want to cry when going up the stairs, but for a very different reason.

I’m doing a 100 day challenge with it. I’m on day 8, I did not include the few days I took off to rest my shoulder. And some days I play more than once, and usually it’s for about thirty minutes. When we get this crashing thing nailed down, I’m going to increase that time and really get a workout in!
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Well that’s it for now. I don’t have any morals of the story, no real grain of wisdoms, to pass on. Just an update on me.
Feel free to update me on what’s happening in your lives. I would love to hear from you!