Getting Back To Work

So, here I am on a Sunday morning working away on my blog before I head off to Church. I still need to get some breakfast (which I normally forget to do on Sundays) and get a car from Mom Y. My van still has a dead transmission, so w don't have “enough car” to go around when we all have to go somewhere. I'm hoping to lay my hands on enough money to get a transmission from the Pull-A-Part soon. We pulled one for Dad E. this Friday. So he may have two vans on the road soon. Once he does I may ask to borrow one until I can get mine on the road, lol.

Anyways, I was so lazy last week I didn't even get my blog post put up. I plan to do that today, so by the time you see this one I should have posted the other. As it happens I did get some other work done this past week and Worlds of Magic as well as my other two projects are moving along well. In fact, I may have some news on one of those fronts tomorrow. On a complete side note the coffee maker has started to act odd this morning. Or maybe it's the outlet... In any event, a lot of coffee makes for an easier Sunday morning.

And here are some pictures:



And the games begin:



So yea, a 1 is a "critical failure". Gabriel managed to roll 2 simultaneously, much to Alec's dismay, lol.



The younger boys were having their own fun during our goofy D&D game :)



Those tropical looking trees are Mimosas for those of you who may never have seen them. I think there are several varieties in Dominica. The next to the last picture is a gray squirrel and the last one is a robin. :)

If you feel the quality of the photos has improved you're right! Rachel got me a new camera for $10. I like it a lot :)

Anyways, we've started a new D&D campaign since Joey Miller has gone back to Pennsylvania until August or so. I'm the DM and although we've only had one session the boys seem to be enjoying it. We're supposed to play again today (which the pictures prove we did, lol). Either way, for the moment I think I'm going to “pause” this post. I need to make sure Caleb gets ready for Church and I want to wait to finish until I have more news. :)

And we are back! The good news is that the D&D game went very well and we all had a good time. The bad news is that side project #2 has been paused. Things didn't go as we hoped (and prayed), but such is sometimes the case. I'm working to buoy my spirits and get back to my regular work on Worlds of Magic ASAP. Funnily enough the failure of side project #2 might actually lead to improvements in WoM. So, that's good anyway.

Either way, I'm feeling tired and/or lazy at the moment, so I'm going to run. I hope you enjoyed the photos! Goodnight from South Carolina!!

A Bit Of A Rest

So, for the past two and a half years or so I've been working on Worlds of Magic. In spite of the fact that I've moved to a tropical island and back during that time I really haven't gotten much of a rest. In the middle of all my play and relaxation there's been a giant pile of unfinished work. Needless to say, that's not very relaxing. When you couple that with the fact that I've been essentially broke for a year and a half, having to figure out how to move bills around to make ends meet, and you can understand how it's been hard for me to get “rest” (no matter how much laying around I've been doing, lol).

Well, fortunately for the past week I've been able to get in a little relaxation time. Development on the game is going well, one of my other two projects is making great progress without me, and the other is currently on hold. My own design work on WoM is very nearly finished at the moment. I guess a better way to say that would be “caught up” because there will be more to do once we get into the Beta. However, for the moment, there's not a great deal I need to do. I managed to wrap up my forums work in about an hour each day this past week. As a result I actually got a bit of rest (which I really desperately need).

I'm going to put the pictures in here, just so they'll basically be “in the middle” of the post, lol:


This week looks like it's going to be fairly restful as well. We've got between three weeks and a month before we move WoM into Beta testing. The other project #1 is going to be moving along without me until next week, and the other project #2 will wait until then as well. So, all things considered I'm going to have a fair amount of goof off time to recharge a bit. Once we get into Beta I may or may not have a lot of work to do on WoM depending on how things go. However, I'll still have at least one of those projects in the works (the other should be done by then), so all things considered I'm probably going to be fairly busy until November or so.

It's funny, but being broke is really a source of “worn out” for me. I can't help but consider how I can improve our financial situation. It loops around in my mind quite a bit. I think this really is the “brokest” we've ever been, lol. When I was a teenager I used to say “Stress is caused by problems that you haven't handed over to God”, and I was right. Still, it's easy to hand your problems over to God when you're a teenager and don't have a wife and eight children depending on you. Of course, I honestly believe God is going to do what's best for us.

What I don't necessarily believe is that everyone else is going to believe that I've done what's best for my family. I've spent years working on one thing after another trying to improve our financial situation. Up to this point I've failed again and again. Our finances have gotten into more and more of a wreck. I've lost our house, our trailer, and we're even on food stamps now (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's a far cry from where I was five years ago). All this has happened in spite of my continued effort and faith in the Lord.

Now, I honestly expect to be very well off by the end of the year. In fact, I could literally be a millionaire. However, that doesn't improve our situation now. I have to hope and pray that Console Classix is going to make enough to pay the rent and keep the lights on between now and December. For more than a year I've been teetering on the edge of financial collapse and impressive wealth. It looks like there's a good chance I'm going to fall off both those edges before the end of the year. I may end up having a six figure income for 2014, but two of those figures may not show up until December, lol.

In any event, it's nice to have a break and I intend to make the most of this week. In the spirit of that I'm going to wrap this post up now :)

So, goodnight from South Carolina!