There are glimmers of hope now in the fight against CoVid and hoping for a breakthrough before winter hits may not be as impossible as it seemed even a month ago.
We here in NWI are just beginning to harvest a few vegetables from our garden although many starts have been eaten by the bunnies and deer and the tomatoes have never really gotten started with just a few now beginning to ripen sufficient to eat. BUT! The squash, OMG, is the cockroach of the plant world. No water, no prob; no sun, no prob, searing daytime temps, no prob. And then the cucumbers have given us sufficient numbers to start making pickles. Mainly sticking to dill as sweet pickles can be a pain and I’m remembering all the reasons I quit doing this stuff!
I’m definitely enjoying just a little of the respite that the reviews from the CE has given me—at least enough to put up dill pickles and take a day off to celebrate our 58th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow! Doesn’t seem possible…
But in the meantime, WordPress has been warning us for some time about changing up their editor again to yet another block format, which I thought previously had gotten dumped for being a bigger pain than canning pickles. Got stuck with trying to work a review through the ever encumbersome blocks and discovered several items I routinely use are missing. That little review took over four hours and it still ended up a mess with missing links, symbols, and indents. Sorry, ya’all!
Of course, the complaint went straight to the “Happiness Engineers” who once again explained how much time it was going to save me. Where I used to write up my posts and reviews in my old Word 2003 program and then copy/paste now requires building blocks and hunting for stuff that used to be intuitive. UGH!
I did, however, manage to post fourteen reviews despite the switchover. Also posted were a number of spotlights, book tours, blitzes, non-fiction, cozy mysteries, literary fiction, animal fiction, thrillers, and military fiction.
One Night in Drake Mansion by Channing Whitaker
Flash Point by Thomas A Whitmire and Jacob D Miller (a CE 5* review)
Paw and Order by V M Burns
Save Her Soul by Lisa Regan
Finding Home by Corinne Joy Brown and Ginny McDonald (Beautifully illustrated children’s book)
Song for a Lost Kingdom by Steve Moretti (blog tour)
Hawthorn Woods by Patrick Canning (my 5* review—author request)
The Night Drop by Ian D Wright (a CE review—author request)
TV Netflix Series vs Audiobook-Walt Longmire Mysteries by Craig Johnson
Penned In by Lynn Cahoon
Front Line by Jessica James (a CE 5* review)
The Spiritual Adventures of Russell the Dog by Trisha Watson
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James (library audiobook)
Walks with Sam by David W Berner (non-fiction-meditation)
Trick or Thief by D E Haggerty
Many of the above are from NetGalley or BookBub, author requests, and the audiobooks are from my library.
The challenges: I made my Audiobooks challenge goal–15 (Stenographer level 10-15) and achieved 10 for my Renaissance Reader level in the Historical Challenge. It would appear to me there is no longer a working challenge for Mr. Linky for either July or August. Oh well.
NetGalley: Only four giving me 62 towards my goal of 75, but I think I can manage that one.
Goodreads goals—Mercy! Three behind with 110 and at this point in serious jeopardy of failing the year’s goal of 170—yikes! I may have to give that one some edit thought.
How are you doing with your challenges? Which ones did you try? Achieving some of your goals yet? Did you also read any of those listed above? Agree with my/our assessment? I may still go back and look at the Murder Mystery Bingo challenge—there will be time during the winter months. Maybe.
In the meantime, blogger buddies, authors, and lovely readers, take care, stay safe. Once again I’m hoping that wherever you are, you and your situation has at least stabilized and that you remain successful in staying healthy.
And, as always, thank you, I so appreciate your likes and comments!
©2020 V Williams 
Rosepoint Publishing 
Lovely post. I still keep to basics and use the classic editor. The new blocks are too cumbersome. Blogging should be simple they make it so difficult. Luckily so far they haven’t removed the classic simple single page editor. Whew… I have wasted time when I use blocks. Also I blog via my phone so absolutely no intention if getting to my laptop
LikeLiked by 1 person
oh mercy, Shalili, I have no idea how you do that on your phone. yes, the blocks are cumbersome. i wasted so much time with it, got so frustrated. my last missive to them went totally unanswered. i kept it clean, tried to be nice, but sometimes you just have to revert to being the squeaky wheel.
LikeLike
I keep to classic now rarely do I check on the laptop or phone browser.
LikeLiked by 1 person
the guys last comment was that they would no longer continue to support the old editor. i panicked and wrote back–again–and have yet to get a reply.
LikeLike
Yikes. I am still on the oldest… 😂 😂 I will think when I have to… At the moment, it is classic for me
LikeLiked by 1 person
what possibly annoys me the most is forcing a new previously unsuccessful editor style back on us while offering two pithy attempts at instruction. so MUCH is missing in those. and since it’s no longer intuitive, you can hunt all day and not find what you want. ARGH!!
LikeLike
I swear I have no idea what you are talking about as the app just got block editor style and I refuse to switch it on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good for you. I bumbled into it, not paying attention then couldn’t get back to my other editor. The old classic I’m using now is accessed thru WPadmin.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha yes! After hours of online chat with the WordPress Happiness people 😭, they admitted the new “better system” couldn’t do the basic stuff the old system did. So I have to use a mix of “classic” blocks (ie the old system) and new blocks. Got there now, but there were tears! Good luck 😀
LikeLiked by 2 people
You did better than I…i have to go back even further but he warned me they would not support that anymore as they had to concentrate on their one editor. Crazy. Why fix what isn’t broke?
LikeLiked by 2 people
True that
LikeLiked by 1 person
glad to hear the onus is easing somewhat for you.
LikeLike
No idea how you combine two. I tried but on phone screen is too small so I keep to classic
LikeLiked by 2 people
I use a laptop when posting new reviews and blogs to WordPress.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, I went from a laptop to a desktop just about the same time as the block editor came in. I need my word and Photoshop programs. Also, finally got an answer back re indents and symbols. Not available in the block editor!!
LikeLiked by 1 person