"The Woman Who Laughed At God"

Nope, that's not me! That's the name of the book I finished reading today (url is on the sidebar). I did work on *Quest* for a bit this morning, deleting more parts of that chapter and adding some; I broke approximately even on words.

I was just plain exhausted today after that marathon of water work last evening. It was hard to get to sleep last night due to my brain not wanting to shut off. I wasn't worrying really, just...the brain was still on *zing* mode. So a few interruptions into my work on *Quest* where I was hunting down inconsistencies in the chapter (due to all the revisions), I gave up and sat back with my library book.

It's a disturbing book in many ways, from a Christian perspective. Jonathan Kirsch, the author, calls it *the untold history of the Jewish people*. He starts with the earliest biblical references to the story of God's people, and works his way through the three thousand odd years of history, exploring the evolution of Judaen religion and culture to the present time. I do have a clearer idea of the history now, especially in time periods where the Bible is silent, but the history that DOES *match* what I know about is severely canted to a secular way of thinking. In the end, I decided that this book was good research for the various ways misinterpretation and various sects could crop up even within true religion, and that I could put some of this information to use in the novel I plan to write next. So I now have some notes in place for adding depth to my story. Several good ideas came out of it. Face it, people will always have different interpretations of even the simplest of things. And it gave me a good idea for the main plot resolution for the story as well. I guess I'll have to stop saying that I don't know what the new fantasy will be about. It will still take some time before I can articulate it in a couple of sentences, though.

Everything is holding its own on the water front. I still don't dare leave the system unattended, as periodically I have to go down into *the hole* and tap *the nut* with a hammer (scientific, eh?) to make the foot valve shut properly. If left to its own devices, it eventually pops the breaker, which means anything plugged into that circuit is off until I get home (including the electric fence and my deep freezes) and also that the pump will likely require priming. I wish to avoid messing with THAT as much as possible, for I can't do it by myself, and I don't want to call for more help if it can be avoided. So when I'm home and awake, I'll leave the water turned on. It means I'm kinda tied to being home when I'm not at work, but I wasn't planning a whirlwind social life anyway.

The cows and calves are happy and healthy, and no one looks ready to pop a baby any time soon. That's okay by me.

The good news is that Jim has found the parts needed to replace this foot valve, including a filter/screen thing (badly needed). He'll exchange the parts this weekend, and this nasty little phase should be behind us.