Robin Archer | Laura VanArendonk Baugh, author

Skull: A Halloween-y Prank

By Laura October 28, 2019 September 19, 2019 Writing & Projects, Just For Fun

I blame my cousin.

While this is not strictly a Halloween story, it’s certainly in the spirits of the season, both macabre and prankster, so I’m going to share it.

In the early 2000s, we purchased an estate property and eventually built a house, where we now live. The property needed a lot of work, from the many piles of trash which needed to be cleared (so large that they photographed from the air as buildings in our property tax assessment and we were being charged for them) to the old farmhouse where I lived mostly alone for a year, which had ancient and damaged wiring so that I had very limited choices regarding electricity, which couldn’t be heated above 56 degrees in the winter with a furnace which could snuff a light at two feet, and which turned out to be a structural death trap the local fire department refused to enter. Also possibly haunted, but that’s another story.

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Maze-Ment

By Laura October 1, 2019 October 1, 2019 My Rock Star Life, Just For Fun

I’ve mentioned before my annual maze project, and I’ve just completed this year’s.

It’s a challenging task, since I got into the habit of making some literary reference, usually related to a project published that year (first found out by Google Maps in 2015), and since I’m working without much of a plan in vegetation taller than my eye level, just working with spatial awareness and distance guess-timates to produce my pattern. But I have to say, I’m pretty proud of how 2018’s trail came out:

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Cover Reveal: F is for Fairy

By Laura February 7, 2019 February 6, 2019 News & Stuff, Writing & Projects

It’s that time again! Here’s another Alphabet Anthology, this time on the theme of fairies and fae and the sort of folk you don’t want to mess with.

“Anyone who believes that faeries are wee, golden-haired creatures with dragon-fly wings and sweet intentions has never met a real faerie.”
Suzanne Willis, “A Silver Thread Between Worlds”

Once again we have 26 authors, each writing on theme for a letter of the alphabet. And now let’s take a look at the shiny packaging for this new set of fae stories.

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My New & Improved Walking Desk!

By Laura October 1, 2018 October 1, 2019 My Rock Star Life, News & Stuff, Writing & Projects, Just For Fun

image of Titan Fitness Under Desk Walking Treadmill on wood laminate floor — Yes, the pawprints mean the dogs tried it first.

It’s been a while since I started my walking desk experiment and I have finally worked it out. I have a sit/stand desk from Ikea and an elevated monitor, which has really helped my back and neck pain since I no longer look down. (Sorry, laptop in bed and on the couch. I love you, but you’re not good for me.) I had still been using my original treadmill, however, which technically did the job and was undoubtedly cheap. It had a timeout “feature” though and would stop the belt suddenly, which could be quite disorienting if I were in the zone.