Summer!

School is officially over for us homeschoolers, which means the long, lazy days of summer have arrived. Hours at a stretch with no lessons, no errands, just me and the kids and nothing to do but enjoy the great outdoors, a good book, and all that time to write....

Only this summer, due to our remodel, we won't get long, lazy days; we'll get long days of hard work. I'm already obsessing over the constant clutter, feeling the walls closing in around me as more "stuff" ends up inside our tiny house. Even bringing in the mail can send me over the edge, or the little pieces of broken up asphalt that stick to shoes. My idea of remodeling involves a daily clean-up session and on-going organization of the waste to be removed or tidying up the debris. To everyone else's tired bodies, these are not good uses of our time and energy.

I get very tired keeping both the house and the demolition in order.

On the up-side, I'm developing my arm and back muscles. I'm hoping all this demolition will slim my backside as well. And more good knews! As those of you who have read my 9 year old daughter's blog (cortanie-animallover.blogspot.com) know, we are an environmentally-conscious family. Ridden with guilt, I loaded up the pickup with the the lumber we couldn't reuse, the gutters that we tore down, and pieces of the concrete slab - and I headed to the dump. Looking at that mountain of waste was depressing - more so, as I contributed to it. Expensive, too, as it should be. It shouldn't be cheap for people to be wasteful. Then along came my brother-in-law with a solution: he found a place that will recycle the pieces of our concrete slab AND they'll recycle the asphalt, too. Hooray! I feel much better now, though I still feel guilty about my contribution to the landfills.

On the writing front, I'm discovering a "morning" phase. I usually write at night. When I'm in the throes of a new story I can write through anything and at any time of the day. I'm in the process of analyzing my novel, Falling Short, moving scenes around and deciding what needs to be changed or deleted in each scene. This analytical process only seems to work for me in the daylight hours. Perhaps when I get to the crafting side, the rewriting of the scenes, I'll once again be able to burn the night oil.

You'll hopefully - soon - be able to read more of my short stories on Echelon and Fictionwise. I'm expanding "My Dearest Julianne", "Duty", "The Painting", and "False Idols". I'll be submitting these shorts to Echelon in June and July. "Hear The Wind Blow" isn't at the #2 spot any longer but it was great to be up there for a while!