Fruits displaying in the stall of a market

Summer Vacation is Done

Since it’s 1 am it’s technically Monday so my vacation ended yesterday. I’d like to say I spent a leisurely day writing and being a bum. Instead we worked on cutting up watermelon, musk melon, pineapple, strawberries, cherries, peaches, and cucumbers.

The cucumbers became relish but we added too much salt so we’ll label it as salty and see if we can make tarter sauce with it. The fruits we froze a number of them so we can have them in winter for smoothies / slushies. Some were just cut up to have for nibbling on all week.

We picked from our herbs again. This time we managed to actually get them chopped up and put into ice cube trays to freeze. Those will go into ziplock bags for use over the winter as well.

Ken picked tomatoes and peas. Vicki picked potatoes. Can’t wait to enjoy all of those. We also have a lot more growing. It was a busy morning with all of us working to get the food processed and either in the freezer for winter or mixed into what we wanted for consumption this week.

We made homemade pizza for supper with leftovers for lunch this week. It was delicious. It was also the first time we made pizza dough in the breadmaker which was much easier on my hands.

Now all of that took me to about supper time. I spent a little time playing on my phone and being mindless. But after supper, everyone left me alone and I was supposed to write but an author friend sent me her book. I started it last night and instead of writing I had to finish the book. It was delightful. So I didn’t start writing until 10 pm.

Very unusual for me, I have an outline (very rough and only ideas jotted down) of how this short story should go. I had around 3100 yesterday when I finished writing. Tonight I managed to add an additional 1500. Now I’m being cautious because I think this will go into an anthology but there’s a short deadline. I think If I can get through a few more scenes by Friday I will commit to being in the anthology. But I want to see how far I get in the story before I give a firm yes to the organizer. I don’t want her to do more work if I can’t get it written by the deadline.

Overall, I had a good vacation. It was relaxing but I still accomplished tasks. I finished off manuscripts and got most of them to my formatter. She’s gotten them back to me. So I can upload as I need to and set up preorders.

I’ve got a story in my head which keeps returning so I may be starting a new one soon but we’ll see. I’d much rather finish off a couple of works in process.

Later today, I’ll be catching up on a week’s worth of emails and dealing with the demands of my job. The nice thing is, I feel relaxed and refreshed from having time off.

Teeter Totter

Seeking a balance in my tasks, I’ve been trying to find the right combination among writing, crocheting, and family tasks.  I’ve been working on editing a manuscript which is now down to a final read through as I’ve finished the searches I normally do.  At the same time, I’ve been working on projects for my daughters.  I just finished two cat beds which I didn’t have patterns for the two different styles.

Striking a balance (of sorts) is good in that I don’t feel I’m so focused on one task that I get burned out on it.  I’m also able to embrace the different sides of my creative nature – making beautiful things and telling good stories.

I have a long list of crochet patterns I want to publish and at the same time I need to work on marketing.  Monday I will be home alone so I am going to attempt to get the end of year reports done for my writing and editing business and then work on preparation for publishing for the patterns I have complete.

I’m back and forth on what I’m working on but I feel like I’m at least making progress on all my interests.

Next week classes start up again.  This means my work will go from slow and quiet to insane.  Almost all of the faculty will be back in the building regularly and the students will be back.  Next week will be exhausting and fast paced which means when I get home I’ll be looking for mellow things to do.  Things I won’t have to think about too much.  This means either crocheting or maybe editing / marketing.  I have a number of books to go through to pull out quotes for posting on twitter.  Either task will be low key for the most part.

My goal this year – hopefully – is to not buy any new yarn unless I have a specific project in mind and to work on whittling down my stash and my current load of projects.  This means I want to clear out some of the bins of yarn I have for Vicki and other people.  It also means I have to find that balance so I have time for crocheting and writing.

I have to go with the flow when I’m writing – when the story is flowing I have to write.  However, I’m going to attempt to make time for both of my main interests.  I’ll see how this plays out.