Long weekend

Sometimes long weekends are for relaxing. Sometimes not. 

This past weekend was definitely not relaxing and also not productive in my usual sense, although I did get some writing done because otherwise, who am I? 

When we bought this house in March 2018, one of the things I wanted to change was the partial wall in the living room. Most houses on our block have an archway between the living and dining rooms and a closed stairwell. That was removed and the staircase opened up probably in the 1960s when the previous owner moved in. 

I have no issue with that, but what they did instead was a counter height short wall with three glass display shelves above and a spotlight over that. I'm assuming the previous owner's wife displayed all of her shiny knickknacks there. Certainly the women in my family would have sold a close relative for a display piece like that. 

But in a small house you need wall space. The only place to put my great aunt's secretary desk was up against that non-wall. And when I'm sitting at my writing desk, in what was formerly the dining room and is now my writing space and where the bookcases live, I look straight through those shelves at the back of the secretary. Not the best view. 

All this is to say that in a confluence of events, I picked up a very large piece of drywall on my local Buy Nothing group, found the original living room paint, retrieved the white trim paint I had lent to a neighbor, and borrowed a utility knife from another neighbor, because all of my sharp objects had gone missing. Since found, just none of them in their rightful places.

Over three days, I cut and installed drywall, taped the seams, built a corner where there was none, sanded and painted, then cut wooden shelves to fit, wallpapered the back of the drywall so I'd have a pretty view from the desk, cut trim wood, installed the shelves, and put everything back. 

I went to work on Tuesday to get some rest. But at least I can say I know what I did all weekend and it looks good. 

It's also comforting to know that although I haven't used them in quite some time, I still have skills.

Around town

Not a lot going on at the moment - or at least not a lot worthy of documenting. 

I'm working away on the next book and it's going annoyingly well. I've worked for 21 days straight and haven't had a day without at least some words. Apparently group accountability works for me; I won't allow myself to go to bed without going into the spreadsheet and noting how many words I've written that day.

We had a few days of 80+ degree weather, which the garden loved. And then the rains came. Three straight days, and last Friday, we had something between a monsoon and a biblical flood - almost 3" of rain in under a half hour. 

You can see from the photo below that the drains just couldn't handle the onslaught. It's not that anything is clogged, just that they aren't cut out to get all the water at one time. As soon as the rain stopped, it all disappeared.

But now we're back to having mid-50s, early spring weather, and the plants don't know whether to grow or to ask for blankets so they can huddle up like I am.

Yesterday, since it was dry, I walked to work through our local park and encountered this little guy. Mama ran into the burrow but he just stayed in the grass and gave me remarkably judgmental side-eye. I talked to him and took his picture and eventually had to leave him - or explain that I was late because I was standing in the park like an idiot, talking to woodland creatures.

Living Things Update

Every year, I think working in the garden won't kick my butt. Why do I never learn?

A neighbor was putting in an order for pine straw mulch, and to get free delivery, she needed to order 10 more bales. She posted in our town's Facebook garden group, and ended up ordering 30 more bales. (I only ordered 2, because I had a very specific plan.)

The mulch came in earlier than expected, so my plan was accelerated because I didn't want the mulch sitting on my patio for the two rainy days that we'd been promised. I came home from work on Thursday and decided I'd just move all the stones out of the central portion of the yard. Then I decided that I should weed. That bright idea was followed by "oh, just the landscape fabric." By that point, I couldn't stand up straight and already knew that I wouldn't be capable of gardening the next day, so I sucked it up, spread thte 2 bales of mulch, which I absolutely love, and then I replaced all the stones.

And then I fell down like a tree and waited for my husband to get home to bring me wine.

Over the weekend, our local garden centter got in all her vegetable starts. I already had some going - my own and swaps from neighbors - but I added a few different tomattoes and peppers, a zucchini, and some herbs. Those are now planted in the raised beds in the back yard, with just a few tomato cages waiting for the inevitable volunteer tomatoes that the squirrels leave behind. They're often not even varieties that I grew the year before, so if I get a weed tomato, I put it in a bed and see what happens.

Now I can sit back and work on my story, because for the foreseeable future, I just need to water and watch things grow.

May I Write a Novel?

As I said a few weeks ago, I've begun to find my way forward in the next book. 

As a rule, I'm not much of a joiner, but there are times when I make exception. I've occasionally done National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November, but the only year I ever hit my goal was 2023, when I was working on The Son in Shadow. It helped that I'd already started, and that I was trapped in airports / on planes for a significant part of that time. 

NaNo is no more, for reasons, and anyway, November was never a good time for this project. I was always impressed with how many people managed to write 50k words in that month. (I never went that hard - 30k was generally the goal.)

I belong to a Facebook group called Successful Indie Author, run by Craig Martelle, who used to organize the 20Books conferences. He has set up something he's calling May I Write a Novel?, which lasts, obviously, for the month of may. I decided to sign up, along with at least 125 other people, and with my usual 1,000 words per day goal. 

Craig keeps us organized with a spreadsheet where we can post our daily word count, and it calculates the percentage of our goal that we've completed. I'm ahead of myself so far, but that's not surprising. I like to start strong so that if I have a few slow days, I'm covered. At this point, I'm shocked that simply signing up and "writing" with a few other people has motivated me this much!

Obviously, the book won't be finished this month. I'm doing something new and different and working from an outline, which is jarring for a discovery writer, but it seems to want it. We'll see how it goes.

Did you ever try NaNo? Did you win or did life?

Topsy Turvy

It's craft show season again, folks. I have to say, I'm not as enthused about it as I used to be. Part of it is getting older and not wanting to spend an entire day on my feet, it's also that the writing has become the more substantial part of my income, and I would rather devote the time to that than standing outside and selling.

But I do still love to sew. And I have a ridiculous stash of fabrics that need to be either sewn or given away, and I'm not ready to give them away yet.

So I've cut back . I'm only doing shows within a short driving distance. Since I don't drive, that means my husband has to spend his day either at the craft show with me or driving back and forth, I feel like slacking off benefits both of us. 

I had to show this past Saturday, which got rained out and moved to Sunday. Sunday was clear and sunny, but cooler, and with the wind that almost made everyone wish for rain. Tents blew over, tablecloths flipped up, displays all over the show were going down. I had a mother and child at my table when the second layer of my display blew off, on top of the kid. Being an 8-year-old boy, he was more excited by being showered with stuffed animals and really didn't notice that he had a record crate on his head. He happily picked up everything for me and dusted them off, and I told his mom he got his pick of the animals for being helpful and a very good sport.

I got off lucky. A few people I knew had really bad days - one artist lost a lot of work when it blew down the street, another one lost her tent. Outdoor shows are not for the faint of heart, but indoor shows are infrequent until the holidays. I'm just not sure that craft shows and climate change play well together.

Light in the darkness

I've been stuck lately, on whatever's coming next. I know, theoretically, what's next. The current books feature the three daughters of the main character from the Ava and Claire series, and French Lessons was the eldest daughter's story.

Next up should be Thelma, the middle daughter. Except Grace, the youngest, is the one who's been talking my ear off. And I would write out of order - I write books out of order, so why not series? - but since Grace's story takes place later, I'm afraid any mention of her sister could potentially throw off Thelma's timeline. 

And Thelma has been stubbornly silent. 

I know she's a dancer. I know she gets into the Philadelphia theater scene. I've purchased two research books about Philadelphia theater, though I haven't sat down and read them yet. That might help. 

But last night, doomscrolling Instagram while trying to ignore my husband doomscrolling the television, I encountered not one but two posts from dancers. I don't follow any dancers on instagram, though apparently I should, because the text of both these posts apply to what I think Thelma's story will be. 

I was telling my husband this morning that I thought I found a way in, and explained the two posts. He added a story that he'd heard in a film interview, which completely related, and now I still don't know what happens in her story, but I know her entire main conflict. 

Huge exhale. Huge. 

She's still not talking, but she did sit up and turn on a light bulb, and at least I now know where I am, and I have some vague idea of where I'm going.

Post vacation reality check

So clean, yet still comfortable.
I don't know how to do that.

Y'all, somehow we've been home for two weeks. It feels like both minutes and like we were never away. Life just overwhelms and sucks you right back where you were. 

I'm trying to hold on to that Paris feeling, though. Not the urge to see everything, everywhere, all at once, but the example they set to slow down and enjoy life. I saw surprisingly few people speeding along the streets, looking stressed. If they were moving quickly, it was because we were moving slowly. 

The other thing I've really noticed since we've come home is how much stuff we have. The apartment where we stayed was not an Airbnb rental, but an apartment whose owners rent it out once or twice a month, so we were living in a space normally occupied by a Parisian couple. Talk about togetherness. My kingdom for a door beyond the one to the toilet. 

But the one big closet held all the clothes, all the linens, the vacuum, the iron and ironing board, a few small extra kitchen gadgets, and that was it. The kitchen cabinets had the basics. A drawer in the kitchen table held all the silverware and knives. 

When you have to carry it 
up these stairs, you have less stuff.

I probably have more stuff in two cabinets in my kitchen. We won't even talk about the closets. 

But on the other hand, it's the right time of year to have this realization. Animal Friends of Lansdowne, our local cat rescue - and where Tessa and Rufus came from - has there annual yard sale fundraiser in May, and I have been building an enormous pile for them. Some of it is vintage that I intended to sell, but it's just too large/heavy to deal with USPS, but most of it is stuff that is just here and I don't know why. I pulled a half dozen mixing bowls out of a cabinet in the basement. I have a half dozen in the kitchen. Who needs twelve? 

I do this every once in awhile - lightening the load. Having a few less visible possession seems to take some weight off my brain, and that's never a bad thing. 

What about you? Could you do the Parisian minimalist thing or do your possessions comfort you? No judgment - I'm never going to be a minimalist. I would just like to be slightly less maximalist.

View from the bedroom window.