A Time For Everything

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The world lost an amazing person this week with the passing of Dolly Parton. Not gonna wax poetic because there's plenty of beautiful things being said about her. But I love her music, I love her acting, I love her philanthropic endeavors. She was a soul without match.

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And there's really no graceful segue from Dolly Parton to "I've apparently decided I don't have enough to do," so I'm not even going to try.

I've been busy as heck between writing, publishing, and my Etsy endeavors. So naturally, I've added running my writers group's annual romance contest back onto the pile.

The Carolyn Readers Choice Award and I go way back. I was its first coordinator back in the day, then handed it off and watched other people keep it going. The most recent crew has been running it for five years, which is a long time to wrangle entries, judges, scores, deadlines, emails, and all the other moving parts that go into a book contest.

They were understandably ready for a break.

And somehow, here I am again.

The good news is that I'm not just stepping back into the old system. We're taking the opportunity to overhaul a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff and make the contest easier to run—not just for me now, but for whoever gets handed the reins next.

Which means I've spent an inordinate amount of time lately buried in forms, rules, category descriptions, judging procedures, spreadsheets, old files, and approximately eight thousand tiny decisions nobody entering a book will ever know had to be made.

Because apparently this is what I do for fun.

That's about all the chaos I've got to report for now. Catch you in two weeks—and until then, stay cool, stay hydrated, and try not to add any new projects to your plate.

I'll try to take my own advice.

...my sweet Karma kitty...

Not sure if it was taken in summer, bit it looks summery!

The words are coming along well since the retreat. I'm now past 24K, almost to 25K, which is halfway to my goal of 48K to 50K. I'm enjoying the writing of this book a lot--a little more than I usually do. I'm hoping to have the first draft done by the end of October.

AND! I made it to the Dallas Zoo finally. DD and I had tickets for Dollar Days last year, but I ended up not being able to go due to a last minute work issue. I almost thought I was going to miss this year but we made it work.

Here are a few pictures of our visit. The last time I visited the Dallas Zoo was October of 2019--only, Amber and I were there to see hockey players, not animals. :0) The Dallas Stars season ticket holder event was held at the Dallas Zoo that year and we went, of course, as I was still a season ticket holder. We saw a few animals while waiting in line, but as the evening wore on, it got darker and the animals went to bed.

A few pictures from this year's visit...

And that's about it for this post. I'll be back in a couple of weeks.

Take care and stay cool!!

Lake Texoma / Kingston, OK

This year's writers retreat was another fun time with my favorite writer peeps and a success for everyone.

We spent two full days and two partial days at a lovely VRBO rental, enjoying one another's company and writing, writing, writing.

I wrote just over three thousand words -- a count that would normally take me a good week, give or take. Needless to say, I was very pleased with the increase. My books usually finish in the 40K to 45K range. The longest book I've written, not counting the historical, was almost 48K, and I'm hoping this book will be closer to that.

And for the first time in several years, I had a bed and a room to myself, which was a treat. The room had a lovely, broken-in recliner that was super comfortable and didn't cause any issues in the hips.

As soon as I got home and sat on my couch, I realized that my trip to NFM for a chair suited to my size and comfort needs is now a priority. I almost offered the host money for that chair, but decided a new chair was probably a better expenditure.

From L-R: Chrissy, Clover, ME, and Gina.

Sadly, two of our regulars couldn't make it. Normally, there are six of us. And even more disappointing, one of those ladies is moving out of state, so we're going to have to replace her next year. We'll cross that bridge later though.

For now--stay cool and hydrated.

Catch you in a couple of weeks.

By several years prior to2022, I mean at least ten. When I went looking for a picture of the earliest version of the bird feeder bed, I found it in a post from 2022... But by the small circumference of the mulch and the lack of much else, I know the pic was from a long, long time ago.

Fast forward to the early 2000s and this was the set up: 

I've been meaning to upgrade this squirrel feeder bed for a while now. A long while. As captioned, that picture was taken just over two years ago. But it's probably been since BC (you know, before COVID) that it was last improved.

But what with all the family and life events, not to mention my getting-out-of-debt endeavors, the full funding just hasn't been available. I had some cash stashed for this project, but it was nowhere near enough to accomplish all the plans I had. So when Darling Daughter asked what I wanted for Mother's Day this year I had to think for a mere handful of seconds and the answer was clear: retaining wall blocks and mulch!

That tree has grown (of course it has) over the years and the "thighs" of the trunk--the sections where the trunk branches into roots--have also crept a little higher out of the ground. So rather than the single layer of landscape edgers you see above, I wanted at least two layers of my "tree ring bricks" to help hold in the mulch. So fast forward to 2026 and this is my squirrel feeder bed. 

I moved all the bird feeders farther out into the yard (just out of sight, of the top left of this image) as I didn't want this area overgrown with bird seed that germinated. And I reused the edgers that were originally here to create that planter in the top right.

Here's a closeup of the planter and the day lily I bought for it...

I'm still working on the bird feeder bed, so pictures of that will be along at some point. But I'm pleased that the squirrel feeder setup is finally done.

Stay cool and I'll catch you up in August!

First though--

Happy Birthday to ME!

I celebrated with DD mostly. Everyone else was busy--but that's okay, honestly.

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Let's get started on that Report Card, shall we?

#1) Finances ~ A+ ! I stopped spending and I've already reduced debt by $4K. So go me. :0)

#2) Health & Wellness ~ I'm giving myself a B. I've lost the 10 pounds. I still use my Hinge Health app to stay limber and keep the bursitis at bay. The healthier eating remains a challenge. I fall off the wagon a lot.

#3) Writing ~ A+ so far. As I mentioned last month, A Certain Kind of Man releases in five days. It's all set up and ready to go live on the 17th. The next book needs to be written from scratch, but it's gonna be a fun ride.

#4) Housekeeping / Home Improvement ~ C- I'm not doing very well on this front. Especially the housework. Long time blog readers know this has been an ongoing issue for ages. As for the home improvement...I guess D+ maybe. I've been working on a project in the backyard--which is not fully "home" improvement. I still have 6-ish months to come up with something, so we'll see how it goes.

#5a) Monthly Missives to Grandma ~ as you know my Grandma passed away--she got one letter from me before she passed...so C.

#5b) Read 12 books in 2026 ~ A+ so far. I've got seven books read so far! I think I'll blow right past 12 at some point.

Not a bad report card. Just a few more things to sort by the end of the year.

Stay cool as we heat up!