Back to school... back to reality

Luckily for me, my son really enjoys school. He loves to learn new things - which makes me so grateful because the beginning of school has always been a huge anxiety point for me. It's laden with new schedules, new classmates, new rooms and routines, a new teacher to get used to... just new. For most this is exciting and a fresh start - for me it's just different. After the first couple of days we'll have a whole new routine that will be the norm, I'm just kind of ready to get going.

The beginning of school also marks getting back to researching, writing, editing, promoting, and submitting. I'm ready because for the past few weeks I've been spinning my wheels with some ideas knowing I can really go full steam ahead starting next week. There are 3 different stories that have publishers interested - now the trick is to make it finalized. There are already a few upcoming events for the Rodney Ram book also and my favorite - school visits. Good luck for the new school year to anyone reading this entry!

Also - welcome to Lillian Grace! Since my last writing Brooke had her baby - Lilly's doing great and the whole family is so happy to have her here safe and sound...

Time...

Sometimes time is a good gift to give. It's free, it definitely always fits, and it's almost always appreciated (almost always). Lately it seems as though everyone is going a million miles per hour and for what? At the end of the day can we truly feel as though we've put a lot of time into improving our quality of life with all of the runnings here and there? Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people who do some of their runnings to be with people who mean something to them or for someone who means something to them - these are the notches on our 'to do' lists that carry some weight. In the past couple of weeks, I've really taken some time out for some things that are important to me - letting people know how important they are to me, having pedicures with the ladies in my life, spending time with a good friend who's getting ready to have her second baby in 3 days... the important time investments. Another thing I took time out for recently was visiting a local organization called Childsavers. It is a group that helps children through developmental issues through trauma, birth, or abuse - it was a great place; warm, welcoming, private, and energetic. I was put into contact with them by my pal Brooke (the aforementioned pregnant one :) who has volunteered with them on several events over the past couple of years. We jointly donated 35 books to them and I look forward to learning more about them and volunteering more time.

Time is a funny thing - it seems endless on occasion but we have to remember that it isn't. Time is definitely a gift and not an infinite one. Take mental snapshots every now and then and create your own memories. Filling your time with things that mean something to you (even if they don't mean anything to others around you) is what it's all about. In my neck of the woods, the sun is shining, my hummingbird feeder is inhabited, and we're healthy... not a bad way to pass my time today.

With my own two hands

I love flowers... the color, smells, freshly cut grass... I enjoy the views of nature. I try every spring to plant flowers and veggies or prune and weed; but every year all I end up with are weeds and budless shrubbery. Well, this year, my hard work paid off with 2 ripe cherry tomatoes! All I had to do was pay *#)^ dollars for mulching, weeding, clearing and preventative measures against what had plagued my beds for seasons before; plant a tomato plant, cucumber plant, squash plant, forget-me-nots, countless hostas, 10 begonia bushes in my front retaining wall, and a few annuals back 3 springs. What I've gotten are 2 ripe cherry tomatoes! I do enjoy my begonias - they have flourished nicely after a close watch. I read the book, "The $64 Tomato" for a book club recently and I can relate on a much smaller scale. Gardening can be relaxing (when you aren't in the dead of summer midday) but it can also be extremely overwhelming not to mention a slippery slope. One thing truly leads to another after the prepping (which is a job in and of itself), the digging, the planting, the fertilizing, the watering, the weeding, and the pruning. It's almost maddening to an extent - you get kind of a tunnel vision. The gardening started as something for my son and I (the forget-me-nots and the veggies especially) but he lost interest kind of quickly when all that grew in the flower beds were weeds.

I'm proud of my tomatoes and continue to look at the one that remains (a small creature scavenged the first) as a trophy. Did I mention I don't like tomatoes? But I did it with my own two hands and I'm proud of them!