What you will not be seeing this year

You nor I will be seeing this in 2010. We had our enormous maple tree pruned last winter. I practically cried all day as they hacked away at it, leaving nothing but a shell. Then we had a very  hot summer and drought. So my beautiful tree couldn't make the comeback the landscape service had promised. The maple tree that was the glory of the neighborhood will be very sparse this year.

We're also having our fall color early because of the drought and heat. And I'm guessing it won't last long. Such is life. The good thing about it is you don't have to wait for the chilly weather to see the gorgeous leaves. We took a mini-fall color tour yesterday in my convertible. It's not full color here but it's coming along. Strange, but really fun to see it all with the top down.

I'm back from my writers' conference and it was a very mixed experience. You hear an awful lot of doom and gloom at these kinds of meetings. On the other hand, I got some very positive feedback on two manuscripts. And some good advice. And some wonderful signed books for the grandchildren. And  a critique group. Yes! An electronic critique group came out of the experience. That was worth the whole trip.

And, Michael and I have tickets now for Thanksgiving week. We'll be enjoying lovely and absolutely unpredictable Texas weather. I'm looking forward to the best birthday ever on Thanksgiving Day.

LIfe is a test

The picture? Oldest grandchild CE with a big project on her hands. So, I"ve obviously bitten off more than I can chew since I haven't blogged for two weeks. That's some kind of record, I think.

I am enjoying the college teaching. My students are delightful, fresh-faced young'uns who try hard in class. It is a new and time-consuming project.

My shops are going and I continue to acquire new stuff which I now must process, take photos of, list and sell.

I've got a really big writing conference coming up in two weeks. I'll be getting critiques on both my big projects, my Louisiana 1950s novel and the chapter book my daughter MF and I are working on. And another critique activity in November.

And trying to do church work and housework, keeping in touch with my large family, and trying to make things easy for Michael.  And the headaches continue. Yesterday I went to church to play the organ with a headache. I went home, slept for an hour an fifteen minutes and returned to church to do choir practice.

So here's my take on all of this:

As much as I love the teaching, I don't think I can stand another email like the one I got last week. $138 dollar plane ticket to Dallas, TX, direct from our local airport, not Philly or Newark. It was $180 with taxes and fees, but still. That's from Wilkes-Barre! And I had to pass them up because of the classes I'm teaching. You have to leave on a Thursday and reutrn on a Tuesday. Since I teach TTH that would mean a whole week of classes. Can't do it.

I think the shops are out of hand too. I've been acquiring a lot of stock because I'm pretty sure the garage sale season is about over. So my profit/loss margin makes it look like it's not worth it. But, then I find something like I did this weekend and I want to continue. I now own four patterns from the 1890s. A couple of Butterick, a Ladies' Home Journal and a mail order. I won't keep them, but it is a wonder to hold them in my hands. It's miraculous to read the instructions and find out how ladies from that era put things together. These are patterns my great-grandmothers would have used. At that same sale, I also bought a box of old music for me. This is not to sell. I played for hours on Saturday and Sunday. My faves are the three dance music folios from the teens, twenties and thirties. They were meant for dance classes. They're piano versions of popular songs of the day. But there's also sheet music from some of my favorite old songs from all eras: "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," "The Girl from Ipanema," "Change Partners," "Catch a Falling Star," and so on. Hundreds of pages of music for 25.00. So the estate saleing and garage sale shopping will probably continue.

So that comes down to the writing. This is not out of hand and it's not keeping me from flying to Dallas. Far from it. I could really use a quick flight so that Morgan and I could talk over our book. And I could most of my family, minus the Provo group.

Bottom line. More writing, less shopkeeping, and serious consideration of whether I continue community college teaching (if they even offer me the chance!).