Taking Stock

Firstly, the photos. All I had to do to get this shot was open an upstairs window. The view from any window in our house is pretty stunning. The second photo below is my little Valentine's gift to Michael. The snow was a good foot deep in places and iced over. You can see at the top of the heart where I fell down. Just adds to the charm of the message, I think!

The beginning of the year is a good time to take stock and I'm literally trying to sort out all the stock I bought in the summer and fall. This is estate sale heaven and I just accumulated a lot of things that I need to get rid of now. My Etsy pattern shop has about five hundred patterns listed but I have hundreds more waiting for their turn. And my vintage shop is up to about a hundred items as well. I figure if I haven't listed some of this stuff yet, I might as well give it away. Those "end of the day" $1.00 bags at the rummage sale are tempting but I've ended up with a lot of linens that aren't really good enough to sell. If I were clever, I could make something fabulous out of them. But my cleverness doesn't fall in that area.

The writing is going, but it's hard to pick a new project. Here's what I've got so far:
A middle grade novel about a boy who notices things and makes predictions
A middle grade novel about the Alphabet children, a family of six that pretty much are the terror of their little Texas town
A nonfiction picture book about the woman who invented paper sewing patterns.
A young adult novel about a most unlikely girl hero from a small town who ends up being the chosen one who has to save the world

Obviously, all the novels are meant to have a strong element of humor.

So there's where it stands. Choosing is hard. So is waiting. My Louisiana novel is out at Greenwillow as we speak.