Okay, so....I got sick this week. Allergies into a sinus infection, and I missed a day and a half of work on an already short week. I was feeling a little better today, but of course spent most of it on the couch. And not doing anything productive, either. Playing Candy Crush and looking at FB. It also rained a ton this week, so that didn't help. 

So I'm behind on my writing goals, and I didn't do as much for promo as I wanted to.

This week:
1) Finish revisions on Avalon Hearts.
2) Work on revisions on Avalon Forever.
3) Add Cascada books to Books + Main
4) Change cover on Something to Talk About
5) Make 2 Canva ads
6) Make 2 FB ads
7) finish baby quilt for cousin
8) Start a Halloween hexagon quilt
9) Cook at home more--did not eat healthy when I was sick!
10) Mayyyyyybe start cross stitching again. I played too much Candy Crush this week!

I'm going to try to start blogging again, and usually Sundays will be my goals for the week.

But this week I want to talk about teaching. 

I plan for this to be my last year. It's my 30th year teaching, and our district doesn't exactly that their loyal veteran teachers well. Just last week, they put a music teacher WHO HAS NEVER BEEN IN THE CLASSROOM in her 38 years into a fifth grade classroom at another school. Crazy. So I don't want that to happen to me. I'm heading out after this year.

And most of my friends are gone. I'm the oldest teacher with the most experience on campus. I'm 52. That's crazy to me.

Our school shirts this year are concert shirts, and I want the back of mine to say "Farewell Tour" and list the names of the campuses where I've taught. 

It's been kind of weird in the two weeks we've been back. Last year I had a LOT of discipline problems, and I would have said then that the kids were pushing me out. This year, not so much. I'm actually having fun with the kids, which makes me sad, a little. I'm even able to have choir for 3rd, 4th and 5th, though our opportunities for performance are limited by the lack of funds. I'll be sad not to see some of these kids grow up. I've  taught music 8 years this go-round, so most of my 5th graders I've known since PreK. And I'm thinking to myself, when I see PreK, I won't know them when they're old enough to play games, sing in choir, that kind of thing.

And this week, I was deleting pins from my Pinterest boards, ideas that I've done and will never do again, or ideas I just won't get to. I have about 22 more music lessons per grade level, 9 art lessons. I just won't get to everything I've saved over the years. (I don't have a curriculum. I have standards, and I have to find my own ways to teach them. Yay, Pinterest!) I texted my friend Cindi, who retired two years ago, and told her how bittersweet it was, and she said she felt the same when she was cleaning out her files. 

So you might hear more than you want as I make my countdown to retirement, and to life as a full-time writer!

I've spent all day watching Olympic coverage. Every evening this week, actually. But my hand hurts pretty bad, so Fred is making sure I'm not doing ANYTHING to aggravate it before I goto the doctor tomorrow. All I've done is grocery shop, sweep the patio and list some of my projects on Etsy. 

This week I have to do a lot of things I don't want to do. 

1) Go to the doctor for my hand. (but then I'm going to JoAnn's)
2) Go to the accountant. (but I don't expect to get bad news)
3) Write
4) Edit
5) Order a new cover
6) Finish my quilt!
7) List the rest of my stuff on Etsy. 
8) Go to a quilt show.
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So, pretty much where I'll be all week. LOVE the winter Olympics.Started a series but got bogged down. I have the covers though! Maybe by next Olympics...

Interesting week for me this week. I get to go to the music teacher convention in town for the first time in YEARS. I've been twice but stopped going because Coach has a Valentine dance and he does so much for me, I stay to help him. But this year my principal wanted me to go, so off I go! That means this is a short week for me at school. There's also testing but I don't know if I'll be involved in that. We have such upheaval this year, I don't know if I'm coming or going. 

So. This week:

1) WRITE
2) TMEA conference
3) Work on new quilt
4) Work on my 10 year publishing anniversary celebration plan
5) Enjoy the Olympics
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Yes, we're doing key signatures. Yes, the kids call them hashtags.

Good but busy week. I finished a quilt, went to the gym 3 times, had car trouble so had to drop the car off, got a loaner, paid $$$ and got my car back, lol! Only cooked twice, will do better this week. 

1) Write. Write write write. I have a pretty good outline, so...we'll see.
2) Sew. I'm making burp cloths and a new quilt. 
3) Celebrate Baby Brother's birthday.
4) Start planning my 10 year anniversary of publishing celebration. I want to celebrate a book a day, just not sure exactly how that's going to work. 
5) Gym 4 times.


That should be it. I hope.

If you've been following me on FB, you know that I spent some of my Christmas money on ordering a new sewing foot from Madam Sew. It is called a cutting foot (Cutter foot) and acts like a serger, finishing off the seams. Well, the first time they sent the foot to me, it ad an incomplete address, couldn't be delivered and was SENT BACK TO CHINA. I finally got it this week, and put it immediately to the test.

I had some fleece I bought when it was on sale 70% off, and wanted to make a quick blanket. The first time I didn't load the fabric through the foot right and it finished the blanket but didn't cut the excess fabric. 

I went back to try it again and this one came out MUCH better. 

Then I made the mistake of using it to JUST sew, to join some flannel. I realized you still have to sew with a straight stitch, then go back and finish with this method. Here is part of a pillowcase that I had to redo MORE than once. 

So. I'm not AS in love with it as I thought I would be, it takes FOREVER. But it will definitely get used. 

I guess all my books have an origin story, but I think this one is probably one of the more interesting ones. 

It must have been 2008, but maybe 2007, and I was teaching 4th grade Texas history. It was about a week before November, because I already had my NaNoWriMo book planned (I don't even remember what it was!) I was teaching the kids about Jane Long, who was a woman alone on the Texas coast, waiting for her husband to return. They were stationed in a fort on Bolivar Point, near Galveston. She had to fend off both pirate attacks and Indian attacks, and it was just her and her slave, and I think a child but I don't remember now. 

While I'm teaching the kids, I have a very clear picture of Jane looking out and seeing a rider approaching, then falling from is horse. Right there, I knew I had to write that story, and I didn't want to wait. 

I'd never written an historical before, so I had a ton of research to do in one week! 

I wrote the book, won NaNo, but it needed work. Over Spring Break, my parents and baby brother and I went to San Felipe, Stephen F. Austin's original colony where my hero and heroine ended up, then down to Bolivar Point to see the fort. This was soon enough after Hurricane Rita that we couldn't get to the fort. In fact I recall it as a blur as we drove by it. 

I finished the book, submitted it to Brand New Carina Press. In May (not sure if it was the same year or not) I got my one and only CALL, from Angela James, wanting to buy the book. I'd never gotten a CALL before, only emails, and I wouldn't have cared if the school superintendent had walked in at that point. That was a highlight of my writing career.

The book came out in September of 2009. I remember because I had TWO books out that week--Don't Look Back, a romantic suspense from The Wild Rose Press, and Sunrise. I was over the moon, but I had bigger expectations from Sunrise, because it was with Carina. We were in California for my grandmother's 90th birthday, and so it was hard to do a lot of direct promo, but I tried. I remember wearing a shirt with the book cover on it on the plane ride home, lol. 

This remains my only historical so far, but I'm very proud of it, so if you haven't checked it out, please do!

Okay, so I MEANT to do my goals yesterday, but to be honest I was too busy! Then this morning, my internet was down, so here are my goals. Oh, and I DID get back to the gym, two days in a row. I wanted to go today, but I forgot my shoes. So I came home and cut out a quilt. I'm trying to figure out how I want to put it together. I should have probably figured that out before. I was just going to be random, but I don't think I can do that, lol!

Yesterday I made a few pet food placemats and an apron for a teacher, worked on Amazon ads. 

Today I got observed at school (probably why I forgot my shoes--my mind was elsewhere!) I hadn't seen my Monday classes since December!

This week:

1) Back to the gym, at least 3 more times. 
2) WRITE
3) Celebrate my release tomorrow!
4) Edit!
5) Read 3 NINC newsletters
6) Write more blogs
​7) Work on quilt and a secret project!

This week I AM GOING BACK TO THE GYM. It's been over a month. If I don't make it a point now, I'm just throwing money away.

This week:
1) Gym
2) revise chapters of book 1
3) Work on book 2
4) Order covers
5) Work on tax paperwork (halfway through the year right now)
6) Finish quilt

What's on your agenda?

Okay, this isn't a craft post per se, but since I spend a LOT of time on Pinterest and pin a lot of meals, I thought maybe it qualified a bit.I've been thinking mostly about how much easier it is to cook lately than it was when we first got married, even though we are much busier.

We bought an Instant Pot on Black Friday and have used it about ten times, I guess. The orange chicken I made the other night was WONDERFUL. Fred made mashed potatoes that were great. I have the ingredients to make mac and cheese but haven't tried it yet. I wouldn't say it's the miracle that it's proclaimed to be. You still have to do a lot of prep, though you can do most of it in the same pot, but when I made beef and broccoli the other night, I still used three pots. 

Then I have my crock pot. We agree that it overcooks the food, since we have to leave it on at least 8 hours, from the time he leaves until the time I get home. But I love to make Mississippi roast in it. And apple crisp. I may use it more when I'm home more. 

Probably my favorite kitchen tool is the delay start on my oven. I come home, fix up dinner, set it in the oven and put it on delay start, then go about my business. (I nap, okay? Mostly.) By the time Fred gets home, dinner is mostly done. 

Do you cook? How do you cook? How often do you cook? Where do you find recipes? Got any good ones to share?