pation!

Maybe y'all are too young to know the relationship between the ketchup and anticipation--it was an old commercial, before squeeze bottles.

One of the things Covid has disrupted is the habit I have of looking forward to things.

Retirement had already disrupted that to some extent, because when I was teaching, it was a big coping mechanism, but then I mostly looked forward to things being over, like the high-stress performances. 

ANYWAY. This year we haven't celebrated any birthdays, not Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day or Fourth of July, not my SIL's 50th birthday or my parents' 40th anniversary. There haven't been new movies to count down to, or the new TV season, all the things I used to anticipate. 

I have compensated, I guess, with ordering stuff through the mail and looking forward to getting packages. And I'm looking forward to fall, because at least THAT should be predictable this year. My husband has a vacation week every month for the rest of the year, so I'm looking forward to that, even if it only means we'll be able to take little road trips, or go pick up lunch, just something different.


What are you looking forward to?

Escape….what is taking you out of the stresses of the world these days? 


I’m reading Revolution-era romance.


I’m watching Hamilton, The Mandalorian, and Parks and Rec pretty much on repeat.


I’m playing a ton of phone games, too many, if I’m honest.


I’m buying fabric like it’s going out of style. I went to JoAnn’s twice last week, to a quilt store yesterday, and I had two mail orders this week.


I’m even cross-stitching and crocheting again. 


And I’m writing a fun little stand-alone novella with a spunky heroine with grown kids. I love her.  I’m writing the next book in my series also, but I’m playing with this book, too.


How are you getting through?

​

Y'all. I don't mean to just post on weeks I have a new release. I actually didn't intend to release Road Signs until January, but then I remembered it's a Thanksgiving book. 

So. 

Tomorrow will be stressful, but then I NEVER have to worry about a Veterans Day program again. The kids totally flubbed the steps on the stage when we went to practice on Friday, but I was beyond stressed at that point. We came back and practiced in the gym and they did just fine. Anyhow, it is what it is.

Five more days until vacation. I can do this. I think.

This week:

1) Survive Veterans Day Program. I usually take the afternoon off, but I'm not doing that this year. We have to get started on Christmas!
2) Work on historical novella
3) go to arts and crafts shop with Mom and Baby Brother
4) Work on print books
5) Work on adding books to Books + Main
6) Work on a quilt
7) Work on adding products to my Etsy shop
8) Work on getting rights back to my last Carina Press novella

​Wish me luck!

Our first real cold front of the season is coming through tonight and I'm RIDICULOUSLY excited. It's going to be wet, but I don't care! I'm going to make hot cocoa and soup and snuggle under my Halloween quilts...

But. I need to work today. 

1) Finish revisions on book 2 of my Avalon series
2) Send out newsletter
3) Update website
4) Get Mama Kitty's room ready (She lives outside, but it's going to be too cold for her. So we put her in the room off the kitchen for a few days at a time.)
5) Check my calendar regularly. I've been avoiding it because it stresses me out, but it has action items for my books, and not selling books would stress me out more.
6) Sew. I have a lot of projects there, too!
7) Do serious research into a new laptop. This one is 7 and slooooooooowwwwwww.
​8) Go to the gym at least one day. 

I thought this month would NEVER GET HERE! 

I finished my Halloween quilt (I need to post pictures!) I didn't finish my book. But I finished a pivotal scene today. My BIGGEST problem is that it's a series, and it's concurrent with the first book in the series, so the timelines are REALLY challenging. I'll never do that again.

This week:

1) Do my BEST to finish this book
2) Work on adding books to Books + Main
3) Write a BookBub recommendation
4) update my mailing list
5) Work on a FB ad
6) Change the cover on Something to Talk About
7) Work on Halloween quilt #3
8) List some stuff on Etsy and eBay

Oh yes. So many distractions! 

So. I finished the baby quilt and gifted it today. I am ALMOST finished with my first bed-sized quilt. It wasn't MEANT to be for the bed, but I added a border and, well...

I'll post pictures when I'm done. 

Plus my mom and I learned how to make pillowcases an easy way, so we've been doing those, too.

So the writing has fallen off. BAD! BAD! And as you noticed, I skipped a week of blogging ALREADY. 

This week I WILL BE BETTER!

1) Finish revisions on book 2.
2) Upload it and book 3 for preorder.
3) Start Book 4.

4) Add books to Books + Main
5) change cover on STTA
6) Check out some other promo opportunities

7) Finish big quilt
8) Work on some more pillowcases on craft day
9) make enchiladas to take to craft day

9) Do grades
10) set goal for the school year (yes, 6 weeks in, lol) IDK, it's my last year. What goals are left?

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.
​