Summer Holidays and Hopes for Fall

School begins tomorrow. As I look back upon this summer, I am filled with joy. Here are some of the critters that we came across today in the woods.

Two banana slugs posing:

A cricket sunning:

An owl hunting! In broad daylight:

We came home to our summer bounty:

Perfect for ratatouille (I added a big eggplant from the store).

Summer is far from over. And soon I'll need to make more batches of zucchini bread, tomato salsa and soup. I love having a taste of all this in the winter ...

Besides all the food processing that I will do this fall, what do I hope to accomplish writing-wise? To begin anew on my novel. I only worked a little bit on it this summer not because I didn't have time, but because I chose to spend it doing other things, like doing projects with my kids, taking long walks in the woods, going swimming, visiting with family and friends. Oh, I wrote every day, but I didn't work on my novel. Big difference. So here's hoping I can finish the first half of this by the end of this year. And polish a few shorter pieces for magazines. I should probably get my CV out there again for writing work-for-hire books.

Tomorrow.

Tonight I will read over the bits of the novel I've written, see where I need to go, write two pages even if it all ends up in the trash.

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