What's Next?

First off, thank you for all the comments and concern about my finger. It's feeling better, I'm feeling stupid, and two of the stitches have already come out on their own, so I'm thinking I probably don't need to go back to urgent care next weekend. Yay me.

Typing has not been fun minus a finger. Because I learned on a manual typewriter, I don't type lightly with the pads of my fingers, but I stomp with the tips. That doesn't work with little bits of wire sticking out, as I soon discovered. So I'm a little slower than usual, but I'm still working. 

I've just realized it's only a little more than two months before my next release. It's not a full book, but it was never intended to be. When I wrote my Ava and Claire books, I stopped in the late 30s because I didn't want to write a World War II book. There are so many already, and I didn't know how much I'd have to say about the homefront and I didn't really want to follow the brothers. 

But the brothers had other ideas. So Home for Christmas is a novella set in December, 1941. The first Christmas after Pearl harbor, when men all over America joined up. Some were already gone, some made it back for the holiday, and some - like my character George - were still trying to figure out how to go.

Here's the official blurb to go with the cover. Did I mention I love the cover? Did I mention I love my cover designer? I want to write more books just so I can give her more covers to do.

In a season of miracles, could one little girl's greatest wish come true?

December, 1941. America grapples with the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. For Ava's family, the approaching Christmas feels different, weighted with the absence of her son Toby, who has already enlisted. His departure casts a long shadow, particularly over his younger brother, George, who has never been separated from him.

As her eldest son contributes to the war effort in the shipyards and her daughter Pearl contemplates her role in a nation at war, Ava witnesses the resilience of her other children: Thelma, determined to pursue her dreams, and little Grace, whose one wish is that they all spend one last Christmas together.

Amidst the anxieties of wartime, Ava must hold onto the enduring power of family and the fragile hope that even in the darkest of times, miracles can still unfold.

The Nine Fingered Writer

Well, this wasn't what I intended to write about this week, but it certainly the biggest thing that happened. 

On Saturday, I decided to deal with the produce that was stacking up in the kitchen. I was going to chop cucumbers and tomatoes for salad, but decided instead to get out my new mandoline and make pickles.

Do you see where this is going? 

It was the first time I'd used it. It made such amazingly thin slices. I kept going. Until. 

Then, all of a sudden, I was running up the steps yelling for my husband to get the bandaids. I sat on the toilet lid and told him what I needed, and my vision kept going spotty (I'm not good with blood generally, but especially not my own). The next thing I knew, he was on the phone with 911 because I'd passed out.

I came to and told him off for fussing at me, which is terrible *and*completely on brand. 

Two female EMTs came and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said no. They asked if I wanted to go to urgent care. I said no. 

Where did I end up at 7 p.m.? Urgent care.

Five sutures and the most painful shots I've ever had in my life - directly into the wound to numb it for stitching - and a doctor who didn't appreciate the range of my profanity when she have me those needles. 

I'm grateful that I got a tetanus shot while I was on my doctor binge this past winter; at least I didn't have to deal with that. 

It doesn't hurt, except when I bang it into things, which I do at least four times a day. 

The mandoline qent for a new home on Monday via Buy Nothing. I am not careful enough to be trusted with a kitchen razor. I'll stick to knives. I understand how they work.

Gone Fishing

 

It's being a week, folks.

See you next Wednesday.

Sticky

A few years ago, five, I think, I planted a peach tree in the front yard. It was a weedy little thing at the time, barely two feet tall. 

The next spring it bloomed and we got a few tiny peaches that never ripened. 

Ever since then it's been touch and go, the bloom getting hit by frost or the peaches being carried off by squirrels long before they were edible. 

This year is different. The bloom didn't seem that heavy, but there are so many peaches the tree can't hold itself up properly - one of my neighbors volunteered her laundry poles keep the branches from snapping. (One of her laundry poles snapped instead.)

And while there have been peaches scattered up and down the block, there are too many for the squirrels to handle on their own. I've got multiple bowls in the kitchen, waiting to be turned into jam, and on Sunday I did the first batch of five half pint jars. 

That was plain peach. Next up is peach vanilla, and after that peach jalapeno. I'll do another batch of plain if the squirrels leave any by that point.

A few days later, and I'm still waiting for it to totally set up. I thought I messed up, but after doing some reading, it seems that peach jam takes its sweet time to find its set point. 

I care, but I don't. It tasted so good in the cooking process that I'll just pour it over ice cream and call that a victory over the squirrels.

Day Out

I took a mental health day on Monday. Both of the people I generally work with were out, so I decided to follow their excellent example.

It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to do anything on my own. The job doesn't take up that much time, but getting out at 1 p.m. means I come home and write or do things in town; I wanted to get away for a while, so I made a plan.

The plan almost got canceled because there were things I had to do in the morning, but I got them done: laundry, making a batch of ratatouille (so much faster in the InstantPot), doing a quick run to the corner store. But I was done by noon and walked a half mile down the road to catch the trolley to Media.

Media is the county seat for Delaware County, a town that's almost as charming as it looks, filled with cafes and restaurants and cute shops (which were mostly closed on Monday). I treated myself to lunch at a cafe, did some edits on Shifting Stages, then walked down State Street to the park at the end of town. It was nearly 90 degrees but it didn't feel that hot, maybe because I was moving at the speed of mud - because I didn't have anywhere to be and no one was expecting me.

I walked back slowly, looking in shop windows, stopped at Trader Joe for a few things that would fit in my bag, and caught the trolley home. I was back at my desk by 4:30, got a bit more editing done, and by the time my husband got home, I'd even vacuumed the living room.

I was gone for about 4.5 hours and it felt like days. Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break.

Still here

Just a catch up post this week. Not a lot happening worth writing about, though I seem to be busy most of the time. 

My husband repaired the living room screen and I also bought two cheap adjustable screens to put in front of them. Belt and suspenders until Rufus forgets how easily he did that. 

The garden is finally coming along. Wax beans, some tomatoes. The beets drowned. The zucchini perished from a strange malady that wasn't squash vine borers. The cucumber, which I thought wasn't doing well, actually snuck under the tomatoes and appeared on the other side with three stealth cucumbers. Go figure. 

The most successful element in the garden was the trellis I built this year from 3 craft show grid walls. Now to see if the lima beans actually develop. There are lots of tiny pods, but they haven't puffed up yet. It's still an interesting construction back there, even without food on it. 

In non-garden news, I'm working away on edits on the next book. Just started the second section, while part of my brain is thinking about the next next book. I've made some notes and I'm ignoring them. 

The heat wave is broken, and I think I'm going to talk to the husband about taking a shore day before it comes back. I'll get sunburned, either way, but I don't need to be broiled and fried at the same time. 

Hope your summer is going well, your gardens are producing, and your pets are better behaved than mine.

Adventure Cat

This post is late because cats are fun. I mean that sarcastically.

Look at that face. Unrepentant. Pissed, even. 

That is the face of a cat who caught what I thought was a mouse at 1:00 a.m. and taxes all over the house, him growling, it squeak. It took over an hour to make him drop it. I covered it quickly so I could dispose of it later (it being the middle of the night and me being excited).

Rufus ran upstairs. I followed more slowly with Tessa and arrived in the living room to see his hindquarters going out the window. 

Look again at the photo. See the hole at bottom left?

I thought I was tired. That's before I ended up on the street at 2 a.m., barefoot and in my nightie, wrangling an angry cat. 

By the way, it wasn't a mouse. It was a BIRD.

How did he catch a bird in our house? He's not talking.