Home

I made it back home this morning. Left The Clearing at about 8:30am and got home just after 11am because I stopped for a car wash and to pick up some fruit at the grocery. I drove on gravel a lot and it was dusty but I was happy to see that "The Meemaw Mobile" which LC wrote in the dust on the passenger door is still barely visible and the smiley face that OJ drew on the rear window is mostly there too. The suitcase is unpacked and all the dirties are down the chute. I haven't taken the suitcase and writing stuff crate downstairs yet, though. I'll get there. I did a (very) little shopping at The Clearing's book/gift shop and picked up a tee-shirt on sale, some colored pencils, and tiny pink scissors in a little sleeve.

 

It was a perfect week, weather-wise, sunny most days and high 60s/low 70s until yesterday and today when it was in the high 70s. It was in the mid-80s when I got home which made unloading the car a little unpleasant. I don't like to be hot. Once I had all the Clearing stuff out of the car I folded the seats down and loaded the table, chair, book rack, books, and accessories into the car so I don't have to do any of that stuff in the morning. Sorry the picture's so dark, I forgot to take it when it was light outside and the flash didn't go far.

 

This is the room I shared with my writing friend, MH. It's room #9 and it's pretty small. We figured out how to store the wooden benches you can see in the picture away from the foot of the beds so there was room to get by to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without breaking toes. It you look closely you can see that I'd already set up my writing desk before I took this picture on Saturday.

 

They feed us well up there. I took a picture of each meal's menu board so I could remember what we ate and put it into my journal. Each meal was better than the last. This is the midday meal yesterday. We had pork tenderloin with rhubarb compote, roasted squash with honey-lemon butter (it was a little too spicy for most people but I tolerated it pretty well), garden salad with pear vinaigrette, and pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. No one goes hungry there. EVER.

 

I took a copy of each of my books and laid them out on a table in the Lodge where everyone goes to eat. I sold a couple to writers but none to anyone else. Oh well, two is better than none. I almost forgot, they needed two more copies of Horizon for the bookstore so I took those over and will get a check in the mail.

 

I was surprised when I got home today to see that the birdseed in the new/old feeder was only down about an inch and a half in a week. It's going to take a long time to get through my 40# bag of birdseed at this rate.

 

Here's a kind of self-portrait. I was walking back to the central campus from our classroom and noticed that the sun was behind me casting my shadow on the path through the woods. I think I like it a lot.

 

Last month I signed up to join a newsletter builder promo in October through a book website. It requires you to give away a book so I chose The Seaview hoping that people would read it and buy the next two books in the series--and the Christmas novella too, of course. It's only the fourth of the month and already 42 people have "claimed" a book which means I have 42 new names on my newsletter email list.  I'm signed up to do the same next month too so maybe I'll make more sales because of it. That's the hope, anyway.

 

I had a great week but I'm glad to be home in my own home with my own bed and bathroom. Besides if I'd been there for much longer my pants wouldn't have fit!

--Barbara