Back Home!

I made it. Last night I left The Clearing right after the end of the Friday night Show & Tell and drove straight home. In the dark. Watching every mile for deer crossing the road. I got home, unloaded the car, reloaded the car with book sale needs, unpacked so I could find my phone charger, and finally got to bed around 11 pm.

 

The West High Boosters Fall Craft Show started at 9 am, so we had to be there to set up around 8. There was a guy in the parking lot telling us what booth we had and which door to use. They even had students with flatbed carts to help us move our stuff into the gym. Big help since I had to haul my own chair in addition to the regular books, display rack, and bag of other display items. The sale was pretty successful. I sold four books--two novels and two novellas. However it didn't occur to me not to wear red. The school colors are purple and white. Red and white are the colors of their crosstown rivals, but I don't think it affected my sales.

 

However those four books can't hold a candle to the seventeen (17!!!) books I sold between October 3rd and 9th. Since I received the first author copies of Sailing the Seas on Saturday morning before I left for The Clearing, I called OtherWorlds Books & More in Sturgeon Bay and asked if I could stop in on my way through town. The offer was accepted so I drove into town and sold four books to the bookstore. While I stood there talking to the owner and getting paid for the books, a customer picked up a copy, read the back, and said, "I'll take this." !!!!! I did a modified happy dance when I got into the car to continue my drive up the peninsula. The members of my class were eager to look at my books and one of them, an old friend, wanted the whole Seaview Series to gift to a friend who is having surgery with a long recovery. That was a big, profitable surprise.

 

This morning while eating my breakfast, I nearly choked when I saw what had arrived while I was away. There was a flock of about five Juncos in the backyard. This one visited under the round feeder so I could take its picture. Those birds migrate from the arctic because it's so much warmer down here. Ha! (Although today it got over 80 degrees, tomorrow and Monday too, then it's back to the 50s and 60s)

 

The next time I looked up there was a Red-bellied Woodpecker on the round feeder which was the only one with seed in it. The suet nuggets feeder was empty and the suet cakes looked pretty picked over. It flew away as soon as I snapped the picture.

 

Right away it was replaced by this little Downy Woodpecker. It stayed a little longer but I was running out of gawking time so I had to get myself going and get to the high school to set up for the craft fair.

 

I tried to take a sunset picture last night from the path down to the Schoolhouse for Show & Tell but couldn't find a clear spot so this is all I got. It was pretty orange when we left the Lodge but by the time we got down the path it was fading quickly. You can barely see the orange horizon through the leaves.

 

Fall colors were just starting to pop late in the week. This tree was half vivid orange and half greenish across the street from Kick Ash, a shop and cafe in Ellison Bay where cda and I went to buy granola and a few other tidbits to take home. 

 

It was a great writing week at The Clearing. We have Monday afternoon, all of Tuesday, and Wednesday morning for what she calls Quiet Writing Time. Hours and hours of it. cda and I sit in our room; she edits and I write. We're not especially quiet because we keep interrupting each other to ask a question, make a comment, or read something. But I wrote about 12 pages of Not Fair, the second cozy mystery. One thing I learned when I read the first chapter of book 2 to the class and got feedback is that I probably need to go back to book 1 and make some changes. That's okay. I wasn't sure it was ready to be left alone just yet anyway. We did an editing exercise on Monday morning in class that was a real eye-opener. I only hope I can be as dispassionate and ruthless when I tackle book 1's manuscript as I was with that little free write. I have a bad habit of thinking that what I write is just fine. Not perfect, but fine. I need to get over that. It'll make me a better writer, I think.

I was happy to be back in my own bed with my own bathroom last night. I miss the lovely (too generous) meals and the wonderful group of writers I met, but I'm glad to be home. I think. There's still my plastic crate of writing stuff to be put away but I was just too darned tired last night to tackle it and too darned busy today to do it. I had to go pick up two prescriptions, birdseed and suet nuggets, bananas, blueberries, and lunch food this afternoon so it didn't happen. I'll get to it tomorrow, I'm sure.

After I got home from my errands today, I filled the bird feeders and the horse head squirrel feeder. The birdbath was dry so I filled that too. This morning I had a little birdseed left so I dumped it into the round feeder so the Sparrows and Woodpeckers found it. Hopefully other birds will get the message and the squirrels too.

I'm glad to be home and back talking to you. I hope the latest hurricane didn't hit Fort Myers. 

--Barbara