National Novel Writing Month

In an effort to kickstart my writing again, I have decided to participate in this month's National Novel Writing Month. I've wanted to do it for years, but have always looked at the month of November and thought 'You want me to add MORE to November?' ..and then run away screaming.

This November is no different than any other - there are choir concerts, Thanksgiving, and end of semester craziness. But I have been craving a regular writing schedule. Something to drive me to express myself with regularity, so NaNoWriMo seemed like a great way to foster that in myself. We have plans in place to start writing another Pick Your Plot book, and I am also hoping that by participating in NaNoWriMo I can prime my brain to create some quality content for that. 

Though I don't anticipate that what I write for this will be suitable for public consumption, I did think it would be fun to share some bits with you all. So at the very least, I hope to post on here my last line of each day. I do not guarantee quality :) But hope you will enjoy the snippets. 

My theme is 100 Memories. The memories will be a mix of my real memories and imagined ones, as well as maybe rewriting some memories as to how I wish they'd really ended. This promises to be quite the introspective activity. So here goes, my first 'last line' of #NaNoWriMo 2013:

"Is it by loving others that I will ensure that my eyes sparkle despite being shadowed by a wrinkled face? And is it shadow, or shelter?"

Six Word Saturday

Cinnamon breakfast puffs are sometimes food.

In a break from our usual gluten free habits, this morning I made these cinnamon-sugar breakfast puffs. They're pretty much just like eating donut holes, and are definitely sometimes food. Super rich and sugary, not something we need in our regular food rotation. But man, they hit the spot today!

This post is part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop. Stop by showmyface.com to join the fun!

Six Word Saturday!

Busy couple weeks equals slacking blogger.

I hit one of those periods where there was so much going on, much of it stuff I'd normally post, but didn't have the extra energy to say anything here. Only four more weeks of my busy season...

Thankfully my garden creates its own energy - it's going gangbusters! Soon we will have SO MUCH zucchini and loads of tomatoes. Can't wait!

Tomorrow the list gets posted for WRiTE CLUB. I did manage to get a pretty solid submission in, but it sounds like the initial selection has been really tough, so I'm crossing my fingers in hopes of making it into the actual competition. Otherwise it will be great to cheer others on. I've missed my blogging community with all the busy'ness this summer!

I did run my first road race since my foot injury two and a half years ago! One mile, downhill, on the 4th of July. Here's excited me before the race. My ability to run again has certainly felt like freedom, so it seemed appropriate to do a race on the 4th.

What have y'all been up to? (hey that's six words too!)

This post is part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop. Stop by showmyface.com to join the fun!

Oops! Missed 6WS!

Here is my belated Six Word Saturday post! Two sentences, for good measure:

Giant ponderosa pine smelled like butterscotch.

Duh, I'm a tree hugging hippie!

This post is part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop. Stop by showmyface.com to join the fun!

Garden update!

See how level it is?

One of the wonderful things we created at our home this year is a backyard veggie garden. The yard has a little hill in it, so it was quite a bit of work to lay the boards so they were flat. Lots of digging, a little frustration but we finally got it to look like this:

And afterwards I looked like this:

We've had stuff in there for almost exactly a month, and boy is it growing! This is the whole garden. The tall green plants along the fence are tomatoes and green peppers, with beans starting to climb the trellises.

Strawberries reaching for the sun and more dirt. Lots of runners.

And now, with plants!

Happy lettuce!

Mint (top), rosemary (right) and either a cucumber or zucchini plant (left) - maybe should have marked those :)

These are the raspberries we planted under our aspens last year. They've gone gangbusters! My goal is for them to take over that bed. Well on our way!

Also, a hay bale. 

I'm so glad we got all that hay for mulch. While it did have some seeds in it, we've found that a nice thick layer of hay keeps them from growing. It's nice to not really have to weed. Don't really have time for much of that this summer. 

There is also a little rhubarb plant in the other corner of the yard, and some asparagus (though those haven't come up at all - perhaps they are dead?). We had a couple leaves of lettuce on our hamburgers last week and they were oh, so good. Tender young ones.. Mmmm... Can't wait for more to come in!

Six Word Saturday!

Battened down hatches just weren't enough.

Sometimes no matter how you prepare, there's no way to control the chaos. This was one of those weeks - we did so much prep but there were just too many moving parts. Some didn't want to move in the same direction, so we ended up scrambling to fix things. Turned out well enough in the end, but boy am I exhausted! Glad to have today to rest and play in my garden - tomorrow is our biggest check-in day of the summer.

I decided to join Write Club, which I'll do a longer post about later. But, if you're a writer and want to throw 500 words into the ring, I encourage you to check it out!

This post is part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop. Stop by showmyface.com to join the fun!