End of Summer!

Saturday my husband and I were walking through our back yard, and I mentioned to him that we were nearing the end of summer.  The end of long warm nights and summer flowers.  The time when kids get ready to go back to school, and we struggle to regain some kind of schedule.  Some years this is a hard time for me because I love summer! I like to be able to go outside in bare feet. I like to hear the sprinklers and watch my garden go from nothing, to full out explosion of green and yummieness.  It is true that after three months of summer my kids are a little bit on edge, and there are days they drive me crazy, but I love the smell of their hair when they come in from playing all day, all warm and smelling like the sun.  Or how they look covered in Popsicle, after swimming in the pool. These are the memories I won't easily forget.

Still a schedule is something I crave.  I would like to get up in the morning and have my day planned down to the hour.  I work so much better when I know what is happening and when it is going to happen rather than wandering around wondering what I should do next.  I look forward to getting everyone to school and having two or more hours to work on what I want to work on. I look forward to two hours of writing when no one needs me to do anything, and I can really get in deep to the story instead of stopping to help someone get a drink, or turn on a TV show.  Don't get me wrong, I love to spend time with my kids, but school offers me time to be me.

Anyway, I was walking in my beautiful back yard thinking about how much fun we have had this summer, almost wishing it wouldn't end but I realized that is the ebb and flow of life.  We have days in the sun, and days when it is almost to cold to do anything.  Right now my children are young and spending long days at the pool with cousins is part of the living process.  School will start and we will move on from Summer of 2013, but somethings never leave you.  So here we go school year 2013, bring on the homework, fall leaves, Halloween, apple cider, and snow boots, I'm ready!

Best Laid Plans!

You have heard it before, "The best laid plans of mice and men!" Well that was camp Nano for me last month. I wanted a reason to write every day, but I didn't take into account all the other things that I needed to do last month.  While I did get a good start on my Nano book I ran into problems along the way, and needless to say, I was not successful.

There have been times in my writing career that I have found myself unsuccessful and it had managed to get me down. There was a time when the reviews on one of my books made me want to give up all together. I didn't take into account that people have every right to express their opinion, and I just needed to take what they were saying and learn from it. Sometimes our success only come from our failures.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend the week up at Girls Camp. Monday through Friday I spent all my time with wonderful leaders and a huge group of amazing girls. We did crafts, talked, laughed, hiked and stayed up way to late. Wednesday when we went on our hike I found myself struggling to make it down the mountain. I had been up since 4:00 am and I was tired!  A sweet girl walked with me and kept me company, and we had a good conversation. I told her about the last time I hiked that particular hike, and I came across snail making its way down the path. I told her how I picked the snail up to look at it the put it back up on the mountains side so it wouldn't get stepped on. It didn't occur to me until later that I might have set the poor thing back several days worth of work. It reminded me an awful lot about how life can set us back when we already felt like we put in so much work. I couldn't help but point this out to my hike companion, and she managed to change my perspective on everything in a few short sentences.

She was quick to remind me that sometimes a set back is really just giving us a head start on something else. I may have felt like I was moving that snail away from his goal, but maybe I moved him closer to something that would be of more help to him at that time.  I don't know about the snail, but there are times when my setbacks really have been the beginning of something I never would have imagined.  I hope from now on I can learn and grow from the frustrations I face in my life and use them to boost me in a better direction.  I hope that for all of you too.  Happy reading, and or writing and know you can do great things!