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I took this picture last week, but I’m posting it today, because I haven’t uploaded the pictures I took this a.m. when I went out to walk on the beach. It was pretty windy this day. Today, it was still, not much wind at all. But still fabulous.

There was a snowy egret out fishing on the beach. I gave it a wide berth so it wouldn’t fly off, but I wasn’t the only one out walking…still, it seemed pretty calm with 3 or 4 people out and about.

So, the fella and I have had our birthdays. We went to Saltgrass Steakhouse for his birthday and ate steaks, and to Landry’s for mine, where I had shrimp fresca (because I love that stuff) and he had fish. Tilapia, I think. The oil spill hasn’t seemed to interfere with the local shrimping, but I’m wondering if it’s messing with the fishing. Haven’t seen as much snapper or redfish lately… We are still discussing our birthday present. (We usually get One present, because there’s all of 8 days between the two events, and we might as well.) I think we’re going to get a refrigerator. As in, not getting rid of the old refrigerator, but adding one. We have a 30 year old freezer we’re going to retire. (It runs all the time and uses a lot of ‘lectricity.)

The fella has bought himself a pistol. He is taking the class to get himself a license to carry a concealed weapon (it’s legal in Texas to carry concealed, not openly) (If you take the class and get the license), and you have to have a handgun in order to take the class. He’s not taking it because he intends to carry the thing. But at the state capitol, folks with a license can get into the building without having to go through all the metal detectors and searching. (There is a logic to it…) And since the lege is meeting starting in January, and he has to be there frequently during the session, he wants a license. And while he is taking his class, I’m going to visit the parents.

I was talking to them today, telling them I was coming up to visit. I mentioned my daughter by name–and Daddy couldn’t quite remember who she was. He knew she was family, but couldn’t place how she fit in…and was totally embarrassed when I told him. He hasn’t seen her for a year–they live in Pennsylvania and don’t get back to Texas often–but, well, it’s breaking my heart, and I hope we do get them to the end of the year in their own house.

I mentioned before that my mother-in-law loved this shrimp salad from a now closed restaurant. Occasionally, we get a salad that’s sorta similar, but usually, no. So we worked to try to recreate it, and I believe we’ve gotten close. It’s mighty tasty, at any rate. And I’ve promised to share. So here it is.

I started with my leftover shrimp. I had lots. I bought 4 pounds, and we might have eaten half of them. Maybe. This was less than I had for the first salad I made, but still probably more than we really needed. Amounts may be adjusted according to your taste, and to how much shrimp you have/how big a salad you want to make. This makes a great main dish–but the fella likes to have it “on the side” as an actual salad. (I think he’s silly.)

So. Shrimp. At least a pound, boiled (or steamed in the microwave–whatever).

Then, you’ll want: celery (this is the majority of the salad), cucumber, green onion and green bell peppers. I peeled, seeded, chopped and salted the cucumber, (I used a whole one) then put it in this colander to drain. When I made this before, I didn’t do the salt-and-drain thing, and the salad got a little watery. Draining it helped. It takes a while to do all the peeling and chopping, so if you do the cuke first, it’ll have plenty of time to drain.

I used 5 celery stalks for this salad. I used more for the first one I made. The tender heart of the celery is the best in this, but I didn’t use it in this salad. It was still good, and I don’t even like celery, which I may have mentioned before. I like it in this, though.

I used 5 green onions–all of them, end to end. The green parts are really good. And I used about half the bell pepper. I used less in the first salad, and could taste it more in this one. I like bell pepper, so I liked the “more.”

I may go for an “English” cucumber next time. Those are the really long cucumbers sold wrapped in plastic wrap. I think more would have been good, and the English ones are supposed to have fewer seeds and maybe be a little drier. But I just used one whole regular cucumber.

I chopped everything to a fairly small dice, maybe 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. I peeled and chopped the shrimp after I did all the vegetables. It was really pretty, I thought, when I piled it on top like this.

But we are not done. This is not a layered salad. This is a scoop-it-onto-your-plate-in-a-mound salad. It needs the dressing, and then to be all stirred up.

The dressing is like for a tuna or chicken salad. Mostly mayo. (We use real mayo, because of gluten issues.) You have to judge the amount according to how big your salad is. Everything is adjustable in this salad.

I used two big spoonfuls of mayo, and then added another couple of little spoons of sour cream. (This is a big salad, people.) I seasoned it with a little salt and pepper and a good dusting of Cajun seasoning.

I could have used a ton more, and probably still have barely tasted it. I could scarcely taste any spice at all. All those vegetables, I guess. The shrimp are naturally salty, and I did cook them in the Old Bay. But this is a very mild-tasting salad.

You could probably experiment with seasoning–but the vegetables and shrimp are all so cool tasting, I don’t know that you could change that very much.

At this point, I’m sure you know the rest: Stir it all up, and eat it. You might want to stick it in the refrigerator a while to let the flavors blend, but they blend pretty good from the very beginning.

I also imagine that you could do this in a food processor, if you’re careful not to puree things. I think the restaurant had smaller chunks of food, and it did take me a while to chop all this stuff up. (The first time, I had the fella peel and chop the shrimp for me.)

It took us three days to eat all this salad, and there were four of us eating it. Of course, until Monday (Labor Day) lunch, we didn’t eat it as a main dish for the meal.

Yeah, it looks a lot paler, not so pretty and colorful, with the white dressing stirred all into it, but take my word. This is really good stuff.

My foot is almost well. I’ve been out walking the dog twice this week, but I let her walk around the neighborhood with me off leash. She’s been very good about staying with me and not trying to leave the street. I let her out of the backyard the other day to run while I brought the trashcan in, and she was so cute. When I had the can in the back, but the gate still open, she came and peeked around the corner of the house at me, just to double-check I was there, and maybe to see if I was going to make her come back. She saw me look at her, and dashed back to the front yard, in case I might call her. She came back to check on me again, before I got back out front to watch her. She stayed in our yard, except for running across the street to see if Tony (the owner) or Sheba (the dog) were home. Tony loves Dolly the princess pitbull. Sheba tolerates her. So she’s allowed to go in Tony’s yard. As long as she’s a good doggie, I’ll take her walking with me. We both could use the exercise.

So. I’ve been wanting to make that yummy shrimp salad again. I almost bought frozen shrimp at Kroger, but the fresh ones are so much better–and I’ve been in there mornings to see them opening the Exact Same bags of frozen shrimp they have in the freezers and pouring them onto the ice in the “meat market” area. Therefore, this morning, I got in my bus and drove down to the fish market.

Yes, the two markets at Galveston harbor are right next door to each other. And just to the right of Katie’s (where I bought my shrimps) are the shrimp boats. Some of them anyway. More of them are farther east.

We are in Texas. The oil spill has not come this direction. We have had no oil, no dispersants, none of that mess. The seafood here is Just Fine. Excellent, in fact. Just FYI.

Today, I forgot my ice chest. It’s better to take an ice chest with you to buy fish and shrimp, because then you don’t have ice melting on your floorboard while you drive home. Anyway, the first job in fixing shrimp anything is to select your shrimp. In the front, you have your medium sized “head on” shrimp. They’re usually a tad cheaper, but you have to pinch the heads off. (This kind of “pinch” is pronounced “peench” which is the correct Southern pronunciation for something vicious enough to take the head off a shrimp, or make your little brother squeal in church. A pinch of salt is just a “pinch.”)

I hate pinching the heads off shrimp, because they have these poky spine things that stick out in front, and they stab me. Also, I don’t like shrimp hairs. You get a few hairs in de-headed shrimp, but not enough to comb. So, I bought the medium-sized shrimp in the middle–30-35 shrimp per pound. The ones in the back are the extra large (11-15 per pound), but they’re not as good for a shrimp boil, and would require a Lot of chopping for salad. (Also, they’re about $5 more per pound.) The large shrimp didn’t make the picture. They’re about $1 more, and today, they were the pink Gulf shrimp, instead of the “brown” Bay shrimp. They didn’t look enough bigger to make me want them. I bought four pounds, because when I mentioned making shrimp salad, the fella wanted cold boiled shrimp for supper. I mean, if I was going to the fish market anyway, I might as well buy enough for supper too, right?

The first thing you do, whether you’re going to eat them plain, boiled, or make them into a salad (or into enchiladas or sundry other things), is to boil the shrimp.

For this, you need a big pot, with lots of water, some “shrimp boil” (we like Old Bay seasoning), and shrimp.

I like to rinse the shrimp before I put them in the pot to cook. You don’t necessarily have to do this, but I did. You can maybe get a better idea of their size and color in the “rinse” picture. It’s something to do while you wait for the water to boil, and gives you a chance to pick out any stray shrimp hairs that might have got into the bag.

Shrimp don’t take very long to cook. I add the Old Bay (or other) seasoning to the water when I put it on to boil, about a tablespoon for every couple of pounds. The fella likes more, but I think that’s plenty.

You’ll want to get the water to a really big rolling boil, then dump the shrimp in all at once. It will stop boiling, and the shrimp will all sink to the bottom of the pot. You can sort of see them in this picture, despite all the steam. They’re done when they float, and turn pink. Generally, that’s about when the water comes back to a rolling boil, and boils over.

So you have boiling water, and floating shrimp, and they’re pink. It’s time to take them off the heat. Pour them carefully into a colander in the sink–I haven’t burned myself yet in this process, but give me time. This is me. Run some cool water over them–this is problematic here, since our cold water is mostly lukewarm this time of year. Then put them in a bowl–our big one is glass, but plastic works just fine, and metal probably would too.

See how pink they are? Since these shrimp were brownish-gray to start with, they turn a more delicate pink. The Gulf shrimp start out about this pink, and get a really bright pink when they’re cooked. Almost neon.

So then, you pile ice on top of the shrimps and stick them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat them. We love to have people down to visit, because it gives us an excuse to have a shrimp boil. We do “peel-your-own” shrimp dinners. The first time the youngest boy’s girlfriend came to eat with us in Galveston, she had never peeled her own shrimp. We had to teach her how.

The easiest method is to grab their legs and peel one way around the back of the shrimp, taking off as much of the shell as you can. Usually, it breaks off at that tail joint–the one restaurants leave on. Then you take hold of the tail, squeeze that tail joint shell just a bit, and gently pull, to pull all the good meat out of the shell. If that method doesn’t work, just wrestle that sucker off the best way you can. Set out bowls at every place to hold the shells, and have lots of napkins handy. (You can buy bottled cocktail sauce, which I like just fine, or you can mix your own with ketchup, horseradish sauce and mayo.) Corn on the cob goes real well with a boiled shrimp meal, also cantaloupe and sliced tomatoes.

Our youngest grandboy is six. He’s loved shrimp since he got his first ones at his first birthday. He is just now learning how to peel his own, but can’t peel fast enough to suit him. Dad still has to help. His big brother doesn’t like shrimp. (He’s the picky eater in the family.) Won’t touch them. We don’t mind. Just means more for the rest of us.

I’ll take pictures of the salad making when I get there, but this is obviously step 1.

So, I went walking with the dog last Wednesday, because I walk faster when I take her. Except sometimes I walk too fast, and I don’t see all the hazards of the road. And Wednesday, I wasn’t paying attention to a place where the asphalt didn’t cover the whole street, and made a little 2-inch curb. My foot rolled over, sprained itself, and I hit the ground. Rough asphalt made holes in my knees, etc., etc., etc. (There was bleeding.)

So I let the dog off the leash–she got a little running in, but she was very good about coming back home with me. (We hadn’t gone very far before I fell.) I walked back home–I knew the foot was just sprained, not broken, because I could walk on it. The picture–that’s the foot I didn’t sprain. The other foot. It swelled up too, but not as bad as my right foot.

Anyway, I was amazed by the purpleness. The bad foot hasn’t turned purple, but it swelled up pretty good. And hurt a lot. I have been hobbling the last several days, but today it’s better enough I climbed all the stairs to get into the library.

Yes, I know. I need to give up this falling business. It’s no fun. Back to exercising with the Wii.

Not much else to write about. I need to get back to writing this week. I’m kind of in a reading slump, so I need to write.

We’ve had a package at the post office (we use a P.O. Box for most of our mail) waiting to be picked up for better than a week, because nobody could manage to get by there during “window hours.” Finally, the fella went by to get it. It was a box from Harlequin, and I figured one of my old books had been translated into a new language. (Though seemed to me they’ve already hit most of them–Czech, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese (twice for one book), Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. Maybe not Polish yet, or Hungarian–though I’m not sure.)

Anyway, when I opened up the box, there was one book inside. A manga edition of my 2003 book, Her Convenient Millionaire! (Yeah, I didn’t crop the image very well. Oh well.)

They had the beach scene and everything! There were people I don’t remember clearly–I wrote this book well before 2003, in case you didn’t know how slow publishing worked. And they turned it into Manga!

I have another picture to show, but I’m afraid I’ll wind up overlapping them. I haven’t tried to show this many pictures with this new “widescreen” format.

The other picture is from later in the book, after the “romance part” begins. Since this is Japanese manga, the love scenes are R-rated. (“Soft-focus” with upper body nudity. Does it count, since it’s just pen and ink?)

I also have a picture of a couple of the grandboys taken while they were visiting. I’m not sure who took the picture, because I did not pick my camera up Once the whole time they were here. (I know. I’m going to lose all my “good Gigi” credentials.) The boy in the picture took more pictures with my camera than I did. Pictures of his stuffed cow, and the electronic photo frame, and a fuzzy blanket. He did take a picture of his cousin. Pretty good one, except the kid had his hand in front of his face. Silly boys.

I want to do some recipes in a blog soon, but I want to take pictures of the process, which means I need to fix them again. For years and years, there was a restaurant the in-laws just loved up in Fort Worth, which served a chopped shrimp salad– Not salad greens with a few shrimp tossed on top, but tons of shrimp and celery and other chopped-up things so thick they served it in a mound, like it had been shaped in a bowl and turned upside down. Shrimp in every bite. We loved that salad. And when the restaurant closed, spent ages trying to figure out how to make it.

Well, I think we finally figured it out. When the family was down, we had a shrimp boil. (That’s one reason we have company. So we have an excuse to go buy shrimp from the fish market and eat cold boiled shrimp.) And we had leftover shrimp. And the dairy allergic boys can’t eat shrimp enchiladas. (We have three gluten-free eaters, two of whom are also allergic to dairy (one only mildly so, and one extremely so), and one additional non-dairy person in the family. It’s kinda nice that there are enough people to have double menus…) Anyway, with all the dairy allergies, we decided to make shrimp salad instead. So, one day soon, I will cook some more shrimps and make the salad, and post pictures with the recipe. And that’s just one I want to share…

It’s August in Texas. That means it’s hot. Very hot. Extremely hot. As in– folks would pay a visit to hell because it’s bound to be cooler there hot. And the daughter, s-i-l and grandson came down for a week from Pennsylvania last week.

We did some beach going. The Dallas grandboys came down so the cousins could have a little time to play together. We went to “Slitherbahn.” It was no harder keeping up with the autistic kid than the other two–they all wanted to run off and do their own thing.

The second time we went to the beach, there were itchy things in the water. We thought at first it was seaweed–but there was less seaweed (sargasso) than the first time, so maybe not. Then we fished some of the itchy things out of our swimsuits. It looked a little like tiny speargrass–maybe the size of a mustardseed. Round, with spiny things sticking out, and kind of clear, but not. Then, I got to wondering if it might be alive in a different way–like maybe tiny baby jellyfish or something… About this time, the daughter pulled out another one of the itchy things and looked at it–and yelps because it has pinchers moving around. Pinchers! Like maybe crab claws. Like the itchy things were tiny, transparent, baby crabs.

I have since looked up crabs and such, and apparently blue crabs (and possibly others) have a tiny, mustard-seed-sized, transparent phase. There are many blue crabs in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as stone crabs and others. So we all had (probably) tiny little crabs up our swimsuits. Needless to say, we did not stay in the water long for our second trip. (The water wasn’t as warm either… Not like bathwater trip earlier.)

We also went for a ride on the Galveston-to-Bolivar Peninsula ferry. It’s free, and if you walk on, you don’t have to wait in line. There’s a high observation deck where you can go inside and stay cool in the a/c, or you can go outside and stand in the wind (strong enough to knock me down that day) which helps with the heat, and watch for dolphins.

And we saw them. On the Bolivar side, there must have been a big school of fish, because the birds were swarming the spot. And so were the dolphins.

Too many to count–we guessed we saw somewhere around 20-plus. They were moving too fast to count all of them–and yes, it was obvious that it was that many different dolphins. They don’t move that fast. And they were all sizes, including some obvious babies. I saw them jumping out of the water–I saw a trio horsing around, with their noses up out of the water–head up type jumping, and some of the others with bigger-than-usual curving jumps, so their entire bodies came up out of the water, not just their breathing holes and fins. It was SO COOL. I have never ever seen that many dolphins at once.

Most of them surfaced in pairs or trios. I actually have never seen a dolphin swimming alone. I guess they follow the “buddy system.” (You know, like Boy and Girl Scouts–you never swim alone, always have a buddy, and always know where your buddy is.) It did make us wonder whether we had more dolphins because of the oil spill, because we haven’t had any oil “upstream” of the Gulf current. The picture is not one we took. I forgot my camera. In fact, I did not take A Single Picture the whole time the grandkids were here. (I know. I may lose my “good granny” status. But I was busy playing with them!) The daughter may have gotten some pictures. I hope so, but they were kind of far away, so maybe not.

I have a new computer, but since I’m on jury duty this week, I’m having trouble getting everything loaded and set up. Sigh. But I’m working on it.

I spent all morning today in a county courtroom for the jury questioning (voir dire), knowing I wouldn’t get picked, because I was sitting on the last row. I’m still apparently “on call.” I have to call a phone number when I get home to see if they need me tomorrow. If I make it through till Friday, I’m off duty. Wish me luck.

I said I was going to go, I went–didn’t even have any cell phone access for texting, unless I walked out of the cabin and waved my phone around near the cars–and now I’m back to tell you all about it.

The picture is of a central Texas river, not where we stayed–although the Bosque River flows through Valley Mills. But there was a cattle-watering pond, known as a tank pretty much throughout Texas, just outside the back door with overhanging trees and banks that looked a lot like this. The water had a lot of duckweed in it, and the water level was about 2 feet down from when we were there in the spring, but it was just as clear as this, when you could see around the weeds. Lots and lots of dragonflies.

Which we didn’t see much of. It was hot as blue blazes–around 100F (38C) when I was driving out there. The cabin had air conditioners, and this was supposed to be a working weekend. We stayed in the cool as much as possible. Took three or four walkabouts around the cabin or along the drives in when we just couldn’t sit any more. And yes, we ate LOTS of fruit salad. Friday night, B went over her notes for the novella she was working on and did some tweaking, while I went through my research book which I dug out and brought with me so I could be sure what I wanted to do corresponded with what was really happening.

Saturday, we got up, had breakfast, and started writing. That’s pretty much the whole weekend, actually. Every so often, I would get stuck, and we would talk out what I’d got stuck on. Mostly, it was me interrupting B, but once or twice she wanted to talk something out. Saturday night, we had a big salad at the cabin, then did some plotting for two ideas I had, then talked some more about B’s story. Then we got out the Tarot cards and did a little reading on her characters and suchlike. Sunday, we got and wrote, had lunch and wrote, and then went home. We got to stay a little later, since the new people weren’t coming out to the C-Bar till Monday, and we took advantage by writing.

I came home with 20 pages, which is the most I’ve ever done in two days. Also a bad case of butt fatigue. The book still isn’t finished, but I’m a lot closer. There may be only one big scene left. I think this book is going to need an epilogue. Deal with it. I have my fingers crossed. I have also written some both days so far this week. I think I can keep that up, until all the relatives come. Which is Saturday.

We will have ALL the grandboys here. For a few days, anyway. Also, their parents. =8^O

We all have them. Sometimes they are coping mechanisms for dealing with difficult people, or for doing things we don’t want to do, like housework. There are all kinds of coping mechanisms. The little spiral notebook I carry around with me is a coping mechanism for getting the stuff done that I keep forgetting to do, like remind the fella to refill my windshield wiper fluid. (Living on the coast requires gallons and gallons of the stuff–I don’t know if it’s the salt in the air or what, but I have to wash my windshield off nearly every morning.)

So–I blogged a couple of weeks ago about keeping on, and being a slug and how I ought to cut myself a little slack. Well, I have been. I have been slacking up, down and sideways. I am ALL about the slack.

Which is where the coping mechanism comes in. I am so good at slacking, that my friend B asked if I needed a writer’s weekend to make myself finish this stinkin’ book. (I am Soooo close to the end.) (Well, maybe not quite that much…) (but almost)

With the daughter coming, and jury duty lurking not far beyond that, I wasn’t sure I could get away–then I realized that I had THIS weekend free. B and I have not yet discovered a cheap place between our two cities, so we are going back to Valley Mills and the dude ranch with its plywood-walled cabin to write all weekend. Time away from the world and its expectations so I can make myself write.

I am taking a folding chair. The chairs in this place are Hard. It’s August, in Texas, and while I think this place has a window unit a/c, it’s still bound to be hotter than blue Hades (which you know is hotter than regular Hades…) Maybe I will take a fan. We have fans.

I have bought chips and dip and fruit and cookies and Coke Zeros (vanilla and plain). Tonight I will cut up fruit (hence the picture above) and put the Coke Zeros in the fridge to get cold, and I will pack. (Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of fruit salad with no kiwis in it? My salad will have none. Nor will it have watermelon, though I wanted some, because all those other people on the island bought them. It will have cantaloupe and honeydew melons, grapes, strawberries and pineapple. Also maybe peaches.) Tomorrow, I will go to work in the a.m. so I can get out of town early (before bad Houston traffic). Then I will go home and load the ice chest and the car, and buy gas, and lunch to eat in the car, and I will drive to Valley Mills. And when I get there, I will write.

So. Now I have put it down in electrons on the Interwebs. I have to do it, because y’all will know if I don’t. One way or the other, I will get the writing done. I have pulled out one of my coping mechanisms. But, boy, am I glad I’m not on an actual deadline…

I have the midsummer blahs. Even though it’s not midsummer, whether one calculates by the sun (which makes midsummer June 21 or so), or by dividing in half the number of days off between the end of school and the beginning of school in the fall. Either way, we’re closer to the end than to the beginning of summer. I don’t know whether that makes me nostalgic, desperate or just tired. Maybe all three.

Anyway, we’ve gone up to Dallas for a birthday party, we’re home again, and I’m having a whole lot of trouble getting motivated to Do Anything. Alas.

It’s not just the writing that’s been left gasping by the wayside. Pretty much everything else is too. Exercise, cooking, shopping for groceries–I just want to be a slug and read, or maybe sleep. Sigh. Gradually, I am forcing myself to get things done. I went to the grocery store yesterday. I’ve folded most all the laundry (except for what is still in the dryer, and the fella doesn’t really need his underwear that bad–he has more). I do go outside and comb the granddog. (She has short pit-bull fur, but likes to be combed, cause it scratches her itches.) But she will let me sit on the glider and read while I comb/scratch her. (When I scratch her, my fingers come away with dirt on them, she gets so dirty. And yes, she gets baths. And immediately goes to dig/roll in the dirt and replace her dirt.)

Anyway, yes, I am a tired slug who is doing as little as possible and feeling terribly guilty for it, but not enough to stop being a slug. I’m wallowing in my slugness. It IS easy being a slug, and I like it. So there. I may have to take a “writers weekend” to finish this dang book. I could definitely stand to escape to Valley Mills or some other similar place for a few days. Even though I just did… Ah well. Hopefully I’ll be able to scrape the slug coat off soon.

Those of you who check in periodically with my blog may have noticed how I’ve really been fighting to get the current Work in Progress finished.

This is different from the fight with the previous book. That fight began because I was trying to put two books’ worth of plot into one, and because I had 50 bazillion relatives (okay, only 25) show up in town the month I was trying to get the book finished. I think I may have mentioned on this blog that I wondered whether it was more of a psychological struggle than an actual “work time” struggle. That I’ve had this book living in the background of my life for so long (years) that I’m ambivalent about actually finishing it and sending it out into the cold cruel world. That doesn’t mean it’s any less frustrating.

Anyway, over the weekend, I went to a workshop/writer’s retreat event. I had planned to go with my best buddy Belinda, but she had to stay home and take care of grandbabies while their mama was in the hospital. I thought about canceling when she couldn’t come, but decided no, I really needed to go, even though the grandboys were in town all week, and I went to Slitherbahn on Thursday and wore myself out and had to get up really early on Friday to get all the way across Houston to the event… Yes, that is a long-ass sentence. Deal. End result is, I went, and I was glad.

It was structured with workshops in the morning, and writing time in the afternoon, and yes, I did have to lie down on the sofa where I was writing and take a little naplet so I didn’t fall asleep over the writing. Afternoons are not my best writing time. But I wrote. And I listened. And I took an appointment with the creativity coach person, Kathryn Lorenzen. Her reaction was that–yes, you may be resisting the end of this book. Because I’m dealing with an awful lot of transitions and things right now, including my youngest graduating from college. It may be easier to send him out into the world if I hang onto the book I’ve been “raising.” Basically, I need to be nicer to myself, while still showing up to work as close to every weekday as I can.

And, even though I had my naplet every afternoon I was there, I got about 3 pages written every day I was there. Maybe a little more. I pushed through a lot of the “buildup” stuff, and started getting excited about reaching the ending. And in my writing this week, I think I’m there. My hero has had his plane shot down. He’s been captured. The heroine is sailing her little sailboat closer. She’s had a fight with her dead husband. Things are happening, and I’m hoping I can get this all wrapped up, 100-plus words at a time, before the daughter, son-in-law and grandson come to visit in August.

Wish me luck.