This, too, shall pass. It’s always the beginning. And it’s augmented this year by helping two other teachers. I rejected the offer that I take over the site ELD lead yesterday or the day before, and I’m hoping they find another sucker someone else, and it doesn’t come back to bite me.

Writing? Yeah. So not yet this week. I’m waiting for the posse to do what they do best and kick my @ss.

In other news, the eldest child turns 28 today. Currently there is a new (to me, which most likely means recently purchased) tent in my living room with a dead body inside. The dead body did shift position when Harley took offense at the tent.

Apparently tents in living rooms are the horrific equivalents of balloons in entry ways and Camelbaks left to hang dry in kitchen windows. Which means the terror alerts are high and the world must be warned. By barking.

Lots of barking. Which increased once Zoey entered the mouth of the monster and curled up in a corner.

ZOMG. Zombie tents!!! Mom! Mom! It ate her!

So I had to stand, escort Harley over to the dead child, who invited him in with a weak flap of his hand on his thigh, and Harley joined the ranks of the sleeping dead.

In that monster tent.

Which is no longer much of a threat, because hey! It’s a large dog bed. With room for a single human in his pack.

At least all the dog hair is contained this morning.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am. Petra and the Nabataeans were the inspiration for Tattoos. Gotta love a desert culture who manages to run piped water throughout their city. Anyway, I’ve got to add grapes and wall paintings now.

School is going well, so far. We’ll see how that progresses as the year goes on. Every year has challenges. This one’s no exception.

Writing, zip. See above for why.

Finally, the PC is giving me grief with its CPU running at 100% constantly. I was blaming Norton for the excess, but the next step (after running Spybot just to make sure) is to verify my fans are all working.

Technology. Can’t live with it or without it.

The little dogs arrived yesterday for a visit and some dogsitting. All was well–until the baby (who is not so much the baby now) decided to chew on Harley’s ears, and Harley felt the need to dominate her. Whereupon she hid in all the tiny places she could (under my rocker, under the family room chest, under the table in a wee corner) and Harley barked and barked and barked. I should have kept her in protective custody the entire time. (She went in Zoey’s crate for a while and it all settled down, but her little yips got to me.

Stupid me. Yips vs. barking–there’s no comparison. The middle child arrived finally, got in Harley’s face, and it all stopped. Mostly because Harley had exhausted himself.

Zoey, smart thing, stayed at the eldest child’s girlfriend’s house all day. I wish I could have run away.

What was I trying to say when I wrote the first draft of this short?

Yeah, it’s about escaping male dominance. I couldn’t miss that one even if I tried. And yeah, I had set the penultimate scene in the wrong place.

Bless Dru. We sat and generated possibilities. (Oh, I say we… she generated. I took note on my two 3×3″ sticky notes.) The very first words out of her mouth was that Beryl had to reject Jasper–not the other way around.

OH. D’OH.

So now I’ve got to decide if the Baron succeeds in his attempt to collect her–briefly? Or not? And since he’s got a very cool home filled with clockwork and automatons, I’m thinking hell yes.

Gotta trust that hind brain who is slathering (as much as it ever does) over that image.

Back to school this morning for more organizing. Laminated everything in the world yesterday and then cut the bits all apart. Early this morning–before I had to get up by a significant period of time, so that I couldn’t drop off easily back to sleep–I remembered the crayons. Paper crayons of eleven various colors that I slap color word stickers on and send home each week when we hit that color.

Guess what I’m doing today.

I may have a class list by the end of today. We’re up to 24 kids, and one more will add a K-1 class, so I’m really really hoping we get that one child. So I’m holding off printing labels until Friday or so–there are always changes. Always.

Kind of like that first draft of mine.

No writing the past day or two. Why?

School head. Kind of like bed head, except the brain is mussed rather than your hair. I’m really here a week earlier than I need to be, but I’ve been enjoying the classroom slowly taking shape. I have one set of bulletin boards to go in terms of walls, toys to put out, and some closet organization.

Oh, and lamination–which is now running through my head like a Tom Lehrer song: Laminate, laminate, laminate. (I also just lost thirty minutes because it reminded me I still wanted the paper crayons I’ve used every year and I had to run off and search them out. Bad brain.)

And in between gluing/prep my head is pinging me on the short story I’m trying to unmuddle or reminding me of the next chore in my Take Back the House world domination scheme.

There are reasons why I limit my creative activities. Too many and the brain is a ping-pong ball.

For the record, I have wrestled the dining room table away from the clutchy fingers of the Spousling and shoved his possessions back into the office. Day 2 of a completely cleared tabletop. Side benefit–he is invisibly slowly working on organizing the office. If I could do it, I would throw everything out. (Unlike my mother who gives things to children–I am now the proud possessor of a 50′s vintage whiskey bottle with a little Scotsman who dances to a tune when you wind him up. How do you say no to your mother? I don’t even care that it belonged to my grandfather. I do believe it’s going on eBay.)

Also, I have moved the dog brush within grabbing range so I can swipe at Zoey as she runs past. In the past two days I’ve removed several hamsters-sized fists of fur, which are in the trash versus, say, on my floor.

Pwogwess. In vewwy tiny incwements.

Erm. Not exactly. We’re running a two-week kindergarten boot camp and I am the only one not teaching. They only needed two classes, and really, summers are for playing. And prepping. For hours.

The house is slowly sliding into the acceptable range. This is what happens when I leave for the better part of a week. Zoey (the husky) took on the job to develop multiple layers of hair everywhere, the better for me to rake. I managed to remove 1/4 cup of fur this morning as I scritched her ears. That’s 1/4 cup that won’t be joining its brothers and sisters.

Today, school involves painting. Just a top coat on a bookcase. I’m debating about painting the backside of another, and whether it should be white or blue. I refuse to buy any more paint. I’m thinking it’s going to be blue if I do flip that bookcase over, because I won’t have to wash the roller twice.

(Yes, I’m lazy. Although I prefer to call it prudent.)

Writing last night was more about beginning the rearrangement of the short story parts, rather than actually accomplishing it. I did cut the sections needing moving out, and I’m currently working on hiding the holes. I do wish that I could figure out the correct plot order before I write, rather than say, in the middle of the process.

But hey. I’m grateful that I figured out I planted the climactic scene too soon. On my own. Without the Posse telling me. Some day I will be able to plot my way out of a paper bag.

But for now it’s all about shower, vacuum, and school. I want to be back on this side of the valley by 3ish–so I can add exercise and more vacuuming into my day.

(Like there’s not enough of that around here. If the dogs weren’t terrified of the vacuum-it’s on the lines of small children being fascinated/terrified by water swirling down the drain or the toilet–swear to god, I’d deal with the cause rather than the effect and start by vacuuming them.)

Yeah. Bulletin boards, today. And rehanging everything I took down so that walls could be washed. (Not too sure that actually happened, you know? Never has before in 24+ years.) Maybe some cabinet organizing, too. I never seem to have enough time for that.

And I’m putting away everything I bought in the past couple of weeks. There’s been no money for toys in forever (back years ago, I had $250 a year, but that’s a nice memory) and the building things–Legos, beads, other stuff needed some augmenting.

(*woosh* That’s the sound of money whizzing right past you.)

Actually my favorite purchase were paint brushes. Haven’t had those in forever either, but I found them online in a Canadian office supply place. Thirty-six flat, size 20 brushes for $25, including shipping. I ordered them last Wednesday; they were on my doorstep Friday. And the shipping was only $7.50 or so for that delivery.

I’m only there five hours today. Yeah, it’s early, but I’m breaking myself in slowly. Frex, I didn’t drag myself out of bed until 7:40A. That’s not going to fly in a couple of weeks. I’m going to have to shift my day around, and I’m sure that not being able to sleep on unfamiliar beds (ah, the joys of travel) had something to do with it. (Well, that and accidental caffeinated coffee consumption at 4 in the afternoon.)

And we return to the novel tonight. As KellyM mentioned yesterday, we only have 88 87 days left before WFC.

I should be able to rewrite the other 2/3 of the novel in that time.

Huh. Maybe I should do the math before I make that claim.

36k rewritten in 6 weeks.

*collapses in a puddle of words*

I should be able to whip that right out, yes?

One would hope. Luckily, I’ve the house to myself this morning because my friend has zipped off to work and won’t return until this afternoon. After my workout and a quick trip to the bank to replace a debit card I stupidly convinced myself to cut up, it’ll be all about the writing all the time.

Even with the coffee application, I’m still running on stupified this morning. Dagnabit.

Yesterday, I had lunch with KellyM at a lovely place in Pleasant Hill, and it was like a teeny tiny con as we chatted about writing. Yes, we do this regularly over Skype, too, but somehow a restaurant, food, and face-to-face interactions make it more… oh, real.

So the last huzzah of vacation continues.

Monday is going to be a real slap in the face when I hit the classroom and actually have to, you know, WORK.

Eesh.

Which I did. It was difficult to get back into it, but I tweaked all the places Jenni said needed tweaking and moved on. There was a big jump to this scene, but I can’t imagine what of any interest happened between the last scene and this one, so. Jump, it shall be.

I’m also not certain why Benim wants Kalim, and before I write more of this section, I’ll have to nail that down firmly. What I do know is that Benim’s a spy for the enemy, and you’d think that would be enough, but nooooooo.

I also have to figure out time for everyone. This is a sticky process at the moment, since it feels as though Kalim’s time is passing faster than everyone else’s for me. Or maybe it’s because he’s moving and the other main characters aren’t going anywhere physically.

Eesh. These novels. Here, have the newest version of the opening.

Kalim, arms laden, scuffed the sandy expanse of the monastery’s courtyard as he crossed. Another day closer to his acceptance date. Another day nearer to the worst possibility—never being elected soul-bearer and never leaving the monastery. More than anything, he wanted to see the world. To explore.

The sails flattened, men swarmed the rigging, and the ship skidded to a halt a few yards from the monastery walls.

Now off to figure out how close the latest fire in Kern County (Bull Fire, 4500 acres last night with 500 personnel, 7 water-dropping helicopters and 7 air tankers) is to my middle child’s Boy Scout camp. A text did get out to say they all were fine, but they have no power or phonelines. I’m not sure how a text managed to overcome these hurdles, but I’m grateful, and I’m hoping he doesn’t have to evacuate the camp like they did when he was 15 or so and flames crowned the hills above them. (Yeah, he got sent to prepare the evacuation site in Porterville for 300-500 kids. Gotta love the Scouts. If you’re ready for leadership, then, by gum, you get it. In spades.)

See that white speck at the bottom? That’s the car ahead of us on US15. Amazing what the power of water with centuries to spare can do.