I’m on holiday! Sort of… 🙂

At this point a four-day weekend feels super exciting, even though I’m spending it in my own house⁠—and much of my time will be spent at the same desk in the same small office I sit in every day while I work on the day job. 🙂 I had four days off in a row a couple of weeks ago, and was surprised to see how much of a difference that small break made. I’m not sure exactly why it was so helpful, but it was oddly rejuvenating to have a long weekend after being in lockdown for ages, even though I didn’t go anywhere. Hopefully this weekend will be the same!

So far I’ve moved bags of dirt around, started to clean my garage, ordered six big clay pots for my patio, and placed an order for plants with a local nursery. I’m waiting for the nursery to call back and confirm exactly what they have, but they did say they have my favorite pepper in stock: Big Jims! I originally planted this pepper a couple of years ago because my dad’s name is Jim. 🙂 It’s now my favorite pepper. It’s not super spicy, but I really like the flavor. It also freezes really well. Last summer I froze a bunch of peppers, and we used the last of that batch in March or April.

Right now my garden has a few herbs that came back: two kinds of thyme, chamomile, chives, Italian oregano (which I like much more than Greek oregano), hyssop, and salad burnet. And borage, which reseeded itself, and which is also growing in the rocks outside of the garden (at least until I pull all that up). Everything else I planted from seed: Swiss chard (2 kinds), kale, endive, lettuce, carrots, beets, radishes, tomatoes (from seeds I harvested myself last year!), and marigolds (also from seeds I harvested, although they were much easier to harvest). I may have a volunteer tomato plant as well.

Writing-wise, I have a novel that’s due by June 12th (ack!!!), a couple of short stories due, and I also want to put together a collection of my own short stories this summer and I’m considering writing a new story or two for that. I’m working on edits for a couple of anthologies, and have a few more anthologies in the works. And there are a couple of other projects I’m involved in that require articles, setting up a website, and other fun things.

Another thing on my list is to start up my newsletter again. It’s been almost 3 years since I stopped sending it out because I “temporarily” got too busy 🙂 and it’s high time I got it going again. Sign up! It’ll be fun! Exciting! And I’m going to include something for free for everyone who signs up! (If you’re already signed up, you will get the free thing too⁠!)

Since I have a four-day weekend, I’m going to make a huge dent in all of this work!

Okay, maybe a little dent… 🙂