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{{ I am chronicling 48 days of writing before my July 31 travel. If you are chronicling your summer writing/days and would like to share, please link or comment so we can all cheer one another through. Strength to your sword arm! }}

Art on the Beltline in Atlanta

Daniel Ballard teaching us about ecological landscaping, with examples along the Beltline.

Lunch afterwards at Krog Street Market. "We belong to a fashion club!" Truth.

Coming along, our own landscape.

Still trying to tame the slope on the side of the yard.

Water management in our yard.

 One of the things I enjoy most about my writing life now is making and having weekends to do something else. I'm still pulled to the writing, and so sometimes I do write, but I spend a lot of time on the weekend doing something else.

I've had so many jobs over the years that required weekend work, and certainly the past 15 years of being a road warrior have meant lots of weekend travel, speaking on a Saturday, flying home on a Sunday, or out on a Sunday in order to be in a school on Monday. I've been grateful for the work.

I am grateful a sabbatical summer, too. This weekend Jim and I took a class on ecological landscaping sponsored by Trees Atlanta, taught along the Atlanta Beltline by Daniel Ballard of Convivial Gardens. We're edging closer to our dream of a largely-edible landscape, where we manage the water flow and invite the birds and the bugs and the flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs to co-habit our small space. 

We met daughter Hannah and son-in-law Richard, the newlyweds, at Krog Street Market afterwards for lunch at Yalla. Falafel all around. Jim went to Auburn, Alabama for a gig with the band, and I set to work organizing my office -- one of those tasks I've set for myself this summer. Made good headway. Cranked up the stereo and listened to the hits of the late sixties -- research for book 3. Yes! Made notes of possibilities.

Jim worked all day Sunday -- gigging all over Atlanta for Father's Day folks -- and I spent most of the day catching up with family. Cousin Carol and I are now watching and texting (she from Mississippi, me from ATL) Poldark on Sunday nights. We've had this Sunday night Masterpiece tradition for years now but the Sunday-night well has been rather dry of late. Poldark: steamy romance novels. Should I read the books? whoo!

And now it's Monday. Rachel has had time to cool, I've lived 1969-in-song for part of the weekend, and I slept in -- on a Monday! Better get with it. Let's make some work goals for the week ahead. Mine:

1. Finish my draft of Rachel.
2. Try a new beginning for book 3 of the '60s project.
3. Finish my office reclamation.
4. Plant anything else that I want planted this growing season (zinnias, I miss you...)
5. Weeding and mulching for exercise and because we need to. Watering, too.
6. Start a new picture book revision.

Yours?

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