1.  On the 4th we went to our small community parade.  At the end, it's a water parade and everyone gets into this major water fight.  It's a blast!  Then we celebrated that evening with DH's family, which was really cool because his nephew and wife that lived with us for one summer in Denver was visiting from Arizona and his nephew who is battling cancer got to be there.  It was a great day, and I'm so grateful for all my blessings and my freedom.
And yes, I took one float picture -- I couldn't resist and knew I had to post it for brian_ohio  even though his blog is on an official hiatus :(


2.  This week I've been working a lot on revisions of previous novels and writing my WIP -- except it seems I keep coming back to this one scene in my WIP and rewriting it.  I've got about 5 versions of the same scene now and can't decide which is better.  This character could easily react different ways if pushed, hence the different versions.  I think I'm feeling insecure about myself as a writer.  I've read some really awesome stuff by many of my lj friends and others the past two weeks (kudos to olmue  for one -- her ms was super amazing) and I'm doing that icky comparison thing that comes as human nature.  I know all I can do is my best and hope it's enough, but still . . .
I am truly inspired by you guys and your talents.  You all make me want to be better!    I've had fun working on the revisions even if I feel in a bit of a Groundhog Day rut with my WIP.  :)

3.  I ran into one of my Colorado friends here on Tuesday.  It was so fun to see her!  And such a surprise! Then on Wednesday morning, my son's best friend growing up (since they were like 4) came with his family to stay with us.  I only got to visit with his mom for about an hour or so because they still had a long drive back to Colorado ahead of them that day...but it was lovely.  I miss her.  She is also one of my best friends.  And I keep looking at my son's friend and sighing.  I told him I feel like I should hug him everytime I see him (luckily, he's a very good natured teenager and knows me well -- he just grins and says it's a mom thing).  Then today, my dear friend robinellen is off to ALA.  I'd really hoped to join her but it didn't work out for me (long before my son's friend decided to come).  I'm so very excited for her and hope she has a great time.  But as much as I want to go meet all of you that are there and some of my favorite lj authors and get new ARCs (which I really, really wanted to do), honestly, more than anything, I wanted to go just to see Robin.
So to sum it up...I've been quite homesick this week.  I really miss all my great Colorado friends...which seems kind of odd to be homesick when I am in theory home.  :)  But just know I'm thinking of you and so grateful to have such awesome friends.  Hope all you ALAers have a blast.

4.  Summer!  I love the freedom of summer.  Yesterday, we just blew everything off, went swimming with cousins and friends, BBQd with my family (my sister and neice are in town from Florida), played night games with all the kids outside in the neighborhood...and just enjoyed summer!  I feel a field trip coming on...I need to go see what fun things we can do next week.

Hmm, I guess I only really have four this week.  I should change my title to Friday Four. 

5.  DH is off traveling again . . . gone for several weeks.  Maybe I'll actually finish my WIP and my valances (blushes, I've had the fabric for a year).  But ah, here's my number 5...I did finish getting the wild jungle known as my yard all ripped out, mulched, planted and whipped into shape this week (it was the project on the burner as soon as I finished camp).  So success!  Ha!  I guess now it's kind of a Friday Six!  Wish I'd taken some before pictures so that an after picture would mean something.  Oh well.

I'll stop while I'm ahead and don't completely bore you.

Enjoy your weekend!

1) I had the most fascinating dream last night. It was almost mind boggling (I realize that doesn't take much for me though :) )

To understand how this dream came about, you probably need some background. This week I read fandoria's amazing novel. I finished yesterday morning. It really got me thinking about my characters and itching to write again (yay!). I sent out my comments to her last night five minutes after I should have been at a dress rehersal for a church drama I'm in for the women in our area. So I spent the next four hours at this dress rehersal.

The drama is a garden party where the first president of the women's organization welcomes and visits with each of the following presidents up to the current president. There's musical numbers and each of the presidents talks about something important that she did during her time serving as president. Anyway, I'm one of the presidents in this little production we're doing for all the women tomorrow. (And no, I don't sing or act, so I'm simply doing this because I love the person who asked me, lol).

So last night, I dreamed about a garden party. But I wasn't the host (I played the interesting role of fly on the wall) but one of my mc's from my very first novel was the host. I sat back and watched as characters from my various novels interacted and talked about their stories with fandoria's characters. I swear, I tried to ask a few questions, but they would not cooperate. I simply watched and learned and tried not to wake up (weird as that sounds).

It was one of the most fascinating things I've ever experienced especially since I can still recall it. A few things really stood out to me. One being that I really want to rewrite my first novel after I reread the very first version. One of fandoria's characters kept telling this host that I had it right the first time and I should try going back to the original pov and age of my mc. Is that so weird or what? (OK, please don't report me, I don't think I'm psychotic). So I need to dig up that first version and hope I still have a copy...and read it. Anyway, this was so cool, I had to share.

2) My oldest daughter's friend has been staying with us for a week. Tonight is her last night. I think we'll have a movie party. It's been fun but also very hectic. This friend will be moving to Japan in June and so it was really fun for my daughter to have her while her parents were out of town.

3) My son is taking 3 AP tests. His first one is this morning. I think he'll do great but he was nervous.

He also scored two goals back to back at his soccer game Wed. night. And it just so happened that he played the high school's head coaches private team (yeah, I think it's wrong that he's allowed to coach a private team because the only ones that make the high school team are the kids who played on his private team). Anyway, my son's team shut out the coaches team 3-0 and my son scored the last two goals. To say he was psyched is an understatement. He loves his team and is the first to admit that he enjoys it more than he would playing with the high school because there are awesome kids and coaches that the boys love (no one -- not even the parents of players or players on the school team even remotely like the hs coach)...but I could tell there was immense satisfaction in scoring TWICE against this coaches ELITE team (next year's hs team, ha!) after the coach wouldn't even look at my son because he hadn't been on his previous premier team. (We'd moved here and my son had played varsity as a sophomore in Colorado-- he hadn't had the opportunity to play with him even if he'd wanted to). Anyway, it was a huge boost to my son who has just taken the whole set back in stride and grown from it. Yay for him!

4) It's a weekend. And although I desperately need to weed, find mother's day gifts (any cool suggestions, I'm thinking books or book gift cards -- any more creative ideas out there, lol), make cookies that were promised to someone, actually pull off this garden party play, take my daughter to her state cup soccer tourney an hour away, return a visiting friend in one piece back to her parents, celebrate mother's day with both mom's, clean my house, put away laundry which has been piling up, finish off all the teacher appreciation stuff I've been helping with at the school this week, get recipes collected for the Enrichment dinner we did for church on Tuesday, put together a budget for our church girls camp I'm directing by Sunday, make sure my son is studying for the next two AP tests which are Mon and Tues, and just enjoying the sunshine...it's still a weekend!

I think I'll just celebrate that! Maybe I can have a little garden party and invite a few of my closest friends and characters -- that would liven things up a bit. Ha! Enjoy.

And a very Happy Mother's Day to all of you women out there. We're all mom's to someone (even if not by blood) because there's always someone who needs extra love and care that we can touch. It's just our nature. Hope it's a great day for all.

5) My thoughts go out to all of those who have swine flu or know someone who has it. But looking on the funny side, for all of you worried about getting it. Don't do this!
( Below here )
Sorry, someone sent this to me and it was so funny, I couldn't help myself.

Happy Weekend!