Sunday

9:51am                              Writing Warm-ups                             70°  Boise

Boy, is it smoky today! There's been a fire up by Idaho City for over a week and they still haven't got it under control. You can practically see the smoke roiling through the streets when you look out the window.

Random thoughts today: My house is dirty. I need to clean and dust but I'm having a party in two weeks and I don't want to do it twice. So I'll give myself permission to put up with it or clean in spots until it's time to begin the real cleaning. It will take two days to really get after it around here, everything is so dusty. Tomorrow I take my four photos to enter at the fair but today I have to print and add the labels to each one. Then on Wednesday they will be judged and I'll find out Friday if any of them won a ribbon. I have high hopes of getting a big ribbon this time with my new strategy. And my photo, Eye of the Horse, is a contender for the winner-takes-all competition as an abstract. Wouldn't that just be too fun to win a big something this year?

Tuesday the gravel for the back yard is being delivered and I'd like to get out there and clean up the side lot and get it all ready to have two yards of gravel dumped on it. I'd also like to really blow and clean all the gravel areas around the house where new gravel will be added. Of course, it may be Wednesday before the gravel is delivered and so I can't really plan for Rio until Thursday. I need to send him a message to let him know what's going on.

Summer is almost over and I'm cool with it. I'm ready for another fall and the cooler weather, the leaves turning, the season turning. Stephen will be gone three years in October and I'm still here, which is a miracle. In fact, I'm actually doing pretty OK these days. I'm getting things done to my house and I'm writing and taking notes for the book I'm working on. The cats are still around, still healthy, still my little buddies. I cry a little each day at least once but it's not heavy grief anymore. Just so you know, I never stop missing him, never stop thinking about him and remembering his life and what happened to him --- I can still hear his voice and imagine him walking in the door or imagine him coming out of the back bedroom and rummaging around, getting his coffee started. He's still here with me and he always will be. However, I'm getting used to this new reality. Just like I got used to having him around after he was born, I'm now getting used to him only being around in my imagination. Too bad he's not here to help me clean this house. He was a great helper kid! For the most part, I loved living with him and I hope he knows that.

OK, that's it for the random thoughts. Now I can move on to the writing that needs to be done toward completing a book. I talked to an editor yesterday, she didn't like the idea of combining a memoir with a self-help book. She says they're two different audiences and it will be tricky to market. As usual, I have come up with a non-standard idea just like the Practice Happiness CD and the expert is telling me to do it differently. Karie warned me to produce the CD as separate tracks, not all on one CD, and I didn't listen. I'm not finished with that CD, it will be included in this book with a whole chapter on its creation and then how to use it.

Dang, I just remembered that I have to do something about my website. It's old and doesn't work anymore but I don't have the money at this time to create a new one. I'll wait. Surely an idea will come to me about what to do next and it will be set up to market my services, workshops and to sell books. I don't know what's to become of Practice Happiness. I'll probably always keep it and just point it at the new website, whatever it will be called. It may be randysandknop.com.