Just like I really know what I'm doing

Sat down with my marked-up ms for "Pale Roses" today and typed in revisions and wrote all the new material I needed to write--including a new ending, which was not nearly as overwhelming as I'd feared it might be. I am cautiously optimistic about the story, at this point. It feels much more whole and finished than it had, previously. I'll let it sit a few days before I print out a fresh ms and take a red pen to it for line level editing. I doubt at this point that it'll make the Sept. 30 deadline for this quarter's WotF contest, but I'm fine with it not getting in until the next quarter if that's what it takes.

I also started a(nother) painting for my mother. She requested "Oh, just something" for her new dining room wall when I was visiting over the summer, which tickles me even though I'm 42 years old. I suppose you're never too old to feel special when your mom wants to hang up your picture on the refrigerator. Err... dining room wall. I'd started one for her a month or so ago, but it is refusing to evolve from its ugly stage. So I have snubbed it and am turning to another idea.

So, you all remember our lovely little lightning-struck tree and its friend the tipped-over lamp post? Hubby got the lamp post all fixed up a couple of weeks ago and got all the dead branches out to the curb and our front yard was (mostly) hunky-dory again. High winds came through this weekend and knocked another (evidently weakened and/or dead) branch out of the tree. Onto the lamp post. Scraped the side of the van, but no damage to it. Mr. Lamp Post, however, is once more down for the count. Poor guy.

To-do list for this week:

• More Crowmaker research reading. Maybe even some new word count, since I feel close to figuring out where I'm going. Again.
• Paint for the newly-patched drywall above our shower. So we can once again take showers in it, instead of hauling stuff upstairs to the boys' bathroom.
• See if I can get this new painting past the ugly stage for my mother.
• The usual homework/housework/kidwork routine.