Into the Woods

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t have to keep it all spinning all the time.

Wait.

I needed to hear that.

I don’t (usually) publish fast. This we know, but I also work two part time jobs and a freelance gig to pay the bills. I have a family and a few hobbies. Since last March, my family has been very cautious about our stay-at-home efforts. We cancelled our 2020 summer travel plans. We stayed put until it was deemed safe to do more than go out for groceries, and even then, we kept it to small groups we could manage outdoors. Our close families, one other like-minded family we teamed up with to survive the summer, the little pod we meet on the outdoor range to draw bowstrings with at the archery club…

Even with stay-at-home orders and school closures, I spin a lot of plates. Guessing you do, too.

I work from home. My husband can’t always, but he does when he can. Our son is home with me. The chickens do their best to keep me entertained, but I know I’m not alone when I say:

It was a lot. I was lonely. I missed my friends. I was tired of my own thoughts and the increasing anxiety over school and the looming cold season and the election and social media and ohmygodIamscreaminginsidemyheart…

Last August, our survival team friends invited us to go camping with them.

::backstory break:: I grew up far more outdoorsy than I’ve become. Girl Scouts, camp, fishing, canoeing, tents, rifles, rambles and splashes in the woods, campfires, dirt and bugs, all of it. I fell out of the habit somewhere along the last few decades, tired of the smell of musty, poorly cared-for tents from the supply shed and eating dinner made with ingredients flooded by splashy Brownies with canoe paddles. I declared myself done and moved on. I did not figure I would find myself ever craving the gentle filter of morning sunlight through evergreen trees, or the smell of a starry night in the dog days of summer, again::

Twenty-one year old me never imagined the possibility of the fifteen months we’ve just been through. Sweet summer child. 

Next week, I’ll release the third novelette…novella? Short novel? book in the Green Mountain Hearts series. I’ll start working on a few new things, new stories, new pen name for a new genre, maybe? New mediums, definitely. Lots of plates, but I am grateful to my friends who knew me better than I knew myself, and forced me to set them down.

Next week, I’m releasing a book, then going back into the woods for a few days, and I can’t wait to tell you more when I get back.